Chronography of Environment and Conservation
Page last modified 15/2/2022
See
also Science, Technology and Innovation
See International for global population,
and demography maps
See also Climate/weather
Click here for current,
historic atmospheric CO2 levels, https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2
Click here for UK sea flood
risk levels by amount of sea level rise, 1 metre � 60 metres, http://flood.firetree.net/
UK Environment Agency, https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/environment-agency
UK Environment Agency, flooding and extreme weather, https://www.gov.uk/browse/environment-countryside/flooding-extreme-weather
World Resources
Institute, https://www.wri.org/
�Naturam
expellas furca, tamen usque recurret�, Horace. You can expel nature with a pitchfork, but
she will keep returning.
God will
not seek thy race, nor will he ask thy birth. Alone he will demand of thee
�What hast thou done with the land that I gave thee�,
Persian Proverb
In fighting Nature,
Man can win every battle, except the last, Thor
Heyerdahl
Extinctions � see Appendix
Whaling � see Appendix
Environmental and
Conservation Organisations � see Appendix a
13/11`/2021, The United
Nation Change Conference, COP-26, closed in Glasgow. Disappointingly, it
looked as if the 1.5 C maximum global warming target would be exceeded, as
promises to phase out coal were watered down and delayed.
1/1/2020, Palau became the
first nation to ban the import or sale of sunscreens containing
chemicals toxic to coral. Half of sunscreen brands on sale in 2018 contained
chemicals poisonous to coral even in trace amounts, and the area is a favoured
destination for diving. Hawaii announced a similar ban in 5/2018, to come into
effect in 2021.
1/11/2019, Fracking was banned in England after a series of
earthquakes of up to magnitude 2.5 in the Blackpool area were attributed to it.
Fracking was already banned in the rest of the UK.
Plastics
pollution
5/2019, Maine became the first US
State to ban single-use Styrofoam containers for food and drink. The law was to
come into effect in 2021, giving businesses time to adapt.
2017, The BBC broadcast Blue Planet II,
galvanising the world to the dangers of plastic pollution in the world�s oceans.
2015, 400 million tons of plastic was produced
this year, compared to 2 million tons in 1950. Of this, only 9% was recycled;
12% was incinerated, and 79% ended up in landfill or polluting the environment,
8 million tons of plastic was estimated to enter the oceans annually.
3/1/2016, The United Kingdom designated Ascension Island and its
surrounding waters in the Atlantic Ocean as a Marine protected area. The
reserve was almost as big as the UK with just over half of the protected area
completely closed to fishing.
26/6/2007, The UN declared
the Galapagos Islands an endangered heritage site.
19/6/2006, On Spitzbergen,
construction work began on a vault to preserve seeds for future generations in
the event of a catastrophe such as nuclear war.
2/2005, In the UK, the Hunting Act, banning hunting with dogs,
came into force.
26/7/2004, The Frozen Ark Project was launched, to preserve the DNA
of endangered species.
17/3/2001, The Eden Centre, officially opened. It featured
the world�s largest indoor rainforest.
Global Warming
24/8/2019,
Concern grew worldwide after widespread large fires burnt large areas of the
Amazon rainforest. There were also blazes in Siberia and Alaska, as unusually
warm air reached there, and in the African and east Asian rainforests. President
Bolsonaro of Brazil was accused by President Macron of France,
hosting the G7 meeting at this time, of encouraging farmers to burn large areas
for agriculture. There were protests outside several Brazilian embassies.
22/4/2016,
Leaders of 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement, setting an accord for
tackling climate change.
16/2/2005, The Kyoto
Protocol came into force after its ratification by Russia.. The US had not
signed up, for economic reasons.
28/3/2002,
US President Gorge W Bush withdrew
the USA from the Kyoto protocol on
climate change, which committed signatories to reducing greenhouse gas
emissions.
2001, The Third Assessment Report of the IPCC warned that over the 21st
century global sea levels
could rise by between 9cm and 88cm, as global temperature rose by
between 1.4C and 5.8C.
17/4/1998, A
satellite detected that a 200 square km piece of the Larsen B ice shelf had
broken off. Global Warming was blamed.
11/12/1997, At the Kyoto
Climate Conference, delegates agreed to reduce CO2 emissions by 5.2% of
1990 levels by 2012.
Ozone
Hole
9/9/2000, For the first time, an entire city was exposed by the growing
�ozone hole�; Puntas Arenas, in Chile.
