Happy 2008 from planet J. wish you a long and healthy life.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
oldest orangutan dies
MIAMI (AP) — A 55-year-old Sumatran orangutan, believed to be the world's oldest, has died, a Miami zoo spokesman said.
Nonja, who was born on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and lived in Miami since 1983, was found dead Saturday morning, said Ron Magill, spokesman for the Miami Metro Zoo.
"Everybody's very sad, especially with an animal like an orangutan," Magill said. "You see a lot of yourself in these animals. The great apes are our closest relatives."
A necropsy is to be performed in the next few days. A typical life span for Sumatran orangutans is 40 to 50 years, Magill said.
Nonja had slowed down in recent years because of her age, Mcgill said. "She was really a grand old dame," Magill said.
Nonja, who was born on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and lived in Miami since 1983, was found dead Saturday morning, said Ron Magill, spokesman for the Miami Metro Zoo.
"Everybody's very sad, especially with an animal like an orangutan," Magill said. "You see a lot of yourself in these animals. The great apes are our closest relatives."
A necropsy is to be performed in the next few days. A typical life span for Sumatran orangutans is 40 to 50 years, Magill said.
Nonja had slowed down in recent years because of her age, Mcgill said. "She was really a grand old dame," Magill said.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
A christmas escape
Two Indian American brothers were mauled by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day in an attack that killed another man.
Brothers Amritpal 'Paul' Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, were being treated for severe bite and claw wounds at the San Francisco General Hospital.
Carl Sousa, Jr, 17, the third victim of the attack, died.
The culprit in the Tuesday's freak incident, a 350-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana, had to be shot to death by the police.
Tatiana had evidently escaped its enclosure by leaping or climbing the walls, which, a zoo expert now says, were scaleable.
Tatiana was in the news around this time last year too, when it attacked the zoo keeper during public feeding.
The police said Kulbir was the rampaging animal's first victim. As the tiger clawed and bit him, his younger brother and Sousa yelled to scare it off him. The big cat then went for Sousa, slashing his neck as the brothers ran to a zoo cafe for help.
After killing Sousa, the tiger followed the trail of blood left by Kulbir about 300 yards to the cafe, where it mauled both him and Amritpal.
The three boys had gone to the zoo together, which has remained shuttered since the incident.
The two boys' are due to be discharged from the hospital over the weekend.
Newspaper reports say the Dhaliwal brothers have been hostile to police interviewers, at first refusing to identify themselves or give an account of the incident.
The reason for their reticence may have been that they were charged in Sept with misdemeanour, public intoxication and resisting a police officer after they were arrested a short distance from their home, according to court documents.
Brothers Amritpal 'Paul' Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, were being treated for severe bite and claw wounds at the San Francisco General Hospital.
Carl Sousa, Jr, 17, the third victim of the attack, died.
The culprit in the Tuesday's freak incident, a 350-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana, had to be shot to death by the police.
Tatiana had evidently escaped its enclosure by leaping or climbing the walls, which, a zoo expert now says, were scaleable.
Tatiana was in the news around this time last year too, when it attacked the zoo keeper during public feeding.
The police said Kulbir was the rampaging animal's first victim. As the tiger clawed and bit him, his younger brother and Sousa yelled to scare it off him. The big cat then went for Sousa, slashing his neck as the brothers ran to a zoo cafe for help.
After killing Sousa, the tiger followed the trail of blood left by Kulbir about 300 yards to the cafe, where it mauled both him and Amritpal.
The three boys had gone to the zoo together, which has remained shuttered since the incident.
The two boys' are due to be discharged from the hospital over the weekend.
Newspaper reports say the Dhaliwal brothers have been hostile to police interviewers, at first refusing to identify themselves or give an account of the incident.
The reason for their reticence may have been that they were charged in Sept with misdemeanour, public intoxication and resisting a police officer after they were arrested a short distance from their home, according to court documents.
Friday, December 28, 2007
15 reasons why you should stop smoking
Effects of Tobacco Smoke
1- Smoking KILLS
1- Smoking KILLS
2- Every year hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from diseases caused by smoking.
