Saving Planet Earth
Fascinating facts
Albatross – animal facts
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- Albatrosses have been flying over the oceans for 50 million years.
- Nineteen of the 21 species of albatross across the planet are threatened with extinction.
- Wandering and Royal (aka "great") albatrosses have the largest wingspans of any bird in the world, reaching up to 3.5m.
- A grey-headed albatross from South Georgia has been recorded circumnavigating the globe in a mere 46 days!
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Albatross – RSPB Albatross Task Force facts
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- Albatrosses are dying at a rate of around one every five minutes. It's estimated that 100,000 albatrosses die each year because of long line fishing.
- £10 could pay for the weights that make the hooks sink faster, away from the albatross.
- £10,000 could pay for a series of workshops and practical at-sea training exercises for fishermen.
- £20,000 could fund a Birdlife International Ocean Task Force member for one year.
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Crocodiles – animal facts
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- There are 14 species of crocodile in the world, ranging from the smallest – the west African dwarf crocodile measuring 1.9m – to the largest – saltwater crocodiles that can measure over 7m long.
- Crocodiles are the largest living reptiles on the planet. The biggest can weigh over one tonne.
- A crocodile's digestive juices are so strong that they can completely digest a carcass including the bones.
- A single crocodile can go through more than 2,000 teeth in its lifetime, although it usually only has about 80 teeth at any one time.
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Crocodiles – Fauna & Flora International facts
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- There are estimated to be only 200-250 wild Siamese crocodiles left in Cambodia.
- £10 could pay for a community crocodile warden for one month.
- £1,000 could support a team of community crocodile wardens for one year, to assure the protection of a key crocodile site.
- £10,000 could provide agricultural training, seeds and other support to a Cambodian community for one year to reduce pressure on crocodile habitats.
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Elephants – animal facts
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- Elephants are the largest land animal in the world. The largest known African elephant was 10 tonnes and 4m tall to its shoulder.
- An elephant's trunk has more than 40,000 muscles and tendons, making it sensitive enough to pick up a single blade of grass, yet strong enough to rip the branches off a tree.
- Today, there are only two places in Africa where elephants occur in a true desert (with an average annual rainfall of less than 150mm). These are in the Gorma area along the Chad-Mali border and in the Kunene region of Namibia.
- Desert elephants are uniquely adapted to extremely dry and sandy conditions. They have smaller bodies, longer legs and larger feet than other elephants and can survive on moisture in the vegetation which they eat – with bull elephants able to go for up to four days without water.
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Elephants – Integrated Rural Development & Nature Conservation facts
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- By the Eighties, most of the 3,000 elephants that lived in Namibia's Kunene region had been killed by hunters and poachers. Today, it's estimated that there are only 750 left in Namibia.
- £10 could pay the salary of a community game guard for a week.
- £10,000 could sponsor a community conservancy for one year, providing ways for people to live alongside elephants.
- £100,000 could assist Integrated Rural Development & Nature Conservation (IRDNC) to provide technical and logistic support to 40 communal area conservancies and replace two critically needed vehicles.
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Gorillas – animal facts
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- Gorillas share more than 96 per cent of their DNA with humans.
- A mature male silverback lowland gorilla can weigh over 175kg and stand almost six feet tall.
- Gorillas are the largest living primate, and have the strength of several men.
- It is claimed that some captive gorillas can use a sign language of 1,000 gestures to communicate with humans and understand 2,000 words of spoken English.
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Gorillas – Zoological Society Of London facts
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- Some scientists estimate that there are only 100,000 western lowland gorillas left in the wild, while others suggest it is likely to be half of this. Numbers have been dramatically reduced by the Ebola virus, logging and the bushmeat trade.
- An orphaned baby gorilla, like a human child, needs constant care and requires 24 hours a day support when they are rescued by the centre.
- £10 could pay for a tracker for a day or run a disease research lab for a week.
- £20,000 could fund the tracking research for one gorilla group for one year.
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Orang-utans – animal facts
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- Orang-utans are now found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, although fossils indicate that they once ranged over much of South East Asia.
- Orang-utans share 97 per cent of their DNA with humans.
- Weighing up to 90kg, the orang-utan is the largest tree-living mammal and the only great ape in Asia.
