Zoo News Digest 22nd July 2016
(ZooNews 931)
(ZooNews 931)
Peter Dickinson
elvinhow@gmail.com
Dear Colleague,
I am wondering just
how long the saga of the Lynx on Dartmoor can run. It is going on and on and
on. Now the spin off stories are starting. I daresay that there has been a big
increase in numbers of visitors to the park. Meanwhile the saga of the South Lakes
Safari continues and no doubt that is extremely busy too.
It's the 'Keep Cool'
season. It comes around every year. Before too long it will be the 'Keep Warm'
season once again. It never ceases to amaze me how the press lap it up and post
these stories although they were something new. Don't get me wrong, I am happy
that zoos get the publicity but they are not the sort of thing which I will
include in zoo news digest.
Did You Know?
ZooNews Digest has over 25,000 'Like's' on Facebook and has a weekly reach often exceeding over 250,000 people? That ZooNews Digest has subscribers in over 800 Zoos in 153+ countries? That the subscriber list reads like a 'Zoos Who's Who?'
If you are a subscriber to the email version then you probably knew this already. You would also know that ZooNews Digest pre-dates any of the others. It was there before FaceBook. It was there shortly after the internet became popular and was a 'Blog' before the word had been invented. ZooNews Digest reaches zoo people.
Dear Colleague,
I am wondering just
how long the saga of the Lynx on Dartmoor can run. It is going on and on and
on. Now the spin off stories are starting. I daresay that there has been a big
increase in numbers of visitors to the park. Meanwhile the saga of the South Lakes
Safari continues and no doubt that is extremely busy too.
It's the 'Keep Cool'
season. It comes around every year. Before too long it will be the 'Keep Warm'
season once again. It never ceases to amaze me how the press lap it up and post
these stories although they were something new. Don't get me wrong, I am happy
that zoos get the publicity but they are not the sort of thing which I will
include in zoo news digest.
Did You Know?
ZooNews Digest has over 25,000 'Like's' on Facebook and has a weekly reach often exceeding over 250,000 people? That ZooNews Digest has subscribers in over 800 Zoos in 153+ countries? That the subscriber list reads like a 'Zoos Who's Who?'
If you are a subscriber to the email version then you probably knew this already. You would also know that ZooNews Digest pre-dates any of the others. It was there before FaceBook. It was there shortly after the internet became popular and was a 'Blog' before the word had been invented. ZooNews Digest reaches zoo people.
Rhode Island becomes first state to ban elephant
bullhooks
Rhode Island has
become the first state to ban the use of bullhooks to train elephants.
Democratic Gov. Gina
Raimondo on Wednesday signed legislation passed by the General Assembly that
bans the hooks in circuses and traveling shows.
Dozens of cities
previously banned the use of bullhooks, but the Humane Society of the United
States says Rhode Island is the first state to do so.
Animal welfare
advocates have pushed such measures, saying the hooks can cause trauma and
injury to elephants.
Circuses including
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus have stopped using elephants in
their shows. But several other circuses still use them.
The new law does not
apply to Roger Williams Park Zoo, which uses bull hooks as "part of our
regular practice," according to a spokeswoman, who added that the zoo
calls the devices "guides."
The zoo's executive
director, Dr. Jeremy Goodman, said that the device does not hurt the elephants.
"We love our animals, and we would never want any harm for them,"
Goodman told The Providence Journal on Thursday. "We use it
Zoos: obsolete or absolutely brilliant?
The statement (left)
is one I hear frequently, both inside of the conservation community and outside
of it. I have found that discussing zoos and conservation in the same sentence
is a sure way to divide a room. One year ago, I graduated in Zoology and Conservation.
Upon graduating I can honestly say that I saw zoos as a less than desirable
entity. They are something that has caused internal debate for me, for many
years. Without the ability to go and see animals in the zoo my passion for
animals may not have grown in the way that it did. Yet, as one studies animal
behaviour and intelligence you begin to question if the zoo is the correct
environment for them to express all of the behaviours they should. So I chose
to err on the side of insitu work with a cautionary approach to the use of zoos
in conservation. Fast forward one year and I will soon have completed a masters
in Zoo Conservation Biology, a course which in its very title promotes the use
of zoos in conservation. Even as someone who called themselves a zoologist my
eyes have been opened. Now the important part, WHY?
Should we close our zoos? You asked Google – here’s
the answer
Recently, for reasons
too odd to explain, I visited London zoo without intending to. I don’t go to
zoos nowadays. I was quickly reminded why. A crowd were gathered by a compound.
Behind a pane of glass, sitting with her back to us, was an adult western lowland
gorilla. She was impossibly huge, almost too black and beautiful to be real.
She resolutely refused to meet the public gaze. She looked straight ahead, into
the simulacrum of a rainforest with which she had been provided. Disturbed by
the sight, I took one look and left.
What is the role of
the zoo in the 21st century? In the medieval past it was a menagerie, like the
royal collection of heraldic beasts kept in the Tower of London, from where a
polar bear would be allowed out to fish for its lunch in the Thames. In Georgian
London, Jane Austen and Lord Byron ascended to the first floor of the Exeter
Exchange in the Strand to gawp at a department store of exotic creatures. Among
them was Chunee the Indian elephant, who, enraged by an abscessed tooth,
accidentally killed his keeper and was shot and harpooned to death by a platoon
of soldiers. Passersby wrote to the Times deploring the terrible roars of the
pachyderm as he died. It was Chunee’s demise that prompted the creation of
London zoo, as a more humane way to keep captive animals.
Now zoos look
increasingly like sideshows. With natural history documentaries and the ability
to travel globally, we can get our fix of charismatic megafauna on YouTube or
in real life. The sight of a psychotic big cat obsessively prowling its cage
seems truly anachronistic. When a recent
The crooks behind rhino slaughter
Rifle in hand, a
Vietnamese man with shoulder-length hair squats next to the carcass of a rhino.
It’s a photograph taken in late 2006 on a game farm in Limpopo — "the
first legal hunt of a rhino by a Vietnamese national" recorded in that
province. The man in the picture called himself Michael Chu, but his real name
is Chu Ðang Khoa.
Today, Chu is a
wealthy businessman and notorious playboy. In numerous Vietnamese press reports
— each one more breathless than the next — Chu is described as a "diamond
tycoon" and "mysterious character" who spent several years in SA,
where he "specialised in rhino horns, ivory and diamonds". His ties
to SA are such that the press have even nicknamed him "Khoa Nam Phi"
or "Khoa, the South African".
What the tabloids
don’t say is that Chu left SA under a cloud in 2011, after being arrested for
the illegal possession of five rhino horns. He was convicted, fined R40,000 and
deported.
But according to a
new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Chu
has emerged as a key player in a company supplying wildlife from SA to the
Vinpearl Safari Park, a bizarre, Jurassic Park-style zoo on a Vietnamese island
in the Gulf of Thailand. The zoo, built for a staggering US$147m, opened in
December last year with plans to include more than 100 white rhino on the site.
And the man helping Vinpearl source the rhino and other animals from private
owners in SA: Chu himself.
Alarmingly, Chu is
doing this using a company he registered in SA back in 2005 kn
Missing lynx from Dartmoor Zoo will be driven back
with POO from tigers and lions
The fugitive feline
will be tricked into thinking a larger predator is nearby and retreat.
