Precious little is known about the giant manta ray fish, and Biologist Andrea Marshall got to know them slightly better thanks to a first hand experience with the fish. She calls them “the most beautiful underwater birds” and simply looking at the images, we can clearly understand what she means.

The biologist had a chance to swim with these “mysterious” fishes off the coast of Mozambique, and she returned with a wealth of information. Until recently, it was believed that the fish has only one species, but Dr. Marshall found that some of the manta rays lived and behaved differently, and was able to identify one new species of the manta ray.

She also found that the manta ray migrates nearly 700 miles to reach the Maldives, which is also a unique gathering place for pregnant reef mantas and could be critical for the survival of the species. Most manta rays give birth to a single pup once in a year, but they rarely do this two years in a row. The beautiful fish are falling prey to unregulated fishing due to their demand in traditional Chinese remedies.

Source: Mail Online

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is known to be an “island” of trash, mainly plastic, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is well known that it has vastly negative effects for marine life, and these shocking pictures from photographer Chris Jordan drive the point home.

During his visit to Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the photographer had the chance to see and photograph the havoc plastic waste is wreaking with the lives of albatross chicks. Parents mistake the waste as food, and feed it to their chicks, hundreds of which then die due to poisoning, choking or deadly blockages.

His photographs show the remains of such albatross chicks, with nearly decayed bodies but with the plastic waste clearly visible in their bodies. The photographer has said that the images show the actual contents in the birds’ stomach, and has not been “moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way.” It really is a stunning, shocking sight.

Source: Yahoo Green

People visiting the West Midlands Safari Park near Bewdley in Worcestershire, UK will get a chance to see a very rare sight. Three white lion cubs in the Safari Park are now old enough to be viewed by the public. White lions as it is, are a very rare breed, with a count in 2004 putting their number at just 30. Since they are easily identifiable by their prey and hunters due to their color, not many white lions survive in the wild, they are though, bred specially in zoos.

The lion cubs in question are nearly 12 weeks old, and will be viewed by the public for the first time. Each of them weighed 33lbs when born, but now they have of course grown big enough to play with each other and older lions outside their large outdoor enclosure.

White lions hail from the Kruger subspecies of lion, and are a (rare) color mutation of this subspecies.

Source: Telegraph

It’s a raining, overcast day and my favorite Labs are sleeping at my feet.  I think they feel the laziness the dreary day brings.

Later, they will be up and about and I will take them on one of their daily long walks.  They have places to go, things to sniff and business to take care of.

Under my expert guidance they will lead me through grass, bushes, forests of trees and those tall grassy plants they love to water.  We sometimes meet friends of theirs and I wait for the obligatory sniffs and some playtime.

When they down to the important business of the day, I am their loyal servant and like a good employee clean up after them.

I used to recycle those plastic food and grocery bags, bread bags and other such stuff.  I then graduated to those plastic dog bags on a roll that you can put on your keychain, dog lease or even wear on a belt loop as an accouterment to your jeans ensemble.

What could I do to help make the dog droppings friendlier to the dump?  Aha!  Biodegradable bags!

I found two that are pretty good.

Bags On Board makes 100% biodegradable bags.  I recommend buying the 315-bag Value Pack.  With two Labs, you need a quantity of bags on hand.

BioBag has a twist to their biodegradable product; it is made from corn and is ASTM D6400 compliant (for those of you that keep track of the technical details).

California’s SB 1749, like other California laws, re-defines standard industry-accepted definitions to bend to the state’s peculiar politics.  So “biodegradable” in California is unique only to California’s quirky laws that often go over the edge of common sense.  Despite the additional restrictions and PC terminology, the BioBag manages to meet California’s proclamation.

Now a word to the wise and those prone to being squeamish: all biodegradable doggie bags let the smell seep through the surface of the bag.  The waste inside stays there and does not leak out, but the stench does.

According to my nose (and it does have quite a large internal surface area to detect odors) Bags on Board allows less aromas to escape.  This is very important when you are on a long walk and your dog decides to put business before play and you are literally left “holding the bag” for a long period of time.

Disclaimer (to avoid the Federal Blog Police)

• Neither Bags On Board or BioBag have ever heard of me.  Neither one has paid me or provided me with other items or services in order to get a favorable review.
• Neither one has paid me or provided me with other items or services in order to give their competitor a less than perfect or a bad review.
• I had to buy the bags myself.

Cow gang in the morning

The article mentioned in part one, suggests you not eat meat in an attempt to reduce the greenhouse gas (methane) caused by cows.  I propose that human emissions of methane could eclipse that of the cows raised for meat if we follow that advice and limit our intake to non-meat food.

I agree that cows do emit methane. If you doubt this just hang around with a few and your will be convinced this is true.  For you city dwellers, either believe this cow fact or try the following experiment.

Let me set the table.  Cows are vegetarians.  They eat grasses and grains and do not even have access to hot dogs, Big Macs or even a good, thick juicy steak.  Cows are generally not cannibalistic and will resort to hamburgers only when starving and someone happens to litter a few burgers along the road in reach of said bovines.

Ok, back to the experiment.  You don’t have access to a cow (if you did you would not be doing this experiment) so you can use yourself instead.

Eat good balanced meals including healthy portion of meats (nice red meats, not those tofu or vegan substitutes) for a week or two.  Monitor your methane output by approximating the frequency, quantity and toxicity.  For toxicity note if people ran out of the room, simply glanced at the dog or did not notice.

