Year Four pupils here were introduced to the endangered Sumatran Rhino at a WWF Malaysia talk recently.

The children, as well as their headmaster and teachers, were all ears at the talk held at SJK (C) Chung Ching in Tanah Putih.

“Honda Malaysia together with WWF Malaysia have started a project to save the Sumatran rhino and this joint effort is a five-year commitment,” said WWF Malaysia spokesman Daisy Poh.

“The company has pledged RM5mil to enable WWF Malaysia to take its Sumatran rhino conservation efforts to the next level.


“The project also aims to educate and raise public awareness on the endangered species.

“It is important for young minds to be aware of what is happening in the world, about the extinction threat to Sumatran rhinos and other animals in Malaysia,” she added.

A question-and-answer session was held at the end of the talk which had fired up the pupils’ curiousity and imagination.

Poh said that poaching, logging and deforestation to make way for agricultural cultivation contributed to the rapid decline in the population of Sumatran rhinos.

“The Sumatran rhino is the nation’s most endangered species,” she said.

Honda Malaysia is the first corporation to sponsor a long-term project to save the Sumatran rhino.

It is estimated that only 300 Sumatran rhinos are left in the world today.

The pupils also watched a slide show on common and uncommon wildlife and endangered species.

Also highlighted in the slide show were the problems of pollution and activities that were damaging to the environment.

The pupils were then given goodie bags supporting the “no more plastic” campaign.

The bags contained a drawing block, stickers and note pads related to the rhino-rescue project.

“I want to save the animals from bad people. Animals are like us and have feelings too,” said Goh Kah Lon, 10.

Tan Yee Jou, 10, had this to say: “Peo­ple, please try to reuse and recycle and save Earth before it is too late.”

She added that she would share the new information with her siblings and parents.

Thai student Yorakit, 10, said: “I have never seen a rhino before, but the talk today has made me eager to save the species.”

source (and photos): http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?f ... southneast

NEW DELHI: A narrow patch of forest, critical for movement of tigers and elephants in Nainital district of Uttarakhand, has been blocked due to an infrastructure project resulting in a serious man-animal conflict, conservation organisations said.

The narrow patch of forest across the Gola river near Lalkuan area is the only critical corridor for movement of tigers and elephants between Terai Central and Terai East forest divisions.

With the destruction of this vital corridor the entire Terai Arc Landscape stretching from the Yamuna river near Saharanpur in the west to the Bagmati river near the Chitwan National Park in Nepal in the East has been divided into two zones.

The destruction of this corridor has affected free movement of wild elephants, thereby increasing crop damage and human killing on both sides of the corridor, said a joint statement issued by the Corbett Foundation, Wildlife Protection Society of India, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)-India.

The corridor, identified by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in 2003, featured prominently in a book, "Right of Passage", published by the WTI in 2005. The corridor was also endorsed by the chief wildlife warden of Uttarakhand and the Project Elephant Directorate under the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).

However, ignoring the scientific rationale, the Uttarakhand forest department allowed large-scale infrastructure development in this corridor and encroachment in this area has further aggravated the problem, the statement added.

Concerned by the loss of this corridor in the Terai Arc Landscape, the MoEF convened an meeting with the stakeholders Wednesday to discuss the status of this problem.

At a follow-up meeting here Friday, the Corbett Foundation, Wildlife Protection Society of India, WTI and WWF-India decided that this issue will have to be tackled with a great sense of urgency.

The representatives of the four NGOs plan to join a team from the MoEF for a site visit with Uttarakhand forest officials to assess the ground situation. The team will then come up with a joint report on the mitigation measures.


source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news ... 029841.cms

A male rhino in Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in Assam was killed and its horn taken away by poachers, who were involved in two
encounters with foresters in the habitat of the great Indian one-horn rhino.

A group of three poachers on Saturday killed a rhino with two bullets in the Burapahar Range of the Park and were hiding in its jungles to escape under the cover of darkness yesterday, KNP Director S N Buragohain said.

With this, five rhinos have been killed in the KNP this year, the Park director said.

On Saturday a Royal Bengal tiger also died of suspected poisoning, a new method adopted by poachers, and a male elephant migrating out of the Park was shot by poachers on Thursday, forest sources added.

On learning about the killing of the rhino, the forest guards and Forest Battalion men yesterday launched a search operation against the poachers. Two encounters followed between 8.20 pm and 11 pm, sources said.

The forest security personnel fired about 50 rounds from their 315 and 303 rifles at the poachers, but they fled southwards to the Karbi Anglong hills under the cover of darkness, Burapahar ranger Ikramul Mujid said.

Though the foresters gave a tough fight to the poachers with their 315 and 303 rifles, Mujid said they needed self loading rifles (SLR), Rapid Action security personnel and night vision goggles for better vigilance and protection of the World Heritage Site Park.

source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news ... 037706.cms

In its biggest seizures of pangolins this year, Malaysia’s Wildlife and National Parks Department confiscated 98 animals from a house in Alor Setar in the northern state of Kedah.

After about three weeks of surveillance and investigations, the department’s Wildlife Crime Unit raided the house early Wednesday morning and found the smuggled pangolins along with 6.5 pounds of pangolin scales..

"We believe the animals were destined to be sold to Asian countries for their meat, as well as their scales to be used as traditional medicine," the department's enforcement chief Saharudin Anan told AFP.

"The man, in his 40s and self-employed, will be charged in court for five different charges of illegal possession of the totally protected species and he faces up to 23 years in jail and (a) fine if convicted," he added.

