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Spotted softshell turtle release boosts reptile conservation in Vietnam
- The rewilding of 50 captive-bred spotted softshell turtles has sparked hope among conservationists for the future of the rare and threatened species in Vietnam, a country where softshell turtles are widely considered a culinary delicacy.
- Described by scientists as recently as 2019, the species is considered critically endangered throughout its range in China and Southeast Asia due to hunting for human consumption and habitat loss.
- The reintroduction of the young turtles is the first rewilding of offspring reared at a dedicated turtle conservation breeding facility in northern Vietnam to safeguard Vietnam’s rare and threatened amphibian and reptile species.
- Turtle conservationists say that while it will be a long and perilous road to recovery for the species in Vietnam amid persistent threats, the work to preserve the species is a positive step toward changing people’s view of freshwater turtles as primarily a food item and curbing hunting pressure not only on this species, but many others as well.
Comeback on the cards for Asian antelope declared extinct in Bangladesh
- Nilgais, the largest antelope species in Asia, are reappearing in northwestern Bangladesh, a country that was part of their historical range but where they were declared locally extinct in the 1930s due to habitat loss and hunting.
- Forays by nilgais, mostly from neighboring India but also from Nepal, suggest that the species can be reestablished in parts of Bangladesh that still have sufficient areas of undisturbed natural landscape.
- A 2023 study identified 13 instances of nilgai sightings in the country from 2018-2022 from media reports, but it’s likely that most sightings are going unreported because they end up in local residents catching and killing the antelopes for their meat.
- Experts say any attempt to reestablish a nilgai population within Bangladesh’s borders should be carried out in tandem with a public education campaign to discourage the hunting of the animal.
African Parks to rewild 2,000 rhinos from controversial breeding program
- African Parks, which manages national parks in several countries across the continent, announced it has purchased Platinum Rhino, John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding project
- The conservation organization plans to rewild all 2,000 southern white rhinos in Hume’s project, following a framework to be developed by independent experts.
- The biggest challenge African Parks will face is finding safe spaces to translocate 300 rhinos to every year, as poaching the animals for their horns shows little sign of diminishing.
Kordofan giraffes face local extinction in 15 years if poaching continues
- According to a recent study, losing two Kordofan giraffes each year would lead to local extinction of the subspecies within Cameroon’s Bénoué National Park in just 15 years.
- The study found that antipoaching measures are the most effective way to prevent extinction, including robust patrols by guards, strengthening law enforcement, and providing sustainable livelihoods to people living around the park.
- Kordofan giraffes are a critically endangered subspecies with an estimated 2,300 individuals remaining, of which fewer than 300 are found in Bénoué National Park.
- The authors also stress the importance of identifying, restoring and protecting wilderness corridors to connect populations of giraffes across the region.
World’s largest private rhino herd doesn’t have a buyer — or much of a future
- Controversial rhino breeder John Hume recently put his 1,999 southern white rhinos up for auction as he can no longer afford the $9,800 a day running costs — but no buyers have come forward so far.
- Hume’s intensive and high-density approach is undoubtedly effective at breeding rhinos, but with the main issue currently a shortage of safe space for rhino rather than a shortage of rhino, the project’s high running costs and concerns over rewilding captive-bred rhino make its future uncertain.
- Platinum Rhino’s financial issues reflect a broader debate around how to move forward with rhino conservation and the role that private owners have to play when the financial costs of rhino ownership far outweigh the returns.
- Update: The nonprofit conservation organization African Parks has moved to buy the rhinos and reintroduce them to the wild.
Birds in Bangladesh find a new lease of life in community-run sanctuaries
- There are around 100 community-based bird sanctuaries across Bangladesh, built through the initiative of local bird lovers, and backed by local authorities and NGOs.
- The Bangladesh Forest Department has so far demarcated 24 wildlife sanctuaries catering to different types of wildlife species, from mammals and reptiles, to amphibians and birds.
- Bangladesh is the home to 714 bird species, more than half of them native and the rest migratory.
- Native bird populations have declined significantly in the past 30 years, from an estimated 800,000 birds in 1994, to 233,000 in 2017, and 163,000 in 2018.
Nepal’s wild yaks ‘need more conservation than research’: Q&A with Naresh Kusi
- In July, researchers Naresh Kusi and Geraldine Werhahn spotted three wild yaks in Nepal, where sightings are rare and the animal was once thought to have gone extinct.
- Kusi spoke with Mongabay about the significance of the sightings of this iconic bovine’s distribution in the region and the need for conservation.
- Wild yaks (Bos mutus) are considered the ancestor of the domesticated yak (Bos grunniens) and hold an important place in the region’s culture and history.
Poaching surges in the birthplace of white rhino conservation
- Poaching has more than doubled this year in South Africa’s Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, the birthplace of white rhino conservation.
- Conservationists say poaching syndicates have turned their attention to this and other parks in KwaZulu-Natal province because rhino numbers in Kruger National Park, the previous epicenter of rhino poaching, have been drastically reduced, and private reserves around Kruger are dehorning their animals.
- Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is a very challenging game reserve for anti-poaching patrols to defend, exacerbated by leadership issues in Ezemvelo, the government body responsible for managing KwaZulu-Natal’s conservation areas.
- Unless more is done to tackle the wider issue of the illegal wildlife trade, the future looks bleak for the rhinos of HIP.
Afro-Colombian community safeguards pristine oceans with new protected area
- The newly designated Isla Ají marine protected area covers over a total of 24,600 hectares (60,800 acres) of coastal, terrestrial and marine ecosystems on Colombia’s Pacific coast.
- The Naya River Delta, where the protected area is located, is home to a variety of diverse ecosystems, from tropical forests to beaches, mudflats to mangrove forests.
- The new marine protected area contributes to Colombia’s goal of conserving 30% of its surface by 2030, part of a larger global commitment made by around 70 countries to promote biodiversity through the creation of protected areas.
- Many of the communities near Isla Ají hope to transition to ecotourism to fulfill their conservation goals, but investment is still in its early stages.
Mapping threats to land mammals, amphibians and birds: study
- A recent study uses data from the IUCN Red List of endangered species to map where threats to terrestrial mammals, birds, and amphibians occur at a global scale.
- The six major threats to biodiversity addressed in the study are agriculture, climate change, hunting and trapping, invasive species, logging, and pollution. There are large areas of the globe in which animals have more than a 50% chance of encountering these threats.
- Globally, agriculture is the greatest threat to terrestrial amphibians, mammals, and birds combined. Hunting and trapping are the most prevalent threat for terrestrial birds and mammals.
- All six of the major threats to biodiversity occur at a high prevalence in Southeast Asia, particularly the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, as well as Madagascar, where they put mammals, birds, and amphibians at risk.
Congo’s bongos are in danger, and curbs on trophy hunting could save them
- Unsustainable hunting quotas could drive a rare African antelope to extinction in one corner of the Republic of Congo, a study by the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society has found.
- There are fewer than 30,000 bongos left today, inhabiting wooded expanses south of the Sahara in Africa, including in the Republic of Congo, which allows commercial hunting of these prized ungulates.
- The country’s hunting allotment of 15 adult males a year, at the time of the study, could lead to their disappearance within 25 years from the Bonio hunting concession, researchers say.
- Apart from trophy hunting, disease outbreaks, habitat loss and unregulated hunting also menace the eastern bongos of Congo.
Road construction imperils tree kangaroo recovery in PNG
- The Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a wide variety of wildlife, including three species of tree kangaroos.
- Recently, construction of a road that could potentially be used by loggers has pushed closer to the border of a proposed conservation area that, if gazetted, would be the country’s second-largest.
- The Tenkile Conservation Alliance, a Papua New Guinean NGO, has worked with communities for around two decades in the Torricellis with the goal of improving the lives of humans and wildlife living in the mountains.
- Now, the group’s leaders fear that the road could jeopardize a tenuous recovery by several of the area’s threatened tree kangaroo species.
Reptile traffickers trawl scientific literature, target newly described species
- The descriptions and locations of new reptile species featured in scientific literature are frequently being used by traders to quickly hunt down, capture and sell these animals, allowing them to be monetized for handsome profits and threatening biodiversity.
- New reptile species are highly valued by collectors due to their novelty, and often appear on trade websites and at trade fairs within months after their first description in scientific journals.
- In the past 20 years, the Internet, combined with the ease and affordability of global travel, have made the problem of reptile trafficking rampant. Some taxonomists now call for restricted access to location information for the most in demand taxa such as geckos, turtles and pythons.
