What’s New in Version 3.2.0
Angry Birds Seasons now has power-ups! Check out your old favorites Sling Scope and Super Seed, and get ready for the never-before-seen HOMING BIRD! This hog-seeking hero will head with missile force for the first pig to enter his radar!

PLUS: earn stars and Mighty Eagle feathers to unlock up to EIGHT NEW LEVELS in Winter Wonderham and Haunted Hogs!

Angry Birds Seasons is available for iPhone/iPod touch, iPad, Android OS, Mac OS X, Windows and other platforms.

The villagers of the Himalayans have given the snow leopard this name because they rarely see the big cats.  Why are we talking about snow leopards?  Well, for one thing, they’re amazingly beautiful and for another, they’re on the list of endangered animals.  And that’s not all.  In our book “Eleventh Elementum” our young shapeshifter changes into one of these mysterious beauties.

Snow Leopard Facts

They are  carnivorous.

Mammal- 77-120 lbs (35-55 kg)

Females are about 30% smaller than males.

They are nocturnal.

They have the longest tail of any cat.

Only 3,500 to 7,000 snow leopards are left in the wild, with 600 to 700 in zoos worldwide. Exact numbers in the wild are undetermined due to their shy nature.

Their number appears to be in dramatic decline due to poaching driven by illegal trades in pelts and in body parts used for traditional Chinese medicine. Vanishing habitat and the decline of the cats’ large mammal prey are also contributing factors.

The following is an excerpt from Eleventh Elementum.

The leopard dashed through the woods, leaping over snow-filled ditches and downed trees.  She let out a loud wail that filled the forest.  Chrism had nearly shifted back when Skylee held the Elementum in front of her.  It had taken almost all her strength to resist.  She growled angrily as her destiny played out in her mind.  Will I always be under her control?

Racing onward, she tried to get lost in the rush.  All of a sudden, a sharp pain jabbed at her, causing her to stumble.  Her huge paws gripped the icy ground, and she continued to run.  Stay focused, she told herself.  But there was no way to stop it.  She didn’t want to go back to human form, not after knowing what it was like to run free across the snow.  Except the pain was too great, which caused her to unwillingly drop down and crawl on her belly.

Her body shook violently.  She curled up, wrapping her tail around her face, waiting for it to finish.  Now, half human and half leopard, her ears twitched as footsteps approached.  A hand reached out to her.  She was weak and frightened and lashed out with her sharp claws to warn the intruder.

“Easy, Duchess,” said a startled voice.

Realizing it was Airon, she raised her head and glanced in his direction.  Blood trickled down his arm, staining the white snow.

“No,” she softly whimpered as she finally returned to human form. “Did I…?”  She struggled to sit up, tried to reach out to him, but stopped when she saw him hold up a hand to halt her.

New in 2.0.0:

• Fix a bug where discrete graphics would be enabled on OSX laptops.
• Add support for Brazilian Portuguese.
• Other small fixes.

Here are a few things you should know:

• It is only enabled on Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and above, and on Windows XP and above.
• It is not yet enabled on Linux.

Luckily things are generally looking up, thanks in large part to big tourist dollars in emerging economies. Imagine Kenya with no wild animals. Just shy of $1 billion annually, tourism is Kenya’s largest source of foreign exchange. No wonder protecting the cats, their sources of prey and habitat is so important for Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, India, Guyana and other major ‘catbitats’.

Cat protection is increasing on all fronts: education efforts are seeing success—most Maasai no longer kill a lion as a coming-of-age ritual, for example. National parks and protected areas are still being created, with the latest being Guyana’s 2013 pledge to create a ‘jaguar corridor’ to link important populations in South America. And poaching is being taken more seriously everywhere, with better enforcement and stiffer fines. Two poachers recently got five year jail terms for killing tigers in Thailand—the stiffest sentence ever.

