Hippos a thread to environment

[Year of the Dog]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/16/cocaine-hippos-pablo-escobar-sterilized-colombia

[ShadySue]

Title should be altered to reflect that the hippos in question are not in their natural distribution range.

[Uncle Pete]

Title should be altered to reflect that the hippos in question are not in their natural distribution range.

OP in the typical Internet bait headline, we should be used to that after being pounded with them, all day, every day.

But a small fact: The hippo is responsible for more human fatalities in Africa than any other large animal. (the mosquito kills more people) Male hippos actively defend their territories which run along the banks of rivers and lakes. Hippos can run at speeds of over 20 miles an hour and they have enormous jaws which host up to 20 inch canines.

Right, Escobar's hippos are a threat because they aren't there naturally.

[ShadySue]

Title should be altered to reflect that the hippos in question are not in their natural distribution range.

OP in the typical Internet bait headline, we should be used to that after being pounded with them, all day, every day.

But a small fact: The hippo is responsible for more human fatalities in Africa than any other large animal. (the mosquito kills more people) Male hippos actively defend their territories which run along the banks of rivers and lakes. Hippos can run at speeds of over 20 miles an hour and they have enormous jaws which host up to 20 inch canines.

Right, Escobar's hippos are a threat because they aren't there naturally.

More than that, if a hippo is out of water grazing, and you get between them and water, they might panic about their escape route being cut off and charge you. You get reminded constantly if you're staying at a lodge where the hippos graze on the lawn at night.

[marthamarks]

Pete and Liz, that's very interesting info about hippos. I didn't know any of it, and am fascinated. Thanks for sharing.

[ShadySue]

(the mosquito kills more people)

<pedant mode>
Anopheles mosquitoes are the unwitting vector of the malaria parasites, and it's the latter which can kill us or make us ill.
More info than you probably ever wanted to know:
https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/biology/index.html

But indeed, when my pupils asked me what the most dangerous animal I'd seen on my safaris was, I always answered 'mosquitoes', before numbing them with the qualification.   

[cascoly]

More than that, if a hippo is out of water grazing, and you get between them and water, they might panic about their escape route being cut off and charge you. You get reminded constantly if you're staying at a lodge where the hippos graze on the lawn at night.

I stayed at such a lodge in Botswana - after dinner they gave you a flashlight & said watch out for Pavorotti, their local hippo.  we also had an incident on a canal where a hippo dove under our boat (then surfaced behind us)

great read is https://www.amazon.com/Down-Rabbit-Hole-Pablo-Villalobos/dp/0374143358

Tochtli lives in a palace. He loves hats, samurai, guillotines, and dictionaries, and what he wants more than anything right now is a new pet for his private zoo: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia. But Tochtli is a child whose father is a drug baron on the verge of taking over a powerful cartel, and Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants, and the odd corrupt politician or two. Long-listed for The Guardian First Book Award, Down the Rabbit Hole, a masterful and darkly comic first novel, is the chronicle of a delirious journey to grant a child's wish.

[ouatedeP]

Title should be altered to reflect that the hippos in question are not in their natural distribution range.

OP in the typical Internet bait headline, we should be used to that after being pounded with them, all day, every day.

But a small fact: The hippo is responsible for more human fatalities in Africa than any other large animal. (the mosquito kills more people) Male hippos actively defend their territories which run along the banks of rivers and lakes. Hippos can run at speeds of over 20 miles an hour and they have enormous jaws which host up to 20 inch canines.

Right, Escobar's hippos are a threat because they aren't there naturally.

hippos are actually number 2 for  larger mammals in causing deaths in Africa.  the other one however uses tools like guns, cars and many more ;-)

[Pacesetter]

Imagine one of those beast's farts? Then imagine dozens of those beasts farting after a hearty feed. That's some serious gas being pumped into the environment.

[marthamarks]

Imagine one of those beast's farts? Then imagine dozens of those beasts farting after a hearty feed. That's some serious gas being pumped into the environment.

