The Whale Man of Australia

Darren Jew lives a life that I would consider trading for. He spends his time photographing and making videos of whales and other marine life.  His work is the gold standard.  Amazingly beautiful imagery. His photos of whales, particularly Humpbacks, are powerful and beautiful.

I'm so glad that in my lifetime, people like Darren Jew came along at the same time photographic technology made it possible to showcase the beauty of the ocean. Now everyone can see why we need to appreciate the gifts of the sea. In the best of worlds,  the kind of inspiration Darren Jew creates with his camera can inspire people everywhere to become proper stewards of the biosphere.

Here is the link to Darren Jew's website. Be sure to check out the video on the index page...http://darrenjew.com/

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."

 

 

Wildlife Botanical Gardens

Just yesterday, my wife and I drive up to the Wildlife Botanical Gardens in Brush Prairie, Washington. It's about a 40 minute drive from our house on the west side of Portland.

Anyway, it's this beautiful rural acreage that has been lovingly nurtured over the years into a gorgeous natural tapestry of blended colors and textures.  There are plenty of birds and bees around; much more than we see around our home. But, even in this place out in the country, there aren't as many birds around as one might have expected,  though it's still very nice.  On a Saturday afternoon in the summer, we were the only visitors. Aside from a couple of friendly volunteer gardeners, we had the place to ourselves.

Here are a couple of my photos from the Wildlife Botanical Gardens...

My favorite is the one that is dominated by white flowers that are dappled with sunlight peaking through the trees.

The image of the hummingbird hovering over the bubbling bird bath  was hard to get. Only one out of about eight exposures that I shot had the bird even partially in focus.  This little bird was an acrobat, darting back and forth, up and down for a quick sip of water.

Here is a link to the webpage of The Wildlife Botanical Garden.    http://www.naturescaping.org/

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/

Alaska Fishermen Rescue Orca Whale

It's always heartening to run across a story of humans being kind to an animal in distress.  In this case, three Alaskans, Jason Vonick and two friends,  were out in a remote area of shoreline on their boat when they came across a pod of orca whales.  They noticed that one of the smaller whales was stuck on some rocks and unable to move.  

The easy course for the fishermen would have been to keep on going. Instead, they anchored their fishing boat and tried to help.  They recorded some video of the event. The stranded whale remained calm and actually seemed to take comfort from the efforts of Vonick and his colleagues to keep her cool and reassure her.  The other orca remained just a few feet away. They were not even a little aggressive.  They seemed to understand that Vonick and his friends were there to help.

Finally, after four hours, the tide came in enough that the fishermen were able to use a pair of oars to lever the stranded whale free of the rocks.

It's a wonderful story, with a happy ending. I just wish the brand of kindness displayed by Jason Vonick and his two colleagues was the rule rather than exception.  

Here is the link to the You Tube video shot by the fishermen....  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrqcmDHY9xo

Polar Bears - Death by Starvation

The other day, a report appeared on the net about a polar bear that was found dead in northern Norway. The bear was little more than skin and bones. It had starved to death. 

Polar Bears are apex predators. They're very good at finding food in the short season of sunlight in the far north. They are biologically fine tuned to hunt and catch seals and other prey while roaming the permanent pack ice.  In the few months of summer, they have to eat a lot. They have to put on a lot of fat to tide them over during the long dark winters in hibernation.    The problem is the pack ice on which they depend for access to their natural food supply is going away. It used to be that these bears could walk on to the ice from the landed areas of the arctic during the entire summer season.  That is no longer true.  In many places, the ice recedes hundreds of miles, leaving bears in those areas no way to access the ice.  There have even been cases where polar bears have drown while trying to swim to the ice they are adapted to and which  has always been there in the past.  It's no wonder that these predators have become an endangered species.

Undeniably, the loss of the summer sea ice is caused by anthropocentric warming... climate change caused by human dependence on fossil fuels.  

The demise of the polar bear is but one tragic example of human hubris.  Our indifference to nature's rhythms is directly causing the decline of plant and animal species in every corner of our planet. It is deeply distressing to see life on Earth being destroyed purely because we humans are unwilling to practice good planetary stewardship.  We can and should be better than that...

Dance of the Honey Bee

Bees are wonderful little creatures. They work tirelessly to serve the hive, gathering nectar and pollen from flowers far and wide.

We tend to take bees for granted, not understanding that they play a crucial role in the lifecycles of nature.  Most plants require a transfer of pollen from one individual plant to another to reproduce.  Bees are the instruments of much of that cross pollination. If it weren't for bees,  the natural food supply humans depend on would shrink dramatically. 

