Hallways in the Rainforest

Panthera is crazy.


Tiger Corridors from Panthera Cats on Vimeo.

If they honestly believe that their dream of a 'tiger corridor' will ever be fully realized... they'll be dreaming for a loooong time. I believe that's what we call a coma?

That aside, I think it's great that they're trying to do this. It really does take some guts to go out lobbying for wildlife in countries ranging from India to Burma to Indonesia. These are countries so focused on following in the footsteps of great countries like Britain and the USA economically, and are really uninterested in anything that doesn't involve getting handphones and cable tv to their entire populations. Note that Britain ran out of its own forests in about the 1700's, if not before then. The need for resources is what triggered the whole 'colonialism' thing. So if we all follow the wonderful examples given to us by our European powers, what are the Asians going to colonize for their resources? Antarctica? Mars, perhaps? You tell me.

I mean, Panthera really is making progress. Just r e a a a a l l y....reaaallly....r e aaaaa l y s l o o o o o o o o o o o o o w w w l l y y y. Of all places, they managed to secure a whole valley in Burma! Again with these military regimes caring about the environment.

I don't get it.

In a way, though, I do. I had this conversation once with somebody, and they pointed out that in a place where the people are controlled so much, things like poaching and logging are much easier to monitor. I'm not saying we should all revert to communism, but it might help if we plan on doing anything about nature. Oh, that's right, I forgot. We don't have any plans of doing anything about conserving nature.

And lastly...how are the tigers going to know it's a corridor? I get the feeling a "tigers this way please" sign isn't going to work on them. I believe this is a concept that will be interesting to see play out. Between the tigers going the wrong way and the people throwing fits, I don't know which will prove worse to watch.

Naughty Barbie

Came across this and it made me lol. At least someone's ashamed of Barbie's bad habits....

Just, how many of donations do you think went to making this video?

Realizations of the Deep Jungle

I was watching Deep Jungle on tv the other day. And for once, a tv show actually made a point.

They were simply pointing out what caused the end to great empires and cities, like Angkor Wat. I mean back in the day, that place was booming. At 1000 square kilometers, you can imagine. That's bigger than NYC.  But what could cause the fall of such an empire?

Unsustainable expansion.

But development is inevitable, you shout. Wrong. We don't have to develop, aka continuing to destroy nature. It's just required to uphold the Ponsey(?) schemes we call economies. It eats growth - once there is no more capacity for growth, it collapses. Same exact concept here. They continued to cut down forest, farm and use the wood. They didn't know that there wasn't an endless supply of forest. They honestly didn't know any better when they decimated their landscape, and then Nature said 'You went too far' and the jungle reclaimed everything until about 400 years ago. I guess that's one point for the jungle.

See, my problem with this here is that in this 'information age' we know exactly what we are doing to the environment. We've known for years - it's not something new. We're not living thousands of years ago in the jungle without any thought of long-term consequences.

Yet we have the gall to call things like the manufacturing of endless cheapo goods in China, or the development of coastlines in south east asia 'progress'. But in our minds, we have not progressed from thousands of years ago. At least not all of us.

And in the end, this show points out, that us people...we think we're all just so different from the creatures that live around us. And we are, I guess. Just not in the way we thought. We're the only species on this earth with the capacity to save other species.

The question is, will we?

...by the looks of things, I think not. We're just heading toward being one big giant Angkor Wat. We're all gonna starve to death. :|

Asiatic Cheetahs

Asiatic cheetahs. They’re pretty different from their African cousins – for a start, they’re a heck of a lot furrier! They’ve got a sturdier build and much thicker neck, and strangely, a smaller head. Their coats, to me at least, seem darker and/or drabbier, but not in a bad way. In the blending-into-this-endless-sand kind of way.

Well isn't it cute? More pics at http://www.payvand.com/news/10/feb/1266.html

These are the animals that the Persian Empire and such used to train to hunt gazelles, back then aka dinner. These are animals that used to support entire empires, not 200 or 300 years ago. In all our gratitude, we have almost exterminated all of them, leaving a total population of about 60-100.

In Iran, no less. What makes this worth mention, though, is that President Ammacrazynutjob has actually taken action, and the country is currently running a decent breeding, studying and rehabilitation project, which has been doing well in its infancy (10 years old this year). I mean, the president didn’t have anything to do with it directly, but the fact that this project is allowed to operate and is well funded shows good for the guy. You know, even if he is the oppressive radical type that seems to abound in the region.

It's just that...if Iran can do it, anyone can. Seriously.

Check out the Iranian Cheetah Society's website. Seems pretty legit, no?