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Surprising buried comment in report from Trump administration

– on its current course the world will warm by 7 degrees by the end of the century.

Giving Trump’s determined assessment regularly spouted that climate change is a con thought up by the Chinese or various other groups, it seems odd the Trump’s administration published a report last month which, buried within its 500 pages, assumed there would be a 7 degrees Fahrenheit (about 4°C) rise in temperatures by the end of the century. Continue reading “Surprising buried comment in report from Trump administration”

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News in Brief – Beluga whale spotted in the Thames, Japanese knotweed invasion and Praying Mantises

Beluga whale spotted in the Thames

A Beluga whale, a species usually found in the arctic region, has been spotted in the Thames estuary a few miles from London. As the Thames is a river it is fresh water not salt and therefore not normally the place to find whales or dolphins. Furthermore until recently it was so dirty that none of these animals will come close. However in 2006 the northern bottlenose whale was sighted in the Thames unfortunately the animal died eventually. Continue reading “News in Brief – Beluga whale spotted in the Thames, Japanese knotweed invasion and Praying Mantises”

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India coordinating a hunt for a man eating tiger

Over the last two years a tiger in India has eaten 13 people. It is highly unlikely for a tiger to take to eating humans, but generally if one starts it needs to be removed from the wild. Due to the pressures on wildlife territories, and loss of surrounding lands, tigers are coming into contact with humans more often. This makes man eating far more likely. Continue reading “India coordinating a hunt for a man eating tiger”

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Wild trip to Sweden – Part Two – Bear watching

We first headed to the area north of Västerås which is prime bear territory. Despite their size and therefore presumed clumsiness, bears are astoundingly quiet when they wish to be.

That being said, an area inhabited by bears or wolves tends to be pretty wild, and so there tends to be a feeling about the area. In the UK there are few areas with low enough density to allow this to happen but in Europe that is different. Sweden accentuates this even more, as Sweden only had a population of just under 10 million spread out over a country the size of France. This means Sweden has a population density of 24 people per square km compared to UK 407 per square km. Continue reading “Wild trip to Sweden – Part Two – Bear watching”

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A palm oil company can’t control a subsidy? Don’t be ridiculous

Golden Agri Resources, a palm oil company based in Indonesia, has stated its subsidy in Liberia, Golden Veroleum Liberia, can’t be controlled, and that therefore they cannot have any responsibility for the behaviour of its subsidy. Now quite apart from the fact that many of these subsidies are only paper companies, many of them are directly controlled by the same board as its parent company.
In particular the Round table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) needs to tighter its rules. Golden Veroleum Liberia has been thrown out of the RSPO even though its parent company remains in. This makes a mockery of the organisation, as all a company has to do is set up a subsidy and it can behave badly, cutting down primary rainforest, stealing land and anything else that eases business.
Given the urgency, where such large amounts of the world’s remaining rainforests are being destroyed each year, we don’t have years to sort this. RSPO must grow some serious courage and live up to its founding ideals immediately. We are already seeing some people ceasing to trust the RSPO, and without dramatic action it will cease to have any point.

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More articles coming soon, just returned from holiday, children still at home

I just wanted to drop a personal note, to state that the blog has not been abandoned. We have just returned from a holiday in remote parts of Sweden and there will be a number of articles coming soon. Among other highlights we spent a night at the Bear hide and encountered a few wolves.

We are also working hard on starting to get up the first few nature reserves to allow this to become an encyclopaedia of such places. The intention is to have the ability to view and book as many reserves and wildlife related natural encounters as is possible, so to make wild travel in Africa and elsewhere simpler.

Assuming the website starts bringing in money in the near future, there are many plans about future travelling and other aspects of extending the website. However at the moment the majority of the travelling I do is with my family, and as such it should be noted that all encounters we had in Sweden had my daughter who is 5 and my son who is 3 in tow. They are interested in wildlife too and as such will this week, before they go back to school, be helping me put together some of the information from the reserve that we will be putting on this site in the near future.

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Obituary of Alan Rabinowitz

Photo: Kris Krüg

I don’t expect to write many obituaries but could not allow this passing to not be mentioned. Alan Rabinowitz worked for a number of different zoology institutes and other conservation bodies. He was exceptionally good at conservation of big cats. His study of jaguars in Belize led to the creation of the Cookscombe nature reserve (he tells the fascinating story of this project in the book “Jaguar”; as with many of the books I have mentioned it is out print, though can be bought from Amazon second hand). Continue reading “Obituary of Alan Rabinowitz”

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Ford mocked Tesla over 7000 cars made a week

Ford European CEO Mark Armstrong mocked Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk as he stated that they were managing to make 7000 cars a week. He pointed out that Ford makes about 7000 cars every four hours.

Well this may be very impressive to build so many, it should be pointed out that Ford, a company that is over a century old, had to be pushed into starting to make electric cars by companies such as Tesla (less than a decade old),  and will not start releasing their electric models until the early 2020s. Continue reading “Ford mocked Tesla over 7000 cars made a week”

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Animals can’t feel pain apparently – according to the Tories

The British government has an odd habit of throwing new laws that have nothing to do with the case in point on to laws being written. In this case the British government, going against all scientific understanding, have stated that all non human mammals have no emotions or feelings, including the ability to feel pain. In this case it has more to do with the bill being discussed than one would think, it is in line with the Brexit withdrawal bill as the move is to strip the phrase ‘sentient beings’ from European Animal Rights laws that are transferred from European to British law books. Continue reading “Animals can’t feel pain apparently – according to the Tories”

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