While YouTube has benefited from being able to premiere Planet of the Humans, with many millions having watched it, the uproar about it has not been positive.
Continue reading “YouTube finds an excuse to remove Michael Moore’s Planet of the Humans”A benefit of Covid-19? Might it save the pangolin?
The pangolin is a creature that until a few years ago was known by next to no one in the world. Although found in a surprisingly large range of habitats they are often nocturnal and so in many parts of their habitats seen rarely. Many of the wildlife guides in the Kruger have never seen one and a sighting is something to be savoured. Indeed recently when when a doctoral student went out to study pangolins it took more than six months for them to see the first one.
Continue reading “A benefit of Covid-19? Might it save the pangolin?”The EPA in America is Rolling Back emissions standards for Mercury and other dangerous chemicals for power plants
The EPA continues to work against its own name as an Environmental Protection Agency, by doing things that categorically do not protect the environment.
Under Obama there were many new rules that improved the Environmental standards in the USA. One of these was a substantial reduction in the amount of mercury other chemicals hazardous to human health.
What is stupid about this move is that the coal power plants have spent billions of pounds across the country putting in these contractions to remove the Mercury and other hazardous materials on their smokestacks.
The money has been spent and the work has been done- who precisely does this benefit. As if to underline this question, 2 months ago the utilities in America came out publicly and stated they were against the rollback of mercury emission standards in the USA.
The unions, business groups and electric power plants are all against this move. In their wording they are removing the requirement to be appropriate and necessary for the government to regulate harmful chemicals.
It really is getting to the point where the EPA must be renamed, as it no longer has anything to do with protecting the environment and seemed merely to be there to make business easier.
Americans should be furious about this as Donald Trump has once again come out and said quite clearly he doesn’t care about the health of the people of the country he runs. There is a chance this year to remove Donald Trump and stop him damaging the environment any more- Americans must take this opportunity, anything is better than this.
Bolsonaro has decided to open up 38000 square miles of Amazon rain forest indigenous reserves to outsiders
The latest move by Brazil’s president, while expected, goes against all of Brazil’s past agreements. Indigenous lands were given back- they are not a gift from the Brazilian government. Indigenous people have lived in the Brazilian rainforest for millennia longer than Europeans have been in South America.
As the number of mountain gorillas passes above 1000 for the first time in a very long time we have to worry about their future survival
Recent census of the Mountain gorillas between the two remaining areas of habitat counted 1063, a number that has risen from perhaps only 350 in the 1980s. The idea of a critically endangered growing by 300% in population size in only 40 years is incredible.
Belgium has its own Wolf population
Belgium appears to have its own permanent wolf population as the French and the German wolf population recombine for the first time in over a century
The spread of wolves across Europe is something that has been championed by many over the last couple of decades. Having spread read back into Western Europe after the Iron Curtain came down they have established populations in almost every country.
The critically endangered orange bellied parrot has had a bumper year
The orange bellied parrot great between the mainland of Australia and the Tasmanian southwest each year to breed
This year only 23 parrots arrive to breed, but after 6-months 118 birds have been counted. Not all of this are young birds as the authorities had release 34 Birds bred in captivity to Bolster the 23 that arrived. These two groups combined and had 37 fledglings, and had a further 47 captive bred fledglings added to their number.
The migration and winter are hard, so it’s possible that only half of these will return next year. Even so this is an impressive increased from around about 3 mature females in 2017.
While this is impressive work it is definitely necessary to deal with the underlying cause of the reduction in numbers. Too many species do not have conservation is to work on bringing them back from the brink and they disappear largely unnoticed.
Signs of spring: the first cuckoo you hear
Last weekend on a walk with my family we heard a cuckoo calling. Being birds that migrate between the UK and Africa each year I always find it uplifting to start hearing them.
I’m never entirely sure why humans are so keen on them, giving their habit of abandoning their eggs in other birds’ nests and leaving these are the birds to raise their young (their young will usually kill all of their adoptive parents’ genetic young).
We have only moved to our current house a year ago, so I was particularly delighted later in the day to hear a Cuckoo close to our house. I have no idea if this will become a common sound in the evenings, but it is still nice to hear.
Michael Moore planet of the humans- how many misleading statements can you make in one documentary?
Michael Moore has in the past made a large number of very highly respected documentaries, indeed he has won awards for some of these. As such, as latest the Planet of the humans was highly anticipated by many people.
This is not meant to be a full review of the documentary, as there have been many far more qualified people who have already done this. I am really going to highlight the problems and suggest that you look at them yourself and be fully informed when you are engaged on these by climate change deniers.
Website Update
For those who visit regularly you will have noticed that we have finally started to add places to go and see wild animals. The purpose of the website is to simplify wild travel as much as I can manage.
As such these reserves are hopefully the first of many, but we are starting with some of the best. Singita- the organisation that runs all these lodges, is a group who is working to protect vast areas of Africa for future generations, and to that end they manage around 10 wilderness areas, each bordering a national park. These are extraordinarily luxurious and have prices to match, however they compare favourably to other lodges in the area. Given their incredible conservation success, these are good places to visit as you can be sure profits are being used to protect what you see.
Do click any of the links on the main page, or the menu item ‘see animals now’ to browse through all we have on offer. We hope to add to these over the next few years.