Philip Bethge

Category: Stories

  • Bearded Vultures Re-introduced to the Alps: The Return of the Bone Crusher

    In the 19th century, the Bearded Vulture had a bad press. It was accused of carrying off and devouring lambs and even small children. Alpine authorities declared open season on the bird and the last one was shot in 1913. But the vulture, which is capable of digesting large bones, is back thanks to a successful and costly 20-year program of introducing bred birds into the wild.

    By Philip Bethge

    Portobello and Tauernwand aren’t yet comfortable with their new-found freedom. The two bearded vultures, born and bred in captivity, seem wary as they slowly ascend to a height of 1,500 meters above the Seebachtal valley in the Austrian Alps.

    Half an hour earlier rangers had hauled the birds up the mountain in wooden crates to their new home in a prepared nest. The birds are part of Europe’s longest-running wildlife re-introduction scheme. Since 1986 zoologists in Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland have released 144 bearded vultures to the Alps.

    They recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the project. “Progress so far has been very pleasing,” said Hans Frey of Vienna’s Veterinary University who is coordinating the program. “The project proves that with persistence the re-introduction of wild animals can actually work.”

    The bird doesn’t look like a typical vulture and is often mistaken for a Golden Eagle. It has a conspicuous red circle around the eyes and a wingspan of around 2.7 meters. A black strip over the eyes and the bristles at the base of the beak form the distinctive appearance of a beard.

    Character assassination wiped out the Bearded Vulture in the Alps in the 19th century. The local population blamed the scavenger for the loss of lambs, goats and even small children. Hunters were offered rewards for shooting them and the last vulture living in the alps is believed to have been shot in 1913 in the Italian Aosta valley.

    “The Bearded Vulture unfortunately never had a very good image,” said Frey, adding that it didn’t reserve its reputation because the birds aren’t dangerous to living animals.

    Bone Crusher

    The bird feeds mainly on the bleached bones of dead goats and sheep. If the bones are too big, it drops them 50 to 80 meters onto plates of rock to shatter them, and eats the splinters. No other animal is capable of digesting bone which means that the Bearded Vulture has no competitors for its food. Its powerful stomach acids can dissolve even large bones.

    By the beginning of the 20th century the “Bone Crusher” was virtually extinct in the wild in Europe. Then in the 1970s zoologists decided to try to re-introduce the bird to the Alps. “We managed to breed the birds again,” said Frey, who manages Europe’s largest vulture breeding station at Haringsee near Vienna.

    In 1986 the first four Bearded Vultures were released in the Hohe Tauern national park. Since then birds have also been released in Switzerland’s Engadin region, Italy’s Stilfser Joch national park, and in the French Haute Savoie region, as well as the Maritime Alps. In 1997 the first of these birds bred and 33 chicks have been born in the wild so far.

    “Conditions for Bearded Vultures are better now than 100 years ago,” said Wolfgang Fremuth of Frankfurt’s Zoological Society which co-financed the project. Less hunting takes place in the Alps, which means that there is more wildlife. And another problem appears to have been solved. “We were surprised, but the population has embraced the Bearded Vulture to an incredible extent.”

    Some 200 guests braved rainy weather to witness the release of Portobello and Tauernwind, which marked the 20th anniversary of the re-introduction program. Even local hunter Ferdinand Gorton praised the project. He said there had initially been some resistance to it. “But if one explains it well it becomes understandable even to the most simple hunter,” he said.

    Natural garbage collectors

    “The return of the vulture means farmers won’t have to remove dead animals,” said Frey. In addition, many local hoteliers have discovered the bird as a tourist attraction. Biologists see other advantages. “Bearded Vultures together with other types of vultures are a natural form of waste disposal and are important for the ecosystem of the mountains,” said Fremuth. Humans alone were to blame for their disappearance. “We have a duty to bring them back.”

    The plan could work. Around 100 of the released birds are known to have remained in the Alps. Almost 5,000 unpaid helpers regularly document their whereabouts.

    Newcomers Portobello and Tauernwind are constantly monitored. They will soon leave the Seebachtal valley. Biologists hope that in four to six years they will return to the Hohen Tauern range to breed.

