Helping people and birds in Peru

By Isadora Angarita:

Lake Junín: protection and sustainable use of high Andean ecosystems

Wed, Apr 3, 2013

Americas, News

Peat cutting on Lake Junín © ECOAN

More efficient cooking stoves were designed for communities around Lake Junín as a way of encouraging a better use of the high Andean peatland, or champa, an important habitat for migratory birds. Certified models of the cooking stove, adapted to local conditions, were built by members of the Management Committee and the local community. To date, 30 cooking stoves have been given to members of the community who are committed to the conservation of the area. The experience has been very successful and many more inhabitants expect to receive the stoves. The effects of the 30 new stoves on the use of the champa are yet to be evaluated quantitatively, however, a reduced use of this ecosystem has been perceived, given that these 30 families now extract less peat for cooking.

Lake Junín – importance for human wellbeing

Lake Junín, also known as Chinchaycocha, is located in the Central Andes of Peru at more than 4100 m above sea level. It was declared a protected area in 1974 with the aim of protecting and conserving its wild flora and fauna, as well as its scenic beauty. It was recognised as a Ramsar site in 1997, and as an Important Bird Area (IBA) in 2008.

The wetland provides habitat to important populations of threatened, endemic and migratory birds, including the Critically Endangered Junin Grebe Podiceps taczanowskii, the Endangered Junin Rail Laterallus tuerosi, and migratory species such as Blue-winged Teal Anas discors, Peregrine Falcon, Falco peregrinus, American Golden Plover Pluvialis dominica, Lesser Yellowlegs Tringa flavipes, Wilson’s Phalarope Steganopus tricolor, Baird’s Sandpiper Calidris bairdii and Greater Yellowlegs Tringa melanoleuca.

Junín National Park, including the lake’s ecosystem, is not only recognised for their beauty, but also for the resources and services provided to the local community, region and country. One of the most important is providing water for the largest reservoir in the country, responsible for 50% of electricity generation in the country. However, due to demands of the current economy, natural resources in Junín have decreased, and their unsustainable exploitation has negatively affected the quality and quantity of resources at the site.

Peat, or champa is used as energy to cook or heat homes among the local communities inhabiting the area around Lake Junín. Its extraction is regulated by the local administrative body of the protected area and extraction is performed once a year, in an intensive campaign at certain sites. However, poor practices can cause the loss of grassland and soil, and reduce the land’s capacity for rearing livestock, with detrimental effects on the local peasant economy. The resulting change in land cover also represents a loss of habitat for migratory and resident birds.

Therefore, part of the activities within the projects funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act and the Aage V. Jensen Charity Foundation, aim to create a programme which not only provides alternatives for grassland conservation and integrated management, but also reduces the impact of poor resource management, offering viable economic alternatives to the local peasant communities. Agreements and training programmes have been established with local communities to create recovery areas for champa, and reduce the area under exploitation, given the implementation of more energy efficient alternatives, such as the improved cooking stoves.

Improved cooking stoves promote an adequate use of champa

Left: traditional stove, right: more efficient design of stove, Lake
Junín © ECOAN

The improved design of the new cooking stoves not only provides a way to reduce peat consumption by approximately 50%, but also reduces gas emissions, therefore decreasing air pollution and respiratory illnesses.

Working together with National Park personnel, awareness has been created among the community on the sustainable use of champa. Support was also provided to the community to help them follow existing regulations surrounding the use of peat. These activities could not have been achieved without a complementary environmental education programme, and with the collaboration of the peasant communities, who played a vital part in the construction of the new cooking stoves.

The next stages of the project at Lake Junín include a review of the region’s Contingency Plan by the Local Management Committee, using information compiled in another project on endemic and migratory species. This plan establishes guidelines for priority conservation actions at the lake, with special emphasis on the Junin Grebe and Junin Rail.

