Skip to main content

July 2021 Factfile - some news from the past month, animals and plants!

Hi Everyone,

July is over and August is here. This month we've divided the 'News' section into 'Good news' and 'Bad news'. This will hopefully make the post more structured and easier to navigate.

News

Good news:

Pandas classified as vulnerable

Giants pandas are now classified as vulnerable according to Chinese officials. They were originally classed as endangered, but now that numbers in the wild have gone over 1 800 they have been reclassified. This is due to hard conservation work in China and funds from volunteers all over the globe. However, they are still vulnerable so it is important that the good work continues.
For all those who have supported giant pandas through websites or those who work actively with them: keep up the good work!
  

First baby beaver born on Exmoor in 400 years

A baby beaver has been born on Exmoor, England, for the first time in 400 years! This is due to a plan to reintroduce the animals. The parents were brought to the enclosure in 2020. They now have an eight-week-old kit (baby beaver). The baby was caught on a camera trap, swimming with its mother. The beaver family has already had a very positive effect on their environment. Otters have been seen more regularly since the arrival of the adult beavers. The tree that the beavers felled are perfect resources for owls, woodpeckers and bats. The enclosure is now a diverse habitat for sparrow hawks, gray wagtails, herons, moorhens, kingfishers and much more wildlife. This is what happens, simply by reintroducing two beavers back into a habitat! 

UN plan to cut extinction rates by the factor of 10

The UN (United Nations) is drafting another Paris-style agreement. It will include eliminating plastic pollution, reducing pesticide use by two thirds, halving the rate of invasive species introduction, and many other goals. This sounds brilliant and if it works, it will be! However, with the world population growing rapidly, I personally don't quite know how it will work. It'll be quite hard to get us out of this mess. But it's possible. We just need the governments to stop fighting each other and start fighting climate change!

Bad news:

Unfortunately there is quite a bit of bad news this month. :(

The end of Old Faithful?

When geologists mapped Yellowstone Park in 1870, the geysers and springs were as close to endless as possible. Now, over 150 years later, 4 million people come to see Old Faithful, Yellowstone's most famous geyser, every single year. Old Faithful shoots tens of thousands of litres of boiling water roughly 17-times every day.
However, a recent study has shown that rising temperatures, reduced snowfall and increased rainfall could shut Old Faithful off for ever. This would affect an area of 22 million acres. That land would become victim to something that a natural park can't protect against; rising temperatures. And we all know what rising temperatures can and are doing to the world!

Amazon rainforest emitting CO2

Another tipping point has been reached. The amazon rainforest is now emitting more CO2 than it can absorb. This is because the rainforest is being burnt down, so it no longer contains enough trees and plants to keep up with the CO2 being released by the trees burning down. The amazon used to be one of our most efficient CO2 absorber. Now it is CO2 positive! This is another hope lost for us humans. This needs to stop! 

Floods in Germany

Catastrophic floods have destroyed villages and towns in Germany and parts of Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The floods have killed at least 58 people and many more are still missing, in Germany. All across the region, fire-fighters tried desperately to rescue people stranded on rooftops. Many of the roads heading towards the affected were covered in rubble from landslides and some were still flooded, making them impassable.

Lapland records the hottest weather since 1914

Kevo, a city in the north of Lapland, has recorded the hottest temperatures since 1914. The temperature reached 33.6°C on Sunday 4th of July. These high temperatures were due to a heatwave that has swept through most of Europe in the past month. The source of the heatwave was, you guessed it, climate change! Lapland wasn't the only place affected. In south-west England from the 16th to the 23rd, no rain fell and temperatures went over 30°C. The European heatwave was similar to one in USA at a similar time. Hundreds are thought to be dead due to high temperatures in the north-west of the US and southwestern Canada.

Animals and plant

Land: Elk

The elk, also known as the wapiti, belongs to the deer family. They live across North America and Central and South Asia.
They weigh 150 kg to 500 kg. Their shoulder height is 120 cm to 150 cm. However a male elk's antlers can reach up to 120 cm above his head, making him 270 cm tall!
Elks are grassing animals that mostly feed on grass. They live in herds of up to 400 individuals!
During the mating season, males will fight over the females, hence the massive antlers.

Air: Puffin

The puffin is a much loved creature that spends most of it's life at sea or on coastal islands. A puffin’s beak also changes colour! In winter, the beak is grey, but in spring it turns to it's signature orange! This is to attract potential mates. They are carnivorous and so live off small fish. They also flap their wings up to 400 times a minute and can fly at up to 88km per hour! They are not only fantastic flyers but also superb swimmers, able to dive 60m in search of food. They live around 20 years and usually stay with the same mating partner!
National Geographic has a great article of puffin facts which I have used to put this together and also have a great piece on if they are endangered and why.
"Although puffins are not classed as an endangered species, populations in some places are in decline. The main threats are overfishing, which can lead to a shortage of food for puffins, and pollution – particularly oil spills. Not only does the oil make these beautiful birds sick, it destroys their waterproof feathers, essential for their survival."

