Category: Uncategorized

Government has recently designated extinction Rebellion on a list of organisations with extremist ideologies. While it is true that any group who spends their times complaining about things the government do can cause problems when they meet, to designate the group in organised crime group is absurd.

In a time when the entire world is more and more concerned about climate change and what we will be leaving for our future generations, the continued with extinction that humans are causing is of great concern. Indeed many of the mitigation features of earth that we are relying on, such as rain forests will not function properly if the extinctions are not stopped.

As I wrote recently, forest elephants are highly important ecosystem engineers,significant numbers of rainforests around the world that may collapse of forest elephants and other animals filling similar niches cease to exist in those places.

In the same way it is in theory possible for humans to do the pollination of flowers, it would be possible for humans to do the seed dispersal that elephants usually do. However should be an extremely expensive high man hour maintenance job, and would not work as efficiently anyway.

Extinction Rebellion, like the fight on climate change, have the ability to either allow us to leave a planet similar to the one we received for our children, or one that is barely possible to live on.

The government is certainly paid lip service to both of these issues. however they have certainly not put the full might of the British government behind it, case of extinction rebellion it is largely only been a few carefully times press releases that you can point at as showing their doing anything at all. these two issues are essential for the continued survival of our species in the lifestyle that we have become accustomed. 

The government has spent the last decade or so first saying that of course we must take care of these things but only after the financial crash has been rectified,how we can only do anything about it after the epidemic is fully over and the market has recovered. We simply don’t have the time to wait, the government must act now. If it doesn’t have the time itself, it must empower the foreign office, and British consular offices around the world to take the lead. These issues must be addressed now, there isn’t time to waste and the government must stop suggesting there is.

Cheetah are one of those species that have done rather badly over the last century. Back in 1900 there was around 100,000 cheetahs across Africa, now there is 7100.

Many people would argue that all species have suffered similar losses, but this isn’t true. For instance African lions numbered around 200,000 in 1900. They number now around 30,000 (in other words while lions have fallen to 15% of their former population, cheetah have fallen to 7%).

Part of the problem is that cheetah are incapable of defending themselves against the big cats, and as such in many small reserves there are few if any cheetah because they are enclosed into an area that is too small to give them the space to live away from the lions.

In theory cheetah can live relatively well outside protected areas, indeed many of the population do. However this raises its own problems-when living on smaller private areas of land often there is not the means to pass into the neighboring land to mate,this can quickly lead to small populations of cheated dying out.

Before this project started the only about 1300 cheetah in South Africa. So what did this project do? 

It is relatively simple in theory. If each population is not big enough to maintain a healthy genetic mix, there must be a regular exchange of cheetah between these reserves.

The population was treated as one large population, and then individuals were regularly trans-located between different reserves. The endangered wildlife trust pioneered this project,and made sure with the animals who were moved were genetically distinct from those they would meet in new place.

In fact this policy has been so incredibly successful, that they have started trans-locating cheetahs to other places outside South Africa.

When the project started, they looked at 41 different reserves which had a combined cheetah population 217. By moving them around carefully,  there are now 419 cheetah spread across 60 different reserves (a number that represents more than a third of  South Africa’s remaining cheetah).

Obviously the perfect situation for cheetah, would be to have the the incredibly large wild areas remaining that existed back in 1900, this is not going to happen. The only part of South Africa where cheetah roam free in a significant population, is the Kruger national park which generally has a population that bounces between about 50 and 350 depending on the populations of other animals.

However this is quite an exciting move. Cheetah numbers in southern Africa have fallen across the board. In Zimbabwe, cheetah numbers have crashed from 1,500 in 1975, to just 170 today. Botswana’s cheetah population has held steady at around 1,500 over the same period, but illegal capture for captive breeding and conflicts with farmers and the growing human population are increasing. In Namibia, there were an estimated 3,000 cheetah in in 1975; roughly 1,400 remain today.

If these other countries can follow a similar translocation program to South Africa, and have a similar impact of doubling their number in the African cheetah numbers would go back up above 10,000 within the next decade.

There are several things that should be noted about cheetah. They almost never have any danger to human life, even coming across a young child unaccompanied they are unlikely to harm it. Generally areas that have animals such as cheetah reintroduced also find there is a knock-on impact on the conservation of other animals such as the big five-therefore quite apart from cheetah being one of the animals people like to see, it is also good for general conservation in the area. 

While not suitable on all farming land,cheetah can exist relatively happily along set and types of livestock, and certainly when growing crops. The advantage of having cheetah living on land with crops growing, is that they keep all the pests under control, happly eating mice and rats as well as various antelope species that still exist in these areas.

