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India lost 50 tigers in six months, 5 in Madhya Pradesh

Bagish K Jha
The Times of India
Tue, 06 Aug 2013 14:44 UTC
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Indore: Even as India is striving hard to save the big cats, the country has lost fifty tigers so far this year against 72 tiger deaths in 2012.

Heading the list is Karnataka with the loss of 13 tigers till now, followed by eight in Maharashtra, seven in Uttarakhand and five in Madhya Pradesh. Out of the five tiger deaths in Madhya Pradesh, two are from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, two from Pench Tiger Reserve and one from Katni forest division.

National Tiger Conservation Authourity (NTCA) DIG, SP Yadav on Wednesday said, every tiger in the country is under threat from poaching. Under the new protocol issued by NTCA on tiger mortality, cause of every tiger death will be considered as due to poaching, till the time state government proves it otherwise with proper evidence.

Earlier there was trend among states to hide exact cause of the death. Now rules have been changed so as to highlight the actual cause of tiger deaths. The NTCA directions will bring in more transparency in the post-mortem process.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - S of Lakatoro, Vanuatu


US Geological Survey
Tue, 06 Aug 2013 13:01 UTC
Lakatoro Quake_060813
© USGS
Event Time
2013-08-06 17:21:58 UTC
2013-08-07 04:21:58 UTC+11:00 at epicenter

Location
16.880°S 167.401°E depth=31.2km (19.4mi)

Nearby Cities
84km (52mi) S of Lakatoro, Vanuatu
136km (85mi) NW of Port-Vila, Vanuatu
151km (94mi) S of Luganville, Vanuatu
447km (278mi) N of We, New Caledonia
591km (367mi) N of Dumbea, New Caledonia

Technical Details
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Attention

UK: Hundreds of birds die in Harrow Lodge Park after 'worst outbreak of botulism'

Lee-Ann Richards
Romford Recorder, UK
Fri, 26 Jul 2013 09:17 UTC
Hundreds of birds have died at Harrow Lodge Park after the hot weather caused a potent outbreak of botulism in the lake.

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Three cygnets were discovered dead as a result of the outbreak of botulism
Lawrence Howes, a volunteer from the Swan Sanctuary, a charity that cares for swans and waterfowl, said that it was the "worst outbreak" he had ever seen in the Hornchurch park.

He added: "It has happened before, but this one is particularly potent.

"I have never known it this bad in Harrow Lodge Park."

The volunteers at the park have been scooping up dead ducks since the beginning of the week.

The swans have also been affected by the bacteria and today the volunteers noticed that the disease had killed three cygnets.

Resident Patricia Dowsett said: "It is heart breaking.

"It is so sad to see those innocent creatures dying helplessly."

Lawrence added: "It is really terrible.

"This normally affects the ducks, but it has taken the lives of three cygnets."

Botulism is a disease in lakes produced by botulinum bacterium.

It is caused when air temperatures rise and water and oxygen levels drop.
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Lobster cannibalism: Crustaceans starting to eat each other, probably because of climate change

Melissa Breyer
Huffington Post
Tue, 30 Jul 2013 04:38 UTC
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© Getty
SumPity the young lobster. In addition to keeping a watchful eye out for the regular motley crew of predators, they now need to watch out for mom and dad as well.

Although lobsters have been known to assault and eat each other in captivity - not a surprising reaction given the conditions - marine biologists have recently observed an unprecedented degree of lobster cannibalism taking place in the wild.

Noah Oppenheim, a biologist studying the New England marine ecosystem, was the first to record the new development by setting up a camera trap using a young lobster as bait, reports The Independent.

When the same kind of experiments were conducted 20 years ago, other fish would feed on the bait; now, it's adult lobsters that are swooping in and making mincemeat of their young. After repeated experiments, scientists concluded that juvenile lobsters were 90 percent more likely to be attacked and eaten by adult lobsters than by any other type of fish.mary
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Bizarro Earth

Huge sinkhole swallows backhoe in downtown Montreal

Nelson Wyatt
The Globe and Mail, Canada
Mon, 05 Aug 2013 17:16 UTC
Montreal Sinkhole
© Christinne Muschi/ReutersA construction vehicle lies where it was swallowed by a sinkhole on Saint-Catherine Street in downtown Montreal, August 5, 2013.
A section of a downtown commercial street swallowed a backhoe on Monday as city crews were getting ready to repair a leaky water main.

The backhoe had started to chip at asphalt near the corner of Ste-Catherine and Guy streets when the ground crumbled beneath it and the heavy machine tumbled in.