29/9/1998, New Zealand scientists
announced that the Ozone Hole had grown to 28 million square km
23/3/1993. The UN stated
that record low levels of ozone had been registered over large
areas of the Western Hemisphere.
22/3/1989, The
University of Wuppertal, Germany, inaugurated a research programme to monitor
the Earth�s ozone layer. The system
comprised a satellite spectroradiometer to be launched into orbit in 1993.
5/3/1989, As environmental awareness grew worldwide, the Ozone
Layer Conference opened in London.
17/2/1989. Scientists warned of a threat to the ozone layer
over the Arctic.
16/9/1987, 70 countries signed an agreement in
Montreal to save the ozone layer, to freeze CFC production (used as a refrigeration
gas) at current levels and halve it within 12 years. The hole in the ozone
layer over Antarctica had been discovered in 1984. Annual production of chlorofluorocarbons, whose release was damaging
the ozone layer, now stood at 1.1 million tonnes.
14/2/1992, Michael
Heseltine promised that the
UK would phase out CFCs, which were destroying the ozone layer. Earlier on
11/2/1992 President Bush had made a similar
commitment.
1/1/1989, The Montreal Protocol (see 16/9/1987) came
into force. Ozone-Depleting Chemicals were to be phased out by 2000.
16/9/1987, The Montreal Protocol on Substances that
Deplete the Ozone Layer was negotiated and signed by 24 countries. By 2006
over 180 ncountries had signed it. These countries promised to freeze CFC
production (used as a refrigeration gas) at current levels and halve it within
12 years. The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica had been discovered in
1984.
1985, A hole in the ozone layer was found over the Antarctic.
12/1978,The USA banned the non-essential
use of CFCs in aerosols, followed by a similar ban by Canada and Sweden in
1979.
23/1/1978, Sweden became the first country to ban
aerosol sprays, because of the damage they cause to the ozone layer.
11/5/1977. The USA said CFCs� would be banned as propellants in aerosol
cans within two years, after worries about ozone depletion.
16/6/1975, Oregon,
USA, became the first place to ban the sale of aerosols containing CFC gases..
1974, US
scientists M Molina and FS Rowland first warned the world about the damage
being caused to the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbons. Production of these
chemicals had been negligible before 1940 but by 1974 over 700,000 tons of them
were reaching the atmosphere annually.
16/5/1931,
Paul Brodeur,
science writer, was born in the USA. He wrote about environmental hazards
including asbestos, household chemicals and the danger to the ozone layer.
1930, CFCs (chloro-fluoro-carbons) were invented by Thomas Midgley.
Brent
Spar
29/1/1998, Shell
announced that Brent Spar would be disposed of on shore, and used as the
foundations for a new ferry terminal.
18/10/1995, DNV presented the results of their audit on Brent Spar; it did
not contain anything like 5,500 tons of crude oil.
5/9/1995, Greenpeace
admitted their claim that Brent Spar contained 5,500 tonnes of crude oil
was inaccurate and apologised to Shell.
12/7/1995, Shell
commissioned an independent Norwegian
consultancy, Det Norske Veritas (DNV), to conduct an audit of the materials
contained in the Brent Spar, to check Greanpeace�s allegations.
7/7/1995, Norway
granted permission to moor the Brent Spar in Erfjord whilt options for
its disposal were considered.
30/6/1995, Eleven states called for a moratorium on sea
disposal of decommissioned offshore installations; the motion was opposed by
Britain and Norway.
20/6/1995, Shell Oil
Company caved in to international pressure and agreed not to dump the Brent
Spar oil platform in the Atlantic.
15/6/1995, German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl protested to
the British Prime Minister John Major
at the G7 Summit about the planned sinking of the Brent Spar.
14/6/1995, A week of
protests across Germany began against Shell petrol stations; protestors
threatened to firebomb 200 Shell filling stations. 50 were actually damaged,
two fire-bombed, and one raked with bullets.
11/6/1995, Shell
began to tow the Brent Spar out to the disposal site.
9/5/1995, The German
Ministry of the Environment protested about the plans to sink the Brent Spar.
5/5/1995, The UK
Government granted a disposal licence ti Shell to sink the Brent Spar.
30/4/1995, Greenpeace asserted that Brent Spar still contained
5,500 tonnes of crude oil.
4/1995, Greenpeace occupied the Brent Spar oil platform to
prevent it�s being sunk in the North Sea.