    At that point the time may have come to stop the program and leave the Bearded Vulture population alone. “We hope we will be able to stop releasing animals from 2010 because the population is regenerating itself,” said Frey. The project will have spent around €100,000 on each new vulture.

    Frey recommends that future generations show more foresight. “Rendering a species extinct only to re-introduce it later is incredibly expensive. Wildlife protection pays off — it’s always cheaper in the end.”

    –> read original article at SPIEGEL Online International

  • Me and My Pet Tiger: “Trespassers Will Be Eaten”

    Eccentric private citizens in the United States own more tigers than exist in the wild worldwide. But owning big cats can be a dangerous hobby, especially when the animals turn on their owners.

    Vincent Lowe, 49, didn’t even have enough time to fire his .357 caliber pistol. In one powerful leap, the 500-pound tiger crashed through the brittle wire of its cage and pinned Lowe to the ground. The tiger’s bite fractured Lowe’s neck like a bread stick, killing him almost instantaneously. “He was not supposed to work that close to the tiger’s cage. He ignored every rule in the book and provoked the cat!” Robert Baudy is sitting in his living room, darkened by heavy drapes, wearing khaki-colored safari clothing and looking like an octogenarian reincarnation of Dr. Marsh Tracy from the 1960’s TV series “Daktari.”

    “I picked up one of my rifles and ran over to him,” says Baudy. “I had to shoot my own tiger!” But then a smile flickers across the face of the 83-year-old. “With an excellent rifle, by the way, a .22 magnum, German-made. It only took me two shots.”

    Baudy clearly enjoys playing the part of the big game hunter. A native Frenchman, Baudy has spent the last 30 years raising tigers, lions, pumas and leopards in Center Hill, Florida. Thousands of big cats have been born under the ancient oaks on Baudy’s farm, “Savage Kingdom.” Baudy apparently views the death of his employee, Vincent Lowe, as little more than a workplace accident. But for others the case merely emphasizes the absurdity of the tiger industry.

    “I’m the enemy number one in the cat business, according to animal rights activists,” says Baudy. He gazes thoughtfully at an enormous painting of two tigers in the snow hanging on his living room wall. “You know,” says the tiger breeder, “those activists are just a bunch of nuts. Is it my fault if people don’t know how to handle these animals?”

    Welcome to America, the land of the predator. There are more tigers living in the United States than anywhere else in the world. Estimates range from 10,000 to 15,000 animals. By comparison, experts believe that there are at most 7,000 tigers living in the wild worldwide.

    Thousands of Americans have succumbed to a fascination with the biggest and strongest of all predatory big cats. Breeders like Baudy supply the industry with cuddly baby tigers. But the kittens soon grow into big, powerful animals, quickly becoming too much for many owners to handle. Animal rights activists are critical of the practice because many of the animals, crippled and traumatized, end up spending their final days in bleak roadside zoos.

    (—> read original article at SPIEGEL ONLINE International)

    This world, fueled by an odd mix of adrenaline, dried cat urine and the slightly pungent odor of the fresh meat tigers eat in bulk on a daily basis, is especially prevalent in Florida. This sort of eccentricity that would prompt someone to buy a tiger is evident to anyone who drives through the glitzy artificial world of West Palm Beach. A sign on the heavy metal gate of Steve Sipek’s estate says it all: “Trespassers will be eaten.” The 64-year-old actor, who once played Tarzan, doesn’t just own tigers as pets. He literally lives, sleeps and cuddles with them. In fact, Sipek has transformed his entire house into a cage for big cats. Visitors to the former king of the jungle’s home enter a narrow passageway through a rickety door. The lord of the manor sits with two of his cats, Bo and Little Bo, in a room behind a wire-mesh fence. A thin metal bar is the only thing preventing the two tigers from breaking out of the enclosure.

    Sipek is a giant of a man. Using the stage name Steve Hawkes, he acted in films like “Tarzan, King of the Jungle” and “Tarzan and the Brown Prince” in the 1960s and 70s. He also played a blood-drinking giant turkey in an obscure B movie called “Blood Freak.” But being a tamer of big cats is the role of his life. Sipek says he experienced an awakening of sorts when a lion chained to his arm once pulled him out of a burning film set, and he has believed that he was chosen to take care of big cats ever since.

