This blog was created because I'm very much concerned about our Planet and the many environmental issues which deserve being known by everybody. Some are real catastrophes while others are achievements of great importance for the survival of numerous endangered species or the health of the only planet we've got: E A R T H !
To my dear visitors and commenters
Hi, everybody!
I've noticed with lots of joy and happiness, that thousands of comments have been written in my posts. It's wonderful that so may people around the world appreciate my work. Therefore, I want to thank you for that and ,at the same time I want to ask you to be this blog's followers. It's fast and easy!
Make it be even more visited and spread all over the world! I'm a woman, a teacher of English in Portugal, and I've been away for quite a long time because of my father's health.
Unfortunately he died from Covid19 a few months ago. Now I felt it was time to restart my activity in this and other blogs I owe. I've recently created a new one in a partnership with a street photographer, Mr. Daniel Antunes. He's fabulous!
https://pandpbydandd.blogspot.com
I'd like you to visit it and, who knows, become our followers. The poems, chronicles and thoughts are all mine.
Thank you so much!
Kisses :-)
I really would like to thank all those who have been regular visitors and have left so many pleasant comments in this and in my other 3 blogs. Nevertheless I'm very much upset with all the "non-comments" left for some (fortunately just some who do not respect others' work) who usually use my blogs to advertise or just leave inappropriate comments, completely out of topic and that clog the spam box giving me a lot of work to eliminate. To those I would like to ask to stop doing this because I'm very careful whem I'm selecting the comments, so I will NEVER publish them what means it's a waste of time for the writers and, of course, for me.
Thank you for your understanding of the situation and I hope I won't have to send my complaints to the Blogger company.
An intense conservation campaign has brought the Iberian lynx back to the south of Spain from the verge of extinction barely 10 years ago, Guy Hedgecoe reports from Spain.
On it they watch an Iberian lynx cub learn to hunt by playing with a domestic rabbit in one of the centre's compounds. The lynx, the size of a small cat, is only a few weeks old but already has the sharply pointed ears and mottled fur that make the species so recognisable.
It swipes playfully at the rabbit with its paws, but still has a long way to go before it graduates to killing its own prey.
When it does, it will probably be released into the wild, following in the tracks of many other animals born in captivity here.
Just over a decade ago, the Iberian lynx, also known as Lynx pardinus, was on the verge of extinction, with only 90 animals registered, in the Andujar and Donana areas of southern Spain.
'Saving the species'
But an intense campaign over recent years has brought it back from the brink, with 327 lynxes believed to be roaming southern, central and western Spain, as well as parts of Portugal, last year.
It is feared that rabbit haemorrhagic disease, a highly contagious virus, may harm the comeback of lynxes
The La Olivilla lynx breeding centre in Santa Elena is at the forefront of the conservation programme
"We're on the way to saving the species," says Miguel Simon, director of the Iberlince lynx conservation programme.
"Losing this unique natural treasure would have been as bad for us as losing the Great Mosque in Cordoba or the Alhambra in Granada."
In June, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) improved the status of the Iberian lynx from "critically endangered" to "endangered". In its appraisal, the organisation saw the mammal's recovery as "excellent proof that conservation really works".
Around 140 specimens have been released into the wild, with the Iberian wildcat programme borrowing reintroduction techniques used by German conservationists.
Not all good news
But this success has not been cheap. Between 2002 and 2018, the programme will have received €69m (£49m; $76m) in funding, mainly from the European Union.
Much of that money has gone into three breeding centres in Spain, including in Santa Elena and one in Portugal.
Last year 22 lynxes were killed by vehicles on Spanish roads
Miguel Simon (right) - seen here with veterinarian Maria Jose Perez at La Olivilla breeding centre - says forecasts of the imminent demise of lynxes are "alarmist"
Some wonder whether the IUCN was right to take the lynx off the "critically endangered" list
Teresa del Rey Wamba, a veterinarian who works on the conservation programme in southern Spain, says that prior to the animal's recent comeback, a lack of appropriate prey was a major problem, as was illegal hunting.
Clamping down on poaching and encouraging the growth of rabbit populations - the lynx's favoured food - were therefore key, with private landowners, local governments and hunting federations all supporting the programme.
But it is not all good news. Last year, 22 lynxes were killed by vehicles on Spanish roads.
Miguel Simon says that while this is a problem, it also reflects how the lynxes' movement has increased as their numbers have risen.
His team has overseen the installation of underground tunnels, custom-built for the animals to cross busy roads, and more are planned.
Of greater concern however is a recent outbreak across southern Europe of rabbit haemorrhagic disease, a highly contagious virus that has been killing off the lynxes' staple diet since 2011 and reducing their reproductive rate.
In light of this threat, the IUCN decision to take the lynx off the "critically endangered" list was incorrect, according to Emilio Virgos, a lynx expert at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid.
"If all the data we have so far about how lynxes live and survive and reproduce are correct, and we have no reason to think otherwise, the number of lynxes… will drop drastically," he says of the outlook for the next few years.
He warns that extinction is still a possibility within decades.
What is a lynx?
A medium-sized cat which lives in the wild
There are four different species - Eurasian, Iberian, Canada and Bobcat
The Eurasian lynx is the biggest - about 60cm tall - roughly the same size as a Labrador
The Iberian lynx is one of the rarest smaller wildcats in the world - mainly found in parts of Spain and Portugal
The Bobcat is found in North America while the Canada lynx lives in Canada and Alaska
Most lynxes are listed as threatened or endangered and are prized by poachers for their fur
Lynxes are usually only active at night and hunt deer, rabbits and hares for food
While Mr Simon is worried about the rabbit virus, he describes such forecasts as "alarmist" and points to an emergency plan to boost rabbit numbers. Its success, he says, will depend in great part on continued funding.
"The battle for conservation of the lynx is never-ending," he says.
Engineers and physicists have discovered a property of silicon which could aid the development of faster computers.
Currently, copper wires transfer information in a computer; the process is slowed down as the wires heat up.
"Photonic" and "spintronic" computing is the principle of transferring information by light or electron spin.
This new property means that silicon-based light detectors identify spin, so more information can be transferred.
Spin is a property of sub-atomic particles, which influences the ordering of electrons and nuclei in atoms and molecules.
The discovered property is usually observed in materials containing heavy elements, which are difficult to integrate into existing computing systems that are composed mainly of silicon.
Silicon is a highly symmetrical crystal, but by changing the geometry of it, the team was able to impart "chiral" properties to it. Something is chiral if the mirror image of the object cannot be superimposed on the original.
Something is chiral if the mirror image of the object cannot be superimposed on the original; one example is your hands From BBC News -Science/ Environment
Unusually, two flamingos were born at the Lisbon Zoo recently. It is usually just one a year but this time they have two instead. The Lisbon Zoo definitely has the best living and procreating conditions, not only for flamingos, but for dozens of other important species among the which we may find really endangered species and others at risk of extinction such as elephants, rhinos, the Persian leopard,the spiked turtle, the golden parakeet, and many others including African Impalas, the marmoset Emperor, and so on. This Zoo is really worth a visit for the hundreds of species it keeps and grows, the warm climate we can find in Lisbon, the dolphins and sea lions shows held daily, the lung it is in a cosmopolitan city like Lisbon and the many attractions it provides due to the exchange programms to which it is associated and that allows tourists and common visitors to enjoy at any time of year.
Every animal's habitat is carefully chosen and taken care so that every species can easily breed and live nearly with the same natural conditions they have in the wild. The Lisbon Zoo keeps the only Okapi calf born in Europe.
