Why Do Butterflies Puddle?
on the Butterflies of Singapore blog
Mutant mangroves from Lim Chu Kang
Mangrove As A Bioindicator on the colourful clouds blog
Asian Paradise Flycatcher at the Singapore Botanic Gardens
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Hermit crabs at the Great Shell Exchange
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Air Sharing Pointers for Divers
on The Right Blue blog
Daily Express 22 Nov 08;
Kota Kinabalu: WWF-Malaysia on Friday said that it disagrees with plans to further develop Mabul Island through the construction of a 200-room chalet, research centre and oceanarium.
Its Executive Director cum Chief Executive Officer Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma said a study carried out at the island and its surrounding waters revealed that 85 per cent of the island has already been cleared for village housing, school houses, budget homestay accommodation as well as five-star resorts.
He said they discovered that the stakeholders of Mabul valued their marine resources and agreed that the quality of ground and coastal waters has been affected, adding that waters surrounding the island were also partly polluted by inadequate waste-water treatment and poor solid waste management to handle the land-based sources of pollution from villagers and resorts.
"Tourists have complained of crowding on the island since two years back, which indicates a growing loss of wilderness value. The resources of island - the land, coral reefs and coastal waters - are already heavily used, he said.
Sharma also stressed that artificial reefs do not bring more fish for people to eat but rather by allowing young fishes to grow to maturity through the protection of their natural habitat, fish numbers will increase, adding that damaged coral reefs and its resident fish population can recover simply by stopping the threats that plague them.
"The Sugud Island Marine Conservation Area off Sandakan in partnership with the Sabah Wildlife Department and a private sector demonstrated this successful recovery of damaged reef, without the aid of artificial reefs, thorough research, monitoring and management," he pointed out.
He said that a management plan for Mabul and its resources will be prepared by the stakeholders to regulate development and resource use, in line with meeting governmental standards and their own sustainable tourism and coral reef fisheries.
WWF Malaysia against Mabul oceanarium development
Mugutan Vanar, The Star 23 Nov 08;
KOTA KINABALU: WWF Malaysia is against the controversial oceanarium development plan for Mabul, saying the island was already over-developed.
Studies carried out on the island and its surrounding waters revealed that 85% of the island had already been cleared for village housing, schools, budget homestay accommodation as well as five-star resorts, WWF Malaysia communications manager Angela Lim said.
She also said that 80% of the coral reef sites surrounding Mabul Island were used up by operators for muck diving, with 50% of the reefs shared between the diving sector and villagers for fishing.
“As the hub of the tourism industry in Semporna, Mabul Island has the potential to act as a coral reef management centre,” she said in a statement following the disclosure that the state has given the green light for an oceanarium resort on the shallows of Mabul.
She said WWF Malaysia had discovered that waters surrounding the island were also partly polluted due inadequate wastewater treatment and poor solid waste management to handle the land-based sources of pollution from villagers and resorts.
“Tourists have been complaining of over-crowding on the island over the past two years, which indicates a growing loss of wilderness value. The resources of island -- the land, coral reefs and coastal waters -- are already heavily used,” Lim said.
It was better to allow young marine life to regenerate by protecting their natural habitat as artificial reefs did not bring more fish, she said, adding that damaged coral reefs and their resident fish population can recover simply by stopping any threats that plague them.
The Sabah state government has given the green light for the oceanarium project. However, the Land and Survey Department has yet to issue the land title as it is imposing stringent conditions for the oceanarium project proposed by local company Bina Ecosaba Sdn Bhd.
Among the conditions were that it should comply with environment regulations and be of low density in the eco-sensitive Mabul, just nine nautical miles from the diving haven of Sipadan.
Both distort the true character of the wildlife they present to the public
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 22 Nov 08;
Zoos often only reinforce people's sense of separateness from nature, contributing to rather than reducing a general lack of understanding of the essential character of nature.
Some years ago, on a now memorable New Year's Eve, I was walking with two friends in a dense jungle in northern India when a wild tiger growled at us from a distance of about 4m.
We kept our cool and simply walked away. The tiger, which had been disturbed while taking its afternoon snooze, sent us an unmistakable signal with a series of menacing growls - but it did not attack.
Had we panicked, run and inevitably fallen in the undergrowth, we would have spooked it and it would have lashed out at us, and I would most probably not be alive today to write this piece.
Whatever the species, animals act for a reason, even if that reason is not readily apparent to humans.
A tiger in its natural state would avoid humans. But if it did encounter a human and it felt threatened, it would first try to drive the human away with a short charge and a series of snarls, designed to intimidate the human into backing off. It would feel threatened if the human made any abrupt move or sound.
