Last Chance To See - 50% off at Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk is currently selling "Last Chance To See" for 50% off the retail price. Snap up another copy while you can, or buy it as a gift for someone special!

Another Chance To See: A Blog Of Note

Hurray! I was delighted to discover that Another Chance To See has been named as today's "Blog Of Note" by the Blogger team.

So, welcome to all our new visitors! I hope you enjoy learning a little bit about the endangered animals and birds that Douglas Adams wrote about in his marvellous book "Last Chance To See". Adams was best known for his "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" series of course, but "Last Chance To See" is just as much fun, and well worth reading.

As a quick summary of important developments since the book was published, there are 86 Kakapo Parrots left, the Baiji Dolphin was recently declared "Functionally Extinct", and the Northern White Rhino may be down to as few as 2 animals left in the wild.

We sponsored an endangered Mountain Gorilla called Urwibutso in 2005 (one of about 700 left), and we're currently raising funds for "Save The Rhino" through the JustGiving network. Douglas Adams was patron to the charity before his untimely death in 2001, so I'm very proud that we've managed to raise over £160 for them. We still have a long way to go in reaching our £500 target, so any spare Dollars, Pounds, Euros or Krugerrands will help us towards our goal.

** UPDATE 1/9 ** Thank you for all the lovely comments, and a great big thanks to Mark Neale for adding £50 to our "Save The Rhino" fundraiser this morning. Very much appreciated!

Sincerely,
Gareth

Madagascar: BBC Radio 4 - Planet Earth Under Threat

Programme 5 in the BBC Radio 4 series "Planet Earth Under Threat" was called The Conundrum of Biodiversity and was presented by Gabrielle Walker.

It used Madagascar as a prime example of a biologically diverse environment, and how that is being constantly threatened by so called "Slash and Burn" (wikipedia) agriculture.

It also featured former "Tomorrow's World" presenter Howard Stableford in conversation with Dr. Edward Wilson. Wilson won the "Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International's Global Conservation Award" in 2006.

The show has its own blog at Planet Earth Under Threat, and each episode will be available online following the broadcast.

Listen to episode 5 at The Conundrum of Biodiversity. RealPlayer or RealAlternative required.

Incidentally, "Tomorrow's World" was back in the public eye this week. While the BBC are not resurrecting the actual show, they are bringing back the "brand" - Tomorrow's World to return to BBC.

The BBC is bringing back the Tomorrow's World brand to help audiences understand new technologies.

Presenter Maggie Philbin will be offering in-depth analysis on technology stories on TV, radio and the web under the Tomorrow's World banner.

Although the programme - which ran from 1965 to 2003 - will not return, elements such as the logo and title sequence will be revived.

Philbin says using the brand "fits perfectly with technological change".

Here's a couple of musical gems from the "Tomorrow's World" archive's...

Kraftwerk - 1975


Pink Floyd - 1968

Baiji Dolphins: Attack of the Monkey

A science blog (with a monkey spin) comments on the extinction of the Baiji Dolphin in a post entitled Tales of Elusive Aquatic Creatures from December 2006.

Douglas Adams visited the polluted Yangtze River, the home of the Baiji, and discussed the species which was threatened not only by pollution, but due to hunting, fishing, collisions with boats, habitat loss, and severe depression. (Okay, I’m just guessing about that last one.) In Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams wrote, “The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong, is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along.”

The blogger, Sheridan MacAuley, also comments on the video of the giant squid that was captured recently, as well as the theory that the Loch Ness Monster was a plesiosaur. It's a nice blog, and I'll be adding the RSS feed to my Google Reader as well as a link to my sidebar.

For those who haven't seen the video of the giant squid, here's one of the reports as posted on YouTube...

Go Go Gorillas!

News from the European arm of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is that in December 2006 they changed their name to "The Gorilla Organization" (GO).

Supporters who remember the pioneering work of Dr Dian Fossey, who was murdered in 1985, may also recall that she called the organisation she founded to protect the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, the Digit Fund, after her favourite gorilla, named Digit, was killed by poachers in 1978.
[...]
In 1992, the Digit Fund UK, under licence from Dian Fossey's estate, changed its name to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Europe to honour Dr Fossey and promote her inspirational work.
[...]
Now, 14 years later, it has changed again. This time to better reflect our broader brief – we now work with lowland as well as mountain gorillas – and the wider audience the fund has attracted over the years.

Read the full posting at The Gorilla Organization website - www.gorillas.org

Kakapo Parrots: Rhino sex imbalance research could help kakapos

A very interesting story at the New Zealand Herald about endangered rhino research which could help solve the sex imbalance problems that other species such as the Kakapo Parrot face.

New Zealand conservation biologist Wayne Linklater is leading an international project testing a theory that high sugar levels in female black rhinos are the reason disproportionate numbers of males are being born.

The theory has been borne out in his earlier research into Kaimanawa wild horses, and Dr Linklater said it could be applied to other species, particularly those, such as the kakapo, in which the males breed more prolifically than females.

Dr Linklater said extreme male-biased births in captivity were common in many species, including zebras, gorillas and giraffes.

Full story at the New Zealand Herald.

Baiji Dolphins: A Fellow Mammal Leaves the Planet

Dr. Robert L. Pitman, a member of the recent Chinese expedition, writes an emotional note for the New York Times in response to reporter’s question about the broader implications of the apparent extinction the Baiji Dolphin.

What we are seeing now is probably the first large animal that has ever gone extinct merely as an indirect consequence of human activity: a victim of market forces and our collective lifestyle. Nobody eats baiji and no tourists pay to see it — there were no reasons to take it deliberately, but there was no economic reason to save it, either. It is gone because too many people got too efficient at catching fish in the river and it was incidental bycatch. And it is perhaps a view of the future for much of the rest of the world and an indication that the predicted mass extinction is arriving on schedule.

Full story at The New York Times.