[poochee]

I sign all petitions for the protection of animals. And distribute them to all on my email list.

[ekim68]

Originally Posted by poochee

I sign all petitions for the protection of animals. And distribute them to all on my email list.

As we all should...We should do much more than just eat them..

[Zaney1]

And everyone was acting like people in Greenpeace were a bunch of nuts. Did any of you read about the national parks being created in Madagascar?

[Zaney1]

Sorry, meant to provide a link so here you go!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...car-parks.html

[poochee]

A step in the right direction:

Hoof it to Placer fairgrounds to adopt a mustang
By Melissa Nix - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, May 6, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1


The conquest of the New World was palpable Saturday at the Placer County Fairgrounds.

It must've been the dung.

Sixty-four wild mustangs -- and 20 fuzzy feral burros -- were on display in grassy pens.

They're descendants of the horses and pack animals Spanish conquistadors brought to Mexico centuries ago.

They munched grass. They neighed and brayed and shook their manes. And the wild things were all up for adoption.

How's that for taking home a piece of history?

Officials from the Bureau of Land Management, which is charged with taking care of the wild population, transported the animals from the agency's corrals in Susanville to Placer County.

They also oversaw adoptions, which continue from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at the fairgrounds.

They make sure prospective owners are up to the challenge and can provide the proper environment for the animal.

After the adoption, a bureau compliance officer checks on the family and the animal over the course of a year.

"The best thing you could ever do is get a mustang," said Kelly Szymulewski of Plumas Lake, who had selected a 2-year-old pinto to take home. "I will never own another horse than a mustang."

Szymulewski was watching the pinto being herded out of his pen. He bucked and moved around. He was scared.

"Wow, he's gorgeous," Szymulewski said to herself.

She adopted her first mustang, a dun gelding named Pepsi, in 2005.

"You know when you are dealing with a mustang (as compared to a domestic horse)," Szymulewski said. "They're herd animals. They're looking for guidance."

Once you earn their respect and trust, you're the "alpha," she said.

"If he gets spooked," said Szymulewski, referring to her Pepsi, "he looks for me, as if to say, 'Mom, is this OK? Can I go around this bag or person in a fluorescent shirt or man wearing glasses?' "

Such adoptions are crucial to effectively managing the mustang and burro wild population, which can grow as much as 18 percent a year, said Jeff Fontana, the bureau's Northern California public affairs officer. The bureau has been charged with the responsibility since 1971.

Today, that population numbers 28,000 mustangs and burros in 200 wild herds across nine Western states.

Last year, the bureau "gathered" 2,500 wild mustangs from Northern California and Nevada.

As the animals have no known predators, the herds "will eat themselves out of house and home," Fontana said.

Overgrazing hurts both wildlife and range lands. It also upsets livestock owners, many of whom have leased bureau public lands to graze their cattle.

The BLM's "Adopt-a-Horse-or-Burro" program has settled 215,000 animals in homes since 1972, Fontana said.

Excerpt from: www.sacbee.com

[poochee]

Originally Posted by Zaney1

Sorry, meant to provide a link so here you go!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...car-parks.html

Neat link!

[Zaney1]

Glad you liked it as I have enjoyed many of yours and not told you !

[Melquiades]

maybe we should understand why this is happening. Developed countries are not the ones losing the species. The only means of survival for a good chunk of the population in developing countries requires environmentally destructive methods, most notoriously the slash and burn rainforest clearing techniques in the Tropical Rain Forest regions. This is because they do not have the technology or the money for environmentally friendly survival and progress. Now, instead of spending the time and the money on useless wars, complaining about the wars, on the rights of farm animals, on why people should not wear fur coats.... we should spend the time and the money on teaching the people in developing countries how to grow crops using the land available more effectively, teaching their children how to read, write and use technology, getting drinking water to remote areas, stop selling them weapons, and yes, showing the men how to put a condom on, so they can effectively control population density.

It is very nice to say that we should save animals when do not need to feed a family of 20 kids, and we can just get our food by grabbing something from the frozen goods aisle at the gorcery store, and we do not have to farm or hunt for it.

[ekim68]

Really doesn't matter if developed or undeveloped countries. Resources have been pummeled everywhere...I think the key is education....People just aren't up to date....That's why I think the major media should be doing us all a favor by being instructive rather than destructive.

[Melquiades]

1.) In developed countries, people at least have the option to use more renewable resources.

2.) Media need something that they can sell. Since when has instructive sold more than destructive?

