Daily Bites

A spate of deadly brown bear attacks in Romania has raised fears that the inhabitants of the largest carnivore that was protected from Europe are growing beyond command.

Three men have been killed in more than a month within this European country that hosts the most significant number of bears of the Continent.

“The bear population has improved and it ought to be decreased,” warns gamekeeper Karoly Pal.

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Some 6,000 bears live in Romania involving the animals are becoming increasingly common:

• A 61-year-old fisherman had been murdered in Mures County in October.
• A 46 year old man was attacked in Bacau County, to the east, in late October.
• A 63-year-old shepherd was killed by a bear this month on the edge of a woods in Mures County in central Transylvania

The three deaths in the last couple of weeks bring the scores of attacks, also reported the number of deaths this year, to at least six. In contrast, bears in Romania between 2000 and 2015 killed 11 individuals.

Warning: This story includes an image of a dying brown bear that some readers might Discover disturbing

Karoly Pal stands at the courtyard of his farmstead, a Hungarian-speaking settlement in the remote reaches of the historic Transylvania region of Romania, in Nevada.

“Everywhere I go in this area; people are stating that there are too many bears, and you can not produce any plants anymore. People are forced to abandon agriculture and their territory – and they are frightened to go outside the villages.”

“Everybody in this area is coming to me to assert compensation,” adds the gamekeeper.

Accidents on the Growth

Bears have put waste to farmers’ crops, damaged cars and killed livestock, and also have been involved in a recent spate of crashes with automobiles.

On Saturday evening, a big male bear was hit by a vehicle in Harghita County. Also, it required to police a reported 19 hours to put down it.

The bear put in agony on the street, guarded by police as people looked on and had suffered three broken limbs.

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban echoed the anger of many when he whined that authorities had failed to do their duty. He explained it had taken over 15 hours for the environment ministry to receive the petition to shoot the bear. It wasn’t till Sunday afternoon that the bear finally died.

Since then, cars have struck two more bears.

Brown bears can cover enormous distances in their quest for food as they eat around 20,000 calories per day in warmer months to fatten up for winter. Preventing settlements, livestock crops, and roads across the way are proving to be a challenge for its wild animals.

“One-night last week, I counted 22 bears [in this area],” says Karoly Pal, walking down a barren dirt road from Neaua into Ghinesti, one of five villages in this remote commune.

A return to searching?

Many consider the increase in the bear population is down to some 2016 ban on trophy hunting that was applauded.

However, the official bear population figures of Romania might be off the mark, say experts.

“Considering that the ban on trophy hunting there has been a push by hunters and game managers to report as many damages [asserts ] as possible,” says endure expert Csaba Domokos of their nature conservation NGO Milvus Group.

Mr. Domokos fears that, without an effective management program, villagers will start to take matters into their own hands.

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The issue has whipped some regional media into a frenzy, with news about”problematic” bears.

Mures County MP Marius Pascan has stated his area is”under siege” by bears.

“We have to react in solidarity before more people are killed,” he said in a social media post a week following a mother bear, and two cubs were photographed walking down a residential street.

“Bear defenders” were irresponsible, he complained, and children could be harmed on their way to school.

‘Situation worse than ever.’

On a drizzly November afternoon in the hills surrounding Chinese, a brief distance out of Neaua, 69-year-old shepherd Janos Szabo watches on his big flock, as he has for the past 42 years.

“We have a big issue with bears, they killed four of my sheep this season,” he says, taking a sip of homemade plum brandy because his 15-strong pack of gnarly-looking sheepdogs maintains shield.

“All the shepherds have issues [with sparks ]. The situation is much worse than ever.”

After a period of fattening up, some of Romania’s brown bear will begin their winter sleep, and that might help ease tensions.

Conservationist Csaba Domokos states coexistence is deteriorating, and a solution needs to be found.

“Without social acceptance, the species doesn’t have any future in Romania,” he adds.

The demand for donkey skins to produce a traditional medication of china could wipe out over half of the world’s donkey population in the following five decades, researchers said.