Rough or luxurious
When you travel to see the big cats, be it lions, leopards and cheetahs in Africa, Bengal Tigers in India, jaguars in Brazil and Sri Lanka or rare Snow Leopard in Northern India, you’re doing them a big favor. Your contribution to the local economy preserves jobs focused on keeping cats alive rather than wealth created through illegal trade.
When you decide to go shoot cats (with your camera), keep in mind that there are many ways to travel. Adventure can mean tenting it in the rough, or tenting it in luxury. Traveling waterways by dugout, or by well-appointed riverboat.

Imagine yourself in the Tanzanian savannah, sleeping in a white canvas tent with king bed, raised floor, full mosquito netting, private ensuite shower, thatch roof and four-course meals. Sit on the private balcony after your meal, contemplating the sunset. During the day, travel by Land Rover and private guide to prime viewing spots for eland, elephant, gemsbok, cheetah and lion. This aptly describes many nights on our Kiboko Tented Safari,  the slightly higher-end version of our most popular African safari of all, the Kiboko Safari.

This adventure boasts the best that East Africa has to offer: premier parks showcasing fantastic game, breathtaking lodges and exciting camps as you drive some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes including the Rift Valley Escarpment. On this 15-day journey we visit no fewer than six game reserves and parks, as well as Nairobi and Mount Kenya.

Want to combine game viewing with an ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro? It’s quite the vertical and absolutely spectacular, but entirely doable, especially if you take the longer Rongai route that gives you an extra day to acclimatize to the altitude.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
Few people would equate India, the world’s second most populous nation, with wildlife…but that’s just what you get on our Tigers in Focus where—in addition to Delhi, the Taj Mahal and Agra—we go on as many as eleven game walks in three national parks.

Play Rudyard Kipling for a while in the steamy jungles of Rathambore, Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Parks. Each contains differing ecosystems and topography, a variety that enables species such as monkey, leopard, deer, elephant, antelope, bear, squirrel, crocodile and bird to thrive.

Some big cat tidbits

• The Amur Leopard is the world’s rarest cat, with fewer than 40 individuals left in a shrinking habitat along Russia’s border with China.
• Simba means king in Swahili, and it’s also the word for lion. Did you know that there are also lions in Asia?
• Snow Leopards’ long tails help them to balance on precarious, steep terrain. There are fewer than 2,000 left in the wild, including about 200 in Afghanistan.
• The name ‘jaguar’ comes from the Native American ‘yaguar’, meaning ‘kills with one leap’.

Contact Information
Whether you choose to trek the high Himalayas in search of the elusive Snow Leopard, or enjoy the indulgent comfort of an upscale tented African Safari–there are amazing wildlife encounters to be had on every continent! The world’s best travel experiences are all here. We have over 4000 small group trips or our experienced adventure travel specialists can build one just for you. This is all we’ve done since 1972. Adventure Center. We’re here to get you there.

Our adventure travel specialists in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton would love to help you; call us toll-free 866.338.8735 or find us at adventurecenter.com for more information.

Copyright
Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved – Adventure Center

-Sally Squeeps

Squee! Spotter:
Unknown (via Wendy Salisbury)

Tagged: paws, snow leopard, baby, cub, Fluffy, cute, squee

Today’s theme is “Animal”. Since we have no pets, I had to photograph a stuffed animal:) But, don’t you think this snow leopard is pretty cute?

For those of you who care about details, this shot was taken at 50mm, ISO 800, f2.8, 1/50. Contrast, clarity, and vibrance fixed in Lightroom 4.

I have four blogger friends who have joined me so far in this challenge! To see their challenge posts, please visit their blogs at:

http://y0urstrulee.wordpress.com

http://iclickallthetime.wordpress.com

http://kvisionphotography.wordpress.com

http://chickenandtea.wordpress.com

If you would like to join in, please leave me a comment to let me know. I will put a link to any other participants at the bottom of each of my challenge posts. Reminder: It can take you MORE than 30 days to complete this challenge. I know it will definitely take me longer than that:)

My challenge posts will be filled under the “30 Day Photo Challenge” tab on the main page of my blog. Enjoy:)

Oracle recently updates Java SE 7.