12/1994, The UK Government approved Shell�s
plans to sink the Brent Spar.
1993, Shell decided to sink the Brent
Spar oil platform in the North Sea, at the North Feni Ridge.
9/1991. The Brent Spar oil platform
ceased operations.
1976, The Brent Spar oil platform
entered service in the North Sea.
6/1/2000, The Pyrenean Ibex
became the first extinction of the new millennium when a tree fell on the last
individual, killing it. A cloned kid was born in 2009 but only survived seven
minutes.
1997, Salmon returned to the
River Rhine, after a major pollution incident on 1/11/1986, when a chemical
factory fire caused the river to run red. Fireman�s water had bene contained
but the containment wall gave way and a mix of agricultural chemicals and heavy
metals was released.
1995, The first
United Nation Change
Conference, COP-1, was held.
22/10/1994, In the USA, the
Rhinoceros and Tiger Act came into force. It was intended to assist the
preservation of these animals in countries where their habitat is.
3/4/1993, Animal Rights activists
disrupted the Grand National at Aintree, Liverpool.
3/6/1992, The United NationsEarth Summit began
in Rio de Janeiro. Delegates agreed to protect biodiversity and combat global
warming. This
led to the UN Framework Convention oin Climate Change, which came into force in
1994. This Framework called for developed countries to reduce CO2 emissions to
1990, and provided for technological assistance to developing countries. These
measures were strengthened by the Kyoto Protocol, 1997. �The USA, however, refused to sign the
agreement on biodiversity, seeing it as a threat to its economic growth.
15/12/1991. Wildlife
investigators uncovered an illegal plot to sell 15,000 elephant tusks for �6
million, in defiance of the international ban on the ivory trade. The 83 tons
of ivory had been bought from the Government of Burundi by 2 South African
businessmen, to sell in the Far East. 80% of Africa�s elephants had been slaughtered for their tusks in the
previous 10 years.
1990, The
Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) was formed at the second World Climate
Change Conference.
16/10/1989, At a committee of the Convention in International
Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), at Lausanne, Switzerland, a ban on the international ivory trade was
passed by 76 votes to 11. This caused the price of ivory to plummet from US$100
per lb to under 2$. Previously, poachers had reduced the African elephant
population from 1.3 million in 1979 to 610,000 in 1989.
18/11/1988, Two years after a serious pollution incident
damaged the Rhine River, the first warning station in a chain of sensors was
installed at Huningue, France, to monitor the river for pollutants.
1987, The Brundtland Report
was published.
1986, The UK emitted 1,937,000
tonnes of nitrous oxides to the
atmosphere this year, 40% from power stations and 40% from road vehicles.
Oxides of nitrogen and sulphur create acid rain and kill forests and lake life.
1986, Walter
G Rosen reportedly first proposed the term biodiversity.
1/11/1986, A spill of toxic
chemicals turned the River Rhine red.
1985, In response to concerns about the sustainability of tropical wood
harvesting, and related matters such as soil erosion in deforested areas, some
countries signed the International
Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA). However some countries did ont sign up.
29/12/1985, Dian Fossey,
US zoologist and conservationist, died.
8/3/1985, Every
Chinese child was ordered to donate one Feng
(then equivalent to 2p) to save the Giant Panda from extinction.
1984,
The pesticide DDT was banned in Britain.
31/8/1983, Russell Doig of Surrey won a special prize for catching a salmon in
the Thames, the first salmon caught there for 150 years. The fish weighed 6 lb.
1982, Dutch Elm Disease killed
20 million elm trees in Britain, 66% of the total population.
12/8/1980, The first Giant
Panda born in captivity was successfully delivered at a zoo in Mexico.
3/1/1980, British naturalist Joy Adamson, author of the book Born Free, was murdered in a Kenyan game
park.
1979, An international convention limiting
seal huntiing in Antarctica was agreed.
1978, US Congress banned the manufacture of
PCBs (Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls) after they had been shown to persist in the
environment and build up in higher food chain animals. PCBs, once used as coolant
and insulators for industrial equipment,�
could cause liver damage and impede reproduction.
1976, Pooper Scoopers were introduced so dog powners could clear up their
pet�s faeces.
10/7/1976. After an explosion at a chemical plant at Seveso, Italy, a 7 km radius was contaminated with
dioxin, a weed killer. Crops and 40,000 animals died, and the number of
abnormal births rose dramatically.
