Robber fly - Nature photographer Thomas Shahan specializes in amazing portraits of tiny insects. It isn't easy. Shahan says that this Robber Fly (Holcocephala fusca), for instance, is "skittish" and doesn't like its picture taken.

Nature by Numbers (Video)

"The Greater Akashic System" – July 15, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) (Subjects: Lightworkers, Intent, To meet God, Past lives, Universe/Galaxy, Earth, Pleiadians, Souls Reincarnate, Invention: Measure Quantum state in 3D, Recalibrates, Multi-Dimensional/Divine, Akashic System to change to new system, Before religion changed the system, DNA, Old system react to Karma, New system react to intent now for next life, Animals (around humans) reincarnate again, This Animal want to come back to the same human, Akashic Inheritance, Reincarnate as Family, Other Planets, Global Unity … etc.)

Question: Dear Kryon: I live in Spain. I am sorry if I will ask you a question you might have already answered, but the translations of your books are very slow and I might not have gathered all information you have already given. I am quite concerned about abandoned animals. It seems that many people buy animals for their children and as soon as they grow, they set them out somewhere. Recently I had the occasion to see a small kitten in the middle of the street. I did not immediately react, since I could have stopped and taken it, without getting out of the car. So, I went on and at the first occasion I could turn, I went back to see if I could take the kitten, but it was to late, somebody had already killed it. This happened some month ago, but I still feel very sorry for that kitten. I just would like to know, what kind of entity are these animals and how does this fit in our world. Are these entities which choose this kind of life, like we do choose our kind of Human life? I see so many abandoned animals and every time I see one, my heart aches... I would like to know more about them.

Answer: Dear one, indeed the answer has been given, but let us give it again so you all understand. Animals are here on earth for three (3) reasons.

(1) The balance of biological life. . . the circle of energy that is needed for you to exist in what you call "nature."

(2) To be harvested. Yes, it's true. Many exist for your sustenance, and this is appropriate. It is a harmony between Human and animal, and always has. Remember the buffalo that willingly came into the indigenous tribes to be sacrificed when called? These are stories that you should examine again. The inappropriateness of today's culture is how these precious creatures are treated. Did you know that if there was an honoring ceremony at their death, they would nourish you better? Did you know that there is ceremony that could benefit all of humanity in this way. Perhaps it's time you saw it.

(3) To be loved and to love. For many cultures, animals serve as surrogate children, loved and taken care of. It gives Humans a chance to show compassion when they need it, and to have unconditional love when they need it. This is extremely important to many, and provides balance and centering for many.

Do animals know all this? At a basic level, they do. Not in the way you "know," but in a cellular awareness they understand that they are here in service to planet earth. If you honor them in all three instances, then balance will be the result. Your feelings about their treatment is important. Temper your reactions with the spiritual logic of their appropriateness and their service to humanity. Honor them in all three cases.

Dian Fossey's birthday celebrated with a Google doodle

Dian Fossey's birthday celebrated with a Google doodle
American zoologist played by Sigourney Weaver in the film Gorillas in the Mist would have been 82 on Thursday (16 January 2014)

Monday, June 15, 2015

Jane Goodall hails 'awakening' as US labels all chimpanzees endangered

The primates had previously had a ‘split status’ with those in US classified as ‘threatened’ but new rules will restrict scientific research on captive animals

The Guardian, Alan Yuhas in New York,  Friday 12 June 2015

 A124CE Chimpanzee laugh1 Photograph: Alamy

The US has named chimpanzees a fully endangered species, extending greater protections to the apes in a decision that primate researcher Jane Goodall has hailed as a sign of “an awakening”.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service director, Dan Ashe, announced on Friday that chimpanzees will no longer hold their unique “split status” under US law, which since the 1990s has protected wild chimps but allowed largely unfettered research on captive animals.

Prompted by the worries of Aids researchers and thinking the special status would forestall the exploitation of wild chimps, the US previously classified chimps in America as “threatened”.

Ashe said: “That was a well-intentioned decision, but we now realize it was a mistake.”

Rather than solve the problem, the dual status “expanded a culture and attitude of treating these animals as commodities,” he said.

The decision to provide the full protections of the Endangered Species Act to chimpanzees follows years of research by the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Institutes of Health, as well as years of activism by the Humane Society and other animal welfare organizations.

The new rules grant new protections to the primates, restrict their commercial trade, and will probably most affect biomedical research institutions, which will now have to apply for permits in order to perform research on chimpanzees.

