I love to travel, mainly to Africa where I was born, I enjoy reading and playing bridge. I go for rambles in the countryside. I collect stamps and go to T'ai Chi classes. I love my two cats and my garden birds. I adore the African wildlife and try to help Conservation groups.
Experts split on UK Great Whites. - Great White Shark: Vagrant visitor?
Experts have clashed over the existence of Great White Sharks off the UK coast.
Speculation is mounting amid a series of claimed sightings by holidaymakers and fishermen and a new documentary on BBC One on Sunday.
Marine biologist Douglas Herdson, from the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, rejected claims of sightings.
But shark conservationist Richard Peirce says the weight of anecdotal evidence convinces him that Great Whites are in UK waters.
Mr Herdson said: "Temperature and conditions here are all fine, and I'm sure they have been here in the last 3-4,000 years, but they are now so rare it is very unlikely.
"Shark populations such as blue sharks in the North Atlantic have crashed over the past few years. "All the intensive fishing in the Bay of Biscay, catching hundreds of thousands of sharks including one Great White 40 years ago, means I very much doubt they are here now."
In 2003 Richard Peirce set off from Padstow in Cornwall with the intention of spotting a Great White, but returned without a sighting.
Mr Peirce, from Bude, told BBC News: "There is no scientific evidence, but there is very strong anecdotal evidence and the case is much stronger than that portrayed in the programme.
"I am almost certain that Great White Sharks appear off the coast. "My view is that there is strong circumstantial evidence that we get occasional vagrant visitors."
Lobster fisherman Brian Bate, from Padstow, is convinced he saw a Great White several years ago. He said: "I saw this big thing breach out of the water. "He looked like he was tail towards me. I could see his back and as he came up he twisted sideways. "I thought, 'What was that?'. It was quite a size to come leaping out of the water."
BBC NEWS REPORT
Sharks: Great Whites in Great Britain is showing on BBC One this Sunday at 1900 BST.
Mailed snake sparks postal panic.
The woman had sold the snake over the internet.
A woman caused panic in a German post office when a 1.5m (5ft) albino python snake she was trying to send through the mail broke free of its packaging.
The 28-year-old woman had sold the snake over the internet and was mailing it to its new owner labelled "glass".
"Staff accepted the package and put it in the back of the office - they had no idea what it was," police said.
"All of a sudden, they noticed that it started moving around and then saw a big snake wriggling out of it."
One of the workers at the western city of Mechernich's post office wrestled the escaping snake and put it in a container.
It is not illegal for people to send snakes via mail, but the woman will be investigated by police over a mistreatment of animals charge.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Continued rise for animal tests.
The majority of testing involves rodents. The number of experiments carried out on animals in UK laboratories has continued to rise, statistics show. The number of procedures undertaken in 2005 was just under 2.9 million, a rise of about 1.4% on the previous year, according to the Home Office figures.
The majority involved mice, rats and other rodents; most of the remainder were carried out on fish and birds.
Non-human primates, dogs, cats and horses were used in less than 1% of scientific procedures in 2005.
But the number of procedures using non-human primates was up 11% on 2004.
The figures still represent a significant reduction on what was happening in the 1970s.
"Animal research and testing has played a part in almost every medical breakthrough of the last century. It has saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide, and is vital to our NHS," said Home Office Minister Joan Ryan.
"Where animal research is the only option, we will continue to ensure that the balance between animal welfare and scientific advancement is maintained."
Mice, rats and other rodents were used in 85% of procedures in 2005. Fish were used in 8% of procedures and birds in 4% of tests.
The number of procedures using non-human primates was 4,650, up 11% from 2004. The number of animals used for these procedures was up 12% on 2004.
The Home Office report says this was largely due to the use of macaques in drug safety and effectiveness trials.
In total, 2.8 million animals were used in procedures last year.
Between 1974 and 1996, the number of procedures on animals fell year on year. But since 2000, the number of tests has been rising by an average of 1-2% per year. This trend is in large part due to the use of genetically-modified animals.