•  More information on the project:

Alan Chamorro alan_chc@ecoanperu.org or afredd@hotmail.com  Project Coordinator, Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos – ECOAN

Constantino Aucca Chutas caucca@ecoanperu.org  President, Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos – ECOAN

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Two new lizard species discovered in Peru

By Laura Klappenbach, About.com Guide:

Two New Species of Lizard Discovered in Peru

March 28, 2013

Two new species of wood lizards have been discovered in Cordillera Azul National Park in central Peru. Cordillera Azul National Park consists of montane rainforests and are some of the least explored areas of Peru.

The two new lizard species, Enyalioides azulae and Enyalioides binzayedi, were discovered on a mountain ridge that divides the Region de San Martin and Region de Loreto within Cordillera Azul National Park.

The males of both species have vibrant green scales with a dark brown background. Females are a duller redish brown color.

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Peruvian mercury poisoning by illegal mining

This video from Canada is called Just How Toxic is Mercury? – A Study by University of Calgary.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Jungle region awash with unsafe levels of mercury

Thursday 21 March 2013

Unsafe amounts of mercury have been found in four in five adults and 60 per cent of fish sold at markets in a Peruvian jungle area ravaged by illegal gold mining.

The Carnegie Institution for Science called it a “grave and mounting threat to public health” today.

Mercury is a byproduct of small-scale gold mining practiced by about 40,000 illegal miners in the Madre de Dios region on the border with Bolivia and Brazil.

The institution said women of childbearing age were worst hit – and also the most vulnerable to mercury.

The metal is a neurotoxin and can cause severe, permanent brain damage to an unborn child.

Unlike legal mining in the Andean highlands, the mining in Madre de Dios consists chiefly of scouring riverbeds and alluvial deposits for gold flecks that stick to mercury.

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1 million camera-trap wildlife photos

By Morgan Cottle:

1 Million Camera-trap Photos — and Counting

Morgan Cottle

Elephant photographed at TEAM’s site in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda. (Photos courtesy of the TEAM Network)

For more than five years, the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network has been collecting camera-trap images of animals in tropical forests. TEAM started in Brazil and has now collected data on trees, terrestrial vertebrates and climate in 16 tropical forests in 14 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America. This year, TEAM reached an exciting milestone: its millionth camera-trap image!

A gigantic African elephant, a family of chimpanzees, an elusive jaguar — these make for beautiful photographs, but what else can we learn from these images?

More than just pretty pictures, these images house important biodiversity data. By analyzing these data, scientists can learn how biodiversity is affected by climate and land-use change over time. Because the data are collected repeatedly at each site using standardized methods, we can more easily compare sites and examine changes over time. This information is invaluable to protected area managers aiming to conserve species biodiversity, which provides the building blocks of healthy ecosystems and the provisioning of ecosystem services critical to human well-being.

Although the images are “captured” by automated camera traps (responding to both movement and temperature), the protocol for setting up and collecting the cameras, processing the images and identifying the animals is an intensive process. TEAM site managers — local scientists with university degrees in ecology and biology — lead teams of technicians who set up and collect the camera traps. This often involves spending days in the field, enduring fluctuating temperatures, rough terrain and threats from dangers like falling trees and venomous snakes.

Chimpanzees photographed in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda. (Photos courtesy of the TEAM Network)

After collecting the camera traps, the site managers review each image to identify the animals. In some locations, like the Republic of Congo, there can be upwards of 60,000 images per collection season! All of this information is then uploaded to the TEAM web portal, where it is made freely available to anyone who wishes to examine the data.

Up to now this has been primarily the realm of trained scientists such as CI’s Dr. Jorge Ahumada and colleagues, who made a media splash in 2011 with fascinating new results. However, as TEAM collects its millionth image, we are also at a critical point in providing information to the decision-makers who have a say in the management of these forests.

TEAM is now crafting indicators that will aggregate the camera-trap data and create an overall picture of the health of the animal community. These indicators can then be used by conservation managers and policymakers throughout the tropics.

For example, we are collaborating with the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission to integrate our camera-trap data into its global mammal and bird assessments. We are also working with the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership to propose new indicators that can inform progress of several international targets to protect biodiversity.

