Obama administration says no deal reached on climate change

WASHINGTON: Asserting that countries like India and China need to play a significant role in addressing the challenges of climate change, the Obama administration has strongly refuted reports that it has reached any international agreement to combat the critical global issue.

Obama administration's refutation came after The New York Times reported that the United States was pushing for an international voluntary treaty on climate change.

"Not a word of the new climate agreement currently under discussion has been written, so it is entirely premature to say whether it will or won't require Senate approval," state department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

"Our goal is to negotiate a successful and effective global climate agreement that can help address this pressing challenge. Anything that is eventually negotiated and that should go to the Senate will go to the Senate. We will continue to consult with Congress on this important issue," she said.

The agreement hasn't been written yet, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

"We're pushing to broker the kind of an agreement that would tangibly have an impact on reducing the causes of climate change and the causes of the kinds of pollution that have such a detrimental effect on public health in this country and in communities all around the world," he said.

"So we're pushing hard on this. The President has played a leading role on this in the past and he is going to play a leading role on it this time. But in terms of what the details are going to be in that agreement, they haven't even started writing the agreement yet so it's hard for me to say," he said.

He said Obama didn't shy about trying to lead on the international stage on the issue of climate change.

"The President play an important role in Copenhagen in 2009 in trying to broker some agreements. In his conversations with leaders in India and China and other countries, the President talks regularly about joint steps that can be taken to reduce the causes of climate change," he said.

Obama has articulated a number of times this year the need to address the threat that climate change poses both to human health and to the US economy.

"That's why he put forward a comprehensive plan to cut carbon pollution and prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change while also leading an international effort to combat global climate change," he said.

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Elusive marbled cat sighted in Buxa Tiger Reserve

KOLKATA: The recent sighting of an elusive clouded leopard is not the only good news coming in from Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) at the moment. There's more in store.

The forest in the Dooars' foothills has given wildlife enthusiasts another reason to rejoice with the recent sighting of a marbled cat, which has not been spotted in the tiger reserve in almost two decades.

A camera-trap exercise, undertaken jointly by the state forest department and city-based NGO Nature Environment and Wildlife Society (NEWS) to assess the presence and distribution of lesser cats in the tiger reserve, has detected the presence of this rare cat in the forest.

"One of the camera-trap stations placed in the foothills of Sankosh beat has captured the image of the elusive cat. The cloud-like pattern of the spots on its body helped us come to the conclusion that it is a marbled cat. The spots on its forehead and crown merge into narrow longitudinal stripes on the neck, and irregular stripes on the back. The back and flanks are marked with dark, irregular dark-edged blotches, like that of clouded leopards," said Biswajit Roy Chowdhury of NEWS.

Additional principal chief conservator of forest Pradeep Vyas said this was an extremely rare species to sight because of its nocturnal nature. Former deputy field director of the tiger reserve, Subhankar Sengupta, said that this was the first photographic evidence of the presence of this lesser cat in Buxa in recent years. "These are nocturnal and arboreal animals. Hence, it is very difficult to sight them," he added.

According to Roy Chowdhury, the manager of Kumargram Tea Estate had claimed to have photographed a marbled cat in this forest several years ago. The marbled cat is similar in size to a domestic cat, with a more thickly furred tail, which may be longer than its body.

The marbled cat ('Pardofelis marmorata') is a small wild cat of South and Southeast Asia. The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed it as vulnerable in 2002. The total effective population of the species is suspected to be fewer than 10,000 mature individuals, with no single population numbering more than 1,000.

Poaching is prevalent throughout much of its range. Its skin, meat, and bones are in demand. During a survey in the Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh, a marbled cat was encountered that had been killed by a local hunter for a festival celebrated by the indigenous Apatani community in March and April every year.

Roy Chowdhury said that apart from the marbled cat, elusive species such as crab-eating mongoose, hog badger and yellow-throated marten were also sighted in some of the camera-trap stations.

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Snails help scientists investigate rise, fall of Tibetan Plateau

WASHINGTON: A new research has helped scientists investigate the rise and fall of the Tibetan Plateau by using snail shells.

The rise of the Tibetan plateau, the largest topographic anomaly above sea level on Earth, has been important for both its profound effect on climate and its reflection of continental dynamics.

Katharine Huntington and colleagues employed a cutting-edge geochemical tool, "clumped" isotope thermometry, using modern and fossil snail shells to investigate the uplift history of the Zhada basin in southwestern Tibet.

Views range widely on the timing of surface uplift of the Tibetan Plateau to its current high (4.5km) over more than 2.5 square kilometers. Specifically, interpretations differ on whether the modern high elevations were recently developed or are largely a continuation of high elevations developed prior to India-Asian collision in the Eocene.

Clumped isotope temperatures of modern and fossil snail shells have recorded changing lake water temperatures over the last nine million years. This is a reflection of changes in surface temperature as a function of climate and elevation change. A key to their Zhada Basin paleo-elevation reconstruction is that Huntington and colleagues were able to contextualize them with sampling of modern and Holocene-age tufa and shells from a range of aquatic environments.

It was found that the Zhada basin was significantly colder from three to nine million years ago, implying a loss of elevation of more than one kilometer since the Pliocene. While surprising given the extreme (4km) elevation of the basin today, the higher paleo-elevation helps explain paleontological evidence of cold-adapted mammals living in a high-elevation climate, and was probably the local expression of east-west extension across much of the southern Tibetan Plateau at this time.

The study is published in GSA Bulletin.

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Two-third of Uttar Pradesh districts face drought

LUCKNOW: More than two-third of the districts in Uttar Pradesh are facing an acute drought, officials said on Saturday.

Officials said more than 53 of its 75 districts were reeling under an acute drought because of below average rainfall during the monsoon months that has affected agriculture and the paddy crop adversely.

Out of these districts, officials said the condition in at least 19 is "very acute and severe".

The rainfall has been only 40 percent of the average, an official told IANS, adding chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has asked chief secretary Alok Ranjan to assess the drought conditions so that relief could be provided to farmers.

The chief secretary has asked district magistrate of the affected districts to prepare a status report and submit it to the government at the earliest.

"Once the government receives a status report with regards to the district administration's assessment, we will propose compensation and final assistance," an official told IANS.

Officials said there are acute drought conditions in Rampur, Meerut, Budaun, Auraiyya, Saharanpur, Etah, Kaushambi, Fatehpur, Hapur, Mainpuri, Mahoba, Etawah, Kanpur dehat, Hardoi, Firozabad, Hardoi, Farukkhabad, Bulandshahr and Ghaziabad areas.

Of the normal drought affected districts, prominent are Mau, Jaunpur, Chandauli, Azamgarh, Mathura, Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Kannauj and Hathras.

The opposition has attacked the state government for delay in identifying the drought.

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Chili smoke to protect farms from wild animals in Maharashtra

NAGPUR: The state forest department pays about Rs 5 crore annually to farmers as compensation for crop depredation by wild animals. To reduce this burden, the wildlife wing has now decided to promote 'chili smoke', a cost-effective technique pioneered by wildlife vet and elephant expert Dr Rudraditya.

Himachal Pradesh-based Dr Rudraditya concluded his three-month-long campaign in 11 forest circles in the state last week. Talking to TOI, he said his proposal was approved by PCCF (wildlife) Sarjan Bhagat in April. "Since then, I have demonstrated the low cost and affordable technique in 140 vulnerable villages and results are mind-boggling," he said.

Under the technique, half kg chilies are wrapped in a gunny sack. The material is tied to a stick or pole and burnt after fixing it at the farm boundary. The strong pungent smell of the chilies keeps wild animals away from the farm.

"Wild animals have an amazing sense of smell. The chili smoke can travel up to 500-1000 metres," claimed Santosh Narnawre, a farmer from Kiniwalgi in Darwha (Yavatmal).

Narnawre said farmers used chili smoke from 6pm till 9pm, the time when wild boars and nilgais are most active. "We use the technique twice a week. It is yielding 100% results," he added.

Bhagat said, "We have received good feedback from farmers on the technique. Its full implementation will be done in the state from wildlife week in October. We are ready with videos and literature. The staff trained by Dr Rudraditya will promote it. We hope to curb damage to crops by animals in a big way."

Dr Rudraditya had first hit upon chili smoke technique in 2003 and implemented it around Kafue National Park in Zambia in Africa where he worked as a wildlife vet under United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Later, it was also implemented near other African parks where farmers faced problem from elephants.

Dr Rudraditya also popularized the method in Thailand and Nepal where he worked as a consultant between 2008 and 2011. Back in India, he implemented it in elephant states like Odisha, Kerala, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. In J&K and Himachal, chili smoke was used to scare away sloth bears. "I also used it to solve menace of leopards and elephants in Assam tea gardens," said Dr Rudraditya.

In Marathwada, wild boars damaging crops is a big issue. "Farmers are using this technique there. It is also helping them avoid man-animal conflict," he said.

The demonstration was also carried out in vulnerable Chandrapur district where 17 people have died in man-animal conflict this year. A tiger in Pombhurna was shot dead on August 19. When asked, Dr Rudraditya said, "The Kothari range forest officer (RFO) did not allow me to enter the conflict area. I could have tried to solve the problem with my technique. I can connect with the locals very well."

Dr Rudraditya came into elephant conservation after his parents were killed by a herd of elephants in Namphada park in Arunachal Pradesh. He was just 10 years then. He worked on sensitizing villagers in state for free. The department only paid for his travel and board.