Nearly five thousand skins are used annually to make ejiao, a gel believed in China for a remedy to problems which cause aging, placing tremendous strain on donkey populations around the globe, animal welfare group DonkeySanctuary stated in a report.

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Ejiao was the preserve of emperors but is now highly sought after by the middle class, with manufacturing growing 20 percent each year between 2013 and 2016, Donkey Sanctuary explained.

China’s national donkey population has collapsed by 76 percent since 1992, and the country imports the majority of the skins it uses from traders in Africa South America and Asia.

There are currently around 45.8 million donkeys in the world, Donkey Sanctuary said.

The donkey skin trade has led to”suffering on an enormous and unacceptable scale,” the team’s chief executive Mike Baker said in a statement.

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Researchers documented instances of unhygienic and inhumane processing requirements, such as donkeys being bludgeoned on the head in a slaughterhouse of Tanzania while still aware and conscious.

At a holding center in Brazil, malnourished animals were kept in the very same pens as”hundreds of donkey carcasses” that had contaminated the only available water supply,” putting residual donkeys in danger of either infectious disease or acute dehydration.”

Researchers warned the supply chain that has sprung up to meet growing demand could place ejiao consumers at risk while contributing to the spread of disease.

Inadequate hygiene requirements increase the danger that”infected vectors, like insects, might also be found on the product,” the report stated.

Additionally, “donkeys owned by vulnerable communities along trade routes are in danger of being infected with diseases carried by donkeys passing through.'”

Baby crocodiles, located in a remote region of Nepal, give hope to one of the rarest and endangered reptile “Gharial” (Gavialis gangeticus).

The Gharial is rare but critically endangered, with over a thousand adults remaining in the wild. The discovery of 100 hatchlings is a boost for these species’ potential recovery, according to scientists. The crocodile is clinging to survival in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh.

“Given the species is limited to about 5 populations across its entire range, this is such a real discovery, and a critical step for the long-term recovery of these species in Nepal,” researcher Rikki Gumbs of ZSL (Zoological Society of London) said.

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After trekking through the jungle for hours to sit on a ridge and eventually catch a glimpse of this hatchling below us, it was an incredible moment to capture,” said Ashish Bashyal, who directs the conservation project in Nepal.

“At around 30cm in size, they look exactly like mini versions of adult Gharials – so incredibly adorable,” he said.’ The 100 baby crocodiles, together with three adult females and a single male, were discovered in June, but details are only now being revealed to aid conservation efforts.

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The crocodile has not been sighted in the area in 30 years, and there’s encouraging news in that the hatchlings have recently been seen after the monsoon rain.

“They have made it through the first big hurdle,” Rikki Gumbs told BBC News. “Especially with the dangers that are affecting the species, it is very significant that these hatchlings can make it into adulthood.” Once present across much of the Indian subcontinent, the Gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) is virtually extinct across a lot of its former range, with fewer than 100 adult crocodiles remaining in Nepal and many fragmented populations in India.

Just one more breeding population is famous in Chitwan National Park in Nepal. The crocodile poses very little danger to humans.
But pressures remain, such as loss of habitat due to building of dams, as well as pollution, fishing, agriculture, and predation from another species of crocodile located in Nepal, although hunting and egg collection are now prohibited.

Adult Gharials are big, with males reaching in weight over 250kg and 5 meters in length. Males develop a lump at the end of their snouts, called a gharas, which provides the species its name. The adult female has body length of around 2.6 meters.

The Gharial is a fish eating crocodile and also knows as gavial.

What if we could practice the life of the planet’s most enigmatic creatures eyewitness.

Facts about Snowy Owl.

The snowy owl is also called Great white owl or Arctic owl , it is one of the most weird bird species on earth , while they are not in all present in all areas of arctic , they do not exist in Svalback , they are mostly seen in polar regions of Eurasia and north America .

The binomial species name “Scandiacus ” derived from Scandinavia as it was the place where these birds were first discovered.

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Coloring , size and wingspan.