Water: Manta ray

Manta rays are gentle giants. They are the largest type of rays. They are known to be very curious and peaceful.

Manta rays are filter feeders. That means that they let the water flow in through their mouths. They then filter it for food and let the remaining water flow out again.
There are two types of manta rays: the reef manta ray and the giant oceanic manta ray. The reef manta ray is smaller, with a wingspan of 335cm. The giant oceanic manta ray is the biggest ray, with a wingspan of 883cm!
These incredible creatures are listed as vulnerable.

Plant: Kauri tree

Kauri trees are found in New Zealand. A fully grown tree has no lower branches. This stops vines from growing up it. It's flaking bark also protects the tree against vines. The fallen bark gathers around the bottom of the tree.
Kauri trees are massive.

90% of all kauri tree areas standing before 1000AD was destroyed by 1970! Today, there are only about 7 500 hectares of kauri trees left.
Kauri trees are incredible. The oldest Kauri tree is between 1 500 and 2 500 years old!

Eco tip

Turn your heaters down! By reducing the temperature by just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer (only when you have a thermostat), you could save 2000 pounds of carbon a year!

Book recommendation

We've just read an amazing book called 'Dairy of a young naturalist' by Dara McAnulty. It's an incredible book that describes the natural world through the eyes of an autistic teenager from Ireland. His descriptions are precise and stunning.


See you soon (next time will be the first amazon rainforest post)!

Click here for the next vote!


Sources:

Images:
Title image: This image is owned by a blog editor.
Panda: This image is owned by .M.Q Huang on pexels.com.
Beaver: This image, owned by Michael Levine-Clark (on flickr.com) is liscensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Old Faithful: This image, owned by Matthew Paulson (on flickr.com), is lisenced under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Elk: This image, owned by Oregon Department of Agriculture (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Puffin: This image, owned by Nigel Appleton (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Manta ray: This image, owned by NOAA's National Ocean Service (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Kauri tree: This image, owned by Jessica Cross (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

16.08.2020 Animal of the week: Elephant

Hello. On the 12th of August it was International Elephant Day, so we decided that this week's post should be about elephants. Elephants are the largest living land mammals. There are three types of elephant; the African bush elephant; the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. African elephants have larger ears, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears. Elephants use their trunks to breath, bring food and drink to their mouths and to grasp objects. Elephants' legs are like pillars. They carry the Elephant's massive weight. African bush elephants weigh 6000kg, Asian elephants weigh 4000kg and African forest elephants weigh 2700kg. Basically, they are very heavy.Elephants eat grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. Elephants can live up to 70 years old in the wild. They communicate by sight, touch and smell. Sadly, these wonderful mammals are in danger. African elephants are listed as vulne...

Climate change: what is it and what's the problem

Hello, I've noticed that we are always mentioning climate change. Not only us blog editors but also politicians, activists and so on. The words climate change are bounced around in the media and probably in your households, but do you actually know what it is or how it works? I know that for a long time, I didn't know what it really meant. I hope that this post changes that. What is climate change and how does it work? The words climate change describe a slow shift in the earth's temperature and changes in the weather patterns. Having a single warm winter does not instantly mean climate change. Climate change happens over a long period of time. If you look at a temperature graph over the years, it doesn't go up in one day and then stay the same for another hundred years. It curves up slowly but steadily. This is a average temperature graph from 1880 to just after 2000. You can see how the temperature gradually gets warmer....

30.08.2020 Animal of the week: Whale Shark

Hi! It is International Whale Shark Day today, so we thought, we would do this week's animal of the week about whale sharks. Are whale sharks, sharks or whales? Whale sharks are not whales and they aren't a mix of whale and shark. They are sharks. So, why are they called whale sharks if they aren't whales? Well, they are very big. Whale sharks normally grow to a length of 5.5-10 metres. However, the largest whale shark to be accurately measured was 18.8 metres long! That is about as long as a lorry or as high as a short oak tree. Basically, whale sharks are massive. Habitat and Diet Whale sharks prefer warmer waters. They live in all tropical seas. Every spring, they are known to migrate to the continental shelf of the central west coast of Australia. The whale shark is one of the three known filter-feeding shark species in the world. Like whales, they eat plankton.  Images: Image 1:  This image is o...

Heatwaves - what's so bad about them?

Hi everyone, Today we’re talking about heatwaves and what effects they have on us and the environment. Heatwaves are becoming ever more common, with 2023 breaking multiple world records. In China, 52.2°C were recorded at one point and the coastal waters near Florida, USA, were as warm as a hot tub. This is because of the combination of climate change and El Niño , both of which make the effects of the other worse. But we can’t push the blame onto El Niño. When analysed it became clear that without human made climate change the USA heat records would have been almost impossible. So what exactly are the effects of such high temperatures. A study in Europe found that the 2022 heatwave possibly caused over 70 000 heat related deaths. Although it is sometimes hard to tell whether or not someone died from the heat or from something else, after analysing the data the team found that their original estimate of 62 000 people (which is still a lot) was probably ...

