Our local wildlife can be very… independent minded. A giraffe and a baboon have made separate headlines today for their remarkably free-thinking behaviour.
It would appear that authorities are finally starting to make serious inroads into the rhino horn trafficking underworld. A suspected kingpin, and former Mpumalanga police officer, was arrested on Friday in Hazyview. He was found with four rhino horns, and over R60 000 in his possession.
At least six people have reportedly died as a result of tropical storm Irina, which struck the KwaZulu-Natal coast over the weekend. Rescue teams, emergency workers, and the police worked continuously yesterday to help KwaZulu-Natal residents through the worst of the storm. Durban surfers, however, enjoyed themselves.
Environmental planning authorities in sleepy Fish Hoek on the False Bay coast are reconsidering the installation of an exclusion net across the bay adjacent to the town, to try stave off the regular loitering of Great White sharks near the popular beach front.
These pictures were taken in February at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya. An elephant was giving birth when a group of lions and hyenas mistook her newborn for a potential breakfast. But watch as the rest of the herd comes to the female’s aid by huddling around her until she delivers her calf.
It’s difficult to act surprised at the announcement from SANParks this morning, stating that four Kruger National Park wildlife officials were arrested yesterday in connection with rhino poaching activities. There are such large amounts of money involved with the rhino poaching syndicates, and just too many closely related coincidences, for there not to have been someone involved on the inside.
Capetonians: on Janssens Road, in Tableview, near the bike shop, this traffic light is sporting a new “green” signal. Apparently, this isn’t the first traffic light that’s been sporting this kind of “green” signal either.
[Thanks, Jake R]
Google Street View is pretty great! It lets me see rural villages, the National Gallery in London, post-crisis Fukushima, and your house. And soon, in collaboration with the Catlin Seaview Survey, it’ll be letting people explore Great Barrier Reef as part of the expanding ‘Seaview’ project.
For around two weeks each February, the sunset turns the Horsetail Falls in Yosemite Park, California into an incredible bright orange “firefall” that looks like flowing lava. And it’s happening right now – take a look at the video after the jump.
It would seem that South Africa is not the only country facing a poaching crisis. Demand for ivory has led to a massive spree of poaching in Cameroon, which has left almost 300 elephants dead since mid-January. This is according to the country’s minister of forestry and wildlife.
The Colombian pop singer and woman with the hips that don’t lie, Shakira, appears to have narrowly escaped the menacing attack of a Cape Fur Seal on the weekend. She’s been in Cape Town on holiday, and escaped with some minor cuts and bruises while attempting to take photographs of seals.
As the death toll from the bout of extremely cold weather in Europe has surpassed the 500 mark, a Swiss man is doing his best to stay warm. He’s installed a wood-burning stove to heat up his car when he needs to drive.
A man in his thirties has given birth to a healthy child, in what is Britain’s first “male mother” case in recorded history. The man, whose name has not been made public, was born a woman but underwent a sex change as an adult. The news has been met with much tsking from Brits, wondering whether the kid’s going to call him “Mummy” or “Daddy”.
Commenting on the weather is usually as insightful as commenting that a pregnant chick’s belly “is growing”. It’s obvious, a bit silly and we all still do it. But in Cape Town this week the weather really was worth mentioning – and worth looking back at.
The 102 turbine Walney Offshore wind farm located approximately 15 kilometres off Walney Island, Cumbria, in the Irish Sea in the UK, is about to start harvesting the wind. It will provide electricity for 320 000 homes and the project has cost £1 billion.
Scientists have done something they have been working on for over two decades: successfully drilled more than three kilometres through sheer Antarctic ice into a freshwater lake to take a sample. All they really know now is that Lake Vostok has had no contact with atmospheric pollutants for millions of years.
Scientists believe they have discovered the oldest works of art known to mankind. Although the six pieces are supposedly of seals, they’ve been described as somewhat of “an academic bombshell”. That’s because they’re 42 000 years old, and are the only known pieces created by Neanderthal man, who preceded homo sapiens, more commonly known as humans.
A teen surfing in the wake of a yacht off the Gulf of Mexico was pleasantly surprised when two animal friends decided to join him. Watch this very cool video – featuring a pair of curious Bottlenose dolphins swimming and jumping beside the boy – after the jump.
On Monday, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs in South Africa, Edna Molewa, met with the Minister of Tourism in Mozambique, Fernando Sumbana Junior. They met in Pretoria to discuss solutions to the rhino poaching epidemic occurring in the Kruger National Park. This is what they’ve concluded so far.
Peta, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has launched a lawsuit against SeaWorld in which five killer whales have been named as the plaintiffs. The court case argues that they deserve the same constitutional protection from slavery as humans.
Overnight temperatures in Finland have been plummeting to minus 40 degrees Celsius, all forms of travel have begun to become severely effected, and the cold is expected to continue for days to come.
A question for all those hyper-nice, socially aware, dream dinner party guests out there – have you ever considered that your people-pleasing tendencies may be making you fat?
This does not happen, but it has: an elephant has decided it would like to go for a few waves and has been spotted surfing the beach breaks in Nuarro bay, just off the coast of northern Mozambique. Elephants don’t go into the sea, period, so this is definitely a rare sighting.
Preparation at the site designated for the Chapman’s Peak four-lane toll plaza and office complex began last week, with official construction beginning this week. Estimates put completion of the complex to happen around Easter next year.
It’s good to see that the law is at least making the news when it comes to South Africa’s current problem with rhino poaching. Another arrest has been made, this time a 58 year old farmer in Limpopo, who was busted with rhino horn and illegal firearms on the farm that he manages.
Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.
The ability to record footage in high definition (HD) has literally changed the way we look at digital media. And when used to bring out the best of nature’s inherent beauty, the results are simply jaw-dropping.
A game farmer has been mauled to death by a buffalo on his Free State farm. Willie Cronje farmed in Boshoff and was also a qualified doctor. The incident was witnessed by his 18-year-old son.
Cape Medical Response recently got a call to transfer a patient to Constantiaberg as an emergency. But they were stopped at the Chapman’s Peak toll first. According to Entilini Concession – the company that operates the road – even ambulances must stop and pay the toll fee, “irrespective of whether it is an emergency.”
On the back of the dreadful news that eight rhino carcasses were found in the Kruger National Park within the space of 24 hours the day before yesterday, a South African columnist and well respected journalist has asked whether we should be farming rhino.
The Cape Town City Bowl has, luckily, had a fairly quiet fire season. Just before midday today, a fire started on Signal Hill, and drew the attention of two helicopters, which brought it under control rapidly. Pictured is the yellow Working on Fire, chopper dropping water from its Bambi Bucket.