Best of our wild blogs: 5 Oct 08

The Life History of the Little Maplet
on the Butterflies of Singapore blog

Blue-throated Bee-eaters and dragonflies
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Morning at Kranji Trail
on the colourful clouds blog

Walk at Central Nature Reserve
on the urban forest blog

Butterfly squirting
a video clip on the urban forest blog

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Phase 2 of Admiralty Park opens to public

Dominique Loh, Channel NewsAsia 4 Oct 08;

SINGAPORE: Woodlands residents can look forward to a closer experience with nature, with the opening of Phase Two of Admiralty Park - a 20-hectare nature area.

Home to more than 100 species of animals and plants, the nature area at the Admiralty Park is the biggest nature area within a park in Singapore.

Mr Khaw Boon Wan, Minister for Health and Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC, officiated at the event on Saturday morning together with fellow MPs Mr K. Shanmugam, Dr Lim Wee Kiak and Ms Ellen Lee.

At 27 hectares, Admiralty Park is the largest park in the Northwest district to offer both recreational amenities and a mangrove swamp. It has a hilly terrain, shaped like a river valley to reflect the history of the site, which used to have a river (Sungei Cina) running through it.

Phase One, comprising seven hectares of recreational space, was officially opened in October last year.

Construction works for Phase Two started in September 2007 and took about nine
months to complete. With Phase Two completed, the park now has three boardwalks and a 2-kilometre trail the public can explore.

The park is unique because of the variety of mangrove plants, such as the Nipah Palm from which "attap chee", an ingredient found in local desserts, can be harvested.

Mr Khaw, who joined nearly 1,200 residents on the morning trail, said kids who have grown up in built-up housing estates can learn much from the park.

He said: "For us, growing up in a kampong, we can relate to all these, but the next generation growing up in HDB (flats), they may not appreciate all these attap trees, seeds, lalang, birds, and mangrove swamps."

The park will be a great asset for the residents living nearby, he added.

Just like the vegetation and natural elements have a symbiotic relationship with each other, the park itself has a relationship with its neighbours. In this case, it is the Republic Polytechnic.

The school is experimenting with using waste wood from the park to lower the amount of electricity air-conditioners consume. The wood rot helps a drying agent to absorb humidity from the environment, which helps the cooling process.

Dr Wong Luh Cheng from the Republic Polytechnic's School of Applied Science said: "We came across this de-gasification process in which we can extract energy from the plant without creating smoke and other pollutants and it's clean burning. We will take this heat, and we dehumidify the air through a mechanism that we devised."

The park will also be a live classroom for the polytechnic students. More than 30 Republic Polytechnic students and staff have also been trained to give guided tours of the park.

- CNA/ir

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Japan wins battle to stop whale sanctuary

Richard Lloyd Parry, The Independent 5 Oct 00;

After days of emotional and frequently acrimonious debate, Japan and Norway won their struggle yesterday to prevent the creation of a huge sanctuary for whales in the South Pacific.

After days of emotional and frequently acrimonious debate, Japan and Norway won their struggle yesterday to prevent the creation of a huge sanctuary for whales in the South Pacific.

The proposal, supported by Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, failed to win the three-quarters of votes needed at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Adelaide.

Japanese officials were triumphant over the defeat of a measure that would have further restricted their ability to bypass the 14-year old moratorium on commercial whaling. But Robert Hill, the Australian environment minister who proposed the whale sanctuary, said the anti-whaling lobby would not give up. "The South Pacific wants this sanctuary and we will ensure the South Pacific gets it."

The moratorium on commercial whaling was agreed by the IWC in 1986, after several species were driven close to extinction. But Japan and Norway continue to kill hundreds of whales, illegally, and under a loophole in the IWC moratorium enabling whaling for "scientific research".

Supporters of the defeated measure say whale sanctuaries in the Indian Ocean and in the Antarctic Southern Ocean feeding grounds should be extended to the breeding grounds in the Pacific.

Japan and Norway says the threat of extinction has passed and opposition to whaling is based on sentimentalism. "If Japan has sustainable resources of whales, then why must its right to use that resource be taken away just because people think whales are cute?" asked an official with the ministry of agriculture and fisheries in Tokyo.

