Species: North Island brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli)

Status: Endangered (EN)

Interesting Fact: The North Island brown kiwi is more like a mammal than a bird, with fur-like feathers, muscular legs and even cat-like whiskers on its face.

Kiwis are the national bird of New Zealand, and are some of the most unusual of all birds. One of five kiwi species, the North Island brown kiwi is flightless and lives on the ground, where it shelters in a burrow during the day. Its long, thin bill has sensory pits at the end which can detect prey moving underground, while, uniquely among birds, the nostrils are located at the end of the bill, helping the kiwi to locate prey by smell. North Island brown kiwis typically mate for life, and the female produces one of the largest eggs of any bird relative to her own size. The male incubates the eggs, and the chicks hatch fully feathered and are soon able to fend for themselves.

The North Island brown kiwi has undergone a dramatic decline over the last century, largely due to predation by introduced mammals such as dogs, cats and stoats. Fortunately, this intriguing bird has been the subject of concerted conservation efforts, including predator control and the incubation of eggs and rearing of chicks in captivity. Kiwi sanctuaries have also been established to help protect it. Where active conservation has taken place, kiwi numbers have rebounded, giving hope that this national icon can survive into the future.

So where do the weird, invasive fish that have been turning up in America’s iconic parks, coastlines and even on dinner tables figure in? Big deal, minor curiosity or somewhere in between climate change and wind farms spoiling the view?

Northern snakehead, pic: Brett Billings/USFWS

Let’s look at a couple of recent examples of invasive fish hype:

Fishzilla – the name alone says it all: This is one scary fish. It actually looks pretty frightening in some pictures.

Fishzilla, aka frankenfish’s real name is the northern snakehead, which only sounds slightly better. Native to Asia, the northern snakehead has reportedly been found in the waters of Central Park in New York City. You’ve come a long way, snaky. It’s got vicious-looking sharp teeth and can reach lengths of 40 inches (1 meter). It’s also a competent predator, eating fish, crayfish, toads, insects and other stuff. Amazingly, some species of snakehead can also survive on land for up to four days provided they’re kept wet. That means it’s a fish that can breathe air. The northern variety can’t walk, however, so it won’t be spreading throughout the States on foot.

But is it really bad news?

The northern snakehead is a prolific breeder and eats pretty much every other animal in its habitat, so yes.

From the Stamford Advocate:

While considered a valuable food fish in some places, snakeheads can inflict substantial ecological damage. The species can breed as often as five times per year and a single female can brood up to 75,000 eggs per year.

So like in the case of jellyfish, Western palates may eventually have to develop a taste for snakehead stew, but they’re not going to bite anyone’s toes off.

And then there is the Pacific Ocean lionfish, which is admittedly much prettier than the snakehead, but is causing a lot of damage to coral reefs in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s also come a long way, this Indo-Pacific transplant. But that’s what happens when Floridians can’t be bothered to care for their expensive exotic pets – they let them go. And now the lionfish are eating coral in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

From the LA Times:

Although the ecological effects of these fish are not yet fully understood, it’s clear they are upsetting food webs and competing for resources with native species. They are also adding stress to coral reefs and other marine ecosystems already under pressure from climate change. Warming sea temperatures, ocean acidification, increased pollution and overfishing all threaten reefs. If the spread of lionfish is not slowed, it may be the final straw.

Ever resourceful, Floridians have started to eat the spiny fish. One restaurant serves them along with Florida’s favorite invasive reptile, the Burmese python. Oh yum.

A Pacific Ocean lionfish in the Bahamas, pic: nashworld (Flickr CC)

One-horned Rhinos in kaziranga National park, Photo credit: Debabrata Bandyopadhyay

Wildlife enthusiasts love to flaunt their knowledge about different species. If you are from the same group or wish to be a part of it, then have a look at the top interesting facts about the one-horned rhinoceros and sharpen your knowledge base.

Rhino horn is not a bone but a compacted mass of hairs

Keratin is the substance that makes the horn of rhinos. It is the same material that is used in making of human hairs and fingernails. So there is no bone in the rhino horn; rather, it is just a trampled bunch of fibers or hairs.

Teeth are the weapon and not horn

The great one-horned rhino use their sharp incisors and canine teeth of the lower jaw to defend themselves from the predators. They don’t use their horn to slash off the enemy.

Don’t go on the size, they are very fast!

Irrespective of their weight and size, it has been observed that rhinos can run at a speed of 30 -40 miles per hour. Figures say that the speed of an Olympic runner is around 15 miles per hour. Thus, a rhino can outrun a human!

