More Knut Pics

Knut Turns 1

Berlin Zoo polar bear marks 1st birthday

By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 13 minutes ago

BERLIN - Celebrity polar bear Knut — who won the hearts of millions around the globe as a roly-poly orphan cub — celebrated his first birthday Wednesday with a cake made from 300 eggs and 20 pounds of marzipan.
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The Berlin Zoo pulled out all the stops to fete its star attraction, who has gone from a fluffy white powderpuff of a cub to a full-grown polar bear with a cheeky curiosity and a penchant for muddying his coat by rolling in the dirt.

His giant birthday cake was made from 300 eggs, more than 30 pounds each of flour and sugar, and 22 pounds of marzipan. Children were given free entry to the zoo to help celebrate Knut's birthday, and proceeds from sales of slices of the cake will go toward the zoo's foundation, officials said.

But Knut — no longer a tiny cub, thanks partly to his penchant for croissants — probably won't get a taste of his own birthday cake. He may have weighed less than 2 pounds at birth but now tips the scale at more than 240 pounds, and has been on a diet since July.

Abandoned at birth, along with a twin brother who only survived a couple of days, Knut first attracted attention when Berlin's media picked up the story of his main caregiver camping out at the zoo to give the cub his bottle every two hours.

The story angered animal rights activists, who tried to sue the zoo for cruelty to animals by preventing nature from taking its course when the cub was rejected — even if it cost him his life.

By that time, Knut was a 3-month old white furball, with button eyes and his own fan club. He had been photographed dozens of times — including for the cover of Vanity Fair — and attracted thousands to the zoo.

Knut has generated more than $14 million for the zoo over the past year in with Knut toys, books and other trinkets, and drawing more than double the number of visitors.

Now that he is grown, the zoo does not have room to keep Knut permanently and are considering other offers from zoos in Europe, with an eye to finding him a mate, officials say.

Thomas Doerflein, who raised Knut by hand, cuddling him and playing with him in addition to feeding him from a bottle, told Germany's Bild newspaper on Wednesday that he hopes the bear will soon find a new home.

"A spacious enclosure. A female partner. At some point, Knut needs to leave me," Doerflein told the paper.

Missing: Giant Elephant

World's largest-known Asian elephant goes missing

Tuesday, December 4, 2007 at 06:54 EST

KATHMANDU — The world's largest known Asian elephant, Raja Gaj, has gone missing from its habitat in southwestern Nepal, officials said Monday. Raja Gaj, the center of tourist attraction in the 968 square-kilometer Royal Bardia National Park, has not been spotted in the park or its vicinity for the past year, said the park's chief conservation officer Phanindra Kharel.

A 1999 survey conducted by the Scientific Exploration Society, based in Britain, estimated that Raja Gaj, a male, had a shoulder height of up to 3.5 meters, making him as tall as an African bull elephant. Acknowledging the possibility that poachers may have killed the giant mammal, he added, "'But we can't confirm it yet."

© 2007 Kyodo News. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.

Evil Bunnies Destroy Island

Island on the brink of catastrophe

December 2, 2007

Help is finally on the way for this unique southern outpost. But will it be too late? John Elder reports.

It'S like one of those movies where a team of rough and tough heroes are called upon to save the world. In this case, the survival of one of Australia's ecological treasures depends on finding a dozen disciplined hunting dogs - and finding them fast.

Since rabbit numbers exploded on the World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island over the past couple of years, massive landslips - caused by overgrazing and tunnelling by the 100,000 bunnies - have sent entire hillsides falling into the Southern Ocean, killing king penguins and wiping out crucial albatross nests. At the same time, a living carpet of rats and mice have been feasting on the eggs in penguin and seabird colonies.

Macquarie is a sub-Antarctic island about 1500 kilometres south of Tasmania and a critical breeding ground for seabirds, including four endangered species of albatross, and delicate plant systems. It also serves as a unique geological snapshot of the world's evolution, a record of life.

The feral destruction of the island's native vegetation is akin to Ayers Rock being taken over by 100,000 clowns with jackhammers or the Great Barrier Reef being used as torpedo practice.

It was only when the World Wildlife Fund issued a horrifying and highly publicised report on the crisis in April that Tasmanian Environment Minister Paula Wriedt started talking with Federal Minister Malcolm Turnbull about paying for a rescue plan. (Tasmania administers the island while the Federal Government runs a research station as part of its Antarctic program.)

