Monday, April 23, 2018

"Morning Papers"

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

See the really interesting thing about the Banteng is that it is really, really smart. The heat from the climate crisis began to cause distress among the remaining Bantengs.

Ever hear the expression, "He doesn't know enough to get in out of the rain?" Well that can never be said about the banteng. They understand heat. They are sort of a canary in the coal mine. Literally, I suppose.

These wild cows, rather than dying in the heat, will seek out areas of forest that provide a cool enough temperature to protect their lives. Imagine that. Knowing when the air is too hot.

But, these cows go beyond knowing when the temperature is too hot, they know how to survive in a rainforest without insects effecting their skin opening them to infection and ultimate death.

Kota Kinabalu: (click here) A study has found that the endangered Bornean banteng (wild cattle) is highly threatened by habitat loss, fragmentation and heavy poaching.

Dr Penny Gardner, lead author and programme manager of banteng research at Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC), said logging and high temperatures affect the banteng by limiting their activity and influencing how they use the habitat.

“We monitored locations created by timber harvesting, such as abandoned roads and dense forest in reserves that were logged six, 17 and 23 years ago,” she explained.

Dr Gardner said the study showed that recently-logged forests were hotter for longer than forests that had regenerated for more years.

“High temperatures can suppress plant growth, slow forest regeneration, and increase the risk of forest fires.

Banteng reduce activity and avoid degraded areas during hot hours in recently-logged forest, possibly to avoid thermal stress, which can be fatal,” she added.

Dr Gardner concluded by saying that banteng continue to be active in the forest throughout the day with more regrowth because it offered more shade and refuge....

The cow allows birds to feed off insects, such as ticks, off it's skin preventing a break down of the skin and potential infection and death.

One thing I find really disturbing about people who disregard the words of scientists is that they really don't respect life at all. 

The endangered wild cattle (click here) of Malaysian Borneo have eased back on their daytime activities because of higher temperatures brought on by loss of forest cover — a finding that has important implications for the species’ well-being.

The findings, in a report published April 12 in the open-access journal PLOS One, showed that recently logged forests in Sabah state were hotter, reaching temperatures of up to 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit), for longer periods of time in the day than forests that had experienced regrowth for longer. This temperature differential, it turns out, affects the activity of the Bornean banteng (Bos javanicus lowi).

The researchers, from the Sabah Wildlife Department and the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) in Malaysia, Cardiff University in the U.K., and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany, carried out the study from 2011 to 2013 in three secondary protected forests in Sabah: the Malua Forest Reserve, Maliau Basin Conservation Area Buffer Zones, and Tabin Wildlife Reserve....

Destroying habitat is insane. The bantengs know enough to move into cooler forests during exceptionally high temperatures. They know enough to allow birds to MUTUALLY feed insects off their bodies to prevent skin infections and potential death. But, the most beautiful part of the bantengs is that they have a mutualism they can't convey. It is the mutualism of their habitat.

The mutualism of their habitat is Earth and the people that live on it, especially those people nearest the forests where the bantengs take shelter.

What people in Germany, France, Austria, Belgium and Canada to mention a few have learned about forests is THE SERVICE they provide to human beings WITH NO COST AT ALL.

Forests around the world provide service to human beings. In the film loop about a German forest, there was noted a mist rising off them in the early morning hours. That mist is water. It is not from the ground, it is from THE CANOPY of the forest.

The service of the forest is evapotransporation. It allows the tree to reach deep into the soil where it is anchored to bring water to the tree and the very tiniest of leaves to allow the tree to breath. The trees' respiration produced oxygen while using carbon dioxide in that respiration process to allow the tree to EXIST and GROW.

There are places in this world, and I haven't been to the Smokey Mountains lately, where there are cloud forests. Those clouds are always there. Why? Why aren't those clouds moving on or up to bring rain? Because those clouds belong to the forest. The forest produced them and they remain where they were produced. Now the reality is the clouds do move on air, but, the density of the canopy of the trees is so great the water vapor is constantly producing the clouds.

So, what the banteng would say to the people destroying it's habitat if it could, is that destroying the trees is more than destroying the place we find shelter from the heat, it is destroying the very air you breath and the cooler Earth everyone hungers for now.

There is reason for habitat and there are reasons for wise animals such as the Banteng. The problem is people don't see the forest for the WEALTH of the trees. The real wealth from trees is the forest and not the wood.