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2月2日 We Have Moved!We've moved, to http://creaturenews.blogspot.com. Hope you can join us over there! It's still taking shape at the moment. Nothing against MSN Spaces - it's served us well - but we need the flexibility of layout that blogger gives us. Also, take a look at our sister blog about wildlife photography at http://wildangleuk.blogspot.com. 5月4日 Bovine TB & BadgersI received this email a couple of days ago, shown below. 47,474 people left feedback! "Dear Consultee, CONTROLLING THE SPREAD OF BOVINE TB IN CATTLE IN HIGH INCIDENCE AREAS IN ENGLAND Thank you for contributing your views to the consultation on badger culling as part of the measures to control the spread of bovine TB in cattle in high incidence areas in England. Your comments on the proposed badger culling strategy will be taken into consideration along with the comments of other respondents. A report will be produced summarising the responses to the consultation. This has taken longer than expected due to the large number of consultation responses received (47,474 responses were received during the consultation period). We do not have a date for the final report but an announcement will be made when it is available. Once published the report will be accessible by following the link from the Defra website's Bovine TB Pages at <http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tb/index.htm> No decision has yet been made on whether or not to cull badgers to help control bovine TB in cattle. Ministers will consider all available evidence including the summary of consultation responses before making a decision. Yours sincerely, The bTB Wildlife Policy Team Bovine TB and Badgers Consultation, Defra 1a Page Street London SW1P 4PQ Website: www.defra.gov.uk <http://www.defra.gov.uk> Email: bTB.consultation@defra.gsi.gov.uk" 4月27日 Chernobyl Voices"It was like this: They announced over the radio that you couldn't take your cats. So we put her in the suitcase. But she didn't want to go, she climbed out. Scratched everyone. You can't take your belongings!" "The soldiers killed the dogs. Just shot them. Bakh-bakh! After that I can't listen to something that's alive and screaming." "I'd come up to the window, look down, and cross myself. I thought I heard a horse. A rooster. I felt terrible. Sometimes I'd dream about my yard: I'd tie the cow up and milk it and milk it. I wake up." "I had two cows and two calves, five pigs, geese, chicken. A dog. I'll take my head in my hands and just walk around the yard. And apples, so many apples! Everything's gone, all of it, like that, gone!" "And the chickens had black cockscombs, not red ones, because of the radiation." "The cattle hadn't had water in three days. No feed. That's it! A reporter came from the paper. The drunken milkmaids almost killed him." "I walked for two weeks. I had my cow with me. They wouldn't let me in the house. I slept in the forest." "Every day I'd dream of my house. I'm coming back to it: digging in the garden, or making my bed. And every time I find something: a shoe or a little chick. And everything was for the best, it made me happy. I'd be home soon..." "I got in to see a doctor. 'Sweety,' I say, 'my legs don't move. The joints hurt.' 'You need to give up your cow, grandma. The milk's poisoned.' 'Oh no,' I say, 'my legs hurt, my knees hurt, but I won't give up the cow. She feeds me.'" "I have two bags of salt. We'll be all right without the government! Plenty of logs - theres a whole forest around us. The house is warm. The lamp is burning. It's nice! I have a goat, a kid, three pigs, fourteen chickens. Land - as much as I want; grass - as much as I want. There's water in the well. And freedom! We're happy. This isn't a kolkhoz anymore, it's a commune. We need to buy another horse. And then we won't need anyone at all. Just one horsey." "Sometimes a wild boar will come into the garden, sometimes a fox. But people only rarely. Just police." "There was a rabid fox here during the spring - when they're rabid they become tender, real tender. But they can't look at water. Just put a bucket of water in your yard, and you're fine. She'll run away." "And the cuckoo is cuckooing, the magpies are chattering, roes are running. Will they reproduce - who knows? One morning I looked out in the garden, the boars were digging. They were wild. You can resettle people, but the elk and the boar, you can't. And water doesn't listen to borders, it goes along the earth, and under the earth." From Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich. Reminiscent of Studs Terkel's oral history books, it is particularly harrowing. I can only read a little bit at a time. 4月3日 Bird Flu LinksUseful post on Avian Influenza by Dave at BirdTLC: http://birdtlc.blogspot.com/2006/04/avian-influenza.html. It lists a number of official Q&A links and fact sheets. 4月1日 April Fauna: Cercopithecus IcarocurnuFrom The Photo Book:
"The original Cercopithecus Icarocurnu was a type of long-tailed ape, but this one has developed owl's wings and a narwhal's tusk. The picture belongs to the series Fauna, which was completed by Fontcuberta and the writer Pere Formiguera between 1985 and 1990. Each entry in their fantastic bestiary is made up of one major 'record' photograph, such as this one, along with invented field notes and drawings. According to the notes, this flying monkey (which was actually assembled from a collection of negatives) was sighted in the Amazon jungle in spring of 1944, and was regarded as semi-divine by the Nygala-Tebo tribe.
