Monday, 1 February 2010
Chinese lanterns released into the air at outdoor events such as weddings are killing livestock, farmers say.
The paper lanterns with candles inside can float for several miles before crashing to the ground. They can cause injury or death if eaten by animals.
The National Farmers' Union has written to the government. Coastguards say they are often mistaken for distress flares.
UK-based maker Sky Lanterns says it is introducing safer lanterns and wants models using metal wire banned.
Farmers from across the country have contacted the BBC, complaining the lanterns are causing a serious problem.
The lanterns have long been used in ceremonies in Asia, where releasing them is thought to bring good luck and prosperity.
Pat Stanley, who breeds pedigree cattle near Coalville, Leicestershire, told BBC Radio 4's Farming Today she had found lanterns in her fields.
She said: "They may be very pretty, but they're incredibly dangerous and I would like to see them banned.
"They're made of a hoop of bamboo, which in itself is a very sharp piece of wood when it's broken, and then there's a crosspiece of wire.
"If we silage-make in any of these fields, this is all going to be chopped to pieces if we don't see it and find it. That's going to go into my silage clamp and next year I'm going to have dead cows."
She added: "If you went fly-tipping rubbish in the countryside and somebody caught you doing it, you could be prosecuted. People can launch this rubbish into the air, it can cause tremendous damage and nobody knows where it's come from."
Hugh Rowlands, who farms near Chester, told Farming Today: "I found a pedigree Red Poll cow on her side in the field. She was struggling for breath and her neck had swollen up considerably and she actually died almost exactly 48 hours after we found her.
"I found the remains of a Chinese lantern within a few yards of where the cow had been lying... and it had been well-chewed.
"Consulting the vet, his opinion was she had actually eaten part of the lantern and the fine wire inside it had punctured her oesophagus. So she'd in effect spent a long, painful 48 hours suffocating on her own feed."
Ruth Pidsley, a farmer from the Wirral, said she had woken up one morning to find 57 Chinese lanterns dotted around her farm.
She said: "We have had a couple of cattle that have had some sort of eating problem, but we do just wonder whether it is due to the fact there have been little bits of wire in the silage."
'Fire hazard'
The NFU is encouraging farmers who experience problems with lanterns to write to venues near their farms pointing out the dangers and urging them not to use them.
Spokesman Mike Thomas said: "If swallowed, the wire could puncture the stomach lining and cause extreme discomfort and in some cases could prove fatal.
"There's also a good chance that the wire part of the frame could get wrapped around an animal's foot and become embedded in the skin which would be terribly painful."
The NFU is also concerned lit lanterns could set fire to fields of standing crops or straw, or to barns or thatched properties.
Coastguards have reported several cases of false alarms after lanterns were mistaken for red flares sent up by boats in distress.
Jeff Matthews, a search and rescue operations manager from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, urged people living near the coast to notify coastguards if they were planning to let off the Chinese lanterns.
He told BBC News: "They're often mistaken for marine distress flares and every marine distress flare that we are notified about, we have to investigate thoroughly to make sure that there's nobody in distress or injured or needing assistance."
A spokesman for Essex-based Sky Lanterns said: "We're working on a new Sky Lantern, which will be coming in in the next month or so, with no wire.
"It has been a big issue - but if a problem comes up we like to look at it and work with people to see how we can resolve it."
He said other products on the market would continue to use wire, adding: "We would like a ban on the metal ones."
The company's website urges anyone planning to use the lanterns near the coast to notify coastguards and warns against releasing them near dry crops.
Sky Lanterns says its products are 100% biodegradable.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8490524.stm
(Submitted by Tim Chapman)
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Monday, 1 February 2010
The incredible journey: How Baltic the mongrel drifted 20 miles out to sea on river ice and survived
By Matthew TaylorLast updated at 8:32 AM on 28th January 2010
A dog was rescued from an iceberg floating 18 miles from land in the Baltic Sea.
Sailors plucked the animal to safety after it got trapped on ice on Poland's Vistula river and drifted for more than 70 miles.
Rescuer Adam Buczynski said: 'He didn't even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes.'
It’s thought Baltic’s problems began when he got trapped on ice on the Vistula River near Torun on Friday.
A day later he was spotted in Grudziadz, 40 miles upstream, where fireman tried to reach the German shepherd-type mongrel.
But thick ice made it too risky to launch a rescue craft despite Baltic floating just a few yards from the river bank.
Another bid to save the stranded mutt was made at Kwidzyn, 22 miles further on towards Poland’s coast.
After sightings dried up it was assumed the dog had perished.
But incredibly Baltic had travelled a further 50 miles to the river mouth before heading out to the ocean where finally his luck turned when scientists on a research boat spotted something odd moving amid the broken ice.
Natalia Drgas, of the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, said: 'One of the sailors thought they had seen another seal but then he noticed it had legs, ears and a tail.'
However the men onboard the Baltica soon found saving the stranded dog was by no means plain sailing.
