KILLING CECIL, KILLING OURSELVES

In  Zimbabwe in Africa, until a few days ago, there lived a lion named Cecil. He was 13 years old; in his handsome, regal prime.  He lived in a protected parkland, and was a well known attraction to tourists come to see wild lions, while there is still wild habitat left for them. 

 

 

 The African Lion is on its way to endangered status. As Africa’s human population continues to explode,  Lion numbers are down 60% in just the last 30 years.  The collapse coincides largely with the loss of  their habitat.  That’s the sobering backdrop for Cecil’s murder for sport.

Here’s the story. A dentist from Minnesota paid more than $50,000 to kill a lion. He hired to two local guides to find a big, powerful male lion that the dentist wanted on his wall.  The details of how Cecil was targeted are unclear. What is known is Cecil lived, at least mostly if not entirely, inside a reserve, where hunting was not allowed.   While the intrepid dentist watched, the hired guides lured Cecil,  who was at least a prince in the local feline hierarchy, onto private land, where upon the dentist turned archer drilled the regal animal with an arrow. But it wasn’t a kill shot. 

Cecil bolted away. The hunter and his guides followed Cecil for the next forty hours. Instead of ending this wounded animal’s suffering, they followed, very possibly so the hunter could claim he took the powerful beast down with an arrow.  In the end, after almost two days of wounded agony, the dentist finished Cecil off with his gun.  Then they removed the lion’s head as a trophy and took its skin, perhaps destined to be a coffee table rug.

Killing for sport seems to be some kind of masculine thing. The operative word is ‘sport’.  People used to hunt to feed themselves. It’s still that way in many places, unfortunately.  But the person who  killed Cecil was financially secure. He spent a wad of money to kill a majestic predator as a personal trophy.  Murder is his sport.

Some psychologists say the choices we make are sometimes linked to certain brands of psychological inadequacy.    I don’t know. I’m not going to second guess the deeper motives behind the murder of Cecil the Lion. 

 

The intrepid big game hunter is getting hammered with scorching public condemnation.  He has been forced to close his dental practice. The scorn has emerged, not just from this country, but from around the entire world.  Many people in other countries have lost respect for Americans, because they see the horrendous casualties of our gun culture. In this case, it’s an American killer for sport willfully committing a reprehensible crime against nature.

 

Instead of shaking our heads in disgust at the death of Cecil the lion, then allowing indifference to absorb our momentary compassion, I say, let’s use our mourning for this handsome lion prince as a teachable moment.  Let’s make Cecil an icon; a martyr that stands for a human commitment to renewing the natural world.  

 

The human population has doubled since 1970. It took half a million years,  to get to a human population of 3.7 billion,  only 45 years to explode those numbers to nearly 7.4 billion.  We are still adding about 75 million new humans every year.  Too many people remain ignorant or in denial about the impact of our numbers. The scientific evidence is clear.  We have turned our atmosphere into a sewer. We are exhausting our fresh water supplies, stripping the life from our oceans and using up the planet’s finite resources like there is no tomorrow. We are shredding the biosphere we all depend on.  In just the last few decades it took to double our human numbers, the wild animal population in Earth has dropped by more than 50%.

 

We are all culpable for the perfect storm of 21^st century challenges that threaten not just humanity, but all life on Earth. It’s not just the dentist from Minnesota that is guilty.  He is in hiding, unable, despite claims of ‘deep regret’, to shed the regal blood on his hands. No question, he is doing the suffering now.

 

Here is a clear pathway to redemption for the dentist perpetrator.   Face the public.  Acknowledge the moral bankruptcy that big game hunting draws on.  Renounce hunting; arm yourself with a genuine understanding of how our biosphere works, then become a voice of compassion and reason. The louder and more powerful your message, the better for your soul.  Shape your own assertive mission as an ambassador for better behavior toward nature.

 

Let’s not allow Cecil’s death to go in vain. Let it be a symbol. Let it be a beacon that lights our course to a future that is both sustainable and life-affirming.  That’s the least each of us can do.  The undeniable truth is we have one small place in the universe.  The Earth is the only home we have. There is no choice.  We must fulfill our human potential and be the change we wish for.



 

Dancing Star Foundation President Michael Charles Tobias, in an Exclusive Discussion About the Fate of the Earth - Part One

This is the first part of my personal dialogue with Michael Charles Tobias, PhD, one of the world's most influential ecologists. He is a prolific author, filmmaker, and lecturer. In a career to date spanning 45 years, and as President of Dancing Star Foundation for 16 of those years, Tobias' work has taken him to nearly 100 countries, where his field research has resulted in some 50 books and 150 films that have been read or viewed throughout the world. He was the 62nd recipient of the Courage of Conscience Award, and is an honorary Member of the Club of Budapest. Tobias is best known for such works as his massive tome, World War III: Population and the Biosphere at the End of the Millennium, and with his partner Jane Gray Morrison, the ten hour dramatic mini-series, Voice of the Planet.