That may sound funny, but it does happen to be true!

[Asthebelltolls]

Imagine one of those beast's farts? Then imagine dozens of those beasts farting after a hearty feed. That's some serious gas being pumped into the environment.

That may sound funny, but it does happen to be true!

Gosh....I wonder if hippos outnumber cars?

[ShadySue]

Imagine one of those beast's farts? Then imagine dozens of those beasts farting after a hearty feed. That's some serious gas being pumped into the environment.

Fun fact: when the poop, they wag their tails like crazy to spread it around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-jXMeo4a4k

[marthamarks]

Imagine one of those beast's farts? Then imagine dozens of those beasts farting after a hearty feed. That's some serious gas being pumped into the environment.

That may sound funny, but it does happen to be true!

Gosh....I wonder if hippos outnumber cars?

Do you understand what methane is???

If not, please look it up and then come back and explain it to us.

[Uncle Pete]

Methane. CH4 has 23 times the GWP of CO2, and its concentrations have increased by 150% since 1750.
According to the FAO, animal agriculture is responsible for 35-40% of anthropogenic CH4 emissions.

Notes:

Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) serve as an �exchange rate� among greenhouse gases, enabling emitters to compare the climate benefits of reducing emissions of different gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) or methane (CH4). The methane GWP is defined as the total radiative forcing (i.e. heating) over 100 years (or another time horizon) caused by emitting methane, compared to emitting an equal amount of CO2. Since methane is a precursor of ozone and stratospheric water vapor, both of which are greenhouse gases, the methane GWP customarily includes the radiative forcing caused by these decay products. Our analysis suggests that methane breakdown in the atmosphere produces more ozone and more radiative forcing than previously recognized, with most of the additional ozone residing in the stratosphere. New data also revise the methane lifetime upwards (9.1 yr). Taken together, we calculate the methane GWP to be 32, which is 25% larger than past assessments. (FL state university)

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a United Nations (UN) agency that works on international efforts to defeat hunger by developing agriculture.

CH4 stands for Methane, Natural Gas - a carbon atom surrounded by 4 hydrogen atoms

There I think I've done my good deed, acronym and definition research for the day? 

[ShadySue]

Imagine one of those beast's farts? Then imagine dozens of those beasts farting after a hearty feed. That's some serious gas being pumped into the environment.

Yebbut very little methane compared to ruminants according to the study whose abstract is here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24193495
Bottom line: "It is concluded that the contribution of monogastric* animals to the global methane emission is negligible, as it only represent about 5% of the total methane emission by domestic and wild animals of 80 Tg per year. "
* In this study: rat, horse, pig, monkey, baboon, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giant panda, goose, turkey and chicken.

[Uncle Pete]

Imagine one of those beast's farts? Then imagine dozens of those beasts farting after a hearty feed. That's some serious gas being pumped into the environment.

Yebbut very little methane compared to ruminants according to the study whose abstract is here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24193495
Bottom line: "It is concluded that the contribution of monogastric* animals to the global methane emission is negligible, as it only represent about 5% of the total methane emission by domestic and wild animals of 80 Tg per year. "
* In this study: rat, horse, pig, monkey, baboon, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giant panda, goose, turkey and chicken.

Hmm, someone was using a Chinese Calendar for selecting the sample animals? 

[marthamarks]

Hmm, someone was using a Chinese Calendar for selecting the sample animals? 

LOL!

And thanks for doing the methane research so Asthebelltolls didn't have to.

And thanks to Liz's research, I learned something important, too! 

[cascoly]

it's the beef -industrial complex - besides massive slash & burn in the amazon in order to raise cattle,
"Emissions from cattle and other ruminants are almost as large as those from the fossil fuel industry for methane," Jackson said. "People joke about burping cows without realizing how big the source really is."
Agriculture as a whole produces two-thirds of total emissions, with rice cultivation and biomass burning also significant contributors, according to the researchers.
Fossil fuels account for most of the remaining third, and the two sources have contributed almost equally to the recent increases.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/15/world/methane-emissions-record-scli-intl-scn/index.html

Methane is 28 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over 100 years, the team said, and human activity accounts for more than half of methane emissions.
Annual emissions of the greenhouse gas have risen by 9% since 2000, which has the same effect on warming as adding 350 million cars to our roads.

