There may be as few as 40 Javan rhinos left in the wild — and in the world as none currently are living in captivity. (They may be the rarest large mammals on the planet.) Recently a motion-activated video camera in an Indonesian national park caught two very young Javan rhinos with their mothers on tape. Not only are they extremely rare, they also only give birth about once every four or five years.
“The videos are great news for Javan rhinos and prove that they are breeding in Ujung Kulon. There are no Javan rhinos in captivity — if we lose the population in the wild, we’ve lost them all,” said Dr. Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at WWF-US. (Source: WWF)
(If you want to support Javan rhino conservation, you can donate to the World Wildlife Fund.)
Javan rhinos used to be widespread in various parts of Asia, but poaching decreased their numbers drastically. Traditional Chinese “medicine” has driven the price of rhino horn to as much as $30,000 per kilogram even though scientifically it has been proven to have no medicinal significance. The main ingredient of rhino horn is simply keratin, the same protein found in human fingernails so consuming rhino horn powder would have the same effect as eating one’s own fingernails. The superstitious false belief in rhino horn has fueled the poaching of rhinos for 2,000 years.
The news is especially good because Javan rhinos are solitary and prefer to stay far from humans, which makes it very difficult to study them. Javan rhinos live about 30-45 years in the wild, and are herbivores. Any Javan rhinos that were kept in captivity did not do well, dying at about half their lifespan in the wild. They have no known predators other than humans.
Another large mammal on Java already went extinct — the Javan tiger. They were all shot, and their habitat was converted for agriculture. The situation for the Javan rhinos is dire, but at least there are conservationists trying to protect them. They are still at risk from poachers who want to cash them in for a quick sale on the black market.
As soon as I heard about the Aviarios Del Caribe sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica I knew it would be perfect for the Cute Show. It’s the world’s only sloth orphanage, home to over a hundred very sleepy urchins whose lives have been saved by legendary sloth whisperer Judy Arroyo.
Sloth’s are fantastically weird animals, the junkies of the jungle who seem to spend their lives either nodding off or scratching and occasionally eating a bean or two before drifting back to what looks like a blissful sleep.
The babies are especially helpless and comical and I fell in love with them immediately. So I cut a few choice clips together to show my old colleague VBS UK producer Vida Toombs and Cute Show creator Amy Kellner and posted the video on my Vimeo page. To my surprise the clip went viral and was watched by a million people in a week. Clearly I was not alone in thinking that these animals had super squee powers. So here is my Cute Show about the sloths, the perfect prelude to a sneaky daytime nap.
If you fall for these animals like I did then you can join the sanctuary’s volunteer programme. Trainee sloth wranglers get to feed the sloths and help exercise and potty train the babies. The sanctuary runs on donations and voluntary help so you can do your bit by helping these vulnerable creatures whose jungle home is being slowly destroyed by pesticides, sold off to US real estate agencies and sliced up by roads and power lines.
A litter of rare white tiger cubs have been unveiled at a zoo in northern Germany. Fewer than 250 white tigers exist worldwide, most of them in captivity
AFP/File – A picture taken in 2004 shows the Mount Ararat. A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers …
HONG KONG (AFP) – A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers said Monday they believe they may have found Noah's Ark -- four thousand metres up a mountain in Turkey.
The team say they recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that carbon dating proved was 4,800 years old, around the same time the ark is said to have been afloat.
"It's not 100 percent that it is Noah's Ark but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it," Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker and member of the 15-strong team from Noah's Ark Ministries International told AFP.
The structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals, he said.
The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds that one had never been found above 3,500 metres in the vicinity, Yeung said.
Local Turkish officials will ask the central government in Ankara to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status so the site can be protected while a major archaeological dig is conducted, Yeung added.
The biblical story says God decided to flood the earth after seeing how corrupt it had become, and told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species.
After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain. Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants came aground.
Many of the planet's most endangered animals are also the most remarkable. Here are a few of nature's superstars from Asia, the Americas, the Pacific and elsewhere that may soon be no more
The current rate of extinction is 100 to 1000 times higher than the average, or background rate, making our current period the 6th major mass extinction in the planet’s history.Thus, what follows is a list of 11 extinct animals that were photographed while still alive.