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EmanPDX - When I was born, there were about 2.5 billion humans on Earth. In just over six decades, that number has tripled to nearly 7.3 billion. Humans have always been a rapacious species, using the planet's resources as if without consequence.  Up until the late 20th century, we pretty much got away with it, because the Earth's bounty was so vast. It's clear now that our indiscriminate hubris has caught up with us. The sheer weight of humanity is driving unprecedented levels of ocean depletion, deforestation, the loss of critical top soils, the squandering of fresh water resources,   the dangerous warming of our atmosphere, and perhaps most significant, the devastating loss of biodiversity.  In the face of all this, the response of our political leaders has been tepid at best.    There do seem to be some encouraging signs, with humanity beginning to give some attention to the reckless course we've set for ourselves. What is your assessment of the prospects for human civilization, given our deeply destructive life choices?

Michael Tobias - Good question, not easily answered.  Homo Sapiens has never been at such a crossroad, where in we are responsible for the future of life on Earth. It is a catastrophic position to be in, unless, presumably, you are God. Barring any God-like interventions, we are left with a chilling predicament that indicts our nearly every activity.

For example, seize the news from any single morning, and you come up with such statistics as follows, today, May 6, 2015. You have a senior biologist, Dr. Haakon Hop, with an expedition called the Norwegian Young Sea ICE:Cruise ( www.npolar.no/nice2015 ), who - as reported by science editor David Shukam for the BBC News - declares , "So, what has been around the Arctic is these animals that live underneath the ice - crustaceans, amphipods, and copepods - the biodiversity has gone down, and their abundance and biomass have also gone down in the areas that have been measured" ( "Climate Drives 'New Era'  in Arctic Ocean." http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32553668 ). This expedition has noted a terrifying truth about the rapidity of Arctic sea ice melt, and the impacts upon every ecosystem there. Moreover, other BBC news this morning  suggest findings from the Antarctic citing that when the Arctic weather changes, ice core samples now unambiguously show that within 200 year the Antarctic begins to melt rapidly. The trouble is these trends are not happening 200 years apart, as was the case for many millennia.  They are happening simultaneously, as the oceanic currents in both the northern and southern hemisphere warm up at the same time. Every country is feeling the wrath and blow-back of our collective emissions.

Then, there is the grim headline in today's Los Angeles Times, "Millions of 'Red Trees' - National forests across California are turning brown from lack of water, raising concerns about wildfires," by Veronica Rocha and Hailey Branson-Ports (pp, B1, B5) pertaining to the fact that "Instead of the typical deep green color, large swaths of pine trees now don hues of death, their dehydrated needles turning brown and burnt-red because of the state of worsening drought." "The situation is incendiary," William Palzert of JPL is quoted. "The national forest is stressed out."  

And on the very cover, today's L.A. Times is writ front and center and bold, "A STATE OF DENIAL - Data suggest the need to slash water use hasn't sunk in," by Monte Morin, Matt Stevens, and Chris Megerian (pp: A1, A11).

Also on the cover of today's L.A.Times, Chris Kraul's piece entitled "Chile's Race to Save it's Mummies," (pp A1, A4). Because of climate change, the oldest mummies in the world are melting, turning into a mysterious black ooze.

Again, in the same L.A. Times, today. Pat Morrison speaks with Stanford University professor, Jon A. Krosnick about his two decades of looking at public opinion regarding climate change. Krosnick speaks to the fact that "...we've started looking at states and haven't found a single state where a majority of residents are skeptical, but legislatures think they are." (p.A.15)



Egyptian Vulture on the Island of Socotra, Yemen© M.C. Tobias

But, then people, even serious students of the environment, read a piece like that by Jason G. Goldman, writing in the May 1st, 2015 issue of Conservation, in an article entitled "National Park Visitors Inject billions into the US Economy,"  and they see that there were "292 million" visits to America's 401 national parks in 2014, generating income exceeding "$16 billion" in park gateway regions(not even including money spent inside the parks) and creating cumulatively, as of 2014, 277,000 jobs." http://conservationmagazine.org/2015/05/national-park-visitors-inject-billions-into-the-us-economy/ And the temptation is to feel better about things, almost as if to nullify in one's mind the truth of what is happening all around us.