With new, web-based data analytic and visualization tools, TEAM will make the data more accessible and usable to decision-makers. By sharing this information, TEAM will help protect forests and species, ultimately protecting the ecosystem services upon which we all rely.

So what is the millionth TEAM camera trap image, you ask? It’s included in the GIF below. Time will tell what the presence of this jaguar could mean for the future of our tropical forests.

Jaguar from TEAM’s Cocha Cashu site in Manu National Park, Peru. (Photos courtesy of the TEAM Network)

Morgan Cottle is the project manager of the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network — a partnership between CI, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Smithsonian Institution and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

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Peru Amazon wildlife, video

Wildlife Extra writes about the subject of this video:

Camera trap videos fantastic range of wildlife in the Peruvian Amazon

Amazon biodiversity caught on film – Our thanks to Paul Rosolie for the video and the information

March 2013. A Peru-based conservationist has captured some great videos that showcase the biodiversity of the Amazon by setting up a camera trap trained on a single “colpa” salt lick in the western Amazon.

Monkeys, anteaters, jaguars, pumas, ocelots and a variety of birds

Paul Rosolie documented an extraordinary variety of species, some of which are threatened, in an area now targeted by loggers, miners, and other developers. During a four-week period, Paul’s camera collected footage of dozens of species, including a troop of howler monkeys, a giant anteater, and a host of big cats – including jaguars, pumas, and ocelots – constantly on the hunt for prey.

In the video, Paul, who is a director at a research station for Tamandua Expeditions, documented the wildlife in a region of the lower Las Piedras River in Peru.

“Seeing incredible abundance and diversity at a single location in the forest, in so short a time, is something we have never seen before,” said Paul.

Danger
At one point in the video, Paul himself is stalked by a jaguar whilst adjusting the camera at night! Not for the fainthearted this job.

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Peruvian condors in trouble

This video is called Earthflight (Winged Planet) – Condor’s Birds Eye View of the Andes.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Are we seeing the last flight of the condor?

Numbers of this magnificent bird have crashed. Mitra Taj in Lima on efforts to halt the decline

Sunday 27 January 2013

The Andean condor, one of the world’s biggest flying birds, is in trouble. It may have a 10ft wingspan that enables it to ride warm air currents for hours at a time, but that has proved little protection against habitat destruction and hunting.

The bird’s numbers have fallen dramatically. So much so that a Bill is being introduced into the Peruvian congress that would start a conservation programme, declare the condor a national treasure, and set jail sentences of between three and five years for capturing or killing the birds.

It is not before time. Yuri Ortiz de Zevallos, a condor catcher for decades and now the mayor of the Cotabambas district in the region of Apurimac, is concerned about declining condor numbers. “When I was young we could see 20, 30, even 40 condors gather around when we laid out the bait,” said the 50-year-old. “Now you will see maybe five or 10.”

There are no reliable figures for how many condors live in the Peruvian Andes today, and scientists say no exhaustive studies have been carried out there. Jose Antonio Ochoa, a biologist in southern Peru who works with the Frankfurt Zoological Society, said all the anecdotal evidence suggests an alarming decline in Peru, and put the population today at no more than 500.

The condor’s survival in Peru is threatened by shrinking habitat due to development, including large mining projects in the highlands, and the trafficking of its feathers and other body parts. And since fewer livestock now get lost and die, a once-reliable supply of carrion for the bird has been reduced.

Andean condors, which can fly more than 100 miles (160km) in a single day, used to be connected all along the mountains from Argentina to Venezuela as a single population. Because fragmented groups no longer integrate, over the long term they risk heading towards a genetic bottleneck, the point at which in-breeding can result in defects or infertility.

Michael Mace, a bird specialist at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, said Peru could benefit from a captive breeding programme. In the late 1980s, the United States started a successful captive breeding programme for the California condor, a different and slightly smaller species, after the population dwindled to just 22. Now that population stands at more than 400, with more in the wild than in captivity.

Andean condors do not start reproducing until they are around five years old, and lay only one or two eggs at a time in nooks of remote canyons every other year.

