#endangered wild species

[markhorday]

Highlight the importance of sustainable hunting for endangered wild species.

Thanks to community-based wildlife management and trophy hunting of markhor some populations have recovered, which is reflected in the current IUCN Red List. It’s a success story that highlights the importance of sustainable hunting for endangered wild species.

[reasonsforhope]

"One of the world's rarest cats, the Iberian lynx, is no longer classed as endangered, according to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

On Thursday [June 20, 2024], the IUCN, which categorises species according to the level of risk they face in a "red list", bumped the Iberian lynx from "endangered" to "vulnerable" after a significant surge in numbers.

Its population grew from 62 mature individuals in 2001 to 648 in 2022. While young and mature lynx combined now have an estimated population of more than 2,000, the IUCN reports.

As the name suggests, the wild cat species calls the Iberian region - Spain and Portugal - home.

According to the latest census data, there were a total of 14 clusters where the animals were stable and reproducing. Of those, 13 were located in Spain and one in Portugal.

The wild cat used to be common across the whole of the Iberian Peninsula, but from the 1960s its numbers plummeted.

Habitat loss, poaching and road accidents all helped to push the species to the brink of extinction.

Now, the cat is coming back.

The increase is largely thanks to conservation efforts that have focused on increasing the abundance of its main food source - the also endangered wild rabbit, known as European rabbit.

Programmes to free hundreds of captive lynxes and restoring scrublands and forests have also played an important role in ensuring the lynx is no longer endangered.

Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, a coordinator responsible for leading the conservation action, described it as the "greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation".

Mr Ortiz said there was still "a lot of work to do" to ensure the animals survive and the species can recover.

"Looking ahead, there are plans to reintroduce the Iberian lynx to new sites in central and northern Spain,” he added.

The area the species occupies is now much larger, according to IUCN, jumping from 449 sq km (173 sq miles) in 2005 to 3,320 sq km today."

-via BBC News, June 20, 2024

[plesiosaurys]

getting emotional over footage of an amateur scuba diver interacting with a coelacanth. they are hunted by large deepwater predators, and here comes a large creature bearing the brightest lights it's ever seen, making strange noises, but it does not shy away. it hovers, calmly, as the diver reaches out and trails a hand down its back. im strongly against the anthropomorphizing of real life animals but the stupid emotional part of me loudly insists this is because it recognizes us, the alternating movements of its four paired limbs matching the diver's four paired limbs, & it is thinking, "hello, cousins, we missed you these 66 million years, it's so good to see you again. welcome back, welcome home."

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

Along the sandy shores of Sekania, on the Ionian island of Zakynthos, what she has seen both this year and last, has been beyond her wildest dreams. The beach, long described as the Mediterranean’s greatest “maternity ward” for the Caretta caretta loggerhead sea turtle, has become host to not only record numbers of nests, but record numbers of surviving hatchlings as the species makes an extraordinary resurgence. “The message sea turtles are sending is very clear,” said Minotou, who coordinates the WWF programme in the protected area. “And that is the measures we have taken over the past 25 years to ensure conditions are right for the marine turtles to nest here are working … It’s fantastic.”

[maureen2musings]

The Dracula Parrot, New Guinea

rawrszn

[rebeccathenaturalist]

If you've ever shared "cute" pictures or videos from owl cafes, read this sobering reality check.

92 cafes across Japan hold over 1900 owls captive, simply for entertainment. This includes two species considered Near Threatened (Barred Eagle-owl Bubo sumatranus and Chaco Owl Strix chacoensis) and one Vulnerable species (Snowy Owl Bubo scandiacus). Moreover, there is a lack of transparency as to the origins of many of these owls, which may not all have been captive-bred. Species may have been mislabeled during import, and not all have paperwork showing they were legally imported, meaning there is a very good chance owl cafes feed into the illicit, non-sustainable wildlife trade.

What the article doesn't cover is how stressful these settings are for owls. They're bright, noisy, and confined, and the owls are exploited by the owners who allow untrained strangers to hold and pet them without consideration of the owl's well-being. The "break areas" where the owls can get away from direct contact are still within sight of patrons, meaning they are still subject to human contact.

Owls are not chickens. They are not domesticated birds that have spent thousands of years and thousands of generations in human company, being selectively bred for human-friendly, docile traits. Even a tame owl is still a wild animal with intact instincts that tell it it should be living a largely solitary life in a wide, open field or forest, not stuck in a small space with many other owls of assorted species and a bunch of people.

