News – Page 28 – See Animals Wild

May 22, 2022June 28, 2022

Tesla has been cut from the S&P 500 Environmental Social and Governance Index, what have they done (SARCASM)

So in theory an Environmental Social and Governance Index is important. This allows customers and investors to look at a company, and by looking at the size of one number they can tell if the company is doing well in these ways or badly. At least that is the theory.

Clearly it is not working in practice. The reason given for Tesla’s removal was claims of racial discrimination and crashes that are supposedly linked to its autopilot system. In the same rewriting, Twitter will be added to the list, alongside Oil refiner Phillips 66. Chevron and and delta airlines are also being dropped.

One of the main factors for Tesla’s dropping is the fact that it does not publish details related to its low carbon strategy or business conduct code.

Now, if you were being generous you could suggest that the company is following its rules without using its head, but this I believe is wrong.

It is true that an electric car has a higher carbon footprint in manufacture – batteries are energy intensive to create. What is also true, is that at the moment, even while giving fossil fuel cars every advantage possible (most calculations of their emissions treats petrol as though it appears on the side of the road, and ignores the extraction refining and transport which can as much as triple the carbon emissions for a tank of fuel) an electric car saves more carbon than the extra that it emits in manufacturing within the first 5000-10000 miles.

Now to put this in context, Exxon is listed in the top 10 on this list! Apparently, having concrete ideas on how to reduce your carbon footprint gets recognized but having already lowered it (and indeed the impact of your products reducing emissions by hundreds of tonnes over their lifetime is ignored).

Now, just to push the point home, Ark invest founder Cathie Woods slammed this removal. Cathie Woods is not only seen as incredibly effective an investment manager, but has been very clever in investing in clean companies. Indeed when asked for a quote she said “Ridiculous, not worthy of any other response”

Some commentators have suggested that this is just the Index protecting itself – several oil companies and similar are high on the list; Tesla creates an existential risk to companies like this.

May 22, 2022June 28, 2022

One of the four remaining viable west African Lion habitat has been badly treated but perhaps it is now on the mend.

West African lions are heavily endangered with just 400 members remaining. While the west African population of the Asiatic lion is less at risk than the Gir forest population – being spread over 4 unconnected sites, it would be impossible for an epidemic to wipe out the whole population, or indeed some sort of freak flood or other dangerous weather.

The west and central African lion is close to extinction, however what is important is that despite living in Africa, this lion population is part of the Asiatic lion subspecies, and is not remotely the same as the eastern or southern lion, but is the same as the Indian lions and the now extinct Barbary lion

May 21, 2022June 28, 2022

Can the Malaysian tiger be saved?

If is easy to think that we should not be saving subspecies, but instead investing money in conserving other animals that are still threatened.

Unfortunately, this is the wrong way to look at it. Malaysia tigers only exist in a small strip between Malaysia and Thailand. The dense rainforest here has been standing in its current form for longer than the Amazon or the Congo.

In the 1950s there were 3000 tigers, yet in just 70 years this number has been reduced to just 200.

Subspecies are different – obviously, and their differences actually make a difference in the species survival, as well as its success. Introducing a subspecies from another area can have unexpected effects. If the subspecies is lost, then a different subspecies is likely to fill the niche better than none.

Tiger subspecies while extremely closely related, have evolved for millennia to be suited to their environment. If we take this to its extreme can you imagine reintroducing Sumatran tigers into the frozen wastelands of Siberia? The Amur tiger can measure 3m from head to end of tail, where as a Sumatran tiger only measures 2.4m

My feeling is that we should be moving from concentrating on specific species to ecosystems. it is certainly harder to generate the interest, but by looking at it on the ecosystem level we recognize that we need the apex predators for that ecosystem – whether they are a subspecies version of the tiger leopard or something else.

May 19, 2022June 28, 2022

Wolf encounter in France (not mine unfortunately)

I have had an encounter with a wolf – perhaps 100m distant, and no reaction to my presence. I have also watched a wolf from the safety of a bear hide. I have even listened to the eery sound of a wolf howl, both within an English zoo (late at night) and more excitingly from all around when trying to see wolves on the edge of the Sierra de Culebra in Spain. Annoyingly, although our guides howl was answered from 4 different locations, on that occasion the wolf did not allow us to see them at all.

In France, with a wolf population (as of 2021) of about 580, unless you know what you are doing, or are incredibly lucky you are unlikely to encounter a wolf. Indeed even wildlife guides working in nature reserves do not normally see wolves every day. Here I will recount an encounter someone had in France.

May 16, 2022June 28, 2022

200 “Carbon bombs” are in the planning. What are they and can we survive them?

A carbon bomb is defined as a project (mine, oil well or similar) which if allowed to go ahead will emit 1 billion tonnes of carbon over its lifetime. A guardian analysis suggests that there are around 200 of these so called carbon bomb mega projects around the world. This is the equivalent of 18 years of total global emissions.

Despite what we know about the effects, there are still 200 “carbon bomb” plans in the pipeline

May 15, 2022October 21, 2023

Species Watch: Cross river gorilla and western lowland gorilla

The cross River gorilla (picture above) is a critically endangered subspecies of the Western lowland gorilla species. The cross River gorilla are scattered in at least 11 groups across the lowland montane forests and rainforests of Cameroon and Nigeria, an area of 3,000 square miles, or a little smaller than Puerto Rico. There are only 200-300 that remain of this subspecies.While there are some physical traits that are different between these species, the cross River gorilla has become a Highland specialist. Although known to have interbred in the past, genetic analysis suggests this stopped more than 400 years ago. Changes in climate may well have been the catalyst to stop the interbreeding.

