In 30 years asian-pacific fish will be gone and then we’re next

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2164774-in-30-years-asian-pacific-fish-will-be-gone-and-then-were-next/

Turns out there aren’t plenty of fish in the sea.

Recent evidence suggests humans evolved their big brains not on a diet of red meat after all, but on a diet of fish. Yes, fish is a great source of protein for all animals. Yes, unaffected by microplastics, pollutants and heavy metals, fish is good for us, ‘us’ being the ever-increasing human population of 7.6 billion and rising (and let’s face it, fish is no longer safe to eat).

Plenty of marine conservation organisations, such as Sea Shepherd, have been saying for decades that while we allow industrial trawlers and fleets of thousands of unregulated fishing boats to ravage the oceans with trawler nets and insidious ghost nets, fish stocks will collapse and there will be devastating implications for all marine life and human populations that rely on fish as a source of protein. Even some marine conservation orgs hadn’t fully understood the role that overfishing plays in the decimation of the oceans – and its impact on local human populations – and are still not condemning overfishing or advising their relatively affluent members to cut out fish from their diets as an effective way of ending their contribution to the terrifying problem of global overfishing.

Anyone can stop contributing to ending overfishing by not eating fish, wherever you are in the world, and by writing to relevant businesses and governmental departments (and your MP), and by boycotting companies which contribute to global (and local) overfishing.

100s of dolphins tortured in Japan in alarming Facebook Live stream

And so the vile, arrogant brutal atrocities in the cove in Taiji, Japan continue, year after year, while the world remains blissfully ignorant of the evil these men do for six months of every year to migrating cetaceans unfortunate enough to swim past this little cove off the southern peninsula of Japan. Money is made, greed is satiated, murderous killing occurs and the world’s precious wildlife is decimated by Japan. When will this be called out and stopped as the heinous, greedy, short-sighted, violent, cruel and unacceptable activity that it is? 

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/100s-of-dolphins-tortured-in-japan-in-alarming-facebook-live-stream-713359

Complete Cranium Reveals Otter- and Badger-like Features | Cleveland Museum of Natural History

“The new species, Siamogale melilutra lived 6.24 million years ago in the Yunnan Province in China. It weighed approximately 110 lbs and was roughly the size of a modern wolf.”

https://www.cmnh.org/announcements/ancient-otter

Dolphins escape from Taiji facility in Japan – BBC News

It’s so tragic that these animals are so traumatised and conditioned to rely on handouts for resources that they gain their freedom after someone cut the nets and they don’t know what to do with it. Awful breaking of a wild animal’s autonomous, free spirit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38515187

The Toll of Dolphins Under Siege in Taiji | The Huffington Post

Thanks to Huff Post for sharing the plight of Taiji dolphins with its readers. It’s actually six months of every year that the Japanese fishermen commit these heinous crimes against nature and allow greed and ignorance to rule the town of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. Half of every year they slaughter dolphins. It should be absolutely illegal to do what they do but instead they get rich from selling those they spare from the butcher’s knife to marine amusement parks around the world. 

Don’t visit dolphin shows. Your ticket funds this massacre in Japan every year. Supply and demand; stop demanding dolphins entertain us, they’ll stop taking them for captivity and killing the rest.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_586d520be4b068764965c601?timestamp=1483650102083

A Bombshell in the World of Rhinos

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160429-rhinos-horn-trade-swaziland-south-africa-cites/

“Swaziland shocks the global conservation community with a bid to sell rhino horn to Asia.”

This would be a disaster. The ban on international trade in rhino horn is probably the only thing standing between rhino survival and their extinction at the ignorant hands of those who happily put profit before life and, most certainly, before the conservation of a species.

Why baby turtles work together to dig themselves out of a nest | New Scientist

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2088892-why-baby-turtles-work-together-to-dig-themselves-out-of-a-nest/

“We knew of this group-digging behaviour, called social facilitation, for a long time, but the reasons for teamwork were unclear. Possible explanations included speeding up nest escape or helping the turtles emerge together to swamp awaiting predators on the beach.

But Mohd Uzair Rusli, a biologist at the University of Malaysia Terengganu in Kuala Terengganu wondered if it could also help individual hatchlings cut down on energy use while trying to leave their nest. This is a major undertaking for the tiny hatchlings, taking several days, with the only source of energy being the yolk that remains when they hatch.”

BBC News – India’s dying mother

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-aad46fca-734a-45f9-8721-61404cc12a39

A fascinating piece on the river Ganges in India and the varying ways in which it has become one of the most polluted rivers on the planet. Leather tanneries are a prime cause of carcinogens and rotting animal matter polluting the Ganges, along with human sewage and burnt, rotting human bodies.

Despite all of the vile toxins put into the river, and the horrifying amount of water taken out of the water table, Ganges river dolphins tentatively remain in smaller and smaller numbers in the great river. I truly hope that India can clean up its vital life source. Shutting down its entire leather industry would be a great start. What a disservice we do to animals and the planet in so many perverse ways.

The effects of trophy hunting on five of Africa’s iconic wild animal populations in six countries – Analysis – Conservation Action Trust

http://conservationaction.co.za/resources/reports/effects-trophy-hunting-five-africas-iconic-wild-animal-populations-six-countries-analysis/

“The analysis will reveal that trophy hunting is an activity that fuels corruption, it encourages the unfair redistribution of the wealth generated without adequate involvement of communities, causes the loss of healthy individuals that are still key for reproduction and social cohesion and, most damagingly, contributes to the decline of all five species considered in this report.”

The elephant, rhino, leopard, cheetah  and lion are the five African species considered in this report, which refutes a previous report which stated that trophy hunting provided revenue for the country and its communities and aided conservation. Ten years on and this is found to be thoroughly inaccurate.

Getting Real about Palm Oil | Jonathon Porritt

http://www.jonathonporritt.com/blog/getting-real-about-palm-oil

A Jonathon Porritt piece from last year, discussing various initiatives to try to get Palm oil into some sort of organised collaborative state before all of Asia’s forests have been completely destroyed for Palm oil production.

“Suffice it to say, however, that such a convergence is unlikely to have some kind of absolutist ‘zero definition’ at its heart. It’s entirely correct that much of the projected growth in oil palm development does not require any deforestation at all – there’s a lot of degraded and scrubby land (particularly in Indonesia) that has to be the top priority for new planting. And much can be done by helping smallholders to increase their yields – often less than 50% of what can be achieved on the most efficient plantations.”