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Hundreds of dead animals found at South African airport

Karen Graham
Digital Journal
Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:24 UTC
Dead Reptiles and Amphibians
© Miona Jeneke/NSPCAThis photo released by National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. (NSPCA), shows dead reptiles and amphibians on top of a metal table at the Johannesburg Zoo, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014.
Madagascar is the world's fourth largest island and is considered a "biological hotspot." Over 90 percent of its wildlife are found nowhere else on the planet. Man's threat to the island's diverse ecosystems, and unusual wildlife is a real concern.

South Africa's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) was called to the O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on Friday, Jan. 29. Inspectors, doing a routine cargo inspection had noticed a "bad smell," and found two crates containing 1,600 reptiles and amphibians, most of them endangered, and not all of them alive.

According to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), many of the animals were either endangered, threatened or vulnerable. These included a number of chameleons, lizards, geckos, toads and 30 species of frogs. The animals were supposed to be on the Cites appendix II protocol, meaning they could be traded with a special permit.

At least one-fourth, or 400 of the animals were dead, and many more were packed into containers so tightly they could not move or turn around. The animals were in two crates, about half a meter in size, stacked on top of one another. The geckos were tied in small muslin bags, and the other animals were jammed into small plastic tubs.
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Eye 2

UK pensioner kept almost 200 snakes in her semi-detached house


Evening Standard
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 10:17 UTC
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Snakes alive: Pauline Wallace and part of the reptile collection found in her home
Snake woman banned from keeping reptiles and fined £310 in case which cost RSPCA £150k

A pensioner who kept almost 200 snakes in her semi-detached house has been banned from keeping reptiles for a year following a prosecution which has cost the RSPCA more than £150,000.

Pauline Wallace, 64, admitted keeping the animals in poor conditions at her home in York, including 114 in her bedroom.

Today, at York Magistrates' Court, Wallace was given a 12-month community order with supervision as well as the reptile-keeping ban.

She had pleaded guilty to nine counts of animal cruelty at a previous hearing.

Phil Browne, prosecuting for the RSPCA, told the bench the charity has incurred costs of £156,000 since they discovered Wallace's huge colony of at least 186 snakes.

Mr Browne said that it was costing the society between £7,000 and £16,000 a month to house 60 of the reptiles that were seized and did not have to be put down.
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Bizarro Earth

Decapitated silver sea blob washes up in the Philippines

Rie Takumi/VC
GMA News
Sat, 25 Jan 2014 19:08 UTC
Like the unholy offspring of a giant squid and a mollusk without its shell, a mysterious creature washed up the shore of a village in Aparri, Cagayan Thursday, prompting residents to seek help - and take pictures.

24 Oras showed pictures of the silver creature on the beach decomposing, fraying at the ends, and absolutely headless.


At five to six meters long, the creature was never weighed; it is now buried under the sand it was found in, after two days of residents enduring its rotten stench.

In a phone interview with GMA News Online, Leonarda Labugen of Region II's Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) said the creature had been stewing in the ocean for a week before washing up on Aparri's shores. Its prolonged decomposition, she said, made it necessary for the local government and BFAR to bury its corpse.

She said there was no time to take samples from the corpse, though a technical report is due to be issued within the week.
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Arrow Down

Genetically modified monkeys created with cut-and-paste DNA

Ian Sample
The Guardian, UK
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:38 UTC
cynomolgus monkeys
© Cell, Niu et alThe twin cynomolgus monkeys, Ningning and Mingming, born at Nanjing Medical University in China.
Researchers have created genetically modified monkeys with a revolutionary new procedure that enables scientists to cut and paste DNA in living organisms.

The macaques are the first primates to have their genetic makeup altered with the powerful technology which many scientists believe will lead to a new era of genetic medicine.

The feat was applauded by some researchers who said it would help them to recreate devastating human diseases in monkeys, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The ability to alter DNA with such precision is already being investigated as a way to make people resistant to HIV.

But the breakthrough is controversial, with groups opposed to animal testing warning that it could drive a rise in the use of monkeys in research. One critic said that genetic engineering gave researchers "almost limitless power to create sick animals".

The work was carried out in a lab in China, where scientists said they had used a genome editing procedure, called Crispr/Cas9, to manipulate two genes in fertilised monkey eggs before transferring them to surrogate mothers.

Writing in the journal, Cell, the team from Nanjing Medical University reported the delivery of twin female long-tailed macaques, called Ningning and Mingming. Five surrogates miscarried and four more pregnancies are ongoing.

The Crispr procedure has been welcomed by geneticists in labs around the world because of its enormous potential. Unlike standard gene therapy, Crispr allows scientists to remove faulty genes from cells, or replace them with healthy ones. It can even correct single letter spelling mistakes in the DNA code.
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Attention

Best of the Web: Dead whales are showing up bringing us a message the entire world should see

R & S
xposethereal.com
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 10:39 UTC
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More people are starting to look at what we've done to this planet, especially since the birth of the technological revolution. Our oceans have been suffering for a very long time, with countless oil spills and toxic waste dumped into them every single day from industrial practices and more. Despite having numerous ways to operate in a fashion that is more harmonious with the planet, we continue to choose to destroy our planet on a daily basis, and we can't afford to do that anymore. Despite how much our planet is suffering, people everyday are starting wake up and realize that we really do need to look at, question, and change the way we operate here on planet Earth. This shift in perception alone can help springboard us towards change, and creating a new experience for us and other beings who we share the planet with.

