A WILD WEDDING AFFAIR

Courtesy:glamourvanity.com

The Katy Perry-Russell Brand wedding has lately been in the news for all possible reasons. Apart from being an extremely star-studded event attended by several celebrities, animals too were cordially invited.

Here's how animals were an integral part of the couple exchanging vows.

1. The couple chose to wed in a resort near the Ranthambore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan.
2. A "slew" of animals participated in the marriage ceremonies. These included 21 camels, horses and elephants (PTI). Snake charmers also participated.
3. Brand gifted a female Bengal tiger named Machli to Perry
4. Perry in turn gifted a baby elephant to Brand
5. In their loud celebrations, the couple created a lot of nuisance and violated several rules concerning the environment and the jungle area in particular. It disturbed many animals in the vicinity.

It has definitely been an animal studded affair, some for the bad reasons and others for the good reasons.
The Bad-It is obvious that they had planned beforehand to rope in many animals to celebrate their wedding. They should have been more sensitive to their cause by at least not violating the jungle rules. And they broke those extensively. For instance, local authorities had warned that no loud music should be played after 10 pm as that would disturb the animals in the Ranthambore National Park. However, blaring music was played well past 2 in the morning.
An environmental activist,Akhshay Sharma complained:

"They smoked, consumed liquor, carried weapons, disturbed endangered animals, changed route from No. 2 to No. 3 without permission, alighted from the vehicle (Gypsy), forced people (paparazzi) to alight from their vehicle and even snatched the keys of their vehicle in the park where tiger movement is quite normal," Sharma alleged.

"During the wedding on the next day on October 24, loud music was played in the resort beyond midnight which disturbed the wild animals and local residents, the green activist charged, adding such things were "violation" of section 29, 30, 31 and 32 of Environment Protection Act." (courtesy:Hindustan Times)

  
The Good: The bad part is however, just one facet of the wedding. It would be unfair to ignore the 'good' that also happened.

Courtesy:theconsortiumhotels.com

                                                                                                                
Firstly, a star studded event involving high profile celebrities, like in this case, is bound to boost tourism in the area where it is taking place.The Ranthambore resort area is now drawing so much attention and limelight from everywhere, that it will be instrumental in spreading awareness on endangered animals, promoting tourism and consequently, revenues will also come in. The revenues can be effectively used towards the conservation of the National Park and the animals.
Secondly, Perry and Russell have both gifted animals to each other. Although they will not be able to take these creatures to their country, but the money paid for them will be used for the welfare of those animals and conservation of the Park in general.

Yes, it is right to be critical about the couple violating the environmental and wildlife laws.Stricter enforcement of these laws must be there.I don't know whether Perry-Russell are actually compassionate towards animals and whether it was their fondness for animals that made them involve so many animals. Or was it simply a stunt to get animals to participate, to make it look attractive and different to the whole world. I really don't know.
But what I am concerned with is how we can move on from here. It is upto Indian authorities now as to how they make constructive use of the publicity and the awareness and the funds generated. It can be utilised for the conservation of flora and fauna as well as protection measures for the animals and promote tourism.

Tech Savvy-ing Nature

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Yesterday, in Washington DC, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) introduced a new mobile phone application called the National Park Field Guide. It would be providing a complete and holistic view of the wildlife and review of 50 national parks in Washington. This app would be available free to IPhone, IPad and IPod Touch users.

The app would be giving complete details and lists of animals and plants found in each national park(like Yellowstone,Grand Canyon, Yosemite national parks), the endangered and threatened species, poisonous plants, how and when to get there,ticket costs and also pictures, sounds and video recordings of those animals and plants.

 What an innovative idea, I must say! It is a wonderful way to spread awareness about the beauty and the importance of nature and its conservation among people.As more and more people get increasingly addicted to technology and I Phones and consequently the apps that come along with it, the users would be bound to get curious about this 'natural' one. It has the potential of being a powerful stimulus in making people sensitized to wildlife and plantlife causes and taking action to protect their flora and fauna heritage.

 “We are pleased to offer this innovative and informative mobile field guide free of charge to national park visitors,” stated Megan Cantrell, NPCA Senior Coordinator of Member Engagement. “The new guide will enhance the experience of park visitors by providing a fun, educational companion for families and nature-lovers to learn about the many natural treasures that parks have to offer.”