Head of operations
George Hyde said staff are hoping to pinpoint the pussy’s exact location with
night vision motion sensor cameras.
They can then lay
down a cordon of whiffy droppings from other large predators such as lion,
tiger and jaguar around its location.
George said: “The
scent of the bigger cats will dissuade the lynx from going further away from
the zoo.
“We need to keep him
as close as possible and wa
Some of the people who are supposed to be saving
rhinos are helping them die out
They are supposed to
save the rhino — police in Mozambique, South African soldiers, park rangers and
government officials.
But the people who
could help stop the species’ extinction are often making things worse,
according to a report Wednesday that laid out a series of damning failures of
governance and law enforcement.
The problem is part
corruption, part incompetence and partly the petty refusal of neighboring
governments to cooperate, as rhinos face ruthless, highly organized
international syndicates, according to the report by the Global Initiative
Against Transnational Organized Crime, an analytical group.
Diplomats or
government delegations from North Korea, Vietnam and China have abused their
diplomatic status to traffic rhino horn, according to the report. Rhino horn,
consisting of keratin and similar to horses’ hooves, is valued in parts of Asia
as a premium, status-conferring medicinal substance. Chinese citizens accused
in major smuggling operations have been arrested, but granted bail in southern
African co
South Lakes Safari Zoo eyes move to South Lakeland
A ZOO boss is
weighing up the future of his award-winning attraction after he was denied a
licence renewal and has intimated that one course of action could be a move to
South Lakeland.
South Lakes Safari
zoo's David Gill told the Gazette in an exclusive interview that a move to a
site close to J36 of the M6 near Kendal was one option that has been floated by
the management team now in charge of the day-to-day running of the Dalton business.
"The benefit to
the zoo would be in South Lakeland District Council," said a surprisingly
upbeat Mr Gill.
USDA Launches New Attempt to Revoke Tiger Petting Zoo
License
The operator of a
roadside zoo in Southern Indiana could lose his license and pay up to $1.1
million in fines under a new complaint filed by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
The complaint filed
last week outlines more than 100 alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act
by Tim Stark and his animal exhibit, Wildlife In Need. It alleges that Stark
abused animals, denied them medical care and allowed an escape.
Stark faces the loss
of his animal exhibitor license and a fine of up to $10,000 for each of the 118
alleged violations. Despite numerous clashes and 13 violations during USDA
inspections since August 2014, the feds have so far levied no fines against Stark.
According to USDA
inspectors, Stark euthanized a young female leopard by beating it to death with
a baseball bat. Another leopard, investigators said, escaped and killed a
neighbor’s pets before the neighbor shot it. Stark also is accused of
physically abusing young tigers that bit customers’ clothing during a “Tiger
Baby Playtime” exhibit.
Four animals -- a
kangaroo, an adult otter and two baby otters -- died after Stark failed to call
a veterinarian when they got sick, the complaint said. Stark is also accused of
lacking purchase records of some animals. When inspectors visited, they said
Stark yelled profanities -- and ordered them and the s
Protest planned outside Mumbai Zoo over import of
penguins
Several citizens and
activists have started an online campaign against the decision of Brihanmumbai
Municipal Corporation (BMC) of importing Humboldt Penguins, and have also
decided to group together and protest outside the Mumbai Zoo in Byculla on July
23.
"We have
received a lot of support from citizens and activists alike against the
penguins import. One of the main reasons that we are against this is because a
tremendous amount of water will be required to keep these Humboldt penguins at
the zoo. Just two months ago, we were facing a severe water shortage all over
Maharashtra, which also l
Japanese Zoo lions are now custom jeans
designers
Curtis, a
19-year-old male lion, and O’Neal, a 16-year-old female, both of whom live at a
Japanese zoo in the Tohoku region, are two very talented lions. They produce
unique patterns of scratches and bites that are then transformed by Okayama
Prefecture’s Momotaro and Japan Blue, two of Japan’s top jean manufacturers,
into abstract designs for ten unique pairs of distressed jeans.
The 2016 edition zoo
jeans are one aspect of a revitalization campaign for Japan’s Tohok
Tropical baboon thriving in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
The first Hamadryas
baboon, the smallest of its kind born on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is thriving
in a zoo in northwest China's Qinghai Province.
"The successful
breeding of the first baby baboon on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau will be an
encouragement for introducing and reproducing tropical and sub-tropical
primates in high-altitude areas, where low temperatures and lack of oxygen pose
a big challenge for their repro
World's greatest concentration of unique mammal
species is on Philippine island
Where is the world's
greatest concentration of unique species of mammals? A team of American and
Filipino authors have concluded that it is Luzon Island, in the Philippines.
Their 15-year project, summarized in a paper published in the scientific
journal Frontiers of Biogeography, has shown that out of 56 species of
non-flying mammal species that are now known to live on the island, 52 live
nowhere else in the world. Of those 56 species, 28 were discovered during the
course of the project. Nineteen of the species have been formally described in
scientific journals, and nine are currently "in the works."
This illegal practice has overtaken trophy poaching in
depleting wildlife in Zambia
When Synody
Mulibehzi woke up June 27, 2012, he had two good arms. By nightfall, he would
have just one.
Back then, Mulibehzi
and his brother were employed on an anti-poaching team on a conservancy in
Zambia, according to accounts made to photographer Benjamin Rutherford. Such
teams are employed on game reserves, conservancies and farms, to protect
animals from being poached and sold as bushmeat. On that day, Mulibehzi and
seven others responded to a report of an early morning gunshot on the
conservancy that he regularly patrolled. Armed only with a big stick, Mulibehzi
charged headlong into the thick bush.
Sometimes these
anti-poaching patrols catch up with the rustlers; sometimes they’re too far
behind. But this time it was the former, and in a flash Mulibehzi found himself
staring at a homemade shotgun at close range. A plume of smoke filled his eyes.
He commanded his hand to wipe it away, but it lay limp.
Mulibehzi spent two
weeks in stable condition at a hospital, Rutherford says, and a month later
went back to work (on his own insistence; the farm manager wanted him to take
it easy). With a stump left in place of his arm, he was tasked with looking
after cattle. He was unable to shake the traumatic experience, though, and he
left. But still R
Rhode Island becomes first state to ban elephant
bullhooks
Rhode Island has
become the first state to ban the use of bullhooks to train elephants.
Democratic Gov. Gina
Raimondo on Wednesday signed legislation passed by the General Assembly that
bans the hooks in circuses and traveling shows.
Dozens of cities
previously banned the use of bullhooks, but the Humane Society of the United
States says Rhode Island is the first state to do so.
Animal welfare
advocates have pushed such measures, saying the hooks can cause trauma and
injury to elephants.
Circuses including
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus have stopped using elephants in
their shows. But several other circuses still use them.
The new law does not
apply to Roger Williams Park Zoo, which uses bull hooks as "part of our
regular practice," according to a spokeswoman, who added that the zoo
calls the devices "guides."
The zoo's executive
director, Dr. Jeremy Goodman, said that the device does not hurt the elephants.
"We love our animals, and we would never want any harm for them,"
Goodman told The Providence Journal on Thursday. "We use it
Zoos: obsolete or absolutely brilliant?