Pangolins originally come from the jungles of Indonesia, parts of Malaysia and areas of southern Thailand, and their meat is considered a delicacy in China.

The animal is abundantly equipped to protect itself and ward off danger. For example, their bodies are covered with razor-sharp keratin scales, the same material of which human fingernails are made, and they are the only mammal with this protective adaptation.

Also, the part of their brain that deals with problem solving is highly developed, giving them an edge on discovering food in obscure locations and finding ways of escape. They can even burrow underground and make excellent swimmers.

However, with all of their incredible survival skills, it is still classified as a protected species under the UN's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Wildlife officials have said the greatest danger pangolins face today is from poachers and smugglers in Southeast Asia and a lack of tough laws to put a damper on the increasingly popular trade.

In March, a senior official with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Wildlife Enforcement Network said that the main route for smuggling Pangolins is from Indonesia to Malaysia and then through Thailand to Laos or Vietnam, which border China.

source (and photos): http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/17 ... =r_science

An endangered species of red deer found only in Kashmir has made a rapid comeback in the past year due to a decline in violence and conservation efforts, wildlife officials said on Tuesday.

The population of the hangul, also known as the Kashmir stag, is now estimated to be between 201 and 234, against 117-180 in March 2008, according to a census.

An anti-India insurgency that broke out two decades ago in the disputed Himalayan region ruined the habitat of the red deer, killed for its meat by both rebels and security forces. The deer were estimated to number around 900 when fighting first erupted. Wildlife guards say poachers also killed the deer for its meat and antlers, which fetch high black market prices. Worst hit were its chief breeding ground in the upper reaches of Dachigam Sanctuary near Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

"In the early 90s, Dachigam was a den of militants and later security forces moved into areas where the hangul used to graze, making its life hell," said wildlife ranger Imtiyaz Ahmad Mali.

"We dared not move into these areas then. But now it is near peaceful and poaching has also stopped."

The census has also shown improvement in the female-fawn ratio, a sign for a sustained population growth in future.

"The improvement in the situation resulted in effective implementation of conservation plans and cooperation from environmentalists and the local community," Raashid Naqash, central Kashmir's wildlife warden, told Reuters.

Environmentalists have long accused the state government of neglecting the region's environment and wildlife while battling the separatist revolt and say the red deer's survival depends primarily on political will.

"We will not let the hangul go extinct," Omar Abdullah, the state's chief minister told reporters last month.

source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news ... 857122.cms

Sixty years after cheetah became extinct in India, there's hope: if everything goes as per plan, Gajner Wildlife Sanctuary, 32 km from
Bikaner in Rajasthan, will welcome the wild cats, which would be brought from African countries.

The ministry of forests and environment is now working out the nitty-gritty. As a first step, a two-day seminar of technical experts on cheetahs will be held in Gajner from September 9.

"Experts on cheetah, including Divya Bhanu Singh Chabra and NK Ranjit Singh, will present their papers on how to go about bringing cheetahs to India," said forest and environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

The minister said the initial plans are to bring the cheetahs to Gajner. "We want to set up a breeding ground for the cheetahs and Gajner seems to fit the bill perfectly. Thereafter, they will be transported to various states,"
he added.

The Gajner wildlife sanctuary was the royal hunting ground of the Maharaja of Bikaner and is home to a number of wild animals, including wild fowls, deer, antelope, nilgai, chinkara, black buck, desert fox and wild boars.

"We had planned to bring cheetahs from Iran, but it’s not keen. In fact Iran wanted a lion in exchange for a cheetah... and we are not able to do that. We are now thinking of bringing them from South Africa, Namibia, Kenya or Tanzania," the minister said.
Cheetah, the world’s fastest animal, became extinct in India some 60 years ago. A cheetah was last sighted in eastern Madhya Pradesh in 1947, but it was hunted by the then ruler of that area. The species was declared extinct in 1952.

source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS ... 821200.cms

Rhino poaching worldwide is poised to hit a 15-year-high driven by Asian demand for horns, according to new research.

Poachers in Africa and Asia are killing an ever increasing number of rhinos—an estimated two to three a week in some areas—to meet a growing demand for horns believed in some countries to have medicinal value, according to a briefing to a key international wildlife trade body by WWF, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and their affiliated wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

The impact in Africa

An estimated three rhinos were illegally killed each month in all of Africa from 2000-05, out of a population of around 18,000. In contrast, 12 rhinoceroses now are being poached each month in South Africa and Zimbabwe alone, the three groups told the 58th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species Standing Committee this week in Geneva.

“Illegal rhino horn trade to destinations in Asia is driving the killing, with growing evidence of involvement of Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai nationals in the illegal procurement and transport of rhino horn out of Africa,” the briefing states.

The impact in Asia

Meanwhile, rhino poaching is also problematic in Asia. About 10 rhinos have been poached in India and at least seven in Nepal since January alone—out of a combined population of only 2,400 endangered rhinos.

“Rhinos are in a desperate situation,” said Dr. Susan Lieberman, Director of the Species Programme, WWF-International. “This is the worst rhino poaching we have seen in many years and it is critical for governments to stand up and take action to stop this deadly threat to rhinos worldwide. It is time to crack down on organized criminal elements responsible for this trade, and to vastly increase assistance to range countries in their enforcement efforts.”

Almost all rhino species are listed in CITES (the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in Appendix I, which means that any international trade of any rhino parts for commercial purposes is illegal.

“Increased demand for rhino horn, alongside a lack of law enforcement, a low level of prosecutions for poachers who are actually arrested and increasingly daring attempts by poachers and thieves to obtain the horn is proving to be too much for rhinos and some populations are seriously declining,” said Steven Broad, Executive Director of TRAFFIC.

