Weird Wildlife

It's a law of nature that when you've got to go, you've got to go. So if you happen to be a penguin out on the antarctic ice, well, that's where you've got to go. Which turns out to be an extremely useful fact for scientists, who have used piles of penguin poo identified on satellite images to locate where penguin colonies form. Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey hope to use the new technique to follow the penguins over many seasons and determine how much impact global warming is having on the species (Telegraph).

Meanwhile British beekeepers must be cursing that not all animals can be tracked by satellite so easily after an outbreak of bee-rustling has swept the coutryside. The spate of thefts has been provoked by rises in the price of honey combined with a shortage of bees brought about by disease. In the largest bee-heist so far, 18 hives containing over a million bees were stolen from a strawberry field they had been pollinating. According to John Howat of the Bee Farmers Association, pulling off such an audacious crime would require "inside knowledge" (BBC News).

And it's not just beekeepers who are missing their wildlife. A UK radio station that has broadcast nothing but a repeating loop of birdsong for 18 months as "filler" has finally shut down to make way for a new commercial station, and raised howls of protest from many of its half a million regular listeners. The twenty year-old recording, made in a wiltshire garden and used by the radio station free-of-charge, became a massive hit with people from all over Britain, including author Terry Pratchett, who found it a relaxing alternative to the usual radio fare. The replacement broadcast, Amazing Radio, plays music by unsigned bands uploaded to amazingtunes.com (Pocket Lint).

Finally, here's one story that almost missed the boat (ark?), swimming with stingrays may be harmful... for the stingrays. Scientists monitoring the sealife around the Camen islands have found that tourist excursions to pet the wildlife around the islands is leading to weaker immune systems and poorer health in the animals. Christina Semeniuk, an ecologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, cited collisions with boats, overcrowding and hand-fed squid forming an greater part of their diet as the main suspects. She pointed to other studies on bears, penguins, dolphins, and apes which also showed increased stress and illness due to wildlife tourism (Guardian).
     Posted By: Dumbfounded - Tue Jun 02, 2009
     Category: Agriculture | Animals | Crime | Science





Comments
Police are planning a "sting" operation, perhaps involving a honey trap. In the meantime they are asking the public to bee on the lookout for suspicious behaviour like buy excessive amounts of insect repellant or running about madly while being pursued by a million bees.

Queue Eddie Izzard.
Posted by Dumbfounded on 06/02/09 at 09:11 AM
Dumbfounded- No fair taking all the obvious puns in a comment on your own post...
Posted by jswolf19 in Japan on 06/02/09 at 09:46 AM
Jsw: I try to avoid putting them in the article itself, but I couldn't resist using them altogether.

Expat: That's beeHIVEour, surely?

What would you call fencing a stolen beehive anyway, honey-laundering?
Posted by Dumbfounded on 06/02/09 at 10:12 AM
That's a summer blockbuster movie if I ever heard of one. The Bee-knapper.
Posted by Nethie on 06/02/09 at 11:39 AM
Or maybe "The Hills have Hives", starring Beeyonce and Sting. :cheese:
Posted by Dumbfounded on 06/02/09 at 11:48 AM
It could be the next movie genre:

"Pollinator: Salvation"
"Flight Club"
"Citizen Comb"
"The Taking of Pollen-123"
"Stinging in the Rain"
"The Africanized Queen"
"waxXx"
"Flightplant"
Posted by Dumbfounded on 06/02/09 at 12:03 PM
Not forgetting that comedy classic: "Kids, I shrunk the honey!"

(Okay, I'm done.)
Posted by Dumbfounded on 06/02/09 at 12:10 PM
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