Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Zoo News Digest 28th May 2019 (ZooNews 1028)

Zoo News Digest 28th May 2019  (ZooNews 1028)






elvinhow@gmail.com

 

Dear Colleague,


For around the seventh time this last week I came across the newspaper header "rare white lion cub". It will be the same next week along with "endangered rare white tiger". It goes on and on and never stops. The Dumb zoos out there are sucked in and will purchase one if the opportunity arises and usually at a vastly inflated price...and for what? All of these unfortunate beasts are inbred. They are of no value or use to conservation. They are just taking up space and mis-educating the public. They will breed and so compound the problem. No GOOD zoo will take them so they will be passed along to another Dumb zoo.

Example from today:

Welcome, Sonja: Rare White Lion Born At Hungary Zoo, Makes First ...



Two rare white tiger cubs find new home in Nicaragua
There is no officially sanctioned studbook for these unfortunate creatures. They are valueless and yet come at a price.
Nobody disputes that white tigers and lions can and do occur in the wild and that's great if that is where they remain. Naturally occurring mutations be they black, white, red or blue are just fine as they are still able to contribute to the wild gene pool and that's a good thing. Putting any of these inbred (and sometimes subspecific mix) captive animals back is not. It will cause problems.
Tigers in the wild are in trouble. This is not just because of poaching. Besides poaching is less lucrative now that Tiger Farms in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Vietnam and South Africa are churning the animals out. Cheaper to kill something in a cage than in a jungle.
No, Tigers in India today are in trouble because there is no where for them to go. So this week I put this little poster on my Facebook page.

Wow. What a lot of comments. Some understood exactly what I was getting at. Many did not. I just hope that the discussion that evolved allowed contributors and readers to learn something.

This popped up in one of the stories during the week "Vegan and animal-rights activist". Just what is the point of mentioning you are a Vegan? Does this give some special gift of understanding? I think not.
Incidentally I have often noted that in photographs of rallies of Animal Rights Anarchists that many are sporting tattoos. Most tattoo ink contains animal by-products.


"good zoos will not gain the credibility of their critics until they condemn the bad zoos wherever they are." Peter Dickinson

Lots of interest follows

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Did You Know?
ZooNews Digest has over 110,400+ Followers on Facebook( and over 110,500 likes) and has a monthly reach often exceeding over 1000,000 people? That ZooNews Digest has subscribers in over 900 Zoos in 155+ countries? That the subscriber list for the mail out reads like a 'Zoos Who's Who?'
If you are a subscriber to the email version then you probably knew this already. You would also know that ZooNews Digest pre-dates any of the others. It was there before FaceBook. It was there shortly after the internet became popular and was a 'Blog' before the word had been invented. ZooNews Digest reaches zoo people.

I remain committed to the work of GOOD zoos,
not DYSFUNCTIONAL zoos.
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Monkeys saved after Birmingham nature reserve arson attack
Two spider monkeys were saved by firefighters after an arson attack at a nature reserve.

Crews were called to a blaze in the monkey house at Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park at about 23:00 BST on Thursday.

Paul Bayliss, from Bournbrook fire station, said: "The fire was at one end and the monkeys were hiding in another."



Shortage of staff to protect wildlife in Turkey: Official
“Many species in the nature have dwindled. For example, the number of chevrotains should be 200,000-250,000 in Turkey, but it is only 35,000; the number of gazelles should be 600,000, but it is only 16,000; the number of mountain sheep should be 600,000-700,000, but it is only 20,000. Why is this the case? This issue is followed by the General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parts. We are supposed to undertake this protection with forest security public servants, but how many of them are left? Only 250 and they are also retiring,” said Erdem İsmetoğlu, the directorate’s vice president, on May 22.



Kawan At Islamabad Zoo Being Treated Inhumanly: Wildlife Expert
Wildlife especially elephant 'Kawan' at Islamabad zoo is in dire need of attention of the quarter concerned as it is being treated inhumanly.
Talking to APP, a wildlife expert requesting anonymity said, the quality of food served to Kawan was unhygienic and it was being fed sugarcane and hay by the visitors.



Pioneering Veterinary Medicine for Africa’s Enigmatic Pangolins
Veterinarian Dr. Karin Lourens has become known as Africa’s “pangolin doctor” for leading medical efforts to help the scaly anteaters rescued from the illegal wildlife trade.

Case in point, she’s treating an endangered ground pangolin, one of a species found in South and Eastern Africa, and he’s lucky.