By adding or knocking out genes in mice, scientists believe they can gain an insight into the molecular flaws in humans that lead to illness.
The numbers of tests involving normal animals has been falling steadily since 1995.
But animal welfare groups are worried that the downward trend in overall procedures that started in the 1970s is showing signs of a significant reverse.
Alistair Currie, campaign director for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (Buav), commented: "Sadly, it's no surprise that numbers have gone up again. This government has no grasp of the problem of animal experimentation and no strategy to bring numbers down.
"This is yet another example of Home Office failure: they have shown that they are no more 'fit for purpose' in regulating animal experiments than they appear to be in crime, illegal immigration, prisons and everything else they are responsible for."
In 2004, the government established a National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research.
The so-called 3 "R's" are supposed to underpin laboratory rules and culture. They emphasise the need to reduce suffering and find replacement methods that do not involve animals.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Heat draws in whales and dolphins.
Sightings of Minke whales off the west coast have been welcomed. Scientists believe the current heatwave may be contributing to the unusually large numbers of whales and dolphins off Scotland's east coast. The sea around Aberdeenshire is proving to be a particular hot spot for marine mammals, with many more minke whales recorded than normal.
The whales, which grow to about 28ft, have been seen congregating inshore near Aberdeen and further north. They have also been seen feeding close to the surface in the Moray Firth.
The increase in sightings probably reflects the marked rise in sea surface temperatures which has taken place in recent years
Dr Peter Evans
Sea Watch Foundation
Other unusual sightings over the past week include: a fin whale at North Berwick; a whale, believed to be a pilot whale, at St Cyrus; six Risso's dolphins off Girdleness near Aberdeen and large groups of white-beaked dolphins further offshore.
Groups of up to a dozen common dolphins have also been seen at Fraserburgh and a humpback whale in the Outer Hebrides.
Dr Peter Evans, director of the Sea Watch Foundation, a marine conservation charity and research organisation, said: "Harbour porpoises and bottlenose dolphins are more or less resident in the Moray Firth and off the Aberdeenshire coast, but common dolphins occur mainly around the south-west of Britain.
"And Risso's dolphins are rare in the North Sea, although they have been seen a number of times in the last couple of years. "The increase in sightings of these species in this area probably reflects the marked rise in sea surface temperatures which has taken place in recent years.
"We are still analysing figures, but we believe there are more sightings of both whales and dolphins in eastern Scotland this year compared to the same period last year."
He added that sightings of minkes off the west coast were particularly welcome as there was a decline in their numbers in the area last year due to a regional shortage of sprats on which they feed.
National Whale and Dolphin Watch takes place from 12-20 August around the coast of Britain.
The event is organised annually by the Sea Watch Foundation, to raise awareness of the 28 marine mammal species known to visit British and Irish waters.
Sightings are used by Sea Watch scientists to aid their research into the effects on whales and dolphins of factors such as global warming, marine pollution, and fishing.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Rare Middle East bald ibis tagged.
The bird is known for its bald red face and "punk" plumage. Three members of a bird species thought to be extinct in the Middle East until four years ago have been satellite tagged to aid conservation efforts. Scientists will track the migration of the birds as they leave their breeding sites near Palmyra in south-east Syria.
The northern bald ibis was revered by the Egyptian Pharaohs and was once widespread across the Middle East, northern Africa and the European Alps. There are now only 13 left in Syria and 100 breeding pairs in Morocco. Three of the seven adults in Syria have been captured and tagged. Scientists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and BirdLife Middle East hope to locate where the animals fly to for the winter and discover why so few birds come back.
They are expected to head south towards Saudi Arabia and Yemen, or even as far as Eritrea. "We know next to nothing about where these birds go and this is our very last chance to keep the Syrian population alive," said Paul Buckley, head of global country programmes at the RSPB. "If we can follow their migration and locate their winter home we should find out why their numbers are so low and how we can protect them. That is the first step towards increasing their numbers again."
The northern bald ibis is classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN-World Conservation Union. The bird had its own Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph. It has declined rapidly due to habitat loss, human disturbance, hunting and pesticide poisoning. There are now only two populations left - the handful in Syria and a small number in the Souss-Massa National Park near Agadir in Morocco.