If the human did not back down in the face of its threat, but continued to agitate it, the tiger might well attack.
Mr Nordin Montong would have known all this. The 32-year-old from Sarawak, a contract cleaner at the Singapore Zoo, chose a path that would inevitably lead to his own death when he entered the white tigers' enclosure on Nov 13.
The white tigers might not have intended to kill him. They were probably just defending themselves against a perceived threat. As captive-bred tigers, they would have had little or no experience of killing. But just a mauling from such powerful animals would normally be enough to cause severe injuries that could easily lead to death.
Tigers are like all cats big and small - predators by nature even if they have little experience of killing. Prey that runs around, struggles or tries to get away would excite them further, and they would continue to maul this prey until it grew still. Tigers behave no differently from a household cat playing with a ball of string or a mouse.
Yet, at least one visitor to the zoo thought at first that the dreadful scene in the tiger enclosure was a 'show'. Following the tragedy, there has been a scramble to find out more about tigers in order to explain what happened.
It is ironic that after the millions of hours of programming that have been run on TV channels such as Discovery, Animal Planet and National Geographic, we are still far from understanding the realities of nature.
Further, the role that zoos perform arguably does not help us bridge that distance; it might even reinforce the divide.
The days of the measured wildlife documentary are regrettably almost over. TV networks today have to compete with a range of media determined to use shock tactics to draw in audiences whose attention span is decreasing in direct proportion to the increase in news that feeds on and emphasises conflict, sensation, titillation and the bizarre.
Whether a khaki-clad TV personality wading into a swamp and pulling out an anaconda from the water is a true reflection of reality is questionable. Most of the viewing public would not know that, invariably, such scenes are rigged. Snakes and other animals used to produce such sequences are usually already habituated to humans.
It is doubtful whether showing the general public scenes that would not occur in real life furthers their understanding of nature.
The trend towards sensationalism, with ever-increasing scenes of predation and aggression hogging the screens, exploded in the 1990s because of the proliferation of network TV and the competition for audiences.
But the compulsion to sensationalise emerged long before that. In the early 1900s, British writer and cinematographer Cherry Kearton wrote: 'People who try to give us 'sensation' both in films and books appear to imagine that... the wild life of animals is sadly in need of a little 'gingering up'.'
Wildlife is often portrayed as strange, exotic and dangerous, or conversely, cute and cuddly. Both views are distortions.
Animals need not be feared, but they need to be respected, just as much as people respect one another and give one another space.
Zoos, unfortunately, use wildlife as exhibits. White tigers are one example; they have been selectively bred for commercial purposes.
Essentially, white tigers are inbred, and there have been many deaths and deformities in cubs in the process.
Since the original white tiger was captured as a cub from the wild in central India in 1951, there have been only a handful of purported sightings of white tigers in the wild. What value is there in displaying a white tiger in a zoo, therefore, if not as some sort of freak show?
Singapore's zoo does a better job than almost any other in the world of keeping its exhibits in sound condition and also of educating the public.
But the bottom line is that animals in zoos are usually bored and often stressed; captivity is captivity even if the cell is a five-star enclosure.
As a result, zoos often only reinforce people's sense of separateness from nature, contributing to rather than reducing a general lack of understanding of the essential character of nature.
There was some encouraging news in the public response to the tragedy in Singapore. During a New Paper poll of 100 people, 99 said the tigers should not be punished in any way. Many have pointed out that the tigers behaved according to instinct. Senegalese poet-conservationist Baba Dioum famously said: 'In the end, we will conserve only what we love and we will love only what we understand.'
It is questionable whether breeding species selectively for entertainment and exhibition in zoos, and emphasising bizarre and sensational aspects of wildlife in the media, will further our knowledge of the world around us.
# The writer has authored three books on India's wildlife and dedicated himself to wildlife issues for more than 25 years. He is also a trustee of The Corbett Foundation, whose aim is to protect and conserve the Corbett Tiger Reserve in India.
Tan Dawn Wei, Straits Times 23 Nov 08;
Two months ago in New York, former cycling champ and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong told a room-full of world leaders, business elites and philanthropists that he was returning to competitive cycling.
It wasn't for the money, fame nor even the thrill of winning yet another Tour de France title, which he has snagged seven times.
It was to raise awareness of the 'global cancer burden', he said, adding that his Lance Armstrong Foundation was launching a worldwide campaign to support the 25 million people afflicted with the disease.
