Fuddland

The good news: following a bout of pretty heavy rain, the massive scary spider has gone.

The bad news: we don’t know where. Eeeek!

The best news: the kitten is still around.

The public zoo here in Suzhou really needs to work on its publicity. I’ve lived here for over three years and it wasn’t until about two weeks before I was due to leave that I learned that the zoo houses two of only four known remaining Yangtze Giant Soft-Shelled Turtles—possibly the largest species of turtle in the world.

Even more worrying, of the four that are left, three are male. The sole remaining female lives, along with one male, here in Suzhou. The other two males are in Vietnam. A conservation breeding programme is in effect, which I learned about through a public talk given at The Bookworm, but you really wouldn’t know it just from visiting the zoo.

The water in the turtle pond is part of Suzhou’s network of polluted canals; the pond is open-air and there are no staff on hand to stop idiotic members of the public throwing cakes, biscuits, bread, soft-drinks, as well as spit and litter into the pond; there is construction going on all around, which is apparently going to lead to a much-improved living environment for the turtles, but the stress of all the noise and chaos isn’t really going to help these last two hopes for the species to produce any offspring.

Almost as soon as they were introduced, despite not having seen an opposite member of their sex for a very long time, their instincts took over and the female deposited some eggs in the pitiful sand pit at the top end of their enclosure. Half were collected by the conservation staff and placed into three different incubators [three different temperatures], and half were left in the sand to develop naturally. But none survived.

The female is around 80 years old and the male could be 100, or perhaps older, and if their life-expectancies are similar to other species of turtle then they may only be in middle-age. Turtles have been known to reproduce virtually up until they die of old age, so there may still be a chance that future batches will be more successful, but so little is known about this particular species that they’re not even sure if they are giving them the right diet—although it’s a safe bet that biscuits and spit are not exactly part of a natural diet.

For political reasons, there doesn’t seem to be much chance of the other two males being given a shot at becoming fathers anytime soon—at least, not through natural means. At the talk, the possibility of using artificial insemination was discussed and is an option they are considering. It’s worth mentioning that just a couple of years ago, there were six of these turtles left, but two died while the conservation programme was in the process of being set up. If the female passes away just as suddenly, that’s it: another extinction, right under our noses. Perhaps being well aware of her critical importance, the smaller female stayed well away from the public end of the pond, but the big male swam over and gave us a chance to see this incredibly rare creature from just a few feet away.

I made a few videos at the Panda Breeding Research Centre in Chengdu, the first of which shows two three-year-old giant pandas play-fighting in the cold morning air.

Read the rest of “Panda-ing”…

With domestic cats living longer and longer, they’re starting to develop some conditions that wouldn’t have traditionally presented themselves in your average feline—a fact demonstrated by our cat being diagnosed with hyperthyroidism.

We’d noticed a change in his behaviour in the last few months: he was always begging for food [being very vocal and following us around the house] but despite us relenting more often than not just to shut him up, he was still losing weight, and had increased bouts of dashing madly around the house for no apparent reason. Some quick googling had us suspecting his thyroid was playing up, and this was confirmed by a blood test at the end of last week.

There are three approaches to treatment: daily pills forever, to control the thyroid gland; surgery to remove all or parts of the gland; or injections of radioactive iodine, which destroys thyroid tissue. Our vet has recommended a combination of the first two, so the cat is having his thyroid activity gradually reduced over a few weeks via pills mixed into his food, followed by surgery to remove the gland—going straight to the operation would put too much of a strain on his system.

[Of course there was always the option to do nothing and just keep his ravenous appetite sated—the strain on his heart would lead to heart failure.]

One thing that’s not quite clear to me is what the effect is of having little or no thyroid gland, seeing as the hormones it produces regulate the metabolism and control a variety of other bodily functions, such as blood flow. And the cost of all this treatment? Just over a thousand pounds. He’d better be grateful! At the very least, he could help with the vacuuming once in a while, seeing as it mostly consists of his hairs.