In this way, the cross River gorillas and the mountain gorillas have similar habits and ecosystem niches. In this way, it could be suggested that cross River gorillas are simply 50 years behind mountain gorillas in the sense that 40 years ago, there were only around 250 mountain gorillas – this population has increased to over 1000, so clearly it isn’t too late for the cross River gorillas numbers to recover.

Could a similar recovery take place? Perhaps following the pattern set up by Diane Fossey for tourism of the mountain gorillas, might work?

Western lowland gorillas have a wild population in a fast healthier position, with an estimated 100,000 remaining. Unfortunately though, this is a very tough estimate as they live in some of the hardest to reach jungles so an accurate count is hard. It is however, thought that this gorilla population has seen a 60% reduction over the last 10-25 years. It is thought that if the pressures of placing and diseases were removed this population would recover in about 75 years (of course these pressures are unlikely to disappear, and with the loss of rainforest there may be nowhere for these gorillas to live if they did recover.

Western lowland gorillas are closely related to cross river gorillas, in the same way that eastern lowland gorillas are closely related to mountain gorillas. However, retaining these different subspecies is highly important as they are adapted to the different conditions where they live.

It is unfortunate that there is little positive news on either of these species at the current time, but many people are working on it.

May 11, 2022June 28, 2022

Species watch

I am intending to make this into a new set of articles that will appear on this website. Obviously, these species will not be the only ones that are covered – for those who read this website regularly, you will know that I talk about a wide range of species.

The species that I am going to look at are those which often attract visitors to see just them. With the majority of the species we will follow they are found across a surprisingly large number of countries – some however are as interesting but are found in only one country. In each instance we will look at an entire group of species that look similar. However, due to the differences in these many different countries, these species can be thriving in one country and threatened with local extinction in another. As a result it is important to give this more focus.

These articles will be marked by SW

Those species that I will initially focus on include:

Continue reading “Species watch”

May 10, 2022June 28, 2022

Visit to local zoo, one that I know very well – Marwell zoo

If you live in the UK, there is relatively little wildlife to watch (when compared to somewhere like South Africa), which is why zoos are often such popular places.

As people have come to have better thoughts about keeping animals in zoos, these places have greatly improved. Long gone is enclosures such as “bear pits”. Now zoos give the animal relatively large enclosures with (as much as possible) plants and other items that make the area similar to the animals wild habitat. Also a great deal of progress has been made in understanding the various conditions that are required in order to make the animals happy enough to breed.

I have, in the past, been a wildlife educator at the zoo. This has consisted of me visiting the zoo a few times each month, and spending a few hours beside specific animals. I am there to engage visitors – in some cases help them see the animal, as well as talking about its wild habitat and the threats that the animal faces to its ongoing survival. Due to covid, this has been impossible in the last few years.

Marwell zoo has been particularly good on its big cats. Unfortunately since our last visit, they have lost their Amur leopards and their cheetah – however, as with both of these, the animals were old, and the zoo is perfectly set up for breeding of these species, therefore if new cheetah or Amur leopards arrive this can continue. One of the main ways that these zoos can work in this way, is to have two enclosures next to each other, this allows the connecting gate to be opened or closed depending on circumstances, allowing male and female to spend times apart and together – as close to mirroring how they would behave in the wild as possible.

The Amur leopard is a stunning animal and with its wild population being so threatened (a superb decade has allowed the population to grow back above 100 (WWF estimates that there are now about 100 wild adult Amur leopards) from a population of as few as 20 adults at the turn of the century. As such breeding is essential, and I hope that in the long run, the zoo can have similar success with another pair. Cheetah, while less endangered overall (though the Saharan cheetah and the Iranian cheetah are both this endangered) is famously hard to breed, so we can only hope that in the future cheetah will once again live in this place.

When visiting a zoo, I like to go on a very quiet day, as the animals tend to behave more naturally so I like to go outside weekends. However with children that is not currently possible due to school. Nevertheless we had a lovely day, and despite the missing wildlife saw many lovely things.

Whether you believe that animals should ever be caged or not, it should be clear to everyone that at the current time, without zoos many species might well be lost from the world. It is also true that many zoos do essential work in the wild to conserve remaining wilderness.

April 28, 2022June 28, 2022

Looking at the capability of the world being powered from solar or wind

The sun sends 470 exajoules of energy to the earth every 88 minutes. This is how much energy the earth uses each year. If we captured just 1% of the sun’s energy this would still give a 6 times more electricity than we need.

In a similar vein, if wind turbines collected just 20% of the wind energy on earth this would be 8 times what the entire world uses each year.

In terms of area, to generate all the power that the earth needs (using current efficiency) we would need roughly 1 million square km or about 11% of the Sahara desert. Obviously, this is an oversimplification, but it shows that the world is more than capable of running on clean energy.

The energy is there to be used, we just need to undertake it at speed. Vested interests in fossil fuel companies have fought aggressively against this move for decades. Their time must be over, the world can and must clean up its act.

April 26, 2022June 28, 2022

Bwindi impenetrable forest threatened by road plans

Ugandan authorities are considering two roads that will pass through Bwindi. These roads are likely to have two devastating impacts.

Currently this forest consists of unbroken forest – but will it?

Firstly, these roads are likely to splinter the park from the connected park across the border in the DCR. As with the proposed Serengeti road, neither side of the road is big enough for large ecosystems to survive long term, therefore you are threatening one of the biggest draws of tourists to the country – these tourists if well managed bring the means to pull millions out of poverty.

If these roads go ahead, then much damage will be done. Of greatest concern is a road that would run north to south in the far west of park, cutting the park off from its sister reserves across the border in the DRC. This could well lead the the rapid loss of the mountain gorilla population

The other problem is that roads ease the progress of poachers deep into the park. It has regularly been shown that a road is often the easiest way to remove the wildlife that lives in an area.