The Nywaigi people of Australia have found that by doing this, this behaviour can sequester carbon, boost biodiversity and create jobs.
It is thought that peatlands, store twice as much carbon as rainforests, so their protection and recovery is essential if we are to maintain the wonderful climate that has allowed the human race to flourish.
In this instance (not the place that the video comes from) just 1 decade ago, the area was bad. Much of it was freshwater pasture, with a load of invasive weeds that were choking both the land and the waterways. This was caused by a ‘bund’, an earth wall build 50 years ago, to block off incoming seawater, in order to transform the area into freshwater ponded pasture (to be used for cattle pasture). You can find a video on this project to restore this area, and the bottom of this article.
Killer whale or Orca: highly intelligent, inquisitive, caring of family, no wonder they fascinate us
The Southern resident killer whale population is on the brink of extinction, but it seems, not for the reason that people thought.
Found along the coast of Washington, Oregon, California, and British Columbia, this population is thought to number just 75, but births are rare, and often end in sadness. 2 calves have been born in the last 2 years, but both have died young. This year, the mother was seen carrying her dead infant for some time (draped across her snout).
It is thought that this population is in danger as a result of a collapse in the Chinook salmon which is an essential part of their diet. However, this theory is defeated, when we look at the Northern resident killer whale population, and notice that they appear to have less access to the salmon. There is lots of shipping noise in their home, which may mean that they are incapable of communicating, which would impact their ability to hunt,
It is true that the origins of their decline lie around 120 years ago, when blackfish (orca as they were then called) were both slaughtered and captured for marine parks. The population on stopped falling fast when Canada banned capture. So is this just the straw that broke the camels back?
Why do captive orca have drooping fins?
Drooping dorsal fins are occasionally seen in the wild, so the split is not totally solid, but it is true, that while most captive orca eventually have a drooping dorsal fin, this is a far rarer site in the wild (while not being unheard of).
The fin is supported by a tough protein called callagen, and it has been suggested that with captive orca spending more time at the surface, the higher temperature from the sun may degrade the protein.
Tahlequah has given birth again (famous for carrying her first calf after it died)
Tahlequah carried a former calf for 17 days after it died, and for more than 1000 miles. This means it is rather lovely to see that she has had another calf. However, the calf has already been observed being pushed by the mother and does not look healthy. The mother is very experienced, so it is hoped that she can succeed, but time will tell. This mother is part of the Southern resident population which i mentioned above, which is small and with few births in recent years. It is therefore very concerning to find that 2 related calves died so close together.
A new video shows a mother orca teaching her calves how to hunt
I should say, that the article I read suggested this was the first time that it had been seen, but the below clip is from several years ago. Even so, it is fascinating to see a mother actively teaching her offspring how to hunt/
Orca have been seen, for the first time off Chile, hunting dolphins
As can be seen from the video above, orca are known to hunt and eat dolphins in various places around the world. However, this behaviour has never been seen in this population, so they had to work out how to do it for themselves. While in the past they have been filmed eating sea lions (and using local boats to hide their approach), they have now been filmed hunting dusky dolphins.
The study was looking at the eating habits of orcas in the southern hemisphere, so as to be able to conserve them more effectively. It suggests that Chile Orca are turning to these food-sources. While Orca have been filmed harrasing or even killing porpoises and dolphins, this is the first time that they have been filmed eating them.
Orca facing uncertain future as the marine zoo shuts
Marineland Antibese near Cannes France, is shutting, after the French government brought in more strict rules of their care. The law was passed in 2021, but comes into force in 2026. It is thought that 90% of the visitors come to see the killer whales and other dolphins, so without them they are not viable.
It is unclear as to what will happen with the Orca. They are from Icelandic waters, but having spent so much time in captivity, would not be able to look after themselves in the wild. A deal had been made to send them to a Japanese park, but there was outcry as their treatment would be worse, so the French government blocked it. There is another zoo in the Canary islands. A facility in Eastern Canada has suggested netting off around 40 hectares of a sea bay for them, where they could live out their lives, in relative comfort, and yet still be looked after by a team of vets and other carers.
Something similar has happened before. Keiko was the orca from the film Free Willy, and was rescued from captivity in 1996 and released into a similar bay in Iceland in 1998. Having spent more time in the wild, though he was able to relearn some skills and in 2002 he left with some wild orca. He swam to Norway, but unfortunately died from an infection in 2003.
While these fuels power much of the creation of electricity around the world, as well as most transport and heating, they all need to either be left in the ground or 100% of their emissions. Below is a roundup of a group of articles of importance on these subjects.