It has most beautiful white body covering and astonishing yellow eyes. Their first flight feather is dark grey and maculate to provide concealment while they are in nest .

As they grow , they start to grow their signature white feathers . Adults males are mostly white but has also dark coloring on their wings tips . Female owl have more marbled appearance to provide concealment for nesting on ground.

Like other owls they have also very flexible neck , which can rotate about 270 degree . Snowy owls breed in May and June. As they live in mostly treeless areas so they are mostly found on the ground or on natural branch such as hillock or rocks . We know that mostly owls are nocturnal ( they are active at night ) but these snowy owls are diurnal ( they are active during the day , they are most active at dawn and at dusk.

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Their hearing is so well that they can even hear prey moving under snow. Their body is round which helps them to maintain body heat . They have warm feathers on their legs and feet to keep them warm and insulate then from cold.

The Harry Potter movies were also responsible for sudden bang in the interest of snowy owls as pets . These birds are large in size , strong and also have a terrible bite. It is the most attractive bird specie on this planet.

Have you experienced a moment where the earth beneath you felt as though it had changed?

For science nerds and the general population alike, many believed that kind of shift. In 2015, news broke that paleontologists had found and excavated a treasure trove of ancient hominid bones in South Africa.

In 2015, news broke that paleontologists had discovered and excavated a treasure trove of ancient hominid bones in South Africa. Moreover, they belonged to a never described species, Homo Naledi, that carried a unique range of traits.

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In October of 2013, cavers stumbled across a chamber that had wealth hominid remains. From the following excavation, a group of scientists found 1500 bone fragments out of 15 individuals in an area the size of a kid’s sandbox. It was an unprecedented discovery.

Today, we bring you an incredible discussion from Marina Elliott, the first scientist to put in the room that housed the massive assortment of Naledi remains. Within this remarkable talk from the National Geographic Live point, she explains not just how this discovery has transformed our understanding of our origins; however, we conduct this kind of research!

National Geographic Live is curating some unbelievable thought leaders and spreading their inspirational finds and thoughts — go check it out once you have the chance!

The Lessons of Homo Naledi.

There are many critical tips in this talk. I have listened to this a dozen times and every time I hear something different.

Not only does this discovery reframe our understanding of our origins, but it’s forced a shift in how we think about research. From opening the study to larger groups, and creating the findings available to the entire world on resources like Morpho Source, the discovery of Homo Naledi is ultimately shifting models.

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Since Marina Elliott points out, discoveries mean nothing, and may even seem scary, once we don’t make them accessible to each.
If we make science just for the scientifically-minded, we abandon the community a massive amount of individuals with misinformation and distrust.

Whether we are speaking in terms of knowing our origins or talking about the way we bring science to the masses, there’s something to be heard from Homo Naledi on several levels.

As science has been reframing our comprehension of the planet, people must strive to make science understandable to the masses and give the young scientist the tools to express their discoveries in a way that may inspire wonder in the least scientifically inclined. There is such an abundance to learn.
Our next great leap will be in making sure that knowledge is spread into the entire world.

Stay beautiful & maintain laughing!

BANGUI — A 77-year-old French-Spanish nun killed in the Central African Republic, where she taught sewing to poor girls and women.

The attackers broke into her room on the night between Sunday and Monday and took her to the centre she was running for the young girls, where they beheaded her. The body of sister Ines Nieves Sancho found beheaded early Monday in the village of Nola.
Local authorities condemned the killing, but they indicated that it might not be connected to the sectarian bloodshed between militia groups. The reason for the attack is unclear.
A local member of parliament said that this brutal murder could be linked to trafficking in human organs.
“Elsewhere it is the rebels who murder, but in Nola people kill to become wealthy,” an official Jean-Marc Ndoukou said.
Ndoukou pledged that the attackers would not go unpunished, and also the nation’s parliament called for an investigation.

On Wednesday, Pope Francis led tens of thousands of men and women in prayer for Nieves Sancho, saying she was”barbarously murdered” in the area where she taught. The Vatican said she’d worked with the poor for decades.

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