News Archives

Week of January 2, 2005

Animals and tsunami

The Washington Post has another article on how animals responded to the tsunami.

In Khao Lak, 50 miles north of Phuket along Thailand's western coast, a dozen elephants giving tourists rides began trumpeting hours before the Dec. 26 tsunami -- about the time the 9.0-magnitude quake fractured the ocean floor. An hour before the wall of waves slammed the resort area, the elephants reportedly again grew agitated and began wailing. Just before disaster struck, they headed for higher ground -- some breaking their chains to flee.

Flamingos that breed this time of year at Point Calimere sanctuary on India's southern coast left for safer forests well before the tsunami hit, forest officials told the India News.

An elephant clears a path in Banda Aceh. Sensitive to ground vibrations, elephants may have detected the undersea quake long before the tsunami hit.

At the hard-hit Yala National Park in Sri Lanka, stunned wildlife officials reported that hundreds of elephants, leopards, tigers, wild boar, deer, water buffalo, monkeys and smaller mammals and reptiles had escaped unscathed.

And while large turtles have been found dead in the debris along the shore of Indonesia's devastated Aceh province, the tsunami's impact on wildlife was "limited," says Frank Momberg, coordinator for emergency response in Aceh for the conservation group Fauna & Flora International.

Tales of animals behaving strangely before the quake and of wildlife escaping to safety have abounded in the wake of the tsunami, raising anew questions about what these members of the animal kingdom knew that humans didn't -- and what, if anything, can be learned from it....

Posted by Jennifer on Saturday, January 8 2005, 8:52 PM

Deconstructing bacteria

For a while we've known that there are bacteria which can eat chemical pollutants as PCE and TCE, which are known carcinogens. Now researchers have actually decoded the genome of one such bacteria, and hope this will help them engineer more efficient pollution eaters.

I'm generally wary of bioengineering, but it's good to see this advanced technology being targeted to enviromental cleansing.

Posted by Jennifer on Thursday, January 6 2005, 6:06 PM

Black-footed ferrets doing well in Arizona

Black-footed ferrets are one of the most endangered mammals in the world, and a keystone of prairie ecosystems, which like all grasslands are highly endangered.

But in some places, efforts to reintroduce these animals to the wild are working well. In South Dakota, some populations are already self-sustaining, and in Arizona one population has produced more young than expected, and may soon survive without human intervention.

These ferrets are dependent on prairie dogs for their livelihood, and the constant reduction of prairie dog populations has hit them hard. Because prairie dogs have been reduced to only a small fraction of their former range, ferrets almost went extinct, but with our efforts they are slowly reviving.

Photo © US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Posted by Jennifer on Wednesday, January 5 2005, 7:00 PM

Elephants help with reconstruction

In areas of Thailand too muddy or rubble-strewn to allow access by vehicles, elephants have been brought in to help move rocks or pieces of destroyed buildings. They help find undiscovered bodies, and create cleared areas for further reconstruction work.

The six elephants working here are former movie actors — they took part in filming Alexander, and were chosen because they already knew various voice commands.

Posted by Jennifer on Monday, January 3 2005, 5:18 PM

Could it happen to North America?

I've read a lot of people speculating about whether tsunamis pose any danger to the U.S. I don't know enough to say, but here's an interesting article describing one such scenario

Posted by Jennifer on Monday, January 3 2005, 12:51 PM

Further evidence of warming

In other news of the earth, evidence suggests that global warming continues to advance. In parts of Alaska and in other northern areas the permafrost is melting, while in the Antarctic grass is flourishing for the first time in perhaps ten thousand years.

Scientists have reported that broad areas of grass are now forming turf where there were once ice-sheets and glaciers.

Tufts have previously grown on patches of Antarctica in summer, but the scientists have now observed bigger areas surviving winter and spreading in the summer months. Some fear the change portends a much wider melting of the ice-cap that formed at least 20m years ago.

Posted by Jennifer on Sunday, January 2 2005, 9:29 PM

World Turning

Back to the home page.

World Turning Forums

A quiet place at the moment. Make yourself at home, but try to be kind. No spamming!

The Learning Center

Environmental information and news sites

Return to the Archives page.

This site is a one-person project; I design, research, and bang together every word, graphic, and html tag. Learn more about me and my background. I update this page as quickly as I can, so drop by often. But please don't use the content elsewhere without permission. Send me email: Jennifer B Powell.

Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed in these pages, unless otherwise noted, are my own opinions. I make a great effort to ensure that all information is accurate, but cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information contained on this site. If you catch any errors here, please let me know.

Powered by Coranto.