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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.
Seemingly, often as a result of mapping issues (though this may not have been accidental) Unesco sites and land mapped as Orangutan habitat have been turned into plantations.
The idea that 1/5 of the plantations fall into this category is hard to explain – not surprisingly this is explicitly illegal.
It is a huge threat to a species if it is only found in one reserve. This I believe is common sense, and not hard to explain. If all the remaining members of a species live in one place, an unexpected event could wipe out the entire population.
The UK has had a problem with bovine TB for years. The problem has continued to be that many cattle are lost each year.
Badgers are blamed for carrying the infection between fields. It has been pointed out that cows are often not checked when bought or sold, and that the spread of the illness can often be attributed to this. Never-the-less, the British government has steadfastly continued on this plan for a very long time.
Continue reading “Despite all the evidence, the government is determined to placate farmers by killing a further 60,000 badgers and for what”Across much of the world where species are at risk of extinction there is an exploding human population. From Africa with rapidly growing populations in the east west and south, to Asia with growing populations in almost all countries, the biggest threat to the continued survival of wild species is the loss of habitat.
The thing is, that a rapidly growing population is generally an issue in countries which are poor. The reason for this is that they have lower standards of healthcare, and therefore less family planning.
As such, if the government were to set up a project which spend a couple of million educating educators in 50 countries across the third world, and supported the resulting work, the growth of the populations in these countries could slow or even stop and go into reverse. This would allow the standard of living to increase again.
Alongside these benefits, would be lower pressures on the wealth of biodiversity which so much of these countries economy is based around.
Importantly, this would be likely to have far more impact than it would cost.
Chartwell lectures needs to be careful. If it regularly hosts people like Matt Ridley and allows him to argue that there are more good impacts from global warming than bad, they are likely to lose their following.
In his lecture he identified the following positive outcomes of global warming, I will take each one and respond
Fewer winter deaths: it is true, that warmer winters could lead to fewer deaths. Unfortunately what has been shown so far, is that global warming makes the climate more changeable. As such, while as an average winters get milder there are more extreme cold periods. This inconsistency far from reducing deaths as is posited, is likely to increase deaths due to cold weather.
An increase in global plant growth: This is not as simple as made out. The accompanying increase in temperature is often a bigger impact on the plant – and in most tests, it has been shown that increasing carbon levels while initially having a surge of growth do not increase output permanently.
Fewer deaths from extreme weather: this is closely related to the first, and it is not true.
He then has the nerve to suggest that blame mainstream media from cherry picking.
It is alarming that these stupid views are still being given the space to be spouted. I hope that space for views like this are pushed out soon, as they are not true.
Declared extinct in 2003, recent genetic analysis shows that the Caspian and Amur tiger are so similar that they cannot be declared as sub species. As such, if the Amur tiger population continues to reboand it would be possible to translocate members west to restart the Caspian tiger population.
This should not be done though until the Amur tiger population is more stable.
Komodo dragons are the largest lizard that survives. Unfortunately, as they are found only on a series of islands amongst the Indonesia archipelago, sea level rise can quickly rob them of prime habitat.
As a result of this, they have been moved from vulnerable to endangered.
At the beginning of the year, a census showed that the population of wolves in Norway was about 81. This (you would think) is a population way to small to need a cull. Indeed at this population, you would think that even for trophy hunting, if you hope to be able to sell hunting permits again should be kept to single digits. In the Sierra de culebra is a hunting reserve: this reserve hosts around 80 wolves, and they allow at most 10 wolves to be hunted each year.
Norway announced that it would allow 51 wolves to be shot – about 60% of the population. This is totally insane, and indeed, they were taken to court. What is more ridiculous, is that the wolves live within the “wolf zone” an area of nature set aside to protect the predators. In virtually every country in the world, the idea of killing animals in an area set aside for their survival seems counter-intuitive. This zone makes up 5% of the country.
The appeal was rejected, and over the weekend hunts went on. A total of 9 wolves were shot.
This is foolish for Norway’s global reputation, as well as being foolish in terms of managing the local ecosystem. Furthermore, while a small level of culling may be required to control predation of livestock, Norway is likely to be able to make a great deal of money from wolf tourism – many people visit the country to see the wonderful scenery, and the return of the wolf could have increased these wild tourism numbers
Unfortunately all three Nordic countries have similar plans, with Finland suspending plans to kill 3 packs of wolves just last month – citing European legislation.
Sweden has shot most of their annual quota of 27 wolves (this is the country in which I had the best view of a wolf, by chance while sitting in a bear hide).
Pressure on the Nordic nations should be brought to bare, to halt this unnecessary slaughter from being repeated