South Africa Bans Commercial Fishing at Penguin Breeding Spots Where Food Supply Shortage Could Drive Extinction

African penguins on a Cape Coast beach – credit S Martin, CC 2.0., via FlickrFor a critically endangered species of penguin, a recent decision to remove fishing competition from its hunting and breeding grounds may prove to be the key to saving it.In the rich waters of South Africa’s cape and Atlantic coastlines, 6 key breeding colonies of the African penguin are now no-go zones for commercial sardine and anchovy harvesting, according to a recent court order.Less than 10,000 breeding pairs of this penguin survive, and conservation groups hailed the court’s decision that will protect the colony’s feeding areas for at least a decade.“This order of court is a historic victory in the ongoing battle to save the critically endangered African Penguin from extinction in the wild,” said BirdLife South Africa, one of the groups that had called for the protection.The protected areas include Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years. Dassen Island, further up South Africa’s Atlantic coast, and the Stony Point Nature Reserve, make up two of the other 6 areas in total where penguin protections are kicking in.The court’s decision followed weeks of “exceptionally hard work and negotiations between the conservation NGOs and the commercial sardine and anchovy fishing industry,” according to SANCCOB, one of those very NGOs.“This...

Read More........→March 27, 2025

Cameroon islands offer safe home for orphaned chimps

MARIENBERG - Adolescent chimps are, in some respects, rather similar to their human counterparts.They live with mum until well into their teens, are sometimes a bit cheeky and, being highly social animals, struggle to survive alone until they have been taught how to fend for themselves.So when poachers kill mother chimps for food, keep the young chained in captivity for the exotic pet trade, or the family group is destroyed when its forest home is cleared for commercial palm oil plantations, the orphaned chimps need help.In Cameroon, the NGO Papaye International runs a sanctuary for the endangered animals on three islands in the Douala-Edea national park."The chimpanzees in the sanctuary are chimpanzees that have had a tragic past due to poaching, deforestation and groups that have been killed," said Marylin Pons Riffet, the 57-year-old French head of the charity.AFP | Daniel Beloumou Olomo"We only take in orphaned chimpanzees, who are young and therefore need the helping hand of man after having had a gun pointed at them or their habitat destroyed," she told AFP.The charity helps the orphans become re-accustomed to surviving in semi-wild conditions, but on islands away from their only predator -- the humans with whom they share 98 percent of their DNA and a good degree of behaviour.Populations of common chimpanzees, which used...

Read More........→December 31, 2024

Nigeria’s last elephants – what must be done to save them

Tajudeen Amusa, University of IlorinNigeria has a unique elephant population, made up of both forest-dwelling (Loxodonta cyclotis) and savanna-dwelling (Loxodonta africana) elephant species. But the animals are facing unprecedented threats to their survival. In about 30 years, Nigeria’s elephant population has crashed from an estimated 1,200-1,500 to an estimated 300-400 today. About 200-300 are forest elephants and 100 savanna elephants. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently classified the forest elephant as “critically endangered” and the savanna elephant as “endangered”. The country has never had herds in the multiple thousands, but its elephants have played a vital ecological role, balancing natural ecosystems. Today they live primarily in protected areas and in small forest fragments where they are increasingly isolated and vulnerable to extinction. They are found in Chad Basin National Park in Borno State and Yankari Game Reserve in Bauchi State. Also in Omo Forests Reserve in Ogun State, Okomu National Park in Edo State and Cross River National Park in Cross River State. Elephants in Nigeria are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching and illegal ivory trade, human-elephant conflict and climate change. These issues are pushing them to the brink of extinction. In August 2024...

