Briefly . Compiled by Richard Fitter The items under this title continue the service formerly supplied by the newsletter Kingfisher INTERNATIONAL In 18 countries of the world lice are now resistant to these pesticides. In The Golden Ark some Latin American countries, in- In addition to the names mentioned on cluding Guatemala, and in India, page 27 of the May issue, the malaria is now worse than before the following distinguished conservationists eradication programmes started. In were invested with the insignia of the Sri Lanka (Ceylon) the number of Golden Ark at a special ceremony at malaria cases increased in five years Soestdijk Palace at The Hague on from 18 to two million. Urban malaria May 3: William O. Douglas (USA), is also increasing in both India and Sir Frank Fraser Darling (UK), Pakistan, and is being spread by a Laurence Rockefeller (USA), President different vector, which is resistant to Mobutu (Zaire), Salim Ali (India), both DDT and BHC. In parts of Africa Kai Curry-Lindahl (Sweden), Jean there is a similar problem. Delacour (France), Sir Julian Huxley (UK), Phyllis Barclay-Smith (UK), Another SST Warning Lt. Col. C. L. Boyle (UK), Felipe Water and other chemicals released by Benavides (Peru), Finnur Gudmundsson SSTs in the upper atmosphere 'may (Iceland), Sir Landsborough Thomson partially destroy the protective shield of (UK), Prof. V. Puscariu (Rumania), stratospheric ozone', according to a D. L. Serventy (Australia), Col. Jack special panel convened by the En- Vincent (S. Africa), and Lord Hurcomb vironmental Studies Board of the (UK). National Academy of Sciences. Large fleets of SSTs, the panel PCB's in the Environment warned, could damage the atmosphere Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are so severely that lives would be lost now found throughout the world from exposure to ultraviolet radiation. ecosystem in quantities similar to those of DDE, a derivative of DDT. PCBs are known to be toxic to Orang-utan Captive Breeding mallard, bobwhite quail, red-winged With more than 500 orang-utans in blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds and captivity, the world's zoos have a grackles to much the same extent that large potential breeding stock. But DDT is. PCBs of high chlorine although the number of births and the content are more poisonous to birds, apparent birth rate have been in- those of low chlorine content more creasing, no living orang-utan is the poisonous to insects, according to a offspring of captive-born parents, report from the Patuxent Wildlife according to John Perry and Dana Lee Research Center, at Laurel, Horsemen in Zoologica. Maryland. Directory of Ornithologists The Resistant Insect World Nos. 71/73 of The Ring, the well Some 240 species of insects, including known bird-ringing periodical, take the ticks and mites, are now resistant to form of a directory of the world's DDT and other persistent pesticides. In ornithologists. Though by no means central California it now takes several complete—it omits, for instance, both hundred times the normal dose to kill the British ornithological FRS's— mosquitoes, including the encephalitis Index Omithologicorum is a useful first mosquito. Essentially therefore they are step towards a register of ornitholo- now uncontrollable by chemical means. gists, and can be had from 169 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.8, on 27 Sep 2021 at 16:15:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605300011480 170 Oryx Sienkiewicza 21, 50-335 Wroclaw, selling the salmon at £5 each by Poland, for $3. (Cheques to Polish various direct sale techniques. Zoological Society). Norway Joins IUCN Gin Traps Finally Outlawed Norway is the 31st sovereign state to The gin trap, described by the Scott become a member of IUCN. Henderson Committee as 'a diabolical instrument' is now finally prohibited in More Whale Import Bans all parts of Great Britain. It was Canada and Australia have joined the already forbidden to use it for any United States and Britain in banning the animal in England and Wales, and for import of whalemeat and other any animal except foxes in Scotland, by-products. when on April 1, under the provisions of an Act of 1969, it also became illegal to use gin traps, or any GREAT BRITAIN other unapproved spring traps, against foxes in Scotland. Ten New AONBs The Countryside Commission Pole Traps Still Used proposes to schedule ten more Areas The pole trap, an extremely cruel of Outstanding Natural Beauty: Scilly device, was prohibited more than sixty Isles, North Pennines, Nidderdale years ago. Yet the Royal Society for Moors, Clwydian Range, Berwyn the Protection of Birds reports that it Mountains, High Weald, Cornish coast has found 130 pole traps on estates in (Rame Head and Camel estuary), Britain