The statement (left)
is one I hear frequently, both inside of the conservation community and outside
of it. I have found that discussing zoos and conservation in the same sentence
is a sure way to divide a room. One year ago, I graduated in Zoology and Conservation.
Upon graduating I can honestly say that I saw zoos as a less than desirable
entity. They are something that has caused internal debate for me, for many
years. Without the ability to go and see animals in the zoo my passion for
animals may not have grown in the way that it did. Yet, as one studies animal
behaviour and intelligence you begin to question if the zoo is the correct
environment for them to express all of the behaviours they should. So I chose
to err on the side of insitu work with a cautionary approach to the use of zoos
in conservation. Fast forward one year and I will soon have completed a masters
in Zoo Conservation Biology, a course which in its very title promotes the use
of zoos in conservation. Even as someone who called themselves a zoologist my
eyes have been opened. Now the important part, WHY?
Should we close our zoos? You asked Google – here’s
the answer
Recently, for reasons
too odd to explain, I visited London zoo without intending to. I don’t go to
zoos nowadays. I was quickly reminded why. A crowd were gathered by a compound.
Behind a pane of glass, sitting with her back to us, was an adult western lowland
gorilla. She was impossibly huge, almost too black and beautiful to be real.
She resolutely refused to meet the public gaze. She looked straight ahead, into
the simulacrum of a rainforest with which she had been provided. Disturbed by
the sight, I took one look and left.
What is the role of
the zoo in the 21st century? In the medieval past it was a menagerie, like the
royal collection of heraldic beasts kept in the Tower of London, from where a
polar bear would be allowed out to fish for its lunch in the Thames. In Georgian
London, Jane Austen and Lord Byron ascended to the first floor of the Exeter
Exchange in the Strand to gawp at a department store of exotic creatures. Among
them was Chunee the Indian elephant, who, enraged by an abscessed tooth,
accidentally killed his keeper and was shot and harpooned to death by a platoon
of soldiers. Passersby wrote to the Times deploring the terrible roars of the
pachyderm as he died. It was Chunee’s demise that prompted the creation of
London zoo, as a more humane way to keep captive animals.
Now zoos look
increasingly like sideshows. With natural history documentaries and the ability
to travel globally, we can get our fix of charismatic megafauna on YouTube or
in real life. The sight of a psychotic big cat obsessively prowling its cage
seems truly anachronistic. When a recent
The crooks behind rhino slaughter
Rifle in hand, a
Vietnamese man with shoulder-length hair squats next to the carcass of a rhino.
It’s a photograph taken in late 2006 on a game farm in Limpopo — "the
first legal hunt of a rhino by a Vietnamese national" recorded in that
province. The man in the picture called himself Michael Chu, but his real name
is Chu Ðang Khoa.
Today, Chu is a
wealthy businessman and notorious playboy. In numerous Vietnamese press reports
— each one more breathless than the next — Chu is described as a "diamond
tycoon" and "mysterious character" who spent several years in SA,
where he "specialised in rhino horns, ivory and diamonds". His ties
to SA are such that the press have even nicknamed him "Khoa Nam Phi"
or "Khoa, the South African".
What the tabloids
don’t say is that Chu left SA under a cloud in 2011, after being arrested for
the illegal possession of five rhino horns. He was convicted, fined R40,000 and
deported.
But according to a
new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Chu
has emerged as a key player in a company supplying wildlife from SA to the
Vinpearl Safari Park, a bizarre, Jurassic Park-style zoo on a Vietnamese island
in the Gulf of Thailand. The zoo, built for a staggering US$147m, opened in
December last year with plans to include more than 100 white rhino on the site.
And the man helping Vinpearl source the rhino and other animals from private
owners in SA: Chu himself.
Alarmingly, Chu is
doing this using a company he registered in SA back in 2005 kn
Missing lynx from Dartmoor Zoo will be driven back
with POO from tigers and lions
The fugitive feline
will be tricked into thinking a larger predator is nearby and retreat.
Head of operations
George Hyde said staff are hoping to pinpoint the pussy’s exact location with
night vision motion sensor cameras.
They can then lay
down a cordon of whiffy droppings from other large predators such as lion,
tiger and jaguar around its location.
George said: “The
scent of the bigger cats will dissuade the lynx from going further away from
the zoo.
“We need to keep him
as close as possible and wa
Some of the people who are supposed to be saving
rhinos are helping them die out
They are supposed to
save the rhino — police in Mozambique, South African soldiers, park rangers and
government officials.
But the people who
could help stop the species’ extinction are often making things worse,
according to a report Wednesday that laid out a series of damning failures of
governance and law enforcement.
The problem is part
corruption, part incompetence and partly the petty refusal of neighboring
governments to cooperate, as rhinos face ruthless, highly organized
international syndicates, according to the report by the Global Initiative
Against Transnational Organized Crime, an analytical group.
Diplomats or
government delegations from North Korea, Vietnam and China have abused their
diplomatic status to traffic rhino horn, according to the report. Rhino horn,
consisting of keratin and similar to horses’ hooves, is valued in parts of Asia
as a premium, status-conferring medicinal substance. Chinese citizens accused
in major smuggling operations have been arrested, but granted bail in southern
African co
South Lakes Safari Zoo eyes move to South Lakeland
A ZOO boss is
weighing up the future of his award-winning attraction after he was denied a
licence renewal and has intimated that one course of action could be a move to
South Lakeland.
South Lakes Safari
zoo's David Gill told the Gazette in an exclusive interview that a move to a
site close to J36 of the M6 near Kendal was one option that has been floated by
the management team now in charge of the day-to-day running of the Dalton business.
"The benefit to
the zoo would be in South Lakeland District Council," said a surprisingly
upbeat Mr Gill.
USDA Launches New Attempt to Revoke Tiger Petting Zoo
License
The operator of a
roadside zoo in Southern Indiana could lose his license and pay up to $1.1
million in fines under a new complaint filed by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
The complaint filed
last week outlines more than 100 alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act
by Tim Stark and his animal exhibit, Wildlife In Need. It alleges that Stark
abused animals, denied them medical care and allowed an escape.
Stark faces the loss
of his animal exhibitor license and a fine of up to $10,000 for each of the 118
alleged violations. Despite numerous clashes and 13 violations during USDA
inspections since August 2014, the feds have so far levied no fines against Stark.
According to USDA
inspectors, Stark euthanized a young female leopard by beating it to death with
a baseball bat. Another leopard, investigators said, escaped and killed a
neighbor’s pets before the neighbor shot it. Stark also is accused of
physically abusing young tigers that bit customers’ clothing during a “Tiger
Baby Playtime” exhibit.
Four animals -- a
kangaroo, an adult otter and two baby otters -- died after Stark failed to call
a veterinarian when they got sick, the complaint said. Stark is also accused of
lacking purchase records of some animals. When inspectors visited, they said
Stark yelled profanities -- and ordered them and the s
Protest planned outside Mumbai Zoo over import of
penguins
Several citizens and
activists have started an online campaign against the decision of Brihanmumbai
Municipal Corporation (BMC) of importing Humboldt Penguins, and have also
decided to group together and protest outside the Mumbai Zoo in Byculla on July
23.