The thick but sensitive skin

The skin of the rhinoceros is highly sensitive to sun burn and insect bites. Therefore they love to roll in mud all time as it keeps their skin cool and protects it from sun burn and insect bites. However, this nowhere changes the fact that their skin in very thick.

Perfect hearing and smelling sense, but poor eye sight

Owing to their poor eyesight it is difficult for the rhinos to see a man standing at a distance of mere hundred feet. However, the man needs to stand still as any little moment will make the rhino alert. Rhinos are blessed with sharp hearing and smelling senses; thus, they can get you by your odor.

Symbiotic relationship with bird

Specific bird species eat tick and insects from the great one-horned rhino. Myna is one such bird that shares this symbiotic relationship. In addition to this, when the bird sense any danger it creates commotion to warn the rhino.

They are not solitary creatures

Rhinos love to live with their extended families groups. If you visit a national park to witness this wildlife species, you will always find them wandering in groups.

Rhino horn is believed to be an Asian medicine

The horn of the rhino is believed to have healing elements. Therefore, the powder of the rhino horn is used to cure fever. However, it is illegal to use rhino horn as this practice leads to their brutal hunting.

The above mentioned are the interesting facts, but there is also a gloomy reality about the one-horned rhinoceros. These majestic animals are an endangered species. The authorities are taking considerable steps for their preservation. Various wildlife sanctuaries and national parks have been established for the same. The famous Kaziranga National Park, India is one such reserve that is known for the conservation of this endangered species. Their existence is important for maintaining an ecological balance of the planet.

Status:Critically Endangered (CR)

Interesting Fact: The kakapo is the largest parrot in the world, and is also the only flightless parrot species.

An extremely rare, nocturnal parrot, the kakapo was once widespread across New Zealand, but is now confined to two predator-free offshore islands. This unusual bird feeds on a variety of fruits, seeds and other plant material and generally lives alone, coming together only to breed. During the breeding season, male kakapos produce a loud ‘boom’ call to attract a mate, which can be heard up to five kilometres away. The kakapo is long-lived but breeds slowly, usually only once every two to five years. When threatened, rather than running away the kakapo freezes, relying on its mossy green, mottled plumage to help it blend into the forest floor.

The kakapo is highly vulnerable to introduced mammalian predators such as cats, dogs and rats. These predators, together with forest clearance and hunting, decimated the kakapo population on the mainland until the drastic step was taken of transporting the last few individuals to predator-free islands. Although the kakapo population remains critically low at 126 individuals, intensive management through a Kakapo Recovery Programme is beginning to show positive results.

Image by bbjee (source: Flickr)

Do you notice the articles on wildlife that get published these days? Everything in negative light….no hope for sustenance, loss of habitat, declining population of various species and what not. As if the world has come to an end and only the worst possible things will happen last of the survivors. However, tell truth…..do you actually believe a picture to be that bleak?  You know, there are good people trying to put in their expertise and efforts to make things better, even if that seems only an inch to those who do nothing but sit, observe and throw their useless de-motivating criticism.

The picture will get clear if you are able to guess the Asian country with its highlighted bio-diversity. Yes, it is India…as you thought right. 70 to 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity is found in the versatile landscape of this country; talk about some plant, grass, tree, animal, bird, insect, fish, etc., Alongside the unique geography, and there are chances that it is found in over 650 Protected Areas (PA) of India that includes more than eighty national parks, even more number of wildlife sanctuaries, bio-reserves, tiger reserves and bird sanctuaries.

A peek in Indian wildlife is really like getting teleported to a place only of jungle creatures. Some are hunters and others become their prey in a place of different kinds of vegetations; this is how the Jungle rule goes. The stealthy hunting instincts and fearful alacrity in that ambience is loud enough to leave a sound impression on you.

Want to see the some efforts in management that go hand in hand with conservation?

In the Light of Hope!

Let us see some of the positive steps taken in the wake of conservation.

1. Ministries of Environment and Forests had given a hope to endemic species Nicobarese Megapode found in Tillanchong by rejecting the proposal from Navy to fire dummy missile. So, you can just imagine the situations when political professionals think and act rationally. Though, you can spot the irony in the statement…politician and rational thinking!
2. Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary had faced severe land cuts due to various development projects, since it was declared a PA in 1927. By putting small but significant measures in the area to revamp degraded lands inside the PA and connecting other bordering PA’s of Goa alongside of some reserved forest to the area of the Anshi-Dandeli Sanctuary was increased to more than 2000 Sq Km. And the efforts are still on their way to make the place better for both flora and fauna.
3. Ramadevarabetta in Karnataka was declared as a Vulture Sanctuary in January 2012 with the multi-organisation efforts in multi-layered system of government and ministries in India. Imagine the voicing of suggestion initiated in 2005 through pitching of formal letters from various conservationists and NGOs, several presentations, numerous rejections and dilly-dallying authorities finally gave way to some fruitful result in 2012. Isn’t the achievement great!
4. Commercial presence beginning to became very common in areas around Bhadra Tiger Reserve (BTR). Local NGOs and Trusts then began taking against them because of the harm they were doing to the bio-diversity. The case was finally won by them in order to protect the area. Moreover, the High Court of Karnataka dismissed the case filed by the commercial entity challenging the prior judgment

