The Conservation Report

While kitesurfing off the Northern Australian coast, a camera attached to kiteboarder David Sheridan’s sail captured this image of a southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) breaching near the kitesurfer. The massive marine mammal’s fluke knocked the surfer off his kiteboard. From the Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom:

“It all happened so fast that all I could do was crouch down as the whale swam under me,” Mr Sheridan told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

“I saw the huge shape and my reaction was to duck while remaining attached to the flying lines from the sail above me.

“The next thing I felt was its tail come up and hit me on the back of the head.

“I honestly thought I was gone – it was such a forceful blow – but then the whale eased off and I was able to sail away.

“But my legs were really shaking. I’ve never been through anything like that before and probably never will again.”

Mr Sheridan’s camera was attached to the kite and programmed to take photos every ten seconds. He was kiteboarding near Valla Beach, off the north coast of New South Wales, with two friends.

“The camera was set to start firing off shots every 10 seconds as soon as I hit the water. When the sail was at full height the camera was about 25m above the surface.

Another windsurfer recently had an encounter with a marine mammal, or a pod of orcas actually. From Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand:

“A couple of the local guys, Olly and Keith, noticed them and said `come on, get back out there’ … to be honest I was bricking it. I know them as killer whales and I thought no way am I going out there with killer whales,” Mr Taggart said.

“But I went out and was taking it quite carefully when the mother popped up right in front of me.

“I never thought I would ever do that … it was crazily intense. She was literally metres away.”

Mr Taggart was out on the water with the orcas for about 15 minutes, but lack of wind meant it was difficult to stay with them.

“I was just trying to enjoy the moment. I was absolutely blown away.

“They came through so quickly … I guess I was fortunate to be there at the right moment.”

Locals had told him orcas came in close to shore to flush out stingray before circling and eating them.

Image Found Here
Image Found Here

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Image Found Here

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Certainly, Obama supporters are stealing McCain political campaign signs, and to suggest otherwise would be naïve, but McCain supporters appear to be more predatory about taking political campaign signs off private property. However, Obama supporters are fighting back. From the Daily Kos:

In McCain’s home state of Arizona, the Obama signs seem to disappear the most. In one neighborhood, Obama yard signs consistently disappear so soon after being planted in the yards that Melinda Applegate and her sister Ellen Pierce formed a neighborhood group of almost a half dozen homes to purchase yard signs in bulk from the Obama campaign. Applegate and Pierce have gone through nearly $120 in Obama yard signs since the primary nominees were determined. In addition, the neighborhood group tries to provide replacement signs quickly to neighbors whose signs are stolen or defaced.

Applegate, Pierce, and another neighbor who lives about half a block away became so exasperated that they each purchased surveillance cameras, and trained them on the signs in their yards. Saturday afternoon, the surveillance efforts of both neighbors paid off. Both captured video of the same woman stealing Obama signs from each of their yards.

Applegate and Pierce’s video captured a car driving by, stopping to show their middle finger to the yard sign, and then driving away. A minute or two later, an SUV drives by, slows beside the sign, turns around, and parks on the side of the street by the sign. As the driver gets out of her SUV, another car drives by. Clearly experienced at this, the sign thief shows no trepidation — she simply pretends to fix her bra strap and tie her shoes. As the other car disappears, she reaches into the back of the SUV to make room for the sign. When the other car is completely out of sight, she darts across the sidewalk, uproots the yard sign, chucks it into the back of her SUV, and makes an exceedingly quick getaway.

Melinda Applegate and Ellen Pierce’s homemade video can be found here, and more citizens taking action can be found at Flickr:

Image via Flickr.

Image via Flickr.

Image via Flickr.

Image via Flickr.

On the Net: YES WE CARVE

The fundamentals of John McCain’s economic policy smells like dog poo to some folks, and one individual is expressing his/her view by placing little yellow flags that say “McCain Economic Policy” on dog poo in Venice, California. More images can be seen in a Flickr set entitled “mccain flags.”

Image Found Here.

AGRICULTURE: SCIENTIST AT WORK | NORMAN T. UPHOFF: Food Revolution That Starts With Rice

ANIMAL WELFARE: Boy fed zoo reptiles to crocodile: A seven-year-old boy has been filmed going on the rampage at a popular zoo in Australia, killing rare reptiles and feeding live ones to a crocodile

ARCTIC MELTING: Arctic Ice in “Death Spiral,” Is Near Record Low

AUTO INDUSTRY: No “Revolting” the Volt: Chevy Battery Does Not Recharge While Driving

BUSHMEAT: Bush-Meat Ban Would Devastate Africa’s Animals, Poor?