- Once a new species has been given CITES protection (typically a lengthy process), traders often keep the reptiles in “legal” commercial circulation by making false claims of “captive breeding” in order to launder wild-caught animals.
Study suggests the Tasmanian tiger survived into the 21st century
- The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, most likely went extinct in the late 1990s or early 2000s, and could still persist in the most remote parts of the island, according to new research that is still undergoing peer review.
- More than 1,200 records of sightings and physical evidence from 1910 up to 2019 were collected and collated by scientists at the University of Tasmania and used to model where and when the thylacine is likely to have persisted.
- This study challenges the accepted consensus that the thylacine went extinct in the decade or two after the last known individual died in Hobart Zoo in 1936.
- The authors say they believe their novel method for using citizen science could be applied to help find other species either believed to be extinct or known to be extremely rare.
Hope and peace: Bison return to the Rosebud reservation
- The Sicangu Lakota Oyate, the Native nation living on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota, released 100 American bison onto part of an 11,300-hectare (28,000-acre) pasture.
- The project is a collaboration between the Sicangu Oyate’s economic arm, REDCO, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and WWF.
- Over the next five years, the leaders of the Wolakota Buffalo Range project hope to expand the herd to 1,500 buffalo, which would make it the largest owned by a Native nation.
Bug bites: Edible insect production ramps up quickly in Madagascar
- In the last two years, two insect farming projects have taken off in Madagascar as a way to provide precious protein while alleviating pressure on lemurs and other wild animals hunted for bushmeat.
- One program, which promotes itself with a deck of playing cards, encourages rainforest residents in the northeast to farm a bacon-flavored native planthopper called sakondry.
- Another program focuses on indoor production of crickets in the capital city, Antananarivo.
- Both projects are on the cusp of expanding to other parts of the country.
Bushmeat hunting: The greatest threat to Africa’s wildlife?
- Protected area managers in many countries across Africa say that bushmeat hunting is the biggest threat they face.
- Bushmeat hunting is a complex issue that is closely linked to development and is influenced by a diverse range of factors that vary from place to place.
- Zoonotic diseases have become an issue of global concern amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the bushmeat trade seen as a possible source of new infections.
- Despite its perceived threat to African wildlife, there’s not as much research being funded to look into the bushmeat trade as there is for higher-profile threats such as ivory and rhino horn poaching.
Does trophy hunting hurt giraffe populations? A planned lawsuit says it does
- Conservation groups are suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to respond to a petition seeking protection for giraffes under the nation’s Endangered Species Act, a move that would severely limit the import and trade of giraffe trophies and other giraffe products.
- Between 2006 and 2015, trophy hunters legally imported 3,744 giraffe hunting trophies, as well as thousands of giraffe parts and products such as skin pieces, bones and bone carvings.
- While some conservationists say trophy hunting is having a large impact on the global giraffe population, others say it is not a major threat, especially when compared to other issues such as poaching, human-wildlife conflict, and habitat loss and fragmentation.
The ‘Cougar Conundrum’: Q&A with author Mark Elbroch
- In a new book, The Cougar Conundrum: Sharing the World with a Successful Predator, wildlife biologist Mark Elbroch explores the polarizing debate around mountain lions in the United States.
- Elbroch is the puma program director for Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization.
- Mountain lion behavior has long been cloaked in mystery and mythology. Still, recent research has revealed a complex portrait of the mountain lion (Puma concolor) and its role in the landscape.
- Elbroch argues for moving past the entrenchment around how to manage mountain lions and for a more inclusive debate incorporating the views of a larger proportion of society.
Is Chinese investment driving a sharp increase in jaguar poaching?
- A 200-fold increase in the number of trafficked dead jaguars seized by authorities in Central and South America between 2012 and 2018 has been reported in a new study.
- Researchers suggest the major surge in the trade may be facilitated by Chinese investment networks in Latin America.
- Corruption and low incomes in source countries also are likely a significant factor boosting trafficking.
- Acting on the paper’s findings, initiatives organized by nations, states, municipalities, NGOs, universities and research institutes could help improve collaborative regional efforts to combat the illicit trade.
Traversing Russia’s remote taiga in pursuit of the Blakiston’s fish owl
- The Blakiston’s fish owl is the world’s largest owl, ranging from the eastern woodlands of Hokkaido, Japan, to the Primorye territory in the south of Russia’s Far East.
- The species is endangered, with only 1,500 to 3,700 fish owls remaining in the wild.
- In his new, just published book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, biologist Jonathan Slaght chronicles his experiences and misadventures as an American researcher in Siberia, while also revealing the fish owl’s fascinating secret world.
- To protect the fish owl, Slaght and his Russian colleagues advocate for limiting road access into high biodiversity areas in Siberia.
The Large-antlered muntjac — Southeast Asia’s mystery deer (Commentary)
- 12 species of muntjac, the so-called barking deer because of its unique auditory calls, are found only in Asia. The Large-antlered muntjac is Critically Endangered with members of its scant, rarely seen population inhabiting the rugged Annamites Range bordering the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Vietnam and Cambodia.
- One of the biggest dangers to muntjacs is snaring, a hunting method used widely across Indochina. No one knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands of snares clutter Southeast Asia. But rangers in one Cambodian national park found 27,714 snares in 2015 alone — 7 snares per square kilometer, or 17.5 per square mile.
- If muntjacs are to be preserved, greater public awareness of their plight is required. On Vietnam’s Dalat Plateau and in Lao’s Nakai–Nam Theun National Protected Area, conservation appears possible, and scientists hope to garner better population density estimates in relation to the snaring threat. Captive breeding may be needed.
- This story is the second in a series by biologist Joel Berger written in conjunction with colleagues in an effort to make seriously endangered animals far better known to the public. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Brazilian Amazon drained of millions of wild animals by criminal networks: Report
- A new 140-page report is shining a bright light on illegal wildlife trafficking in the Brazilian Amazon. The study finds that millions of birds, tropical fish, turtles, and mammals are being plucked from the wild and traded domestically or exported to the U.S, EU, China, the Middle East and elsewhere. Many are endangered.
- This illicit international trade is facilitated by weak laws, weak penalties, inadequate government record keeping, poor law enforcement — as well as widespread corruption, bribery, fraud, forgery, money laundering and smuggling.
- While some animals are seized, and some low-level smugglers are caught, the organizers of this global criminal enterprise are rarely brought to justice.
- The report notes that this trafficking crisis needs urgent action, as the trade not only harms wildlife, but also decimates ecosystems and puts public health at risk. The researchers point out that COVID-19 likely was transmitted to humans by trafficked animals and that addressing the Brazilian Amazon wildlife trade could prevent the next pandemic.
New study quantifies impact of hunting on migratory shorebird populations
- Hunting might be a major threat for thousands of migratory shorebirds in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), one of the major corridors for migratory birds in the world.
- A new study shows that hunting has contributed to the demise of at least a third of migratory shorebirds in the flyway since the 1970s.
- The flyway, which spans 22 countries from the Arctic to Australia, is the most threatened flyway among the nine migratory bird corridors in the world, with habitat loss and climate change the main drivers of the plummeting population.
- Around 50 million waterbirds pass through the flyway on an annual basis, but recent data shows a 61% decline in migrating waterbird species.
Amazon river dolphin risks extinction if Brazil moratorium not renewed
- The Amazon river dolphin (also known as the pink river dolphin, or boto) is the largest of the world’s freshwater dolphins. It lives in the Amazon and Orinoco river systems.
- For years, the dolphin’s populations, though protected in Brazil, trended downward, halving every decade there, as poachers hunted the animals, using their fatty blubber as bait to catch a carnivorous catfish known as the piracatinga, which is drawn to the scent of rotting flesh.
- In 2015, the government of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff tried to curb this chronic criminal behavior and protect the dolphins by introducing a five-year moratorium on catching piracatinga.
- Early in 2020 that moratorium lapsed and scientists urged its quick renewal to prevent the Amazon river dolphin from going extinct. UPDATE: Within days of this Mongabay story being published, Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture announced that the piracatinga moratorium will be extended for one year starting 1 July.
Spiny lobsters raise an undersea racket that can be heard miles away
- European spiny lobsters can create a sound that might, under the right conditions, be detectable up to 3 kilometers, nearly 2 miles, away.
- Researchers used underwater microphones to determine how loud lobsters are, and found that the larger the lobster, the louder the sound.
- Spiny lobsters were overharvested in the 1970s, and though populations have rebounded, there is still a need to monitor population levels.
- The study suggests that lobsters may be a candidate for acoustic monitoring.
