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Friday, January 18, 2002
Good news for gorillas “In Rwanda … gorilla numbers are creeping up,” reports The New York Times. “The government is so committed to their protection—and to the viability of the lucrative eco-tourism trade—that it has assigned to its Virunga park dozens of well-armed soldiers, who will discreetly trail behind any tourists hiking up the mountainside for their gorilla rendezvous.” The Times article profiles Bill Weber and his wife, Amy Vedder, who have written a book about their work with Rwandan mountain gorillas. Groundhog Day II: Phil Goes to War Pennsylvania State Police, the National Guard, a bomb-sniffing dog, and other security forces will provide extra security for Punxsutawney Phil’s appearance February 2, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer. Because, you know, otherwise a suicidal terrorist might steal the groundhog and drive into a quarry or something. Meal of the dragon When Ronald Huff of Newark, Delaware, didn’t show up for work, police went to his house. They found him dead, with seven monitor lizards—the largest six feet long—feeding on his body. Gross, dude. Hyper Lynx Washington State continues to fight over how and why captive bobcat and lynx fur got into a study of area lynxes. Some lawmakers argue that biologists are trying to exaggerate the territory of the cat. Biologists say they submitted the samples so the lab could distinguish between bobcat and lynx DNA, but the samples got confused as actual test material. Now a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility says Washington lawmakers violated federal law by calling for the firing of the biologists. Doin’ the Pigeon Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher says you can tell a lot about a community by the way it treats its pigeons. Thursday, January 17, 2002
That's Doctor Ed to you, Wilbur “Most animals routinely use a variety of techniques to deal with injury, infection, parasites and biting insects,” writes The Guardian’s Jerome Burne. “They use plants, earth and even insects in ways that aren't just about getting energy or nutrients but are specifically aimed at keeping themselves and their offspring healthy. The implications are huge. Not just for how we should look after domestic and farm animals but for what we need to stay healthy ourselves.” Kinda makes you wonder the health secrets you dog knows when he eats his vomit and feces, doesn’t it? Take your kids to the zoo. Or you're a bad parent. Children need exposure to pets, farm animals, and wild animals, say scientists at the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University. ''It is often through animals that children first learn how to nurture. That they have their first experience with love, loss, and loyalty,'' developmental psychologist Gail Melson tells The Boston Globe. Of course, one would hope that a child's first experience with love would be from their parents.... Fire Smithsonian chief, say academics Though there were many charges in an open letter to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, chancellor of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents, one of the most prominent complaints about Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small is that he okayed the National Zoo's Fujifilm Giant Panda Conservation Habitat. Such corporate sponsorship puts advertising where it doesn't belong, says the group, named Commercial Alert. "Small plainly brings good intentions, enthusiasm and business acumen to his work at the Smithsonian,'' says the letter, signed by 170 scholars and activists led by Ralph Nader. "However, he is unwilling or unable to carry out the mission of the Smithsonian, or to safeguard its integrity." Signatories also included Milo Beach, who recently resigned as director of the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler galleries. The metamorphosis of Denver's Butterfly Pavilion About 270,000 people will visit Denver's Butterfly Pavilion, America's only stand-alone nonprofit insect zoo, to see 120 butterfly species and hundreds of other insect species. But the pavilion was only built to accomodate about 100,000 visitors a year. Only 11 years after it opened, the pavilion is looking to start over, in a new, $12 million building. The Coors and Gates foundations are chipping in with challenge grants. What the chain? Qadesh, the Toronto area's most famous tiger, went for an illicit stroll yesterday. Half a dozen police cruisers and a helicopter were dispatched to catch the 13-year-old Siberian tiger after it broke its leash and escaped. (A little-known fact: one very rarely actually catches a tiger by the toe.) When the police cornered the cat, it climbed on top of one of the patrol cars and relaxed. "I get this call from the police superintendent who said, 'I need you to get your cat off the roof so my men can get back to work,'" said Qadesh owner Bill Frazer. "And when I arrive there are like 30 cruisers, media everywhere, and helicopters--all because my cat decided to take a 348-yard walk." (Click here if you don't get the "what the chain" reference above.) Following up... A few followups to earlier articles. First, USA Today has an article on the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker. Yesterday, I noted the religious aspects of the woodpecker, also called the "Lord God" bird. USA Today quotes Louisiana State University ornithologist Van Remsen as saying, "It's almost like a moral obligation for us to search that area from top to bottom." And the Louisiana Nature Conservancy's Keith Ouchley says, "The ivory-bill represents something larger than itself." Is the Church of the Ivory Bill soon to come? Regarding another article from yesterday, The Moscow Times has an article and the all-important photo of HMS Trident Captain Geoffrey Sladen and his submarine's pet reindeer. "Polly Anna probably was about as happy at the smell of 53 submariners as they were happy with the smell of a reindeer," quoth British Royal Navy Submarine Museum director Jeff Tall. Wednesday, January 16, 2002
