A western Indian state has declared war on animal poaching, allowing forest guards to shoot hunters on sight to curb attacks on tigers, elephants and other wildlife.
The government in Maharashtra says injuring or killing suspected poachers will no longer be considered a crime.
Forest guards should not be “booked for human rights violations when they have taken action against poachers”, the Maharashtra forest minister, Patangrao Kadam, said on Tuesday. The state will also send more rangers and jeeps into forests, and will offer secret payments to informers who give tips about poachers and animal smugglers, he said.
India has about half of the world’s estimated 3,200 tigers in dozens of wildlife reserves set up since the 1970s. But illegal poaching remains a serious threat, with tiger parts sought in traditional Chinese medicine fetching high prices on the black market.
According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, 14 tigers have been killed by poachers in India so far this year – one more than for all of 2011. The tiger is considered endangered, with its habitat range shrinking more than 50% in the last quarter-century and its numbers declining rapidly from the 5,000-7,000 estimated in the 1990s, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Eight of this year’s tiger poaching deaths in India occurred in Maharashtra, including one whose body was found last week chopped into pieces with its head and paws missing in Tadoba tiger reserve. Forest officials have also found traps in the reserve, where about 40 tigers live.
Want to learn more about science in an unconventional way? Starting today, the WSF is in town (by town I mean all over NYC) and the events look incredible. For you neuroscience folk, there are plenty of scientific sessions on resilience, neurodevelopmental disorders and more. However, the festival covers pretty much all branches of science and exhibits and art installations are spread throughout the city. There are even talks that are going to be given by Nobel laureates! Tickets are limited so think fast.
For more information visit: worldsciencefestival.com
Philly Cops
I really can’t believe the cops in this town. I reported a disturbance 10 minutes ago, then had to call back right away because my neighbors threatened me. The cops still aren’t here. Glad I’m not dead yet.
Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
From Bilder-atlas zur Wissenschaftlich-populären Naturgeschichte der Vögel ( Atlas, or Volume of plates to Scientific and popular natural history of birds), by Leopold Joseph Fitzinger, Vienna, 1864.
(Source: archive.org)
![zoo-logic:
New research has shown that Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) experience a feeling akin to frustration when they are not given a reward they are expecting to receive - a response previously only observed in mammals and birds. Debates over the ethics of fishing often throw up questions of whether fish are ‘conscious’ and have an awareness of pain, which has fuelled a fair amount of research in the area. Fish have been shown to be capable of responding to classical conditioning and to have long-term memories; however, we are still unsure to what extent their cognitive abilities are linked to conscious moods and emotions. This concept was studied in the salmon using a model commonly used in mammalian research called omission of expected reward (OER). In these experiments, animals are conditioned to associate a certain stimulus with a positive reward, such as food, and are then subjected to the stimulus without receiving the reward to record how they react. In mammals, OER has consistently been shown to cause animals to become stressed and aggressive.Six groups, each consisting of 200 fish, were conditioned to associate a flashing light with feeding over a period of 22 days. By the end of this period, the fish showed attraction to the light due to association with the food reward, as opposed to their initial reaction of avoiding it. Three of the groups were then subjected to OER for 9 days - the fish were fed three times a day, and at two of these mealtimes, the expected food reward was delayed by 30 minutes. The other three groups carried on as normal, acting as controls.When the groups were compared, OER groups showed higher aggression and greater hierarchy, causing some individuals to grow more quickly at the expense of others - interestingly, even during the one meal a day when the reward was provided immediately, aggression levels remained high. Stress levels were measured by detecting the concentration of cortisol (a hormone which is involved in stress response) in the blood, but unlike the variation seen in aggressive behaviour, these were the same across all groups, suggesting that although there were behavioural signs of stress this did not translate to a physiological stress reaction.There are two possible explanations for the variation in aggressive behaviour:- Dominant individuals may be trying to keep their position for prime access to food in expectation of the coming reward- Aggression triggered by the stressful situation may be being displaced towards other individuals to help in coping with the conditions.In either case this leads to stronger hierarchy and more uneven distribution of resources, as was observed in this study. The overall conclusion is that fish respond behaviourally to frustrating conditions just like birds and mammals, suggesting this could be an adaptive response to unpredictable environments that has been conserved throughout vertebrate evolution. While we cannot yet conclude that fish definitely experience conscious emotional states, the results do highlight the importance of regular routine for domestic or farmed fish in order to reduce aggressive interactions between individuals that may be detrimental to the health of the population.Ref: Vinas M. A. et al., 2012. Omission of expected reward agitates Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Animal Cognition Online first [link]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4t057BfDl1qkrbaho1_400.jpg)
New research has shown that Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) experience a feeling akin to frustration when they are not given a reward they are expecting to receive - a response previously only observed in mammals and birds. Debates over the ethics of fishing often throw up questions of whether fish are ‘conscious’ and have an awareness of pain, which has fuelled a fair amount of research in the area. Fish have been shown to be capable of responding to classical conditioning and to have long-term memories; however, we are still unsure to what extent their cognitive abilities are linked to conscious moods and emotions. This concept was studied in the salmon using a model commonly used in mammalian research called omission of expected reward (OER). In these experiments, animals are conditioned to associate a certain stimulus with a positive reward, such as food, and are then subjected to the stimulus without receiving the reward to record how they react. In mammals, OER has consistently been shown to cause animals to become stressed and aggressive.
Six groups, each consisting of 200 fish, were conditioned to associate a flashing light with feeding over a period of 22 days. By the end of this period, the fish showed attraction to the light due to association with the food reward, as opposed to their initial reaction of avoiding it. Three of the groups were then subjected to OER for 9 days - the fish were fed three times a day, and at two of these mealtimes, the expected food reward was delayed by 30 minutes. The other three groups carried on as normal, acting as controls.
When the groups were compared, OER groups showed higher aggression and greater hierarchy, causing some individuals to grow more quickly at the expense of others - interestingly, even during the one meal a day when the reward was provided immediately, aggression levels remained high. Stress levels were measured by detecting the concentration of cortisol (a hormone which is involved in stress response) in the blood, but unlike the variation seen in aggressive behaviour, these were the same across all groups, suggesting that although there were behavioural signs of stress this did not translate to a physiological stress reaction.
There are two possible explanations for the variation in aggressive behaviour:
- Dominant individuals may be trying to keep their position for prime access to food in expectation of the coming reward
- Aggression triggered by the stressful situation may be being displaced towards other individuals to help in coping with the conditions.
In either case this leads to stronger hierarchy and more uneven distribution of resources, as was observed in this study.
The overall conclusion is that fish respond behaviourally to frustrating conditions just like birds and mammals, suggesting this could be an adaptive response to unpredictable environments that has been conserved throughout vertebrate evolution. While we cannot yet conclude that fish definitely experience conscious emotional states, the results do highlight the importance of regular routine for domestic or farmed fish in order to reduce aggressive interactions between individuals that may be detrimental to the health of the population.
Ref: Vinas M. A. et al., 2012. Omission of expected reward agitates Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Animal Cognition Online first [link]
