Green Options » gorillas

Man Suffers from 1,415 Diseases; Blames His Gorilla Meat Diet

Sam Aola Ooko — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:42:36 +0000

The average man living in forest-prone areas and who depends on meat from endangered apes and other wildlife for his proteins plays the role of a carrying agent for the hundreds of infectious diseases that humanity is suffering from.

Now experts are warning of the danger to humanity this lifestyle may be posing. Most of these diseases, identified in medical terms as zoonotic because of their ability to jump from animal to man, have been labeled as “emerging infectious diseases” or EIDs.

Over 60 percent of the 1,415 infectious diseases currently known to modern medicine are capable of infecting both humans and animals. Most of these diseases originated in animals and now infect people and include viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and helminths, with 175 pathogenic species associated with diseases considered to be ‘emerging’.

Magnificent Waterfall “Discovered” in Peru– Perhaps One of World’s Tallest

Levi Novey — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:59:03 +0000

The big environmental news coming out of Peru this past week was that a huge waterfall previously unknown to the greater world was “discovered” in the country’s Amazon Rainforest region. The word “discovered” is in quotes because a community that lives near to the waterfall had known about its existence according to Andina News, but had chosen to keep their knowledge a secret to help protect the area from damage. Obed Cabanillas Silva, the explorer who “found” it, thinks that it might be taller than Peru’s Gocta waterfall (pictured to the left).

The Gocta Fall is third tallest waterfall in the world, although its status is disputed. It is 771 meters high (~ 2529 feet). If its measurements are accurate, only Venezuela’s Angel Falls and South Africa’s Tugela Falls are taller. It was also “discovered” in 2005, although local communities knew about its existence as well. According to Peru’s El Commercio newspaper (via Wikipedia), “local people feared the curse of a beautiful blond mermaid who lived in its waters if they revealed its whereabouts.”

Only several days after the news of the this new waterfall’s discovery was announced, an expedition has departed to see and document the waterfall. The group includes a topographer, photographer, and representatives from local communities. While this expedition’s hasty departure is not surprising, the “discovery” of the spectacular waterfall leaves me with two conflicting feelings.

Polar Bears, Mountain Gorillas Under Continued and Increased Threat

Joshua S Hill — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:55:45 +0000

Native solely to the Arctic, and the land’s largest carnivore, the polar bear has long been a favorite of children and scientists alike. But, give it a hundred years, and we may very well be seeing the end of the polar bear for good, if something isn’t done soon.

According to a report conducted by the US Geological Survey, released this past Friday, two-thirds of the world’s population of polar bears could simply melt away like their native ice by mid-century.

"There is a definite link between changes in the sea ice and the welfare of polar bears," said Steve Amstrup, who led the research team.

Their fate could be even more uncertain than we currently know, given the unreliability of computer models to perfectly predict the quickly disappearing ice that used to cover the Arctic Ocean, and subsequently provided the bears with a habitat to which they evolved.

At the moment, polar bears number somewhere close to 16,000, and reside throughout the Arctic in Russia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Already, areas such as the Northwest Passage have almost totally disappeared, and experts are predicting anywhere between a 40% to total drop-off of summer ice by 2050.

The reports executive summary concluded that by the mid 21st century, a full two-thirds of the bears population could be gone, with remainders living in Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland.

The polar bear has recently also been the subject of a potential addition to the Endangered Species Act list, thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. Unable to successfully hunt on land – being too acclimatized to hunting in the water and on ice – the polar bear would probably begin to suffer in its cub’s inability to survive past adolescence, and the females unable to successfully reproduce.

First making its way on to the ecological landscape some 40-50,000 years ago, the polar bear has adapted to the icy conditions of the northern icecaps. In that intervening period, earth has not suffered a warming to such an extent that its caps have depreciated as they are now. It is this unaccustomed warming that worries experts.

However, it is not just global warming that is threatening species of animals (though, one may claim that all problems find their basis with humans). The WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and other conservation organizations are refocusing their attention on Congo’s Virunga National Park.

Amidst fierce clashes between Congolese military and local rebels, conservation organizations are worried that the local mountain gorillas are at risk. The ICCN (the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature) have noted that recent heavy shelling has been drifting dangerously close to gorilla habitats.

With an estimated 700 mountain gorillas remaining in the wild worldwide, and half of that population in Virunga, conservationists have reason to be worried: "The UN announces a truce between warring factions one day and the next we hear it’s been broken," said WWF’s Marc Languy, who is working in the national park. "All we want is return of peace for the security of its people and wildlife."

So whether it is the polar bear, or the mountain gorilla, a common thread runs between the future of both: humans. We are the root cause of the problems; we thus have to be the solution. For more information, head along to WWF.