Ms Li Quan, founder of Save China’s Tigers today announced that a male South China tiger cub (Chinese:華南虎, Panthera tigris amoyensis) was born at Laohu Valley Reserve, Free State, South Africa at 23:30, November 23rd 2007.
It is truly a historic event, because it is the first time that a South China Tiger has been born outside of China. Only around 60 South China Tigers exist in captivity and less than 30 survive in the wild.
The male South China Tiger cub, is at this stage healthy and strong. He weighed 1.2 kg at birth (larger than normal), he is already quite vocal, especially at feeding time. He is the first cub born to the female tiger, Cathay and the male tiger, TigerWoods who are both undergoing rewilding training at the Laohu Valley Reserve in South Africa. He will undergo the same rewilding training.
Since 2003, 4 tigers have undergone rewilding training at Laohu Valley Reserve, 600 km from Johannesburg, the biggest city in South Africa. They have learnt to cope with the elements and to catch a variety of prey from wild guinea fowl and hares to blesbok. They have learnt the necessary hunting skills using stalking and camouflage techniques. To date they have successfully hunted more than 60 blesbok, proving that their natural instinct to hunt has been awakened.
Laohu Valley Reserve covers 330 square kilometers of land in both the Free State and Northern Cape Provinces. There are more than 10 species of endemic game on the reserve including blesbok, eland, springbok, black wildebeest, zebra, ostrich, gemsbok, as well as some small predators such as jackal, caracal and African wild cat.
China is also doing preparation work to establish a Pilot reserve for the eventual return of these rewilded tigers.
Laika (from Russian: Лайка, a breed of dog, literally: “Barker”) was a Russian space dog which became the first recorded living creature from Earth to enter orbit. At one time a stray wandering the streets of Moscow, she was selected from an animal shelter. Originally named Kudryavka (Russian: кудрявка), she was renamed Laika after her breed type. After undergoing training with two other dogs, she was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 and was launched into space on 3 November 1957.
Laika died a few hours after launch from stress and overheating, probably due to a malfunction in the thermal control system. The true cause of her death was not made public until decades after the flight. Although Laika could not survive the trip, the experiment proved that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness. It paved the way for human spaceflight and provided scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments.
For the 50th anniversary of the russian dog, Laika, Directors Niels Grabøl and Ulrik Crone dedicated their beautiful video for Danish DJ and producer Anders Trentemøller Moan to the Russian space dog. The song “Moan” by Trentemøller feat. Ane Trolle was a big hit in Denmark as well as a top 30 hit in the Belgium Singles Top 50 for 2007. Check the video:
Trentemøller and his live partner DJ. T.o.m. Bertelsen played more than 100 shows over the last 1 and a half years with their raving and energetic live sets mainly based on Trentemøller‘ s dancefloor singles. Trentemøller will play live in concert @ I Love Techno Festival 10.11.2007 in TBA, Belgium . In 2006, his debut album “The Last Resort“ on Poker Flat gathered a big haul in many many reader polls and scored the #1 album of the year in many magazines.
This year for the first time Trentemøller Live Band are performing tracks from the album „The Last Resort“ live on stage! The band members are: Henrik Vibskov on drums, Mikael Simpson (guitar/bass) and of course Trentemoller.
In 1925, Hemingway attended the festival of San Fermin in Pamplona and began a lifelong fascination with Spain and bullfighting. The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926, was inspired by that first trip to Pamplona. The title is taken from the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, Hemingway’s favourite book of the Old Testament. Hemingway’s book is also known with the title: Fiesta.
Bullfighting traces its roots to prehistoric bull worship and sacrifice. Tauromachy (tauromachia the “fighting of a bull)” is a name for the sacrifice ritual and also for the iconic central action of Mithras, the savior-god of Mithraism. It is also another term for bullfighting, or tauromachy as found in toreo, corrida de toros or tauromaquia.
The conventional Spanish bullfight is mainly descended from the original Andalusian style where the cape was of prime importance. The Basque-Navarre style was quite common in the early 19th century and painter Francisco de Goya left some famous etchings depicting such events.
The modern style of Spanish bullfighting is credited to Juan Belmonte (1892-1962) the greatest matador of all time who introduced a daring and revolutionary style, in which he stayed within a few inches of the bull throughout the fight. Although extremely dangerous (Belmonte himself was gored on many occasions), his style is still seen by most matadors as the ideal to be emulated.
