Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking
Raccoon dogs, a species from Asia, have been found living wild in the UK in recent times.
Despite being a dangerous animal, likely to attack humans, up until early last year they were bred in the UK as pets. Thankfully now only existing animals can be sold, they cannot be bred.
They are capable of doing significant damage to the British countryside and any sighting should be reported.
A met office map showed a swarm of ants on its weather predictions because the size of it was so large it looks like cloud. Measuring around 50 miles across over Kent and Sussex, it’s not surprising it was mistaken for a weather event.
It’s not the first time that something like this has happened, but it is still amusing to see insects appearing on weather maps.
While coronavirus is unlikely to decimate wildlife populations, a lack of rangers and guards stopping the killing of recovering species could undo 50 years of work.
Without guards and rangers, a couple of months in the Kruger uncontested by a rhino poaching gang, could see the world losing thousands on rhino.
Continue reading “There are big concerns about the effect of coronavirus on wild populations”Despite rules to the country, and constant promises by the Brazilian government, fires continue to burn across the Amazon. More importantly, the majority of these fires appear to have been set deliberately to clear land rather than as natural events.
It is not surprising that this has carried on, as as although Jair Bolsonaro’s government is pushing this rule against burning, his own actions have demonstrated his opposition to this rule constantly.
Continue reading “Fires rage across the Amazon”Wild boar are highly intelligent aggressive members of the pig family. Once common within the UK, they were eradicated about 300 years ago. However in the last 40-50 years people have started farming them, in the UK, as animals to be used for their meat.
The biggest glacier in Antarctica covers 74,000 square miles, about the size of the UK. This glacier contains enough frozen water to raise sea levels worldwide by 2 to 3 meters.
Construction on the longest under water high voltage cable in the world is about to begin. Due for completion in 2023, this cable will run from Denmark to the UK covering 475 miles. It will leave Denmark in Revsing, and make landfall in UK in Lincolnshire.
This this cable will have the capacity to power 1.5 million houses, which given that there is currently just under 30 million houses in the UK this would account for roughly 5% of domestic electricity necessary to go carbon neutral.
Continue reading “What if the renewable power generation opportunity is not where the electricity is needed?”The Knepp estate in Sussex has been done for its rewilding work for many years. In January this year British government gave the estate a licence to release beavers into an enclosed area.
In the not too distant past European bison were part of the British ecosystem. With the ability to browse trees and therefore to halt there expansion, and highly important ecosystem engineers in the same way that beavers are.
The plan is to initially release a male and two or three females into a small enclosures in Kent, however there is a bigger area into which people would be allowed to walk that they would be released into as their numbers increase. Furthermore the idea would be that over time as they reproduce bison would be reintroduced to other parts of the UK from this founding herd.
While bison are not predators this would be one of the bigger reintroductions to happen in the UK ever if it was allowed to proceed fully.
They would likely be highly beneficial to all sorts of areas of the UK, both in terms of their tourism and the the services they would offer to the local environment.
We will have to watch this space to see if this is actually allowed to go ahead fully.
South Africa is home to a large number of wonderful wildlife. One of the things that was most well known for its great white sharks. Big draw as being the shark boats which go out with a cage attached to the side and then tourists are able to get into the cage so as to get up and close to the great white sharks while safe.
