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How many hippos are too many? Proposed cull raises questions
By resurrecting a proposal to allow trophy hunters to shoot 250 hippos annually, Zambia stirs controversy.
The hippo — really? That’s the common response when tour guides in Africa tantalize travelers with this question: “What’s the most dangerous animal on the continent?” Lion? Rhino? Elephant? No, no, no. Eventually, the tour guide delivers the answer with a twinkle in their eye: the hippo, yes, that water-loving, one-tonne mammalian oddity. Despite their hefty and somnolent appearance, hippos are fast and aggressive — a dangerous mix — and may kill several hundred people a year (of course the most dangerous animal in Africa is not really the hippo at all, it’s the mosquito — but no one likes a know-it-all).
Despite being one of the most unusual animals on the planet — their closest relatives are whales and dolphins — hippos don’t get a lot of love. They tend to be overshadowed by the continent’s other remarkable mega-mammals. Who can compete with elephants and giraffe and lion? Perhaps, that’s why it’s not exactly surprising that the announcement of a hippo cull in Zambia didn’t exactly make global news.
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Country diary: the heather is a burnt burgundy, the grass yellowed
Rombalds Moor, West Yorkshire: We can’t blame the heatwave for this desiccated landscape – we’ve spent decades deliberately drying out our peatland habitats
The moors are a tinderbox. Parched and crisped by weeks of dry summer heat, the heather is a burnt brown-to-burgundy, the moorland grass yellowed. The bracken looks all right – still a deep pea-green (it takes a lot to bother bracken) – but finger-wide cracks have opened in the colourless peat of the footpath. It’s early morning; the day hasn’t yet been fully cranked up, and the broken sky is a messy palette of blues and greys. A loose flock of a dozen meadow pipits forages for caterpillars.
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Adani says it still needs a loan for rail line if coalmine is to go ahead
Major hurdles to Carmichael mine remain despite comments by Karan Adani that the company has ‘completed financing’
Adani says its Carmichael coalmine remains contingent on a loan to build a rail line to the Galilee Basin – comments that analysts believe will ramp up pressure on the Australian government to further subsidise the project.
Karan Adani, the son of company boss Gautam Adani, and the head of the conglomerate’s ports business, told India’s Economic Times the company had “completed financing on the mine” and that it had received all necessary approvals.
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CP Daily: Tuesday July 17, 2018
Plantwatch: phosphate leading to widespread pollution
Phosphate fertilisers are causing dangerous levels of pollution in waterways that harm aquatic plants and animals
Much of the environment is awash with fertilisers, boosting thuggish weeds such as stinging nettles that swamp other wild plants. Nitrate is a big villain in this onslaught, but far less notice is taken of phosphate.
Phosphate is crucial for plant growth and development, and it is estimated that half the world’s food supplies rely on phosphate fertilisers, but this is a dwindling resource that is used very inefficiently, which is leading to widespread pollution. Unlike nitrate, phosphate binds very strongly to the soil, which makes it difficult for plant roots to get hold of. And so farmers apply even more phosphates in fertilisers and manure, although much of that phosphate then sticks to the soil again, driving the levels of phosphate in the soil even higher.
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