NEW DELHI: An Indian mother fought off a tiger with her bare hands to save her toddler from its jaws, an official said Wednesday. Archana Choudhary stepped out of her house in the central state of Madhya Pradesh on Sunday night as the 15-month-old boy wanted to relieve himself. A tiger believed to have strayed from the nearby Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve pounced on them, local official Sanjeev Shrivastava told AFP. It attacked and tried to sink its teeth into the child’s head but the mother leapt to the rescue, he said. The tiger kept trying to snatch the boy until villagers heard her screams and rushed to her rescue. The tiger then slunk away into the forest. “She has been admitted to the hospital. She is out of danger and recovering. The baby is also doing fine,” Shrivastava said. The mother suffered punctured lungs and wounds to her abdomen while the toddler had deep gashes on his head. The Times of India newspaper said a search operation was underway to push the tiger back to its territory and that villagers had been told to stay indoors at night. A rise in human-animal conflicts has been seen across South Asia as ever more forest is lost to urban expansion. Nearly 225 people were killed in tiger attacks between 2014 and 2019 in India, according to government figures. More than 200 tigers were killed by poachers or electrocution between 2012 and 2018, the data showed. India is home to around 70 percent of the world’s tigers and the tiger population was estimated at 2,967 in 2018.

AL AIN, UAE: The ages of some of the oldest animals in the care of Al Ain Zoo have exceeded their normal life expectancy in the wild. A 36-year-old chimpanzee, a 47-year-old lappet-faced vulture and a 34-year-old mugger crocodile are among those aging animals at Al Ain Zoo, reported the Emirates News Agency, WAM, on Wednesday. Since the animals have been protected from overhunting and the inevitable urban sprawl they would face, the long lifespans of these species has exceeded their life expectancy in their natural habitat by decades, said WAM. The zoo, which houses over 4,000 animals, implements modern, state-of-the-art technologies and strategies for the registration, monitoring, genetic study, veterinary care and behavioral rehabilitation of its animals. Ghanim Mubarak Al-Hajjeri, director-general of the zoo and Aquarium Public Institution in Al Ain, said: “We are living in the age of technology, and we must utilize it to the maximum in our work.” The zoo uses ZIMS, a wildlife management software, considered one of the best resources for zoos as it provides reliable information on animals and their environments to serve animal management and accomplish conservation goals. Al Ain Zoo also uses advanced genetic conservation programs to maintain genetic integrity and ensure the preservation of species, with the possibility of releasing some healthy offspring into the wild to help repopulation. According to Al-Hajjeri, the technologies adopted by the zoo have saved a tremendous amount of both effort and time and, over the years, have provided highly accurate results in monitoring animals, studying their behavioral patterns and keeping an eye on their health, while supporting the zoo’s mission to protect endangered species. The technology-based strategies, he explained, range from animal facial recognition and DNA analysis to physical and behavioral rehabilitation and the collection of data to share with global agencies in order to join forces in the quest for wildlife preservation. With the use of modern technology, Al-Hajjeri said, the most basic animal calming techniques become safer and more efficient. “It all contributes to improving the quality of life of animals and adds to our ability to preserve wildlife,” he said.

PARIS: The drummers puff out their chests, let out a guttural yell, then step up to their kits and furiously pound out their signature beat so that everyone within earshot can tell who is playing. The drum kit is the giant gnarled root of a tree in the Ugandan rainforest — and the drummer is a chimpanzee. A new study published Tuesday found that not only do chimpanzees have their own styles — some preferring straightforward rock beats while others groove to more freeform jazz — they can also hide their signature sound if they do not want to reveal their location. The researchers followed the Waibira chimpanzee group in western Uganda’s Budongo Forest, recording the drum sessions of seven male chimps and analizing the intervals between beats. The chimps mostly use their feet, but also their hands to make the sound, which carries more than a kilometer through the dense rainforest. The drumming serves as a kind of social media, allowing traveling chimpanzees to communicate with each other, said Vesta Eleuteri, the lead author of the study published in the journal Animal Behavior. The PhD student said that after just a few weeks in the rainforest she was able to recognize exactly who was drumming. “Tristan — the John Bonham of the forest — makes very fast drums with many evenly separated beats,” she said, referring to the legendarily hard-hitting drummer of rock band Led Zeppelin. Tristan’s drumming “is so fast that you can barely see his hands,” Eleuteri said.