First they tried to catch the dog in a net on a pole but when that failed they had to drop a pontoon with crewmen.
Seaman Adam Buczynski said: 'We tried to sail as close as possible but as we approached the boat pushed the ice and the dog was sliding off.
'The dog didn’t even yelp but you could see the fear in his eyes.'
With darkness falling and time running out Baltic was finally hauled on board in sub zero temperatures late on Monday.
Captain Jan Jachim said if his ship had passed that way a few moments later the dog would never have been spotted amid the gloom.
He said: 'We were just at the right place at the right time.'
And he added that few boats chart those waters at that time of year.
'Baltic was drifting with the current further and further out to the open sea. He would have gone further if we hadn’t seen him.'
But Captain Jachim may not have seen the last of the Baltic, the salty seadog. If no-one claims him, the lucky hound will be adopted as the ship's mascot.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1246539/Baltic-mongrel-lucky-escape-drifting-20-miles-sea-ice-floes.html#ixzz0eHLKQ3yo
(Submitted by Sally Tully-Figueroa)
Rotting fish yield fossil clues
Sunday, 31 January 2010
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
By watching fish as they rot, scientists have discovered "patterns" that could help interpret some of the oldest and most important fossils.
The "very smelly" study revealed how primitive marine creatures changed as they decayed.
The researchers identified particular patterns of deterioration that should help scientists more accurately identify very early marine fossils.
They published their findings in the journal Nature.
Dr Rob Sansom from the University of Leicester, UK, who led the study, said that examining fossils was very similar to forensic analysis - putting together a scientific reconstruction of something that happened in the past.
"Unlike forensics, however, we are dealing with life from millions of years ago," he said.
"What we want to get at is what an animal was like before it died and, as with forensic analysis, knowing how the decomposition that took place after death altered the body provides important clues to its original anatomy."
This applies particularly to animals preserved as soft tissue remains, which is all that is left of some of the earliest creatures in the fossil record - marine creatures that lived up to 500 million years ago.
These earliest known chordates had no skeleton, but, in some exceptional conditions, their soft bodies were fossilised and preserved.
What the researchers wanted to find out was exactly how these animals' forms might have changed after they died and before they were fossilised.
Smelly study
Dr Mark Purnell, who was also involved in the study, explained that this involved "some very unpleasant experiments".
He and his colleagues studied some primitive marine vertebrates, including lampreys. They also examined some close relatives of vertebrates.
They placed the dead creatures in clear containers and watched how each of the specimens changed as it rotted.
The team discovered that many defining characteristics - some of which biologists use to identify fossils - were fundamentally altered by decay.
Features including the patterns and shapes in the animals muscles changed dramatically as they decomposed.
The scientists traced these changes and described patterns that they hoped scientists would use to better interpret some of the most ancient marine fossils.
"We need to understand how they decayed if we're going to put them in the right place in the tree of life," said Dr Purnell.
He concluded: "The work doesn't appeal to everyone, but it's worth the effort."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8488179.stm
(Submitted by Lindsay Selby)
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
By watching fish as they rot, scientists have discovered "patterns" that could help interpret some of the oldest and most important fossils.
The "very smelly" study revealed how primitive marine creatures changed as they decayed.
The researchers identified particular patterns of deterioration that should help scientists more accurately identify very early marine fossils.
They published their findings in the journal Nature.
Dr Rob Sansom from the University of Leicester, UK, who led the study, said that examining fossils was very similar to forensic analysis - putting together a scientific reconstruction of something that happened in the past.
"Unlike forensics, however, we are dealing with life from millions of years ago," he said.
"What we want to get at is what an animal was like before it died and, as with forensic analysis, knowing how the decomposition that took place after death altered the body provides important clues to its original anatomy."
This applies particularly to animals preserved as soft tissue remains, which is all that is left of some of the earliest creatures in the fossil record - marine creatures that lived up to 500 million years ago.
These earliest known chordates had no skeleton, but, in some exceptional conditions, their soft bodies were fossilised and preserved.
What the researchers wanted to find out was exactly how these animals' forms might have changed after they died and before they were fossilised.
Smelly study
Dr Mark Purnell, who was also involved in the study, explained that this involved "some very unpleasant experiments".
He and his colleagues studied some primitive marine vertebrates, including lampreys. They also examined some close relatives of vertebrates.
They placed the dead creatures in clear containers and watched how each of the specimens changed as it rotted.
The team discovered that many defining characteristics - some of which biologists use to identify fossils - were fundamentally altered by decay.
Features including the patterns and shapes in the animals muscles changed dramatically as they decomposed.
The scientists traced these changes and described patterns that they hoped scientists would use to better interpret some of the most ancient marine fossils.
"We need to understand how they decayed if we're going to put them in the right place in the tree of life," said Dr Purnell.
He concluded: "The work doesn't appeal to everyone, but it's worth the effort."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8488179.stm
(Submitted by Lindsay Selby)
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