Feral camels have never gotten much love in the Australian bush. Considered to be an invasive species, they graze native plants to the point of local extinction. They walk across roads in the middle of the night. They trample fences. Now one Australian company has a plan to get rid of the camel scourge once and for all. The proposition? …
Wildlife
Why Fukushima Is Good for Whales (in Iceland)
In the past few days, two pieces of good news have floated to the surface from the morass of Japan’s ongoing nuclear crisis. No, nothing has really improved at Fukushima; in fact, things have turned out to be worse inside Reactor 1 than TEPCO thought. (Read more about that over on Global Spin.)
But! Japan’s Environment ministry, …
Put Down That Spoon and Back Away From The Soup
The last place you’d expect to see the folks from CSI sleuthing around is the bowl of soup you’re having for lunch — unless, of course, you’re having shark fin soup. In that case, you may be enabling an environmental crime, and now there’s DNA evidence that can give you away.
People who grew up on shark fin soup insist the stuff is …
A New Victim of Second-Hand Smoking: Fish
For smokers, the world has always been one big ashtray, with cigarettes flicked away pretty much anywhere. That’s especially true now, since smokers are increasingly forbidden to light up in restaurants, office buildings and even new no-smoking condos. In the great river of litter human beings create each year, so tiny a thing as a …
Whales in Motion
“They say the sea is cold,” D.H. Lawrence wrote, “but the sea contains the hottest blood of all.” Whales aren’t just physically majestic, but as warm-blooded mammals who give birth to live young, they provide a human link to an underwater region that can often feel so alien. Still, between the last vestiges of whale hunting and …
How Whale Songs Rocket to Number One
There’s no accounting for musical taste — particularly when the kind of music you’re talking about doesn’t even originate in your own species. Bird songs may be lovely, but whale songs? Say what you will about the combination of whoops, clicks groans and faintly flatulent rumbles that whales use to communicate and woo, the odds are …
GoDaddy CEO on Shooting an Elephant: I’m Not Sorry
GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons ignited an Internet firestorm when he uploaded a video of himself hunting and killing an elephant in Zimbabwe. What video? That would be this one:
So is Parsons sorry for the elephant hunt—or at the very least, sorry that he put it up on the Internet? Absolutely not, as an uncontrite Parsons told me in an …
The Economic Cost of Losing Bats
It can be hard to feel much sympathy for bats. Like snakes or spiders or sharks or bunnies (OK, maybe the last one is just me), there’s something primordially alarming about bats, something that activates the lizard part of the brain and shutters empathy. Bats aren’t actually “flying rodents,” but you likely won’t see them on the …
Shooting an Elephant: Why GoDaddy’s CEO Was Wrong
UPDATE, 3 p.m. Thursday: GoDaddy competitor Namecheap has launched a campaign to woo away offended GoDaddy customers. Our colleagues at Techland have the full story: Switch business now, and Namecheap is offering to make elephant donations on your behalf.
We all shoot vacation videos, but most of us choose to keep them to ourselves …
How to Clean Up the Sardine Apocalypse: Call in the Foodies
Not so long ago, I was sitting at King’s Harbor in Redondo Beach, which is about a ten minute drive from where I grew up in LA. I was drinking a glass of wine at a restaurant on the marina, watching people on their liveaboard boats at sunset, and thinking how great it must be one of them, perpetually barefoot, with a dog that has …
