Fugitive giraffe found dead in Thai canal

Yahoo – AFP, January 30, 2020

One of the runaway giraffes was spotted crossing the road in Bang Khla, Thailand
(AFP Photo/Jongput JIRA-APAKUL)

Bangkok (AFP) - A giraffe whose daring escape from convoy en route to a Thai breeding station won hearts online was found dead in a lotus-clogged canal on Thursday after a two-day search using drones and hang gliders.

Two giraffes made a bid for freedom from the back of a poorly secured truck as it slowed in highway traffic after leaving Bangkok's main airport on Tuesday.

The animals had been imported from an unnamed African country and destined for Safari World, a popular attraction outside Bangkok which describes itself as "an open zoo".

Rescuers caught one of the creatures after stunning it with a tranquiliser gun, but the other escaped into scrubland -- cheered on by hundreds of thousands of people on social media.

The story took a tragic turn, however, after it was found dead in a lotus swamp near a main road, according to Safari World.

Vets will determine the cause of death.

Hundreds of thousands of Thais followed Facebook live videos of journalists trailing the hunt for the runaway ungulate.

Comments lamenting its fate poured onto social media.

"Hope you reincarnate in a better world lil giraffe," said one.

Safari World is Thailand's biggest animal park, but the multi-million dollar company has in the past been criticised for training its creatures to perform for entertainment -- including staging boxing matches with orangutans.

Zoos and animal shows are common in Thailand, where tourists pay to have their pictures taken with tigers or watch elephants play football and perform tricks.

Glass frogs reappear in Bolivia after 18 years

Yahoo – AFP, January 28, 2020

The Bolivian Cochran frog is a species of glass frog native to Bolivia and
notable for its transparent belly (AFP Photo/Oliver QUINTEROS)

La Paz (AFP) - A rare species of frog native to the eastern slopes of the Bolivian Andes has been spotted in the South American country for the first time in 18 years, the investigation team that made the discovery told AFP.

The Bolivian Cochran frog is notable for its transparent belly, leading to its nickname, the "glass frog".

"The rediscovery of this species fills us with a ray of hope for the future of the glass frogs -- one of the most charismatic amphibians in the world -- but also for other species," said investigation team members Rodrigo Aguayo and Oliver Quinteros, from the Natural History Museum "Alcide d'Orbigny", and Rene Carpio of the San Simon University in Cochabamba.

The team came across the frogs on January 8 during a mission to rescue reptiles and amphibians threatened by a hydroelectric project in the Carrasco National Park to the east of Cochabamba, the fourth largest city in Bolivia.

Glass frogs are tiny, measuring only 0.7-0.9 inches (19-24 millimeters) and weighing just 2.5-2.8 ounces (70-80 grams). They can be found in the departments of La Paz (west), Cochabamba, Santa Cruz (east) and Chuquisaca (southeast).

Some frogs' hearts and digestive tracts can be seen through their transparent bellies.

Those found in the Carrasco National Park had a transparent belly with a "white chest. The bones and vocal sac of the males are dark green," the team said.

The three frogs found were taken to the K'ayra amphibian conservation center at the Alcide d'Orbigny museum.

Experts will try to encourage the frogs to breed as part of a conservation strategy.

The K'ayra Center is also home to a pair of Sehuenca water frogs, known as Romeo and Juliet, that scientists have been trying to convince to mate to help preserve their critically endangered species.

Their attempts have so far been in vain.

‘New’ wasp species found during expedition to Amsterdam park

DutchNews, January 28, 2020 

Photo: Jiangli Tan (Northwest University, Xi’an) 

The Vondelpark in Amsterdam is home to a hitherto undiscovered species of wasp, which has now been named after it, the Parool reported this week. 

The Aphaereta vondelparkensis, a type of parasitoid wasp, was discovered last year at the park’s Koeienweide, a small area of grassland, by a team of scientists and local researchers. It was caught in a trap consisting of a jar of rotting chicken which had been buried in the ground. 

The five-day project was set up by Taxon Expeditions, which organises research trips to all corners of the world. The company’s founder Menno Schilthuizen chose the location to explore how biodiverse a spot in the middle of a busy city can be, the paper said. 

Apart from the unexpected presence of the wasp, the team’s findings were ‘spectacular’ in other ways as well, city ecologist Remco Daalder told the paper. ‘In just five days we found over a hundred moths, 85 species of beetle, 21 species of spider and 15 species of snail. It goes to show that the biodiversity in only a few hectares in a city can be huge.’ 

Daalder said Schilthuizen had broadened the idea of biodiversity.’When we say biodiversity we usually think of rabbits or blackbirds. But Schilthuizen looks at the soil and it contains a wealth of species. We are talking to him about exploring other parks to see what creatures we can find there.’

New cases of cruel slaughterhouse practices revealed: RTL

DutchNews, January 17, 2020

Pigs on a factory farm. Photo: Depositphotos.com

A number of slaughterhouses in the Netherlands are still causing unnecessary suffering to pigs despite pledges from agriculture minister to curb the practice, RTL Nieuws reports. 

RTL said that between January 2018 and July 2019 several new instances had come to light in which pigs were placed in vats of very hot water while still alive. The broadcaster bases its claim on reports requested from Dutch health and safety watchdog NVWA by pig protection organisation Varkens in Nood. 