Coronavirus is a crisis for South Africa’s captive lions, campaigners warn
- Captive lions in South Africa could face starvation or euthanization as tourist revenues disappear amid the COVD-19 pandemic, according to animal welfare groups.
- Conservationists argue that the pandemic illustrates why exploitation of wildlife is risky: in the case of lions, the big cats can carry both tuberculosis and the feline equivalent of HIV.
- Industry representatives say animal rights groups have destabilized the lion-breeding business by misrepresenting it.
As pangolin trade heats up, Nigeria urged to do more to crack down
- Authorities seized 113 tonnes of pangolin scales originating in Nigeria between 2016 and 2019, more than half of global seizures.
- Enforcement and prosecution of laws against wildlife trafficking remains weak, say experts, who emphasize the need to treat the matter as a transnational crime rather than as a conservation issue.
- Training of Nigerian officials and exchanges with their customs counterparts in destination countries including China and Vietnam are expected to improve intelligence sharing and curb trafficking.
The next great threat to Brazil’s golden lion tamarin: Yellow fever
- Once critically endangered due to extremely high levels of poaching, the golden lion tamarin — a primate endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest — was down to just a few hundred by the 1980s, holding out in forest fragments 80 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro city. Intensive conservation efforts restored that number to 3,700 by 2014.
- But now, yellow fever, transferred from people via mosquitoes, is putting the tamarin’s recovery at risk. In May 2018, the first tamarin death due to yellow fever was recorded in the wild following an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease across Brazil. An astonishing 32% of the population has disappeared in the year since.
- Dr. Carlos Ruiz, President of the Golden Lion Tamarin Association, told Mongabay that the disease could set back conservation efforts thirty years. However, another Brazilian researcher is pioneering a possible yellow fever vaccine for the primate. The approval application is currently being considered by the Brazilian government.
- While trafficking continues, that risk has been much reduced. Experts today believe that a combination of climate change and deforestation (drastically reducing tamarin habitat) is largely driving the devastating yellow fever epidemic.
Turning the tide for an endangered crab species in the Philippines
- The tourism boom that swept through the province of Batanes, a group of islands at the northernmost tip of the Philippines, from 2014 has driven a decline in coconut crabs there.
- Coconut crabs are hunted by locals to serve for tourists, the majority of whom come to the province to sample the rare delicacy.
- Overharvesting of coconut crabs has become the norm in the province, even after the species was placed on the IUCN Red List and despite measures to preserve the remaining population in the wild.
- Slow to mature, coconut crabs can live up to 60 years and propagate in very specific environments.
Unsung Species: One of Earth’s rarest land mammals clings to a hopeful future (commentary)
- South America’s huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) is the Western Hemisphere’s most endangered large land mammal, a fleet-footed Patagonian deer. The species once enjoyed broad distribution, but its numbers have been fractured into roughly 100 small disconnected populations, with huemul totals likely less than 1500 individuals.
- Historically, the huemul was diminished by habitat destruction, poachers, livestock competition and alien predators (especially dogs). More recently climate change may be playing a role, hammering Patagonian coastal fisheries, so possibly causing local villagers to increase hunting pressure on the Andean mountain deer.
- The huemul also suffers from being an unsung species. Unlike the polar bear or rhino, it lacks a broad constituency. If it is to be saved, the species requires broad recognition and support beyond the scientific community. This story is the first in a series by biologist Joel Berger in an effort to make such animals far better known.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Killing gods: The last hope for the world’s rarest reptile
- After decades of dams, overhunting and pollution the Yangtze giant softshell turtle is down to three known individuals.
- But conservationists say if they can just locate a male and female, survival for the world’s biggest freshwater turtle is still possible.
- The plan would be to capture the animals and keep them in a semi-wild captive state, but more funding and resources are needed to move forward.
Time is running out for Southeast Asia
- Several species and subspecies have gone extinct in the last 100 years. Others remain missing.
- Most of Southeast Asia’s large-bodied animals are now threatened with extinction.
- Deforestation and the wildlife trade have even left smaller-bodied species decimated as well.
- Southeast Asia has to decide if preserving its irreplaceable and unique wildlife is a priority – or the losses will continue to mount.
Illegal hunting a greater threat to wildlife than forest degradation
- In a recent study, researchers used camera-trapping records to show that illegal hunting may be a bigger threat mammals and ground-dwelling birds than forest degradation in Southeast Asia.
- They chose Borneo and the Annamite Mountains on the Southeast Asian mainland, two rainforest study sites that have similar habitats.
- While widespread logging has degraded many forests in Borneo, the island has faced less hunting.
- By contrast, the Annamites have experienced exceedingly high illegal hunting, but its forests are structurally more intact.
Scientists rediscover mammalian oddity in remote Vietnam
- Last seen in 1990, researchers have found a population of silver-backed chevrotains, a species of mouse-deer, surviving in Vietnam.
- This lost species is threatened by hunting, snaring and habitat destruction, and scientists don’t yet know how many survive.
- Mongabay columnist Jeremy Hance travels to Vietnam to attempt to see the animal himself and learn about its chances for a future.
Camera trap study reveals Amazon ocelot’s survival strategies
- Ocelots suffered severe declines in the 1960s and 70s due to hunting, but populations have rebounded since the international fur trade was banned. Now, heavy deforestation and increasing human activity across their range threaten to put this elegant creature back on the endangered list.
- Researchers collected images from hundreds of camera traps set across the Amazon basin and analyzed the effect of different habitat characteristics on the presence of ocelots. Statistical modeling revealed the cat’s preference for dense forests and a dislike of roads and human settlements.
- Experts say ocelots may also be responding to human activity and forest degradation in ways that camera traps cannot easily detect, such as changing how and when they use a particular habitat. The study looked at ocelot behavior in protected and forested habitat, not in degraded landscapes.
- Ocelots are considered ambassador species for their forest ecosystem, and studies like this give support to maintaining protected areas, which are increasingly under threat from agricultural expansion and other human activities.
Nigeria finds itself at the heart of the illegal pangolin trade
- Pangolins have long been hunted for food and traditional medicine. They are traded openly in bushmeat markets in Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon.
- Strong demand from Asia has attracted organized criminal syndicates to set up trafficking networks in Nigeria, and the illegal trade in pangolin parts has gone deeper underground.
- Hunters and traders tell Mongabay that the impact of increased trafficking on pangolin populations is becoming clear as they are increasingly difficult to find in the forest.
- Chinese buyers will pay anywhere between $3 and $20 for a pangolin — a relative fortune for local bushmeat traders. Traffickers can then get as much as $250 for the scales from one pangolin in markets in Asia.
Africa’s largest reserve may lose half its area to oil development
- The Termit and Tin Touma National Nature Reserve in Niger was Africa’s largest when it was established in 2012.
- Just seven years on, however, the government is considering redrawing its boundaries and slashing its size by nearly half.
- The move comes in response to a push by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which has exploration rights in a small section of the reserve, to expand its operations significantly.
- Conservation groups, including the NGO that manages the reserve, say the move would impact areas of high biodiversity, threatening species such as the critically endangered addax and dama gazelle.
New roads in Papua New Guinea may cause ‘quantum leap’ in forest loss
- Papua New Guinea intends to nearly double its existing network of roads between now and 2022.
- A new study raises concerns about the impacts of building these roads through tropical forest environments on local communities, sensitive habitats and vulnerable species.
- The authors of the paper, published July 24 in the journal PLOS ONE, suggest that the country would reap more benefits and avoid future debt by investing in existing roads, many of which are largely unusable because of flagging maintenance.
Indonesian officials foil attempt to smuggle hornbill casques to Hong Kong
- Indonesian authorities have arrested a woman for allegedly attempting to smuggle 72 helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil) casques to Hong Kong.
- The distinctive-looking bird is critically endangered, its precipitous decline driven by poaching for its casque — a solid, ivory-like protuberance on its head that’s highly prized in East Asia for use as ornamental carvings.
- Tackling the hornbill trade will be on the agenda at next month’s CITES wildlife trade summit in Geneva.
Eat the insects, spare the lemurs
- To solve the twin challenges of malnutrition and biodiversity loss in Madagascar, new efforts are promoting edible insects as a way to take pressure off wildlife that people hunt for meat when food is scarce.
- Insects are widely eaten in Madagascar. They are also incredibly nutritious and one of the “greenest” forms of animal proteins in terms of their land, water and food requirements and their greenhouse gas emissions.
- One program is testing the farming of sakondry, a little-known hopping insect that tastes a lot like bacon. Another is setting up a network of cricket farms.