This also isn't a situation like falconry, where captive birds are given plenty of private space, and flown daily for physical and mental fitness. And a single cage may have dozens of owls, more than what limited staff can handle. Even if some of the birds are supposedly "rescues" (as at least one cafe's website claims), any reputable wildlife rescue is going to limit the contact between the animals and humans, and absolutely is not going to allow visitors to regularly take pictures with and handle the wildlife--even socialized, trained ambassador animals have very stringent limitations on direct contact.

So it's not at all unsurprising that an already highly unethical industry is likely contributing to the problem of questionable or illegal wildlife trade. This study is just one more piece of evidence suggesting that these cafes are anything but harmless, cute fun.

[joyousjoyfuljoyness]

Holo Pangolin!

And a mini Holo Pangolin!

[extinctionstories]

Two hundred years ago, the wetlands of Japan rustled with pink-tinged feathers. Tall, pale birds stepped carefully through reeds and iris, hunting small fish, crabs, and frogs. 

Nipponia nippon, it would be dubbed by the national ornithological society, a bird emblematic of its country. The Crested Ibis. The Toki. The Peach Flower Bird.

Marshes slowly changed to rice fields, with farmers who resented the toki for ruining crops; to kill the birds was outlawed, so children chased them from the fields, singing warnings.

The doors of the country were pried open. Laws changed. Farmers bought their first guns, their sights set on birds who were no longer protected. The toki, the red-crowned crane, and many others began to suffer. But the worst was yet to come.

Pesticides are indiscriminate killers. The poison sprayed to kill a beetle can travel up the foodchain, toppling a cascade of larger animals, or affecting their ability to reproduce. It was reckless pesticide use that nearly wiped out the Bald Eagle. In the rice fields, the peach-flower-bird had little chance. 

In 1981, Japan’s last five living toki were removed from a wild that had become too dangerous for them.

I tell a lot of sad stories here, about mistakes we’ve made and animals we’ve lost. This isn’t one of those. This is a story about one of those precious times when we were able to fix the things we’d broken. 

A joint effort between Japan & China, and the discovery of seven more birds in that country, led to a successful breeding program, which in 2008 saw the first ibises fly free again in Japan. Today, at least 5000 toki exist in the world.

The last wild-born toki, one of those captured in 1981, lived almost long enough to see her species’ return. Reaching the equivalent age of a centenarian human, she died in 2003—not of old age, but injury after throwing herself against her cage door. 

Her name was ‘Kin’. ‘Gold’. 

Mended things can never be as whole as they once were. There will always be cracks that show, weak spots that remain vulnerable. Yet, like the shining seams of a kintsugi piece, these scars speak an important truth: here is a thing that someone chose to save; handle with care.

The title of this painting is ‘Restoration’. It is gouache on 22x30 inch watercolor paper, and is part of my series 'Conservation Pieces', exploring the effort to preserve endangered birds.

[bumblebeeappletree]

In the northeastern part of India, the greater adjutant stork has been considered an ill omen for generations, and the endangered bird has paid the price. Its breeding population here fell to just 115 birds by the 1990s.

But when biologist Purnima Devi Barman witnessed villagers chop down a tree crowned with the storks’ nests — and chicks — she launched a grassroots effort to do something about it. Today, 10,000 women across the region have banded together to protect nests, raise fledglings, and run educational programs for children and adults explaining the benefits the storks bring to their communities. They even produce textiles that celebrate the giant bird — and bring critical income and empowerment to the local women who are safeguarding its future.

These efforts have been a resounding success for greater adjutant stork conservation. A recent survey found 1,830 of the distinctive birds in Assam, and the species’ status on the IUCN Red List has been changed from “endangered” to “near threatened” — a testament to what can be achieved with community conservation.

[littlepawz]

Harpy eagle, the largest eagle in the world looks like a person in a bird costume, but judging by the size of his talons, I wouldn't want to make fun of him face to face. They live primarily in the upper canopy layer of tropical lowland forest and are considered "endangered species" in Central America due to the rapid decline in their numbers as a result of deforestation. Less than 50,000 of them can be seen over the world.

Harpy eagles have a hearty appetite and enjoy munching on a variety of monkeys, tree porcupines, sloths, coatis, birds, snakes, and lizards.

[birds-and-the-birds]

WHOLE FLOCK OF GROSBEAKS JISY STOPPED BY GOLY SHIT IM STOKED

[missedmilemarkers]

Denver Aquarium.

