Baiji Dolphin: Expedition fails to find Yangtze River dolphin

The International Herald Tribune reports that the international team on the Yangtze River has failed to find a single Baiji Dolphin.

A nearly month long joint Chinese-foreign expedition has failed to spot a rare dolphin in a sign that its Yangtze River habitat is becoming increasingly despoiled by pollution and human activity, the Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.

The 30 Chinese and foreign scientists spent 26 days scouring 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles) of the Yangtze for the baiji or white-flag dolphin to no avail, Xinhua said. A previous expedition in 1997 found 13 baiji, it said.

Kakapo Parrots: A Visit to Codfish Island

An historical blog post has been republished at thinkoholic.com about the writer's visit to Whenua Hou or Codfish Island in December 2005. The post contains several photo gallerys including close-up shots of three different Kakapo Parrots. There's also a couple of sound-bites of a booming Kakapo, one played at a higher pitch to help you hear it.

The three Kakapos in the Kakapo Gallery are the male Ox, and females Pounamu and Poura, two chicks hatched in spring 2005.

i was already ..."in the general area" (new zealand, that is), so i seized the chance and participated in the kakapo recovery programme.

the other passengers on the little airplane were phil (kakapo officer) and matthias&emilie, an incredible couple from france.
as soon as we landed, we got to meet the other biologists on the island: malcolm (kakapo officer), ursula&thomas (a penguin-researcher couple living in NZ, originally from germany), xin (NZ) and eleanor (NZ).

yup, 9 biologists on an uninhabited island for 14 days. an incredible time to be had. :-)

Note: Here's our full list of all 86 Kakapo Parrots.

Extinct: ITV show reveals final two celebrities

A further press release from Endemol Productions has revealed the identities of the final two personalities taking part in their ITV endangered species show "Extinct".

Actress Sadie Frost will visit Indonesia's Orang-Utans and TV & Radio presenter Dermot O'Leary will visit the Leatherback Turtles.

The full list of endangered animals and visiting personalities is...

• The Bengal tiger [Pauline Collins]
• The Mountain Gorilla [Graeme Le Saux]
• The Giant Panda [David Suchet]
• The Asian elephant [Sue Johnston]
• The Polar Bear [Anneka Rice]
• The Orang-Utan [Sadie Frost]
• The Leatherback Turtle [Dermot O'Leary]
• The Hyacinth Macaw [Michael Portillo]

Viewers will play an important part in the live interactive television event, being produced by Endemol's recently launched factual arm Cheetah Television, by ringing in to pledge their support for the animals. The money raised will help fund projects on the ground dedicated to protecting the rare wildlife.

In an effort to ensure that Extinct is 'carbon neutral', ITV has committed funds towards carbon reduction schemes to offset the effects of carbon dioxide emitted during production.

ITV has also commissioned a daytime family quiz show to tie in with the series - Extinct: The Quiz.

Madagascar: Presidential election increases Slash and Burn

WildMadagascar.org reports on a disturbing increase in deforestation or Slash & Burn as the people of Madagascar prepare to go to the polls on December 3rd for a Presidential election. The destruction is devastating news for the endangered lemurs on the island.

"Hell just started here," said Eric Mathieu (www.marojejy.com), a French conservationist who has lived in Andapa in northeast Madagascar for 13 years while working to preserve Marojejy National Park and Anjanaharibe-Sud Special Reserve. "The slash-and-burn is far worse than usual this year. With presidential elections coming, there is no control. You just have to sit and watch as a useless witness as the forests burn. Large portion of primary forests outside protected areas have been destroyed on the road from Sambava-Andapa. While the politicians campaign, the forests burn. Lemurs are losing habitat"

Struan Sutherland: Snakebite victims getting wrong first aid

The Courier Mail ran a story recently on research into the effective use of first aid on snake bite victims in Australia. The research's conclusion is that 66% of victims are not getting the best treatment, despite the well publicized recommendations of the late Dr Struan Sutherland (purveyor of fairy cakes to Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine in Last Chance To See).

"This is a tragedy," said Dr Noel Eatough, a registrar who reviewed the medical records of children admitted to Perth's Princess Margaret Hospital between 1994 and 2004.

He found only 33 per cent of the 151 children had had the best treatment, a pressure immobilisation bandage wrapped around the limb with the right pressure to limit the spread of venom.
[...]
Dr Eatough said he was disappointed parents did not seem to be aware of the bandaging, developed by renowned scientist Dr Struan Sutherland in the 1970s.

"It is an Australian invention ... now used around the world," he said. "It saves lives, so it is something all parents should be aware of."

As we all know, Struan's best advice regarding snakes is "DON'T GET BITTEN"!

Baiji Dolphins: On the trail of the Yangtze's lost dolphin

Some more extensive coverage here of the current Yangtze Baiji expedition. This Guardian article by Jonathan Watts suggests that there has been a single unconfirmed sighting of a Baiji Dolphin this year (prior to the current expedition), but nothing has been seen by these scientists so far. Depressing indeed.

The article includes a 16 page slideshow which features a picture of Qi Qi, the Baiji Dolphin that lived at the Wuhan Aquarium for 22 years before dying of old age in 2002.

Murky water, hazy sky and dull brown riverbanks. Strained eyes peering into the mist. Ears tuned electronically into the depths. And with each hour, each day that passes, a nagging question that grows louder: is this how a species ends after 20 million years on earth?

When they write the environmental history of early 21st-century China, the freshwater dolphin expedition now plying the Yangtze river may be seen as man's farewell to an animal it once worshipped. A team of the world's leading marine biologists is making a last-gasp search for the baiji, a dolphin that was revered as the goddess of Asia's mightiest river but is now probably the planet's most endangered mammal.

Pink Pigeons: Green eco-tourist track replaces multi-lane highway plan

Barely a year after a controversial multi-lane highway project was shelved, some great news from the island about a eco-tourist track that is being set up instead. The highway would have devastated the area so this is a fabulous alternative project.

The anniversary was worth a celebration. A year after giving up the idea of cutting down thousands of trees inside Ferney valley to build the South-Eastern highway, Ciel Properties Ltd have inaugurated the first eco-tourist track. The Ferney valley – or at least part of it– has been open to the public since Saturday for everyone to measure its importance for the Mauritian natural heritage and to take advantage of its beauties.
[...]
According to this survey, a Ferney Forest Conservation area will be defined and all exotic plants destroyed within this zone to allow all endemic plants to grow properly. The company will make sure that rare birds are protected and will even re-introduce endemic species such as the pink pigeon or the "cateau verte".

Full story at lexpress.mu.