- Other attempts to reduce reliance on forest protein include improving chicken husbandry in rural areas.
Documentary seeks to tip the scales against illegal pangolin trafficking
- New film aims to raise awareness and strengthen protection and conservation of pangolins.
- Hunting and trafficking of these animals in Africa has sharply intensified to meet demand from Asia in recent years.
- Pangolins have historically been used for traditional medicine, decoration and gift-giving across Africa.
‘Landscape of fearlessness’: bushbuck emboldened following top-predator decline in Mozambique
- Bushbuck in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park have become increasingly fearless in their foraging habits, changing from foraging exclusively in woodland areas to braving open floodplains.
- Following years of civil war, populations of large herbivores and carnivores in Gorongosa declined by over 90 percent, with some top predators completely extirpated.
- Researchers from Princeton University conducted experiments using state-of-the-art equipment to establish whether the bushbucks’ use of floodplains for foraging was due to the decline in predation threat.
- Following experimentally simulated predation events, bushbuck significantly increased their use of tree cover, indicating that the reintroduction of top predators would restore a ‘landscape of fear’.
Mobile app encourages Indian fishers to free entangled whale sharks
- When whale sharks in waters off the Indian state of Gujarat get trapped in fishing nets, a new mobile app lets fishers easily document their release.
- Conservationists and fishers alike hope the app will speed up the compensation fishers receive for damaged nets.
- However, fishers say the compensation, a maximum of 25,000 rupees ($360), should be increased to reflect the true loss of their revenue during their downtime without nets.
Solving the mystery of the UK’s vanishing hen harriers
- The numbers of breeding hen harriers, one of England’s rarest birds and a protected species, dropped sharply in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
- To better understand why hen harriers were vanishing, researchers tracked the movements of 58 birds using satellite-based tags in conjunction with remote sensing land management data.
- Birds with tags that stopped transmitting spent their last week of life predominantly on moors where hunters shoot grouse and were 10 times more likely to disappear or die when grouse moors dominated their ranges, suggesting they were killed.
- The findings indicated that 72 percent of the tagged harriers were either confirmed or considered very likely to have been illegally killed.
Hunting pumas to save deer could backfire, new research suggests
- A new study finds that the age of individual pumas near Jackson, Wyoming, had the greatest influence over the prey they chose to hunt.
- Older mountain lions went after elk, among the largest prey species in the study area, while the younger cats hunted small animals like raccoons as well as mule deer.
- The research calls into question the validity of recent wildlife management plans in the western United States to grow mule deer populations by culling mountain lions, the authors say.
Massive pangolin seizure in Borneo smuggling operation bust
- A team of police and wildlife officials in the Malaysian state of Sabah seized nearly 30 metric tons (33 tons) of pangolins on Feb. 7.
- The raids on a factory in the state capital, Kota Kinabalu, and a warehouse in a village outside the city revealed a “smuggling syndicate,” which police believe has been operating for seven years.
- Sabah has become a waypoint for the trafficking of scales from pangolins in Africa to Asia.
- In this case, however, a man arrested in the raid told police that he had purchased the pangolins from local hunters in Malaysian Borneo.
What’s in a name? The role of defining ‘wilderness’ in conservation
- In a recent opinion piece published in the journal Nature, several ecologists question recent efforts to delineate areas of wilderness and intactness around the world to define conservation targets.
- They argue that it would be better to build broadly supported consensus that includes the perspectives of local and indigenous communities.
- But the leader of a team that recently mapped out the remaining wilderness on land and in the ocean said that identifying these areas and developing new targets that incorporate their conservation is critical because current international agreements do not prioritize their protection.
In Malta, legal loopholes give poachers cover to hunt migratory birds
- Malta is a stopping-off point for some 170 species of birds migrating between Europe and Africa. But poachers kill or capture up to 200,000 wild birds every year — a problem widespread across the Mediterranean.
- In particular, illegal trapping of birds such as finches continues to persist in Malta, despite the European Court of Justice ruling against Malta for allowing the trapping of protected species.
- To legalize finch trapping within the framework of European law, Malta used a legal maneuver called a derogation by claiming that finch trapping was a traditional practice in the country.
- Such legal derogations are being used as a smokescreen to illegally trap finches and other protected species not just in Malta but in other countries as well.
Community-based conservation offers hope for Amazon’s giant South American turtle
- Rural communities began protecting the threatened giant South American turtle (Podocnemis expansa) along a 1,500-kilometer (932-mile) stretch of the remote Juruá River in Brazil’s Amazonas state back in 1977 – becoming the largest community-based conservation management initiative ever conducted in the Brazilian Amazon.
- A new study shows that these community stewards – who protect turtle nests and receive payment only in food baskets – have had incredible success not only in preserving endangered turtle species, but also in conserving riverine invertebrate and vertebrate species, including migratory birds, large catfish, caiman, river dolphins and manatees.
- Today, the Middle Juruá River community-protected beaches are “true islands of biodiversity, while other unprotected beaches are inhabited by few species. They are empty of life,” say study authors. On the protected beaches, turtle egg predation is a mere 2 percent. On unprotected beaches on the same river, predation rates are as high as 99 percent.
- The study also helps debunk a Brazilian and international policy that proposed the eviction of local traditional communities from newly instituted conservation units because they would be detrimental to conservation goals. Instead, researchers agree, traditional communities should be allowed to keep their homes and recruited as environmental stewards.
Peccary’s disappearance foreboding for other Mesoamerican wildlife
- A multinational team of scientists met to discuss the current status and future of the white-lipped peccary, a pig-like mammal that lives in Central and South America.
- White-lipped peccaries no longer live in 87 percent of their former range, driven out largely by hunting and habitat loss.
- The scientists say the disappearance of this species, which requires large tracts of unbroken forest, could portend the extinction of other wildlife.
In the belly of the beast: journalist delves into wildlife trafficking
- Rachel Nuwer, who has written for Mongabay, Smithsonian, the New York Times and other publications, published a new book in September, “Poached,” which delves deeply into the global wildlife trafficking epidemic.
- Her book looks into the origins of the wildlife trade, its mechanisms, markets, and solutions. It covers charismatic mammals (elephants, rhinos and tigers), as well as the non-charismatic (pangolins and snakes).
- In this exclusive Mongabay Q&A, the author shares some of her most harrowing moments on the trail of global wildlife traffickers. The scariest thing of all: how accepting people can often be to the slaughter of millions of wild animals, and to the extermination of species, so as to be served a rare meat or a bogus cure.
- Still, Nuwer finds hope in the courageous individuals who fight the trade.
Absent for decades, zebras reintroduced to park in southern Tanzania
- Staff from the Wildlife Conservation Society and its partners in Tanzania released 24 zebras into Kitulo National Park on Oct. 12 and 13.
- The Kitulo Plateau in Tanzania’s southern highlands includes high-elevation grasslands, a unique habitat that requires fire and grazing animals to maintain its plant diversity.
- The reintroduction, with plains zebras from Mikumi National Park, is part of a broader effort to “rewild” the southern highlands after decades of wildlife hunting and livestock grazing.
Int’l protections not stopping pangolin overexploitation in Cameroon
- A recent report indicates that the 2016 listing of pangolins under CITES Appendix I, outlawing their international trade, is not translating into protections for the anteater-like animal at the local level in Central Africa.
- The study used data gathered from an investigation in Cameroon.
- Pangolins are considered the world’s “most illegally traded wild mammal” by the IUCN, and scientific research in 2017 found that between 420,000 and 2.71 million pangolins are hunted from Central African forests each year.
Hunting, agriculture driving rapid decline of jaguars in South America’s Gran Chaco
- New research finds that one-third of critical jaguar habitat in the Gran Chaco, South America’s largest tropical dry forest, has been lost since the mid-1980s.
- According to the study, led by researchers at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin) and published in the journal Diversity and Distributions this week, deforestation driven by agricultural expansion — mainly for soy and cattle production — has caused the steep decline of jaguar habitat in the region.
- Meanwhile, the conversion of jaguar habitat into cropland and pastureland gives hunters easier access to the forest. Thus overhunting and persecution by cattle ranchers has also become one of the chief causes of the big cat’s shrinking numbers, the study found.
Cross-border camera trap research puts wild Amur leopard number at 84
- Scientists working in Russia and China have used camera traps to estimate that 84 Amur leopards remain in the wild.
- Previous studies tracked the cats using their footprints in snow, but the camera trap photographs allowed the researchers to identify individual animals by their unique spot patterns.
- The team found that 20 percent of the Amur leopards appeared on both sides of the border between China and Russia, highlighting the importance of cross-border collaboration.