Image from webpronews.com

A big pat-on-the-back to the company that Steve Job built this week, as Apple announces the blocking of older(and therefore vulnerable) versions of Oracle’s Java platform for their Safari web browser. The security update will initiate the block on the back-end in order to prevent hackers from successfully breaching a user’s system through multiple vulnerabilities that plague the obsolete versions.

Macs running OSX Mountain Lion, Lion & Snow Leopard will be receiving these updates. Adobe has confirmed that the specific vulnerabilities targeted involve persuading users to click on an infected .PDF file through Email. The means of infections are said to be Zero-Day vulnerabilities. This is not the first time Apple has taken steps to prevent its users from unknowingly walking into a trap, as they previously blocked the latest version of Java on recent versions of Mac OSX. Their steadfast responses to potential crises is something to be commended, as companies are increasingly becoming aware of the need to be proactive in their security efforts.

Microsoft– the ball is in your court, now.

Ivory figures seized by the Metropolitan Police wildlife crime unit. (Photo courtesy of Met Police)

Coats made from endangered animal furs seized by the Metropolitan Police wildlife crime unit (Photo courtesy of the Met Police)

The illegal trade in ivory is to the very much to the forefront of the news just now. That is only one aspect of international wildlife crime that impacts on us in the United Kingdom. Here is part of the chapter on the work of the Metropolitan Wildlife Crime Unit that I wrote for my book The Thin Green Line.

Chiru (Tibetan Antelope)

Most people will never have heard of chiru; if that is the case they are unlikely to have heard of shahtoosh.  The chiru is another name for the Tibetan antelope, the producer of wool so fine that it is worth more than gold. It is unfortunate that the chiru can’t be rounded up and sheared of the fine underbelly part of its fleece once a year like sheep.  It is a totally wild animal so has to be killed in order that this extremely fine wool can be cut off to be woven into shawls so fine that they can be passed through a wedding ring.  The finished ultra-fine material is termed shahtoosh.

Shahtoosh is coveted by the super-rich and means ‘king of wool’ in Persian.  It makes cashmere feel like horsehair. It has become a common currency among crime gangs and terrorist groups, such as the Kashmiri separatists. It is also a key part of a complicated transaction involving tiger bones being smuggled into China, where the smugglers are paid in shahtoosh. Reputedly, as a result of this two-way trade, a tiger is killed in India every day.

So how many £5,000 to £15,000 shawls can be made from the killing of one chiru? None. In fact it takes 100 grams of hair from the soft fleecy stomachs of three chiru to make a single shawl. To bring this despicable trade into a more local context, shahtoosh parties are known to have been held in the UK, with the well-heeled meeting to show off their shawls and to buy the latest designs.  There is a romantic claim that the wool for the shawls is gathered by locals from bushes that the Tibetan antelope have used as scratching posts, all part of an industrious ‘cottage industry.’ In truth bushes are exceptionally scarce in the Tibetan uplands and their presence must be in inverse proportion to the naivety of anyone who believes this fairy tale.

The real villains of the piece are the rich consumers in the developed world. The perceived need for some wealthy people to have an exclusive fashion accessory has meant that the Tibetan antelope numbers have fallen, through full-scale slaughter for its wool, from several million a hundred years ago to less than 75,000 in the early part of the 21 century.

In 2009 poaching continues but at a reduced level and shahtoosh is harder to find in the West.  Chiru numbers in Tibet and Qinghai appear to be increasing slightly.  In a way the chiru is turning into a success story, which shows what can be achieved by range states and consumer nations working together to attack the problem from both ends – poaching in China and consumer demand in the West.

It was against this background that the Metropolitan Police wildlife crime unit, in February 1997, seized 138 shahtoosh shawls worth £353,000 from a London trading company. In April 2000 the company pled guilty and was fined £1,500, which would hardly put them into liquidation.  The fact that the chiru is listed on Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and that shahtoosh is banned from international commercialisation initially did little to prevent attempts at slaughtering the remaining 75,000. In the year 2000 the Chinese authorities confiscated hundreds of chiru pelts and thousands of rounds of poachers’ ammunition.  Unfortunately armed poaching gangs greatly outnumbered the anti-poaching patrol staff and for a time an estimated 20,000 chiru were being killed annually in China.