"We have
received a lot of support from citizens and activists alike against the
penguins import. One of the main reasons that we are against this is because a
tremendous amount of water will be required to keep these Humboldt penguins at
the zoo. Just two months ago, we were facing a severe water shortage all over
Maharashtra, which also l
Japanese Zoo lions are now custom jeans designers
Curtis, a
19-year-old male lion, and O’Neal, a 16-year-old female, both of whom live at a
Japanese zoo in the Tohoku region, are two very talented lions. They produce
unique patterns of scratches and bites that are then transformed by Okayama
Prefecture’s Momotaro and Japan Blue, two of Japan’s top jean manufacturers,
into abstract designs for ten unique pairs of distressed jeans.
The 2016 edition zoo
jeans are one aspect of a revitalization campaign for Japan’s Tohok
Tropical baboon thriving in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
The first Hamadryas
baboon, the smallest of its kind born on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is thriving
in a zoo in northwest China's Qinghai Province.
"The successful
breeding of the first baby baboon on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau will be an
encouragement for introducing and reproducing tropical and sub-tropical
primates in high-altitude areas, where low temperatures and lack of oxygen pose
a big challenge for their repro
World's greatest concentration of unique mammal
species is on Philippine island
Where is the world's
greatest concentration of unique species of mammals? A team of American and
Filipino authors have concluded that it is Luzon Island, in the Philippines.
Their 15-year project, summarized in a paper published in the scientific
journal Frontiers of Biogeography, has shown that out of 56 species of
non-flying mammal species that are now known to live on the island, 52 live
nowhere else in the world. Of those 56 species, 28 were discovered during the
course of the project. Nineteen of the species have been formally described in
scientific journals, and nine are currently "in the works."
This illegal practice has overtaken trophy poaching in
depleting wildlife in Zambia
When Synody
Mulibehzi woke up June 27, 2012, he had two good arms. By nightfall, he would
have just one.
Back then, Mulibehzi
and his brother were employed on an anti-poaching team on a conservancy in
Zambia, according to accounts made to photographer Benjamin Rutherford. Such
teams are employed on game reserves, conservancies and farms, to protect
animals from being poached and sold as bushmeat. On that day, Mulibehzi and
seven others responded to a report of an early morning gunshot on the
conservancy that he regularly patrolled. Armed only with a big stick, Mulibehzi
charged headlong into the thick bush.
Sometimes these
anti-poaching patrols catch up with the rustlers; sometimes they’re too far
behind. But this time it was the former, and in a flash Mulibehzi found himself
staring at a homemade shotgun at close range. A plume of smoke filled his eyes.
He commanded his hand to wipe it away, but it lay limp.
Mulibehzi spent two
weeks in stable condition at a hospital, Rutherford says, and a month later
went back to work (on his own insistence; the farm manager wanted him to take
it easy). With a stump left in place of his arm, he was tasked with looking
after cattle. He was unable to shake the traumatic experience, though, and he
left. But still R
The Dartmoor lynx has ‘rewilded’ itself. Should
Britain follow suit?
During the Second
World War small groups of people were thinking about how wildlife and the
countryside might best be conserved in the hoped-for aftermath of the conflict.
From such discussions emerged in 1949 the Nature Conservancy, the first
government conservation body in Britain. It sought to protect examples of
heaths, meadows, moorland and coppiced woodland. These were, by then, starting
to disappear rapidly as farming and forestry responded to postwar pressures to
increase food and timber production.
While much was and
is still being achieved by the Nature Conservancy and its successors, there has
been an overall decline in even formerly common species and habitats across
Britain. So as we enter another period of national turbulence, should we similarly
be considering new approa
Cynthia Stringfield: Zoos save animals, try to change
human behavior
In response to John
Crisp's column July 6, "Era of captive animals is passing," as an
animal care expert I have devoted the past 33 years to caring for animals,
working in conservation and educating the public. I am currently a zoo
veterinarian and college professor teaching future animal professionals.
We don't do this for
the money, because it is a low-paying field. We do it because we are passionate
about animal welfare and the future of our planet.
I believe many
people like John Crisp (who is an English teacher) care for and want to help
animals, and that is our important common ground. But unfortunately, they have
been led astray by others who are either woefully uninformed, or worse are
deliberately misleading people to achieve their own agendas.
Crisp uses typical
clichés to make his argument for all animals regardless of what facility they
live in or in which country, lumping all of them together. To understand what
is best for an animal, a person needs to be an expert in that species and in the
science of animal behavior, care and welfare. They also need to be an expert in
the individual animal, because individual animals vary greatly due to their
genetics and backgrounds.
For example, when
done ethically, most animals
Signal Boost: Emo Animal People (Gabrielle Harris)
Last night, I saw an
amazing blog written by an incredible person.
Some of you already know her, but for those of you who don't, let me
tell you a little about her.
Gabrielle Harris is
an inspirational leader in the marine mammal community. She is a shining example of an experienced
animal caretaker in a leadership position who has never lost sight of the
animals' emotional welfare. She is a
conservationalist, serving the needs of animals both in aquariums and in the
wild. If you've been to an IMATA
conference, you've probably seen some of her amazing presentations. Oh, and she
'Hunters with guns' trying to find and shoot missing
Dartmoor lynx
Dartmoor Zoo has had
reports of "hunters" with guns trying to find and shoot the missing
lynx.
Two-year-old Flaviu
has now been missing for 12 days and zoo staff admit they are running out of
ideas.
Owner Ben Mee said
there have been several false sightings and someone was spotted in the area
with a gun.
"Idiots are out
there trying to snare or shoot him just for a selfie next to a corpse," he
told the Sunday Times.
Przewalski's mares fly from Prague Zoo to Mongolia
Four Przewalski's
horse mares from the Prague Zoo left for Mongolia, where they would be
transported to the Gobi B National Park and released into the wild later,
aboard a military special plane in the afternoon.
After two
intermediate landings in Kazan and Novosibirsk, Russia, the plane will finally
land in Bulgan, Mongolia at 13:35 local time, that is on Sunday morning CEST.
This time, the
Prague Zoo in cooperation with the military prepared a double transport. Apart
from the four mares from Prague, the CASA military plane will also transport
horses internally in Mongolia.
"Let us hope
that it will go on like in the previous years. This is a complex and risky
operation and serious problems may occur easily," Prague Zoo director
Miroslav Bobek told reporters.
The mares, called
Heia, Reweta, Nara and Heilige, were all born in 2013 and they come from
various European countries. They were selected for the project since they had a
high chance to multiply well.
After their arrival
in Mongolia, the mares in their transport boxes will be loaded to lorries and
driven to the Takhin Tal area in the strictly protected Gobi B where they will
be released to special fences for acclimatisation.
Next Wednesday, the
CASA military plane will fly from Bulgan to Ulaanbaatar to take another four
horses, including one stallion, from the Khustain Nuruu National Park and fly
them to Takhin Tal reserve in Gobi B.
The Prague Zoo is
one of the main organisers of the transfers of the Przewalski's horses, the
last of which was shot dead in the wild 40 years ago, back to its original
homeland.
The zoo started
breeding the Przewalski horse in 1932. It has kept the international pedigree
book of this species since 1959.