Read More........→November 19, 2024

Egypt Has Finally Been Declared Malaria-Free After 4,000 Years of Infections—Even the Pharaohs

Cairo on the Nile – Photo by Jack Krier on UnsplashEgypt, one of the world’s 15 most populous nations, has been certified malaria-free after a ‘pharaonic’ effort that began 100 years ago.Killing nearly 600,000 people every year, almost all of whom dwell in Africa, the malarial transmission chain has been interrupted for three years in a row, proving that the Egyptian health authorities can ensure it remains a negligent public health burden.“Malaria is as old as Egyptian civilization itself, but the disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to its history,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to mark the occasion.The WHO praised “the Egyptian government and people” for their efforts to “end a disease that has been present in the country since ancient times,” and added that Egypt and her 114 million inhabitants were now the second country declared malaria-free in the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region.Malaria has been traced as far back as 4,000 BCE in Egypt, with genetic evidence of the disease found in Tutankhamun and other ancient Egyptian mummies. With most of Egypt’s population living along the banks of the Nile River, malaria prevalence has been recorded as high as 40%.The statement detailed how Egyptian health advocates first took action to combat the spread of malaria in 1923 when the government prevented agricultural...

Read More........→November 07, 2024

Namibia's drought cull of more than 700 wildlife under way

WINDHOEK - A Namibian government cull of more than 700 wildlife to cope with its worst drought in decades is under way, with nearly 160 animals already killed, the environment ministry said Tuesday.The government announced the cull last week to relieve pressure on grazing and water supplies, and to provide meat for programmes to support the thousands of people going hungry because of the drought.Carried out by professional hunters, it targets 30 hippos, 60 buffalos, 50 impalas, 83 elephants, 100 blue wildebeest, 100 elands and 300 zebras.Most of the animals are in the country's protected national parks.At least 157 of the 723 animals designated for culling have been killed so far, environment ministry spokesman Romeo Muyunda told AFP. The time it would take to complete the cull depended on various factors, he said."Our goal is to carry out this operation sustainably while minimising trauma as much as possible. We must separate those animals to be hunted from those that are not," Muyunda said.In compliance with the international ban on the sale of ivory, the tusks from the culled elephants would be stored in government warehouses."To date 157 animals comprising of different species were hunted... delivering 56,875 kilogrammes of meat," a ministry statement said.Namibia declared a state of emergency in May because of the drought,...

Read More........→October 25, 2024

The First of 2,000 Privately Owned White Rhinos Get New Home – Rewilded by South African Conservancy

3 of the 2,000 southern white rhinos auctioned Credit: Platinum RhinoAn ambitious plan to rewild 2,000 southern white rhino into secure protected areas in Africa over the next 10 years has officially begun, with 40 of these majestic beasts on their way to a new home at the Munywana Conservancy in Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.It’s the first relocation of a continent-wide effort organized by African Parks called ‘Rhino Rewild, and follows the recent acquisition of 2,000 southern white rhino that had been privately owned by a multi-millionaire who dreamed of keeping them in a preserve for the purpose of harvesting their horns to flood the illegal rhino horn trade and crash the price to disincentivize poaching.Their new home, Munywana Conservancy has a historic foundation: in 2007, over 20,000 acres of land were returned to its ancestral owners, the Makhasa and Mnqobokazi communities as part of South Africa’s land restitution process.Both communities requested that the land continue to be kept under conservation. Through this legacy, the Munywana Conservancy, now a 79,000-acre (29,866-hectare) reserve, is upheld through a collaboration of community and private landowners.“We are extremely pleased to receive these 40 rhino from African Parks, to supplement the current population of white rhino at our community conservancy,”...

Read More........→May 26, 2024

South Africa’s great white sharks are changing locations – they need to be monitored for beach safety and conservation

South Africa is renowned for having one of the world’s biggest populations of great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias). Substantial declines have been observed, however, in places where the sharks normally gather on the coast of the Western Cape province. Sharks congregate at these locations to feed, interact socially, or rest.In Cape Town, skilled “shark spotters” documented a peak of over 300 great white shark sightings across eight beaches in 2011, but have recorded no sightings since 2019. These declines have sparked concerns about the overall conservation status of the species. Conserving great white sharks is vital because they have a pivotal role in marine ecosystems. As top predators, they help maintain the health and balance of marine food webs. Their presence influences the behaviour of other marine animals, affecting the entire ecosystem’s structure and stability. Marine biologists like us needed to know whether the decline in shark numbers in the Western Cape indicated changes in the whole South African population or whether the sharks had moved to a different location. To investigate this problem, we undertook an extensive study using data collected by scientists, tour operators and shore anglers. We examined the trends over time in abundance and shifts in distribution across the sharks’ South African range....

