Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking
In the West, the idea of living alongside lion or leopard might be terrifying, but for many people in parts of Africa and Asia it’s just a way of life.
In many parts of India, the tiger reserves are far too small. If the tigers would just stay in their own reserves, without human intervention the population will fall rapidly as a lack of genetic variability I will leave the population incapable fighting off illness.
Back in 2010 the world’s tiger countries came together for a conference and declared a goal that by the next year of the tiger (falling in 2022) they would aid to have doubled the population of wild living tigers.
This was a hugely ambitious target and as you can imagine results have been decidedly mixed.
Continue reading “India’s tiger population has doubled in 12 years but other countries have not done so well”In the wild there are 8 pangolin species, 4 in Asia and 4 in Africa. The country you that is best known for using pangolin scales in ancient history is China, and while these days officially this no longer happens there is still a large portion of the wealthy elite who has until recently continued to use it. Doesn’t it seem weird that a family of animals called pangolins, until recently largely unknown in the West, could be push towards extinction for medicine that has been shown time and again to do nothing at all.
These 14 countries have promised to do a number of things, which combined should lead to our fish populations being in the far better health.
They include
1 Ending Over-fishing
2 Restoring fishing stocks
3 Halting the flow of plastic into our oceans
One of the main ways they will hold the overfishing, is by ceasing to pay subsidies two companies for their over fishing practices (it seems odd any countries doing this in the first place).
They have also promised that by 2025 and these practices in their own area of sea that they control. Despite only being 14 countries, these areas of jurisdiction, add up to an area of see the size of Africa.
Researchers have found that sustainably managed oceans could provide up to 6 times as much food as they currently do. They have also found,perhaps as you’d expect given the above, that for every dollar invested in making the oceans more sustainable, pay back in environmental social and health is around $5.
It was also pointed out that one fifth of the carbon reductions needed by the human race, could come from the sea. This would be both by direct carbon capture, for instance as whales grow, and on death they will often carry the carbon down to the sea where it can be buried by sediment.However the scene naturally also absorbs carbon, and of course worldwide we could erect hundreds of millions of wind turbines, allowing the world to run on carbon free electricity.
This is an encouraging pledge, but we must keep these countries paying attention and make sure they fulfill their promise.
I have some wonderful wild pictures. Indeed, when the shop on this site is reformed, I hope to list some of them. I have a reasonably good camera and when this website starts generating some revenue, I would like to buy a better one.
However, I don’t think I would ever consider myself as wildlife photographer. When I have the animals in front of me of course I want to get good shots of them, however for me it is more important to experience that moment with them.
Continue reading “Wildlife photographer vs wildlife watcher”According to various survey done only in the last 2 years, there is still in astounding array of misunderstanding.
A British survey conducted in 2018 found that 42% of participants thought that you couldn’t drive a battery electric vehicle through a car wash, an alarming statistic given that by 2030 Boris Johnson the current prime minister of Britain has said that fossil fuel cars will be banned from sale – in 10 years the British government must not only ban fossil fuel cars, but convince the British public that the electric car is going to be able to cope with a simple things that’s being driven through a car wash (though I person who finds this statistic alarming, why wouldn’t you- it is after all all, an item designed to live outside).
Continue reading “False beliefs about electric cars”Apologies for the pause in articles going up, I have been concentrating on creating a wildlife sightings board. This should be able to go up in the next week or so.
Obviously, we will hide any sightings that become necessary if poaching becomes an issue once again.
The idea of the Sightings map, is to give everyone the knowledge that the wildlife guides have. By looking at where specific animals have been spotted in the past, you can get an understanding of their usual movements and make sure you are looking in the right place.
The first Live sightings board will be for the Limpopo transfrontier part of Kruger Mozambique and Zimbabwe. When it is safe for travel to resume, I have also listed a number of places to stay within this vast ecosystem. I hope to add to this list over time.
I am hoping that sightings maps will become standard on all destinations – so long as poaching isn’t an issue. I am also intending to extend this to in the shadow of man locations, though in these places the map will likely be behind a pay wall. While this will not be a big fee, as anyone can enter these areas, I do not want the maps to become a way for wildlife to be bothered
Across Europe during the middle ages beavers were heavily persecuted. Between the demand for their pelts and scent glands, and the flooding may caused, they were hunted for the financial incentives or merely for the problems they caused.
The problem is that rapidly it becomes apparent the good they did in the places that they have been lost from. Flash floods become far more common, and other times of the year droughts. Water quality reduces dramatically, and biodiversity along the riverbank is harmed.
Continue reading “European beaver numbers now above 1 million growing across Europe”An analysis of the effect of the current Paris climate pledges, run through climate models suggest we are in line for a temperature rise of just 2.1 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Continue reading “Optimism on the Paris climate agreement finally starts to looks realistic: reaching the goals are within reach”Before the Italian wolves started crossing back into France from Italy, they had been missing since the 1930s. However, France is a sparsely population country- its population is similar to the UK but in a country about 4 times bigger.
The wolf population has grown at a good rate for the last 25 years and now has reached between 500 and 600. The thing is that when wolves reach adolescence the usually leave their family pack and disperse looking for a mate, to set up a pack of their own. In good habitat, this dispersal may only be 20 miles. However in the current situation where humans have destroyed wolf populations around the world, that expansion often does not lead to the meeting that would allow a new pack to form.
In these instances the dispersing wolf can cover a huge distance. Dispersal of hundreds of miles is not unheard of.
As the wolf pack recovers in France, these dispersing wolves are likely to wander into areas that they have not been seen in for a long time.
In this instance, a wolf has been seen in northern France for the first time in a century. There is plenty of prey in this part of France, and while areas have a higher human population than much of their current range healthy populations are found in areas with far more humans. There is plenty of space, and more than enough wildlife for the wolf to eat. If the wolf population of France continues to grow (as it will unless humans stop it) they will eventually settle in northern France permanently. This is likely to have a positive impact on local biodiversity, and while some mitigation effort may be required there are many positive impacts that will likely occur, including a significant reduction in cars hitting deer.