[marthamarks]

Speaking of methane, here's a related piece from today's Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/russia-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

[Uncle Pete]

it's the beef -industrial complex - besides massive slash & burn in the amazon in order to raise cattle,
"Emissions from cattle and other ruminants are almost as large as those from the fossil fuel industry for methane," Jackson said. "People joke about burping cows without realizing how big the source really is."
Agriculture as a whole produces two-thirds of total emissions, with rice cultivation and biomass burning also significant contributors, according to the researchers.
Fossil fuels account for most of the remaining third, and the two sources have contributed almost equally to the recent increases.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/15/world/methane-emissions-record-scli-intl-scn/index.html

Methane is 28 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over 100 years, the team said, and human activity accounts for more than half of methane emissions.
Annual emissions of the greenhouse gas have risen by 9% since 2000, which has the same effect on warming as adding 350 million cars to our roads.

Pretty scary isn't that? Now I know we're going way off of those poor hippos, but cities in four states have banned allowing people to install new natural gas stoves or water heaters. "Cities in states like California, Ohio, and Massachusetts have passed such ordinances because of climate concerns." I wonder about that? I'm sure they mean well, thinking that burning gas is a problem, but where does the electricity to run the electric hot water and electric stove come from?

Note: There are 400 coal-powered electric plants in the United States. They generated 30 percent of the nation's electricity last year. COAL?

How efficient is mandating electric over natural gas, and does it really reduce emissions? Or does it create more from the plants that still burn coal and by the way, The United States has 1,793 natural gas power plants that generate 34% of the nation�s electricity. Natural gas, replacing Natural Gas? Isn't the production and transmission of electricity more inefficient than just burning natural gas?

Top 15 sources of greenhouse gas

Power Plants (1/15)
Residential Buildings (2/15)
Road Transport (3/15)
Deforestation, Forest Degradation & Land Use Change (4/15)
Energy Industry Processes & Losses (5/15)
Commercial Buildings (6/15)
Cement, Ceramics and Glass Production (7/15)
Livestock (8/15)
​Iron & Steel Manufacture (9/15)
Chemical & Petrochemical Industries (11/15)
Oil & Gas Production (12/15)
Waste and Waste Water (13/15)
Coal Mining (14/15)
Aviation (15/15)

[Uncle Pete]

Just reading about Escobar's 4 hippos and that they are now 80-100 and a threat to the environment. Seems that the poop levels can kill off fish downstream and aside from environmental destruction, they have no native competition. Wildlife experts are now using some chemical birth control in hopes of limiting the herds population growth.

The original 4 were released out of kindness, instead of killing them. Too bad, maybe they should have been sent to a zoo?

This note is still current:  In Africa, hippos kill about 500 people a year making them the most dangerous animals on the planet, according to National Geographic. Who'd have thought that? I mean tigers, crocodiles, sharks... but Hippos?

Bees or mosquitos are not "animals". And I guess they don't count humans in the numbers, only wild animals. Oh yes, it says, In African, and then the planet, sometimes I wonder if that proportional somehow?

[cascoly]

This note is still current:  In Africa, hippos kill about 500 people a year making them the most dangerous animals on the planet, according to National Geographic. Who'd have thought that? I mean tigers, crocodiles, sharks... but Hippos?
 

zero people are killed by tigers in Africa!!!

[Uncle Pete]

This note is still current:  In Africa, hippos kill about 500 people a year making them the most dangerous animals on the planet, according to National Geographic. Who'd have thought that? I mean tigers, crocodiles, sharks... but Hippos?
 

zero people are killed by tigers in Africa!!!

No one is killed by Alligators, Reindeer, or a Moose in Africa either. 

If Goose is Geese, are Moose then Meese?