Stopping Illegal Wildlife Trade - Good News from UK

It is always good news for conservationists, when they hear about arrest and punishment of poachers and smugglers of wildlife and wildlife artifacts. Here comes a good piece of info from UK.

Due to the diligent efforts of UK authorities, Donald Allison, of Preston, Lancashire, an antiques dealer, who tried to smuggle rhino horns out of Manchester Airport has been jailed for 12 months. He had hidden the two horns in a sculpture as he tried to board a flight to China. The worth of horns is estimated to be around £600,000. They were destined for Chinese medicine market.

The investigators used DNA samples to trace the horns to the rhino Simba, which died from natural causes at the Essex zoo in 2009. The rhino's entire head was stolen and sold for £400 after its body was sent for statutory disposal.

Simba was a white rhinoceros from southern Africa, an animal protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). The convention stipulates that the bodies of protected species should be incinerated after death.

Preventing the horns being sold on to the illegal world market is vital to the long term conservation of endangered species. UK authorities have acted with alacrity. Tahr country salutes the officials.

Pictures of New Ocean Species Discovered

A census of marine life has been completed with maps and three books, increasing the number of counted and validated species to 201,206. The 10 year effort involved 2,700 scientists. According to the scientists there may be at least another 750,000 still waiting to be discovered. Telegraph has published 29 beautiful images of newly discovered species.  Click here to view it.

Biodiversity Underpins not only Ecosystems, but Medicine

 I read with great interest and interview of Dr. Christopher N. Herndon, Published by Mongabay. Dr Herndon stresses the importance of biodiversity in terms of medicine in this well paced interview.

The ecosystems such as rainforests and coral reefs that have given us some of the world’s most important drugs are also among the most endangered. Ocean acidification and warming temperatures connected to climate change may spell doom for coral reefs. Rainforests continue to vanish at an estimated rate of 32,300 hectares every day. Tropical rainforests forests are found only 6% of the earth's land surface but they contain over half of its terrestrial biodiversity.

Dr Herndon says  it's truly difficult to know how many species have been tested for medicinal properties, or for that matter how many have already been lost forever. Less than one percent of all species has been fully examined for medical potential. Most of nature's medicine is stored among plants, fungi, and invertebrates.

There is an urgent need to protect our biodiversity. Read the full interview here

England – Policeman Gets Award for Wildlife Protection

A cop keen about wildlife is a rarity. Here comes a glowing example from England that turns the belief on its head. A Scottish policeman Charles Everitt has been given a UK-wide award for his work in tackling wildlife crime. The award is titled Wildlife Law Enforcer of the Year.

Charles Everitt , who has been in this job for the last eight years, investigated 27 wildlife cases last year. He is not the sort of guy who does only what the statute books says. He recently helped set up a community peregrine-watch on a site near Edinburgh. This site had been plagued by chick poachers. As a result of his dedicated work the site saw the first hatching of the birds in 15 years.

 Everitt has waged a relentless battle against deer poaching, hare coursing and unlicensed zoo animals. In an operation against Scottish traditional medicine shops selling products containing protected species this policeman seized goods worth a fortune.

Tahrcountry salutes this magnificent policeman  and exhorts policemen around the world  to follow the trail shown by Charles Everitt.

This Year's Ig Nobels – a Rip-roaring, Rib Tickling Lighter Look at Science

Here is something on the lighter side for Sunday. My friend Jeffrey from England has mailed me info about this year’s Ig Nobels winners.

For those of you who have no clue about Ig Nobels, it is an event organized by the humor journal Annals of Improbable Research to promote the public appreciation of science. It is a reward for scientists who take a lighter look at science making the people laugh, and then make them think. This year marks the 21st anniversary of the Ig Nobel Prizes.

Here is the roundup of this year’s winners.

Engineering: Marine biologist Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse of the Zoological Society of London and colleagues. They get the award for their method of collecting samples of whale snot using a remote-controlled helicopter.
Medicine: Psychologist Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and colleagues. They get the award for discovering that asthma symptoms can be successfully treated with roller-coaster rides.
Physics: Public health researcher Lianne Parkin of the University of Otago in New Zealand and colleagues. The get it for proving that wearing socks on the outside of shoes reduces slips on icy surfaces.
Peace: Psychologist Richard Stephens of Keele University in the United Kingdom and colleagues. The grab the prize for demonstrating that swearing alleviates pain.
Public health: Microbiologist Manuel Barbeito of the Industrial Health and Safety Office at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and colleagues for determining that microbes flourish in the beards of scientists.
Economics: The executives of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar "for creating and promoting new ways to invest money--ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.
Chemistry: Engineer Eric Adams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and colleagues. They get it for disproving the belief that oil and water don't mix.
Management: Social scientist Alessandro Pluchino of the University of Catania in Italy and colleagues for mathematically demonstrating that organizations can increase efficiency by giving people promotions at random.
Biology: Biologist Libiao Zhang of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and colleagues for their study of fellatio in fruit bats. 

Real Nobel winners receive around $1.4 million dollars, but not Ig Nobels winners. This year's ceremony was an exception. It included a cash prize: A $100 trillion note from Zimbabwe the value of which is around 0 as a result of hyperinflation.

Book Recommendation

Here is a book worth possessing. Ocean Drifters, a secret world beneath the waves, a new book by Dr Richard Kirby

Dr Kirby examines the hidden microcosm of life, the world of plankton, lurking behind the waves. The microscopic algae and the tiny animals that eat them float freely on the surface of the sea. They are the basis of marine food chain, generating oxygen, and playing a key role in the global carbon cycle.

Dr Richard Kirby's superb high-magnification photographs and informative text is a feast for the eye and a great read.

• Paperback: 192 pages

• Publisher: Studio Cactus Ltd (September 15, 2010)

•   ISBN-10: 1904239102

•   ISBN-13: 978-1904239109

Guardian has published superb images  from this book. Click here to view it.

This week's Wildlife Images

Have a look at this week's beautiful wildlife images from Guardian. Click HERE

Surprise- A Fish that Suckles its Young

I read with utter fascination the news about the fish that suckles its young  A team of biologists from Denmark, led by Prof Skov  of the University of Copenhagen, have discovered a fish that suckles its young. Even more surprising the young suckle while still within their mother's body. The fish that has thrown up the surprise is European eelpout (Zoarces viviparus). Eelpout is found near the coastal waters throughout large parts of Europe, from the southern parts of the English Channel to the Baltic Sea and the White Sea.

Eelpout has pregnancies, lasting approximately six months and give birth to large baby fish quite disproportionate to its size. Scientists say the suckling explains why it can give birth to large, live baby fish.

Other fish, such as guppies and mollies, also give birth to live young but they have short gestation times lasting a few weeks or less, and their embryos feed on yolk from egg sacs within their mother's body.

Details of the discovery are published in the latest issue of Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology.

One-fifth of the World's Plants are Under Threat of Extinction

A study conducted by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Natural History Museum, London and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has revealed that one in five of the world's plant species are threatened with extinction. The study was in response to the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity and the 2010 Biodiversity Target.

The study gives a clear global picture of extinction threat to the world's known plants. According to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's Director, Professor Stephen Hopper plants are the foundation of biodiversity and their significance in uncertain climatic, economic and political times has been overlooked for far too long.

The study revealed that Plants are more threatened than birds, as threatened as mammals and less threatened than amphibians or corals. Gymnosperms are the most threatened group. The most threatened habitat is tropical rain forest.

The study assumes significance against backdrop that governments are to meet in Nagoya, Japan in mid-October 2010 to set new targets at the United Nations Biodiversity Summit.

For more information log on to Kew Gardens.