You see, the road to victory is slightly rough when it comes with dealing bureaucracy and money-minded corporate, but anything which is won without any effort doesn’t hold much significance. So, a little fight and exchange of argument is good, more when fight is for the innocent animals who cannot voice their tragedies and pain.

A wide term- Wildlife Management

Wildlife Management which goes in the efforts put in by every single participant in various campaigns is tremendous and not limited only addressing to food and health issues inside wildlife sanctuaries. There is much to be done. Consider the case of Kutch Wildlife Sanctuary- fondly called as Flamingo City, which is threatened by a massive road construction project. Another area that demands attention is massacre of Amur Falcon for consumption and sale in its home- Nagaland. More such cases require an emphatic take on survival of one species or other.

What were your ideas of wildlife management thus? Surely, nothing that you as a lone individual could take on from your end. But this is not true. Efforts that are taken inside any of the protected wildlife sanctuary is one thing and what you do to address issues that are not yet dawned on the local authorities is another.

Learning from above experiences, it is time to contribute your bit to conserve wildlife…ready?

Status: Critically Endangered (CR)

Interesting Fact: The large proboscis-like nose of the saiga antelope is thought to help with body temperature control.

The strange looking saiga antelope has an extremely distinctive appearance, with an enlarged nose that hangs down over the mouth. This impressive nose is thought to warm and moisten inhaled air during the winter, and act as a filter against dust during the dry summer. Saiga antelope feed by grazing on various plants, and are usually active during the day. They are nomadic, and undertake long seasonal migrations of up to 1,000 kilometers. During the mating season, male saiga antelopes will aggressively defend a group of females. Fighting between males can be violent, often ending in death. Males also tend not to feed during this time, and the mortality rate can reach 90 percent due to exhaustion. Females usually give birth to two young, and these remain concealed in vegetation for the first part of their lives. The saiga antelope can be found in Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia.

In the early 1990′s, Saiga antelope  were thought to have numbered over a million. However, habitat loss and poaching over the past 20 years have resulted in a population crash, with only around 50,000 individuals remaining. Hunting is now banned throughout the saiga’s range, and a captive breeding programme has been established with further research needed in order to understand how to best conserve the fascinating saiga.

Poisoned wildlife

From the Independent:

Scientists believe that the 1.8 million gallons of dispersant, sprayed as part of the clean-up, have cemented the disaster’s toxic effect on ocean life and human health. The dispersant, called Corexit, caused what some scientists have described as “a giant black snowstorm” of tiny oil globules, which has been carried around the ocean in plumes and has now settled on the sea floor. A study last November found the dispersant to be 52 times more toxic than the oil itself.

• Infant dolphin deaths have been recorded as 6 times more than normal with 650 beached dolphins discovered in the oil spill area since the disaster began.

• Deep sea reefs coated in oil and chemical dispersant, a deadly mixture found to inhibit coral growth

• 1,700 sea turtles found between May 2010 and November 2012

• 20% less juvenile bluefin tuna in 2010

• Discoveries of deformed sea life such as eyeless shrimp, clawless crabs and fish with legions have served to harm the local fishing industry.

Oil spill clean-up, pic: Florida Sea Grant (Flickr CC)

On-going legalities and intrigue

The Gulf oil spill trial is currently taking place in the Louisiana court system, with the number of defendants dwindling and the remaining denying culpability. Another interesting piece of information which recently (re)surfaced is the fact that both BP and the US government covered up a similar oil well blow out in the Caspian Sea 17 months before the blow out in the Gulf of Mexico.

The future of offshore drilling

The fracking boom and in the US the Keystone Pipeline debacle may have taken some attention away from the rush for oil on the ocean floor, but there are still plenty of corporate and political voices clamouring to drill baby drill. After the Gulf spill the US government strengthened regulations on offshore drilling, but high oil prices have actually facilitated a boom in the Gulf of Mexico as well as plans to drill in Arctic waters. But crude demand is down and the risks are not worth additional expansion. Read more here.