The situation is particularly dire in Zimbabwe where such problems are threatening the success of more than a decade’s work of bringing rhino populations back to healthy levels.

For example, earlier this week a park ranger arrested with overwhelming evidence against him for having killed three rhinos in the Chipinge Safari Area, was acquitted without any satisfactory explanation for the verdict. Similarly, in September 2008, a gang of four Zimbabwean poachers who admitted to killing 18 rhinos were also freed in a failed judiciary process.

The briefing concludes that governments need “an accurate and up-to-date picture of the status, conservation and trade in African and Asian rhinoceroses, as well as the factors driving the consumption of rhinoceros horn, so that firm international action can be taken to arrest this immediate threat to rhinoceros populations worldwide.”

“Rhino populations in both Africa and Asia are being seriously threatened by poaching and illegal trade,” said Dr Jane Smart, Director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group. “IUCN and its African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups are working hard to gather data and information on rhinos so that CITES parties can make informed decisions and ensure that rhinos are still here for generations to come.”

The 58th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee is being held in Geneva from 6 -10 July. This issue will be further discussed at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES, which will be held in Doha, Qatar March 13-25, 2010.

source (and photos): http://www.panda.org/?169862/Poaching-c ... ms-in-Asia

One of India's main tiger parks - Panna National Park - has admitted it no longer has any tigers.

The park, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, was part of the country's efforts to save the famous Royal Bengal Tiger from extinction.

State Minister of Forests Rajendra Shukla said that the reserve, which three years ago had 24 tigers, no longer had any.


A special census was conducted in the park by a premier wildlife institute, after the forest authorities reported no sightings of the animals for a long time.

This is the second tiger reserve in India, after Sariska in Rajasthan, where numbers have dwindled to zero.

Warning bells

Officials from the wildlife department say there is no "explicable" reason for the falling number of tigers.

But a report prepared by the central forest ministry says Panna cannot be compared with Sariska because "warning bells were sounded regularly for the last eight years".

The report says wildlife authorities failed to see the impending disaster despite repeated warnings, and lost most of Panna's big cats to poaching.

While this controversy rages, there have been reports that another national park in Madhya Pradesh, Sanjay National Park, which was included in the tiger project three years ago, also has no tigers left.

The park had a population of 15 tigers until the late 1990s.

Of the more than 1,400 tigers in the country, 300 dwell in the state of Madhya Pradesh, which is also called the "tiger state of India".

Best managed

But Madhya Pradesh's forest minister Rajendra Shukla says all the news is not bleak.

"Panna is our only park which has lost on this count," he says. "Three of state's reserve forests - Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench - have been adjudged among the best managed tiger reserves in the country."

Mr Shukla has drawn up a seven-member committee comprising the state's chief conservator of forests and experts, to ascertain why the tigers have disappeared.


The chief conservator, HS Pabla, told the BBC that the report would be submitted some time in August.

He said that tigers from Sanjay National Park "could have strayed to the adjoining area, which is now part of the state of Chattisgarh, created some years ago."

The authorities have recently transported two female tigers to Panna from another nearby tiger park, and sought permission from the central administration to bring in four more, two of them males.

Project tiger

India had 40,000 tigers a century ago, but the numbers dwindled fast because of hunting and poaching.

The country banned tiger hunting and launched an ambitious conservation effort named Project Tiger to increase the population of the endangered species.

A number of forest areas were declared national parks and funds allotted for protecting the tigers.

Though the programme bore fruit initially, with the decline in numbers checked because of a hunting ban, recent years have seen a phenomenal rise in poaching, which is now organised almost along the lines of drug-smuggling.

The authorities have not been able to put a stop to it, owing to the ever-changing techniques used by the cartels, and corruption within.

MK Ranjitsingh, a member of National Wildlife Advisory Board, says the authorities must crack down on the poachers by preventing their activities in the parks, and stopping the export of tiger products.

And they must, he adds, lobby for international pressure on the nations of the Far East, which are the main buyers of such goods.

There have been reports that there is a huge demand for tiger bones, claws and skin in countries like China, Taiwan and Korea.

source (and photos): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8150382.stm

Just as the federal Environmental Protection Agency failed to protect imperiled species around San Francisco Bay from pesticides, the agency hasn't shielded the Arctic polar bear from harmful chemical exposures, an environmental group charged in an intent-to-sue letter Wednesday.

source (and photos): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... .DTL&tsp=1

In what seems an ambitious plan, the government hopes to restore the cheetah, believed to have been extinct in India since the late
1940s, by importing the swiftest of the big cats and eventually releasing it into the wild.

Environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh told Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, “The cheetah is the only animal that has been declared extinct in India in the last 1,000 years. We have to get them from abroad to repopulate the species.” He was responding to a calling attention notice from Rajiv Pratap Rudy of BJP.

The plan to bring back the cheetah, which fell to indiscriminate hunting and complex factors like a fragile breeding cycle, is quite audacious given the problems besetting tiger conservation. But loss of the superb hunter that once roamed in central Asia, Afghanistan and India has rankled and the possibility of the cheetah staging a comeback is alluring.

“Two naturalists, Divya Bhanusinh and M K Ranjit Singh, suggested the idea of importing cheetahs from Africa. We are open to the idea and will hold a meeting along with the IUCN in September calling international experts at Gajner near Bikaner,” Ramesh told TOI later. In Parliament he said, “We will try to bring it back in captivity and then will set them out in the wild.” But the minister pointed out that the project could take some time as such a transfer needed to go through several scientific conventions and protocols

source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Heal ... 751464.cms

The baking summer has raised a bumper plankton crop for the harmless giants that feed in our waters. Now wildlife conservationists want the hotspots protected.

