Category: Europe

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Two different walrus seen in British waters this year – future? Might they become native once again?

I wrote back in March about a Walrus that was seen around Ireland for some time.

There were 2 walrus in British waters last year, a male and a female. The last male walrus and his harem of 3 females were killed back in 1847. Both walrus are thought to be young.

Freya the walrus turned up a month after wally left
Wally the walrus spent some time moving around parts of the uk, here in Cornwall
Walrus are natural parts of the UK wildlife, but were locally hunted to extinction

2 Walrus in a country of ours is not many. Indeed, 2 walrus in the waters of the British Isles is very few. However, if the same 2 walrus were to return next year and meet, it is not impossible that young walrus result. This could become the start of a new walrus colony.

We do not think of the UK as an Arctic country, but we are a natural part of the Walrus range so the natural return of these animals would be very positive.

Could Walrus return, and thrive here? could we have a population of hundreds of walrus in a few decades? The advantage of sea-faring mammals, is that they can return on their own. Walrus can be dangerous if humans get too close, never-the-less the risk of harm to humans is incredibly low, indeed far different to that of wolves and bears (and the risks of injury from these species are already very low). The return of walrus can only be good. They are essential for a healthy sea ecosystem, in the same way that land based carnivores are also needed.

Were a male and a female walrus to meet somewhere remote on the coast of Scotland, I could well imagine it being the start of a Walrus colony in the UK once again. The last dominant male and his 3 sows were killed about 150 years ago, it is about time that this animal would return. Walrus have significant impacts on ecosystems that they live in. Indeed, they do so much, that they are known are keystone species. so their permanent return would be highly positive. Importantly, as they prefer feeding at the bottom of shallow waters, eating clams, molluscs, worms, snail, soft shell crabs, shrimps and sea cucumbers, they are not generally competing with any of the species that humans harvest.

I hope to be able to report on more similar visits in the near future.

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We have made wonderful progress towards cleaning up the grid. Now to finish the job…

Incredible progress has been made over the last couple of decades towards greening our grid. Coal is now supplying a very small percentage of our power, and this is likely to fully disappear in the next few years. Gas is the only remaining fossil fuel on our grid. We mad roughly 28 gigawats of electricity from gas in 2018 (last normal year before epidemic). There are plenty of ways to get this from clean sources

As an example, 1 megawatt of solar panels takes roughly 4 acres, and costs about 1 million pounds. Therefore, 1 gigawatt would take roughly 7 square miles and cost roughly 1 billion. That means to replace 28 gigawatt hours of gas generation with solar, would cost roughly 28 billion. The batteries would cost about 2 billion for a similar quantity. In terms of area, we would need roughly 150 miles, which is roughly 2/3 of all the rooftops of the UK housing stock. If, however, all UK commercial governmental and industrial buildings have their roofs covered in solar panels, this would likely take a great deal of the capacity needed. Even if you assume we need extra for night time power, we can not be talking more than 50 billion.

I am not saying that the government needs to invest this now. However, as gas powerplants do not last more than about 25 years, we can assume that by 2050 all the current ones would be decommissioned. If as each gas powered plant goes offline it was replaced with solar and batteries, the cost would be roughly £1.8 billion a year while a huge cost to many countries, would essentially be a rounding error in the UK.

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Is Norway having problems funding their country without combustion engine cars

Norway has had incredibly generous electric car subsidies. This has meant that the number of people changing to electric cars are so high that the tax from gas guzzlers is falling faster than they anticipated. Electric cars are already 77.5% of new cars sold. This compares to the UK at 15% of new cars being electric, and the USA 2.6%. I find the USA particularly strange as they are the country which has lead to the rise of Tesla- though admittedly given the rise speed that tesla has been growing, this is probably out of date. With tesla, if the numbers are just 3 years out of date the number of deliveries has trebled (if you look back to 2013, only 8 years, there is only 20,000 sales, yet in 2021 936,000 were sold 4700% growth in 8 years).

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Sainsbury has stopped selling all or some beef from Brazil along with 5 others

In Brazil, one of the main drivers of deforestation is for pasture for beef. It is therefore completely foolish for those in developed countries to eat Brazilian beef – if we do, we are paying them to do the world (and therefore us) incalculable harm.