Animals 46-50 in our '50 incredible animals' series

Hi everyone! Welcome to the final part in our '50 Incredible Animal series' where you can find out about animals 46-50. We started this series almost a year ago to celebrate our 50th post and it feels crazy to think that we are now nearing our 100th. To read all of the previous posts from this series, click here . Hope you enjoy it! 46. Spiny bush viper Spiny bush vipers, Atheris hispida, are a species of venomous snake native to Central and East Africa in tropical forests and shrubland. They are mostly solitary creatures but can climb trees, which is where they find the majority of their prey. Spiny bush vipers are carnivorous and feed on mammals, frogs and lizards, as well as birds. Independent from birth, Spiny bush vipers can have up to 12 'snakelets' at a time and are 15cm in length. Currently, there are no known threats to Spiny bush vipers, and they are categorized as Not Evaluated on the IUCN Red List. 47. Leafy sea dragon ...

An exciting initiative from Co-op and Sainsbury's...

Hi Everyone! Today I want to tell you about something I think is very exciting. If you want to recycle more plastic then this could be your chance! Co-op and Sainsbury's have both launched a new soft plastics recycling scheme where you bring your 'soft plastics' (things like crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and fruit and veg bags) into a designated area. For 'hard plastics' such as yoghurt pots, juice cartons and fruit and veg punnets, you can use either your local kerbside collection but not every area collects plastics in this way, including mine so we collect ours and bring it to the tip ourselves. To check if it's a soft plastic you can use the scrunch test- scrunch up the object and if it pings back then it is probably plastic. Then you need to clean it and bring it into one of the stores. Co-op even accepts plastics from other retailers! Co-op uses the plastic to make bin bags for use in the store which I think is a g...

How well do you know the Arctic and the Antarctic? - Quiz

Welcome back to Green World, As announced last week, we're starting our new monthly series: quizzes! This post contains the questions, you have to write down the answers and compare them with the solutions right at the bottom of this post.  Questions: True or False? The Arctic is not actually a land mass, it's a frozen ocean. How many people live in the Arctic circle? a) 500 000 b) 4 million c) 10 million True or False? Narwals don't actually have unicorn-like horns. That's just a legend. What percentage of the world's freshwater is frozen within the Arctic's ice? a) 10% b) 15% c) 20% True or False? The Arctic covers parts of 15 different countries. Scientists exploring Antarctica have measured winds of up to... a) 100 km/h b) 150km/h c) 200km/h True or False? The driest (natural) place on Earth is in Antarctica...

06.09.2020 Animal Of the Week: Seven-spotted Ladybird

Hello Everyone, Welcome to this week's animal of the week post. This time about the ladybird, and personally I can't wait to find out more about these creatures. Enjoy! Which ladybird we are investigating today? Today, I am telling you about the seven-spotted ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata), which is the most common ladybird in Europe. Other species include the Two Spot Ladybird and other uncommon ladybirds such as the 16 Spot and other peculiar types. Habitat The seven-spotted ladybird lives in a variety of habitats such as meadows, gardens and hedgerows. They can also be found on farmland, especially with crops such as alfalfa, clover and wheat and corn before it grows too tall. Diet The seven-spotted ladybird feeds on a range of aphid species. This is why they are often referred to as a gardener's best friend as they eat these creatures who can damage plants. They can also eat white flies and anything else that is soft-bo...

New IPCC Report 2022

Hi everyone, You've probably heard about the new IPCC report that was released earlier this year. In this post, we wanted to talk about what it is and how it could affect us. We haven't read the whole 3000+ page document, surprisingly, but people on the internet have so we have used information from reliable sources, including the IPCC website. What is the IPCC? IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is governments and scientists from all over the world work together to produce reports about the effects of climate change. When did that new report come out? 4th April 2022 What does the new report say and what does it mean for us? The report states that average annual global greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history between 2010 to 2019, but the rate of growth of emissions has since slowed. Emissions must peak by 2025 and then must fall drastically (43% by 2030) if we are to limit the d...

Maria Sibylla Merian

Hello, Today we wanted to tell you all about Maria Sibylla Merian. Maria was born in Germany on 2nd April, 1647. Like many young girls at that time, she loved to paint. Every day she would gather flowers from her garden and paint them. Sometimes, the flowers would have caterpillars on them and she would paint them changing, day by day, into butterflies. At that time, not much was known about insects, and people thought that butterflies magically sprouted from the mud. Maria knew from what she had seen while she was painting, that this was not true, but no-one believed her. As time went by, Maria became a great watercolour artist. She wrote about her discoveries, but scientists only took books written in Latin seriously, and Maria wrote hers in German. When Maria and her daughter were living in Amsterdam, Maria found display cases in museums filled with exotic insects collected from South America. Maria thought that if she could study the bu...