This project is clearly worth watching. The endangered wildlife trust, with this plan could potentially help the cheetah in southern Africa recover over the next decade, and then perhaps moved to parts of east and west Africa where’s cheetahs are even more threatened. I will try to keep you informed on this website, though if I miss anything feel free to message the article you found.

There has been an increasing moved to deny science for a number of years, particularly in right wing governments. for big examples you need to look no further than Donald Trump in the USA and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

I wrote recently about a suggestion that as we exit Coronavirus issues we invest around 50 billion a year, into reforestation biodiversity loss correction and and a network of observers to give us early warning of a future epidemic.

David Attenborough and 130 other people who are backing his suggestion, is calling for a 10 times higher investment each year in conservation. The call all is led by flora and fauna international.

Currently the world is the what to spend about 50 billion annually on on the natural world. While the original suggestion would have targeted the money to a a small number of targets, there’s still hopefully having a big impact, this new plan would require a step change. 

The the huge amount of money that has been suggested, would be more than available if countries around the world shifted funding from fossil fuels to the natural world. 

We know worldwide that fossil fuels must be abandoned if the world is to not warm to an unacceptable degree. While there is still a ridiculously high number of people who argue about this we cannot afford to wait.

The fact that country still feel it’s acceptable to elect people who ignore science like Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, cannot be an excuse anymore.

The price to do something will only get worse as time passes, as the longer we leave it the faster we will have to act when we do.

My hope, is that with these two calls only a weeks apart, government’s around the world realize then action must be taken now. Whether we managed to raise the upper levels how to invest in the natural world or we stop at the absolute bottom end, we must do something, and if we only created an epidemic warning system we would be missing a chance to make a significant change that will be good for our children and descendants after then

I live in England, which is one of the reasons why why I write about English politics reasonably often. This blog being about wildlife, the only politics that concern me is is environmental and science based.

I realize that some of my readers have from other countries in the world, an England is a small country in a large world. Indeed England only has around 1% of the world’s population-and while we emit far more carbon dioxide in the average, we are far less bad on this front than many other countries. However there have been some very stupid decisions made in recent years, particularly in areas such as as a rooftop solar.

Generally the only other countries that I write regularly about the politics, are Brazil and the USA. This is for a very serious reason, something that I hope to cease to be in the near future. These two countries have presidents who have proved to be totally anti-science, and against trying to fight climate change. In Brazil’s case, this is largely due to the destruction of the rain forest.

However in America, it is because of climate science denialism amongst the republicans who currently control both the presidency and the senate.

It will be a few years before Brazil can course correct and unfortunately despite a recent study working out that Brazil and the USA join only India in the top 3 countries in terms of financial impact from global warming. It is hard to tell what is going on in Brazil as bolsonaro does a good job of drowning out other voices.

Thankfully that is not the case in America. As things currently stand Biden is thought to be around 14 send ahead. Even ways the advantage that the the electoral college gives republicans, this is likely to lead to a huge advantage to democrats, which hopefully will give them the ability to course correct,and move the USA from being a climate change pariah back to a country fighting for the future of humanity.

So why do I look at these countries when thinking about the survival of wildlife? Unfortunately it is a simple fact that in jungles around the world can only exist in a relatively stable environment. As we heat the atmosphere these jungles dry out, which unfortunately leads to them being far more flammable.

What is foolish is that while making these adjustments to fight climate change is expensive they’re likely to lead to a better world for us (particularly in healthy breathing air) as well.

It is a simple fact that because countries of the world the run by governments politics is always going to come in to the preservation of wilderness and wildlife and saving endangered species. This means that we must be up on our information, about what is happening in-country governments far from our own. I will endeavour to fill you in on occasions when something is particularly concerning me. I hope that this concern is is shared and that therefore these articles are of use to my readers in the UK and around the world.

For now most of us can simply hope that sense will prevail in the States. There are many people who love Trump, there are many people who hate Trump. While there are indeed many decisions he’s made strike me as illogical, my biggest concern if he got a second term, would be that America joining the fight against global warming would be pushed off for a further 4 years (a timescale that may well make stopping the damage almost impossible), as well as a disgusting disregard for the the critically endangered status they are pushing many animals into.

I will continue to write about politics in countries which emit significant quantities of carbon for two reasons. the first group are countries in the west such as the USA which emit far more carbon per person than any other country on earth, and countries such as china whose emissions are catching up fast. The other group of countries whose politics should concern us is those who currently have large areas of rain forests- supporting these countries and assisting in not deforesting are essential if we are to not face run away global warming.

