PhotoBlog

This site also documents my return to photography, one image a day, one story at a time.

News - Spotted in the news
Science, News, Wildlife, Conservation John Rowell Science, News, Wildlife, Conservation John Rowell

News - Spotted in the news

A recent paper in PLoS ONE by Vidya Athreya et al., used an innovative method to examine Leopard populations in the Indian state of Karnataka. They searched local media sources for any mentioned leopard-human incidents and applied modelling methods to draw conclusions. Their data showed that "leopards occupied around 84,000 km2 or 47% of the State’s geographic area, outside designated national parks and wildlife sanctuaries".

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News - Venomous frogs?
News, Science, Wildlife John Rowell News, Science, Wildlife John Rowell

News - Venomous frogs?

We have long known that some frogs are poisonous, excreting toxins from their skin to deter preditors from snacking on them. However, two are now considered venomous! 

Jared et al. (2015) describe two Brazilian frogs, Greening's frog (Corythomantis greeningi) and Bruno's casque-headed frog (Aparasphenodon brunoi), that don't only produce toxins, but also have spikes...

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News - Things get worse for the French wolf
Science, Wildlife, Conservation, News John Rowell Science, Wildlife, Conservation, News John Rowell

News - Things get worse for the French wolf

Early this month I posted about a decree by the French ecology and agriculture ministry addressing the concerns of farmers and resulted in relaxed hunting laws for wolfs and increasing the number that could be killed this coming season. The news is not getting any better, with the french government landing on the side of livestocks. [LPO reports]

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