Read More........→September 21, 2023

Asteroid claims to have destroyed dinosaurs in African seas

An asteroid from space slammed into the Earth's surface 66 million years ago, leaving a massive crater underneath the sea and wreaking havoc with the planet.No, it's not that asteroid, the one that doomed the dinosaurs to extinction, but a previously unknown crater 248 miles off the coast of West Africa that was created right around the same time. Further study of the Nadir crater, as it's called, could shake up what we know about that cataclysmic moment in natural history. Uisdean Nicholson, an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, happened on the crater by accident -- he was reviewing seismic survey data for another project on the tectonic split between South America and Africa and found evidence of the crater beneath 400 meters of seabed sediment. "While interpreting the data, I (came) across this very unusual crater-like feature, unlike anything I had ever seen before," he said. It had all the characteristics of an impact crater. To be absolutely certain the crater was caused by an asteroid strike, he said that it would be necessary to drill into the the crater and test minerals from the crater floor. But it has all the hallmarks scientists would expect: the right ratio of crater width to depth, the height of the rims, and the height of the central uplift -- a mound in the center created by rock and sediment...

Read More........→August 30, 2022

Mutated virus variant from South Africa found in UK

A new, potentially more infectious variant of the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has been found in Britain in cases linked to South Africa, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said yesterday.South Africa’s health department said last week that a new genetic mutation of the virus had been discovered and might be responsible for a recent surge in infections there.“Thanks to the impressive genomic capability of the South Africans, we’ve detected two cases of another new variant of coronavirus here in the UK,” Hancock told a media briefing.“Both are contacts of cases who have travelled from South Africa over the past few weeks.”Britain is already trying to curb the spread of a mutated strain of the virus which is up to 70% more transmissible, and further studies aerie being carried out on the new variant.“This new variant is highly concerning, because it is yet more transmissible, and it appears to have mutated further than the new variant has been discovered in the UK,” he said.Close contacts of those with the new variant and all those who have been in South Africa in the last fortnight, or were in close contact with someone who had, must quarantine, he said.Immediate restrictions were being imposed on travel from South Africa, he added.Countries around the world have in recent days closed their borders to both Britain and...

Read More........→December 24, 2020

World's second largest rainforest at risk from lifting of logging moratorium

New licences could soon be issued to logging companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), threatening to accelerate the rate of deforestation in the region. A tropical rainforest more than twice the size of France is at risk of being cut down, following news from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that the government is planning to re-open its forest to new logging companies. This comes at a time when the governments of Norway, France, Germany, the UK, and the European Union are assessing whether to support a billion-dollar plan proposed by the DRC government to protect the country's 1.55 million square kilometres of forests. A coalition of environmental and anti-corruption organisations is calling on the DRC to maintain its moratorium on the allocation of new logging licenses, which has been in place since 2002. "The large-scale logging of DRC's rainforest was and is a disaster," said Irène Betoko of Greenpeace Africa. "It not only harms the country's environment, but also fuels corruption and creates social and economic havoc. We call upon the DRC government to keep the present logging moratorium in place." Lars Løvold of the Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN): "At a time when the global community is working together to protect the world's last rainforests, a vital defence against climate change, the...

Read More........→November 14, 2016

Russia Developing Terrorist-Killer Robots

Russian experts are developing robots designed to minimize casualties in terrorist attacks and neutralize terrorists, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Friday. By Dmitry Rogozin: Robots could also help evacuate injured servicemen and civilians from the scene of a terrorist attack, said Rogozin, who oversees the defense industry. Other antiterror equipment Russia is developing includes systems that can see terrorists through obstacles and effectively engage them in a standoff mode at a long distance without injuring their hostages, he said. Rogozin did not say when the equipment might be deployed by Russia's security and intelligence services. Human Rights Watch has criticized fully autonomous weapons, known as "killer robots," which would be able to select and engage targets without human intervention and called for the preemptive prohibition on such weapons. "Fully autonomous weapons do not exist yet, but they are being developed by several countries and precursors to fully autonomous weapons have already been deployed by high-tech militaries," HRW said in a statement on its website. "Some experts predict that fully autonomous weapons could be operational in 20 to 30 years," the human rights watchdog said. Voice of Russia, RIA. Source: http://sputniknews.com...

