The Meat You Eat!

Our thanks to Maneka Gandhi for permission to republish this post, whichappeared on the Web site of People for Animals, India’s largest animal-welfare organization, on September 15, 2011. Gandhi is the founder of People for Animals and a leading animal-rights and environmental activist in India.

When you bite into a hamburger or chicken sandwich, what do you think that this grass eating animal was eating before it died? Most likely it was a mixture of ground up eyeballs, anuses, bones, feathers, and euthanized dogs.

Cows in a feedlot on a dairy factory farm in Washington state, U.S.---C.A.R.E./Factoryfarm.org

Most animals that we eat spend the entirety of their short lives in factories eating recycled meat and animal fat. These herbivores have been turned into carnivores thanks to our process of “waste removal” better known as rendering.

Every day thousands of pounds of slaughterhouse waste such as brains, eyeballs, spinal cords, intestines, bones, feathers or hooves as well as restaurant grease, road kill, cats and dogs are produced. From this need for large waste disposal came the development of rendering plants. Rendering plants recycle the dead animals and their wastes into products known as bone meal, and animal fat. These products are sold to the companies that grow animals for meat or milk cattle, poultry, swine, [and] sheep and put into their feed. Each slaughterhouse has a privately owned rendering plant nearby.

These facilities operate 24 hours a day all over the world. Till the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] came to government in 1998 rendering was banned in India by the department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Ministry of Agriculture, which prohibited the use of animal byproducts in ruminant feeds (Order No.2-4/99-AHT/FF). However, the BJP, influenced by a coterie of slaughterhouse owners and interested bureaucrats, repealed this ban and India’s first rendering plants came up in 2001. No one in India knows about them—and few people in America where there are thousands of plants. They are not advertised—and for good reason. The process itself is very disturbing and those who have witnessed it have often sworn off meat for good. The rendering plant floor is piled high with “raw product”—tonnes of feet, tails, feathers, bones, spinal cords, hooves, milk sacs, grease, intestines, stomachs and eyeballs of slaughtered animals. In the heat, the piles of dead animals seem to have a life of their own as millions of maggots swarm over the carcasses.

First the raw material is cut into small pieces and then transported to another machine for fine shredding. It is then cooked at 280 degrees for one hour, melting the meat away from bones in the hot “soup.” This continuous batch cooking process goes on for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

During this cooking process, the soup produces yellow grease or tallow that rises to the top and is skimmed off. The cooked meat and bone are then sent to a hammer mill press, which squeezes out the remaining moisture and pulverizes the product into a gritty powder. Shaker screens remove excess hair and large bone chips that are unsuitable for consumption. Now recycled meat, yellow grease, and bone meal are produced and used exclusively to feed vegetarian animals.

In India no testing is done of these plants. In America and Europe state agencies spot check, yet testing for pesticides and other toxins in animal feeds is not done or is done incompletely with toxic wastes accompanying the dead animals—all of which the rendering plants do not remove. Poisoned cattle stomachs, animals that have been lying dead for weeks before being picked up, animals that have been run over by trucks, all their noxious parts are part of this. The package includes euthanasia drugs given to pets, animals with flea collars containing organophosphate insecticides, fish oil laced with DDT, heavy metals from pet ID tags, and plastics from thrown away meats. Labor costs are rising and therefore many rendering plants refuse to hire extra hands to cut off flea collars or unwrap spoiled shop meat. Every week, millions of packages of plastic-wrapped meat go through the rendering process and become one of the many unwanted ingredients in animal feed.

Even if some people do realize how animal feed is made and feel that it is still too far removed to be a concern to them, most of them do not know of the risks [that] consumption of this meat entails. Perhaps the best-known health concern associated with rendering plants is Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease. In America regulations mandate that brain and other nerve tissue be removed from cattle after they are slaughtered for human food. Yet these most infectious parts, the brain and spinal cord, are allowed to go to a rendering facility where they can be processed into pet and animal feed. This means it is possible that a cow with Mad Cow Disease can be ground up and fed to a pig or chicken that is, in turn, fed back to other cows that are eventually eaten by people. India has no regulations of any kind. Behind the scenes and out of public view, these practices are unfolding around the world putting millions of people at risk for Mad Cow Disease.