What I mean to say is that a recent article by one variety of animal-lover has rekindled a debate between conservationists and cat lovers. Back in mid March the Orlando Sentinel published an op-ed by Audubon Magazine editor “at large” Ted Williams, which put forth that feral cats should be trapped and euthanized – for reasons of conservation and human health – in place of the common practice of trapping, neutering and re-releasing them.

A healthy-looking feral cat in Florida, pic: Charlie Cowins (Flickr CC)

William argues that feral cats constitute a health risk because 62-80% carry toxoplasmosis and that they are the most common transmitters of rabies. They also spread feline leukemia, feline AIDS and distemper to Florida’s wild bobcat, lynx and panther populations.

…feral cats kill migratory birds and endangered species such as honeycreepers in Hawaii and lower keys marsh rabbits and silver rice rats in Florida. But the Interior Departmentlacks the spine to back its law-enforcement agents who want to prosecute TNR practitioners. Free-ranging cats have driven at least 33 bird species to extinction.

–Williams

He may be right on all counts, but things aren’t that simple, especially when it comes to cats, which people love, including me. I mean, just look at the Internet. Youtube? HELLO!? Besides the ubiquitous racist arguments in every comment section, the biggest video-hosting site ever is dominated by clips of cats doing cute things.

He also discussed, though reportedly stopped short of advocating, the use of Tylenol (a brand of paracetamol popular in the US) as a cat poison.

The backlash from cat lovers was – predictably – robust. Audobon Magazine removed William’s “editor at large” status, suspending his contract. But was his argument wrong?

From National Geographic:

Over 80 million pet cats reside in U.S. homes and as many as 80 million more free-roaming cats survive outside. […] A study published earlier this year in Nature Communications estimated that cats kill up to 3.7 billion birds and between 6.9 billion to 20.7 billion mammals in the continental U.S. each year.

That National Geographic piece generated nearly 700 comments, both for and against euthanizing cats. Luckily a follow-up article distilled them.

I posted on Asian Correspondent a couple of months ago about a similar case of conservation vs. cat love in New Zealand, where native bird populations are particularly vulnerable, not just to feral cats, but to any house cat that ventures outside. The conservationist in question was advocating the sterilization of all cats in NZ until they die out. Of course that’s not going to fly in a country where half of all households contain a fluffy feline companion.

pic: Aperture (Wikimedia Commons)

A provider of sanctuary to WikiLeaks founder and champion of transparency Julian Assange and staunch ally of the recently bereaved Venezuela, Ecuador has been punching above its weight of late. In terms of international relations, that is.

Ecologically speaking, Ecuador is a bonafide heavyweight. According to Conservation International, it is one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, with the highest density of biodiversity per km on Earth. The Galápagos Islands alone should cement the nation’s global environmental value, but even without them Ecuador’s natural wealth is invaluable. Half the area of the country is covered by the Amazon rainforest and Ecuador is home to 11 national parks, 10 wildlife reserves and 9 ecological reserves. The constitution of Ecuador is the first to recognize the rights of nature. Not bad for a relatively poor country with a population of 15 million.

Ecuador is also sitting on an estimated 846 million barrels of untapped oil in its Yasuni National Park. Most of the Ecuadoran Amazon south of the Yasuni is already covered in oil exploration blocks. Now Ecuador is planning to sell off over three million hectares of (around 11.6 sq mi) of pristine rainforest to the highest bidding Chinese oil firms.

China’s new investment guidelines explicitly state that Chinese businesses operating abroad should “promote harmonious development of local economy, environment and community”, while Ecuador’s own government, lead by Rafael Correa, says its policy is to not open blocks of land to the bidding without support of the local communities, though they are entitled to by Ecuadoran law. However, according to Amazon Watch, several tribal groups claim they have not consented to the planned auction for oil projects on their lands.

The motivation for the government of Ecuador this time may not be development, but rather debt relief.

From the Guardian:

Critics say national debt may be a large part of the Ecuadorean government’s calculations. Ecuador owed China more than £4.6bn ($7bn) as of last summer, more than a tenth of its GDP. China began loaning billions of dollars to Ecuador in 2009 in exchange for oil shipments. More recently China helped fund two of its biggest hydroelectric infrastructure projects. Ecuador may soon build a $12.5bn oil refinery with Chinese financing.

In the meantime, the Yasuni ITT Trust Fund, an attempt to raise enough money to finance the protection of the Yasuni against exploitation for oil, is still accepting donations. The idea of the fund is that if Ecuador can raise half ($3.5 bn US) of the $7 bn it would receive from oil in the Yasuni, it will forgo any drilling in the park. The question Ecuador, a country where 35% live below the poverty line, is asking the world is whether the “lungs of the Earth” and a vast treasure trove of biodiversity, is worth preserving for those with the wealth to preserve it.

