Category: Asia

Posted on

A forest is replanted after minister is found to have illegally cleared it

This story is extremely encouraging. Around the world, large plantation companies often encourage small holders to clear the land and then buy it from them.

This area of deforested land was within a protected area, and should never have been cleared

The idea that this behaviour of getting other people to clear the land is permissible is insane. I personally would like countries to punish illegal clearance by always requiring full reforestation at the cost of the guilty party – this would likely end the scourge of illegal deforestation (then we must start working on so called legal deforestation)

Continue reading “A forest is replanted after minister is found to have illegally cleared it”
Posted on

The Chinese alligator – critically endangered in the wild yet with tens of thousands captive members

These animals were covered during the BBC wild China series a few years ago, and as such a relatively poorly known but highly important animal which plays an important part of the ecosystem in this part of China has likely been saved – though there is still much work to do.

Chinese Alligator being returned to the wild

As with an awful lot of other wildlife found within the borders of China, the Chinese alligator is severely endangered. In the wild it’s population numbers around 150, at this population is highly fragmented and no habitat has a significant number of these animals. 

Continue reading “The Chinese alligator – critically endangered in the wild yet with tens of thousands captive members”
Posted on

Perhaps one good thing come out of the epidemic-Chinese people are finally prepared to change behaviour towards wild animals

Unfortunately as the wealth of the Chinese middle class has grown, these several 100,000,000 extra people have wanted the traditional medicines that supposedly there ruling ancestors once enjoyed. The start of the epidemic that we are just starting to recover from, was caused by poaching of wild animals. It is likely that there are many more forms of bacteria and virus living deep in rainforests and other wildernesses around the world. Might the risk of a further outbreak, finally force the Chinese government to halt the insane poaching that its people have caused around the world?

In order to deliver these raw materials for so called chinese medicine (I say so called, as no scientific study has been able to show a link between any of these treatments and a change in human conditions) animals have to be hunted. These animals are protected, and so this demand drive poaching that can locally eliminate these animals from ecosystems.

Continue reading “Perhaps one good thing come out of the epidemic-Chinese people are finally prepared to change behaviour towards wild animals”
Posted on

Elephant counting from space

For the first time the population of elephants in addo elephant park in South Africa has been counted from space using computer learning.

Counting elephants from space is increasingly possible. Why is this good? it can be done cheaply, and therefore can be done regularly. This allows remote reserve poaching epidemics to be noticed early. As elephants are often the first animal to be targeted, automated satellite counts could give early warning about parks in danger.

The satellite images now taken are detailed enough to show each individual elephant has a separate grey blob. Then by using computer learning, a program can be taught to count these accurately.

Continue reading “Elephant counting from space”
Posted on

News in brief – Otters in Peru, Adelie Penguins and Spring in the Arctic

Peru has set up a national park of 868,000 hectares that will protect the areas many animals and native people. This is one of the remaining areas of untouched Amazon within Peru. A recent survey saw showed that this area had a good population of giant otters. This is particularly exciting because, Continue reading “News in brief – Otters in Peru, Adelie Penguins and Spring in the Arctic”

Posted on

New species of Orangutan

The Tapamuli Orangutan has recently been discovered. There are only thought to be 800 of these animals left and they are only found within the Batang Toru Forest of North Sumatra. It is thought that they have been a separate from the Borneon Orangutan for 674,000 years (despite living on Sumatra they appear to be more closely related to the Orangutans of Borneo than of Sumatra). As well as having such a tiny population they also live in an area of roughly 1000 square kilometres (386 square miles). This is the first great ape species to be discovered since 1929 when the Bonobo was discovered.

See Animals Wild