I knew there was somewhere to post this, but didn't see it for the trees.

Save the Wildcats - video

Save the Scottish wildcat by protecting Clashindarroch Forest!

300,000 Scottish wildcat signatures and International Cat Day!

There were a few trees weren't there... and now there's Clashindarroch's, and this is definitely a somewhere to post all of those. Thank you, WK :) I must say I do get a bit despairing of the internet for a lot of reasons, but for raising awareness of issues like those and getting the message out there - well... if it can make a difference ... it goes a long way in making up for the bad stuff.

@Les: It was pink dolphins (I think more properly known as Chinese White Dolphins) in and around Hong Kong's harbour a long time ago - where I first heard of the "phenomenon" of a pod and mother not giving up on a dead baby for a protracted period. It troubled me as much as the efforts elephants made over a dead/dying baby in Africa.

If we could suddenly, now, rewrite all those business school models and associated institutions that have so promoted the kind of "ambitions for society" that have never allowed a true cost to appear on a balance sheet anywhere - I doubt there'd be enough generations of us yet to come to produce enough branches of governments whose eyes didn't light-up only in response to money.

But I'd like very much to be proved wrong on that.

I'm going to post this here because it's about elephants, but it's not sad (other than, of course - the elephants in it got to be there through being orphaned as a result of poachers) but it made me do a big awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww :)

herd runs to greet new arrival

UFO sighted over the desert

:)))

Magic! Hello!

Of course, I always knew waffle irons were alien technology. Now we have proof ...

Here you go people - another example of our supreme talent at dooming stuff we share the planet with:

Orca apocalypse

Among those most at risk are the UK’s last pod, where a recent death revealed one of the highest PCB levels ever recorded. Others off Gibraltar, Japan and Brazil and in the north-east Pacific are also in great danger. Killer whales are one of the most widespread mammals on earth but have already been lost in the North Sea, around Spain and many other places.

“It is like a killer whale apocalypse,” said Paul Jepson at the Zoological Society of London, part of the international research team behind the new study. “Even in a pristine condition they are very slow to reproduce.” Healthy killer whales take 20 years to reach peak sexual maturity and 18 months to gestate a calf.

PCBs were used around the world since the 1930s in electrical components, plastics and paints but their toxicity has been known for 50 years. They were banned by nations in the 1970s and 1980s but 80% of the 1m tonnes produced have yet to be destroyed and are still leaking into the seas from landfills and other sources.

The international Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants came into force in 2004 to tackle the issue, but Jepson said the clean-up is way behind schedule. “I think the Stockholm Convention is failing,” he said. “The only area where I am optimistic is the US. They alone produced 50% of all PCBs, but they have been getting PCB levels down consistently for decades. All we have done in Europe is ban them and then hope they go away.”

The research shows that killer whale populations in the high north, off Norway, Iceland, Canada and the Faroes, are far less contaminated due to their distance from major PCB sources. ”The only thing that gives me hope about killer whales in the longer term is, yes, we are going to lose populations all over the industrialised areas, but there are populations that are doing reasonably well in the Arctic,” said Jepson.

If a global clean-up, which would take decades, can be achieved, these populations could eventually repopulate empty regions, he said, noting that killer whales are very intelligent, have strong family bonds and hunt in packs. “It is an incredibly adaptive species – they have been able to [live] from the Arctic to the Antarctic and everywhere in between.”

He praised the billion-dollar “superfund” clean-ups in the US, such as in the Hudson River and Puget Sound, where the polluter has paid most of the costs: “The US is going way beyond the Stockholm Convention because they know how toxic PCBs are.”

There are a lot of linked-to studies and articles within the text that I haven't duplicated here - if you're interested.

I was very displeased by the sentence at the top of the quote :( and must admit to being really very pleasantly surprised by the last one. Keeping up that and getting us to do the same or better would be good I think :)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-wildlife-lions/at-least-23-asiatic-lions-die-in-india-five-from-rare-virus-idUSKCN1MF288

India’s top biomedical research body urged the government on Friday to take immediate steps to save Asiatic lions after 23 of the endangered species died in the last three weeks, some due to a rare virus whose spread officials are scrambling to control.

Five of the Asiatic lions, the last remaining species of which live in the Gir forests of western India, were found to have died from the contagious Canine Distemper Virus (CDV), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said in a statement.

