A drought in the state of Texas, where 1.5 million bats are living under a bridge in the city of Austin, has fueled a bat frenzy with locals gathering each night to view the nocturnal creatures. The drought has destroyed crops in Texas and killed delicious pests that the Mexican free-tailed bats eat.
The lack of food means the bats leave home earlier than usual each night to find nourishment -- giving the locals more time to watch the normally-nocturnal critters fly before the sun goes down.
Each night they stream from under a bridge by the hundreds of thousands in a black cloud so large that it shows up on local weather radar.
"It's wonderful for people to be able to see them, and they are really spectacular," said James Eggers, director of education for the Austin-based Bat Conservation International. "But it's an indicator that things are a little tougher for the bats."
But naturalists do not see any negative long-term effects if the drought ends soon.
"If we just have one to two years of drought, it's a natural cycle and it's not going to affect the species as a whole," Eggers said. "What some scientists fear is that this is not a regular drought, but could be indicative of change coming because of global warming. If we have an extended drought for many years, that could affect the population of the Mexican free-tails."
An extended drought could be a double whammy for central Texas farmers, who depend on the bats to remove some 1,000 tons of insects and pests from the air each night.
A study in 2006 showed that area cotton farming, which was a $4.5 million-a-year industry at the time, saved some $750,000 a year from pestilence thanks to the Mexican free tails.
Experts say about 100 million bats live in Central Texas. The largest bat colony in the world, about 20 million, resides in a cave northwest of San Antonio. The Mexican free-tails summer in central Texas and winter in Mexico.
Around March, about 750,000 pregnant females come to downtown Austin and nest under the Congress Street bridge, just blocks from the governor's mansion.
A few months later, they have their babies and their numbers double to 1.5 million. The nightly spectacle, which draws visitors from all over the world, lasts through about October, when the bats return to Mexico.
The bats moved into Austin in the 1980s when the bridge, then 70 years old, was reinforced with beams that surprisingly turned out to be a perfect habitat for them.
After initial resistance Austin now welcomes the creatures. There is a huge bat sculpture next to downtown. The Official Drink of Austin is the Bat-ini and the bat conservation group moved its headquarters from Milwaukee to Austin.
The Texas Department of Transportation works closely with Eggers' group to adapt new bridges and roadways across Texas to attract bats.
In Austin alone, the bats bring in some $8 million from eco-tourism.
"The bats are our unofficial mascot," Austin resident Susan Floyd said. "Their return each spring marks the beginning of festival season. And, they're weird. Just like Austin. "
Friday, August 5, 2011
Man guilty of assault for spilling drink on Zuma
A South African man was found guilty of assault on Wednesday for spilling a whisky and water drink near President Jacob Zuma at the country's premier horse race last year, local media reported.
Charges were laid against Daryl Peense, a betting agent, after an incident at the Durban July horse race a year ago in which he allegedly spilled his drink over Zuma from a balcony.
Peense was found guilty of assault on Wednesday and sentencing has been postponed to September 7, SAPA news agency reported, citing a National Prosecution Authority spokeswoman.
His attorney told the court earlier that Peense was drunk at the time and only a small quantity of whisky was spilled from his glass. He had no intention of injuring the president.
One of Zuma's bodyguards told the court in March that he saw Peense pour a drink from the balcony over Zuma's group at the horse race meeting.
Charges were laid against Daryl Peense, a betting agent, after an incident at the Durban July horse race a year ago in which he allegedly spilled his drink over Zuma from a balcony.
Peense was found guilty of assault on Wednesday and sentencing has been postponed to September 7, SAPA news agency reported, citing a National Prosecution Authority spokeswoman.
His attorney told the court earlier that Peense was drunk at the time and only a small quantity of whisky was spilled from his glass. He had no intention of injuring the president.
One of Zuma's bodyguards told the court in March that he saw Peense pour a drink from the balcony over Zuma's group at the horse race meeting.
Woman faces trial for fake testicles
The police chief of a small South Carolina town will ask a jury to decide if a woman broke the state's obscenity laws by driving a pickup truck with plastic testicles hanging from the back.
Bonneau Police Chief Franco Fuda ticketed Virginia Tice, 65, in early July at a local convenience store after spying the adornment dangling from her truck.
South Carolina law considers a bumper sticker, decal or device indecent when it describes, in an offensive way as determined by contemporary community standards, "sexual acts, excretory functions, or parts of the human body."
The offense carries a maximum fine of $445 but no jail time, Fuda said.
"This is certainly not a staple of my ticket writing in Bonneau," the police chief told Reuters on Wednesday.
The Charleston law firm Savage & Savage will represent Tice for free, attorney Scott Bischoff said. The trial had been scheduled for next week but was delayed because the defendant will be out of town.