Today, bullfighting remains similar to the way it was in 1726, when Francisco Romero, from Ronda, Spain, used the estoque, a sword, to kill the bull, and the muleta, a small cape used in the last stage of the fight. Spanish-style bullfighting is called corrida de toros (literally running of bulls) or fiesta brava (the ferocious festival). In traditional corrida, three toreros, or matadores, each fight two bulls, each of which is at least four years old and weighs 460-600 kg.
Each matador has six assistants — two picadores (”lancers”) mounted on horseback, three banderilleros (”flagmen”), and a mozo de espada (”sword page”). Collectively they comprise a cuadrilla (”entourage”).
The aesthetic of bullfighting is based on the interaction of the man and the bull.
“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honour.”
(Ernest Hemingway, Death in the afternoon)
The bullfight used to be a cruel demonstration of style, technique and courage by its participants. While there is usually no doubt about the outcome, the bull is not viewed as a sacrificial victim — it is instead seen by the audience as a worthy adversary, deserving of respect in its own right. Bulls learn fast and a bullfight may be viewed as a race against time for the matador, who must display his bullfighting skills before the animal learns what is going on and begins to thrust its horns at something other than the cape.
Nowadays Bullfighting is banned in many countries; people taking part in such activity would be liable for terms of imprisonment for animal cruelty. In Spain, national laws against cruelty to animals have abolished most archaic spectacles of animal cruelty, but specifically exempt bullfighting.
Bullfighting has been criticized by animal rights activists as a gratuitously cruel blood sport: The bull suffers severe stress or a slow, painful death. A number of animal rights or animal welfare activist groups undertake anti-bullfighting actions in Spain and other countries. In Spanish, opposition to bullfighting is referred to as antitaurina.
At the moment there is a big ANTITAURINO manifestation going on in Acho, Peru.
PERU ANTITAURINO is an activist group undertake anti-bullfighting actions in Peru. The Organisation is planning a Manifestación Nacional on Sunday 25 November, to ask for:
- the creation of a National Committe dedicates to the Animal Protection and the Reglamentación de la Ley N° 27265.
- the Modification of the Animal Rights Law of (Protección a los Animales) against the promotion of bullfighting.
* Conformación del Comité Nacional de Protección a los Animales y la Reglamentación de la Ley N° 27265.
* Modificación de la Ley de Protección a los Animales mediante el proyecto de Ley 00496-2006/CR, presentado en octubre del 2006 por el congresista José Urquizo Magia; que busca cambiar el artículo que exceptúa a las corridas de toros por habérsele considerado un espectáculo cultural según el INC, situación que ha cambiado, pues el 13 de abril del 2005 el TRIBUNAL CONSTITUCIONAL resolvió que éste no era un espectáculo cultural y que el Estado tenía “el deber de no promover tales espectáculos”. Esta resolución se ha convertido en un argumento inapelable para este proyecto, el cual se encuentra en espera para su próximo debate en el congreso.
Guillermo Habacuc Vargas paid local children to catch a dog on the street and then confined, starved and publicly displayed the dog as an “art” exhibit until the animal died of starvation. Guillermo Habacuc Vargas has been selected to represent Costa Rica in Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008.
Collaboration work of Kenichi Okada & Chris Woebken and MBA students from the Oxford Saïd Business-school, Animal Superpowers is an experimental series of toys as sensory enhancements for kids to experience animal superpowers rather than just an traditional play-object.
5 wearable devices allowing kids to feel how like an animal or experience special extra qualities how they perceive the environment.
Bird – sense of direction with a head mounted solenoid compass Ant – feeling like an ant seeing 50x through microscope antennas on your hands Giraffe – a child to adult concerter changing your voice & perspective Elephant – shoes picking up transmitting vibrations from fellows Electric Eel – enhanced spatial vision through head mounted Theremin
Rather than creating a series of toys and super-heros with weapons, those devices could possibly create empathy with animals, experiencing what they experience. Like tools for play with more layered interactivity and therefore providing an interface to communicate with other species.
chris(at)woebken.net I london +447726439435 I hamburg +491721555699 I skype: chriswoebken
Shifting flame have burned across more than 1,550 square kilometres, killing at least 12 people, destroying more than 2,000 homes and prompting the biggest evacuation from north of Los Angeles, through San Diego to the Mexican border. More than 60 people have been injured, many of them firefighters. 500,000 people forced to flee in California Largest Evacuation In History were expected to be back in their homes by the weekend.
