Monday Moaning

Yes, I know it’s Tuesday… deal with it! I am. I’ve got coffee.

Nature Ramble on Sunday warned of illegal pets, or transporting species from one part of the planet to another.

Here’s another issue that runs parallel to keeping turles and other unusal pets.

Hewlett-Packard ad featuring runaway iguana ‘poses threat to native wildlife’

Invasive Species Council asks company to pull ad, saying ‘Ralph the iguana’ could encourage Australians to buy the illegal pet

Hewlett-Packard’s Australian advertisement features a boy whose pet iguana is on the loose.

Hewlett-Packard has been criticised for featuring a runaway iguana in its Australian advertising, as the animal is considered an environmental threat and is illegal to own as a pet.

The Invasive Species Council has said the use of “Ralph the iguana” in HP’s marketing campaign would encourage Australians to obtain iguanas as pets, only for them to be released into the wild, where they could cause significant damage to native flora and fauna.

The HP campaign is an online effort involving the tagline #HelpFindRalph. People can look at pictures of Ralph to guess his location in order to win various HP products.

So far, Ralph has been photographed alongside camels on the beach in Broome, looking sanguine in a South Australian vineyard and looming in front of Sydney town hall. The green iguana has also been shown at the Twelve Apostles in Victoria and the Whitsunday islands in Queensland.

“We don’t want to create a new demand for this species and for people to buy them on the black market,” Andrew Cox, chief executive of the Invasive Species Council, told Guardian Australia. “These things can grow up to two metres long and then people will dump them, which causes a major threat to northern Australia.

“Hewlett-Packard should have known better. They should have done their homework. They now need to make people aware that it’s illegal to have iguanas in Australia and that they are a threat to the environment here.”

Green iguanas, which can weigh up to 9kg, are considered a pest because of their broad diet, which may include native plants, animals and bird eggs. Their burrows can also disturb the environment.

A Queensland government analysis has warned the animals are considered “high-risk” to the natural environment and are prone to spread in that state because the climate is comparable to that of their native central America.

Although they are often kept as pets, the Queensland government warns: “Adult iguanas are large, powerful animals. When threatened they can bite, cause severe scratch wounds and deliver a painful slap with their tail.”

It is illegal to import iguanas or keep them as pets but 17 animals have been seized by authorities since 1999.

“We can only guess how many are in Australia, probably hundreds,” Cox said. “We don’t want that number to increase because once they are established, it’s a hard creature to dislodge. They can camouflage themselves in the wild, after all.”

The Invasive Species Council, which recently warned of an influx of pest species into Australia, has written to HP asking the company to scrap the advertising campaign and apologise.

But an HP spokeswoman told Guardian Australia it had no plans to alter the ads and that Ralph would continue appearing next to Australian landmarks.

Source: TheGuardian

Opinion:

I realise that Ralph is an invasive species and therefore a concern, but I wonder is this making a mountain out of a molehill?

Ralph makes an endearing ambassador for HP and understandably so.

Perhaps HP should have been a little more astute in their campaign and added an educational factor into the ad, therefore actually helping the powers that be.

But there is also the responsibility of parents in educating their kids about such issues and the matter should also be dealt with in schools.

Update

I have updated the Make you Fink on Friday post with a warning published in The Guardian.

New words to learn…

The “diabesity” epidemic

Make you Fink on Friday

First a repost from They say it’s in the Genes:

Switzerland by train

“Yesterday, we took the train from Paris to Zurich, passing through the valley of the Rhone… past castles… medieval churches… lazy, picturesque rivers… quaint villages… to Lyon… Basel… and then skirting the Alps and lakes to Zurich. The scenery was remarkably beautiful. But the most remarkable thing we saw wasn’t outside the train car; it was in it.

A family of Americans boarded the train in Gare de Lyon in Paris. They took their seats, parents and two children. Tanned. Dressed in baggy shorts and polo shirts with little alligators on them. Even before the train left the station, the parents had given each of the children an iPad. Then mom and dad each got out their own iPad… and plugged in ear phones. From our vantage point, we could see that Dad was watching some sort of action movie, apparently with super-heroes involved. Mom’s iPad viewing was never revealed. But from Paris to the Swiss border – three hours of some of the most scenic countryside in Europe –none of them even looked out the window. Nor did they say a single word to one another.

Source: Running ‘Cause I Can’t Fly Read more

A couple of days ago I read a post that really disappointed me. It was about how to keep kids entertained during long journeys.

Then it went on to list a heap of electronic games and gadgets extolling their virtues.

Now I’m not criticising the quality of the post, it was excellent.

What disappointed me was the need to keep kids quiet. What disappointed me was that the kids were being deprived of the world and the natural wonders around them. What disappointed me was that parents had failed to teach their kids. What disappointed me was that we seem to have back-peddled into the Victorian era where kids should be seen and not heard. What disappointed me was that the kids were missing a vital part of growing up. What disappointed me was that parents didn’t want to engage with their children.

The world has gone so far off the rails, parenting has been abdicated to electronic bullshit.

Two weeks ago I took my ex and family to lunch, a costly exercise at a good restaurant. My stepdaughter, Ellen Suelen, at 14,  immediately whipped out her cellphone thingy (I’m not totally up to date with these gadgets) and began texting. I was so disappointed and I told her so. Ellen has loved this restaurant since she was nine, she loves the class, she loves the food, she loves being waited on hand and foot; and she loves the idea of no dishes.

She put her cellphone away sheepishly.

We talked, I said I had bought them here to enjoy themselves, to taste the food, to converse and to repair some of the damage of being a broken family through the separation, to show them what they could achieve if they studied. I had invested in this exercise, my investment amounted to R$300+. If she wanted to text through the meal, I would have saved a small fortune and given my ex R$50 and sent them to McDonald’s.

Kids should be taught by their parents to appreciate what is around them, if they don’t they are failing miserably.

We need to wake up and smell the coffee, not just drink it between texts without appreciating life.

Once again, it is ‘progress’ that is impeding our ability to be social animals.