Chinese conservationists battle to save pangolins from poachers

Yahoo – AFP, June 12, 2020

The pangolin was found in a fishpond by a farmer and brought to the
government-run rescue centre in Jinhua (AFP Photo/Handout)

Rescued from a farmer's fishpond, a young pangolin's release back into China's wilderness this week was hailed as a small victory in the battle to save the critically endangered animal.

The freeing of the scaly creature in the eastern province of Zhejiang came after Beijing's Forestry and Grassland Administration granted the world's most trafficked mammal similar protections to that of giant pandas.

It was among at least six pangolins -- poached for their meat and prized scales -- returned to the wild in the last month, according to conservationists.

"This is a great miracle, we have really changed the status quo so that now pangolins are released back into the wild," said Sophia Zhang, director at the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation.

The charity's staff, working with Jinhua Animal Rescue Centre, released the young female pangolin into a forest on Thursday.

It was found in a fishpond by a farmer, who reported it to police, and the animal was brought to the government-run rescue centre in Jinhua.

Beijing granted one of the most trafficked mammals similar protections to 

that of giant pandas (AFP Photo/Handout)

Zhang, who helps wildlife rescue centres across China release pangolins back into the wild, said May to July was primetime for spotting the creatures.

"They will often roam around and get lost outside their natural habitat, or end up in farmers' homes in search of food."

But she said it is hard to accurately gauge the number of Chinese pangolins remaining in the wild -- only that "very few" are left.

Zhang added that four creatures, who cannot survive in captivity, were set free last month and another was released in eastern Anhui province last week.

The mammals, native to parts of Africa and Asia, are thought by some scientists to be the possible host of the novel coronavirus that emerged at a market in China's Wuhan city last year.

Beijing recently banned the sale of wild animals for food, citing the risk of diseases spreading to humans, but the trade remains legal for other purposes -- including research and traditional medicine.

The young female pangolin was released into a forest in eastern China's 

Zhejiang province (AFP Photo/Handout)

However, pangolins were left out of the official Chinese Pharmacopoeia this year, the state-owned Health Times reported this week.

The landmark development in the creature's conservation efforts was hailed by campaigners who had lobbied for the change for a long time.

Their scales are prized in traditional Chinese medicine -- despite a lack of scientific proof -- and used for the treatment of various diseases such as arthritis, ulcers and tumours.

A practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine told AFP, using his online name Xinglin Daoren because of the sensitivities involved, said the new restrictions would impact some treatments.

He explained: "It can't be replaced."

Glass frogs reappear in Bolivia after 18 years

Yahoo – AFP, January 28, 2020

The Bolivian Cochran frog is a species of glass frog native to Bolivia and
notable for its transparent belly (AFP Photo/Oliver QUINTEROS)

La Paz (AFP) - A rare species of frog native to the eastern slopes of the Bolivian Andes has been spotted in the South American country for the first time in 18 years, the investigation team that made the discovery told AFP.

The Bolivian Cochran frog is notable for its transparent belly, leading to its nickname, the "glass frog".

"The rediscovery of this species fills us with a ray of hope for the future of the glass frogs -- one of the most charismatic amphibians in the world -- but also for other species," said investigation team members Rodrigo Aguayo and Oliver Quinteros, from the Natural History Museum "Alcide d'Orbigny", and Rene Carpio of the San Simon University in Cochabamba.

The team came across the frogs on January 8 during a mission to rescue reptiles and amphibians threatened by a hydroelectric project in the Carrasco National Park to the east of Cochabamba, the fourth largest city in Bolivia.

Glass frogs are tiny, measuring only 0.7-0.9 inches (19-24 millimeters) and weighing just 2.5-2.8 ounces (70-80 grams). They can be found in the departments of La Paz (west), Cochabamba, Santa Cruz (east) and Chuquisaca (southeast).

Some frogs' hearts and digestive tracts can be seen through their transparent bellies.

Those found in the Carrasco National Park had a transparent belly with a "white chest. The bones and vocal sac of the males are dark green," the team said.

The three frogs found were taken to the K'ayra amphibian conservation center at the Alcide d'Orbigny museum.

Experts will try to encourage the frogs to breed as part of a conservation strategy.

The K'ayra Center is also home to a pair of Sehuenca water frogs, known as Romeo and Juliet, that scientists have been trying to convince to mate to help preserve their critically endangered species.

Their attempts have so far been in vain.

‘New’ wasp species found during expedition to Amsterdam park

DutchNews, January 28, 2020 

Photo: Jiangli Tan (Northwest University, Xi’an) 

The Vondelpark in Amsterdam is home to a hitherto undiscovered species of wasp, which has now been named after it, the Parool reported this week. 

