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Saturday, 21 September 2013

Fluff: the Sarcastic Fringehead

After last week's heavy topic, I thought I'd just give a shout out to one of the oddest fish in the sea: the sarcastic fringehead. Yes, that's an actual thing.

This image seems to sum up the supposed personality of the fish. Comic from Satisfactory Comics.
One almost feels like the scientist who named this fish was having troubles with a very sarcastic, fringe-headed teenager at home. Even better? These fish protect themselves with their big mouths.

These mouth-wrestling matches look something like this:


For more on the sarcastic fringehead,  you can look here, here, and here.

Saturday, 14 September 2013

The Epulu Tragedy

The okapi is one of those enigmatic animals. You just can't quite figure them out. They're quiet and elusive, they live in the remote rain forests of central Africa, and they...have zebra stripes on their butts. Kind of.
An odd creature: the okapi's closest relative is actually the giraffe.  Photo courtesy of the Okapi Conservation Project.
I only recently had the chance to read about this story, and what happened is truly horrific. People died for these creatures, and they (the okapis) were killed anyways. It's a real spotlight on the brutality of humanity. It was all done in the name of vengeance.

The Epulu Station, situated deep in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, had received threats from groups due to their work against poaching in the area. Agencies responsible for the conservation center (which housed nine okapis and numerous scientists) ignored the threats, and early one morning of June 2012, the station and the nearby village was pillaged and ransacked.

Two people and all the okapis on-site were murdered.

I just have one blaring question: why did the media never cover this?

This is also a stark reminder of how dangerous it is to be a conservationist these days. When people go out to save the environment, they really are risking their lives. They are everyday heroes: conservation work isn't just for the conservationist because their work benefits all of us.

I personally read this story only a few days after learning of the death of Jairo Mora Sandoval. I got chills.

Read what happened at the station in detail here.

Saturday, 7 September 2013

International Vulture Awareness Day

People don't like vultures. I get it. Even in the Lion King, vultures were portrayed as creepy and cackling.

A contemporary art print with a ring to it. From NathanJoyce.
But vultures, key players in numerous ecosystems, have been hit hard by a number of factors, and numbers everywhere have experienced steep declines. One of Save Our Species vulture conservation projects has listed population drops between 97-99% since 1990 for some species.

Much like owls (who have only seen a popularity revival due to the Harry Potter movies), vultures are seen as evil in many cultures, signs of bad omens. This translates into modern day life, where people everywhere turn their noses up at an animal that has the capacity to kill bacteria like E. coli by eating it.

Vultures are nature's cleaner-uppers. Without them, many infectious diseases would be far more widespread.

In Asia (yes, there are vultures here!), most vultures are killed while doing their jobs. Cattle today are often injected with a substance called Diclofenac, which proves fatal to these majestic birds when they appear to dispense of cattle carrion.

The beautiful bearded vulture, or lammergeier, from the Ethiopian highlands; a personal favorite. Image courtesy Martina Carrete.
International Vulture Awareness Day is now in its second year. If you want to get involved, they even have wikispaces page open to the public, but the main thing is to get the word out there: vultures are awesome!