Thú

[ốc]

Hồ điệp mộng:

Western monarch butterflies are nearly extinct. California has a plan to save them
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ation-milkweed

Monarch butterflies, known for their distinctive orange and black pattern, once flocked to California in the millions, spending the winter clumped on trees as they migrated to and from the state’s central coast.

But the population has sharply declined from 4.5 million in the 1980s, dropping to nearly 200,000 in recent decades before taking a precipitous dive in 2018. That year, the population fell to nearly 30,000, and when volunteers counted again in November, it had dropped to fewer than 2,000 – representing a 99% collapse in the last three decades.

Horrified conservationists are scrambling to plant 30,000 of the native milkweed plants, which are crucial to the butterflies’ life cycle, providing food for monarch larvae and adding the touch of poison that makes monarch colors so bright.

Monarch caterpillars are entirely dependent on milkweed for two weeks of their life cycle, munching through about 30 leaves before they transform into jade green chrysalises to eventually emerge as butterflies.

Ca li chốn đây milkweed chưa gặp bướm hoàng gia...
(Văn Cali)

[Triển]

Hồ điệp mộng

Không có bưa, không ngại máu cao:

"Mùa Xuân con nhộng đưa cơm
Xào, rang chín rục rồi làm mấy ly"

[ốc]

Con tằm đến thác cũng còn chiên bơ
(Đoạn trường tàm thanh)

Con tằm kéo kén thành nhộng thì người ta đem trần sơ để lấy tơ, cho nên câu tục ngữ "trần như nhộng" có thể là chơi chữ. Mấy chữ tằm, nhộng, kén, tơ... đều có nguồn gốc Hán Việt.

[ốc]

Gieo Thái sơn nhẹ tựa hồng mouse:

Magawa the mine-sniffing rat
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...odia-on-a-high

The African giant pouched rat has been the most successful rodent trained and overseen by a Belgian nonprofit, APOPO, to find land mines and alert its human handlers so the explosives can be safely removed.

And for the first time, it won a British charity’s top civilian award for animal bravery last year, an honour so far exclusively reserved for dogs.

Magawa is part of a cohort of rats bred for this purpose. He was born in Tanzania in 2014, and in 2016, moved to Cambodia’s north-western city of Siem Reap, home of the famed Angkor temples, to begin his bomb-sniffing career.

Chú chuột đi làm đường xa
Qua giúp Cam bốt tìm ba trái mìn...

[ốc]

Chuyện nuốt không vô:

lobster diver swallowed by humpback lives to tell the tale
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...whale-cape-cod

Michael Packard, 56, of Wellfleet, told WBZ-TV after he was released from Cape Cod hospital that he was about 45ft (14 meters) deep in the waters off Provincetown when “all of a sudden I felt this huge bump, and everything went dark”.

He thought he had been attacked by a shark, common in area waters, but then realized he could not feel any teeth and he wasn’t in any pain.

“Then I realized, oh my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth ... and he’s trying to swallow me,” he said. “And I thought to myself OK, this is it – I’m finally – I’m gonna die.” His thoughts went to his wife and children.

He estimates he was in the whale’s mouth for about 30 seconds, but continued to breathe because he still had his breathing apparatus in.

Then the whale surfaced, shook its head, and spat him out. He was rescued by his crewmate in the surface boat.

Tránh cá voi chẳng xấu mặt nào.

[Triển]

Chưa có truyền tin dưới biển.
Vụ này phải hỏi Lính Đại Ca.

Khoa học kỹ thuật chưa đủ
hiện đại. Thời con anh này chắc
không sao rồi. Rút smartphone
ra gởi nhắn tin lần cuối cho vợ
và con chớ đâu có tâm sự với
số phận bi đát như vậy.

Bao nylon chế xong rồi, chỉ còn
chỉnh sửa khúc xạ ánh sáng nữa
cho tin truyền đi không bị mất chữ.