This is not simply an “environmental ransom”, but an opportunity for rich nations to act in the long-term interests of the entire globe instead of simply their own short-term economic and political goals. Imagine, Ecuador was recently named the number one retirement destination for North Americans by Forbes Magazine. Want to keep your number one foreign retirement spot, North Americans?

There are, of course, a host of potential issues that pop up as is the case with any experimental technology. Genetically engineered hoards of revived passenger pigeons could spread disease. And do we want billions to be spent on reintroducing species only to have them die off from the same pollution, sickness and human interference that killed them off in the first place?

I think we’d all like to see a live herd of woolly mammoths traipsing across the tundra or a Thylacine – a sort of striped marsupial wolf once native to Australia and New Guinea – bounding through the outback, but there would be less fanfare (and tourist dollars) when it came to reintroducing Australian frogs or passenger pigeons. And not to take the wind out of your sail, but it’s an Australian frog which is closest to being “de-extincted” at the moment.

Tasmanian “Zebra Wolf” Thylacinus in Washington D.C. National Zoo, c. 1904 (public domain)

There are, however, reasons for de-extinction that go beyond the “coolness” factor, or even the argument that since humans drove a species to extinction, we should bring them back.

From a piece in National Geographic:

Biological diversity is a storehouse of natural invention. Most pharmaceutical drugs, for example, were not invented from scratch—they were derived from natural compounds found in wild plant species, which are also vulnerable to extinction. Some extinct animals also performed vital services in their ecosystems, which might benefit from their return. Siberia, for example, was home 12,000 years ago to mammoths and other big grazing mammals. Back then, the landscape was not moss-dominated tundra but grassy steppes. Sergey Zimov, a Russian ecologist and director of the Northeast Science Station in Cherskiy in the Republic of Sakha, has long argued that this was no coincidence: The mammoths and numerous herbivores maintained the grassland by breaking up the soil and fertilizing it with their manure. Once they were gone, moss took over and transformed the grassland into less productive tundra.

Of course that “we” implies a collective responsibility that some might not feel comfortable with. I mean, I personally had nothing to do with the sabre tooth cats dying out. Ditto the auroch, dodo, mammoth and giant sloth. I may share some culpability with the Chinese in the vanishing of their river dolphins since I have bought plenty of their pollution-producing products, however. On the other hand I won’t really be involved in cloning any of these animals either, save if my taxes are used to fund it, in which case I’ll either a) join the Tea Party b) gleefully await the first television broadcast of a trumpeting baby woolly mammoth or c) in the realization that I don’t have very much influence one way or the other, just let the powers that be get on with it.

It should be noted that so-called background extinction is always going on with or without the help of people. In the fullness of time, something like 90-99% of all species that ever existed are now extinct. We just speed it up. A lot. It is estimated that the rate of extinction is increased by mankind by a factor of 100-11,000 times. We really are a bunch of dicks, aren’t we?

Maybe we should focus on not doing that instead of the tricky de-extinction of bunch of previous victims.

For a balanced take on extinction, check out this op-ed by BBC Science editor David Shukman.

Woolly mammoth restoration at the Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, British Columbia, pic: WolfmanSF (Wikimedia Commons)

Northern elephant seals spooning, pic: Brocken Inaglory (Wikimedia Commons)

Conservation

If there are any doubts as to whether species conservation works, the history of the elephant seal should dispel them. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society, when the hunting of elephant seals was banned in the early 1900s, only around 20 individuals remained. Those numbers have recovered since to around 175,000. That’s an incredible feat, but I wonder if they suffer from inbreeding problems.

No longer hunted for their blubber, both species of elephant seal (northern and southern) are at risk due to other problems like pollution, climate change and overfishing.

Regarding the two species, the northern variety is found on the west coast of North America, while southern elephant seals live in freezing cold Antarctic regions and in places like the southern coasts of New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina. So what was one doing in the streets of the Brazilian city of Balneário Camboriú? For one, the southern Brazilian resort city is pretty far from the elephant seal’s normal range according to National Geographic. Plus it’s pretty amazing that a giant blubbery seal was found inchworming its way around busy streets for an hour, only to return to the sea from whence it came.

If you haven’t seen the footage already, check it out below.

I also really like this video of Irish journalist Charlie Bird on a beach in Antarctica filming a program for RTÉ. Two elephant seal pups decide they’d like a cuddle with Charlie, who almost comes down with Stendhal syndrome as a result. And who can blame him? It’s incredibly sweet and he manages to avoid getting crushed by their combined weight. I think you’ll agree, it’s just good TV.

