News from Warsaw Zoo

Slothtastic

Sloths spend an average of 16 hours a day sleeping; the other six are reserved for quiet relaxation. Workers of Warsaw Zoo are thrilled with the arrival of these new animals especially since this is the first time sloths will live in Warsaw. There are few sloths in Poland. One couple lives in Poznań, but are childless. There is also one male sloth residing in Wrocław Zoo. On Tuesday, two Linnaeus’s two-toed sloths will come to Warsaw from Dresden. “We hope they will acclimatise well and reproduce soon enough. This is not easy when it comes to this species,” says Ryszard Topola from Warsaw Zoo. The male from Dresden is about two years old and his partner is only slightly older. They will live in the aviary, in a 40 x 50 metres room, 4.5 metres in height. What will their new home look like? “It will be dominated by branches where they can laze about. Sloths like warm temperatures so we have equipped the room with radiators as well,” says Topola. It is possible that the room decoration will change. The Zoo workers will observe the animals and decide if the position of the branches is appropriate. They want the animals to feel as comfortable as possible and hopefully reproduce. Sloths give birth to one offspring at a time, therefore every young one is cherished and eagerly awaited for. The zoo workers point out that anyone wishing to see the animals will have to look hard and be patient as sloths are masters of camouflage. The animal family at Warsaw Zoo is systematically growing. At the beginning of April a pelican was born. On March 20th the a group of pygmy marmosets was joined by two twins and now consists of twelve monkeys. On April 10th a female camel was born and now the hump-backed family includes four females and a male. The high point of the season at the Zoo will be the release of Byś, a three-month-old rhino, into the large runway. He is the first rhino ever to be born in a Polish Zoo. He will have a large runway, a mud bath and, when it gets warmer, a pool at his disposal.
Życie Warszawy

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Global Scrap Heap

Toxic Company

Where is your old, broken television set? You were told it would be recycled but it just might be somewhere on a pile of rubbish in India, China or Africa. Buying 87,000 tons of contaminated gasoline for a song, purifying and then selling it means that Swiss company Trafigura is looking at a $7 million profit. There is one slight problem, however, namely what to do with hundreds of tons of sulphur waste that was created during the purification process. On July 2, 2006, Probo Koala, a ship rented by Trafigura docked in Amsterdam, one of the very few cities in the world where sulphur waste is recycled. When the Dutch discovered that the cargo was far more toxic than previously declared by Trafigura, they decided to raise the fee to €1000 per cubic metre which prompted Probo Koala to quickly exit the harbour and head for the Ivory Coast. Once there, using the services of a local company, the waste was removed from the ship and then dispersed over a random area surrounding the nearby city of Abijan. Quickly thereafter, more than 100,000 people needed medical help at local hospitals. Cases of poisoning were diagnosed in over 1/3 of patients while sixteen people died. Unfortunately this is not a one-off case as rich countries not only produce more industrial waste but are eager to dispose of it and “store” it within the boundaries of their less wealthy neighbours.
Newsweek Polska

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New Ski Resort in Tatras

Unsullied Tatras

The Slovakian part of of the Tatra Mountains has begun to resemble a gigantic construction site. Can we expect new ski lifts, runs and hotels to be built in the Polish part of the mountains? This is what highlander businessmen and local government officials wish to do. The idea of building a new ski resort in the Tatra Mountains called “Zakopane – Trzy Doliny” (Zakopane – Three Valleys) is being promoted by Andrzej Bachleda “Ałuś”, Poland’s finest ever alpine skier, who is now an entrepreneur. “Now that the Slovakian government gave the go-ahead for building new ski lifts on their side of the mountains we are obliged to follow suit and create a new ski station on the Polish side,” said Bachleda. Part of the construction would be a 3.2-km long tunnel connecting the Polish and Slovakian ski areas. “I have already found investors ready to fund the project. I spoke to engineers responsible for the Slovakian construction. They are surprised that nothing is happening on the Polish side of the mountains,” added Bachleda. However, environmentalists are horrified at such news. “In our opinion the idea of building a new ski station on the Polish side of the Tatra Mountains is catastrophic,” said Paweł Skawiński, head of the Tatra National Park (TPN).
Gazeta Wyborcza

Visitors Killed Sea Lions

California Sea Lions came to Opole in July. Two of them died recently. Their death was caused by thoughtless visitors. Vets found coins, stones and a steel chain in the animals’ stomachs. Three animals came to Poland last July and quickly became the biggest attraction. Zoo director Lesław Sobieraj said that they did not want to surround the pool with high glass fences and they believed people would be responsible enough not to throw different things into the sea lions’ pool. The sea lions were well until Wednesday. Later, the zoo keeper found one of the animals dead. The autopsy showed a selection of things in the animal’s stomach. People threw these things into the swimming pool and the sea lions who are used to catching and swallowing food did the same with these objects. Sometimes the sea lions preferred to lie on the beach instead of being active and people threw different objects at the animals to encourage them to play. A second animal died yesterday. Again, the autopsy showed coins, stones and parts of a chain. The animals could not have been examined by X-ray because they would have had to have an anaesthetic and might not have woken up. The last sea lion was to be examined yesterday. Zoo keepers also maintain that not only sea lions but other animals have died recently because of people’s thoughtlessness. They found similar objects in the stomachs of goats, deer and ostriches.
Gazeta Wyborcza

Tourists Kill Bear Cub

Yesterday the Prosecutor’s Office in Zakopane charged three tourists with killing a 1.5-year-old bear in Dolina Chocholowska. The residents of Lubawa in Warminsko-Mazurskie Province are accused of “causing damage to wildlife on a large scale”. They were threw stones at the bear and then drowned the animal. An expert stated that the bear population in both the Polish and Slovakian Tatra Mountains fluctuates between 50 and 60 animals. Thus, the killed bear accounted for 2% of the population. Zbigniew Lis, a public prosecutor in Zakopane says that the crucial factor is that the bear was already self-reliant and had adapted to conditions in the Tatra Mountains. The tourists say they acted in self-defense but the court-appointed physician stated that their injuries after contact with the animal were insignificant. Forest rangers from the Tatra National Park found crumbs from sandwiches that the tourists had been feeding the animal with. “The accused will face up to 2 years in prison,” according to Lis. The trial should commence within a month in Zakopane.
Gazeta Wyborcza

Where will Wolves, Bobcats and Moose go?

Before Poland becomes cut up by highways and super-fast roads, we need to design and create tunnels for wild animals. The underground tunnels designed by the Mammal Research Institute in Białowieża would be part of the European Nature 2000 network. It would primarily protect routes frequented by animals, sylvan areas and river valleys. According to Professor Włodzimierz Jędrzejewski, the construction of highways constitutes a major threat to wild animals such as the bobcat, moose or bear. Migration is essential for them to survive and preserve the genetic disparity which is a necessary condition for keeping the species genetically strong. It is claimed that a single bobcat needs territory of up to 350 square kilometers, while a pack of wolves needs from 90 to 350 square kilometers. Such tunnels have already been successfully employed in other European countries such as Germany and Austria. Recently an over-land tunnel was constructed in Rzepińska Forest. The key criteria for these ‘corridors’ to be usable for animals are that they have to be undistinguishable from the natural environment, 50 to 60 meters wide and covered with local plants. At the moment the Urban Development Agency in Lublin is cooperating with the Mammal Research Institute to create a map of the ecological corridors in Lublin Province. The project also imposes certain demands on road developers: they will have to enable animals to migrate freely.
Gazeta Wyborcza