Feed aggregator

Animal rights should trump human interests: an intelligence squared debate

Outdoor air pollution has grown 8% globally in the past five years, with billions of people around the world now exposed to dangerous air, according to new data from more than 3,000 cities compiled by the World Health Organisation. Director Maira Neira says India and China need to make ‘massive efforts because the situation at the moment is really bad for the population’

Continue reading...

Dingoes on Queensland’s popular Fraser Island are healthy and well, contrary to local claims. In fact, they consume one of the widest size ranges of prey in the animal kingdom, according to recent research published in Scientific Reports.

Dingoes are a national and international icon of great public and conservation interest. As Australia’s largest terrestrial predator, they enjoy similar popularity to other top predators such as lions, bears and wolves.

Fraser Island’s dingoes helped to resolve the Azaria Chamberlain case and are regarded as one of the purest remaining strains of dingoes in Queensland.

About 100-200 dingoes, representing about 19 packs, live on the island at any one time. Most dingoes are seen on the popular eastern beaches, where the occasional euthanasia of dangerous dingoes always fans the flames of controversy and conspiracy.

Observations of “skinny” dingoes have led some to voice concerns that Fraser Island dingoes are starving with nothing to eat and some predicted they would even be extinct by now.

So why are they still alive and doing well in good numbers? The answer may have something to do with their eating habits.

A dog’s breakfast

Based on 2,196 dingo scats, 144 stomach samples and more than 30,000 camera trap records, my colleagues and I found that Fraser Island dingoes eat prey ranging from tiny insects to giant dead whales washed ashore – and everything in between.

The most frequently occurring food items in scats were northern brown bandicoots (47.9%), followed by fish (26.8%) and large skinks (11.5%).

Eastern grey kangaroos, feral pigs and even feral horses showed up, along with threatened long-nosed potoroos and eastern chestnut mice, confirming the continued presence of these animals on the island.

Plastic food wrappers, tin foil, human faeces, underwear, hats, a variety of different shoes, fish hooks, iPods, beer and soft drink cans, alcohol bladders, steel wool and plastic containers also made an appearance.

Dingo body weight and condition

Given the wide range of food items going down the hatch, it should come as no surprise that Fraser Island dingo body weight and condition are doing remarkably well.

From 455 weight records (the largest known sample of dingo weights ever reported), Fraser Island dingoes over 12 months of age weigh in at 16.6 kg on average, compared to mainland dingoes' typical weight of only 15.7 kg.

And when it comes to body condition scores (ranging from 1 for skinny dingoes to 5 for grossly obese animals), nearly 75% of dingoes scored 4 or 5. Only 5.6% had a score of 2.5 or less.

Parasite loads were also low and comparable to other dingo populations.

So what does this all mean for Fraser Island dingoes?

The available data does not support notions that Fraser Island dingoes are starving, have restricted diets or are in poor physical condition.

Rather, they indicate that dingoes on Fraser Island are capable of exploiting a diverse array of food sources, which contributes to the vast majority of them being in good-excellent physical condition.

Underweight or skinny dingoes are still sometimes seen, and will continue to be seen forever, but this is a normal and natural phenomenon associated with wild populations of dingoes and other wildlife, and is nothing to be concerned about.

Skinny dingoes may represent socially excluded individuals, females that have recently lactated and raised litters, sick or diseased animals, or those suffering from temporary nutritional stress during normal periods of food shortage.

Dingoes also have excess digestive capacity, meaning that they do not need to eat every day and regularly endure periods of several days without food or water. As a result, variable body condition scores and fat reserves can be expected in and between individuals under normal conditions.

It is unreasonable to expect that every individual in a population will be the same weight all the time, or that all individuals will survive. Although some individual dingoes may be “skinny”, the population actually contains far more “fat” individuals. Dingoes on the island are also known to live for over 13 years, which is a long time for a wild dingo.

Returning to natural diets

Comparisons with previous studies also suggested that dingoes have returned to a more natural diet over the past 20 years. This is in line with a range of sound non-lethal management approaches, including increased education and the exclusion of dingoes from open rubbish dumps and other substantial sources of human food (such as townships and campgrounds).

This is all good news for the future of Fraser Island’s dingoes. If dingoes focus more on eating natural food sources (such as bandicoots and stranded marine whales) and less on human-provided food, then we may see fewer negative dingo-human interactions or attacks in the future, and an ultimate reduction in the number of dingoes needing to be euthanased for dangerous behaviour.

Continuing to feed dingoes with human food would be a disaster for Fraser Island. The saying “a fed dingo is a dead dingo” is not far from the truth.

Research from around the world has shown that supplementary feeding of wild animals increases their numbers beyond the point that the environment can handle. This ultimately leads to more animals in need of feeding and subsequently greater numbers of deaths, in both the fed animals and other wildlife too.

This has been observed with dingo populations in other areas of Australia and can be easily avoided on Fraser Island with proper management and ongoing research.

Funding for components of the published study was provided to Ben Allen by the Queensland Government's 'Fraser Island Dingo Research Program' (Grant number: 06251-2015), administered by the Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the published study or this article.

From selling clothes with a 30 year guarantee to touring Europe in a repair shop - these brands are advancing the circular economy within fashion

Continue reading...

