Australia bushfires: Authorities plan to kill 10,000 water-starved camels

The government will send helicopters to kill up to 10,000 camels in a five-day campaign starting Wednesday, according to a report.

Authorities here will begin five-day campaign to kill thousands of camels in Australia as they drink too much water amid the wildfires.

The government will send helicopters to kill up to 10,000 camels in a five-day campaign starting Wednesday, The Hill reported citing The Australian.

Marita Baker, an Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) (large, sparsely-populated local government area for Aboriginal Australians) executive board member, said that the camels were causing problems in her community of Kanypi.

"We have been stuck in stinking hot and uncomfortable conditions, feeling unwell, because the camels are coming in and knocking down fences, getting in around the houses and trying to get to water through air conditioners,'' she said.

The planned killing of the camels comes at a time the country is ravaged by wildfires since November.

The disaster has killed more than a dozen people and caused the displacement or deaths of 480 million animals, according to University of Sydney researchers.

How viral bear video reveals dark side of filming animals with drones

When animals come into contact with drones, they may experience physiological changes such as an increased heart rate, behavioural responses such as running or flying away, or even suffer stress.

A recent online video took what seemed like an inspirational moment viral. The video, shot by Dmitry Kedrov using a drone, shows a baby bear climbing up and falling down the side of a mountain near Russia’s Sea of Okhotsk. After repeated efforts, the cub finally reaches the top, joining his mother and winning the hearts of viewers around the world. (Business Standard)

But after the initial enthusiasm for the video came some controversy when scientists pointed out that the incident may have been caused by the drone risking the cub’s life by interrupting its efforts to climb to safety. This prompted some online commenters to call for drones to be banned on grounds of environmental impact, while others defended the responsible use of this technology.

My colleagues and I have been researching the impact of drones on wildlife, and found that they pose very similar kinds of threats as other disturbances such as people, cars and conventional aircraft. This suggests that rules and guidelines that took animals into account would make a big difference to how much harm remotely and autonomously controlled aircraft could cause to wildlife through their noise and visual presence.

When animals come into contact with drones, they may experience physiological changes such as an increased heart rate, behavioural responses such as running or flying away, or even suffer stress that could disrupt their reproductive process. If they decide to avoid specific areas as a result of frequent disturbing drone encounters, this could fragment and ultimately damage the whole population.

Unfortunately, there is no reliable indicator that can give us an idea of the extent to which these flights are affecting wildlife. But this does not mean that there is no need to worry, because drone use is expected to increase in coming years.

Exactly how serious the threat from drones is depends on how often and how intensely they disturb the animals. If they are frequently disturbed, the animals will likely abandon the area, but they could also eventually become used to the drones. At worst, if drones fly too close to animals, collisions or attacks can cause wounds or death. Also, not all animal species nor individuals react to drones in the same way, and they may be more vulnerable in certain moments, such as breeding season, or in areas without protection or escape routes.... Read More

Tigers confirmed as 6 subspecies: Why it's big deal for their conservation

The lack of genetic and morphological differences between mainland tigers could allow them to be managed as single subspecies.

During my time as a zookeeper I had the privilege of working with both Sumatran and Amur tigers. If they did not both have stripes, you would think they were different species altogether.

The Sumatran tiger is the smallest alive today. At around 100kg, it’s “only” about the weight of a large adult male human. It is suited to the warm and wet forests of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which is reflected in its smaller size and short, dark rusty orange coat which has many thin black stripes to conceal it in dense vegetation from their prey.

The Amur – or Siberian – tiger is much larger, averaging around 170kg (though there are historic reports of males clocking in at 300kg or more) and is now found mainly one corner of far-eastern Russia. It has a thicker but relatively pale coat, with sparse dark brown stripes, which enables it to survive in freezing and snowy winters.

Tiger experts have long debated what such differences mean scientifically. Should the biggest of the big cats be divided into various subspecies, or are all tigers simply “tigers”?

It’s an issue with serious implications for conservation. About 3,500 or so tigers remain in the wild, in just 7% of their former range. And if those tigers are all the same, or if even most of them are the same, then saving individual populations matters slightly less – and tigers can be moved around to assist breeding in the wild.

Traditionally, eight subspecies were considered to exist. They are the two already mentioned, plus the Bengal tiger, found mainly in India, the Indochinese, the South China tiger and then three extinct subspecies: the Bali (extinct in the 1940s) and Javan (80s), both closely related to surviving tigers on nearby Sumatra, and the Caspian tiger from Central Asia which went extinct in the 1970s.

As genetic techniques evolved, a 2004 study found there was little genetic diversity among tigers, but enough to support the separation of subspecies. It also suggested that Indochinese tigers living on the Malayan peninsular were different enough to those living further north to warrant a ninth subspecies: the Malayan tiger.

These ideas were contested by a group of researchers in 2015, who argued that the relative lack of variation among the mainland Asian subspecies and large overlaps in their shape, size and ecology meant that all tigers from India to Siberia or Thailand should be considered the same subspecies. The researchers called for just two recognised subspecies: the continental tiger, and the Sunda tiger, found on the various Indonesian islands.

However the various subspecies are classified, one of the consistent findings is that tigers follow Bergmann’s rule: a principle in zoology which states that animals within the same overall species will tend to be larger in colder environments and vice versa. The Amur tiger, for instance, benefits from the fact that larger animals are better at retaining heat as they have a smaller surface area relative to their overall mass... Read More

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