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Tue, Sep 7, 2010
The war between leopards and the people of Mumbai has been steadily escalating for a decade. To date, the leopards have killed 50 Mumbaians, and the Mumbaians have killed 250 leopards. The leopards are being lured into the city chasing slum dogs. The number of strays has doubled in the last decade. There may be as many as half a million dogs now living in Mumbai's slums. As a result Mumbai has half of the human rabies on earth. The dog population is rocketing because they've gained unfettered access to the city's garbage heaps. There's plenty to go round - over 500 tonnes of garbage is dumped on the heaps each day. But it wasn't always like this. Ten years ago the dogs couldn't get on to the dumps. They were occupied by a rival scavenger - the vulture. But ten years ago there were 85 million vultures in India. Today the vultures are nowhere to be seen. 99% of India's vultures have vanished. "In a single decade they've undergone the most rapid population collapse of any animal in recorded history." Richard Cuthbert, RSPB. What has caused this catastrophe and wiped out the garbage-men of the natural world in India?
Tue, Sep 21, 2010
2008. More than two hundred crocodile carcasses are found in Kruger National Park, South Africa. The crocodile has existed for 200 million years. It survived the extinction of the dinosaurs... so what is decimating one of Africa's toughest animals today? Necropsies reveal the crocodiles have pansteatitis or 'orange fat disease' which turns their tails to rubber. Unable to move, they die a slow, painful death. Experts know how the crocs are dying but not why? Orange fat disease is usually caused by eating rancid fish but no die-offs are detected in the gorge. Could flooding from a controversial damn structure have reduced the space on the river banks where crocodiles sunbathe to regulate their body temperature? While crocodiles rarely succumb to disease, they are particularly susceptible to stress which affects their resistance to disease... is it possible that the crocs are dying from thermal stress?
Tue, Sep 28, 2010
A horrific series of mutilated seal corpses are washed up on a remote Atlantic island, disfigured in a way never seen before, their hides torn off in a spiral. It takes ten years of investigation for experts to uncover the 'corkscrew killer'. When all potential culprits have been ruled out, the only possibility remaining is the Greenland shark but everything we know about it rules it out as a suspect. Partially blind, this twenty foot monster stays deep and is known as a sluggish, bottom dwelling scavenger - so slow-moving in fact, it's called the "sleeper shark". But as the sea ice begins to form and the seal mutilations increase, biologists are forced to re-examine their opinions about this mysterious creature and what they discover changes science forever... the Greenland shark, contrary to all existing evidence, is a stealth predator.