The Aphaereta vondelparkensis, a type of parasitoid wasp, was discovered last year at the park’s Koeienweide, a small area of grassland, by a team of scientists and local researchers. It was caught in a trap consisting of a jar of rotting chicken which had been buried in the ground. 

The five-day project was set up by Taxon Expeditions, which organises research trips to all corners of the world. The company’s founder Menno Schilthuizen chose the location to explore how biodiverse a spot in the middle of a busy city can be, the paper said. 

Apart from the unexpected presence of the wasp, the team’s findings were ‘spectacular’ in other ways as well, city ecologist Remco Daalder told the paper. ‘In just five days we found over a hundred moths, 85 species of beetle, 21 species of spider and 15 species of snail. It goes to show that the biodiversity in only a few hectares in a city can be huge.’ 

Daalder said Schilthuizen had broadened the idea of biodiversity.’When we say biodiversity we usually think of rabbits or blackbirds. But Schilthuizen looks at the soil and it contains a wealth of species. We are talking to him about exploring other parks to see what creatures we can find there.’

Manmade ruin adds 7,000 species to endangered 'Red List'

Yahoo – AFP, Patrick GALEY, July 18, 2019

The Roloway Monkey of Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana has fewer than 2,000 left in the
wild (AFP Photo/SEBASTIEN BOZON)

Paris (AFP) - Mankind's destruction of nature is driving species to the brink of extinction at an "unprecedented" rate, the leading wildlife conservation body warned Thursday as it added more than 7,000 animals, fish and plants to its endangered "Red List".

From the canopies of tropical forests to the ocean floor, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said iconic species of primates, rays, fish and trees were now classified as critically endangered.

The group has now assessed more than 105,000 species worldwide, around 28,000 of which risk extinction.

While each group of organisms face specific threats, human behaviour, including overfishing and deforestation, was the biggest driver of plummeting populations.

"Nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history," said IUCN acting director general, Grethel Aguilar. "We must wake up to the fact that conserving nature's diversity is in our interest."

In May the United Nations released its generational assessment of the state of the environment. It made for grim reading.

The report warned that as many as one million species were now at risk of extinction, many within decades, as human consumption of freshwater, fossil fuels and other natural resources skyrockets.

It found that more than 90 percent of marine fish stocks are now either overfished or fished to the limit of sustainability.

The IUCN singled out a number of sea and freshwater fish that now occupy its highest threat category of "critically endangered" -- the next step on the Red List is extinction.

Wedgefishes and giant guitarfishes, known collectively as Rhino Rays due to their elongated snouts, are now the most imperilled marine families on Earth.

The False Shark Ray is on the brink of extinction after overfishing in the waters off of Mauritania saw its population collapse 80 percent in the last 45 years.

Seven species of primate are closer to extinction on the new list, including the Roloway Monkey of Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, with fewer than 2,000 individuals left in the wild.

Prime culprits are humans hunting the animals for bushmeat and "severe habitat loss" as forest is converted to land to grow food.

40 percent of all primates in West and Central Africa are now threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN.

"Species targeted by humans for food tend to become endangered much more quickly," Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List Unit, told AFP.

"Species in environments with lots of deforestation for agriculture end up being impacted."

'Millions of years of evolution'

The updated list shows that over half of Japan's freshwater fish and more than a third of Mexico's are threatened with extinction due to the loss of free-flowing rivers and increasing pollution.

More than 500 deep-sea bony fish and molluscs have been added to the list for the first time posing something of a conservation conundrum as the space they inhabit -- 1,000 metres (3,280 feet) beneath the surface -- is often beyond national boundaries.

"The alarm bell has been sounding again and again concerning the unravelling crisis in freshwater and marine wildlife," said Andrew Terry, director of conservation and policy at the Zoological Society of London.

"Many of these ancient marine species have been around since the age of the dinosaurs and losing just one of these species would represent a loss of millions of years of evolutionary history."

UN biodiversity conference to lay groundwork for Nature rescue plan

Yahoo – AFP, Marlowe HOOD,  April 29, 2019

Up to a million species face extinction, many within decades, according
to the draft UN report (AFP Photo/ISHARA S. KODIKARA)

Paris (AFP) - Diplomats from 130 nations gathered in Paris on Monday to validate a grim UN assessment of the state of Nature and lay the groundwork for a rescue plan for life on Earth.

The destruction of Nature threatens humanity "at least as much as human-induced climate change," UN biodiversity chief Robert Watson said as the five-day meeting began.

