Animal Xploration- Issue 3

Reliable news about the Red panda

Greetings, everyone! I'm Renee the Red panda and I'm here to bring you all on an INCREDIBLE adventure to the animal world right now, well today. I am red (my name says so) and I am dwarfed by the black and white giant that lives in China (the Giant panda). Us, Red pandas typically grow to the size of a house cat, though our great, big, bushy tails add an additional eighteen inches. We have a taste for bamboo but, unlike our larger relatives, we eat many other foods as well, like fruit, acorns, roots, and eggs. Like giant pandas, we have an extended wrist bone that functions almost like a thumb and greatly aids our grip. We are distantly related to the larger, better-known black-and-white giant panda. We are solitary creatures found in the mountains of Nepal, Myanmar, and central China. Unlike the giant panda, we are NOT bears. Scientists, in fact, believe that we are more closely related to raccoons and skunks. That was what I heard from a scientist one day when he was taking photographs of me. Speaking of bears, do you know that bears belong to the CAT family? Interesting, ain't it?

We are not really erm, well what you say, 'well- known' round the world like our relatives the giant panda, but people still know us. You would know us if you watch 'Kung fu Panda'. The Red panda's 'Master Shifu', supposedly the giant panda Po's master if you know the movie. 


Whoa, about the movie. Get back to the fun facts about us. Talking about the movie was just a little bit of fun from all those fun facts. 
Is the Red panda ENDANGERED?
If you think the answer is no, then you are really wrong about that. The red panda has been classified as vulnerable by IUCN because its population is estimated at fewer than 10,000 mature individuals. Though red pandas are protected by national laws in their range countries, their numbers in the wild continue to decline mainly due to habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and inbreeding depression. Poor us. :( But there's still good news! During a survey in the 1970s, signs of red pandas were found in Nepal's Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve. Their presence was confirmed in spring, only in the year 2007 when four red pandas were sighted at elevations ranging from 3,220 to 3,610 m (10,560 to 11,840 ft). The species' westernmost limit is in Rara National Park located farther west of the Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve. Their presence was confirmed only in the year 2008.

I do hope that the humans would save us from being endangered. Please stop destroying our habitats.

From RENEE The Red Panda :)

Animal Xploration- Issue 2

Panda Packed Knowledge

I have black rings round my eyes. I love bamboo. its very obvious now- I'm a PANDA! Pandas are ENDANGERED. Bamboo produces new canes (culms) in the Spring. These shoots emerge out of the ground and grow in height and diameter for around 60 days. During this 60 day period it will produce limbs and leaves. After the 60 day period of growth, this bamboo cane does not grow in height or diameter again. It will put on new foliage every year, and typically a cane last for 10 years. Guess how tall a bamboo can grow in just a single day? It can grow up to 1-50 METERS!


I am a bear, native to central- western and south western China. I also can be found in Hong Kong's Ocean Park! I am easily recognised by people by my humongous, really distinctive black patches round my eyes, over my ears and right across my tubby fat body. Although I am supposed to belong to the order Carnivora, my diet is 99% bamboo! Due to farming, deforestation and other development, we, the pandas has been driven out of the lowland areas where we once lived. We can be found in China, the Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu Provinces.

Some of my family members are moving to Singapore too! I don't know much chinese, but I know Singapore in chinese is 新加坡(xin jia po). They have been really fussy about the bamboo in Singapore, so I have not a single idea when their enclosure in the 'Singapore Zoo' is opening. 

NEW UPDATE: (5th Nov 2012)

My Panda cousins have arrived at Singapore!!! They're Jia Jia (the female) and Kai Kai (the male)! 

They're open to the public once the Giant Panda Preview (at the River Safari) opens, on 29 November 2012! 

Aww, you know we Pandas are just IRRESISTIBLE! 
So, well, if you haven't seen the extent of Kai Kai and Jia Jia's cuteness, here you go...

Oops, wrong, these are stuffed toys. Anyway...

Argh! Wrong again! It's cartoon! Yeah, so...

Well, this is Kai Kai...

This is Jia Jia. 

How to differentiate both of them? Kai Kai is an "onion- head", while Jia Jia isn't.

Well, we are all very fussy about what kind of bamboo we eat, so MY favourite bamboo is found in Sichuan, where I live. I am a wild panda. I do NOT want to live in zoos, like a few of my cousins are doing now. There's almost no freedom in the Zoo! I like having the whole entire area to myself, roaming around whenever I want to.

The first panda came to the United States in 1936 – a cub to a zoo in Chicago. It took another 50 years before the States would see another of the pandas. When I was a newborn panda cub, I was only 1/900th the size of my mother and was comparable to the length of a stick of butter! Who knew that a newborn panda cub would be that tiny!

The WWF logo was inspired by Chi-Chi, a giant panda brought to the London Zoo in 1961, when WWF was being created. The man who sketched the first logo, Sir Peter Scott, says, “We wanted an animal that is beautiful, is endangered and one loved by many people in the world for its appealing qualities. We also wanted an animal that had an impact in black and white to save money on printing costs.”

Approximately 99 percent of a us, pandas' diet – bamboo leaves and shoots – is void of much nutritional value. Our carnivore-adapted digestive system cannot digest cellulose well, thus it lives a low-energy, sedentary lifestyle but persists in eating some 60 species of bamboo. We must eat upwards of 30 pounds of bamboo daily just to stay full. Some people, well humans eat bamboo like us! Be sure to try a little bit of well, 'bamboo delicacies' when you have a little trip to Taiwan!

-Help Save the World's Wildlife

Your contribution will help to save the world's wildlife and wild places.

Sincerely, Penny Giant Panda

Animal Xploration- Issue 1

Froggy Factoids 

Guess who I am! I swallow with my EYES. I breathe through my skin. How about flicking my tongue way way way out of my mouth? No problemo, I tell you! Its really easy now to guess who I am.


