Mobile phones and vanishing bees

Are mobile phones wiping out our honey bees?

The days of seeing honey bees on just about every flower and coke can are long gone…. Think about when last you opened a can of coke or the likes of a peanut butter and jam sandwich and within seconds a bee was trying to find its way inside to the sweet sugary treat awaiting… How many of these simple occurrences have gone unnoticed by so many of us in our busy lives recently? Recent scientific research suggests that the plight of our little buzzing friends is no longer going unnoticed, it is very much a hotly debated topic…..

The effects of mobile phone radiation on human health has been a question in scientific and medical communities for some time now. To date there has been a lot of research into the effects, or possibly non effects, of mobile phone radiation on human tissue. However as a result of the increasing world wide usage of mobile phones throughout the world the effects of GSM (Global System for Mobile Telecommunications) radiation on invertebrates has led to further investigations particularly on the declining honey bee (Apis mellifera).

Honey bees are keystone pollinator species. The sharp declines in honey bee numbers has raised many questions about the source of the problem. One area of research includes whether mobile phones, namely cellular phone radiation, is contributing to this global crisis. Honey bees are suffering from a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, in which worker bees from a colony beehive abruptly disappear. Colony collapse is also economically significant because many agricultural crops worldwide are pollinated by bees.
The causes are not yet fully understood, although many authorities attribute the problem to biotic factors such as Varroa mites and insect diseases. The effects of GSM radiation is being widely investigated, but the data regarding the biological effects of radiation is as yet insufficient to draw any concrete conclusions. However there is some evidence to show that radiation does have an effect on flight navigation which could explain the disappearance of vast numbers of worker bees trying to navigate their way back to the hive.

We can’t ignore the environmental impacts that would result from a loss of vital pollinators such as honey bee’s, however who doesn’t have and use a mobile phone these days? I’m making sure I use mine indoors and no where near the garden or honey bees these days!

Reference
Effect of GSM Cellular fone radiation on the behaviour of honey bees (Apis mellifera), 2009. Science of Bee Culture. Vol 1 (2) pp22-27

Thai Tales

Thai Tales

When our two week holiday in Thailand in April this year came to an end I was definitely wishing for some monumental catastrophe to prevent our flight taking off, never in a million years would I ever have believed my ears when the lovely lady behind the counter in Bangkok airport told us that the volcanic ash cloud arising from the eruption in Iceland meant we were “stranded” in Thailand until further notice!! I had to physically restrain myself from jumping up and down for joy for there were many, not so happy faces around us! In fact the majority of the airport was filled with angry, impatient, yelling tourists, so we did what any logical forward thinking travellers would do…. we legged it. Rushing out of the airport as fast as we could, we caught a taxi into town and checked into the cheapest room we could find, before anyone could say UK airspace was open again. Dumping our bags on the tatty bed we headed out into the evocative chaos of Bangkok and tucked into a huge freshly cooked plate of pad thai….. ahhh the joys!
And Bangkok was where we stayed as day after day news headlines flashed across our screens showing the extent of the ash cloud, it soon became quite apparent that we were not going to get back to the UK or work anytime soon and there was simply nothing, anyone could do about it! How extraordinary! So yet again we conjured up a plan to make the best of this unplanned extra time in this most amazing place and caught the overnight train to Chiang Mai, “Place of the elephants”, in the north on what was fast becoming one hell of an unplanned adventure. The north was everything it promised to be and more, beautiful sunsets over lush green paddy fields, waterfalls and of course incredible food. However the one thing we craved was the border; if we could just manage a few days in Myanmar that would be the icing on the cake, or rather the chilli on the pad thai. Myanmar, once upon a time known to the world as Burma, was only a short bus trip away, and we desperately wanted to skip across and visit that most beguiling of countries so plagued by political torments but so wonderfully rich in culture and natural wonders.
However the country’s isolation and repressive junta has, by some miracle of irony contributed to the preservation of much of its environment and ecosystems as well as some of the worlds most endangered species such as tigers, leopards, rhinoceros, forest elephants, gibbons, as well as an abundance of bird species. The thought of exploring this forgotten landscape was almost too much to bare, but before we could rustle up the necessary paperwork Eyjafjallajökull started to get over its hissy-fit and the ash cloud began to dissipate. Bangkok, Mumbai and a forty hour journey back to Cornwall was calling so sadly we never did make it across the border into Myanmar. My appetite to visit that enticing land has only grown and so it was with a mixture of great relief and joy when I read that the Government of Myanmar have announced that 2.500 miles of the Hukaung Valley will be declared a wildlife reserve to protect tigers and inevitably all the other wildlife that inhabit the forests with them, now I just need to find a way and the time to get there…

