Back online and back in action. Also Lowland Gorillas are Critically Endangered.
My computer died in a very dead way and there was much despair. Thankfully, I'd done a backup a few days before, and when Clarionite Shweta passed through London, we wiped the corrupted Windows and installed Ubuntu. I'm a bit not happy about this, for reasons I won't go into, but at least I have a working laptop. (Thank you Shweta and Nathaniel!
Result: after several failed attempts, I am now back online properly for the first time since Clarion. Which is a blessed relief. My workshop log is coming in the next few days. It is something like 1,500 words for each week + pictures, but work, unfortunately, comes first, closely followed by email-checking, which I haven't really done since June. - - -
Moving on:
Today, in a few minutes time, this year's IUCN Red List is officially released officially. The embargo actually lifted at 1 pm, so by the time I post this, I'll only be a few seconds early.
Top news: Western Lowland Gorillas have been raised to Critically Endangered.
I hope (and expect) the media to pick up on it.
Now, the Red List has its faults, but it’s decent way of highlighting species for conservation and research attention. I don't always agree with it, but it's better than nothing.
It isn't all that easy to qualify for Critically Endangered status. For any category, there are five criteria (A-E) a species could potentially meet, covering factors including as population declines, geographic range and quantitative analysis. If you have a (Criteria A) 80-90% population decline (observed, estimated or inferred) in the longer of 10 years or 3 generations, that doesn't happen by accident— and for many animals with short generation times, it can be hard to do.
And most of the critically endangered species have us to thank. There's a thought for the day.
And now, lunch.
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januaryhat) wrote,
