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NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. government agency that oversees the conservation of marine species, de-listed the eastern Steller sea lion from the Endangered Species List, effective on December 4, 2013.  The de-listing acknowledged the rapid increase in the abundance of the population as well as the desire to balance conservation of the sea lion and one of its primary prey species, the white sturgeon.

The Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) is one of the largest members of the marine mammal group known as pinnipeds (seals, sea lions and walrus).  Males grow as large as 2500 pounds; females are about one-quarter that size.  Males can live to age twenty, but females are known to live for thirty years or more.  Males defend territories and mate with large numbers of females.  They reside in colonies that may contain hundreds of individuals.

Steller sea lions live along the Pacific coast of the U.S. and Canada, from northern California up to and around the Alaskan coast.  The species is divided into two subgroups, the western and eastern populations; the dividing line is in southern Alaska at Cape Suckling.  The de-listing covers only the eastern population.  The western population is still listed as endangered, its abundance having plummeted mysteriously since the 1970s.

But the eastern population has done spectacularly well.  In 1979, the population stood at about 18,000 individuals; it was listed as an endangered population in 1990.  Since then, it has been increasing at more than 4% per year, above the goal stated in the population recovery plan.  As of 2015, the population numbered over 80,000 individuals.

An evaluation for de-listing had been requested by the fisheries and wildlife agencies of Washington and Oregon in 2010.  Those states feared that the rapidly expanding sea lion population would have a negative impact on salmon populations, many of which are also endangered, and the white sturgeon.  Sea lions have learned to congregate at the base of dams on major rivers, where fish concentrate during their upstream migrations.  Populations at the base of Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River have become particularly abundant and problematic.  The fish are easy prey for the sea lions, and white sturgeon populations in the Columbia River have declined in parallel to the increases in sea lions.

Removal of the eastern Steller sea lion from the Endangered Species List means that the species will no longer receive intensive monitoring and priority consideration when actions are proposed for managing rivers, dams and other wildlife populations.  However, the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act 
continues to protect this species and all other marine mammals from harvest.

References:

Columbia River Basin Bulletin.  2013.  Steller Sea Lions Delisted; Gives States Option Of Seeking Lethal Removal Below Bonneville Dam.  Fish & Wildlife News, October 25, 2013.  Available at:  http://www.cbbulletin.com/428830.aspx.  Accessed December 4, 2017.

IUCN.  2017.  Eumetopias jubatus.  IUCN Red List.  Available at:  http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/full/8239/0.  Accessed December 4, 2017.

NOAA Fisheries.  2013.  NOAA removes the eastern Steller sea lion from the Endangered Species Act list.  Available at:  http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/mediacenter/2013/10/23_10_essl_delist.html.  Accessed December 4, 2017.

NOAA Fisheries.  Steller Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus).  Available at:  http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/sealions/steller-sea-lion.html.  Accessed December 4, 2017.

On December 2, 1946, a small group of the world’s nations that conducted whaling met in Washington, DC, and signed the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.  That Convention created the International Whaling Commission, a global group that oversees the conservation of whales and their relatives throughout the world’s oceans.

The Convention establishing the International Whaling Commission (IWC) states that the agreement and IWC were formed “…for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus mak[ing] possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.”  In other words, when created, the task of the IWC was to regulate whale stocks as renewable natural resources, to be harvested sustainably by the world’s whaling nations.  They addressed this charge by setting harvest regulations that governed whaling for many decades.  The regulations, like many early fishing rules, did little to reduce the overharvest of whales.  Consequently, a large range of nations and organizations have changed the IWC and whale management.

From a small number of members who represented whaling nations, the membership has grown to 88 countries (as of November, 2022), many of whom are landlocked and most of whom have no intention to conduct whaling.  Consequently, the IWC has become largely an environmental organization with the dominant view that whales and their relatives should not be harvested.  In 1986, therefore, the IWC set a moratorium on all commercial whaling.  The success of this moratorium is revealed in the growing populations of most whale species, including the de-listing of some populations of California gray and humpback whales from the U.S. Endangered Species List.  From a low of only a few hundred remaining individuals, populations of the blue whale, the world’s largest animal, have rebounded several fold.  While blue whales are still far below sustainable levels, their continued presence on earth is assured.