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Warming aids Arctic economies but far short of 'cold rush'

OSLO: Climate change is aiding shipping, fisheries and tourism in the Arctic but the economic gains fall short of a "cold rush" for an icy region where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the world average.

A first cruise ship will travel the icy Northwest Passage north of Canada in 2016, Iceland has unilaterally set itself mackerel quotas as stocks shift north and Greenland is experimenting with crops such as tomatoes.

Yet businesses, including oil and gas companies or mining firms looking north, face risks including that permafrost will thaw and ruin ice roads, buildings and pipelines. A melt could also cause huge damage by unlocking frozen greenhouse gases.

"There are those who think that growing strawberries in Greenland and drilling for oil in the Arctic are the new economic frontiers," said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme.

"I would caution against the hypothetical bonanza that some people see," he told Reuters of Arctic regions in Russia, Nordic nations, Alaska and Canada. UN studies say global warming will be harmful overall with heatwaves, floods and rising seas.

Fewer fur coats

In 2002, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin mused that warming might benefit Russia - thereby easing pressure to curb greenhouse gas emissions. He joked that warmer temperatures could mean fewer fur coats in northern regions.

More than a decade later, researchers see the Arctic as a test case for the impacts of climate change. It is warming fast because a thaw of white ice and snow exposes darker ground and water below that soak up more of the sun's heat.

"So far, I believe the benefits (of Arctic warming) outweigh the potential problems," said Oleg Anisimov, a Russian scientist who co-authored a chapter about the impacts of climate change in polar regions for a UN report on global warming this year.

Others say it is hard to discern benefits. Factors such as improved drilling technology or relatively high oil prices around $100 a barrel may be bigger drivers for change than a thaw in a chill, remote region shrouded in winter darkness.

Off Alaska, for instance, oil company bids for leases in the Arctic Chukchi and Beaufort seas since 2005 have totalled about $2.7 billion. But a previous round in the 1980s — before global warming was an issue — attracted similar sums, according to data from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

"There are subjective interpretations of development costs and benefits (tourism, fishing, oil and gas, shipping) but it will be some years before there are enough trends and data," said Fran Ulmer, President Barack Obama's chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.

Indigenous peoples doubt there are benefits. Aqqaluk Lynge, a Greenlander and ex-head of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, said vital dogsleds were useless in some areas because of the thaw.

"People think the economy is Wall Street but it's the local economy that's feeling the pressure," he said.

Among new activities, 71 cargo ships used a short-cut shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans north of Russia in 2013. Roughly the same number is likely in 2014, said Sergei Balmasov of the Northern Sea Route Information Office.

In a sign of more tourism, Crystal Cruises will send its Crystal Serenity ship from Anchorage to New York in 2016 past icebergs and polar bears north of Canada — priced from $19,755 per passenger and with an escort vessel as an ice-breaker.

Cruises, Cargo

The route was first navigated in 1903-1906 by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, but has only been ice-free in some recent years. Paul Garcia, spokesman for Crystal Cruises, said there had been a high volume of bookings so far.

Tourism has benefited in some areas. The number of nights spent by visitors to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard north of Norway rose to 107,000 in 2013 from 24,000 in 1993.

And cod, haddock, herring and blue whiting are among fish stocks expanding north. Iceland has set new, unilateral quotas for mackerel, including almost 150,000 tonnes in 2014.

"The biomass sum of all types of species is increasing, and will continue to increase in the Arctic," said Svein Sundby, of the Institute of Marine Research in Norway.

Among oil companies, Exxon Mobil began drilling in Russia's Arctic on Aug. 9 despite Western sanctions on its Russian partner Rosneft over Ukraine crisis.

But Royal Dutch Shell dropped plans for drilling in 2014 after spending $5 billion on exploration since 2005, following protests and accidents off Alaska.

And despite any gains, a 2013 study in the journal Nature said the Arctic has a hidden economic time bomb.

A major release of methane trapped in the frozen seabed off Russia could accelerate global warming and cause $60 trillion in damage, almost the size of world GDP, it said. Costs would be from more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

"The size (of drawbacks) is likely to dwarf any kind of benefits," said Chris Hope of the Judge Business School at Cambridge University, who was among the authors.

The UN's panel of climate experts says that it is at least 95 percent probable that human activities are the main driver of warming since 1950. But many voters are doubtful, suspecting that natural variations are to blame.

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Plastic waste may trigger water bombs in Himalayas

Unfortunately, this is the ugly truth of the Himalayas. The heap, which includes biodegradable plastic, can be found just four kilometres from Shimla in the reserved forest of Lalpani. And this is not an isolated pocket either. The amount of plastic and other bio-degradable waste in the Himalayas is growing at an alarming rate and wreaking havoc with this fragile ecosystem. Trekkers and tourists have become litterbugs, who don't think before tossing a juice can or wafer wrapper by the mountainside.

To save the fragile ecology of Himalayas, the Himachal Pradesh government on October 2, 2009, banned the use, storage, sale and distribution of all types of polythene bags. On October 2, 2011, the government imposed blanket ban on the use and storage of nonbiodegradable disposable plastic cups, plates and glasses and warned that violators would be fined up to Rs 5,000. Himachal Pradesh was the first to ban plastic and polythene bags. This photograph is, however, proof that the law is totally ineffective.

The disrespect for the Himalayas is capable of causing a time bomb of water. Biodegradable waste absorbs heat, which along with global warming, raises the overall temperature in the mountains, melting glaciers and creating glacial lakes thus posing the threat of glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in the future. Continuous storage of huge quantities of water has turned these lakes on high mountains into "water bombs" for the population living downstream in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Nepal. The Himalayan range extends for approximately 2,400km within the 3,500km length of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan ranges, and has about 33,000sqkm of the estimated 110,000sqkm of glaciated area.

Plastic and other bio-degradable waste in the Himalayas is posing a big threat to the fragile ecosystem. The Nepal Himalayas occupy 800km of the central section of the Himalayan range while Indian part has more than 5,000 glaciers of different sizes and shapes.

If you thought that the plastic bag you left on a mountain slope after a trekking expedition would have no impact on the mighty glaciers, think again. J C Kuniyal, senior scientist at G B Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, Mohal in Kullu says, "In 2005, non-biodegradable waste was 16.9% of total waste in Manali and 34.8% in Kullu in Himachal Pradesh. In and around the Valley of Flowers and the Pindari valley in Uttarakhand, such waste comprised 84.5 and 66.4% of the total generated waste. Thus, these results show that non-biodegradable is much higher in trekking and expedition locations than the down-slope hill spots." The numbers have only grown since.

"Non-biodegradable waste absorbs heat which results in rise in temperature and melting of glaciers. Formation of new lakes has posed a threat of glacial lake outburst flood. No one knows when the lakes would burst in next 20, 30 or 50 years," says Professor R K Ganjoo, a specialist in quaternary geomorphology, climate change and glaciology, from Jammu University. There are 249 glacial lakes in Himachal Pradesh and 11 have been identified as having potential risk of breaching. Experts said that these lakes need regular monitoring.

In the Uttarakhand Himalayas there are 127 glacial lakes of varying sizes, the total area of which is around 75sqkm. A report by the expert committee on glaciers of the Uttarakhand government, headed by B R Arora, director, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG), said, "There are 12 hydropower projects in Uttarakhand with an installed generation capacity of 1280MW.

Seven hydel projects with an installed capacity of about 4134MW are in various stages of completion, while 11 others with an installed capacity of about 1961MW are in various stages of investigation. Regular monitoring of glacial lakes and glacial retreat is therefore utmost necessary to safeguard the power projects in the state."

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Arunachal sets example: 70% afforestation achieved

ITANAGAR: Setting an example, the Arunachal Pradesh environment and forest department has achieved 70 per cent afforestation in the state at a time when forest areas are decreasing alarmingly in the country.

The afforestation programme was undertaken under the State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority in 2010 in the areas where trees were cut by user-agencies for various purposes.

A Supreme Court judgment recently directed that there should be compensatory afforestation by the user-agency which should set apart a sum of money for the purpose.

The judgment also directed that the state concerned would have to make available land on which afforestation could take place.

"The fund resources for CAMPA are generated from the user-agencies who are proposing various developmental activities and against which they are applying for forest clearance," Diganta Gogoi, deputy conservator of forest (CAMPA & WP), said.

The state with a total 83,743 sq km geographical area has more than 5,000 species of flowering plants, 600 species of orchids, 89 species of bamboos, 18 species of canes, 400 species of ferns, 24 species of gymnosperms and equally high number of unexplored algae, fungi, lichens, bryophytes and micro-organism.

Moreover, it is home to more than 100 species of mammals, 650 birds, 83 reptiles, 130 fishes and seven non-human primates and innumerable species of insects, mirco-organisms and other life forms.

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Elephants belong in the wild: Mary Kom

MUMBAI: Peering into the camera with fierce determination, covered with scars and trying to break her chains, Padma Bhushan award recipient, Olympic medallist and five-time undisputed world boxing champion Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom, managed by IOS Sports and Entertainment, is featured in a striking new campaign from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India just in time before Ganesh Chaturthi festival.

The campaign's photo caption reads, "Elephants Belong in the Wild, Not in Chains. Ban Animal Circuses". It was shot by leading photographer Gaurav Sawn, and Kom's hair styling and make-up were done by Rohini Foregard.