Absent permits, the new rule will also ban interstate commerce, and prohibit “taking”, a term that could encompass anything that could cause a chimpanzee harm or distress, from serious injury to taking blood to harassment.

The federal agency says that “permits will be issued for these activities only for scientific purposes that benefit the species in the wild, or to enhance the propagation or survival of chimpanzees.”

Researchers would need to show “substantial” contribution to chimpanzees’ survival in the wild, Ashe said, either through their scientific research or material contributions to support the animals in the wild, such as giving to habitat restoration programs.

Dr Jane Goodall: ‘I think of chimpanzees
as chimpanzeebeings because they’re so
like us.’ Photograph: Javier Soriano/AFP/
Getty Images
Goodall praised the decision, saying: “There are times in the past when I wondered whether this day would ever happen.

“It shows an awakening, it shows a new consciousness. We should all raise our glasses tonight.”

Not all scientists celebrated, however, with some arguing that the rules threatened vital research that could save lives.

“This new ruling effectively means that biomedical research with the chimpanzee model may become difficult, if not impossible, to conduct,” the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR) said in a statement, adding that the species’ contribution to medicine “benefits nearly every child born in America today”.

NABR said that chimpanzees made it possible to produce vaccines for hepatitis, and that the species could help with research in any number of diseases that humans suffer from.

“It would be unfortunate, even grave, should an infectious disease outbreak occur where human lives are at stake and a chimpanzee model could expedite development of life-saving medicines.”

But Wayne Pacelle, the president of the Humane Society of the United States, said the decision was “an incredible one-two punch for conservation and chimpanzee protection”.

While the old law “reflected some moral confusion” about chimpanzees, he said, more Americans now understood that “chimpanzees possess so many qualities that we value, the capacity to suffer, to show intelligence, awareness”.

He said the decision heralded “a new era where we treat them with respect and show concern for every individual”.

Pacelle’s view was echoed by Goodall.

“I remember so well,” she said, “how the scientific establishment told me that chimpanzees couldn’t have personalities, couldn’t have minds, couldn’t be capable of any kind of rational thought and certainly couldn’t have emotions, because those are unique to the human animal.”

Even within the past two decades “we’ve seen a lot of change,” she said. “I think of chimpanzees as chimpanzee beings because they’re so like us.”

Although many biologists and researchers remain wary of anthropomorphizing animals, and divided about how to talk about and study animal consciousness, research into intelligent and social animals has expanded massively in the past 30 years.

REsearch has found evidence that chimpanzees exhibit complex memory,
emotions, self-awareness and even an awareness of death. Photograph:
Juergen & Christine SohnsTier Und Naturfotografie J & C Sohns/Getty Images

The field of animal cognition has boomed alongside neuroscience, geneticists have shown that humans share most of their genes with chimpanzees, and research has shown evidence that chimps exhibit complex memory, emotions, self-awareness, and even an awareness of death. Greater research also shows quirkier similarities with mankind: 17 years of study concluded this month that some wild chimps indulgein regular, habitual drinking.

The cultural shift has extended into the public domain: though a chimpanzee once starred alongside Ronald Reagan, in May a poll found that nearly a third of Americans felt that animals deserved the same protections as humans, and this year an animal rights campaign won itself a hearing over partial, legal “personhood” for chimpanzees in New York.

That case could remove two chimpanzees from a research program at Stony Brook University in New York.

Ashe said people should not “read anything else” into the new rule except “we have learned a lot about the nature of chimpanzees”.

“Some of the things that we thought did not constitute harm or harassment of chimpanzees do in fact constitute harm and harassment,” he said, and the rule is “in large part in recognition of that”.

Goodall said she hoped the new classification would help counter the forces that threaten chimpanzees: habitat destruction by deforestation and encroaching humans, diseases, the bushmeat trade, and the “surging demand from Asia” for captive animals.

In particular, Goodall hoped the new rules would help end the practice of keeping chimps as pets or for entertainment, noting that the animals grow too powerful for their owners and suffer “psychological trauma”.

“They’re stuck between two worlds,” she said. “They’ve never learned to be a chimpanzee and they can never become a human.”

There are 1,742 chimps in the US, according to a project for the Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at the Lincoln Park Zoo: 730 in biomedical labs, 559 in sanctuaries, 265 in accredited zoos, and the remainder with unaccredited facilities and private owners.

In 2011, the National Institute of Health found that while chimpanzees had research value in the past, medical advances “have provided alternatives to the use of chimpanzees”. Two years later, the institute said it would retire about 300 research chimpanzees; to date, only a handful of those animals have gone to sanctuaries, a process that Pacelle said he wants to see expedited.

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