Another two months dragged by. On the eve of a potentially internationally embarrassing World Heritage committee meeting in June, Ms Wriedt finally agreed to put up half the $24.6 million it will cost to save the island. But the dithering means that nothing will happen until 2009 at the earliest.

This is where the hunting dogs come in. It takes up to two years to train a dog to work off the leash sniffing out rabbits while reliably staying away from non-target species such as penguins.

"If the dogs aren't ready we may have to defer for a year," says Keith Springer, project manager for the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service. "We won't know for sure until we've gone through the tendering process."

The tender documents are still being prepared, and contracts won't be signed until the middle of January at the earliest. "This means we're running pretty tight to meet the 2009 schedule," says Mr Springer.

The dog teams are in fact stage two of the most ambitious attempt to rid an island of rabbits and other vermin. Macquarie Island is about 34 kilometres long and 5.5 kilometres wide at its broadest point.

Stage one is a precision helicopter bombardment of the island with 260 tonnes of poison pellets. The bombing can only take place in winter when the rabbits are not breeding and most of the seabirds have left their breeding colonies. However, because of their long breeding cycle, thousands of king penguin chicks will still be huddling in creches while their parents are out at sea foraging for food. Mr Springer says testing with non-poisonous pellets found that penguins, petrels and albatross showed no interest in the baits "as a food source".

However, skuas - giant gulls - will be vulnerable to poisoning from infected carcasses.

But as Hobart-based seabird expert Barry Baker says: "There is no alternative. Even though some native species will be impacted, rabbits threaten complete ecosystem collapse."

The GPS-guided bombing program is modelled on a New Zealand project that wiped out a plague of Norway rats on Campbell Island, a sub-Antarctic island a little smaller than Macquarie.

"If the New Zealand experience is indicative, we can expect 90 per cent of rodents and rabbits will die underground," says Mr Springer. "The way the poison works (Brodifacoum, an anti-coagulant), the animal will feel lethargic and most likely go off its tucker. And as humans do when feeling sick, the instinct will be to go and rest. Poisoning any animal to death isn't a great outcome, but Brodifacoum is certainly a lot better than 1080. It won't be as painful a way to go."

The poison is expected to wipe out the rats and mice - but up to 10,000 rabbits will be left alive. And every single one of them needs to be sniffed out by a dog.

"We need the dogs to hit the island as soon as the baiting is finished," says Keith Springer. "One of the unknowns for us is that some people may be able to source young dogs that are ready to start training straight away. Some people might say they have litters on the way. Dogs are about three months old before they start training."

Alex Krstic of Melbourne-based Wildpro, a company specialising in dog training for pest eradication, says: "Training dogs not to attack protected wildlife isn't a simple procedure. From a puppy . . . you're talking more than two years. But if you've got dogs already a significant way along in their training . . . to hunt under the control of their handler, then it wouldn't take too long to bring them up to scratch. It depends on the quality of the dog. We use animals that are worth $10,000 each. In the end, you'll get what you pay for."

Mr Krstic says it would be "inappropriate" to say if he'd be tendering for the Macquarie Island job. The 12 to 15 dogs will be working on Macquarie for at least five years. The recovery of the island from erosion and grazing is expected to take decades.

According to Dr Ray Nias, of WWF: "The Government has left it very late . . . to act. And every year lost is a great tragedy for the island, given the rate at which it's declining."

With LUCINDA ORMONDE
Eden in need of help

■Macquarie Island is about 1500km south-south-east of Tasmania, about half-way between Tasmania and Antarctica. The main island is approximately 34km long and 5.5km wide at its broadest point.

■World Heritage listed in 1997 because of exceptional natural beauty and unique geology that contains a record of life on earth.

■Home to 80 breeding pairs grey-headed albatross, the species' only breeding site in Australia. At risk of extinction because of nest-destruction by rabbits.

■Blue petrels forced to breed offshore on rock stacks to escape marauding rats.

SOURCE: WWF and World Heritage

HELL ON THE HOP

■1879: Rabbits introduced to Macquarie Island as food source for New Zealand crews who were boiling up penguins for their oil.

■1979: Myxomatosis introduced, rabbit numbers drop to about 15,000.

■2000-2003: Feral cats eradicated, rabbits on the hop again.

■June 2004: Holes appear in the landscape from grazing and tunnelling. Rats and mice on the rise.

■September 2006: Massive landslip lands on a penguin colony. Reports of albatross nests falling off unstable hilltops.

■December 2006: Rabbits said to number 100,000. WWF and Peregrine Adventures donate $100,000 towards eradication. Federal Government offers to pay half the eradication costs.