- The orang-utan has the longest childhood dependence on the mother of any animal in the world. In the first seven years, the mother teaches the baby essential survival skills.
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Organ-utan – Borneo Orang-utan Survival Foundation facts
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- It is estimated that orang-utans are disappearing at a rate of 5,000 per year. If this rate continues, it would give the orang-utan ten more years before extinction in the wild.
- Orang-utans have lost approximately 80 per cent of their habitat in the last 20 years.
- £10 could feed an orphaned orang-utan for three weeks.
- £5,000 could buy a "halfway house" island to help orang-utans back into the wild.
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Rhinoceros – animal facts
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- The earliest rhinos existed around 60 million years ago.
- Ounce for ounce, Indian rhino horn is more valuable than gold.
- An Indian rhino horn is made of keratin – the same substance that makes hair and nails in all animals, including humans.
- Rhinos in general have poor vision, and if you keep still they are unlikely to see you from more than 30 metres away. As a test of bravery, Massai warriors in Kenya are able to sneak up on a rhino and place a stone on its back, if they approach very quietly and down wind.
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Rhinoceros – Aaranyak & David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation facts
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- Two hundred years ago, there were around 1 million rhinos on the planet. Today, only 18,000 of the five different species remain.
- With strict protection from Indian and Nepalese wildlife authorities, greater one-horned rhino have successfully recovered from 200 in 1900 to around 2,400 today.
- £10 could pay for an anti-poaching officer for one week.
- £10,000 could support a wildlife crime unit for a year, monitoring poaching incidents and tracking down poachers.
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Tigers – animal facts
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- A tiger's stripes are completely unique. They are like human finger prints.
- An entire tiger skin can fetch up to $16,000.
- A tiger's roaming range can be as large as 800 square kilometres.
- A single tiger needs at least 500 prey animals in its territory in order to be able to survive.
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Tigers – Tigers Forever & Wildlife Conservation Society facts
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- It is estimated that we have already lost 90 per cent of the world's tiger population. Three of the eight tiger sub-species have already become extinct.
- Tigers Forever plans to increase tiger numbers across key Wildlife Conservation Society sites by 50 per cent over the next 10 years.
- £10 could pay for a skilled tiger tracker for one week.
- £20,000 could free up about 100 square kilometres of habitat from human intrusion.
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Turtles – animal facts
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- Turtles have been on earth for over 100 million years and have changed little over that time.
- Once hatched, a male turtle will never return to dry land. Females do return but only once they have reached breeding age to lay their eggs.
- Green turtles return to the same beach they were born after many years at sea to lay their own eggs. Some green turtles have been known to migrate for 4,500km in order to nest.
- Leather back turtles are the largest of the marine turtles, averaging about 500kgs in weight. The largest specimen ever recorded was a male that weighed 916kgs and measured 2.91m in length.
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Turtles – Turtle Conservation Project facts
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- Six of the world's seven marine turtles are endangered. Every year, an estimated 150,000 marine turtles are drowned in trawler nets or caught on hooks intended for fish.
- Prior to the Turtle Conservation Project arriving in Rekawa in 1993, it is thought that close to 100 per cent of the nests laid on Rekawa beach had been raided every year since the early Seventies.
- £10 could pay for a team co-ordinator for the Turtle Conservation Project for three days to monitor nests and ensure the best chance for survival for the hatchlings.
- £24,000 could cover the cost of the Turtle Conservation Project's base at Rekawa in Sri Lanka.
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Ethiopian Wolves – animal facts
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- Every domesticated dog can be traced back to the wolf.
- Ethiopian wolves are even rarer than the giant panda. They are the rarest canids in the world.
- The current total estimate of Ethiopian wolf populations indicates a decline of at lest 25 per cent in the last three years.
- Around half the world's population of Ethiopian wolves live in the Bale mountains.
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Ethiopian Wolves – Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Project facts
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- In 1991, rabies wiped out three quarters of the wolf population in the Bale Mountains. The global population of the Ethiopian wolf is currently estimated at 500 adults. Of these, probably less than 250 are breeders.
- Since 1998, the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Project has successfully vaccinated 30,000 dogs against rabies and canine distemper.
- £10 could buy four rabies vaccines.
- £5,000 could build an education centre, and gets two local Ethiopian MSc students onto the project.
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