CARBON: Heat Hinders Ground’s Ability to Absorb CO2

E-WASTE: 7 Hurdles to Electronics Recycling

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: 19 Electric Car Players Pitch San Francisco, 30 electric cars companies ready to take over the road, China Planning Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

ENERGY: Researchers Developing the “Internet for Energy”, New Energy Project Will Be Even Larger than the Pickens Plan: Move over, T. Boone Pickens. You’re about to be overshadowed by Babcock and Brown

ENDANGERED SPECIES: Croc Hunter’s ‘Bum-Breathing’ Turtle Faces Extinction

EVOLUTION: Scientists Discover Fish in Act of Evolution in Africa’s Greatest Lake, From the Onion: Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs ‘Oh, Shit,’ Says Humanity

FUEL CELLS: First Fuel Cell-Powered Plane Presented in Germany

GOOGLE: Google search finds seafaring solution

GREEN CONSTRUCTION: 15 Inspiring Glimpses into the Future of Green Housing, The First LEED Platinum Skyscraper Nearly Completed, Lost middle-class tribe’s ’secret’ eco-village in Wales spotted in aerial photograph taken by plane, Paint it white: Cool roofs save cash and carbon, New experimental homes will heat themselves

HIV/AIDS: Colonial clue to the rise of HIV: The arrival of colonial cities in sub-Saharan Africa at the dawn of the 20th Century may have sparked the spread of HIV

HYBRID TECHNOLOGY: Honda Takes on the Hybrid Motorcycle, Mercedes-Benz S400 BlueHYBRID unveiled

HYDROGEN FUEL: Scientists Reach Hydrogen Storage Milestone

INVASIVE SPECIES: State wildlife commission seeks tougher rules for owning pet snakes, Stop slithering intruders: Asian swamp eels are an invasive foreign species that is dangerously prolific and adaptive, threatening fish and other native creatures

NATURAL GAS-POWERED VEHICLES: Pickens Overlooks Existing Natural Gas Cars in Energy Plan: Reality Check

NEW SPECIES: New Iguana Species Revealed

OFFSHORE WIND POWER: Huge Offshore Wind Farm Wins Approval, Offshore Wind To Supply 15% of Rhode Island Electricity

PHEV: Plug-In Hybrids Aren’t Coming — They’re Here, Houses passes bill with $5k Volt tax-credit, mandatory alternative fuel pumps

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: California’s 220 MPH High-Speed Train Will Be Emissions-Free

RECOMMENDED IMAGE(S): Earth From Above comes to NYC, Yup, still a pig, Monk Seal

RECOMMENDED MAP: USA National Gas Temperature Map

RECOMMENDED YOUTUBE: SOUTH CENTRAL FARM - PART 1, The End of Suburbia - 52 minute documentary on oil, McCain’s YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare, Sarah Palin Gibberish

REDISCOVERED SPECIES: Rare Plant Thought Extinct Re-discovered in Upstate New York

SCIENCE: Sciencedebate2008: Presidential answers to the top 14 science questions facing America, Japanese Scientists Plan to Build Space Elevator

WASTE-TO-ENERGY: Indiana will get $227 million waste to fuel plant

WATER AVAILABILITY: When Will Los Angeles Run Out of Water? Sooner Than You Think, Cactus Goo Makes Water Safe: The slimy ooze inside prickly pear cactuses that helps the plants store water in the desert can also be used for scouring arsenic, bacteria and cloudiness out of rural drinking water, according to research at the University of South Florida in Tampa

WATER CONSERVATION: Harvesting Rainwater by Not Letting It Go to Waste

WTF?: Cheney: Wildlife Conservation Has Been A ‘High Priority’ Of Bush Administration

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK: Yellowstone seeks to balance nature, cell phones, Judge refuses to let snowmobiles roam Yellowstone

ZOONOTIC DISEASES: Hamsters, Exotic Pets May Put Young Children At Risk, Doctors Say

More images from MESSENGER’s Mercury fly-by can be found here, and information about the fly-by can be found here.

See Brian Skerry’s right whale images in National Geographic Magazine’s October issue or here and here.