But other chimps like Alf or Ila make a more syncopated rhythm using a technique in which both their feet hit a root at almost the same time, said British primatologist Catherine Hobaiter, the study’s senior author. The research team was led by scientists from Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, and several of the chimpanzees are named after Scottish single malt whiskies, including Ila — for Caol Ila — and fellow chimp Talisker. Hobaiter, who started the habituation of the Waibira group in 2011, said it long been known that chimpanzees drummed. “But it wasn’t until this study that we understood they’re using these signature styles when they’re potentially looking for other individuals — when they’re traveling, when they’re on their own or in a small group,” she told AFP. The researchers also discovered that the chimps sometimes choose not to drum in their signature beat, to avoid revealing their location or identity. “They have this wonderful flexibility to express their identity and their style, but also to sometimes keep that hidden,” Hobaiter said. Michael Wilson, a specialist on chimpanzees at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the research, said the study’s methodology was sound. But he was not “completely convinced, though, that the drumming is sufficiently distinctive that you could reliably tell all individuals apart,” because some patterns seemed very similar, he said, calling for more research.

While plenty of animals produce sounds we think of as music — such as birdsong — the research could open the door to the possibility that chimpanzees enjoy music on a level generally thought to only be possible for humans. “I do think that chimpanzees, like us, potentially have a sense of rhythmicity, a sense of music, something that touches them on an almost emotional level, in the way that we might have a sense of awe when we hear an amazing drum solo or another kind of dramatic musical sound,” Hobaiter said. Most research on the culture of chimpanzees has looked at their tools or food, she said. “But if we think about human culture we don’t think about the tools we use — we think about how we dress, the music we listen to,” she added. Next the researchers plan to investigate how neighboring and far-off communities of chimpanzees drum in their own differing styles. Hobaiter has already been looking at chimpanzees in Guinea, where there are very few trees to drum in the open savannah. “We’ve got early hints that they might be throwing rocks against rocks” to make sound, she said. “Literal rock music in this case.”  

CIENAGA DE ZAPATA, Cuba: Shirtless and waist-deep in the dark waters of Cuba’s palm-speckled Zapata Swamp, researcher Etiam Perez releases a baby crocodile confiscated from illegal hunters back into the wild. It is a small victory, he says, in a bigger battle. Cuban crocs, an endemic species found only here and in a swamp on Cuba’s Isle of Youth, are critically endangered and have the smallest natural habitat left of any living crocodile species, scientists say. (Photo essay: https://reut.rs/3CUOr7q) “We are trying to bring them back from the edge of extinction,” Perez told Reuters as the spotted reptile, mouth full of fine teeth, kicked its striped tail and disappeared.

Illegal hunting and hybridization with American crocodiles — which muddles the species’ genetics — have for decades threatened populations here. A warming climate, which alters the sex ratio of newborn crocs, poses a new threat. And despite the fact that the Cuban government has protected virtually all of the vast swamp — widely considered to be the best preserved in the Caribbean — that may still not be enough, scientists say. “When you compare the Cuban crocodile with other species in the world, its house is very small,” said Gustavo Sosa, a Cuban veterinarian at Zapata. Cuban scientists estimate that around 4,000 Cuban crocodiles live in the wild. But because the area they prefer within the wetland is relatively small, a climate-related disaster — increasingly common now globally — could wipe out most of the population.

Those concerns decades ago prompted the Cuban government to underwrite a hatchery program that annually releases several hundred crocodiles into the wild. Researchers like Perez also liberate crocodiles confiscated from hunters as part of a program that has helped reduce poaching of the species. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which listed the species as critically endangered in 2008, says its assessment and population estimates need updating, but confirms long-standing concerns over the limited habitat of the species. “With the hatchery we are trying to increase the historical range of the Cuban crocodile and of course increase the number of these individuals in the wild,” Perez said. The sale of crocodile meat in Cuba is tightly controlled by the state, and only those crocodiles with physical defects or hybrid genetics, for example, are allowed in restaurants. An illegal market, however, can still be found in some areas, particularly around the swamp. Fuel shortages, antiquated equipment and often inhospitable conditions are constant challenges in Cuba, a Caribbean island nation gripped by a dire economic crisis. But at Zapata, those concerns feel distant as this year´s crop of freshly hatched crocs, still covered in mucus from their eggs, snap their jaws at pieces of fresh river fish, moving in unison as they discover their new world. The newborns quickly become fierce and intimidating predators, scientists say, capable of reaching lengths of nearly five meters as adults. The Cuban crocodile, said veterinarian Sosa, is especially pugnacious, with little fear of humans. “It is a very curious critter,” said Sosa. “When you see one in nature...you know it is a Cuban crocodile because they come to you.”