This first class result by the Metropolitan Police was one of the earlier successes of their innovative ‘Operation Charm,’ a pioneering scheme that has inspired similar operations in a number of other countries.  It was launched in 1995 and is a combination of law enforcement, partnerships and education to deal with the illegal trade of endangered species.  Since its launch Operation Charm has led to the seizure of more than 30,000 items (including in 1996 the world’s largest seizure of rhino horn) as well as the prosecution and conviction of a number of traders.  It has also markedly reduced the number of illegal products openly on sale.  In addition to enforcement, an important aspect of Operation Charm is the development of initiatives to increase public awareness and reduce the demand. The Met, in conjunction with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), has gone on to develop a kit to identify shahtoosh or similar products.  This kit was successfully used in 2004 to identify 90 shahtoosh shawls and 10 shahtoosh scarves from Kashmiri-owned shops in Dubai. 

Traditional Medicines

Operation Charm has continued to yield successes. In May 2002, the Met wildlife crime officers took possession of Traditional Medicines (TMs) from a London business. The 25 seized packets of medicated bandages claimed to contain leopard bone.  This seizure came about by chance. Ian Knox and Andy Fisher from the Met wildlife crime unit had decided to visit a street market in East London which supplies African food and had been found to sell bushmeat.  Having had no success in their search for bushmeat they popped into a small Vietnamese shop nearby to buy some cigarettes.  On the way out they stopped to look in the window where they saw a range of medicines including a number of packets of medicated plasters made from leopard bone. A short time later they returned armed with a search warrant under the Control of Trade in Endangered Species Regulations (COTES) and made the seizure.  When questioned, the shop owners said that whenever they were in Vietnam they always bought these plasters because they knew that people in London were keen to buy them – this supports the team’s view point that it is important to curb consumer demand. There were no other illegal products in the shop so the plasters were seized and the shop owner was cautioned. This offence was at the lower end of the scale but all species of leopard are protected under Appendix 1 of CITES (see Page X) and any commercial trade in their body parts is illegal, with a maximum penalty on indictment of 5 years imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.

Chinese Traditional Medicine has become extremely popular in the UK today as many people turn to alternative medicines and therapies.  Whilst most are from sustainable sources, some continue to be made from derivatives of animals or plants which are endangered.  Particular favourites are tiger bone, rhinoceros horn and bear bile. This illegal trade is one of the biggest threats facing many endangered species and, like any trade, works on the basis of supply and demand.  Because endangered species are rare there is a limited supply, thus pushing up the prices and providing considerable profits for criminals.

In October 2005 a further search was carried out for TMs on a Chinese medicine supplier in central London. On this occasion several hundred medicinal products, mainly bottled pills, believed to contain endangered species derivatives, were seized by the wildlife crime officers.  The species included tiger, bear, rhinoceros and musk deer.  Some raw plant material was also recovered. This case was lost at court when the judge upheld the defence argument that, in the case of species that are included in more than one of the CITES Appendices (e.g. bears and musk deer) it was necessary for the prosecution to prove which species or geographical population the actual seized product was derived from.  It is virtually impossible to be specific about which geographical population of an animal is involved when all that the product lists as ingredients are bear bile or musk.  The Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Unit is working with Defra at present to amend the COTES Regulations to ensure that they can properly be enforced in cases like this. Frustration stalks a high proportion of wildlife crime cases.

Operation Charm’s continued success is linked to their joint work with Trading Standards Officers.  In June 2006, the Met wildlife crime unit executed a search warrant at a Traditional Medicine shop in Deptford, South-east London, where a number of TMs were seized. They then went on to search an outlet in Eltham, where more products were seized and the shop owner was arrested.  The products claimed to contain ingredients derived from protected species including tiger, bear, saiga antelope, musk deer, monkey, seahorse, and rare species of orchid and tree fern. If these species are protected under CITES it is not necessary to prove that the ingredients actually contain the species; simply that they state that they do and that they are being offered for sale. The proprietor later pleaded guilty to 18 charges under the Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Enforcement) Regulations 1997 and was fined £300 on each charge, a grand total of £5,400.