Scientists at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park say they have successfully released Andean condors in other South American countries. At least 12 have been released in Venezuela, where they had been locally extinct since 1965, and 74 in Colombia, where some have already hatched offspring in the wild.

Mr Ochoa said serious research and a national conservation programme in Peru are long overdue. He and his colleagues are seeking funding for a year-long programme to conduct a census, and put tracking devices on condors to determine how many there are and how best to halt their decline.

One of the legislation’s supporters, Elmer Caceres, mayor of the province of Caylloma where donkeys are slaughtered every week to leave as food for the condors, said there might not be much time left. He said the Colca Canyon, a popular tourist destination twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, is now home to just 25 condors, a fraction of the population in years past. Some 80 per cent of the region’s visitors come to see the birds. “Condors create jobs and revenues in my community,” he said. “And they connect me to my ancestors and my culture.” (Reuters)

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Good South American tapir news

This video is called Mammals of the World: Lowland Tapir.

From Wildlife Extra:

Huge population of tapir discovered on Peru – Bolivian border

Paradise found for Latin America’s largest land mammal – WCS documents at least 14,500 lowland tapirs thriving in Peru and Bolivia‘s Madidi-Tambopata Landscape

January 2012. Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) scientists have documented a thriving population of lowland tapirs – the strange forest and grassland-dwelling herbivore with the trunk-like snout – living in a network of remote national parks spanning the Peru-Bolivia border.

Camera traps

Using a combination of camera traps, along with interviews with park guards and subsistence hunters, WCS estimates at least 14,500 lowland tapirs in the region. The population bridges five connected national parks in northwest Bolivia and southeastern Peru. The study brings together 12 years of research on lowland tapirs in the region. Together with WCS studies on jaguars, the results underscore the importance of this protected area complex for the conservation of Latin America’s most charismatic terrestrial wildlife species.

Madidi-Tambopata

“The Madidi-Tambopata landscape is estimated to hold a population of at least 14,500 lowland tapirs making it one of the most important strongholds for lowland tapir conservation in the continent,” said the study’s lead author Robert Wallace. “These results underline the fundamental importance of protected areas for the conservation of larger species of wildlife threatened by hunting and habitat loss.”

Largest terrestrial mammal in South America – Threatened by habitat loss and hunting

The lowland tapir is the largest terrestrial mammal in South America, weighing up to 300 kg (661 pounds). Its unusual prehensile proboscis or snout is used to reach leaves and fruit. Tapirs are found throughout tropical forests and grasslands in South America. However, they are threatened by habitat loss and especially unsustainable hunting due to their large size, low reproductive rate (1 birth every 2-3 years), and ease of detection at mineral licks in the rainforest. Lowland tapirs are considered Vulnerable by the IUCN.

WCS collected and systematized 1,255 lowland tapir distribution records in the region. These records came from research observations and camera trap photographs as well as interviews with park guards of Madidi, Pilón Lajas and Apolobamba National Parks in Bolivia, and Bahuaja Sonene and Tambopata National Parks in neighboring Peru, and subsistence hunters from 19 Takana and Tsimane’ communities.

Camera trap data revealed that lowland tapir abundance was higher at sites under protection than sites outside protected areas. At one site sampled over time, the Tuichi River, camera trapping has revealed that lowland tapir populations have been recovering following the creation of Madidi National Park in 1995. Prior to the creation of the park, loggers had hunted heavily in this area.

Madidi National Park

Madidi National Park contains 11 percent of the world’s birds, more than 200 species of mammals, 300 types of fish, and 12,000 plant varieties. The 19,000 square-kilometre (7,335 square mile) park is known for its array of altitudinal gradients and habitats from lowland tropical forests of the Amazon to snow-capped peaks of the High Andes.

Working with government partners in Bolivia and Peru, the Greater Madidi-Tambopata Landscape Conservation Program aims to develop local capacity to conserve the landscape and mitigate a variety of threats to biodiversity and wildlife including lowland tapirs, including road construction, logging, unsustainable natural resource use, and agricultural expansion.

