When my one and only niece Dinah was eight she already knew she would become a vet......

"Dinahlu" when she was eight (Rome, 1988)
Photo: Wolfgang Leander

Click to enlarge

.... now she is one, and not only that: Because of her lifelong dedication to the cause of animal welfare, and her professional background, she has been elected first patron of the UK-based Worlwide Veterinary Service (WVS), a large organization she joined as a member back in 2007.

Chapeau, Dinah! All those who love you are mighty proud of you!

Allow me a mental leap: Dinah's mother, my sister Renata, was recently in Bolivia to visit and unearth half-buried childhood memories. Given our stirring family history it was a very emotional trip for her, but what impacted Renata most, and got her deeply disturbed, was to see so many undernourished and ill-treated street dogs in Cochabamba.

Renata was so depressed about the situation of the stray dogs that she decided to come back for a three-months-stay toward the end of this year to see what she can do ameliorate the lives of at least some of these unfortunate creatures.

However, Renata thinks bigger than that. What she has in mind is to establish a contact with the municipality of Cochabamba and a group of concerned vets, and present them, hopefully, a WVS sponsored large-scale neutering program to help solve the problem nobody has even tried to tackle as yet.

Renata and Dinah are very determined individuals which is not surprising as they are cut from the same cloth. With them, and the WVS behind such a worthy initiative, a "Cochabamba Street Dog" project is bound to be a viable enterprise.

Here are two dogs who were lost in the mean streets of Cochabamba before I "snatched" them and made them mine:

"Chiara" (above) and "Lupi"
Photos: Wolfgang Leander
Click to enlarge

Children Urge Greater Shark Protections in The Bahamas

Saw this video while reading The Dorsal Fin - nice video created by The Bahamas National Trust (BNT), in collaboration with Pew Environment Group, in support of a grassroots petition to protect sharks in Bahamian waters.

Don't know what to get or give for Easter or Pessach?

How about a book? A book about sharks?

The best shark books I have read in many years, if not ever, are, by far, Ila France-Porcher's new publication and Dean Crawford's slim, unassuming oeuvre.

As a photographer, I believe it is difficult to convey the (almost) indescribable fascination of sharks other than with an image. But, of course, I say that because I am not a skilled craftsman of words. Ila and Dean are.

Tiger shark emerging from the depth of the Indian Ocean.
Photo: Wolfgang Leander (2008)
Click to enlarge

When a writer combines passion, knowledge, and talent, as both Ila and Dean do, you have what ideally, but rarely, every book should do: Give you an immense intellectual and emotional pleasure that is hardly matched by anything else - no, no, don't think I am that bookish or beyond good and evil, and not fond of other earthly delights - I said "hardly", OK? ..... :-)

So: ENJOY the books as much as I did.

By the way: I am not 'promoting' these books - I am just recommending them as a fantastic read. I get no commissions, and I am not trying to do Ila and Dean a favor - with the tremendous amount of work and dedication they have invested in their literary projects, they know better than anybody else what their books are worth. They have written them with what we call in German: "Herzblut" (= Heart Blood).

Dorsal - Shark Clothing

People like to wear what represents them.  I have been a fan of Seven Tenths for a while, just because as a clothing company they somewhat catered to the freediver.  Now there is something else, something new, something SHARK

Dorsal was started by Chris Milnes, it is best described as: "a new clothing brand created specifically to help efforts being made to research and protect sharks around the world." Dorsal supports various shark projects and hopes to expand their involvement as more people sport their gear.

Have a look at their catalog and cool surf-style wear. 

Seventy - and not a bit wise.....

When German-Austrian actor Curd Juergens, a towering green-eyed beau, turned sixty he decided to write (or have some 'ghost' write) his autobiography. The title: "Sixty Years - and not a bit wise". This must have been at least some thirty five years ago.

I was still quite young then, and thought: 'Well, if Curd Juergens isn't wise at that age, he would surely mature further, and be blessed by wisdom at seventy'. Being a sanguine hedonist who ate, drank, smoked, and fornicated excessively, he didn't make it, and died at age 67 - thus, I'll never know what he would have been like at my age.

What I know is this: I wasn't wise at sixty, and I have to confess that now, at seventy, I am still as far away from being a wise man as I was in my youth...

It took me almost all my adult life to realize that in order to be sagacious when you are old you had to be already sagacious as a youngster.

Most people mistake experience for wisdom. Big mistake! Grey hair means nothing. In fact - many, if not most, grey wolves and she-wolves are fools because they always were - and, hey, I am NOT excluding myself from the pack!!

What I became during the voyage on that Ship of Fools that has been my life is a grouchy old fart, aggressive, intolerant, impatient, not too pleasant to be with, and whatnot - all rather flattering attributes I have heard from family members and close friends, people who know me well, and, incomprehensibly, still kinda like me.... :-)

As a small kid I was gentle and charming, so I was told - look at that little boy, and see what became of him:

1943
(2 1/2 years old)

Oh, the ravages...........

2011
(seventy years old)

...... of time.

Happy birthday to me - and, particularly, to my beautiful, faithful, and indulgent wife Karin, also born on a 21st of March.

Karin

Tiger Sharks - smarter than we all thought.

Tiger sharks not only look intelligent - they are intelligent.
Photo: Wolfgang Leander
Click on image to enlarge

BBC: "Some shark species make "mental maps" of their home ranges, allowing them to pin-point destinations up to 50km (30 miles) away, research suggests."

Read the whole report; it is an eye opener.

I always sensed that tiger sharks must be quite smart, but to find out that they are that intelligent is truly amazing.

When I discussed tiger sharks with Erich Ritter about four years ago, and told him about my first encounters with them, and my gut impression that these sharks seem to be especially intelligent, he said: "No, tiger sharks are not very intelligent, bull sharks are."

Well, Erich, all I can say is EHE. Don't know what that stands for? Errare humanum est, and that applies even to experts... :-)

March 2007: My first encounters with tiger sharks.

I can't believe it's only four years since I had my first encounters with the sharks I feel I have dived with all my life. I remember how totally electrified I was when I saw the first tiger shark at Tiger Beach.

Electrified and a bit apprehensive as most shark dive operators in the United States and the Bahamas would not allow freedivers to swim with sharks. Jim Abernethy, for instance, doesn't.

When I first inquired back in 2006 whether Jim would allow me to freedive on his trips, his answer was negative, and very categorically so: He told me that as a snorkeller I would be "lunch for the tigers in no time"... Jim suggested that I should get certified - well, you all know how I feel about SCUBA diving. Thus, I had to say thank you but no thank you.

Scott Smith of the Dolphin Dream was, and still is, more generous with me: I am the only client of his who has his explicit permission to freedive with the tigers and lemons of Tiger Beach.

Anyway, during my first dives with the tigers I had a short stick with me just to have something to "protect" me. Being inexperienced with tigers, I thought about Jim's grim admonition, and did not want to take any chances.

A Wolf and a Tiger - just looking curiously at each other.
Photo: Roger Horrocks
Click to enlarge

Needless to say, I realized very soon that I really didn't need the wand you can see in this picture. A lovely, extremely well composed picture, by the way.

Just watch the reflection of the tiger at the top of the image - doesn't it look as if the shark had its mouth open, "naturally" doing what a "dangerous" shark is supposed to do - having people for "lunch in no time", especially when they are snorkelling at the surface ?...

No hard feelings, Jim!! :-)

The photograph shows a truly majestic large shark, clearly interested in getting close to me, not seeing me as potential food as most people would think but just being curious to see another creature in its blue world.