Goldfish have a high degree of compatibility with the environment and their population can multiply in short time.

An environmental expert called on the citizens to release goldfish they purchase for New Year celebrations into pools instead of rivers.
Warning against the threats of releasing the species into ecosystems other than its own, Dr. Fazel said, “The goldfish feed on aquatic plants which serve as habitats for larvae and small fish. This also brings about a reduction in the population of invertebrates which provide the prey for other creatures.“
He explained that goldfish make the water murky while feeding, “which prevents water from absorbing light and this is harmful to growth of plants--not to mention that it eliminates the oxygen needed by bottom-dwelling invertebrates and leads to their suffocation.“
Another potential threat raised by this is the stiff rivalry for food. “The goldfish compete with indigenous species for food resources and are usually winners of the battle for they are more resistant and powerful. Goldfish have a high degree of compatibility with the environment and their population can multiply within a short time. This could endanger or prevent the reproduction of indigenous species. That is what happened in the Sistan Lake.“
According to Fazel, goldfish can reproduce by using sperms of other species to activate their eggs. This adversely affects the reproduction of other species.
“The introduction of a new non-indigenous species can cause a number of diseases to spread among the native species. Goldfish are known to carry more than 32 types of parasitic, bacteria and viral diseases,“ he concluded.

The scarcity of prey is the main threat for cheetahs.

Deputy director of the Department of Environment’s Conservation of Asiatic Cheetah Project said a census had been conducted on cheetah and its rivals hyena, leopard, caracal and wolf in Kavir and Khartouran national parks, Naibandan and Darreh Anjir wildlife sanctuaries and the protected area of Bafq in Yazd province.
Behzad Rahgosha added that the census also included the preys of Asiatic cheetah including gazelle, ram, ewe, and goat in Kavir, Khartouran and Naibandan areas, adding it would also be conducted in the other two regions in April.
“The research conducted previously was biological. We also plan studies on the social and economic aspects involved. We have entered into negotiations with the Social Sciences Faculty of Tehran University for that purpose,“ he explained.
Rahgosha said with the completion of research projects, “we would have access to information necessary for devising the practical mechanisms for conserving cheetahs.“
He said local training programs, tightening control in habitats, updating environmental guards on new protection methods as well as upgrading conservation laws are other measures to be implemented next year (starting March 21).
The official said the results of the preliminary census revealed there were 60 cheetahs in the five mentioned habitats. “In order to minimize the margins of error, the census needs to be repeated,“ he stated.
“The scarcity of prey for cheetahs is the main threat to the valuable species. With an increase in the number of prey, the population of carnivorous animals in the ecosystem would reach equilibrium.“

Non-recyclable waste shall be buried in hygienic cells as of May in an effort to eliminate threats rising from methane gas and garbage juice emitted by waste materials, managing director of the Recycling Organization said.
Talking to Fars news agency, Abolfazl Ebrahimi vowed that all household garbage would be recycled as of next year (to start March 21).
He explained that the cells were recently designed in accordance with engineering and waste management principles.
Ebrahimi noted that each hygienic cell has a capacity of 500,000 tons and costs about 3,000 million rials to build.
After a large pit is dug out, layers of clay and impenetrable soil are used to reinforce the foundation. “Then the garbage is buried in layers and each layer is covered with clay soil one meter in height. Also special pipelines will be installed to extract the methane gas and the garbage stew,“ he said, insisting that all non-recyclable garbage would be disposed of in this way as of next year.
Ebrahimi explained that the methane gas would be pumped out by means of the pipelines. “The collected methane can be used to generate 300 kilowatts of electricity per day. Unless the Management and Planning Organization, Energy Ministry and Department of Environment supply the five cents required for generating every kilowatt of electricity, we will have to incinerate the methane gas generated by decomposition of waste,“ he stated.

Close to 11,000 hectares of tamarisk forest in Masileh plain, Qom province, are being destroyed, IRNA reported.
Deputy head of Qom Department of Natural Resources, Mohammad Neyestani, said 40,000 hectares of green fields in Haji-Abad have dried up ever since the Qarachai and Qomroud rivers were rerouted.
He added that the rivers used to prevent the fields from becoming brackish, whereas the vast plain has today lost much of its foliage.
“We need to protect the land against drought by implementing urgent afforestation programs and planting trees tolerant of saline soil,“ he noted.
Neyestani stated that geographical changes together with excessively saline soil in Masileh have resulted in the barrenness of the land. He warned that negligence of afforestation schemes would aggravate the situation.
“About 1.16 billion rials in national credits and 500 million rials in provincial funds have been allocated to afforestation programs in Qom. Of this figure, only 60 percent has so far been secured by the department,“ he noted.
“In order to achieve that goal, saplings have been planted in 600 hectares of provincial lands, seeds have been sown across 2,500 hectares and windbreaks created for another 10 kilometers.“

Koalas learn from a young age to avoid the toxic gum leaves.

