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.
Snakes in China 'predict quakes'.
Scientists say the snakes smash into walls in an effort to escape Scientists in China say they have developed a new way of predicting earthquakes - by observing erratic behaviour in snakes. Experts at the earthquake bureau in Nanning, in southern Guangxi province, monitor local snake farms via 24-hour internet video links. Scientists said the serpents can sense a quake from 120km (75 miles) away, up to five days before it happens.
They respond erratically, even smashing into walls to escape, scientists said. "Of all the creatures on the Earth, snakes are perhaps the most sensitive to earthquakes," Jiang Weisong, director of the earthquake bureau in Nanning, told The China Daily. The reptiles respond by behaving extremely erratically, he said. "When an earthquake is about to occur, snakes will move out of their nests, even in the cold of winter. If the earthquake is a big one, the snakes will even smash into walls while trying to escape," he told the newspaper.
Nanning - an area prone to earthquakes - is one of 12 Chinese cities monitored by hi-tech equipment. It also has 143 animal monitoring units. "By installing cameras over the snake nests, we have improved our ability to forecast earthquakes. The system could be extended to other parts of the country to make our earthquake forecasts more precise," Mr Jiang said.
China is frequently struck by earthquakes. In 1976, some 250,000 people died when the city of Tangshan was devastated by an earthquake.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Conservation amid UAE's building boom
By Julia Wheeler - BBC News, Dubai.
Conservationists in the United Arab Emirates are using centuries-old techniques to try to save desert animals from the construction boom in the country. Burg Dubai is expected to be the tallest building in the world when finished They are relocating the animals to places of safety, from areas where huge developments are being built.
Thousands of animals have been captured and saved from being caught up in the building work. Thousands more are yet to be rescued. The smaller animals, including spiny-tailed lizards, scorpions and vipers, may not be the most appealing creatures in the world, but they are an integral part of the desert landscape of the UAE.
That landscape is fast disappearing with the phenomenal amount of construction that is taking place. In Dubai, for example, vast projects like Dubai Industrial City, Dubai World Central Airport and Dubailand are being built to help diversify the economy away from a dependence on limited oil reserves. The bulldozers, earthmovers and giant cranes necessary to do this are taking the place of the animals and putting them at risk.
However, a team of conservationists and volunteers has been using methods handed down to Emiratis from their ancestors to catch some of these animals, so they can be taken to reserves for safety. In Dubai's 'can-do' atmosphere where... there are millions of dollars being earned from property development and speculation, critics say there appears to be little real concern for the long-term environmental impact of the construction
These Bedouin techniques were taught directly to some of the team by their parents. Until the middle of the last century and for hundreds of years before, desert animals were an important source of protein in the Bedouin diet - they could make the difference between a family having food or going hungry. The Bedouin methods include leaving a rope noose tied to a stick beside a lizard hole. When the lizard comes out, it steps into the noose, is caught and the attached stick prevents it from returning to its home. For the conservationists, this can be dangerous work as the lizards have powerful teeth that they have been known to use on their rescuers.
Larger animals such as gazelle, hares and foxes have also been caught and rescued. The animals captured are taken to the reserve most suited to their natural habitat. Scorpions, lizards, vipers, gazelle, hares and foxes have been rescued. There is a coastal desert reserve near Jebel Ali, south of Dubai and a huge tract of land in the interior of the emirate known as the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve.
Officials say environmental impact assessments are carried out in the early stages of development plans for the various construction projects along the coast or further inland, but critics say these are used more to "tick the boxes" rather than to decide if a project will have a real impact and should therefore go ahead or not.
In Dubai's "can-do" atmosphere, where plans are decided centrally without consultation and millions of dollars are earned from property development and speculation, critics say there appears to be little real concern for the long-term environmental impact of the construction. It is not only the animals that run the risk of being destroyed, but large parts of the desert landscape and the ecosystem as a whole.
Other emirates within the UAE are following the same route as Dubai, seeing how cleverly-marketed property developments in particular, seem to be a source of easy money. The environmentalists would like to see all developers contribute to saving the wildlife on the land on which they will later build. This, they say, is a small price to pay when there is so much money to be made on the building projects themselves.
The conservationists know they cannot prevent the loss of further desert environments here, but they are doing their best to try to reduce the amount of damage to the country's wildlife.
BBC NEWS REPORT
Red kites threatened in Scotland.
The red kites are under increased threat, the study revealed. The illegal abuse of red kites is having a devastating impact on their population, according to new research. RSPB Scotland said landowners were still laying poison baits and shooting the birds, which are often seen as a threat to game, poultry and livestock. The charity's study found that an estimated 185 birds were killed between 1999 and 2006 - an average of 23 birds per year. The RSPB said the figures may not indicate the full scale of the problem.
The organisation's scientists believe the corpses of birds killed deliberately were more likely to be hidden or disposed of than those that had died naturally. They believed that the research could also indicate what is happening to other bird of prey populations.
The practice of laying poisoned baits, normally in the form of agricultural pesticides, has been illegal since the 1900s. Red kites are rarely the intended victims as they are largely scavengers but their carrion feeding makes them likely to find any poisoned meat left lying around.
