Yangtze River dolphin extinct

An expedition to document the last remaining Chinese river dolphins returned after a six week survey which covered the entire known range of the baiji or Yangtze River dolphin. A team of international scientists using both visual and acoustic monitoring techniques made a full sweep of the area but failed to record one sighting, leading experts to believe that this species is now extinct.The extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin is the first recorded extinction of a cetacean species to be caused by human activity. The baiji represents a loss not just of a species but a whole family of animals which were endemic to the Yangtze River and evolved separately to other whales and dolphins for over 20 million years. The baiji was described as a ‘living fossil’, remaining as it had, unchanged for at least 3 million years since it first left the sea to swim into the Yangtze River.

We knew about this impending extinction and did nothing to stop it....If we are willing to allow a dolphin species to go extinct because of human activity...then what does the future hold for all other species? This is definitely a turning point that shows we might have lost control or ceased to care as much, for the management of the consequences of our current way of life...
Read more in WDCS.

Swimming for the Amazon

On February 1st Martin Strel from Slovenia started swimming the length of the Amazon River to raise awareness of the need for protecting the Amazon Rainforest which produces 20% of the world's oxygen.
It's certainly a very brave swim considering this river is teaming with piranhas, anacondas, crocodiles, strong currents and loads of debris among other impending perils of the area.
Martin swims around 10 hours a day and is aiming to complete 5,430km.
Check out www.amazonswim.com where you can see Martin's diary and photos of this courageous feat.

Normal Batteries are not Throw-Away After All

And look what we came across - NORMAL BATTERIES CAN BE RE-CHARGED!!
They do not need to be re-chargeables to receive continued charges...AND SINCE WHEN?? may we ask??
Is this only coming to light now because re-chargeables are gaining ground and the good old non re-chargeables like Duracells need to come out with their well-kept secret that batteries need not have been thrown away all these years causing huge amounts of unnecessary pollution??
And these "ReNu-It" rechargers apparently can recharge normal batteries over and over again up to 80 times!!!
It's a horrific thought just to think that normal batteries have always been and continue to be dumped when they actually are re-chargeable and not disposable as they were always sold as. Of course battery companies kept quiet so they would sell (80 x ) more of their products to an unsuspecting public and pollute irresponsibly. We never imagined this and now even feel guilty for having thrown away in the past so many batteries full of life thinking once they were dead they REALLY WERE DEAD! We thought this was reaaaaly bad news
Tell everyone about it...

Check out the recharger