"She's such a sweet lady and she just says 'I don't want to pay the fine.' We'll let a jury decide whether this is really criminal behavior. I don't want to take away from the importance of free speech, but it's really comical," he said.
Lawmakers in some states have sought to ban the colorful plastic or rubber devices that go by brand names such as Bulls Balls and Truck Nutz.
Fuda said if the fake testicles were a free speech issue, "I don't know what they would be trying to express."
"I went to (a) few websites that said, excuse the expression, 'show your nuts,'" he said. "I didn't see anywhere it said support your local proctologist or farmer."
Bonneau Police Chief Franco Fuda ticketed Virginia Tice, 65, in early July at a local convenience store after spying the adornment dangling from her truck.
South Carolina law considers a bumper sticker, decal or device indecent when it describes, in an offensive way as determined by contemporary community standards, "sexual acts, excretory functions, or parts of the human body."
The offense carries a maximum fine of $445 but no jail time, Fuda said.
"This is certainly not a staple of my ticket writing in Bonneau," the police chief told Reuters on Wednesday.
The Charleston law firm Savage & Savage will represent Tice for free, attorney Scott Bischoff said. The trial had been scheduled for next week but was delayed because the defendant will be out of town.
"She's such a sweet lady and she just says 'I don't want to pay the fine.' We'll let a jury decide whether this is really criminal behavior. I don't want to take away from the importance of free speech, but it's really comical," he said.
Lawmakers in some states have sought to ban the colorful plastic or rubber devices that go by brand names such as Bulls Balls and Truck Nutz.
Fuda said if the fake testicles were a free speech issue, "I don't know what they would be trying to express."
"I went to (a) few websites that said, excuse the expression, 'show your nuts,'" he said. "I didn't see anywhere it said support your local proctologist or farmer."
Maharaja's tiger hunting Rolls may fetch $1 million
Auction house Bonhams will put under the hammer a rare Rolls Royce Phantom modified for tiger hunting by an Indian maharaja during the days of the British Raj, featuring a mounted machine gun and a cannon, that may fetch up to $1 million. The custom-made 1925 Rolls Royce was originally commissioned by Umed Singh II, the maharaja of Kotah in the 1920s at a time when tiger hunting was hugely popular in India.
The flaming red vehicle, with a convertible canvas roof and bespoke hunting features including a double-barreled shotgun, spotlights for night hunting and a mountable Lantaka cannon, is expected to fetch up to $1 million when it goes on the block in mid-August in Carmel, California.
"It was quite common, most of the maharajahs had specialized customized cars manufactured in the U.S. and they even had gilted frames and all sorts of things," said Pran Nevile, a writer and expert on India's colonial era known as the British Raj.
The car's 8.0-liter, 6-cylinder engine with a low gearing ratio allowed "it to creep powerfully through the roughshod jungles of Rajasthan," wrote Bonhams.
For centuries, big game hunting of tigers, leopards and Asiatic lions in India's forests was a favored pastime of India's rulers from the Mughal emperors to the British elite.
While much tiger hunting was carried out on elephant-back, some Indian maharajahs, or "great kings" of princely states across India including arid Rajasthan, took things to the extreme.
"It was more for a show but everything would be ready and then they would then go and take this Rolls Royce up to a point or the hills and from there shoot the tiger that was already captured by their servants," Nevile told Reuters.
Indiscriminate hunting, however, decimated India's Bengal tiger population from an estimated 40,000 a century ago to about 1,700 today. Tigers are now a protected keystone species throughout Asia from Indonesia's Sumatra to Indochina and India.
Indian maharajas were known for their high living and extravagant spending on all manner of trappings including ornate palaces, vintage cars and Louis Vuitton bags.
The nawab, or ruler, of southern Hyderabad state used the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond, once the largest known gemstone in the world, as a paperweight, while the nawab of tiny western Junagadh state was renowned for spending lavishly on his dog's wedding.
"They wanted to live in ostentatious style. Being a princely lot they had their own grand style and it was even copied by the British," said Nevile.
The flaming red vehicle, with a convertible canvas roof and bespoke hunting features including a double-barreled shotgun, spotlights for night hunting and a mountable Lantaka cannon, is expected to fetch up to $1 million when it goes on the block in mid-August in Carmel, California.
"It was quite common, most of the maharajahs had specialized customized cars manufactured in the U.S. and they even had gilted frames and all sorts of things," said Pran Nevile, a writer and expert on India's colonial era known as the British Raj.
The car's 8.0-liter, 6-cylinder engine with a low gearing ratio allowed "it to creep powerfully through the roughshod jungles of Rajasthan," wrote Bonhams.
For centuries, big game hunting of tigers, leopards and Asiatic lions in India's forests was a favored pastime of India's rulers from the Mughal emperors to the British elite.