It's called, of course, the Anthropcene. We've known about it for decades, despite huge biological gap analyses. We're losing species at a rate that goes well beyond our comprehension. Out of the possible 100 million or so species, if one includes all lifeforms, we may well be losing thousands of species every day. More than half of all life is headed toward extinction - we know that, particularly all large vertebrates  (those animals over 100 kilograms). Herbivores like mountain gorillas and rhnios, elephants, giraffes, are particularly in trouble. But so are all charismatic carnivores, like tigers, wolves and grizzly bears. Among reptiles and amphibians, and the parrot groups of birds, the crisis is overwhelming. And this doesn't begin to factor in overall loss of habitat, key nurseries of the planet, like the neo-tropics and coral reefs.

Critically Endangered Arabian Leopard © M.C. Tobias

 Nor does it touch upon the most enormous area of all in which human cruelty is meted out in lethal forms to animals used for food, leather, fur, and a number of other material goods (a very dubious phrase: indeed, 'material goods' since there is nothing good about dead animal hides, or palm oil, whose origins coincided with  the human destruction of tropical peat swamps and the orangutans, for example, that depend solely on such habitat for their waning survival. 

Some three trillion animals killed last year, including cows, chickens, fish, turkeys, dogs, horses, pigs, sheep, and so on, for human consumption.

We are in a colossal mess like never before. So, my "assessment for the prospects of human civilization" as you ask? Not good.

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Stay tuned for more of  my conversation with Michael Tobias

Wild Animal Populations Collapsing Worldwide

Alarming could not be more of an understatement.  A 52 percent decline in wildlife populations in just the last 40 years.  That is the conclusion of an intense study of animal numbers by the World Wildlife Fund.   Why? A look in the mirror will give you the answer.  Human numbers have doubled to 7.3 billion in the same period, and demographers are now saying there is a 70% chance that the growth of the human population will hit nearly 11 billion before it stops.  That is an astonishing number.  It's no wonder the populations of other animal species are collapsing.

We humans are mindlessly shredding the fabric of our biosphere.  We are behaving like parasites... the kind of parasite that ultimately kills its host. 

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Taken from the Huffington Post   9/30/14

GENEVA (AP) — About 3,000 species of wildlife around the world have seen their numbers plummet far worse than previously thought, according to a new study by one of the world's biggest environmental groups.

The study Tuesday from the Swiss-based WWF largely blamed human threats to nature for a 52 percent decline in wildlife populations between 1970 and 2010.
It says improved methods of measuring populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles explain the huge difference from the 28-percent decline between 1970 and 2008 that the group reported in 2012.

Most of the new losses were found in tropical regions, particularly Latin America.

WWF describes the study it has carried out every two years since 1998 as a barometer of the state of the planet.

"There is no room for complacency," said WWF International Director General Marco Lambertini, calling for a greater focus on sustainable solutions to the impact people are inflicting on nature, particularly through the release of greenhouse gases.

The latest "Living Planet" study analyzed data from about 10,000 populations of 3,038 vertebrate species from a database maintained by the Zoological Society of London. It is meant to provide a representative sampling of the overall wildlife population in the world, said WWF's Richard McLellan, editor-in-chief of the study.

It reflects populations since 1970, the first year the London-based society had comprehensive data. Each study is based on data from at least four years earlier.

Much of the world's wildlife has disappeared in what have been called five mass extinctions, which were often associated with giant meteor strikes. About 90 percent of the world's species were wiped out around 252 million years ago. One such extinction about 66 million years ago killed off the dinosaurs and three out of four species on Earth.

In the new WWF study, hunting and fishing along with continued losses and deterioration of natural habitats are identified as the chief threats to wildlife populations around the world. Other primary factors are global warming, invasive species, pollution and disease.

"This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live," said Ken Norris, science director at the London society. "There is still hope. Protecting nature needs focused conservation action, political will and support from industry."

 

 

Human Population Growth and Wildlife Extinction

The human population is now more than 7.3 billion. That's about 75 million more people very year. Each of them, like the rest of us, needs food, water, and shelter to survive. The planet isn't getting any bigger. Our once abundant resources are becoming ever more scarce. The natural world we depend on is being shredded. We are pushing the wild creatures that share space with us to extinction.

The Center for Biological Diversity has released a powerful 90 second video that links continued human population growth with the destruction of our Earth's biological bounty. There are already 7.3 billion people, and we are still adding well over 200,000 to that number every single day.   How many is enough?  The case can be made that we are already well past that point.  Our human reproductive hubris is destroying the living fabric of our Earth. 