12/11/1974. A salmon was
caught in the Thames, the first since around 1840. It was retrieved from the
filters of West Thurrock power station.
30/8/1973, Kenya banned hunting elephants and trading in ivory.
28/12/1973, US President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, providing further
environmental protection.
2/11/1973, The IMCO Conference for Marine Pollution attended
by 665 delegates from 79 countries, ended in London.
29/6/1973,� President Nixon
warned US Congress that the US, with just 6% of the world population, consumed
one third of the world�s energy supply, and that energy supplies were not
infinite.
1972, Blueprint for Survival
was published by the editors of The
Ecologist magazine.
1972, The USA restricted the
use of the weedkiller DDT after it was found to cause thinning of bird�s egg
shells, reducing their reproductive success.
1972, The Club of Rome published �The Limits to Growth�,
highlighting the dangers of natural resource depletion.
1972, The
USA passed the Clean water Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act
Amendments. This followed spectacular incidents in
1969 when the Cuyahoga River, Ohio, caught fire, and in the same year a record
fish die off of 26 million fish was recorded in Florida�s Lake Thomnotosassa,
blamed on pollution from food processing plants.
16/11/1972, UNESCOs World
Heritage Convention was adopted. This seeks to preserve sites of major
cultural or biological significance around the world.
28/10/1972, The USA signed the Federal
Noise Control Act, limiting noise emissions by trucks, buses, trains
and construction equipment.
23/7/1972, The US launched Landsat I, a satellite that could
monitor Earth�s natural resources and their depletion from space.
1969, Muskoxen,
which became extinct from Alaska in the 19c, were
reintroduced there.
1968, Cousin
Island, Seychelles, was set up as an international wild bird reserve.
15/10/1966, In the USA, the
Endangered Species Preservation Act came into force. Initially, 78 species in
danger were listed. By April 1999, some species, such as the bald eagle and the
black footed ferret, have come off the critical list but a further 925 species
remained listed.
27/9/1962, Rachel Carson published �Silent Spring�.
She was very concerned about the issue of pesticides in the environment. By
December, half a million copies had been printed, and even US President John F
Kennedy was influenced.
22/2/1962, Steve Irwin, environmentalist, was born.
1958, US scientist Charles Keeling first
began regularly measuring atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa observatory, Hawaii.
He found it to be 317 parts per million (ppm), noticeably higher than the
pre-industrial level of 280 ppm (known from ancient air trapped in polar ice).
There was seasonal cyclicity with levels declining during the Northern
hemisphere Summer then rising in Autumn, but with s distinct upwards trend over
the decades, the Keeling Curve. In
Spring 2020 levels had reached 414 ppm, but the covid19 outbreak had reduced levels
very slightly, as most travel and much industry shut down..
1958, A
plague of locusts in Somalia was so large it covered 1,000 square kilometres.
22/12/1938. The coelacanth, a
fish though to have been extinct for 65 million years, was caught off the coast
of South Africa.
13/4/1938, Grey Owl, conservationist, died. He had styled
himself as an indigenous Canadian, but was in fact English.
1935, The term �ecosystem� was first used by AG Tansley,
to describe the entire interdendent system of organisms and the environment.
The word was slow to gain popular usage.
1901, The term �biota� was first used to describe the
animal and plant life of a region.
1866, Ernst Hackel, biologist, coined the
term ecology (oecologie in German)
24/3/1936, David Suzuki, environmentalist, was born.
1935, In the US, President Roosevelt signed the
Soil Conservation Act, nominating Hugh Hammond, 54, to head the new Soil Conservation Service. Hammond
had estimated that in terms of diminished agricultural productivity alone, soil
erosion was costing around US$ 400 million a year; dust storms were turning day
into night and halting traffic.
1934, First known use of the
term �biomass�, as in the total
weight of all organisms in a certain area.
3/4/1934, Jane Goodall, British
zoologist who studied gorillas in Tanzania in the 1960s, was born.
18/1/1933, The botanist and
conservationist David Bellamy was born.
16/12/1932, Dian Fossey, US zoologist and conservationist
was born.
18/10/1927. Dancing bears were banned
from the streets of Berlin.
1926, The corgi dog, a short legged animal whose name means �dwarf dog� in
Welsh, was introduced as a pet breed. It became popular amongst the British
Royal Family.
1922, Australia began conservation measures to save the
koala bear, after trappers had killed 8 million in 4 years and nearly driven
the species to extinction.
