NEW DELHI, July 31, 2014 (AFP) - India has hired a group of monkey impersonators to scare the real marauding animals away from parliament and other key buildings in the nation's capital, officials said Thursday.
The "very talented" group of men has taken to wearing monkey masks, imitating their whoops and barks and hiding behind trees to ward off the aggressive animals, the head of the Delhi municipality told AFP. Groups of monkeys, which are revered in the majority Hindu nation, roam freely around Delhi's streets where they trash gardens, offices and even attack people in their search for food. Concerns about the monkey population were raised in parliament where India's government was asked what it was doing to combat the problem. An Indian minister said 40 trained men had in fact been hired to protect the raucous house, itself accused of monkey-like behaviour, from the animal intruders. "Various efforts are being made to tackle the monkey and dog menace inside and around the parliament house," Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said in a written reply to a lawmaker's question. "The measures include scaring the monkeys away by trained persons who disguise themselves as langurs (long tailed monkeys)." "The New Delhi Municipal Corporation has hired 40 young persons for this purpose," Naidu added. The NDMC, the body tasked with providing civic services, said the men were "very talented" and had been trained to "closely copy" the noises and actions of the more aggressive langurs to scare away the smaller rhesus macaques. "They often wear a mask on their faces, hide behind the trees and make these noises to scare away the simians," NDMC chairman Jalaj Srivastava told AFP. Monkey catchers and their trained langurs used to be hired by wealthy home owners, politicians and business people to patrol the streets to keep wild monkeys at bay. But the government cracked down on the business last year after a court ruled that keeping monkeys in captivity was cruel. With its lush lawns and gardens, monkeys are drawn to the streets around parliament, which is also home to top bureaucrats, business leaders and foreign embassies.
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WASHINGTON, AFP) - Animal rights group PETA posted a $15,000 reward Wednesday for information leading to the arrest of a shirtless man seen kicking a squirrel off the edge of the Grand Canyon.
Video of the unidentified male luring the squirrel to its widely-assumed death went viral earlier this week on YouTube, which has since taken it down. "It is imperative to find anyone who commits sadistic and violent acts against a vulnerable being," said PETA director Martin Mersereau in announcing the reward. "Animal abusers are bullies and cowards who look to victimize the most vulnerable, defenseless individuals available to them -- human or nonhuman -- and this man must be caught as soon as possible," he added. It's not known when the low-quality video was made, but National Parks Service (NPS) spokeswoman Kirby-Lynn Shedlowski said it appears to have been shot along the Grand Canyon's heavily-touristed South Rim section. "It's an ongoing investigation," she told AFP by telephone, adding that the man and a second, similarly bare-chested male seen in the 15-second video "could be long gone." One of America's greatest natural wonders, the Grand Canyon National Park gets nearly five million visitors a year. Rules strictly forbid the feeding of its varied wildlife. In the video, the man -- wearing dark shorts, a straw hat and no shoes -- is seen offering food to the squirrel, with the second man in boxer shorts in the background with a camera. The man lures the unsuspecting rodent to the edge, then slips a running shoe onto his left foot and gives it a swift kick into the air and into the canyon, which is one mile (1.6 kilometers) deep and up to 18 miles (29 kilometers) wide. In the United States, harassing wildlife is a federal offense that can result in six months in prison or a fine of up to $5,000. Britain's Daily Mail newspaper quoted one Jonathan Hildebrand, who supposedly shot the video, as saying he had no part in the incident and did not know the two individuals. "All I know is that they were French," he was quoted as saying, while PETA said "the perpetrator is rumored to be French or French Canadian." Shedlowski, who could not recall any similar incident in the past, said: "As far as our investigation is concerned, they are two individuals." LONDON, (AFP) - The Wikimedia Foundation insisted Thursday it would not remove from its website a "selfie" taken by a mischievous monkey, despite claims from the British photographer whose camera was used that it breached his copyright.
