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Woodland Park Zoo and its Controversial Elephant Breeding Efforts

Critter News

An article in today's Seattle Times about Woodland Park Zoo's attempts over the last 20 years to breed elephants. The zoo claims it's to preserve the species. Very controversial with organizations such as In Defense of Animals, PETA and the Northwest Animal Rights Network. They say it's cruel.

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Birding Sukau, Sabah, Borneo

10,000 Birds

This is how it looks like: Or at sunset: A species I did not come for from Shanghai is the Black-crowned Night Heron. Its species name graydoni is in honor of Philip Newenham Graydon (1864-1940), a British planter in Sabah. Why that makes Mr. Graydon worthy of having a bird species named after him is a mystery to me.

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What’s in a Name?

10,000 Birds

It notes that there are around 1,000 people who have had birds named after them, but no fewer than three of them – Frank Linsly James, Eugenio Prince Ruspoli and Johan August Wahlberg – were killed by elephants, not a common form of death. Eleonora’s Falcons still breed on Sardinia today.

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Birding crème de la crème: Africa – Ngorongoro Crater to Queen Elizabeth II National Park

10,000 Birds

Geographic patterns of species richness for birds (1,558 species) in East Africa at 0.25° resolution (blue indicates low species richness, while brown indicates high species richness). At the time of writing, Uganda has 16 hotspots with 400+ so far eBirded species, of which one has almost 600 species.

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Birding the Ndumo area, South Africa

10,000 Birds

It is not particularly big but has a reported 430 bird species including migrants, though during my short stay it seems I missed most of the key attractions among them. Great White Pelican is not just the name of a non-existent glam-rock band but also of a bird species. Pel’s Fishing Owl, where were you?

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Nyala, Southern Africa’s Stunning Antelope

10,000 Birds

Anyway, while there are many species that I’m always pleased to see (I’m a particular fan of the aquatic kobs, lechwe and pukus) it was only on my last visit that I saw one of the more attractive species for the first time, the Nyala (pronounced Nnya-la, not Nye-al-ah). With an elephant for scale.

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The Cattle Egret Expansion

10,000 Birds

Other species have certainly expanded their ranges, but never in such a rapid and global scale. For reasons that are not quite clear, this species underwent a massive range expansion. In the east, this species can be found along the east coast of Africa, the Nile Valley,and into parts of the middle east and India and southeast Asia.

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