Record numbers of basking sharks have been spotted off the coast of Britain and Ireland after the recent hot weather boosted levels of their favourite food: zooplankton.

Last year there were only 26 sightings of the 11-metre sharks in two and a half months off the most southerly headland of Cornwall. This year more than 900 sightings have been recorded since the beginning of June.

"Last year we had a really poor year because of the weather. But even though temperatures have obviously picked up, we never expected to see the sharks in such large numbers," said Tom Hardy of Cornwall Wildlife Trust, who is co-ordinating the south-west basking shark project.

The trust uses 40 volunteers working in half-hour shifts for 10 weeks to record sightings. The volunteers have also recorded sharks breaching the surface of the water five or six times. "That is very rare," said Hardy.

Off the coast of Ireland, a record number of sightings was also recorded in June, with 248 basking sharks counted last month by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group.

Conservationists believe one of the reasons for the high numbers could be unseasonably warm weather increasing the amount of zooplankton. Basking sharks - the world's second largest fish - use highly developed senses and will travel hundreds of miles to seek out the densest patches.

Simon Berrow, of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, is carrying out a pioneering tagging project to find out more about the elusive sharks and has been taken aback by the numbers.

"In a three-day period we tagged more than 100 sharks in just one bay in north Donegal," he said. "You only ever see five or six of these creatures on the surface, which doesn't reflect what's going on under the water."

Around the coast of the Isle of Man, another basking shark hotspot, 400 sightings have been recorded since the beginning of May.

'"We saw a lot more in May than is usual and after a couple of quiet weeks sightings are picking up again," said Fiona Gell, marine wildlife officer for the Isle of Man government.

Basking sharks can weigh up to seven tonnes, but despite this they have tiny teeth and pose no threat to humans.

They have also been turning up in unexpected places this year. A rare sighting off the coast of Felixstowe caused a flood of wildlife watchers to head for the Suffolk coast last weekend. Extremely little is known about the species, and their seasonal and annual movements are a mystery to biologists. The high number of sightings is encouraging news for basking shark specialists who will meet at a conference over three days next month.

The 47 local wildlife trusts across the UK, the Isle of Man and Alderney are working to identify basking shark hotspots and hope that this summer's bumper crop of sightings will strengthen their call for further protection of the species.

The trusts would like to see some of these areas turned into marine conservation zones, a new type of protected area being introduced through the Marine and Coastal Access Bill currently going through parliament. This could result, for example, in speed restrictions being imposed on boats in the area.

"One of our principal aims is to ensure there is no loss in the population size of these magnificent creatures," said the the wildlife trusts' marine policy officer, Lissa Goodwin.

"The fantastic number of sightings we have seen this summer show how crucial it is to protect these basking shark hotspots in the future."

source (and photos): http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ooplankton

With its tiger population dwindling sharply over the last two years, a worried Madhya Pradesh government will deploy a Special Tiger
Protection Force in its three tiger reserves of Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench to arrest the big cat's rapid decline.

The state government took the decision as it does not want to lose its 'Tiger State' tag to Karnataka due to the falling number of the big cats, according to a forest department official. The number of tigers in the state is reported to have dropped from 300 in 2007 to 232 in 2009, he said.

A tiger census conducted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in 2007 put the number of big cats in Madhya Pradesh at 300, followed by Karnataka with 290. However, another census conducted by the Wildlife
Institute of India (WII) in 2008 has put the population in five tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh at 232 - with 89 big cats in Kanha, 47 in Bandhavgarh, 39 in Satpura, 33 in Pench and 24 in Panna.

However, in April this year a four-member central inquiry committee announced that Panna had no tigers since January. "It is regrettable that not even one tiger is left in Panna," committee chairman and former NTCA director P.K. Sen had said after visiting the tiger reserve in eastern Madhya Pradesh.

Concerned over the report, the Madhya Pradesh government formed a six-member committee to look into the matter. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan also transferred the field directors of Panna, Kanha and Bandhavgarh national parks late last month. "Now a Special Tiger Protection Force is on the anvil to protect the big cats in the various tiger reserves of the state," a senior wild life official said, not wishing to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

The state Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, H.S. Pabla, admitted that the tiger population in Panna had decreased but said the figure has remained constant in other reserves of the state.

Minister of State for Forests Rajendra Shukla last week instructed departmental officers to expedite the constitution of the Special Tiger Protection Force. Every company of the force would comprise 112 jawans, three sub-inspectors and six head constables and be headed by a deputy superintendent of police.

Constables of the force will be on deputation from the local police department and be below 40 years of age. Their deputation will continue till the police department creates permanent posts for the force.

The force will work under the control and guidance of the tiger reserve's Field Director, who will send a monthly report about it to the National Tiger Protection Authority. The cops will be exclusively for tiger protection and be empowered to use firearms in dealing with poachers and organized criminals within the periphery of the reserves.

Officers of the state police department and central forces will impart training to the constables on skill development, dealing with poaching and acting on information.

source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Heal ... 740188.cms

Puffins are being fitted with GPS devices similar to those used in satellite navigation to find why their numbers are down in a key British breeding colony.

click on the source link to view the video.

source: http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?videoI ... Channel=74

The Gujarat government is planning to shift some 100 families of the Maldhari community living inside the sprawling Gir National
Park as part of a project to resettle these herdsmen outside the sanctuary, officials said on Friday.
According to the plan, prepared by the state environment and forests department, each family will receive a compensation of Rs. 1 million and would be rehabilitated outside the sanctuary by the end of 2010, an official of the department said, requesting anonymity.