Just Born — the makers of Marshmallow Peeps — says they’ll be producing whale-shaped, and whale-sized, Marshmallow Peeps in an effort to end Japanese whaling.
PEEP will be using the marshmallow whale Peeps as decoys, hopefully tricking Japanese whalers into harpooning those instead of cute and cuddly whales. If successful, PEEP will look into other decoy opportunities. Baby seal Peeps are under strong consideration, especially with Canada’s seal hunt underway.
PEEP is Darryl Hannah’s brainchild.
Each Easter, Hannah and fellow gal-pal Drew Barrymore get together for a ritual Spring Cleaning. The tradition involves naming and nuking [microwaving] Marshmallow Peeps until they explode. The Peeps usually don names of prominent conservatives and members of the GOP. Last year when the Rush Limbaugh Peep kept getting bigger and fatter, and just wouldn’t die…Hannah had an idea.
The former mermaid had this to say, “Last Easter, after the Rush Limbaugh Peep broke Drew’s microwave, we joked…what if we covertly replaced prominent members of the GOP with Marshmallow Peeps. Like a McCain McPeep? So we actually tried making a few, but it just didn’t work out.”
“At first we tried making a Karl Rove Peep, but the mold kept turning out like that Emperor guy from Star Wars [the originals, not those crappy sequels],” she laughed. “The GOPeeps just weren’t working, it was really hard to get them right, and someone kept eating the Sarah Palin one!”
She said it was her work on Splash that gave her the idea of whale Peeps.
One obstacle, and the reason it took a year to develop the whale-sized Peeps, is that Peeps aren’t veggie friendly. “We wanted Greenpeace on our side.” Hannah said. “The last thing you wanna do is piss off a bunch of vegans from Greenpeace,” she warned.
Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said, “We will start deploying the whale Peeps when the ship leaves port next.” This is expected to happen sometime in June.
The whale Peeps will come in three flavors: pink, yellow and krill.
A jaguar was caught and collared with a satellite tracking device for the first time ever in Arizona on Feb. 18, 2009. Credit: Arizona Game and Fish Department
The once-common jaguar has become a rare sight in North America, thanks to hunting and habitat fragmentation.
Now two were spotted in exceedingly rare and unrelated events this month.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department caught and collared a wild jaguar in Arizona for the first time, officials said Thursday. While a handful of the big cats have been photographed by automatic cameras in recent years, the satellite tracking collar will now help biologists learn more about this animal's range.
Meanwhile, a jaguar was spotted in central Mexico for the first time in a century. Scientists photographed the cat with an automatic camera set alongside a trail thought to be frequented by the spotted felines.
A jaguar is photographed in central Mexico in by an automatic camera. The image was released Feb. 10, 2009. Credit: Octavio Monroy-Vilchis et al./SINC
Jaguars (Panthera onca) once ranged from southern South America to the southern United States. By the late 1900s, none were thought to exist north of Mexico, but two independent sightings in 1996 confirmed jaguars still reached as far north as Arizona and New Mexico. Remote cameras have also photographed jaguars in the Amazon.
The species has been protected outside of the United States under the Endangered Species Act since 1973. That protection was extended to jaguars in the United States in 1997, the year after their presence here was confirmed.
Details of the sightings below.
How Cats Walk and Stalk
Unlike dogs and humans, cats don't conserve energy when they move.
The Arizona cat
The male cat in Arizona was captured southwest of Tucson during a study aimed at monitoring habitat connectivity for mountain lions and black bears. The healthy beast weighed in at 118 pounds with a thick and solid build.
Satellite tracking showed the cat traveled more than 3 miles from the capture site in the first day after its release, officials said.
"While we didn't set out to collar a jaguar as part of the mountain lion and bear research project, we took advantage of an important opportunity," said Terry Johnson, endangered species coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. "More than 10 years ago, Game and Fish attempted to collar a jaguar with no success. Since then, we've established handling protocols in case we inadvertently captured a jaguar in the course of one of our other wildlife management activities."
