Tag: environment

“Domesticated”: unwild animals (#14 in series: almost “curtains” for India’s camels & their kindly herders?)

Published September 23, 2026 by Pelidoug

“Domesticated”: unwild animals (#14 in series: almost “curtains” for India’s camels & their kindly herders?)

Globally, camel numbers are “exploding”, but India’s population is a small fraction of what it was half a century ago; it is still declining, rapidly.

India’s camels might be in the process of “disappearing”, along with a globally-unique and uncommonly-benevolent approach to camel husbandry.

Rajasthan – specifically, its part of the Thar Desert – has always accounted for most of India’s camels.

It is also home to most of the Raikas; for many generations they have revered, herded, trained, milked and bred camels. (and sheep).

Members of this indigenous tribe/cultural group abhor the very idea of killing or mistreating camels.

“Domesticated”: unwild animals (#8 in series: extreme Alpine transhumance)

Published September 7, 2026 by Pelidoug

“Domesticated”: unwild animals (#8 in series: extreme Alpine transhumance)

“Alpine transhumance”, according to its Wikipedia entry:

seasonal droving of grazing livestock between the valleys in winter and the high mountain pastures in summer.

Unsurprisingly, if you google for the term, and/or for information on high-altitude pastures, most of what you will find refers to Europe.

Europe’s largest single example of high altitude pasture (in Italy’s South Tyrolean Dolomites) covers 57 square kilometres; it sits between 1,600 & 2,350 metres above sea level.

Most European Alpine pastures are below 2,400 metres; none reach higher than 2,800 metres.

The domesticated sheep pictured above were grazing on grassy slopes at an altitude of more than 4,000 metres.

On the Tibetan Plateau, however, they were not remotely close to Alpine pastures’ “upper limit”!

“Domesticated”: unwild animals (#1 in series)

Published August 19, 2026 by Pelidoug

“Domesticated”: unwild animals (#1 in series)

Generally – but not in this series – Pelican Yoga inclines to so-called “wild” environments and animals…to what we like to call the “natural” world.

“Wild” and “natural” are highly problematic/contestable terms.

So too are their alleged opposites: so-called “domestic or “domesticated” animals and “unnatural” or “degraded” environments.

This series features animals which humans have “domesticated”, “tamed”, “farmed”; some of them we put to work, whilst others become our pets, companions, or furry/feathered “friends”.

We selectively breed, train, confine them…in order to satisfy human yearnings, fads, fashions, and notions of what is “beautiful”, “impressive” or “cute”…or to maximise meat production for human consumption.

This series’ opening image shows part of a Roman mosaic.

Circa 1,600 years old, it was created when the global biomass of “wild” mammals still hugely exceeded that of humans and their “domesticated” mammals.

A pertinent question:

What are the relevant proportions, now?

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Looking down (#45 in series: from both sides of Tasmania’s highest dam wall)

Published May 11, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#45 in series: from both sides of Tasmania’s highest dam wall)

The Gordon Dam took ten years (1964-1974) to build, in southwestern Tasmania’s “wilderness”.

Its creation/raison d’être – Lake Gordon – is Tasmania’s largest lake.

When full – which it hardly ever is – that reservoir is Australia’s largest body of freshwater.

Most of the time, the actually largest freshwater body in Australia is another man-made one – Western Australia’s Lake Argyle, which always covers a much larger surface area than does Lake Gordon.

The Gordon Dam was in itself a very controversial project, but the bigger environmental battle (arguably, Australia’s most significant) was the subsequent one which eventually prevented construction of its intended “sibling” dam, downstream.

Click here, if the saga is new to you.

The featured image shows the dam-walled edge of Lake Gordon’s dark waters

The photo below, taken three minutes later from the Gordon Dam wall’s other side, looks down, 140 vertical metres.

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Looking down (#33: near-snout surface of a thinning, retreating glacier)

Published March 23, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#33: near-snout surface of a thinning, retreating glacier)

All photos in this post were taken within a few seconds of each other as we flew over the “bottom end” of the Taku Glacier.

Circa 15 minutes later we would be back in Juneau, Alaska’s capital city.

From there, no road will take you out into “wilderness”.

However, by floatplane, an incredible array of “pristine” locations are less than 60 minutes distant – some, less than 30 minutes away from downtown Juneau.

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Looking down (#32 in series: Taku Glacier’s huge snout)

Published March 20, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#32 in series: Taku Glacier’s huge snout)

(aka “terminal face”, “terminus”, “foot”)

As at 24 May 2015…

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Looking down (#31 in series: still bigger than Chicago, but shrinking)

Published March 18, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#31 in series: still bigger than Chicago, but shrinking)

The headline refers to area, not population – nobody makes their home atop the Taku Glacier’s surface, which still covers 650-plus square kilometres.

i took this post’s photo at 7.39 pm on 24 April 2015, circa one minute after “our” floatplane lifted off the Taku River, adjacent to Taku Lodge, and we began the return flight to Juneau.

In less than one more minute – as you will see in the next post – we’d be immediately in front of the Taku Glacier’s enormous snout.

This is the world’s thickest mountain glacier, but….

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Looking down (#29 in series: shrinking glacier)

Published March 12, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#29 in series: shrinking glacier)

All three aerial photos in this post were taken within a “window” of little more than one minute.

Their “star” is the same glacier, & fewer than twenty minutes had passed since “our” floatplane had taken off from the fiord immediately in front of downtown Juneau.

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Looking down (#23 in series) on Juneau

Published February 26, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#23 in series) on Juneau

On the afternoon of 24 May 2015 “our” floatplane took off from the Gastineau Channel – the fiord adjacent to Alaska’s capital city.

Juneau is a surprising place, as is true of all of the low-lying, coast-adjacent terrain on southeastern Alaska’s “panhandle”.

This “strip” is not a cold place, by northern North American standards, at least.

Snow falls are infrequent, usually modest. Much of the natural vegetation is temperate rainforest.

In “the season”, cruise ships disgorge huge numbers of tourists onto Juneau’s tourist-tacky foreshore.

In terms of permanent residents, however, Alaska’s capital city is a small town; if it were in China, it would be a “village”.

Australia calls the likes of Mount Gambier, Albany, and Bathurst “cities”; Juneau is a little more populous than “The Mount”, but a deal less so than Albany or Bathurst.

Juneau is unique among capital cities in one crucial respect: no roads connect it to anywhere more than a few kilometres distant.

The mountains and glaciers just inland of “the strip” are so formidable that all visitors – and all supplies – reach Juneau via sea or air.

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Looking down (#14 in series) …to the Colorado

Published February 6, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#14 in series) …to the Colorado

The first three of this post’s four photos were all taken from a helicopter, looking down into the Grand Canyon.

That canyon’s “lead author” runs along its “floor” – the Colorado River.

As the Colorado’s excellent Wikipedia entry notes, the United States’ fifth-longest river is one of the most controlled and litigated river systems in the world.

This once-wild, formerly much-mightier river has become an ailing shadow of its former self; irrigators and thirsty cities have tamed, maimed and nearly drained it.

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