Bush Diary 11/07/08

In the summer of 2008 I had the brilliant opportunity of going back home to South Africa to research dwarf mongoose (Helogale parvula) in the Phuza Moya Game Reserve assisting Dr Lynda Sharpe with her behavioural study of them in the wild. Below is an extract from my bush diary that I kept during my time spent at Mongoose Manor as we called it. Enjoy :)

"When I first found out I’d be going to Africa to research mongoose I started worrying about what to pack! Its winter in South Africa therefore I'll need warm clothes, socks, thermals, warm hat, gloves and what ever other home comforts I could force into my bag. But in fact nothing I packed, useful or not could prepare me for what I was to experience. It’s the height of the dry season in South Africa, the landscape is dry, the tree’s are bare, the red earth is scorched and worst of all most of the animals are emaciated, painfully thin and approaching starvation. The grazers have no food, the browsers even less, the giraffe are lucky enough to reach the tree tops where a few green leaves still remain. The game lodge are providing sustenance food for most of the animals such as hay and lucerne but most die before finding these feeding stations or get shot before they starve to death.
My first day started at 33 degrees celcius, tracking mongoose through the bush which is like searching for a needle in a haystack. They weigh no more than 250g each and live in termite mounds. The reserve is 6000 hectares of thick arid bush, most of which have dangerous thorns, which I’ve managed to get myself tangled in more than once.
On my second day I was given a can of pepper spray? ‘‘This is for when you meet any poachers or a leopard!’’ Okay so when I’m confronted by a group of poachers armed with AK47’s I'll aim and fire my pepper spray shall I? That should protect me!
My third day and I’m left alone to fend for myself in the bush. So I find a nice rock to perch on, it's a cloudy today and the mongoose have decided to stay in bed so I’m well prepared with a set of binoculars, which make you go cross-eyed because they’ve been dropped previously, to spot any mongoose which decide to brave the cool wind outside their termite mound, and I’ve been given a radio in case of an emergency. If you see a rhino and it charges you, radio through on channel four and someone will answer your pleas for help but climb the nearest tree fast! Okay roger that.
So I’m sat on my rock being the ever observant student and watching my mongoose specimens closely when I hear a sudden grunting noise behind me. Instead of obeying the bush rules of ‘remain calm and never run’ I jump up with fright and spin around to see two warthogs looking at me before turning and darting off in fright themselves at this hysterical human being wearing a funny hat in their garden!
Not long had I recovered from that when I heard a gun shot in the distance! Okay I’m armed with pepper spray, a radio and a climbable tree nearby. Which to use first?
But before my brain can register these thoughts and complete a sentence another two shots are fired! So I turn to technology instead and text Lynda telling her I’m in the middle of a crossfire! Her response was ‘‘I think its ok. If they are very close, call steve on channel 2 and tell him your at Bugbears and don’t want to be shot!’’
Met the manager of the reserve today and while he’s jabbering in his typical South African accent, using a mixture of Afrikaans and English ‘vrek’ ‘oke’ ‘ag man’, his ranger pulls up and gets out of the car with a rifle slung over his shoulder and blood dripping down his leg and in Afrikaans saiz ‘I shot myself by accident’ and walks off.

The Toyota ‘bakkie’ pick up truck has more dents than an armoured vehicle, jumps a kilometre when it starts and crackles while you drive. I’m due to drive it in the next few days!