9/1919, Dutch Elm Disease was
first observed in The Netehrlands. By the 1930s it was spreading across the
rest of Europe, including Britain, and had also reached the USA.
1915, In
Britain, so-called �nature reserves� were set up; areas of land managed so as
to preserve the natural flora and fauna.
7/7/1911, In Washington, DC, the USA, Russia, the UK and
Japan signed the Convention on the International
Protection of Fur Seals, prohibiting hunting of the endangered animals in
the North Pacific Ocean. In the first six years afterwards, the fur seal
population increased by 30%.
28/7/1907, Russia and Japan agreed to stop culling seals and
sea-lions.
1909, The
USA set up a National Bison Refuge near Moise, Montana.
27/5/1907, Rachel Louise Carson, marine
biologist and US author, author of Silent Spring, was born.
1903, President Theodore
Roosevelt established the USA�s first national wildlife refuge, at
Pelican Island, off the east coast of Florida, 87 square miles.
1895, Arrhenius gave a paper to the
Stockholm Physical Society propounding his theory of man-made global warming
due to carbon dioxide.
1895, The
rescue from extinction of the African Southern White Rhinocerous began. Until
now they had been hunted almost to extinction until, this year, the South African Government set up a game reserve,
now known as the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park, to maintain the species, of which just
40 were left. By the 1960s private landowners were also setting up
reserves where the species could be preserved, for paying game shooters. The
fee for the hunters was, 2009, US$ 40,000, making the species
commercially-valuable.
1895, The
buffalo, which had once numbered millions across America, was now down to just
400 in the entire USA.
1876, In the UK the Cruelty to Animals Act was
passed, to curb the use of live animals in scientific experiments.
1859, Arrhenius, Swedish scientist who first proposed
that man�s industrial emissions could cause global warming, was born.
1858, A few dozen English
rabbits were released on the Australian estate of
landowner Thomas Austin, to provide shooting sport. Over the
next six years, Austin shot 200,000 rabbits, but this was barely half the total
population. Five of the fast-breeding animals could eat more grass than one
sheep, so causing major problems for sheep farmers.
21/4/1838, John Muir, US environmentalist who called for
the preservation of wilderness areas, was born.
1835, Animal fighting �
cockfights, bear and bull baiting � were banned in the UK.
1822, The UK Government passed a Bill
outlawing cruelty to cattle.
1281, King Edward I commissioned Peter Corbet,
�The Mighty Hunter�, to clear all
wolves from England�s forests.
1220, The
first giraffes were exhibited in Europe.
Botanical
Gardens
1848, The Palm House at Kew
Gardens opened. This promoted a fashion for palms amongst Victorian Britons.
1840, Kew Botanical Gardens, London, opened.
8/5/1820. The United States Botanic Garden was
established in Washington, DC.
1593, The first botanical gardens in France were established by the University of
Montpellier.
26/6/1545. A
botanical garden was established in Padua. This, or the garden in Pisa, is the
oldest such garden in Europe. This was just after Europeans first saw the
Aztec Gardens of Montezuma I at Huaxtepec, Mexico.
1400
BCE, Queen
Hatshepshut of Egypt kept a cpollection of exotic plants and
animals, including frankincense and other specimens froim what is now Somalia.
Her successor, Pharaoh
Thutmose III, extended this collection with plants from Palestine
and Syria.
Zoological
Gardens
26/3/1959, Jersey
Zoological Park opened.
2/6/1938. Robert and Edward Kennedy, youngest sons of
the American Ambassador to London, opened the Children�s Zoo at Regents Park.
Children were charged 6d to watch the chimp�s tea party.
18/5.1934, Dudley
Zoo, Birmingham, opened.
1931, London Zoo began a breeding programme of endangered animals at
Whipsnade.
28/7/1931, Chessington
Zoo opened.
22/7/1913, Edinburgh
Zoo opened.
19/7/1913, Paignton
Zoo (Primley Zoological Gardens) opened.
20/4/1906, An Australian wombat, the oldest known
marsupial, died in London Zoo aged
26.
1896, Denver Zoo was established in City Park, for the purpose of
displaying only indigenous Colorado wildlife. In 1898 it acquired a herd of
buffalo, a few months before the last
wild herd in the State was killed.
1889, The world�s first insect �house opened at Regents Park Zoo, London
1874, The first zoo in the USA was established, at Philadelphia.
25/5/1850, The first hippopotamus to be kept in
Britain arrived at London Zoo.