Whales have been showing up dead on multiple beaches, bringing us a message with stomachs full of plastic. This has happened multiple times. In the summer of july 2013, a sperm whale was stranded on Tershelling, a Northern island in the Netherlands. The whale swallowed 56 different plastic items that totalled over 37 pounds. In april 2010, a gray whale died after stranding itself on a West Seattle beach, it was found to have over 20 plastic bags, small towels, surgical gloves, plastic pieces, duct tape, and more in its system. In March of 2013 a dead sperm whale washed up on Spain's South coast which swallowed 17kg of plastic waste.
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Attention

Rare whale species found dead on Cornish beach, UK


news.uk.msn.com
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 10:16 UTC
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A rare beaked whale has been found on a Cornish beach - only the second time the species has been recorded in the UK.

The Blainville's whale, usually found in temperate and tropical waters, was discovered stranded on Kenneggy Beach, near Praa Sands.

Records from 1913 show the only other Blainville's beaked whale to reach UK shores was at Aberaeron in West Wales in 1993.

However, experts believe Blainville's will start stranding more frequently in Britain as water temperatures increase due to climate change.

A member of the public reported the stranding to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network as a porpoise on December 30 2013.

But when the Network's data officer, Niki Clear, received photographs of the animal, measuring 3.8m (12ft 5in) long, she recognised it as an elusive Blainville.
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Attention

Dead pilot whale removed from Chatham beach, Massachusetts


wcvb.com
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 10:25 UTC
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© Cape Cod Times/Merrily Cassid
Necropsy planned for 3,000 lb. animal

A dead pilot whale was removed with heavy equipment from a Cape Cod beach on Wednesday.

The whale stranded on Hardings Beach in Chatham on Monday. Researchers tried unsuccessfully to return the whale to the water, but ultimately, it had to be euthanized.

IFAW officials said the 18-foot whale weighed about 3,000 pounds.

According to IFAW, pilot whale strandings are not uncommon on Cape Cod. Generally when a single whale comes ashore, it is likely sick or injured, IFAW said.

International Fund for Animal Welfare researchers brought the animal to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for a necropsy.
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Eye 2

California home found packed with more than 400 snakes


The Guardian
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 08:57 UTC
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© KTLASeveral snakes were removed from a house in Santa Ana on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014.
Teacher arrested after police find bins full of snakes stacked to ceiling in his reeking home, along with 'cannibal' rats and mice

A schoolteacher has been arrested after hundreds of living and dead pythons in plastic bins were found stacked floor to ceiling inside his stench-filled suburban California home.

As investigators wearing respirator masks carried the reptiles out of the house by the score and stacked them in the driveway, reporters and passers-by gagged at the smell. Some held their noses or walked away from the five-bedroom home to get a breath of air.

"The smell alone I feel like I need to take a shower for a week," said police Corporal Anthony Bertagna. "They're pretty much in all the bedrooms everywhere."

Officers said they found more than 400 snakes at least 220 of them dead as well as numerous mice and rats, in the Santa Ana home of William Buchman after neighbors complained about the smell. He was arrested for investigation of neglect in the care of animals, Bertagna said.

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Butterfly

Monarch numbers in Mexico fall to record low

Lizzie Wade
ScienceNow
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 11:45 UTC
Monarch Butterfly
© Purestock/ThinkstockVanishing act. The number of monarchs wintering in Mexico has plummeted.
Mexico City - In winter, central Mexico's highland forests should be pulsing with orange and black. Not this year. Monarch butterfly colonies now cover less than a single hectare of forest, the smallest swath of land since data collection began in 1993, scientists reported at a press conference here today. The paltry figure highlights the uncertain fate of a natural wonder: the monarch's 4000-kilometer migration between North and Central America.

Each autumn, monarchs fly from their breeding grounds in the United States and Canada to Mexico, clustering by the thousands in pine and oyamel fir trees in Michoacán and Mexico states. Scientists had been bracing for bad news about this year's colonies since last spring, when few monarchs were tallied returning to their northern breeding grounds. A cold spring also pushed back the 2013 migration, interfering with the timing of monarch breeding, says Chip Taylor, an ecologist at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and the director of Monarch Watch, which monitors U.S. populations.

The figure announced today - 0.67 hectares - means that the population wintering in Mexico is down nearly 44% from last year's previous record low of 1.19 hectares. Monarch experts lay much of the blame on the decline of milkweed plants in North America. Adult monarchs lay their eggs on milkweeds, which the caterpillars consume before spinning their cocoons. Milkweed - and the monarchs that depend on it - once sprang up widely between rows of corn or soybeans in the U.S. Midwest. But with more and more farmers planting herbicide-resistant versions of these two crops, they are able to spray their fields with powerful herbicides, killing off milkweed.
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Cow Skull

'Zombie' bees invade U.S. Northeast

Beth Garbitelli
ABC News
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 09:20 UTC
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‘Zombie bees’ invade East Coast
Vermont beekeepers face mite infestations, extreme temperature swings and the possibility of colony collapse. Last fall, a new threat emerged: zombie bees.

Beekeeper Anthony Cantrell of Burlington discovered zombie bees in his hive in October, the first time they'd been found in the eastern United States.

John Hafernik, a professor from San Francisco State University, discovered the first zombie bees in 2008. A fly called Apocephalus borealis attaches itself to the bee and injects its eggs, which grow inside the bee, Hafernik said. Scientists believe it causes neurological damage resulting in erratic, jerky movement and night activity, "like a zombie," Hafernik said by phone Tuesday.

These aren't undead bees doomed to roam for eternity. They often die only a few hours after showing symptoms, Hafernik said.

Hafernik and his team of colleagues and students have been tracking the zombie bee spread across the United States. California, Washington, Oregon and South Dakota all have confirmed zombie bees while this is the first time the bee has been found this far east, said Hafernik. The fly previously attached to bumblebees as hosts, not honeybees, according to Hafernik.

"Right now, we don't know if it's an isolated thing," Stephen Parise, Vermont agricultural production specialist, said Tuesday at the state's annual farm show.
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