The Trade in Ivory

The sale of Traditional Medicines is only one of many wildlife crimes taking place in London. Ivory is also in demand. In November 2004, officers from the Unit executed search warrants at three London premises.  Two other premises in Somerset and Gloucestershire were searched simultaneously by the wildlife crime officers from these forces.  In London, 24 ivory items were discovered that were being kept for sale.  Most were shaving brushes stamped ‘real ivory’ and with a retail price of around £1,100 each.  Other ivory items found included an elephant tusk, glove stretchers and hairbrushes. Almost two years later the gentleman’s grooming accessory company implicated pleaded guilty and was fined a total of £10,000, with the ivory items being forfeit. Despite an ivory trade ban, it was estimated by the International Fund for Animal Welfare that 10,000 elephants are still being killed each year for their tusks.  In this case we in Britain are helping to fuel this bloody trade by being willing end users of this illegal trade.

Saiga Antelope

The saiga antelope is found in the Great Lakes basin area of Mongolia, with another sub-species in Russia and Central Asia. It has always been hunted for meat, horns and skin, with tens of thousands being killed each year without dramatically lowering the population.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union a lucrative market for Saiga horn opened up, with hunters using motor cycles and high-powered rifles to chase and kill their quarry. Subsequently the use of saiga horn, exported to China to be used in fever cures as a substitute for rhino horn, received a degree of official support but no-one seemed to foresee the extent of the slaughter.  It is now critically endangered, with the Mongolian sub-species now occupying less than a fifth of its historical range.  It is on the verge of extinction, with biologists stating they have seen the most sudden and dramatic crash of a large mammal ever seen.  From over a million in 1993, fewer than 30,000 remain, mostly females as the males have been decimated for their horns. Now that there is such a scarcity of males it can only be hoped that the animal’s famed fecundity may be sufficient to allow a recovery, in time, to a stable population.

The Fur Trade

In less enlightened times the fur trade was a booming business and fur coats were popular and fashionable.  Now that the fur coat enthusiasts realise that animals have to be killed for their furs, most have given up the idea and prefer to see the animals wearing the coats.  Nevertheless there is a hard core who cast political correctness and conservation concerns aside in the lust for fur.  The problem hasn’t disappeared.  Because of this greed the trade in rare animal skins is still simmering.

In November 2006, after receiving intelligence, the Met Wildlife Crime Unit carried out a search under warrant at a fur dealer’s premises in London. Seven coats made from highly endangered cat species were seized; they were identified by the Natural History Museum as tiger, leopard, snow leopard and ocelot.  The shop owner later pleaded guilty to being involved in their trade and was fined a total of £900, with the coats being forfeit.  After this case, Andy Fisher said, “This case has shown once again that the illegal trade in endangered species is not just something that happens in Asia or Africa.  Endangered species are on sale here on the streets of London and they will be for as long as we continue to buy them.”

It beggars belief, almost a decade in to the environmental enlightenment of the 21^st century, that anyone is prepared to walk about swaddled in a tiger skin (or any other rare animal for that matter) thinking that they are indulging in the height of fashion.

In a search of a taxidermist’s premises a year earlier the wildlife crime officers recovered two stuffed tiger cubs, tiny and pathetic victims of the black market trade that exists in London and elsewhere.  There would be little doubt that their mother had also been killed.

See The Thin Green Line and other books on this blog. If you would like a signed copy contact me on alanstewart164@btinternet.com

Using AirPlay Mirroring on a Mac

Open System Preferences and click on “Displays”
If the Mac supports AirPlay Mirroring, you will find an “AirPlay Mirroring” option near the bottom of the Displays preference panel, click this and select “Apple TV”
At this point OS X 10.8 will detect the Apple TV, resize the screen if necessary, and start mirroring what is on the Mac to the HDTV.
All video should work perfectly, including YouTube and Hulu, which should ultimately make AirPlay much more valuable.

