Big cats have a range of colours that they can be found in. It is certainly true that their standard colour is more common, but in different parts of their range other colourings might be more helpful. For instance, an Amur tiger that was white may find it easier to creep up on its prey.
A black tiger photographed in the wild
On the Malay peninsular, as much as half of the leopards are black, as this gives them an advantage.
In this case, a black tiger was photographed. The animals was not entirely black, but having far wider stripes, its back looks more black with yellow stripes rather than the other way round. Fewer animals are taken out of the wild than in the past, when an animal like this would likely have been caught and sold to a zoo for many times the price that tigers normally fetch – as this tiger will increase visitor numbers.
Researchers looking at the Antarctic sea floor, have discovered a vast and completely unprecedented colony of ice fish. Consisting of as much as 60 million individual nests, they were spread out over an area of the floor similar to the size of London.
Before this discovery, the biggest colony contained just 60 nests. This area was first looked at, because a natural upwelling of water from the depths, means that the temperature here is usually about 2 degrees above the surrounding area. It is thought that the Wendell sea (where this colony was discovered) is likely to have an ecosystem that relies in some way on these fish.
It is astounding to find such a large thriving species in the wild, and shows that there is still we know very little about.
Late last year, the oldest of the two remaining northern white rhino was retired from the breeding programme. This just leaves her daughter as the only egg donor in the embryo implantation scheme.
There are now no remaining male northern white rhino and only 2 females. As a result, the idea has been for some time, to get embryos from the few remaining members and implant them into similar rhino species.
Roaming in reasonable numbers just 40 years ago, they suffered due to poaching for their horn.
Currently there are 12 healthy embryos ready for implantation, so there is still hope that the northern white rhino could rise from the ashes and go back to filling its important niche. Unfortunately there is still much work to do before we can reach that stage.
Do elephants need tusks? It is a big question. Given the fact that they have them would suggest that they do have a purpose and therefore that life without them may be harder.
In Gorogosa national park in Mozambique, tuskless females became more common after ivory poaching become common during their 15 year civil war.
A natural evolution -due to our habit of hunting elephants with the biggest tusks increasing numbers are being born without
Being born tuskless, is not an unnatural affair. Indeed, some females have always been missing tusks. However, during the war 90% of the parks elephants were poached. If an elephant is chosen for its tusks over a period of 15 years, this gives elephants born tuskless a significant advantage. Importantly, with a death rate of 90% even if the tusks make life easier in some way, they are still going to loose them.
Elephants are dangerous animals that need to be treated with respect at the best of times. They can do much damage with their trunks and likewise throwing their weight around can easily overturn a car, As a result, while loss of tusks may be an impediment (and would appear to be so, as post poaching periods tusks usually return) it is clearly not a death sentence – and as in these periods, having tusks IS, it is not surprising that the few born without rapidly come to dominate the population.
Around the planet, humans kill vast numbers of wildlife and we have pushed many to extinction.
Something we need to remember, is that we are not the only dangerous thing on earth. We need to allow each species to be able to cope with natural deaths that occur from elsewhere.
This event from a few months ago is a case in point. African penguins and African bees are both native species. It is unclear as to what caused this mass stinging event, but it is thought to be a fluke and not likely to be repeated.
While not thought of as an African species, penguins to still live in South Africa,
There are only thought to be a little more than 10,000 penguins left in South Africa, so we must watch that this does not become common, as it could push an already stressed population out of existence.
The Sahara desert looks about a desolate a place as it is possible to find. Indeed, it is so unpleasant a place to live, that few forms of wildlife can live anywhere but around the perimeter. However, it would appear that this was not the case.
There are various wind currents which carry moisture around the planet. It is unknown why these shift from time to time, but it would appear that one such current used to bring plentiful rain to the Sahara.
Looking at it now, it is hard to believe that this area so harsh to life, might once have been a rainforest. The climate is so incredibly predictable here, it is hard to believe that it was not always like this.
Indeed, there have been cave paintings found in the area, depicting savannah animals including water loving animals such as crocodiles and hippos.
At the moment, it is unclear what caused these ‘rivers in the sky’ to shift so much, but we must recognize that should it happen again, humanity may well have little ability to do anything about it.