"Circuses are cruel places for animals, where they are beaten and tortured. As a mother, I can imagine what animals go through when their children are taken away from them to be forced to perform in circuses. It's sad!" says Mary. "We humans choose to perform, but animals are given no choice," she adds.

Elephants and other animals in circuses are subjected to chronic confinement, physical abuse and psychological torment. Whips and other weapons — including ankuses, which are heavy, sharp steel-tipped rods — are often used to inflict pain on elephants and beat them into submission. Following a nine-month investigation of circuses by a team that included representatives from PETA and its sister organisation Animal Rahat, the Animal Welfare Board of India, a statutory body operating under the ministry of environment and forests, decided to stop the registration of elephants used to perform in circuses. However, this decision has yet to be implemented.

Kom is from Manipur. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Padmashree awards. "Magnificent Mary," as she has been dubbed, was named Sportswoman of the Year in 2010 at the Sahara India Sports Awards and is India's most successful female athlete of all time.

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Earth can sustain more terrestrial plant growth

CHICAGO: Earth can produce much more land-plant biomass — the total material in leaves, stems, roots, fruits, grains and other terrestrial plant parts — than previously thought, according to a new study.

The study recalculates the theoretical limit of terrestrial plant productivity, and finds that it is much higher than many current estimates allow.

"When you try to estimate something over the whole planet, you have to make some simplifying assumptions," said University of Illinois plant biology professor Evan DeLucia, who led the new analysis.

"And most previous research assumes that the maximum productivity you could get out of a landscape is what the natural ecosystem would have produced. But it turns out that in nature very few plants have evolved to maximize their growth rates," said DeLucia.

Estimates derived from satellite images of vegetation and modelling suggest that about 54 gigatons of carbon is converted into terrestrial plant biomass each year, the researchers report.

"This value has remained stable for the past several decades, leading to the conclusion that it represents a planetary boundary - an upper limit on global biomass production," the researchers said.

But these assumptions don't take into consideration human efforts to boost plant productivity through genetic manipulation, plant breeding and land management, DeLucia said. Such efforts have already yielded some extremely productive plants.

For example, in Illinois a hybrid grass, Miscanthus x giganteus, without fertiliser or irrigation produced 10 to 16 tonnes of above-ground biomass per acre, more than double the productivity of native prairie vegetation or corn.

And genetically modified no-till corn is more than five times as productive - in terms of total biomass generated per acre - as restored prairie in Wisconsin.

Some non-native species also outcompete native species; this is what makes many of them invasive, DeLucia said.

The team used a model of light-use efficiency and the theoretical maximum efficiency with which plant canopies convert solar radiation to biomass to estimate the theoretical limit of net primary production (NPP) on a global scale.

This newly calculated limit was "roughly two orders of magnitude higher than the productivity of most current managed or natural ecosystems," the authors said.

"We're not saying that this is even approachable, but the theory tells us that what is possible on the planet is much, much higher than what current estimates are," DeLucia said.

The study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

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From 50 in 2013, Tadoba-Andhari tigers up by 10

NAGPUR: The long-term monitoring project on tigers, co-predators in Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) and the adjoining landscape' being implemented by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, has pegged the estimate of tigers as 60 in TATR, an increase by 10 tigers, and 32 leopard individuals, showing a steep increase from 17 as compared to last year.

The abstracts of the report were discussed at a two-day internal research seminar by WII from August 18-20. The study is part of the six-year mega project (2013-2018) launched with funding from Maharashtra forest department and National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

"I've not received the copy of the estimation from WII and hence it will not be proper to comment. Last year, Tadoba core had 50 individual tigers and 22 in its buffer," said TATR field director GP Garad who could not attend the meet.

The WII had estimated population of tigers, leopards and wild dogs present in TATR. This was the first attempt to study population dynamics of three predators in the park.

"The number of tigers in Tadoba core has gone up from 50 in 2013 to 60 in 2014 with a standard error of 5.8 (upper and lower limit of five individuals). For tigers it is based on 56 adult individuals identified from the photographs. We also identified 32 leopard individuals from the camera-traps, which showed a steep increase from 17 in 2013. We estimated 7 dhole packs in the tiger reserve with an average pack size of 6.2 with standard error of 1.4," said scientist Bilal Habib.

APCCF VK Sinha, Garad, Parag Nigam and Gautam Talukdar were other principal investigators.

The WII data is based on three sessions of camera-trapping (20 days each session) with an overall effort of 8,000 trap nights conducted in March-April. The researchers Nilanjan Chatterjee, Madhura Davate and AK Dashahare used capture recapture model to estimate the population of tiger and leopards in the reserve. The WII used hierarchical classification to enumerate the number of dhole packs present in the area based on number of individuals captured in each or series of photographs captured in a short time interval.

The WII report says that large turnover rates in big cat population indicates its connectivity with other protected areas (PAs). "Long-term survival of this predator guild will depend on functional connectivity of TATR with adjoining PAs," said Habib.

As per the results of 2010 national tiger assessment, conducted nationally every four years, the NTCA & WII had put the figures in and around Tadoba landscape of 2,610 sq km at 69 tigers (between 66 and 74).

However, the WII also studied Tadoba landscape. "We are still analysing figures and other factors in the buffer zone. A report in this regard will be submitted in next two months," said Habib.

"The number of tigers going up in Tadoba is a wake up call for territorial officials who will have to pull up their socks for better wildlife management to avoid Pombhurna-type episodes, where a tiger was shot dead for being a man-eater," said Bandu Dhotre, honorary wildlife warden of Chandrapur.

Last month, TOI had already reported presence of 31 tigers in wildlife sanctuaries and national parks under Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) and 6 tigers Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR).

TADOBA TIGERS ROARING

* WII says in the last two years several tigresses in the park had litter of four cubs.

* As per 2010 national tiger assessment of NTCA & WII, Tadoba and its landscape of 2,610 sq km had 69 tigers

* In 2012, Tadoba recorded 43, in 2013 had 50

* In 2014, number up to 60

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New butterfly species found in Arunachal Pradesh

ITANAGAR: Arunachal Pradesh is known as a treasure trove of nature, where one after another, new fish and butterfly species have been found in recent years.

Now, nature lover Dr Tage Kano has announced the discovery of a new butterfly species after detecting the spectacular-winged beauty in the deep woods of Ziro on Saturday evening.

The discovery of the Kaiser-e-Hind (Teinoplaspus imperialis), photographed live for the first time in India by Dr Kano during a Butterfly Meet organized by NgunuZiro at Ziro, amounts to creating history.

"This species though photographed in Vietnam and Thailand, has never been photographed live in India. A dead specimen was photographed in Sikkim and half-dead one in Manipur. It is only now that for the first time a live Kaiser-e-Hind has been photographed in Arunachal Pradesh, Dr. Kano claimed.

Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi, who participated in the Butterfly Meet as an expert, described it as a historic event. He further said that this species was very common and locally found in Cherrapunji 60 years back, but was no longer seen there due to habitat loss and export of the specimen for business purposes by the experts. The specimen was common a hundred years ago in Manipur, he added.

NgunuZiro, a community-based organization working for sustainable development of the area, has been promoting and encouraging responsible tourism at Ziro.

It organized the maiden two-day Butterfly Meet from Aug.23 last to create environmental awareness and love for flora and fauna, said its chairman, Hibu Tatu.

Arunachal boasts of giving many unique species to the global butterfly lovers, according to noted photographer and NVSEWC convenor Arif Siddiqui.

The maiden first five-day Butterfly India Meet (BIM), first in entire North East India, was conducted at Kovin village near Jairampur in Changlang District by Namchik Valley Society for Eco-tourism and Wildlife Conservation (NSEWC) with Butterfly India Group in Aug. 2006.

Butterfly lovers from Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Assam had identified around 100 species of butterfly and 200 species of moths, including some rare ones, during the meet, said Siddiqui.

In 2006, a rare Damsel Fly was also spotted by one Praveen Kumar of Bangalore in Rima area. The Rhinocypha Damsel Fly was not in Indian checklist till then.

Over 200 species were identified at Jairampur in 2006 of the estimated 500 species of butterflies found in the state. Over 18,000 butterflies have been recorded in the world, around 1,800 in India.

During the Second BIM conducted at Miao in Changlang district in Sept 2010, Nonsuch Palmer, a very rare find was photographed by Siddique, which is the only photographic record in last 100 years. The other is a specimen in British Museum. On a single day, 27 butterfly lovers from all over the country had sighted around 125 species.

As many as six new species of fish — five by GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Studies, Arunachal Pradesh branch and one by Rajiv Gandhi University researchers — found in this Himalayan state in the recent years have been zoologically certified.

In fact, Arunachal, one of the eight biodiversity hotspots of the world having over 82 per cent forest cover of its total 83,743 square kilometer area, is yet to be surveyed. Once it is surveyed who knows what surprise the Mother Nature has for the entire global community!

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Scientists warn about 'precarious' state of world's primary forests

WASHINGTON: Scientists have warned about the precarious state of the world's primary forests, as a new study shows that say just 22 percent of these forests are located in protected areas, equivalent of only five percent of the original ones.

Brendan Mackey, Director of the Climate Change Response Program at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that international negotiations are failing to halt the loss of the world's most important primary forests and in the absence of specific policies for primary forest protection in biodiversity and climate change treaties, their unique biodiversity values and ecosystem services will continue to be lost in both developed and developing countries.