Yesterday Lynda and I took the dogs for a walk around the reserve, and on the way back were walking through the river bed when I heard loud grunting noises ‘‘Hippos just there, was what she said’’
But the still quiet peaceful evenings are what I crave. The brightest night sky, cool breeze, the hippos chatter, a night jar calling off in the distance, the shrill sound of a hyaena calling, all the sounds of the African bushveld.
The second day I got here the bore hole pump broke. The old madala (man) who came to tell us said he didn’t know when it would be fixed, we could run out of water any time. So for now its no showers, flush the toilet only when absolutely necessary and drink water from jerry cans filled up in the town of Hoedspruit. As the weeks have progressed the bush is only getting ever drier and I’ve decided I'm cracking up! To my surprise there is a TV in our bush dwelling but not having one would have been decidedly easier but definitely less entertaining! It only has 3 channels, all of which are fuzzy unless you move around the house to a certain corner, stand on one leg, put your nose against the wall, and your foot up on the ceiling, then in this extremely comfortable postion you can enjoy a clear picture on the TV and be mesmerised by Isidingo or 7de Laan, A mixture of Afrikaans & Tswana program’s with English subtitles! The plot and cast have not changed in 10 years, riveting stuff! So when you don’t feel like watching the fuzz on the box then there are videos. Oh yes, millions and millions of VHR video cassettes! But don’t be fooled! The video machine doesn’t work…. Or at least it does but stops every five minutes to tell you to clean the heads… and then you have to pick the machine up and shake it violently upside down to get the video out!

We visit the mongoose everday or try to at least. As I wander through the thick thornscrub yelping every five minutes because I've got a ‘hak en steek’ thornbush wrapped around my leg, amongst the array of bird calls, wildebees snorts, fish eagles calling, breaking branches and crackling dry grass, Dr Lynda Sharpe’s ears prick up and as she glides silently through the bush, she suddenly saiz ‘I heard a mongoose!’ And then she says ‘there they are’ So I start scanning around, looking low, listening intently, can't see anything, so we walk for a another 500 metres through thick thorny bush and trees and there perched on top of a termite mound off in the distance is a mongoose sat on a termite mound! I only spotted him because I was looking at it through binoculars! So we get to the group and before me are 26 little brown bodies scratching here, zipping in and out of termite mound air chambers, running up branches, and all the while making tiny peep noises which Lynda heard 3km away!
And she knows every individual by name, number, sex and status. That’s Kodiak, Female 3 years old, she’s the dominant female. And that was only looking at her little pink nose stuck out of a great big termite mound. Oh boy! I have my work cut out for me! There are 4 habituated groups in total which we visit everyday and not only am I expected to locate them in their range using a GPS, or perhaps by my failing hearing and eyesight and woman’s intuition, but also learn to identify each one of the 70 individually, so that I’m able to collect data efficiently. So the first day she bravely sent me off on my own with the vehicle to track and find my very own mongoose group, before I’d even left the spot we’d parked in…. the steering of the bakkie locked! Ok not a problem.. surely you just turn the key and it unlocks? After a frustrated half hour of nearly breaking the key off in the ignition, headbutting the steeringwheel in fury and breaking my toe from kicking a landrover wheel I radio Lynda. And she saiz ‘oh yes I forgot to tell you when that happens, you have to turn the steering wheel with your knee, press the button on the dashboard with your left hand and turn the key with your right hand, all simultaneously otherwise it will never unlock.' Sorry run that by me again!!!

The binoculars in this setup are another whole story all together! There are three pairs in total. So you’d imagine at least one of them to be in proper working order! No, no that’s definitely asking too much. My pair make you see double and go cross eyed unless you only use one eye! Lynda’s pair have the eye pieces glued on in the most precarious way! I looked through them once while standing on a rock and when my eyes finally adjusted and I took them away I lost my balance and promptly landed in a heap on the ground! Then there is the final pair. How does anyone describe such a specimen? They are definitely an antique. I mean they’re metal for a start. And they’re made for another kind of mammal, but definitely not a human being. Either the eye pieces are too far apart or my eyes are too close together! The next volunteer to arrive will be the lucky owner of these masterpiece bino’s. Lynda & I had to laugh and say that perhaps he’ll be a herbivore with eyes on the side of his head to see out of these babies. In fact when the other volunteer first arrived, we were all sat around the dinner table in a very civilised fashion and I blurt out ‘would you like a shower?’ Totally out of context with the whole situation! Horrified he said ‘oh I'm sorry do I smell?’ And Lynda pipes up ‘A fumigation perhaps!!!!’ Well that was it. I was off in a fit of hysterics. Could not stop laughing!
Our after dinner delight was spent sipping hot chocolate under a full moon watching a hippo root around the veg patch. What more could I ask for? I’m living my dream."

Bats, Birds and Sunbathing Seals

Hi Everyone

So sorry for not blogging for a while! So much been happening, lots of exciting news and some sad news!