On the Net: Brian Skerry - Underwater Photographer

Image Found Here

This is a hodgepodge posting of random images that I’ve come across during the last few days, which may find interesting.

Cost of bailout versus major federal spending



Who voted against the $700 billion financial bailout bill? From NYTimes.com.



WebEcoist hosts “20 of the World’s Weirdest Endangered Species.” Image: Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis). Image Found Here



The New Yorker magazine’s cover illustrates Sarah Palin’s foreign policy experience.



WebUrbanist hosts “7 Abandoned Architectural Wonders of Modern Asia.”  One of the more famous abandoned buildings includes the failed Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea.



Via Andrew Sullivan, I found this article that highlights “Of All the People in All the World,” an event that uses grains of rice to illustrate statistics. More information here.



Celebrity Solstice, practically a floating city, makes her debut.



Michel de Broin turns a dumpster into a jacuzzi.



Oil Consumption by state.  WTF? Texas!



Bullfrog vs. Sparrow. Sparrow loses. See an amazing series of images here.

I’ve heard of marine mammals and sea turtles interacting or becoming entangled with fishing gear or ingesting plastic trash such as helium balloons, but I never realized that chicken wire, Christmas lights, hammocks, soccer goals, and other anthropogenic materials can be so problematic for moose (Alces alces). More images showing moose entanglements can be found here.

In the ocean, entanglement or interaction with anthropogenic materials or marine debris is a serious problem for marine mammals and sea turtles, because interaction or entanglement with these materials can prevent them from reaching the surface to breathe air. Entanglement can also result in tissue damage and starvation. Ingesting plastic can result in impaction within the gut, thus starvation. So, if you can’t recycle your trash, make sure it reaches the landfill by placing it in the garbage.

Hat tip to Kevin.

Some extraordinary images from both the democratic and republican national conventions can be found at Fear and Loathing | 2008 National Conventions. Certainly, these images deserve recognition.  Some of my favorite images:

I love Boston.com’s The Big Picture. You can see more images of hurricanes from space here.

More at the Los Angeles Times.

Dubai, located in the United Arab Emirates, is a cosmopolitan and very modern, and the city continues to produce some of the world’s most extraordinary and striking architecture. Dubai also embraces green construction and renewable energy. Most surprisingly, although oil was instrumental to the Arab city’s expansion and growth, “by 2000 the oil sector accounted for just 10 percent of Dubai’s GDP [and] the city now has thriving manufacturing, finance, information technology and tourism sectors and is home to numerous multinational companies such as AT&T, General Motors, Heinz, IBM, Shell, and Sony.”

On the Net: Dubai to make green building norms mandatory from next year
On the Net: Dubai first Arab city to join Earth Hour

Two freshwater species of fish - Cyprinion macrostomum and Garra rufa - from the family Cyprinidae (Minnows or carps) are being utilized as an alternative spa treatment for skin care. At first blush, using fish to pick at your skin seems ridiculous or even over indulgent. However, by feeding on dead and diseased areas of skin, the little fish encourage and provide relief from various skin ailments.

The phenomenon of making the most of other species as skin care is common in nature. For example, cleaner fish remove dead skin and parasites from other fish, and cleaner shrimp also perform this service for some species of fish. Cleaning symbiosis occurs, because both species benefit. The behavior is more common in saltwater environments and is observed in other species of animals too.

Image Found Here
Image Found Here
Image Found Here
Image Found Here
Image Found Here
Image Found Here

On the Net: Yvonne Hair, Nails & Tanning Salon - Alexandria Virginia Va

This extrapolation of space debris currently encircling the Earth seems to somewhat parallel the fictional, futuristic Earth being choked by space debris in Pixar’s Wall-E. In fact, we currently have so much junk in space that the space junk forms a ring around Earth. Other planets with rings include Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus.

More information on these images can be found at Discovery News: Space Diary.

We are use to seeing land predators such as lions take down their prey in parts of the world like Africa on television. However, NOAA officials had a very rare opportunity to photograph several tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) attack a sick humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) calf back in November 2006 off the Kailua-Kona area of Big Island. The scenes are dramatic, because they offer an extraordinary glimpse into the life and death struggle occurring underneath the ocean waves. From NOAA:

They also noted that little could have been done to save the animal. “Shark attacks are part of the natural world in which these animals live,” said Viezbicke. “To them an ailing marine mammal is a meal and what happened was a natural process within the marine world.”

