Earth Touch Blog

Did you know?

Did you know? African penguin May 12 2008

Formerly known as the jackass penguin, the African penguin (Spheniscus dermersus) got its original name from its call, which is uncannily similar to that of a donkey.

African penguins are endemic to the Southern African countries of South Africa and Namibia, and mostly occur within a few kilometeres of the coastline. Non-breeding birds spend most of their time at sea.

Photography

Flickr group: pic of the day – white rhino May 1 2008

White rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) are found in central and southern Africa. According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN), they are considered near threatened, with only an estimated 11,670 white rhino individuals left in the wild.

Did you know?

Did you know? Differences between black and white rhinos Mar 28 2008

Black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) and white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) are both grey in colour. But there are many differences between them.

Guest blogs

Capturing spirit of place Jan 29 2008

Guest Blog By Diane Hossick

Back in the 1970s, the novelist Lawrence Durrell (brother of naturalist Gerald Durrell) presented a memorable BBC TV series entitled Spirit of Place. Beautifully shot, it matched Durrell’s inimitable use of language with landscape, flora, fauna, and people, focusing on European and North African places of great beauty: towns, villages, coast and countryside.

Wildlife news from around the world

River dolphin count completed Jan 29 2008

BBC Wildlife magazine reports that the recent completion of a survey of pink (Inia geoffrensis and Inia boliviensis) and grey (Sotalia fluviatilis) river dolphins in South America’s Orinoco and Amazon Basins was “a triumph for freshwater dolphin conservation”.

Wildlife news from around the world

More to giraffes than meets the eye Jan 29 2008

The journal BMC Biology has published research suggesting that African giraffe populations usually recognised as subspecies of Giraffa camelopardalis may potentially represent different species.

Featured on Earth-Touch

Bison footage from Yellowstone National Park, USA Dec 4 2007

When the first Europeans journeyed west in North America, there were tens of millions of bison on the continent. But by 1900, due to widespread hunting for meat, skins and sport, only 1 000 or so remained. Today, mainly due to conservation efforts, those numbers have climbed again to about 60 000.

One of the best places to see wild bison is the Yellowstone National Park, which falls mostly in the north-western state of Wyoming, USA.

Wildlife news from around the world

Captured gorillas to return home tomorrow Nov 29 2007

A group of four western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) which made international headlines in 2002 when they were smuggled into the Taiping Zoo in Malaysia will return home to Cameroon tomorrow.

On discovery of the illegal shipment, the Malaysian government, through its Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) management authority, confiscated the animals and transferred them to the Pretoria Zoo, South Africa, where they have been housed for safekeeping since 2004.

Did you know?

Did you know? - American bison Oct 24 2007

The American bison is a bovine mammal, also known as the American buffalo. It is not related to the Asian or African buffalo, however.

At one time millions of bison roamed the North American continent, but over the years poaching and hunting greatly affected the bison population. There were only about 1500 bison in Yellowstone National Park in the 1950s.  This has increased to about 3500 today as a result of conservation initiatives.