Duncan Orr Ewing, head of species and land management for RSPB Scotland, said: "It is time for the fine rhetoric about tackling illegal poisoning to be turned into action on the ground. "Everybody seems to agree that this activity is reprehensible. However, cases involving the deliberate killing of some of our rarest birds of prey, like the red kite, occur year after year in Scotland. "It may take a custodial sentence before people engaged with this activity begin to take the matters seriously."
Deputy Environment Minister Rhona Brankin said: "The continuing persecution of red kites in Scotland revealed in these figures is deplorable, irresponsible and criminal. "The misuse of pesticides does not affect birds of prey in isolation but has potentially harmful consequences for all life in the countryside."
Farming endangered blue-fin tuna
By Chris Hogg - BBC News, Tokyo.
The Japanese eat 80% of the world's blue-fin tuna. .The problem is that, like many other species, stocks of the fish are declining. The situation is going to get a lot worse as other populous countries such as China are developing a taste for sushi and sashimi, which is what most of the blue-fin are used for.
The species is hard to cultivate because it is difficult to recreate the conditions they are used to in the wild. The result can be seen at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, where the frozen tuna carcasses are laid out on the floor ready for the auction's fierce bidding. A single giant tuna can cost you more than a new car.
But in the city of Shizoka, in a small shed on a university campus, a businessman is trying to recreate the oceans that the tuna are used to. Blue-fin tuna have been farmed before, but not indoors, the team behind the project says. To get to where these tuna are housed, you have to go through a kind of air lock designed to stop any of the outside light getting in to the dimly-lit interior.
Tuna, it seems, are rather sensitive to daylight, and to pretty much anything else. That is why they are coddled and protected from as much of the outside world as possible. The tanks are specially designed to keep the tuna happy Inside, in the gloom, there are four large circular tanks, each with a diameter of about five metres (16 feet). The water pumped up from deep down under the surface is just about as clean as you can get - no bacteria, no viruses and no parasites.
Akito Yamamoto, the man behind the project, calls it "magic water" - not too hot and not too cold; a constant 21C (70F) which is just right for vigorous tuna to swim around in. The water flows in circles in each tank - creating an effect like a treadmill for the 15 fish in each tank. They need to keep moving to keep breathing. Normally well-travelled fish, they are capable of crossing the Atlantic in less than 50 days. Here, though, in the confines of the tank, every detail has been designed to keep them happy and healthy. The tuna have to be shown where to swim, so there are streams of bubbles flowing away from the edges of the tanks which guide the tuna away from the sides.
All this equipment has cost thousands of dollars, and has been developed specially, with no guarantee that it will actually work and produce full-size healthy tuna. The blue-fin will not be big enough to breed or be eaten for at least three years. "I know some people are puzzled about why I am spending so much on this," said Mr Yamamoto. "But I am trying to make a facility that could be used for 10 or 20 years." "However much we spend it's worth it if we can provide safe food for consumers."
This is clearly a labour of love, but how will he feel when the time comes to send his fish to the market to be slaughtered for the first time? For Mr Yamamoto. the tuna breeding project is a labour of love."It will be like sending my daughters off to get married," he says with a grin. "Joy and sadness." But will he be eating them? "Definitely!"
The risk, of course, is that the farmed blue-fin tuna will not be as tasty as the wild ones. At a nearby sushi restaurant the chef Yutaka Kuroda skilfully fillets large pieces of tuna, cutting the delicate slices for the lunchtime orders. He says it will be hard to persuade his customers to make the switch. "The quality of farmed tuna is improving, mainly because they feed them better," he said. "I don't think it tastes all that bad, but still most Japanese people believe a wild tuna tastes better than a farmed one."
The reality is of course that in the end the Japanese may have no choice. Sushi from farmed fish could one day be the only option on the menu. The huge appetite for fresh wild fish today may mean that tomorrow there is none left in the oceans, so farmed blue-fin tuna may be a taste they have to get used to.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
US accepts threat to polar bears !
There are about 20,000-25,000 polar bears worldwide. The US has proposed listing polar bears as a threatened species because of declining Arctic ice levels. It is the first time the US has made a direct link between global warming and the threat to a species. President George W Bush has steadfastly refused to back mandatory controls of emissions of carbon dioxide - believed the main gas behind global warming.
There are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears across the globe, about 4,700 of them in the US state of Alaska. US Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said polar bears were "one of nature's ultimate survivors". But he added: "We are concerned the polar bears' habitat may literally be melting." Being listed as "threatened" is a rung down from being "endangered".
A department official told the AFP news agency the US had not had a species that had been "listed with such a close correlation to climate change as this one". Mr Kempthorne sidestepped questions about US reductions of gas emissions, saying it was not a question for his department. But he stressed offshore oil and gas developments in Alaska were not part of the risk.
Lobby groups welcomed the proposal. Kassie Siegel, of the Centre for Biological Diversity, said it was "a watershed decision in the way this country deals with climate change". However, listing the bears as threatened is still a year away, pending further studies. The listing would require all federal agencies not to take decisions that would threaten polar bears' survival.
The Swiss-based Polar Bear Specialist Group projects a 30% decline in numbers over the next 45 years.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Giant panda gives birth to twins.
Zoo officials have yet to confirm the sex of the cubs.A giant panda from China has given birth to twins at a zoo in Japan, raising the number of artificially-bred pandas born this year to a record 30. The pandas were born on Saturday at Adventure World in Wakayama, 453km (283 miles) south-west of Tokyo.
The mother and the babies were said to be in good health, despite one weighing only 84 grams - considered to be premature, zoo officials said.
