Tough Momma!

I know that the threshold of pain or endurance for woman is superior to men but this incident is simply amazing. Doctors report that a 40 yr old woman in Mexico has given birth to a healthy baby boy after performing a Caesarian section on herself with a kitchen knife. The woman lived in a rural area without electricity, running water or sanitation and was an 8-hour drive from the nearest hospital. So when she couldn't deliver the baby naturally she decided to do the operation herself.

Before blacking out the woman also had the sense to ask one of her children to call a local nurse for help. The nurse then stitched the wound with a sewing needle and cotton thread and the mother and baby were transferred and treated by Dr. Valle at the nearest hospital. The woman had apparantly lost a previous baby due to labor complications.[VIA Yahoo News]

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Perverts !!

People Perverts for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) is back in the news again for their over the top campaigns. This time it is in Canada where billboards in Toronto and Edmonton, Alberta, show pictures of a woman and a pig with the slogan: "Neither of us is meat." The signs do not mention the Pickton case, where accused murderer Robert Pickton apparantly gave or sold to friends processed pork products contaminated by human remains from his Port Coquitlam farm outside Vancouver, but PETA has acknowledged the link. PETA actually had tried before to use this case in a 2002 ad campaign but backed off after objections from native Indian groups(most of the 60+ victims were inuits) and the women's relatives. PETA's contention is that consumers who may have eaten human flesh probably didn't notice because pigs and people alike are made of flesh and blood, i.e., 'meat'. Yeah, right. Apart from exploiting a human tragedy to suit their political agenda one wonders what ethics drove them to care so much about pain in animals as to ignore the suffering they are now causing family members of the victims. Not surprisingly relatives of the Vancouver women have again denounced this cheap, disgusting and insensitive attempt at publicity.[Via Yahoo News]

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Hangul under threat

Hangul or antlered deer, Kashmir's majestic red deer - the last surviving of the Asian species - are battling extinction in the face of threats to their habitat(report).
A new state wildlife census shows that the no. of the Hangul, has shrunk to just 195 from 5 000 in the late 1940s. The state govt. has set up conservation areas - 4 national parks, 14 wildlife sanctuaries, 19 highland conservation reserves and 15 wetland conservation reserves spread over 15 700km²- but their sanctity has been largely ignored. Rampant poaching by militants, security forces and locals exists as the hangul is prized for its delicious meat. And the government too has allowed nomadic herdsmen and shepherds to live in conservation areas, reducing the food available for the deer. Also worryingly for the deer's fertility outlook, the Wildlife Institute of India survey found a low number of young females. Officials now pledge to be more vigilant.

And to it's credit the govt. has set up a conservation breeding centre in Pahalgam & a similar park is being created in Gulmarg. But the wildlife department is grossly understaffed, and the battle against the militants has diverted financial resources from animal conservation. So despite these efforts the Hangul's future, like that of many other native species(including Neelgai, black-necked cranes & snow leopards) still remains very uncertain.

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Neolithic Indians Rock...

And the music they made connected with the supernatural too! The archaeological journal Antiquity reports about an ancient rock art site in southern India that has just been rediscovered after being lost for over 112 years. A dyke on Kupgal Hill contains thousands of rock art engravings, or petroglyphs, a large quantity of which date to the Neolithic, or late Stone Age (several thousand years BC). The most striking feature of this ancient site are rocks with unusual depressions that were designed to be struck with the purpose of making loud, musical ringing tones. Researchers think shamans or young males came to the site to carry out rituals and to "tap into" the power of the site. The boulders which have small, groove-like impressions are called "musical stones" by locals. When struck with small granite rocks, these impressions emit deep, "gong-like notes".

Sadly just like other neglected heritage sites, a common refrain exists.

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Sedna to bring respite for Virgos?

           

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One that got away...

This Siberian Tiger, one of the 350 remaining members still in the wild, was rescued from a poacher's snare by researchers at the working on the Siberian Tiger Project which run by the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York. Before his release the ten-year-old male, was fitted with a radio collar to track the animals' movements. Currently around 80% of tiger deaths in Russia are attributable to humans eager to sell their valuable pelts. And many experts believe that these tigers have gone beyond the brink of extinction, and describe them as the 'living dead'. But project coordinator John Goodrich and his colleagues remain adamant that protection methods should be stepped up. It could well be a losing battle but for the sake of the remaining tigers one can only hope that people like Goodrich keep fighting.

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Free at last...