[ốc]

Một Pháp hai chim:

French man who goes everywhere with a pigeon
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-with-a-pigeon

The pair first met when Bouget was out near his home and saw a tiny, “almost featherless” pigeon fall to the ground as it tried to escape from a cat. But when he mentioned what he saw to his wife, she asked him why he didn’t pick up the bird. So he went back. “I came home with Blanchon in my pocket,” he said.

Any human can build a relationship with an animal, he said, “once they respect the animal for what it is, that is a living creature that shares the Earth with us.”

Người lành chim đậu.
(Chim ngôn)

[ốc]

Trời sinh voi trời sinh mỏ (dầu):

New oilfield in African wilderness threatens lives of 130,000 elephants
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...0000-elephants

The plans are the latest threat to elephants in the region, hundreds of which have died mysteriously in the past year. Scientists are trying to find the cause of the deaths but believe they may be linked to a rising amount of toxic algae – caused by global heating – in their waterholes.

ReconAfrica, a Canadian oil and gas company, listed on stock exchanges in Canada, the US and Germany, has leased more than 34,000sq km of land in the Kavango Basin. Seismic exploratory work has begun, and experts say the new oil field could be one of the biggest of recent years. ReconAfrica estimates that the “potential oil generated” could be between 60 billion and 120 billion barrels – and be worth billions of dollars to the regional economy.

Ina-Maria Shikongo, one of the group’s co-ordinators, said the region was already being hit by droughts and excessive heat and that climate refugees, looking for food and work, were becoming more common.

She said the planned oilfield – like slavery and colonialism – was based on the global north exploiting resources and people in the global south for their own ends. “Today we call it capitalism but the system has not really changed at all – it is a system based on exploitation.”

Đại phú do oil
Tiểu phú do cần

[ốc]

Được voi đòi ăn:

Elephant in the room: visitor crashes through kitchen wall in Thailand
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ll-in-thailand

Ratchadawan Puengprasoppon was awoken in the early hours of Saturday morning by crashing and banging. When she went to find out what had happened, she discovered an elephant’s head poking through her kitchen wall beside the drying rack.

The male elephant, named Boonchuay, appeared to be looking for something to eat. His trunk rummaged through the kitchen drawers, knocking pans and cooking paraphernalia to the floor. He chewed on a plastic bag as Ratchadawan, unsure what to do, filmed the episode on her phone.

It’s not the first time Boonchuay, who lives in Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan national park, has visited Chalermkiatpattana village. “They come to visit quite often. They always come when there is the local market because they can smell food,” said Itthipon Thaimonkol, the park’s superintendent.

Thai media reported that the same elephant had even paid a visit to Ratchadawan’s kitchen on one of those occasions, causing damage worth almost 50,000 baht (£1,140).

Đói thì đầu voi phải lò.

Muốn ăn phải elephant vào bếp.

[ốc]

Đất lành chịm đậu
Đất độc chim đau...

Mystery illness strikes down birds across US south and midwest
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-south-midwest

A mysterious illness is killing birds across several states in the south and midwestern US, and wildlife scientists are rushing to try to find the cause, with many victims suffering from crusty eyes, swollen faces and the inability to fly.

According to the USGS, birds congregating at feeders and baths can transmit disease to one another. They recommend that people cease feeding birds until this mortality event has concluded, clean feeders and baths with a 10% bleach solution, and avoid handling birds.

In this new disease outbreak, people report that the birds are behaving as though they are blind, and are not avoiding humans.

According to a report from NBC News, wildlife biologist Laura Kearns of the Ohio division of wildlife has expressed that infectious disease, pesticides and even the cicada outbreak are suspects. Even cicadas have been plagued this year, with their 17-year waiting period interrupted by a fungus that alters their behavior and causes part of their body to rot away.

Uống nước đau lòng con quốc quốc
Tha mồi lở miệng cái đa đa
(Bà huyện thành quan)