According to the study, primary forest, which are home to an extraordinary richness of biodiversity, comprises of up to 57% of all tropical forest species and the ecological processes and protection is the joint responsibility of developed as well as developing countries and is a matter of global concern.

The analysis shows that almost 98% of primary forest is found within 25 countries, with around half of that located in five developed countries: the US, Canada, Russia, Australia and New Zealand and researchers said that policies are urgently needed to reduce pressure to open up primary forests for industrial land use.

The authors identified four new actions that would provide a solid policy foundation for key international negotiations, including forest-related multilateral agreements to help ensure primary forests persist into the 21st century, which includes recognizing primary forests as a matter of global concern within international negotiations and not just as a problem in developing nations, incorporating primary forests into environmental accounting, including the special contributions of their ecosystem services (including freshwater and watershed services), and use a science-based definition to distinguish primary forests.

The scientists also said that prioritizing the principle of avoided loss is important, as people need to emphasize policies that seek to avoid any further biodiversity loss and emissions from primary forest deforestation and degradation and should universally accept the important role of indigenous and community conserved areas - governments could use primary forest protection as a mechanism within multilateral environmental agreements to support sustainable livelihoods for the extensive populations of forest-dwelling peoples, especially traditional peoples, in developed and developing countries.

The study was published in the journal Conservation Letters.

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PM Modi invites Britain for energy efficiency co-operation

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said clean energy and preservation of environment were priority areas for his government and invited Britain to partner in these efforts.

Modi met British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg here and called for greater cooperation between the two countries in areas such as education, skill development, clean energy, infrastructure development, and cleaning of rivers.

Clegg conveyed Britain's strong desire to strengthen and deepen relations with India.

According to a PMO release, Clegg expressed deep appreciation "for the ambitious goal of Indian's economic and social transformation that the new government under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi had set".

Clegg, who was accompanied by British secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Davey, conveyed Britain's desire to work together with India in realising the government's goal of economic and social transformation.

The release said Modi expressed appreciation for British Prime Minister David Cameron's personal interest and commitment to the relationship between the two countries.

Both sides also discussed international issues relating to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and climate change.

On WTO, Modi reiterated India's commitment to the understandings reached during the 2013 Ninth Ministerial Conference in Bali, including on trade facilitation and expressed support for trade facilitation measures.

"He, however, emphasised on the need to move forward simultaneously on all the agreements reached in Bali, including on food security, to address the interests of all sections of society, particularly the poor people," the release said.

The release said that Clegg conveyed appreciation for the work done in Gujarat in the area of clean energy and preservation of environment.

"The prime minister said this was a priority area for the government. The government plans to develop 500 model towns in India with facilities for solid waste management and waste water treatment. Further, the government wants to develop all Himalayan states as "Organic States". He also articulated his vision of creating mass participation in energy efficiency. The prime minister invited Britain to partner in these efforts," the release said.

Modi also called upon the international community to take steps to provide clean technology to developing and under-developed countries at affordable prices, the release said.

Responding to the invitation to him to visit Britain, Modi said he looked forward to visiting the country at the earliest.

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Nagpur gets India's first ethanol-run bus

NAGPUR: Launching India's first ethanol-run bus in the city on a pilot basis, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said that a Bill to make provision for running vehicles on bio-fuels and hybrid electric would be tabled in the Parliament in the next session.

Gadkari also said that the country can reduce petrol, diesel and gas imports by at least Rs two lakh crore annually by using alternative fuels.

During the launch on Friday, the Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping said the Centre would provide 200-500 ethanol-run buses to Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) under the 'Green Bus' project.

"The country imports petrol, diesel and gas worth over Rs six lakh crore every year. India can reduce the imports by at least Rs two lakh crore by using alternative fuels.Ethanol-run bus project is the first initiative in this direction.

"Four states-- Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu-- will be the major beneficiaries from the project as they produce ethanol in large quantities," Gadkari said.

The green fuel also conserves environment by reducing pollution, he said.

"Such renewable fuels can boost our nation's economy and improve the farmers condition who are committing suicide. Other such alternative sources like hybrid electric can boost automobile and other sectors.

"Indian companies are launching hybrid electric-run buses in other countries.Ashok Leyland has launched buses in London. Therefore, my Ministry is bringing a policy to exempt electric-run vehicles from tax," the minister said.

Executives from Swedish bus maker Scania, led by its India managing director Anders Grundstromer was present at the launching ceremony and handed over a symbolic key to city Mayor Anil Sole.

Rajya Sabha MP Ajay Sancheti and former MP Datta Meghe along with Municipal Commissioner Shyam Wardhane was also present on the occasion.

Joint secretary of Ministry of Road transport and Highways, Sanjay Bandopadhyaya said test run of ethanol-run bus would be for one year and teams from Pune-based Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), NMC and Ministry will maintain data.

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Scientists warn about 'precarious' state of world's primary forests

WASHINGTON: Scientists have warned about the precarious state of the world's primary forests, as a new study shows that say just 22 percent of these forests are located in protected areas, equivalent of only five percent of the original ones.

Brendan Mackey, Director of the Climate Change Response Program at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that international negotiations are failing to halt the loss of the world's most important primary forests and in the absence of specific policies for primary forest protection in biodiversity and climate change treaties, their unique biodiversity values and ecosystem services will continue to be lost in both developed and developing countries.

According to the study, primary forest, which are home to an extraordinary richness of biodiversity, comprises of up to 57% of all tropical forest species and the ecological processes and protection is the joint responsibility of developed as well as developing countries and is a matter of global concern.

The analysis shows that almost 98% of primary forest is found within 25 countries, with around half of that located in five developed countries: the US, Canada, Russia, Australia and New Zealand and researchers said that policies are urgently needed to reduce pressure to open up primary forests for industrial land use.

The authors identified four new actions that would provide a solid policy foundation for key international negotiations, including forest-related multilateral agreements to help ensure primary forests persist into the 21st century, which includes recognizing primary forests as a matter of global concern within international negotiations and not just as a problem in developing nations, incorporating primary forests into environmental accounting, including the special contributions of their ecosystem services (including freshwater and watershed services), and use a science-based definition to distinguish primary forests.

The scientists also said that prioritizing the principle of avoided loss is important, as people need to emphasize policies that seek to avoid any further biodiversity loss and emissions from primary forest deforestation and degradation and should universally accept the important role of indigenous and community conserved areas - governments could use primary forest protection as a mechanism within multilateral environmental agreements to support sustainable livelihoods for the extensive populations of forest-dwelling peoples, especially traditional peoples, in developed and developing countries.

The study was published in the journal Conservation Letters.

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Lion cub rescued from Gir-Somnath village in Gujarat

RAJKOT: About one-month-old lion cub was rescued from a farm well in a village in Gir-Somnath district on Saturday morning.

According to forest officials, a maldhari person spotted the lion cub in the farm in Dari village of Veraval taluka of Gir-Somnath district and he informed to local forest department officials.

Forest department officials rushed to the spot and rescued the lion cub. The cub was later sent to Sasan Animal Care Centre.

"It was uncovered abandoned farm well and lion cub may have fallen into it accidentally. Now, we are in search cub's mother in the area and will unite the cub with his mother" said an official.

The incident of lions falling into farm well are coming into light regularly. Forest officials said that there are many wells which are not covered with wall around it. These farm wells need to be covered so that wild animals do not fall into it.

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Bhitarkanika park in Odisha welcomes 3,000 saltwater baby crocodiles

KENDRAPADA: Around 3,000 saltwater crocodiles were born recently at Bhitarkanika National Park in Kendrapada district, said its divisional forest officer (DFO) Kedar Kumar Swain on Friday.

About two months ago, forest officials had sighted 68 nesting sites of the estuarine crocodiles in nullahs, creeks and rivulets across the Bhitarkanika river system. There were 50 to 60 eggs in a nest and around 45 hatchlings have been born from each nest, he said, adding that an infant crocodile uses a small "egg tooth" at the end of its snout to break out of the shell.

In some cases, the mother eases birth by cracking the egg-shell with her teeth. She also guards her offspring after they have hatched and allows them to climb onto her body and head. Female crocodiles are aggressive towards intruders during this time. Nevertheless, baby crocodiles are vulnerable to predators during this high-risk stage of their life cycle, he said.

"Of 500 babies, only one crocodile will reach adulthood," said Sudhakar Kar, a noted crocodile expert and former senior research officer with the state's forest and wildlife department.

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Decoded: How hummingbirds detect sweetness

NEW YORK: Hummingbirds are highly specialized nectar feeders and you cannot even fool them by sugar substitute that sweetens most diet cola.

Now, scientists have discovered how hummingbirds' ability to detect sweetness evolved from an ancestral savoury taste receptor that is mostly tuned to flavours in amino acids.

After cloning the genes for taste receptors from chickens, swifts and hummingbirds, researchers needed to test what the proteins expressed by these genes were responding to.

They showed that in chickens and swifts, the receptor responds strongly to amino acids — the umami flavours -— but in hummingbirds only weakly.

But the receptor in hummingbirds responds strongly to carbohydrates — the sweet flavours.

"This is the first time that this umami receptor has ever been shown to respond to carbohydrates," said Maude Baldwin from Harvard Medical School.

They found 19 mutations, likely to be contributing to this sweet switch.