For those left out in the cold by Apple, AirParrot works perfectly on all macs running Snow Leopard and up.

Using Airplay Audio Streaming on a Mac

Unlike AirPlay mirroring, streaming system audio, not just iTunes audio should work on any Mac that can run Mountain Lion, not just 2011 model year and newer Macs.

Here’s how to stream all system audio to a compatible AirPlay device:
Hold the Option key and click the Sound icon in the menu bar
Select the AirPlay compatible output device (Apple TV, AirPlay speakers, AirPort Express, etc)
Is that easy or what? Now launch Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, DJay, or anything else that has audio, and your Macs sound gets streamed out to the AirPlay receiver. If you’ve been trying to figure out a way to get wireless speakers hooked up to a Mac with little effort, this is it.

watercolor aceo 2/2013

Mother nature is so kind as to have designed the animals and the forest with the means to elude detection. My dogs bark furiously at wild things in the forest behind my cottage and I can see nothing.

purchase this painting

Why?  After watching and reading some tutorials and seeing code snippets and workarounds for Xcode 3.2.6, I realized if I wanted to get serious about app development, I really did need the latest version my iMac could use.  Since I received a refund check for an over-payment (not taxes), I paid up.

As I had mentioned in my comparison post of the Xcode versions, the development screen looks a little different in 4.2. So, I ventured to YouTube to find an introductory tutorial for 4.2.  Lo and behold, there is a series of tutorials named Learn Xcode 4.2 Tutorial iOS iPad iPhone 1.1 (1.2, 1.3, etc.) from mybringback which, after watching the first few, will be extremely helpful to me.  That find proved another positive reason for upgrading–more tutorials for Xcode 4.2 than Xcode 3.

From these tutorials (the 6 I have watched), I have already learned how to add a navigation controller to an iPhone tabbed application and an image to the first view controller.  I’m a little more excited now about the whole deal of app development!

I also now have a project app–an evaluation checklist.  Since Xcode 4.2 offers pre-made checkboxes, unlike 3.2, I am hoping this library object will make my experience a little easier.  I will keep my progress posted!

Portrait of a male snow leopard (Uncia uncia) of the Rheintal zoo. Français : Portrait d’une Once (ou Panthère des neiges, Panthera uncia) du zoo de Rheintal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Image via CrunchBase

Sadly, the hField Wi-Fire is no more. hField Technologies ceased production a while back and so I am no longer able to source any more  stock. It was largely due to the lack of a fix for a bug that rendered the adapter unusable with Mac OS X Lion and above. The Wi-Fire still works with Windows XP and Mac OS X up to Snow Leopard (and most version of Linux available up to 2010).

Apparently hField couldn’t solve the driver issue and both Apple and Atheros (maker of the chip that provides the wi-fi signal) were unable to help resolve the issue either.

Its a great loss as the Wi-Fire was one fo the best (if not the best) high power wi-fi adapters on the market. Certainly the fact that its no longer ion production has meant the end of my own business as the Wi-Fire was a big part of it and the main reason I set my company up was to market it in the UK and elsewhere. I still get enquiries about the product but sadly have no stock to sell anyone. I also still get the odd call for support, which I gladly give where I can though as the company no longer trades I am not able to accept returns. Its a while since I sold the last unit anyways and certainly more than the 12 months guarantee period. As long as you are using Windows (up to XP for sure or OS X up to Snow Leopard) the Wi-Fire still works as well as ever.

There remains the possibility of a new product from  hField though I have no firm details. I will certainly post the news here if anything comes of it.

“Guldaar,” he said. “That’s the name. It means ‘one with rosettes’. Because the markings on a snow leopard’s fur resemble rosettes. Thirty years ago when I found this out, I knew I wanted to work for and live in a country where the hardiest of people can have the most poetic of names for predators.”

I haven’t forgotten that story. It keeps me going at times like these when my work with WWF feels meaningless because there’s so much else going on in the country.

And this is why I am recalling it right now

Guldaar.