during the past two years. Northumberland coast (near Scottish border) and an extension to the existing Dedham Vale AONB in Suffolk. The Replacing Laboratory Animals Secretary of State for Wales has FRAME (the Fund for the Replace- rejected the Commission's proposal for ment of Animals in Medical a new national park in mid-Wales. Experiments) has set up an Information Retrieval Service at the National Lending Library for Science and PCBs in Grey Seals Technology at Boston Spa, Further analysis of the tissues of grey Yorks. It is intended to produce a seals from various parts of the British periodical-abstracting journal on coast show higher levels of PCBs alternatives to laboratory animals. than of organochlorines, and North Sea seals show greater concentrations than those from the north and west Trust Compensated coasts. Similar differences have also Essex Naturalists' Trust has obtained been noted in the organochlorine con- £2500 damages from a farmer whose tent offish from the two coasts. out-of-control straw-burning fire destroyed 15 acres of its Fingringhoe Wick reserve in September 1972. Poison Poaching of Salmon Gangs are said to be poaching The Otter Trust hundreds of salmon and trout from the Philip Wayre, owner of the Norfolk Tay and other Scottish rivers, and Wildlife Park at Great Witchingham, also from waters in other parts of Norfolk, is Hon. Director of the Otter Britain. They tip cans of cyanide into Trust, which he has just founded with the water, and often kill many more the aim of saving the world's 19 fish than they can take. In one species of otter. Although the East Suffolk instance a mile of the River Cothi in County Planning Committee approved the Carmarthenshire was poisoned and 120 Trust's plans to set up a head- salmon and trout killed. Despite quarters and otter breeding station on severe penalties, the poachers are said 60 acres at Raydon, near Hadleigh, to be clearing thousands of pounds, East Suffolk, the Department of the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.8, on 27 Sep 2021 at 16:15:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605300011480 Briefly Environment has called the application according to a reply by the Home in and has ordered a public inquiry. Office to a parliamentary question by The Trust has 21 otters of five Lord Hurcomb. The birds imported species waiting to be accommodated included 72 goshawks, 42 lugger there. falcons, 29 lanner falcons, 14 kestrels, 13 saker falcons and nine peregrines. Controlling Grey Squirrels The birds taken by licence in Britain An official order permitting the use of included 57 kestrels, 18 sparrowhawks, Warfarin to control the introduced 11 buzzards and three merlins. grey squirrel, which has become a serious pest of young hardwood Snowy Owls in Shetland plantations in England and Wales, has Britain's only breeding snowy owls come into force. The poison bait must made two nests on the Shetland be contained in a securely closed island of Fetlar this year. However hopper, and access to it must be there was only one male bird, and he solely through a narrow tunnel of was not able to pay enough defined dimensions. attention to the younger female, so that she lost her eggs to crows while away More Rare Insects feeding. The older female reared a Following its list of rare and brood of four. endangered species of British butterflies and moths, the Joint Committee for Golden Eaglet Dies the Conservation of British Insects has The only young golden eagle to hatch compiled similar lists for the dragonflies in England and Wales in 1973 died (Odonata) and crickets and grass- before fledging, according to the Royal hoppers (Orthoptera). Twelve dragon- Society for the Protection of Birds. flies are listed, including the scarce Its parents have nested successfully in ischnura Ischnura pumiho and two the Lake District since 1970. species which are confined to Norfolk, Coenagrion armatum and Aeshna New Wildfowl Trust Refuges isosceles. The ten endangered crickets The revised plans for the Wildfowl and grasshoppers include the mole Trust's Arundel Wildfowl Refuge, cricket, the field cricket and the wart- West Sussex, have been approved, and biter. it is hoped to open the grounds to visitors in October 1974. Autumn 1974 Foxes vs Pheasants is also the target date for opening Experiments conducted by the Game the Trust's Washington Wildfowl Conservancy and the British Field Reserve, Co. Durham. Sports Society have shown that pheasant stocks are not at all affected Wild Geese in Britain on shooting days only two days after The annual goose census for the the drawing of their coverts by fox- 1972/73 winter produced totals of hounds. Now that the myth that 68,000 greylags and 73,000 pinkfeet in pheasant coverts must on no account Britain.