That is the very clear message in this new video. Here is the link... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vn8rXbTgWg&feature=youtu.be

Mourning the Rhino

I thought hard about whether I should post the image below.  It's very painful to look at. A baby rhino mourning its mother, just killed by poachers for its horn.

The rhino as a species is being wiped out.  They are only found now in a few places in Africa.  The only ones not in jeopardy are under 24 hour armed guard.  

Why are poachers willing to risk their lives to kill one of these creatures to gets its horn? The answer is well known. Traditional medicine markets in Asia, particularly in China, value powdered rhino horn as a medicinal cure. It fact, a rhino's horn is the same stuff as your fingernails. It has zero curative value. But the demand is still the there,  The fewer rhinos there are, the more people are willing to pay. Another market is in the Middle East in places like Yemen, where wealthy young men wear ceremonial daggers. A dagger handle made of carved rhino horn is a prized status symbol.   The fewer rhinos there are, the more a guy with money to burn is willing to pay to have his rhino horn dagger.

Sure, you can put the blame on the poachers. But let's get real.  Most of those guys are uneducated and desperately poor. One rhino horn can fetch them enough income to feed the family for a decade. It's no wonder they are willing to put their lives at risk. 

It's a very sad circumstance, but it's hard to be optimistic about the future of this magnificent species when the human population of the African continent is growing rapidly, faster than any place else on Earth.

Here is a link to Save the Rhino... http://www.savetherhino.org/

The Red List

The International Fund for Conservation and Nature (IUCN) has thus far assessed the status of 70,000 of the world's plant and animal species.  That's a very small sample of the world's estimated 1.82 million living species.  But of that small number assessed to this point, more than a third - 20,934 to be exact - have been declared threatened with extinction.   Moreover, a very high percentage of these threatened plants and animals have been pushed toward the precipice by human activity: the destruction and usurpation of natural habitat; the overexploitation of species considered economic resources; the introduction of toxins into natural environments.  Humans use and abuse the land and the living fabric of the natural world with little consideration of the consequences.

We have no choice. We must mend our ways.  Anything short of that translates to a very dismal picture for the generations yet to come.

Here is a brief overview lifted form the Common Dreams webpage that reports on the increasingly perilous state of the biological health of planet Earth.

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Published on Tuesday, July 2, 2013 by Common Dreams

"Extinction Crisis": 21,000 of World's Species at Risk of Disappearing

Latest update to Red List of threatened species provides "further evidence of our impact on the world's threatened biodiversity"

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

An "extinction crisis" is at hand. Roughly 21,000 species, ranging from shrimp to pine trees, are at risk of complete extinction according to an update released Tuesday to an ongoing risk assessment of the world's 1.82 million species.

 A species of cedar, among the world's oldest and largest organisms, is now considered 'critically endangered' according to the IUCN's updated Red List of Threatened Species. (Photo: billandkent/ Flickr) 

 

According to the Red List of Threatened Species, 20,934 of the roughly 70,000 species assessed thus far are threatened with extinction. This year saw an additional 4,807 species to the list.
Calling the news "alarming," Jane Smart, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which is behind the list, said, "We must use this knowledge to its fullest – making our conservation efforts well targeted and efficient - if we are serious about stopping the extinction crisis that continues to threaten all life on Earth."
This update "is further evidence of our impact on the world's threatened biodiversity, further evidence that extinction is real, and that we must all act, and act now, if we are to prevent this most tragic reality for many more of the world's species," added Richard Edwards, Chief Executive of Wildscreen, a partner of IUCN.
Among this year's addition are the results of the first-ever global assessment of freshwater shrimps—animals vital to freshwater ecosystems—of which 28% are threatened with extinction. According to the list, one such species, the Macrobrachium leptodactylus, was declared extinct after it fell "victim of habitat degradation and urban development."
Tuesday's release also includes the first global reassessment of conifers—the oldest and largest species on the planet—which found that "34% of the world’s cedars, cypresses, firs and other cone-bearing plants are now threatened with extinction – an increase by 4% since the last complete assessment in 1998."
"We are sending a warning," IUCN's Red List Manager Craig Hilton-Taylor told AFP, stressing the huge importance of conifers for their role in the sequestering of carbon.
"The more we have deforestation in the northern hemisphere, the greater the impact will be in terms of climate change," he said.

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Here is a link to the IUCN's Red List webpage...  http://www.iucnredlist.org/

What Happened to the Birds - Part Two

I didn't expect to be following up my last entry with another on the same subject, but then, I didn't expect to read something as troubling as what follows  either.

The chemical giants in their infinite wisdom have figured out how to engineer pesticide right into the seed they sell to farmers and landscapers. 