"It is a really nice example of how a species evolved at a molecular level to adopt a very complex phenotype," said Stephen Liberles, an associate professor of cell biology.

A change in a single receptor can actually drive a change in behaviour and, we propose, can contribute to species diversification, he added.

Sensory systems give us a window into the brain to define what we understand about the world around us.

The taste system is arguably a really direct line to pleasure and aversion, reward and punishment, sweet and bitter.

Understanding how neural circuits can encode these differentially gives us a window into other aspects of perception, researchers added.

The paper appeared in the journal Science.

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Climate change puts Europe at dengue risk

LONDON: Dengue fever could make headway in popular European holiday destinations if climate change continues on its predicted trajectory, according to an alarming research.

The study by University of East Anglia (UEA) used current data from Mexico where dengue fever is present and information about the European Union (EU) countries in order to model the likelihood of the disease spreading in Europe.

They found that coastal regions in around the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas, the Po Valley and North East Italy were most at risk.

"Our study has shown that the risk of dengue fever is likely to increase in Europe under climate change," said lead researcher Paul Hunter from UEA's Norwich Medical School.

For this study, researchers wanted to estimate how likely the disease is to become established in Europe as its climate changes up to the end of the century.

The results of the long-term projections found an increased risk of the disease when compared to baseline conditions.

The incidence rate is predicted to go from two per 100,000 inhabitants to 10 per 100,000 in some places.

The areas anticipated to be at most risk were found to be along the Italian cost and Po Valley in Italy, the Spanish Mediterranean and southern Spain in general.

Each year, dengue infects 50 million people worldwide and causes approximately 12,000 deaths, mostly in south-east Asia and the western Pacific.

(The study appeared in the journal BMC Public Health.)

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Polluting industries along Ganga will be monitored 24x7

NEW DELHI: Making it clear that pollution of the Ganga will not be allowed, environment minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday said industries along the river bank would be monitored round-the-clock.

The Central Pollution Control Board will be handling the real-time monitoring of the industries, he told reporters here.

"We are setting up real-time 24x7 monitoring of polluting industries along the bank of river Ganga and the Central Pollution Control Board will be handling this. We will put up sensor. Pollution of the Ganga will not be allowed," he said.

Both the environment and the water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation ministries have decided to work in close tandem for Ganga rejuvenation after a meeting today.

Both the ministries will ensure minimum e-flow into the river and will check industrial pollution of river Ganga to ensure the protection of its bio-diversity and habitat including natural species in the upper reaches of the river.

Online monitoring of treatment of industrial waste by the industry will begin within six months.

It was also decided that both the ministries will strictly follow the ban on various activities on the 130-km stretch on river Ganga from Gomukh to Uttarkashi.

Meetings with the representatives of various industries will also be held on the banks of river Ganga to prevent the flow of industrial waste into the river.

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Ancient microbe colonies found living under 800m ice in Antarctic

In a major breakthrough, scientists have finally proved that life exists in a lake buried under half a mile (800 meters) of ice on the west Antarctic ice sheet. Lake Whillans where 4000 types of micro-organisms were found has not seen sunlight or felt a breath of air for millions of years.

Many of the microbes are single-celled organisms known as Archaea, said Montana State University professor John Priscu, the chief scientist of the US project called WISSARD that sampled the sub-ice environment. The microorganisms that live beneath the enormous Antarctic ice sheet survive by converting ammonium and methane into the energy required for growth.

"It's the first definitive evidence that there's not only life, but active ecosystems underneath the Antarctic ice sheet, something that we have been guessing about for decades. With this paper, we pound the table and say, 'Yes, we were right,'' lead author Brent Christner said. The paper is published in the latest issue of Nature.

The Antarctic ice sheet covers an area 1 ½ times the size of the United States and contains 70% of earth's freshwater, and any significant melting can drastically increase sea level. Lake Whillans, one of more than 200 known lakes beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the primary lake in the WISSARD study, fills and drains about every three years. The river that drains Lake Whillans flows under the Ross Ice Shelf, which is the size of France, and feeds the Southern Ocean, where it can provide nutrients for life and influence water circulation patterns.

Although he was not really surprised about the discovery, Priscu said he was excited by some of the details of the Antarctic find, particularly how the microbes function without sunlight at subzero temperatures and the fact that evidence from DNA sequencing revealed that the dominant organisms are Archaea, one of three domains of life, the others being Bacteria and Eukaryote.

Many of the subglacial archaea use the energy in the chemical bonds of ammonium to fix carbon dioxide and drive other metabolic processes. Another group of microorganisms uses the energy and carbon in methane to make a living.

According to Priscu, the source of the ammonium and methane is most likely from the breakdown of organic matter that was deposited in the area hundreds of thousands of years ago when Antarctica was warmer and the sea inundated west Antarctica.

The Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) project officially began in 2009. The researchers drilled down to the lake in January 2013.

Christner said species are hard to determine in microbiology, but "We are looking at a water column that probably has about 4,000 things we call species. It's incredibly diverse."

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South Australia keen on 'Clean Ganga' project

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Clean Ganga' project received a shot-in-the-arm with the South Australia government showing its interest in cleaning up the river, which is considered sacred by many Indians.

South Australian premier Jay Weatherhill said on Wednesday that his government would propose a plan to clean the mighty Ganga.

"We have the expertise to clean rivers and we are interested in taking up the 'Clean Ganga' project. We are also planning to meet India's water resources ministry and the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs to give them our proposal," said Weatherhill during a promotional campaign of the South Australian government for the 2015 Cricket World Cup.

'Clean Ganga's is one of Modi's pet project. The prime minister, through his MyGov site is also calling for suggestions to clean the Ganga. The Modi government is keen on seeking to bring about a radical change in the river's condition.

Union water resources minister Uma Bharti also claimed Wednesday that Ganga would be free from most of its pollution within three years.

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Tripura to set up elephant reserve in Gomati district

AGARTALA: Tripura government will set up an elephant reserve at Gandhari in Gomati district for better conservation of the jumbos whose population was dwindling in the state.

The reserve would be spread over 123.8 sqkm area in Gomati district at the initiative of the state government and the site has been selected where there is no human habitation, Tripura Information Minister Bhanu Lal said today. The decision to set up the elephant reserve was taken in the meeting of the council of ministers yesterday, Saha said.

"The area encompasses Baramura and Devtamura hill ranges and there is no human habitation. As many as 25 elephants of Asian varieties were found to be living in the proposed reserve areas which is ideal for habitation of elephants," the minister said.

Meanwhile, forest officials in a raid at the house of one surrendered insurgent of banned National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), Rathindra Debbarma at Tuisidrabari in Khowai district on Monday recovered two tusks of an elephant and four skulls of deer, Divisional Forest Officer Shaktiman Sinha told reporters.

Sinha said the price of the tusks in the black market is at least Rs 10 lakh and added that cases against Debbarma had been filed.

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New method to recycle old batteries into solar cells

WASHINGTON: Researchers have proposed a system that recycles materials from discarded car batteries — a potential source of lead pollution — into new, long-lasting solar panels that provide emissions-free power.

The system is based on a recent development in solar cells that makes use of a compound called perovskite — specifically, organolead halide perovskite — a technology that has rapidly progressed from initial experiments to a point where its efficiency is nearly competitive with that of other types of solar cells.

"It went from initial demonstrations to good efficiency in less than two years," said Angela M Belcher, the W M Keck Professor of Energy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Already, perovskite-based photovoltaic cells have achieved power-conversion efficiency of more than 19 per cent, which is close to that of many commercial silicon-based solar cells.

Initial descriptions of the perovskite technology identified its use of lead, whose production from raw ores can produce toxic residues, as a drawback.

But by using recycled lead from old car batteries, the manufacturing process can instead be used to divert toxic material from landfills and reuse it in photovoltaic panels that could go on producing power for decades.

Since the perovskite photovoltaic material takes the form of a thin film just half a micrometre thick, the team's analysis shows that the lead from a single car battery could produce enough solar panels to provide power for 30 households.

The production of perovskite solar cells is a relatively simple and benign process.

"It has the advantage of being a low-temperature process, and the number of steps is reduced compared with the manufacture of conventional solar cells," Belcher said.

Today, Belcher said, 90 per cent of the lead recovered from the recycling of old batteries is used to produce new batteries, but over time the market for new lead-acid batteries is likely to decline, potentially leaving a large stockpile of lead with no obvious application.

In a finished solar panel, the lead-containing layer would be fully encapsulated by other materials, as many solar panels are today, limiting the risk of lead contamination of the environment.

When the panels are eventually retired, the lead can simply be recycled into new solar panels.

The work clearly demonstrates that lead recovered from old batteries is just as good for the production of perovskite solar cells as freshly produced metal, researchers said.

The study is published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

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Earth's resource budget for 2014 already spent: Report

PARIS: In under eight months, humanity has used up its yearly quota of replenishable Earth resources, according to a report published on Tuesday by an environmental thinktank that monitors mankind's impact on the planet.

"August 19 is Earth Overshoot Day 2014, marking the date when humanity has exhausted nature's budget for the year," the Global Footprint Network said in a statement.

"For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit... We will be operating in overshoot."

The organisation tracks humanity's demands on the planet against its ability to replenish resources like food and timber, and absorb waste like carbon dioxide from burning fuel for energy.

The cutoff point has been arriving earlier every year — in 1993 Earth Overshoot Day fell on October 21, in 2003 on September 22, and last year on August 20.