About me:
I am a frog! Tilly the Tree-frog to be exact. I have bright red eyes and I live in the Southern Mexico with my 10 brothers, 14 sisters, including me, plus my mom and dad. Actually, in a real frog's life, moms and dads leave their children in a pond for them to grow themselves. But lucky me, my mom and dad decided to take us 24 kids to live with them! The others, as mom laid about a hundred eggs, after becoming tadpoles were eaten by predators. :( I was one of the lucky few to be saved by my parents, and my friends all grew up by themselves!


I do some things that are really strange to you, they may also seem REAL freaky. Nope, not for me as these things are PERFECTLY normal ways of surviving! All around the world (well, except for Antarctica)are my 6,000 different cousin families, their sizes ranging from being smaller than a lima bean (Brown Mantella Frog)while others being as humongous as footballs(Pac man frog)!
You should well know this: Frogs' bodies are way different from yours. Take my legs. They are packed with muscles that make frogs great and amazing jumpers! One of the farthest jumping frogs would be another of my cousins, the Australian Rocket Frog. It can leap approximately... FIFTY times its own body length! Therefore you, being a human, would be able to jump most of the way across a football field in just ONE single bound! (OH MY.)


We, frogs, are also amazing in many other ways. I'm not boasting, really, but we are incredible hunters. Our tongues are attached at the FRONT of our mouths, instead of the back of your mouth, the way humans' ones are. Our tongue is covered with this real sticky stuff. Its really easy (I'm not kidding) to get a meal, like humans eating Instant Noodles! (Just that we are faster) All we have to do is to flip our tongues out, nab the little pesky prey, and lastly gobble it all up- all this drama in LESS THAN A SECOND! Its easy peasy. As we swallow down our meal, our eyeballs sink DOWN into our heads, helping us push all the food that we have just gobbled up down our throats.


For breathing, we have lungs, but we can use an alternative way- taking in oxygen through our skin. Hence, when I am underwater diving and relaxing the cool pond water during summertime, there's no need for me to come up and breathe! Some of my cousins have webbed feet to help them swim, and those sticky toe- pads give me, Tilly the Tree-frog, a non- slip grip on branches and leaves!


Froggy Business:
Frogs can only see things that ARE moving, other than that, they won't be able to see a statue right in their face unless the statue moves!

This is a picture of me, Tilly

Save the environment with me!

Signed, Tilly Tree-frog.

P.S.Find me & my friends at the Southern Mexico, Central America, Honduras and Panama, and Northern South America.

Address: 

894 Greenery Street, 

Storey 15 Rain tree Estate

34th hole to the right.

The 3Rs

Have you heard of the 3Rs? No or yes, we'll tell you.
1R) Reuse
2R) Reduce
3R) Recycle

Alright, so now think of 2 ways you can Reuse, then 2 ways you can Reduce and of course 2 ways you can Recycle. Think of it and please e-mail us whatever you think of, or any enquiries. And now, we, ourselves will give you 2 possibilities for each, but DO NOT COPY if you want to e-mail us whatever you think of.

Reuse:
Water  Conservation- Reuse water used to wash clothes to wash the toilet floor.
Here, you can try this out for yourself- Tear old newspaper pages into pieces, then soak in water. Use the old newspaper pieces to form sheets of newspaper. Wait till the sheets DRY, for real. After that, paint the sheets of pieces with whatever colour you want. You can doodle on top of the paper, whatever.
That's reusing the newspaper.

Reduce:
Water Conservation- Gargle water with a MUG OF WATER. I advise you NOT to gargle under a running water from the tap.
Water conservation- Wash vegetables in a bowl of water. NOT under running water from the tap.

Recycle:
At my school, I have to bring newspaper every Tuesday for recycling there. I think... they sell our newspaper after that. With the money, we would buy TREES, and save them.
For example, you find a piece of paper with ONLY ONE SIDE PRINTED. Can you use it again? Of course! You can use the OTHER side. That's how you save the Earth.

We have already given you examples. Send your examples to crazymineliz@gmail.com . If your examples are great and mean something to nature and Earth, we'll post them over the blog! Come on everyone, think of something!

Tell us if you have done these:

Reuse, Reduce and RECYCLE!

  

Sungei Buloh

Dear Readers,
I have just posted my school Science project. Its about Sungei Buloh and our school is going to organise a trip there in September when the migratory birds visit Singapore! If you want to visit Sungei Buloh, I advise you to wear shoes and socks, long pants and long sleeved shirts. Do spray insect repellant on exposed skin areas.

For more information, visit these websites:
http://www.sbwr.org.sg/
http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/


I would be sure to post my photos of Sungei Buloh in September!

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR S'pore)

Yep. I'm going there soon to see the migratory birds land here, yes, in Singapore. I did a an online catalogue for my school yesterday and tried to upload it on the computer, but it failed. Anyway, going to Sungei Buloh would be so much fun! There, you would be able to see Sea Hollys, Redshanks, Greenshanks, the common Tree Frog, Monitor lizards and all. Yep. I can't wait for that trip. In the next post, read the advice. So at least you will know of what to prepare for the trip. Anyway, do you know what Sungei Buloh means? It's in Malay. Sungei= River, Buloh= Bamboo. There USED to be bamboo there, but errr, sorry to say, there no longer is. In the 19th Century, with an increasing rural population, prawn farming became the mainstay of those settling the coast. Now the prawn farms are gone and the mangroves are regenerating under the protection afforded by the Nature Reserve. You can check many websites as stated here.

http://mangrove.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/text/1019.htm

http://www.sbwr.org.sg/wetlands/text/99-6-2-1.htm

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/313386/katydid

I have written them down, so just *click* and you can get there.