Some Call Me Nature...

“Some call me Nature. Others call me Mother Nature.
I’ve been here for over 4 and a half billion years. 22.500 times longer than you.
I don’t really need people, but people need me.
Yes, your future depends on me.
When I thrive you thrive. When I falter you falter…Or worse.
But I’ve been here for eons.
I have fed species greater than you. And I have starved species greater than you.
My oceans, my soil, my flowing streams and my forests.
They all can take you—or leave you…
How you choose to live each day weather you regard or disregard me, doesn’t really matter to me.
One way or the other…Your actions will determine your fate. Not mine.
I’m Nature. I’ll go on. I am prepared to evolve.
Are you?”

Julia Robert’s and an other 9 A-list movie stars donated their time and intonations to a stunning public awareness movies evolving the human race dangers of suffering a massive die-off extinction.

The two minutes short films pretend to reach every human being and reflect on the several pure elements of our Planet. Water, Ice, Forests, asking globally why humans pay so little attention to the hazards posed by overpopulation, environmental pollution, deforestation, biodiversity degradation, overheated climate, and other ecological pressures.

Humans are asked here to pay attention to the alarming signs and react before it’s too late.
This is not about saving Nature.

This is about saving Ourselves. 

The Human Race.

Happy NEW YEAR

Let us wish for 2014 that concrete political measures are taken in order to preserve and defende all Endangered Species.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity stands as the result of 3.5 billion years of evolution. 

While records of life in the sea show a logistic pattern of growth, life on land (insects, plants and tetrapods) show an exponential rise in diversity. New species are regularly discovered and many, thought discovered, are not yet classified.

Nevertheless according to a report from "Environment New Service",  dated back from 1999, scientists  predicted that the extinction rate caused by human influence was approaching 1,000 times the average rate and could climb to an alarming number of 10,000 times in a near future.

Are we near to those numbers? 

Is it wise to talk about giving life to extinct species when we are not being able to stop those which are nowadays classified as endangered?

2013 - A Race Against Time

Amazon Forest or what's Left of It

As a wish for 2013, I'd like to see a setback on the pulverization of our rain forests, a reduction of the number of endangered species, wider protected wildlife zones, conservation plans and real changes on governments policies focused on controlling illegal traffic and poaching.

Concerns about Amazon, and the inumerous routs that are splitting the forest apart turning it into a vast mosaic where species struggle to survive on trapped ecosystems, surrounded by man and their vast palm tree farms, their cuttle and hundreds of devastating fires in order to settle more men, more palm trees and more cuttle. Will it ever stop?

IVORY - ILLEGAL TRADE

African Elephant Illegal Trade

When I visited Botswana in 2007, and spent some time at the "Chobe National Park" I became aware of a huge problem that the Park administration was dealing with: ELEPHANTS

Their number had rised to an alarming figure of 120.000,  40.000 individuals beyond than what the Park itself could shelter, according to their estimated resources.

One of the solutions, besides misplacing some of the herds, was to arrange some old fashion AFRICAN SAFARIS which could allow the Park's Administration to control the species, therefore protecting others, with the advantage of rising some money to hire more rangers in order to look upon the park conservation.

Although shocking, the measure seemed to be focused on the protection of the various species which all depend on the Park resources. 

I had the opportunity to see what enormous herds of elephants can do to vegetation. It simply disappears and the horizon looks like Ground Zero. The image I had was that a bomb had dropped and nothing was left besides brown dry land. All around me there wasn't  literally nothing left. The land was absolutely flat. No trees, no flowers. Nothing. When we talk about a group of 20 or 30 individuals, each one of them consuming trees, trunks, grass, leaves, that may reach to 300 kgs a day, we are getting numbers like 9.000 Kg of vegetation in just one day. After a week the region is flat.

Following these sustainability problems some Parks tended to be more tolerant with poachering leaving some space for the quick development of trade channels, which tend to grow very quickly, due the enormous amount of money associated with IVORY TRADE. Quickly the situation involved to a dark elephant slaughter with thousands of elephants being killed every year, wiping out these big mammals from the face of the Earth. Tourists which have visited Africa for the last 5 years, say that the specie may have decreased enormously once they are now scarcely seen around.

China stays in the corner of the trade, (not only for elephants, but by far, for the dramatic outraging poaching of the last black rhinos) and ultimately that's their marked which is fueling the elephants slaughter and the underground ivory trade which is becoming increasingly militarized. Ivory is sold at $1,000 per pound in the Beijing streets which gives us a figure of the numbers involved.

Africa is in the midst of an epic elephant slaughter. Conservation groups say poachers are wiping out tens of thousands of elephants a year, more than at any time in the previous two decades. 