Uk’s £22 billion carbon capture pledge follows surge in lobbying by fossil fuel industry, records show
In Finland, a so-called sand battery (it is actually full of crushed soapstone) has been built, which is capable of storing around 100MW of heat. The crushed soapstone is a by protudct of a fireplace production factory nearby. It is true that this heat battery is large, with a height of around 13m and width of 15m, but it can in theory be buried in the ground. It takes 2000 tonnes to fill this heat battery, but this is just 40 waste trucks worth.
It will serve as a thermal battery, with pipes running through it. It can be heated in the Summer when there is cheap or even free power, and then water run through pipes in the material can extract the energy in winter, powering a district heating network – greatly reducing the emissions from heating houses in the whole area (it is estimated that it will reduce emissions by 70%)
The Soapstone leftover, was a wasted product, and before was just thrown away, so this is a far better use. This “sand” battery can hold heats of around 500 degrees for months if required, and is thought to completely eliminate the need for oil in the network heating system. it equates to roughly 1 month of heating requirements in summer, and 1 week in winter. Costing around $200,000, compared to $1,600,000 for the equivalent lithium battery, it is a good deal. While it is true that it would take around 30 of these to keep the town going for a year and it only supports 100 houses and a public swimming pool, but there is huge quantities of similar waste created around the globe, and therefore is capable of doing far more than one would think.
Simulations of the same idea, in Seoul have suggested at up to 39% savings. It is thought, that as the deployment of solar increases, there will be huge amounts of excess power to be pumped into things like this. Some countries have wonderful quantities of excess electricity in the summer, and while we need to ramp up the quantity of solar wild and other zero carbon electricity, this gives us a route to a zero carbon world.
UK scientists created the worlds first diamond battery, capable of giving power for thousands of years. It is made from synthetic diamonds, which contain a radioactive element called carbon 14. The battery makes electricity from this radiation, much in the way that solar panels work. This battery would still be at 50% power after 5000 years. From devices that need powering in your body, to deep in the sea or in space.
At the end of their lives, these batteries can go back to the manufacturers to be recycled. There is much work being done on this, not least looking at other radioactive elements, to increase the power output.
Carbon nanotubes store triple the energy of lithium batteries. New research shows that twisted nanotubes can store high densities of energy – triple that of lithium weight for weight. It is thought that these could power things like medical implants. Of course, this is great, though only adds to the potential long list of things that nanotubes can do if we can learn to reliably create them in the future. In bigger sizes, it is calculated that these carbon nanotubes can store 15,000 times more per unit mass, than steel springs.
These are both areas which I write on, regularly, so check back for more news. I should also note, that these roundup articles should allow a return to focusing on wildlife rather than clean tech soon.
The quiet bays in the Melanesian archipelago are perfect for the sea grass meadows, which in turn means that it is fantastic for dugongs – animals also known as sea cows. Just a few years ago, these animals were a regular sight. Growing up to 4m long and 400kg, just a few years ago, it would not be an unusual day when you would see one of these animals in both the morning and afternoon. Now they are rarely seen.
Officially, they are only classed as vulnerable (one of the lowest forms of endangered), but given how long it has been, it is unclear how the population is doing. However, unfortunately, given fishermen (and other people on the wate), are encountering them so rarely, it is likely to have got worse. Dogongs in this area behave differently to Australia where they have huge seagrass meadows, so this full survey is certainly required.
It would be another area, where a growth in the ecotourism industry (ethical – not damaging the animals or stressing them) could be fantastic. Many surveys done on sea mammals, take on tourists to reduce their cost. Personally, I will always look for a research boat, as they want to be there, and will not go out if there is no chance of sightings.
The next-door population of New Caledonia was recently downgraded to endagered, and the east African population is classed as critically endangered.
Globally, the threats to these animals include gill-net fishing, boat traffic, coastal development and even hunting. Unfortunately, climate change is also a threat – rainstorms are becoming far more common, and these are damaging the seagrass, alongside cyclones.
Currently, it is estimated that the world looses 7% of its seagrass meadows each year. This should be concerning, as sea grass has a roughly equal ability to draw down carbon dioxide to land rainforests – so the more we loose the harder it will become to halt global warming. It should also be noted, seagrasses grow more healthily with dugongs present – help keep seagrass beds healthy by grazing on them, which controls their growth and disperses their seeds. This process is called “cultivation grazing”. The benefits on seagrasses include growth control (rapid growth can be bad for the long-term survival of the seagrass), disperse seeds (often with some ‘fertilizer’, which can help the seeds grow particularly well- and like various plants and elephants, seeds that have gone through a dugongs digestive tract is more likely to grow than those that do not), Improve genetic diversity (dugongs move between areas of the meadow, and take seeds with them) and help recovery after cyclones (by connecting areas of the meadow, reseeding meadows in danger from elsewhere where they are doing alright).