Photomicrograph of brain tissue of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), showing prominent spongiotic changes in the cortex (magnification 100X)---Teresa Hammett/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Image Number: 10131) .

Other diseases that can be contracted from rendering plant product feed include tuberculosis, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), and Alzheimer’s. All of these diseases, except Alzheimer’s, are transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases (TSEs), which means that they [...] are infectious diseases that leave the brain resembling a sponge. The process by rendering plants makes chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, cows and buffaloes into cannibals[---a] factor that has been cited as a cause of Alzheimer’s disease which did not exist in the world until this practice started. Millions of people are affected by Alzheimer’s making it one of the leading causes of death among the elderly across the globe. Scientific evidence shows that people eating meat more than four times a week for a prolonged period have a three times higher chance of suffering from dementia than vegetarians. A preliminary 1989 study at the University of Pennsylvania showed that over 5% of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s were actually dying from human spongiform encephalopathy. That means that as many as 200,000 people in the United States may already be dying from mad cow disease each year. God knows how many in India but certainly thousands more after 2001.

In India, in 2001 the BJP led Government prepared a secret position paper on the “Utilisation of Slaughter House Waste for the Preparation of Animal Feed.” This is what the report said:

India ranks topmost in the world in livestock holding and has the potential to utilize slaughterhouse by products to partly meet the growing requirement of animal feeds. The total availability of offal/bones in the country generated from large slaughterhouses is estimated to be more than 21-lakh tonnes/annum. It can also be used for the preparation of animal feeds.

The report further goes on to explain that “Presently in India, live stock feed production is cereal based. This results in livestock, especially poultry, pig and fish competing with humans for grains and cereals which can easily be replaced with slaughterhouse waste.”

The Office International des Epizooties (OIE World Organisation for Animal Health) had surveyed the risk of CJD/BSE in Asia. The report revealed that no attention had been paid to any risk analysis on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in China, India, Pakistan and seven other countries. According to OIE, significant quantities of animal feed of meat origin have been imported into Asia, which may mean that the BSE agent could have reached domestic cattle in these countries. The Report noted that “the spread of BSE through rendering plants cannot be excluded in some countries such as China, India, Japan, Pakistan and Taiwan. Therefore, much more stringent management at slaughterhouses and rendering plants, as well as extensive surveillance programmes, are required in those countries.”

The Indian companies on the Internet advertise their rendered meal as having been made from “spray-dry” machines that turn blood into a fine, brown powder (gardeners know it as blood meal); gigantic kettles that boil fat to make tallow; grinders that crush bones into minuscule fragments. Millions of tons are supplied to dairy industry, poultry farms, cattle feed-lots, pig farms, fish-feed plants, and pet-food manufacturers. Leading manufacturers of “Meal,” as they call it, are Standard Agro Vet (P) Ltd., Allanasons Ltd., Hind Agro Ltd., Al Kabeer, and Hyderabad—also the four largest private slaughterhouses in the country.

All animal feed manufacturers use meat and bone meal in their feeds. Recent reports state most domestic animals are fed such rendered animal tissues. A 1991 United States Department of agriculture report states that approximately 7.9 billion pounds of meat, bone meal, blood meal, and feather meal was produced by rendering plants in 1983. Of that amount: 12% percent was used in dairy and beef cattle feed, 34% in pet food, 34% in poultry feed and 20% in pig food. This has doubled by 2006. So has the use of animal protein in commercial dairy feed since 1987 all over the globe. Grass or cereal fed cattle and other animals are nonexistent abroad and lessening in India. BSE expert Richard Lacey states “The time bomb of the twentieth century equivalent of the bubonic plague ticks away.” Do you think Nature will forgive you for a baby chick [...] eating on what’s left of her mother after she’s been stripped down, a calf being fed on her mother’s slaughtered remains, a pig being reared on a diet of dead pigs, a goat being fed on a goat’s leftovers?

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U.S. TOPS WORLDWIDE SHARK ATTACK LIST

More shark attacks happened in the United States last year than in any other country, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File annual report, released today.