■February 2007: Federal and Tasmanian governments start bickering.

■March 2007: Tasmanian Environment Minister Paula Wriedt refuses to contribute to $24.6 million rescue plan, saying it is a federal responsibility.

■April 2007: WWF releases damning report on the devastation.

■June 2007: Wriedt comes to the party with funding after international publicity.

Oldest Cat

Cat, 26, could be record breaker

A 26-year-old domestic cat from Shropshire could be one of the oldest in the UK.

Pussywillow lives in Ratlinghope and is still "sharp in her mind and her eyes", according to owner Lin Brown.

The black cat, who now enjoys curling up by the stove, lived off animals she caught herself until she was 22, Ms Brown said.

Healthy cats can normally live to about 18, with previous world record holders only reaching their early 20s.

Pussywillow was near-feral when she was first taken in by the family.

"When Willow came my son was four. He is now 30," Ms Brown said.

"I know from my local vet that they've always been absolutely astonished and said they have never known a cat that old."

The family only started feeding the elderly feline after she survived an attack by a fox four years ago.

"Because of her wildness when she came she was pretty much an outdoor cat and had an organic diet and I hardly fed her anything," Ms Brown said.

Marion Micklewright, from Shropshire Cat Rescue, said she had not heard of any other cats living for 26 years.

"Cats are living longer, but I'd love to know what they fed it on. It's a bit of a rarity."

Alternative Energy

Electric eel used to power Xmas lights

KAKAMIGAHARA, Gifu -- An aquarium filled with exotic fish here is using an electric eel to power lights on a Christmas tree.

Each time the electric eel at the Aqua Toto Gifu aquarium touches a copper wire in its tank, it sends power that lights up globes decking a Christmas tree.

Officials expect the "eel Christmas tree" to be a popular attraction for dating couples in the lead-up to Christmas Day, when the tree will be removed.

Electric eels are capable of generating electricity in their bodies. They have notoriously poor eyesight and use electric shocks to stun prey so they can catch and eat them.

(Obvious) Chimps are Smarter than Humans

Young chimp beats college students

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer 28 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Never mind that TV show that asks if you're smarter than a fifth-grader. Is your memory better than a young chimp's?

Maybe not.

Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in two tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won.

That challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that "humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," said researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.

"No one can imagine that chimpanzees — young chimpanzees at the age of 5 — have a better performance in a memory task than humans," he said in a statement.

Matsuzawa, a pioneer in studying the mental abilities of chimps, said even he was surprised. He and colleague Sana Inoue report the results in Tuesday's issue of the journal Current Biology.

One memory test included three 5-year-old chimps who'd been taught the order of Arabic numerals 1 through 9, and a dozen human volunteers.

They saw nine numbers displayed on a computer screen. When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares. The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there.

Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster.

One chimp, Ayumu, did the best. Researchers included him and nine college students in a second test.

This time, five numbers flashed on the screen only briefly before they were replaced by white squares. The challenge, again, was to touch these squares in the proper sequence.

When the numbers were displayed for about seven-tenths of a second, Ayumu and the college students were both able to do this correctly about 80 percent of the time.

But when the numbers were displayed for just four-tenths or two-tenths of a second, the chimp was the champ. The briefer of those times is too short to allow a look around the screen, and in those tests Ayumu still scored about 80 percent, while humans plunged to 40 percent.

That indicates Ayumu was better at taking in the whole pattern of numbers at a glance, the researchers wrote.

"It's amazing what this chimpanzee is able to do," said Elizabeth Lonsdorf, director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. The center studies the mental abilities of apes, but Lonsdorf didn't participate in the new study.

She admired Ayumu's performance when the numbers flashed only briefly on the screen.

"I just watched the video of that and I can tell you right now, there's no way I can do it," she said. "It's unbelievable. I can't even get the first two (squares)."

What's going on here? Even with six months of training, three students failed to catch up to the three young chimps, Matsuzawa said in an e-mail.

He thinks two factors gave his chimps the edge. For one thing, he believes human ancestors gave up much of this skill over evolutionary time to make room in the brain for gaining language abilities.

The other factor is the youth of Ayumu and his peers. The memory for images that's needed for the tests resembles a skill found in children, but which dissipates with age. In fact, the young chimps performed better than older chimps in the new study. (Ayuma's mom did even worse than the college students).

So the next logical step, Lonsdorf said, is to fix up Ayumu with some real competition on these tests: little kids.