David Slater says he is the owner of the photo of the grinning black crested macaque that went viral when he posted it online in 2011, and is threatening to sue Wikimedia for lost earnings of up to $30,000 (22,500 euros). But the not-for-profit foundation, which oversees Wikipedia among other online resources, refuses to remove the picture from its bank of royalty-free photographs. "Under US laws, the copyright cannot be owned by a non-human," Wikimedia spokeswomen Katherine Maher told AFP. "It doesn't belong to the monkey, but it doesn't belong to the photographer either," she added. Slater was with a party of Dutch researchers on a small group of Indonesian islands when the curious primates began rummaging through his possessions. He described how one snatched his camera and began pressing the shutter button, in the process taking a perfectly composed selfie. Slater argues that Wikimedia's defence is based on a technicality, and that there is "a lot more to copyright than who pushes the trigger on the camera". "I own the photo but because the monkey pressed the trigger and took the photo, they're claiming that the monkey owns the copyright," he said. The dispute came to light on Wednesday when Wikimedia published its transparency report, which revealed that it granted none of the 304 requests to remove or alter content on its platforms over the last two years. While the plague gained most of its notoriety back in the Middle Ages, it is still worthy of respect out here in the American West. The disease isn’t as newsworthy as it once was since people don’t come in contact with the causative bacteria (Yersinia pestis) as frequently as they used to and when they do, they can usually be cured with antibiotics. However, people — especially pet owners — need to be aware of the plague when living in or travelling to the Western United States.
Plague is usually spread by fleas that feed on infected prairie dogs and sometimes rabbits, squirrels, mice, and rats. When an infected animal dies, the fleas leave the carcass to find another host, thus spreading the disease. People and animals can also become sick after coming in contact with blood or tissues from an infected animal. Four people have been treated for plague in Colorado this month after coming in direct contact with a dog that subsequently died from the infection. Three have recovered, but one person who developed the most serious form of the disease (pneumonic plague) remains hospitalized. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says that the dog “likely was exposed to a prairie dog or rabbit with plague-infected fleas.” Dr. Jennifer House, public health veterinarian at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, encourages people take the following precautions to prevent plague exposure:
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2014 (AFP) - Elephants possess a sense of smell that is likely the strongest ever identified in a single species, according to a study by Japanese scientists out Tuesday.
The African elephant's genome contains the largest number of olfactory receptor (OR) genes -- nearly 2,000 -- said the study in the journal Genome Research. Olfactory receptors detect odors in the environment. That means elephants' sniffers are five times more powerful than people's noses, twice that of dogs, and even stronger than the previous known record-holder in the animal kingdom: rats. "Apparently, an elephant's nose is not only long but also superior," said lead study author Yoshihito Niimura of the University of Tokyo. Just how these genes work is not well understood, but they likely helped elephants survive and navigate their environment over the ages. The ability to smell allows creatures to find mates and food -- and avoid predators. The study compared elephant olfactory receptor genes to those of 13 other animals, including horses, rabbits, guinea pigs, cows, rodents and chimpanzees. Primates and people actually had very low numbers of OR genes compared to other species, the study found. This could be "a result of our diminished reliance on smell as our visual acuity improved," Niimura said. The research was funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grants-in-Aid program. MONTREAL, (AFP) - A fishing village in easternmost Canada tried on Monday to auction off on eBay a sperm whale carcass that washed up onto its shores.
By midday, the town of Cape St. George, Newfoundland had received dozens of bids -- the highest topping $2,000 -- before running afoul of the online auction site's rules and the law. The 12-meter (40-foot) sperm whale carcass washed ashore about a week ago. The town of 1,000 residents does not have the means to dispose of the rotting carcass itself, according to the mayor, and Canada's fisheries department declined to get involved. Worried that the smell from the rotting carcass would soon become intolerable, the town's council voted on Sunday to list the whale on eBay, hoping to find a buyer to take it away. Federal officials "didn't offer any suggestions about what to do with it, and didn't offer assistance, they just said 'You have to get rid of it', so we decided to list it on eBay," Mayor Peter Fenwick told AFP. "Frankly we would sell it for zero if we had to... as long as they take responsibility for removing the whale," he said, suggesting that its skeleton could be put on display in a museum. The eBay listing, after gaining notoriety, was soon removed by the online auction website because it is against its rules on not selling animals, alive or dead, an employee told AFP. At the same time, federal officials contacted the mayor to tell him it is illegal to try to sell the whale carcass. "We are now at a point where we want to have a look at the regulations and see if there is any way around that," Fenwick said. He said he doesn't want to break the law by "selling a whale illegally," but added, "we don't have very much choice because if it sits there, as it starts to rot... it will give off a tremendous stench." Coincidentally, two other Newfoundland towns faced similar problems after two endangered blue whales washed up on their shores. One of them began to bloat from a build-up of methane gas inside, threatening to explode its stinking innards on the town of Trout River. An Ontario museum is sending a team of researchers to collect the pair of whale carcasses this week. The rare animals' skeleton and tissue samples will be stored in the museum's research collection, which will be accessible to researchers worldwide. MADRID, (AFP) - The latest specimen of the world's tiniest deer -- a rare species no bigger than a hamster -- has been born in a nature park in southern Spain, conservationists said on Friday.
