Elephant dung paper: Indian papermaker gives elephant poop new cachet

via latimes.com

A thousand-mile journey begins with a single step. Sometimes that step leaves a little something on your shoe.
Vijender Shekhawat's big break came while visiting a shrine near the Amber Fort in Jaipur, as he glanced down at the pile of elephant dung he had just failed to avoid. A struggling maker of handmade paper, he noticed that the texture of the plant-eating animal's manure was a lot like wood pulp.
Eureka! he thought. Pachyderm poop paper.
His family thought something else: He was stark-raving mad. Shekhawat, 29, came from a storied warrior caste of bejeweled rulers and decorated generals. Sure, the lineage had slipped a bit, but what would the neighbors think?
'We came from a dynasty that used to sit on thrones," said his mother, Kaushalya Kanwar. "All we could think was, 'How far have we fallen?'"
His principal buyer was also skeptical.
"This is too strange," Mahima Mehra, head of papermaker Papeterie Co., recalls thinking. "It's bizarre."
But Shekhawat persevered despite early failures. At 100% dung, the paper didn't hold together. At 50% dung and 50% cotton, it was too brittle. After many months, he settled on a 75% dung-25% cotton mix and he was on his way. (Don't worry; the dung is washed first.)
Mehra also warmed to the idea after researching it and finding that it was made in Thailand, Sri Lanka and South Africa, among other places.
To counter cynics, they referenced Ganesha, an elephant-headed Hindu god, arguing that there was no harm in recycling divine waste.
Religion runs everything in this country," Mehra said. "Suddenly, scores of people wanted to work with the stuff.

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I thought possums were a problem

via youtube.com

Can you hire giraffe eradicators in Australia?

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CalumCarr on .... Whatever: 60’s Protest Songs

via calumcarr.blogspot.com

The Elephant in the room for the UK election. Why are more people not angry about an unwinnable war?

Great collection of protest songs from Calum

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Hate Your Job?

I had a friend who was an Australian vet and he was a fan of winter birthing for cows.

Not Too Keen For Work Today

OK Maybe not too bad by comparison.

Elephants on Acid

Fresh from writing on the benefits of removing Elephants from freezing living conditions, we learn that Elephants are highly allergic to LSD and will likely die if injected.

When Warren Thomas, the director of Lincoln Park Zoo in Oklahoma City, approached Tusko the elephant with a syringe full of LSD in 1962, he thought that he was about to make a major contribution to science.

Within a few moments of being injected, Tusko began trumpeting furiously, before keeling over as if he had been shot. An hour later, he was dead. “It appears that the elephant is highly sensitive to the effects of LSD,” Thomas and his colleagues concluded.

Well Duh!!!

I wonder what an appropriate dose by elephant body mass would be? Probably enough to pay off your mortgage.

That and many other odd scientific journeys are described in the top ten wacky science experiments of all time.

As the author states

“Sometimes such single-mindedness leads to brilliant discoveries. At other times it can end up closer to madness. Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing in advance where the journey will lead.”

You have to wonder sometimes about the rational thinking of some scientists. At least they didn't give it a line of cocaine and get it to snort. Now that would have been expensive.

Maggie the Elephant skates down from the Glacier

Can't say that I blame her for seeking out warmer climes.

In Anchorage, Maggie, who has been alone for 10 years since the death of the zoo's other elephant, Annabelle, lived in a house with concrete floors and a small outside enclosure.

Debate over her conditions has rumbled on for years, but the decision to move her came recently after the fire department was called out twice in a week to hoist her to her feet because she could not stand unaided.

An earlier attempt by the zoo board to offset criticism of Maggie's condition failed. They bought her a treadmill but she refused to climb on to it.

Having been to Alaska twice, I can certify that the top temperature there is in the range of zero degrees. Imagine getting a tread mill for an elephant? Having lived in Sacramento, I think that the climate is a bit more elephant friendly and may allow some of her joints to unfreeze. Talk about pulling out the short straw when the elephants were choosing zoos back in Africa. From the Africa to Alaska. Poor Maggie what rotten luck.

Kill Osama New Terrorism Strategy

From The Australian

An Indian state government has issued shoot-to-kill orders against a rampaging elephant named Osama bin Laden.

The rogue bull elephant has killed at least a dozen people in the northeast Indian state of Assam in recent weeks, including three in a single day.

The death sentence on Osama, a wild makhana (male elephant without tusks), was announced in the Guwahati State Assembly by Forest and Environment Minister Rockybul Hussain. A licensed hunter had been hired, Mr Hussain said. "We have asked him to kill Osama before December 31."

Under Assam law, elephants declared rogues have to be killed with a single shot. But in the past three years, five have been sentenced to death and only one killed.

Admitting it was a painful decision, Mr Hussain said: "We don't want the elephant killed, as it is people who have forced the animal to go on a killing spree. But the accused elephant has been smashing down huts, crashing through the fields, and trampling people."

Perhaps Dubya could learn from this strategy.

Who Cuts the Umbilical Cord?

From The Age

The elephant has one of the most amazing journeys through the womb from one-centimetre foetus to birth as a calf weighing 118 kilograms. All in 22 months. Imagine being pregnant for that long.

Researchers for a two-hour documentary film, Animals in the Womb, used scans to track elephant calves for the first time during their 22-month gestation — the longest of any mammal.

Hannah's interest in the article, was who was responsible for cutting the umbilical cord. The way children think is amazing.