A new series and a disgusting trade.

  Hello and welcome to my latest blog, hope you have all been well and enjoying everything life has to offer. I have been very busy with coursework and also with writing my entry for the BBC wildlife travel writing competition, more on that in the weeks to come. This edition marks the start of a new series Senses, which will highlight the incredible adaptions of nature which never fail to amaze us. This week smell is chosen sense, prepare to be amazed by the capabilities of the animals and birds we share the planet with. I also look at a trade which sadly shows no sign of stopping and can be described best as inhumane and sickening. As always I hope you enjoy the blog.


                                     5 Super sensitive noses

1) Sharks are one of the top predators in the underwater world and a keen sense of smell is hugely effective for locating prey. A shark can detect one drop of blood in a million drops of water and can smell blood from a quarter of a mile away ( Enchanted Learning 2013).


http://oceanlink.island.net/biodiversity/shark/shark.html

2) The Spotted Hyena Crocuta crocuta has a keen sense of smell and is able to detect a carcass from several kilometres away ( Predator Conservation Trust 2013).

3) The American BisonBison bison has such an acute sense of smell,it can detect other animals from over two kilometres away which can prove to give valuable early warning about the approach of predators (American Bison Online 2007).




Natural History Notebooks 2007


4) The Polar Bear Ursus maritimus, surely has one of the most amazing senses of smell in the animal kingdom. Food can be scarce for this top predator so being able to pick up the scent of a seal from five miles away is an invaluable asset.Even being hidden under snow and ice up to three feet thick is not enough to prevent a seal from being detected from this Arctic hunter (Petersen 2008).


 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

5) Several species of Fruit Bat from the genus Pteropus, has the ability to seek our over ripe fruit as a result of their long muzzles which provides plenty of room for olfactory receptors. The tree or bush from where the fruit is fed upon as a result is kept healthy and free of problematic Fruit Flys Tephritidae (Petersen 2008).

                            A disgusting trade.

The pictures do the talking in this highlighting a truly vile trade. Why people think this is an acceptable way to treat any living creature is incredible. The driving force behind this trade is of course human greed and until something is done to ban this most horrendous market, there will always be people who are either uninformed about the suffering of the animal or whose only concern is to jump on the bandwagon of the next must have craze regardless of the suffering it may cause to continue to fund an obscene trade.

http://www.examiner.com/article/china-vendors-selling-live-turtle-and-fish-keychains

That's all from me this week, I hope you enjoyed it and have a good rest of the week,
George .