Bees are in a lot of trouble these days. Whole hives can disappear in virtually an instant due to something called Colony Collapse Disorder.   Mounting evidence suggests this could be  caused by the wide spread use of a particularly deadly form of insecticide known as  neonicotinoids. The manufacturers of these insecticides deny any link to honey bee deaths. Odd, when you consider that bees are insects. Duh.  When you spread this kind of poison over the landscape,  it's going to kill any small creatures that come into contact with it.  That bees are particularly vulnerable should be no surprise.

As I wrote at the beginning of this piece, bees are wonderful little creatures.  We need to appreciate the very important role they play in the fabric of life. That's the first step in becoming advocates that recognize that protecting bees is tantamount to protecting ourselves.

Here is a link to a new video called Dance of the Honey Bees...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo6fK1yKcAA

Humpback Whales Startle Kayakers

I love video clips like this. Here we have a team of filmmakers from the Discovery Channel in Alaska getting up close and personal with a pod of humpback whales.

 

 

One of the ways humpbacks feed is by blowing air bubbles in a circle below a school of herring or other fish. The circles rise like a curtain, confusing the fish, causing them to cluster together inside the ring of bubbles. Then, the humpbacks come up from below, mouths agate, and swallow tons of water and fish at a time. The whales use their tongues to push the water out of their mouths, while retaining the fish.  It takes a lot of fish to slake the appetite of a 50 ton whale. This technique of feeding is very effective and remarkable to witness.

Here is a link to an amazing close up experience with humpbacks feeding in the Gulf of Alaska...  http://on.aol.com/video/north-america--humpback-whales-startle-kayakers-517860640

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/

Robert Bateman

I am a fan of noble creativity of all types.  Painting images is an art form that reveals itself in countless ways.  I have a particular affection for wildlife art that showcases living creatures in ways that celebrate their beauty and grace in their natural habitat.

For more than thirty years, I have been a fan of the brilliant, Canadian wildlife artist, Robert Bateman.  

Robert Bateman

Whether capturing the majesty of a lounging snow leopard...

Or a goldfinch in a meadow...

 

 or Elephants looming over their landscape...

or wolves looking for a meal in the wilderness...

Robert Bateman's art celebrates the wild creatures he paints with elegant reflections that are worthy of the natural world he reveres.  Bateman's work is a gift that will be ever more appreciated as time goes on.  If you aren't familiar with his work,  go to the links below and become a fan yourself.


Here is a link to Robert Bateman's website...  http://www.robertbateman.ca/index.html


Here is a link to a video about Robert Bateman...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE2ZMF1C7ZA
  

Here is a link to a video about the new Bateman Art Centre in Victoria, British Columbia  --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM9QD5Gjtkk&feature=player_embedded#!

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.




 

Dolphins Know Each Other by Name

Animal communication is something that runs far deeper than most people care to think about.  Scientists have known for sometime that sperm whales and dolphins have distinct whistles that equate to their individual identity.  They have names.  Further confirmation comes with the just announced finding that dolphins use these whistle 'names' to call to each other in the wild.

 A large share of the human population on Earth has an affection for cetaceans; the mammalian family that includes whales, purposes, and dolphins. They are exceptionally intelligent creatures. Despite being viewed favorably by most people, these animals that name themselves are subjected to constant assault on their marine habitat. Overexploitation of the ocean's living and mineral resources by humans puts all cetaceans species at grave risk.  We need to show more respect for all the species with whom we share our earth.    No doubt, that's what we would want and expect if the tables were turned and we were dolphins and they were us.

Here is a story that reports on this latest finding...   http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/20/172538036/researchers-find-that-dolphins-call-each-other-by-name?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

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

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.

Koko

In 1971, a female lowland gorilla was born in the San Francisco Zoo.  At one year of age, she was given into the care of a behavioral researcher named  Francine Patterson.  The young gorilla was named Koko.  

Koko has lived with Francine Patterson ever since. Koko is 41 years old now.  Over the years, she has learned to sign with her hands (American sign language). She can use 1,100 different signs and can understand more than 2,000 words in spoken English.

Koko with Francine Patterson

What can be said about Koko?  She is an animal; a primate, sharing all but about one percent of the DNA genetic code that we humans have in our cells. The normal life of gorillas is in Central and West Africa, living in small family units, eating mostly plants. Wild gorillas are shy creatures, who divide most of their time between munching and snoozing. They are generally quiet and non-aggressive, except when threatened.

