Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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‘As ice melts, walruses need protection’

News

• Given a choice between giving birth on land or sea ice, Pacific walrus mothers would most likely choose ice.
• Likewise, they prefer sea ice for molting, mating, nursing and resting between dives for food. Trouble is, as the century progresses, there’s going to be far less ice around.

Findings

• The federal government in 2008 listed polar bears as a threatened species because of diminished sea ice brought on by climate warming. That year the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned to do the same for walruses.
• Pacific walrus males grow to 12 feet long and up to 1,815 kg more than an average midsize sedan. Females reach half that weight. Walruses dive and use sensitive whiskers to find clams and snails in dim light on the sea floor.
• Inaccessibility protected walruses for decades, but a rapid decline in summer sea ice has made them vulnerable. In the Chukchi Sea between Alaska and Russia, where Pacific walrus females and juveniles spend their summer, ice could be absent during that season by 2060 or sooner, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Since 1981, an area more than double the size of Texas 1.58 million square km has become unavailable to Arctic marine mammals by summer’s end, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
• By late August, as sea ice recedes beyond the shallow continental shelf, female walruses and their calves face a choice stay on ice over water too deep to reach the ocean floor for feeding or come ashore for rest periods, where the smallest animals can be crushed in stampedes triggered by a hunter, aeroplane or bear.
• Walruses also could find more humans in their habitat with a reversal of U.S. policy on Arctic offshore drilling.
• Designating walruses as threatened would mean oil exploration companies would have to consult with federal wildlife officials to make sure drill rigs don’t endanger the animals.

Turtle nesting site in danger

News

• Cyclone Titli and the resultant rains have started to degrade the mass nesting site of olive ridley turtles at the Rushikulya river mouth in Odisha’s Ganjam district.

Beyond News

• Huge quantities of debris and waste material brought by the flooded river have been deposited on the coast.
• This can be a threat to the nesting site and may dissuade the olive ridleys from nesting here next year.
• The tidal action of the sea in the next few months would clean up the beach to some extent.
• The Rushikulya river mouth beach is a major nesting site of the endangered olive ridley turtles.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

Special forces in India-U.S. exercise

News

• The first India-U.S. tri-services exercise is likely to take place in 2019, and talks are on to include the special forces of the two countries in the drill.

Beyond News

• The three forces of each country already take part in bilateral exercises separately their Armies participate in an annual drill called Yudh Abyaas, whose latest edition took place in September, and the Air Forces take part in a bilateral drill called Cope India.
• The Navies participate in an exercise called Malabar, involving Japan.
• But this will be the first time, the three services of India and the U.S. will participate in a drill together.
• The drill may take place sometime in late August because U.S. naval ships could be in the region around that time.
• The drill will focus on a United Nations-based scenario and the overarching mission of humanitarian assistance, disaster relief measure.
• The Indian Army has Para SF, the Navy has Marcos while the Air Force has the Garud as their respective special forces.
• Though the joint tri-services drill was formally announced after the first 2+2 dialogue between the principals of the External Affairs and Defence Ministries of the two countries last month, work on it had begun much before.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Glitch puts NASA’s Chandra telescope in ‘safe’ mode

News

• Barely a week after NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope entered safe mode, the Chandra mission has also suffered a glitch possibly due to the failure of the gyroscope, the US space agency said.

Beyond News

• The Chandra X-Ray Observatory, observing the universe in high-energy light since 1999, has entered a protective ‘safe mode’, which interrupts scientific observations and puts the spacecraft into a stable configuration.
• During the safe mode, the observatory is put into a safe configuration, critical hardware is swapped to back-up units, the spacecraft points so that the solar panels get maximum sunlight, and the mirrors point away from the Sun.
• Chandra, launched in 1999, is well beyond the original design lifetime of 5 years. In 2001, NASA extended its lifetime to 10 years. It is now well into its extended mission and is expected to continue carrying out forefront science for many years to come.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. space agency said that it continues to work towards resuming science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope.
• Hubble entered safe mode after one of the three gyroscopes (gyros) being used to point and steady the telescope failed. Gyroscopes help spacecraft maintain proper orientation.
• Scientists are currently performing analyses and tests to determine what options are available to recover the gyro to operational performance.

