Komodo dragon wows visitors at Crocodile Bank

It is two weeks since a Komodo dragon began to be displayed prominently at a special enclosure at The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology in Mamallapuram. The reptile is one of four that arrived at the crocodile bank last April. These four reptiles had been flown down from Bronx Zoo in New York.

"The New York zoo gave them in exchange of 12 juvenile gharials from the Crocodile Bank. At that time, the Komodo dragons were three-year-olds. Unable to adapt to the new conditions, especially the Chennai heat, one of them died. We had provided them with temperature gradient. They needed time to acclimatise to their new environment and so, for the past one year, the reptiles were quarantined and not allowed into the visitors' arena," says Alwin Jesudasan, assistant director of the Crocodile Bank.

The dragon's indigenous habitat is the Komodos Island in Indonesia, and it is similar to the monitor lizard (udumbu). "The reptile is classified as 'vulnerable' as per the red list of International Union for Conservation of Nature. Another interesting feature of Komodos that has been reported from many zoos across the world is that the females have laid fertile eggs without ever being in contact with a male. This form of reproduction is called parthenogenesis," adds Alwin.

Now, each of the three surviving reptiles is five feet long and weigh 12 kg. They can grow up to 10 ft long and weigh 80 kg. Their can live up to 40 years. The Komodo species is supposed to be the largest in the lizard family.

"The animals have been kept in different enclosures. Instructors of Bronx Zoo had warned us against placing them together as they would hurt each other," says Alwin.

This Unexpected City Is Forging A Sustainable Path

Cuba is often celebrated for its classic 1950s cars, historic buildings, vibrant music, and mojitos. But what about the environmental commitment of its citizens? During a recent stay in Havana, I noticed some incredibly creative ways locals are living a little greener. Although many of their routines stem from necessity, they inspired me to take some new eco-habits back home with me.

1. They walk, bus, and share rides.
Like New Yorkers, people in Havana are on the move at all hours of the day, coming and going to work and school, or for a night out. They crisscross the wide parks and plazas by foot and jump on a big metro bus for longer distances. And long before there were ride-sharing apps, people here would hail a local taxi, often a classic 1950s car, and share it with as many as could fit. These days, metro buses cover most of Havana, employers provide group transportation to the office, and decentralized work sites are encouraged so people don't have to travel as far.

2. They capture the power of the sun.
On a recent trip to Cienfuegos on the South Coast, I was happy to spot a solar hot water heater on the roof of the Casa Particular, or bed-and-breakfast, where we stayed. I then learned that the island had 10,500 solar water heaters as of 2015, and solar panels will likely soon be added to city schools and hospitals. Sunshine in Cuba is very strong, so it makes sense to tap that source of renewable energy.

3. They work to save wildlife.
In order to protect the Cuban crocodile, 40 Cuban and 30 international conservation experts collaborated on a project in a wildlife refuge located in the south of the island. With the support of Cuban conservation groups and the Wildlife Conservation Society of the United States, they released 10 crocodiles into the wild wetlands on the Zapata Peninsula. They also shared plans for further research and monitoring of the crocodiles, among many other joint efforts to save the animals. With the help of the WCS, the Bronx Zoo in New York City was the first U.S. zoo to breed the Cuban crocodile.

4. They put the pedal to the metal.
Whether it's on an old-school city bike with no gears, the latest mountain bike, or a bike taxi, Cubans cycle often. Especially outside of Havana, where the pace of life slows down and traffic diminishes, the islanders ride around nonchalantly, perfectly balanced on two wheels as they go to work or the market. These days, groups of tourists on mountain bikes are asked to use tiny video cameras to record the adventure to help the country develop more sustainable tourism.

5. They hang it out to dry.
My grandmother believed that using the sun and wind as a dryer made the clothes cleaner and fresher, and I have continued her practice. In Havana and across the vast island of Cuba, on rooftops and in backyards, you can see clotheslines swaying in the breeze, festooned with brightly hued clothes. Just imagine the amount of electricity this saves a year.

6. They hoof it.
Horseback riding is a big tradition in Cuba that carries on to this day. On my bus trip to the picturesque town of Trinidad, a UNESCO World Heritage site, I saw horse-drawn carriages and a Cuban cowboy on horseback. In rural areas as well as towns across the island, you hear the clip-clop sound of horse shoes. This tradition helps limit the amount of petroleum that needs to be imported.