"We have a closing window of opportunity to act and narrowing options."

A 44-page draft "Summary for Policy Makers" obtained by AFP catalogues the 1001 ways in which our species has plundered the planet and damaged its capacity to renew the resources upon which we depend, starting with breathable air, drinkable water and productive soil.

The impact of humanity's expanding footprint and appetites has been devastating.

Up to a million species face extinction, many within decades, according to the report, and three-quarters of Earth's land surface has been "severely altered".

Biodiversity loss around the world measured in percentage compared to 

an intact ecosystem (AFP Photo/Simon MALFATTO)

A third of ocean fish stocks are in decline, and the rest, barring a few, are harvested at the very edge of sustainability.

A dramatic die-off of pollinating insects, especially bees, threatens essential crops valued at half-a-trillion dollars annually.

Twenty 10-year targets adopted in 2010 under the United Nations' biodiversity treaty -- to expand protected areas, slow species and forest loss, and reduce pollution -- will, with one or two exceptions, fail badly.

Based on an underlying report that draws from 400 experts and weighs in at 1,800 pages, the executive summary has to be vetted line-by-line by diplomats, with scientists at their elbow.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) document, once approved, will be released on May 6.

Historically, conservation biology has focused on the plight of pandas, polar bears and a multitude of less "charismatic" animals and plants that humanity is harvesting, eating, crowding or poisoning into oblivion.

But in the last two decades, that focus has shifted back to us.

"Up to now, we have talked about the importance of biodiversity mostly from an environmental perspective," Watson told AFP ahead of the Paris meet.

Three-quarters of Earth's land surface has been "severely altered", according 

to the draft UN report (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

Agriculture is key

"Now we are saying that Nature is crucial for food production, for pure water, for medicines and even social cohesion."

And to fight climate change.

Forests and oceans, for example, soak up half of the planet-warming greenhouse gases we spew into the atmosphere.

If they didn't, Earth might already be locked into an unliveable future of runaway global warming.

And yet, an area of tropical forest five times the size of England has been destroyed since 2014, mainly to service the global demand for beef, biofuels, soy beans and palm oil.

"The recent IPCC report shows to what extent climate change threatens biodiversity," said Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a main architect of the Paris Agreement, referring to the UN's climate science panel.

"And the upcoming IPBES report -- as important for humanity -- will show these two problems have overlapping solutions."

Graphic on Earth's "mass extinctions" during the last 500 years. (AFP 

Photo/Alain BOMMENEL)

Extinctions hard to see

That overlap, she added, begins with agriculture, which accounts for at least a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.

Set up in 2012, the IPBES synthesises published science for policymakers in the same way the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) does on climate.

Both advisory bodies feed into UN treaties.

But the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has always been a poor stepchild compared to its climate counterpart, and the IPBES was added as an afterthought, making its authority harder to establish.

Biodiversity experts are trying to engineer a "Paris moment" for Nature akin to the 2015 Paris climate treaty.

Public concern about global warming has crystallised around impacts ranging from rising seas to deadly heatwaves, and the Paris pact's hard target for capping the rise in global temperatures.

The 2018 IPCC report cited by Tubiana added a time imperative: to hold the line at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), the world must reduce CO2 emissions 45 percent by 2030, and become "carbon neutral" by mid-century, it concluded.

But finding the equivalent for Nature has proven difficult.

"Extinctions are not something the public can easily see," said Watson.

A growing number of scientists and NGOs are calling for 30 to 50 percent of Earth's surface to be "sustainably managed" by 2030, and more thereafter.

But the draft report makes no such concrete proposals.

The next opportunity for a visionary plan to be ratified would be the next full meeting in October 2020 of the parties to the Convention on Biodiversity in Kunming, China.

Related Article:

20TH KRYON SUMMER LIGHT CONFERENCE, US (7), June 2-4, 2017 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Text version "The State of the Earth")

"....  A mini ice age is coming. "Kryon, isn't that doom for the planet?"  Many have seen the artist's rendering of major earth cities under ice and all of the other things that go very well with science fiction movies. That's simply a painting of someone's doom scenario, not reality based in the history of the cycle. If you want to know what a mini ice age is like, just flash back in history and study what took place in about 1650. That was a mini ice age. Due to the change in the Gulf Stream (the ocean), the river Thames froze in London. Dear ones, it was cold, but it did not doom the planet. That's a mini ice age.