Ibrahim Khader, head of BirdLife Middle East, said re-discovering the ibis was like finding the Arabian phoenix. "Our survey and tagging work was some of the most challenging fieldwork we had ever done," he said. "We knew they were in Palmyra because of reports from Bedouin nomads and local hunters. Without this tracking project, the bird would have been consigned to history and hieroglyphics."
BBC NEWS REPORT
Nuclear plant struck by jellyfish.
A mass of jellyfish clogged a pipe in a seawater cooling system.
A nuclear power plant in Japan was forced to lower the output of its reactors after jellyfish blocked a filter in a seawater cooling system.
Power from two reactors at Chubu Electric Power Co's plant in Hamaoka had to be reduced after the water intake system shut down automatically.
Workers removed the jellyfish mass and output later returned to normal.
"It's the first time we have had to lower power output because of jellyfish," a company spokesman said.
Output for the two reactors was reduced to between 60 and 70% of capacity for about three hours, the company said.
"We sometimes do the same thing when debris from typhoons sticks to the filter," the spokesman told Reuters news agency.
The Hamaoka plant is in Shizuoka prefecture on Japan's Pacific coast.
Recently, giant jellyfish have been a problem for fishing and coastal communities on Japan's west coast.
The government has been looking at measures to deal with the creatures, worried about their potential impact on local economies.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
UK butterfly species down to 56.
Habitat loss has proved disastrous for some butterfly species. Only 56 butterfly species now remain in Britain as others have fallen victim to disappearing habitat, a charity says. The Butterfly Conservation charity said urban sprawl, modern farming techniques and lack of woodland management had all played their part in habitat loss.
Hertfordshire has lost the most species - 17 - in the past century, with Bedfordshire, Suffolk and Lincolnshire having lost 15 each.
The list has been published ahead of the first Save Our Butterflies week.
Cambridgeshire comes fifth on the "extinction" list, having lost 12 species, followed by Essex which has lost 11.
Conservationist Dr Martin Warren, from the charity, said: "Butterfly species are becoming extinct county by county. It is deeply worrying. "Butterflies in profusion tell us that nature is in balance. Where butterflies are disappearing, nature generally is in trouble." He added: "These extinctions are the result of habitat loss. That's the result of either urban spread, lack of woodland management or intensive farming practices."
Warwickshire comes in at seventh in the table with nine species lost, making it the highest placed county outside of the East of England. Dr Warren said: "Sadly, these counties in the East of England lack any serious hills which could have provided a refuge from the plough."
The species that has suffered most county extinctions is the High Brown Fritillary. It is found at only a fifth of the locations it was 40 years ago and is now seen in only eight British counties.
Butterfly Conservation's report draws on findings in two major reports on butterfly declines published earlier this year.
Save Our Butterflies Week will see Butterfly Conservation branches across the UK organising field trips and other events to highlight butterfly declines.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Tigers struggle with tiny lands.
Poaching for skins is a major cause of decline for tigers. Tigers are being forced to live in small areas which are shrinking still further, the largest ever study of habitat for the species has revealed. They have lost 40% of their habitat over the last decade, and now occupy only 7% of their original range.
The study, by a number of conservation groups, identified 76 places that are safe for tigers to live and breed. The groups urge leaders of the 13 states where tigers live to convene a summit on protecting remaining habitat. "This report documents a low-water mark for tigers, and charts a way forward to reverse the tide," said John Robinson of the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
"We can save tigers forever."
A century ago, there were approximately 100,000 tigers in the world; now numbers are down to only 5,000.
The principal cause for their decline is human use of what was once tiger habitat, though there is also hunting for skin and other body parts. Scientists have now conducted an extensive survey to locate the best areas for supporting wild populations in the future.
They rated the areas by various criteria including the extent of human influence and apparent tiger numbers. The group identified 76 areas which could in principle support wild populations; half could support 100 or more animals. The greatest potential lies in India and the Russian Far East, though many areas in South East Asia could also sustain healthy populations.