But the IWC's scientific committee said the real number of minke whales in the southern hemisphere could be "appreciably lower" than the estimate of 760,000. Eighteen of the 35 IWC members eligible to vote supported the proposal for a sanctuary, 11 opposed it and six abstained or failed to vote.

Japan was supported by Dominica, Guinea and the Caribbean states of Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent, countries with no whaling traditions who get substantial foreign aid from Tokyo. Patrick Ramage of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said: "This wasn't a vote, it was an auction, and Japan was the winning bidder."

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Beaches once thick with birds quiet thanks to Hurricane Ike

Michael Graczyk, Associated Press Yahoo News 4 Oct 08;

One of North America's renowned bird migration and bird watching areas is strangely silent.

Blame Hurricane Ike.

"We had red-winged blackbirds, sparrows, a bunch of migrating birds," recalled Ernest Stone, 75, leaning on his cane and surveying debris on the cratered moonscape that used to be the family beach house on Bolivar Peninsula.

"I haven't seen a pigeon in a while," he said. "Seagulls. You could always go out and throw a piece of bread and the seagulls would come."

Not now.

"Nothing," his wife, Jimmie, said. "Zero."

The same could be said for their home and beachfront community of Gilchrist, where little is standing three weeks after Ike roared ashore with 110 mph winds, a 12-foot storm surge and waves up to 26 feet. The few palm trees or patches of grass, nearly unrecognizable amid the shells and dried mud, have turned a lifeless yellow brown, killed by sea water.

For people surrounded by devastation with months of rebuilding ahead of them, the birds represent yet another piece of normalcy lost.

"Pelicans and seagulls," Veronica Felty, 46, said, looking out over the gulf waters that wiped out her place. "Birds — 40 to 50 in a row — flying. They were endless. They were beautiful. Pelicans so thick...

"You wonder if they knew to leave."

Bolivar Peninsula is part of what's known as the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail, with nearby High Island a prime bird watching spot and traditional rest stop for migrating birds heading north in the spring and south in the fall.

High Island, at 32 feet over sea level, is the highest spot on the gulf coastline for 700 miles between Mobile Bay, Ala., and the Rio Grande, and attracts thousands of bird-watchers a year.

"Now is when birds would normally be stopping at High Island to top off with bugs before heading south," said Ian Tizard, director of the Schubot Exotic Bird Health Center at Texas A&M University. "High Island has been stripped of leaves, and a lot of the trees are dying."

While the loss is tough for bird watchers, Tizard said it might not be so bad for many of the birds: "From a migrating bird's point of view, it's probably not a big deal to fly a few miles on until they find a batch of trees that looks better."

Tizard said he believes things will get better in the spring.

Just like humans, the birds need three basics that Ike took away: cover, food and water.

"There's no fresh water," said Texas Parks & Wildlife biologist Cliff Shackleford, who said a good rain would ease the peninsula's woes. "That surge killed everything and dumped salt water into everything, probably for miles.

"It doesn't mean they all died, but we don't really know. The birds ... need to drink, they need to bathe and salt water just doesn't do it."

Any protection the birds would seek was wiped out when the trees and most structures were obliterated.

"Look at the vegetation," Brent Ortega, one of Shackleford's colleagues, said. "Either there isn't any, or it's covered with salt. Plant material is dying, insects and seeds are not there any more. The habitat's changed and the birds have got to live. They probably moved somewhere else because it's not very suitable."

Jimmie Stone, 67, looked at a pile of palm trees that used to border their driveway.

"We had three on each side," she said. "We had a huge tree in the yard. We had a bird feeder..."

Instead, chunks of broken concrete — their former driveway, the home foundation, the patio — tip at angles where waves lifted them and cast them aside. A dead pigeon sat on the side of Texas Highway 87. A few lonesome pelicans roosted on the remains of a pier jutting into the Gulf of Mexico.

Otherwise, there weren't many places for a bird to roost.

"I've got plenty of structure, but it's not mine," Ernest Stone said matter-of-factly, looking at the rubble of his neighbors' homes littering his property.

His mobile home ended up across the highway. The only recognizable parts of it are the wheels, upside down and twisted amid other debris.

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