"Once again this spring, farmers will begin planting at least 140 million acres—a land mass roughly equal to the combined footprints of California and Washington state—with seeds (mainly corn and soy) treated with a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Commercial landscapers and home gardeners will get into the act, too—neonics are common in lawn and garden products"

Is it any wonder that songbirds and honey bees  have been decimated? Is monetary profit the only basis for assigning value in our world these days? It sure seems so.



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Not Just the Bees: Bayer's Pesticide May Harm Birds, Too

—By Tom Philpott

Mother Jones Magazine

| Wed Mar. 27, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

 

Geese in a corn field Jimmy Smith/Flickr

 

 

Once again this spring, farmers will begin planting at least 140 million acres—a land mass roughly equal to the combined footprints of California and Washington state—with seeds (mainly corn and soy) treated with a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Commercial landscapers and home gardeners will get into the act, too—neonics are common in lawn and garden products. If you're a regular reader of my blog, you know all of that is probably bad news for honeybees and other pollinators, as a growing body of research shows—including three studies released just ahead of last year's planting season.

 

But bees aren't the only iconic springtime creature threatened by the ubiquitous pesticide, whose biggest makers are the European giants Bayer and Syngenta. It turns out that birds are too, according to an alarming analysis co-authored by Pierre Mineau, a retired senior research scientist at Environment Canada (Canada's EPA), published by the American Bird Conservancy. And not just birds themselves, but also the water-borne insect species that serve as a major food source for birds, fish, and amphibians.
 

The article isn't peer-reviewed, but Mineau is a formidable scientist. In February, he published a peer-reviewed paper in PLoS One concluding that pesticides, and not habitat loss, have likely been driving bird-population declines in the United States.

 

That paper didn't delve into specific pesticides. For his American Bird Conservancy paper, Mineau and his co-author, Cynthia Palmer, looked at a range of research on the effects of neonics on birds and water-borne insects, from papers by independent researchers to industry-funded studies used in the EPA's deregulation process and obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

For the most vulnerable bird species, they found, consuming even two corn seeds coated with Bayer's blockbuster neonic clothianidin can have lethal effects.

 

Their conclusion: Neonics are highly mobile and persistent once they're unleashed into ecosystems, and they pose a serious threat to birds and the insects they feed on. The EPA, they continue, has in some cases severely underestimated the danger and in other cases simply ignored it. The underestimation, they argue, mainly stems from the widespread use of two bird species to judge toxicity, mallards and bobwhites. But many other bird species are more vulnerable to neonics than those two, and Mineau's paper concludes the EPA, in its risk assessment used to register a raft of neonic products over the past two decades, "underestimates toxicity by 1.5 to 10 fold if the intent of the exercise is to protect most species, not merely mallards and bobwhites." For the most vulnerable bird species, they found, consuming even two corn seeds coated with Bayer's blockbuster neonic clothianidin can have lethal effects.

The authors point to several instances of EPA scientists raising serious concerns about the ecological impacts of these pesticides, only to see them registered anyway. Back in 2003, when the EPA was first considering registering Bayer's clothianidin, an agency risk assessment concluded that "exposure to treated seed through ingestion might result in chronic risk to birds and mammals, especially mammals where consumption of 1-2 seeds only could push them to an exposure level at which reproductive effects are expected," the authors report. The assessment also described the chemical as persistent and mobile, with "potential to leach to groundwater as well as runoff to surface waters." So what happened to clothianidin? A "plethora of registered uses for clothianidin followed in quick succession," they report. The pesticide is now used on corn, soybeans, cotton, pears, potatoes, tree nuts, mustard greens, and more.

Mineau's paper notes in passing that the EPA also identified potential threats from clothianidin to bees as early as 2003, adding, however, that the pollinator issue is "outside the scope of the current review." I told the sordid tale of clothianidin's march through EPA registration despite its own scientists' bee concerns in this 2010 post.

But the most pernicious effect of neonics on birds may be indirect: By leaching into water and accumulating in streams and ponds, neonics also attack a major component of birds' food supply: insects that hang out in water, what Mineau calls the "bottom of the aquatic food chain." The EPA has severely underestimated the risk to such insects, they charge. For the neonic imidacloprid, they argue, a "scientifically defensible reference level" to gauge when the pesticide causes harm to insects is 0.2 ug/l. "European regulators acknowledge that acute effects are likely at levels exceeding 0.5 ug/l," they write. "In contrast, the EPA’s regulatory and non-regulatory reference levels are set at 35 ug/l."

