Dear Kitty. Some blog

This video shows a green turtle, swimming near Tahiti.

From Associated Press:

Indonesia rejects Bali plan for turtle sacrifices

November 27, 2009 By NINIEK KARMINI , Associated Press Writer

Indonesia has rejected a push by the resort island of Bali for rare turtles to be legally slain in Hindu ceremonies, siding with conservationists of the protected reptiles against religious advocates, an official said Friday.

Bali Governor I Made Mangku Pastika enraged environmentalists by advocating a quota of 1,000 green turtles be killed each year, strictly for ceremonial purposes.

He said legally killed turtles should not end up in cooking pots, served to tourists in restaurants as soup or turtle skewers as they had in the past.

“It would be supervised tightly, and any violation would have to punished,” Pastika told reporters in Denpasar, Bali, on Wednesday.

Turtle meat is a traditional delicacy in Bali, the only province with a Hindu majority in Indonesia’s Muslim-dominated archipelago. But Indonesia banned the turtle trade and consumption a decade ago amid international concerns about the endangered species’ dwindling numbers and threats by animal welfare groups of a tourist boycott of Bali.

Masyud, a spokesman for the Forestry Ministry which is also responsible for animal conservation, said Friday the governor’s request for a Bali exemption from national protection laws was recently rejected on scientific advice.

“The law clearly mandates it was not possible, that the green turtles are included in the animals listed for protection,” said Masyud, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.

Tens of thousands of green turtles nest on Indonesia’s coasts, but sites have dwindled because of poaching and development.

Conservationist generally respect the Hindus’ need for turtles in rituals, but railed against the number proposed.

Wayan Geria, coordinator of the Turtle Education and Conservation Center at Bali, described the quota plan as an embarrassment to protection efforts.

Creusa Hitipeuw, coordinator of the Indonesia turtle program of the World Wildlife Fund, said introducing such a high quota could trigger large-scale illegal trade and consumption.

“We recognize the need for the use of turtles in a ceremony, but it has to be managed well,” she said. “What we are afraid of is the commercial trade. It’s a death trap for this kind of population.”

Bali Hindu Faith Council head Ngurah Sudiana called for Jakarta to approve a smaller quota.

“The central government should understand the need for green turtles as part of traditional ceremonies because it relates to our faith,” Sudiana said. “Prohibiting it will hurt Balinese people.”

Up to five turtles are needed for sacrifice at each of the 100 to 150 large ceremonies a year in Hindu temples around Bali, he said.

Turtles were traditionally decapitated. But since they became protected in 1999, ceremonies in many temples have changed with turtles being symbolically sacrificed through their release to the sea alive.

This video says about itself:

Video clip of “Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience”. U.S tour 11-11-09.

It showcases three Utahraptors as they feed on the corpse of a fellow, unnamed, dinosaur.

The Uhtaraptors (meaning Utah thief), according to the information on their website http://www.dinosaurlive.com, are 6m (19.5 ft) in size … the largest known member of the theropod dinosaur family Dromaeosauridae.

By Jennifer Viegas in the USA:

9-Year-Old Girl Finds Bone at Maryland Dinosaur Park

Wed Nov 25, 2009 09:55 AM ET

“Dinosaur Park” in Prince Georges County, Maryland, has only been open for two weekends, but it’s already led to a probable noteworthy find.

The paleontologist in this case wasn’t a professor with multiple degrees, but rather a 9-year-old girl who happened upon a small bone that experts believe belonged to a Cretaceous era raptor.

The bone measures just about 1/2 inch long. Experts at the park think it was likely a vertebra from a raptor’s tail. The bone is now on its way to the Smithsonian, where it will undergo further examination.

According to media reports, Gabrielle Block, the fourth-grader who unearthed the bone, was with her budding paleontologist sister, Rachel, and parents. They were sifting through dirt and debris left behind by a recent rain storm when she spotted the fossil. She showed it to her mother, Karin Block, who thought she could see little holes in it, where the marrow might have been.

If the bone is verified, it probably dates to 110 million years ago, when this part of Maryland enjoyed a tropical or sub-tropical climate. Dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles and fish all flourished under the balmy conditions.

Maryland’s Dinosaur Park sits within a 41-acre property. It’s open from noon to 4 PM the first and third Saturdays of each month. For more information about the park, please call 301-627-7755, TTY 301-446-3402.

From Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands:

In 2004, in Rotterdam Zoo for the first time a baby Gila monster hatched: a Dutch first. Ever since, the adult Gila monsters regularly produce youngsters. This year, again four were born. The little monsters are about 10 centimeter, and differ from their parents by their reddish colour.