He added that the compensation amount has already been allocated in the Gujarat State Budget 2009-10, announced by State Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala in the assembly on the opening day of its monson session.

The Maldharis have been living inside the Gir sanctuary for centuries and consistently refused proposals for relocation made by the past state governments since 1972.

However, the government has now worked out a compensation package which may be acceptable to the Maldharis, he said.

Over the years, the state government could persuade only a small number of Maldhari families to relocate, while the rest of the herdsmen continued to live inside the national park, the official added.

The Gir sanctuary, spread over 1,000 sq. km in western Gujarat, is home to some 350 Asiatic lions - the only place where the species can still be found in the wild now.

Experts say the lions are threatened by man-animal conflict, accidents and poaching. Earlier, a proposal to shift a pride of lions to Madhya Pradesh's Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary was made, but it has been rejected by the state government citing security reasons. The case is pending in the Supreme Court.

source (and photos): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Heal ... 735088.cms

The world's largest cat, the Amur tiger, is down to an effective wild population of fewer than 35 individuals, new research has found.

Although up to 500 of the big cats actually survive in the wild, the effective population is a measure of their genetic diversity.

That in turn is a good predictor of the Amur tiger's chances of survival.

The results come from the most complete genetic survey yet of wild Amur tigers, the rarest subspecies of tiger.

At the start of the 20th Century, nine subspecies of tiger existed, with a total world population of more than 100,000 individuals.

Human impacts have since caused the extinction of three subspecies, the Javan tiger, Bali tiger and Caspian tiger, and world tiger numbers could now have fallen to fewer than 3000.

The Amur tiger, or Siberian tiger as it is also known, is the largest subspecies which once lived across a large portion of northern China, the Korean peninsula, and the southernmost regions of far east Russia. The Amur tiger most likely derived from the Caspian tiger, recent research has shown.

During the early 20th century, the Amur tiger too was almost driven to extinction, as expanding human settlements, habitat loss and poaching wiped out this biggest of cats from over 90% of its range.

By the 1940s just 20 to 30 individuals survived in the wild.

Since then, a ban on hunting and a remarkable conservation effort have slowly helped the Amur tiger recover. Today, up to 500 are thought to survive in the wild, while 421 cats are kept in captivity.

However, the genetic health of the tiger hasn't improved, according to a new analysis published in Molecular Ecology.

Little variation

Michael Russello and Philippe Henry of the University of British Columbia, in Kelowna, Canada led a team drawn from universities in Canada, Japan and the US in a bid to analyse the genetic profiles of the remaining wild Amur tigers.

They sampled nuclear DNA found within the scat samples of an estimated 95 individuals found throughout the Amur tiger's range, likely constituting up to 20% of the remaining population.

The study sampled the amount of variation within the DNA from more tigers, across a broader geographic, than any previous research.

"Although the census population size of Amur tigers is closer to 500 individuals, the population is behaving as if it were the size of 27 to 35 individuals," says Russello.

That's the lowest genetic diversity ever recorded for a population of wild tigers.

The effective population of any group of animals will be lower than the number that actually exist, due to factors such as non-breeding individuals or a skewed sex ratio.

"However, what is remarkable about the Amur tiger is how much lower the effective population size is than the census size," says Russello.

Population split

Another important finding to emerge from the study is that the remaining Amur tigers are segregated into two populations that rarely intermingle.

The majority of Amur tigers live among the slopes of the Russian Sikhote-Alin Mountains, with 20 or fewer living separately in Southwest Primorye in Russia.

The two groups are separated by a corridor of development between Vladivostok and Ussurisk, and the genetic analysis showed that perhaps just three tigers had managed to cross the divide, reducing the effective size of the wild population further.

"There is little sharing of genes across the development corridor, suggesting that these two populations are fairly discrete," says Russello.

"In actuality, it seems that Amur tigers are residing in two, fairly independent populations on either side of the development corridor between Vladivostok and Ussurisk, further lowering the effective size for each from 26 to 28 for Sikhote-Alin and 2.8 to 11 for Southwest Primorye."

That means more work needs to be done to open up this barrier segregating the tigers.

If that doesn't happen, then it's likely that the Southwest Primorye population will continue to dwindle. That could also kill off the prospect of reintroducing Amur tigers to China, as those in Southwest Primorye are living closest to their former Chinese range.

Captive resource

The news is not all bad for the Amur tiger, however.

Russello and Henry's team also analysed the nuclear and mitochondrial DNA of 20 captive Amur tigers, to see if they retained any unique genetic features since lost by the wild tigers.

"There are gene variants found in captivity that no longer persist in the wild," says Russello, which suggests that the captive program has done a good job of preserving the genetic diversity of the subspecies.

"Now that it is known which individuals possess which gene variants, managers will be able to selectively breed to help preserve the unique and rare gene variants," says Russello.

"The implication is that this variation may be used to re-infuse the wild population sometime in the future if reintroduction strategies are deemed warranted."

source (and photos): http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_ne ... 128738.stm

The extinction crisis facing the world's wildlife could be even worse than previously thought with more than 44,000 species under threat, according to the latest analysis.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) produce a list every year of species under threat or in danger of dying out known as the Red List.

The list is recognised as the most comprehensive picture of the state of plants and animals around the world.

This year the IUCN has also produced an in-depth analysis of the figures in order to illustrate the danger of losing species like river dolphins, albatross or tigers to climate change, habitat loss or hunting.

The analysis – carried out once every four years – revealed that birds, mammals, amphibians and corals all show a greater risk of extinction than ever before.

Nearly one third of amphibians and coral, more than one in eight birds and nearly a quarter of mammals are threatened with extinction. Examples include harlequin frogs in the Amazon, vultures in Asia and bison in Europe. UK animals include the great bustard, basking shark and sperm whale. For some plant groups the situation is even more serious with 28 per cent of conifers in danger of dying out.

It also showed for the first time that animals and plants used for food and medicine are much more threatened, therefore risking human health as well as wildlife. Some 36 per cent of mammals used for food and medicine are threatened, compared to 21 per cent of all mammals.

The report urged leaders to put as much effort into saving nature as they did into economic rescue packages, as countries were "utterly dependent" on the diversity of animal and plantlife.

There are currently 44,838 species on the IUCN Red list considered under threat – the greatest figure ever recorded. Of those 16,928 species are in danger of going extinct. Considering that only 2.7 per cent of the world's 1.8 million known species have been analysed, conservationists say this is a "gross underestimate".

For example 27 per cent of corals are threatened due to pollution and overfishing but there is not enough information to assess a further 17 per cent.

Also the situation is expected to get worse as a result of climate change. Of 17,000 species examined a third of birds, 41 per cent of amphibians and half of corals which are currently not threatened could be susceptible to the effects of climate change.

Craig Hilton Taylor, co-editor of the study, said the situation could be worse than previously thought.

"The report makes for depressing reading. It tells that the extinction crisis is as bad, or even worse, than we believed," he said.

Since records began more than 1,000 species have gone extinct including the dodo and passenger pigeon and more recently species like the golden toad.

Ben Collen of the Zoological Society of London called on world leaders to use the information IUCN to take action.

"Within our lifetime, hundreds of species of birds, mammals and amphibians could be lost as a result of human actions," he said. "We must set clear goals to reverse these trends and ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out the small things provide us with great benefits such as pollination, nutrient cycling, and climate regulation."

source (and photos): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildli ... tinct.html

Conservationists are warning that a rare species of penguin could face extinction unless urgent action is taken to protect it.


African penguins which nest around the southern coastline of the continent are under threat from commercial fishing and oil spills.

In the past century the population of the birds has declined by 90%, leaving just 26,000 breeding pairs left in the wild.

If the current rate of decline continues the African penguin, also known as the jackass penguin because of its donkey-like bray, could be extinct by 2024.

In South Africa, researchers are closely monitoring every penguin colony to gather data to present to the government as part of a campaign for fishing exclusion zones.

On the remote Dyer Island, off the coast of Cape Town, Lauren Waller and her colleague Deon Geldenhuys spend each day measuring and weighing the penguin chicks.

Their condition reckoned to be a good indicator of the availability of fish around the island because they are totally dependent on their parents' ability to find food.

"We're finding more underweight chicks, and more chicks that have been abandoned," Lauren said.

Dyer Island - uninhabited by humans - is a protected site for sea birds. But the protection does not extend out to sea.

Fishing of sardines and other pelagic fish in the area is unrestricted which means that the penguins have to compete with the trawlers for food.

The researchers have attached small GPS devices to some of the adult birds to see how far they are travelling.


"We've found that the Dyer Island birds are swimming 40 kilometres to fish, and that is at the very limit of the distance they can travel when they have chicks," Lauren said.

Penguins mate for life and the breeding pairs take it in turns to find food while the other stays with the chicks.

The distances involved mean the adult penguins are increasingly vulnerable to seal attacks and oil spills out at sea, while their young go hungry back in the nest.

At the Southern African Foundation For The Conservation Of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) in Cape Town hundreds of injured and oiled penguins are rescued every year.


"Most of the time the oil spills aren't even reported, but every day we get penguins in here who are close to death because they have been covered in oil," said Venessa Strauss, the centre's CEO.

Saving the birds is labour-intensive. It takes four people to clean each bird, and they then have to be fed twice a day - by hand.

The penguins are eventually returned to the wild in the hope that they will help boost the falling numbers.

Climate change is exacerbating the problem, shifting the location of the fish and also making the penguins vulnerable to over-heating on the land.

Around the Western Cape researchers are experimenting with artificial nests made of fibre glass to try to keep the chicks out of the sun.

On Dyer Island the penguins have been quick to move into the burrow shaped structures, each pair closely guarding their new homes.

source (and photos): http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World- ... 9834?f=rss

Four Tibetans have been arrested by Nepalese police on charges of poaching and smuggling of endangered wildlife species.

The Tibetan nationals were arrested from Taplejung district in eastern Nepal, the National News Agency reported.

The police recovered from their possession a head and four legs of Nepal's national bird Lophophorus, 23 traps to kill deer and four sharp knives (khukri).

Meanwhile, the arrested Tibetans were brought to the District Police Office, Taplejung, where they will be charge-sheeted, police said.

source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Fou ... 705749.cms

NEW DELHI: India's Asiatic lions are the most vulnerable of all the big cats as they live in a single area in Gujarat, making them prone to
diseases as well as other threats, and yet calls for creating a second home by the scientific community have been repeatedly ignored, say experts.

The sprawling Gir National Park in western India is home to some 350 Asiatic lions, the last refuge for these cats. In the past, the lions had roamed in almost the entire Central Asia.

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), a leading scientific organisation, recommended the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh for setting up a second home for the Gir lions.