Birds, mammals stay away from ‘noisy windmills’

News

• Compared to fossil fuel, wind energy wreaks less destruction on the environment, but in the Karnataka State many wind turbines have come up in forest areas, often at the cost of its denizens.
• A study, has found that apart from direct impact, noise and vibrations from the blades were driving away animals, thereby increasing the possibility of man-animal conflict.

Findings

• The study was necessitated by the growing number of windmills in forest areas whose impact has, till now, not been studied or included in policy.
• Karnataka’s investment in wind energy has seen 37.8 sq.km. of forest land being diverted for wind farms, according to Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) data. These numbers have risen in recent years with more policy thrust towards “green” energy.
• Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited (KREDL) states that there are more than 3,857 wind turbines dotting the State’s hills, generating 4,730 MW of electricity.
• They recorded that between 35 to 40% of the State’s bird diversity reside in and around these areas.
• The team enumerated collisions of 10 animals, six bats and four birds, representing a rate of 0.23 animals per wind turbine annually.
• While the rate was on the “lower side” compared to other locations in the country, the issue cannot be ignored as most collisions happened in the short time during the post-monsoon period, states the study.
• However, these numbers also hide a larger concern: birds are actively avoiding windmill sites.
• Using camera-traps in Kappatagudda, researchers found that some species, particularly antelopes, have actively avoided areas with windmills.
• However, there has been no impact on certain small herbivores, such as hares, for whom these predator-free patches represent safety. This is consistent with an ongoing Indian Institute of Science study which shows that lizards prefer patches with windmills due to the lower predator densities.

Navy gets submarine rescue vehicle

News

• The Navy has inducted its first deep submergence rescue vehicle to rescue downed or disaster-struck submarines on the high seas.

Beyond News

• India has now joined a select group of countries that have the capability to locate “distressed submarines”.
• At present, the U.S., China, Russia and a few others have the capability.

It’s a foggy autumn as farmers start burning stubble

News

• As autumn sets in, farmers in Punjab have begun harvesting the kharif paddy crop and preparing the fields for the winter crop.
• And as has been the practice, despite official injunctions, paddy stubble is being set on fire, raising fears of a spike in air pollution across the northern States, including the national capital New Delhi.

Beyond News

• Aggravating the problem is the retreat of the southwest monsoon, setting off north-westerly winds which blow into the plains, carrying the smoke from the stubble.
• Paddy is grown on 30 lakh hectares in Punjab. After harvesting, about 20 million tonnes of paddy straw is left in the fields.
• In an effort to solve the problem of stubble without burning, the State government has provided agro-machines and other equipment, including mulchers and choppers, at subsidised rates to farmers and cooperative societies with a Central outlay of around Rs. 650 crore for 2018-2020.
• However, farmers and agri-experts feel the number of machines is inadequate. Besides the high cost of using them, given the rising costs of diesel, will not serve the purpose of putting an end to stubble burning, at least during the ongoing harvesting season.

Human–leopard conflict in the Himalaya

News

• Human–animal conflict is common in the Himalaya like any other region where wildlife and people live together.
• A study of patterns of leopard attacks here reveal that some areas are high-risk zones requiring urgent conservation measures for the safety of both man and beast.

Beyond News

• The foothills of the eastern Himalaya in northern West Bengal called the dooars, a landscape comprising tea plantations and forests alone have witnessed more than 700 leopard attacks on people between 1990 and 2016.
• In the western Himalaya (Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand), numerous leopards have been killed in retaliation to the human deaths and injuries they have caused.
• Scientists studied patterns of leopard attacks in both these regions.
• They visited 101 sites of attacks to confirm the details of incidents. On an average, leopards killed more than three and injured 11 people in Pauri each year between 2006 and 2016; in turn, 121 leopards met their ends at the hands of people. In the dooars, while 420 people were injured between 2011 and 2016 alone, there were barely any retaliatory killings.
• The researchers find that around 97% of animal attacks in the dooars and 60% in Pauri resulted in human injuries. While a majority of the victims in Pauri were children and youth, middle-aged tea estate workers were most at risk in the dooars.
• Despite this, 368 interviews with locals in both areas revealed that 41% of respondents in Pauri and 75 % in the dooars were positive towards the presence and conservation of leopards.
• They suggest that immediate measures including regular monitoring by wildlife managers and local response teams, providing proper lighting in villages and clearing bushes around houses would be crucial to mitigate conflict.

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