In 1961, the organisation said, humans used about three-quarters of the Earth's annual resource budget.

This changed by the early 1970s, when economic and population growth increased our footprint beyond what the planet could renew in a year.

"Today, 86 per cent of the world population lives in countries that demand more from nature than their own ecosystems can renew," the network said.

It calculated that 1.5 Earths would be needed to produce the renewable resources needed to support current consumption.

"Moderate population, energy and food projections suggest that humanity would require the biocapacity of three planets well before mid-century," the network warned.

"This may be physically unfeasible." The costs of unsustainable consumption can be seen in deforestation, water scarcity, soil erosion, species loss and a buildup of planet-warming CO2 in the atmosphere that threatens human well-being and countries' economic stability, said the organisation.

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Artist accused of damaging environment in Mexico

The author has posted comments on this articleAP | Aug 17, 2014, 06.38PM IST

In this undated photo, provided by the Polish artist Agata Oleksiak, shows her setting up her installation over an underwater sculpture at the Cancun Underwater Museum near Cancun, Mexico. The artist known as Olek, famed for slipping crocheted covers around unlikely objects has run afoul of environmental authorities in Mexico for slipping her brightly colored work around the underwater sculptures. (AP Photo)

Page 1 of 4

MEXICO CITY: A Polish artist famed for slipping crocheted covers around unlikely objects has run afoul of environmental authorities in Mexico for slipping her brightly colored work around underwater sculptures near Cancun.

Agata Oleksiak says she intervened at the Cancun Underwater Museum this month to call attention to the dangers facing species such as the whale shark.

But museum director Jaime Gonzalez says she herself actually may have damaged marine life growing on the sculptures in the environmentally protected area. Gonzalez says prosecutors are preparing to lodge charges against her.

The New York-based artist known as Olek says she was simply trying to "send positive messages."

In the past, she's put crocheted covers around a bus and a Wall Street statue of a bull.

Article continues

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Kanpur zoo to get new animals

KANPUR: In the near future, the Kanpur zoo will have new additions in its animal kitty. The new animals to join the Kanpur zoo include wolf, fox and wild boar.

Separate enclosures would be constructed for these wild animals. RS Bhadauria, former zoo director and member of Central Zoo Authority inspected the zoo for the purpose of seeing the locations where these new enclosures would be constructed.

Sources in the zoo informed that the enclosure for wolf and fox would be made close to the first railway station, while enclosure for wild boar would tentatively be made next to the chitals' enclosure.

The former director came to the zoo to give his expertise for the construction of the new enclosures. He gave certain suggestions to zoo authorities regarding construction and maintenance of the animal enclosures.

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In a first, tigress set free in Sunderbans

KOLKATA: In a first, the foresters of Sunderbans have released a tigress, that had undergone treatment in captivity for a year-and-a-half, in the wild with a collar on its neck.

While there was controversy earlier over the release of tigers in the mangroves without collars, the department this time took no chance and decided to monitor its movements through a hi-tech collar. The state's chief wildlife warden will be able to monitor the animal sitting in his chamber at Bikash Bhawan in Salt Lake. Earlier in 2009, five tigers in the Sunderbans were radio-collared for the estimation of the big cats' number in the mangroves.

"The tigress was released on Friday in a forest near Netidhopani, where it was undergoing treatment in a big enclosure. We started early in the morning yesterday, tranquillized the tigress, fixed a satellite collar around its neck and released it into the wild around 9.30am. A doctor from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) had earlier checked on the 4-year-old tigress and stated that it was fit to be released," said chief wildlife warden Ujjwal Bhattacharya.

Sources said that a captive wild boar was released in the forest to check the big cat's hunting capability. "After regaining consciousness, it slowly moved into the forest and also managed to kill the wild boar. Two male tigers are believed to be frequenting the area where the tigress was released," said an official on condition of anonymity.

The tigress was captured a year-and-a-half back from the forests of Pirkhali-I with weak hind legs and brought to Sajnekhali for treatment. Earlier this year, as per orders from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), it was shifted to a bigger enclosure in Netidhopani so that it could get acclimatized to wild environment. The tigress also got to hone its hunting skills with the foresters releasing wild prey inside its enclosure.

This was a first-of-its-kind exercise in the Sunderbans — that of a wild tiger treated in the wild. Sick tigers from the wild are usually brought to the Alipore zoo for treatment.

Elaborating on the tracking of the animal, Bhattacharya said that the satellite iridium collar will give signals on the tigress' location five times a day. "While a set of data will be received by the officials of the WII in Dehradun, another set of data will be transmitted to me," added Bhattacharya.

The readings on the animal's movement will be stored in the collar and first transmitted to the server in a Finland-based institute. "In this case, the German-made collar will give five readings on the tigress' location. Later, two sets of data, each containing the details of the animal's locations, will be sent to Dehradun and the CWLW's office in Kolkata," said sources, adding that the number of readings can be altered depending upon the battery usage. A brand new collar can give signals up to a year depending upon the draining of the battery.

Eminent wildlife biologist Vidya Athreya, who had collared a tigress in Tass, on the outskirts of Nagpur, before releasing it in the vicinity of Tadoba, said that it's good to collar the animal. "If one can track a problem with the animal in the wild, it can be pulled back. But, I also prefer using an automatic drop-off in the collar so that it falls off once it stops functioning," she said.

However, Bhattacharya said the technology of an automatic drop-off is not available with the WII at the moment. He also said initial signals suggest that the tigress is on the move and roaming around the area where it was released. Considering the safety of the big cat, the department won't be disclosing its locations.

State wildlife advisory board member Biswajit Roy Chowdhury said the move to return a tiger to the wild after more than a year involves risk, both for the tiger and people living in the mangroves. "But, it's good that the tigress was released with a collar as it will help the officials in monitoring its movement," he said.

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Artist accused of damaging environment in Mexico

MEXICO CITY: A Polish artist famed for slipping crocheted covers around unlikely objects has run afoul of environmental authorities in Mexico for slipping her brightly colored work around underwater sculptures near Cancun.

Agata Oleksiak says she intervened at the Cancun Underwater Museum this month to call attention to the dangers facing species such as the whale shark.

But museum director Jaime Gonzalez says she herself actually may have damaged marine life growing on the sculptures in the environmentally protected area. Gonzalez says prosecutors are preparing to lodge charges against her.

The New York-based artist known as Olek says she was simply trying to "send positive messages."

In the past, she's put crocheted covers around a bus and a Wall Street statue of a bull.

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New study explores the sinister side of meerkats

JOHANNESBURG: One of the most captivating sights of African wildlife is that of dark-eyed meerkats standing side-by-side on their hind legs, as though posing for a group photograph. They look cuddly and endearing. But a new study says they have a dark side.

The dominant female meerkat in a group banishes the other females when they give birth, killing and even eating their offspring to ensure a plentiful food supply for the alpha couple's own pups and a labour pool of meerkat babysitters who don't have their own young to rear.

In the mass media, meerkats have a gentler image, inspiring advertisers, a character in the animated movie "The Lion King" and a TV documentary series that told the story of a meerkat family in southern Africa. That television show, "Meerkat Manor," explored the meerkats' often harsh existence but also gave names to the animal "stars," helping to get viewers emotionally involved.

"Flower" was one of those meerkats. In light of the new study, "Cannibal" could be an apt name for a dominant female meerkat.

The recent study by a group of British and South African universities, as well as the Kalahari Meerkat Project in South Africa, builds on observations that dominant meerkats use violence to regulate breeding in their own group and to survive in tough, desert environments.

"Since meerkats are cute and fluffy, and have been saccharine, anthropomorphized poster children for happy family life, it comes across as more shocking," the study's leader, Dr Matthew Bell of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Contrary to the public perception, he wrote, meerkat lives are "nasty, brutish and short!"

The study, published in July in Nature Communications, an online journal, analysed the effect of giving contraceptive jabs to adult female helpers in 12 groups of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert to ensure they could not reproduce for six months. During that period, dominant females were less aggressive toward the subordinates, foraged more, gained more weight and had bigger pups.

The female helpers, in turn, provided more care and food for the dominant female's offspring, according to the research.

"We've done the first clear experiment that measures the value that dominants gain from suppressing their subordinates," Bell wrote. "Such benefits have always been assumed, but never clearly confirmed."

Conflict occurs in many species, but meerkat societies in particular provide researchers with good opportunities to measure the costs of that conflict, said Dr Andrew Young, an evolutionary biologist at Britain's University of Exeter who was not involved in Bell's study.

"That's sort of the niche in which meerkats fit, as a nice model because there's very strong hierarchy but subordinates do still try to breed," Young said. In contrast, he said, only dominant female mole rats breed and the subordinate mole rats don't even try to reproduce.

Meerkats are also competitive in captivity, said Agnes Maluleke of the Johannesburg zoo, which has nearly 20 meerkats. The zoo has had to split a group when a young meerkat challenged a dominant but weakening one in a vicious scrap that Maluleke described as: "I'm fighting for life or death because I want to take over."

Meerkats, who are a member of the mongoose family and can have several litters a year, generally live fewer than 10 years in the wild but survive longer in the more secure environment of a zoo, Maluleke said.