In the reports, NVWA inspectors said they had personally witnessed six cases in which live pigs were placed in the vats and tried to swim. They also reported seeing a live pig dumped on a pile of bodies and pigs being beaten by workers. 

The practice of immersing live pigs in vats of hot water first came to light in Belgium in 2017. In 2018 RTL requested Dutch inspection reports and found that as many as 19 Dutch slaughterhouses had been fined 48 times over animal welfare issues, including placing and drowning live pigs in very hot water. 

One particular slaughterhouse had been fined 11 times in the space of six months in 2018, RTL said at the time. 

Dutch farm minister Carola Schouten said at the time she would tighten up the rules on abattoir closures and increase fines for animal cruelty following revelations about conditions in Dutch slaughterhouses. 

NVWA inspectors are a permanent fixture at the 21 big slaughterhouses in the Netherlands but smaller ones are only checked at intervals. It is not clear at which of the slaughterhouses the latest cases were found to have occurred. 

Varkens in Nood spokesperson Frederieke Schouten said all slaughterhouses need more supervision. ‘The only solution are cameras at every slaughter line. A slaughterhouse that does not keep to the rules more than once will have to be closed immediately.’

Animal sector calls for ‘fair trade mark’ for dogs

DutchNews, January 17, 2020 

A healthy and happy spaniel.

There is a fair trade mark for cocoa – so why not for pets? 

Animal rights and vets organisations, concerned about the sale of puppies of unknown backgrounds and health problems, have set up a FairDog platform. 

The website, which aims to be up and running within two years, should offer pet buyers puppies with a certified pedigree and reliable details about their health, behaviour and breeding method. 

According to the NOS broadcaster, some 150,000 puppies are sold each year in the Netherlands. It reports that many are cheap, come from Eastern Europe, and could suffer from health problems such as viruses and bacterial infections. 

Piko Fieggen, of the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals which is one of the FairDog project’s founders, told the NOS. ‘If you take on a dog, you want a nice dog that you can enjoy without problems. The goal is that in the Netherlands we soon only have healthy and well-socialised dogs.’ 

The initiative will offer a quality stamp for dogs offered on its site, and dogs from abroad will be checked rigorously for infectious diseases. The aim is that it will also offer advice for people who might want to adopt, for instance, a former racehound or stray. 

Linda Wouters, a dog breeder, told the NOS that a screening programme was wise, especially for dogs with a risk of genetic issues. ‘The French Bulldog is a race that often has a lot of problems and often it is simply bred rather than people making an effort to improve the breed,’ she said. 

Vet Mijntje de Beer, who works in Boxtel, warned that a cheaper dog would not come cheap in veterinary bills if it is not healthy. ‘I often see dogs from eastern Europe that just aren’t healthy, which have parasites or specific bacteria or viruses,’ she reportedly said. ‘You can’t take a puppy with diarrhoea to a training course so they quickly get behind in their development.’ 

There are an estimated 1.5 dogs in the Netherlands, and the demand for the pet is thought to be greater than the regulated supply. The FairDog partners have also submitted a report to the Dutch government calling for more co-operation to ensure only ‘well-trained and healthy dogs’ are for sale.

Plea for New Zealand to house fire-threatened koalas

Yahoo – AFP, January 13, 2020

Koalas and their habitats have been hit hard by Australia's devastating bushfires
(AFP Photo/Tristan Kennedy)

Wellington (AFP) - Thousands of people have signed a petition for koalas to be introduced to New Zealand to escape Australia's devastating bush fires, but the proposal has been given the thumbs down by officials.

A group calling itself the Koala Relocation Society said koalas were "functionally extinct in Australia" but could thrive in New Zealand which has nearly 30,000 hectares planted in eucalypts.

There have been estimates of up to a billion koalas and other animals affected by the fires raging across Australia and there are concerns about how the survivors will cope given the loss of vegetation.

As of midday Monday, the online petition had 7,500 signatures, but a spokesman for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Television New Zealand that the government's focus was on helping to get the fires under control so koalas "can stay in their natural habitat".

Wellington Zoo animal science manager Simon Eyre believed any assistance should be provided directly to the Australian authorities dealing with the fallout from the fires.

"For us, it would be assisting in Australia and it wouldn't only be koalas, it would be other species affected by the fires as well," he said.

Walker gored by Tauros bull on Brabant nature reserve

DutchNews, January 6, 2020 

A Tauros bull in the Netherlands. Photo: Henri Kerkdijk-Otten via Wikimedia
Commons 

A man out walking in the Maashorst nature reserve in Brabant has been seriously injured after he was gored by a bull, local broadcaster Omroep Brabant reported on Monday. 

It is not yet clear why the bull attacked, but the man may have gotten too close to the animal in an attempt to photograph him, the broadcaster said. 

Several herds of Tauros cattle and European bison (wisent) live on the reserve as part of an ongoing project to keep grass growth under control and improve biodiversity. 

Last year, two walkers were also attacked by Tauros on the reserve and one broke her ankle as she attempted to flee. 

The Maashorst reserve covers 2,400 hectares and the large mammals roam freely over around one third of it.