Mei Mei, 12, and her breeding partner Eimei, 14, are both on loan from China.
Births during the winter months are extremely rare for pandas in captive breeding programmes, officials said. The sex of the cubs is yet to be confirmed.
The giant panda is one of the world's rarest animals with an estimated 1,590 living in the wild in China, mostly in Sichuan and the western province of Shaanxi.
Another 180 animals have been bred in captivity.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Outrage over Kashmir bear death
By Altaf Hussain - BBC News, Srinagar.
Black bears have recently become more numerous in the area. Police in Indian-administered Kashmir have arrested four people in connection with the killing of a black bear. The black bear has been declared an endangered species under India's Wildlife Act, and killing one carries a prison sentence of two to six years. Police say that the bear had strayed into the Mandora village of Tral township, south of Srinagar, where it reportedly attacked the residents. TV pictures showed villagers beating the bear with batons and stones. Later it was burnt to death. The pictures, screened on a private news channel, caused outrage.
Senior police official HK Lohia said that the incident was so serious that he had personally appointed an official to supervise the investigations. Chief Wildlife Warden AK Vastava told the BBC that the killing took place on 17 November. He said that wildlife staff were on the scene at the time of the killing but were unable to intervene because of what he described as "mob frenzy". He quoted local residents as saying that they had lit the fire to scare the bear out of the neighbourhood but it was caught in the fire itself.
Mr Vastava said the wildlife warden filed a report on the incident with the police on the same day. He said that four officials, including a range officer, have been temporarily removed from their posts, pending an inquiry by the principal conservator of forests.
A local news agency reported that the villagers of Mandora captured the bear and locked it in a cowshed. It said that they did inform wildlife officials but none of them turned up. The bear, meanwhile, escaped from captivity and people chased and killed it.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Mass mouse escape on Saudi plane,
More than 100 passengers on a Saudi plane were left panic-stricken by the unexpected appearance of furry fellow flyers - dozens of mice. The small rodents - about 80 in total, according to a local newspaper - escaped from the bag of a man travelling on the domestic flight. An airline official said the aircraft was at 28,000 feet (8,500m) when mice began scurrying around the cabin.
Some of the mice fell on passengers' heads, Al-Hayat newspaper reports. The incident occurred on a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from the capital, Riyadh, to north-eastern town of Tabuk. The flight landed safely and the bag's owner was detained by police investigating how he managed to get the mice onto the plane.
No explanation was given for the man's live cargo.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Snow Leopard Diary.
The team has already managed to fit a collar to one cat.A research project is under way to learn more about the elusive snow leopard. A team has travelled to the Chitral Gol National Park in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borders to attach GPS collars to five of the cats, to understand more about the animals' movements. With one snow leopard successfully tagged, the team is hopeful its mission will be a success, and the team members will be charting their progress for the BBC News website. The second entry is by Ashley Spearing, who will be taking over from project leader Tom McCarthy for the Christmas period.
14 DECEMBER: HIGHS AND LOWS
An avalanche struck on the Lowary Pass.
Capturing a further four snow leopards was never going to be easy, and the last 14 days both in and out of the field are testimony to this.
I have been travelling from the UK to Chitral to take over from project leader Tom McCarthy for the next phase of the mission.
As I journeyed into the Chitral district, over the Lowary Pass, the weather turned with a cruel menace.
Fatal avalanches bombarded all in front of us, and my WWF colleague and I were spared life by a mere 10m.
Others were not so fortunate. We are eternally grateful to the Pashtun men who rescued us that night.
Escape act
Meanwhile, in Chitral Gol, a capture team experienced the highs and lows of seeing a wily large adult male leopard escaping a locked snare at the last moment. Uncovering the movements of a large male cat is something we all desperately crave.
To make matters worse, the heavy snows then arrived, caching both snares and trails beneath a blanket of snow two feet deep and effectively immobilising the mission.
The captors captured by the snow leopard's realm.
However, while this was happening I was still struggling to reach the team.
With Lowary Pass no longer a sane course, and the vehicular route via Afghanistan certainly not my preferred option, after days of impatience I finally arrived in Chitral Gol via air.
My arrival coincided with snow melt and the departure of my mentor and friend Tom McCarthy.
Rogue wolf
With time of the essence, we enlisted the help of live bait to lure the cats in. Sure enough, four days in, our routine 530am radio signal snare check generated hysteria to rival any alarm clock.
To our surprise and disappointment however, at the end of the snare was a large female wolf, weighing about 45kg.
The trail to base camp is perilous even without the snow
Funnily enough, the local watchers were adamant that the Purdum Mali (which means snow leopard home) trail was inhabited only by cats. As you can imagine, much banter soon ensued.
With regards to the live bait, the cats are literally not biting, even upon the Purdum Mali ridge where we captured the first cat, Bayed-e-Kohsaar.
Through the centuries the Chitral Gol was to all intents and purposes a hunting reserve.
Consequently it is no surprise that wily cats may avoid the temptation of a tethered meal, a common trick in the armoury of a generation of hunters in the Chitral Gol.
So, still four cats to go - but what of our first cat?
To date, we have located her roaming far and wide.
And most recently, a BBC film crew, 20km away, filmed a cat hunting with the unmistakable matching green ear tags that Bayed-el-Kohsaar was fitted!
