The Times - UK (2020-10-15)

32 1GM Thursday October 15 2020 | the times

Wo r l d

Queen’s cousin can reclaim his palace

2005. He had never managed to win
      a court case over the ownership of his
      family’s former royal residences.
      The decision this week by the Bul-
      garian supreme court means that the
      Tsarska Bistritsa palace, in the west of
      the country, will be given back to his
      family. It was built as a hunting lodge
      in 1898 by his grandfather, Tsar Fer-
      dinand I. Three previous cases over
      the ownership of palaces, including
      the Vrana palace in Sofia, the official
      residence of King Simeon and his
      wife, Margarita, have been settled in
      favour of the Bulgarian state.

The Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty

originated in modern-day Germany

and produced the royal families of

Great Britain, Belgium, Portugal and

Bulgaria. Duke Francis of Saxe-

Coburg-Saalfeld, who lived from 1750

to 1806, was the great-great-great

grandfather of the Queen and the

great-great-great-great grandfather

of King Simeon.

Since returning to Bulgaria he has

been outspoken on political affairs.

He supported Bulgaria’s accession to

the EU in 2007 but as prime minister

failed to enact promised reforms.

A former Bulgarian tsar and distant

cousin of the Queen has won a

decades-long court battle to reclaim

one of the many palaces seized by the

communist government.

Simeon Borisov von Saxe-Coburg-

Gotha, 83, was six when he was be-

came Tsar Simeon II in 1943 and

reigned until his family’s exile in 1946.

Now known formally as King Sim-

eon II, he returned from Spain in 1996

and was prime minister from 2001 to

Bulgaria

Hannah Lucinda Smith Istanbul

The roar of a lion is as unique as a

fingerprint, scientists have discov-

ered using a new algorithm.

The technique can identify each

animal through a distinctive pattern

in the rumbling calls.

Although it had long been known

that lions had the ability to recognise

each other by their roars, even over a

distance of several miles, it was not

understood how this feat was

achieved. Using a device to gather the

full sound spectrum from lions

tracked in Zimbabwe, a team from

Oxford University’s wildlife conser-

vation research unit has been able to

pinpoint the precise aspect of the roar

that sets each animal apart.

Five male lions used in the research

were each collared with a tracker to

pinpoint their exact locations. A de-

vice called an acoustic accelerometer

was used to gather every aspect of the

sounds they generated. A lion’s roar

can be as loud as 114 decibels, about

the same level as a chainsaw.

The recordings were analysed

closely using algorithms designed by

the computer science department at

the university. When the fundamen-

tal frequency of each roar was broken

down into its “temporal pattern”, or

unique “voice prints”, the algorithm

was able to identify individual cats

with 91.5 per cent accuracy.

In later tests the researchers repli-

cated the method with uncollared

animals, this time working from re-

cordings of their roars picked up by

microphones placed in the bush.

The high level of accuracy was

achieved again after the lions’ “voice

prints” were separated from the re-

cordings. It is hoped that the discov-

ery will lead to the easier monitoring

Scientists learn how to

tell a lion by its roar

of lion numbers and movements. It

could also help to reduce friction with

communities living in wildlife areas,

where people often resort to killing

the predators to protect their live-

stock.

“African lion numbers are declin-

ing,” Andrew Loveridge, from the

Oxford team, said. “Developing cost-

effective tools for monitoring and

ultimately better protecting popula-

tions is a conservation priority.

“The ability to remotely evaluate

the number of individual lions in a

population from their roars could

revolutionise the way in which lion

populations are assessed.”

African lions are officially listed as

vulnerable meaning that their num-

bers are in decline. The current wild

population of 23,000 has declined by

about 50 per cent over the past two

decades.

The site of the research, Bubye

Valley Conservancy in western

Zimbabwe, covers an area of about

one million acres. The area is a rare

lion success story with the numbers

growing from about 20 in 1999

to a population today of more than

400.

Zimbabwe

Jane Flanagan Cape Town

An Oxford University team created

a logorithm to identify a lion’s roar

H

alf the corals

on the Great

Barrier Reef

in Australia

have died

over the past 25 years,

scientists report in a

study that says climate

change is destroying the

world’s largest living

structure (Bernard

Lagan writes).

They found that all

sizes of coral had

declined since the 1990s

but that larger species

such as branching corals

were worst affected and

had almost disappeared

from the reef ’s northern

reaches.

“The loss of big corals

is important because

they make all the

babies,” Terry Hughes,

co-author of the report

and a professor at James

Cook University, said.

The reef is home to

more than 1,500 species

of fish, 215 species of

bird and 30 species of

whale and dolphin.

Researchers said

marine heatwaves linked

to climate change had

led to a steeper

deterioration of coral.

They cited bleaching

events in 2016 and 2017

when heat stress causes

corals to die and expel

the algae that provide

their colour and energy.

The report said the

frequent bleaching gave

the corals little chance

to rebound.

“There is no

time to lose: we

must sharply

decrease

greenhouse gas

emissions,” the

paper states.

Professor

Hughes said

scientists

expected corals

to continue

dying unless

nations met the

Paris

Agreement and

kept the increase in

global average

temperature to less than

2C above pre-industrial

levels. If temperatures

do stop rising, it is hoped

that corals can recover.

In May Australia backed

a trial of 43 ways to try

to save the reef, such as

creating mist over small

reefs and shading them

by brightening clouds

using nano-sized salt

crystals. The study was

published in Proceedings

of the Royal Society

Journal.

Half of Barrier Reef ’s

corals have perished

250 miles

Cairns

Mackay

North West

Island

Townsville

AUSTRALIA

Great Barrier

Reef Marine Park

400 species

of coral

e

to

d

n

P

A

More frequent

bleaching means corals

have little chance to

recover in number

JAMES D MORGAN/GETTY IMAGES; GREG TORDA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES