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.
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Reptile shock for Rio drug police !
By Gary Duffy - BBC News, Sao Paulo.
Brazilian police say they have seized two caimans - small alligator-like reptiles - during an operation against drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro.
They were looking for the leader of a drugs gang in one of Rio's shanty towns - known as favelas - when they came across the caimans in a backyard. The police say drug gangs use the animals to intimidate opponents and get rid of bodies. The reptiles have now been handed over to a local zoo.
A senior officer told the newspaper O Globo that caimans were a symbol of power for traffickers, who would kill their rivals and then give the bodies to the animals.
Drug gangs in the city of Rio de Janeiro are known for their often brutal methods, but the police seem to believe their tactics for spreading fear are more unorthodox than previously thought. Television images showed police officers carefully placing the caimans in the back of a truck.
One was almost 2m (6.5ft) long, although the other appeared to be much smaller. The police say as well as finding the animals, they arrested three people and seized several guns and a small quantity of drugs.
The two caimans were found in a house belonging to the mother-in-law of an alleged drug dealer.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Elephant cured of drug addiction !
Asian elephants are considered an endangered species.
An Asian elephant that became addicted to heroin after being fed bananas spiked with the drug is to return home after undergoing a detox programme.
The four-year-old animal, called Xiguang, received methadone injections for a year at five times the human dosage, state media said. It was illegally captured by traders in 2005 in south-west China.
When police arrested the traders and freed the elephant, it was found to be suffering from withdrawal symptoms.
The elephant's eyes kept streaming and he made continuous trumpeting noises, the Beijing News newspaper's website reported. It is thought that the traders fed the elephant bananas laced with heroin to capture and control it.
Xiguang was sent to a wild animal protection centre on Hainan island in south-west China for rehab, the official Xinhua new agency said He is expected to arrive at a wildlife park in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, on Saturday.
The Asian elephant is an endangered species, with only 25,600-32,750 left in the wild, according to the WWF conservation group.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Wolves prefer fishing to hunting !
Wolves in western Canada prefer to fish for salmon when it is in season rather than hunt deer or other wild game, researchers have found.
Scientists studied the eating habits of wolf packs in British Columbia. Deer is the staple food of the wolves in the spring and summer but they often injure themselves hunting them.
When Pacific salmon return to the region's rivers to spawn in the autumn, the wolves prefer the taste of the more nutritious and easier to catch fish.
The researchers studied the droppings and hair of eight wolf groups over four years to discover what they ate. They had expected the wolves to switch to salmon only if deer were in short supply but this was not the case.
"Selecting benign prey such as salmon makes sense from a safety point of view," wrote Dr Chris Darimont, from the University of Victoria, BC, and his colleagues in the journal BMC Ecology.
"While hunting deer, wolves commonly incur serious and often fatal injuries," the researchers said, adding that salmon fishing is much less time consuming than tracking deer in the forest.
"In addition to safety benefits, we determined that salmon also provides enhanced nutrition over deer, especially in fat and energy."
BBC NEWS REPORT.
'Loose lion' turns out to be dog !
Callers reported seeing a lion in north Belfast. A police operation launched following reports that a lion was loose in north Belfast has been called off after the animal turned out to be a stray dog.
A police helicopter had been used to search the area on Sunday night after officers received a number of reports.
Witnesses had said they had seen a sandy-coloured lion or large non-domestic animal in the Upper Hightown end of Cavehill Park.
Belfast Zoo had earlier confirmed that all of its animals were accounted for.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Dog to sniff out threatened bees !
Researchers studying the decline of the bumblebee have trained a dog to sniff out the insects in the wild.
Toby, a three-year-old Springer spaniel, can find the bees' nests, hidden in dense undergrowth or in the ground, using only his nose.
Experts at the University of Stirling said that studying the threatened bees is made much harder because of the difficulty in tracking them down.
The three-year project involving Toby is the first of its kind. Prof Dave Goulson, who will oversee the work of Toby, said that his involvement would give a huge boost to conservation efforts.
He said that of the UK's 25 variety of bumblebee, three had become extinct and several others were in danger of going the same way because researchers knew very little about how they lived and what was destroying them. Prof Goulson said: "The real obstacle to studying bumblebees is that we can't find the nests. "They have only about 50 workers and maybe 100 in the bumblebee nest so there isn't a lot of traffic going in and out. You can imagine that occasionally seeing a bee flying out of a clump of grass is pretty hard to spot."