Some parks are now in a the middle of a battlefield trying to stop trade and the slaughter. Therefore it was with great joy that I heard last week's news about TANZANIA's government decision on not to trade 137 tons of ivory stockpiled in their warehouses, representing millions of dollars.

"We want to sell part of the stockpile. We plan to use revenue from the sale to beef up measures to fight elephant poaching, which is becoming more and more worrying," Nyalandu told journalists.

He said the government was not going to sell smuggled ivory but of those which died of natural causes, noting that Tanzania has more than 137 tonnes of ivory stockpiled.

Good News!

Smuggled Ivory being burned - a way of demotivate poaching 

Mexico - Life UNDER SEA

Jason de Cairos Taylor sculptures

Life is exploding on the reefs of Cancun, Mexico. By the hand of Jason de Cairos Taylor, an undersea museum is being shaped with the help of the Cancun community where many of its citizens have served as models for Taylor's sculptures. 

 Named, 'Man on Fire' (based on a local fisherman), the 'Collector of Lost Dreams' and 'Gardener of Hope', the first parts of this submarine museum was submerged in 2009. Later, the main group - which consists of 400 figures weighing over 120 tonnes - was submerged during the following years, off the coast of Mexico. When this occurs, the artist loses the 'aesthetic control' over his work, which will be in further on in charge of nature. 

"Ring of Children"

The idea is connected with prevention measures given the environmental decline of coral reefs, originated by natural disasters as well as for drastic climate changes which caused the disappearance of some significant coral reef areas. 

The sculptures made of a chemical composition of cement promote the colonization of marine life, which in time will cover the carvings in different colors. 

Taylor's sculptures have been listed, by National Geographic, as one of the top 25 Wonders of the World.

"Silent Evolution"

Barreleye - The Pacific Transparent Fish

The head seems a fighter-plane cockpit

Its highly sensitive eyes are included in its transparent head shield, working the two green spheres as lenses of its tubular eyes.

Above the mouth, the two dark capsules that appear to be eyes, actually contain the fish’s olfactory organs, or the equivalent of nostrils.

The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California's central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact. The 15 cm Barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) had been known since 1939, but only from mangled specimens dragged to the surface by nets.

Seychelles - Moyenne Island - Brendon Grimshaw's Private Paradise

 Brendon Grimshaw's Island - Seychelles

"Did you ever bathe in the hot blue water with your feet on a coral-reef strand, with starfish tickling the soles of your feet, with the bleached sand running beneath them, with the water melting into the sky in waves of sunshine, and your body melting into the water? Then your body has no burden, it wavers and washes in the moving of the sea, and your weightless feet, your water-washed thighs, your shadowed legs, your drifting hands, dissolve from you, and are born into the warmness and coolness and sweetness of the sea."
Agnes Keith in "Land Below the Wind"

When I read here that Brendon Grimshaw had, on his thirties, the opportunity to buy his private paradise I immediately went back on my memories to this beautiful passage, from the Agnes Keith's book "Land Below the Wind". Few books gave a sense of calm and tranquility like this one and maybe I thought that Brendon Grimshaw managed in his life to achieve what many of us dream.

50 years ago Brendon accepted the challenge of buying an atoll at the Seychelles sea. It was just a desert amount of bush and rocks in the middle of nowhere. 50 years later, 16.000 trees planted, tracks manually build, wood houses erected on the top of the reef, thousands of birds and turtles well adapted to the island, Brendon has finally that magic story to tell to the world. How a single man managed to transform desert into life, the quietness of the sea in the singing of birds, rocks into a dense forest, a desert island into a National Park.

It took until the early 1970s before he was able to move to Moyenne Island full time. Brendon has become one of the few people to ever live on the island. He puts the number of his predecessors at three.
The first challenge, then, was to cut a path through the undergrowth so he could see exactly what the island had to offer and what needed to be done.
From the impenetrable bush with few signs of fauna, - where to get from one side to the other of the island it was required swimming around or boating - he created a micro climate, planting mahogany and palm trees, which attracted thousands of birds and forested a thriving community of giant tortoises, none of which were around when he bought the island.

The island was in the past a stop where pirates docked, so he wasn't surprised when he found two pirate's graves which the carefully looks after settling his own future grave right beside them.

Brenton has had offers of 50 million pounds to sell the island but be doesn't have a greedy nature. He prefered to apply for the Seychelles Goverment and transform Moyenne Island into a National Park. He succeed to do so and now, with more than 80 years old, he is living his relaxing days on the quietness of a Private Paradise.

Moyenne Island & the mahogany trees from Wandering Eye on Vimeo.
Here you can see the all story

Endangered Species - Iberic Lynx

Iberien Lynx also known as tiger-cat is the most severely endangered cat species and there aren’t more than 140 in the wild. Yesterday, I came across in the net with a program, developed in Spain, where strong conservation measures are being held in order to increase the Iberien Lynx population avoiding extinction.

