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Weekly Update: Snuggle up to a pet cockroach
CANBERRA: Dog too demanding? Allergic to cats? Then how about coming home to a lovable, giant cockroach?
Workers in Australia’s pet industry say the demand for insects as pets has risen in the past five years because of more cramped living — and so has the number of people befriending cockroaches, with the biggest of the species native to Australia.
“Admittedly they are a bit of an unusual pet, but the kids can play with them without getting hurt and they are very low on maintenance,” said John Olive, one of the major suppliers of giant cockroaches in Australia.
But roach-lovers are not settling for second best and befriending any of the little critters that scuttle around your kitchen at night or the offensive brown things with huge wings that fly in when you open the balcony door.
They want the world’s biggest cockroach, the giant burrowing cockroach or rhinoceros cockroach that is native to Australia, and found in the warm, northeastern state of Queensland.
These gigantic cockroaches, called Macro-panesthia Rhinoceros, grow as big as the palm of a hand, measuring about 80mm and weighing 35 grams. They are also known to live up to 10 years.
Huge and shiny with spiky legs, they can be kept in a medium sized tank with four to five inches of sandy soil at room temperature, surviving on dry eucalyptus or gum tree leaves. —Reuters
Anti-smoking pact adopted
GENEVA: More than 190 countries on Wednesday approved the first ever international treaty against smoking, including an advertising ban, aimed at breaking a habit that kills nearly five million people a year.
The World Health Assembly, the annual meeting of the World Health Organization’s 192 countries, unanimously adopted the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), committing themselves to fighting the “devastating ... consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure”.
“Today, we are acting to save billions of lives and protect people’s health for generations to come. This is an historic moment,” said WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland.
The pact, which was agreed by member states in March after years of negotiations, requires countries to ban or impose tough restrictions on tobacco advertising, sponsorship and promotion within five years.
It also lays down guidelines on health warnings to be carried on cigarette packets, recommends tax increases on tobacco products and calls for a crackdown on cigarette smuggling, amongst other measures. — Reuters
Saving endangered bears
SEDRO WOOLEY (US):: Tired of seeing endangered grizzly bears die due to needless confrontations with humans, biologist Carrie Hunt has taken to training them.
Armed only with a gun that shoots rubber bullets, and accompanied by her Karelian bear dogs, a rare breed native to Finland and Russia, Hunt’s goal is to make encounters with humans so unpleasant that the bears will avoid them.
“I have seen bear after bear die for the same thing in the same places and they never got a chance to learn what they were doing wrong,” she says.
Hunt is a strict disciplinarian with the giant beasts. A combination of human voices, dog barks, pepper spray and “spankings” with rubber bullets and beanbag rounds are applied when a bear appears at a human site. The bears learn to associate these unpleasantries with human boundaries and then avoid them.
This training teaches them to stay away from trails and roadways; not to look for lunch in campsites and ranch sites with their tempting garbage cans, orchards or brimming birdfeeders. — AFP
Ronaldo makes history
MONACO: Brazilian striker Ronaldo became the first man to win two World Sports Awards in the same year here on Tuesday.
He received the World Comeback of the Year Award for his dramatic return from a serious knee injury to finish top scorer with eight goals at the 2002 World Cup finals, where he led Brazil to a record fifth victory.
Ronaldo, who flew in from Madrid to attend the ceremony, picked up a second statuette for the World Team of the Year Award on behalf of his country.
The 26-year-old is also the reigning European Foot-baller of the Year and FIFA World Player of the Year. — AFP
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