The difference between humans and other animal species has traditionally involved the concept of sentience.  A sentient being is one that feels pleasure and pain, and is capable of at least a modicum of awareness of  itself. There are those that hold the view that even higher animals like gorillas are incapable to such feelings.  

Koko is without question a sentient being. She is intelligent (as gorillas go), and very much an emotional being.

Nothing demonstrates Koko's ability to  feel deep emotion than her relationship with her pet kitten, which she herself named 'All Ball'.

Koko and 'All Ball'

Koko cared for the kitten like it was her own baby.

Unfortunately, the tale of Koko and 'All Ball' took an unexpected turn that fully demonstrated just how sentient Koko is. 

The following link is to a video that shows Koko's touching reaction to some very bad news about 'All Ball'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqTUG8MPmGg


Gorillas are not humans.  There is a difference. But like so many other animal species, there is ample evidence that they are capable of feeling pleasure and pain; of being happy or sad.

In the case of the gorilla, there is only a small area in the Congo River basin and in Rwanda where they are indigenous.  Their numbers have been in constant decline over the past few decades.  Habitat loss, due to human encroachment is the biggest cause.  The human population has exploded in the few places where gorillas live in the wild.  Pretty much all of the people living in those places must survive off of what the land provides. There is some agriculture, but the biggest part of the protein in the human diet in those places is from wild animals.  About 20% of animals killed by hunters for human consumption are primates, including gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. The term used to reduce these wild creatures into a market commodity is 'bushmeat'. I wrote an earlier blog entry about bushmeat in 09/08/2012.

The future of gorillas like Koko and other primates in the wild is not good.  In fact, that's probably a big league understatement. The human population in the Congo is currently about 76 million. That number is expected to grow to 180 million by 2050.   Given that most people in the Congo depend on bushmeat,  it's hard to imagine that any kind of wild animal species will survive.   Knowing this pains me to the core. I so wish there was something I could do about it.

Ecological Otters

Sea Otters are whimsical creatures,  fun to watch under any circumstance.  Turns out they are important greenhouse warriors. 

Sea Otters live in kelp beds along pacific coast shorelines.  At one time, they were hunted to near extinction for their fur.  They are common now in kelp beds along the California coast near Monterey.  

What makes them ecological warriors? It really is about the kelp beds. Being a plant, Kelp is a greenhouse gas absorber.  Urchins are spiny shelled creatures that patrol the bottom near shore, eating whatever they can find.  Urchins are bad news for kelp.

Sea Otters eat urchins.  Their presence helps keep kelp beds healthy and active greenhouse gas absorbers.

 

 

Even if they weren't warriors doing their part in nature's grand plan for ecological balance,  Sea Otters would still be fun to watch.   It's heartening to know that they are a protected species and people don't hunt them for their fur anymore.

Bushmeat

In West Africa, people depend on bushmeat for survival. We're talking about wild animals hunted and killed for human consumption.  Professional hunters armed with snares and rifles fan out in the heavily vegetated jungle in places like the Congo and the Cameroon  to collect every kind of warm blooded vertebrate for sale in the 'meat' sections of local village markets. In West Africa, villages don't have supermarkets with the latest packaged edibles.  They don't have McNuggets  or frozen pizza they can heat up in the oven. They don't have ovens either. Even if they did, the people have no money to buy food.  The average person survives on less than two dollars a day in West Africa.   They get along the traditional way, subsisting on what nature provides,  plants like cassava root and bushmeat.

Subsistence living has worked in West Africa for tens of thousands of years of human evolution.  It does not work anymore.  There quite simply are too many people trying to survive on nature's rapidly dwindling reserves.

As much as twenty percent of the bushmeat trade is in wild primates. We're talking gorillas, chimps, colobus, and various other kinds of monkeys. These creatures have hands like ours, and large brains in relation to body size. The evidence shows they are sentient beings, able to experience pleasure and pain.  They can't speak like humans, but the closest primate relatives to humans - the great apes like gorillas and chimps - can be trained to communicate to a remarkable degree using sign language. Koko the gorilla is wonderful testament to that fact.  She understands  more than a thousand hand signs and more than two thousand spoken words.

In West Africa, we humans are eating our closest relatives; consuming them as food.  There is little or no malevolence involved.  It's just a fact. It's all they have ever known in West Africa, and there is no alternative.  Corporations that provide an abundance of food for developed nations have little presence in West Africa, mostly because there is no money in it.