In cooperation with
the Czech military, the z
SCIENTISTS STUDY EFFECTS OF ANIMAL LIVE STREAMS ON
HUMANS
Live-stream cameras
trained on a wide variety of animals in zoos, in nature preserves and in the
wild allow animal lovers and procrastinating office workers the world over to
observe animals 24/7. People who might never visit the National Zoo can still watch
its giant pandas munching bamboo and napping on rocks absolutely whenever the
mood strikes. Blissed-out sea otters are viewable all day via a stream trained
on their habitat at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. AfriCam.com offers glimpses of
megafauna going about their business in South Africa, Tanzania and Egypt, and
GoatsLive.com offers, well, live looks at goats, if that’s your thing.
One would imagine
the popularity of these live cams could correspond to a surge in affection
toward these animals, and perhaps a boost in interest in their well-being. But
until now, no one has really studied whether people who watch webcams form an
emotional attachment to
Lions in Dubai: Safari set for completion by year-end
Dubai Safari is set
for completion by end-2016, Dubai Municipality said.
“Seventy-five per
cent of the project has been completed and it is expected to be completed by
the end of 2016,” the civic body said.
The Dh1 billion
project located at Al Warqa district will cover a total area of 119 hectares
and is planned to include 10,500 animals from around the world, including 350
rare and endangered animals.
De-Extinction in Action: Scientists Consider a Plan to
Reinject Long-Gone DNA into the Black-Footed Ferret Population
In 1987 only 18
black-footed ferrets were known to exist, but thanks to captive breeding and
intensive management, the animals are a few hundred strong now. Yet like many
species that bounce back from such small numbers, all the individuals are
basically half-siblings—genetic near clones, with the same susceptibility to
hereditary health problems, to potential pathogens or to environmental changes
that could lead to population collapse. In an effort to boost the ferrets'
genetic variability and odds of long-term survival, the Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) is considering something extreme: a plan to reintroduce DNA that
was lost to the population but still exists in long-dead specimens stored in
zoos and museums. The effort may not sound as outlandish as the dream of
resurrecting the woolly mammoth, but it does involve reviving genes that died
with their hosts—and as such, it won't be easy.
The black-footed
ferret's bottleneck was even worse than it sounds. Of the 18 individuals the
FWS rescued nearly 30 years ago from the U.S.'s prairies, only seven passed
their genes to subsequent generations. “Every black-footed ferret comes from
seven individuals,” says Kimberly Fraser, a spokesperson for the FWS's Nationa
Melbourne Zoo's baby elephant Willow contracts severe
infection
Events at Melbourne
Zoo have taken another bad turn with battling baby elephant Willow contracting
a severe infection, weakening her considerably.
Young Willow's
infection caused concern among veterinarians as it proved resistant to the
antibiotics they were administering. Zoo veterinarians have since switched to a
new antibiotic.
Snow Leopard Enterprises Makes Raw Wool Valuable
It was in the thick
of winter when Samat and his wife Shirin first started washing the coarse,
rather dirty wool of their dozen or so sheep in front of their modest house in
Ak-Shiyrak village, a community high up in the Kyrgyz Tian-Shan mountains. In
the freezing cold, the pair were outside, elbow-deep in buckets of water,
scrubbing and cleaning piles of wool. Until then, most people in Ak-Shiyrak had
never bothered to wash and process their wool – there was simply no market for
it. “Our neighbor saw us wash the wool, and called us fools”, Samat recalls.
“He thought there was no point in doing this work, let alone in the cold.”
A couple of weeks
later, however, when Shirin and Samat came home from a visit with friends late
at night, they passed by that same young neighbor’s house. Peering inside, they
saw him with his arms in a bucket of water, furiously washing his own wool! “He
was doing it inside the house”, Samat says. “Perhaps because of the cold, but I
think mostly because he didn’t want us to see him.”
Within a few weeks,
dozens of denizen
A sneak peak at Scottsdale's Odysea Aquarium
Two million gallons
of water and 200 tons of salt is all for over 10,000 sea animals that will be
living in Odysea's 200,000-square feet of space.
For more than a
year, construction workers have been building the aquarium's bones, while Dave
Peranteau focuses on all of the creatures he's about to be in charge of.
Big cats HAVE lived in wild near Plymouth, says
Dartmoor Zoo owner
Wild big cats DID
live on the edge of Plymouth until as recently as 2010, according to the owner
of Dartmoor Zoo.
There have been
dozens of sightings of big cats over the years leading to the rise of the
legend of the Beast of Dartmoor, as well as instances such as a 20-stone lion
allegedly spotted on a South Hams country lane, not to mention reports of sheep
being slaughtered by a beast in Buckfastleigh in 2014 - only to be later
dismissed by police or animal experts.
But now, after a
lynx managed to escape Dartmoor Zoo two weeks ago, owner Benjamin Mee has made
the shock revelation that pumas roamed the city's outskirts undetected for more
than 30 years.
He said a pack were
released from the Sparkwell site during the 1980s and lived on nearby land,
terrorising farmers and their livestock while feeding on scra
Ridiculously Cute Mouse Lemurs Hold key to
Madagascar’s Past
Today, Madagascar is
home to a mosaic of different habitats–a lush rainforest in the east and a dry
deciduous forest in the west, separated by largely open highlands. But the
island off the southeast coast of Africa hasn’t always been like that–a new study
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences announces that
these two ecologically different portions of the island were once linked by a
patchwork of forested areas. And to figure it out, the scientists analyzed the
DNA of some of the cutest animals on earth–mouse lemurs.
“For a long time,
scientists weren’t sure how or why Madagascar’s biogeography changed in very
recent geological time, specifically at the key period around when humans
arrived on the island a few thousand years ago. It has been proposed they
heavily impacted the Central Highland forests,” says Steve Goodman, MacArthur
Field Biologist at The Field Museum in Chicago, who co-authored the study and
has been studying Malagasy animals for thirty years. “This study shows the
landscape was changing thousan
Attempt to block elephant's transfer to Auckland
A legal bid -
thought to be the first of its kind - is under way to stop the transfer of an
elephant from Sri Lanka to New Zealand.
Eighteen groups have
presented a petition to the Court of Appeal in Sri Lanka, calling for an
injunction to stop five-year-old female elephant Nandi being transferred to
Auckland Zoo.
The zoo has defended
its programme, saying it is not making money off the elephants it is bringing
over.
Death of Four Tigers Raises Question Over Bukittinggi
Zoo’s Standards
The death of four
tigers in at the Bukittinggi Zoo in West Sumatra has left wildlife
organizations and authorities questioning the degree of care given to the
animals.
West Sumatra Deputy
Governor Nasrul Abit said x-ray results indicated the tigers — two Sumatran
tigers and two clouded leopards — suffered birth defects leading to a
complication in their lungs.
“The analysis showed
that the four tigers have been sick since birth due to internal defects. There
were abnormalities in the lungs, weakening the animal’s bodies to the point of
no return,” Nasrul said on Tuesday (19/07), as quoted by state news agency Antara.
He urged for better
management at the zoo to prevent future incidents.
“All responsible
parties must pay attention to this,” he said.
The deaths were
announced by Margo Utomo, regional head of the conservation of natural
resources.
The two Sumatran
tigers were pronounced dead on June 30 and July 1, with the female cub
diagnosed with a coronary heart disease and the male cub suffering digestive
tract inflammation. Haemorrhaging was found in the lungs, spleen and liver of
both cubs.
“The two Sumatran
tiger cubs died a day after the other, with the female cub’s condition much
worse than the male’s,” Tri Nola Mayasari, Bukittingi Wildlife and Cultural
Park veterinarian, said on Monday.