    “Touching a tiger is like touching the face of God,” says Sipek. He has cared for more than 100 big cats in his house over the years. “I saved my cats from a life in a cage,” he claims. “They can even use the pool here.”

    Then it’s feeding time. Sipek’s girlfriend Kathi drags in two buckets of turkey drumsticks. Sipek is in his element. He holds out the meat at eye level, and the 300-pound cats jump over and eat from his hand. Dessert is milk mixed with egg, served from a baby bottle.

    The cats pay almost no attention to strangers. But if a person turns his back on one of the tigers, it immediately becomes nervous and instinctively crouches as if to pounce. The tension is almost palpable. The person suddenly feels like prey.

    Officer Jesse Lee must have felt that way when Sipek’s tiger Bobo charged him two years ago in July. According to the report by the Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC), “the tigers teeth were showing and his ears were pinned back. Lee stepped back as he fired five rounds from his semi-automatic AR-15.” The tiger lay dead in the bushes. It was 5:20 in the afternoon.

    Bobo had escaped from Sipek’s private zoo the day before. Police officers, wildlife management officers from the FWC and Sipek himself pursued the cat. The tiger was spotted several times, but the stun darts the officers fired missed their target. In the end, Jesse Lee shot the tiger.

    Sipek buried the cat in his front yard. Bobo’s grave is decorated with flowers and animal sculptures. “I wanted to kill that bastard officer bigtime,” says Sipek. “My friends didn’t want to let me, but I would have done it.”

    But according to Lieutenant Charles Dennis of the FWC, “the officer followed agency policy. A 700-pound tiger will injure or kill people. When he grabs you, he has grabbed you. There’s no maybes, no ifs, no buts. He’s gonna kill you.” The heavyset officer sits in his office at the FWC, wearing a cowboy hat, vest and sunglasses. Dennis believes it is far too easy to acquire big cats.

    “In my opinion, we have to be stricter on people who own tigers,” says Dennis, “let me show you why.” He flips open his laptop. A series of blood-covered, mutilated people flashes across the screen. The last image is of a woman with her throat slit open. “Joy Holiday was an animal trainer. The same tiger killed someone else two months earlier.” Why wasn’t the tiger put down? “You know,” says Dennis, “most Americans look at it this way: ‘If you own a tiger, then it’s your problem if that tiger decides to eat you.’”

    According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, five people have been killed by big cats since 2003 in the US alone. More than 40 others have been injured, some severely. In many cases it is the supposed cat experts who become victims. Show star Roy Horn is a famous example. Horn, who with his partner Siegfried Fischbacher formed the world-famous duo Siegfried & Roy, was attacked by a tiger three years ago during a performance at the Hotel Mirage in Las Vegas. The animal, named Montecore, bit into the performer’s neck and dragged the helpless man from the stage. Horn narrowly survived the incident.

    Children have also been killed. Americans are fond of taking posed Polaroid pictures with big cats. It was this kind of photo opportunity that killed 17-year-old Haley Hilderbrand last August. She was posing for a photo next to a tiger in a private zoo in Mound Valley, Kansas. To this day, no one knows why Haley suddenly bent forward. The tiger plunged its teeth into her neck, killing Haley on the spot.

    Even these kinds of incidents haven’t discouraged big cat enthusiasts from allowing their tigers to interact with children. Gloria Johnson, a cat lover from the town of Havana in northern Florida, even refers to “wildlife education” as her mission in life. “There have to be just a few specially, highly trained people to teach children about what extinction means,” says Johnson. “It means never again.”

    Of course, the 51-year-old Johnson counts herself among these cat experts. She bought her one-and-a-half-year-old white tiger Casanova from Baudy for a special price of $5,000. “I volunteered for Robert for a long time,” she explains, “a white baby tiger normally goes for $15,000.” Yellow tigers, she adds, can be had for as little as $1,200.

    Johnson took out a second mortgage so that she could buy Casanova. Her simple wooden house is filled with cat paraphernalia. Groups of schoolchildren regularly crowd into her living room to admire the tiger and her two pumas, Ashukalee and Lakota, in her back yard.

    “I even took Casanova into schools until he was six months old,” says the petite Johnson. She would put the animal, which already weighed 100 pounds at the time, on a leash to show it to the children. Johnson is convinced that the lessons are valuable to kids: “When they look into the eyes of a live tiger, it’s an experience they will not get on the Internet or on TV.”