One of the conservation groups involved, WWF, said it is ready to support the 13 countries where tigers currently live. But working out ways to use these viable habitats is not just a matter for individual governments, said Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at WWF-US. "As tiger range spans borders, so must tiger conservation," he said.
"Asia's economic growth must not come at the expense of tiger habitat and the natural capital it protects."
WWF urges the 13 head of states to convene a special summit to raise the issue on their governments' agendas. Controlling poaching can slow the decline in tiger numbers. The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest cat on the planet, and contains several varieties including the Siberian, Sumatran and Bengal tigers.
Sub-species such as the Javan, Bali and Caspian tigers are already extinct, and the species overall is categorised as Endangered according to the internationally recognised Red List. They live for between eight and 10 years in the wild and grow to nearly three metres [nine feet] in length, eating a varied diet including fish, birds, reptiles and mammals. But habitat is crucial. A female tiger occupies between 25 and 1,600 square kilometres [10 and 625 square miles], while males range over even larger areas.
As forest, grassland and swamp margins disappear, so do tigers. In some areas, conservation efforts have paid off, with habitat protection and poaching enforcement slowing decline. In the new report, scientists urge authorities to restrain the demand for skin or other parts of tigers and other big cats. They also urge concrete law enforcement in illegal trade and transport.
Bumblebees sniffed out by spaniel.
The fight is on the save threatened species of bees.
A sniffer dog is to spend the next five weeks roaming the Outer Hebrides in Scotland to help save threatened species of bumblebees.
Quinn, a specially trained Springer Spaniel, has been recruited by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
The group's unique project aims to establish the number of rare bumblebees in the UK and how best to protect them.
Quinn has been trained to point his nose at a hive rather than get too close and risk a sting.
At one time there were 25 British species of bumblebee but three are now extinct, and nine more need urgent protection.
However, to conserve them, experts need to know how many colonies there are and where they are.
'Excitable' helper
Quinn, a former stray, has spent the past year training in Leicestershire alongside dogs being taught to locate illegal drugs and explosives.
It is hoped the information he and owner Joe Waters will help to save Britain's rarest bumblebee, the Great Yellow, and the other threatened species.
We have absolutely no idea of how many bumblebee colonies there are
Ben Darvill
Bumblebee Conservation Trust
Mr Waters is a PHD student at Southampton University who is investigating the ecology of bumblebees and is helping the trust with its project.
He said Quinn's training had involved getting him familiar with the smell of bumblebee nests.
And every time the hound finds the practice nest, he is rewarded with a tennis ball and a "good play".
Mr Waters said: "The main aim here is to discover bumblebee nest density for the whole range of species that exist on the island and compare this with the diversity of habitats at present.
"Quinn enjoys his work, he has a little harness, and he always gets excited when I take it out."
'Crucial' information
Ben Darvill, co-founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, said the most important part of the project was to estimate the population of the species.
"To date we have absolutely no idea of how many bumblebee colonies there are.
"We do not even know if, in some of the remaining strongholds like the Outer Hebrides, there are two colonies or a thousand colonies, and it is crucial that we can ascertain this."
The Great Yellow Bumblebee is thought to be in high numbers in the Outer Hebrides as they are known to favour its calcium-rich, "machair" grassland.
Dr Dave Beaumont, senior ecologist with RSPB Scotland, said: "Over this summer we will be trying to establish the number and distribution of Great Yellow Bumblebee nests on the island of Tiree.
"Once we have a more complete picture of the ecology of this bee we will use the information to target management initiative that we will be developing over the coming years."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Fine for Australian egg smuggler
The smuggled eggs were from endangered bird species. An Australian man caught smuggling eggs from endangered bird species in his underwear has been fined A$25,000 (US$19,000). Wayne Floyd was caught as he was about to board a plane in November, when a customs officer noticed something suspicious about his appearance.
A search revealed six eggs hidden inside a stocking in his underwear. The eggs were then taken to Taronga Zoo where two gang gang cockatoos and two galahs hatched.
Both of these bird species are listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and their trade is usually highly controlled.
In February, Floyd pleaded guilty to exporting a regulated native specimen without a permit or exemption. The charges carry a maximum 10-year prison sentence, but Floyd was not given a jail term because the birds were not from the wild, but from his own collection.
Galah and gang gang cockatoo eggs can be told for tens of thousands of dollars on the Asian black market. A judge said that Mr Floyd had intended to sell the bird eggs overseas, and that his trip was premeditated and purely for commercial purposes.
Mr Floyd denied this, claiming that he was taking the eggs to Thailand to surprise his girlfriend.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
10 THINGS WE DIDN'T KNOW THIS TIME LAST WEEK
Snippets harvested from the week's news, chopped, sliced and diced for your weekend convenience.
1. People added uranium ore to their water jugs in the 1920s as it was thought to improve health.
2. And Radium-brand toothpaste, condoms and shoe polish were sold as the word was indicative of quality, much as "platinum" is today.
3. Forty-eight percent of the population is ex-directory.
4. Nasa worked on inflatable spacecraft in the 1960s.
5. An SAS dog made more than 20 parachute drops in World War II.
6. Red Buttons - real name Aaron Chwatt - took his surname from the nickname for hotel porters, a job he did in his teens.
7. Nerve cells grow along bundles of a special fibre similar to spider silk.
8. About 750 copies of Shakespeare's First Folio, which set down 18 plays for the first time, were printed 1623 - some 230 survive.
9. The Severn Estuary has the second highest tides in the world.
10. The postcode with the highest income in the country is KT19 7, for West Ewell, near Epsom in Surrey.
[Sources, where stories are not linked - 1 and 2: Horizon, BBC Two, 13 July. 5: The Times, 13 July. 8: Daily Telegraph, 14 July. 9. Coast, BBC Two, 13 July. 10. Daily Mail, 14 July.]
BBC NEWS MAGAZINE
Extinction fear for black rhino
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Poaching has apparently driven black rhinos extinct in West Africa. The West African black rhino appears to have become extinct, according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
A mission to their last known habitat in northern Cameroon failed to find any rhinos or signs of their existence. The sub-species has declined in recent decades due primarily to poaching, which has also brought the northern white rhino close to extinction.
In East and Southern Africa, numbers of related sub-species are rising with the use of effective protection measures.
But after two decades of warnings, the western black rhino has apparently met its final end, according to the findings of an extensive expedition by three specialists earlier this year.
"They mounted 48 field missions, patrolling for 2,500km, working block by block," said Richard Emslie, scientific officer with the African rhino group in IUCN's Species Survival Commission. "They looked for spoor, they looked for the rhino's characteristic way of feeding which has an effect like a pruning shear, but they didn't find anything to indicate a continued presence in the area," he told the BBC News website."They did, however, come across lots of evidence of poaching, and that's the disconcerting thing."
Even before this latest survey, prospects for the sub-species appeared bleak.
AFRICA'S RHINOS
Southern white (Ceratotherium simum simum) - 14,500 and rising
Northern white (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) - only four may remain
South-central black (Diceros bicornis minor) - 1,900 and rising
South-western black (Diceros bicornis bicornis) - 1,200 and rising
Eastern black (Diceros bicornis michaeli) - 650 and rising
Western black (Diceros bicornis longipes) - feared extinct
In 2002, numbers were as low as 10. The animals were distributed over a wide range, making breeding more difficult.
"With small numbers, bad luck can play a much bigger role - if you just have male calves, for instance," commented Dr Emslie. During the last 150 years, numbers of all types of rhino plummeted in all regions of Africa.
The southern white rhino reached its nadir in 1895, with a single population down to about 30 individuals in one South African game park.
Since then, captive breeding and successful protection measures have brought numbers up to nearly 15,000, and groups have been re-established in other countries.
The black rhino's decline came later. The continent-wide population numbered about 100,000 in 1900, but fell to a low point of 2,400 by 1995.
Again, protection measures and breeding programmes are bringing stocks back up, but only, so far, to about 3,600.
The main successes have been in Southern Africa, with some East African countries also re-introducing and maintaining populations.
Numbers of white rhinos in West Africa are also critically low. It is a different story in West Africa, where poaching, often fuelled by the guns and poverty of civil conflict, has been harder to control. The northern white rhino is down to as low as four individuals in its only remaining habitat in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and now the West African black rhino has apparently vanished entirely.
Although genetically distinct, the different sub-species may be similar enough in their food and habitat requirements that animals could be re-introduced to West Africa from other parts of the continent. But that would require stable political and economic conditions, the resources to take on poachers, and the commitment to involve local people in the animals' conservation.
Even if this were possible at some unspecified time in Cameroon, it appears that one of Africa's great wildlife icons has now lost a valuable branch of its family.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
BBC NEWS REPORT.
10 THINGS WE DIDN'T KNOW THIS TIME LAST WEEK !
Snippets harvested from the week's news, chopped, sliced and diced for your weekend convenience.
1. Archaelogists who have found evidence of hunting and butchering of elephants in Kent, 400,000 years ago, believe that the elephant meat was eaten raw.
2. While 53% of households have access to a garage, only 24% use them for parking cars.
3. Siestas are not a southern European invention. An afternoon sleep was common in northern Europe before the industrial revolution.
4. Ants judge distance by counting their steps, suggest researchers from Switzerland and Germany.
5. The Facebook social networking website is so popular among students that there is now a verb "to facebook" someone.
6. Alcohol-related mental health cases, among in-patients, increased by 75 per cent in the past decade.
7. Harry Potter author JK Rowling says that "in something like 1990" she had already decided upon the final chapter of the concluding seventh book in the series.
8. Givenchy perfume's new model for its Angel or Demon range is Marie de Villepin, the daughter of France's prime minister.
9. John Vassall, who spied for the Soviet Union, was given an emergency number to contact: Kensington 8955 and he was instructed to ask for "Miss Mary".
10. Mortgage borrowing now accounts for 42% of take-home salary. The total mortgage debt has passed £1 trillion for the first time.
BBC MAGAZINE.
Ants 'use an internal pedometer'
By Rebecca Morelle - Science reporter, BBC News.
Desert ants use an internal "pedometer" to measure exact marching distances, according to a study. Researchers knew foraging insects could navigate using light from the sky, but were puzzled by the animals' ability to gauge the length of ground covered. By manipulating the ants' leg lengths to give them longer and shorter strides, a Swiss/German team found the ants "counted" steps to judge distance. The research is published in the journal Science.
The long and short of it. Cataglyphis fortis, otherwise known as foraging Saharan desert ants, travel great distances over flat, sandy terrain searching for food. The creatures have the remarkable ability to return to their nest using a direct route rather than retracing their outbound path. To perform this feat, the ants need to judge directions and distances. But while they rely on the sky for orientation, their means for measuring distance had remained a mystery.
To investigate, scientists from the University of Ulm, Germany, and the University of Zurich, Switzerland, set some ants off on a foraging trip along a straight tunnel, but once they had reached the food their legs were manipulated to either make them longer by adding stilts, or shorter by partially amputating them.
The ants were then returned to the same spot to begin their homeward-bound journey. However, the researchers discovered the ants with longer legs overshot the nest entrance, while those with the shortened legs undershot it. They found when the ants performed both the outward and homeward-bound journeys with manipulated legs, they judged the nest-distance almost exactly, suggesting that stride-length was the key factor.
They also looked at ants with shorter legs. Professor Harald Wolf, an author on the paper and neurobiologist from the University of Ulm, said: "This means the animals are 'counting' their strides - like a pedometer. "If you shorten leg length and it takes them a thousand strides from the nest to the feeder, they would of course assume that they needed to take another 1,000 strides to return to the nest.
"And if they take the 1,000 strides with shorter legs, this will take them over a shorter distance, and if the legs are extended it takes them over a longer distance. "Our next step will be to scrutinise what is known about the control of leg movement in leg walking, to see if there is something which could act as an odometer (distance calculator) in these animals."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
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