Ian Gibson was an elephant hunter until he was trampled by an elephant calf he was stalking. Just desserts.
I'd like to reach through the internets, grab them and set them down in a stampede of elephants.
Source: africahunting.com
A rare Borneo orangutan and her baby have been rescued from an attack by angry villagers in Indonesia as they were escaping rampant wildfires.
The malnourished mother and her youngster were found traumatised and hugging one another when they were saved by International Animal Rescue.
Frightened locals reportedly hurled rocks at them and tried to tie them up.
Tell the Embassy of Malaysia what you think about this and any abuse of orangutans anywhere.
Source: bbc.com
Thousands of forest fires set by palm oil companies across Sumatra and Borneo threaten not just endangered apes but the global climate.
“The problem with fire and smoke is absolutely dire,” said Lis Key, communications manager for International Animal Rescue, which runs a rehabilitation center for more than 125 injured and orphaned orangutans in Ketapang, Borneo.
“Wild orangutans and orangutans in centers like ours are badly affected by the smoke,” she said. “Some suffer upper respiratory tract infections, which can even prove fatal. Some of the babies we’ve taken in recently have been suffering not only from dehydration and malnourishment through lack of food but also breathing problems from the polluted air.”
Source: takepart.com
Thank goodness, but it is sad that any African lion has died.
Source: bhejanetrust.org
Drift gillnets are banned in many parts of the world because they indiscriminately catch all sorts of marine life, including whales, dolphins, sharks, sea lions, sea turtles, and other species of fish. Yet, a drift gillnet fishery targeting swordfish still operates off the coast of California. It’s time to transition this fishery to more selective and environmentally friendly methods of fishing.
Send a message to Gov. Brown: It’s time to change the way we catch swordfish.
Californians take pride in their coast and care deeply about the health of the Pacific Ocean, including well-managed fisheries, on which families and entire communities depend. Drift gillnets are a harmful and wasteful way to fish for swordfish. Killing iconic and endangered species such as leatherback sea turtles and sperm whales in order to catch a luxury seafood item is unacceptable, particularly when less wasteful and more environmentally friendly alternatives exist, such as deep-set buoy gear.
Source: advocacy.pewtrusts.org
- Reintroducing wolves would solve the “homeless problem”
- State control of national forests would mean fewer terrorists
- Environmental protections enable “drug cartels and human smugglers”
- Drinking water protections will regulate “your grandmother’s bird bath”
- Obama will “negotiate with Iran,” but not on Alaska oil drilling
- Obama is an “imperialist” or a monarch for conserving public lands
The only reason that they get away with this is because no one is paying attention to this nonsense.
Malaysia has the world's highest rate of deforestation. Google Maps has revealed Malaysia had the world's highest rate of forest loss between 2000 and 2012. The country's total forest loss during the period amounted to an area larger than Denmark or 47,278 square kilometers. In total, Malaysia has lost 14.4% of its year 2000 forest cover. Conversely, Malaysia's palm oil plantations grew by 50% or 17,000 square kilometers. Most of the forest loss occurred in Malaysia’s densest forests, those with tree cover exceeding 50%. Wildlife native to Malaysia have suffered as a result, including endangered orangutans, pygmy elephants, rhinos and clouded leopards. The government of Malaysia must take action to save the forests and the wildlife that depend on them.
The United States boasts one of the largest and most powerful militaries in the world. But we’ve created such a massive military at the expense of both the environment, and wildlife. We’re finding out now that the Navy’s sonar operations are having an adverse effect on marine mammals. Listen to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and author Josh Horwitz talk about this problem.
Source: ringoffireradio.com
Studies flooded into the academic journals all summer long, with new findings about the effects of neonicotinoids, or neonics. They're the most common class of insecticide in the world, used on crops all over the planet. And those studies raised alarming questions about the impact of neonicotinoids on both the birds and the bees.
- neonics might be indirectly harming some birds by killing or suppressing their main food source: aquatic insects, such as midges and caddisflies, that live and breed in the water of the many small potholes on the Prairies
- studies on bumblebees have shown that even tiny amounts of neonics in plant pollen and nectar can seriously impair a bee's ability to forage
Source: cbc.ca
I'm sure that I heard this before, but it was a long time ago.
The researchers measured how many insects were attracted to a range of paint colours, including pure white, light and dark grey, sky blue, red and purple.
They did so by laying out coloured cards in a random sequence next to a 13m-high three-blade wind turbine situated in a meadow near Leicestershire, UK.
The scientists were surprised by what they discovered.
