Category: Uncategorized

By Dr. Nanditha Krishna

The Gadhimai animal sacrifice is a deeply disturbing event, and this account contains disturbing descriptions of suffering animals and horrible surroundings.  The courageous actions and presence of the many people who went there to protest the sacrifice, as well as the efforts of the Supreme Court of India and Indian government agencies, were not able to stop the sacrifice, but have resulted in saving the lives of thousands of animals, and in laying the groundwork for hopefully preventing the next Gadhimai event from taking place. — The Editor

It is a hot dusty road to the temple of goddess Gadhimai in Bara district of Nepal. We slowly leave behind the few semblances of civilization as we crawl along a dirt track to an area of soul-wrenching poverty. Muzaffarpur in Bihar is the last civilized outpost as we drive from Patna to Roxhaul in India, across the…

This picture, like the others in this blog post, is by German artist Heinrich Harder (1858-1935). It depicts Moeritherium, one of the earliest species, ancestral to present day elephants.

This picture shows Palaeomastodon, which lived later than Moeritherium: about 36 million years ago.

Still later came Deinotherium, looking more like present day elephants; though its tusks pointed downwards.

Before elephant evolution led to the woolly mammoths of about 100,000 years ago, ancestors of these mammoths lived in Africa. Recently, Dutch paleontologist Dick Molfound such a fossil ancestor, 3-4 million years old, in Etosha national park in Namibia. Later, Mr Mol says, mammoths left Africa for Eurasia; and humans went along with them.

Yesterday, in Amsterdam, the exhibition Giants of the Ice Age, on mammoths and similar animals, started.

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Turquoise Jay, Ecuador

While birding in the Tandayapa Cloud Forest in Ecuador, we were greeted by many beauties.  Here are a few we embraced while meandering along the dirt road and jungle paths.

Photo credit:  Athena Alexander

Blue-winged Mountain Tanager, Ecuador

Wild Heliconia, Ecuador

Butterfly, Ecuador

Plate-billed Mountain Toucan, Ecuador

Toucan Barbet, Ecuador