The four deaths have
raised suspicions among animal activists that the zoo had given the endangered
animals inadequate care.
As reported by
environmental news portal Mongabay Indonesia, Suhandri, Sumatra regional leader
of World Wildlife Fund Indonesia, called for further investigation into the
deaths.
Suhandri suspects
the deaths are due to natur
Bear That Escaped Zoo Had Climbed Trees With Electric
Wires
previously climbed trees wrapped with
"hot wires" intended to jolt animals as a deterrent, according to an
inspection report.
The exhibit wasn't
open to the public when the female cub, called Joanie, scaled a 12½ foot fence
with an angled top and got into a viewing area on June 25, the Columbus Zoo
said. Visitors in nearby areas were evacuated as the bear was corralled and
sedated. No one was hurt.
It happened as a
zookeeper was monitoring how the roughly year-old cub — named for rocker Joan
Jett — and another female cub were interacting with their new enclosure, which
is the zoo's procedure when putting animals into new habitats. The keeper
responded appropriately in trying to deter the bear's climbing with verbal
commands and by shaking the fence, notifying zoo staff and initiating visitor
evacuation procedures, according to the zoo.
"Other than the
fact that a baby bear breached an exhibit that had been holding bears for
decades and nobody had gotten out of, and so took everybody by surprise,
everything else went completely according to protocol," zoo spokeswoman
Patty Peters said Tuesday.
The cubs, which had
been rescued from the wild, had been introduced to the enclosure three days
earlier. They'd been persistent in climbing on the trees in the enclosure
despite existing "hot wires," so the facility already had twice added
more of those deterrent elements, according to a June 27 inspection report made
public
‘Dory’ Bred in Captivity for First Time
For biologist Kevin
Barden, blue tangs are an obsession that began when he was five years old and
came face-to-face with one at Boston's New England Aquarium. Now 29, he has
played a leading role in cracking the code to successfully culturing the
popular species.
Today, the
University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Lab, in conjunction with Rising Tide
Conservation, announced that blue tangs—or Dory, as fans of the Disney movie
will know—have been bred in captivity for the first time.
“This breakthrough
has the potential to help reduce the overexploitation of the species and
continue to address wildlife crime associated with cyanide use in the saltwater
aquarium trade,” says biologist Andrew Rhyne, a winner of this year’s Wildlife
Crime Tech Challenge, sponsored in part by National Geographic, for coming up
with a way that allows better monitoring of the marine aquarium trade.
No one knows how
many blue tangs are taken from coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific each year
for saltwater aquariums. No one knows how much reef is damaged annually by
destructive
Historic walrus database goes live, 160 years in the
making
For 160 years,
seafarers have braved polar bears, storms and bitter isolation to observe huge
herds of walrus gathering off the coast of Alaska and Russia each summer.
For the first time
ever, all records, from aerial surveys and island expeditions to 19th Century
diary entries and maps by Russian explorers, have been compiled in a single
database.
"People have
died making these observations," said Anthony Fischbach, the leading
biologist behind the project. "This has not come lightly. It's a price you
pay for working in the remotest corner of the world."
Scientists hope
their data, assembled by the US Geological Survey, will give policy-makers the
information they need to protect walruses, approximately 95% of which live in
the Bering Sea.
Since 2007, the sea
ice that females rely on to raise their pups has declined dramatically in the
region, in some cases completely failing to freeze over where it was once
historically plentiful.
The US Fish and
Wildlife Service
Dubai Safari boss promises better life for zoo animals
The boss of the new
Dubai Safari park has promised a better life for the thousands of animals that
will shortly be calling it home.
On an exclusive tour
of the Dhs1 billion, 119-hectare facility ahead of its October soft opening,
Tim Husband told 7DAYS the park will feature state-of-the-art technology – such
as rocks with air-conditioning – to ensure five-star treatment for the animals.
Auckland Zoo's Director Jonathan Wilkin on Sri Lanka's
gift elephant to John Key
It's the elephant in
the courtroom - a diplomatic gift of an elephant from Sri Lanka that's set to
cause headaches for its government, and ours.
Sri Lanka’s
President gifted Nandi, a female elephant, to our Prime Minister when he was
visiting the country in February.
Now, 18 groups and
individuals have petitioned Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal to stop five-year-old
Nandi coming to Auckland, and the country's Attorney General has promised
they'll be heard.
Kerre and Mark spoke
with Auckland Zoo's direc
** ***
** **
***
*
The Dartmoor lynx has ‘rewilded’ itself. Should
Britain follow suit?
During the Second
World War small groups of people were thinking about how wildlife and the
countryside might best be conserved in the hoped-for aftermath of the conflict.
From such discussions emerged in 1949 the Nature Conservancy, the first
government conservation body in Britain. It sought to protect examples of
heaths, meadows, moorland and coppiced woodland. These were, by then, starting
to disappear rapidly as farming and forestry responded to postwar pressures to
increase food and timber production.
While much was and
is still being achieved by the Nature Conservancy and its successors, there has
been an overall decline in even formerly common species and habitats across
Britain. So as we enter another period of national turbulence, should we similarly
be considering new approa
Cynthia Stringfield: Zoos save animals, try to change
human behavior
In response to John
Crisp's column July 6, "Era of captive animals is passing," as an
animal care expert I have devoted the past 33 years to caring for animals,
working in conservation and educating the public. I am currently a zoo
veterinarian and college professor teaching future animal professionals.
We don't do this for
the money, because it is a low-paying field. We do it because we are passionate
about animal welfare and the future of our planet.
I believe many
people like John Crisp (who is an English teacher) care for and want to help
animals, and that is our important common ground. But unfortunately, they have
been led astray by others who are either woefully uninformed, or worse are
deliberately misleading people to achieve their own agendas.
Crisp uses typical
clichés to make his argument for all animals regardless of what facility they
live in or in which country, lumping all of them together. To understand what
is best for an animal, a person needs to be an expert in that species and in the
science of animal behavior, care and welfare. They also need to be an expert in
the individual animal, because individual animals vary greatly due to their
genetics and backgrounds.
For example, when
done ethically, most animals
Signal Boost: Emo Animal People (Gabrielle Harris)
Last night, I saw an
amazing blog written by an incredible person.
Some of you already know her, but for those of you who don't, let me
tell you a little about her.
Gabrielle Harris is
an inspirational leader in the marine mammal community. She is a shining example of an experienced
animal caretaker in a leadership position who has never lost sight of the
animals' emotional welfare. She is a
conservationalist, serving the needs of animals both in aquariums and in the
wild. If you've been to an IMATA
conference, you've probably seen some of her amazing presentations. Oh, and she
'Hunters with guns' trying to find and shoot missing
Dartmoor lynx
Dartmoor Zoo has had
reports of "hunters" with guns trying to find and shoot the missing
lynx.
Two-year-old Flaviu
has now been missing for 12 days and zoo staff admit they are running out of
ideas.
Owner Ben Mee said
there have been several false sightings and someone was spotted in the area
with a gun.
"Idiots are out
there trying to snare or shoot him just for a selfie next to a corpse," he
told the Sunday Times.
Przewalski's mares fly from Prague Zoo to Mongolia
Four Przewalski's
horse mares from the Prague Zoo left for Mongolia, where they would be
transported to the Gobi B National Park and released into the wild later,
aboard a military special plane in the afternoon.