[ekim68]

Originally Posted by Melquiades

1.) In developed countries, people at least have the option to use more renewable resources.

2.) Media need something that they can sell. Since when has instructive sold more than destructive?

Case in point....Well said...But, is capitalism sustainable? Or at least unrestrained capitalism?
When does continuous growth on a medium sized planet get unmanageable?

[ekim68]

I almost keep forgetting why I came here tonight..

Famous Caymans coral reefs dying, scientists say

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (Reuters) - To coral reef-driven tourism industries like those of the Cayman Islands, there could be a greater cost in ignoring climate change than fighting it.

Ranked among the top 10 scuba diving destinations in the world, the reef system of the western Caribbean territory has lost 50 percent of its hard corals in the last 10 years in spite of strong environmental laws, scientists say.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scien...27404120070506

[Zaney1]

Originally Posted by Melquiades

maybe we should understand why this is happening.

While you do have a point, I'm afraid it is an oversimplification of the problem. Since the problem is pandemic we must understand that the causes are multiple and complex. Even those of us who can read and have some level of sophistication have A LOT of education required to understand then remedy the situation.
I remember watching a program where they were trying to figure out what happened to an extinct primate. One cause of the depletion in population is that people were eating them, they had little else in terms of meat. War had ravaged their community for so long they could not improve their lot.

[poochee]

Interesting balance of nature story. Happened in an old neighborhood.

With cats away, rat nuisance climbs
By Bobby Caina Calvan - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, May 5, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B2

Sweetie, a wooly-haired black-and-gray cat, was the queen of the neighborhood, presiding over a court of feral felines well known to residents such as the Rev. Ashiya Odeye.

When Sweetie stopped making her rounds a few months back, Odeye's Oak Park neighborhood at 42nd Street, near Broadway, grew alarmed. "She just disappeared," he said.

Soon, rats invaded in bone-chilling numbers, said Jellether Odeye, the reverend's wife. The rodents gnawed through walls, scampered through the backyard garden and scurried from near-death confrontations with the family dogs.

The sudden infestation has been unsettling, Odeye said.

"I could hear them in the walls. It was spooky," she said. "I'm just so afraid of them."

In the past few months, the reverend and his two dogs have captured -- and killed -- 46 mice and rats, some a foot long, not counting tails, the reverend said. "We're talking about big rats," he said, his hands a foot-wide apart.

Across the street, M. Delphine LeDoux got so fed up, she sought relief from an exterminator, who recently hauled away about a half-dozen rats. "They were trying to come up through the bathtub -- scratch, scratch," she said.

On most days, as many as a dozen cats would show up on LeDoux's porch or linger around her yard. These days, the number is down to three.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood's rat population is booming.

"We've never had this problem, no -- not as long as the cats were here," said Odeye, who voiced concerns during a meeting Thursday night of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association.

That's when the Odeyes first realized that they weren't alone in their rat problem and that Sweetie might have been snatched.

What happened to Sweetie and the neighborhood's other strays is uncertain. Some residents believe they were captured by the city's Animal Care and Control Division as part of a sweep -- which is probably not the case, said Hector Cazares, the city's manager for animal care services.

"We're concerned about feral cats throughout the city, but there's no special effort in Oak Park," Cazares said. "It's not inconceivable that some irate neighbor has been trapping them and bringing them in."

Rats in the city aren't unusual, he said. Rodents rustle through trees, leap atop fences and run along utility lines. At times, they strike fear among unsuspecting city dwellers.

"There are more rats in the city than there are people, and I'm probably right by three times," said Tony Carlson, who takes sales calls for Pest Control Center, which has been coming to the rescue of LeDoux.

Cazares welcomed news that the feral cat population in one neighborhood was in decline -- until informed of the unforeseen consequences.

Excerpt from: www.sacbee.com

[Melquiades]

why were cats gone/disappearing?

Zaney, I know it's an over-simplification of the problem. Whole books have been written on the subject, NGO's with thousands of members devoted to this, and this is a discussion forum, and with time and space constraints . My point is that we get caught up in our own material world, where life is easy, we flush our toilets with gallons of drinking water, electricity is availiable 24/7 (and it's such a nuisance when we loose power for a few hours because of a storm!), and we drive our nice air conditioned/heated cars the half mile distance to the grocery store to get food. Then we see a nature show on tv and we feel remorse, so we pretend to try to save the world by taking up causes like the rights of farm animals (??), or glorified rats (minks), so that we feel better.