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Thousands of dead cuttlefish mysteriously wash up in Chile


Aol
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 11:18 UTC
Dead cuttlefish in Chile.

Dead cuttlefish in Chile.
Thousands of cuttlefish have mysteriously washed ashore in Chile's Bahia Inglesa, a coastal area that is one of the country's main tourist hotspots.

Locals say such an incident has not happened before, and environmental authorities are investigating and have warned locals not to eat the fish amidst pollution fears.

There are concerns that the dead fish could damage the region's fishing industry, a major driver of the local economy.

Bahia Inglesa is a popular summer destination for Chile, with thousands attracted to the area's pristine beaches.

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Zambia's planned hippo cull - Conservationists lashed scheme as a ploy to make money from trophy hunters


Digital Journal
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 18:12 UTC
Hippo
© Creative Commons
Zambia plans to slaughter 2,000 hippopotamuses to control overpopulation, officials said Wednesday, as conservationists lashed the scheme as a ploy to make money from trophy hunters.

An official at the tourism ministry, who did not want to be named, said a five-year cull of hippos in a park in eastern Zambia would start in May.

"Currently the hippo population in the South Luangwa National Park stands at over 13,000, but Luangwa can only cater for 5,000 hippos," he said.

"The population is higher and poses a danger to the ecosystem."

The Born Free conservation group called on the government to call off the cull, which it said was being staged to lure money from hunters.

"The justifications for this cull -- which is being openly marketed to paying trophy hunters -- are like a sea of shifting sand," said Born Free's president, Will Travers.
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Black Cat 2

Black leopard photographed in Africa for the first time in 100 years

Jason G. Goldman
National Geographic
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 18:06 UTC
black leopard
© WILL BURRARD-LUCAS, CAMTRAPTIONS
An ultra-rare black leopard walks through Laikipia Wilderness Camp in central Kenya in 2018

They say that black cats bring bad luck, but when Nick Pilfold heard about one lurking around central Kenya, he knew he was onto something special.

The Kenya-based biologist and his team deployed a set of camera traps throughout the bushlands of Loisaba Conservancy in early 2018. It wasn't long before he got what he was looking for: undeniable proof of a super-rare melanistic leopard.

The juvenile female was spotted traveling with a larger, normally colored leopard, presumed to be her mother. (See our exclusive picture of a rare black wildcat seen in Africa.)

The opposite of albinism, melanism is the result of a gene that causes a surplus of pigment in the skin or hair of an animal so that it appears black. Melanistic leopards have been reported in and around Kenya for decades, but scientific confirmation of their existence remains quite rare.
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Doberman

Israeli start-up company using canines to detect cancer

Havatzelet Damari
Ynetnews
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 19:09 UTC
Dog with samples
© Ynetnews
Dog with samples.
A Negev start-up company is using canines to determine if an individual has cancer. Prognose 220 Mil is inviting the public to send a saliva sample to their laboratory, via messenger, where specially trained dogs use their strong sense of smell to sniff for cancer.

"The main significance of the test is life saving early detection (of cancer). Since dogs are able to identify the characteristic scent of the disease," says lab manager and dog trainer Uri Bekman. If the dog sits still after sniffing the sample, that is an indication of the disease being present. The test costs NIS 400.

Yael Dror Alon, a businesswoman from Caesarea, took the test and tested positive, despite doctors giving her a clean bill of health. She is now undergoing treatment at Tel Hashomer Medical Center and has decided to embark on a fundraising venture to provide access to the test for anyone in need.

A study by Prof. Pesach Shvartzman, of Ben Gurion University recently found that various forms of cancer have a common smell that can be detected by dogs.
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Attention

Gray whale found dead in Altata, Mexico


The Mazatlan Messenger
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 14:17 UTC
gray whale

Gray whale
A few days ago reports of a gray whale swimming at Altata Bay (North of Sinaloa) were reported. Unfortunately, on Sunday the whale was found dead.

The whale displayed injuries on it's tail and dorsal fin, and according to marine life experts the injuries were consistent with a shark attack.

Every winter, hundreds of Pacific gray whales return to their traditional breeding and birthing grounds around Mexico's Baja Peninsula. Their migration from Alaska's Bering Sea to the warm waters of Baja's Pacific lagoons is the longest mammal migration on Earth.

Of the original three gray whale populations, one in the North Atlantic is extinct, one is critically endangered in the Western North Pacific (with as few as 150 individuals remaining), and one has recovered from very low levels in the Eastern North Pacific and was removed from the U.S. Endangered Species List in 1994.
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Attention

Beached whale shark dies on coast of West Java, Indonesia


The Jakarta Post
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 14:04 UTC
The Whale Shark stranded at the Wharf Port of Nusantara Palabuhanratu Nusantara
© Aditya AR
The Whale Shark stranded at the Wharf Port of Nusantara Palabuhanratu Nusantara
A whale shark was found dead on Tuesday by locals and fishermen near the dock of a fishing port in Palabuhanratu, Sukabumi regency, West Java.