After two
intermediate landings in Kazan and Novosibirsk, Russia, the plane will finally
land in Bulgan, Mongolia at 13:35 local time, that is on Sunday morning CEST.
This time, the
Prague Zoo in cooperation with the military prepared a double transport. Apart
from the four mares from Prague, the CASA military plane will also transport
horses internally in Mongolia.
"Let us hope
that it will go on like in the previous years. This is a complex and risky
operation and serious problems may occur easily," Prague Zoo director
Miroslav Bobek told reporters.
The mares, called
Heia, Reweta, Nara and Heilige, were all born in 2013 and they come from
various European countries. They were selected for the project since they had a
high chance to multiply well.
After their arrival
in Mongolia, the mares in their transport boxes will be loaded to lorries and
driven to the Takhin Tal area in the strictly protected Gobi B where they will
be released to special fences for acclimatisation.
Next Wednesday, the
CASA military plane will fly from Bulgan to Ulaanbaatar to take another four
horses, including one stallion, from the Khustain Nuruu National Park and fly
them to Takhin Tal reserve in Gobi B.
The Prague Zoo is
one of the main organisers of the transfers of the Przewalski's horses, the
last of which was shot dead in the wild 40 years ago, back to its original
homeland.
The zoo started
breeding the Przewalski horse in 1932. It has kept the international pedigree
book of this species since 1959.
In cooperation with
the Czech military, the z
SCIENTISTS STUDY EFFECTS OF ANIMAL LIVE STREAMS ON
HUMANS
Live-stream cameras
trained on a wide variety of animals in zoos, in nature preserves and in the
wild allow animal lovers and procrastinating office workers the world over to
observe animals 24/7. People who might never visit the National Zoo can still watch
its giant pandas munching bamboo and napping on rocks absolutely whenever the
mood strikes. Blissed-out sea otters are viewable all day via a stream trained
on their habitat at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. AfriCam.com offers glimpses of
megafauna going about their business in South Africa, Tanzania and Egypt, and
GoatsLive.com offers, well, live looks at goats, if that’s your thing.
One would imagine
the popularity of these live cams could correspond to a surge in affection
toward these animals, and perhaps a boost in interest in their well-being. But
until now, no one has really studied whether people who watch webcams form an
emotional attachment to
Lions in Dubai: Safari set for completion by year-end
Dubai Safari is set
for completion by end-2016, Dubai Municipality said.
“Seventy-five per
cent of the project has been completed and it is expected to be completed by
the end of 2016,” the civic body said.
The Dh1 billion
project located at Al Warqa district will cover a total area of 119 hectares
and is planned to include 10,500 animals from around the world, including 350
rare and endangered animals.
De-Extinction in Action: Scientists Consider a Plan to
Reinject Long-Gone DNA into the Black-Footed Ferret Population
In 1987 only 18
black-footed ferrets were known to exist, but thanks to captive breeding and
intensive management, the animals are a few hundred strong now. Yet like many
species that bounce back from such small numbers, all the individuals are
basically half-siblings—genetic near clones, with the same susceptibility to
hereditary health problems, to potential pathogens or to environmental changes
that could lead to population collapse. In an effort to boost the ferrets'
genetic variability and odds of long-term survival, the Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) is considering something extreme: a plan to reintroduce DNA that
was lost to the population but still exists in long-dead specimens stored in
zoos and museums. The effort may not sound as outlandish as the dream of
resurrecting the woolly mammoth, but it does involve reviving genes that died
with their hosts—and as such, it won't be easy.
The black-footed
ferret's bottleneck was even worse than it sounds. Of the 18 individuals the
FWS rescued nearly 30 years ago from the U.S.'s prairies, only seven passed
their genes to subsequent generations. “Every black-footed ferret comes from
seven individuals,” says Kimberly Fraser, a spokesperson for the FWS's Nationa
Melbourne Zoo's baby elephant Willow contracts severe
infection
Events at Melbourne
Zoo have taken another bad turn with battling baby elephant Willow contracting
a severe infection, weakening her considerably.
Young Willow's
infection caused concern among veterinarians as it proved resistant to the
antibiotics they were administering. Zoo veterinarians have since switched to a
new antibiotic.
Snow Leopard Enterprises Makes Raw Wool Valuable
It was in the thick
of winter when Samat and his wife Shirin first started washing the coarse,
rather dirty wool of their dozen or so sheep in front of their modest house in
Ak-Shiyrak village, a community high up in the Kyrgyz Tian-Shan mountains. In
the freezing cold, the pair were outside, elbow-deep in buckets of water,
scrubbing and cleaning piles of wool. Until then, most people in Ak-Shiyrak had
never bothered to wash and process their wool – there was simply no market for
it. “Our neighbor saw us wash the wool, and called us fools”, Samat recalls.
“He thought there was no point in doing this work, let alone in the cold.”
A couple of weeks
later, however, when Shirin and Samat came home from a visit with friends late
at night, they passed by that same young neighbor’s house. Peering inside, they
saw him with his arms in a bucket of water, furiously washing his own wool! “He
was doing it inside the house”, Samat says. “Perhaps because of the cold, but I
think mostly because he didn’t want us to see him.”
Within a few weeks,
dozens of denizen
A sneak peak at Scottsdale's Odysea Aquarium
Two million gallons
of water and 200 tons of salt is all for over 10,000 sea animals that will be
living in Odysea's 200,000-square feet of space.
For more than a
year, construction workers have been building the aquarium's bones, while Dave
Peranteau focuses on all of the creatures he's about to be in charge of.
Big cats HAVE lived in wild near Plymouth, says
Dartmoor Zoo owner
Wild big cats DID
live on the edge of Plymouth until as recently as 2010, according to the owner
of Dartmoor Zoo.
There have been
dozens of sightings of big cats over the years leading to the rise of the
legend of the Beast of Dartmoor, as well as instances such as a 20-stone lion
allegedly spotted on a South Hams country lane, not to mention reports of sheep
being slaughtered by a beast in Buckfastleigh in 2014 - only to be later
dismissed by police or animal experts.
But now, after a
lynx managed to escape Dartmoor Zoo two weeks ago, owner Benjamin Mee has made
the shock revelation that pumas roamed the city's outskirts undetected for more
than 30 years.
He said a pack were
released from the Sparkwell site during the 1980s and lived on nearby land,
terrorising farmers and their livestock while feeding on scra
Ridiculously Cute Mouse Lemurs Hold key to
Madagascar’s Past
Today, Madagascar is
home to a mosaic of different habitats–a lush rainforest in the east and a dry
deciduous forest in the west, separated by largely open highlands. But the
island off the southeast coast of Africa hasn’t always been like that–a new study
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences announces that
these two ecologically different portions of the island were once linked by a
patchwork of forested areas. And to figure it out, the scientists analyzed the
DNA of some of the cutest animals on earth–mouse lemurs.
“For a long time,
scientists weren’t sure how or why Madagascar’s biogeography changed in very
recent geological time, specifically at the key period around when humans
arrived on the island a few thousand years ago. It has been proposed they
heavily impacted the Central Highland forests,” says Steve Goodman, MacArthur
Field Biologist at The Field Museum in Chicago, who co-authored the study and
has been studying Malagasy animals for thirty years. “This study shows the
landscape was changing thousan
Attempt to block elephant's transfer to Auckland
A legal bid -
thought to be the first of its kind - is under way to stop the transfer of an
elephant from Sri Lanka to New Zealand.
