For the first time, a pair of trumpeter swans, the comeback kids of the waterfowl world, was released in Illinois. The last known nest of the rare and stunning swans, the largest native waterfowl species in North America, was recorded in the 1840s near Glenview.
Since then, the story for trumpeters in Illinois mostly has been bleak.
Virtually wiped from the landscape in the late 1800s and early 1900s by hunting and settlement, clusters of trumpeters surfaced in remote mountain valleys of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming in 1919 and 1932. Three years later, the U.S. government established Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Montana and swans from that refuge became the heart of Midwestern restoration in the late 1960s.
Trumpeters are making a robust recovery, particularly in the areas east of the Rocky Mountains, including the Midwest. The latest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey, conducted in 2005, showed the population in these areas at nearly 4,700, or more than 90 percent higher than the estimate five years earlier.
The reason for the rapid growth is that trumpeter-friendly habitat has existed in the Midwest for decades, and once the species was introduced, it adapted and grew swiftly, said Mike Eichholz, assistant zoology professor at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and the principal investigator on researching trumpeters in that region.
About 400 trumpeters migrate for the winter to southern Illinois from Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, Eichholz said.
It remains unclear whether the female trumpeter from Brookfield Zoo and male from Lincoln Park, both of which honked and hissed and struggled until they got into the water, will set up nest-keeping in Johnson-Sauk. But the 55-acre open water with marshes presented an encouraging landscape.
Emi, a Sumatran rhino, eats bananas as her newborn baby boy stays close by at the Cincinnati Zoo Monday April 30, 2007. The baby, born late Sunday night, is the third young to be born in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
(AP Photo/Tom Uhlman)
Many believe violent video games are unhealthy for kids. Last month, Sony proved it: A decapitated goat was the centerpiece of a party the company threw in Greece to promote the PlayStation 2 title "God of War II."
The theatrical dramatization, which according to reports, also featured topless women feeding grapes to partygoers, was supposed to be in keeping with the video game's Greek mythology theme. But according to media reports from Europe, animal rights groups were outraged and video game critics said the scene was symbolic of the industry's blood lust.
Sony issued a press release apologizing and also denied some reports that party guests were invited to dine on offal removed from the goat's stomach.
Zoo Atlanta hatched a rare Arakan forest turtle this week, a victory for researchers trying to save the endangered species — one shell at a time.
The hatchling is the fourth of the brown-and-tan spotted reptiles born there in the last six years, zoo officials said Tuesday. Two hatchlings have died, and another egg is near hatching.
The zoo is the only facility in the world successfully breeding the Arakan forest turtle, which is one of the planet's most critically endangered species. They were believed to be extinct for close to a century, but the turtles appeared in Asian food markets in the mid-1990s.
Scientists blame the rapid disappearance of the Arakan forest turtle — much like other shelled reptiles — on their popularity in Asia for cooking and medicinal purposes.
(photo credit:
St Louis Zoo)
from flickr, by
laszlo-photo
You know those cute little roly-poly bugs you found under rocks as a kid? You poke at them and they curl up into a little ball? Well, magnify that times 1000, take away the
functional role of the eyes, head to the deep-sea and you've got the Giant Isopod, Bathynomus giganteus!
Bathynomus giganteus was first discovered in fishermen's nets in the Gulf of Mexico and was described as the type species of the genus by Alphonse Milne Edwards in 1879.It is the largest known isopod, reaching lengths up to 50cm. That is about the length of small dog or cat!