Based on Mineau's analysis, the American Bird Conservancy is calling for a ban on the practice of using neonics to treat seed, joining a similar plea from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Meanwhile the EPA has been conducting a "comprehensive re-evaluation of these pesticides," but has taken no action to stop their use, and isn't expected to complete its review until 2018 at the earliest. Mineau told me that he presented his case on neonics and birds to the EPA last week, urging them to "speed things up a bit" on the review. I asked him how his message went over. "I didn't get the answer, that, sure, we'll have it done next year," he said. Instead, he added, the agency stressed it would stick to its current process. And that means heavy neonic exposure for the birds and the bees for at least another half-decade.




 

Whale Wars - Update

 A couple of stories that just popped up on the net suggest that the Japanese Whaling industry is on life support.  One report indicates that the Japanese people have lost their appetite for eating whale meat.  Allegedly, there are warehouses in Japan with frozen whale meat stacked to the rafters, unsold. 

The ongoing campaign by the Sea Shepard Society to interdict the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic ocean has dramatically reduced the number of whales slaughtered. In fact, the current killing season has been a wash for the Japanese. Not one whale killed, due to the constant harassment of the Sea Shepard Society's presence.

The killing of whales was banned by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. The Japanese have continued a limited whale hunt, shamelessly claiming that the killing they are doing is 'research'.  That is bullshit and the whole world knows it.

The hundred plus volunteers that staff the Sea Shepard Society's vessels come from all over the world. They courageously put their own lives at risk in confrontations with Japanese whalers in the severe conditions of the Antarctic ocean in order to stop the whale slaughter.

The Japanese government has tried to shut down Sea Shepard's efforts in the courts. They have tried to make Paul Watson, the Sea Shepard leader, an international criminal. So far, nothing the Japanese have done to save their whaling industry has worked. The government of Japan is now subsidizing their whalers at a cost of something like $130 million a year.   There is no way for them to win this fight. The moral high ground is held by those defending the whales.   

 Here is a link to the Sea Shepard Society website  http://www.seashepherd.org/

Further update. Here is a link to a video posted by teh Sea Shepard team in February, 2013  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4Ep45gKJbQ&feature=player_embedded

Put a Bell on Your Cat

I've already written about this once, but its worth a repeat. House cats kill an enormous number of birds and small animals.  A new report puts the number at between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds and between  6.9 and 20.7 billion rodents and other small animals annually. These numbers are staggering but not surpising.  There are about 84 million feline pets in the U.S., and a lot of them are allowed to roam outside.

This situation hits home for a couple of reasons. My wife and I live in Portland, Oregon in a place where there should be lots of songbirds.  We just don't see them that often. 

I like cats. They can be wonderful pets, but they are what they are...very efficient predators. The cat next door is outside most of the time. He likes to hang out on our neighbor's roof.  He also visits us regularly, probably because he likes the catnip we grow in our garden. Several times, he has left dead mice on our back walkway. 

When I was growing up, my family lived successively in Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania,  and Kansas. In each of those places, in the Spring and Summer,  there was a constant cacaphony of birds calling to eachother.  It's troubling to not hear any of that where we live in Oregon.  It's very green here and there should be lots of birds. 

If you have a cat, keep it indoors. That's the best way to prevent it from exercising its worst instincts.  If you must let your cat outside to roam, put a bell around its neck.  That will at least give its prey some warning and a chance to escape before its too late.



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Saving a Humpback

It's a beautiful thing to see humans show compassion for another species. In this video shot in Mexico's Sea of Cortez in February, 2011, a group of people cross paths with a giant humpback whale, barely alive, trapped in a tighly wrapped cocoon of nylon gill net. At some personal risk, the humans worked with a knife to cut away the netting. After an hour, they restored the great whale's freedom. The humans were then treated to a joyful display of breeching and tail slapping by a magnificent creature, grateful to be free.

Here is the link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBYPlcSD490

Gorillas - 98.6% Human

Here is a link to a wonderful short film that's up close with wild gorillas. We have an obligation to protect these near human ceratures. If we don't they will be gone in the wild by mid-eentury.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co8NneR8ilc

Panda's Giant Problem

Who would argue that the giant panda bear, native to China, is one of the world's most endearing creatures. Due primarily to habitat loss caused by human encroaachment, the giant panda is an endangered species. The government of China maintains a substantial program for captive breeding pandas.  There are thought to be something like 2,000 wild pandas remaining and about 250 in zoos and in  captive breeding facilties in China.

One very unusual part of the giant panda's life is its near total reliance on bamboo as a food source.  That dependence on bamboo could well turn out to be the panda's ulitmate undoing.   Studies on the impact of climate change on wild bamboo just published indicate that most bamboo species could be wiped out by higher temperatures and draught caused by a warming planet. 