His was among the 250 'commitments' pledged at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting, a highly exclusive, invitation-only annual conference where well-known attendees since its inception in 2005 have included current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former United States secretary of state Colin Powell, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, rock group U2's singer Bono and actress Angelina Jolie.
Among those commitments this year: India-based Suzlon Green Power developing clean energy worth US$5 billion (S$7.6 billion) over the next five years that would supply power to 10 million people, mostly in India and China.
American consumer giant Procter & Gamble donating US$11 million worth of clean drinking water sachets to the developing world.
Accounting firm Ernst & Young helping to spread micro-loans in developing countries.
And American President-elect Barack Obama committing to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, wipe out death caused by malaria, cut extreme poverty in half and erase the global primary education gap, all by 2015.
There are lots of promises to save the world, including many big ones. In fact, if you plan to show up at the meeting, you have to come ready with a pledge to do something. And if you don't deliver, you're not asked back the next year.
Such targeted activism sets CGI apart from other conferences - a principle that the initiative started by former American president Bill Clinton prides itself on.
Fed up with attending thousands of meetings where leaders sat around and talked about urgent issues which never amounted to much action, he devised a model that brought decision-makers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) together every year to effect change.
These participants, known as CGI members, define what and how they want to contribute, on the basis that it has to be new, specific and measurable.
The commitments come from corporations, foundations, heads of states and NGOs and can be anything from funds and sharing of skills and resources to time.
It is a model that has seen tremendous results, according to Mr Brett Rierson, deputy managing director of CGI Asia, who was in Singapore recently.
In the last four years since it started, it claims to have reached 200 million people in 150 countries with US$46 billion worth of commitments.
Companies, especially, are realising that if they are making a long-term investment in a particular country, they will need an educated workforce and a stable population without civil conflict.
The best way to do that is to address issues of income and education disparity in these areas, said Mr Rierson.
Now, CGI has turned its attention to Asia. It will hold its first meeting outside the United States next month in Hong Kong over two days.
Those who have already RSVP'd include Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, action star Jet Li and Mr Victor Fung, chairman of Hong Kong's export, distribution and retail giant Li & Fung Group.
Mr Clinton will also be there.
Until CGI came to Asia, very few commitments were for this part of the world, with most going to Africa or the US.
'Asia has made unprecedented progress in a very short time,' said Mr Rierson who has lived in Asia for 20 years.
The number of people living on less than US$1.25 a day in China has dropped from 835 million in 1981 to 207 million in 2005.
The number of people without access to clean water in South Asia has been halved since 1990.
At the same time, there has also been a massive transfer of wealth, with foundations established and trying to find purpose and with lots of money to hand out.
'You got great progress, great solutions meeting with unprecedented wealth looking for something to do,' Mr Rierson said of Asia.
When the world community comes together next month in Hong Kong, the focus will be on three critical areas: education, climate change and public health.
Stakeholders will be looking for creative solutions to bridge the gap in educational disparity and deprivation, develop renewable energy and battle chronic and infectious diseases as well as meet basic nutritional needs.
Some of these innovations already exist. One of Mr Rierson's favourite examples is Barefoot College, started by Indian educator Sanjit Bunker Roy in 1972 in Tilonia, Rajasthan.
'Quite frankly, if you knew what he did, and you had a choice to meet Martin Luther King, Gandhi and him, you'd have a hard time deciding,' said Mr Rierson, who is on leave from the World Food Programme, where he launched its private-sector development activities for Asia-Pacific.
Barefoot College has trained India's illiterate villagers - many of them women - to be solar engineers, teachers, hand-pump mechanics and health-care workers in their own communities.
With two-thirds of India's more than one billion people living in rural areas where there is often no running water and electricity, much less the Internet, literacy isn't at the top of their priorities.
Power and water are.
'He's found a way to electrify tens of thousands of rural villages and the impact that has on people who can actually stay up at night to study or read is massive,' said Mr Rierson.
Mr Roy's programmes have now been expanded across Asia and Africa. He will also be at next month's meeting.
But with the conference coming on the heels of a global recession, are the commitments going to flow in?
There has not been a drop in activities from CGI members, said Mr Rierson, adding that US$8 billion worth of new commitments were made around the same time that US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed two months ago.
'The challenges will be here a lot longer than this economic crisis, and the advantage of fixing them for a stable business environment for corporations to operate in remains,' he explained.
'It's not altruism. Increasingly, in a more interconnected world, it's in everyone's interest.'
Yahoo News 22 Nov 08;
LIMA (AFP) – South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak on Saturday appealed for investment in green energy, saying it would not only help the environment but also boost the ailing world economy.