7. They live in the open air.
While air conditioning is found in many business offices, there is a great tradition of enjoying outdoor spaces, from balconies and patios to sidewalk cafes. The old-world architecture plays a role, with arcaded buildings providing shade on miles of sidewalks in the center of Havana. Life spills out into the small squares, parks, and tree-lined streets, but the favored destination for Habaneros and visitors is the famed seaside promenade, the Malecon, which stretches 5 miles along the Florida Straits. Waves crash against the sea wall, and a strong ocean breeze blows consistently. Known as the living room of the city, it's a popular meeting place for families, couples, runners, and fishermen.

8. They shop locally.
Cuban-grown coffee, freshly baked bread, and their local bottled water, juices, and ice cream can give you an authentic taste of the island. The verdant countryside produces tropical fruit in abundance that is sold fresh—no packaging needed. Pineapples, papayas, mangos, guavas, limes, and bananas are stacked up on the markets and tossed into canvas bags at purchase.

Crocodiles and climate change

Remember Tick Tock, the crocodile in the Disney animated movie "Peter Pan"? He had swallowed an alarm clock, and you can always hear him coming.

Tick Tock is always coming for the evil Captain Hook. Ever since Peter Pan cut off Hook's hand and fed it to the crocodile, Tick Tock has been pursuing Hook relentlessly, wanting nothing more than to gobble up the rest of him.

Unfortunately for Tick Tock (and fortunately for Hook), he's a very big crocodile and moves extremely slowly. So Hook always listens for the sound of a ticking clock, and when he hears it, he knows it's time to get moving before the always-hungry Tick Tock catches up with him.

Well, kids, here's some bad news. We have our own Tick Tock heading our way. It's called climate change. It's moving slowly, like the crocodile, but it never stops.

We don't notice changing climate from day to day because of short-term fluctuations in weather and medium-term seasonal weather patterns like shifts in the jet stream. So it's easy to believe that the climate isn't really changing at all. But it is.

Setting aside all the weather-related highs and lows, how fast is our climate changing? And will it, like the slow but steady Tick Tock, ever catch us and eat us?

One way to visualize climate change is to compare the rate that our own hometown is warming with the rate that we would warm up if we headed south to Orlando, Fla., home of Disney World and our friend the ticking crocodile.

Let's compare the numbers. First, if we stay in just one place, how fast will our climate warm?

According to NASA scientists, the average temperature in the United States is increasing by 0.37 degrees Fahrenheit every decade. Rounding off, that's about 0.04 degrees per year. Doesn't sound like much, right?

Well, that's 10 times the rate of the fastest global warming period ever recorded or estimated by scientists by looking at geological evidence. It's incredibly fast as Earth's history goes, but not something you'd notice from year to year.

Now let's look at how fast you'd warm up if you headed south from Pittsburgh to Orlando to visit our friend Tick Tock.

Orlando's average temperature over the course of a year is 73 degrees. Here in Pittsburgh, it's 52 degrees. So that's a difference of 21 degrees.

Orlando is 781 miles south of Pittsburgh. Do the math, and you'll see that for every mile that you go south, the temperature increases by, on the average, 0.027 degrees.

Well, that's interesting! Go south for a mile and a half and the temperature increases by 0.04 degrees. Don't want to leave home? No problem. Just wait a year and the temperature will also increase by 0.04 degrees!

In other words, for every year that goes by, it's as if you, your family, your house, your yard and your entire neighborhood all slid southward by a mile and a half.

How fast does something move if it travels 1.5 miles per year? Not fast at all if you're sitting and watching it, assuming that the chair that you're sitting in is unaffected by climate change and is not also moving southward. A mile and a half per year is roughly 22 feet per day. That's 11 inches per hour.

Now, if you see that your house is sliding south at 11 inches per hour, you might think that's nothing to worry about, right? It's about the width of a toothpick every three seconds. Get down on your hands and knees and look with a magnifying glass and you'd see your house grinding very slowly through the dirt. Step back a couple of steps, though, and you won't see it.

But such little movements add up. Sure, you can't see your house moving south. But go to bed at night, and you'll wake up in the morning to find that you're 4 or 5 feet closer to Disney World than when you went to bed. A year later you'll be a mile and a half closer to the sunny South.