68 isn’t really a dent in the number of Burmese pythons purported to be thriving in the wilds of Florida. No one really knows how many of the invasive snake species actually live in the Everglades, but estimates range from the “tens of thousands” to 150,000. The snakes start out as pets for the childish adult crowd and are then released when they get too big and/or expensive to take care of. Just so happens that a Florida swamp is a great places to be a python.

Everglades python, pic: Todd Pierson (Flickr CC)

Not so great if you’re a native Florida species, however. Imagine being a deer, possum, raccoon or bobcat and all of a sudden a new, giant enemy – which can slither silently through the trees or beneath undergrowth – shows up and starts eating your extended family. Pythons have even been known to eat alligators, a natural apex predator of the southern US marshlands. The fast-breeding snakes are also a threat to endangered species like the Florida panther because they eat their food sources. A thick snake that can reach lengths of 26 feet (8 meters) tends to eat a lot.

OK, so the pythons are indeed a threat to the local eco-system, but not as much as people, what with them turning complex eco-systems into cookie-cutter subdivisions with swimming pools and faux Greek columns. And let’s not beat around the Jeb Bush – it’s state and federal laws that allow the mass importation of exotic animals through the cruel international pet trade.

But if there are as many as 150,000 pythons (big and small) in the Everglades and they spend most of their time lying around in trees or on the ground, why were only 68 bagged by 1,500 hunters in a four week (January 12 – February 10) period?

One thing is pythons are pretty well camouflaged. Another is that there may not be as many as some think. Maybe most of the challengers don’t know how to hunt pythons either. The winner did. He caught or killed 6 pythons, earning himself $1,500 in the process. Two others were tied at second place with 5, receiving $750 each. There was also a category for professional python hunting permit holders, with the winner bagging 18 specimens. So that’s half the total caught by only 3 people, meaning pretty much everyone left empty handed.

Read the official Python Challenge press release here.

But what are the real results of this game? The participants can’t eat the pythons they catch as they contain too much mercury for safe consumption, which opens up an entirely different issue: why are Florida’s pythons full of poisonous mercury? This PDF of an academic presentation shows the levels of mercury and methylmercury found in Everglades pythons, but it doesn’t say why, only including that there is a mine in the park. As far as I can discover, only rock mining goes on in the Everglades, but limestone mining does result in mercury contamination, as has been observed in Everglades fish.

Conclusion: In terms of protecting indigenous wildlife, the Python Challenge is useless and a bit cruel to boot, and the Everglades ecosystem is probably in danger due to mercury contamination (not that anybody is talking about that).

Wild mother and baby orangutans. Pic: karma-police (Flickr CC).

Malaysia, along with Indonesia, is the only place in the world where one can witness orangutans in the wild. These solitary but social simians are the only great apes which are unique to Asia. Orangutans mostly feed on fruit, but also eat leaves, shoots and other vegetation and the occasional insect, egg or small vertebrate.

The name “orangutan” comes from the Malay words “orang” meaning person and “hutan” meaning forest. The forest is the orangutan’s home and the best place to observe these gentle, highly intelligent primates.

In order to see orangutans it is therefore recommended you visit Malaysia’s national parks or nature reserves. You can alternatively visit, or even volunteer at, a rehabilitation center or animal park that houses orangs, but this article will focus on where to observe them in the wild.

Read the entire article on Asian Correspondent:

Where to see wild orangutans in Malaysia

This article was part of a publication for Tourism Malaysia. If you enjoyed this article and would like to find out more about travelling to Malaysia, please visit the Tourism Malaysia website.

Turtle in Malaysian Borneo. Pic: LKEM (Flickr CC)

Multi-ethnic, rich in culture and biodiversity, Malaysia is both a place you want to visit and don’t want to spoil by being an “ugly tourist”.

By “spoil” I mean contribute to overdevelopment, thereby watering down the traditional culture or even destroying the nature that brought you here in the first place. “Ugly” tourism fails to respect the local culture or environment and rather draws people solely for its weather, waves and lightness on the wallet.

Ethical travel, on the other hand, does the reverse. The ethical tourist wants to give something back – and I don’t mean empty beer bottles or even some duty free shopping. The idea of ethical tourism is not only to minimise the tourist’s negative impact on the destination, but to try to make things better. An ethical holiday in Malaysia can take the form of volunteer vacations (volun-tourism), eco-tourism and sustainable travel. These categories can be distinct, but can also overlap considerably.