From National Geographic:

November 24, 2009—On the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, get a Galápagos tortoise’s-eye view via a National Geographic Crittercam—a first.

From the University of York in England:

New chameleon species discovered in East Africa

A new species of chameleon has been discovered in Tanzania by a team of scientists.

Dr Andrew Marshall, from the Environment Department at the University of York, first spotted the animal while surveying monkeys in the Magombera Forest when he disturbed a twig snake eating one.

The specimen was collected, tested and compared to two others found by scientists in the same area and has now been named Kinyongia magomberae (the Magombera chameleon) in research published in the African Journal of Herpetology.

Dr Marshall is co-author of the study alongside researchers from the Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali, the South African National Biodiversity Institute, Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Stellenbosch.

He said: “Discovering a new species is a rare event so to be involved in the identification and naming of this animal is very exciting.

“Chameleon species tend to be focused in small areas and, unfortunately, the habitat this one depends on, the Magombera Forest, is under threat. Hopefully this discovery will support efforts to provide this area and others like it with greater protection.”

Dr Marshall, who is also Director of Conservation Science at the Flamingo Land theme park and zoo, is leading a research project investigating changes in the Magombera Forest. The forest is an important resource for people in the area and home to wildlife, including endangered red colobus monkeys.

The project combines research into the biology of the forest with education for local people on how to manage it in a more sustainable way. The ultimate aim is to develop protected status for the forest and find alternative ways of meeting the needs of local communities.

In the audio file here, Dr Andrew Marshall, from the Environment Department at the University of York, discusses the discovery of Kinyongia magomberae and his wider work in Tanzania.

See also here.

This video from Britain is called Common birds, Northampton January 27th 2008, RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.

From Wildlife Extra:

13,400 species on RSPB reserves – Less than 3% are birds

18/11/2009 10:34:25

RSPB reserves not just for birds, says new report.

November 2009. Less than three per cent of the species recorded on RSPB reserves are birds, according to a new report.

For the first time the RSPB’s annual report on its 200 reserves across the UK has collated records of all species together - and come up with some surprising results. Of the 13,400 species recorded on our reserves, more than half are insects, almost a quarter are fungi and 12 per cent are plants.

140,000 hectares

RSPB reserves cover 140,000 hectares across the UK - just 0.6% of the area of Britain - yet this land features 68% of Britain’s native plant species, 78% of its spiders, and all of its resident reptiles and dragonflies. …

Nationally important fungi sites - New species?

Gurney added “The RSPB’s woodland reserves are great places to go to discover fascinating fungi, and now is the perfect time of year to do it. Our reserves at Abernethy in Inverness-shire and Tudeley Woods in Kent are nationally important sites for the rare tooth fungi. Surveys there have already revealed two species new to Britain and experts believe another species may prove to be entirely new to science.

“And while our reserve at Minsmere in Suffolk is a mecca for birdwatchers, mycologists have found over 1,500 species of fungi there, including the endangered bearded tooth fungus. We are grateful to all the dedicated enthusiasts like these, who have helped us record wildlife on our reserves.”

41 mammal species, 500+ spiders

The 3,136 recorded fungus species on RSPB reserves are only 21% of the total number of known UK fungi. However our reserves do have 75% of Britain’s vascular plant species (1,137), 77% of grasshopper and cricket species (23), 78% of spider species (505) and 93% of land mammal species (41). All the native British species of cockroaches (3), earwigs (4), dragonflies (45), lampreys and hagfish (3), and terrestrial reptiles (6) can be found on RSPB reserves.

From mongabay.com:

Extinct goat was “similar to crocodiles”

Jeremy Hance

November 16, 2009

It sounds like something out of Greek mythology: a half-goat, half-reptilian creature. But researchers have discovered that an extinct species of goat, the Balearic Island cave goat or Myotragus balearicus, survived in nutrient-poor Mediterranean islands by evolving reptilian-specific characteristics. The goat, much like crocodiles, was able to grow at flexible rates, stopping growth entirely when food was scant.

This adaptation—never before seen in a mammal—allowed the species to survive for five million years before being driven to extinction only 3,000 years ago, likely by human hunters.

Islands, especially nutrient-poor islands, are usually home to reptiles. Mammals are endotherms, meaning that they have steady and high growth rates, and therefore require rich environments to sustain them. However reptiles, ectotherms, grow slowly and are able to change their growth rates when resources fluctuate, making them perfectly adaptable to resource-poor islands, like the Balearic islands of Spain. So, given the environmental conditions of these islands, how did a species of goat thrive there for millions of years?