The tragic saga of Keiko, the 27 yr. old killer whale made famous by starring in Free Willy, ended desperately alone after a brief bout of pneumonia in a remote Norwegian fjord last Friday. Despite the £12 million spent on preparing the mammal for life in the wild following his movie role, the most famous killer whale in history died 8 years before the average life expectancy of his peers. The efforts to reintroduce him to the wild were prolonged and unsuccessful since long term captivity had left him dependent on humans. Keiko was aged just two when he was captured by a trawler off the Icelandic coast in 1978. He then ended up in an amusement park in Mexico City where he spent, cut off from other member of his species, 11 years in 12 feet of damagingly warm water. More than a million people wrote in to demand his freedom following Free Willy's boxoffice success in 1993. But unlike the movie where the whale is persuaded to jump over a sea park wall to freedom, real life didn't have such miracles in store.

This time Keiko, after more than 60 previous attempts to bond with free whales, had followed a group across the Atlantic. But soon he spotted a fishing vessel off the Norwegian coast & decided to follow it into the Taknes Fjord, Norway instead. In the fjord Keiko preferred to wallow listlessly near the coast where local children often swam with him. He was being taken for 'walks' by caretakers in a small boat at least three times a week. The recent attempts to coax him to join other orcas migrating to Scotland, like all previous attempts, failed too. His sad tale is yet another reminder that captivity for most animals is irreversible and that their usage for entertainment purposes is comparable to sentencing them to a slow death.
[via The Guardian]

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The song remains the same

The long-legged warbler(see pic), thanks to its distinctive and haunting call, has been sighted again in a remote mountain valley more than a century after it was believed to have become extinct(via BBC News). A team from BirdLife International discovered the bird in their remote home in the dense forest of Fiji. Also called the long-legged thicketbird due to its preference for living in dense undergrowth, their last confirmed sighting was in 1894. Now that team has found as many as 12 pairs of warblers in that area. These songbirds however are still at risk from forest clearance elsewhere, and from mongooses who were introduced to the islands to kill rats but have ended up causing the extinction of all ground-nesting birds on the main Fijian islands.

BirdLife, which works in more than 100 countries, says most Fijian forests are unprotected and at risk from logging or conversion to mahogany plantations. But they are optimistic that conservation efforts will be made easier since the warbler's singing has been identified.

When found more abundantly more than 120 years back, they were also called the Spirit Bird (Manu Kalou) by local people. A very apt name both for its haunting calls and the resilience & secrecy that's enabled it to survive so long !

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The Most Cruel Hunt

Canada's annual seal hunt results in thousands of baby harp seals being clubbed or shot, usually for their pelts each year(via The Guardian). Regulated by the Govt. the latest quota allows 975,000 harp seals to be killed over the next three years, of which 270,000 have already been hunted by May this year. Hunters claim that the hunt is an important and environmentally sustainable tradition helping 12,000 families to make ends meet in one of Canada's poorest regions. And the govt. which recently increased the quota, argues that the seal population, which last year stood at more than 5,000,000, is healthy. But Rebecca Aldworth, seals campaigner for the International Fund for Animal Welfare says that baby seals are still being hunted down. And estimates point out that not only are 95% of the animals killed under 3 months old, but that up to 42% of them are skinned alive and many carcasses are left to rot in the ice or water. She says many people are not aware of these cruel practices, since the footage of seals being killed is so gruesome few television networks will run it. Anti-sealing campaigns in Canada, the US, the UK and throughout Europe have been very active in taking up this cause. And recently the U.S. Senate too lent their support by introducing a powerful bipartisan Senate Resolution urging the government of Canada to end the needless slaughter of harp and hooded seals. The Canadian govt. has held firm so far but surely mere tradition can't be reason enough to continue indulge in such cruel acts...

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Greedy Phoebe!

Vets from the University of Liverpool had to save Phoebe's(see pic) life by cutting her stomach open and remove 6kg of willow leaves(via BBC). This incident comes two years after they operated on the Californian Sea Lion previously when she swallowed a large number of stones! Professor Barrie Edwards, who carried out the operations, said that its normal for animals to eat strange things that are present in their environment. So after all pebbles in the vicinity of her pool were removed, Phoebe now turned her attention to the leaves :-D

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Test your Digital IQ

Measure your Digital IQ with this quiz at MSNBC. The questions are relatively easy so I was placed as a Digital Ace along with 43% of people who took the test.

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Aid to the Monarch

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about climatic changes posing the threat of extinction for the monarch butterfly. It seems that the Mexican govt. has taken prompt action on the warnings in that study. A BBC report says that police and environmental inspectors have already closed down 17 sawmills to protect forests in Michoacan state, where the butterflies spend the winter. They have also confiscated more than 300 truckloads of wood from illegally felled trees and arrested 28 people. These actions apart from being great news for the endangered species also makes commercial sense. The sight of the migrating Monarch butterflies every autumn attracts some 200,000 tourists every year who flock to the area in butterfly-watching season. The present moves are only the first step as the demand for illegally-harvested wood in the construction and furniture industries is large. But still it's nice to know that an attempt is being made to save these beautiful creatures...

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Assam: Will Hihu find a sanctuary?

The Kulsi river in Assam has long been the home of a high concentration of river Dolphins(Platanista gangetica). Known as susu in the Ganges and Hihu in Assam these rare aquatic mammals¹ are one of only 4 species of river dolphins in the world. The others being baiji found in the Yangtze river in China, the bhulan of the Indus in Pakistan and the buto of the river Amazone in Latin America. Now due to large scale silt deposition and subsequent sand-mining in the Kulsi river their habitat has been damaged leading to a decrease in numbers. Also as the quantity of small fish have decreased in the river the dolphins have migrated to the adjacant Brahmaputra where they are in danger from fishermen². Now in a bid to preserve their natural habitat, the World Wide Fund(WWF) for Nature, Assam and the Dolphin Society of Assam have recommended to the Union Ministry of environment & Forest to declare the river as a dolphin sanctuary. WWF have been conducting regular surveys of dolphins in the Kulsi & Brahmaputra rivers since 1993.

Experts have suggested several measures to help preserve the present ecosystem: banning match-size nets used to catch small fish(dolphins diet), digging the river to increase depth and creating several huge ponds along the banks at points where Dolphin population is high. Earlier this month a team of scientists from the Centre for Environment Education(CEE) visited the river for an on-the-spot assessment of the suitability of the river to be declared a sanctuary or community reserve under Wildlife Protection act, 1972. After sailing on the Kulsi river Dr. Ram Bhuj, CEE was surprised to see a large herd of this rare aquatic mammal near Haatheni Mukh. He claims that he's never seen such a large herd of dolphins in any river in the world. Guess that translates as good news for the Dolphins :)
[Note: 1. River dolphins are blind - the only species in the world to have eyes without lenses. Their numbers have decreased by 50% over the last 10 years and they have been on the endangered species list of IUCN since 1996.
2. It is illegal to kill them under the Indian Wildlife Protection act, 1972 and several fisherman have been prosecuted for violating that law. Apart from the meat, Dolphin oil is commonly used as fish bait and also for medicinal purposes.
2. You can read more about these unique aquatic mammals and the reasons they are endangered at the WWF project site of river dolphins here.]

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Aerial Shooting of Wolves !!

In a controversial development Alaskan game officials have approved a program to shoot wolves from aircraft in a bid to control their numbers in areas where declining moose & caribou populations have been blamed on wolf predation. Alaska's voters have twice in recent years(1996 and in 2000) said "no" to aerial shooting of wolves and this plan the state's first in 15 years has evoked a strong campaign by Defenders of Wildlife& other opponents who decried it as inhumane. Fewer than 200 of the state's 15,000 wild wolves will be killed under the program, which is to take place this winter and to involve shooting from aircraft as well as land-and-shoot practices, said officials with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. While wolf control is probably in the best interests of the wildlife of the region, the environmentalists have pointed out the lack of science backing the whole exercise. Also the board undertaking the program comprise mostly of hunters leading to further sceptism.

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A monarch under threat!

One of the most common North American butterflies, Monarch butterflies(Danaus plexippus), are now under threat from changing climatic conditions (report). They migrate hundreds of miles in the winter to oyamel fir forests in Mexico where trees provide shelter from rain and from temperatures that can dip below freezing. The monarchs have a narrow range of temperature and wetness tolerance during the winter and any changes in temperature & rainfall can be fatal. In January, 2002, winter storms wiped out about 80 percent of the monarch population overwintering in Mexico. Now as per climate models in a study rainfall will increase significantly in the winter home of the monarchs as the planet warms during the next half-century. Karen Oberhauser, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota and the lead author of the study said that "one of three things could happen: the butterfly could become extinct; the insect could find another winter refuge; or the monarch could adapt somehow to the changing conditions. As no other area exists near the current refuge that could shelter the butterfly the question is whether they will have the flexibility to survive." She also warns that this is just one example of how the changing climate will put some animal species at great risk of extinction.

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Sea turtles endangered !

A recent study claims that almost a third of sea turtles may be killed by fishing each year. At this rate of mortality, you can project that some populations will go extinct in a few decades," says Graeme Hays of the University of Wales, Swansea, UK. These estimates are based on records from turtles carrying satellite tags which broadcast an animal's position, and records its dives. A group of 50 green, loggerhead and leatherback turtles(see pic) were tracked for a total of nearly 6,000 days in this study. Now international trade in turtles is prohibited, but subsistence fishers still kill them for their meat and eggs. And many turtles also die as 'bycatch', caught accidentally in fishing nets and then discarded at sea. The studied animals though were probably killed deliberately, as tags must be on land and outdoors for several days to guarantee an upload to the satellite.
[note: This is a great site to keep track of activities taking place to conserve sea turtles.]

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Things that keep me(& my pc) connected !!

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