1849, The world�s first reptile
house opened at Regents Park Zoo, London
1841, Berlin zoo opened.
11/7/1836, Bristol Zoo opened.
27/4/1828. London Zoological Gardens opened in
Regents Park.
31/7/1752. The
oldest zoo in Europe opened, in Vienna.
4/9/1733, The first lioness to be kept in Britain
died of old age.
1200, Three leopards given by Frederick II
of Sicily to his brother-in-law Henry III of England became the first
residents of the menagerie at the Tower of London. In 1828 the animals of this
menagerie were transferred to the new Zoological Gardens at Regents Park,
London.
1100, King Henry I of England kept a
collection of foreign animals presented to him by other monarchs at Woodstock,
Oxfordshire.
300
BCE, Alexander the
Great of Greece kept a collection of so,me 300 animals
1000
BCE, Kong Solomon
of Israel kept a menagerie.
1975
BCE, The world�s first zoo was established; the
Park of Intelligence, in China.
Appensix � Air
Quality
4/3/1985, In the USA, the
Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of leaded fuel for motor
vehicles.
1971, It was announced that 250,000 tons of
lead were being discharged from vehicle exhaust pipes every year in the US
alone (see road transport technology). Lead pollution, first discovered in the
animals at Staten Island Zoo, was also found inside humans living in New York.
5/7/1956, Britain passed the Clean Air Act. This gave industry seven years to stop emitting
�dark smoke�. This was in the aftermath of the infamous 1952 London Smog, which kicked 4,000 people.
1951, Britain�s first smokeless zone was set up, in Coventry.
In 1955 London
was declared a smokeless zone. In
1956 Britain passed the Clean Air Act.
1935, Manchester first proposed
the idea of smokeless zones in urban
areas.
1929, In Britain, the National Smoke Abatement Society was set up.
29/11/1921, London suffered a severe smog, with pollution so bad that inside cinemas on Stoke Newington
the projector lamp could not illuminate the screen.
1905, The term �smog� was coined for a combination of
fog and smoke that affected London and other British cities, causing many
deaths.
1/1/1864, In the US, the Alkali Act was passed. It was the first legislation of modern times
concerning the environment. The Leblanc process of producing sodium carbonate
released large amounts of hydrochloric acid into the atmosphere.
1856, In Britain, between 1853
and 1856, a series of Smoke Abatement
Acts were passed in order to improve the quality of air in urban areas.
Appendix �� Extinctions
14/12/1994, In Australia the Wollemi pine, a relic from the age of the dinosaurs, was discovered growing in the Blue Mountains.
17/6/1987, The Dusky Seaside Sparrow became
extinct as the last individual died. It had lived in the wetlands
of Florida but much of its habitat was destroyed to make way for the Kennedy
Space Centre and for new highways. Its food, mosquitoes, had been destroyed by
DDT spraying, which then entered the birds themselves and caused their
eggshells to thin, so their breeding was unviable. A captive breeding programme
was begun at Disneyworld in the 1970s, but only 5 birds could be recovered, all
male.� Attempts were made to cross-breed
them with similar sparrows to preserve some of the species characteristics but
this failed, and by 3/1986 only one of the sparrows was still alive.
1952, The cheetah was declared extinct in India.
Hunting by the British, diminishing habitat, and killing by farmers as the
animal threateed livestock, were to blame. In 2022 African cheetahs from
Namibia and South Africa were reintroduced to a National park in Madhya
Pradesh, India.
20/11/1948, The New Zealand flightless Takahe bird had only been sighted 4x
between 1800 and 1900 and was presumed extinct. However
this day Dr
Geoffrey Orbell located the first individual of what was found to be a
colony of 250 individuals in the Murchison Mountains, South Island.
1944,
The last ivory-billed
woodpecker died when its last habitat, a wood in Louisiana,USA,
was felled by the Chicago Mill and Lumber Company.
1938,
The Coelocanth
fish was believed extinct until one was caught this year
near the Comoros Islands.
6/9/1936, The last thylacine
(Tasmanian marsupial tiger) died in
a zoo in Hobart, Tasmania
1933,
The last known Tasmanian Wolf died in a
zoo; however there were later unverified reports of this animal in the wild.
1918, Death of the last California Parakeet, in
captivity, The last confirmed sighting in the wild was in 1914, though there were
alleged sightings for some decades afterwards.