San Diego County
Witch Fire – 197,990 acres
Harris Fire – 81,100 acres
Poomacha Fire – 35,000 acres
Rice Fire – 9,000 acres
Horno/Ammo Fire – 10,000 acres
Wilcox Fire – 100 acres
Cajon Fire – 250 acres
McCoy Fire – 300 acres
Coronado Hills Fire – 300 acres
San Bernardino County
Slide Fire – 11,366 acres
Grass Valley Fire – 1,100 acres
Martin Fire – 123 acres
Walker Fire – 160 acres
Orange County
Santiago Fire – 23,00 acres
Los Angeles County
Ranch Fire – 55,756 acres
Canyon Fire – 4,500 acres
Magic Fire – 2,824 acres
Buckweed Fire – 38,356 acres
Meadowridge Fire – 40 acres
Santa Barbara County
Sedgewick Fire – 710 acres
Riverside County
Rosa Fire – 411 acres
Roca Fire – 270 acres
Ventura County
Nightsky Fire – 35 acres
“The End” is a song by The Doors. It evolved through months of performances at Los Angeles’ Whisky a Go Go into a nearly 12-minute opus on their self-titled album. The band would perform the song to close their last set. Released in January 1967, “The End” was ranked 328 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004). The spoken-word section of the song includes the lines “Father/ Yes son?/ I want to kill you/ Mother, I want to…fuck you,” (with the last two words screamed (almost) unintelligibly). This is often considered a reference to Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, the tragedy of a single man who tries to outwit the Delphic Oracle inexorable slides toward ruin: “This is the end, Beautiful friend; This is the end, My only friend; The end of our elaborate plans; the end of everything that stands; The end; No safety or surprise; The end; I’ll never look into your eyes…again.”
1000 people dressed as gorillas went Ape through the streets of London for the day to help save the gorillas. All funds will go to the London-based charity the Gorilla Organisation which organized the marathon to run projects in central Africa. The Great Gorilla Run is an annual event: The next London run to be expected on Sunday, 21st September, 2008.
The Gorilla Organization is an international charity working to the world’s last remaining gorillas from extinction protect the survival of gorillas in their natural environment. In 2007, human interference into habitats is the largest threat to the mountain and eastern lowland gorillas of Central Africa. These precious forests are constantly under attack by unregulated logging, poaching, illegal agriculture, and the hunt for minerals for mobile phones.
The Gorilla Organization confronts these threats while addressing the needs of communities living close to the gorilla habitat. Working in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Congo, the Gorilla Organization provides funds for individuals to start a business, creates access to water for children and families, replants trees, and has started local resource centers that teach environmental education and sustainable agriculture practices.
PhotoCredit: david_cameron
King Kong is a landmark black-and-white 1933 Hollywood horror-adventure film about a gigantic prehistoric gorilla named “Kong”.
King Kong was influenced by the “Lost World” literary genre, in particular Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912) and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Land That Time Forgot (1918), which depicted remote and isolated jungles teeming with dinosaur life. Furthermore, in the early 20th century few zoos had monkey exhibits so there was popular demand to see them on film.
Denham: Let me through, officer, my name’s Denham…Lieutenant, I’m Carl Denham. Passerby: Denham? He’s the one that captured the monster! Police Lieutenant: Well, Denham, the airplanes got him. Denham: Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes.It was beauty killed the beast.
The Florida real estate developer, unburdened of state regulatory agencies, may now focus his efforts on pleasing the investment community and the local market. I recently played the role of real estate developer interviewing two consultant teams vying to help me create a new fictional community. Fortified with readings in both the New Urbanist camp […]
As a college educator I am tasked with preparing today’s students for their future careers. Implicit is that I should know more about the future than most people. I do not - at least not in the sense of specific predictions. But I can suggest some boundaries on the path forward. Let’s start with the three Laws of Future Employment. Law #1: People wil […]
From this, we pulled a detailed and structured definition of 'design futurescaping' – something I first talked about at LIFT09, in Geneva, back in 2009: […]
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