3- One in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit. Half of these deaths will occur in middle age.
4- Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers.
3- One in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit. Half of these deaths will occur in middle age.
4- Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers.
5- The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood vessels.
6- This can cause heart attacks and stroke. It slows your blood flow, cutting off oxygen to your feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs amputated.
7- Tar coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer.
8- A 20-a-day smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210 g) of tar in a year.
10- Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the tar deeper into their lungs.
11- Carbon monoxide robs your muscles, brain and body tissue of oxygen, making your whole body and especially your heart work harder. Over time, your airways swell up and let less air into your lungs.
12- Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die. The strain put on your body by smoking often causes years of suffering. Emphysema is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.
13- Lung cancer from smoking is caused by the tar in tobacco smoke. Men who smoke are ten times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers.
14- Heart disease and strokes are also more common among smokers than non-smokers.
15- Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block blood vessels which leads to heart attack.
Smoking causes around one in five deaths from heart disease.
In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking.
Smoking causes around one in five deaths from heart disease.
In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking.
all about elephants
Elephants typically reach puberty at thirteen or fourteen years of age
They have offspring up until they are around fifty years old
They may live seventy years or possibly more
A cow produces a single calf and in very rare cases twins
The interval between births is between two and a half to four years
An elephant´s trunk, a union of the nose and upper lip, is a highly sensitive organ with over 100,000 muscle units.
Do you want more physical information? Please see the anatomy section!
Interesting Facts
Elephant trunks can get very heavy. It is not uncommon to see elephants resting them over a tusk!
Elephants cry, play, have incredible memories, and laugh!
Elephants are sensitive fellow animals where if a baby complains, the entire family will rumble and go over to touch and caress it.
Elephants have greeting ceremonies when a friend that has been away for some time returns to the group.
Elephants grieve at a loss of a stillborn baby, a family member, and in many cases other elephants.
Elephants don't drink with their trunks, but use them as "tools" to drink with. This is accomplished by filling the trunk with water and then using it as a hose to pour it into the elephant's mouth.
Interestingly, the Asian elephant is more closely related to the extinct mammoth than to the African elephant (see evolution).
"Therefore understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest" Chuang Tzu translated by Burton Watson
An Introduction to Elephant Impact A Super Keystone Species
It seems inevitable that as long as we humans impose our own theories on how to best govern nature, there will be a difference of opinion of "animal" management. Over the course of evolution, the elephant as we know it today has evolved into a strong forced bulldozer that has the power to modify the landscape it resides in. For elephants their effect on the landscape is often considered destruction, but is it?
The answer to this question partially depends on your preconceived views of "nature". If you see nature as something static and in a particular way then any change no matter how minute will amount to destruction. An interesting statistic found in the book African Elephants: A Celebration of Majesty about this issue; a general estimation shows that Man is clearing more forests in one day that all the elephants in Africa will 'destroy' within one year. Put in perspective, the effect that elephants have on their environment may not be as serious are we have been led to believe.
Unfortunately for some, our narrow opinion of seeing elephants as only living bulldozers of destruction is far from the case. As much as 80 percent of what elephants consume is returned to the soil as barely digested highly fertile manure.
The Ecological Impact of the Elephant is Priceless!
Elephants provide a vital role in the ecosystem they inhabit.
They modify their habitat by converting savannah and woodlands to grasslands
Elephants can provide water for other species by digging water holes in dry riverbeds
the depressions created by their footprints and their bodies trap rainfall
Elephants act as seed dispersers by their fecal matter. It is often carried below ground by dung beetles and termites causing the soil to become more aerated and further distributing the nutrients
Their paths act as firebreaks and rain water conduits
An Elephants journey through the high grass provides food for birds by disturbing small reptiles, amphibians or insects.
Please see Impact for more information
In the tradition of elephant sites, we have provided a breakdown of elephants into two categories for basic physical statistics. Keep in mind that the two "groups" are quite different genetically and the Asian elephant (as noted) is actually more closely related to the extinct mammoth than the African elephant.