(Great White Shark; Image: SharkDiver.com)

Worldwide, shark attacks also increased, with 79 occurring in 2010, the highest since the year 2000, when sharks attacked 80 people. Shark-related fatalities for last year were also above average, with six deaths reported.

The news might have been even worse in shark-popular spots like Florida, were it not for the lousy economy.

“Florida had its lowest total since 2004, which was 12,” said ichthyologist George Burgess in a press release.

“Maybe it’s a reflection of the downturn in the economy and the number of tourists coming to Florida, or the amount of money native Floridians can spend taking holidays and going to the beach," added Burgess, who is director of the file housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus.

 Shark Attacks: What Are the Odds?

Although Florida's number of shark attacks declined in 2010, the state still led the U.S., with 13 reported attacks. Twenty-three other attacks happened in these other states:

North Carolina: 5

California: 4

Hawaii: 4

South Carolina: 4

Georgia: 1

Maine: 1

Oregon: 1

Texas: 1

Virginia: 1

Washington: 1

Outside of the U.S., the following countries also experienced shark attacks in 2010:

Australia: 14

South Africa: 8

Vietnam: 6

Egypt: 6

Egypt is noteworthy because five of its six attacks, which included one fatality, all happened during early December and were attributed to just two sharks. The attacks occurred within a 5-day period.

“This was a situation that was hugely unusual by shark-attack standards,” said Burgess, who has researched sharks at the museum for more than 35 years. “It was probably the most unusual shark incident of my career.”

He thinks a combination of natural and human factors contributed to the attacks in the Red Sea. These include higher than normal water temperatures caused by an unusually hot summer, international livestock traders dumping sheep carcasses into the water, and divers feeding reef fishes and sharks.

“The reality is, going into the sea is a wilderness experience,” he said. “You’re visiting a foreign environment -- it’s not a situation where you’re guaranteed success.”

With that in mind, it might not be such a good time to swim off the coast of Florida, where 100,000 sharks were recently spotted swimming close to shore. Helicopter pilot Steve Irwin, who saw the sharks, believes they were spinner sharks, which received that name because of their unusual method of feeding. They swim rapidly through schools, spinning along the axis of their bodies and sometimes leaping out of the water.

 Shark Attack Victims Still Fighting to Save Sharks

Here's video footage showing the sharks:

Irwin couldn't believe so many spinner sharks were together near Florida.

"It was an truly amazing sight," he told the Daily Mail. "I've been a fisherman for 20 years and I also kayak out there and it's common to see them twist and turn and shoot through the air. They're prevalent at this time of year but what amazed me was the sheer numbers of them. There were tens of thousands of them -- I'd say maybe 100,000."

Irwin added: "I kept on flying for about 20 miles and they just kept on coming. It's common to see large predatory sharks come in and feed on schools of bait-fish - the odd thing was I didn't see any bait-fish at all!"

If you wish to avoid becoming shark bait yourself, take particular care if you surf. Surfers were the victims of slightly more than half of the incidents reported in 2010, nearly 51 percent of the cases. Swimmers and waders were the second-largest group affected, accounting for nearly 38 percent of the shark attacks internationally.

Burgess believes there are simple ways to reduce the possibility of a shark attack, such as avoiding fishing areas and inlets where sharks gather and leaving the water when a shark is sighted.

Even with the rise in shark attacks and fatalities, the number of sharks killed by humans each year is staggering, with 30 to 70 million sharks killed by fisheries alone.

“One-on-one in the sea, the sharks are going to win in a confrontation with humans if they really want to do so,” Burgess said. “But out of the sea, we can sit high and dry with a beer in our hand, put a line overboard and catch the fiercest animal in the sea.”

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CYCLOPS SHARK APPEARS TO BE LEGIT

(Image: Pisces Sportfishing)

The 'Cyclops shark' that went viral on the net a few months ago appears to be a legitimate one-eyed dusky shark fetus, according to LiveScience and numerous other media reports.

When photos of the shark first surfaced in the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing blog, at Facebook, and at other high traffic spots, many people thought the images were too bizarre to depict anything legitimate. The cute little bug-eyed individual looks more like a happy cartoon character than a real shark, especially when its mouth is held open.

