DNA kit set to boost fight against wildlife crime

The Department of Environmental Affairs has launched a DNA barcoding kit to help officials to combat wildlife crime.
                                         

The kit was produced in partnership with the International Barcode of Life Project (iBOL) and University of Johannesburg (UJ).

Known as LAB-IN-A-BOX, the kit makes rapid species identification possible for border officials within a few hours.

The LAB-IN-A-BOX launch took place at the opening of the seventh iBOL conference, which ends on Friday. This is the first time that this event is held on the African continent with the venue of choice being the Kruger National Park, which is home to the big five.

Much like barcodes on consumer items such as food cans at a supermarket, the DNA barcoding kit gives information such as the type of species, access to information on their biology, ecology and socio-economic significance.

Training on how to use the kit will be provided by the African Centre for DNA Barcoding (ACDB) at UJ.

Usually, a sample gets taken and sent to a laboratory to find out what animal or plant species is involved. This can take days. However, LAB-IN-A-BOX is set to change this by making it possible to rapidly analyse DNA from an animal or plant at the port of entry, with reliable results.

The department said this make a whole new range of enforcement responses become possible.

According to LAB-IN-A-BOX creator, Sujeevan Ratnasingham, in developing countries where inspectors at ports of entry may have limited knowledge and expertise, the need for rapid DNA identification is even more pressing.

"Many threatened animals and plants are trafficked out of developing countries, which do not have adequate resources to combat these crimes. LAB-IN-A-BOX aims to improve the situation by addressing two challenges - rapid detection and successful prosecution. It does this by reducing the cost of adopting DNA analysis infrastructure and by simplifying usage of DNA analysis tools.”

The kit will allow for the tracking of animals and is certain to improve capacity to care for endangered species.

Study Finds Dogs Are Kept Awake At Night Worrying, Too

Have trouble dozing off at night after a stress-filled day? You're not alone.
                                             

Our furry canine pals are also more likely to have a disturbed night's sleep after a day of anxiety, new research has shown.

Hungarian researchers monitored the sleep patterns of pet dogs after "positive" experiences -- like being patted by their owner and playing games -- and "negative" experiences, such as being separated from their owner and approached threateningly by a stranger.

Unsurprisingly, the dogs' personalities affected the way they responded, with more playful pooches less likely to be stressed out by being approached by a stranger than their shyer counterparts.

But overall, the doggos who'd been exposed to stressful experiences didn't sleep as well, spent more time in REM sleep (the active sleep stage characterised by increased heart rate) and woke up more quickly.

The findings were published on Wednesday in The Royal Society scientific journal.

Interestingly, the anxious dogs actually fell asleep faster than their chilled-out counterparts, despite not sleeping as well. The researchers attributed this to something called stress-induced quiescence -- a protective sleep in response to stress.

"(This is) a phenomenon that can be induced by several stressors, and that can also be observed as part of the human immune response during sickness," they wrote.

So don't forget to say goodnight to your four-legged pal tonight -- it just might help them sleep tight.

Plant hitchhikers that just refuse to be left behind

A while ago I very much enjoyed an article by Helen Dillon in which she mused on the challenges and opportunities presented by downsizing from her much-admired Dublin garden, and home of 44 years, to a smaller property.
                                             

Much of her article was concerned with the plants she intends to take with her and, even more interestingly, those she plans to leave behind. Among the plants she’s had enough of is the purple-leaved lesser celandine, Ficaria verna ‘Brazen Hussy’, although she admits that it will probably hitch a lift on some plant or other and turn up in the new garden, whether she likes it or not.

I sympathise; during my recent move from one end of the country to the other, I brought a few plants with me. Not very many, mainly because I knew that in the short term there was nowhere to put them, but even so I was impressed by how many unintended hitchhikers I had also brought with me. These include foxgloves, forget-me-nots, opium and Welsh poppies, dog violets and assorted aquilegias.

While returning from a walk in the national park, I would occasionally drop in at Steve’s nursery to say hello. On one of these occasions, Steve scraped some green stuff off a lump of tufa and said ‘Here, have some of this’. ‘This’ turned out to be Mentha requienii, by far the smallest and also most charming of the mints; a native of Italy, Sardinia and Corsica, it’s usually known as Corsican mint. Barely 1 cm tall, it bears a superficial resemblance to mind-your-own-business (Soleirolia soleirolii), but is a superior plant in every way, with tiny mauve flowers and a pungent mint smell.