“With more than 300 million national parks visitors annually, our new field guide will help engage and educate a new generation of advocates for our national parks,” said Cantrell. “The more people who understand that our national parks are America’s legacy to our children and in urgent need of care and repair, the better chance we have at protecting them for the future.”

However, this is not the first time that technology is being used on such a large scale to promote an environmental cause. Last year, in October, the National Park Service tied up with the UCLA Center for Embedded Network Sensing that designed an I-Phone application for a unique cause in Santa Monica. Its objective was to identify the location of invasive weeds  that threatened the native animal and plant species in the Santa Monica Mountains region and then to remove those weeds.

Many often complain that technology is drifting us away from nature. The above cases show that 

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  technology is also capable of bringing us closer to nature and play a key role in protecting plant and animal species.Blending a relevant cause(of protecting nature) with a modern and popular trend(the smartphones), could be an excellent way of making the cause popular, hence help to attract sensitivity towards the cause. It all depends on how we tap technology's potential.



 

RECALLED TO LIFE

A startling finding was revealed, a few days back. One third of mammals that were declared to be 'extinct' in the past few centuries were found to be alive. Diana Fisher of the University of Queensland, who compiled a list of mammals that were declared to be extinct or missing since the 16th century, said:

"We identified 187 mammal species that have been missing since 1500," The Daily Mail quoted her as writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"In the complete data-set, 67 species that were once missing have been rediscovered. More than a third of mammal species that have been classified as extinct or possibly extinct, or flagged as missing, have been rediscovered," she wrote.(DNA)

This is definitely some good news, signalizing some hope in the ecological circuit and in the health of the whole environment in general.
Some of the species that were found include:

 Guadulupe fur seal (courtesy:Visuals Unlimited/Corbis, guardian.co.uk)

• The Guadulupe fur seal- they were feared to be extinct in the 1890s after being slaughtered for their skins by hunters and then going missing from their breeding grounds.They were rediscovered decades later and today, their population is estimated to be around 15000.
• Gilbert's potoroo-it is a small marsupial that went missing for 115 years till it was rediscovered in 1994 in Australia

These are just a few of the many mammals, reptiles, birds and other categories of animals that have been back from the dead.
But my point is that although this news does bring happiness, it is far from being a happy ending. It leads to quite a few concerns.
Firstly, are the concerned authorities doing their real best in looking for members of any species in a particular region before terming it as extinct or missing? Are they really taking the matter seriously and making best possible use of their skills, resources and knowledge at hand? So, it does highlight a dent in the system of functioning of the conservation authorities.

 "Conservation resources are wasted searching for species that have no chance of rediscovery, while most missing species receive no attention," Fisher told the Guardian. "Rather than searching ever more for charismatic missing species, such as thylacines in Australia, it would be a better use of resources to look for species that are most likely to be alive, find out where they are, and protect their habitats," she added.(guardian.co.uk)

Secondly, this phenomenon simultaneously acts as a ray of hope and a warning bell. The species may not have become extinct, but their population had drastically gone down, making them endagered today. Now that is obviously not something to be proud of. The main causes of their dwindling population have mostly been man-made like habitat destruction, poaching and environmental pollution. It should remind us that although the creatures have made a comeback, the causes for their vanishing are still widely prevalent and need to be looked into before the species seriously get permanently wiped out, this time.

Once aware of these causes, we can act positively by taking control of the situation by coming down heavily on  human activities that adversely affect the environment and implementing new improvement plans.It would be then very much possible to revive even the most endangered species. A good and recent example of that is that in UK, 5 rarest bumblebees were restored to life (after having become extinct here) thanks to wildlife friendly agriculture and farming that aimed to support the extinct bee.

Shrill carder bumble bee in UK (courtesy:The Guardian

Still however, if we continue to treat the environment with disregard, it could only spell doom for all species, including mankind this time.

Clive Hambler, lead author of the research and a professor at Oxford University's Department of Zoology, commented that "biodiversity loss is arguably much more serious and more permanent than climate change," but, he added:It's impossible to know if policy targets to reduce the loss are being met without accurate measures of extinction rates. Until now, we had only crude estimates for a very few types of organism. Now we've got evidence that many groups of living things—lichens, bugs, moths, fish, plants and so on—are going extinct at a very similar rate to the birds.

 Nature has indeed given the whole of mankind a second chance through the re-appearance of the 'dead' species. It is now upto us to make the best or worst possible use of it.

GOD BLESS YOU!