FreeMe, a South African rehabilitation center for indigenous creatures, annually receives dozens of meerkats, many of which were part of the illegal pet trade and had started biting their owners. Nicci Wright, a senior animal manager at the shelter, said some meerkats had been named Timon, the meerkat in Disney's " The Lion King."

"People think they're very sweet and very cute," Wright said. "They haven't spoken to anybody who knows them properly."

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Study blames humans for most of melting glaciers

WASHINGTON: More than two-thirds of the recent rapid melting of the world's glaciers can be blamed on humans, a new study finds.

Scientists looking at glacier melt since 1851 didn't see a human fingerprint until about the middle of the 20th century. Even then only one-quarter of the warming wasn't from natural causes.

But since 1991, about 69 percent of the rapidly increasing melt was man-made, said Ben Marzeion, a climate scientist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

"Glaciers are really shrinking rapidly now," he said. "I think it's fair to say most of it is man-made."

Scientists fault global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas as well as changes in land use near glaciers and soot pollution. Glaciers in Alaska and the Alps in general have more human-caused melting than the global average, Marzeion said.

The study is published Thursday in the journal Science.

The research is the first to calculate just how much of the glacial melting can be attributed to people and "the jump from about a quarter to roughly 70 percent of total glacier mass loss is significant and concerning," said University of Alaska Fairbanks geophysicist Regine Hock, who wasn't part of the study.

Over the last two decades, about 295 billion tons (269 billion metric tons) of ice is melting each year on average due to human causes and about 130 billion tons (121 million metric tons) a year are melting because of natural causes, Marzeion calculated.

Glaciers alone add to about four-tenths of an inch of sea level rise every decade, along with even bigger increases from melting ice sheets — which are different than glaciers — and the expansion of water with warmer temperatures.

Marzeion and colleagues ran multiple computer simulations to see how much melting there would be from all causes and then did it again to see how much melting there would be if only natural causes were included. The difference is what was caused by humans.

Scientists aren't quite certain what natural causes started glaciers shrinking after the end of the Little Ice Age in the middle of the 19th century, but do know what are human-causes: climate change, soot, and local changes in land use.

There is a sizable margin of error so the 69 percent human caused can be as low as 45 percent or as high as 93 percent, but likely in the middle.

"This study makes perfect sense," said Pennsylvania State University glacier expert Richard Alley, who wasn't part of the research. "The authors have quantified what I believe most scientists would have expected."

Not all of the human-caused melting is from global warming from the burning of fossil fuels, but climate change is the biggest factor, said Ted Scambos, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The study showed that it took time for global warming and other factors to build up and cause melting. That lag effect means the world is already locked into more rapid melting from the warming that has already occurred, Marzeion and Alley said.

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New study explores the sinister side of meerkats

JOHANNESBURG: One of the most captivating sights of African wildlife is that of dark-eyed meerkats standing side-by-side on their hind legs, as though posing for a group photograph. They look cuddly and endearing. But a new study says they have a dark side.

The dominant female meerkat in a group banishes the other females when they give birth, killing and even eating their offspring to ensure a plentiful food supply for the alpha couple's own pups and a labour pool of meerkat babysitters who don't have their own young to rear.

In the mass media, meerkats have a gentler image, inspiring advertisers, a character in the animated movie "The Lion King" and a TV documentary series that told the story of a meerkat family in southern Africa. That television show, "Meerkat Manor," explored the meerkats' often harsh existence but also gave names to the animal "stars," helping to get viewers emotionally involved.

"Flower" was one of those meerkats. In light of the new study, "Cannibal" could be an apt name for a dominant female meerkat.

The recent study by a group of British and South African universities, as well as the Kalahari Meerkat Project in South Africa, builds on observations that dominant meerkats use violence to regulate breeding in their own group and to survive in tough, desert environments.

"Since meerkats are cute and fluffy, and have been saccharine, anthropomorphized poster children for happy family life, it comes across as more shocking," the study's leader, Dr Matthew Bell of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Contrary to the public perception, he wrote, meerkat lives are "nasty, brutish and short!"

The study, published in July in Nature Communications, an online journal, analysed the effect of giving contraceptive jabs to adult female helpers in 12 groups of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert to ensure they could not reproduce for six months. During that period, dominant females were less aggressive toward the subordinates, foraged more, gained more weight and had bigger pups.

The female helpers, in turn, provided more care and food for the dominant female's offspring, according to the research.

"We've done the first clear experiment that measures the value that dominants gain from suppressing their subordinates," Bell wrote. "Such benefits have always been assumed, but never clearly confirmed."

Conflict occurs in many species, but meerkat societies in particular provide researchers with good opportunities to measure the costs of that conflict, said Dr Andrew Young, an evolutionary biologist at Britain's University of Exeter who was not involved in Bell's study.

"That's sort of the niche in which meerkats fit, as a nice model because there's very strong hierarchy but subordinates do still try to breed," Young said. In contrast, he said, only dominant female mole rats breed and the subordinate mole rats don't even try to reproduce.

Meerkats are also competitive in captivity, said Agnes Maluleke of the Johannesburg zoo, which has nearly 20 meerkats. The zoo has had to split a group when a young meerkat challenged a dominant but weakening one in a vicious scrap that Maluleke described as: "I'm fighting for life or death because I want to take over."

Meerkats, who are a member of the mongoose family and can have several litters a year, generally live fewer than 10 years in the wild but survive longer in the more secure environment of a zoo, Maluleke said.

FreeMe, a South African rehabilitation center for indigenous creatures, annually receives dozens of meerkats, many of which were part of the illegal pet trade and had started biting their owners. Nicci Wright, a senior animal manager at the shelter, said some meerkats had been named Timon, the meerkat in Disney's "The Lion King."

"People think they're very sweet and very cute," Wright said. "They haven't spoken to anybody who knows them properly."

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Rare vulture found in Purulia after 50 years

PURULIA: Foresters in Purulia's Para range have rescued an injured Egyptian vulture, also called the white scavenger vulture or the Pharaoh's chicken, from the Burrabazar area.

Department officials claimed that the endangered vulture was last seen in the state about 40-50 years ago.

The rescued bird was sent to Surulia Mini Zoo where its condition has improved after initial treatment.

The Egyptian vulture of India is one of the 15 species from the country listed among the 100 endangered bird species across the globe by the Zoologicial Society of London and Yale University.

In fact, the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has been working for the conservation of 12 such endangered species, including the Egyptian vulture.

Talking to TOI, Balaram Panja, ranger of Purulia-Para range, said that it is good news that the endangered vulture once found in northeastern India has been spotted in Purulia.

"They live atop branches of tall trees and hill tops and can fly at 100 kilometres per hour," he said.

Panja claimed that though the common Indian vulture is found in West Bengal, the last time an Egyptian vulture was found here was almost 40 to 50 years back.

"The bird was found in Sri Lanka, South Africa, South Western Europe, Northeastern India till the beginning of the 20th century," Panja said.

The weight of the rescued bird is two-and-a-half kilograms and the local veterinarian has subjected it to a check-up.

It suffered injuries on its legs and wings. The zoo officials are giving it fresh fish and chicken daily.

Forest officials claimed that the vultures disappeared from the state after consuming carcasses of cattle that were given medicines like diclofenac, a pain killer.

The drug is fatal to vultures and a vulture is exposed to a mortal dose of diclofenac if it consumes the carcass of an animal that has been treated with this drug in its lifetime.

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40% of the Indian coast is subjected to coastal erosion

PUNE: Around 40% of the Indian coast is subjected to coastal erosion according to the study conducted by various agencies.

The ministry of environment and forests through the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management, Chennai in association with the Institute of Ocean Management, Anna University, Chennai has conducted a study regarding "assessment of shore line change for the entire coast of mainland India, extending from Gujarat in the west coast to West Bengal in the east coast".

A statement issued by water resources ministry states that the shoreline change was assessed for a period of 38 years from 1972 - 2010. Accordingly, the coastline of India has been classified into high, medium and low erosion stretches as well as stable coastline stretch. The study has revealed that, on an average, around 40% of the Indian coast is subjected to coastal erosion (high, medium or low).

Indian coastal Atlas has been prepared by Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad in association with the Central Water Commission. The final version of the Shore line Change Atlas of the Indian Coast has recently been published by Space Application Centre, Ahmadabad in association with Central Water Commission in May 2014.

The subject of management of coastal zone falls within the purview of the concerned state government and the union government provides technical, advisory, catalytic and promotional financial support for coastal protection works in critical areas.

The ministry had in 1995 constituted a Coastal Protection Development Advisory Committee (CPDAC) under the Chairmanship of Member (RM), Central Water Commission to study the coastal erosion processes in the country and measures required to tackle the problem in a scientific and coordinated manner. The committee has met 14 times so far and it had interactions with coastal states.

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Tibet's glaciers at their warmest in 2,000 years: Report

BEIJING: The Tibetan plateau, whose glaciers supply water to hundreds of millions of people in Asia, were warmer over the past 50 years than at any stage in the past two millennia, a Chinese newspaper said, citing an academic report.

Temperatures and humidity are likely to continue to rise throughout this century, causing glaciers to retreat and desertification to spread, according to the report published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research.

"Over the past 50 years, the rate of temperature rise has been double the average global level," it said, according to the report on the website of Science and Technology Daily, a state-run newspaper.

Glacier retreat could disrupt water supply to several of Asia's main rivers that originate from the plateau, including China's Yellow and Yangtze, India's Brahmaputra, and the Mekong and Salween in Southeast Asia.