This question led researchers Meike Kohler and Salvador Moya-Sola from the Catalan Institute of Paleontology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona to analyze the fossil bones of the Balearic Island cave goat. What they found was nothing short of shocking.

“The bone microstructure indicates that Myotragus grew unlike any other mammal but similar to crocodiles at slow and flexible rates, ceased growth periodically, and attained [physical] maturity extremely late by 12 years,” Kohler and Moya-Sola write in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

While the Balearic Island cave goat is the world’s first mammal known to have adapted reptilian growth strategies, Kohler and Moya-Sola believe there were probably others. The Balearic Island cave goat was a dwarf species: standing only 50 centimeters (19.5 inches) at the shoulder, smaller than a medium-size dog. Only a few thousands years ago, Mediterranean islands were also home to a variety of dwarf mammals, including elephants, hippos, and deer. Kohler and Moya-Sola hypothesize that these other dwarf mammals must have evolved traits similar to the Balearic Island cave goat—and reptiles—in order to survive in low nutrient environments.

Yet, as Kohler and Moya-Sola write it was likely these same traits that led to the species’ downfall.

“The reptile-like physiological and life history traits found in Myotragus were certainly crucial to their survival on a small island for the amazing period of 5.2 million years, more than twice the average persistence of continental species. […] However, precisely because of these traits (very tiny and immature neonates, low growth rate, decreased aerobic capacities, and reduced behavioral traits), Myotragus did not survive the arrival of a major predator, Homo sapiens, some 3,000 years ago,” they write.

This is a video about leatherback turtles.

From mongabay.com:

Costa Rica proposes to downgrade Las Baulas National Park, threatening leatherback sea turtles

Jeremy Hance

November 11, 2009

Costa Rica is considered by many to be a shining example of environmental stewardship, preserving both its terrestrial and marine biodiversity while benefiting from being a popular tourist location. However, a new move by the Costa Rican government has placed their reputation in question.

In May of this year the President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, presented a law to the legislature that would downgrade Las Baulas from a National Park to a ‘mixed property wildlife refuge’. The downgrading would authorize a number of development projects that conservationists say would threaten the park’s starring resident: the leatherback turtle. The world’s largest sea turtle, the leatherback, is classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List, and Las Baulas National Park is considered a vital nesting ground for the Pacific population.

“This new law introduced by President Arias will be the death of the Costa Rican National Park System and the protection it provides to your environmental national treasures. The world has looked-up to Costa Rica as an example of how to shape an ecotouristic economy; yet this action by the Arias administration will open Pandora’s box to the elimination and attacks on all the other national parks,” marine biologist Frank Paladino of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne stated in a letter.

From AFP news agency:

Australian dam project shelved to save fish, turtles

Thursday, November 12

SYDNEY - – Australia on Wednesday rejected plans to build a massive new dam, despite pleas it is needed to provide water to residents, because of its feared impact on endangered fish and turtles.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the 1.8 billion dollar (1.7 billion US) Traveston Crossing Dam, in Queensland state, would have had an irreversible impact on Australian Lungfish, the Mary River Turtle and Mary River Cod.

“It is clear to me that the Traveston Dam cannot go ahead without unacceptable impacts on matters of national environmental significance,” Garrett told reporters.

“The area that would be flooded by this proposal is a critical habitat for populations of these species.”

A huge community campaign in opposition to the construction of a new dam on the Mary River, north of Brisbane, ended last week with a victory for people power: here.

This video is about the New Zealand forest gecko - Hoplodactylus granulatus.

From Biology Letters:

Miocene skinks and geckos reveal long-term conservatism of New Zealand’s lizard fauna

…

Abstract

The New Zealand (NZ) lizard fossil record is currently limited to late Quaternary remains of modern taxa. The St Bathans Fauna (early Miocene, southern South Island) extends this record to 19–16 million years ago (Myr ago). Skull and postcranial elements are similar to extant Oligosoma (Lygosominae) skinks and Hoplodactylus (Diplodactylinae) geckos.

There is no evidence of other squamate groups.

These fossils, along with coeval sphenodontines, demonstrate a long conservative history for the NZ lepidosaurian fauna, provide new molecular clock calibrations and contradict inferences of a very recent (less than 8 Myr ago) arrival of skinks in NZ.

Reptile survey in Vietnam national park: here.

New Zealand was a friend to Middle Earth, but it’s no friend of the earth: here.