Ashley Spearing
28 NOVEMBER: THE STORY SO FAR
Warm greetings from Chitral Gol National Park. Well, sort of warm; I am sitting near the fire with my woollen Chitrali shawl around me on a brisk (33F, 0C) morning.
We arrived in Chitral town nearly three weeks ago. We were already a few days behind schedule when we reached Chitral due to the protests over the bombing of the madrassa (religious school) near the Afghan border.
Once in Chitral, it was the same peaceful, pleasant village I am so used to. I felt very safe and two days later we were off for the park.
The entrance to Chitral Gol Park is a few thousand feet above town. Once at the top, it's about an hour's hike down into the valley that is the heart of the reserve.
Base camp for our work is a wildlife watcher's (someone who takes care of the park) house with quite decent facilities: two bedrooms, storage room, kitchen, and even two flush toilets!
Behind schedule, we did a quick day of recon for trap sites and then started putting out our snares.
Global warming was not helping us, and the unseasonably hot (71F,22C) days and lack of snow were keeping all the markhor (wild goats) and snow leopards high on the peaks in the back of the park - out of reach of our base camp.
Wobbly legs
The very knowledgeable wildlife watchers told us it could be December before the animals came down this year. We expected a long boring month waiting for their arrival.
If you know me well, you can guess how well that idea sat. After about nine days, I decided we needed to stretch ourselves a bit and put snares closer to the next watcher's hut, about two hours away and much nearer to the snow line.
Two days later, we caught our first leopard! Where? In the snare closet to our base camp - visible in fact from our porch. So much for extended traplines.
We had caught a healthy 78lb (35kg) female.
She was a little slow to come out of her sedated state and gave us fits as she struggled to get coordination back - her normal cliffy home is not a place we wanted to see her head for on wobbly legs.
After a tense several hours she was off to the peaks and her radio signal the next day showed she was moving well.
For the past several days, she has been hanging out in a cliffy area near camp, where I am guessing she has been gorging on a well-deserved markhor.
This morning, she left and headed up the valley. Soon we should start getting regular reports via satellite on her exact movements.
One done, four more cats to catch.
Tom McCarthy, project leader and conservation director of the Snow Leopard Trust.
The study is a joint collaboration between the Snow Leopard Trust, the Northwest Frontier Province Wildlife Department and WWF-Pakistan.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Failure in Yangtze dolphin search.
The baiji was considered the world's most endangered mammal. A freshwater dolphin found only in China is "effectively extinct", an expedition has declared following a fruitless six-week search. The Yangtze River dolphin, or baiji, was listed as "critically endangered" on the Red List of Threatened Species. It has been dying out due to habitat degradation, overfishing, pollution and ship traffic - which confounds the sonar the animal uses to find food.
Zoologists announced a plan to save the mammal earlier this year. "We have to accept the fact that the baiji is extinct. We lost the race," said August Pfluger, co-head of the expedition and director of baiji.org, an environmental group dedicated to saving the animal. "It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world," he added.
Mr Pfluger admitted it was possible that animals had been missed despite the use of optical and acoustic equipment and trained observers. The baiji lives along the lower reaches of China's environmentally-degraded Yangtze River and is thought to have been in existence for about 20 million years.
If confirmed, it would be the first large aquatic mammal driven to extinction since hunting and overfishing killed off the Californian monk seal in the 1950s. The damage to the baiji's habitat is also affecting the Yangtze finless porpoise, whose numbers have fallen to below 400, the expedition found.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
World's tallest man saves dolphin.
The world's tallest man has saved two dolphins by using his long arms to reach into their stomachs and pull out dangerous plastic shards. Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun was called in after the dolphins swallowed plastic used around their pool at an aquarium in Fushun, north-east China. Attempts to use instruments failed as the dolphins contracted their stomachs.
Guinness World Records list Mr Bao, 54, as the world's tallest living man at 2.36m (7ft 8.95in). Veterinarians turned to Mr Bao after attempts to extract the plastic shards at the aquarium in Fushun, Liaoning Province, had failed. Mr Bao was called in after surgical instruments failed. The mammals had lost their appetite and were suffering depression, aquarium officials said.
The heads of the dolphins were held back and towels wrapped around their teeth so Mr Bao could not be bitten. He then extended his 1.06m-long arm into the mammals' stomachs. Chen Lujun, manager of Royal Jidi Ocean World, said Mr Bao was successful and the dolphins were "in very good condition now". Local doctor Zhu Xiaoling told the state media agency Xinhua: "Some very small plastic pieces are still left in the dolphins' stomachs.
"However the dolphins will be able to digest these and are expected to recover soon." Mr Bao was confirmed as the world's tallest living man by Guinness World Records last year. He overtook the previous holder, Radhouane Charbib of Tunisia, by just 2mm. Guinness World Records say Mr Bao was of normal height until 16 but then put on a spurt that doctors were unable to explain, reaching his full height in seven years.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Turkish Airlines gets the hump.
Some say camel meat tastes like 'coarse beef'.A job well done is worth celebrating, but Turkish Airlines say staff went too far when they sacrificed a camel. To mark the last delivery of 100 aircraft, maintenance workers clubbed together to buy the beast - and then consume it.
The sacrifice took place at Istanbul international airport. "They didn't ask permission," a spokeswoman for the airline told the BBC, adding that the boss of the offending staff had been suspended. He will remain off work while the incident is investigated. Camel is eaten in Turkey, while the sacrifice of animals - usually sheep - is performed during the Festival of Sacrifice, marking the prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son when God ordered him to.
"But it wasn't anything to do with that," said Belgin Alisan of Turkish Airlines, which was last week accepted into the Lufthansa-led Star Alliance. "They went too far. We are really quite shocked." Top-selling daily Hurriyet said 700kg of camel meat had been distributed among the workers.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Rare tiger mauls monitor camera.
There are believed to be fewer than 500 Sumatran tigers left in the wild. A tiger belonging to a rare species in the remote jungles of Indonesia has been destroying surveillance cameras, the environmental group WWF says.
WWF had been puzzled by how several heat-sensitive photo traps had been destroyed after a very rare Sumatran tiger was photographed passing by. The WWF says the cat was frightened by the camera's flash and attacked the cameras, destroying them.
Fewer than 500 of the big cats are estimated to be left in the wild. Loggers, poachers and other wildlife have destroyed cameras in the past, a WWF spokesman said, but this was the first time the vandal had been positively identified. WWF had set up the cameras to observe life in the deep jungles of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Revised wind farm plans unveiled.The proposed turbines on Lewis would be 140m (460ft) high The company behind the UK's largest onshore wind farm project - proposed for the Hebridean island of Lewis - has unveiled revised plans for the scheme. The reworked proposal comprises 181 wind turbines compared with the 234 which were originally planned. As a result, the wind farm's generating capacity would also have to be reduced from 702 megawatts (MW) to 652MW.
The £500m proposed development has been vigorously opposed by conservation groups and anti-wind farm campaigners. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is concerned about the number of birds which could be killed by flying into turbines and says it would be willing to take the matter to Europe if necessary.
The original proposal was supported by the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) on the understanding that the developer, Lewis Wind Power, would look again at the positions of 25 proposed wind turbines. The council backed the plan despite receiving more than 4,000 objections.
The revised proposal, submitted to the Scottish Executive on Tuesday, deletes 21 of these 25 turbines and removes a further 32 to reduce the predicted impact of the development on birds. The wind farm would cut through a peatland which is protected under EU conservation law.
Stuart Housden, director of RSPB Scotland, said the development was of "enormous concern". Mr Housden said the RSPB had not yet had time to study the revised proposal, but said it "remains a large, industrial-scale development". Golden eagles could be among the birds at threat, says the RSPB. He added: "It is hard to imagine that all this can be delivered without having some significant level of impact on such an important environmental area."
Catriona Campbell, who chairs anti-wind farm group Moorland Without Turbines, said: "The fact that the consultation period is going to take in the Christmas and New Year break appears cynical, and we'll be calling for an extension. "People at this time of year are extremely busy with family. And public offices where the technical documents are available tend to be shut over this period."
David Hodkinson, Lewis Wind Power director, said the developers understood this concern: "When submitting the revised proposal we recognised that the Christmas period would effect people's ability to respond within the statutory 28 day period, so we have requested an extended consultation period that will last until 29 January."
Lewis Wind Power predicts that some 400 jobs would be created during the manufacturing phase, with more once the wind farm is operational. Communities will also receive payments, some of which can be exchanged for a stake in the wind farm. "We have a range of economic challenges here," said Calum Ian McIver, head of economic development for the council.
The wind farm's course would take it through protected areas. "The project has to stay at a certain scale to deliver the benefits to the local community, to deliver manufacturing to the local Arnish plant and to allow the interconnector to come in." The interconnector is a cable capable of transferring power from the wind farm to the mainland. It is vital to the council's vision of turning Lewis into a centre for alternative energy. But a large power station is needed to justify building it.
"The interconnector is going to be key to getting to the wave and tidal wave resources," Mr McIver told BBC News, "This is the next wave - what people are referring to as blue power." Alasdair Morrison, MSP for the Western Isles said he had "no doubt that the proposals will play an important role in the future prosperity of the Outer Hebrides." He said: "It is a well-recognised and indisputable fact that the Outer Hebrides has the best renewable resources in the European Union. "I am committed to ensuring that our communities are at the forefront of the renewable energy revolution."
The Arnish manufacturing plant on Lewis - which would stand to pick up contracts for turbine components - was this month hit by the collapse of a tenant company, leaving substantial debts.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Report warns on Mongolia wildlife
By Rob Norris - BBC News.
Mongolia was once a haven for Central Asia's large mammals. International conservationists have warned of a catastrophic decline in wildlife in Mongolia.The vast, sparsely-populated country was once a refuge for the large mammals of Central Asia. But in a new report, the Zoological Society of London said illegal hunting and trade had forced many species to the brink of extinction. The red deer, snow leopard, wild camel and Gobi bear are all vanishing from the steppes, the report says.
Some species have declined by as much as 92% in the last 18 years, and there are fewer than 50 bears left. Dr Jonathan Baillie from the Zoological Society of London says the problems began after the collapse of communism. "In the early 1990s... the social system changed rapidly. It was formerly heavily influenced by the Soviet Union, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union there was high unemployment, and also the regulatory mechanisms broke down, so wildlife trade really increased," he said. "There's trade both to Russia and the new market of China, and so there's just amazing volumes going across the border."
Law enforcement on hunting and trading has became increasingly lax, and vehicles and guns are far more widely available. The Zoological Society has begun working with local partners in Mongolia to try to reverse the trend. There is at least one precedent for this - the last breed of wild horse in Mongolia was declared extinct 10 years ago, but it has since been re-introduced by conservationists.
Now there are more than 250 such animals roaming the steppes once again.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Insurgency benefits Kashmir wildlife
By Binoo Joshi - BBC News, Jammu.
Attacks by leopard are reported to have risen. The wildlife population in Indian-administered Kashmir has undergone a "manifold" increase as a result of the separatist militancy that first broke out there in the late 1980s. The Chief Wildlife Warden for Jammu and Kashmir, Naseer Ahmad Kitchloo says the average increase in population of indigenous animals and birds specific to the area is 20-60%.
The reasons, he says, are simple. "The government asked the locals to deposit their arms with their respective police station when militancy started," he said. "This was done to prevent the misuse of weapons and identify illegal ones. It meant that local hunters thus had no weapons." And there is another, more important reason behind the dramatic increase in wildlife, the chief wildlife warden says. "No one dares to venture deep into the forests these days," he said, "for fear of being caught in exchanges between militants and the security forces". As a result, "poaching of wildlife has almost halted for all these years", he said.
And that is good news for endangered animals like the leopard, the snow leopard, the hangul (a stag found only in Kashmir which is closely related to the reindeer) and spotted deer, as well as for numerous species of birds. Mr Kitchloo said that the "manifold increase in the number of animals like leopards and bears is creating problems for people who have been attacked". He said that there had been a number of cases of leopards and bears maiming villagers in remote areas.
The official has no problem providing figures to back up his claims. Before the insurgency, he says that the hangul population was between 100 and 120 in 1990. He says that in 2006 the number is estimated to be over 250. Bears have benefited because few people venture into the forests Mr Kitchloo said that although physical counting of these animals was not possible, the figures were compiled using "scientific methods".
Similarly the population of Himalayan black bear was between 700 to 800 in 1990, whereas today it stands between 2,500 and 3,000. He said that the number of leopards has also "risen enormously during this time". A similar story applies to the musk deer, a rare animal, with between 2,000 and 2,500 believed to be alive today, compared with an estimate of between 250 and 300 in 1990. Likewise, the rare Pirpanjal markhor goat - specific to the Pirpanjal mountain range - numbered between 100 and 150 in 1990. Now the numbers are estimated to be between 240-300. "This animal is a sought after trophy in many European countries that can fetch a minimum of $100,000," Mr Kitchloo said.
He stated that although bird counts were always a difficult task, "rare and indigenous species like the black partridge and the pheasant have increased by a minimum of 50% since 1990". Officials lay great emphasis on the fact that "all the security forces serving an anti-militancy role in the state - the army, paramilitary forces and state police - are under strict instructions against wildlife poaching". But they do not rule out stray incidents "happening and going unnoticed".
Mr Kitchloo said that the increase in wildlife was an "encouraging factor" for everyone in Kashmir. "It is an economy generator and a renewable resource," he said, "and as far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned, it can only end up attracting tourists as well."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Hollywood chimps 'given freedom' .
Mr Yost denied any wrongdoing. He said he would miss the chimps. A pair of chimps who appeared on a number of Hollywood film and TV shows, are being retired following allegations of animal cruelty. The Animal Legal Defense Fund and other groups sued trainer Sid Yost last year in a US federal court, accusing him of beating the chimps with sticks.
Mr Yost did not acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement, which saw the chimps leave California. A spokeswoman for the Animal Legal Defense Fund said they were "thrilled". "They're not going to be forced to perform unwillingly anymore," said Lisa Franzetta. "This is such a happy day to see these chimpanzees being retired."
The Animal Legal Defense Fund was set up by a group of primatologists, lawyers, scientists and actors who have started a campaign called No Reel Apes - to call for an end to the use of primates in entertainment.
The group accused Mr Yost of using an electric shock stick on the chimps and punching, taunting and intimidating them.Sable, a female, and Cody, a male, have lived at Mr Yost's ranch in San Bernardino for five years with Angel, an older female, who will be shipped to Florida next week. The chimps have appeared in productions including That 70s Show and forthcoming Bruce Almighty sequel, Evan Almighty.
Mr Yost denied abusing the animals and said he would miss them. Tobin Dunlea, an animal trainer at the ranch for seven years, also denied the chimps were abused. "They love us and they trust and that's why we've done so well with them in the business," he told the Associated Press news agency.
Sable and Cody will eventually join Angel at a sanctuary in Florida.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Scientists fear Ebola and hunting combined could wipe out gorillas. More than 5,000 gorillas may have died in recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus in central Africa, a study says. Scientists warn that, coupled with the commercial hunting of gorillas, it may be enough to push them to extinction. The study, published in the US journal Science, looked at gorilla colonies in Republic of Congo and Gabon. Ebola is also blamed for many chimpanzee deaths.
One of the most virulent viruses known, Ebola has killed more than 1,000 people since it was first recorded in 1976. Ebola causes viral haemorrhagic fever - massive internal and external bleeding - which can kill up to 90% of those infected. Scientists are still working on a vaccine and there is no known cure.
The latest study, carried out by an international team, has confirmed previous concerns about how badly the virus is affecting gorillas.