Supreme Court won't hear endangered species case Californian builders challeged the Endangered Species Act, saying that a local shrimp shouldn't be protected. "Placing a foot in a puddle of water can result in heavy fines or even imprisonment if it harms the small and delicate fairy shrimp," says the builders' lawyer. But the government (yes, that's the Bush administration) says the law is important. "Individual species are part of an interdependent web,'' wrote Paul D. Clement, acting solicitor general. "The significance of a particular species cannot always be easily determined at a given point in time." The Supreme Court won't hear the case (the Los Angeles Times notes it's "the third time in recent years that the high court has refused to limit the federal government's power to protect wildlife"), but it's politically significant that the administration is siding with environmentalists against business. Hmm. Maybe that fox was trying to file an amicus brief on behalf of the Endangered Species Act. I can read you like a book. A book on satin bowerbirds, anyway. "Male bowerbirds woo females through dramatic behavior—ruffling and puffing their feathers, stretching their wings, and buzzing loudly as they strut about their bowers," reports National Geographic Today. "But sometimes these macho displays are overly aggressive, resembling rough male-to-male encounters. This can frighten the females and abruptly end the courtship. So the males must interpret the females' body language to determine just how far to go." Do I smell a Maxim magazine for cluless Bowerbirds in the works? Peckerheads Is the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct? Supposedly. But following up on a reported 1999 sighting by a Louisiana State University student, the Louisana swamps are soon to be full of birders praying they'll see it. Praying indeed--the woodpecker is also called the "Lord God" bird, Florida Gulf Coast University ornithologist tells National Geographic News, because "when a person first spotted one, they'd say 'Lord God, what a woodpecker,' because the birds are really, really big." A month-long search starts Thursday. $7 million, $86 million, what's the difference? Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura is proposing the Minnesota Zoo receive $7 million over the next four years for a major upgrade. The zoo was seeking $86 million, and over the next 20- to 30-years, the planned project could cost as much as $250 million. "We're happy that we're in there," zoo chief financial officer Jim Reinholdz tells the Pioneer Press. "We'd like to be in there for more." Fortunately, it's the legislature, not the governor, who makes the final decision. And zoo officials are continuing to plead their case. (By the way, for those of you wondering, the answer is $79 million.) Watch baboons from a balloon in June The Philadelphia Zoo is launching a balloon ride this summer. The 15-minute flights will take between 20 to 30 people at a time 400 feet up for views of the zoo and the city skyline. It will cost $1.6 million (that's the zoo's costs, not the passengers'), but the Delaware River Port Authority is kicking in $500,000 of that. The ride is reportedly being built to replace the zoo's old monorail. That's why they're called a murder of crows "Flocks of crows, starlings not unusual, but can be scary" says a headline in The Grand Rapids Press. It seems a lot of residents don't like the birds, but the paper notes, "Birds also have some qualities that are enjoyed by some. Starlings are able to mimic other birds including the killdeer, which sings before rain, the blue jay, hawk, robin and crow." And there's nothing as enjoyable as listening to a starling mimic a crow. And its red nose helped to navigate when the sonar went out In November 1941, the Russian commander of Pollyarnoe naval base in Russia presented the British submarine HMS Trident with a reindeer named Pollyanna. The sub's captain, Geoffrey Sladen, figured he might as well take the animal on board and take it back to Britain. But the sub was ordered to stay on patrol for a bit longer, so the reindeer roamed around the ship for a month, surviving on leftovers and shipmates' milk. When the sub finally returned to Britain, Pollyanna went to the London Zoo. All this has been considered apocryphal by military historians, but now a photo at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum of Capt. Sladen nuzzling the reindeer proves the tale. Billy the Kid takes a bow Vets in Melbourne, Australia, have released an 18-month-old eastern grey kangaroo nicknamed Billy the Kid. The roo was spotted 12 days earlier with an arrow through her neck, but it took a while for officials to find and capture it. Another SeaWorld orca pregnant Last September, SeaWorld San Diego orca Kasatka became the first marine mammal to give birth after artificial insemination. (The baby orca was named Nakai on Friday.) Now Kasatka's daughter, Takara, will be the second killer whale impregnated through such means. As a result, SeaWorld may have another record on its hands: the first zoo with three generations of orcas. "The breakthrough insemination process ... could someday prove invaluable in saving endangered species of dolphins and whales from extinction," reports the Union-Tribune. (Yep. Lots of stops at the Union-Tribune today.) Tijuana's unfortunate public zoo The San Diego Union-Tribune also has a fascinating but sad story about Tijuana's happenstance and sad zoo. "It's something of an accident," writes Anna Cearley, "a sanctuary for exotic animals no one knows what to do with. ... The zoo's 200 animals are the products of a border underworld that thrives on the trafficking of critters as well as drugs and people. Most were brought to the city to satisfy the eccentric tastes of the rich or to be smuggled into the United States." So the zoo's lion came from the back of a drug dealer's car, and a tiger was abandoned by a restaurateur. Meanwhile, the zoo is having trouble meeting its $50-a-day food bill. San Diego Zoo offers 200 workers early retirement The San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park are attempting to cut their workforce of 2,000 by 10 percent. No one's talking about layoffs yet, but the Zoological Society is offering early retirement to employees age 50 and older with at least 10 years of service. Executive director Douglas Myers tells the San Diego Union-Tribune that zoo attendance is only off from last year's figures by about 5 percent, but that officials are worried about how a continuing bad economy may keep visitors away. Zoological Society spokesman Ted Moulter tells the San Diego Daily Transcript that no programs will be eliminated at either the zoo or animal park. Monday, January 14, 2002