Seventy five years from now, you and your house will be, more or less, at the latitude of Washington, D.C. Not a bad place to be. But as you sit on your front porch, you'll probably think back to when it used to snow in the winter. Yup, you say, we just don't see snow much anymore. I remember when we used to go sledding in the winter and the snowdrifts were up to here.

Massive crocodile frightens villagers in C. Java

A five-meter long crocodile terrorized residents of Kedungwiangun village in Klirong district, Kebumen regency, Central Java, on Tuesday.

The reptile was spotted in the paddy and is believed to have been carried to the location by the overflowing Luk Ulo River following heavy rain the night before.

Some residents tried to catch the animal, but in doing so they provoked it to get out of the water, run wild and cause panic.

"We were unaware that the crocodile is that big. So we all ran away once it got to the ground with its mouth wide open," said villager Turyono. "It came after us fast. It was ferocious."

Numerous attempts to catch the apparently angered crocodile failed. Some tried to use bamboo sticks and steel wire to snare it, but the reptile broke the trap.

"The crocodile then disappeared, but villagers are now haunted by fear that it could return," Turyono said.

Kebumen Police spokesman Adj. Comr. Willy Budiyanto criticized the villagers for attempting to catch the animal.

"It is dangerous to try to catch a crocodile without proper knowledge, not to mention the fact that they did it at very close range," he said.

In Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, a 50-year-old man is missing after he was reportedly attacked by a wild crocodile near the Balang Island bridge on Wednesday.

"The man, Maskur, was attacked when he and his two children set up a fish trap," said Octavianto from the East and North Kalimantan SAR Agency.

'Idiots of the century' swim in baited croc trap

A group of men seen swimming inside a baited crocodile trap in Australia near where a woman was recently eaten were blasted as "idiots of the century" Tuesday.

Photos posted on Facebook showed the four men clambering on the floating trap set near a marina at Port Douglas in northern Queensland state and even posing inside it.

It is not far from where a 4.3-metre (14-foot) croc killed dementia sufferer Anne Cameron.

The beast that took the 79-year-old less than two weeks ago was trapped and human remains found inside, but plenty of other crocodiles inhabit the rivers and seas in the area.

Douglas Shire Mayor Julia Leu said she was stunned at their stupidity.

"I was absolutely gobsmacked, this is incredibly stupid and dangerous behaviour," she said told broadcaster ABC.

"I'm wondering if these fellows are vying for the idiots of the year award or the idiots of the century award."

Queensland Environment Minister Steven Miles also weighed in, tweeting: "Srsly? The meat we put in these traps is bait. For crocodiles. Don't swim in them! It's stupid, and illegal."

Saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to seven metres long and weigh more than a tonne, are a common feature of Australia's tropical north and kill an average of two people a year.

Their numbers have exploded since they were declared a protected species in the 1970s, with Cameron's death reigniting calls to control them.

Queensland's environment department said the men's actions were "reckless".

"These traps are specifically designed to attract crocodiles and they are deployed in places where a problem crocodile is known to be present," it said in a statement.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that interfering with crocodile traps can be potentially life-threatening for the person concerned."

There are fines of up to Aus$15,000 (US$11,700) for interfering with a crocodile trap.

Hunt for tens of millions in Crocodile Dundee profits is on again

THE hunt for tens of millions of dollars in Crocodile Dundee profits is on again with federal prosecutors considering whether to charge Paul Hogan's former accountant, who thought he was in the clear.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) has revealed to News Corp Australia that the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is currently considering whether to commence proceedings against Tony Stewart, who provided financial advice to Hogan and collaborator John "Strop" Cornell for at least 15 years.

In 2005 the trio became the focus of Australia's most expensive and high-profile tax probe after the ACIC's forerunner, the Australian Crime Commission (ACC), raided a Melbourne hotel room and found explosive documents on a laptop. The men were investigated on suspicion of squirrelling away much of the hit films' earnings in trusts and companies stretching from Switzerland to the Caribbean.

In 2010 the ACC dropped its investigation into Hogan and Cornell; two years later the duo and the ATO settled claims against each other without any admissions of liability. Not a single tax evasion charge has ever been laid against Hogan, Cornell or Stewart and they have always denied doing anything wrong.

When News Corp Australia told Stewart the DPP was now looking at whether to charge him, he said: "It's news to me … I don't know what all this is about.

"I've been investigated by the ACC … and I've been cleared. It's over as far as I'm concerned."