Read about Malaysia’s options for ethical travel in the following article for Asian Correspondent:

Ethical travel destination: Malaysia

This article was part of a publication for Tourism Malaysia. If you enjoyed this article and would like to find out more about travelling to Malaysia, please visit the Tourism Malaysia website.

Tioman Island. Pic: Le Journal de Maman (Flickr CC)

Sustainable travel, including responsible nature holidays and what has become known as eco-tourism, is on the rise in Malaysia – and with good reason.

Though Malaysia has highly developed urban regions, it is also home to a rich ecology and diverse geography.

For the nature-interested traveller, this Southeast Asian nation comprises mountains and highlands; beaches and countless tropical islands; rainforests and mangrove estuaries plus much more.

The well-organized tourism infrastructure and wealth of natural locations and activities help make Malaysia one of the world’s top destinations for environmentally-conscious travel. Malaysia is an exciting as well as convenient location for a dizzying choice of eco-holidays.

What follows are five general ideas for eco-breaks in Malaysia. There is naturally plenty of cross-over between and among these categories and lots of variety within each.

• Orangutan observation
• Other wildlife observation and “volun-tourism”
• Ecological agricultural tourism
• National parks
• Water-based activities

Read about all these eco-break options in the following article on Asian Correspondent: Five Malaysian eco-breaks

This article was part of a publication for Tourism Malaysia. If you enjoyed this article and would like to find out more about travelling to Malaysia, please visit the Tourism Malaysia website.

photo by Jenna Rose Robbins (Flickr CC)

According to a piece in the New York Times, great white sharks are responsible for most overall shark attacks world wide as well as most fatal and unprovoked attacks.

There have been 5 fatal shark attacks off the coast of Western Australia in the past 10 months, sparking speculation that the population of great whites is increasing and discussion about removing the shark’s protected status. Great whites have been protected in Australia since 1999.

Despite the dangers that some varieties of sharks sometimes pose, experts recommend managing human behavior rather than reducing shark populations.

A shark attack registry maintained by the University of Florida recorded 807 shark attacks worldwide from 2000 to 2011. Florida had by far the most, 281, but only four of those were fatalities. Australia had 141 attacks and 15 deaths. After that came South Africa (45 attacks), Hawaii (44) and California (36).

–New York Times

On the opposite side of the world, California environmentalists are trying to make great whites a protected species in their state as well as in the entire US. The northern California groups Oceana and the Center for Biological Diversity would like great whites to be officially declared an endangered species.

Commercial and recreational fishing of great whites is already illegal in the state of California, but the groups are concerned about “incidental catches”. They would also like more research funding for the study of great whites.

From the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

Numbers are difficult to determine, but recent studies concluded there are about 220 adults and near-adults near the Central Coast region, and fewer than 400 statewide. The International Union for Conservation of Nature regards them as a vulnerable species, one step above endangered.

Read more in the Los Angeles Times.

wild wolf in Montana, USA, photo by Ellie Attebery (Flickr CC)

Across the globe it’s once again humans vs. wolves.

This timeless battle has changed its face from hunters and farmers simply shooting wolves in order to protect their livestock and assuage their communities’ fears, whether real or imagined. It’s now a confusing mix of laws, politics and technology.

Wiped out, endangered, protected species… it doesn’t matter. While humans can’t get enough of their domesticated off-shoots (dogs, incase you don’t catch my drift) many still hate and fear wolves.

In the US, where local and national laws often collide confusingly, some wolves in some parts of the State of Washington are protected, while others are not. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife agents recently killed one wolf to protect ranchers’ livestock (which graze on state lands) and are planning on killing another.

From the Seattle Times:

The department has been working to recover wolf populations in the state and manage a balance with ranchers making their living where wolves now live after being hunted to extinction as a breeding species by the 1930s.

If you were already confused about how state laws can protect wolves, but since federal laws don’t always, a state department can kill them, don’t even try to wrap your head around that same agency shooting wolves while “working to recover wolf populations”.

Meanwhile in France, wolves have returned since being absent for nearly 100 years in the southern Auvergne region. Cause for celebration? Not for one shepherd turned environmental activist. He wants them shot.

I guess a shepherd never changes his spots.

This has caused a split within France’s Green movement. Shooting wolves, however, is legal in France if it is done so by government marksmen and licensed (to kill) shepherds.

Over in Switzerland, scientists are working on a collar for sheep that monitors the animals’ heart rate, notifying the shepherds via text message if the rate speeds up for extended periods of time.

Wolf attacks on flocks in Switzerland are on the increase and the collars are designed for shepherds who can’t afford to keep sheep dogs.

Don’t expect to see teenage sheep hanging around “LOLing” while they text their shepherd parents, however.