Another Cecil? Secrecy surrounds June trophy lion hunt
- A U.S. trophy hunter baited and killed a male lion on June 7th in Umbabat Private Nature Reserve, a part of Greater Kruger National Park, South Africa. Suspicions are that the animal shot was Skye, a beloved lion in the region.
- U.S. citizen Jared Whitworth allegedly paid nearly $80,000 for the hunt. Authorities say the animal killed wasn’t Skye, but have offered no proof. Skye hasn’t been seen since the day Whitworth made his kill, and one of the lion’s cubs was found dead, which often happens when other males take over a pride.
- If the killed lion was Skye, this would be a breach of South African regulations, because the lion was too young to be legally hunted. Authorities also say that if it is confirmed that the lion was baited, that could violate South African laws.
- In response, the U.S. Humane Society and Center for Biological Diversity sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking it to reject importation of the mystery lion’s body. In March, the Trump administration’s USFWS announced a new policy to consider African trophy import permits on a case-by-case basis.
Hunting, fishing causing dramatic decline in Amazon river dolphins
- Both species of Amazon river dolphin appear to be in deep decline, according to a recent study. Boto (Inia geoffrensis) populations fell by 94 percent and Tucuxi (Sotalia fluviatilis) numbers fell by 97 percent in the Mamirauá Reserve in Amazonas state, Brazil between 1994 and 2017, according to researchers.
- Difficult to detect in the Amazon’s murky waters, both species are listed as “Data Deficient” by the IUCN. But researchers maintain that if region-wide surveys were conducted both species would end up being listed as Critically Endangered.
- The team noticed scars from harpoon and machete injuries on the dolphins they caught. Interviews with fishermen confirmed the team’s suspicions: dolphins were being hunted for use as bait. The mammals also get entangled in nets and other fishing gear, are hunted as food, eliminated as pests, and suffer mercury poisoning.
- Researchers believe the passage and enforcement of new conservation laws could save Amazon river dolphins, and halt their plunge toward extinction. But a lack of political will, drastic draconian cuts to the Brazilian environmental ministry budget, and continued illegal dolphin hunting and fishing make action unlikely for now.
Hunters are wiping out hornbills in Ghana’s forests
- According to a new study, Ghana is losing hornbill species to “uncontrolled” hunting, mostly for meat, from its forested parks and reserves.
- The researchers found that the five largest species of hornbills in the Bia Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have disappeared in recent decades.
- The authors of the paper suggest that increased enforcement will help protect threatened hornbills, as well as other wildlife species, in areas under intense pressure from humans.
Venezuela’s hungry hunt wildlife, zoo animals, as economic crisis grows
- Venezuela is suffering a disastrous economic crisis. With inflation expected to hit 13,000 percent in 2018, there has been a collapse of agricultural productivity, commercial transportation and other services, which has resulted in severe food shortages. As people starve, they are increasingly hunting wildlife, and sometimes zoo animals.
- Reports from the nation’s zoos say that animals are emaciated, with keepers sometimes forced to feed one form of wildlife to another, just to keep some animals alive. There have also been reports of mammals and birds being stolen from zoo collections. Zoos have reached out to Venezuelans, seeking donations to help feed their wild animals.
- The economic crisis makes scientific data gathering difficult, but a significant uptick in the harvesting of Guiana dolphin, known locally as tonina, has been observed. The dolphin is protected from commercial trade under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- The grisly remains of hunted pink flamingos have been found repeatedly on Lake Maracaibo. Also within the estuary, there has also been a rise in the harvesting of sea turtle species, including the vulnerable leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), and the critically endangered hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata).
Documenting the African elephant’s ‘last stand’: Q&A with filmmakers Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson
- “Walking Thunder,” a film by Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson, tracks elephants across Africa.
- The couple’s son, Lysander, guides viewers through his discovery, first of the elephants and peoples of Africa, and then of the threats they face.
- Christo calls the film a “prayer” for the species.
Longest recorded whale shark migration eclipses 20,000 kilometers
- Scientists followed the movements of a whale shark for nearly two and a half years as she swam more than 20,000 kilometers (over 12,000 miles) from the coast of Central America to the Marianas Trench near Asia.
- Whale sharks, whose numbers have dropped by more than half in the past 75 years according to the IUCN, are taken by fishing boats for their fins, cartilage, meat and teeth, and studies have shown that boats bringing tourists to swim with the largest fish in the ocean change the species’ behavior.
- Given these threats, scientists hope studies such as this one will help guide conservation policy aimed at protecting these animals throughout their migrations.
Wildlife decimated by the surge in conflicts in the Sahara and the Sahel
- An escalation in the number of conflicts across the Sahara and the Sahel in Africa is driving down numbers of the region’s wildlife, a new study finds.
- The authors found that the number of conflicts in the region has risen by 565 percent since 2011.
- At the same time, 12 species of vertebrate have either gone extinct or are much closer to extinction as a result of conflicts in the region.
Pangolins on the brink as Africa-China trafficking persists unabated
- Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world, with more than a million snatched from the wild in the past decade, according to IUCN estimates. The four Asian species have been hunted nearly to extinction, while the four African species are being poached in record numbers.
- The illegal trade largely goes to China and other East Asian nations, where pangolin meat is an expensive delicacy served to flaunt wealth and influence. Pangolin is also a preferred ingredient in traditional medicine in Asia and Africa. Traditional healers in Sierra Leone use pangolin to treat 59 medical conditions, though there is no evidence of efficacy.
- In 2016, pangolins were given the highest level of protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a multilateral treaty signed by 183 nations. But laws and enforcement in African nations, along illegal trade routes, and in Asia continue to be weak, with conservationists working hard to strengthen them.
- Pangolins don’t thrive in captivity, but the Tikki Hywood Foundation in Zimbabwe and Save Vietnam’s Wildlife have succeeded in rescuing confiscated pangolins and restoring them to the wild. Six U.S. zoos are trying to raise pangolins as part of the controversial Pangolin Consortium project — only 29 of 45 imported individuals remain alive.
Black rhinos return to Zakouma National Park in Chad
- The NGO African Parks and its partners in South Africa and Chad reintroduced six black rhinos to Zakouma National Park on May 4.
- Chad’s oldest national park had not had rhinos since the early 1970s, when they were wiped out by hunting.
- After a brief acclimation period in transitional bomas, or enclosures, the rhinos will be released into a protected sanctuary in the park.
- Around 5,000 black rhinos remain on the African continent, and poaching for their horns, used in traditional Asian medicine, continues to be a threat to their survival as a species.
‘Rarest’ ape’s path to survival blocked by roads, dams and agriculture
- According to a new study, the Tapanuli orangutan, one of only seven species of non-human great ape alive today, faces serious threats to its survival as infrastructure development and agriculture threaten more than one-quarter of its habitat.
- In November, a team of scientists reported that a new species of orangutan living on the Indonesian island of Sumatra was distinct from Sumatran and Bornean orangutans.
- They believe that fewer than 800 Tapanuli orangutans survive.
- Conservationists and scientists warn that a proposed 510-megawatt hydroelectric dam could push the new species closer to extinction.
‘Rarest’ ape’s path to survival blocked by roads, dams and agriculture
- According to a new study, the Tapanuli orangutan, one of only seven species of non-human great ape alive today, faces serious threats to its survival as infrastructure development and agriculture threaten more than one-quarter of its habitat.
- In November, a team of scientists reported that a new species of orangutan living on the Indonesian island of Sumatra was distinct from Sumatran and Bornean orangutans.
- They believe that fewer than 800 Tapanuli orangutans survive.
- Conservationists and scientists warn that a proposed 510-megawatt hydroelectric dam could push the new species closer to extinction.
Conservationist known as a caretaker for Kenya’s orphaned elephants dies at 83
- Conservationist Daphne Sheldrick died of breast cancer on April 12, according to the conservation organization she founded.
- Born in Kenya, she spent her life working to care for orphaned elephants in Kenya and fighting to save the species through her advocacy.
- She started the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, named for her husband, in 1977.
- The organization runs an orphan elephant project, as well as de-snaring and veterinary care teams.
Trump’s elephant, lion trophy hunting policy hit with double lawsuits
- In policymaking, the Interior Dept. announced it was allowing U.S. citizens to import elephant and lion body parts to the United States last November. President Trump immediately put that decision on hold. Then in 2018, the USFWS said trophy hunting decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis.
- Now, Born Free USA, the Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity, and other litigants have filed a lawsuit against the plan, saying USFWS policymaking failed to offer a public comment period, lacked transparency, and didn’t outline a process as to how decisions will be made.