BLOG: Surfer Stands on Great White Shark Instead of Board

But National Geographic shares that two scientists from the Interdisciplinary Center of Marine Sciences in La Paz, Mexico, have studied the specimen and have determined it's a 22-inch-long dusky shark fetus with a single, functioning eye that's front and center on its head.

The fetus was discovered after fisherman Enrique Lucero León "legally caught" a pregnant dusky shark near Cerralvo Island in the Gulf of California.

Biologist Felipe Galván-Magaña of the center in La Paz told National Geographic that when León sliced open his catch, he found the odd-looking male embryo along with nine normal siblings. "He said, That's incredible -- wow," according to Galván-Magaña.

Galván-Magaña and colleague Marcela Bejarano-Álvarez are ready to release a paper documenting their research. I haven't seen it yet, but apparently the scientists X-rayed the fetus and reviewed previous studies on cyclopia. If you click on that last hyperlink, you'll see images of a human baby with the disorder, characterized by one eye and often other facial problems.

THE DISCOVERNATOR: Amazing Facts Served Up Hot

Puppies and kittens born with cyclopia usually die after just a day or so. The fate of the Cyclops shark was also probably sealed, even before León caught its mother.

Jim Gelsleichter, a shark biologist at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, said that no sharks with cyclopia have been caught outside of the womb, indicating that if such sharks do enter the world, their time here is extremely short.

Most sharks receive very little mothering and have to fend for themselves from day 1. This little one-eyed individual, once born, likely could not have fended for itself in the wild.

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MARIACHI BAND SERENADES MUSIC-LOVING BELUGA WHALE

A playful beluga whale named Juno recently interacted with a mariachi band that played at a wedding held at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. Check out the video:

Kelly O'Neil, senior trainer of beluga whales at the aquarium, told me that Juno was hanging out in his 750,000-gallon tank when the wedding festivities began. Juno shares the tank with two other female beluga whales.

The whales can choose to go up to the window, to watch any human happenings, or they can retreat to quiet, private areas, which include two back pools that are out of sight.

"Juno is extremely playful, so the mariachi band must have piqued his curiosity," O'Neil said. "The two females might have stayed away since he was hogging the window."

Beluga whales are known as the "canaries of the sea," due to their musical vocalizations. (You can listen to some in this beautiful clip.) O'Neil said the whales can hear outside of their tank, when they get up to the window, so there's little doubt that Juno was aware of the music.

He is also clearly aware of the mariachi players' movements, even dancing along with them as he mirrors their head bobs and sways.

O'Neil said Juno was previously trained to move his head up and down, as well as from side to side, so these motions are familiar to him. (No trainer was coaching Juno during the mariachi moment.) For enrichment outside of training sessions, the whales are additionally exposed to all sorts of different things, from bubbles to TV shows (I hope they're watching Discovery!) just to keep the whales engaged and entertained. They have active minds that need stimulation.

In the wild, beluga whales are "curious from afar" and "skittish," O'Neil said. It's no wonder. Our hunting of them and harming of their habitat has reduced their populations in the wild. The IUCN Red List classifies them as "near threatened."

Juno and his tank buddies, however, are doing their part to help turn the tide. Through public education programs at such aquariums and other conservation efforts, people like us are made more aware of these magnificent, intelligent animals.

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PHOTOS SHOW FISHERMAN CATCHING GREAT WHITE SHARK

(All Images: Oceans Research)

Although great white sharks are protected in South Africa, fishermen are still brazenly catching them, suggest graphic photographs taken of one such incident on Friday, October 14.

On that day, concerned members of the community at Beacon Point in Mossel Bay witnessed a fisherman in the process of catching a great white shark and hauling it onto the rocks. There are instances where this species is inadvertently hooked, but the fishermen by law must remove the hook and immediately release the protected shark back into the water.

BLOG: Cyclops Shark Appears to Be Legit

In this case, Oceans Research scientist Ryan Johnson saw something quite different, according to a press release issued by the South Africa-based conservation group. After rushing down to the location, Johnson watched as the fisherman posed with the bleeding shark for photographs being taken by two companions.