South Korea is one of the rare countries that is setting national goals to cut emissions that cause global warming despite not having obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which only covered leading economies.
Lee, attending a summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Peru, called for greater investment in clean energies such as wind power.
"Although we are now going through an economic crisis, for sustainable future growth we must not neglect common issues of humankind such as climate change and our resources crisis," Lee said.
"We urgently need a new energy paradigm that can get us through the current energy and climate change crisis," he said.
"This is not a path that we can either take or not. It is one we must take for future generations," he said.
However, a survey of Asia-Pacific opinion leaders released at the APEC summit earlier showed that concern about global warming has diminished sharply, with far more people putting priority on addressing the financial crisis.
Lee, who was elected president in December last year, won wide praise as mayor of Seoul for tearing down a highway in the middle of the crowded metropolis and replacing it with a restored river.
Reuters 22 Nov 08;
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Dozens of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding on Australia's island state of Tasmania, state parks and wildlife officials said Saturday.
A wildlife official contacted by Reuters put the number of stranded whales at 64, and said 13 of those were still alive as of around 8pm local time (0900 GMT).
The whales were discovered by a member of the public at Stanley on the island's northwest coast, local parks manager Chris Arthur said in a statement.
An attempt would be made to rescue the surviving animals on Sunday, he said.
"We have equipment and whale rescue trailers coming from around the state," Arthur said.
Mass strandings of whales occur periodically in Australia and New Zealand for reasons that are not entirely understood.
52 whales die in mass stranding in Australia: report
Yahoo News 22 Nov 08;
SYDNEY (AFP) – Fifty-two pilot whales have died after a mass stranding on Tasmania's northwest coast, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Saturday.
Thirteen whales were still alive on Anthony's Beach at Stanley on the island south of the Australian mainland, and wildlife rangers and volunteers were trying to stabilise them, the broadcaster said.
"People are moving water around them, people are stopping them from drying and stopping them from getting sunburnt because their biggest problem is they get overheated," said Parks and Wildlife official Chris Arthur.
"Then we're going to try and move some if we can on to trailers so we can move them in to deeper water."
Pilot whales are members of the dolphin family but are considered by experts to behave more like whales.
A number of theories have been put forward as to why whales strand themselves, but the phenomenon remains a subject of scientific debate.
Yahoo News 21 Nov 08;
LONDON (AFP) – Four families of beavers have arrived in Britain for a landmark project which will see them introduced into the wild here for the first time in over 400 years, experts said Friday.
The wild beavers were captured in the Telemark region of Norway and brought to London, where they arrived Thursday and will spend six months in quarantine.
The animals will then be released in Argyll, western Scotland, during the first half of next year.
Experts say they hope the beavers will help create new habits for wetland wildlife in the area by building dams.
"Beavers are native to Britain but were hunted to extinction over 400 years ago," said Simon Jones, project manager for the Scottish Beaver Trial, which is coordinating the animals' reintroduction.
"We are excited to get the trial under way and really see what benefits beavers can bring to Scotland."
Beavers arrive for spring release
BBC News 21 Nov 08;
Four beaver families have arrived in the UK as part of a historic plan to reintroduce the mammals to Scotland for the first time in more than 400 years.
The beavers were flown into Heathrow Airport on Thursday night from Norway.
They will spend six months in quarantine before being released in Knapdale, Argyll, on a trial basis in spring 2009.
The release will be the first-ever formal reintroduction of a native mammal into the wild in the UK.
The Scottish Beaver Trial is being carried out by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
The beaver families - each consisting of one adult male, one adult female and between one to three yearlings or kits - were captured in the Telemark region of Norway in September.
Iain Valentine, from the Royal Zoological Society, said the captures had been a "complicated process".
"The team in Norway spent long periods of time in specific sites to identify complete family groups, ensuring that none are left behind," he said.
"Another added complication was that beavers are primarily active at night so the beaver families were tracked from boats patrolling the river and caught in the dark.
"The team in Norway did a fantastic job and all the beavers are in excellent health."
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When the families are released, the project partners and Forestry Commission Scotland will continue to oversee the project.
Scottish Natural Heritage will conduct scientific monitoring to assess the environmental impact of the beavers.
Simon Jones, from the Scottish Beaver Trial, said: "Beavers are native to Britain but were hunted to extinction over 400 years ago.
"Beavers hold the potential to create new wetland habitats which in turn increases the appeal to other native species.
"We are excited to get the trial underway and really see what benefits beavers can bring to Scotland."
The scheme to reintroduce the mammals, however, has not been without controversy.
The Association of Salmon Fishery Boards has called the project "recklessly irresponsible" and asked ministers to block further releases until the impact on fish stocks can be assessed.
John Rothlisberger, University of Notre Dame
LiveScience.com Yahoo News 22 Nov 08;
The Great Lakes currently harbor well-established populations of more than 50 non-native species that were dumped into those waters by ocean-going ships.
As a student of ecology, I have long wondered what is the total cost of the introductions of so many species, the impact on the ability of these critical water bodies to support sport and commercial fishing and wildlife viewing.
But when I began to investigate this important question for my doctoral research, I discovered - to my dismay - that no cost estimates were available.
So I undertook a study to comprehensively measure such losses caused by the non-native species introduced by ocean-going ships to the Great Lakes. Although my study addressed species introduced into the Great Lakes by shipping, more than 180 non-native species have been introduced to the lakes via various pathways.
How did I measure the losses? I used a new approach to assess ecological damage called structured expert judgment. This approach synthesizes information from scientists and other experts to estimate the values of variables that, for technical or ethical reasons, cannot be measured directly.
My research eventually found me driving in a pickup truck with an international pioneer in the use of structured expert judgment: Roger Cooke, a research chair at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. Roger and I were heading north toward Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., where we interviewed Great Lakes fisheries expert Mark Ebener about what these fisheries would look without ship-borne species.
Our interview with Mark was the first of nine we conducted that month with experts throughout the Great Lakes region - including professors specializing in Great Lakes food webs and the natural resource economics of the region, as well as government fishery biologists.
After the interview, we lunched with Mark, who also happens to be an expert on the best places to eat fish fresh from Lake Superior. At an unassuming diner on the town's outskirts, each of us ordered the whitefish platter (whitefish are native to the Great Lakes).
When the waitress brought our meals, I admired the two huge fillets, nestled in a generous helping of fries, sitting next to a scoop of homemade coleslaw. With the first bite, my admiration grew. Whitefish is mild and delicate; some of the early explorers in the Great Lakes region called lake whitefish the "best fish in the world," saying "one could eat it for days and never grow tired of it." Based on the tastiness of my meal that day, I think they were right.
The whitefish is among the natural treasures of the Great Lakes that have been seriously harmed by non-native zebra and quagga mussels. Why? Because one of the whitefish's favorite foods is Diporeia, a nutritious freshwater shrimp that lives in lake sediments. But since the invasive zebra and quagga mussels were introduced and then began dominating lake-bottom habitats, the Diporeia shrimp have been disappearing.
Forced to eat mussels instead of energy-rich Diporeia shrimp, whitefish have become smaller and less healthy. Thus, their market value has decreased, and the profits of commercial fishermen who harvest them have declined.
After another expert interview in Sandusky, Ohio, I sat with my Ph.D. advisor David Lodge at a picnic table on a warm evening in early October. Eating a dinner of perch sandwiches, we looked out over Lake Erie, only a stone's throw away.
Yellow perch are delicious, not too fishy, and have a firm, slightly flaky texture that meshed perfectly with the soft freshly baked bun of my sandwich. The combination of the delicious meal, the scenery, and my thoughts and feelings during this simple moment made it among the most memorable of my graduate school experience.
Nevertheless, the fact that non-native species are damaging populations of yellow perch along with other important species of sport and commercial fish in Lake Erie continues to gnaw at me.
I understand that some people may not particularly care about whitefish platters or perch sandwich picnics or even bird watching at Point Pelee. Nevertheless, in one way or another, everyone in the Great Lakes region benefits from the economic and ecological ecosystem services provided by the natural resources of the Great Lakes.
The results of my interviews with Roger, Mark and many other experts showed that ship-borne invasive species were responsible for more than $200 million in losses to benefits from ecosystem services in 2006.
This figure does not include losses to the Canadian economy, property-value losses in the United States tied to invasive mussel-fueled algae outbreaks, and significant losses to states outside the Great Lakes region, which have been harmed by the spread of zebra and quagga mussels.
I hope that my $200 million estimate of lost benefits will help promote informed decision-making for the control of non-natives species already in the Great Lakes, and the prevention of future invasions.
To this end, my research group issued a press release on my estimate last summer, and the story was picked up in many national newspapers. In addition, Dr. Lodge recently gave a talk about our research to an international regulatory body known as The Great Lakes Commission and we will be presenting this research at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago in February 2009.
Please visit this site for my research group's press release and additional information about the impacts of non-native species on the Great Lakes.
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