1/9/1914, The last passenger pigeon, a bird which once dominated
the skies of America, became extinct as the last individual died in Cincinnati Zoo.
12/8/1883, The last quagga (a sub-species of the zebra) died, at Amsterdam Zoo.
1875, Last sighting of the Falkland
Islands wolf.
3/7/1844, The Great Auk became extinct when fishermen killed
the last breeding pair of the flightless birds in Iceland.
1786, The last wolf was killed in Ireland,
by John
Watson of Ballydarton, Leighlinbridge, a master of foxhounds.
1768, Steller�s Sea Cow was hunted to
extinction, just 27 years after the species after the species was discovered on
the Kamchatka Peninsula.
1743, The last wolf was killed in Scotland.
1683, Wild boars became extinct in Britain.
1630, The last dodo
was killed. Native to Mauritius, it was a flightless bird about the size of a
turkey, prized by saillors for food. Meanwhile, rats, pigs and monkeys
introduced to Mauritius ate the dodo�s eggs.
1627, The last auroch
(ancestor of domestic cattle) died in Poland.
1297, The Giant Moas Bird was now extinct
in what is now New Zealand.
1290, The last wolf in England was
killed, by Peter
Corbet, exterminator to King Edward I. This made it much safer to
graze sheep. In turn this reinforced England�s leading position in the
lucrative wool trade.
Appendix � Whaling
1/7/2019, Japan recommenced commercial whaling,
having withdrawn from the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
2017, For
the first time not one Right Whale calf was born in the northern Atlantic.
Hunting them was banned in 1935; their numbers, then down to about
100, slowly recovered to 500 by 2000. Pollution, injuries from shipping,
man-made marine noise, and entanglement in fishing paraphernalia have caused
their humbers to drop again to 430 by 2017, including just 100
breeding-age females.
1994, A
whale sanctuary was established in the Antarctic.
1992, Norway resumed
whaling activities.
1/1/1986,
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) placed a moratorium on commercial
whaling. However some nations, including Norway, Iceland and Japan, continued
to hunt whales under the guise of �scintific research� which was permitted by
the IWC. However the ban had had a beneficial effect. In 1900, before
commercial whaling took off, there were 200,000 blue whales worldwide. They
were hunted for their ,massive oil content; 30,000 were killed in 1931 alone.
Their population plummeted to just 1,500 in the 1960s. Since the IWC ban, they
have recovered to a population of around 4,500 in 2005. However the global whale population, 4.4 million in
1900, had fallen to less than 1 million by 1990.
1985, Norway
agreed to suspend commercial whaling. However it later allowed
fishing for Minke Whale, and the export of whale products.
23/7/1982, The International
Whaling Commission decided to end whaling by 1986.
1975, The International Whaling
Commission (IWC) again proposed a 10-year moratorium on whaling, ewhich was
again refused by the whaling nations, but the IWC did succeed in reducing
annual quotas for the catch from 37,300 to 32,450 tons.
1966, Hunting
for humpback whales was banned globally. Their slow speed made
them easy to catch and it was estimated that 95%-99% of southern-hemisphere
humpback whales had been killed for blubber and meat. The killing of humpbacks finally ceased in 1973 when the
USSR suspended its illegal slaughtering. They are now no longer a threatened
species, and attract tourists in the oceans off Australia.
1962, The International Whaling Commission met in
Stockholm, amidts growing concern over the rapidly diminishing global whale
population. A 10-year moratorium on whaling was proposed but whaling
nations refused to accept this. Instead countire such as the UK and USA., where
whale meat was was mainly for pet food, banned imports of it, curbing the
growth of whaling to an extent.
1958, This year whalers killed
6,908 Blue Whales, the largest creature ever to live on Earth. In 1965 the year
hunting for Blue Whales ceased, just 1 was found, and it was estimated that
then just 1,000 remained in the oeeans. In 2020 there estimated to be 25,000 of
them alive.
1946, The International Whaling Commission was established by the Washington
Convention. Its aim was to ration out allowed whale catches amongst whaling
nations, to try and preserve the industry.
6/9/1902, Whale hunt in the Shetlands. 166 were
caught.
1862, Sven Foyn, Norwegian, invented the harpoon,
revolutionising the whaling industry.
Appendix a -
Environmental and Conservation Organisations (see also Morals � Animal Welfare)
1992, The British Green Party failed to match its success of 1989, winning
just 1.3% of the vote in the General Election.