Meanwhile, Enrico Gennari, another Oceans Research scientist, telephoned the local fisheries inspector from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The inspector assured Gennari that he would come to the site, located just over 1/2 mile from his office.

With no inspector evident up to 20 minutes after the call, Johnson directly confronted the fisherman and informed him that he was breaking the law, that the great white is a protected species, and asked the fisherman to move away from the injured shark to enable Johnson to return it to the ocean.

With the help of a concerned bystander, Johnson did just that, which was no easy task, as you might imagine. They had to wait for large enough swells to arrive and take some of the shark's weight. (Adult great whites can weigh well over 4,000 pounds.)

You can see much of what happened to the shark in the following images:

Following release into the water, the shark rolled onto its side, righted itself, bumped into a rock and swam out of sight. According to the scientists, it is impossible to know whether the shark will survive.

As the fisherman started to leave, Johnson noticed that all of the man's gear appeared to be designed for shark and other large prey capture. Since the compliance officer never showed up during the 20 minutes while the fisherman and his pals packed up and left, they got away.

NEWS: Humans May Be to Blame for Shark Attacks

Great white sharks are protected, so clearly there's a law enforcement problem, but Johnson believes there's more to it than that.

"The difficulty in prosecuting and investigating such cases is that fisherman officially claim that they are not targeting white sharks (when questioned) despite unofficially admitting they are targeting white sharks in social media sites such as Facebook," he was quoted as saying in the Oceans Research press release.

"Despite being equipped with tackle designed to capture sharks as large as white sharks, fishing in locations that are known great white aggregation sites, the authorities claim that 'intent' cannot be sufficiently established to lead to a successful prosecution."

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Shark Week Starts Early on Martha’s Vineyard

Show me your teeth. Photo: Stephen Frink/Corbis.

Nothing says “terror” like great white sharks and tourists. Especially when they’re at the beach together. And this week at beaches near Martha’s Vineyard, where the film Jaws was filmed, and Cape Cod the visitors must be able to practically hear the dun-dun-dun of the theme music and the tight-lipped surliness of Cap’n Quint’s ghost floating through the air of the otherwise quaint New England area.

Great whites hit the Vineyard and surrounds each summer to eat, but, according to Discovery News, “a particularly large gray seal population” put out an all-you-can-eat sign at Monomoy Beach, a spit off of the Cape. According to the article:

“Gray seals have a lot of blubber and meat, so they are a high efficiency preferred menu item of great white sharks,” New England Aquarium spokesperson Tony LaCasse told Discovery News. “Somehow the word is out in the great white world that this is the place to be…Humans are not on their menu because we are a completely inefficient meal, since great white sharks are looking for maximum calories per kill.”

Oh. Phew. I feel much safer now. And I’m sure the tourists do, too. Though if they go in the water, they’ll probably want to bring a harpoon. And, uh, a bigger boat.

Shark Week starts on Discovery Channel on July 31! Get a sneak peak of the action with these videos.
Follow Meaghan on Twitter for more stories like this.

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Everything You Need to Know About National Parks

Yellowstone National Park. Image courtesy National Park Service

How National Parks Work

Imagine for a moment that you’re hiking around Indiana Dunes National Park. You’re slipping around in black sand dunes on trails that wind along wetland bogs. Prehistoric-looking ferns and rare, endangered wildflowers of every type stretch as far as the eye can see. Old, bent black oak trees spring up around you from the sand, creating the feel of a fairy tale forest.

When you reach the top, the land opens up to reveal rolling, naked dunes that gently slope down to the sandy shores of Lake Michigan. You smile, because you know that without the intervention of dedicated people, this pristine shoreline might easily have become just another strip mall or the site of another steel mill, like the two that already flank the park. You’re happy because you can tangibly enjoy something that the government has provided for you.

National parks are here to preserve. They represent the best of what any nation has to offer — from interesting land formations, endangered species and dynamic ecosystems, to historical artifacts and cave paintings. National parks are here to remind us of the rich diversity that our world has to offer. They help us celebrate past cultures and function as living laboratories for scientists, botanists, archaeologists and any curious visitor in search of something new.

