Spinner sharks launch themselves out of the water while feeding on schools of small fish. See them jump and spin among surfers.
Keep reading Go see sharks jump and spin off Palm Beach
 Ol Pejeta Conservancy asks the public for $35k to buy a drone to protect what may be the world’s last four northern white rhinos from poachers. Keep reading Rarest rhino species may be saved by crowdfunded drones  By calling manta rays a vulnerable species, scientists hope to stop or at least track the market in its gills. Used in Chinese medicine, the ray population is down 30% in 10 years. Keep reading Manta rays get some protection from fishermen hunting their gills  Is all this panda puppetry really necessary? Chinese researchers now wear panda costumes to prevent imprinting, which is a real problem with birds. But meanwhile they’re selling access to the mushy cubs. Keep reading Is all this panda puppetry really necessary? (Aside from producing adorable pictures)  Russia is a strong tiger supporter, but India has nearly half of the endangered cats and promotes tiger tourism at a growing number of reserves. Keep reading India has nearly half the world’s tigers  Tiger summit yields $300 million in pledges to double the population by 2022. Keep reading Can even Putin stop poaching for fun and tiger body parts?  For years I’ve heard about a Chinatown park where old men bring their exotic birds and this morning I finally went to find it. The Wah-Mei Bird Garden in Sara Delano Roosevelt Park, just south of Delancey, can draw 40-some old Chinese men, each carrying a singing bird in an ornate cage. Or that’s what I’ve heard. I only saw three bird guys. I arrived around 8, in time to see the first bird man take the flannel cloth off his cage. It must shield the bird from the city, though most of narrow Roosevelt Park itself is not much better. It’s got bridge traffic on two sides and it’s dark and unkempt with wavy pavement and a drugged-out man lurching around. The cages themselves are fantastically carved wood, bamboo and what looked like ivory. They hang them on a long line over a fence that encloses the official Wah-Mei Bird garden. You can hear the birds sing if you get close. Nearby, other elderly Chinese exercised with swords. The most friendly and happy bird The bird man schedule remains mysterious to me. I asked the men; they acted like they didn’t understand me. I asked around; workers and dog walkers said it’s every day around this time. (Later, I read on New York Daily Photo blog it’s much busier on weekends.) Any singing bird is welcome, but the most desired are male Wah Mei (Garrulax canorus) that know lots of songs. The men who pretended not to speak Keep reading Mah Wei: Tiny Chinatown Songbirds, but Not Every Day 
In China 667 people competed to spend three days in a safari park’s tiger compound, enbar.net reports. Three twenty-somethings will get to stay in a cage/cabin at Qinling Safari Park to kick off the Year of the Tiger, which starts February 14. This is the kind of thing you’d never see in an American safari park, what with the liability issues and common sense we have. From 10 a.m. Sunday to 11 a.m. Wednesday, the two men and one woman will stay in “a 10-square-meter cabin made out of a cage which has been placed at the center of the ‘tiger mountain area,’ the habitat of 48 wild tigers. The cabin has no electricity, heating or furniture and is covered only with straw to protect the three from the cold.” It’s like Survivor, Chinese-style with tigers thrown in. The three bring their own food and tents and keep track of the tigers, with cameras, sound recordings and writings. Li Hang, a 25-year-old TV reporter, also brought his guitar to “kill time and hopefully communicate with the tigers.” Oh, he’ll be the first one they’ll want to eat. The park claims this stunt is supposed to promote protection and study of the tiger. They could certainly use the help; China recently said it had only 50 wild tigers left. Qinling Safari Park (in northern China’s Shaanxi province) seems to be more about gimmicks than protection. This Chinese zoo tourist shows pictures of circus tigers at Qinling. They also had Keep reading Survivor China: 3 Kids Camp Out with Tigers in a Safari Park  China’s own wildlife officials estimate that only 50 tigers survive within its borders, Xinhua News reports. And those shockingly low numbers include four subspecies. The World Wildlife Fund figures they’ll go extinct within 30 years, an estimate which seems optimistic. The IUCN range maps show that tigers are doing much better outside China, sometimes just outside its borders. China’s State Forestry Administration (SFA) says only 20 Siberian tigers remain in China’s northeast, 20 Bengal tigers in Tibet, and 10 Indochinese tigers in the southwest. And you can pretty much forget about the South China tiger. Zhu Chunquan, conservation director of biodiversity at WWF China, told AFP: “After the late 1970s, there has been no concrete evidence to show that there are any left.” Siberian Tiger (Pantera tigris ssp. altaic) : endangered (20 in China) What’s weird here is that there’s a Siberian Tiger Breeding Center in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, that brags that it’s bred 1,000 cats (some pictured here). The center combines breeding and tourism, but has come under fire for animal cruelty. Specifically, it got in trouble for feeding the tigers live cows and sheep. That wouldn’t be bad if they were training tigers to hunt in the wild, but the videos show it’s more to make a buck off tourists. The bigger the animal killed, the more the tourist pays. Tourists on this video paid $60 (1,500 renminbi) to see a sheep slaughtered, not splurging $180 to witness a cow Keep reading China Says It Has Only 50 Wild Tigers Left  Animal-watching must be catching on in China. Government workers broke the ice to free 60 resident harbor seals trapped by a cold spell, then fed them fish. Xinhuanet describes the rescuers as “workers of the scenic area.” Even the big Chinese news agency views the animals plight with sympathy. “Poor Harbor Seals Trapped by Ice,” read the headline of their adorable slideshow. Zinhuanet says the rescuers work at “ecological seal bay near Yantai City.” I think they’re talking about this giant tourist project, the Great Nanshan Ecological Park. Whatever the place is, they seem to realize how much people like to watch animals. Or maybe they’re just suckers for a cute, whiskered face. To see more animals go to animaltourism.com |
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