While much tiger hunting was carried out on elephant-back, some Indian maharajahs, or "great kings" of princely states across India including arid Rajasthan, took things to the extreme.
"It was more for a show but everything would be ready and then they would then go and take this Rolls Royce up to a point or the hills and from there shoot the tiger that was already captured by their servants," Nevile told Reuters.
Indiscriminate hunting, however, decimated India's Bengal tiger population from an estimated 40,000 a century ago to about 1,700 today. Tigers are now a protected keystone species throughout Asia from Indonesia's Sumatra to Indochina and India.
Indian maharajas were known for their high living and extravagant spending on all manner of trappings including ornate palaces, vintage cars and Louis Vuitton bags.
The nawab, or ruler, of southern Hyderabad state used the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond, once the largest known gemstone in the world, as a paperweight, while the nawab of tiny western Junagadh state was renowned for spending lavishly on his dog's wedding.
"They wanted to live in ostentatious style. Being a princely lot they had their own grand style and it was even copied by the British," said Nevile.
Hit UFO image was polystyrene, says forger
A Belgian UFO photograph that became a worldwide hit was faked with a piece of polystyrene, one of the people behind the picture has revealed more than 20 years later in a TV interview.
"You can do a lot with a little, we managed to trick everyone with a piece of polystyrene," said one of the forgers, identified only as Patrick, who says he pulled it off at the age of 18 with some colleagues.
"We made the model with polystyrene, we painted it and then we started sticking things to it, then we suspended it in the air ... then we took the photo," he said in an interview with French-language broadcaster RTL, which was transmitted late on Tuesday.
The photograph, taken in 1990, became a sensation after it was circulated around the world. It became known as Petit-Rechain picture, after the Belgian town where it was purported to have been taken.
It was closely associated with a period known as the "Belgian UFO wave," which involved a series of reports of UFO sighting between 1989 and 1990.
In one sighting in November 1990, which was later explained as a soviet satellite breaking up, dozens of people in Belgium reported a triangular object with three lights flying slowly and soundlessly, according to a Reuters report at the time.
"You can do a lot with a little, we managed to trick everyone with a piece of polystyrene," said one of the forgers, identified only as Patrick, who says he pulled it off at the age of 18 with some colleagues.
"We made the model with polystyrene, we painted it and then we started sticking things to it, then we suspended it in the air ... then we took the photo," he said in an interview with French-language broadcaster RTL, which was transmitted late on Tuesday.
The photograph, taken in 1990, became a sensation after it was circulated around the world. It became known as Petit-Rechain picture, after the Belgian town where it was purported to have been taken.
It was closely associated with a period known as the "Belgian UFO wave," which involved a series of reports of UFO sighting between 1989 and 1990.
In one sighting in November 1990, which was later explained as a soviet satellite breaking up, dozens of people in Belgium reported a triangular object with three lights flying slowly and soundlessly, according to a Reuters report at the time.
City offers to turn dog poo into gold
A city in northern Taiwan is trying the Midas touch to persuade reluctant residents to clean up after their canines: offering a chance to win gold bars to anyone handing in bags of doggy deposits.
Starting from August 1, dog owners and other residents of New Taipei City, bordering the capital Taipei, can hand in waste to government cleaning teams in exchange for tickets to a lucky draw. The prizes: three gold ingots worth T$60,000 ($2,100), T$18,000 and T$12,000.
The number of draw tickets is unlimited, and the winners will be named in October, the city government said in a statement.
"We are hoping the draw will attract a wide participation, especially as the gold price is rising," said New Taipei City Environmental Protection Department official Chen Chao-ming.
The city will give free garbage bags to would-be collectors. It is also beefing up more conventional measures, including rewarding people for photographing dog owners leaving mess uncleaned, and stepping up its own poo patrols in dog haunts.
But it will be hoping for better results than the central city of Taichung saw in 2009, when its offer of T$100 shopping vouchers for each kg of excrement collected yielded little more than criticism and ridicule.
Starting from August 1, dog owners and other residents of New Taipei City, bordering the capital Taipei, can hand in waste to government cleaning teams in exchange for tickets to a lucky draw. The prizes: three gold ingots worth T$60,000 ($2,100), T$18,000 and T$12,000.
The number of draw tickets is unlimited, and the winners will be named in October, the city government said in a statement.
"We are hoping the draw will attract a wide participation, especially as the gold price is rising," said New Taipei City Environmental Protection Department official Chen Chao-ming.
The city will give free garbage bags to would-be collectors. It is also beefing up more conventional measures, including rewarding people for photographing dog owners leaving mess uncleaned, and stepping up its own poo patrols in dog haunts.
But it will be hoping for better results than the central city of Taichung saw in 2009, when its offer of T$100 shopping vouchers for each kg of excrement collected yielded little more than criticism and ridicule.
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