Animal cruelty is given own ranking

CAMPASPE Shire ranked 34th of Victoria’s 79 local council areas for animal cruelty reports, placing it 19th on a per capita basis.
                                                 

The data comes after a list of hotspots on the issue was released by RSPCA Victoria last week.

RSPCA Victoria received 10,180 cruelty reports across the state in 2016-17 — about 28 per day.

Of these, 106 were concerns about the welfare of animals in the Campaspe region, which equates to one report for every 350 residents in the area.

Last year Campaspe ranked 41st and 30th on a per capita basis.

RSPCA chief executive Liz Walker said understanding the rate of cruelty reporting and the different offences in local areas is critical to ensuring that RSPCA Victoria directs its education, advocacy and enforcement efforts to the places that need it most.

As with last year’s data, reports received in 2016-17 about animals not receiving basic care far outnumbered all other offences reported.

“It’s disappointing to see that, for the second year in a row, too many Victorian animals were reported to us because of concerns about very basic issues: food, water, shelter and vet care when they’re sick or injured. These kinds of problems are so preventable.

Reports received from Campaspe included 51 reports of animals with insufficient food, water or shelter (4,763 across the state) and 48 concerns about hygiene, grooming and housing conditions (3,349 statewide).

Welfare concerns for dogs, cats and horses continue to make up the majority of issues reported.

Animals injured, orphaned in storm being cared for at Dane County Humane Society's Wildlife Center

Dozens of critters injured or orphaned in a storm that raged through the region Wednesday night have found refuge at the Dane County Humane Society’s Wildlife Center.
                                         

Jackie Edmunds, the center’s wildlife rehabilitation training coordinator, said Friday that 67 animals have been brought in over the past two days.

Birds were displaced from their nests due to high winds, and squirrels had to escape flimsy nests destroyed due to falling trees. The struggling animals were rescued after people saw them in their yards or neighborhoods and called the center, Edmunds said.

Among the injured animals are an American toad with an eye injury and a red-tailed hawk with spinal trauma. Other animal patients include American robins, mallard ducklings and sandhill cranes.

Bats, despite being nocturnal animals, cannot see in the dark. Instead they have evolved a similar ability known as use echolocation to navigate and locate prey at night. The bat emits a very high frequency sound and listens for the echo that bounces off objects. The difference in time between emitting the sound and hearing the echo allows the bat to build up a mental “picture” of its environment. Sounds that take longer to bounce back indicate that the surroundings are further away.

Of course, Magneto’s magnetic powers can produce a much wider range of effects, from lifting and manipulating metal objects to rearranging matter (a power definitely not seen in animals). However, his daughter Polaris has the ability to perceive the world as patterns of magnetic energy, which actually isn’t too dissimilar to the powers present in the animal kingdom.

Even ugly animals can win hearts and dollars to save them from extinction

The Earth is home to millions of species, but you wouldn’t know it from the media’s obsession with only a few dozen animals like tigers and gorillas.
                                                 

This narrow focus makes the most of popular fascination with large and cute creatures. Conservationists take advantage of these nonhuman celebrities to raise awareness about important issues and to seek donations to help save endangered animals. Given the multi-billion-dollar funding shortfall for nature conservation, public support is crucial.

Very popular species attract the most wildlife conservation funding. But what about the Nimba otter shrew, the Cuban greater funnel-eared bat or other threatened yet obscure species? And don’t all imperiled green spaces, not just the homes of snow leopards and orangutans, deserve attention?

These campaigns are very different. WWF-US raises money for a broad set of projects, addressing global issues from climate change and illegal wildlife trade to forest and ocean conservation. The EDGE campaign we analyzed focuses on saving 100 threatened mammal species.

Given these contrasting approaches, we wanted to see if and when marketing makes a difference. To do this we also had to account for whether the species used for fundraising mattered. This involved measuring an animal’s “appeal,” which depends on lots of factors, such as whether it is cute, large or famous. To see which animals were the most appealing, we showed 850 conservation supporters a random selection of the animal photos featured on the WWF-US and EDGE websites and asked these volunteers to rank the photos.

Let’s first consider WWF-US, which raises money through animal “adoptions.” When people donate, they signal their support for the well-known species. In return they get a stuffed toy, photos of the animals and adoption certificates. But the money WWF-US raised funds projects that benefit more than just the “adopted” animals.