He’s one of 50 pangolins rescued this year from wildlife traffickers and put in the care of Lourens.



Vietnam seizes 5 tonnes of pangolin scales from Nigeria
Communist Vietnam is a hotbed for the illegal wildlife trade, where animal products from elephant ivory to rhino horn and tiger bones are consumed domestically and also smuggled abroad.

Police on Thursday found 5.3 tonnes of pangolins scales hidden in a shipment from Nigeria at a port in southern Ba Ria Vung Tau province, according to Hai Quan, the official mouthpiece of Vietnam Customs.

"The scales were stuffed into 151 sacks inside a container... (and) bags of raw cashew nuts were used as a disguise in order to avoid detection from authorities," the online news website said Friday.



Republicans aren’t just climate deniers. They deny the extinction crisis, too
Maybe you’ve read King Lear and remember this famous line: “‘Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.” The words were written more than 400 years ago as a comment on the deadly consequences of greed, delusion and political folly, but they could serve just as well as a Republican party slogan today. They’re a fitting description of the Republican party’s delusional campaign to deny the environmental crises that threaten our planet and our civilization.



Colombian breeds rare frogs to undermine animal traffickers
In a small farmhouse surrounded by cloud forest, Iván Lozano inspects dozens of glass containers that hold some of the world's most coveted frogs.

The conservationist has been fighting the illegal trade in rare tropical frogs for years, risking his life and his checkbook to save the brightly colored, poisonous amphibians whose population in the wild is dwindling.

But Lozano doesn't hunt down poachers and smuggl



Andrew Crawford: Colombia’s frogs face “massacre” with illegal trafficking
ndrew crawford is Associate Professor of biology at Universidad de los Andes and member of the Smithsonian Tropical Research institute. His research on amphibian evolutionary genetics covers plenty of terrain in Colombia, from the Pacific coast with its poison dart frogs to the discovery with a team of scientists of a new species in the cloud forests of the high Andes. As a frog expert, Crawford spoke with The City Paper about the many threats facing this species in the country.




Five Things to Know About Botswana’s Decision to Lift Ban on Hunting Elephants
Botswana, home to the world’s largest African elephant population, has lifted its five-year suspension of elephant hunting, attracting the ire of conservationists while placating those who argue that the land giants, known to kill livestock and destroy crops, are wreaking havoc on locals’ livelihoods.



Trump Administration Orders the Removal of 30 Species from the Endangered Species List
In late 2017, top leaders from the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) southeastern region issued a directive that instructed agency officials to delist, downlist, or otherwise preclude 30 species each year from the endangered species list. The directive, dubbed the “Wildly Important Goal,” was framed as a method to promote “positive, proactive conservation,” though it fails to explain how the denial of federal protections for endangered or threatened species aids conservation efforts.



New Details About Hours-Long Struggle to Retrieve Body of Woman Mauled by Lion in North Carolina
Alex Black came face to face with an escaped lion when she was just 10 days into her unpaid internship at a private animal sanctuary.

The 22-year-old had been preparing deer meat to feed the big cats, and suddenly found herself alone, staring down the lion in a place where it could have reached visitors, according to her aunt, Virginia Black.



Rare all-white panda spotted in China
A rare all-white panda has been captured on cameras in the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Southwest China's Sichuan province, the reserve management authorities said on Saturday.

The panda was captured in mid-April by an infrared camera about 2,000 meters above sea level in the wild, the authorities said.

The panda has no spots on its body and its eyes look red. It was crossing the forest at the time.



DNREC’s Brandywine Zoo wins international avian husbandry award
DNREC’s Brandywine Zoo has won a Plume Award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ (AZA) Avian Scientific Advisory Group, recognizing the zoo’s achievements in avian husbandry and conservation. The Brandywine Zoo is one of only three AZA-member facilities internationally to receive the prestigious award this year. The Plume Award was for the zoo’s American Kestrel Monitoring Program, recognized by the AZA as a “Noteworthy Achievement for an Avian In-Situ Program” – meaning “in the field,” or studying animals in the wild.



Dolphins' happiness living in captivity at marine animal park probed, as tourist attraction considers sea pen
The question of whether dolphins can be happy living in captivity at a marine animal park is about to be tested on the New South Wales mid-north coast.

A world-leading scientist is in Coffs Harbour for an Australian-first study into the welfare of five dolphins at the tourist attraction, Dolphin Marine Conservation Park.