Koalas cannot eat some eucalypt leaves because they contain high levels of toxic compounds that make the animals ill, according to Australian researchers, ABC reported.
Scientists from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and the University of Melbourne found koalas would go hungry rather than eat leaves with high concentrations of formylated phloroglucinol compounds, or FPCs.
The dislike for these lipid-soluble phenolic compounds may also affect koala numbers and location, the researchers say.
They examined the feeding habits of captured wild male koalas over a period of six months in Victoria, southeast Australia.
Ben Moore, who was at the ANU when he did the research, says there is a ’war’ between koalas and eucalypts to the extent that the trees had evolved to include chemical defense systems.
“It is really important for trees to escape being eaten by koalas,“ Moore says. “They can do terrible damage to an individual tree.“
In response, koalas learn which trees have toxic levels of FPCs by taste, smell and experience at a very young age.
Moore, who is now at James Cook University in Townsville, says trees with high concentrations of FPCs have higher levels of essential oils, which the animals could smell.
“Leaves with high concentrations of FPCs make them really nauseous and ill so they learn really quickly that if a leaf smells like this they should avoid it,“ he says.
“So much so that when we gave our koalas leaves with high FPC levels, they would take one sniff and turn away and refuse to eat. The koala is such a specialist feeder we would expect it would be resistant to this sort of plant chemical deterrent but it is much less resistant that we thought.“
Moore says FPC concentrations vary between species of eucalypt and also within species. “You can have one tree with a high concentration of FPCs next to another tree of the same species with a low level of FPC.“
Further research is needed to know what causes some eucalypts to have higher FPC levels than others, Moore says.
“We are pretty sure FPC concentration is determined when the tree germinates and is genetically determined,“ he says.
But trees at higher altitudes and those that grow in more fertile soil have higher FPC levels, Moore says.

Red tulips are planted on the eve of Norouz--the Iranian New Year. (IRNA Photo)

Ugandan officials said they captured a giant crocodile weighing up to one ton that is believed to have devoured up to 80 people on the shores of Lake Victoria in eastern Uganda.
“We captured it using nets, ropes and cables,“ said Moses Mapesa, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) official in charge of field operations.
“We believe it was about 60 years of age and weighs between 800 and 1,000 kilograms,“ he told AFP.
The huge reptile was moved quickly to a crocodile farm to save it from a mob of furious villagers in the town of Lugaga who wanted to avenge the deaths of fisherman they say it has eaten in recent years, he said.
Lugaga residents said the crocodile had killed at least five fishermen from the village where it was captured, but could not speak for other villages where local media reported that the animal may have killed 70 to 75 others.
Five UWA rangers assisted by dozens of fishermen waited in a three-night vigil for the crocodile to appear before finally trapping it in a swamp in Lugaga.
The UWA said the five-meter long beast was among several crocodiles to have devoured an unknown number of fishermen in Bugiri district, about 160 kilometers east of Kampala over the past several years.

Hunting, road deaths and a sharp drop in wild rabbits, the lynxÕs main prey, has pushed the cat in verge of extinction.

Iberian lynx, a big cat found only in Spain and Portugal, remains “critically endangered“ and is at risk of becoming the first large feline to vanish since pre-historic times, a conservation group warned in a new study, AFP reported.
There are as few as 100 to 120 of the leopard-spotted cats in the wild, including around a dozen breeding-age females, from about 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, the report by SOS Lynx found.
Hunting, road deaths, and most of all a sharp drop due to disease in wild rabbits, the lynx’s main prey, has led to disappearance of the cat, it said.
“It is not in Africa, Latin America or Asia where the first big cat extinction in modern times is likely to occur, but within the borders of the rich, supposedly ’developed’ and environmentally-friendly European Union,“ wrote the report’s author, British conservation consultant Dan Ward.
The nocturnal cat, which can grow to about one meter long and weigh about 13 kilograms--about the size of a domestic dog--lives in scrub forest in southern Portugal and southwestern Spain, near some of Europe’s most popular tourist resorts.
Viable breeding populations however only exist now in two locations in Spain, and the up to 40 cats found in one of them, in Donana National Park, could disappear in the next few years, Ward said.
“Only 4-8 cubs were born there this year and the population is not being well managed, is still declining and is already too small, fragmented and isolated to be recovered in the future without drastic intervention,“ he wrote.
The other breeding population found at a park in Andujar is more stable, with around 80 mature individuals, but this group is under threat from plans to build two motorways in the area as well as from increased urbanization, the report said.
Measures proposed by the report include legislating to protect the animal’s habitat from intensive agriculture and urbanization, decreasing speed limits around the two existing breeding grounds, and restoring the wild rabbit population.
An expansion of the fledgling captive lynx breeding program is also needed, according to the study.
There are currently 12 lynxes in captivity--including four females--spread over several centers in Spain and the goal is to increase this number to 70 by 2010 when reintroductions into the wild could begin.
Conservationists are optimistic that the first lynx bred in captivity may be born this spring, the report said.
The Iberian lynx is classified as critically endangeredÐ-the highest category of endangerment for an animal still found in the wild--by the World Conservation Union.