Some whaling does continue, however. Both Norway and Iceland, IWC members, conduct commercial whaling on inshore stocks of smaller whales, operating under a provision of the convention that allows them to “object” to the catch limits imposed by the Commission.  Japan continues to conduct “scientific whaling” under the provisions of the IWC, but the actions of the Japanese are considered by many to be a sham that merely allows Japanese whalers to kill and sell whales.  Aboriginal whaling is allowed in several locations worldwide, including in Alaska, where Inuit hunters harvest bowhead whales.

The IWC relies strongly on the scientific community of whale biologists to provide the data for their decisions.  The Commission’s annual Scientific Committee meeting is attended by more than 200 scientists.  According to the U.S. Department of State, the IWC Scientific Committee is “…considered the preeminent scientific authority on large whales.”  With a moratorium on commercial whaling in place, the IWC has gone on to address other dangers to whale populations, including collisions with boats, entanglement in fishing gear, behavioral changes caused by whale-watching tourism and climate change.

The IWC is headed by an Executive Secretary who oversees a small staff operating out of Cambridge, England.  The Commission holds a general meeting every two years at which the rules for whaling are considered.  The most recent meeting was held in Slovenia in October, 2022..

References:

International Whaling Commission.  History and purpose.  Available at:  https://iwc.int/history-and-purpose.  Accessed December 4, 2017.

U.S. Department of State.  International Whaling Commission (IWC).  Available at:  https://www.state.gov/e/oes/ocns/opa/biodiversity/whale/.  Accessed December 4, 2017.

William Temple Hornaday, one of the leading conservationists of the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, was born on December 1, 1854 (died 1937).  Hornaday was the finest taxidermist of his time, but made history by promoting the preservation of living specimens in two of the world’s premier zoos.

Hornaday was born in central Indiana, a farm boy who wanted adventure and scientific study rather than days behind a plow.  He attended Iowa State University, but left before graduating to become a taxidermist for Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, a biological specimen company in Rochester, New York.  Ward’s sent him on collecting expeditions throughout the tropics, where his skill as a marksman and his fearlessness as an animal tracker soon became evident.  A major expedition to India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia yielded many specimens—at the time considered the largest collection assembled by one person—and provided the experience for the first of 15 books he wrote, Two Years in the Jungle.

His expertise as a taxidermist led to his appointment as the Smithsonian’s chief taxonomist in 1882.  Fearing that the American bison would be extinct soon, the Smithsonian’s leader sent Hornaday on a collecting expedition to the West to shoot bison specimens for museums across the world (an odd paradox:  to preserved some knowledge of a vanishing species, one is required to kill individuals!).  While completing the assignment, Hornaday concluded that bison and many other species would soon be gone unless something was done—and a conservationist was born:  “It is the duty of every good citizen to promote the protection of forests and wildlife.”

His first idea was to preserve some groups of living bison for captive breeding.  He convinced the Smithonsian’s leadership in 1887 to create a Department of Living Animals, a zoo of small enclosures behind the iconic Smithsonian Castle on the Capitol Mall, and put him in charge.  Within a year, the zoo was bursting with animals and visited by a continuing stream of curious tourists.  Within two years, Hornaday lobbied Congress that the nation needed a grander facility to display its living heritage.   They agreed and appropriated funds to buy a large tract of land in Rock Creek Park to house the growing collection in a much more natural setting—the beginnings of the National Zoo we know and enjoy today.

Hornaday wasn’t the easiest man to get along with, however, and he left the zoo soon after the final plans had been drawn.  After a few years working in real estate, he became the first director of the New York Zoological Park (known popularly as the Bronx Zoo, much to Hornaday’s distress), where he served for three decades.  There he built the zoo and its associated programs into one of the world’s primary conservation organizations, the World Conservation Society.  While the zoo’s director, he was at the center of a national scandal in 1906, when the zoo displayed a human pigmy from the Congo in the primate house.

Hornaday was a dedicated conservationist throughout the later half of his life.  He promoted game protection laws to limit both market and recreational hunting.  He believed strongly in captive breeding as a fundamental tool of wildlife management and viewed hunters as a cause of species decline (views that put him at odds with other prominent conservationists, such as Aldo Leopold).  He was particularly vocal about preservation of the American bison.  His 1913 bestseller, Our Vanishing Wildlife:  Its Extermination and Preservation, was a call to action for the nation.  Hornaday was also a leader of the scouting movement, responsible for the incorporation of conservation and environment as fundamentals of the scouting portfolio.