EBOLA
One of the most virulent viral diseases
Damages blood vessels and can cause extensive bleeding, diarrhoea and shock
Killed more than 240 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1995
Transmitted by infected body fluids
Kills up to 90% of victims, depending on the strain
There is no cure
"Add commercial hunting to the mix, and we have a recipe for rapid ecological extinction," the report says.
"Ape species that were abundant and widely distributed a decade ago are rapidly being reduced to remnant populations." The researchers, led by Magdalena Bermejo of the University of Barcelona, focused on western gorillas, one of two gorilla species. The other is the eastern gorilla.
In 2002 and 2003, several outbreaks of Ebola flared up in human populations in Gabon and Congo. The researchers found a "massive die-off" in gorillas in Congo's Lossi Sanctuary between 2002 and 2004.
"The Lossi outbreak killed about as many gorillas as survive in the entire eastern gorilla species," the study says. The researchers concluded that the apes were not only infected by other species, such as fruit bats, but were also transmitting the virus among themselves. Ebola was passing from group to group of the endangered animals, they found, and appeared to be spreading faster than in humans.
Outbreaks of the disease in humans have sometimes been traced to the bushmeat trade. According to World Health Organization figures, Ebola killed 1,200 people between the first recorded human outbreak in 1976 and 2004.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Feline Alzheimer's found by study.
Cats are known to suffer from a form of dementia, Cats can suffer from a feline form of Alzheimer's disease, according to new research by scientists. It has long been known cats can suffer from dementia, but the study identified a key protein which can cause mental deterioration, similar to humans. The research was carried out at the universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Bristol and California.
The shorter lifespan of the cat may make it easier for scientists to uncover how the condition develops. Scientists already thought cats were susceptible to dementia because previous research identified thick, gritty plaques on the outside of the elderly animals' brain cells, similar to those found in humans.
Dr Danielle Gunn-Moore, of Edinburgh University, said: "This newly discovered protein is crucial to our understanding of the ageing process in cats. "We've known for a long time that cats develop dementia, but this study tells us that the cat's neural system is being compromised in a similar fashion to that we see in human Alzheimer's sufferers. "The gritty plaques had only hinted that might be the case - now we know. "The shorter lifespan of a cat, compared to humans, allows researchers to more rapidly assess the effects of diet, high blood pressure, and prescribed drugs on the course of the disease."
Experts suggest good diet, mental stimulation and companionship can reduce the risk of dementia in both humans and cats. The findings of the study have been published in a recent edition of the Journal of Feline Medicine.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Urban-based birds 'learn to rap' !
There are an estimated 1.7million great tit pairs in the UK. Birds living in cities are performing a type of "avian rap" while their rural counterparts are sticking to more traditional sounds, a study shows. Dutch researchers found that urban species of birds sing short, fast songs rather than the slower melodies of countryside birds.
City birds also sing at a higher pitch and will try out different song types. Experts said city birds have adapted to counter background noise and increase their chances of finding a mate. The research focused on great tits in ten major European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, and compared them to forest-dwellers.
In every comparison city birds sang a more varied array of songs, which were short and had higher minimum frequencies. Urban tits consistently experimented with between one and five note calls, while those in forests close to the cities stuck to more normal combinations of two, three and four note tunes, the research found. The study even gives the example of one Rotterdam great tit attempting a 16-note song, possibly copied from a blue tit.
The study, by a team of researchers from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, is the first to establish a Europe-wide pattern of diverging birdsong. Study leaders said birds had developed shorter, more varied, higher pitched sounds to make themselves heard above trains, aircraft and road traffic. Male birds use their song to mark their territory. If their song is not heard they may come face to face with rivals and end up having to fight them off, the experts said.
They also use song to attract mates and have had to adapt to make sure they are heard by females. The research paper, published in the journal Current Biology, said: "Our data show that the adjustment of individual great tits to local noise conditions is not a local phenomenon but occurs throughout Europe and probably in all noisy urban areas.
It went on: "Urban birds often experience very noisy conditions while singing, which may influence the efficacy of their acoustic signals. "Male birds typically sing to defend a territory and to attract mates. "If their song is not heard by the targeted audience they have to physically fight off intruders, and attracting females may be difficult."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Dinosaur nest sells for $420,000
A 65m-year-old nest of dinosaur eggs has sold to an unnamed buyer at auction in Los Angeles for $420,000 (£212,000). The nest contains 22 broken eggs, 19 of which are in embryonic form, with some of the tiny raptors clearly visible. The nest was discovered in Guangdong, southern China, in 1984 and scientists there had appealed to Bonhams not to allow the auction. A Chinese dinosaur expert quoted on state news agency Xinhua said the nest should be returned for research.
The top estimate by auction house Bonhams & Butterfields for the nest was $220,000 but it almost doubled that. The name of the buyer would not be released, the auction house said. The nest, encased in sandstone, dates to the Cretaceous-era and was sold in 2003 to an American collector, who restored it.
Xing Lida, a dinosaur expert with the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had urged Bonhams not to proceed with the auction. He said Chinese fossils were often broken up to make them easy to conceal and carry out of the country, destroying important scientific information.
Xinhua quoted a dinosaur expert at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Gerald Grellet-Tinner, as saying the nest should be housed in a museum in China.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Dutch raise animal rights to new level
By Alix Kroeger - BBC News, the Netherlands.
