Green Options

Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, is funding conservationists who are developing a bio-barier based on chemicals identified in the urine of the African Wild Dog. The barrier would be used to manage the movement of dog packs and possibly become a model for similar systems for other endangered species.

In the middle of the 20th Century, the African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus) was common throughout sub saharan Africa. There were estimated to be 500,000 dogs in 39 countries, and packs of 100 or more were not uncommon. Today there are only 3,000-5,500 in fewer than 25 countries, primarily in eastern and southern Africa.

Last week, a rare occasion occurred in the African country of Botswana: a pink baby elephant was serendipitously spotted with its mother and subsequently filmed. If pink elephants are so rare, then why do we see depictions of them so often?

Before the question is answered, here’s a little more background on pink elephants. The pink elephant found in Botswana is more accurately described as a rare albino elephant, one of only three to have been officially recorded in Africa. More albino elephants are thought to have historically existed among Asia’s elephant species (also sometimes referred to as white elephants), although this occurrence is also a rarity. An albino in Sri Lanka was the first to be officially recorded among the Asian elephant species, and just recently in 2004. According to Wikipedia, “although often depicted as snow white, their skin is normally a soft reddish-brown, turning a light pink when wet.”

Mopane worms are critical to nutrition and income generation for most households in those rural areas in Africa where the mopane tree grows. However, climate change and over harvesting of the worms as one of the few income generating opportunities in rural areas are threatening the species’ survival.

Mopane worms are the caterpillar stage of the Emperor Moth, Gonimbrasia belina, which feed almost exclusively on the mopane tree Colophospermum mopane. The mopane worm harvest in South Africa is estimated at $40 million a year, of which approximately 40 percent goes to producers who are primarily poor rural women. In addition to the income generated dried mopane worms can contribute significantly to rural household nutrition mainly through their 53.3 percent dry weight digestible protein content.

A number of elephants have died after eating plastic from a garbage dump in Chobe National Park in Botswana.  The Chobe District Council says it has no choice but to continue dumping trash at the site.

Elephants, hyenas, baboons and birds all gather at the dumping site in Chobe to feed. Just this year, three elephants have died after consuming plastic from the garbage heap.

Thunya Sedodoma, the principal wildlife warden in the park, said that last year, plastics were found in the stomach of a dead elephant. She said it is not uncommon to see plastic in the feces of elephants. Sedodoma said that this year alone, the park has recorded over 70 deaths of wildlife, all related to feeding from the garbage dump.