1989, The British Green Party, founded by Sara Parkin (born 1946) and
Jonathan Porritt (born 1950) came from nowhere to take 2.3 million votes, a 15%
share, in elections for the European Parliament.
1983, 28 �Greens� were elected to the
German Bundestag.
1981, 9 �Green� MPs were elected to the
Belgian Parliament.
1979, The first �Green� member of the
Swiss parliament was elected.
1977, Sustrans was founded, in Bristol,
to campaign for environmentally-sustainable transport and combat the problems
of traffic
congestion and pollution.
1976, Greenpeace was founded in Britain
(see15/9/1971)
1973, In Britain
the Ecological Party was founded � known since 1985 as the Green Party
15/9/1971, Greenpeace was founded, as a result of
protests against a
US nuclear
test on Amchitka Island, Alaska. On this day Jim Bohlen, Paul Cote and Irving
Stowe set sail in the boat Phyllis
Cormack for the test site in the Quaker tradition of �proetsting by
observing the misdeed�. The three protestors named their initiative
�Greenpeace�. In the event ferocious storms both forced the boat to shelter in
the Aleutian Islands and caused the nuclear test to be postponed. The test
eventually took place on 6/11/1971; Greenpeace did succeed in mobilising public
protests so that President Nixon cancelled the nuclear tests scheduled for
1971. In 1983 it had 1,500,000 members. By 1991 it had 6,750,000 members.
9/5/1971, In Britain, Friends of the Earth
was founded. On this day its
first action was to dump thousands of non-returnable Schweppes bottles on the
doorstep of the company�s headquarters as part of a campaign for recyclable
bottles.
29/4/1961, The World Wildlife Fund was founded in Switzerland.
In 1983 it had 100,000 members. By 1991 it had 1,000,000 members.
1926, In Britain, the Council for the Protection of Rural England
(CPRE) was set up by Patrick Abercrombie.
1924,
The League Against Cruel Sports was
formed to campaign against hunting, also hare coursing and badger baiting.
Bird
Protection
1946,
The Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, was set up by Peter Scott.
1922,
In London,
UK,the International Council for Bird
Preservation (ICBP) was founded.
1901,
The term �bird-watching� came into
use for a person who observes birds in the wild.
1891,
The Society for the Protection of Birds
(SPB) was founded by women who had been excluded by the all-male membership
policy of the British Ornithologists Union (BOU). London, UK, had become the
centre of a very rapacious trade in bird carcasses, with 200 million birds
being killed each year to provide ornamentation for ladies hats. Egrets were
prized for their long feathers. Within 6 months the SPB had 5,000 members, and
10,000 by by 1893. It achieved 20,000 members by 1899, and men were encoiuraged
to join by making them �Life Associates�.In 1904 it became the RSPB when King
Edward VII granted it a Royal Charter. Despite opposition from the British
millinery trade, in 7/1921 the Importation
of Plumage (Prohibition) Act was passed in the UK, and Britain became a
centre for bird conservation instead.
RSPB Membership |
Year |
92,000 |
1972 |
340,000 |
1981 |
827,000 |
1990 |
7/9/1880, In Britain, the Wild Birds� Protection Act was passed.
1919, The Save The Redwoods League was
formed in the USA. It helped create national parks in California where the huge
tress wouldnot be felled by loggers.
20/9/1917. The first RSPCA animal
clinic was opened in Liverpool.
5/1909, The Wildlife Preservation Society of
Australia
(WPSA) was founded in Sydney, Australia to encourage
the protection of, and to cultivate interest in, the Australian flora and
fauna.
11/12/1903, The first wildlife preservation society was formed in
Britain.� It was called The Society for
the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire.
1899, In Britain, the Coal Smoke Abatement Society was
formed.
1897, The Blue Cross was founded, originally known as Our Dumb Friends� League. It changed its name to parallel the Red
Cross. It opened an animal hospital in 1906 near Victoria Station, London.
1895, In Britain, the National Trust
was founded.
10/4/1866, The American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Aniamls (ASPCA) was founded by New
York shipbuilder�s son Henry Bergh, 43, who served as the first
president of the ASPCA. It�s main objective was preventing the abuse of horses.
1860, Battersea Dogs Home was founded, initially sited in
Holloway. By 1869 around 200 dogs were housed there and neighbours complained
about the noise, and in 1871 the Home was moved to Battersea. Stray cats have
also been taken in since 1882.
15/6/1824. The RSPCA was founded in London.