Fontcuberta has produced many such series, as if intent on inventing an alternative culture complete enough to constitute a world. His pictures, which are a mine of misleading information beautifully realized, can be thought of as entertainments conceived in opposition to the sobriety of much of the new art of the 1970s and 1980s." The little scamp!
If this was Blogger, I could embed links to his pictures, but it isn't. You can see loads of his frankly quite barking mad photographs here. 3月29日 Eagle ViewsRun, do not walk, to this webcam: mms://stream.galaxytelevision.net/hh001 (if that link doesn't work, try this one. Alternatively you might have to paste it into your browser.)
It's utterly brilliant. The camera is on Hornby Island, BC, Canada, so presumably you can only see anything during BC daylight hours (I haven't checked.)
Update: It's run by these people: http://forum.hancockhouse.com/staticpages/index.php/20060323091954727 3月27日 Cheating ParentsEdinburgh Zoo used to offer free entry to any child that turned up with a Blue Peter badge. For those not familiar with the Blue Peter badge concept, Blue Peter is a very long running and extremely popular TV show for kids in the UK. You have to work quite hard at something before they gave you a badge.
Now, Edinburgh Zoo have stopped their free entry offer because parents were buying the badges on eBay ...
Official Blue Peter site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/
However the Wikipedia site is more useful if you don't know what the hell I'm on about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peter
Update: It's not just Edinburgh Zoo, it's a scheme run by the BBC to allow free entry to about 200 UK 'attractions'.
Update 2: Now British MPs are tabling a commons motion to ban the resale of Blue Peter badges. Very noble I'm sure but personally I think it's a massive waste of my taxes. Here's the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4860800.stm Ch*cken 'n' ChipsThe US Department of Agriculture has a plan to require farm animals across the USA to be tagged with microchips or other RFID style systems. The National Animal Identification System has been under development since 2002, and could be a mandatory requirement by 2008.
Alternet has a fantastic article on this, syndicated from Grist Magazine. It goes into great detail, the link is below. Many small scale farmers have expressed concern that it is a system of most use to and implemented most easily by large farming businesses and corporations. The USDA acknowledges that at least part of the cost will have to borne by the farmer, but stresses the benefits that NAIS could provide.
From my limited and blinkered point of view, it seems like a good idea. My cats are chipped - I saw it done, and it appears painless and is very quick. It's definitely less invasive than branding or ear-clipping, as Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the US points out. Also, in the case of outbreaks of disease, more accurate tracking of animals will surely lessen the collateral damage. Perhaps, if the tracking is accurate enough, treatment of animals in disease outbreaks may even be by something more sophisticated and helpful than a bullet.
It's late and my grammar is going down the toilet so you'd do worse than read the entire original article at the link below. It's excellent. Check the comments on it, though - they are very negative and concentrate on possible technical failings of the system. Something to think about.
One last thing - if UK animals had been tracked perhaps the foot-and-mouth outbreak of a few years ago would not have happened. The alleged transport of animals around the country in order to defraud EU subsidies that is often blamed for spreading the outbreak would not have been possible, for a start.
Alternet's article: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/33967/
NAIS from the horse's mouth: http://www.usda.gov/nais/
Grist Magazine - Environmental News and Commentary: http://www.grist.org/
[For the love of god, 'chicken' is a banned word in titles now - it's just taken me 20 minutes to find out why this bloody article wouldn't save. MSN Spaces, this is quite probably the end of a beautiful friendship.] 3月25日 Know Your Water VoleIn case you've only just arrived, Ratty from Wind in the Willows was actually a water vole. They are the UK's fastest declining mammal.
From a leaflet produced by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust:
Observation of the ears and nose are the easiest way to tell the difference between water voles and brown rats. Here's the full list of key visual differences, from the leaflet:
Ears: water vole has small, hidden ears, rat has big ears Fur: water vole has silky mid-brown fur, rat has grey-brown fur (difficult, this distinction) Nose: water vole has a blunt nose, rat has a pointed nose Tail: water vole has a furry tail, shorter than the rat's long pink scaly hairless tail
The Wildlife Trusts: www.wildlifetrusts.org
The Mammal Society: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mammal/ |
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