Julie Kunen, WCS Director of Latin America and Caribbean Programs said: “WCS commends our government and indigenous partners for their commitment to the Madidi-Tambopata Landscape. Their dedication is clearly paying off with well-managed protected areas and more wildlife.”

WCS’s conservation research in the Madidi-Tambopata Landscape has been made possible by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the blue moon fund, USAID, the Beneficia Foundation, the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, Woodland Park Zoo, and other generous supporters.

The WCS findings were described in the December issue of the journal Integrative Zoology. Authors include Robert Wallace, Guido Ayala, and Maria Viscara of WCS’s Greater Madidi-Tambopata Landscape Program.

February 2013. The Critically Endangered subspecies of Colombian Tapir has been rediscovered in the Paujil Nature Reserve after being considered extinct in the Magdalena Valley rainforests of central Colombia. Camera trap photos and fresh tracks of this rare creature from the Paujil Reserve demonstrate that the purchase and active protection of the last remnant of rainforest in the Magdalena Valley can make a real difference to saving species on the edge of extinction: here.

Malaysia may be home to more Asian tapirs than thought: here.

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Rare Peruvian bird discovery

This is a Peruvian TV video on the recent Royal Cinclodes discovery.

From Wildlife Extra:

New population of the critically endangered Royal Cinclodes bird found in Peru

Critically endangered bird running out of suitable habitat

October 2012. A new discovery by the Peruvian environmental group Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN), of a population of the critically endangered Royal Cinclodes is providing some increased hope that this bird may be able to be saved from extinction.

In August 2012, ECOAN biologists spotted a Royal Cinclodes and possibly a second bird inside the Huaytapallana Regional Conservation Area in Peru’s Junín department. This sighting was 29 miles north of the nearest and previously northernmost population discovered in Junín in 2008.

Fewer than 250 birds left alive

“There may well be fewer than 250 of these birds left in existence,” said Constantino Aucca Chutas, President of ECOAN. “These new sightings are therefore quite significant because they raise the odds that this rare species might be saved.”

The Royal Cinclodes is listed by the IUCN-World Conservation Union as Critically Endangered; it was recently listed as Endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The largest concentrations are found in Peru’s Cusco and Apurimac departments in the south of the country, with other populations in Bolivia’s department of La Paz, close to the Peru border, and elsewhere in Peru’s Puno and Ayacucho departments. (To see a map of the area, go to: maps.google.com and then search on “Area de Conservacion Regional Huaytapallana, Junin, Perú”)

Royal Cinclodes

The Royal Cinclodes is about eight inches long and weighs about 1.75 ounces; it has a slightly curved bill, and is dark chocolate-brown on the body, face, and crown, with whitish throat and streaking on the breast.

The Royal Cinclodes is usually a habitat specialist, found on the moss-covered ground of Polylepis woodlands high in the Andes of southern Peru and northern Bolivia. Polylepis trees are usually gnarled in shape with evergreen foliage and dense small leaves, and often have large amounts of dead twigs hanging down from the underside of the canopy. They are also characterized by shredding, multi-layered bark.

Polylepis habitat is severely threatened by local people, who harvest the trees for firewood; their grazing animals and fires inhibit the natural regeneration of these slow-growing trees. The Royal Cinclodes sightings at Huaytapallana were within a square kilometer area, with a low density of Gynoxys bushes-a genus of flowering shrub in the sunflower family.

“The recent sightings of Royal Cinclodes in Junín are significant because the Junín birds are living among rocks in mossy alpine areas lacking Polylepis trees,” said Dr. Daniel Lebbin, Conservation Biologist at American Bird Conservancy (ABC). ECOAN is ABC’s Peruvian partner.

Huaytapallana Regional Conservation Area

The Huaytapallana Regional Conservation Area was established in July, 2011 and spans over 55,000 acres between elevations of 14,760-18,230 feet above sea level. ECOAN intends to work with the regional government to incorporate conservation measures for the Royal Cinclodes into the Huaytapallana Regional Conservation Area’s management plan. