by Editor on August 13, 2011
A Chimpanzee Behind Bars At The Warsaw Zoo. Photo:Andrzej Barabasz
Should We Be Using Endangered Chimpanzees As Medical-Research Subjects?
Great apes—chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans—will soon become exempt from medical research in the United States, if a U.S. congressman from Maryland gets his way. Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett recently introduced legislation that would phase out invasive medical research on apes in America.
All wild apes are listed as either Endangered or Critically Endangered animals by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Nine other countries as well as the European Union already forbid or restrict research on apes, which are the closest living relatives to humans, and have been demonstrated to possess many of our problem-solving abilities, including tool use. [click to continue…]
by Editor on July 26, 2011
The Connecticut Cougar On The Wisconsin Leg Of His Incredible Journey. Photo Was Taken By A Motion-Activated Camera.
INCREDIBLE JOURNEY!
Mountain Lion Killed In Connecticut Was Wild, And Likely Born In The Black Hills
A male mountain lion struck and killed on a Connecticut highway in early June was a wild animal that was likely born in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and traveled on its own to the East Coast, Connecticut wildlife officials announced today.
During a hastily assembled conference call, the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), Daniel C. Esty, said that several genetic-testing laboratories around the country had confirmed that the young, 140-pound male mountain lion was the same animal that had been sighted a number of times in Minnesota and Wisconsin during 2009 and early 2010. Confirmation came from genetic material recovered from scat, hair, and blood samples collected in the two Midwestern states. Further, the cat’s genes indicated that it had originated among the easternmost breeding population of wild cougars, which inhabits the Black Hills of South Dakota. [click to continue…]
by Editor on July 18, 2011
Author Vanessa Woods With A Young Bonobo
BOOK REVIEW:
The Story Of An African Species On The Edge
BY PAUL GUERNSEY
Yes, I know, summer is half over. Still, if you’re a wildlife enthusiast, I’ve got a recommendation for a terrific summer reading experience. It’s terrific, that is, if you can handle a few tears mixed in with a fascinating and informative story. The book is Bonobo Handshake: A memoir of adventure and love in the Congo, by a young Australian woman named Vanessa Woods. Published in hardcover to wonderful reviews in 2010, Bonobo Handshake came out last month in a trade paperback edition from Gotham Books.
Woods’ book is at once a very personal account of her time in Africa—in fact, when I first picked it up, the subtitle made me suspicious that it might not be my kind of book—as well as the larger, at times heartbreaking, story of an extremely appealing species of ape that is facing extinction.
Bonobos, you may already know, inhabit a single, though fairly large, area of central Congo, a vast and wore-torn African nation where little ever seems to go right, either for people or for wildlife. There are perhaps 30,000 to 50,000 bonobos remaining, and the numbers are steadily going down due to habitat loss in the form of voracious logging and mineral exploitation in the rain forest, as well as to hunting by humans, who eat adult bonobos and sell any surviving babies as “pets”—a commerce that is illegal even in Congo, though often it is not enforced. Confiscated bonobo babies are sent to a rehabilitation facility in the Congolese countryside—and that is where Woods takes her readers as well, but only after telling us about some of her earlier adventures “rehabilitating” monkeys, falling in love with and marrying Brian Hare, an American primatologist and chimpanzee specialist, and accompanying him first to a chimp rehab center, and finally to Congo’s Lola Ya Bonobo facility. [click to continue…]
by Editor on June 13, 2011
No, There Are No Petite, Lap Sized Giraffes! Photo:Luca Galuzzi - www.galuzzi.it
A ‘Petite’ Giraffe Would Be a 150-Pound Baby. But There’s Plenty Remarkable About Giraffes—Including That The Males Are Bisexual.
Is there such a creature as a “petite” giraffe? If by “petite” you don’t mean a 6-foot-tall (1.8 meter), 150-pound (68-kilogram) newborn baby giraffe, the answer is . . . No!
Recently, a lot of people in various online communities have been having fun with the concept of petite giraffes, AKA petite lap giraffes, a reference to the supposed ability of these diminutive (and nonexistent) creatures to sit and fit comfortably in a human lap, just like a cat or a pekinese. Most people seem to know it’s all a good-natured hoax, but a few are more credulous. [click to continue…]
by Editor on June 12, 2011
The Eastern Cougar Walks The Earth No More. Photo (of a Western cougar):USF&WS
Car Strikes Mountain Lion On Highway
Connecticut State Police reported that a full-grown mountain lion was struck and killed on busy highway about 70 miles northeast of New York City. Authorities suspect that the 140-pound cat was the same animal that earlier in the week had been spotted in Greenwich, a city close to the New York State line, and a short commute from Manhattan.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service earlier this year declared the cougar to be extinct in the Eastern United States. Federal wildlife authorities say that, while over the years a number of mountain lions have been spotted in the East, all either were pets that had been released or, in a handful of cases, had strayed from natural populations West of the Mississippi River. For instance, a mountain lion killed in downtown Chicago several years ago was proven to have wandered East from the Dakotas. [click to continue…]
by Editor on May 16, 2011
China Has Gone To Extraordinary Lengths To Rescue The Giant Panda From The Brink Of Extinction
Stories Of Wildlife Conservation Success: Animal Species Spared From Going Extinct
For thousands of years, humankind viewed wilderness as both infinite and hostile; we entered natural creation as if stepping onto a battlefield. As human populations evolved and spread, we constantly divided the wild creatures we encountered into those that were to be feared and avoided, and those that could safely be conquered and exploited. Increasingly, as our technology improved and our skills developed, we found fewer animals that we thought we needed to fear, and increasing numbers of species we felt the need to kill, either because we had a use for their meat, skin, feathers, bones, or horns, or merely because we felt them to be a nuisance or an inconvenience. [click to continue…]
by Editor on May 13, 2011
The Bog Turtle, One Of The World's Smallest Turtles, Is Endangered In New York State. Photo:USFWS
New York State Has It’s Own List Of Endangered Species Of Animals
Like all states, New York is home to many species of animals that are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). Also like other states, New York maintains its own list of Endangered and Threatened species, and species of Special Concern. Species are classified as Endangered, Threatened, or of Special Concern based on how quickly they are disappearing. The most critical classification is that of Endangered.
A total of 145 animals are protected under New York State law, including 53 Endangered species, 37 Threatened species, and 55 species of Special Concern.
Of the 53 officially Endangered species, there are 10 mammals, 10 bird species, 5 reptiles, 2 amphibian species, 8 fishes, 10 insects, and 6 mollusk species. [click to continue…]