That's what you're facing, and I'll say it again. If you live in a cold climate, heed this advice: It's going to get colder. Get off the grid! Within the next 15 years, find a way of producing electricity independently or in smaller groups. This can be done neighborhood-wide or separately in homes. You're going to need this, dear ones, because the grid as it exists right now all over the world is not prepared for this coming cold, and the grid will fail. That's not doom and gloom, that's just practical, commonly known information. Your electricity infrastructure is delicate, too delicate. Prepare for a cold spell that may last for a couple of decades. That's all it is. Technology is racing forward to allow this. Don't let your politics get in the way of your survival. ..."

"...  This is controversial. The planet can't just "change the water". It does it instead with a "reboot of life in the ocean" using the water cycle. Watch for evidence of this as it occurs, and then remember this channel. This weather cycle is to refresh the life in the ocean so that everyone on the planet will have needed food from the ocean. Gaia does this by itself, has done it before, and it does it for a reason - so it will not stagnate.

Dear ones, indeed, you have put compromising things into the air and the water, but it has not caused this cycle. We have said for a very long time, stop killing the environment! The reason? It's going to kill you, not Gaia. Gaia is spectacularly resilient and will survive anything you do. However, it is you who may not survive if you continue polluting. All this is starting to change with your awareness, and you're starting to see this and move with it. But Humans are not causing the current weather shift. This will be known eventually.

What is happening has happened before, and it's almost like a reboot for the oceans and it carries a lot of dichotomous events. You're going to see reports of a dying ocean, but at the same time you're going to see unusual reports of too many fish and other sea life in places that were supposed to have a decline. You're going to see the life cycle of the ocean itself start to change and reboot.

The chief player in this renewal is a place you would not expect: Antarctica. I want you to watch for magic in Antarctica. It has always been the core of the refreshing of microbes and other kinds of life in your oceans and it's especially active during these mini ice ages. The process will cause currents under the sea to be filled with new life, delivering it to both hemispheres almost like an under-sea conveyor belt. ..."

Rare albino orangutan released back into the wild

Yahoo – AFP, December 21, 2018

'Alba', the only albino orangutan ever recorded in the world, was rescued by
environmentalists from a cage where she was being kept as a pet by villagers
(AFP Photo/Handout)

Jakarta (AFP) - The world’s only known albino orangutan has been released back into the jungle more than a year after she was found emaciated and bloody in a remote corner of Borneo, an Indonesian NGO said Friday.

Environmentalists rescued "Alba" from a cage where she was being kept as a pet by villagers in Central Kalimantan in April last year.

She was found with dry blood smeared around her nose -- the result of her violent capture -- and weighed just 8 kilogrammes, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) said.

The blue-eyed primate, covered in fuzzy white hair, was on Wednesday returned to the wild with her best friend, Kika, after leaving their rehabilitation centre.

The blue-eyed primate, covered in fuzzy white hair, returned to the wild with her best 

friend, Kika, after more than a year in a rehabilitation centre (AFP Photo/Handout)

"So far she's showing good signs of adapting," Nico Hermanu, a BOSF spokesman, told AFP.

"She's been climbing trees as high as 35 metres (about 115 feet) and has been eating fruit from the forest."

Kika and Alba -- who is six years old and now 28 kilos -- will be monitored by conservation teams at Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park.

The rescue is a rare spot of bright news for the critically endangered species, which has seen its habitat shrink drastically over the past few decades largely due to the destruction of forests for logging, paper, palm oil and mining.

The rescue is a rare spot of bright news for the critically 

endangered species, which has seen its habitat shrink 

drastically over the past few decades largely due to

the destruction of forests (AFP Photo/Handout)

The population of orangutans in Borneo has plummeted from about 288,500 in 1973 to about 100,000 today, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

A string of fatal attacks on the great apes this year have been blamed on farmers and hunters.

Four Indonesian men were arrested over the killing of an orangutan shot some 130 times with an air rifle in February.

Borneo police have also arrested two rubber plantation workers and accused them of shooting an orangutan multiple times before decapitating it.

Plantation workers and villagers are sometimes known to attack the animal because they see it as a pest, while poachers also capture them to sell as pets.

Albino orangutans are rare on Borneo island, where most have
reddish-brown hair (AFP Photo/HANDOUT)

Related Article:

Rare albino orangutan rescued on Borneo island

Fruitful breeding programme produces the Netherlands’ first kiwi

DutchNews, October 11, 2018

Avifauna bird zoo, one of 16 zoos in the world to have a breeding programme for the kiwi, has announced the birth of the Netherlands’ first chick.

‘The birth of a baby kiwi is very special, especially since there are only 60 kiwis in zoos outside New Zealand,’ zoo worker Dennis Appels told public broadcaster NOS. 

