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Yet another Chinese event is by many considered to be tainted with animal cruelty, and just as with the olympics, the unlucky animals are goldfish. at the opening gala of China’s lunar new year festival earlier this month they shower goldfish swimming in perfect military formations. The show put on by magician Fu Yandong was well received by the audience but have sparked outcry in animal activist circles as the only explanation to the trick according to them is magnets in the stomachs of the goldfish. The goldfish in in another word not so much swimming as being dragged. There are many factors supporting this hypothesis including the very shallow water the goldfish is swimming in. The shallow water would allow magnets to work which wouldn´t be possible in deeper water. Experts in the field agrees and think the fish might have been fed food with metal shavings on it.

Fu has denied the accusation of animal cruelty, telling one news programme: “If I used magnets, the fish would stick together.”  This is not necessarily true and a magician never reveal his trick even if discovered right?

Another theory that has been put forward is that it is fake fish but experts reject this idea in unison as the replicas would not meet the scrutiny of 100s of million of viewers.

A coalition of 53 groups sent a letter to Chinese broadcaster CCTV asking them to prevent magician Fu Yandong performing it again at the closing ceremony.

A researcher has commented that this past Wednesday his team has discovered that a local freshwater salmon species classified as extinct by the government about seven decades ago, still lives on in Lake Saiko.

Tetsuji Nakabo, Kyoto University professor, commented that he took a look at nine fish from the lake and discovered that they were strikingly similar – in fact the same as – the “kunimasu” or “black kokanee” species of salmon.

If this find is confirmed, it will be the very first time a fish species in Japan which has been classified as extinct has been found living still, the Environment Ministry explained. The ministry has commented it is going to do its best to verify the claims of Nakabo and review its classification of the salmon.

The salmon, a landlocked sockeye, had been seen earlier on only in Lake Tazwa, and was believed to have died off due to an inflow of toxic water sometime in the 1940’s.

However, Nakabo explained there are records which show the salmon’s eggs were taken to other lakes, including Lake Saiko and Lake Biwa, to help improve stocks about half a decade earlier than when they supposedly went extinct.

The species “likely propagated from the eggs from that time,” Nakabo explained.

This discovery came in February, after Nakabo asked fish expert Sakana-kun to show a likeness of the extinct fish.

Sakana-kun requested samples of “himemasu” – a fish similar to that of the “kunimasu” – and discovered they were very similar, and just possibly the same!

Sealion

Some dogs chase cars, some chase bikes, others chase… sea lions? Yes, it appears that some dogs don’t limit the things they chase to just things on land apparently.

It seems a dog needed to be rescued after chasing a sea lion for over four kilometers out to sea in Southern Australia.

The dog, a crossbreed named Westie, was out taking a walk with his master along the beach when he suddenly took off into the water after a sea lion and simply refused to come back, the Portside Messenger reported.

Soon the sea lion and Westie were out of sight, somewhere over the horizon as the sea lion led Westie farther and farther from the shore, leaving his owner feeling helpless.

Craig Van Tenac, a Semaphore Surf Life Saving Club captain, was part of the efforts to rescue Westie.

“I’d say it was four kilometers offshore – that dog swam forever,” he commented when asked about what happened.

Westie apparently was having a good time, frolicking around and rubbing his nose against the sea lion, who was busy rolling about playfully in the water, he continued.

Despite Westie’s amazing stamina, Van Tenac commented that he had his doubts that Westie, who had been chasing after the sea lion for more than an hour, could have possibly made it back to shore.

He continued to say that Westie’s owner was very much relieved that he came back to the shore safe and sound, and no worse for wear.

A brand new kind of large squid has been found by researchers while voyaging around on a research cruise in the southern part of the Indian Ocean.

This large squid, almost a meter long, belongs to the chiroteuthid family.

The squid which form a part of this family are long and thin, and have organs which produce light. The light producing organs help them attract their meals.