Do you know the name of the oldest national park in the world? Find out next.

WATCH: DISCOVER OUR NATIONAL PARKS

U.S. National Parks

What does it take to make a national park in the United States? It takes an act of Congress. However, it also takes thousands of years of nature flexing its creative muscles to form sky-piercing mountains, glittering caves, wandering waterways and fragile ecosystems in which only certain animals can survive. On March 1, 1872, Congress and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant became the first to officially recognize that some areas of the country are simply too precious to develop. It was this day that Yellowstone National Park was established, making it the first, and therefore the oldest, national park in the world. By becoming federal property, this land officially became the property of the people of the United States as a place to visit, enjoy and cherish. Soon after, other countries around the world began to establish their own parks and protected wildlife areas.

Today, the U.S. National Parks Service is operated by the Department of the Interior. The entire system of national parks includes 385 areas and covers more than 84 million acres.

Some of the best-known parks in the U.S. are Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Denali and Yosemite. Together, these parks cover 8,939,372 acres of land across six states. They include the country’s deepest gorge, the highest peak, the most active geysers and some of the most beautiful waterfalls. But these parks are just the tip of the iceberg.

The U.S. approaches park creation from many different standpoints. Each and every park in the country was chosen and set aside for some unique quality that makes it indispensable and interesting. The U.S. National Parks System celebrates and preserves the birthplaces of great presidents, monuments to national victories and the workplaces of artists. They protect coral reefs from destruction and demonstrate the majesty of active glacier systems. Some parks are living laboratories that house important areas for biodiversity, mating grounds, rare plants or scientific study of species. These types of national parks may seem unexciting and they’re not especially popular to visit, but they are of national importance. Some parks are important for preserving and spreading the cultural history of Native Americans, while others are just so stunningly beautiful that to not protect them would be a crime. No matter what, the national parks of the U.S. exist to remind people of the beauty and diversity of a country that is often overlooked.

Obviously, the U.S. isn’t the only country with a national park system. Keep reading to find out where some of the most interesting national parks in the world are located and discover what makes them so special.

National Parks Worldwide

Forget about visiting the world’s largest ball of twine. Well, maybe not. Just try to do it on your way to Romanafana National Park in Madagascar to see the rainforests and endangered aye-ayes.

The national parks of the world offer activities for every type of enthusiast, not just hikers and campers. Bird watchers, for example, can find nearly half of Europe’s migrating bird population in Doñana National Park in Spain. Mountainclimbers can explore the peaks of Northern Japan and China, and of course Sagamartha National Park in Nepal — home to Mount Everest.

Adventurous SCUBA divers — those who aren’t afraid to get a little cold, anyway — can enjoy Fathom Five National Marine Park of Canada, a freshwater marine park that protects 22 historical shipwrecks in Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. For divers who like their water a bit warmer and their wildlife a bit more dangerous,Great Barrier Reef National Park in Australia houses box jellyfish, great white sharks and crocodiles. Of course, not all the wildlife there will try to eat or poison you. The Great Barrier Reef is also home to dugongs, whales, whale sharks, dolphins, turtles and a spectacular array of coral and other plant life.

Every country approaches the creation of its national parks in different ways. China, India and Japan approach park creation from a religious standpoint. They want to protect the lands their ancestors viewed as sacred, as well as historical shrines and other revered spots. These countries also happen to be densely populated and therefore work out their park creation with the people who live there. Japan, being a small island with a large population, allows people to own land in national parks with the agreement that they will keep the parklands clean and allow others to enjoy the area. Parks in North America face this problem as well. Many parks buy the land surrounding existing residences and businesses and then expect the residents to abide by park rules.

Africa approaches park creation from a wildlife protection standpoint. The endangered species of Africa are some of the world’s most famous: lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, hippopotami, monkeys, zebras, gorillas — the list could go on and on. All live on this rich and fertile landscape. Unfortunately, these animals are in constant danger from poachers and land development. The African government created its national parks in an attempt to control these problems and save their natural resources. The same can be said for the Galapagos Islands Parks, Peruvian Rainforests (Manu National Park) and many more throughout the world.