In May, Chinese scientists said Tibetan glaciers had shrunk 15 percent - around 8,000 square km (3,100 square miles) - over the past 30 years.

The new report said a combination of climate change and human activity on the plateau was likely to cause an increase in floods and landslides there. However, rising temperatures had also improved the local ecosystem, it said.

The scientists urged the government to work to reduce human impact on the region's fragile environment.

But Beijing is building a series of large hydropower projects there, with construction of several mega-dams expected to start by 2020. China has built thousands of dams in the past few decades in a bid to reduce its reliance on imported fossil fuels.

India, too, is planning a number of hydro plants along the Brahmaputra river - more than 100 proposals are under consideration - as the country strives to boost electricity generation.

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Sambars settling at their new home in Chandoli National Park

KOLHAPUR: As many as nine Sambar deer (Rusaunicolor) released in the Chandoli National Park, a part of the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve (STR), seem to be settled at their new home. Forest officials have sighted at least four of the released animals recently and said that all were healthy.

The animals were released in the STR in June. This was the first experiment in the STR to increase the number of prey animals in the forest. In the last seven years, the number of carnivores like tigers and leopards has been found to be increasing. While there were around 27 leopards registered in the forest in 2007, the number has increased to 35 this year. Evidence on four tigers was registered in the forest in 2007. Though this year's number has not yet been released, the figure is estimated to touch five to six. The experiment is important for the forest department, since the success of the move will strengthen the food chain in the STR region.

Out of the nine deer, four were moved from the Katraj Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in Pune, while five were from the Sagareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Sangli district. STR management has received permission from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to release 25 members of the deer family into the forest in a phased manner.

"There are strict norms to follow before releasing animals in new forests. The most important thing about the animals carried from Katraj was to make sure they do not contract tuberculosis, since captive animals often have this disease. We kept them in an enclosure at the Chandoli region for a few days to ensure that the animals get accustomed with the new atmosphere and later released them in June. We hope the number of deer family members will grow in the near future and the food chain will be established," said G Saiprakash, chief conservator of forests (wildlife), Kolhapur division, which monitors the STR, Radhanagari and Sagareshwar Wildlife Sanctuaries.

Though the forest department has not collared any animal released in the forest, officials said they recognized at least four of the released Sambar. The animals were found to be healthy and growing, said an official assigned at the Chandoli National Park.

"One of the male calves was clearly identified while patrolling. The other three animals were nearby the calf, means the family which we released must be well and intact," said S L Zure, assistant conservator of forest, Chandoli.

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Endangered sea turtles left stranded in Gujarat

KOLKATA: Marine conservationists are trying to rescue a group of endangered sea turtles which are stranded inside a Gujarat lake after construction of large road culverts blocked their entry into the Gulf of Kutch.

A team of researchers from the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) have found that in Gujarat's Armabada lake, a group of 20-30 turtles - Hawksbill sea turtle, Green turtle and Olive Ridley turtle - have been trapped for around a decade.

"The lake is connected to the sea through a backwater channel. These turtles might have come here in search of food but the large turtles could not go back to the sea where they came from as the culverts narrowed the mouth of the canal," wildlife biologist B C Choudhury said.

Since then the small population of turtles are stuck in the lake spread over 5-6 hectares.

With their habitat being spread over the Indian coastline, all the three species of turtles are regarded as threatened.

As plenty of food is available in the waterbody, the reptiles have however survived successfully in their new home.

"No mortality has been reported. There is plenty of sea grass and a large bloom of jellyfish in the lake and I think the turtles are feeding on it," Choudhury said.

As there are no sandbanks near the lake, breeding of turtles is impossible.

"They do not have a future in the lake and therefore we are trying to rescue them back into the Gulf of Kutch," he said.

Together with the Gujarat forest department, they are planning to tag them with satellite transmitters as it is easy to catch them unlike the ones living in the open sea.

"After we release them back into the sea with satellite tagging we will be able to map the sea grass beds of the Gulf of Kutch. This will be the additional benefit of this project," the scientist said.

They have estimated that the project would cost around Rs 15-20 lakh.

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Buffaloes gore lioness to death near Sasan-Gir border

AHMEDABAD: An 11-year-old lioness was gored to death by a buffalo herd and her broken carcass was found by a beat guard who was led to the dead mother by her 18-month-old cub.

Forest officials were surprised by this unprecedented incident which was confirmed by the postmortem report, which pointed out that the lioness had multiple fractures in her ribs and had died of intestinal haemorrhage.

Such occurrences are rare in the wild. It took place at a hill top, some 500-600 metres from Kothariya village, bordering Sasan-Gir, where cattle grazing activity heightens during the monsoon season. "Usually lions die of infighting and natural causes. It is very rare to see the predator being killed by a herd of resilient herbivorous animals," said HS Singh, a lion expert and member of National Board of Wildlife.

On Saturday, Rana Mori, the beat guard, was on his round, when he spotted a cub hidden in the bushes. The strange behaviour of the cub drew Mori's attention. "As I got close to the cub, it started moving away and kept looking back to check if I was following him. After 30-odd metres, I spotted the carcass. I intimated my superiors and the carcass was sent for postmortem," Mori said.

Forest officials said the lioness was called Rupa by villagers and was a loner. Deputy conservator of forest Anshuman Sharma said, "The beat guard drawn to the carcass by the cub risked his life. The lioness had deep injury marks and her ribs were broken. The doctors were of the opinion that the big cat had died of injuries in the attack."

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Airport tests new way to avoid deadly bird strikes

NEW YORK: When birds and planes collide, the results can be deadly. That's why airports around the world work hard to keep birds away, even resorting to shooting or poisoning large flocks. One Ohio airport is now experimenting with a new, gentler way to avoid bird strikes: planting tall prairie grass.

Heavy birds like geese — which cause the most damage to planes — are believed to avoid long grasses because they fear predators might be hiding within. So officials at Dayton International Airport are converting up to 300 acres of the airfield's 2,200 non-aeronautical acres into prairie grass. The goal is, by the end of this year, to plant the tall grass under the takeoff and landing paths.

There are more than 10,000 airplane bird strikes a year in the US alone. Most do little or no damage to the plane. The most frequent problem is damage to the engines. The FAA estimates that such damage costs the industry $950 million a year.

But some cause catastrophic damage. The forced landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009 — often called The Miracle on the Hudson — occurred after Canadian geese were ingested in both engines, causing the plane to lose power. Nobody died when the plane glided into the river.

The passengers of Eastern Air Lines Flight 375 in 1960 weren't so lucky. The plane struck a flock of European starlings during takeoff. All four engines were damaged and the aircraft crashed in Boston harbor; 62 people died.

Globally, wildlife strikes have killed more than 250 people and destroyed over 229 aircraft since 1988, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. In the past 23 years, there were 25 fatalities and 279 injuries linked to wildlife strikes in the US.

A little more than half of bird strikes occur from July to October, which is when young birds leave nests and fall migration occurs.

Between 2001 and 2013, there were 218 wildlife strikes at Dayton. The majority involved doves, pigeons, sparrows and other small birds that didn't cause severe damage. The airport sees 56 commercial planes landing and taking off each day. Two-thirds of those are smaller regional jets.

Airports often buy large parcels of adjacent land to create a buffer zone and limit the number of local residents affected by loud jet engines. Newer airports tend to be built next to tracts of empty land. Those large fields happen to make great rest stops for migrating birds.

"We operate airports in a smaller and smaller environment,'' says Terrence G. Slaybaugh, director of Dayton's airport. "If we are going to protect the long term use of airports in an increasingly populated area we need to be less intrusive and find ways to contribute in a positive way to our surroundings.''

The thick grass has other benefits: preventing water runoff, taking carbon dioxide out of the air and requiring only one mowing every three years.

Bird lovers are also excited about the use of non-lethal methods to keep birds away from the airport.

The airport's neighbor, the Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm, has been working closely with aviation officials on the tall grass project.

"It's a watershed moment. Our airport is embracing it,'' says Charity Krueger, executive director of the center.

Still, Dayton airport has to prove that the tall grass is the best approach. The tactic could backfire: in the past, the FAA notes, such grasses have led to increased rodent populations, a food source for raptors. Dayton's initial test will run for three years.

Preventing bird strikes often requires multiple approaches.

Airports need to plan out what type of trees and landscaping they plant, selecting vegetation that doesn't produce fruits or seeds attractive to birds. Waste from airport restaurants needs to be properly secured and irrigation improved to avoid large areas of standing water.

Then there are design factors.

Light posts can be fitted with anti-perching devices. Tubular steel beams for terminals and hangars are also much-less desirable as resting spots, compared with traditional I-beams with flat surfaces.

Some locations take more drastic measures.

Airports use chemically-treated food baits that birds eat and then send out distress call that frighten away other birds in the flock. At other times, birds might be captured and relocated. Then there are poisons and shotguns used to kill birds, or specialists who are brought in to break eggs and remove nest materials. Such efforts to cull bird populations often draw protests from animal rights groups and bird watchers.

Dayton airport has had a policy for at least 14 years of not killing birds. But it does try to scare them away with loud noises from non-lethal pyrotechnics and recordings of geese in distress.

Maybe with this new grass, even that harassment won't be necessary anymore. The industry has been looking for a solution for a long time. After all, the FAA notes that the first reported bird strike was by Orville Wright, back in 1905.

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