Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Climate Change Hits Walden Pond

· More than a quarter of the plants that writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau wrote about in the 1840s are gone, probably because of climate change.

Scientists say 27 percent of the species that Thoreau documented at his beloved Walden Pond in Massachusetts are no longer there.

The temperature there has risen more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, scientists reported.

Plants that could not adapt to the temperature changes, including buttercups, asters, orchids, roses, saxifrages and violets, have decreased in number or disappeared.

· Two male rhinoceroses clashed at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk when a door between their dens was accidentally left open, zoo officials said. One rhino, named Rufus, was killed.

Officials said the fight between the titans of the animal kingdom occurred Sunday night or Monday morning.

According to the zoo's director, Greg Bockheim, male rhinoceroses "generally don't get along" and normally are separated.

The rhinos are about 10 feet long and about 5 1/2 feet tall. Rufus, Bockheim said, weighed about 4,500 pounds. Alfred, the other rhino, weighs slightly less.