Following the year-old mammal’s death, its carcass was towed and tied to a fish buoy approximately three miles off shore. Officials returned the next day to find the remains gone.

PHOTO CREDIT: KOSTA STAMOULIS, NOAA NMFS PERMIT # 932-1489-08.

Larger Image Found Here
Larger Image Found Here

See more Shark Week on The Conservation Report

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

The image shows a male great white (Carcharodon carcharias) leaping out of the ocean. Apparently, these large great whites prefer the high fat content of mammalian prey found off Seal Island.

Purchase this image, which captures an amazing display of great white behavior here.

On the Net: Eric Cheng’s Home

See more Shark Week on The Conservation Report

Image Found Here

A grey nurse shark (Carcharias taurus) was discovered with a gaff lodged in its throat. The grey nurse shark or sand tiger shark of Australia is very sensitive to overfishing because this “large coastal species of shark has one of the lowest reproductive rates known among elasmobranchs, giving birth to one or two large young every two years [so]…annual rates of population increase and ability to sustain fishing pressure are very low.” As a result, the grey nurse shark is considered endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and saving every individual – especially a large female – is important for species conservation. The significance of every individual is highlighted by what may be seen by some, as extreme measures taken by government divers and a veterinarian.

Veterinarian David Blyde put his hand down the shark’s throat to remove the gaff, and noted, “as a veterinarian you [are] often putting your hands in places that people find somewhat unattractive.” The gaff was successfully removed, and the animal was released. From the Herald Sun:

Scientists are unsure how the gaff came to be embedded in the 2.97m-long shark but said it was in good health and there was no bleeding when the pipe was removed.

“She was pale, which you’d expect, but once released swam back to the other sharks,” Mr Macdonald said.

A satellite tag has been attached to it so its recovery can be monitored by scientists and local divers. Marine Parks staff also volunteered to look out for her.

The grey nurse shark population is under threat, with less than 500 left in NSW waters.

See more Shark Week on The Conservation Report

Images Found Here

See more Shark Week on The Conservation Report

Credit for both images: Seawatch.org

See more Shark Week on The Conservation Report

Remember the stingray migration image posted by The Conservation Report here in June? Via Blogfish, more images and information about the cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) migration and photographer can be found at the Telegraph.co.uk. According to the photographer Sandra Critelli, “I feel very fortunate I was there in the right place at the right time to experienced nature at his best.”

Image Found Here
Image Found Here

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Scientists give an octopus a Rubik’s Cube to help determine if its octidextrous.

A peregrine falcon chick is examined and tagged by biologists and veterinarians just down the road from me in Lansing, Michigan. The bird lives at the Board of Water and Light’s Eckert Power Station. More information and images are here. Image by Rod Sanford/Lansing State Journal. According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources:

The last documented successful nesting in Michigan, before restoration began, was in 1957 at Burnt Bluff, a cliff on the Garden Peninsula in Delta County.

During the 1950s, the world population of peregrines was decimated, mostly due to the use of DDT in pesticides. When DDE, the breakdown product of DDT, accumulates in the bodies of many birds, it causes them to lay very thin-shelled eggs which break during incubation. A repeat of the 1940 survey of historically known eyries, conducted in 1964, found no breeding pairs or even single adult peregrines east of the Mississippi.

By the 1970s, DDT had been banned in both Europe and the U.S., partially due to data linking it to the decline of the peregrine falcon. In 1975, the Eastern Peregrine Recovery Team was created and charged with the task of developing a management plan to restore peregrine falcons as a nesting bird population in the eastern U.S. A program of re-introduction commenced, which has been extremely successful. By 1991, over 3000 falcons had been released throughout the U.S., including 400 in the upper Midwest. At the time restoration began, the population of peregrines in the U.S. was probably down to about 10 percent of its original size.

To date, 139 peregrine falcons have been released in Michigan, including 108 in the Upper Peninsula and 31 in urban areas….

On the Net: The Peregrine Fund
On the Net: Michigan Department of Natural Resources - Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)

This image captures the awestruck, beauty and deadliness within nature. More here.

The HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image showing Earth and its natural satellite the moon. The image was acquired on 3 October 2007. More information at NASA.

To see what a sunset looks like on Mars go here.

Image Found Here

Image Found Here