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One of the more depressing wildlife stories to hit the news this week was that of the pet shop in Yokohama, which sells all sorts of rare, difficult-to-care-for and (allegedly) endangered species to the general public. That story was published in a British tabloid newspaper (The Sun)- you can find it here- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2667441/Pick-up-a-penguin-sloth-or-alligator-at-worlds-most-exotic-pet-shop.html.

Of course, not all animals adopted by individuals have a bad life – the story of “Christian-the-lion” (a captive bred lion cub bought in Harrods’ Pet Shop and eventually released into the wild by his owners) is wonderfully uplifting (http://victorianeblik.blogspot.com/2009/08/christian-lion.html)- but, on the whole, this trade clearly does not benefit anyone.

I think the most interesting science story this week, however, is this scientific study by Craig Bennett and colleagues at The University of California and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire measuring brain activity in a dead fish. The point of the publication (a scientific poster), of course, is to show that fMRI (a tool used in a lot of studies of brain activity) can give false readings and should be used with caution. There’s a synopsis of the study and paper on “Wired” –here- http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/
The article’s dry tone and some of the comments are pretty good: nerd-humour at its finest.

Christian the Lion

It was a great privilege to watch the story of "Christian"-the lion on the Eden channel this evening. He was a Lion-cub bought in Harrod's pet department in the 1960s, when such things were legal, and reared in London by two Australians, before eventually being released in the wild in Kenya. Christian's former owners- John Rendell and Ace Bourke - visited him in the wild twice.

Unfortunately, the programme is not available for download from the Eden website, however, wikipedia has some more information on him here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_the_lion

Some of the footage from the documentary is also in this video on you tube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvCjyWp3rEk&NR=1