Sri LankanElephas Maximus Maximus
MainlandElephas Maximus Indicus
SumatranElephas Maximus Sumatranus
Height
2-3.5 metres
2-3 metres
2-2.5 metres
Weight
3-5 tonnes
2.5-4.5 tonnes
2-4 tonnes
Colour
grey with large areas of depigmentation
lighter grey
very light grey
The Asian elephant, Elephas Maximus, has an enormous domed head with relatively small ears, an arched back and a single finger like protuberance that is located at the tip of the trunk. An Asian elephant has five toes on the front of the feet and and four on the back.
A large bull could typically weighs six tons and is ten feet high at the shoulder. As with gorillas, there is a large degree of sexual dimorphism between males and females in Asian Elephants where adult females are about half the size of the largest males.
The males have tusks and the females have 'tushes', which are shore second incisors that just stick out beyond the upper lip. However, it is important to note that on occasion females some times have longer tushes than described.
The gestation period is between nineteen and twenty-two months. Periodically, it is noted that male infants typically have a slightly longer term than females.
SavannahLoxodonta Africana Africana
ForestLoxodonta Africana Cyclotis
Height
3-4 metres
2-3 metres
Weight
4-7 tonnes
2-4 tonnes
Colour
grey
dark grey
The African elephant, Loxodonta Africana, have a straight back, enormous ears, and two trunk 'fingers'.
African elephants are named for the peculiar shaped ridges of their molar teeth; the ridges of an African elephant's teeth are coarser and fewer than those of the Asian elephant.
The African elephant has only four toes on the front feet and three on the back. Interestingly, it has one more vertebra in the lumbar section of the spine.
Both sexes have tusks, and they are also larger in size as compared to male and female Asian elephants.
The largest African elephant recorded weighed over nine tons and stood more than twelve feet high at the shoulder. As in Asian elephants, the female African elephant is generally half the size of a fully grown male.
Gestation period tends to be slightly longer than in the Asian elephant.
They have offspring up until they are around fifty years old
They may live seventy years or possibly more
A cow produces a single calf and in very rare cases twins
The interval between births is between two and a half to four years
An elephant´s trunk, a union of the nose and upper lip, is a highly sensitive organ with over 100,000 muscle units.
Do you want more physical information? Please see the anatomy section!
Interesting Facts
Elephant trunks can get very heavy. It is not uncommon to see elephants resting them over a tusk!
Elephants cry, play, have incredible memories, and laugh!
Elephants are sensitive fellow animals where if a baby complains, the entire family will rumble and go over to touch and caress it.
Elephants have greeting ceremonies when a friend that has been away for some time returns to the group.
Elephants grieve at a loss of a stillborn baby, a family member, and in many cases other elephants.
Elephants don't drink with their trunks, but use them as "tools" to drink with. This is accomplished by filling the trunk with water and then using it as a hose to pour it into the elephant's mouth.
Interestingly, the Asian elephant is more closely related to the extinct mammoth than to the African elephant (see evolution).
"Therefore understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest" Chuang Tzu translated by Burton Watson
An Introduction to Elephant Impact A Super Keystone Species
It seems inevitable that as long as we humans impose our own theories on how to best govern nature, there will be a difference of opinion of "animal" management. Over the course of evolution, the elephant as we know it today has evolved into a strong forced bulldozer that has the power to modify the landscape it resides in. For elephants their effect on the landscape is often considered destruction, but is it?
The answer to this question partially depends on your preconceived views of "nature". If you see nature as something static and in a particular way then any change no matter how minute will amount to destruction. An interesting statistic found in the book African Elephants: A Celebration of Majesty about this issue; a general estimation shows that Man is clearing more forests in one day that all the elephants in Africa will 'destroy' within one year. Put in perspective, the effect that elephants have on their environment may not be as serious are we have been led to believe.
Unfortunately for some, our narrow opinion of seeing elephants as only living bulldozers of destruction is far from the case. As much as 80 percent of what elephants consume is returned to the soil as barely digested highly fertile manure.
The Ecological Impact of the Elephant is Priceless!
Elephants provide a vital role in the ecosystem they inhabit.