    Johnson portrays herself in the role of the petite blonde dominating the tiger in her personal version of “Beauty and the Beast.” But animal rights activists say that publicity-hungry cat fans like Johnson merely boost the cat trade because they create even more hype for big cats.

    “Gloria walks her tiger on a leash and takes him to school, while at the same claiming that tigers are not pets,” says Carole Baskin, “that’s just bullshit.” The platinum blonde from Tampa, Johnson’s arch enemy, made a fortune in real estate and used to invest in the big cat breeding business. “I used to think that I was doing something to help protect the species,” says Baskin, “but I know today that none of the industry’s money goes into conservation.”

    Nowadays Baskin strongly opposes private ownership of tigers. She runs an animal sanctuary in Tampa called Big Cat Rescue, which is essentially a home for the rejects of the big cat industry. Retired circus cats live out their final years at the facility, which also provides a home for unwanted tigers.

    Auroara, a tigress, is a little bit cross-eyed, has a decent overbite and her legs are deformed. “She’s a typical example of what they call a throwaway tiger,” says Baskin’s colleague Scott Lope. “Auroara is the result of the extreme inbreeding that’s customary in the industry to breed sought-after white tigers.” But Auroara was not born white and was sold off on the cheap to a private owner. “He just dropped her off here at some point.”

    Shere Khan is another example. “He has weak bones, bad teeth and his legs are much too short,” says Lope. “He probably grew up in a cage that was much too small and didn’t get the right nutrition, so that he wasn’t able to develop properly.”

    “At some point tigers become too big and too strong for just about all handlers,” says Baskin. She says she is tired of running a sort of refugee camp for rejected big cats, and wants to see stricter legislation on the books. “Ten states have absolutely no restrictions,” she says, adding that while Florida does have laws to regulate the industry, they are almost impossible to enforce. “The law requires 1,000 hours of experience with big cats before you can own a tiger. But the problem is that the ones who are certifying that experience are the ones selling the tigers.”

    On the grounds of Robert Baudy’s “Savage Kingdom,” this sort of criticism seems like activist chatter from a faraway world. There is something timeless and eternal about Baudy’s big cats as they move lithely through their enclosures. “I don’t understand all the excitement,” says Baudy. “Sixty thousand Americans get hurt by horses every year, but only two or three get wounded by tigers.” He gently scratches tiger Romeo through the bars of the animal’s cage. The sound of the cat’s purring echoes like rolling thunder.

    Baudy wistfully surveys his sun-drenched property. He knows that his days are numbered. “I’m on the way to extinction,” he says. He still owns 17 big cats. Two female tigers are pregnant and will soon give birth.

    But this time Baudy won’t be selling the baby tigers. There were consequences to Vincent Lowe’s death. After more than 30 years in the business, this tiger breeder has lost his license.

    Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

    (—> read original article at SPIEGEL ONLINE International)

  • RoboCup 2006: Silicon Players of the Beautiful Game

    Never mind chess — the cool game for smart machines now is soccer. Humanoid robots stumble around the field but learn quickly. They’re playing their own World Cup this week in Germany, and scientists hope machines will beat human champions in less than 50 years.

    Paul, Franz, Gerd, and the shapely Lara aren’t exactly soccer stars. In fact, they’re not even human. They have feet made of carbon fibers and hips with double AC servomotors, powered by lithium-ion batteries with just enough juice for two ten-minute halves. But they’re preparing for a World Cup of their own this week in Germany. “Look at this — that was no coincidence,” says their inventor, Sven Behnke, pointing at a computer screen displaying the moves from a game last year against Japan’s “Team Osaka.” The fact that his protégés scored a single goal still makes Behnke proud.

    He’s a computer scientist from the University of Freiburg who also serves as head coach of the team “NimbRo,” a group of robot athletes that may make soccer history this week. Last year the Freiburg side placed second in their league. Only the Japanese team beat them, 2-1 — in spite of a heroic goal in the second-to-last minute. … More

  • Our Warming World: The Day the Climate Changed

    The climate change debate may have turned an important corner. Sir Nicholas Stern’s report not only put a price tag on global warming, but also argues for an economically viable solution. But will humanity act in time?

