Year: 2019

India puts Gujarat lions on trial after three people killed

Markozen.com Animals, Offbeat

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Officials in India have “arrested” 18 lions as they try to find a man eater suspected of killing three people.

Forest officials in Gujarat state will test the lions’ prints and excrement in an attempt to identify the killer.

The “guilty lion” will be kept in a zoo for life while the others will be released back into the Gir sanctuary, the officials told BBC Hindi.

Six attacks on humans have been reported recently near the sanctuary, the only habitat of the Asiatic lion.

Gujarat’s top forest official, JA Khan, said that the lions had been “arrested” over the past two months and were now being held in separate cages while tests were carried out.

“We think we have pinpointed the guilty lion, but we are still awaiting the results of nine more animals,” he said.
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Innocent lions will be released back into the Gir forest

Wildlife expert Ruchi Dave told the BBC that the “tests” involved studying the pug marks and faecal matter of the lions.

“The officials are also studying the animals’ behaviour. Man eating lions usually get aggressive at the sight of a human being,” she said.

Another wildlife expert Revtubha Raizada said the man-eating lion would be caged for the rest of its life, as it was too unsafe to release it back into the wild.

Some experts feel that the thriving lion population in Gir forest is to blame for the “unusual” behaviour by the lions.

Govind Patel, the former chief wildlife warden of Gujarat, told the Indian Express newspaper that Gir could accommodate only 270 lions, forcing some prides to settle outside the boundaries of the sanctuary.

India’s Supreme Court has ruled that Gujarat needed to relocate some of its lions to other states to avoid the possibility of disease or other disaster wiping out the entire population.

However the state has expressed reluctance and has not yet complied with the order.

 

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Six cases of lions attacking humans have been recently reported near the Gir forest

The Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), also known as the Indian lion or Persian lion, is a lion subspecies that exists as a single population in India’s Gujarat state. It is listed as Endangered by IUCN due to its small population size. Since 2010, the lion population in the Gir Forest National Park has steadily increased.

In May 2015, the 14th Asiatic Lion Census was conducted over an area of about 20,000 km2 (7,700 sq mi); the lion population was estimated at 523 individuals, comprising 109 adult males, 201 adult females and 213 cubs.

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Asiatic lion at Gir Forest National Park.

The Photographer Who Took This Picture Barely Escaped With His Life

Markozen.com Animals

Pakistani nature photographer Atif Saeed managed to capture this stunning shot of a lion — just before it leapt at him.

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This photograph was snapped by Atif Saeed at a safari zoo park near Lahore. He got out of his jeep to take the photo, but the sound of the lens’s whizzing caught the lion’s attention. Saeed figures the big cat got as close as 10 feet, before he was able to reach the safety of his jeep.

Once safely inside his vehicle, Saeed started to laugh about what had happened. But after some retrospection he came to realize just how close he came to death — and vowed to never do anything quite as reckless again.

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Central Park Tower Rising Up

Markozen.com Buildings

Central Park Tower (also known as the Nordstrom Tower) will be a supertall mixed-use commercial/residential project being developed by the Extell Development Company and Shanghai Municipal Investment Group in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, in the U.S. state of New York. The building will rise 1,550 feet (472 m) to the roof. Upon completion, Central Park Tower will become the second-tallest skyscraper in the United States and the Western Hemisphere and the tallest by roof height of a building outside of Asia, surpassing the Willis Tower by around 95 feet.

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The Death Defying Dam Climbing Alpine Ibex

Markozen.com Animals

alpine ibex climbing dams

Alpine Ibex are big mountain goats that live among the peaks in the European Alps where predators cannot reach. They occupy the steep, rocky terrain above the tree line between two to three thousand meters above sea level. But they can’t live there at all times, because there is no food up there. During spring and summer, the Ibex live among the conifers and the meadows where there are plenty of grass to feed. Before the first snow falls, the Ibex has to fatten up and build reserves to help see them through the Alpine winters. Once winter arrives, the Ibex retreats to the safety of their homes in the clouds.