Toby's nasal talents were honed at the army dog-training school at Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire where dogs are trained to sniff out explosives. He was taken to the centre after being found abandoned in Birmingham as a pup. The plan to use Toby was inspired by research which found that badgers hunt bee nests for food using their sense of smell.
The project is being funded by a £111,956 grant from the Leverhulme Trust. Toby and handler Steph O'Connor are sponsored by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, a charity set up in 2006 to halt the insect's decline.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Argentine dog saves abandoned baby !
By Daniel Schweimler - BBC News, Buenos Aires.
An eight-year-old dog has touched the hearts of Argentines by saving the life of an abandoned baby, placing him safely alongside her own new puppies.
The country's media are calling him "the miracle baby". He was born prematurely to a 14-year-old girl in a shanty town outside the capital, Buenos Aires. She is said to have panicked and abandoned the boy in a field, surrounded by wooden boxes and rubbish.
Then along came La China, reports say, the dog which somehow picked up the baby and carried him 50m to place him alongside her own puppies.
The dog's owner reported hearing the child crying and finding him covered with a rag.
The baby, weighing 4kg (8lb 13oz), had some slight injuries, but no bite marks.
The owner called the police and the child is now being looked after by the authorities, while a decision is taken about his future.
The frightened mother appeared shortly after her baby was found.
The Argentine media has descended on the shanty town, talking of "the Argentine Romulus and Remus", the legendary founders of Rome, abandoned as babies and rescued by a wolf, nearly 3,000 years ago.
La China, worried about her own puppies, is reported to be petrified by her new found fame, and her owner says he is worried that she is not eating.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Wind farms put pressure on bats !
By Richard Black - Environment correspondent, BBC News website.
Bats are at risk from wind turbines, researchers have found, because the rotating blades produce a change in air pressure that can kill the mammals.
Canadian scientists examined bats found dead at a wind farm, and concluded that most had internal injuries consistent with sudden loss of air pressure.
Bats use echo-location to avoid hitting the blades but cannot detect the sharp pressure changes around the turbine. The scientists say wind farms are more of an issue for bats than for birds. "An atmospheric pressure drop at wind turbine blades is an undetectable - and potentially unforseeable - hazard for bats, thus partially explaining the large number of bat fatalities at these specific structures," said Erin Baerwald, who led the research team at the University of Calgary.
Bat deaths around wind farms have been widely documented across Europe and North America. Two years ago, EU nations formally agreed to make developers aware of the risks, and find ways of monitoring bat migration routes.
Earlier this year, a bid to build a wind farm near Bideford in north Devon was turned down because of the potential impact on the mammals.
Research is underway to find ways of scaring bats from wind farms.
But among all this, understanding of how turbines affect bats has been lacking. The Calgary team collected carcasses of hoary and silver-haired bats killed at a wind farm in south-western Alberta.
Examinations showed that fewer than half had external injuries that could have been caused by collision. But about 90% had internal haemorrhaging, most notably in the chest cavity, a condition that puts pressure on the lung and can be fatal.
The idea is that the pressure around a rotating turbine blade is lower than in the surrounding air. A bat flying into the low-pressure zone finds its lungs suddenly expanding, bursting capillaries in the surrounding tissue which then becomes flooded with blood. Birds, which have more rigid and robust lungs, do not undergo the same trauma from a sudden drop in pressure.
"Given that bats are far more susceptible to barotrauma than birds, and that bat fatalities at wind turbines far outnumber bird fatalities at most sites, wildlife fatalities at wind turbines are now a bat issue, not a bird issue," said Ms Baerwald.
Some research groups are investigating ways to keep bats away from wind farms, and a University of Aberdeen group recently suggested radar emissions might act as a "bat-scarer".
The new research is reported in the journal Current Biology.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
BBCNEWS REPORT.
'No alternative' to squirrel cull !
A rapid response service is being set up to help trap and kill grey squirrels across southern Scotland. It is part of the Red Squirrels in South Scotland (RSSS) project to try to control grey squirrel numbers and stop the spread of the squirrel pox virus. Landowners and wildlife and forestry agencies will work to create a "buffer zone" against the disease.
Environment Minister Mike Russell said the humane destruction of grey squirrels was "absolutely necessary". The scheme will cover Dumfries and Galloway, the Borders, East and South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire.
Mr Russell launched the project at Drumlanrig Castle on the Queensberry Estate near Dumfries, where three cases of squirrel pox were confirmed earlier this year. The disease can be carried by grey squirrels without harming them but is deadly for their red counterparts.
KEY TARGETS FOR THE RED SQUIRRELS PROJECT
Identify main entry points of grey squirrels into the region
Create a "control network" across southern Scotland
Operate a trap loan scheme
Provide a quick response service to deal with squirrel "dispatch"
Expand and intensify squirrel pox monitoring
The environment minister said it was time to take action as there was "only a short time to save the red squirrel from the brink of extinction". "The red squirrel is one of our most beautiful and valuable native species and Scotland is one of the few sanctuaries it has left," said Mr Russell.
"Since its arrival in the British Isles, the grey squirrel has gradually taken over with its more aggressive feeding habits, meaning that its red cousin is now endangered. "To make matters worse, a new threat is heading north in the form of squirrel pox, lethal to the red squirrel and almost endemic in the grey population."
He said the RSSS project would aim to "stop squirrel pox in its tracks". "Humane destruction of grey squirrels is absolutely necessary to make the project's aim a reality," he said. "There is simply no alternative."
RSSS chairman Andy Wiseman said the scheme needed the assistance of everyone in the area. "The success of this project will depend very much on our ability to create a disease-free barrier across south Scotland's woodlands," he said. "We are going to need the help of land owners to assist our team of experienced controllers with trapping efforts, and the general public to report grey squirrel sightings to our team."
Not all organisations agree with the practice of catching and killing grey squirrels. Advocates for Animals has described the current situation as a "problem of man's making" and called for a more "ethical and practical long-term solution".
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Rottweiler fights dog to save boy !
A South African Rottweiler has helped rescue a two-year-old boy who was being mauled by a pit bull terrier.
The pit bull attacked Tshepang Taeli as he was walking with his grandmother in Oakdene, south of Johannesburg.
The dog was dragging the toddler down the road and would not let go, despite being kicked and beaten by residents.
One of the neighbours, Ricky Veludo, came to help and then went to fetch his dog, Blade. "He fought the other dog to free the child," he told a local paper. "Blade is very protective," Mr Veludo told Die Beeld newspaper.
The boy was then rushed to hospital where he is recovering from bites to his face, legs and stomach.
"I have never felt so much pain in my life. The dog was attacking him and I was trying to release him and I could not," the boy's grandmother told The Star newspaper.
Police have opened an investigation into the attack.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Cattle shown to align north-south.
By Elizabeth Mitchell - Science reporter, BBC News.
Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?
Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction.
Wild deer also display this behaviour - a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years.
In the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the Earth's magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals.
The Earth can be viewed as a huge magnet, with magnetic north and south situated close to the geographical poles.
Many species - including birds and salmon - are known to use the Earth's magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural GPS.
A few studies have shown that some mammals - including bats - also use a "magnetic compass" to help their sense of direction.
Dr Sabine Begall, from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, has mainly studied the magnetic sense of mole rats - African animals that live in underground tunnels. "We were wondering if larger animals also have this magnetic sense," she told BBC News. Dr Begall and colleagues first decided to study the natural behaviour of domestic cattle.
The researchers surveyed Google Earth images of 8,510 grazing and resting cattle in 308 pasture plains across the globe. "Sometimes it took hours and hours to find some pictures with good resolution," said Dr Begall.
The scientists were unable to distinguish between the head and rear of the cattle, but could tell that the animals tended to face either north or south. Their study ruled out the possibility that the Sun position or wind direction were major influences on the orientation of the cattle.
Dr Begall said: "In Africa and South America, the cattle (were) shifted slightly to a more north-eastern-south-western direction. "But it is known that the Earth's magnetic field is much weaker there," she explained.
The researchers also recorded the body positions of 2,974 wild deer in 277 locations across the Czech Republic. Their fieldwork revealed that the majority of grazing and resting deer face northward. About one-third of the deer faced southward. "That might be some kind of anti-predatory behaviour," speculated Dr Begall.
Willy Miller - a Scottish cattle farmer - remarked: "I've never noticed that my cows all face the same way."
Cows are social animals: "[They] all sit down before it rains [and] huddle together in a circle formation during blizzards. But from a cow's point of view, that's just sensible," he told BBC News.
Professor John Phillips, a sensory biologist from Virginia Tech University, US, commented that this sixth magnetic sense might be "virtually ubiquitous in the animal kingdom". He added: "We need to think about some really fundamental things that this sensory ability provides in animals."
The challenge remains for scientists to explain how the animals behave in this way - and if Scottish cattle are the exception to the rule!
BBC NEWS REPORT.
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