Next Tuesday, June 5, is World Environment Day, a time to ponder the global natural environment and how we are treating it. Pretty shoddily, I would say. All around us is environmental degradation and over-exploitation. And as for wildlife … well, we are killing off species more rapidly than ever before. What to do about it, that’s the question? The answer is, start at home, apply that very basic dictum; Reduce, re-use, recycle – and then broaden your input by joining a conservation-minded group, and there are plenty of them on the South Coast.
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Staying at home, it’s remarkable just how rewarding a bird bath can be, the birds just love it for both drinking and ablutions, but here’s a new one. The other day we had a most welcome visitor to the Hide, a spotted bush snake. It appeared among the pot plants on the step, then ducked into the grass and reappeared climbing the bird bath. It’s a traditional bird bath, made of cement in what can probably be best described as a blend of the Doric and Ionian style of Greek columns. Anyway, our snake (and they are excellent climbers) made it up to where the column part branches out to become the disk of the actual bird bath, and then it had to give up. It descended and disappeared in the grass again.
We don’t think it was after water because it skidded past a small, but ground level dish of water on the step, but they are very inquisitive creatures and perhaps he had just not come across a Doric-Ionian column before.
Now another creature that always gets a bad press – scientists at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland may well have found a way to reduce rat populations in cities, where apparently such populations are thriving because the rodents have become resistant to the usual poisons that are put down for them. The scientists’ plan is to create a special infertility gene, breed infertile male rats from it, introduce these rats into the general rodent population and sit back as the first generation of males-only is born. It is calculated that eventually successive generations of infertile male rats will skew the sexual profile of the population and render it unsustainable. The scientists have one concern – that the infertility gene may spread to non-target species.* The mind, as they say, boggles.
Now, please read carefully, this could be a lifesaver; here are some tips on how to survive if you are wrecked on a desert island (they come from an expert).
Number one, when you are building a shelter, avoid the pandanus tree (whatever that is), because it is often riddled with ant nests; get as much drinking water as possible, a seashell makes a good container; walk slowly, you will see more and perhaps recognise something that is either edible or a danger; but best, find a coconut tree, you can eat the flesh and drink the milk, make rope out of the husks and sandals out of the shells.* Got that? Good luck!
*The Week: The Best of the British and Foreign Media.
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