Like many herbivores, the Alpine Ibex lacks salt and other essential minerals in their diet which they can’t get from grass. So the Ibex has to seek out natural salt licks. In springtime, when salt requirements are the highest, the Ibex can be seen licking rock surfaces for leached salts.

Dam walls are another precious source of salts and minerals. Dams are composed of concrete, and concrete releases a calcium-aluminium mineral called ettringite as part of the curing process. Up to twenty percent of hardened concrete is composed of ettringite.

Only the Alpine Ibex can exploit this resource. Being excellent climbers, the Ibex will climb the sheer vertical face of the dam’s wall using the small protruding boulders as foothold to lick ettringite off the wall’s surface. The Ibex can scale such great heights because of their soft, split hooves that can grip any surface like a pincer.

The Cingino Dam in northern Italy, not far from the Swiss border, is one place where you can observe the Alpine Ibex’s gravity-defying stunts—but it’s not the only place. This behavior has also been observed at the Barbellino dam in Lombardy, and Lago della Rossa dam in Valli di Lanzo, Piemonte.

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Chicago Skyscrapers Hit by Lightning

Markozen.com Weather

The Windy City is mighty pretty: Dazzling lightning illuminates the Chicago skyline and strikes four skyscrapers

Mother nature’s power and beauty were on full display in Chicago Monday night when lightning lit up the city’s skyline.

The electric bursts reportedly struck four of the city’s tallest buildings in a rare occurrence of what’s called ‘upward lightning,’ according to the Washington Post.

The phenomenon usually involves tall man-made structure, like skyscrapers, and follows the more common cloud-to-ground lightning strikes.

Upward strikes typically occur after positive charges from a cloud to ground strike leave an imbalance of positive energy on a building or tower, which shoots a bolt into the sky to meet and balance out a mirroring negative charge.

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All the buildings struck by lightning were reportedly taller than 1,000 feet

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Amazing Waterfalls

Markozen.com Geography

 

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Seven Sisters Waterfall Norway

 

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Baatara Gorge Waterfall Lebanon

 

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Dettifoss Waterfall Iceland, yes this is the one from the movie Prometheus.

 

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Dietan Waterfall, on the border of China and Vietnam

 

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Paradise in the Grand Canyon, USA

 

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Glacial waterfall in Greenland

 

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Waterfall and isolated beach in Hawaii

 

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Iceland

 

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Train bridge over a waterfall in Letchworth State Park, New York

 

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Migus Mill North Carolina. An aqueduct was built to power a corn mill.

 

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Nepal

 

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Norway

 

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Pearl Waterfall, China

 

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Strange moss waterfall in Romania

 

awater Seljalandsfoss Waterfall, Iceland

Seljalandsfoss Waterfall, Iceland

 

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Tibet

 

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Waterfall of the Gods, Iceland

 

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Zion National Park, Utah

 

The Pristine Beauty of Iceland

Markozen.com Geography

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No neighbours to worry about

 

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The famous black sand

 

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Creative hydro towers

 

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The Island country is on a major earthquake fault intersection

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Capital
and largest city		 Reykjavík
64°08′N 21°56′W / 64.133°N 21.933°W / 64.133; -21.933
Official language
and national language		 Icelandic
Ethnic groups (2014)
  • 93.01% Icelandic
  • 3.13% Polish
  • 3.84% other
Religion Evangelical Lutheranism
Demonym Icelander
Government Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic
 – President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson
 – Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson
 – Speaker of Parliament Einar Kristinn Guðfinnsson
 – President of Supreme Court Markús Sigurbjörnsson
Legislature Althing
Formation
 – Settlement 9th century
 – Commonwealth 930–1262
 – Union with Norway 1262–1814
 – Danish monarchy 1380–1944
 – Constitution 5 January 1874
 – Kingdom 1 December 1918
 – Republic 17 June 1944
Area
 – Total 102,775 km2 (108th)
39,699 sq mi
 – Water (%) 2.7
Population
 – 1 January 2015 estimate 329,100 (182nd)
 – Density 3.2/km2 (233rd)
8.29/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2015 estimate
 – Total $14.488 billion (142nd)
 – Per capita $44,575 (23rd)