Eating our closest relatives is not new to humans.   A hundred thousand years ago, 'Australopithicus' - a close human relative that walked erect, but had a smaller brain -  shared the landscape with humans. Guess who hunted the lesser species and ate them.  If you haven't seen the 1981 movie, Quest for Fire, check it out. See who's tied up, hanging from a tree limb, waiting to be put on the dinner menu.

In 2012, the bushmeat trade in West Africa is an abhorent fact of life.

Eating off the land is the way it's always been in Africa. In fact, before developed nations were developed, that's how it was in those places as well. Humans were hunter/gatherers before they became farmers.  In much of Africa, it's still that way. Estimates suggest up to 90% of animal protein consumed by people living in the Congo Basin comes from bushmeat. Only now, the human population is exploding. Humans are taking more and more of the land, the water, and other resources for themselves.   The massive wild animal slaughter that is taking place is devastating.

It's easy to apply lazy logic and place all the blame on the Africans for the demise of their wildlife. That would be very wrong.

Rapacious multi-national corporations covet the still largely untapped natural resources in Africa.   In the Congo, Cameroon, and other West African nations, we're talking timber and a whole range of valuable rare earth minerals that have already been substantially exploited in other parts of the world.  Killing off the wildlife that currently occupy the lands these outside forces covet is the first step to opening up rampant exploitation.

It's hard to see much hope for the wild creatures of West Africa.  There are already parts of the landscape in the Congo basin that have largely been stripped of their wildlife.

The bushmeat trade is heartbreaking.  I so wish there was a way to stop it, or at least reduce it to a level that nature can manage.

Much of the world's human population growth is taking place in Africa.  That's because we gave them modern medicine but have not helped them manage their fertility.  The Democratic Republic of the Congo currrently has a human population of about 75 million.  That is expected to mushroom to 180 million by 2050.   With all those people dependent on bushmeat, what chance do the wild animals have?  It pains me in the deepest way to think that gorillas, chimpanzees,   other primate species - in fact all the wildlife - in Africa are doomed to extinction, to a great degree from being eaten by humans.

Since the earliest days of colonialism, Europeans have manipulated the African continent.  One thing we haven't done is provide access to family planning.   By focusing mostly on what we can take from Africa rather than what we could do for it, we are complicit in its demise. Africa's expanding human populations will eat their wildlife legacy to survive, and when that legacy is gone, and there is nothing left to eat, the people will starve.  As devastasting as it is to consider, the entire African continent is caught up in a death spiral... not just the animals, but for the  humans who live there as well.

Here is a link to a study about the impact of the bustmeat trade...
http://www.culturallandscapes.ca/blahdocs/uploads/2003bushmeat_and_food_security_1758.pdf


Here is a link to the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force
http://www.bushmeat.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

Great White Versus Orca

This incident happened a few years ago. National Geographic later did a one hour piece on the whole relationship between orca, aka killer whales, and great white sharks in the Farallon Islands, off San Francisco.

Orca dining on a Great White

In this video, a tourist boat comes across an orca swimming with its calf.  Then, a great white shark came along.  The next thing the tourists saw was the orca coming to the surface holding the shark upside down in its jaws.  The shark never had a chance.

Two interesting bits of understanding emerged from this incident.

Interesting bit #1 - Researchers have long known that turning a shark upside down induces a form of torpor,  rendering the shark totally defenseless.  The scientists knew this, but this incident appears to prove that at least some orcas know it as well and use it in their hunting technique with sharks.

Interesting bit #2 - The orca killed the shark at a time of year when there were a lot of seals in the area. Because of that, lots of great white sharks were also there, looking to score a seal for dinner.  Some scientists were working in the Farallons with tagged great whites at the same time the shark was killed by the orca. The scientists recorded some totally unexpected behavior. The great whites took off. In one case, a radio tagged shark dove deep and fled the area. It didn't stop until it was thousands of mles away.  Somehow, the sharks seemed to know one of their own had been killed.  The mechanism remains unknown, but, at a time of year when the waters around the Farallons are normally teeming with great white sharks feasting on seals, there were no sharks to be found.

I just thought this whole episode was fascinating. If the tourist boat hadn't been on scene when the orca killed the shark; if that incident had not been witnessed,  shark researchers would still be trying to figure out why all the other great whites in the area suddenly dissappeared. 

Here is the link to the video that shows the orca dispatching the Great White Shark..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbQ5qCJEEwc&feature=related