The baby "deer-mouse" became just the 43rd living member of this species in Europe when it was born on April 9 in the Fuengirola Biopark near Malaga. Originating in southeastern Asia, the deer is so called because its tiny dimensions and big eyes make it look more like a rodent, despite its tiny hooves. At birth the baby -- which has not yet been named because it is still too small to determine its sex -- weighed about 100 grams (nearly four ounces). But "it is growing very fast", a spokeswoman for the nature park, Asun Portillo, told AFP on Friday. The deer-mouse typically grows to about the size of a rabbit and weighs about a kilo (about two pounds) when fully grown. "It is doing very well, in its enclosure, although it cannot suckle yet and cannot feed by itself." Its mother has lived in Fuengirola since 2007 and its father was brought over from Lille, France a year ago, the park said. The survival of the species, known by scientists as "tragulus javanicus", is threatened by deforestation in its native southeast Asia, the park said. The tiny gorilla who made headlines recently after being born through a rare C-Section is now battling pneumonia. The San Diego Zoo Safari tweeted on Tuesday afternoon that the baby girl is being treated for the lung infection, which can make breathing difficult. Veterinarian Nadine Lamberski spent the weekend with her and told the Associated Press that she most likely contracted pneumonia when she was born as a surgical team fixed her collapse lung. The zoo said in a tweet that the gorilla's mom, 18-year-old Imani, is recovering quickly from the C-section, and that now the primary focus is to get the baby in stable condition. While the baby gorilla, who has not yet been named, fights off the infection, fans are chiming in on Twitter to cheer her on. A final goodbye: Dying zoo worker gets a kiss from giraffe (#wildlife #giraffe_kiss #zoo #goodbye)4/11/2014 The moment of a giraffe saying a special goodbye to a dying zoo worker is touching the hearts of viewers worldwide. As reported by The Independent, Mario, a zoo maintenance worker with terminal cancer, asked the Netherland’s Ambulance Wish Foundation for help visiting Rotterdam’s Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo, where he cleaned animal enclosures for nearly 25 years. The wish was granted, and what happened during the visit amazed everyone. The 54-year-old is confined to a bed, so the Ambulance Wish Foundation transported him to the zoo with a specially designed ambulance. He got wheeled around the zoo in his hospital bed, and upon entering the giraffe enclosure, one of the tall animals approached Mario, bent down and gave him a kiss. WASHINGTON, April 08, 2014 (AFP) - Birds, fish, dolphins and turtles are still struggling in the Gulf of Mexico, four years after the worst oil spill in US history, a leading wildlife group said Tuesday.
The 2010 BP spill spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the waters off Louisiana, also sullying the coastlines of Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida. "The science is telling us that the impacts of this are far from over," said Doug Inkley, senior scientist at the National Wildlife Federation. "Based on other oil spills, the impacts are likely to last for years, if not decades." A report issued by the National Wildlife Federation summarized recent scientific studies on 14 different types of creatures affected by the spill. Researchers have found evidence that dolphins in Louisiana's heavily oiled Barataria Bay suffer from abnormal hormone levels, lung disease and anemia. Overall, dolphins have been stranding at three times the historic rate, with some 900 washing up dead or dying from 2010 until 2013, the report said. About 500 dead sea turtles have been found annually in the area, also a rate much higher than that seen in years prior to the disaster. Bluefin and yellowfin tuna have been shown to suffer irregular heartbeats due to a chemical in oil from the spill, which began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank, killing 11 people. Toxic oil compounds have been found at increasing levels in the blood samples of loons that winter along the Louisiana coast, it added. Sperm whales that were closer to the well have higher levels of DNA damaging metals than those in other parts of the world. Oil is still being removed from the coast, too, said Sara Gonzalez-Rothi, the National Wildlife Federation's senior policy specialist for Gulf and coastal restoration. "Last year, nearly five million pounds of oiled material from the disaster were removed from Louisiana's coast," she said. "And that's just what we've seen. An unknown amount of oil remains deep in the Gulf." Earlier this month, the US Environmental Protection Agency ended its ban on BP obtaining government contracts following the disaster. The five-year deal with the EPA will allow the British company to pursue new oil exploration leases in deepwater tracts in the Gulf of Mexico. In pleading guilty to the spill, BP agreed to pay the government $4.5 billion to settle criminal charges in the case. It also agreed in 2012 to settle damage claims by businesses and individuals for about $7.8 billion. |
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