We’re trying to save a female 3 month old snow leopard cub who was injured and abandoned. She was rescued by the Khunjerab conservation community and WWF-Pakistan. She is not old enough to eat meat, so she is being fed milk by a group of volunteers from the GB WWF – Pakistan office and the Wildlife Department. But she is growing and pretty soon she will need a change in her diet, a larger space to live and when she is old enough, she will be able to participate in a breeding program as well.

Snow leopards are shy, precious creatures that live on extreme heights in cold weather. They cannot roar like other big cats. They scat or hiss. They are being driven to extinction because of loss of habitat to human beings and because climate change is slowly but surely making temperatures rise, hence making their habitat scarce. It is thought that the cub followed her mother down to a human settlement while her mother tried to hunt for food, got injured in the process and was left behind. So she needs our help.

I know there are plenty of things that need fixing in this country and saving animals may not be high on many people’s agenda, but here’s what I believe. I believe that it is the severe disconnect between human beings and the natural world that has driven us to commit heinous acts of violence against other human beings. This severe lack of empathy that we have for other species manifests in our negative behaviour against other human beings at different stages in our lives. We have forgotten that we do not own the earth, or the sky, or water and that the creatures big and small that dwell within these were not put on this planet for our sport and pleasure.

Of course we believe our religion put us up as ‘Ashraf-ul-Makhluqaat’, and science pitches us as the dominant species, but it is also true that within the same religion, the beloved Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) chose to cut his own prayer rug rather than disturb a cat that had casually slinked up to it and had very frankly slept there. If evolution had played out differently, maybe dolphins or other primates would be the dominant species. Cruelty to animals is forbidden in our religion. Cruelty to plants  is forbidden in our religion. In other religions as well. So really, we have no excuse there.

As far as this snow leopard cub is concerned, as I said, she needs all the help she can get. We do NOT presume that we will be able to provide her the quality of life she may have had with her mother, but by God we are trying to find a solution that is as close to it as we can humanly get.

So please. Consider a donation. It doesn’t matter how big or small. The real fact of it for me is that with all the violence happening in our country presently, any odd vestige of something good and wholesome feels like a lifeline to me. This is something good. We keep hearing about Government Institutions being corrupt but I would like to tell you that the local Wildlife Department is willing to donate land to build a leopard conservation sanctuary. The people who were directly involved in the rescue treat this beautiful cub like an orphan who needs all the love and attention she needs lavished upon her. The people who have come to see her are delighted at seeing a snow leopard up close, because the chances of seeing a snow leopard in the wild are slim to none because of illegal hunting.

You can pitch in by donating any amount you wish to the following bank account numbers if you’re based in Pakistan:

Standard Chartered

Title of Account: WWF Pakistan

Account Number: 08-7932677-38

Branch Code: 074

MCB Bank Limited

Title of Account: WWF Pakistan

Account Number: 0100802010065797

Branch Code: 1008

United Bank Limited

Title of Account: WWF Pakistan

Account Number: 0010003070

Branch Code: 0863

For people who are not in Pakistan: I’ll get you a SWIFT code soon. Please also share this note with friends who may want to help.

So that’s about it.

Thank you, if you have read this far. You’re awesome. I can be contacted at nsaadia @ wwf. panda. org for any comments, suggestions, concerns and queries.

I’ve gotta keep the blurb today pretty short…I’m writing this at the end of a long day and my eyes don’t want to stay open. They actually haven’t wanted to stay open since about three hours after I woke up. Coffee? Why yes, I tried that. Diet Coke? Yep, twice. Sleeping? That sounds like the best cure.

Before I start nodding off, I’ll point out my remix item of the day: these jeans! Since I’m not a jeans-everyday person, and this is my only pair of distressed denim, I decided they were unique enough for me to repeat. Fun fact: I wore tights under these jeans today and yesterday. Exposed skin and sub-zero wind chills don’t mix.

Shirt // similar Sweater // Necklace // similar Jeans // Boots // similar Watch

Apple releases iTunes 11.0.2 for Mac OS X Snow Leopard, OS X Lion, OS X Mountain Lion and Windows (XP or later).

In related news, Apple admits to being victim of hacker attack through vulnerability in Java.