"Our major conclusion from this work is that turbine paint colour could be having a significant impact on the attraction of insect species to the structure, both during the day and at night," Miss Long told the BBC.
What is more, turbines painted pure white and light grey drew the most insects bar just one other colour; yellow.
The insects attracted included small flies (body size less than 5mm); large flies (body size equal to or greater than 5mm); greenfly; moths and butterflies; thrips; beetles and crane flies.
"We found it extremely interesting that the common turbine paint colours were so attractive to insects," said Miss Long.
"Our findings support the hypothesis that turbines may be attractive to insects."
The least attractive paint colour to insects was purple.
That does not necessarily mean that all wind turbines should be painted that colour, say the researchers.
But it does imply that changing a turbine's colour could have a profound impact on the number of insects it lures in and therefore the number of birds and bats that follow.
The researchers also found that the ultraviolet and infrared components of paint colour, which humans cannot see but insects can, also had a significant impact, with higher levels of both attracting more insects.
Source: BBC
What part of sting do you not understand about stingray? Steve Irwin would explain, but....
Science thrives on our thirst for knowledge. All valuable research starts with a question. With that question as a foundation, scientists build a research program that might provide them with answers.
Japan has no questions; they had to disguise their continuation of commercial whaling as science. Deciding on an outcome was easy: the resumption of commercial whaling. Then they defined the desired conclusions: “there are plenty of whales” and “these whales eat our fish.” As whales in Antarctica migrate South to feast on krill and not fish, they had to come up with something else there: “minke whales have become too abundant and threaten the recovery of the blue whale and therefore have to be culled.”
Calling this science, even broadly, is an obscenity.
Source: seashepherd.org
Due to the massive international demand for palm oil, palm oil plantations are rapidly replacing the rainforest habitat of the critically endangered orangutan; with over 90% of their habitat already destroyed in the last 20 years.
Orangutans are some of our closest relatives, sharing approximately 97% of their DNA with humans. Orangutan means ‘Person of the jungle’ in the Indonesian language. It is estimated that 6 to 12 of these ‘jungle people’ are killed each day for palm oil. These gentle creatures are either killed in the deforestation process, when they wonder into a palm oil plantation looking for food, or in the illegal pet trade after they’ve been captured and kept as pets in extremely poor conditions and provided with extremely poor nutrition.
Orangutans are considered as pests by the palm oil industry. In the deforestation process, workers are told that if wildlife gets in the way, they are to do whatever is necessary in order to dispose them, no matter how inhumane. Often orangutans are run over by logging machinery, beat to death, buried alive or set on fire… all in the name of palm oil.
Government data has shown that over 50,000 orangutans have already died as a result of deforestation due to palm oil in the last two decades. Experts say that if this pattern of destruction and exploitation continues, these intelligent acrobats of the jungle will be extinct in the wild within 3 to 12 years (as early as 2015). It is also thought that their jungle habitat will be completely gone within 20 years (approximately 2033).
Around 50 million tons of palm oil is produced annually; with almost all of that being non-sustainable palm oil, that replaces 12 million hectares of dense, bio-diverse rainforest. That’s the equivalent landmass of North Korea deforested each year for palm oil alone!
Palm oil is also having a shocking impact on our planet. The production of this one vegetable oil is not only responsible for polluting rivers and causing land erosion, but when the plantation workers set fire to the remaining trees, shrubs and debris to make way for the oil palms, it produces immense amount of smoke pollution that is toxic to planet earth. This has been found to be the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gas in the world.
By purchasing products that contain crude palm oil, you are helping destroy ancient, pristine rainforest, wipe out species like the orangutan, and create a large-scale ecological disaster. Think of the consequences next time you do your weekly shopping; the consequences not only for orangutans and other animals, but for us as the human race; for we cannot survive without the rainforests either. We have a choice, orangutans do not.
Dolphins with blood running from their mouths and eyes. Whales and dolphins with netting wrapped around their teeth and fins. Sea lions with cuts around their necks where netting wrapped tight, strangling and drowning them as they tried to escape. These are pictures from drift gillnets, a deadly fishing method that kills and throws away thousands of sea creatures every year in addition to the swordfish it targets. Oceana submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get these photos and more. In response, the government provided us with over 200 photos, and that's just the first installment. Now we know exactly what the wrath of drift gillnetting looks like—and it’s devastating. California’s lawmakers are taking action. A new bill, introduced by Californian Assemblymember Paul Fong will ban these deadly nets, leaving room for a safer, sustainable swordfish fishery.
Source: act.oceana.org