Month: August 2022

Currently there is a trade in various hippopotamus body parts, but if the animal was listed as endangered, this would cease to be legal.

Currently there are between 115,000-130,000 (though other knowledgeable experts can put the estimate as low as 80,000) but it is not what is happening now, so much as the threat that hippos are believed to face over combined threats of climate change, poaching and habitat loss.

Certainly, of the large species of Africa: Elephant, Rhino and Hippo, only the Hippo is regularly found outside protected areas (the Congo basin rainforest is perhaps different, but this may not last).

Given the threats currently, along with changes that are likely in the next few decades, I believe it is certainly time to include Hippo as endangered , on CITES level 1. Hippos are currently listed under CITES level 2 which allows some trade.

From 2009-2018 77,579 hippo body parts were traded around the world, so it is clear that we should act now. Were the hippo to recover across its African range, this might be a decision that could be reviewed, but for now it seems prudent to stop the Hippo slide towards extinction.

Bulb is a UK energy supplier. Octopus does the same thing, but they are in a better financial position. They are suggesting that with 1 billion support from the UK government, they could take over.

Why is this a good thing? Well, firstly Octopus has a far higher green targets, and the ability for consumers to pay about £5 above to guarantee all electricity is from green sources (as well as offsetting gas emissions).

Given Octopus has 3.1 million customers, and Bulb has 1.6 million, Octupus would grow by 50% overnight with this merge. The government is already 2 billion in the hole for trying to help Bulb not go out of business, might a 1 billion loan to Octopus be a better bet, given the highly likely requirement for the government to put more money into Bulb?

Given the governments carbon reduction targets, and fines that might hit them should the UK fail to cut as promised, this could well prove to be a superb deal even without the money coming back.

It is small news in worldwide perspective, but it is symptomatic of a trend which seems to be continuing around the rest of the world.

I was talking about Orca predating great white sharks just a few days ago, but it would seem that they have also been showing their apex predator status in British waters.

Experts cannot see a reason for Pilot whales to come so close to the coast, if they were not scared there by something. More importantly, killer whales were seen in the area.

Back in the last year of the tiger, the tiger range countries came together and aimed to double the number of tigers in the 12 years until the next year of the Tiger – which is this year. As a result, a great deal of surveys have been done to try to work out how the different countries fared.

A number have done very well, India for instance has slightly more than doubled its tiger population – though given they started at about 1.5% of historical numbers, this is just a first step. Never-the-less, as India houses roughly 2 in every 3 wild tigers at the current time, a doubling of their numbers is very positive.

Nepal is different. In the last 12 years Nepal has tripled the tiger population of the country, with 355 tigers, up from 121. What is even more exciting, is that Nepal is approaching the estimated 400 that the Chitwan- Parsa complex can hold.

One of the biggest and best known populations of great white sharks live off the coast of South Africa. So when their behaviour changed in 2017, and they were seen far less regularly, scientists raised alarm bells fast.

Orangutans have been seen swimming on many occasions in the wild. Bizarrely, though, it seems to be a shared trait of all captive Orangutans to be terrified of water, and incapable of swimming even short distances.

This does help zoos, as it makes easy barriers to put up, without impeding the views that the visitors will get.

As in many zoos, it is not uncommon for visitors to through food for the animals (though in almost all instances this will not be good for the animal in question),

On the fateful day – in Vin[earl safari Phu Quoc (on Phu Quco the largest island of Vietnam) a visitor threw some food, but it fell short in the moat. The orangutan preceded now a ramp to try to extract the morsel, but slipped and fell in. Having struggled briefly on the surface, the animal sunk out of view.

The zoo keeper quickly threw in a life preserver, and then jumped in himself, and returned to the surface with the Orangutan. Once on shore, the keeper gave CPR and the Orangutan recovered.

European bee-eaters are becoming regular visitors to the UK, as global warming continues.

This year these bee-eaters bred in Norfolk, and have the last few years, though so far have never succeeded. These colourful birds are just one more sign that global warming is real and is having significant effects.

Oral contraceptives for squirrels are working, a study has shown and so the UK government is keen to try to use this to reduce the grey squirrel population.

There have been many commentators over the years that have suggested that reducing one species to benefit another is somehow racist. Were both species native, this suggestion might have some justification, but they are not.