References:

Bechtel, Stefan.  2012.  The Peculiar Victorian Taxidermist Who Created the National Zoo.  The Atlantic, May 16, 2012.  Available at:  https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/the-peculiar-victorian-taxidermist-who-created-the-national-zoo/257251/.  Accessed December 1, 2017.

New York Times.  1937.  Dr. W. T. Hornaday Dies in Stamford.  New York Times, March 7, 1937.  Available at:  https://www.ancestry.com/boards/surnames.hornaday/129/mb.ashx?pnt=1.  Accessed December 1, 2017.

Smithsonian Institution.  1989.  William Temple Hornaday, Visionary of the National Zoo.  Smithsonian News Service, February 1989.  Available at:  http//:nationalalzoo.si.edu/AboutUs/History/hornaday.cfm.  Accessed February 11, 2015.

On November 14, 2013, the U.S. government crushed nearly 6 tons of elephant ivory in a historic demonstration of its commitment to stopping poaching and illegal wildlife trade.  The action by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ushered in a new era in elephant conservation.

Ivory has a long history as a favored raw material for art—jewelry, statuary, piano keys and other decorative purposes.  The commercial market for ivory, however, is the primary reason for the drastic overharvest and near extermination of African elephants during the 20^th Century.  In response, the world’s nations together made international ivory trade illegal in 1990.  Elephant populations have been recovering since then, but a new wave of poaching since about 2010 is driving elephant numbers down again—and bringing a renewed sense of urgency to elephant conservation.

As nations catch poachers and disrupt illegal trade, they accumulate ivory.  The ivory is kept in warehouses, generally with no plan for what to do with the stockpiles.  On two occasions, several African nations were allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles, so that the revenue could be used for elephant conservation and to offset agricultural losses caused by elephants trampling peasant’s fields.  Those sales sparked controversy, some feeling that the sales encouraged a black market and further poaching, and world opinion is now deciding against any such future sales of ivory

Kenya made the first commitment to destroying ivory when it burned its stockpile on July 19, 1989.  They burned ivory again in 1991 and 2011, joined by two other countries.  But ivory destruction took hold as a global strategy in 2013, when the Philippines and U.S. destroyed their ivory collections.

The first U.S. ivory crushing, on November 14, 2013, destroyed the 25-year accumulation held, along with other wildlife contraband, at a US Fish and Wildlife Service warehouse near Denver, Colorado.  An industrial-scale rock crusher, the kind used to grind road demolition waste into gravel, ground elephant tusks, statues and jewelry into pea-sized fragments as the leaders of American conservation looked on.  Carter Roberts, CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, said, “By crushing its contraband ivory tusks and trinkets, the U.S. government sends a signal that it will not tolerate the senseless killing of elephants.”

Other countries got the signal.  Since then, 16 additional countries have crushed or burned their ivory stockpiles, including China, the largest market for illegal ivory sales.  In all, 275 tons of ivory have been destroyed.  Twice more, in 2015 and 2017, the U.S. crushed ivory, both times in Times Square, New York City.  Unfortunately, confiscated ivory continues to accumulate.

Ivory destruction is symbolic, but real actions have followed.  The U.S. made virtually all internal sales of ivory illegal in 2016 (only antique ivory and ivory included on musical instruments are exempted).  China has instituted policies to do the same by 2018.

It is tempting to put a price tag on the value of the destroyed ivory, but that would undermine the whole idea.  As Ross Harvey of the South African Institute of International Affairs wrote, “…ethically, elephant ivory should have no material value, and elephant tusks should only be regarded as valuable on living elephants….crushing a stockpile of confiscated ivory sends a signal to the world that ivory is not for sale.”

 

References:

 

Actman, Jani.  2016.  U.S. Adopts Near-Total Ivory Ban.  National Geographic News, June 3, 2016.  Available at:  https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/us-ivory-ban-regulations/.  Accessed November 13, 2017.

 

Actman, Jani.  2017.  Does Sestryoing Ivory Save Elephants?  Experts Weigh In.  National Geographic News, August 2, 2017.  Available at:  https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/wildlife-watch-ivory-crush-elephant-poaching/.  Accessed November 13, 2017.

