Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest lake and the world’s largest tropical lake, has long been plighted by environmental problems caused by pollution and exotic species being introduced to the lake. On of the most well know of these problems was the introduction of Nile perch to the lake; a large predatory fish that all but wiped out the lakes wide variety of native, endemic species.

Moses Kabuusu, Member of Parliament for Kyamuswa country in Kalangala district, has now expressed concerns about another problem developing in the area. According to him the amount of fish in the lake has now become so low that crocodiles are increasingly looking at humans as food. The number of croc attacks on humans has indeed increased in Kalangala, but it is hard to tell whether this is due to less fish being present or if there are other reasons that have increased the number of attacks on humans.

Kabuusu warns people about spending time in the water due to the rampant problem of humans being eaten by crocodiles and adds that it is mostly people swimming in the lake and women getting water in the lake that are being hunted by crocodiles.

He has requested help by the Uganda Wild Authority.

Lake victoria beach.

The Suffolk Police has decided to call off their investigation into the mysterious disappearance of 27 koi and seven goldfish, since the culprit turned out to be a hungry heron.

When the expensive fish disappeared from their home in Carlton Colville, UK, the police suspected human thieves and promptly issued a witness appeal which asked if locals had seen “anything suspicious” or if they had been offered similar fish. The appeal was however recalled soon, as the police found out the true identity of the perpetrator.

A further statement issued by police explained: “This incident is now being attributed to a large heron.”
“We take all incidents very seriously and we were worried that someone might have made off with fish worth thousands of pounds”, a police spokesman explains. “Thankfully, on this occasion an arrest wasn’t necessary.”

A 12+ year old female reef shark kept in an aquarium at the Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas managed to jump out of its tank and onto a nearby water slide. She slid down the slide and into the swimming pool, where she was subjected to the chlorinated pool water. The aquarium staff immediately put her back in her own tank in an attempt to resuscitate her, but it was too late. The Atlantis Resort does not keep their sharks in chlorinated water; they use filtered water from the Atlantic Ocean since it is more similar to the natural environment of these animals.

According to the hotel, the shark ended up in the swimming pool after jumping over a 1 foot high and 18 in wide sustaining structure. The event took place at around 9:30 in the morning when the resorts waterscape had not yet opened for guests, so no vacationers were swimming in the pool at the time.

The Atlantis aquarists believe “the shark was startled by an unusual circumstance that we have no way of defining completely”.

Several species of shark are capable of leaping out of the water and the exact reason or reasons behind this type of behaviour are yet not fully understood. The longest sustained series of breaches ever recorded was performed by a Humpback Whale who did 130 separate leaps in less than 90 minutes in the waters around the West Indies.

Otto the Octopus, an eight-armed resident of the Sea Star Aquarium in Germany, baffled his caregivers by deliberately short-circuiting an annoyingly bright light that shone into his otherwise cosy aquarium.

According to staff, the marine exhibition began to suffer from mysterious blackouts to which the puzzled electricians could not find any reasonable explanation. This prompted the aquarium staff to take shifts sleeping on the floor in hope of solving the mystery. “It was a serious matter because it shorted the electricity supply to the whole aquarium that threatened the lives of the other animals when water pumps ceased to work,” a spokesman of the aquarium explains.

During the third night, a befuddled aquarium crew found out the reason behind the incidents – an annoyed octopus that had realised that he could extinguish the irritating lamp by climbing onto the rum of his tank and squirting a jet of water at it.

“We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out a the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water“, says the spokes man.

Octopuses are clever and curious animals and they can easily grow bored in captivity. If you wish to keep an octopus, it is very important to constantly provide it with challenging tasks and things to explore to keep it happy and healthy. An octopus must also have suitable caves or similar in the aquarium where it can relive stress, carry out its natural behaviours – and hide from pesky lights. You can read more about octopuses in captivity here.

This August, a turtle decided to take a stroll through a cannabis garden in a secluded part of one of America’s public parklands. This wouldn’t have been a problem for the resourceful horticulturist responsible for the plantation if it hadn’t been for the fact that this particular turtle was fitted with a GPS tracking device and followed by a park ranger. When the park ranger realised that the turtle had led him to an outdoor hydroponics lab, he contacted the police who stalked out the patch and eventually arrested its illicit gardener.

Florida Box Turtle. Picture by: Jonathan Zander

“He felt like he had a layer of security, but he probably never counted on a turtle with a tracking device leading us to that location and finding the field,” says Sergeant Robert Lachance of the U.S. Park Police. On a personal note I must humbly admit that I likely would have made the same misstake and been caught by Sergeant Robert Lachance as well. But after this I will make sure to consider the risk of turtlea with GPS tracking devices if I ever decide to get into the drug trade. (Just joking!)

The park in question was the Rock Creek Park, a large urban natural area with public park facilities that bisects Washington, D.C. The parklands follow the course of Rock Creek across the border between D.C. and Maryland and connect with the Rock Creek Stream Valley Park and the Rock Creek Regional Park in Montgomery County.

Another lake monster sighting. This time in West Hartford, Connecticut. The pictures that are supposedly depicting a lake monster were taken in a water reservoir last Friday. The photos were taken by Barbara Blanchfield who claims that she witnessed the sea monster in her pictures surface and then submerge again while out photographing. The Metropolitan District Commission was shown the pictures and it is now working with their wildlife and patrol department to determine what (if any) is in the water.

People who have seen the pictures say that it don’t look like any known animal from the area. My personal opinion after having looked at the pictures is that it looks like a part of an old wooden, stockade like construction of the type that often used to be constructed around channels and ponds to prevent land erosion at the water edge. That also seems like a plausible explanation based on the fact that the sighting took place in a water reservoir which hardly seems like the most likely place to find an undiscovered Sea monster. But I might be wrong and no one would be happier than me if I was proven wrong and the pictures actually depict a new species.

Take a look at the video below and let me know what you think. Am I right or do we have a new (or perhaps a known) species on our hands.

So what do you think about the movie:

Not long ago we also reported on this video of a sea monster filmed with U/W cameras in Sweden.

Fifteen-year old Seth Russell was floating down Lake Chicot in Arkansas on an inner tube being towed by a boat when a carp suddenly leaped out of the water and crashed into his face. The impact was severe enough to render the boy unconscious and break his jaw, but the experience must have even worse for the fish because Russell was covered in fish blood and guts after the accident.

The carp in question was a Silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix). This fish is not native to the United States; it originates from north and northeast Asia. During the 1970’s Silver carps were deliberately introduced to U.S. waters to control algae growth in aquacultures and municipal wastewater treatment facilities. Specimens soon began to escape into other bodies of water and Silver carps can today be found in the Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio and Missouri rivers and many of their tributaries.

This shows that invasive species doesn’t have to be a direct problem for animals and plants in the area only; some can actually cause direct harm to people as well. The Silver carp has earned the nick-name Flying carp for is propensity to leap from the water when frightened. It can leap 3 meters / 10 feet high in the air and is certainly not something you wish to crash into since it can attain a weight of 18 kg / 40 lbs.