Marianne Thieme hopes she will inspire others across Europe. It has been a busy few weeks for Marianne Thieme. Ten days ago, she made history as one of two animal-rights candidates to win election to the Dutch parliament. They are the first animal-rights MPs anywhere in the world.
On Thursday 30 November, she and her fellow MP, Esther Ouwehand, were sworn in as MPs. Now their real work begins: to persuade the next government (which has yet to be formed) to adopt animal-friendly policies. "I miss compassion in our society," Ms Thieme says. "When I look at animals, they are innocent. We are treating them like they are things, like they are bicycles. That's not what we have to be as human beings. We have common sense and moral awareness, so we have to use that as well."
In its manifesto the Party for the Animals (PvdD) says protection for animals should not be defined by the market. It wants to abolish the biotechnology industry and promote organic agriculture instead. It calls for an end to industrial farming practices such as castration and tougher penalties for those who abuse animals, as well as an end to ritual slaughter without anaesthesia.
Ms Thieme, 34, a lawyer by training, was one of the founders of the Party for the Animals in November 2002. The party only narrowly missed winning a parliamentary seat in January 2003. Now it has made the breakthrough. The Netherlands, famously liberal, has turned to the right in recent years on questions of immigration and integration. But the PvdD's success shows that in other areas it is upholding its reputation as one of the most progressive countries in Europe. The Netherlands has once been hit by an outbreak of bird flu.
But what makes the Netherlands such an animal-friendly country? Even Britain, famously a nation of animal-lovers, has not elected any animal-rights candidates to parliament or other assemblies. The Netherlands is a small country, one of the most densely populated in the world. The pressures on its environment are plain to see. Partly as a result, there is a lot of support for, and interest in, organic farming. The market for organic food is substantial. But the Netherlands is also one of the largest producers in Europe of intensively farmed meat.
In 2003, the Netherlands was hit by an outbreak of bird flu. Thousands of birds, including pets as well as farm birds, were slaughtered. There have also been outbreaks of mad cow disease, foot-and-mouth, and most recently the cattle disease bluetongue. The Ridammerhoeve organic goat farm is in the Amsterdam woods within earshot of planes taking off from Schiphol airport. Despite this, it is the picture of a rural idyll.
Chickens scurry through the yard. Pot-bellied piglets root around in the straw. Its herd of more than 100 goats produces milk used to make cheese, butter and other products. The farm is also open to visitors, especially children. "For a lot of children, it's surprising that the milk is coming from a goat or a cow. They think milk is coming from a bottle and not from an animal," says Willem Dag, who runs the farm with his wife, Corine Riteco. The Netherlands is still showing its progressive credentials.
Both of them like the idea that the Party for Animals is now in parliament. But Ms Riteco has reservations: an animal, she says, should be protected but not treated the same as a human being. The Dutch animal-rights movement has its dark side. In 2002, an animal-rights activist murdered the populist politician Pim Fortuyn. The killer, Volkert van der Graaf, wanted to protect vulnerable groups in society, such as immigrants and Muslims. The Party for Animals is founded on a principle of non-violence. "Gandhi said that the moral progress of a civilisation can be measured by the way it treats its animals," Marianne Thieme points out.
At the NOP parrot sanctuary near Eindhoven, staff and volunteers can measure that progress daily. More than 3,800 birds are housed there. Some are handed in because the owners can no longer care for them. Others are rescued from abuse. Last Saturday, Dutch customs officials at Schiphol airport uncovered a shipment of 80 smuggled birds. More than half had died en route from Mexico. Customs brought the survivors to the NOP refuge, where they are now recovering.
"We're a small country," says the sanctuary's founder, Tonnie van Meegen. "We don't have much but we live with what we have." He thinks the Party for the Animals will be able to make a real difference. "I believe when we have a voice in the parliament, talking about what is happening with birds and animals, the other members of parliament will hear that. "When you never hear something, you don't know. But when you hear it, you give it your mind and you give it your heart."
Ms Thieme hopes the success of the Party for the Animals will encourage other similar parties across Europe. But she offers some words of advice. "They must realise they are pioneers, and that nine out of 10 won't understand what they're doing. But fortunately, a lot of people don't want to be nine out of 10 anymore."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Bite kills Malaysia 'Snake King'
By Jonathan Kent - BBC News, Kuala Lumpur
Mr Ali Khan had been bitten by cobras many times.A snake charmer who made a name for himself as Malaysia's Snake King has died after being bitten by a king cobra. Ali Khan Samsudin, 48, had entered the record books for locking himself in small spaces with hundreds of snakes or scorpions for days at a time. The old adage "once bitten twice shy" simply did not apply to Mr Ali Khan.
According to local press reports, he had his first altercation with a king cobra 27 years ago. So when, on Tuesday, one of his subjects inflicted what was just the latest of many bites, he had not been unduly worried. However, two days later, his condition worsened suddenly and his family rushed him to hospital. He died before he could receive treatment.
Ali Khan Samsudin found fame in the early 1990s when he lived for 12 hours a day for 40 days in a small room with 400 cobras. That earned him the title of Snake King. In 1997, he acquired another record - Scorpion King - after shutting himself in a box with 6,000 of the creatures for three weeks. He was reportedly bitten 99 times in his life.
He leaves two wives, five children and a protege known as the Scorpion Queen, who he trained for her own record-breaking stunt two years ago.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Template by motime.com | header image credit: Markus Gann © www.begann.de