Who knocked up Omaha's bonnethead shark? A bonnethead shark was born at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo December 14. Just another zoo baby story? Nope. The mother hasn't been around a male bonnethead since it was a pup. Was it a case of parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction)? Or did the shark hold some sperm in her reproductive tract for the last three years? Or was it something else? "We want to know if there was a father or if there was a weird hybridization of species," says zoo director Lee Simmons. "It will make a damn interesting research paper." The baby shark was killed by a stingray only five hours after its birth. A father covering up his deed, perhaps? Where's Mulder when we need him? Your cheating cricket heart "Our study suggests that femles may benefit from promiscuity because it allows them to reduce the likelihood that their offspring will be inbred," says University of Leeds biologist Tom Tregenza in Nature. Males are promiscuous to make lots of offspring, but it's a lot more dangerous for females to fool around. Oh, did I mention we're talking mainly about crickets here? Nature Conservancy veep likely to head newly privatized Seattle zoo Biodiversity expert Deborah Jensen hasn't formally been offered the job at Woodland Park yet, says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Santa Ana Zoo is trying to get reaccredited this week A bit more than a year after losing its AZA accreditation, California's Santa Ana Zoo is hoping it can come back. The zoo has spent $1.5 million in improvements, and has addressed all the issues it lost its accreditation over (delays in maintenance and improvements, staff size, and confusion over the duties of Friends of the Santa Ana Zoo). "The value of being accredited is extremely high," the city parks official overseeing the zoo tells the Los Angeles Times. "Without it, we would lose some of our animals." The new zoo review will start tomorrow and last for three days. California Condors fly again "Ten years after biologists freed the first ... captive condors, no one is claiming that the giant scavenger is exactly flourishing," reports The San Francisco Chronicle. "But after years of setbacks and missteps, the signs are encouraging." Of the 183 California condors alive today, 58 are free. Only a dozen years ago, all 40 known condors were in captivity. A $40 million breeding program has released 128 of the birds; 45 have died, 25 have been returned to captivity, and 58 remain free. Akron Zoo's wild duck chase "The Akron Zoo's first out-of-country field research is an exotic one--reclusive ducks living on white water high in the Andes Mountains of Venezuela," reports The Beacon Journal. Another giant squid, still dead Scientists have still never seen a live giant squid, but another one, more than 10 feet long, was caught by a British trawler. It didn't survive its ascent, reports the BBC, and its body will go on display at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, Devon. Outfoxing the Supreme Court "Police, animal control officers and even a small pack of foxhounds could not find a fox that ran into the underground garage at the Supreme Court building," reports the Associated Press. I'm sure there's a joke here, but my phone is ringing. Canada's "reverse zoo"? "At St-Felicien zoo, about 200 miles north of the provincial capital Quebec City, the animals roam free while the humans are caged--protected inside screened vehicles that wind along a 4.5 mile trail, past wandering bison, moose and wolves," reports Reuters. But there's not enough detail either in the article or at the zoo's Web site to explain the zoo's supposedly revolutionary approach. It sounds an awful lot like the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Or maybe even something like Bear Country USA. Britain's long torment is over One year and four million dead animals later, Britain has declared itself free of foot-and-mouth disease. Whether the international community agrees, we'll have to wait and see. When we say "pet food," we don't just mean food for pets Beginning last November, St. Louis's KMOV-TV ran a five-part report on what's in pet food (part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5). The shocking truth: Soylent Green is people. No. Wait. That wasn't it. Oh yeah: Pet food has (or at may have) pets in it. The Los Angeles Times reports that the rendering plant that boiled down the animal parts says it won't accept euthanized dogs and cats anymore (though it is apparently still accepting pigs, cows, and other animals). Everything okay? Not so fast. "If the landfills are not properly lined, the decaying corpses could leach into ground water," the paper says. And humans will end up ingesting the remains of Fluffy and Fido. "Rendering has long been considered one of the most environmentally friendly ways to dispose of animal carcasses, because it recycles them into useful fat and protein," the Times assures its readers. And "The Pet Food Institute, who make 95% of the dog and cat food sold in the United States, use rendered material from livestock in their chow. But they insist there are no ground up pets in their pet food." (If the LA Times link stops working, try this one or this one.) Good luck trying to spot a bald eagle this year "Colder years tend to lure more [bald eagles], in part because other waterways freeze, shrinking the number of spots where the eagles can feed," reports the Chicago Tribune. That means that eagle celebrations at towns along the Mississippi River, where "a series of locks and dams guarantees pockets of unfrozen water" (and thus bald eagles), will be disappointed in this extremely mild season. You may not be able to see them, but their numbers continue to soar. |