This large squid was discovered during an analysis of thousands of different samples which were brought in from the Seamounts cruise last year. The cruise is being led by a conservation group known as IUCN.

The project began a year ago when experts in the area of marine biology set out on a six week science expedition in the Indian Ocean.

The aim of the expedition was to shed some light on the mysterious seamounts – mountains under the water – located in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, and to help manage marine resources and improve conservation plans in the area.

“For 10 days now 21 scientists armed with microscopes have been working through intimidating rows of jars containing fishes, squids, zooplankton and other interesting creatures,” explains a spokesperson of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, Alex Rogers.

“Many specimens look similar to each other and we have to use elaborate morphological features such as muscle orientation and gut length to differentiate between them.”

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A unique, and hard to find, fished which is named after a J.R.R. Tolkien character is facing extinction if the plans to build a dam come to fruition. You see, it happens to only live in that one river in New Zealand, and cannot be transplanted easily.

Gollum galaxias, fifteen centimeters in length, can only really be seen on Stewart Island in New Zealand. Pioneer Generation Ltd., a local power company, wants to build a hydroelectric plant, but this would effectively destroy the Gollum’s home, the Nevis River.

The company is overlooking plans to make an appeal of the government decision to ban making a dam on the river.

A special tribunal was formed to discus the fate of the Gollum’s home and it was decided that it “is very clear that damming the Nevis River would also damn the Gollum to permanent extinction” Russel Norman, of the New Zealand Green Party commented to Scoop Independent News.

The DOC – New Zealand Department of Conservation – had already said that the Gollum was “nationally vulnerable”. However, the DOC had absolutely nothing to do with the decision to block the power company from making its dam, and damning the Gollum in the process. That decision was made following requests that the character of the Nevis River be preserved.

It looks like the Gollum is safe for now, but how long will it be before someone gives in, and starts lobbying for a new power station, as opposed to a fish?

A whale which perished after being beached in a Danish fjord earlier on in the year is believed to have been between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and forty years old – which makes it one of the oldest known whales to date, officials commented this past Tuesday.

The age of the whale was determined through an analysis of the fin whale’s remains at the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen.

It was initially believed that the whale was between fifteen and twenty years old. However, after having taken a closer look at the amino acids in the eyes of the remains, it has proved to be closer to between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and forty years old, commented Abdi Hedayat, a museum conservator, commented to the local paper Lokal-Bladet Budstikken.

“That makes it the world’s oldest, scientifically described whale,” he commented.

The oldest whale previously on record was a one hundred and sixteen year old fin whale.

The beached whale was sighted this past June at many different locations in western Denmark before becoming stranded in the Vejle Fjord. Many attempts where made to try and save the whale, however they all failed as the whale made its way back to shallower waters.

The whale’s epic struggle attracted the attention of hundreds of people. The whale was not that big, in total some seventeen meters in length, which is seven meters shorter than the biggest fin whale on record.

Hedayat commented that the ancient whale could have possibly been suffering from brittle bones, but that has yet to be confirmed.

Bonnie Schubert, along with her eighty-seven year old mother, have been scouring the coast of Florida for decades in the search of treasure.

In a common day they will burrow up to a dozen times, dive deep into murky water, and wind up with a beer can or fishing lure for their efforts.

“I spent a whole season and only came up with a musket ball,” explains Bonnie.

However, on one such excursion this past August, the Schuberts were searching near Frederick Douglass Beach when they hit the motherlode.

“The first thing that came into focus was the head of the bird and the wing…and it was something I never imagined…just didn’t expect at all..” Bonnie recalls.

What they had stumbled upon was a 22-carat solid gold bird, a find they thing may date back to 1715, as part of a cargo of a lost Spanish ship. This Spanish fleet, which wrecked close to Fort Pierce, is believed to have dumped millions of dollars of gold and jewels all along the bottom.