Now, go on a vegan diet of grasses (sprouts of alfalfa and bean can be substituted), grains a little tofu and beans and other legumes (if you don’t know what a legume is, click here) for week or two plus a day.  Begin monitoring your methane output One day after you begin the diet to allow for the passage of your old diet.

Now go back to the balanced meat diet allowing a day in between and then back again to the vegan diet.  This allows for a scientific sound experiment and the repeatability confirms the validity of the experiment.

You will discover the meatless diet will be far less offensive to your family and friends, hence more environmentally friendly.  Less methane is good, so you do not need to feel guilty about global warming when you have that nice, rare, juicy steak.  Just bring your own bag when you go to the store to pick up your meat and groceries.

After you finish the experiments and then tell your friends, you may get great offers to buy you meat products and if you have some hunters as friends, might get some free, tasty venison.  If you get an insatiable appetite for meat after this experiment, get your own by taking a hunter safety class and partake in the plentiful harvest.

Image courtesy of James

Cows and wind turbines

I came across an interesting article on combating global warming.  Aside from a picture of a cow with a gas-mask device to capture cow belches, another picture (see after the jump) shows another methane capture device.  Intended to capture cow farts, I can just feel sorry for the cow.  That hose feeding the pink plastic methane storage balloon has to be uncomfortable for the cow.

The article goes on to say that the methane emitted by the cows is contributing to the greenhouse gas problem.  It is true that methane could keep heat trapped in the atmosphere.  Note that I said could.  There would have to be a lot of other conditions that would have to be met for this to actually happen in the world.

In the laboratory, you can take methane (also works with carbon dioxide) and put it in a closed jar or box and get it to reflect heat.  Add all the other components of air and through Brownian movement the reflective properties are reduced and eventually eliminated.

Let’s take a room and fill it with air.  Since oxygen is 21% of the air, what would be the chances of the oxygen falling to the lower ¼ of the room and the lighter nitrogen blocking us from getting any oxygen into our lungs?  Heavier gasses will fall.  Every once in a while you hear of someone dying in a tank because it was filled with carbon dioxide.

I tried to argue that in physics as part of a class discussion and was proven wrong.  Another classmate presented the fact that we were in a closed classroom and were still alive despite us using up some of the oxygen.  Movement in the room keeps the gasses mixed.  Add that to the laws of Brownian motion precludes all the oxygen from gathering on the floor or in a corner of the room and suffocating us.

Now let’s go outside on the earth’s surface.  Lighting a match should result in an explosive firestorm that completely destroys everything on the surface of the earth if the gasses in the atmosphere separated out.  Since I am writing this article, that is proof enough that the gasses on earth have not separated.

Therefore, how can the greenhouse effect happen?  If the carbon dioxide separated out, it would be on the surface of the earth and not in the stratosphere.

In Part 2, I will cover another inaccuracy or misrepresentation about methane.

Image courtesy of vlastik

Last year, the National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), received results from an extensive study showing that the north Pacific humpback whale population has been growing 4-7% a year over the past few decades.

But, is that sufficient reason to delist the humpback whale?

Environmentalists disagree.

Some say that emerging threats, such as climate change and ocean acidification, continue to endanger marine mammals.

Others, like Ralph Reeves, who chairs the cetacean specialist group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), feel that conservationists must “embrace success,” and support delisting if populations have recovered.

There has been an international ban on commercial whaling since 1966.

Currently, researchers estimate that the global humpback population is about 60,000.

The Montgomery County animal shelter in Conroe, Texas, closed gates on Monday, September 19, due to lack of funding. The sad news has made the rounds on the biggest social media websites, including Facebook and Twitter, causing a widespread confusion that all animals without a home were supposed to be euthanized.

Just to make thing clear, none of the the Montgomery Animal Shelter in Montgomery Township, NJ, the Montgomery Animal Shelter in Clarksville, TN, or the three animal shelters run by the SPCA in Montgomery County, PA, are being closed. More to it, animals from the animal shelter in Conroe, TX, have all been rescued by community members (already) before the shelter changed hands.

And now comes the best part. There are reports talking about a computer virus — that takes advantage of our good hearts — who’s being spread online to those looking for that exact topic on Google.

So much for doing good and helping an animal, eh? Beware!

Greg Reynolds of LagoonKeepers.org said that  “Channel marker ten is the first time we saw the unknown creature. We followed it and started taking video.”

Don Serrano, who was with Greg Reynolds when the creature was caught on tape, said that it’s “different, very different.”

Although they don’t know what it is, both Greg and Don are certain that it is something. And, even though the creature in the Lake Worth Lagoon has not yet been identified, it’s been called “the elusive muck monster.”

Thomas Reinert, a marine biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who studied the video, says that it seems to be an animal moving without breaking the surface.

“I can only speculate,” Reinert said, “but we need more evidence to determine the identity of the so-called muck monster.”

“We have so suddenly lost,” Tippi Hedren was quoted as saying, “one of the most beautiful and enchanting entertainers on our planet.”

According to Tippi, Michael Jackson was not only loved by the people of the world for his incomparable talent but was also loved by the wild animals. At the Neverland Ranch, she added, Jackson provided the most beautiful home for those magnificent wild creatures.

Tippi Hedren is set to take care of Michael Jackson’s much-loved tigers, Thriller and Sabu.