Not that I like starting on a sad note but last week we found a little Pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) trying to get out of a sink in the laboratory at Duchy College Rosewarne, thank goodness Matt found him and we tried to release him but unfortunately he didn’t make it, the poor little guy. We contacted Bat Conservation UK who came to collect him and said that he was an adult male and perhaps had just died of old age, so nature took its rightful course in the end. Still it was a sad event.

On a happier note the Tag-a-Turtle project (see last blog) is doing really well! Nic & I had our first fundraising event at Sainsbury’s supermarket in Newquay today, raising loads of money and awareness for the project, our sponsored cage shark dive and of course the Marine Conservation Society. It was a really brilliant and successful day, thanks to everyone who stopped by and for all the support from everyone!

Also on the news front, I have been volunteering for the RSPB –Royal Society for the Protection of Birds since the beginning of May, assisting one of the Conservation Officers at the Marazion office near Penzance in Cornwall. I have also been asked to survey a colony of kittiwakes in Newquay, noting their courtship and nesting activities. I’m happy to report that they now have chicks and appear to be doing well, although there have been some issues with disturbance which may be affecting their breeding success, which is why monitoring them is important. On my last visit to photograph them a seal named Dr Who (kindly identified by the Cornwall Seal Group ) had hauled himself onto a rock in the sunshine and was happily advertsing his handsomeness for all to view.

Im sure you’ll agree he is a very handsome creature indeed!

Till next time....
Regards
Nic

Going green

Going Green….

Everyone is talking about going green! Saving the planet, saving endangered species and living greener healthier more sustainable lives. I recently completed my open water dive qualification in Thailand (http://www.godiveblog.com/2010/05/congratulations-for-new-diver-nicole.html) and was incredibly lucky to see a wild Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) turtle on my very first open water dive! I was so inspired by the beautiful creature I decided to start a fundraising project called Tag a Turtle. Together with Blue Reef Aquarium (http://www.bluereefaquarium.co.uk/), The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) (http://www.mcsuk.org/ ), Dr Brendan Godley from Exeter University (http://www.exeter.ac.uk/ )and Atlantic Diver (http://www.atlanticdiver.co.uk/ ) in Newquay myself and fellow BSc graduate and friend Nicola Morris are aiming to raise £3000 to purchase a satellite tag to tag the next injured turtle that is rehabilitated by Blue Reef in order to track its progress once it has been released. This post-release monitoring has not been done by Blue Reef Aquarium before and they are receiving more and more washed up and injured turtles each year. The rehabilitated turtle will be flown out to Gran Canaria for acclimatitazion before being tagged and released off the Canary Islands. Check out www.seaturtle.org/tracking to see other projects that have tracked juvenile loggerhead turtles released from the Canary Islands. One of the most exciting fundraising adventures in store is a sponsored cage shark dive off the Cornish coast in September this year, more details on how to sponsor and get involved will be here soon! Check out these amazing photos taken by our Thai friend It-ngam Nareekarn of a Hawksbill Turtle in the Andaman Sea. Enjoy!
Regards Nic

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my Blog!

For those of you that know me you’ll know that I’m impossibly passionate about wildlife! Most little girls dream of becoming ballet dancers, movie stars or one day owning their very own fairytale castle.

I dreamt of being outside, living in a small wooden hut somewhere in the wildest parts of the world! I dreamt of being a Zoologist!

Of course at that time I didn’t know what a zoologist was, did or if they even existed, all I knew was that I craved the outdoors and I wanted to work and live with wildlife!

Growing up in the suburbs of post apartheid South Africa I happily spent many hours consumed by Jane Goodall’s books of her time spent with Chimpanzees.

Encouraged by my father who constantly surprised us with weird and wonderful animals he’d found stranded on highways my fascination with the natural world grew and deepened. My mother had an impossible task of keeping our small household zoo of chameleons, ducklings, day old chickens, snakes, spiders and an array of other creepy crawly escapees in confinement and out of the living and bedrooms in our house!

I currently live in the beautiful county of Cornwall in the UK and have just completed my BSc (Hons) degree in Applied Zoology and am starting to make my childhood dreams happen.

I often get asked what a zoologist does, so here I am aiming to keep a weekly diary of what I’ve been getting up to and what I’ve been doing along the way. Enjoy!