    The day the world’s climate changed was a Monday — Monday of last week, to be more precise, at exactly 10 a.m. That was when a gray-haired man with frameless glasses stood before the press to deliver a clear but alarming message. Now, his message having been delivered, no one can claim not to know the true extent of the damage each individual has been doing to the world.

    The core of that message was a number that immediately drove up the planet’s perceived temperature: 5.5 trillion. Sir Nicholas Stern has attached a figure to a phenomenon that is little more than a set of vague concepts for most people. He converted complex physical processes into a unit of measure that directly affects people’s daily lives: money. … More

  • Climate Change: Carbon Dioxide is Killing Cold-Water Reefs

    The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is acidifying the oceans. The first victims could be cold-water coral, which are believed to populate the edges of all continental shelves. Another endangered species is the plankton in the open oceans — the basic building block of the marine food chain.

    The Skagerrak strait is a gray body of water in March. But under the waves, at a depth of 100 meters (328 feet), an underwater Garden of Eden is growing. Whitish hard corals glint in the beam of the headlights of the Jago, a research submersible. Rosefish and bibs flit by. The coral reefs are home to sea stars, sea urchins, sea squirts, long-legged crabs and yellowish sponges. … More

  • Global Warming: Climate Change Sparks Scrap for Arctic Resources

    While scientists and conservationists worry about the potentially dire consequences of global warming, politicians and businessmen are already battling over how to reap the economic benefits from the Arctic thaw.

    It’s not always easy hoisting a flag on Hans Island. The Canadians even had to bring along their own rocks to weigh down the foot of the mast. But then nothing could stand in the way of the success of operation “Frozen Beaver” — at least from a Canadian perspective.

    It was last July when Canadian soldiers raised the maple leaf banner over the tiny isle between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland. Not long after that, Canada’s Defense Minister Bill Graham flew in by helicopter to proclaim that Hans Island will always remain Canadian. The provocation worked: Denmark promptly cabled a note of protest to Ottawa.

    The diplomatic spat marked the current highpoint of a … More

  • ‘Little Princess’ and the Bird Flu Mysteries: Tracking the Spread of Avian Influenza

    When bird flu reached Turkey, experts thought it was carried from Russia by migrating geese or ducks. So when wild birds migrate to Germany this spring, will they bring the disease with them? Not necessarily, say scientists.

    Michael Kaatz, who works for a stork reserve in the eastern German city of Loburg, can see the headlines now: “Little Princess Brings Bird Flu to Germany.” Right now, the stork “Little Princess,” the reserve’s pride and joy, is probably flying over Botswana. But soon enough she will be traveling on to South Africa, where she will spend the winter. And, more importantly, at the end of February, the celebrity stork will begin the trek home. Kaatz, who for the past few years has been using a satellite to track her migration routes, will be closely watching where she flies.

    According to Kaatz, the stork will stop over in Turkey before it gets back home to Saxony-Anhalt in eastern Germany. And in Turkey, of course, bird flu is rife. Which  means that Little Princess, who will be flying with several thousand other white storks on the way back to Germany, will be closely watched by virus experts. … More

  • Winter Sleepers: Researchers Ask – Can Humans Hibernate?

    In a new take on hibernation, biologists now believe that mammals are not the only ones who use the winter months to store up energy. Birds, and even humans, may have the capacity to switch to standby mode.

    By Philip Bethge

    The Hopi Indians call it Hölchoko: “the sleeping one.” During winter the tiny animal, weighing in at a paltry 50 grams, spends up to 25 days in a row in rock fissures or underneath cactuses. Its body temperature, normally hovering at just below a toasty 40°C (104°F), can drop to less than 5°C (41°F) during icy nights in the desert

    Only when the spring sun provides sufficient warmth and insects begin to move about does Phalaenopitlus nuttallii, the common poorwill, emerge from its winter sleep and take off into the air. The tiny bird, a native of the California and Arizona deserts, is uniquely adapted to life on an economy setting. The phenomenon is known as winter sleep, or hibernation, and it was long viewed as the exclusive domain of the marmot, the bear and the dormouse, mammals that sleep away about half the year.

    (more…)