“It’s truly been amazing. It’s not something we could have ever predicted,” commented a principal with 1715 Fleet-Queen’s Jewels, LLC, the corporation that holds the rights to treasure hunting in the region, Brent Brisbane.

While the Schuberts obviously have a claim, however the State may wish to have the bird, leading to some “treasure trading” to make things right. However, there is no doubt that this mother-daughter dive team has found the find of their lifetime.

Albino Seal

Now here’s something you don’t hear about everyday. An almost impossible to find albino seal has just been given admittance to the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Center Lenie’ t Hart (SRRC) in Holland following coming down with a rather nasty infection in its lungs. The SRRC is a veterinary hospital in the Netherlands, which takes in, treats, and then releases seals back into the wild after having befallen some illness or injury. In some cases they also euthanize the poor animals if they cannot be helped any other way.

The SRRC has reportedly taken in and helped 6 albino seals over the past four decades, and does everything in their power to save them.
The last albino seal to make an appearance on the scene at the SRRC was a decade ago. Which makes this little guy all the more important.

The SRRC is not only a seal treatment center, but it also acts as an educational venue for tourists from all around the globe. Seals are not specifically bred or trained for human entertainment at the center, helping them out costs money after all, and the tourist dollars go to a good cause. The seals are let go once they are fit enough to make it on their own. There are roughly 200 animals which make their way to the center on a yearly basis.

This particular albino seal will be put into quarantine and then treated at the center for the next little while. After it is well enough, it will be taken back to the North Sea, where it belongs.

A rusted out pocket watch covered in barnacles was discovered inside a wreck from the seventeenth century. The pocket watch was of impeccable make and its internal workings were almost perfectly preserved.

Scientists of the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh utilized cutting edge technology including x-ray machines to take a gander at the cog wheels and Egyptian-style pillars and were even able to make out the inscription of the watch maker.

They then used these images they collected to build a 3D virtual model of the watch and its functions. Both the watch and the 3D image are now on display in the Treasured exhibition of the National Museum of Scotland. They are scheduled to remain on display there until sometime in 2011.

The wreck the pocket watch was discovered on is thought to have been the Swan – a low level war ship which met its demise off of Scotland’s west coast sometime during the English Civil War. A diver from the navy happened across the wreck back in the 1970s, and excavation began in the 1990s.

The remarkable CT technique used to get the images is accredited to Andrew Ramsey and cohorts at X-Tek Systems in Tring, Hertfordshire in the UK. It allowed them to get high resolution images, even through dense metal.

The watch is really amazing in craftsmanship, and just goes to show, they really don’t make them like they used to. Don’t believe me? Try dropping your Timex in the ocean and seeing how it looks after only 5 years.

Some of the lobsters

Three lobsters have been hauled in from the depths of the sea, and are causing quite a stir. One of the specimens is bright blue, another is calico-hued, and the last is a brilliant orange, much like you would expect a Jack-O-Lantern to be.

These lobsters are incredibly rare, and even more rare to be seen together, they are quickly becoming the pride and joy at the Maritime Aquarium in Connecticut, as these lobsters form one of the most unique marine exhibits in the world.

“If you search around you can find other aquariums that have a blue lobster, and one that might have a calico or an orange lobster, but I’ve never seen one advertising having all three,” commented a spokesman for Maritime Aquarium, Dave Sigworth, which is putting it rather mildly.

You see, the odds of actually seeing these three lobsters in the same place are astronomical, if we listen to the Maine-based Lobster Conservancy.

Yellow lobster

Only about one lobster out of a million is born blue, and calico and orange lobsters are much more rare, being that only roughly one in 30 million lobsters are born in those colors.

The aquarium contacted a mathematician and were told, in the expert opinion of someone who knows their numbers, that the odds of encountering all three of these lobsters together in nature was about one in 900 quintillion, that’s 900 followed by 18 zeros!

Hopefully the lobsters like all the attention they get, and truly appreciate how special they really are!