TOKYO: Three bottlenose dolphins were released into the open sea in Indonesia Saturday after years of being confined for the amusement of tourists who would touch and swim with them. As red and white Indonesian flags fluttered, underwater gates opened off the island of Bali to allow Johnny, Rocky and Rambo to swim free. The trio were rescued three years ago from their tiny pool in a resort hotel to which they had been sold after spending years performing in a traveling circus. They regained their health and strength at the Bali sanctuary , a floating pen in a bay that provided a gentler, more natural environment. Lincoln O’Barry, who worked with the Indonesian government to set up the Umah Lumba Rehabilitation, Release and Retirement Center, said dolphins are wild animals that should live free.

“It was an incredibly emotional experience to see them go,” O’Barrry said. The center was initiated in 2019 by the Bali Forestry Department and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry. “Umah lumba” means “dolphin” in Indonesian. For some time after the gates opened, the dolphins looked at the opening, uncertain of their next move. But after about an hour, they were on their way, sometimes jumping over choppy waves. The Associated Press watched their release through an online livestream. O’Barry is documenting the release with drones and underwater footage for a film. The Indonesian government supported the dolphins’ rescue, working with Dolphin Project, founded by Lincoln’s father Ric O’Barry, who was also at the release. Ric O’Barry had been the dolphin trainer for the 1960s TV show “Flipper,” but later came to see the toll exacted on the animals. He has since devoted his life to returning dolphins to the wild. Center workers clapped as the dolphins swam out. Wahyu Lestari, rehabilitation coordinator at the center, said she was a bit sad to see them go. “I’m happy they are free, and they are going back to their family,” she said. “They should be in the wild because they are born in the wild.” The freed dolphins will be monitored out at sea with GPS tracking for a year. They can return for visits to the sanctuary, although it’s unclear what they will do. They may join another pod, stay together, or go their separate ways. Dolphins in captivity are carted from town to town, kept in chlorinated water, held in isolation or forced to interact with tourists, often leading to injuries. Johnny, the oldest dolphin, had teeth that were worn down to below the gum line when he was rescued in 2019. Earlier this year, dentists provided him with dolphin-style dental crowns so that he can now clamp down on live fish. Johnny was the first of the three dolphins to swim out to sea. Ric and Lincoln O’Barry have spent half a century working on saving dolphins from captivity in locations from Brazil to South Korea and the US Saturday’s release was their first in Indonesia. The Indonesian government’s decision to rescue the dolphins followed a decade-long public education campaign that included billboards, artwork, school programs and a drive asking people not to buy tickets to dolphin shows. A government minister was at hand to raise the gate at the sanctuary Saturday. Lincoln O’Barry said the Indonesian sanctuary will continue to be used for other captive dolphins. Similar sanctuaries are in the works in North America and Europe, as more dolphin shows close. With virtual reality and other technology, appreciation of nature doesn’t have to involve a zoo or a dolphin show, he said. Yet dolphin shows are still popular in China, the Middle East and Japan. In Japan, the father and son have drawn attention to the dolphin hunt in the town of Taiji, documented in the 2010 Oscar-winning film “The Cove.” Every year, fishermen frighten and corral dolphins into a cove, capture some to sell to dolphin shows and kill others for food. Whale and dolphin meat is considered a delicacy in Japanese culinary tradition. But Taiji has prompted protests by conservationists for years, including some Japanese. The three dolphins released in Indonesia were soon miles (kilometers) away in the waters. But before their departure, they circled around the sanctuary. “They turned back around and came back to us one more time, almost to say thank you and good-bye. And then they headed straight out to open ocean and disappeared,” Lincoln O’Barry said. “Where they head next, we don’t know. But we wish them a good long life.”

DUESSELDORF, Germany: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan arrived in the western German city of Duesseldorf on Tuesday where they are expected to promote the Invictus Games, a competition for wounded, injured and ill service personnel and veterans. The couple, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, were welcomed by the mayor and hundreds of fans who had come to the old city where Harry and Meghan entered city hall for a reception. The Invictus Games are expected to be held at Duesseldorf’s Merkus Spiel arena in a year’s time. Harry founded the Invictus Games to aid the rehabilitation of service members and veterans by giving them the challenge of competing in sports events similar to the Paralympics. Later on Tuesday, the couple was due to go on a boat trip on the Rhine river with veterans.