War babies in the Congo

Earlier this month, gorilla park rangers were delighted to encounter five new Mountain Gorilla babies on the slopes of Mount Mikeno, all the more remarkable given the continuing armed conflict in the country.

The park director, Emmanuel de Merode, later described the discovery of five newborns at the outset of a month-long census as “quite phenomenal”, given that the endangered gorillas’ habitat has long been a war zone in the conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“They’ve had a growth of about 11 per cent in 10 years, less than two per cent a year. To get five births in a group of 30 is about 15 per cent growth. It’s quite tremendous and very unusual,” he said.

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CNN: Planet in Peril

There's another opportunity to see CNN's Planet in Peril over the holiday period. According to my listings it should appear on Thu 12/25 at 10:00 PM, then again early Fri 12/26 at 1:00 AM and 4:00 AM. The programme features host Anderson Cooper trekking with Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund staff in the Virunga mountains of Rwanda.

How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin

OHMYNews.com has a review of a new book entitled "Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin" by Samuel Turvey, a research fellow at the Zoological Society of London. Mark Carwardine describes the book as follows... "At last someone is publicly mourning the tragic extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin. This is a highly authoritative, well written, thought-provoking and timely book". The review itself includes this passage...

Turvey's elegiac twilight trawl between the Yangtze's soggy mud banks heavy with wet grass and tree skeletons consumes six sorry weeks of 2006.

After covering the middle section of the great river twice, he and his peers become increasingly despondent, resentful, almost mutinous, irked by funding problems and failure.

The book is also available as a Kindle edition, and also at Amazon.co.uk.

Last Chance To See - The Radio Series *UPDATED*

The BBC Last Chance To See "Radio" page has been updated again to include the full radio episode "The Answer is Blowing in the Wind". This episode features Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine in their search for the Rodrigues Fruit Bat. The site indicates that the Kakapo episode will be the next to be made available, in January 2009.

The radio series episode guide in David Haddock's "The Story of Last Chance To See" has been updated with the link to all the episodes released so far.

NOTE: This material is only available to UK users due to copyright restrictions. Boo-hoo!

Stephen Fry and the Giant Parrot

This week's New Zealand's Sunday Star Times has a feature about the upcoming Last Chance To See filming trip for Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine. Tourism New Zealand is helping organize the trip and reveals that in addition to the Kakapo Parrots, they will be looking for kiwis, black robins, giant weta, tuatara and kea.

"This is an excellent opportunity for us to push New Zealand's profile in the UK," Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton told the Sunday Star-Times.

"Tourism New Zealand is working closely with the BBC to make sure Stephen and his crew have the opportunity to experience more of New Zealand beyond our native wildlife, so the programme gives viewers a real taste of what a New Zealand holiday has to offer."

MSNBC Video: Saving the Komodo Dragon

Here's a short video report about the Komodo Dragon on MSNBC.com. Not exactly earth shattering, but thought I'd pass it along.

TV Series: Production update from Tim Green

Head on over to the BBC's Last Chance To See site to read producer Tim Green's extensive update on the production so far, and where they'll be headed in 2009.

We have returned from six weeks of filming in Uganda, Kenya and Madagascar and that's it for filming until the start of January. The next journey will be to New Zealand in search of the Kakapo, a fat flightless parrot, which should, at the very least, prove something of a contrast to chasing rhino, stalking tree climbing lions and hacking into mountains in search of gorilla. Having said that, twenty years ago Mark and Douglas had to fly by helicopter and leap out onto a mountain ledge while one runner touched down. I have not yet mentioned this to Stephen Fry.