 

Poaching Facts.  Ivory Stockpile Burns.  Available at:  http://www.poachingfacts.com/history/ivory-stockpile-burns/.  Accessed November 13, 2017.

 

US Fish and Wildlife Service.  2013.  U.S. Destroy Confiscated Ivory Stockpile, Sends Message that Wildlife Trafficking, Elephant Poaching Must be Crushed.  USFWS News Release, November 14, 2013.  Available at:  https://www.fws.gov/le/pdf/Ivory-Crush-News-Release.pdf.  Accessed November 13, 2017.

Amory Lovins, considered by many to be the king of energy efficiency, was born on November 13, 1947.  Lovins created and led the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a think-tank specializing in novel approaches to saving energy and, thereby, saving costs of constructing and operating buildings.  He is now listed as Chairman Emeritus and Chief Scientist for RMI

Lovins is a noble combination of contrarian and conventional thinking.  Biographies describe him as a physicist, but his academic career is much more ambiguous.  He studied at Harvard and Oxford, but quit both schools when they tried to make him choose a major.  Despite never earning a degree the usual way, he now holds a dozen honorary doctorates.  He remains an optimist, understanding that enormous opportunities exist to re-direct human existence into sustainable pathways.  The goal of RMI, he says, is to help direct “the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining.”

Realizing that goal requires a type of Renaissance Man, and Lovins meets the definition.  The range of his capabilities and interests is enormous, from basic sciences to economics to art and photography.  He is, by all accounts, a genius.  That distinction was validated by a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant and a long list of awards, including recognition as one of Time magazine’s “100 most influential people.”

He provides a unique perspective on energy usage (and most other aspects of modern life).  Emphasizing his upbeat approach, he says, “I don’t do problems.  I do solutions.”  His solutions for energy use are based on a holistic, rather than a compartmentalized, view.  Better design and materials in construction lead to lower energy use, which pays for the better design and materials.  He claims, and I believe him, that new buildings can be built that use only 25% of the energy of the buildings they replace.  He lives in a house in Colorado that is essentially “off the grid,” and allows tourists to see how he “walks the talk.”

Lovins was one of the first to warn the world about climate change.  In a 1976 article about energy strategy, written in response to the Arab oil embargo, he noted that reliance on fossil fuels would lead inevitably to climate change, only the timing being in question.  Consequently, he works with anyone whose better decisions can reduce dependence on burning carbon for energy.  When criticized for helping the Department of Defense become more efficient at conducting war, Lovins countered that the atmosphere doesn’t care where the emission savings come from—and neither does he.

He believes that energy conservation is the absolute top strategy for reducing human dependence on fossil fuels.  He coined the term “nega-watts” to indicate the reduction in energy generation that can be achieved by conservation.

I have heard Lovins speak several times.  Each has been mesmerizing, both by the power and simplicity of his ideas and the joy with which he shares them.  Most of the energy in automobiles is used to move the weight of the car, not the passengers—so let’s make cars with carbon-fiber lightweight frames.  Plumbers like to run pipes at right angles, but routing them on the diagonal can reduce costs.  Opportunities to save are everywhere.  And while we might say he thinks out of the box, he would disagree: “There is no box.”

References:

Kolbert, Elizabeth.  2007.  Mr. Green; Environmentalism’s optimistic guru Amory Lovins.  The New Yorker, January 22, 2007.  Available at:  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/01/22/mr-green.  Accessed November 13, 2017.

Rocky Mountain Institute.  Amory Lovins.  Available at:  https://rmi.org/people/amory-lovins/.  Accessed November 13, 2017.

Salim Moizuddin Abdul Ali was an Indian conservationist born on November 12, 1896 (died 1987).  Ali became one of the world’s foremost ornithologists, earning the moniker “The Birdman of India.”

Ali was born in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the youngest of nine siblings.  As a boy of ten, he shot a bird with an air gun.  He realized it wasn’t a common House Sparrow and asked his uncle to help identify the bird.  His uncle took him to the director of the Bombay Natural History Society, who identified it as a Yellow-throated Sparrow and showed the young Ali around the museum.  Ali was hooked—he became a regular at the museum and from then on birds were central to his life.