Eighteen groups have
presented a petition to the Court of Appeal in Sri Lanka, calling for an
injunction to stop five-year-old female elephant Nandi being transferred to
Auckland Zoo.
The zoo has defended
its programme, saying it is not making money off the elephants it is bringing
over.
Death of Four Tigers Raises Question Over Bukittinggi
Zoo’s Standards
The death of four
tigers in at the Bukittinggi Zoo in West Sumatra has left wildlife
organizations and authorities questioning the degree of care given to the
animals.
West Sumatra Deputy
Governor Nasrul Abit said x-ray results indicated the tigers — two Sumatran
tigers and two clouded leopards — suffered birth defects leading to a
complication in their lungs.
“The analysis showed
that the four tigers have been sick since birth due to internal defects. There
were abnormalities in the lungs, weakening the animal’s bodies to the point of
no return,” Nasrul said on Tuesday (19/07), as quoted by state news agency Antara.
He urged for better
management at the zoo to prevent future incidents.
“All responsible
parties must pay attention to this,” he said.
The deaths were
announced by Margo Utomo, regional head of the conservation of natural
resources.
The two Sumatran
tigers were pronounced dead on June 30 and July 1, with the female cub
diagnosed with a coronary heart disease and the male cub suffering digestive
tract inflammation. Haemorrhaging was found in the lungs, spleen and liver of
both cubs.
“The two Sumatran
tiger cubs died a day after the other, with the female cub’s condition much
worse than the male’s,” Tri Nola Mayasari, Bukittingi Wildlife and Cultural
Park veterinarian, said on Monday.
The four deaths have
raised suspicions among animal activists that the zoo had given the endangered
animals inadequate care.
As reported by
environmental news portal Mongabay Indonesia, Suhandri, Sumatra regional leader
of World Wildlife Fund Indonesia, called for further investigation into the
deaths.
Suhandri suspects
the deaths are due to natur
Bear That Escaped Zoo Had Climbed Trees With Electric
Wires
previously climbed trees wrapped with
"hot wires" intended to jolt animals as a deterrent, according to an
inspection report.
The exhibit wasn't
open to the public when the female cub, called Joanie, scaled a 12½ foot fence
with an angled top and got into a viewing area on June 25, the Columbus Zoo
said. Visitors in nearby areas were evacuated as the bear was corralled and
sedated. No one was hurt.
It happened as a
zookeeper was monitoring how the roughly year-old cub — named for rocker Joan
Jett — and another female cub were interacting with their new enclosure, which
is the zoo's procedure when putting animals into new habitats. The keeper
responded appropriately in trying to deter the bear's climbing with verbal
commands and by shaking the fence, notifying zoo staff and initiating visitor
evacuation procedures, according to the zoo.
"Other than the
fact that a baby bear breached an exhibit that had been holding bears for
decades and nobody had gotten out of, and so took everybody by surprise,
everything else went completely according to protocol," zoo spokeswoman
Patty Peters said Tuesday.
The cubs, which had
been rescued from the wild, had been introduced to the enclosure three days
earlier. They'd been persistent in climbing on the trees in the enclosure
despite existing "hot wires," so the facility already had twice added
more of those deterrent elements, according to a June 27 inspection report made
public
‘Dory’ Bred in Captivity for First Time
For biologist Kevin
Barden, blue tangs are an obsession that began when he was five years old and
came face-to-face with one at Boston's New England Aquarium. Now 29, he has
played a leading role in cracking the code to successfully culturing the
popular species.
Today, the
University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Lab, in conjunction with Rising Tide
Conservation, announced that blue tangs—or Dory, as fans of the Disney movie
will know—have been bred in captivity for the first time.
“This breakthrough
has the potential to help reduce the overexploitation of the species and
continue to address wildlife crime associated with cyanide use in the saltwater
aquarium trade,” says biologist Andrew Rhyne, a winner of this year’s Wildlife
Crime Tech Challenge, sponsored in part by National Geographic, for coming up
with a way that allows better monitoring of the marine aquarium trade.
No one knows how
many blue tangs are taken from coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific each year
for saltwater aquariums. No one knows how much reef is damaged annually by
destructive
Historic walrus database goes live, 160 years in the
making
For 160 years,
seafarers have braved polar bears, storms and bitter isolation to observe huge
herds of walrus gathering off the coast of Alaska and Russia each summer.
For the first time
ever, all records, from aerial surveys and island expeditions to 19th Century
diary entries and maps by Russian explorers, have been compiled in a single
database.
"People have
died making these observations," said Anthony Fischbach, the leading
biologist behind the project. "This has not come lightly. It's a price you
pay for working in the remotest corner of the world."
Scientists hope
their data, assembled by the US Geological Survey, will give policy-makers the
information they need to protect walruses, approximately 95% of which live in
the Bering Sea.
Since 2007, the sea
ice that females rely on to raise their pups has declined dramatically in the
region, in some cases completely failing to freeze over where it was once
historically plentiful.
The US Fish and
Wildlife Service
Dubai Safari boss promises better life for zoo animals
The boss of the new
Dubai Safari park has promised a better life for the thousands of animals that
will shortly be calling it home.
On an exclusive tour
of the Dhs1 billion, 119-hectare facility ahead of its October soft opening,
Tim Husband told 7DAYS the park will feature state-of-the-art technology – such
as rocks with air-conditioning – to ensure five-star treatment for the animals.
Auckland Zoo's Director Jonathan Wilkin on Sri Lanka's
gift elephant to John Key
It's the elephant in
the courtroom - a diplomatic gift of an elephant from Sri Lanka that's set to
cause headaches for its government, and ours.
Sri Lanka’s
President gifted Nandi, a female elephant, to our Prime Minister when he was
visiting the country in February.
Now, 18 groups and
individuals have petitioned Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal to stop five-year-old
Nandi coming to Auckland, and the country's Attorney General has promised
they'll be heard.
Kerre and Mark spoke
with Auckland Zoo's direc
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New Meetings and Conferences updated Here
New Meetings and Conferences updated Here
If you have anything to add then please email me at elvinhow@gmail.com
I will include it when I get a minute. You know it makes sense.
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About me
After more than 47 years working in private, commercial and National zoos in the capacity of keeper, head keeper and curator Peter Dickinson started to travel. He sold house and all his possessions and hit the road. He has traveled extensively in Turkey, Southern India and much of South East Asia before settling in Thailand. In his travels he has visited well over 200 zoos and writes about these in his blog http://zoonewsdigest.blogspot.com/
or on Hubpages http://hubpages.com/profile/Peter+Dickinson
Peter earns his living as an independent international zoo consultant, critic and writer. Currently working as Curator of Penguins in Ski Dubai. United Arab Emirates. He describes himself as an itinerant zoo keeper, one time zoo inspector, a dreamer, a traveler, a people watcher, a lover, a thinker, a cosmopolitan, a writer, a hedonist, an explorer, a pantheist, a gastronome, sometime fool, a good friend to some and a pain in the butt to others.
"These are the best days of my life"
Peter Dickinson
Independent International Zoo Consultant        |
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