One of such efforts involved captive breeding, genetic and demographic management of the lynx population and although it may not be considered the best solution, soon we understand that this is the only way to avoid an immediate and complete extinction of the species. The program has presented increasing results since it begun in 2002. From the 2 first offsprings born in 2002, last year the number reached a stimulating number of 25 offsprings, almost 1/5 of the wild population alive.

Several international institutions collaborate with the programme, which is currently implemented through a “multirateral comission” that includes the central goverments of Spain and Portugal, together with other autonomous spanish goverments of Andalusia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha. Portugal, where rarely is seen a wild lynx, also developed its own breeding center in Silves acting at the same time on improving habitat for future reestablishment of lynx population.

The lynx territories have decreased to such an alarming point that they are now confined to scattered small aggregates (see distribution map). Man’s invation of wild habitats may be the main reason but surely it’s not the only one. Reduction of food sources is also a main concern and is certainly on the basis of the territorial fragmentation. As a top predator the Iberian lynx has a key role in controlling populations of rabbits (their favorite prey) and other small mammals but when these are lacking it is known that deer, mice, ducks, quail, lizards, etc. also make part of their food chain. Selecting habitats with Mediterranean characteristics, the rare Iberian lynx can be spoted on woods, dense thickets and bushes. Preferably used in mosaic structures with enclosed biotopes abrigo. In Portugal some where seen on the North East of Portugal, at the Serra da Malcata, located between the counties of Sabugal and Penamacor, integrating the mountainous system of Luso-Spanish Meseta.

It is essentially a night animal, an expert climber and by day it can move at about 7 km.The territories of males may overlap territories to one or more females.
Mating, uncommon, occurring between January and March and after a gestation period of between 63 and 74 days between 1 and 4 are born offspring.

© Pete Oxford

Big Apes - Gorilla Genome Decoded

 Male silverback Gorilla in SF zoo. Image: Wikipedia

Researchers announce today that they have completed the genome sequence for the gorilla – the last genus of the living great apes to have its genome decoded. While confirming that our closest relative is the chimpanzee, the team show that much of the human genome more closely resembles the gorilla than it does the chimpanzee genome.

"The gorilla genome is important because it sheds light on the time when our ancestors diverged from our closest evolutionary cousins. It also lets us explore the similarities and differences between our genes and those of gorilla, the largest living primate," says Aylwyn Scally, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.  from here

Funny Owls

Credits : Nikon page

I've always wondered why owls turn their head upside down. 

Is it because they are focusing or trying to see better? Unquestionably they are really cute birds.

Epic Migration of a Song Bird

If you have ever thought that tiny birds are not heroes I'm sure that's because you've never heard about the little 25g  "Oenanthe oenanthe".

It weights the equivalent of 2 sugar teaspoons but that's not a problem when the topic is "Migration".

In fact, this tiny songbird flies, each year 29.000 Km, on its migration route between Africa and Artic and then back.

Scientists managed, for the first time, to track this epic migration routes after placing tags on 2 of these tiny birds. Flying an average of 290 Km a day, these songbirds flew over Siberia and across the Arabian desert, heading to Sudan, Uganda and Kenya, a trip that took about 91 days on the outward trip but 55 days for the return leg.

"They are incredible migratory journeys, particularly for a bird this size," said Ryan Norris of the University of Guelph in Ontario. Think of something smaller than a robin but a little larger than a finch raising young in the Arctic tundra and then a few months later foraging for food in Africa for the winter."

The study appears on Wednesday in Biology Letters, a journal published by the Royal Society, Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.
Birds with larger wingspans such as the cuckoo and albatross are famous for their transcontinental migrations, but this study provides incontrovertible evidence that a songbird can do the same, say the scientists. "Scaled for body size, this is one of the longest round-trip migratory journey of any bird in the world and raises questions about how a bird of this size is able to successfully undertake such physically demanding journeys twice a year, particularly for inexperienced juveniles migrating on their own." from here

In Nature There's Love for Life

Waver Albatross

On Valentine's Day, Scientific American Magazine presented us with some beautiful pictures of genetic monogamic animals which, after choosing their mates, stick with them for life.

Although you may think that Humans are included in this study, you may well get rid of that impression because as said in this study, men (more than women) tend to have more than one partner in life. 