World Health Organisation report says high pollution puts millions of people in cities including Delhi at risk of early death

Environmental campaigners in India have called for the government to implement a “stringent, time-bound” plan to curb air pollution in cities, as a new World Health Organisation report suggests that six of the 10 most polluted cities in the world are in India.

The report, which contains data from 795 cities in 67 countries between 2008 and 2013, shows Indian cities have some of the highest concentrations of particulate pollution, which can cause fatal damage to the heart and lungs.

Continue reading...

Two cities – one in Iran and another in Nigeria – can claim title because WHO measures pollution in two different ways

The new WHO database of worldwide air pollution measures it in two different ways, and as a result two cities – one in Iran and another in Nigeria – can lay claim to the unenviable title of world’s most polluted city.

It all comes down to which minute particles, or particulate matter (PM), in the air are being measured. These particles are between 2.5 and 10 microns in diameter, roughly 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Continue reading...

Port Talbot seems obvious, but World Health Organisation data shows south coast town registers high levels of two tiny types of particulate pollution

• Air pollution: how does it affect you?

It’s perhaps no surprise that Port Talbot, home to one of Europe’s biggest steelworks with thousands of tonnes of iron ore imported to its docks every year, tops the list of the UK’s most polluted towns and cities.

But Eastbourne, home to the women’s tennis tournament and located at the end of the South Downs national park, is not an obvious candidate for the top 10 of the worst UK towns and cities for two tiny types of particulate pollution.

Continue reading...

Outdoor pollution has risen 8% in five years with fast-growing cities in the developing world worst affected, WHO data shows

• Air pollution: how does it affect you?
  

Outdoor air pollution has grown 8% globally in the past five years, with billions of people around the world now exposed to dangerous air, according to new data from more than 3,000 cities compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Continue reading...

DEEP-SEA RICHES: A global snapshot of thousands of close relatives of the starfish has provided an unprecedented view into the richness and diversity of deep-sea life.

SPACE DUST: The oldest fossils of cosmic dust ever discovered provide a glimpse into atmospheric conditions above the Earth more than 2.7 billion years ago and could do the same on other planets.

James Rebanks is a shepherd from the Lake District in Northern England. Breeding and tending sheep is a tradition that dates back some 600 years in his family and, as with all farmers, his life and work is measured according to the cycle of the seasons.

Community energy groups are coming up with renewable energy schemes. Shouldn’t government extend a hand to help them?

Yackandandah, like most Australian towns, has had its ups and its downs. One of its biggest ups was the north-east Victorian gold rush. By the 1890s our town was full of miners toiling to extract what was left of its alluvial gold. The only thing holding these folks back was an energy crisis. The miners were unable to source the power needed to sluice and dredge or crush the ore. The solution was a water race from high up on the West Kiewa river, which wasn’t the brainchild of government, or even the mines department – but rather a local man.

John Wallace, a Yackandandah resident, recognised a problem that needed immediate action and set about solving it.

Continue reading...

With some Indian Ocean tuna stocks on the brink of collapse, the expedition exposes harmful methods by the world’s largest tuna company, Thai Union, owner of John West

Continue reading...

Airport will ban arrivals and departures before 5.30am, and support the launch of an independent noise authority

Heathrow has agreed to curb night flights if permission is granted for a third runway, as it announced measures it claimed met all the conditions set by the Airports Commission for its expansion plan.

As well as banning all arrivals and departures before 5.30am, the airport said it would support the introduction of an independent noise authority, and pledged not to add new capacity unless it can do so without delaying UK compliance with EU air quality limits.

Continue reading...

Are we underestimating the biomedical implications of global warming?

Filed patents show the British engineering firm may use solid-state batteries that could stretch electric car’s range to hundreds of miles and increase safety

Dyson could become the next Tesla motors as it develops a new electric car, according to a leading industry expert. Filed patents show the Dyson vehicle may use solid-state batteries, which would see the car’s range stretch to hundreds of miles and also be safer than current batteries.

In March, a government document revealed funding to help Dyson develop “a new battery electric vehicle”. The company declined to comment but in 2015 it said it planned to invest £1bn in battery technology and in October it bought solid-state battery company, Sakti3, for $90m, which founder Sir James Dyson said had “developed a breakthrough in battery technology”.

Continue reading...

A national citizen science project reveals which which bird species are dominating the backyard bird bath

WORLD'S OLDEST AXE: A fragment of the world's oldest known ground-edge axe has been found in the remote Kimberley region of northern Australia.

Interactive map commissioned by Lock the Gate shows fossil fuel claims cover 37% of Australia’s landmass

More than a third of Australia’s landmass is earmarked for coal or gas, according to a new analysis and interactive map commissioned by the community group Lock the Gate.

No single register of fossil fuel exploration and extraction licences and applications exists so, commissioned by Lock the Gate, Energy Resources Insights gathered spatial information on land earmarked for fossil fuels from state and federal regulators.

Continue reading...

Six more islands have large swaths of land, and villages, washed into sea as coastline of Solomon Islands eroded and overwhelmed

• Headlines ‘exaggerated’ climate link to sinking of Pacific islands

Five tiny Pacific islands have disappeared due to rising seas and erosion, a discovery thought to be the first scientific confirmation of the impact of climate change on coastlines in the Pacific, according to Australian researchers.

Related: Sea levels set to 'rise far more rapidly than expected'

Continue reading...