Sunday 15 July 2012

Can't Get South Enough

Currently on holiday in mid France (La Tranche sur Mer) but the jet stream has followed us South. Plenty of strong winds and unseasonably heavy rain. What do the climate change deniers make of that? I have, however, seen a washed up Portuguese man o' war  (Physalia physalia) and spotted my first ever Hoopoe bird (Upupa epeps) but I was unable to photograph it. Asked by email for my comments on an Australian surfer being bitten in two by a Great white shark and whether these sharks should consequently forfeit their conserved status. I think that a) sharks have been much more damaged (shark's fin soup) by humans than vice versa, b) the shark is only doing what it is designed to do to survive in its habitat, c)  removal of all animals have could conceivably damage humans would be wholly inappropriate (noting that horses kill more people than do sharks), d) removal of a top predator could greatly disrupt the ecology of the southern ocean and e) politicians are not good at long-term issues.

No comments:

A Chilling Suggestion From BORIS

'BORIS' is the acronym for the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register. Academics, from Stockholm's Karolinska Institute...