Nigeria was once a wildlife rich country. Unfortunately as a country whose population has soared over the last few decades much of the wilderness has been lost.
Afi River forest reserve in the eastern Nigeria cross river state is an forest corridor which connects small fragments of remaining gorilla habitat. However, this may well cease to be the case in the near future, as satellite data has shown significant deforestation in this area. The problem with forest corridors, is that they do not tend to be particularly wide – which means relatively small levels of deforestation can disconnect one end from the other.
These animals are important for the functioning of the local ecosystem, as well as having the ability to attract enough tourists to greatly benefit the local population – if habitat loss can be haltedContinue reading “Are the days of the Nigerian gorilla numbered?”
The UK has plans to start reintroducing bison to the UK. While this is very exciting, these are large animals and when they are allowed to roam free they could hurt humans. This is highly unlikely for any one individual, but may occasionally cause significant injury when looked at as a whole.
European bison are large animals, far bigger than anything else currently found in the UK
Why do I bring this up? The main reason that wolves have not been reintroduced to the UK, is human fears. It is true that we would likely suffer low levels of predation of livestock, yet the main fear is of attacks on humans. While wolves can act aggressively towards humans on occasion, injury to the human is incredibly rare (the wolf will almost always run before the human gets close enough to be at risk).
Lynx is an even easier animal to suggest. There are no fatal attacks on humans as far as I’m aware, and as forest specialists they are even less likely to take sheep and wolves. What’s more, while a large links watching industry is likely to Spring up, these animals are incredibly hard to see. This means that without going to extreme lengths people are unlikely to encounter them and therefore be scared by them.
Beavers have been given the right to remain. Indeed genetically correct beavers (i.e. European beavers) are multiplying rapidly, and gradually spreading out from where they were first discovered on the River Otter in Devon, with the population thought to number at least 300-500. These animals are being reintroduced all over the place. The Tayside population in Scotland is thought number at least 1000 animals and these is spread across a large part of Scotland though they still have a long way to go. Beavers however, rarely threaten human life and while they can do some damage are easier to accept.
It’s thought that the UK population of boar number at least 4000, with between 1/3 and 1/2 of these living in the forest of Dean. A pair of boar can have as many as 30 offspring in one season- meaning that without regular culling the population could very rapidly explode. They are having very positive effects on woodlands in the areas that they exist, and my hope is that some of the animals could be moved rather than being shot. Boar unlike beavers can certainly be a threat to humans, though again will only hurt people when they feel threatened.
Other species like bears have had trials done, and likely would be far easier than lynx or wolves to live alongside. This is because as omnivores bears spend much of the year eating vegetation. It is true that some bears take to eating many sheep, but this is not common, and it is entirely possible to cull or move animals that take out this habit. Bears could also create vast tourism in areas that they live.
Animals such as pine martens should be given a helping hand. Locally extinct across much of the UK, they should be reintroduced to woodlands up and down the country. Apart from restoring a native mammal, the grey squirrel – an invasive animal which does much more financial damage each year than the pinemartin ever has, would be rapidly removed, this in turn could allow the red squirrel to start to repopulate the UK
I hope that by 2050 all these animals have thriving populations in the UK. If this was the case, then we would have rebalanced the natural world in the UK allowing it to thrive in a way that it hasn’t for centuries. Of course with precious little remaining wilderness we may find that we do not have space for anything more than a handful of some of these species. I believe even this would be of use.
Australia seems to have a group of politicians that are totally anti renewable. Australia is perfectly situated to use renewable resources for all their power. When Keith Pitt was asked if he still believed renewables didn’t work – he gave this ridiculous statement. The junior partner in the government is demanding they work towards zero carbon by 2050.
The Shellys Eagle Owl was last seen in the wild back in 1870. There is only thought to be a few thousand left (though obviously this is higher than we originally thought.). Estimates put the population between 1500-1700 though other estimates could see a population as high as 10,000. The bird was only seen for about 15 seconds, but enough photos were taken to make a positive identification. First identified in 1872 and a specimen was collected for the Natural history museum in London, from a hunter in Ghana. There have been occasional unconfirmed sightings in central and west Africa over the last few decades.
The birds discovery in the Atewa Forest has lead to it being given protection.