A medium-sized average new car now costs between £20,000 and £35,000. Bearing in mind gas cars are replaced on average every 8 years, while it is expected replacement rate for electric cars will be nearer to 15 (they simply last longer), so we are actually talking £40,000 to £70,000. the average family car will need between 1000 and 2000 pounds of petrol a year, let’s say 1500 (£22,500 over 15 years).

So if we add this up we are talking somewhere between  £62,500 and £90,000.

I’m going to make a few assumptions to simplify this calculation. Generally electric cars are more expensive to to insure, the cost of maintenance is significantly less. As such over the timescale I am going to assume that insurance plus upkeep is roughly the same between the two vehicle types (as insurance companies get used to electric cars the price disparity on this front is likely to reduce, however the maintenance savings of an internal combustion engine will not change,this is likely to become a further saving in the future).

Now looking at electric cars, Tesla 3 and y both come in at around £50,000, there are far cheaper electric cars but let’s use this number as a start. A full charge of a Tesla 3 or y from home costs around £5, so over 15 years this is going to be out of £6250. It’s means that with the cheapest internal combustion engine you are looking as a saving of £5000 over 15 years. With a more expensive car the numbers become even more in your favour.

Having already shown that electric car will save money, there are actually several ways to reduce this further.

If you install solar panels you can essentially drive for free (minus the cost of installation). This does also not take into account the facts that as electric cars come in automation is also arriving. If you pay for full self-driving in your car, in the future it may well be able to earn you money while you sleep acting as an autonomous taxi.

I hope over these two articles I have shown that from the practical driving point of view and the financial point of view, the sensible car is already electric. Adding in the fact that this allows you just stop adding to the carbon emissions by driving your car and therefore a helping keep emissions below acceptable levels and the choice really is clear (though of course without affordable finance this may become irrelevant for most people, as they can’t afford to pay so much of their are driving costs upfront).

There has recently been a large amount of coverage about a new documentary, made by David Attenborough, called ‘extinction: the facts’

Prince William sat down with his family to watch it, but he ended up turning it off because Prince George was becoming so distressed. The royal family have an incredible opportunity to fight for the wilderness and wild animals of our planet, so it is encouraging that this will likely continue with the next generation.

The simple fact of the matter is, there is no other logical response: it is devastating what humanity is doing to the natural world. Furthermore if we survive the damage that we are are causing to the planet we will have to spend billions or trillions a year doing things that nature used to do for us.

Indeed we are already looking at a world, where many of the creatures we can see in zoos are coming close to disappearing from their wild habitats.

See my little coming soon on the decline in the 4 biggest cats in the world, for example.

There are already many species that now only exist in captivity.

Frankly, prince George’s reaction is the only logical reaction to take. Looking at programs like zoo quest from 60 + years ago, show a world that likely won’t exist again. I find it depressing, and I show my children wildlife and wilderness as often as I can afford to encourage their love of it and desire to protect it for their children and grandchildren.

A team have driven from the southwest tip of Cornwall to the most northern point of Scotland in a Tesla model 3. One of the arguments against electric cars is that they take too long to recharge. Despite more than 90% of the average drivers journey being easily short enough to be done without fully depleting the battery,everyone seems to worry about the one or two trips a year that go long-distance and how it won’t be possible. 

I have not yet had the money to upgrade to electric, however this is an issue that will affect us. Most populations of wild animals live a significant distance from the UK, for a car to be able to suit our needs, these set of journeys need to be commonplace.

In this case the journey was 1367 kilometres (850 miles) which is far more that can be done on one charge of the batteries. The team spent 1 hour, 31 minutes and 32 second charging on the route, easily breaking the previous record by more than 2 hours.

850 miles driven non-stop at 70 miles an hour will take more than 12 hours. Over this time scale, even with two of you alternating driving, you are likely to wish to stop for an hour and a half or so over the journey, between food and toilet breaks.

In other words with a huge advance in charging speeds that the Tesla 3 and y get with the version 3 superchargers, recharging is no longer the thing that slows you down-instead it is the humans in the car.

In other words, there is now essentially no reason to stop you buying an electric car. It will be able to do anything that you wish it too. I will look at the finance comparison in a separate article

Ever since electric cars started to go more mainstream there has been a desperate attempt by the internal combustion engine car producers to knockdown the green credentials of these cars.

APP or Asian pulp and paper have been responsible for much of the deforestation in Indonesia over the last few decades. The clearing began back in August 2018 and has continued to June this year, there was also burning in this concession, yet Asian pulp and paper has promised two-phase both out of there are own concessions and those they buy wood from.