The North Island brown kiwi is on the threatened species list because people have introduced other species to the island, for which the flightless kiwi is an easy prey. 

Avifauna is the only zoo to have produced a kiwi chick this year. ‘The secret is a solicitous father and peace and quiet,’ Appels said. 

It is not yet known what sex the kiwi is. This will be determined by a dna test on the animal’s feathers in a few weeks’ time. 

The new kiwi will be named on Thursday afternoon in the presence of the New Zealand ambassador Lyndal Walker. ‘It will be a Maori name to honour its New Zealand origins and to show how grateful we are for getting to keep it,’ Appels said. 

The kiwi, which was born on September 18 and is now some three weeks old, will be weighed and measured at 2pm each day for the public to see from Saturday October 13.

Oman opens sprawling oryx reserve to ecotourists

Yahoo – AFP, Khaled Orabi, December 23, 2017

The Arabian Oryx only clung to existence thanks to a programme to breed them
 in captivity and in the early 1980s a batch of 10 were released into Oman's
Arabian Oryx Sanctuary (AFP Photo/KARIM SAHIB)

Haima (Oman) (AFP) - The Gulf sultanate of Oman is looking to carve itself a new niche in ecotourism by opening up a sanctuary for one of the desert's most fabled creatures -- the Arabian oryx.

Once extinct in the wild, the rare member of the antelope family famed for its elegant horns has been dragged back from the precipice in a sprawling reserve fenced off for decades from the public.

That changed last month when authorities for the first time officially opened the sanctuary to visitors -- part of a broader bid by Oman to boost tourism as oil revenues decline.

On a recent outing, wildlife rangers in SUVs patrolled the sandy plains of the reserve in central Oman's Haima province, spotting groups of grazing oryx and other indigenous species.

For years, the main goal has been a basic one -- ensuring the oryx can survive by focusing on "helping the animals here reproduce and multiply", said sanctuary spokesman Hamed bin Mahmoud al-Harsousi.

But now, as numbers have ticked up from just 100 some two decades ago to almost 750 today, the authorities began eyeing another role for the reserve.

"There has been more interest in its tourism potential -- to take advantage of its uniqueness and rare animals," Harsousi told AFP.

'Arabian unicorn'

The story of the Arabian oryx -- sometimes referred to as the Arabian "unicorn" due to its distinctive profile -- is one of miraculous survival.

Hunted prolifically, the last wild member of the species was killed in Oman by suspected poachers in 1972.

The Arabian Oryx only clung to existence thanks to a programme to breed them

 in captivity and in the early 1980s a batch of 10 were released into Oman's 

Arabian Oryx Sanctuary (AFP Photo/KARIM SAHIB)

The species only clung to existence thanks to a programme to breed them in captivity and in the early 1980s a batch of 10 were released into Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary.

Since then, regenerating the oryx has been an often precarious process.

The Omani sanctuary sprawls over 2,824 square kilometre (1,100 sq miles) of diverse terrain -- from flat plains to rocky slopes and sandy dunes.

Its own fate has been nearly as tortured as that of the oryx it houses.

In 2007, the sanctuary became the first place ever to be removed from UNESCO's World Heritage list as the government of Oman turned most of it over to oil drilling.

On guard against poachers

Now, as oil prices have plunged over the past few years, it is the wildlife once again that has become an increasing priority for the authorities.

Harsousi puts the current number of Arabian oryx in the sanctuary at 742 and says that other species are flourishing there too.

"In the past three years, we have been able to increase the number of the Arabian gazelle, known as sand gazelles, from 300 to about 850," he added.

In addition to the animals, there are 12 species of trees that provide a habitat for diverse birds.

Oman has been on a push to transform itself into a tourist draw -- pitching its beach resorts to luxury travellers and desert wilderness to the more adventurous.

Officials in the sultanate told AFP that a major tourism plan would be announced within a matter of weeks.

Those working at the oryx sanctuary hope that it can help play a lead role in luring visitors to the country.

But there are also fears that greater openness could see the return of an old foe -- hunters.

With that in mind security is being kept tight, said Abdullah Ghassab Obaid, a wildlife guard at the reserve.

"Thirty guards and a police patrol are working to provide security in the reserve to prevent any infiltration."

Gulf sultanate of #Oman looking to carve itself new niche in ecotourism by opening sanctuary for one of the desert's most fabled creatures -- the Arabian oryx. https://t.co/PAdUzxybdi pic.twitter.com/NVRmO0nOmQ

— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 23, 2017