But the Gujarat government rejected the proposal, saying it lacks scientific backing and security.

Experts believe Kuno in central India is part of the lion's historical home range.

Gujarat says if Madhya Pradesh cannot protect their tigers, how can they protect the lions.

Supreme Court lawyer Ritwick Dutta, who has taken up the case filed by the Biodiversity Conservation Trust of India, a Delhi-based NGO, in the apex court for transfer of the lions, said: "If the issue is not resolved, there would be a huge economic loss."

"The 24 villages that were inside the Kuno reserve have been resettled elsewhere to make room for the Gir lions and an estimated Rs.15 crore has been spent on the project," said Dutta.

However, with the recent admission by the Madhya Pradesh government that there are no tigers left in the Panna reserve, it might just assure the Gujarat government of its case.

But Faiyaz Khudsar, a wildlife biologist who heads the NGO and has worked in Kuno for the lion relocation programme, says, "Wild animals confined to a single area can spell death knell to their long-term survival, and this has been proved by science."

"Some years ago in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, at least 25 percent of the African lion population there was wiped out due to the canine distemper disease, (a fatal viral disease) and the rest of the lions fell sick. This shows how a single epidemic can wipe out the entire lion population in the park," said Khudsar.

The Serengeti Park, a Unesco World Heritage site, is spread across more than 14,000 sq km, whereas Gir has an area of just over 1,000 sq km. Despite the sprawling size of Serengeti, the African lions fell to the onslaught of the viral disease, he maintains.

Besides, inbreeding over a period of time can render a population confined to a single area genetically weak, as they don't get the chance to mate with stronger partners from other geographical areas, making them more prone to diseases, he said.

Gir lions are also threatened by poaching, man-animal conflict and accidents. Many lions have died recently after falling into the wells created to provide water for flora and fauna of the park.

"If Gujarat says that there is a security issue in Kuno, then why are the lions straying out of Gir. Some of the lions are even reaching Daman and Diu," said Khudsar.

"The only solution left is to create different populations in different areas. The geographical barriers might help the lions evolve stronger genes in the near future that would ensure their long-term survival," he explains.

Gujarat said its lion population has stabilised and shown healthy growth from just 177 in 1968 to about 350 at present.

In 1956, attempts to introduce Gir lions in Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh "failed due to scientific shortcomings" and there is no scientific basis to show that the present initiative would be a success, Gujarat said in an affidavit to the Supreme Court recently.

"This project shall be pioneering and hopefully trail blazing," it noted. But Khudsar claims science has made tremendous progress since the first attempt in the 1950s.

"Now we have the technology such as 'radio-collaring' to monitor the lions. Besides, there are many other advances animal science has made."

For now, the Supreme Court has referred the case to the Wildlife Board of India for its opinion. The next hearing in the case is on Aug 11.

source (and photos): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Heal ... 688195.cms

A tiger census would be conducted in October this year by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) after a gap of two years amid fears of
declining population of the animal in the country.

The WII would employ latest gadgets like camera traps and ecological density methods to conduct the census to know the exact population of tigers and prepare their DNA profile, WII sources said.

"The pugmark method would not be used this time as certain discrepancies were found in the past," WII Dean V B Mathur said.

Significantly, WII is focusing on preparing DNA profile of tigers which would help authorities in curbing tiger poaching. Through this profile, scientists would be able to find out the exact place from where a particular tiger was killed by poachers, Mathur said.

The WII will take help of nearly 50,000 field and technical staff along with experts to conduct the census that would cover nearly 17 states though the main focus would be on the five major "source landscapes" where tigers are breeding.

These "source landscapes" are Corbett-Rajaji in Uttarakhand, Kanha-Page in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Nagarhole-Mudumalai-Bandipore in Karnataka, Sunderban in West Bengal and Kaziranga in Assam.

source (and photos): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Eart ... 636743.cms

A new documentary called "The end of the line is released
The End of the Line is an important documentary film about the devastating impact of overfishing in the world's oceans. First shown at the Sundance Film Festival, with any luck it could do for fishing what "An Inconvenient Truth" did for global warming.

The End of the Line is based on a book written by a former Telegraph newspaper journalist, Charles Clover. He then went on to spend two years working on the film; on a one-man crusade to save our fish. He spoke to top scientists, fishermen and enforcement officials. He travelled around the world, chasing down politicians and confronting high profile restaurateurs about their menus.

Why Overfishing is a Problem

Essentially, there are not enough fish in the sea any longer. This is because fish are a finite resource and we have been taking too many out of the ocean--at a much faster rate than they can ever reproduce. Ninety per cent of the ocean’s large fish have been fished out and global fishing fleets are 250 per cent larger than the oceans can sustainably support. And there is little or no regulation and lots of big business and big corruption. We've got trouble.

The film tells a complicated story in a straight forward and compelling way. Some of the images are stunning and others are frightening, as we see huge super trawlers "inhaling" fish.

The demise and subsequent moratorium on cod fishing in Newfoundland by 1992 was the first big example that fish stocks were not inexhaustible. By 2002 the decline worldwide was being recognised.


In addition to cod, other species have also collapsed. The blue fin tuna is almost extinct now because of our love of sushi. The film has a fascinating section about a former fisherman who has become a whistleblower. Roberto Mielgo is a very brave man who trails and reports boats destroying the blue fin tuna population. It's hard to believe that he can carry on with his mission in the face of the possible danger.

Fish forms a key part of the diet of 1.2 billion people in the world. Declining resources will threaten lives. West Africa, a poor country at best, used to have the richest stocks, now they have seen a massive decline.