He was educated for business, however, and moved to Burma for several years to help develop his family’s tungsten mines.  He chose that assignment on purpose:  “I took the opportunity in Burma where the mining business was all in thick forest….That part of the country…was particularly good for birds.”

His interest in ornithology took him on a rambling life journey.  He studied zoology, but never completed a degree.  He was a guide and lecturer at a new Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai.  He traveled to Germany for two years to study birds and learn bird-banding.  He spent some years in a coastal community where he studied the nesting habits of weaverbirds—a topic that he later said was his most rewarding—and rediscovered a species of weaverbird thought extinct.

As his reputation as an ornithologist grew, he received opportunities to survey bird populations and behavior in many regions of India.  This was heaven to him.  Never a fan of taxonomy and nomenclature, he thrived on the observation of living birds in nature.  “I feel strongly like retiring from ornithology, if this is the stuff, and spending the rest of my days in the peace of the wilderness with birds, and away from the dust and frenzy of taxonomical warfare.”

He did not retire from ornithology, but made it his own.  Among many publications, he produced two seminal works.  First was The Book of Indian Birds, a popular book that raised interest in the observation and conservation of birds.  Second was the authoritative 10-volume Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan, which he co-authored with S. Dillon Ripley, who would go on to become the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

Ali became one of India’s most prominent conservationists.  He consulted with the governments of Jawaharlal Nehru, convincing him to continue support of the Bombay Natural History Society, and Indira Gandhi, who made him an Elder of the government.  He fought successfully for the protection of the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary and Silent Valley National Park.

For his ninety years of dedication to conservation, Ali was honored with the highest recognitions from around the world.  He received both the second and third highest civilian awards in India, and was the first foreigner to receive the Gold Medal of the British Ornithologists’ Union.  He was honored by the Soviet Union, the United States, the Netherlands and the IUCN.  Several bird species, bird sanctuaries and institutions are named after him.

Yet neither awards nor reputation motivated him.  Birds did.  A short film of his life ended this way:  “In the autumn of his life, yet young at heart, Salim Ali is out all the time, walking, looking, listening.  In the company of birds, he is never lonely….for to be with birds is very heaven.”

References:

Maps of India.  12 November 1896:  Salim Ali, Indian ornithologist and naturalist, was born.  Available at:  https://www.mapsofindia.com/on-this-day/12th-november-1896-salim-ali-indian-ornithologist-and-naturalist-was-born.  Accessed November 10, 2017.

New York Times.  1987.  Salim Ali Dies in India; Authority on Wildlife.  New York Times, June 21, 1987.  Available at:  http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/21/obituaries/salim-ali-dies-in-india-authority-on-wildlife.html.  Accessed November 10, 2017.

The Famous People.  Salim Ali.  Available at:  https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/salim-ali-7423.php.  Accessed November 10, 2017.

The Logican Indian.  2016.  Meet Salim Ali – The Birdman of India.  April 1^st, 2016.  Available at:  https://thelogicalindian.com/rewind/meet-salim-ali-the-birdman-of-india/.  Accessed November 10, 2017.

Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the world’s most famous actors and also a fervent environmentalist, was born November 11, 1974.  Over the past two decades, DiCaprio has used his celebrity fame to bring attention—intense attention—to the world’s major environmental issues, especially climate change.

DiCaprio was born and raised in Los Angeles.  He claims that from his first memories he was captured by an environmental image.  His parents hung a poster of a famous painting over his crib—Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.  The painting represents the beauty and largess of Eden, followed by the disastrous fate of Adam and Eve and their descendants for not nurturing it.  Over the years, he came to understand the painting as a metaphor for the environmental damage that humans were causing to the earth.

DiCaprio has gone on to enormous success as an actor, of course, winning the 2016 Oscar for Best Actor and becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office draws.  But, he asserts, love of nature and concern for the environment have always been part of his true persona. “I remember the thing that I got the most sad about when I was little was the loss of species that have been as a result of mankind’s intrusion on nature,” he told Rolling Stone Magazine.

He got serious about making a difference after a meeting with former Vice-President Al Gore.  In 1998, he created the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation “with the mission of protecting the world’s last wild places.”  Today the foundation works across a range of environmental issues, including protected areas and climate change.  It has given more than $80 million in grants (at least $30 million of DiCaprio’s own money) to projects in 50 nations.  His social-media presence on environmental matters reaches more than 50 million people.  In 2007, he wrote, produced and narrated a feature-length documentary, The 11^th Hour, in which he interviews world leaders on environmental issues.

For his work, DiCaprio has been designated a UN Messenger of Peace for Climate Change and won the Clinton Global Citizen Award.  He serves on the board of the World Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and several other groups.

DiCaprio says that he is “consumed by [environmental issues].  There isn’t a couple of hours a day where I’m not thinking about it.  It’s not ‘aliens invading our planet next week,’ but it’s this inevitable thing, and it’s so terrifying,” he told Rolling Stone.  Amid that fear, however, he works to stay optimistic.  He continues to use his acting fame as access to people with the power to make positive change.  For example, he was present at the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement, recognizing the treaty as a positive step toward a sustainable future without reliance on fossil fuels.

References:

Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.  About Us.  Available at:  https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/about/.  Accessed November 10, 2017.

Rodrick, Stephen.  2016.  Inside Leonardo DiCaprio’s Crusade to Save the World.  Rolling Stone Magazine, February 18, 2016.  Available at:  http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/inside-leonardo-dicaprios-crusade-to-save-the-world-20160218#ixzz41ZKd1Lf7.  Accessed November 10, 2017.

World Wildlife Fund.  Leonardo DiCaprio.  Available at: https://www.worldwildlife.org/leaders/leonardo-dicaprio.  Accessed November 10, 2017.

So, here’s a question for you:  What world-renowned book began as an argument among hunting friends over the fastest game bird in Great Britain?  Yes, indeed, it was the Guinness Book of World Records.  And here’s how it happened.

On November 10, 1951, a group of friends were out hunting for birds in County Wexford, in the southeastern corner of Ireland.  The shooting was good, but the hunters had missed on several shots at the Golden Plover, a common gamebird throughout Europe and western Asia.  It is relatively small, weighing about half a pound, with brown plumage on the back and sides and a white streak running from the top of its head, down the neck and across the breast and belly.

That evening, some of the party claimed that they had missed their shots because the Golden Plover flew so fast, the fastest gamebird in Europe, they claimed.  An argument began, with others claiming that, no, the Grouse was the fastest bird.  But with no authoritative source available to consult, the argument remained unresolved.  One member of the hunting party thought that a reference book ought to be available to answer such questions and that it might be popular in Great Britain’s 80,000+ pubs.

That farsighted individual was Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of the Guinness Breweries.  Beaver was a visionary with a history of making things happen.  A civil engineer by training, he led the assembly of the famous Mulberry Harbor as part of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.  He also worked actively on air pollution issues in England, chairing the Committee on Air Pollution that led to the first comprehensive British Clean Air Act of 1956.

A few years after the Golden Plover-Grouse argument, in 1954, Beaver decided it was time to act on the idea for a fact book.  To produce a book of world records, he engaged a pair of twin geniuses, Norris and Ross McWhirter, who ran a company to provide authoritative data to the London newspaper industry.  They set to work gathering the data, by sending hundreds of letters “to astrophysicists, physiologists, zoologists, meteorologists, vulcanologists, botanists, ornithologists, microlepidopterists, concologists, virologists, economists, numismatists, criminologists, etimologists, incunabulists, campinologists, gemmologists, metrologists, pryphologists, toxicologists, spelæologists, malocologists, herpetologists, hagiologists, horologists, mycologists, and gerontologists.” Working flat-out, they compiled all the information that flowed in and completed the first 198-page version by the fall of 1955.

The first edition of The Guinness Book of Records was an immediate success, selling out 100,000 copies by Christmas.  After 63 years of publication, it is the world’s best-selling copyrighted book.  The first edition contained about 4,000 entries; the current database of records contains over 47,000.

Interestingly, for 35 years, the book failed to answer the question that started it all—which is the fastest gamebird in Europe?  The Guinness answer appeared in the 36^th edition, published in 1989:  “Britain’s fastest game bird is the Red Grouse (Lagopus l. scoticus) which, in still air, has recorded burst speeds up to … 58-63 mph over very short distances. Air speeds up to … 70 mph have been claimed for the Golden plover (Pluvialis apricaria) when flushed, but it is extremely doubtful whether this rapid-flying bird can exceed … 50-55 mph – even in an emergency.”  Not very conclusive, eh?  Let’s discuss it over another pint!