- In a second lawsuit, Born Free USA, an NGO, accused the Trump administration of stacking its newly formed International Wildlife Conservation Council (IWCC) with pro-trophy hunting members, some with ties to the gun industry, an allegation largely confirmed by an Associated Press study.
- The IWCC held its first meeting this month. A critic who attended said she was shocked that a council meant to advise the government on conservation seemed to know very little about the poaching crisis in Africa. A renowned trophy hunter was appointed to head the group’s conservation subcommittee.
Madagascar: Conservation official arrested for killing 11 endangered lemurs
- Two weeks ago, the bodies of 11 critically endangered lemurs were discovered in the Zahamena Ankeniheny Corridor protected area in eastern Madagascar.
- The lemurs were allegedly killed by one of the local officials charged with protecting them, to the dismay of conservation leaders.
- The alleged poacher was arrested on Feb. 27, and this week the police set out to arrest his suspected accomplices.
- The Madagascar government reacted to the poaching incident at the highest level, including pledges by the prime minister and minister of the environment to crack down on poaching.
Trump to allow elephant and lion trophies on case-by-case basis
- President Obama banned U.S. citizens from bringing home elephant and lion trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe. In November, 2017, Trump’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed that ban until Trump himself overruled the USFWS, pausing the new rule until the president could make a final decision.
- This week, the USFWS said in a memorandum that it will permit U.S. citizens to bring lion and elephant hunting trophies home from Africa – potentially including Zimbabwe and Zambia – on a case-by-case basis.
- Conservationists largely responded negatively to the decision, critiquing it for offering little or no transparency, inviting corruption, and identifying no stated system or criteria for determining how permit selections will be made.
- A variety of lawsuits are ongoing which could still influence the shape of the new rule.
Ecotourism payments for more wildlife sightings linked to conservation benefits in Laos
- A four-year research project in a national protected area in Laos established a connection between higher payments for more wildlife sightings and improved protections for wildlife.
- Over the course of the study, sightings of common wildlife rose by more than 60 percent.
- Payments were funded by the entry fees paid by tourists.
- They were placed in village development funds, which would then finance projects like school construction and healthcare.
Mountain lions often lose to wolves and bears, study finds
- When the hunting grounds of pumas overlap with those of other top predators, such as wolves, bears and jaguars, pumas are often the losers, a new study has found.
- The findings from the study, a review of existing scientific literature, are especially important given how pumas are still being intensively hunted over much of their range in a bid to reduce conflicts with people and livestock, researchers say.
- In some puma habitats where wolves and brown bears are recolonizing and recovering, wildlife managers need to be cautious about hunting limits for pumas, the authors write.
Camera trap captures spotted hyena in Gabon national park, the first in 20 years
- The spotted hyena was thought to be extinct in Gabon’s Batéké Plateau National Park for 20 years as a result of wildlife poaching.
- But the camera trap image captured has given conservation groups hope that protection of the park is working and allowing wildlife to return.
- Camera traps have also recently snagged images of a lion, a serval and chimpanzees.
A saiga time bomb? Bad news for Central Asia’s beleaguered antelope
- In May 2015, more than 200,000 saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) suddenly died in Kazakhstan, reducing the global population of the critically endangered species by two-thirds.
- Research indicates the saigas were likely killed by hemorrhagic septicemia caused by a type of bacteria called Pasteurella multocida. But P. multocida generally exists harmlessly in healthy saigas and other animals, so the question remained: Why did so many saigas become infected so suddenly and severely by a normally benign type of bacteria?
- A new analysis may have solved part of this mystery, linking the spread of P. multocida to unusually high humidity levels and temperatures.
- The results indicate that saigas may be particularly sensitive to climate change, which stands to increase both temperature and humidity in Kazakhstan.
Critically endangered monkeys found in Ghana forest slated for mining
- Researchers were surprised to discover white-naped mangabeys (Cercocebus lunulatus) while reviewing camera trap footage captured in Ghana’s Atewa mountain range.
- The white-naped mangabey has declined by more than 50 percent in less than three decades and is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Habitat loss and hunting are its major threats. The camera trap footage is the first record of the species in eastern Ghana.
- Deposits of bauxite, from which aluminum is produced, underlie Atewa’s forests. The Ghanaian government is reportedly gearing up to develop mining operations and associated infrastructure for bauxite extraction, refinement and export.
- Conservation organizations and other stakeholders are urging the government to cease its plans for mining and more effectively protect Atewa by turning the region into a national park.
U.S. zoos learn how to keep captive pangolins alive, helping wild ones
- The Pangolin Consortium, a partnership between six U.S. zoos and Pangolin Conservation, an NGO, launched a project in 2014 which today houses fifty White-bellied tree pangolins (Phataginus tricuspis).
- Common knowledge says that pangolins are almost impossible to keep alive in captivity, but the consortium has done basic research to boost survival rates, traveling to Africa and working with a company, EnviroFlight, to develop a natural nutritious insect-derived diet for pangolins in captivity.
- While some conservationists are critical of the project, actions by the Pangolin Consortium have resulted in high captive survival rates, and even in the successful breeding of pangolins in captivity.
- The Pangolin Consortium is able to conduct basic research under controlled conditions at zoos on pangolin behavior and health – research that can’t be done in the wild. Zoos can also present pangolins to the public, educating about their endangered status, improving conservation funding.
U.S. court ruling complicates Trump’s elephant and lion policy
- A federal appeals court has found that the Obama administration did not follow proper procedures in 2014 when it banned importing elephant trophies from Zimbabwe. The USFWS failed to seek public comment at the time, among other infractions.
- This new ruling puts the Trump administration decision, made in November, ending the ban and allowing elephant trophy hunting imports, into question.
- Further complicating matters is Trump’s dubbing of the November USFWS decision as a “horror show,” and his putting of the policy on hold awaiting his response. To date, Trump has said nothing further.
- The way things stand now, U.S. hunters can import elephant trophies from South Africa and Namibia. They can import lion body parts from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia. But the legality of importing elephant trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe remains in limbo.
Forced out or killed: rare chimps go missing from Cameroon mountain forest
- The Endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti) is the least numerous subspecies of chimpanzee, with a total population almost certainly less than 9,000, and probably less than 6,000 individuals.
- The estimated population is far smaller in Cameroon, where just four known populations number some 250 individuals, all located in the Northwest region.
- One of those groups, known as “The Great Apes of Tubah” was until recently found in the unprotected Kejom-Keku Mountain Forest.
- But the chimps haven’t been seen in three years, and conservationists fear they’ve been killed or forced to move on. A new road into the Kejom-Keku area has resulted in the loss of half its forest, as herders, farmers, loggers and poachers move in.
Trump’s indecision on trophy hunting reignites heated debate
- On November 15, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lifted a ban on the U.S. import of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia. The president put a hold on the order two days later, calling trophy hunting in a tweet a “horror show.” He has yet to make a final determination regarding the USFWS order.
- At the same time, Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the establishment of the International Wildlife Conservation Council. One goal of the body will be to promote with the U.S. public the “economic benefits that result from U.S. citizens traveling abroad to [trophy] hunt.”
- While trophy hunting does provide revenue for land and wildlife conservation in some special cases in Africa, the new U.S. council will likely have its work cut out for it, since many Americans no longer see trophy hunting of endangered species as ethical.
- Conservationists counter pro-trophy hunting advocates by noting that rampant government corruption in nations like Zimbabwe and Zambia make it unlikely that most trophy hunting revenues ever reach the African preserves, local communities or rangers that need the funding.
Lemur on the menu: most-endangered primates still served in Madagascar
- Officials in Madagascar’s northeastern Sava region say lemur is served illegally in restaurants.
- One conservationist says people use a code to order lemur meat.
- More than 90 percent of lemur species are threatened, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
Trump budget undercuts U.S. commitment to global wildlife conservation
- President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget would make extensive cuts to already underfunded programs to combat wildlife trafficking and to aid African and Asian nations in protecting elephants, rhinos, tigers, pangolins and other endangered wildlife.
- Trump’s budget proposes a 32 percent across-the-board cut in U.S. foreign assistance, affecting hundreds of sustainability, health and environmental programs.
- Major cuts would come to the Department of State, USAID, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs.
- Congress needs to approve a 2018 budget by December, and no one knows if it will approve the president’s desired deep cuts. However, hostility from the administration and many in the GOP to wildlife programs is unlikely to go away any time soon, with more and larger reductions in years to come.