Unfortunately, this makes the dugong a keystone species – therefore, its loss would have a very negative impact on the whole ecosystem. Other species that rely on seagrass including sea turtles, manatees, a wide array of fish, many sharks are born in the seagrass, including lemon sharks nurse sharks, and bull sharks. A wide array of birds are similarly reliant.
This enormous temperature jump could have huge impacts. On 18th March 2022 scientist at Concordia research station on the east side of Antarctica. To put this leap in perspective, that would take a normal spring day in the UK, up to some of the highest temperatures ever recorded on planet earth.
There is still large areas of wildernesses in places like Romania, but this needs to spread across the continent.
What will it do?
Restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030
Restore all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050
Set legally binding targets for nature restoration in terrestrial, marine, freshwater, and urban ecosystems
Maintain and increase urban green space and urban tree canopy cover
Restore at least 25,000 km of rivers into free-flowing rivers by 2030
Plant at least three billion additional trees by 2030
This plan was dropped in March as a result of Hungary blocking it, as well as Austria and a variety of other groups. It is unfortunate, that often in order to meet an agreement, the environmental rules are often watered down so much as to become meaningless. It was cleared, after Austria changed its mind (it should be noted that the Hungarian MEPs were in favour and it is only the Hungarian government that got in the way – as they often are; unfortunately the leader of Hungary Victor Orban is not helpful, and is often the block for the EU. Whether this will change in the near future is anyones guess.
Still this will have to be implemented across the continent to be useful. Having said this, should it be successful it is likely to have a big impact.
The Ross ice shelf is vast, covering 182,000 square miles, it is only slightly smaller than France, and yet a study has shown, that the whole ice shelf can move 40 cm in just 10 minutes. These were generally caused by slips in the Whillans Ice Sheet, which is one of just a few ice flows into and through the area.
The whole shelf was found to move 6-8cm once or twice a day, triggered by these flows moving. This could be the cause of both icequakes, and fractures running through the ice (fractures are important, as they make it more likely that a section of the ice will break off the edge of Antarctica and head into the ocean. While this ice can, on occasion survive a long time – A23a broke of Antarctica in 1986 and has been floating free for much of the time since (except for a decade or so when it grounded); it was estimated to be 400m thick and weigh in at nearly 1 trillion tonnes.
This is a problem for a simple reason. Unlike the north pole, there is land under the ice in Antarctica. This means that while in the north pole, the ice sheet is already in the sea, so its melting cannot increase sea level, Antarctic ice all does increase sea levels.
The Ross ice shelf is known to have collapsed 120,000 years ago during the last interglacial period, and contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 11.5m (this would also cause another 2m of sea level rise because of the glaciers which would no longer be held back).
A Dutch startup, is trialling mitigating this in the Arctic, by pumping sea water onto the ice. This then freezes, thickening the ice. It is possible that this might work in the short term, however, what is clear, is that the only long-term solution, is to stop burning fossil fuels, so as to halt the heating of the earths climate.
These 3 groups do not intermix, and only very seldom, interbreed. These populations are found in the Southern Pacific, Northern Pacific and the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
This naturally means that the great white sharp is far more at risk of extinction, than if all the great white sharks in the worlds oceans could interbreed.
These areas appear to be bounded by great ocean currents, which are rarely crossed. This is a problem, as if an individual population is lost, it makes it far more likely that distinct genetic information could be lost with it – take the Mediterranean great while shark population, which has seen a dramatic population decline from historic numbers, estimated at between 52% and 96% (areas like the Maramara sea, are known to have lost 96% of their population) depending on which study you read.
This makes local conservation far more essential, and we need to be careful to not loose any individual populations. There has been a great deal of worry for the great white shark population around South Africa, as they pretty much vanished in 2017, but appear to have returned in 2024. The disappearance of the great white was attributed to 2 orca which had become expert in hunting and killing these sharks – it should be remembered, that while great whites are often at the top of the food chain, they are hunted for food by orca. Whether these orca have gone back to eating something else, hence the great white shark return, is a question that does not appear to have been answered as yet.
The Arnoux’s beaked whale Berardius arnuxii. Credit: André Meijboom
The beaked whale species are a family of rarely seen whales. Despite there being 22 species of beaked whale (which we know about) they are rarely seen, and some have only been described in recent years.
Why are they seen so rarely? because they have a record breaking ability to hold their breath being able to hold it for over an hour (reasonably regularly) and have been recorded in dives lasting over 100 minutes. After sightings of this species, the researchers did a search and analysis of sightings between 1980 and 2000. Just 108 sightings were made, accounting for 1125 individuals.
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