June 2024.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I have ever taken.

Got to love the blep.

[reasonsforhope]

"In a historic step toward the first-ever restoration of the tiger population to a nation where they were once extinct, two captive Siberian tigers have been translocated from Anna Paulowna Sanctuary, Netherlands, to the Ile-Balkhash Nature Reserve in Kazakhstan.

This remarkable event is part of an ambitious program led by the Government of Kazakhstan with support from WWF and the UN Development Program to restore the Ile-Balkhash delta ecosystem and reintroduce tigers to the country and region, where the species has been extinct for over 70 years.

“It is a high priority for Kazakhstan to work on the restoration of rare species. For ecological value it is important that our biodiversity chain is restored. And that the tiger that once lived in this area is reintroduced here,” said Daniyar Turgambayev, Vice-minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Kazakhstan.

In the early 21st century, genetic studies were carried out on bones and furs held in national collections which revealed that the population of tigers living between Iran, southern Russia, Central Asia, and the areas around the Caspian Sea was extremely similar to Siberian tigers.

This led scientists to conclude that Felis vigrata, the former name of the Caspian tiger, was simply the Siberian tiger that developed into a distinct population, but not a new subspecies, over generations of being separated by habitat fragmentation.

Bodhana and Kuma, the male and female tigers, will be housed in a spacious semi-natural enclosure of three hectares [7.4 acres] within the Ile-Balkhash Nature Reserve. Any of their offspring will be released into the wild and will become the first tigers to roam Kazakhstan in decades, and potentially the first-ever international tiger reintroduction.

They will play an important role in the establishment of a new tiger population in the region where they had previously been wiped out as a result of excessive hunting.

“Today marks a monumental conservation milestone to bring tigers back to Kazakhstan and Central Asia,” said Stuart Chapman Leader of WWF Tigers Alive. “This tiger translocation is a critical step to not only bring back the big cat to its historic homeland but also to rewild an entire ecosystem.”

Progress towards restoration of the area is already well underway with recovering and reintroduction of critical tiger prey species like the Kulan (Asiatic wild ass), and reforestation of over 120 acres with native trees. Being the apex predator, tigers will play a significant role in sustaining the structure and function of the ecosystem on which both humans and wildlife rely...

“With the launch of the tiger reintroduction program, we have witnessed a significant change—the revival of nature and our village of Karoi,” said Adilbaev Zhasar, the head of the local community group Auyldastar.

“This project not only restores lost ecosystems, but also fills us with pride in participating in a historic process. Because of small grants from WWF, we have the opportunity to do what we love, develop small businesses, and create jobs in the village, which brings joy and confidence in the future.”

From the very beginning, the local community around Ile-Balkhash Nature Reserve has been closely involved in the project. This includes support for improved agricultural techniques and the future development of nature tourism in the area.

The translocation of these tigers is the first of several planned in the coming years, with a goal to build a healthy population of about 50 wild tigers by 2035, starting with this pioneering pair for breeding. This initiative is not only a testament to the resilience of the species but also a powerful example of governments, conservation organizations, and local communities cooperating in wildlife and nature conservation."

-via Good News Network, November 27, 2024

[doglover43]

the maned wolf!!

its so sad to me that these wolves haven’t been seen (in the wild) in nearly 5 years

[johnnyslittleanimalblog]

«I love you, mom!» by Tambako The Jaguar Via Flickr: One of the lion cubs of the zoo of Zürich showing much affection to his mother, Joy. 

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This is a really exciting development! We've already seen the positive effects of beavers returning to their historic range here in North America, so it's even better to see the same thing underway across the Atlantic. A single pair with their first litter of kits certainly isn't a large-scale reintroduction, but it's proof that these animals have the capacity to get back to work here.

Beavers are often called ecosystem engineers, and for good reason. These keystone species alter waterways by building dams and lodges, creating ponds and other aquatic habitats for species that can't handle faster-moving water. These also often serve as water reservoirs during summer droughts. The dams and lodges themselves may also provide nesting sites for birds and shelter for other animals, plants, and fungi.

Sadly there are still people who want to see beavers trapped and hunted as pests because their dams can sometimes flood fields, to include those that were historically seasonal wetlands. Until we stop seeing animals' value only in terms of whether they're useful to us or not, the beavers are going to face opposition as they reclaim their old territories on both continents.

Nonetheless, I give a hearty cheer to the Mammalian Corps of Engineers!