Up next, find out how national parks throughout the world are cooperating to solve international problems.

National Parks Working Together

Whenever land ownership and government come together, there are bound to be issues as to how people feel that the land should be used. Every park has its problems. Some have to fight seemingly constant wildfires, while others have to stop endless threats by poachers. Others, however, are embroiled in politics. Surprisingly, this can often have a positive impact.

The parks services of several countries often come together to solve international problems. The U.S., Mexico and Canada, for example, use the National Parks System to help regulate problems such as border control and inter-boundary pollution. For example, national park systems in these countries work together to locate disrespectful park visitors who camp in one area and dump trash into rivers and streams that flow from one country to the next. Additionally, parks on boundary lines, such as Rio Grande National Park in Texas and Glacier National Park in Montana, carefully observe the visitors coming in and out of the park grounds. In this way, they are able to control those who might be violating the country’s immigration policy.

Other countries work together in surprising ways. While some may not know it, the Middle East contains a rich and diverse ecosystem. The Red Sea region of Saudi Arabia houses juniper forests, carpets of wildflowers, mountains, pristine sea shores and a bevy of interesting wildlife, like baboons, red foxes and hyraxes. The U.S. parks service worked with Saudi Arabia in 1979 to create Asir National Park to protect these areas. This was a long time before international conflict between the Middle East and the U.S.; however, these two regions continue to work together to scout lands viable for parks in the Middle East. Current projects exist between the U.S. National Park Service, Jordan and Qatar for preservation of natural and historical sites.

In other parts of the world, parks have been used to keep the peace nationally. In Australia, for example, most of the lands of Kakadu National Park belong to Aboriginal tribes who lease their land to the government. They say that the government can use the land, as long as it preserves the Aboriginal culture and teaches visitors about it. This is exciting, since this national park provides evidence of human life from 30,000 years ago. Similarly, the Maori tribes of New Zealand have donated land for Tongariro National Park as a way to ensure continued respect for their sacred national volcanoes and preservation of their culture.

Are you interested in visiting a national park? Possibly spending a few evenings sleeping under the stars?

Camping in National Parks

National parks are great places to get back to nature and flex your pioneering prowess. Parks have different camping areas ranging from recreational vehicle (RV) sites with water and electrical hookups to primitive camping sites which might include a fire circle, a bench and a place to pitch a tent. Many parks also have backwoods areas that must be hiked to and take no reservations. Some areas are known as national recreational areas. Many of these have places where camping, fishing, kayaking, canoeing, rafting and other sports are allowed. These parks will often provide equipment rentals or special guides.

Adventurers interested in backcountry wilderness hiking and camping should abide by a few safety rules. First, always tell park rangers that you’re heading into the wilderness, the areas you expect to explore and how long you expect to be gone. Even more importantly, tell your friends and family. Many rescue teams won’t assume that you need help until someone close to you reports that you’ve been away longer than expected. Another safety tip is to always camp on high, level ground away from water sources. A rainstorm upstream from you, for example, can cause a flash flood along a river with no notice — even if the weather is perfect downstream. Also, remember to hike and camp only to your abilities. For example, if you’re experienced only at RV camping, then maybe heading out to the Alaskan wilderness to try and trap your own food and survive on nuts and berries isn’t the best idea.

­ Making fires in a national park is a sensitive topic. If you’re camping in a more populated area, fires are permitted only in designated grills or fire areas. If you’re camping in the back country, you should make fires only in wind-sheltered areas with water or sand nearby so that you can remain in control. Make your own fire ring with rocks and sand or moist earth to prevent spreading, and never make fires near dry grass or wood. While natural fires caused by lightening can rid the area of dead or diseased trees, fertilize the soil and encourage growth of certain plants, one careless match by a human in the wrong place can wipe out entire ecosystems and species

National Parks belong to the national governments of the countries where they’re located. This means that the national parks belong to the citizens of those countries. It’s the responsibility of the governments and of the citizens to use these parks respectfully and not to abuse the privilege of these lands. While every park varies in its rules and regulations, there is one prevailing rule of respect: Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints.

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