As Grauer’s gorillas cling to survival, new population found
- Since 1994, civil war has left over 5 million people dead and wildlife decimated in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Today, heavily armed militia and illegal miners prospect for “conflict minerals” needed for modern electronic devices made and sold in the U.S. and around the globe.
- Hunters have targeted Grauer’s gorillas to feed miners and militias: in just two decades, these great apes have declined by 77 percent. A 2016 survey found only 3,800 Grauer’s gorillas, the world’s largest primates, still hanging on in the most rugged parts of eastern DRC.
- The good news: a bold group of scientists, under the protection of armed rangers, has found 50 previously uncounted Grauer’s gorillas in DRC’s Maiko National Park. And more may exist within the 4,000 square-mile park.
- The bad news: the US House of Representatives voted last month to defund the “Conflict Mineral Rule,” which required US companies to report where conflict minerals, such as coltan used in cell phones and computers, were sourced. The Senate has yet to take action on the legislation.
Ivory is out in the UK, as government moves to shutter legal trade
- The British government began a 12-week consultation period on Oct. 6 to sort out the details for a near-total ban on its domestic ivory trade.
- Conservation groups have long worried that even a legal trade can mask the illicit movement of ivory and stimulate further demand for ivory from poached elephants.
- The conservation groups WCS and Stop Ivory applauded the announcement and pledged to work with the government to put the ban in place.
Booming legal Amazon wildlife trade documented in new report
- Wildlife trade attention has recently focused on Africa. But a new report spotlights the brisk legal international trade in plants and animals from eight Amazon nations. The report did not look at the illegal trade, whose scope is largely unknown.
- The US$128 million industry exports 14 million animals and plants annually, plus one million kilograms by weight, including caiman and peccary skins for the fashion industry, live turtles and parrots for the pet trade, and arapaima for the food industry.
- The report authors note that such trade, conducted properly, can have benefits for national economies, for livelihoods, and even for wildlife — animals bred in captivity, for example, can provide scientists with vital data for sustaining wild populations.
- The report strongly emphasizes the need for monitoring, regulating and enforcing sustainable harvest levels of wild animals and plants if the legal trade is to continue to thrive, and if Amazonian forests and rivers are not to be emptied of their wildlife.
Collateral damage: Snow leopards and trophy hunting in Kyrgyzstan
- The mountains of Kyrgyzstan provide important connective habitat for endangered snow leopards.
- Government-supported hunting of Marco Polo sheep and Siberian ibex is being blamed for depleting the food supply of snow leopards and driving their numbers down.
- Ecologists say more animals are being hunted than can naturally reproduce, while government representatives contend the harvest is sustainable.
- A bill that would have banned hunting until 2030 was narrowly defeated earlier this year.
Ongoing mass extinction causing ‘biological annihilation,’ new study says
- Building on research in which they showed that two species have gone extinct per year over the past century, a team of biologists analyzed the population trends for 27,600 vertebrates around the world.
- They found that nearly a third of the animals they looked at were on the decline.
- In a closer look at 177 well-studied mammals, the team found that all had lost 30 percent or more of their home ranges, and 40 percent had lost at least 80 percent of their habitat.
African great ape bushmeat crisis intensifies; few solutions in sight
- Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are all Critically Endangered or Endangered, and continue to decline toward extinction due to habitat loss and degradation, disease, and illegal hunting.
- Great ape poaching, which supplies growing urban and rural bushmeat markets, is now at crisis levels across Central Africa, and despite conservationists’ efforts, is showing no sign of slowing down.
- Vast networks of logging roads, modern weapons, cell phones, cheap motorized transportation, and high demand for wild meat in urban centers is driving the booming bushmeat market.
- Africa’s great ape sanctuaries rescue some survivors, and active outreach to local communities offer a partial solution. Educational programs for children and adults, teaching the value of great apes, are seen as essential.
Field Notes: Reinvigorating wild parrot populations with captive birds
- Bolivia is home to 12 species of macaws, and most are thriving. Not among these healthy parrot populations, however, is the Critically Endangered Blue-throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis), with less than 15 breeding pairs known to be nesting in a remote, widely dispersed range in the north of the country.
- Years of intensive effort using traditional conservation methods to protect wild Blue-throated macaws from predators, raise chick survival rates, and engage local human communities have not significantly boosted the wild population nor have new breeding pairs been discovered.
- Rethinking a long-held view that captive-bred parrots released to the wild have little hope of surviving there, James Gilardi is working with local and international partners to select and prepare captive, pet trade and confiscated macaws to join their wild counterparts.
- Although there haven’t been any releases of captive Blue-throated macaws as yet, Gilardi is confident that wild populations of the species can recover if the captive birds are carefully chosen, health screened, and fully prepared for the wild.
Women could be a key to great ape conservation in the Congo
- The Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education Center (GRACE), Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), and Coopera are all organizations working with women in and around the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help advance great ape conservation through education, empowerment, healthcare and food security access.
- Some examples: BCI helps fund pilot micro-credit projects for women who want to launch business enterprises, including soap and garment making. GRACE employs women as surrogate mothers for newly orphaned gorillas during an initial 30-day quarantine period.
- GRACE also provides women and their families with bushmeat alternatives by teaching them to care for and breed alternative protein sources. Coopera helps provide alternative food sources through ECOLO-FEMMES, an organization that trains women in livestock breeding and agriculture to reduce great ape hunting in Kahuzi-Biega National Park.
- Coopera, working with Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots, engages young rape victims in tree planting to provide food sources to wild chimpanzees. JGI’s women’s programs in Uganda and Tanzania keep girls in school through peer support, scholarship programs and sanitary supply access. Educated women have smaller families, reducing stress on the environment.
No safe forest left: 250 captive orphan chimps stuck in sanctuaries
- Cameroon currently has more than 250 rescued chimpanzees living in three chimp wildlife sanctuaries. Attempts to find forests into which to release them — safe from the bushmeat and pet trade, and not already occupied by other chimpanzee populations — have failed so far.
- The intensification of logging, mining and agribusiness, plus new roads into remote areas, along with a growing rural human population, are putting intense pressure on un-conserved forests as well as protected lands.
- Unless habitat loss, poaching and trafficking are controlled in Cameroon, reintroduction of captive chimpanzees may not be achievable. Some conservationists argue, however, that reintroduction of captive animals is needed to enhance genetic resilience in wild populations.
- If current rates of decline are not curbed, primatologists estimate that chimpanzees could be gone from Cameroon’s forests within 15 to 20 years.
Hunting is driving declines in bird and mammal populations across the tropics
- The team of ecologists and environmental scientists behind the research examined 176 studies, including many local studies, in order to get a larger picture of the magnitude of hunting-induced declines in tropical mammal and bird populations.
- In areas impacted by hunting, bird abundance declined by an average of 58 percent compared to areas with no hunting, while mammals declined by an average of 83 percent, according to their study.
- “Thanks to this study, we estimate that only 17 percent of the original mammal abundance and 42 percent of the birds remain in hunted areas.”
Great apes in Asian circus-style shows on rise — so is trafficking
- Asian zoos, circuses and safari parks are mounting large-scale productions with costumed, dancing, roller-skating great apes. Investigations show that nearly all of these trained primates were not bred in captivity, but illegally traded out of Africa and Indonesia, with destinations in China, Thailand and other Asian countries.
- The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) estimates that the illegal trade may have removed as many as 22,218 great apes from the wild between 2005-2011. An estimated 64 percent were chimpanzees, whereas 56 percent of great apes seized by authorities were thought to be orangutans.
- Wild young apes are traumatized by their capture, and many die along the supply chain, or with their final “owners” by whom they are frequently poorly treated. Young great apes trained in captivity become increasingly unmanageable as they age, and many are “retired” to tiny, solitary cages, or simply disappear.
- Trafficking arrests are rare. UNEP recorded just 27 arrests in Africa and Asia between 2005-2011, over which time more than 1,800 cases of illegally trafficked great apes were documented, with many more undetected. Solutions are in the works, but time is running out for the world’s great apes if they are to be conserved.
Illegal bushmeat trade threatens human health and great apes
- Hunting for bushmeat impacts over 500 wild species in Africa, but is particularly harmful to great apes — gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos — whose small, endangered populations struggle to rebound from over-hunting. Along with other major stressors including habitat loss, trafficking and climate change.
- Bushmeat brings humans into close contact with wildlife, creating a prime path for the transmission of diseases like Ebola, as well as new emerging infectious diseases. Disease spread is especially worrisome between humans and closely related African great ape species.
- Bushmeat consumption today is driven by an upscale urban African market, by illegal logging that offers easy access to remote great ape habitat, plus impoverished rural hunters in need of cash livelihoods.