Importantly, these people can wait. If we have a moratorium on grazing on newly deforested land, the land owner can wait a few years or a decade then its value jumps. This move was taken after it became clear that “cattle laundering” was going on.

Cattle laundering means we can no longer tell which meat from Brazil is safe to eat
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Could Bialowlieza forest be destroyed by forests on borders?

Around the world we are in a period where there are lots of people struggling where they are. Whether due to weather or war or crime, there are significant numbers of people who are on the move. Perhaps the most famous is the border wall that Donald Trump ran on. Given that almost all of the people who are illegally in the USA arrive legally and then fail to leave, cutting off the stream of people fleeing violent crime in central America will make little difference to what is going on.

As elsewhere, the wilderness either side of the USA border wall is likely to be badly damaged
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Is the government finally going to ban hunting trophy import

Back in 2019, the conservative government passed a law banning the import of trophies from animals hunted abroad.

For most, a photo like this is disgusting. However, is there anywhere in the world where this is a necessary evil to protect the remaining wildlife? And how will the governments rules effect this?

Despite their status, various wild species are hunted in the wild and in theory this law would stop this.

Now, you might notice that it is now almost 2022, so what happened? Well it was announced in 2019 queens speech but has not been brought forwards by the conservatives who are currently in power (and suggested the law in the first place). Worryingly, they have not actually announced a timetable of when they will try to enact this law! Given it has been 3 years before they announced it, no firm timetable being in place would suggest that this is still not a certainty. Delay is particularly concerning, as many Conservative supporters are wealthy, so it is reasonable to think that wealthy donors are the reason that this law is taking so long to come into place.

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Wild travel can resume!

With the improving covid situation worldwide finally we can return to visiting wild areas of the planet. Not only has the tourist industry missed this basil so it has had a terrible impact on conservation efforts in many parts of the world.

This is because in many cases there is not enough money to protect animals without out.the tourist dollars that they bring in. Since covid start there have been very few tourists arriving in many of these countries.

Yet this situation is changing. Now, many countries in Africa are considered completely safe. There have been less infections across the whole of Africa than have been reported in the UK – now while some of this may be down to poor health care (there are slightly more people who have died from covid in Africa than the UK), clearly your risk in Africa is far lower than your risk in the UK.

My family will be travelling to Kruger in South Africa in August! Obviously I hope for this to create many stories for this site and videos for the sister YouTube channel.

My other aim is to be able to list all of the public rest stops on the website after this trip. 

What does this mean?

Currently we only list the private reserves along the borders of the Kruger. These are fantastic ways of seeing wildlife. You will be pampered indeed spoilt, by the wonderful treatment you will receive. 

However, even amongst wealthy people, the cost of these lodges can become prohibitive – a one week safari in some of these places can run to $10,000 or more per person.

Of course on this website we wish to cater for people who have large amounts of money, however we are not in this category and we want to cater for everyone.

Self-drive safaris are something that many people greatly enjoy. With a little bit of research you can quickly become competent at finding the animal to yourself (sighting maps in each rest stop help). There is something liberating about entering an area so large, and being able to go where you like as you like, exploring whichever part of the park you prefer.

On self-drive safaris your accommodation is different. Generally you have the choice of setting up your own tent, taking a hut, or in some places a mid option is a a fancy safari tent. These obviously very in price, but even in the most expensive you are likely to be spending less over your whole holiday then you would for one night on a private reserve.

For those who could afford it I would recommend to do a self-drive safari with a couple of days on a private reserve at the beginning or end of your trip.

DO CONSIDER BOOKING TRIPS ABROAD. THESE RESERVES WILL BE LESS CROWDED THAN NORMAL, AND WE CAN STOP RESERVES BEING TURNED INTO HUNTING AREAS IF WE RETURN SOON ENOUGH.

All of the partners on this site have very reasonable policies on cancelation if this is necessary because of Covid.

There is also the advantage at the moment, that most airlines have a simple policy of cancellation if advice suggests that travel is not wise.

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