We humans are doing a pretty good job of messing up the planet for ourselves and for other species like the panda. The best way to assure a future for wild pandas would be for humans to aggressively embrace proper stewardship of the natural world.

The Most Beautiful Animal Species

What is the most beautiful of all animal species?  A judgement like this is obviously very subjective.   If being photogenic is the primary criteria, my vote goes to the Snow Leopard. Not only is this medium sized cat beautiful to look at, it's also a creature of incredible grace, wonderfully adapted to  the sheer rock faces of the high Himalayas, above 10,000 feet. Snow leopards have massive paws and very thick fur, with a color pattern that blends perfectly with the snowy, high altitude environment. 

Snow Leopard's are rare, and are seriously threatened by habitat loss and the Asian fur trade.  Until a few years ago, there was virtually no video of a snow leopard hunting in its natural habitat.  Then, the BBC sent a crew to Mongolia; it's sole mission was to get video footage of snow leopards.  After a few weeks of waiting, the BBC crew was rewarded with some spectacular footage of a snow leopard chasing a young mountain ibex down the craggy face of a near vertical rock cliff.

Here is a link to that snow leopard video on Discovery's 'Planet Earth' minseries     .http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Snow_Leopard#p00378k9

Alan Hunt, a well-known and much admired wildlife artist, has painted the Snow Leopard multiple times. We have a limited edition print of the one below hanging in our home.

Nomad by Alan Hunt

Here is a link to the  Snow Leopard Trust http://www.snowleopard.org/

Whale Wars Update

It seems the Japanese government is using up a lot of diplomatic chips trying to take down Paul Watson, leader of the Sea Shepard Society. For nearly a decade,  Watson and his band of whale defenders have been a massive thorn in the side of the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctic waters. 

There is an international ban on commercial whaling. The Japanese have finessed the ban by conducting what they characterize as research whaling.  Of course, it's a sham. The Japanese whaling is commercial, covered by a fig leaf with the words research printed on it.  Over the past eight years, Watson and his Sea Shepard band have seriously disrupted the Japanese 'Southern Ocean' whaling operation.  They have made it a big time money loser for the Japanese, while documenting their campaign as a reality TV offering on the Animal Planet Cable Channel.

The Japanese government is now trying to get the governments of Costa Rica and Germany involved in an extradition process that would deliver Watson, a Canadian citizen, into Japanese hands.  Thus far, it hasn't worked.  What it has done is prevent Watson from rejoining his crews for another season of disruption of Japan's whaling agenda.

I first wrote about Whale Wars in a blog dated  July 12, 2012.  I applaud Watson and his crews for their tenacious defense of whales from Japanese harpoons.   What the Japanese are doing is not research. It's commercial killing designed to turn a profit. Few Japanese people actually eat whale meat. The whale slaughter is not about feeding people.  It has one purpose: making money.  Watson and his whale defenders have killed that prospect. What we have now is the Japanese government pumping millions in subsidies into their sham research whaling operation in order to save face.   They have unleashed a diplomatic shit storm against Paul Watson.  What they cannot and never will get around is the fundamental decency of Watson's relentless defense of whales.

Here is a piece penned by Paul Watson that just appeared in the Guardian (U.K.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/31/paul-watson-clients-whales

Talking to Bonobos

The bonobo, Pan paniscus, looks like a smaller version of the chimpazee. In fact, they are close relatives to chimps, but are a separate species.

Bonobos live in a small area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Size is not the only thing that makes them different from chimps.  Bonobo culture is considered matriarcal, with male status tied to the mother's status in the group.  Bonobos are significantly less aggressive than chimps, very likely because they are highly sexual.  Relationships and social status are reinforced with frequent sexual activity, both heterosexual and homosexual, among both sexes.  Perhaps one of the reasons bonobos are not often found on display in zoos is because they are are prone to sexual behavior, all day, every day.  As a way of maintaining relationships and keeping the peace, it appears to work very well for them.

Given that bonobos are such close relatives to humans, could it be that our cultural morays are causing us to stifle our own natural sexual instincts?   I think that case could be made, just on the anecdotal evidence.  Bonobos benefit socially from the frequent expression of their sexuality.  I don't guess we're going to see humans emulating them any time soon, but we might benefit from being a bit more tolerant of the many ways that people do express that part of their lives.

In Iowa, there is a research center, where a family group of bonobos resides.  They are clearly very intelligent. The whole group has learned 400 symbols that relate to ideas or words. They are able to communciate with researchers using these symbols.

Now, there is an effort underway to create an electronic interface that will translate bonobo symbolic communciation into words spoken by a robotic bonobo.  A clever way to foster interspecies communications. 