Read more about that story from the BBC.

photo: Juliano Tupan (Wikimedia Commons)

I don’t mean to lower the tone of the website by posting about an animal that looks like a male generative organ, but I’m going to do just that.

This slimy beast has been making a bit of a splash on the science and environment pages of many a website of late after Brazilian biologists found six examples of the blind and lungless species of amphibian called the Atretochoana eiselti at the bottom of a drained river in the northern state of Rondonia. A ‘member’ (stop it) of the caecilian order of amphibians, which physically resemble earthworms or snakes, very little is known of the ‘floppy snake’.

From the LA Times:

The discovery was made last November, but was not announced until Wednesday, when researchers had confirmed that it is a new species. Biologist Julian Tupan told Brazil’s Estado website that, of the six collected, one died, two were kept for studies, and three were released back into the river.

Until last November the only known, confirmed examples of the Atretochoana eiselti existed in Vienna’s Natural History Museum and at the University of Brasília. The Viennese specimen originated somewhere in South America and was found some time before 1945 and the Brasília example was found in 1998.

For example, did you know that there are professional manatee spotters working in south Florida? They scan waterways in search of the gentle, lumbering sea cows to make sure they aren’t too close to any work sites. If they spot one approaching, all work on the site must stop until the manatee moves on to a safe distance.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The slow-moving sea cows are vulnerable to heavy equipment like the unforgiving dredging buckets that bite huge chunks out of the bottom. The chunky mammals can swim upside down or vertically, roll and do somersaults, but aren’t quick enough to dodge boats or machinery.

Elsewhere in Florida, the oldest known manatee living in captivity just turned 64. ‘Snooty’, who is also the first recorded manatee to be born in captivity, celebrated his birthday at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton.

Read more about that story on cfnews13.com.

From an old timer to a young upstart; a baby manatee was recently rescued in Key Largo, Florida. The young calf was observed swimming without her mother for at least a week before Fish and Wildlife staff and workers from the Miami Seaquarium.

Read more in the Miami Herald.

Finally, 14 manatees who were piled up on the shore in Clearwater were not beached as many thought, but were actually mating. Though the group of 13 males and one female attracted onlookers, authorities have advised people to stay away and let the manatees – who are members of an endangered species – do their thing.

Read more about that on baynews9.com.

image: Visit Greece (Flickr CC)

Those who know me – and few do, what with me being a surly, reclusive type – know that I am not exactly what is known as a “nature boy”. While I like a bit of sun, a walk in the woods and a dip in the sea, I like to know that I can return at will to a soft bed, a comfy couch and a decent wifi connection.

This past week I’ve been sleeping on windswept beaches, hiking through dusty canyons and gawking at colorful fish beneath the crystal clear waters of the Aegean Sea. It’s made for a nice change and my soon to be 40-year-old carcass has performed admirably.

It hasn’t always been easy, however.

The last time I went camping was at least 8 years ago on a beach in Portugal and that only lasted for two days thanks to the GNR mounted police. This time I lasted 5 nights before springing for a studio for myself and my companions. In my defense, Greece has been experiencing a heatwave and the isolated beach on the island of Karpathos, where we were staying, is about the windiest place in the universe. No tent could withstand such a battering and no human could sleep in such a tempest.

That said, I recommend a trip to Karpathos or another Greek island. The financial crisis and subsequent brutal austerity measures inflicted on the Greek people by the government at the behest of the “Troika” (IMF, ECB, EU) mean times are extremely tough for Greece and they could use the trade.

The advantages of a nature holiday on a Greek island:

• Gathering fresh herbs like oregano and thyme on mountain hikes and then cooking with them
• Swimming in the clear, calm, salty sea
• Getting away from politics, current events, advertising and other annoying trappings of urban civilization (though all these things can still sneak in, so be on guard)
• Spending time with loved ones beneath a blazing sun during the day and a bazillion stars at night
• Eating fresh, local food

Things to be careful about:

• The sun – it will burn you as soon as look at you so pack the SPF 50
• Rocks – on Karpathos and many other Greek islands the beaches are made of stones and not sand. Some pebbles are nice but big rocks are difficult to walk on with bare feet whether you’re on land or wading so bring special hiking sandals.
• Wildlife – We had no problem, but there are some big, nasty spiders about, plus the odd mouse, wild (or domestic) goat could potentially pose a problem in some situations
• Roads – some are paved, some aren’t. I had flashbacks of tumbling down a 50-meter Utah mountainside in a Ford van some 15 years ago. Drive and walk carefully!
• Water – it’s hot and very dry so make sure you carry lots of the stuff