Olympic nightmare: A red tide in the Yellow Sea

The Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman

Scene of the incident


Cayman Information

There is no fresh water on the island - no rivers - no springs -no wells. All water there is caught rain, desalinated seawater, or imported. Since there are no rivers dumping into the ocean, the sea around Grand Cayman is exceptionally clear. It is a scuba diver's dream.

CAT ACROBAT

George Carlin on Death - RIP

Oldest rabbit in world lives in Tewksbury

The champ inspects the carpet in front of his Guinness certificate.

By Kate Augusto, Globe Correspondent

Plenty of hopping? Just a nibble of the finest lettuce? Clean living? Whatever he's been doing, it's working. George, a rabbit living with a Tewksbury family, has been declared the oldest rabbit in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records.

George, who is 14, was awarded the “The Oldest Living Rabbit” honors by Guinness after several vets confirmed his age.

The life expectancy for rabbits is 6 to 8 years, making George nearly double the average, or about 160 years old in human terms.

Joe Breton, 33, got George while at the University of Maine in 1994, four months before he met his wife, Amy.

Amy credits the rabbit with bringing her and her husband together.

“When I first met my husband I had not much in common with him,” said Amy, 32, a veterinary technician. “But I thought, ‘He can’t be that bad because he has a rabbit’ … and eventually I fell in love with him.”

Amy said she and her husband, a civil engineer, had to fill out tons of paperwork and get witnesses to sign papers saying they knew the rabbit in order to get the distinction. A spokeswoman for Guinness in London, Amarilis Espinoza, confirmed that George is the champ.

Amy said she and her husband joke that the Pez and Doritos they fed George in college are part of the reason he’s still alive.

“I would never recommend for anyone to feed that to a rabbit but he was a college dorm room rabbit so maybe that helped with his longevity,” she said.

Squirrel problems in UK - Chemical warfare considered

Grey Squirrels transmitting squirrelpox to Red Squirrels in UK

Plans to chemically castrate invasive grey squirrels mulled


"The grey squirrel is basically the problem." BBC


L.F. reporting

Newsflash! Unicorns among us!

Here's the story

Scientists find monkeys who know how to fish

Jun 10, 7:27 AM (ET)

By MICHAEL CASEY


BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Long-tailed macaque monkeys have a reputation for knowing how to find food - whether it be grabbing fruit from jungle trees or snatching a banana from a startled tourist.

Now, researchers say they have discovered groups of the silver-haired monkeys in Indonesia that fish.

Groups of long-tailed macaques were observed four times over the past eight years scooping up small fish with their hands and eating them along rivers in East Kalimantan and North Sumatra provinces, according to researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust.

The species had been known to eat fruit and forage for crabs and insects, but never before fish from rivers.

"It's exciting that after such a long time you see new behavior," said Erik Meijaard, one of the authors of a study on fishing macaques that appeared in last month's International Journal of Primatology. "It's an indication of how little we know about the species."

Meijaard, a senior science adviser at The Nature Conservancy, said it was unclear what prompted the long-tailed macaques to go fishing. But he said it showed a side of the monkeys that is well-known to researchers - an ability to adapt to the changing environment and shifting food sources.

"They are a survivor species, which has the knowledge to cope with difficult conditions," Meijaard said Tuesday. "This behavior potentially symbolizes that ecological flexibility."

The other authors of the paper, which describes the fishing as "rare and isolated" behavior, are The Nature Conservancy volunteers Anne-Marie E. Stewart, Chris H. Gordon and Philippa Schroor, and Serge Wich of the Great Ape Trust.

Some other primates have exhibited fishing behavior, Meijaard wrote, including Japanese macaques, chacma baboons, olive baboons, chimpanzees and orangutans.

Agustin Fuentes, a University of Notre Dame anthropology professor who studies long-tailed macaques, or macaca fascicularis, on the Indonesian island of Bali and in Singapore, said he was "heartened" to see the finding published because such details can offer insight into the "complexity of these animals."

"It was not surprising to me because they are very adaptive," he said. "If you provide them with an opportunity to get something tasty, they will do their best to get it."

Fuentes, who is not connected with the published study, said he has seen similar behavior in Bali, where he has observed long-tailed macaques in flooded paddy fields foraging for frogs and crabs. He said it affirms his belief that their ability to thrive in urban and rural environments from Indonesia to northern Thailand could offer lessons for endangered species.

"We look at so many primate species not doing well. But at the same time, these macaques are doing very well," he said. "We should learn what they do successfully in relation to other species."

Still, Fuentes and Meijaard said further research was needed to understand the full significance of the behavior. Among the lingering questions are what prompted the monkeys to go fishing and how common it is among the species.

Long-tailed macaques were twice observed catching fish by The Nature Conservancy researchers in 2007, and Wich spotted them doing it two times in 1998 while studying orangutans.

China holds funeral for panda killed by earthquake

Indonesia

Java rhino makes first wild video appearance

Rare Rhino

Rarest rhinoceros wrecks camera

The world's rarest rhinoceros has been captured on film by a specially installed camera in the jungles of Java, Indonesia.

But the female rhino, which was accompanied by a calf, promptly charged the camera, sending it flying.

The animals are at severe risk of extinction, with only 60-70 animals left in the wild.

A spokesperson for WWF said the footage provided an unusual glimpse of the rare beasts in their natural habitat.

Rachmat Hariyadi, who leads WWF-Indonesia's project in Java's Ujung Kulon National Park, said the motion-triggered camera "traps" were a useful way to observe the ways in which animals used their habitats, aiding conservation efforts.

But Stephen Hogg, also from WWF, who designed the hidden cameras, said he was puzzled by the rhino's attack.

"The assault on the camera still has us baffled because we specifically use infrared lights as the source of illumination when we designed and built these units so as to not scare animals away when the camera activates," he said.

Javan rhinos are found only in two locations; Ujung Kulong National Park is home to 90% of the total population.

Efforts are underway to create additional Javan rhino breeding groups by translocating a few individuals from Ujung Kulon to another suitable site.

This could help prevent an extinction caused by disease or a natural disaster, conservationists say.