"I used to run into these [sharks] in the sea, and they had never disrupted our work. However, this time, we found one of them stranded on the dock," an unnamed fisherman, who claimed to have discovered the beached shark first, said on Tuesday as quoted by Antara.

The stranded shark, known for its distinct white spots and stripes, weighed around 300 kilograms and was around 2 meters-long.
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Binoculars

Rare black-browed albatross from the southern hemisphere turns up in Cornwall, UK

John Bett and Jeff Reines
Cornwall Live
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 13:16 UTC
The black browed albatross rarely ventures from the Southern Hemisphere but one has been spotted in Cornwall

The black browed albatross rarely ventures from the Southern Hemisphere but one has been spotted in Cornwall
Twitchers are flocking to Cornwall desperate to catch a glimpse of a bird rarely seen outside the southern hemisphere. Toby Phelps, 20, spotted a black-browed albatross and managed to get a picture of it while on a sea watching expedition.

He was stationed at the Lizard Point and, although he only saw it flying for a few minutes, experts were able to confirm the sighting.

They have now described it as a "red letter day" and said it was even more intriguing as it is believed it may be the same bird which visited Britain last year.

Toby, from Falmouth, who is studying zoology at university, said: "I was sat right on the edge of Lizard Point, by the cafe. We went down looking for birds, not specifically the albatross, we were sea watching and it just so happened to fly past.

Comment: There have been two other extremely rare records of this species in recent years (2015 and 2016) off the UK coast, see also: Another albatross species turns up in the wrong hemisphere, this time on Suffolk coast, UK

Lost black-browed albatross from the southern hemisphere seen along the coast of Yorkshire, UK

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Bug

Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten global collapse of nature'

Damian Carrington
Guardian
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 18:00 UTC
insect
© Entomologisher Verein Krefeld
The rate of insect extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.
The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems", according to the first global scientific review.

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are "essential" for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?

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Arrow Up

Chimpanzees build ladder to escape from Belfast zoo

Tim Sandle
Digital Journal
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 21:14 UTC
Female chimpanzee
© NELSON ALMEIDA, AFP
A female chimpanzee holds her baby at the Great Apes Project (GAP), a sanctuary for apes in Sorocaba, some 100km west of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Most of us would wish to escape from captivity and a group of abstract thinking chimpanzees temporarily managed this feat by building a makeshift ladder to escape from Belfast Zoo.

In February 2019, a group of enterprising chimpanzees managed to get out of their enclosure at Belfast Zoo (Northern Ireland) by propping a tree branch against the wall to enable their improvised escape. Video footage provided by NPR (see below) shows two chimpanzees making it it to the top of the wall with one of the chimpanzees scurrying away. In all, five chimpanzees left their enclosure.

The escaped chimpanzee was later seen striding down an embankment and onto a roadway. However, later all of the chimpanzees returned home, apparently not caring much for human habitats. Speaking with The Guardian, Zookeeper Alyn Cairns states that the trees in the enclosure had been weakened by the storms (such as the recent Storm Eric), providing structures for the chimps to break and use as ladders to escape.

He adds, about the chimps returning home: "They're intelligent primates and know they're not supposed to be out of their enclosure, so got back in themselves."
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Cow

Up to 500,000 cattle die due to flooding caused by record rainfall in Queensland, Australia (UPDATE - with video)

Ben Smee and AAP
The Guardian
Fri, 08 Feb 2019 12:53 UTC
Dead cattle at Eddington Station in western Queenand. Photograph: Rachael Anderson
© Rachael Anderson
Dead cattle at Eddington Station in western Queensland.
The Queensland government has announced an inquiry into the historic flooding in Townsville, as evidence mounts that local authorities failed to anticipate the extreme nature of the recent record rainfall.

The independent inquiry will look into "key preparedness and response elements" to the storms that dumped more than one metre of rain on Townsville in less than a week.

In the west of the state, graziers have been confronted with scenes described by one mayor as "hell", as it became clear up to 300,000 cattle had died in the floods. The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said the sight so many cattle that had died agonising deaths made her "sick in the stomach".


Comment: Update: The Guardian reports on the 11th of January:
In north-west Queensland it hadn't rained, any decent rain, for more than five years.

When the downpour finally came last week, graziers were elated. Now it's feared up to 500,000 cattle, mostly from severely drought-stressed herds, have been killed in widespread flood waters.

The full extent of the losses won't be known for weeks; some properties remain underwater and the flood waters are moving south. But the agricultural industry's peak body says the situation has already become "a massive humanitarian crisis", affecting an area twice the size of Victoria.

After a prolonged drought, some rural parts of Queensland received three years' worth of average rainfall in a week.


Dead cattle at Eddington station 20km west of Julia Creek, Queensland.
© Rachael Anderson
Dead cattle at Eddington station 20km west of Julia Creek, Queensland.


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