Courtesy:www.mlive.com

This week, many churches in US held the unique 'pet blessing' ceremony as part of their annual rituals. It was touching to note how 500 churches taught the children, their parents and other disciples who attended, the values of compassion and about the importance of animals in human lives in a religious, biblical way. One of them was at Saint Aloysius that celebrated the Feast Day of Saint Francis with the school's annual Blessing of Animals on Monday. St Francis of Assissi is the patron saint of animals.

"We believe that, following the example of St. Francis, honoring and loving animals is a reflection of how we thank God for all good gifts in creation, and that the love we receive from them as our loyal pets is some of the most unconditional love we receive in our lifetimes and a true reflection of God's love for us," St. Alban's Episcopal Church rector Margaret Waters said. "All pets will receive a signed certificate of blessing, but we make no guarantees of improved behaviour."(statesman.com)

This ritual came as a pleasant surprise to me, considering the umpteen number of cases where religion is used as an excuse to conduct merciless animal sacrifices.  People torturing and killing animals in an inhumane way for the sake of their religion, say that they do it to satisfy God. So does killing God's creatures, a way of satisfying God?
The above news item reflected another way of satisfying God and spreading the message of peace and harmony. By caring for the animals and demonstrating that to others in a joyous environment.

Both the types of rituals had a common objective of working for the greater good. But the means to achieve it differed. But at the end of the day, the means is important as that is influences the way in which you impact the society, positively or negatively. By blessing the animals and caring for them, the churches were ensuring that a positive message was delivered to society,that of peaceful co-existence between animals and human beings. 

FOOD AND CLONING

Courtesy: www.supermarketguru.com

                    
 Recently, a government poll in Canada found that only a small minority (16%) of Canadians found the use of cloning technology on livestock, acceptable. More than half (54%) of around 3000 Canadians involved in the poll, found the practice unacceptable. The poll on cloning was conducted by the government in Ottawa in order to finalise its assessment of food safety, animal health and environmental concerns arising from the meat and milk from cloned animals. 

So what was it that made the cloned animals' food produce unacceptable? Was it because it was relatively of inferior quality as opposed to that obtained from naturally biologically produced animals? In 2008, the United States Food and Drug Administration  and European Food Safety Authority had concluded that meat and milk from healthy cattle and swine clones and their progeny were safe for consumption. The report stated:

Courtesy: animalscience.ag.utk.edu

"there are no biologically significant differences in the composition of foods derived from healthy (Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer) cattle and swine clones and healthy conventionally bred animals" 

 If all is so hunky dory then, what exactly is the problem?  The Center For Food Safety criticized the risk assessment report of the FDA, citing that adequate research had not been done and did not take into account the long term adverse effects of the cloned animal produce.Here are some excerpts from the news report from Center For Food Safety:

The FDA's veterinary medicine advisory panel rebuked the agency in 2003 for its position, declaring that not enough research has been done to determine whether food derived from cloned animals is safe. In fact, livestock cloning raises numerous health and ethical concerns. Over 90 percent of cloning attempts fail, and cloned animals that are born have more health problems and higher mortality rates than sexually reproduced animals.

The Center for Food Safety has called on FDA to ban the use of clones in food production until the food safety and animal cruelty problems in cloning have been resolved, and until public discussions have addressed the troubling ethical issues that cloning brings. We also call on FDA, in the event that these pre-conditions can be met, to require labeling of food from animal clones.

Courtesy:emagazine.com

So the bottomline is that there ARE potential health hazards. If the cloned animals themselves are of weak constitution and are susceptible to health diseases (as numerous reports have already shown), then humans are definitely posing a threat to their own well being by consuming such animal produce.

I am of course not suitably qualified to comment on the biotechnological and health issues. I can only comment on the conflicting reports of two esteemed organizations. According to me, the CFS definitely came out with more detailed and numerous evidences to support its claim.

One thing that I could relate to was the animal cruelty and harm to the animal well being that the process of cloning entailed.If that was the case, then the ban is much called for as by consuming the 'cloned' produce, one is encouraging the unethical behaviour and cruelty to animals

Cloning no doubt has various advantages. For instance, cloning leads to an increase in the amount of food available(from the animals) with fewer resources required. That is beneficial for the rapidly increasing population. But for the long run, it has to be carefully analysed if the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages. Then it would not be about just one species getting affected, but all the other creatures  comprising the cycle of which that one species is only a part of, getting badly hit.

Hence, this issue leads on to the larger question of whether cloning of animals itself should be banned.