Biologists are trying to determine if the collared jaguar is Macho B, a male cat that has been photographed by trail cameras periodically over the past 13 years.
In 1997, a team was established in Arizona and New Mexico to protect and conserve the species. The Jaguar Conservation Team (JCT) began working with Mexico two years later, recognizing that the presence of jaguars in the United States depends on the conservation of the species in Mexico.
Interestingly, the project set up to do all this is funded by Arizona Lottery ticket sales.
The Mexico cat
No jaguars had been spotted in central Mexico since the start of the 20th century.
Scientists trying to find footprints, excrement or any other signs of the jaguars had in recent years interviewed residents, none of whom had ever seen one. Nonetheless, the researchers now report having obtained three photographs of a male jaguar and ten excrement samples that have been attributed to the jaguar, said Octavio Monroy-Vilchis of Autonomous University of the State of Mexico.
In a statement, researchers explained there are 15 areas in Mexico in which it is unknown whether jaguars still exist, whether their populations are stable, and if their habitat is adequate. These areas are important for scientific studies, because they could include crucial zones for the felines' long-term survival.
"The photographs provide information about new recording sites, and allow us to deduce that the area where the animal was observed may be a corridor connecting jaguar populations," Monroy-Vilchis said.
Largest cats
Jaguars are the only cats in North America that roar. They're considered the largest cats in the Western Hemisphere. Adults commonly weigh up to 211 pounds (96 kg), though 300-pounders have been reported. In the northern range they typically weigh between 80-120 pounds, however.
Females breed year-round and have litters of one to four cubs that stay with their mother for nearly two years.
Jaguars can live in several types of forest, grassland and dry habitat. They prey on a variety of animals, including fish, birds and reptiles. The largest contiguous area of habitat now remaining for jaguars centers in the Amazon Basin.
A formidable hunter and powerful swimmer, the polar bear is perfectly adapted to the harsh demands of the wild Arctic landscape.
And these extraordinary pictures give a more intimate portrait of its life than ever before.
Whether diving under water, rolling in the ice alongside a cub or moving in for a breathtaking close-up, these images capture its raw beauty and amazing grace.
Deep sea diver: Steven John Kazlowski spent five years photographing polar bears in the Arctic for his new book
The photographs were taken by Steven John Kazlowski, 39, who has spent the last 16 years travelling to the Arctic to take pictures of the amazing wildlife in the region.
His new book 'The Last Polar Bear' features images taken over the last five years which he hopes will highlight the animal' plight.
Global warming is weakening the ice in the Arctic and shortening the season during which it is close enough to shore for bears to move easily between floes and the shore.
Up close and personal: One bear gets a little to close for comfort (above) while another plays on the ice with a young cub (below)
Many bears find themselves stranded either on land, where adequate prey is difficult to find, or on ice miles out at sea.
'The polar bears' plight is a wake-up call,' Mr Kazlowski said.
'The changes in the Arctic are just the start of the global climate changes we will see, and it's not too late for us to make some smart choices. Enlarge
An adult bear frolics on the ice with a cub (above) while another is stalked by an Arctic fox (below)
'My hopes are that people will understand that there is an environment as amazing as the one great buffalo herds once roamed across North America, and that it's changing extremely rapidly because of the way we have chose to live as a society, and that we are all connected. 'The intelligence and social abilities of polar bears are quite something.
Photographer Steven J. Kazlowski who has spent the last 16 years travelling to the Arctic
'I have watched polar bears break holes in ice to thaw out frozen meat. They can wait for days at a seal hole without moving, which puts them in my mind to be a more zen-like animal.
'Compiling this book has pushed me in many new directions in the Alaskan Arctic, and has been a very difficult yet wonderful existence.
'It is not only the story of the polar bear but this amazing environment found off the coast of Alaska, along 800 miles from east to west above the Continental shelf.
'It hosts a rich web of life - animals and people included.'
Mr Kazlowski splits his year between Washington, Seattle and the Arctic and has now embarked on a lecture tour to publicise the threats facing the polar bear.
Many biologists and climatologists believe that by the end of the century, the creature could be the first to disappear altogether from the Arctic.
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
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