Read More........→December 14, 2015

4 Million Year Old Menu: What Our Ancestors Ate

The diet of Australopithecus anamensis, a hominid that lived in the east of the African continent more than 4 million years ago, was very specialized and, according to a scientific study whose principal author is Ferran Estebaranz, from the Department of Animal Biology at the University of Barcelona, it included foods typical of open environments (seeds, sedges, grasses, etc.), as well as fruits and tubers.  Artist's concept for Australopithecus anamensi, Credit: Universidad de Barcelona Australopithecus anamensis (or Praeanthropus anamensis) is a stem-human species that lived approximately four million years ago. Nearly one hundred fossil specimens are known from Kenya and Ethiopia, representing over 20 individuals. Australopithecus anamensis bone fragment, Credit: University of Zurich The work, published in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences, is directed by lecturer Alejandro Pérez Pérez, from the Anthropology Unit of the Department of Animal Biology at the UB, and its co-authors are professor Daniel Turbón and experts Jordi Galbany and Laura M. Martínez. Australipithecus anamensis is a fossil hominid species described in 1995 by a team led by the researcher Meave Leakey and it is considered to be the direct ancestor of Australopithecus afarensis, known as Lucy, which lived in the same region...

Read More........→November 24, 2015

Ebola vaccine is 100% successful

The Ebola vaccine rVSV Zebov-GP being prepared for injection, Guinea. Credit: WHO An Ebola vaccine has shown 100% success in an initial trial, the World Health Organisation reports. Results from an interim analysis of the Guinea Phase III efficacy vaccine trial show that VSV-EBOV (Merck, Sharp & Dohme) is highly effective against Ebola. The independent body of international experts – the Data and Safety Monitoring Board – that conducted the review, advised that the trial should continue. Preliminary results from analyses of these interim data are published in British journal The Lancet. "This is an extremely promising development," said Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO). "The credit goes to the Guinean Government, the people living in the communities and our partners in this project. An effective vaccine will be another very important tool for both current and future Ebola outbreaks." While the vaccine up to now shows 100% efficacy in individuals, more conclusive evidence is needed on its capacity to protect populations through what is called “herd immunity”. To that end, the Guinean national regulatory authority and ethics review Team 9 of the WHO Ebola vaccine trial, at work in Katongourou, Guinea. Credit: WHO committee have approved continuation of the trial. "This is Guinea’s...

Read More........→August 08, 2015

Recipient of world’s first penis implant to be a dad

\A man who received the world’s first successful penis transplant at the end of last year is now expecting a baby, according to news reports. Surgeons announced a few months ago that the 21-year-old had “made a full recovery and regained all function”, and now we have some pretty strong evidence to back that up. The South African man who received the transplant had been forced to have his penis amputated three years ago, after a ritual circumcision went wrong. “Our goal was that he should be fully functional at two years and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery,” André van der Merwe, who led the surgery at Cape Town’s Tygerberg Hospital, told the media. The nine-hour operation used the penis from a deceased patient — but in order to get the donor’s family to agree, the doctors also had to fashion a new penis out of abdominal tissue for the cadaver to be buried with. The surgeons then had to attach the donor penis onto the recipient, and reconnect the vessels that allow proper urinary and sexual function. In South Africa, it’s estimated that around 250 young men lose their penises each year as a result of botched coming-of-age rituals. Since the first successful transplant, nine other operations are lined up. Source: The Asian Ag...

Read More........→July 12, 2015

How do Birds get their Color?

.. A Lilac-breasted Roller shows off Birds have captivated us for time eternal, not only because of their ability to fly, but also because of the color they add to our lives. Ok, let me be clear that I’m not suggesting that ALL birds are colorful. Birds like Plain Chachalacas and Grey Catbirds hardly evoke images of stunning beauty. But a vast number of species DO exhibit dazzling displays of color. And these displays are not always what they might seem. Have you ever wondered why grackles look iridescent blue in good light and black in bad light? Or why the colorful gorgets of male hummingbirds appear and then disappear without warning? This is because color in birds is not a simple thing. But rather it is a complex concoction of some very specific recipes. There are two main ingredients that are essential in the making of color. The first is pigment and the second is keratin. And the ways in which these two fundamental ingredients are added to the color cooking pot are what produces the final colors that we see. Pigments are relatively simple color makers. There are three main pigments that give feathers their colors. The first pigment is called melanin and it produces black or dark brown coloration. Melanin is also very strong and is thus often reserved for the flight feathers. White feathers...

Read More........→September 26, 2014

The Legend of Man eating tree of Madagaskar

. In 1881 a magazine called the South Australian Register ran a story by a traveler called Carle Liche. He tells us that while travelling through Madagascar, he was horrified to watch the native Mdoko tribe sacrifice a woman to a man-eating tree. He stated that the , a young girls is forced to drink the liquid from the tree. Then she is compelled to get up into the middle of the tree. The leaves raise slowly and completely hide the girl. The tree's tendrils took the woman by the neck and strangled her, before apparently engulfing the body. As her screams fade, the leaves rise until she is visible no more. Upon returning to the site ten days later, Liche finds nothing but a grinning skull within the plants’ now-lowered leaves. The story of the Man-Eating Tree of Madagascar is one of the great tall tales of the colonial era. It first appeared in the South Australian Registar, apparently having been written by Liche himself. It was repeated in several books thereafter. In central America, reports of a similar tree called the Ya-Te-Veo appeared around 1887.In his 1924 book "Madagascar, land of the man-eating tree" former Michigan Governor Chase Osborn recounted Liche's tale, and mentioned that missionaries and locals in Madagascar all knew of the deadly tree. The tree, is described as similar to a colossal pineapple. It is about...

Read More........→September 11, 2014

Chimpanzees Are Rational, Not Conformists

Higher rewards himpanzees are sensitive to social influences but they maintain their own strategy to solve a problem rather than conform to what the majority of group members are doing. However, chimpanzees do change their strategy when they can obtain greater rewards, MPI researchers found. The study was published in PLOS ONE on November 28, 2013. Chimpanzees are known for their curious nature. They show a rich palette of learning behaviour, both individually and socially. But they are also rather  hesitant  to abandon their personal preferences, even when that familiar behaviour becomes extremely ineffective. Under which circumstances would chimpanzees flexibly adjust their behaviour? Edwin van Leeuwen and colleagues from the MPI's for Psycholinguistics and Evolutionary Anthropology conducted a series of experiments in Germany and Zambia to answer this question. Wooden balls for peanuts The researchers studied 16 captive chimpanzees at the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center in Germany (Leipzig) and 12 semi-wild chimpanzees at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage Trust, a sanctuary that houses more than a hundred chimpanzees under nearly natural conditions in the north-western part of Zambia. Chimpanzees were trained on two different vending machines. A minority of the group was made familiar with one machine...

Read More........→December 23, 2013

World's Amazing Talking Birds

some people want a pet that they can exercise and play with, and some people want a pet that will help keep them warm at night. Still other people want a companion -- an animal that will be an unquestioning, faithful friend through thick and thin. That's all good for them, but there are those of us who want a companion that we can talk to. We want a voice at the end of a long work day welcoming us home with, "Hello, darling, how was your day?" For people who wish to have that type of companion in the form of an animal, a talking bird fits the bill very nicely. However, not just any talking bird will do. Some birds speak quietly, while others will scream at the top of their lungs. The type of bird one chooses must be paired suitably with the environment in which one lives. That is, house or apartment, metropolitan or suburban. At any time of day. But, perhaps you live in the countryside and the only audio comfort that needs to be taken into consideration is your own. In that case, you will need to decide how much noise you can handle through the day. All talking birds are great fun to have as companions, but some are better at verbalizing and enunciating their words than others. Some species have better memory than others and are able to store hundreds, even thousands of words into their little bird brains. Then there are...

Read More........→November 30, 2013