Meet the nature Olympic winners of all time
Starting from today, thousand of athletes from around the world are now compete in the Beijing 2008 Olympics. They will running, jumping, swimming, diving and doing just about everything else over the next 2 weeks to achieve gold.
In the same time and mostly everyday, there are other games going on in the place where no shiny new stadiums or flag-waving crowds that cheers them up. The animal Olympics. Everyday, each species of animals are compete daily in the wild, not for gold but to thrive and survive.
Different species have adapted different athletic abilities to succeed in their respective environments. They have to running fast, jumping high to chase their prey or in reverse, to avoid being a prey. They are swimming through great distances or diving into the deepest ocean in search of food and safety.
So, here they are the nature Olympic winners of all time!
Cheetah
The nature Olympic gold medal of all time as the world’s fastest land mammal. Aerodynamically built for speed, cheetah can achieve speeds of up to 112kph (70mph). But, will they be fast enough in the race for survival? Approximately only 10,000 left in the wild, cheetah is endangered throughout its range in southern and eastern Africa due to habitat loss, reduced prey and poaching.
Tiger
Tigers is the nature gold medalist for high jumping. It can leap as high as 5m (16ft) and as far as 9-10m (30-33ft). The largest of all cats, the most charismatic and evocative species on Earth. The world has lost 3 of the 9 tiger subspecies in the past century - the Bali, Caspian and Javan tigers have all become extinct. With only about 4,000 remain in the wild, can they jump away from the brink of extinction?
Leatherback turtle
Turtle may look slow while on land, but scientists have recorded leatherback turtles descending as deep as 1,230m - the deepest dive ever recorded for a reptile that make them as the nature Olympic winner for diving. They are also excellent swimmers, finding their way as far north as Alaska and as far south as Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
Like other marine turtles species, leatherbacks are listed as critically endangered. Threatened by poaching for meat and egg collection, marine pollution and being caught accidentally in fishing nets.
Polar bears
Polar bears are the gold medalist for swimming. They are excellent swimmers and can sustain a pace of 10kph (6.2mph) in cold icy waters, also can swim for several hours at a time over long distances - some have been tracked swimming continuously for 100km (62 miles).
Its Latin name, Ursus maritimus, means “sea bear”, reflecting the fact that Polar bears spends much of its life in and around water, and on offshore pack ice where they like to hunt. Melting sea ice as a result of climate change, however, poses a severe threat to the polar bear’s survival.
African elephant
No other land animal can lift as much weight as the African elephant, which can pick up a one-tonne weight with its trunk. They are the all time nature Olympic winner for weightlifting. Their trunk, actually an extension of the upper lip and nose, are normally used for communication and handling their food.
The African elephant, remain under threat from poaching and habitat loss. But no matter how strong they are, African elephants still need from the illegal ivory trade.
Rhinoceros
Meet the winner for fencing. Rhinos using their horns to spar with each other, defend themselves and their young against predators, and to dig for water and forage for food. The rhino horn is a prized ingredient in traditional Asian medicines and valued for dagger handles in the Middle East.
As a result, poaching has been responsible for a serious decline in many Asian and African rhino populations. Thanks to vigorous conservation and anti-poaching efforts, some rhino populations are now stable or increasing.
Humpback whale
Despite their huge size, humpback whales are quite acrobatic, often found leaping out of the sea and sometimes a twist is involved in the jump, a sideways motion or other gymnastic moves. They are truly the gold medalists for ocean gymnastics.
Like many whale species, humpbacks populations were decimated by decades of unsustainable hunting. An international moratorium on all commercial whaling 1986 has helped numbers recover but they still threatened by pollution, ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.
And last but not least, to honour the host of the humans Olympic 2008, we are in the last gold medal category in nature Olympic events, although wasn’t really an Olympic event, no list would be complete without this universally loved species.
Giant panda
They may not breaking any records of nature for speed or climbing, but one panda can consume an impressive 12-38kg of bamboo a day to meet its energy requirements. That is remarkable enough to give them a gold nature Olympic medal…for eating!
But, destruction of bamboo forests for timber and agriculture, is threatening them to one of the world’s endangered species. Conservation solutions by China and WWF, such as creating and expanding nature reserves and restoring panda habitat, are working but more work needs to be done to save this iconic species.
Via: WWF.
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August 9th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Another great post about a subject that is close to my heart. Dugg and Stumbled. Keep up the good work.
Regards Mark
Marks last blog post..Beijing Olympics 2008 Medal Table Widget