He then revealed that he too had settled with authorities, in December 2014.

Asked if there was any missing money in Swiss bank accounts, Stewart said: "I am not in a position to comment; there is a whole heap of confidentiality agreements and also I was a professional adviser to Paul and John and in that regard I still have a professional responsibility to them.

"There are sort of handcuffs on me and I have to keep my mouth shut."

The revelations that Stewart had settled yet is in the crosshairs once more leaves open the possibility that Hogan could also face further investigation.

Hogan's California-based manager Douglas Urbanski said: "We are unaware of any reopening of any investigation into Mr Hogan. I will mention that after a years long investigation, it was eventually dropped for lack of evidence. Worth mentioning is that Mr Hogan was compensated by the state for a portion of his legal fees in the matter."

The Australian solicitor who represents all three men, Andrew Robinson, said "Mr Stewart denies and will continue to deny any wrongdoing."

Mr Robinson added that he had received "no communication from any federal agency" in the seven years since the ACC "took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release advising the public that the investigation" into Hogan and Cornell was over.

The ACIC, which replaced the ACC in 2015, would not make further comment. The DPP and ATO would not comment.

The pursuit of Hogan, Cornell and Stewart began after ACC officers stormed a suite at Melbourne's Sheraton hotel on Valentine's Day 2004. The room was booked in the name of Brit Philip Egglishaw, a principal of Swiss tax advisory firm Strachans.

The client files on Egglishaw's laptop sparked the Project Wickenby tax probe, which cost $430 million to run but claimed to have raised more than $1 billion by the time it finished 2015.

In total 46 people were convicted. Wickenby's most high-profile scalp was entertainment guru Glenn Wheatley, jailed for 15 months in 2007.

Hogan has said he used Strachans — legitimately.

Mowbray River a well known spot for snapping pics of crocodiles

MOTORISTS driving ­between Cairns and Port Douglas know well the Mowbray River is a no-go zone for swimming: you can actually see the crocodiles on the riverbank.

At least three saltwater crocodiles inhabit the area under the Captain Cook Highway bridge over the river, about 7km south of Port ­Douglas.

The reptiles, which ­occasionally bask next to each other, are regularly snapped by passers-by.

Hartleys Crocodile Adventures wildlife manager Drew Melville said the trio of predators may be too small to take a person.

But, he said, that did not rule out a much larger croc stalking the area.

"I would not recommend anyone go swimming in the Mowbray River or its tributaries," he said.

"There's the possibility that there is a large male croc in the there and no one has seen him.

"So you've got Dickson Inlet, where there is definitely one over 4m plus.

"And of course, even rivers like the Daintree or Coopers Creek are well within the travelling range of larger crocs."

Department of Environment and Heritage Protection rangers were last night surveying the Mowbray River and tributaries for any signs of a large crocodile that may have taken Anne Cameron.

Crocodiles that have ­previously attacked people are known to display aggressive and territorial behaviour.

There were several sightings of crocs in the Mowbray reported to EHP.

However, as the river is well within crocodile territory, only warning signs were erected alongside the permanent warning signs at the bridge that have been in place for some time.

Mr Melville said swimming in creeks anywhere between Rockhampton to the tip of Cape York was definitely not advisable.

"And that would be a tragedy, indeed, if this is what has happened (with the elderly woman)," he said.

The suspected fatal attack follows the death of Cairns spearfisherman Warren ­Hughes, 35, who was taken by a crocodile near the mouth of the Russell River in March.

FNQ AUTHORITY IDEA REJECTED
THE Palaszczuk government will not support basing a Queensland Crocodile Authority in Cairns.

Bureaucrats from the ­Department of Environment and Heritage Protection fronted a public hearing in Brisbane on Wednesday to discuss ­Katter's Australian Party's draft legislation, the Safer ­Waterways Bill. One component of the Bill includes the creation of a crocodile authority, based in Cairns, which would be tasked with issuing permits for legal crocodile egg harvesting in Queensland and to landholders to manage crocodiles on their own land.

But the EHP officials, in their official submission to the inquiry examining the Bill, want the requirement for ­public servants employed by the authority to live and work in Cairns to be removed.

The department's Dr Beth Clouston said having staff based in Cairns would limit ­officers' capacity to respond to croc sightings in a timely and efficient manner.

EHP also says there may be "industrial relations implications" relating to forcing staff to live and work in Cairns.