Albatrosses are famous both for their flirtatiousness—taking the form of ritualized mating dances—and for their fidelity. Most settle down with a single mate for life, which can mean decades. But not all the males are entirely faithful. For the waved albatross (Phoebastria irrorata), genetic testing of offspring has revealed that a quarter of them had different dads. For the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), only about one in 10 chicks were sired by different sirs— (which suggests perhaps they should trade species names). from here

Wikimedia Commons/Barfbagger 

Lar Gibbons

One of the only primate examples of monogamy, Lar gibbons (or white-handed gibbons, Hylobates lar) have long been documented living in close-knit families. The coupled male and female will spend time grooming each other and (literally) hanging out together in the trees. But more recent research has found that these unions are not quite as uncomplicated as once thought. With mates occasionally philandering, and even sometimes dumping a mate, the gibbon mating culture has started to look perhaps a little bit more like ours. from here

Wikimedia Commons/MatthiasKabel

Bird Scanning - Old Egyptian Mummy Bird on a CT scan with 3-D reconstruction

A Mummy IBIS bird seen on a CT scan with 3D reconstruction 
Image courtesy Andrew Wade and Yale Peabody Museum (item ANT.006924.004)

New techniques are always surprising us by opening little windows if the past where we can peek life and ancient habits from long ago extinct civilizations.

Photogr courtesy Andrew Nelson, Univ. Western Ontario

That's what happened at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where scientists picked an egyptian Ibis bird sacrificed for buriel purposes and submeted to a CT-scan-based 3-D reconstruction.

The images are incredibly clear and it is perfectly visible that before being mummified the bird was fed with grains and a dead snake, which was placed within, via an incision in his stomach, for the after life journey.

The bird is one of three sacred ibis mummies aged between 2,600 and 2,000 years that were found to have been packed with food for the afterlife. Now extinct in Egypt, sacred ibises have been found throughout ancient catacombs and in other chambers dedicated to offerings to the gods.  from here

Steve De Neef - 2011 Under Sea

Highlights of 2011 from Steve De Neef on Vimeo.

Albino Hummingbird

This shot, of an extremely rare albino ruby-throated hummingbird

was photographed by two Virginia teenagers and two preteens:

Marlin Shank, 16, Shaphan Shank, 14, Darren Shank, 12 and Allen Shank, 9.


The Shank brothers spotted the rare bird with their father Kevin Shank, who runs Nature Friend Magazine with his wife Bethany.

The Blind Mexican Cave Fish

This is the blind Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) along with its sighted cousin the Mexican tetra. 
Credit: Professor Richard Borowsky

 

The blind Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) have not only lost their sight but have adapted to perpetual darkness by also losing their pigment (albinism) and having altered sleep patterns. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows that the cavefish are an example of convergent evolution, with several populations repeatedly, and independently, losing their sight and pigmentation.

The blind cavefish and the surface dwelling Mexican tetra, despite appearances, are the same species and can interbreed. The cavefish are simply a variant of the Mexican tetra, albeit one adapted to living in complete darkness. A team of researchers from Portugal, America, and Mexico studied the DNA from 11 populations of cavefish (from three geographic regions) and 10 populations of their surface dwelling cousins to help understand the evolutionary origin of the physical differences between them.
While results from the genotyping showed that the surface populations were genetically very similar, the story for the cave populations was very different. 

 

The cave forms had a much lower genetic diversity, probably as a result of limited space and food. Not surprisingly the cave populations with the most influx from the surface had the highest diversity. In fact there seemed to be a great deal of migration in both directions.

It has been thought that historically at least two groups of fish lived in the rivers of Sierra de El Abra, Mexico. One group originally colonized the caves, but became extinct on the surface. A different population then restocked the rivers and also invaded the caves. more here

New Zealand fur seals

A baby New Zeland fur seal is shown. More than 50 dead New Zealand fur seals have been found washed up on a beach in South Australia in unexplained circumstances. Click to enlarge this image.
Getty Images

More than 50 dead New Zealand fur seals have been found washed up on a beach in South Australia in unexplained circumstances, according to environmental officials.

The discovery was made on Sunday, in the remote Lincoln National Park, with three of the seals taken to the University of Adelaide where post-mortem examinations were carried out Tuesday.

The South Australia Department of Environment and Natural Resources said 51 of the protected species were juveniles and two were considered young adults. from here

Carbon dioxide is afecting fish brains

 In this photo, fish are seen swimming over coral in Indonesia's Wakatobi archipelago. Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous systems of sea fish, with serious consequences for their survival, according to new research.

New studies have proved that the constantly emition of human carbon dioxide may be affecting the brains and central nervous systems of sea fish.

According to scientists, these brain damages, have serious consequences for their survival, according to new research. The issue is now under meticulous studies from here.

Germany - Helgoland - A Horsehead Seals Paradise

Helgoland and its seals / Junge Robben auf Helgoland from gwegner.de on Vimeo.

HELGOLAND the Germany's only offshore island with a growing population of free living Horsehead Seals.

In December and January they give birth to their young and the scenery is as beautiful as this.