Bird Sets Flight Record With 7,257-Mile Marathon

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
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Forgoing layovers and snack stops, a bird known as the bar-tailed godwit has broken the record established for the world's longest known non-stop bird flight, according to a new study.
The honor goes to a female named "E7" that continuously flew 7,257 miles across the Pacific Ocean, breaking the previous record set by a Far-Eastern curlew, who flew 4,038 miles nonstop.
She didn't even glide.
"Bar-tailed godwits use forward flapping flight and seldom ever glide," lead author Robert Gill, Jr., told Discovery News.
Gill, project leader of the shorebird research program at the U.S. Geological Survey, explained that climbing midair while gliding is costly in terms of energy for birds, so continuous wing-flapping surprisingly saves on "fuel."
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He and his team tracked multiple bar-tailed godwits as they flew from their summer breeding grounds in the western Alaska tundra to New Zealand, where they spend the rest of the year. Females were surgically implanted with transmitters, while males, which in this species are smaller and lighter, were affixed with external transmitters.
The migrating birds' flights lasted between five and 9.4 days.
The findings, published in the latest issue of Proceedings of The Royal Society B, suggest that oceans, mountain ranges, deserts, ice fields and other vast, open spaces may not always be barriers to migration, as had previously been thought. Instead, like a fast lane on a low-traffic highway, they might provide some animals with optimal, near hassle-free travel routes.

Military Dogs Get New Vet Hospital

Michelle Roberts, Associated Press
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A new $15 million veterinary hospital for four-legged military personnel opened Tuesday at Lackland Air Force Base, offering a long overdue facility that gives advanced medical treatment for combat-wounded dogs.
Dogs working for all branches of the military and the Transportation Safety Administration are trained at the base to find explosive devices, drugs and land mines. Some 2,500 dogs are working with military units.
Like soldiers and Marines in combat, military dogs suffer from war wounds and routine health issues that need to be treated to ensure they can continue working.
Dogs injured in Iraq or Afghanistan get emergency medical treatment on the battlefield and are flown to Germany for care. If necessary, they'll fly on to San Antonio for more advanced treatment -- much like wounded human personnel.

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"We act as the Walter Reed of the veterinary world," said Army Col. Bob Vogelsang, hospital director, referring to the Washington military medical center that treats troops returning severely wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The dogs can usually return to combat areas if they recover at the Military Working Dog Center, he said.

Putin's Dog Gets Satellite-Guided Tracking Collar

Associated Press

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Russia's satellite navigation system isn't fully operational yet, but it seems to work on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's dog.
Putin listened Friday as his deputy, Sergei Ivanov, briefed him on the progress of the Global Navigation Satellite System. Then footage broadcast on Russian TV showed them try a collar containing satellite-guided positioning equipment on the prime minister's black Labrador Koni.
Ivanov said that the equipment goes on a standby mode when "the dog doesn't move, if it, say, lies down in a puddle."
Putin interrupted him jokingly: "My dog isn't a piglet, it doesn't lie in puddles."
"She wags her tail, she likes it," Putin said after watching Koni outside his collonaded residence on Moscow's western outskirts.

The navigation system, which goes by acronym GLONASS, was developed during the Soviet era as a response to the U.S. Global Positioning System, but it has been slow to take shape amid the post-Soviet economic meltdown.
The government had promised to make the system fully operational by the beginning of this year, but it was delayed by equipment flaws and other technical problems.
Ivanov told Putin that the system would have 21 satellites by the year's end -- enough to provide navigation services over the entire Russian territory.
Ivanov said it would be available worldwide by the end of 2009, for which it would need to have 24 satellites.

'Extinct' Cockatoo Rediscovered in Indonesia

AFP
A species of cockatoo feared to have become extinct has been "rediscovered" with the sighting of a handful of breeding pairs on a remote Indonesian island, researchers said Thursday.
Ten Yellow-crested Abbott's cockatoos were found on the Masalembu archipelago off Java island, the Indonesian Cockatoo Conservation group said.
"We were excited when we found them in residential areas on Masakambing island," researcher Dudi Nandika said.
The group included four breeding pairs and two juveniles.
Despite the discovery the Yellow-crested Abbott's cockatoo (Cacatua sulphurea abbotti) remains the rarest species of the bird on earth, he said.
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