Here is the link to the robotic bonobo development project...

http://www.gizmag.com/bonobo-chat-ape-communication-app/22002/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=5156a9d703-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

There are only about 40,000 bonobos left in the wild. Their numbers have dropped significantly in recent years, mostly because of poaching.  The Congo is a place where a large portion of the growing human population relies on bushmeat from wild animals for food.  They hunt bonobos and kill them for food.

In fact, human population growth is the chief threat to bonobo survival. The Congo is a place larger than all of Europe combined. It is also the center of an ongoing human genocide. More than ten million people have died violent deaths over the last two decades.  Despite that fact, the human population has been growing at a rate of 3% annually. The current population of nearly 70 million is expected to swell to 180 million by 2050. What does that mean for the Congo's wild animal species? It's deeply depressing to think that bonobos, chimps, and gorillas, the closest relatives to humans, could be wiped out by humans consuming them for food.  That very likely will happen before the end of this century. We humans should find a way to prevent it. We shoud encourage a sustainable future for the Congo that celebrates and protects that nation's unique biological heritage. Unfortunately, very little like that is happening,  and time is running out.

My Close Encounter with a Spirit Bear

In late September of 1999, I found myself on the Canadian raincoast, 400 miles north of Vancouver, B.C.  I was there to produce a documentary on the destructive impact of clear cut logging on that remote, incredibly beautiful stretch of coastal wilderness.

Traveling aboard, Maple Leaf, a restored 19th century schooner, the production team we put together followed the documentary project's host, James Cromwell and Ian McAllister, former leader of the Raincoast Conservation Society, as they talked about salmon, bears,  whales, and the lush forests that dominate the landscape, except where loggers have stripped the land clear of trees.

It happens that one of the rarest bears in the world can be found only in one small area of the raincoast. The Haisla, the Canadian First Nations people, native to that area, call this bear,  Kermode or Spirit Bear.  It's actually a genetically distinct, common black bear that happens to have white or blond fur.  There are only about 400 known to exist.

During this trip, I had one the most thrilling experiences of my life. It happened  on a day we spent sitting next to a rocky waterfall, watching and filming wild bears catching and eating one salmon after another. The bears would come around to the falls, one at a time - a territorial thing, we were told. After hanging around long enough to catch and eat a couple of fish, the bear would move on, making away for another bear looking for a meal. This went on, hour after hour. The biggest thrill was the arrival of a Spirit Bear. There was a special kind of magic to this encounter, and not just because this white bear was considererd a spirit by the locals. He was big as bears go; and very healthy looking; probably well over 400 pounds. It's no wonder the way he dined. During the 75 minutes he was with us,  that white bear caught and ate one salmon after another; eight total. The weight of the fish consumed; at least 40 pounds. He knew we were there. He didn't care. He'd catch his fish, then amble across a log into the forest, where he would settle back on his butt against a tree (really, he did that; eight times!), and  eat his catch.  At one point, Marc Griffith,  our cameraguy,  set up just three feet below the log that bear walked over, each time with a fish flapping in its jaws. I was right behind Marc. We were assured we would not be in danger, unless we tried to take the bear's fish.  No chance of that happening. The whole experience was amazing. The most exhilerating animal encounter of my life.

Years later,  the B.C government changed its raincoast policy away from unbridled exploitation to the point that much of the Great Bear Rainforest is now protected.  Where logging continues, it is  subject to closely monitored regulation. I like to think my colleagues and I made a modest but useful contribution to that very encouraging outcome.

The link below is a short video shot by Ian McAllister that features the Spirit Bear and images of the Canadian raincoast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IRxdk6m17s

Simian Delight

Human interaction with wild gorillas was pretty much unheard of until Dian Fossey's enchanting, but ultimately tragic story was told in the movie, Gorillas in the Mist. The mountain gorilla is one of the most critically endangered, large animal species on Earth. As of January, 2011, there were just under 800 of them in the world. They can only be found in a few protected areas in the Eastern Congo, Uganda, and Ruwanda. These days their best hope may come from the tourist dollars generated by foreigners, who travel to Africa to experience wild gorillas, up close. These intelligent, peaceful, and mostly vegetarian creatures share about 99% of their genetic identity with humans.

I love this video. Partially because it is reminiscent of a scene in Change Agents, my most recent screenplay. The large male patriarch, also known as the silverback, weighs in the range of 400 pounds. In this amazing moment of human-gorilla interaction, the silverback pays an unexpected visit to a tourist camp, accompanied by his wives and their kiddies. 

The best part begins just over a minute into the video. It is magical. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvWjBlzArII