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.
Prisoners train as croc handlers.
The farm in Darwin has 36,000 saltwater crocodiles. Prisoners in northern Australia are being offered a snappy new way of rehabilitating - by training as crocodile handlers. Inmates are learning how to deal with crocodiles, repair crocodile fences, build enclosures and write reports.
Northern Territory's justice minister Syd Stirling said the scheme was the first of its kind in the country. It would give inmates nearing release "real life skills that they can use back in their communities", he added. Five prisoners from Darwin Correction Centre are currently involved in the 11-week pilot scheme. They are undergoing their training at Darwin Crocodile Farm, one of Australia's largest such farms housing more than 36,000 saltwater crocodiles.
The farm's owner, Mick Burns, said the scheme benefited both the prisoners and his reptiles. "This not only assists in the maintenance of the farm itself, but provides life skills which will ultimately be put back into the community," he said. Syd Stirling said the course gave prisoners a number of skills - not just crocodile handling - that could be used in a wide-number of industries once they are released.
The aim is to stop prisoners from re-offending once they are back in their communities, he said. "The course... helps with the rehabilitation of prisoners," he said. "Even the value of developing a work ethic in preparation for release cannot be underestimated."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Action plan for iconic seabirds. - Threatened icon: Black-browed albatross.
Urgent action is needed to prevent further declines in dwindling numbers of albatrosses and petrels in the South Atlantic, wildlife groups have warned. A report by campaigners outlines measures to halt the seabirds' decline, including tighter controls on fishing.
They say about 100,000 birds drown each year on longline fishing hooks.
Conservationists say the UK has to take the lead because a third of the world's albatrosses nest on South Georgia, the Falklands and Tristan da Cunha. The report was a result of a collaborative effort between the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), BirdLife International and Falklands Conservation.
'Crucial time'
Grant Munro, chief executive of Falklands Conservation, warned that albatrosses numbers were in rapid decline. He said: "The islands' black-browed albatrosses has declined by more than 18 pairs every day over the last 10 years. "This report comes at a crucial time to save this magnificent bird and it pulls together international efforts to protect them across the southern oceans," Mr Munro added.
An international pact aimed to protecting the species of seabirds came into force in 2004.
The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) listed "direct contact with fishing operations, eating or being entangled in marine debris, pollution and over-fishing of their prey" as the main threats that faced the birds. To date, there are 11 signatories to the agreement, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, New Zealand and the UK.
The wildlife groups said the measures outlined in the report would improve existing efforts to protect the endangered species. They list 118 recommendations, including:
more effective management in regional fisheries
a dedicated UK-based representative for overseas territories on ACAP
eradication of rodents from breeding sites
regular monitoring of all species deemed to be at risk
Call for action
Recently, a number of high-profile figures have voiced their concern about the plight of the seabirds, including Prince Charles, naturalist Sir David Attenborough and sailor Dame Ellen MacArthur. Alistair Gammell, director of the RSPB's International Division, hoped the report would act as a call to action for the UK government.
"The level of support shown by the UK government to this report will be a clear indication of its commitment to protecting the exceptional biodiversity of its overseas territories and, in this case, arguably their most spectacular and iconic inhabitants."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Sticky feet help tarantulas climb. The study raises interesting questions about spider evolution
Tarantulas can climb walls because they ooze a sticky silk through their feet.
Scientists have shown how spiders made to scale vertical glass surfaces will secrete a fibrous "glue" to anchor themselves down and prevent a fall.
Arachnids are known to use claws to negotiate difficult terrain, and they also have tiny hairs that can form weak electric attractions with a surface.
But the silk represents a previously unrecognised climbing technique, a German team tells the journal Nature.
"We have discovered that the tarantula has a third attachment mechanism, which depends on fibres exuded from nozzle-like structures on its feet," Stanislav Gorb, from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tubingen, and colleagues write.
"These fibrous secretions function as silken tethers and, when laid down on glass plates, appear as 'footprints' that consist of dozens of fibres with diameters of 0.2-1.0 [millionths of a metre]."
The team studied how zebra tarantulas (Aphonopelma seemanni) from Costa Rica managed to hang on to vertical glass plates.
To walk up, the spiders employed their distal claws; but to come down they oozed a silky substance from all four pairs of feet.
Controlled adhesion
The team believes the mechanism raises interesting questions about arachnid evolution.
Generally, spiders will extrude a silk from abdominal structures known as spinnerets. This fine thread is used in a range of activities from capturing prey to providing protective shields for developing young.
The team wonders which of the adaptations - foot silk or abdominal silk - came first; or, indeed, if they evolved completely independently.
Commenting on the research, spider expert Professor Fritz Vollrath from Oxford University, UK, said foot silk had been regarded as something of an "old wife's tale" that no scientific team had sought to describe in detail.
"It's incredible - just like Spiderman. If the stuff is so good he can pull a train around, how does he get it off?
"And that's the thing for the spiders: first they have to glue themselves down and then they have to get themselves off again. It's very clever," he told BBC News.
Some answers to the evolution questions might come from a thorough genetic analysis of foot silk, the Max-Planck-led team said.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Barn owls facing uncertain future
The population has been declining since the 1930s. The future for barn owls looks extremely bleak following the worst breeding season for 20 years, according to a bird charity in Devon. The Ashburton-based Barn Owl Trust has said the number of reported deaths and birds suffering injuries has tripled in the past year. Efforts to turn around a decline in numbers had been going well and the trust said the figures were a blow. It is hoped the downturn year could be linked to extreme weather conditions.
Pesticide danger
The trust said prolonged extreme weather conditions were bad news for barn owls. Below-average temperatures in March may have reduced prey activity, resulting in a higher mortality rate in barn owls. The owls were then subjected to above-average rainfall in May, which reduced hunting success.
David Ramsden, the head of conservation at the trust, said two out of three traditional breeding sites failed to produce any young this year. He said: "This lack of nesting success, on top of the high mortality means a further reduction in the British population. "The phenomenon is not limited to the South West as conservationists in other parts of the UK are reporting similar findings."
Nationally between 1932 and 1998 the barn owl population declined from over 12,000 pairs to less than 3,000. The decline is also believed to be partly caused by the reduction of derelict old buildings and the use of pesticides. Barn owls are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Baby dies after Rottweiler attack .
It is thought the girl's parents had been looking after the pub. A five-month-old girl has died after being attacked by two Rottweiler guard dogs in Leicester. Police say the dogs, which attacked the girl in the living quarters of The Rocket pub in Stephenson Drive, New Parks, have been put down. It is thought her parents had been looking after the pub and the animals while the landlord was on holiday.
The girl was taken to Leicester Royal Infirmary on Saturday afternoon where she later died from her injuries. Police have begun an investigation to try to find out what happened. Flowers and teddy bears have been left in the doorway of the pub which has been closed since the incident.
Neighbour Amy Grimbley said: "The dogs are known to be vicious. They stay on the roof during the day and whenever you walk past, you get the feeling they could jump down and attack you. "The dogs are very aggressive. Everybody around here is petrified of them." She added: "There's a school opposite the pub and nobody is happy walking their kids past the pub after school. I've got a three-year-old and I don't feel at all safe walking past them."
Ms Grimbley's father, James, said: "Our hearts go out to the parents of that poor baby. Everybody is so shocked at what has happened. "Everybody is talking about it. Nobody can believe it."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Mummified dogs uncovered in Peru
By Dan Collyns - BBC News, Lima.
Archaeologists in Peru have uncovered the mummified remains of more than 40 dogs buried with blankets and food alongside their human masters.
The discovery was made during the excavation of two of the ancient Chiribaya people who lived in southern Peru between 900 and 1350 AD.
Experts say the dogs' treatment in death indicated the belief that the animals had an afterlife.
Such a status for pets has only previously been seen in ancient Egypt.
Hundreds of years before the European conquest of South America, the Chiribaya civilisation valued its dogs so highly that when one died, it was buried alongside family members.
'Distinct breed'
The dogs, which have been called Chiribaya shepherds for their llama-herding abilities, were not sacrificed as in other ancient cultures, but buried with blankets and food in human cemeteries.
Biological archaeologists have unearthed the remains of more than 40 dogs which were naturally mummified in the desert sand of Peru's southern Ilo Valley.
Now they have teamed up with Peru's Kennel Club to try to establish if the dogs represent a new distinct breed indigenous to South America.
The country is full of breeds which arrived in the last few centuries, but they believe some dogs living today in southern Peru share the characteristics of their ancestors.
The Chiribaya dog looked rather like a small Golden Retriever with a medium-sized snout, beige colouring, and long hair.
The only other indigenous Peruvian canine is the hairless dog, which evolved over more than 2,000 years from Asian ancestors brought across the Bering Straits.
It was recognised as a distinct breed just 20 years ago.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
US hypoallergenic cats go on sale.
The world's first specially-bred hypoallergenic cats have gone on sale in the United States. US biotech firm Allerca says it has managed to selectively breed them by reducing a certain type of protein that triggers allergic reactions.
The cats will not cause the red eyes, sneezing and even asthma that some cat allergy sufferers experience, except in the most acute cases. Despite costing $3,950, there is already a waiting list to get one. Allerca first started taking orders for genetically engineered hypoallergenic cats back in 2004.
It tested huge numbers of cats trying to find the tiny fraction which do not carry the glycoprotein Fel d1 - contained in its saliva, fur and skin - which produces allergies. Those cats were then used to breed the hypoallergenic cats.
The company's Steve May told the BBC that it is a natural, if time consuming method. "This is a natural gene divergence within the cat DNA - one out of 50,000 cats will have this natural divergence," he said. "So candidates, natural divergent cats were found and then bred so there is really no modification of the gene."
The BBC's Pascale Harter says there could soon be a global market for the kittens - in the US alone 38 million households own a cat, and around the world an estimated 35% of humans suffer from allergies.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Rare fell ponies face extinction.
More breeders are needed to prevent the fell ponies dying out. A rare breed of pony in Cumbria's Lake District is under threat, a scientist has claimed. David Murray, a conservation scientist who studies Britain's native ponies, said the fell herds were facing extinction as more breeders retire.
There are only about 400 fell pony mares in Britain, and Mr Murray said it would only take the demise of two herds to put the breed in jeopardy. He said more breeders were needed to recognise the value of the ponies. He said: "Basically we have around 400 or so fell breeding females registered in and around Cumbria and one or two other parts of Britain.
"Due to the gradual erosion of blood lines these ponies are now regarded as rare and vulnerable. "It is really important we find a way of protecting these herds in the next century or so. "They have been around for 2,000 years plus before the Romans, yet we could see their gradual demise. "
Fell ponies are usually 13 to 14 hands high, with a stocky build, a full mane and tail and feathering on the legs. The ponies are predominantly black, but can also be bay, brown and grey.
Mr Murray added: "They are good for grazing, they don't eat wild flowers or heather and are a bit more selective in what they eat.
"They are often preferred to sheep as grazers on the fells, yet many people do not recognise their worth for helping to maintain biodiversity."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Man bites panda after zoo attack .
Gu Gu the panda is said to have suffered no harm after the event. A drunken Chinese tourist says he bit a panda who attacked him after he jumped into a zoo enclosure to "hug" the bear.
Zhang Xinyan, 35, had drunk four draught beers before deciding to enter the Beijing Zoo pen belonging to six-year-old male panda Gu Gu. The startled Gu Gu bit both legs of his intruder, who responded by biting "the panda on its back", Mr Zhang was quoted by state media as saying.
Mr Zhang said he had not realised pandas could be violent. He told the Beijing Morning Post that he had come to the Chinese capital "only to see the pandas". "The seven-hour train ride was exhausting, and I drank bottles of beer when I arrived then had a nap," he added.
The newspaper said Mr Zhang had a "sudden urge" to touch Gu Gu with his hand, so he jumped over the waist-high railing into the enclosure. "When he got closer and was undiscovered, he reached out to hug it," the newspaper added. Mr Zhang was bitten first on his right leg, and then on his left. Newspaper photographs showed him lying on a hospital bed with blood-soaked bandages over his legs.
"I bit the panda on its back but its fur was too thick," Mr Zhang recalled. He went on: "No one ever said they would bite people. I just wanted to touch it." Zoo spokeswoman Ye Mingxia said the panda was unharmed and they were not considering punishing Mr Zhang yet. "He's suffered quite a bit of a shock," she told the Associated Press by telephone.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Endangered crayfish colony found.
The white claw is the UK's only native species of freshwater crayfish.Britain's only native crayfish which was feared extinct in Essex has made a comeback. Essex Biodiversity Action Plan environmentalists have discovered a colony of white-clawed crayfish thriving in the River Chelmer.
The survey found 18 of the crustaceans from mature crayfish to babies.
The species has been wiped out in many parts of the country by the non-native larger American signal crayfish with whom they have to compete for food.
Project officer Mark Iley said: "It's the only site in Essex where we know that we have these white-clawed crayfish."
The crayfish play an important role in the aquatic food web, providing a food source for a variety of animals such as fish, birds and mammals such as the otter.
They like clean water and shelter in crevices under submerged stones, tree roots and plants.
"We will be improving their habitat by putting in rocks and wire baskets to provide a refuge for them. "It's good that we have got a positive site but we now have to protect it," said Mr Iley.
In addition to displacing the native crayfish, the signal crayfish also carry a plague, a fungal disease that is deadly to British animals.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Gerald Durrell's lasting legacy.
Naturalist Bridget Nicholls marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, which is celebrated in a Radio 4 Archive Hour this weekend.
Durrell was a much-loved author, naturalist and TV presenter. Published in 1956, My Family and Other Animals is one of those books that crosses boundaries and time. It sees the natural world through a child's eyes, making it seem sane in comparison to the author's delightfully oddball family.
The autobiographical work has been filmed twice by the BBC, memorably in 1987 with Brian Blessed as the larger-than-life Spiro Hakiaopulos. Growing up in the midst of an animal sanctuary in Worthing, I remember vividly the moment when my mother produced Durrell's book. After reading it there was no turning back. I was going to set up an endangered animal breeding centre, just like the one Durrell founded on Jersey. That has not happened yet, but as a fully paid-up naturalist, I'm at least on my way.
Blessed starred in the 1987 version of My Family and Other Animals. It is hard to imagine that when Durrell started broadcasting back in the 1950s, his ideas about conservation and the need for captive breeding of endangered species were seen by many as irrelevant.
Watching and listening to the vast Durrell archive at the BBC, I was amazed to find he was talking about his holistic approach to conservation right from the start. Back in an era when most animals were still things to be gawped at or shot and stuffed, "saved'' was not really a word that held much currency.
Durrell, however, realised the importance of habitat maintenance and education in the endangered species' countries of origin if they were to survive long-term. "The world is as delicate as a spider's web," he wrote in his 1972 book Catch Me a Colobus. "If you touch one thread, you send shudders running through the other threads. We are not just touching the web, we are tearing holes in it."
I met Durrell's wife, Lee, in the flat they used to share at the top of Les Augres Manor House, in Jersey, which contains first edition Durrells in all languages as well as wildlife memorabilia from numerous friends and trips.
The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust was set up in 1964 in Jersey. But Lee had another surprise in store: a hand-painted volume of poems that she uncovered in her loft while looking for correspondence for Durrell's official biographer. Called Animal Pie, the unpublished volume of poetry was written by Durrell at his sister Margaret's house in Bournemouth in the 1950s.
Each animal poem from the spectacled bear to the anteater is illustrated in the most dedicated and painfully detailed way. Despite some artistic license - an orange spectacled bear? - that unique Durrell magic poured off the page. Durrell might not be here today but his legacy and memory is very much alive.
It can be found not just in the endangered species he saved that are still flying and swimming the planet, but also the magic in our eyes that he inspired to appreciate the natural world around us.
Bridget Nicholls presents Radio 4's Archive Hour: Discover Your Inner Durrell on 16 September at 2000 BST.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Banksy's elephant provokes anger.
The elephant was intended to represent world poverty
An exhibition by headline-grabbing UK artist Banksy has been criticised for including a live painted elephant. The animal, called Tai, was covered in pink and gold paint and placed in a mocked-up house to represent how world poverty is widely ignored.
Officials from the Los Angeles Animal Services Department told the Associated Press they would never again issue permits for such a "frivolous" purpose. The elephant's owner said the dye was non-toxic and welfare was paramount.
Ed Boks, head of Animal Services in Los Angeles, said: "I think it sends a very wrong message that abusing animals is not only OK, it's an art form. "We find it no longer acceptable to dye baby chicks at Easter, but it's OK to dye an elephant."
Mr Boks said he tried to withdraw permits for the elephant on grounds of public safety last Friday, but found the three-day exhibition would be over before they took effect. "Permits will not be issued for such frivolous abuse of animals in the future," he said.
Tai's owner, Kari Johnson, denied that the 38-year-old Indian elephant had suffered as a result of the paint job. She said: "Tai has done many, many movies. She's used to make-up."
The British graffiti artist's Barely Legal exhibition, which took place in a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, finished on Sunday.
The artist was not available to discuss the California show, which focused on global poverty and injustice.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
First success for whale project
Jo Meek - Producer, All Out Productions.
The research team tags its first whale. On the warm shallow waters of the South Pacific a small boat rides unseasonably choppy seas. Driving the boat is Nan Hauser, founder and director of the Centre for Cetacean Research in Rarotonga, the largest and capital of the Cook Islands. For the past nine years Nan and her seasonal team of whale researchers have been out on the water studying the behaviour and movement of the humpback whales that migrate past the Cook Islands each year. They arrive here from the Antarctic feeding grounds to mate and give birth in the warmer tropical waters.
Every year between July and November brings new whales; Nan Hauser rarely sees the same ones in successive seasons. So where do they go year on year? This season, Nan hopes to expand her knowledge of the humpback by keeping track of at least some of those that pass through. It is an ambitious task, especially as this winter season, unusually, has brought choppy seas and bad weather.
However, Nan and Ygor Geyer, an expert whale tagger who has travelled from Brazil for this project, are both determined to be the first in the South Pacific to successfully satellite tag three of the humpback whales. "We have no idea where the whales go or where they are from," says Nan Hauser. "All we know is that they feed in the Antarctic and use the Cook Islands as a corridor to pass through. "It's the perfect place to satellite tag because we have no re-sights of whales from previous years; that doesn't happen anywhere else in the South Pacific."
It is a month since Ygor arrived from his own whale tagging project in Brazil but he has yet to tag one whale as time and the weather are not on his side. The task is not an easy one. It sees Ygor stood at the bow of their small boat as Nan negotiates the rough ocean, holding a 7ft (2m) pole which has at one end a 10in (25cm) tag. These tags will allow us to see if the whale will swim into areas where whaling is ongoing -Nan Hauser.
This will not hurt the whale, though. The animal has such a thick level of blubber that the tag merely pierces the skin and rests near the surface to be automatically switched on every three days, allowing Nan and her team to track the whale's journey by GPS. Ygor has to position himself just the right distance away from the whale to allow him to place the tag just below the dorsal fin. He needs a good steady hand and says he will not tag unless it is completely safe for the whale. But it is a dangerous job: a grown humpback whale is at least twice the size of the boat and could easily capsize it. Nan and Ygor both have years of experience between them and believe their research is worth any risks they may face. But is the wait becoming a frustration?
"We have spent months waiting to go out to tag in Brazil because of the weather," says Ygor. The device does no harm; it rests in the upper layer of blubber. "Sometimes we have only one or two days that are any good to work, so no I'm not frustrated, but I do want to get out there." But first they have to find the whales, and just as the rain starts to pour, on the day Ygor the whale-tagger was originally due to go home to Brazil, a whale is spotted. It does not take the team long to get close, but they do not have much time as they refuse to chase the whale.
Ten minutes after they first see the whale blow, the first tag has been deployed. It is on a cow (a female humpback whale), followed closely by her recently born calf. The whale research team in Rarotonga is jubilant. It will allow them to track the travels of this humpback for the next three months and piece together some interesting facts about a mammal about which little is known.
But for Nan that is only one reason for this project; she is looking at the bigger picture, the future population of the humpbacks. "These tags will allow us to see if the whale will swim into areas where whaling is ongoing," she says. "The Japanese are looking to add humpback whales to their quota. The humpback is vulnerable to the harpoons of the Japanese. "If this whale and her calf, which was probably born in Cook Island waters, swim into these waters we'll now know. Perhaps we can do something to protect them now."
As the e-mails and calls of congratulations come into Nan and her team, the satellite shows that "Jamieson" the whale, as she has become known, is heading north towards French Polynesia, travelling over 100km (62 miles) in just 24 hours. It is one more piece of the puzzle that adds to the researchers' growing picture of the journey and behaviour of the humpback whale.
A second tag was deployed two days later on another female humpback. The Cook Islands Whale Research team hopes to successfully complete their tagging project with a third tag in the coming days.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Dog lost overboard swims ashore.
Kano was found by a member of a coastguard rescue team. A dog which was feared drowned after falling into the sea from a boat has been reunited with its owners after swimming ashore against the tide.
Kano, a four-year-old mongrel, had disappeared from its owner's boat on Friday as it travelled from Helensburgh to Port Glasgow.
However, on Saturday he was found whining at the water's edge near the Roseneath Caravan Park.Owner Sharon McKay, 32, said: "We thought he was definitely a goner." We never thought he would have been able to make it to the shore
Kano had gone out fishing with Mrs McKay's husband Donald and her brother John Cardoo, who thought he was sleeping in the cabin. However, on arriving back in their home town of Port Glasgow they realised the dog was not on the boat. Mrs McKay said: "He could have gone overboard anywhere between Helensburgh and Port Glasgow.
"The tide was going out at the time so he would have been swimming against the tide. We never thought he would have been able to make it to the shore." The McKay family didn't believe the dog could have survived.
Kano was found by a member of the Kilcreggan Coastguard rescue team who was walking his own dog.
"Apparently he was just pacing up and down the beach and kept looking out to sea," Mrs McKay said.
"Everyone was trying to coax him away but he wouldn't move." Fearing the dog's owner may have been in difficulty somewhere a search was mounted, involving the Kilcreggan Coastguard rescue team, Strathclyde Police and an MOD police launch.
In the meantime, the McKays had contacted the police, coastguard and SSPCA. "As soon as we heard Kano may have been found we went straight over there," Mrs McKay said. "He was going absolutely nuts when he saw us.
"He loves going out on the boat though so I'm sure this won't have put him off," she added.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Birth control for India elephants
By Subir Bhaumik - BBC News, Calcutta.
India's elephant population is in decline. Elephants in the Indian state of West Bengal are to undergo a birth control scheme due to a lack of funds for their upkeep, the state government says. Of West Bengal's 400 elephants, nearly 70 are tame and in service to private owners or the state forest department.
Forest guards use them to patrol the many wildlife sanctuaries. But wildlife conservation groups have been angered by the proposed introduction of such birth control methods for the elephants. The Bengal Forest department spends more than 60m rupees (nearly $130,000) annually on the upkeep of the elephants in its service.
"But our department is suffering a budget cut, so we have been asked to only maintain those elephants that are useful and introduce birth control amongst the whole population," said forest official PT Bhutiya.
There are three-to-four births annually among the elephants in the service of the forest department, Mr Bhutiya said. He added that only 30 of these elephants are used to guard the state's wildlife sanctuaries.
Veterinary doctors would administer birth control injections and pills on about a dozen female elephants in the service of the forest department, he said. "This is just a killing exercise," Mukuta Mukherjee, coordinator of environmental group Friends of Wetlands and Wildlife, said. "If the government cannot feed the elephants, they should look for sponsors but not do anything to cut down their population."
She said the forest department should release captive young elephants males into the wild or find alternative sources of funding, instead of preventing them from reproducing.
Ten years ago, India was home to more than 50,000 wild elephants, but poaching and habitat shrinkage has led to a decline in their population. Ivory tusks in thousands are recovered from smugglers in India every year, indicating mounting kills.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
New home for SpongeBob the monkey.
SpongeBob had to be seen by a vet after his foot was bitten. A rare monkey who went missing from his enclosure at a theme park has moved to a new zoo in London after he was unable to settle back into his former home. SpongeBob, a Bolivian squirrel monkey, disappeared from Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey in July.
His online blog told readers he was bullied by the other monkeys after being found. He has now been adopted by Battersea Park Children's Zoo.
A 22-year-old man appeared in court on Thursday and denied stealing SpongeBob. Marlon Brown, of Bowater Close, in Brixton, south London, pleaded not guilty at Kingston Magistrates' Court to the theft of the £2,500 monkey on 16 July. His next court hearing will be on 26 October.
Two-year-old SpongeBob was reported missing from Chessington's Monkey and Bird Garden walk-through area on 17 July. He was found two days later on a housing estate in Clapham, south London.
But he was unable to reintegrate on his return to Chessington, where the nine other female monkeys in his group began turning against him.
SpongeBob's online blog said: "I think I must smell or something because they keep running after me and biting me." His keepers eventually had to give him his own enclosure away from the female monkeys. He was then transferred to Battersea Park Children's Zoo, in south London, where he is being integrated with five one-year-old females.
"The best thing is that it is not so far away from Chessington, so my keepers can come and visit me often and see how I get on with all my new lady friends," his blog said.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Attempt to save declining lapwing.
Lapwings are a common farmland bird, but numbers are waning (Image: RSPB)
A five-year project has been launched to halt the decline of the lapwing, a bird traditionally known as the "farmer's friend". More than 250 farm sites have been chosen to test measures designed to help the species recover.
Lapwing numbers have declined in the UK by almost 50% since 1970.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which backs the project, is urging ministers to add the lapwing to its list of threatened species.
Scientists have been developing measures to help lapwings in lowland parts of Britain for some time.
However, the species is more common in upland areas. Because of the extent of the lapwing's decline, researchers are now assessing how to assist these birds as well.
Lapwing numbers fell by 46% between 1970 and 2004, a decline that has been attributed to changes in farming such as the loss of mixed agriculture, and the draining of land.
The study - in the Peak District of Derbyshire, Lancashire's Forest of Bowland, the North Pennines, south-east Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - will compare upland farms where land is being managed to attract lapwings, with similar sites without lapwing-friendly management.
The findings will be used to improve government schemes that pay farmers for environmentally friendly practices.
The birds are more common in upland areas of the UK (Image: RSPB)
But there is concern that budget cuts at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) could hit bird recovery programmes.
Defra has been told to reduce its budget by nearly £200m over the next six months.
"Lapwings are primarily farmland birds and only a fraction of the UK's lapwing population breed on nature reserves," said Mark Bolton, research biologist at the RSPB.
"That means that the work of farmers is crucial, as is ensuring that improvements to farmland do not affect farm income. Finding ways of enabling farmers to manage habitats better is a key part of the project."
Known in some parts of the country as the "farmer's friend", lapwings eat flukeworms, which can cause disease in sheep.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
OTTERS 'PROMT VOLE RESURGENCE' !
The return of the otter to many British waterways is helping to reverse the deline of another species - the water vole - a study suggests.
The research has been done by conservationists at Oxford University, who are monitoring the government's commitment to promote biodiversity.
Otters have been taking on the water voles' enemy - American mink - which thrived afer escaping from fur farms. Professor David Macdonald, director of the wildlife conservation unit at Oxord, said the combating of the American mink by otters may create "conditions for the recofery of the water vole". However, he warned that it was "too late" to leave the species alone to recover. "We are now looking at reintroducing water voles as part of a recovery programme" he said.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Hen harrier 'is still persecuted'.
Record fledgling numbers may not be enough to save hen harriers. England's most endangered bird of prey remains vulnerable despite a record number of fledglings this year, conservationists have said.
English Nature said 46 chicks hatched this year in 12 nests.
But the breeding was limited to one area - in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire - and the species was still threatened by persecution. The hen harrier is disliked by many estate owners because it eats red grouse chicks. English Nature said its population was a "pale shadow" of what it could be. About 60% of nesting attempts had failed away from the area that English Nature and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) monitored.
Richard Saunders, the manager of English Nature's hen harrier recovery project, which has been monitoring the bird since 2002, said grouse shooting had nevertheless contributed to the protection of some of the nation's rarest habitats. "Monitoring such a beautiful and fascinating bird over the last five years has provided me with many wonderful experiences," he said. "At times though witnessing the effects of persecution has also been thoroughly depressing. "There is evidence of illegal persecution every year and we cannot tolerate or ignore this happening to such a rare species." He called for gamekeepers and land managers not already involved in the project to join conservationists in efforts to build up the population of the species.
This autumn, new conservation body Natural England will take over from the Countryside Agency. The RSPB's director of conservation, Dr Mark Avery, said Natural England would need to put effort and money into stopping the illegal killing of hen harriers "if this bird is to get back where it belongs - on the nation's moors".
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Surprise pelican crossing on Tay.
The pelican was first spotted at the weekend. An attempt is to be made to catch a pelican which has mysteriously appeared at the mouth of the River Tay. The bird was first spotted at the weekend amid a flotilla of swans in the Tay Estuary, but the SSPCA said it needed to be captured for its own good. Passers-by noticed the white pelican off the beach near Monifieth among a group of about 50 swans, which are regularly in the area.
The SSPCA is now drawing up an action plan and intends to catch the bird. The animal welfare organisation said it also wanted to find out where the bird had come from. The white pelican, native to south east Europe, Asia and Africa, may have difficulty surviving in Scotland and adapting to the climate.
Laura Higgins, of the SSPCA, said the case was the most unusual job she had faced in her eight years as a senior inspector in the Dundee area. "The problem we have with this bird being here is that he's not a native bird to the Scottish coastline, in fact he's not a native bird to Britain," she said. "We really have to make an attempt to try and capture him and he'll have to be looked after in a special centre."
Inspectors are now formulating their rescue plan and in the meantime have asked members of the public who have flocked to get a glimpse of the pelican not to try and catch it themselves. One observer, local birder Bob McCurley, said: "We really are well and truly gobsmacked by the arrival of this wonderful bird.
"We expect to see unusual birds at this time of year, but never something as unusual as the pelican." A pelican was caught in Aberdeen several years ago after it escaped from a sanctuary on the Isle of Man. On that occasion the bird took three days to catch.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Two trials for Canada pig farmer.
Investigators spent months combing the Vancouver farm.
A Canadian pig farmer accused of being the country's worst serial killer will initially be tried on six counts of murder, prosecutors have said.
A judge had ordered that the case against Robert Pickton be split because a single hearing involving all 26 murder charges would be too long.
Mr Pickton, accused of murdering women over three decades, denies the charges.
The trial is set to begin on 8 January 2007, after hundreds of potential jurors are screened in December.
Mr Pickton was arrested in 2002 when dozens of police swept onto his farm in the suburbs of Vancouver.
Police say his victims were female drug addicts and prostitutes who began disappearing from a poor Vancouver neighbourhood in the late 1980s.
He was initially charged with 27 killings but one was dropped by the court.
Prosecutors said after the first trial on six counts, the second trial on the remaining 20 counts would be held at a later date.
"We looked at all the rulings and the nature of the evidence and it was determined from our perspective that it was the most prudent course of action to proceed with the six counts," prosecution spokesman Stan Lowe said.
A court ban prevents journalists from reporting any of the evidence until a jury has been chosen.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Asbo cockerel wins court reprieve.
The three-year-old cockerel is being moved to another field. A Borders cockerel which was facing an anti-social behaviour order has been given a reprieve. Scottish Borders Council had received complaints from locals about Charlie's loud crowing in the early hours.
The case before Selkirk Sheriff Court was deferred until next month and owner Ozzie Williamson was told to move the animal to another field.
Mr Williamson said he was being persecuted over the crowing, recorded at twice the legal noise limit.
The three-year-old cockerel lives in an overgrown garden alongside goats, geese, dogs and ducks on the outskirts of Selkirk.
George MacFarlane, a nearby B&B owner who has kept a log book noting the times of the crowing, said: "Sometimes we just can't get any sleep. "It can start crowing as early as 0230 BST but it's usually 0430 BST and it continues right into the afternoon. It just keeps going and going."
The owner said locals did not complain about other loud noises
However, residents living just two doors up from Mr MacFarlane said they did not have any complaints over the noise.
Karen Smail said: "I think it's a pleasant country sound, far nicer than the traffic you can hear in the background. "It certainly doesn't disturb us at night or during the day." Murray Smail said: "We've lived here for 15 years and there's been cockerels and other animals here in that time and it isn't a problem."
Mr Williamson said: "Obviously the residents can hear it but they can hear other noises as well and they don't complain about them.
"There's the traffic and the drum beat music that comes out of some boys' cars but I think people realise they can't do anything about that.
"As an individual, I think I'm being slightly persecuted."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Holidays fuelling wildlife trade.
Elephant products were among the more common wildlife souvenirs.
More than 600,000 Britons have brought wildlife souvenirs back from holidays abroad since 2001, a survey indicates.
The figure is based on a YouGov poll of 2,301 adults for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).
Ifaw is asking tourists to think twice before buying items containing animal material; it may come from threatened species, and importing may be illegal.
The Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) is to raise awareness of the issue among its members.
The Ifaw survey found that about 1.5% of British holidaymakers brought back wildlife souvenirs, with coral-based goods being the most common.
Elephant items, animal teeth, claws or jaw, and wild animal skins were also purchased regularly.
"Most of these souvenirs are being bought unwittingly, simply because travellers are confused by the complex laws governing trade in wild animals or because they just aren't aware of them," said Ifaw wildlife campaigner Nikki Kelly.
"Worse still, wildlife souvenirs are often sold so openly abroad that many tourists mistakenly believe they must be legal."
Trade in products from animals at risk of extinction is controlled by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), and individual countries may also have their own laws preventing export.
Information gap
Nearly two-thirds of the 2,301 British adults polled by YouGov felt they had not been given enough information by travel companies on the issue; only 15% had received any information.
Abta aims to improve this situation by linking up with the Ifaw campaign.
"Many tour operators have notices in their brochures already, but we are raising awareness a bit more," said Abta spokesman Sean Tipton.
"We have a weekly newsletter going out to all our members in which we will be pointing up the issues; we'll also be circulating Ifaw's leaflets, and encouraging those companies which haven't already done so to put notices in their brochures," he told the BBC News website.
UK customs officials intercept thousands of illegally imported items each year.
In 2003/4, HM Revenue and Customs seized more than 2,000 live animals and 4,500 parts of animals whose trade is prohibited under Cites. A further three million samples of traditional medicines containing prohibited species were also seized.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Study uncovers 'chimp cross code' .
The large males took up protective positions while road crossing. Experts studying chimpanzees while investigating the evolution of human social behaviour have uncovered their ability to safely cross roads.
They said the discovery has shown chimps' ability to cope with the risk of man-made situations.
The University of Stirling research was carried out with a small chimp community in West Africa. It found the dominant adult males took up protective positions in the group when it was tasked with crossing roads.
The study at Bossou, Guinea observed the chimpanzees crossing two roads - one large and busy with traffic and the other smaller and used mostly by pedestrians.
The less fearful and physically larger adult males took up forward and rear positions, with the adult females and young occupying the protected middle space.
The study has built on prior research showing that adult male monkeys took similar action to reduce the risk of being attacked by predators when travelling towards potentially unsafe areas, such as waterholes.
Kimberley Hockings, who worked on the study, said: "Road-crossing, a human-created challenge, presents a new situation that calls for flexibility of responses by chimpanzees to variations in perceived risk, helping to improve our understanding about the evolution of human social organisation.
"Dominant individuals act cooperatively with a high level of flexibility to maximise group protection."
The findings have been published in the scientific journal Current Biology.
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. Everyday school expenses - such as uniforms - cost families an average £1,300 a year.
2. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.
3. 88% of couples in long and happy relationships have lips of similar size, according to research by the University of Leicester.
4. London has the best public transport system in the world (well, according to readers of TripAdvisor.com).
5. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Moronoff, the daughter of a Russian-born violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
6. The Airfix swastika decals are banned from kits for sale in Germany.
7. Toytown, the horse which carried Zara Phillips to equestrian gold, cost just £400.
8. Chinese Girl, a painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff, who died last week, is believed to have sold more in print form than the Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's Sunflowers.
9. Some sharks can't reproduce until the age of 20 or above.
10. Dipping seagull eggs in oil, so they do not hatch, is seen as the best way to limit the seagull population. Shooting the birds is too dangerous, while smashing eggs just leads to gulls laying more.
BBC NEWS MAGAZINE.
Lost Thames whale had arthritis.
The whale mistakenly swam into the Thames in January. The whale which lost its way and became stranded in the river Thames in January, was suffering from arthritis, scientists examining its remains said. The 11-year-old female northern bottlenose was suffering from severe pain in her neck, according to experts at the Natural History Museum. The 19.2ft (5.85m) whale first surfaced on 20 January after mistakenly swimming into the North Sea and up the Thames. It died a day later as rescuers tried to take it towards deeper waters.
Experts said the whale may have been trying to head west to the Atlantic Ocean where it could feed on deep sea squid, but took a wrong turn, ending up near Chelsea Bridge in the heart of London. The curator of the Natural History Museum, Richard Sabin, who has been examining the whale's preserved bones for the past eight months, said the creature may have been in a lot of pain. The whale was dehydrated and starving for nearly a week."We found pitting on her atlas vertebra, which joins her spine to her skull. "It's a degenerative joint disease which in humans is called arthritis. "Deep-diving whales put their skeletons through lots of punishment," he said.
Experts who carried out an autopsy on the whale said it was dehydrated and had been starving for nearly a week. Without its normal squid diet, it was unable to rehydrate, they said. The Museum is storing the whale's bones in its south London warehouse. The entire skeleton will be kept for scientific research and made available to scientists from around the world.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin killed.
The naturalist worked to protect Australian wildlife. Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast. Mr Irwin, 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray's barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef.
Paramedics from Cairns rushed to the scene but were unable to save him. Mr Irwin was known for his television show The Crocodile Hunter and his work with native Australian wildlife. Police in Queensland confirmed the environmentalist's death and said his family had been notified. Mr Irwin was married with two young children.
Mr Irwin's manager John Stainton told the BBC the stingray's barb had pierced the personality's heart. "He came over the top of a stingray and a barb, the stingray's barb went up and put a hole into his heart," he said. "We got him back within a couple of minutes to Croc 1, which is Steve's research vessel, and by 12 o'clock when the emergency crew arrived they pronounced him dead."
The incident happened at Batt Reef, off Port Douglas. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he had known Mr Irwin well, and that the country had lost a "wonderful and colourful son". "I am quite shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden untimely and freakish death", he said. "It's a huge loss to Australia - he was a wonderful character, he was a passionate environmentalist, he brought entertainment and excitement to millions of people."
The stingray is a flat, triangular-shaped fish, commonly found in tropical waters. It gets its name from the razor-sharp barb at the end of its tail, coated in toxic venom, which the animal uses to defend itself with when it feels threatened. Attacks on humans are a rarity - only one other person is known to have died in Australia from a stingray attack, at St Kilda, Melbourne in 1945. "Stingrays only sting in defence, they're not aggressive animals so the animal must have felt threatened. It didn't sting out of aggression, it stung out of fear," Dr Bryan Fry, Deputy Director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne said. Experts say that while painful, stingray venom is rarely lethal and it would have been the wound caused by the barb itself, which could measure up to 20cm long, which proved fatal.
STINGRAYS
Members of the Dasyatidae family of cartilaginous fish, with about 70 species worldwide
Mostly found in tropical seas, but exist in freshwater too
Feed primarily on molluscs and crustaceans on sea floor
Swim with flying motion using large pectoral wings
Usually docile, not known to attack aggressively
Equipped with venom-coated razor-sharp barbed or serrated tail, up to 20cm long
"What happened to Steve Irwin is like being stabbed in the heart. It has little to do with the venom and all to do with the trauma caused by the barb of the stingray," Dr Geoff Isbister, a clinical toxicologist at the Mater Hospital in Newcastle, Australia, said. Mr Irwin had built up what was a small reptile park in Queensland into what is now Australia Zoo, a major centre for Australian wildlife. He was famous for handling dangerous creatures such as crocodiles, snakes and spiders, and his documentaries on his work with crocodiles drew a worldwide audience.
But he also courted controversy with a series of stunts. He sparked outrage across Australia after cradling his one-month-old son a metre away from the reptile during a show at Australia Zoo. An investigation was launched into whether Mr Irwin and his team interacted too closely with penguins and whales while filming in the Antarctic, but no action was taken.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer praised Mr Irwin for his work to promote Australia.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Baby boom for near-extinct rhino.
By Lucy Williamson - BBC News, Jakarta.
There are no more than 57 Javan rhinos left in Indonesia. Scientists in Indonesia have found evidence of four new rhino calves on the island of Java. The discovery in Java's Ujong Kulon National Park has raised hopes that one of the world's rarest breeds of mammals could begin to re-populate.
Scientists from conservation group WWF made the discovery. Park officials were first alerted to the new-born rhinos by tracks made by a mother and calf - a set of small footprints alongside larger ones. In the following days, they found two more such tracks - too far away from each other to be made by the same family.
Then, in another location, they spotted a fourth calf alongside its mother. A WWF manager at the park described it as a remarkable achievement for conservation. He said it was the first time in 40 years they had found evidence of so many new-born rhinos. According to the head of Ujong Kulon, this year's baby boom could form part of a trend. A census carried out last year suggested that seven new rhinos had been born. That census put the park's rhino population at 57, though some figures put it at less than half that number.
Another five Javan rhinos are thought to live in Vietnam, making it one of the rarest mammals in the world.
Poaching as well as threats to their natural habitat have contributed to its decline. Indonesia has set up habitat protection programmes to safeguard the rhinos' food sources and environment inside the National Park. Part of this programme, say officials, involves leading bulls into the open areas so that rhinos don't have to compete with them for food inside the jungle.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
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