- If the bushmeat problem is to be solved, ineffective enforcement of hunting quotas and inadequate endangered species protections must be addressed. Cultural preferences for bushmeat must also change. Educational programs focused on bushmeat disease risk may be the best way to alter public perceptions.
Ebo forest great apes threatened by stalled Cameroon national park
- Cameroon’s Ebo forest is home to key populations of tool-wielding Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, along with an unspecified subspecies of gorilla, drills, Preuss’s Red Colobus, forest elephants, and a great deal more biodiversity.
- The forest is vulnerable, unprotected due to a drawn-out fight to secure its status as a national park. Logging and hunting threaten Ebo’s biodiversity. The Cameroonian palm oil company Azur recently began planting a 123,000 hectare plantation on its boundary.
- The Ebo Forest Research Project (EFRP) has been working successfully to change the habits of local people who have long subsisted on the forest’s natural resources — turning hunters into great ape guardians. But without the establishment of the national park and full legal protection and enforcement, everyone’s efforts may be in vain.
Field Notes: Finding Jacobo; an Andean cat captivates conservationists
- The Andean cat ranges from remote areas of central Peru to the Patagonian steppe. Perfectly adapted to extreme environments, this small feline is threatened by habitat degradation and hunting, but most of all it suffers from anonymity: it’s hard to save an animal that no one ever sees.
- So few of these endangered cats are scattered across such vast landscapes that even most of their advocates have never seen the species they’re trying to protect. But the conservation efforts that could save this cat could also preserve the wild places where Andean cats live.
- When a male Andean cat was found wandering around a soccer field, Andean Cat Alliance members agreed to forego the extraordinary opportunity to study the animal in captivity, and try instead to return “Jacobo” to the wild.
- Andean Cat Alliance coordinators Rocío Palacios and Lilian Villalba orchestrated the multinational volunteer release effort. Conservationists equipped Jacobo with a GPS collar and hope that tracking his travels will reveal new data about this secretive cat, considered a symbol of the Andes.
The Spirit of the Steppes: Saving Central Asia’s saiga
- The Critically Endangered saiga (Saiga tatarica) once numbered in the millions. This large antelope was perhaps best known for making one of the last of the world’s remaining great mammal migrations — a trek sweeping twice per year across the steppes of Central Asia.
- Saiga populations declined more than 95 percent by 2004, according to the IUCN. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan banned hunting in the 1990s, but the horns of male saiga are highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine, and illegal trafficking is a major threat; if not curtailed the trade could doom the species.
- In the 21st century, international NGOs and regional organizations such as the Saiga Conservation Alliance (SCA) and Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK) formed partnerships with Central Asian nations to better conserve the species. And their work was paying off, until 2015.
- That’s when disease killed over 200,000 adult saiga of the Betpak Dala population in Central Kazakhstan. At the end of 2016, the Mongolian herd was hit hard by a new viral infection, with 4,000 saiga carcasses buried so far. But the saiga is reproductively resilient, and could be saved, if the species receives sufficient attention, say conservationists.
Audio: An in-depth look at Mongabay’s collaboration with The Intercept Brasil
- Branford is a regular contributor to Mongabay who has been reporting from Brazil since 1979 when she was with the Financial Times and then the BBC.
- One of the articles in the series resulted in an official investigation by the Brazilian government before it was even published — and the investigators have already recommended possible reparations for an indigenous Amazonian tribe.
- We also round up the top news of the past two weeks.
Increased use of snares in Southeast Asia driving extinction crisis, scientists warn
- The authors of an article published in Science last week say that unsustainable hunting methods both inside and outside of protected areas, mainly the use of homemade wire snares that kill or maim any animal entrapped by them, is pushing numerous large mammals to the brink of extinction.
- Because the snares are indiscriminate in what they catch, they frequently result in the capture of nontarget species, as well as females and young animals.
- Hundreds of thousands of snares are removed from protected forests in Southeast Asia every year, the authors of the Science article write, but law enforcement and snare removal teams can’t keep up with the pace that they’re being set by poachers.
Mongabay Newscast episode 4: Inside scoop on new Netflix documentary “The Ivory Game;” orangutan habitat under threat in Indonesia
- Crosta discusses how Chinese demand is driving the multi-billion dollar trade in ivory, as well as EAL’s project WildLeaks and the undercover investigations in mainland China and Hong Kong that have helped expose the illegal ivory being laundered through legal ivory markets.
- We also speak with Mongabay contributor and Borneo Futures founder Erik Meijaard, who recently wrote a piece entitled, “Company poised to destroy critical orangutan habitat in breach of Indonesia’s moratorium.”
- And of course we cover the top news on Mongabay.com for the past two weeks!
Quantifying the ecological impacts of the 20th century trade in Amazonian furs
- A study published this month in the journal Science Advances comprises the first systematic accounting of the history, scale, and repercussions of the Amazonian hide trade throughout the 20th century.
- An international team of researchers used previously unanalyzed historical documents and unpublished shipping records cataloguing the quantity and scale of the wildlife trade to determine trends in the vulnerability of different wild animal species.
- They found widespread collapse of giant river otter, black caiman and manatee populations in the aftermath of commercial hunting, while terrestrial species such as collared peccaries, deer, and even jaguars were found to be much more resilient to hunting pressure even during peak international hide exports.
Hunting, not deforestation, biggest threat to Southeast Asian biodiversity: Study
- The authors of the study, published last month in the journal Conservation Biology, examined the impacts of hunting on vertebrate populations in the region by conducting an extensive review of scientific papers in local journals and reports of governmental and nongovernmental agencies.
- They found evidence that animal populations have declined sharply at multiple sites across Southeast Asia since 1980, with many species now completely wiped out in substantial portions of their former ranges.
- The authors of the study argue that, in addition to improved enforcement measures and better management of protected areas, efforts to engage hunters and manage wildlife populations through sustainable hunting practices are urgently needed.
Tens of thousands of birds being sold illegally in Javan bird markets
- Around 98 percent of the birds being sold in Javan bird markets are native to Indonesia, study found.
- Some 28 species being sold at the markets are protected under Indonesia’s national law, while 10 species are listed as Threatened by the IUCN Red List.
- Traders succeed in selling wild-caught birds mainly because law enforcement is lax, conservationists say.
Indonesia’s birds being wiped out by pet trade
- Trade has decimated populations of the Javan hawk-eagle, Javan green magpie, helmeted hornbill, silvery woodpigeon, yellow-crested cockatoo, scarlet-breasted lorikeet, black-winged myna, Bali myna, straw-headed bulbul, Javan white-eye, rufous-fronted laughingthrush, Sumatran laughingthrush and the Javan sparrow in the wild, new study has found.
- The disappearance of a bird species due to trade can have a knock-on effect on other species, the researchers say, in which trappers and traders look for the next-best and more readily available species to replace the one in decline.
- Unfortunately, governments and even conservation organizations often don’t view this issue as a high priority, TRAFFIC’s Director for Southeast Asia said, which hampers efforts to prevent further losses.
Big animals have big impacts on tropical forest carbon storage
- In African, American and South Asian tropical forests, which are dominated by tree species that depend on animals to disperse their seeds, the loss of large wildlife can lead to a marked reduction in the forests’ carbon storage potential, the study found
- In contrast, the team found that in Southeast Asian and Australian tropical forests, which are dominated by wind-dispersed tree species, declines in large wildlife does not reduce the amount of carbon stored by the forests significantly, even increasing carbon-storage in some places.
- The difference in carbon storage, the team found, is driven by the species that replace the large-seeded, animal-dispersed species when they are removed from the forests.
Conventional survey techniques underestimate Amazon biodiversity: report
- A study led by Stanford University scientists found that conventional surveying techniques have not only led to some Amazon animal populations being underestimated, but have even missed entire species altogether.
- The researchers tapped the expert knowledge of local Indigenous hunters while performing a conventional line transect survey as a control study in order to reach that conclusion.
- The researchers say their results suggest that sign surveys may be the most efficient method for management-oriented studies conducted in large, remote areas, particularly for studies focused on community-based wildlife management.
Over-hunting’s surprising connection to global warming
- A significant amount of the Amazon rainforest’s above-ground carbon stock could be lost if key seed-dispersing species continue to be over-hunted — even if the forest is protected from all other threats.
- Over-hunting of larger mammals like tapirs and monkeys can lead to declines in the carbon content of the Amazon.
- 2.5 to 5.8 percent losses in above-ground biomass on average could be lost, according to researchers.
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