References:

Book-of-records.  Guinness Record Book Collecting—The History of the Book.  Available at:  http://guinness.book-of-records.info/history.html.  Accessed November 9, 2017.

Claxton, Stuart.  2011.  The Very First Guinness Book of World Records.  The Blog, Huffington Post, 09/11/2011.  Available at:  https://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-claxton/the-very-first-guinness-b_b_956684.html.  Accessed November 9, 2017.

Guinness Storehouse.  Archive Fact Sheet:  Guinness Book of Records.  Available at:  https://www.guinness-storehouse.com/Content/pdf/archive-factsheets/advertising/guinness-book-of-records.pdf.  Accessed November 9, 2017.

Guinness World Records.  Our history.  Available at:  http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/about-us/our-history/.  Accessed November 9, 2017.

“Panda-monium” might be described as a state of excitement generated by the beautiful and exotic Asian animal, the giant panda.  That excitement was fueled for the first time in the U.S. when a live baby panda arrived during 1936.

Reports of the mysterious giant panda had occurred in western culture since the mid-1800s, but only in 1919 did the first complete specimen—a stuffed mount still on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History—arrive to prove its existence.  A decade later, the sons of Teddy Roosevelt shot a panda on a hunting expedition to China.  But still no live pandas had been seen by the general public.  A rich New York adventurer, Bill Harkness, set out to change that.  He went to China to capture and bring home a giant panda, but died there while waiting for a permit from the government.

His young wife, Ruth, decided to fulfill her husband’s journey.  “I inherited an expedition, and what else could I do?” she later wrote.  With no experience as a world traveler or animal handler, she set out in September, 1936, to bring home a living panda.  She traveled to Shanghai and acquired the services of a dashing 22-year-old Chinese adventurer, Quentin Young; she and Young soon became lovers, adding to the intrigue and romance of the expedition.  With an entourage of 16 bearers and a cook, they trekked through the countryside for six weeks before reaching panda habitat.

On November 9, 1936, they had arrived at the bamboo forest where pandas were know to live.  That day, they heard a shot in the forest and followed the sound.  They discovered an infant panda in the hollow of a tree and, believing that the gunshot had killed the mother, they brought the infant back to their camp.  “Automatically I reached for the tiny thing,” she wrote.  “The warm furriness in my hands brought reality to something that until then had been fantasy.”  They had planned to bring back an adult panda, but Harkness had prepared for this possibility as well, bringing baby bottles, nipples and dried milk on the expedition.  She cared for the panda as if it were a human baby.  They named the panda Su Lin, meaning “a little bit of something precious.”  Su Lin did well, growing steadily on the trip back to Shanghai.

Harkness was first denied permission to export the panda, but she persevered.  For a $20 fee, she received paperwork recording the export “one dog.”  Upon returning to New York, Harkness kept the panda in her apartment; together they were regulars on the society pages of New York newspapers and magazines.  Soon, she gave Su Lin  it to Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo.

Su Lin became an instant celebrity.  Over the year that the panda lived at the zoo, more than 300,000 people came to see it.  Helen Keller and Al Capone were among Su Lin’s visitors.  Su Lin lived for only a year, but soon other pandas showed up at zoos across America.

By the late 1950s, however, the door to importing pandas slammed shut as the U.S. forbid any purchases from communist China.  By then all pandas at American zoos had died.  The giant panda again arrived in the U.S. as a gift from China’s President Mao Tse-tung when President Richard Nixon visited the country in 1972, beginning the resumption of normal diplomatic relations with the country.

Since then, “panda-monium” has returned.  At zoos across the world, pandas are the main attraction.  The panda is the logo for the World Wildlife Fund.  Panda movies are top box-office draws.  This is all good news for the species.  China has recognized the importance of the animal as a symbol of environmental stewardship and has increased protections, including putting more panda habitat in reserves and reversing deforestation of the panda range.  Consequently, the IUCN recently noted the improved condition of panda populations by moving their status from “endangered” to “vulnerable.”  About 2000 giant pandas now live in the wild in China, all in habitat reserves.

References:

Bowes, Claire, and Alison Gee.  2013.  Ruth Harkness and Su Lin:  The first panda to leave China.  BBC News Magazine, 2 December 2013.  Available at:  http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25136118.  Accessed November 8, 2017.