It's a complicated issue. The film outlines the impact of the huge super trawlers and global companies travelling around the world to find more fish. Fish farming is discussed--farmed fish eat ground up fish meal. So more fish lost. The European Union's quota system is not quite perfect: they are setting quotas that are well over the acceptable limits for reviving fishing stocks.

Said one scientist: there is "still time to turn the course of history." People are getting a better understanding of the problem. It's becoming a more main stream issue gradually, as climate change has. Consumers are demanding better accountability and supermarkets are being forced to respond. Since the chain stores have the buying power, they can make or break a supplier with their demands. For example, Waitrose, the film's UK sponsor, has already launched responsible fishing policies to ensure that fish are bought from sustainable sources and caught using responsible methods. Governments are becoming more aware. Iceland is a model for sustainable fishing and has much to teach the world.

The film opens on World Oceans Day, June 8, so find a cinema nearby and learn about something that will change the way you think and eat. The End of the LIne

Official end of the line Website: http://endoftheline.com/

The above text comes from: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06 ... entary.php

It's hard to believe there are still places on Earth that haven't been fully explored. And yet this week brings news that conservation teams working in jungles in Bangladesh and Borneo have discovered previously unknown populations of two critically endangered species, the Irrawaddy dolphin and the Bornean orangutan.

In Bangladesh, the news is especially good, as the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) reports finding nearly 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in the fresh waters surrounding the Sundarbans mangrove forest and in the nearby Bay of Bengal, areas where the WCS says little marine mammal research has previously been conducted. This discovery nearly doubles the estimates of the worldwide population for the rare dolphins, and represents the largest single population of the species. According to the WCS, known populations of Irrawaddy dolphins prior to this study numbered in the low hundreds or fewer. The species is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The WCS, headquartered in Bronx, N.Y., says it is currently working closely with Bangladesh's Ministry of Environment and Forests to establish a protected area for Irrawaddy dolphins in the mangrove forest. The group helped to establish a similar conservation area along the Ayeyarwady River in 2006.

But WCS says more funding will need to be raised from private and government sources to establish this protected area and to keep studying the dolphin and its habitat. It warns that the dolphins are threatened by fishing – they tend to get entangled in nets – and by declining freshwater supplies brought about by dams and climate change.

The news was announced yesterday at the First International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas in Maui, Hawaii; the study is set to be published in the Journal of Cetacean Research and Management. A companion paper about declining freshwater supplies and the effect that will have on dolphins and similar cetacean species appears in the March/April issue of Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystem.

Meanwhile, an expedition funded by The Nature Conservancy, headquartered in Arlington, Va., has reported finding a new population of orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) deep in the heart of a two-million-acre forest in Borneo's East Kalimantan Province. The team found 219 orangutan nests in an area where orangutans were not previously believed to live. "It is quite likely that this area has a population of several hundred orangutans, possibly more than a thousand," Erik Meijaard, senior ecologist for The Nature Conservancy in Indonesia, writes in the organization's blog, Cool Green Science.

Orangutan populations on Borneo are currently estimated at fewer than 50,000 by the IUCN Red List. The Bornean orangutan's cousin, the even rarer Sumatran Orangutan (P. abelii), has an estimated population of just 7,300 animals.

If this new population proves to be as large as Meijaard believes, it would be a big boost for the critically endangered ape. The population's isolated location could also be of help, since orangutan habitats throughout Indonesia are being lost to the timber industry or palm-oil plantations.

Source: http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=rare-dolphin-and-orangutan-species-2009-04-01

Students funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) have rediscovered a snake species, described two new invertebrate species, and demonstrated that local people directly benefit from conservation management.

The findings resulted from a small grant-funded postgraduate research programme in the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests of Kenya and Tanzania. The results demonstrate that focused work by students can go a long way in contributing to knowledge for the conservation of biodiversity hotspots.

read more (source and photos): http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2009/ ... t_eba.html

With the advent of spring, animals will begin to awake from hibernation and to think of pleasant pastimes. Like mating, for instance. In the case of toads, this poses a problem. They need to reach certain specific ponds and pools to pursue their love life, and they have traditional routes for getting there. Unfortunately, modern life has interposed obstacles like roads – but, apparently, you can’t explain to a toad that it would be a good idea to go somewhere else. So the Toad Migration Group of The Hague is asking for volunteers to spend at least one evening a week for six weeks supervising toad crossing. Anyone interested can apply to www.haagse-dierenbescherming.nl or call 070-392 42 89.

source: http://www.thehagueonline.com/headlines ... s-the-road

The first camera-trap photographs of the critically endangered Northwest African, or Saharan cheetah, have been obtained in an experiment in Algeria.

The images were captured as part of a project run by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Office du Parc National de l'Ahaggar (OPNA).

The animal is known with certainty to range in six countries: Algeria, Togo, Niger, Mali, Benin, and Burkina Faso.

But the total population may be fewer than 250 mature individuals.

The pictures come from a systematic camera-trap survey across the central Sahara.

It managed to identify four different Saharan cheetahs using spot patterns unique to each animal.

"The Saharan cheetah is critically endangered, yet virtually nothing is known about the population, so this new evidence, and the ongoing research work, is hugely significant," said ZSL's Dr Sarah Durant.

Farid Belbachir, who is running the field survey, added: "This is an incredibly rare and elusive subspecies of cheetah and current population estimates, which stand at less than 250 mature individuals, are based on guesswork.

"This study is helping us to turn a corner in our understanding, providing us with information about population numbers, movement and ecology."

source (and photos): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7905986.stm