MOUNTAIN GORILLAS - Ian Redmond OBE

The Yorkshire Post has a profile of Biologist and conservationist Ian Redmond. The 52-year-old has just been awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to conservation.

Ian Redmond has helped safeguard the future of mountain gorillas in Africa – and even taught Sigourney Weaver how to grunt like an ape.
[...]
Redmond who, while working for the great ape expert Dian Fossey, introduced Sir David Attenborough to the mountain gorillas of Rwanda for his famous Life on Earth programme.

Read the full, fascinating interview at The Yorkshire Post.

You can view the David Attenborough and Mountain Gorilla clip at the BBC's great Attenborough Archive.


If you have a Region 2 or Region Free enabled DVD player, I can heartily recommend this DVD set of "Attenborough Specials", which includes the "Life On Air" documentary as narrated by ex-Monty Python and traveller Michael Palin. This is the programme that the above Mountain Gorilla clip was taken from.

I use this CyberHome CH-DVD 300S Progressive-Scan DVD Player in the USA to view Region 2 DVDs from Britain. Easy code to make it Region Free, very cheap, and works like a charm.

NORTHERN WHITE RHINOS - Four left?

ABC News has an article today about a recent survey that suggests that the Black Rhino of West Africa appears to be extinct.

It also includes the horrible news that confirms the Northern White Rhino is also on the verge of oblivion.

Restricted in the wild to Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, recent ground and aerial surveys … have only found four animals," Brooks said. [Dr Martin Brooks, chairman of the World Conservation Union's African Rhino Specialist Group]

Full story at ABC News.

Elsewhere, New Zealand's Scoop has news of an IUCN report on the home of the Northern White Rhino - Garamba National Park - one of the 15 sites on the "List of World Heritage in Danger". The sites are under threat for a variety of reasons including dam construction, war, poaching, deforestation, and poor management.

KAKAPO PARROTS - Interesting Thing of the Day

A very nice feature on the Kakapo Parrot as the Interesting Thing of the Day.

I’ve always been a sucker for endangered species—especially cute and comical endangered species. There aren’t that many of them—at least not anymore. But you’ve got to feel for an animal that spent many happy millennia peacefully minding its own business until humans came along. In this case, we’re talking about a silly-looking bird that had the misfortune of evolving in such a safe area that it lost (or never developed) most of the traits that could have enabled it to defend itself.

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The page also links to the Kakapo ARKive page which we've mentioned before. Has some very nice video clips of the Kakapo in action.

KOMODO DRAGONS - Forked Tongues Rule

Here's the Los Angeles Times with an article on how the establishment of Komodo National Park has been good news for the Komodo Dragons (which are thriving), rather less good news for the people on the island, many of them struggling to survive - Forked Tongues Rule.

Mohammed Sidik used to sell goats to Komodo National Park to feed to the wild Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, in a gory display for tourists.

Park officials banned the practice a decade ago because they worried that the dragons were becoming lazy. Now the 10-foot-long predators waddle three miles to this squalid coastal village, raid Sidik's herd and eat his goats for free.

"For the last two years they have been coming to the village," said Sidik, 60, who has lost seven animals to the dragons. "When they get thirsty, they come down to our well. The park no longer feeds goats to the dragons, so now the dragons come here."

Full Story here

STRUAN SUTHERLAND - "That's what deadly means!"

Here's blogger Toadman with an affectionate post about Douglas Adams. He talks of his delight at getting hold of a copy of the Last Chance To See CD Rom and enjoying the audio book files on it. He includes a snippet of the hilarious Struan Sutherland segment that occured prior to Douglas and Mark's trip to Komodo. Remember, "Just don't get bitten!"

Way back in January 2005, Dave Haddock reviewed Struan Sutherland's book "A Venomous Life" which is still available.

A Venomous Life
Struan Keith Sutherland
(AO, MD DSc FRACP FRCPA FACTM)
UK Edition                       US Edition
Hyland House Publishing (1999)
ISBN: 1864470267

DODOS - Was extinction actually a natural event?

Interesting follow up to the recent "significant" discovery of a good set of Dodo bones. The scientists that unearthed the mass grave on Mauritius say they have found evidence that could show that the Dodos could have been wiped out by a natural disaster, long before humans arrived on the island.

Most theories about how the dodo became extinct blame early settlers who found the plump flightless bird on the Indian Ocean island in the 16th century and hunted it relentlessly.

"There are indications that the fossil-rich layer represents the result of natural disaster wiping out a significant part of the Dodo-ecotope," a statement by the researchers said.

While the latest find does not disprove the human theory, the scientists are convinced there was a mass dodo death, possibly caused by a cyclone or flood, pre-dating the arrival of humans, Christian Foo Kune, owner of the site, told Reuters.

Full story at The Australian.

BAIJI DOLPHINS - China's Ecological Suicide

Laurence Coates with a very powerful piece for the China Worker.

China is committing ecological suicide – destroying its waterways, atmosphere and natural resources to fuel runaway industrialisation. And this process threatens the entire planet.

Just as the Chinese people are among the main victims of global warming, mainly caused by the older industrialised ‘West’, China’s latest export wave – acid rain, air pollution and even more greenhouse gases – is a major threat to the global environment. Coal dust and acid rain caused by China’s power industry have fallen as far away as California, and belated moves to protect China’s forests have driven armies of Chinese loggers to Burma and Brazil.

Full story