The deaths have cast a renewed spotlight on the conditions at Gir for the endangered wild cats, as many as 600 of whom live on the roughly 850 square miles-long expanse of the sanctuary that is surrounded by clusters of human settlements.

India’s top court ordered to move some of the lions to a separate sanctuary in 2013 after wildlife experts and activists said the relocation was essential to protect the lions from potential calamities like disease outbreaks.

But successive local governments in Gujarat, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, have staunchly opposed the shift, and Modi himself has said the state wouldn’t part with any lions because they were “the pride of Gujarat.”

Update, Protect Scottish wildcats from Forestry Commission logging

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Another one for you.
Banned Rang-tan advert

https://www.change.org/p/release-iceland-s-banned-christmas-advert-on-tv-nopalmoilchristmas/u/23654616

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I forgot to pop in on my own thread! *wait... for scandal to die down*

That's not as outrageous as banning that advert though

*scowl* not even close!

Thank you for posting during my absent-mindedness, WK, and Paul. I might try to find some follow up stuff to the stories since, because that's the problem with news... when it stops being "new" it usually just "stops" except it doesn't.

Anyway, early-ish last year I posted about Sudan (the last male northern white rhinoceros) having died, leaving just his daughter and granddaughter the only representatives of the species. Well this is sort of an update to that.

Scientists fine-tune method to save rhinos

scientists have not given up hope of saving the species from extinction.

They succeeded last year in creating hybrid embryos using frozen northern white rhino sperm and eggs from a southern white rhino, a closely related sub-species.

Now they are working on how to implant the embryos into a surrogate mother to bring them to term, and once they’ve mastered that, they can create purebred northern white rhino embryos that would be carried by a southern white.

There's a bit more than that to read for those interested.

erm... some may want to skip the bit about getting to their ovaries

Tanzania court sentences 'Ivory Queen' to 15 years in prison

A Chinese businesswoman labelled the "Ivory Queen" has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Tanzanian judge for smuggling the tusks of more than 350 elephants.

Conservationists welcomed Yang's conviction, saying it was proof of the government's seriousness in the fight against wildlife poaching, but some criticised the sentence.

"[It] is not punishment enough for the atrocities she committed, by being responsible for the poaching of thousands of elephants in Tanzania," Amani Ngusaru, WWF country director, told Reuters news agency.

"She ran a network that killed thousands of elephants."


In Tanzania, the elephant population shrank from 110,000 in 2009 to little more than 43,000 in 2014, according to a 2015 census, with conservation groups blaming "industrial-scale" poaching.

Demand for ivory from Asian countries such as China, Vietnam and Thailand, where it is turned into jewellery and ornaments, has led to a surge in poaching across Africa.

In March 2016, Tanzania sentenced two Chinese men to 35 years each in jail for ivory smuggling, while in December 2015 another court sentenced four Chinese men to 20 years in jail each after they were convicted of smuggling rhino horns.

Although a good start, I'm of the view none of those sentences are enough either, in fact... *troubled frown* sometimes I worry by quite how... erm... apocalyptically-militant I feel about stuff like that. Yes...

My mum died on Wednesday. It's off-topic I know, but I can't think of anywhere else to put it where it also wouldn't be off topic, because she wasn't famous or important - just much-loved by a handful of people. Rest in peace, Mum :) it's a luxury life never afforded you. I miss you.

My condolences to you & your family.

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss.

Giving you another cuddle.

A painful loss, my deepest condolences.

3-17-2019

Annie,

I'm SOOOOO sorry to hear this sad news. My deepest condolences. Long distance hugs being sent your way. 😞😔😟🙁😢

God bless, Annie.


TL

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Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos
Pluto is still a planet

Annie.

Really sorry to hear this.

The death of a parent, is never easy.

My thoughts are with you.
Bernie.

Annie,

I'm so very sorry to hear this sad news. :-(

I wish you and the family all the best in these difficult times. My sincerest condolences and God bless.

I'm so Anniet My condolences to you & your family.

Oh, people. I've turned into such a mess. Reading these messages though, has been like finding a safe warm place in a storm :) Thank you so much for your condolences and kind thoughts, and the hugs and prayers too :) They make such a difference. I've been struggling for nearly two days to find the words to say that, and still they don't convey how much I appreciate them, and all of you too.

Thank you :)