The driver of the backhoe was not injured but was taken to hospital to be checked out as a precaution, city officials said.

Emilie Miskdjian, a spokeswoman for the Ville-Marie borough, said the city was alerted to the possible water leak on the weekend.

She said preliminary indications were that the leak caused the problem but more inspections needed to be done to find the exact cause.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquakes recorded below Mt. Tongariro


Stuff.co.nz
Tue, 06 Aug 2013 00:36 UTC
Mt.Tongariro
© TVNZ
Mt Tongariro is under a watching brief after a series of small earthquakes was detected under the volcano over the past two weeks.

GNS Science duty volcanologist Michael Rosenberg said the quakes were not connected to the ongoing flurry of seismic activity centred in the Cook Strait and the tremors were no cause for ''undue alarm.''

Fewer than 10 quakes, all under magnitude 1.5, have been recorded on a handful of seismic monitors and are too small to be pinpointed.

''The reason we're paying attention is because of their location and we don't see quakes there very often,'' Rosenberg said.

The volcano erupted for the first time in a century at the Te Maari craters in August last year, followed by another eruption in November and scientists warn the craters could still erupt with little or no warning.
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Question

It's a funnel cloud! It's a shadow! No, it's ... what is it?

Zachary T. Sampson
Tampa Bay Times
Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:28 UTC
Funnel Cloud
© Tampa Bay Times
Dunedin - Mike Weight was strolling the beach at Honeymoon Island about noon Wednesday when he saw something weird.

A black line appeared against the bright blue sky, shooting down from a cloud into the gulf.

"At first I thought it was an optical illusion because it was like a dark piece of sky with a light sky background," Weight said. "You could see through it."

Maybe it's a waterspout, he thought. That theory faded quickly. This was no funnel cloud.

Confused, the 73-year-old Clearwater resident pulled out his phone and took a couple of pictures.

He emailed them to the Times, attached with a note.

"Any idea what this was?"
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Bizarro Earth

Bizarre 'meteotsunami' stirred waves in UK

Tia Ghose
LiveScience
Mon, 05 Aug 2013 14:07 UTC
Meteotsunami
© Oliver Tindall / ShutterstockPeople crossing to the tidal island of St. Michael's Mount in southwest England suddenly found themselves knee deep in water because of a meteotsunami on June 27, 2011.
A tsunami that struck the UK in 2011 was caused by a storm roiling the ocean hundreds of miles away, a new study confirms.

The "meteotsunami" (or weather-induced tsunami) of June 27, 2011, caused swells on a normally calm estuary on a sunny day, left some people knee-deep in water and made other people's hair stand on end in southwest England. Scientists suspected that a storm was to blame for the bizarre waves, but the new study, published in the June issue of the journal Weather, confirms it.

"As far as Britain is concerned this is the first time that a meteotsunami has been recorded," said study co-author David Tappin, a marine geologist at the British Geological Survey.
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Question

Rare mystery bird found in Manchester car park, UK

Kate Banks
Messenger, UK
Fri, 02 Aug 2013 14:34 UTC
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Nihal Sonmez (6) and Bilal Sonmez (9) with the ibis
A rare and critically endangered bird was found in the car park of Stretford Mall by astonished shoppers.

It was initially believed that the northern bald ibis had escaped from a zoo in Stoke some years ago, but experts at Chester Zoo are baffled as to where the bird came from.

Can Sonmez, 39, and his two children saw the ibis as they were walking to the mall on Saturday, July 20.

"It was basically flying up and down and the literally fell down the side of the building. When I actually picked it up it looked quite lethargic as if it hadn't fed for a while.

"I knew it was an ibis as we'd seen them before at Chester Zoo, but I didn't realise it was a critically endangered species of ibis."

Can, of St Andrews Road, Stretford, then took the bird home and called Chester Zoo, the curator of which collected the mystery bird a couple of days later.

Curator of birds, Andrew Owen, said: "We're pleased to report that after some TLC from our bird keepers and vets the northern bald ibis is now getting on really, really well.
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Snow Globe

Unprecedented July cold - Arctic sees shortest summer on record

Robert Felix
iceagenow.info
Fri, 02 Aug 2013 06:18 UTC
"Normally the high Arctic has about 90 days above freezing. This year there was less than half that," says Steven Goddard website.

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Graph courtesy of COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut

Thanks to F. Guimaraes for this link
"The Arctic ice extent is showing a remarkable recovery from the great oscillations of 2012," says Guimaraes. "Compare with the previous years listed there, you'll see that 2004 is the year that is closest to 2013 in terms of average temps during the summer."
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