Iceland’s ban of whaling; renewed protection of the gray wolf; the discovery of a rare baby ghost shark; a snake actually found on a plane; the deadly love of a sea slug.
|  | Thursday, February 17, 2022 | | | | |
| In this newsletter, we cover Namibia’s controversial elephant capture, Iceland’s ban of whaling, the renewed protection of the gray wolf, the discovery of a baby ghost shark, a snake actually found on a plane … and the deadly love of a sea slug. | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY WOLFGANG KAEHLER/LIGHTROCKET/GETTY IMAGES
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By Rachael Bale, Executive Editor, Animals
We learned this week that 42 wild elephants are being rounded up to be sent abroad, to unidentified buyers who bought them in a Namibian government auction.
We don’t know much about the sales, but Namibian officials told Dina Fine Maron that the elephants would not be sent to China. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicated no one has applied to bring Namibian elephants to the U.S., either.
The issue is causing an uproar among animal advocates and conservationists. Keeping elephants in captivity is increasingly controversial on its own, given how intelligent they are and how far they roam in the wild each day. But taking wild-born elephants into captivity is even more controversial, not only for their loss of freedom but because of the family bonds it can destroy. (I recently learned that elephants can remember the calls of a hundred other elephants!)
Is such a sale even allowed? A few years ago, it was decided at a convention for CITES—the treaty that governs the international trade of wildlife—that elephants in certain southern African countries could be exported only to countries where elephants are (or used to be) found in the wild—unless there’s some kind of conservation benefit that comes from the export. What that means exactly is … well, that’s unclear too.
What we do know is that 37 elephants have been captured so far, including two females who have since given birth. Fifteen will go to a nature reserve in Namibia, leaving 22 destined to be taken abroad. (Twenty more elephants will be captured to fulfill the international purchase orders.) The destinations of the 42 elephants won’t be revealed until the process is complete, a government spokesperson told Maron.
Here’s everything we know at this point. And if you have tips, let us know at NGwildlife@natgeo.com. | | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JOHN GROBLER
| | (Pictured at top, a mother elephant and her baby in Namibia three years ago. Above, drone footage on Saturday of the farm in Namibia where 22 wild elephants are held captive for shipment abroad.)
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| Protected again: After a 15-month hiatus, gray wolves are back on the endangered species list. The new U.S. federal court decision means that most forms of wolf-killing will be illegal, except for in the Northern Rockies, Nat Geo’s Douglas Main reports. Find out what’s next.
Iceland to ban whaling: Iceland is one of three countries that allows commercial whaling, a practice it’s ending in 2024 when the current quota on hunting expire, AFP reports. At one point, U.S. grocer Whole Foods stopped promoting Icelandic products in protest. Norway and Japan are the other countries that allow commercial whaling.
Rare baby ghost shark found: Scientists recovered a recently hatched ghost shark almost a mile below the surface off New Zealand, the BBC reports. See it!
Snake on a plane! Yes, you read that right, and no, we’re not talking about the movie. An AirAsia flight was diverted for an unscheduled landing after a snake was spotted slithering through the overhead lights, CBS News reports. The airline described the incident as “very rare.”
Keeping up? Try this week’s Nat Geo News Quiz to see if you’re up on recent headlines. Here you go!
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| | That little pink thing? Yeah, the one to the right of a fingertip shown above. It’s an adult female treehopper found in Ecuador. The treehopper is smaller than a grain of rice—and can jump and fly masterfully despite having odd structures on their bodies. Douglas Main, in a 2019 National Geographic article, writes that it could be one of the world’s weirdest insects. Photographer Javier Aznar González de Rueda, who took this image, which has more than 150,000 likes on our Instagram page, finds that treehoppers often will move away—unlike nearby attack-prone armies of tiny ants. | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY CHARLES CARPENTER/FIELD MUSEUM LIBRARY/GETTY IMAGES | | | River giant: Longer than a park bench and heavier than a mountain lion, the alligator gar and its relatives have been relatively unchanged for millions of years. Harmless to humans, the snaggle-toothed giant (one is pictured above in 1905) is found in Central America and in the lower Mississippi watershed but has disappeared in waterways in Illinois and Ohio. Scientists have found a less-invasive way to track the fish and are doing some captive breeding to try to retain its habitat, Jason Bittel reports. | | | |
 | | Coexistence with wildlife requires … prioritizing the needs of diverse stakeholders, not just exploring animal ecology and behavior. | | | Christine Wilkinson
| | Biologist, ecologist, Nat Geo Explorer | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY NILS ANTHES AND ROLANDA LANGE, UNIVERSITY OF TUEBINGEN
| | | Love me deadly: “The sex starts normally enough,” begins this paragraph in the March issue of National Geographic. Wait, where exactly is this article going? Writer Eva van den Berg is examining the mating habits of the Siphopteron makisig sea slug (two of them pictured above)—and, well, it doesn’t end well for one of them. | | | |
This newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard, Monica Williams, and Jen Tse. Do you have an idea or a link for the newsletter? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com. If you want our daily newsletter, sign up here. Have a good weekend ahead. | |
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