They modify their habitat by converting savannah and woodlands to grasslands
Elephants can provide water for other species by digging water holes in dry riverbeds
the depressions created by their footprints and their bodies trap rainfall
Elephants act as seed dispersers by their fecal matter. It is often carried below ground by dung beetles and termites causing the soil to become more aerated and further distributing the nutrients
Their paths act as firebreaks and rain water conduits
An Elephants journey through the high grass provides food for birds by disturbing small reptiles, amphibians or insects.
Please see Impact for more information
In the tradition of elephant sites, we have provided a breakdown of elephants into two categories for basic physical statistics. Keep in mind that the two "groups" are quite different genetically and the Asian elephant (as noted) is actually more closely related to the extinct mammoth than the African elephant.
Sri LankanElephas Maximus Maximus
MainlandElephas Maximus Indicus
SumatranElephas Maximus Sumatranus
Height
2-3.5 metres
2-3 metres
2-2.5 metres
Weight
3-5 tonnes
2.5-4.5 tonnes
2-4 tonnes
Colour
grey with large areas of depigmentation
lighter grey
very light grey
The Asian elephant, Elephas Maximus, has an enormous domed head with relatively small ears, an arched back and a single finger like protuberance that is located at the tip of the trunk. An Asian elephant has five toes on the front of the feet and and four on the back.
A large bull could typically weighs six tons and is ten feet high at the shoulder. As with gorillas, there is a large degree of sexual dimorphism between males and females in Asian Elephants where adult females are about half the size of the largest males.
The males have tusks and the females have 'tushes', which are shore second incisors that just stick out beyond the upper lip. However, it is important to note that on occasion females some times have longer tushes than described.
The gestation period is between nineteen and twenty-two months. Periodically, it is noted that male infants typically have a slightly longer term than females.
SavannahLoxodonta Africana Africana
ForestLoxodonta Africana Cyclotis
Height
3-4 metres
2-3 metres
Weight
4-7 tonnes
2-4 tonnes
Colour
grey
dark grey
The African elephant, Loxodonta Africana, have a straight back, enormous ears, and two trunk 'fingers'.
African elephants are named for the peculiar shaped ridges of their molar teeth; the ridges of an African elephant's teeth are coarser and fewer than those of the Asian elephant.
The African elephant has only four toes on the front feet and three on the back. Interestingly, it has one more vertebra in the lumbar section of the spine.
Both sexes have tusks, and they are also larger in size as compared to male and female Asian elephants.
The largest African elephant recorded weighed over nine tons and stood more than twelve feet high at the shoulder. As in Asian elephants, the female African elephant is generally half the size of a fully grown male.
Gestation period tends to be slightly longer than in the Asian elephant.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
A zoo christmas
Keepers said Yuri the tiger loves the new addition to his enclosureAnimals at Edinburgh Zoo have been brought some festive cheer after Christmas trees were put in their enclosures.The pine trees, which are not decorated, have been given to animals that would normally find them in their natural habitat.
Among the animals which have been given the special gift are the zoo's tigers and antelope.
Zoo staff said each species reacted to the Christmas trees in a different way.
Darren McGarry, animal collection manager at Edinburgh Zoo, said the animals had derived great enjoyment from the seasonal additions to their homes.
'Love the smell'
He said that carnivores like tigers Yuri and Sasha rip up the trees and mark them with their scent, while gentler species like the bongo, a form of antelope, simply pushed the greenery around their enclosures.
Mr McGarry added: "Our keepers provide behavioural and environmental enrichment for the animals in the zoo in many ways and different animals prefer different things.
"Some of our animals love the smell of pine trees and, depending on what animal it is, they will throw it around their enclosure and display various other natural behaviours."
He said they rarely had problems finding a supply of trees, with a DIY store in the city donating three trees for the tigers this year.
"Quite often local garden centres will bring in their trees once Christmas is over but we would be grateful if the public didn't try to do the same as we would have far too many," Mr McGarry said.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Welcome to Planet J
Welcome, this is my first post. I'm the creator. My name is Jonathan that's it. I get to put whatever the heck I want.You might think I'm an adult but I'm actually a kid. I made this blog to share information with the world.
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