Philippine eagles Geothermica and Sambisig to be loaned to Singapore: Ambassadors for Philippine biodiversity
On June 4, a pair of captive-bred Philippine eagles will fly to Singapore as part of a Wildlife Loan Agreement (WLA) entered into by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), Singapore’s leading wildlife conservation organization.

Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu and WRS Deputy Executive Officer Cheng Wen-Haur signed the agreement highlighting a first of such agreement for the critically endangered Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi),  the country’s national bird.




In a first, UP to set up four tiger rescue centres
With the number of both tigers and leopards increasing in th ..



TAM, SABAH’S LAST MALE SUMATRAN RHINO, IS DEAD
Malaysia’s last male Sumatran rhino, Tam, has died, following an abrupt decline in health due to old age, sources say.

Tam, short form for Kertam was pronounced dead shortly after noon Monday, BorneoToday has learnt.

Sabah is now left with one last Sumatran rhino, a female, Iman, whose own health has weakened due to a ruptured tumor in her uterus.



After Tam's death, Sabah hopes to ink deal with Indonesia on rhino breeding programme
Following the death of Malaysia's last male Sumatran rhino, the Sabah government is hoping to officially seal an agreement with Indonesia on a proposed breeding programme involving the country's only surviving female rhino.

Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew said that offspring of the sole surviving female Sumatran rhino named Iman will be shared ownership with Indonesia.



Amid U.S./China tensions, pandas' presence in Atlanta becomes more exceptional
With the San Diego Zoo's two giant pandas safely back in China, Zoo Atlanta has become a member of an even more exclusive club.

The California zoo's loan agreement for pandas Bai Yun and Xiao Liwu recently ended and was not extended, leaving Atlanta, the Memphis Zoo, and Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian National Zoo as the only locations with pandas. Though there are currently tensions over trade between the U.S. and China, the conflicts have no connection to the giant pandas on loan to Atlanta's zoo, according to Hayley Murphy, deputy director of Zoo Atlanta.



Are we facing a potential species mass extinction event or are we in the midst of it?
Is species at ‘risk of extinction’ the correct metric to apply in assessing and for convincing people of the worsening global biodiversity and ecosystem services predicament?

In this article it is argued that biodiversity, in terms of the number of species, is less important from an ecological perspective than the biomass/population size of the ecosystem’s most common species.



5 essential tools for nature conservation we are still missing (Part 1/2)
There is not a day passing without the announcement of new web based tools, dashboards or platforms launched in support to nature conservation. Maps and data sets have become very easy to access and share over the web and any junior programmer can today easily integrate these data in a nice looking interface. Looking behind the doors, one will find most of the time that the content presented is the same as anywhere else and that only the packaging has been changed, either to make it more attractive or simply to target different end-users.



Ranked: The Ten Countries With The Most Endangered Species In The World
It’s tough to argue with the fact that humankind is having a dramatic – and terrible – impact on the animal kingdom. Industry, pollution, agriculture, deforestation, air travel and decreasing habitats are conspiring to make it very hard for thousands of species to survive, let alone flourish. And that truth stretches to every corner of the world, be it forest, mountain, reef, ocean, city or savannah.



Gregory Wrightstone: exposing the mass extinction lie
The latest chapter of the climate campaign consists of warnings about a coming mass extinction of species. Here is a stunning analysis of these claims by Gregory Wrightstone. This made a big impact at Wednesday’s House hearings. I doubt you will see this in the news (it does not fit the narrative).



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After more than 50 years working in private, commercial and National zoos in the capacity of keeper, head keeper and curator Peter Dickinson started to travel. He sold house and all his possessions and hit the road. He has traveled extensively in Turkey, Southern India and much of South East Asia before settling in Thailand. In his travels he has visited well over 200 zoos and many more before 'hitting the road' and writes about these in his blog http://zoonewsdigest.blogspot.com/Hubpages http://hubpages.com/profile/Peter+Dickinson
Peter earns his living as an independent international zoo consultant, critic and writer. Until recently working as Curator of Penguins in Ski Dubai. United Arab Emirates. He describes himself as an itinerant zoo keeper, one time zoo inspector, a dreamer, a traveler, an introvert, a people watcher, a lover, a storyteller, a thinker, a cosmopolitan, a writer, a hedonist, an explorer, a pantheist, a gastronome, sometime fool, a good friend to some and a pain in the butt to others.
"These are the best days of my life"


photo 
Peter Dickinson
Independent International Zoo Consultant







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