Harkness, Ruth.  1938.  The Lady and The Panda–An Adventure.  Carrick & Evans, Inc., New York.  288 pages.

Heller, Chris.  2015.  How America Fell in Love With the Giant Panda.  Smithsonian.com, September 21, 2015.  Available at:  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-america-fell-love-giant-panda-180956692/.  Accessed November 8, 2017.

IUCN.  Ailuropoda melanoleuca.  IUCN Red Book.  Available at:  http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/712/0.  Accessed November 8, 2017.

Rizzo, Johnna.  2013.  Picture Archive:  Baby Giant Panda Su-Lin, Circa 1936.  National Geographic News, April 19, 2013.  Available at:  https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130418-baby-panda-china-zoo-pandacam-science-animals/.  Accessed November 8, 2017.

The natural habitat for the human species has become the city.  Therefore, to make a sustainable world, we need to make sustainable cities.  World Town Planning Day, also known as World Urbanism Day, is celebrated on November 8 to highlight just this need.

World Town Planning Day was the idea of urban planner Carlos Maria della Paolera (1890-1960), who helped found the discipline of urban planning after World War 2.  He was a professor of town planning at the National University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 1928 until his death.  He created World Town Planning Day in 1949, and it is now celebrated in 30 countries around the world.

The urban environment is a major determinant of our ability to create a sustainable earth.  Today, more than half of all humans live in cities; in North America and Europe, that percentage reaches closer to 80%.  The trend towards urban living will continue, so thinking about how cities function and the ecological footprint of urban residents is crucial to our future way of life.

Much can be done, through planning and strategic investment, to reduce the ecological footprints of urban dwellers.  Cities have some built-in advantages.  First, of course, the high population density means less land per person is consumed in living space.  Also because of the high human density, many functions can be much more efficient in cities than in the country.  Public transportation, water purification, waste collection and processing, material recycling and co-generation of heat and electricity are all possible in cities, but less effective for rural communities.  Moreover, ideas and strategies are found in abundance in the innovation, entrepreneurship and skills of urban residents.  As Julian Simon wrote in “The Ultimate Resource,” the human mind is the answer to our future—and there are many minds in cities.

But cities will only work well if people wish to live there, rather than migrating to green space at the edge of the suburbia.  And political will and community commitment are essential to assure infrastructure investment will be made as needed. Consequently, developing and executing plans for livable cities and economic progress is a future imperative.

Gil Penalosa is an urban planner with a firm grasp on this reality.  Through his program, “8 80 Cities,” he asserts that a city built to provide a high quality of life for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old will be a sustainable city.  Thus, he believes “pedestrian mobility” is key to developing desirable communities.  Walking and riding bikes must be safe, attractive and accessible for all.  For example, he promotes the idea of using urban streets, busy with traffic on weekdays, as open spaces for community use on weekends—for walking, cycling, farmers’ markets, community festivals and other locally desirable functions.

As a friend of mine told me many years ago, “If you love the country, live in the city.”  Today I would add, “If you love the country, make that city sustainable.”

References:

8 80 Cities.  Creating Cities for All.  Available at:  http://www.880cities.org/.  Accessed November 7, 2017.

American Planning Association.  2017.  World Town Planning Day. Available at:  https://www.planning.org/international/worldtown/.  Accessed November 7, 2017.

Rees, William, and Mathis Wackernagel.  1996.  Urban Ecological Footprints:  Why Cities Cannot be Sustainable—and Why They are a Key to Sustainability.  Environmental Impact Assessment Review 1996:16:233-248.  Available at:  https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0195925596000224/1-s2.0-S0195925596000224-main.pdf?_tid=357a2330-c3eb-11e7-ba37-00000aab0f6c&acdnat=1510080244_e5c81e0a86c4a03b6c37d781c815c1cc.  Accessed November 7, 2017.

Prabook.  Carlos Maria della Paolera.  Available at:  http://prabook.com/web/person-view.html?profileId=1117639.  Accessed November 7, 2017.

United Nations.  2014.  Our urbanizing world.  Population Facts, Population Division, United Nations, August 2014.  Available at:  http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/popfacts/PopFacts_2014-3.pdf.  Accessed November 7, 2017.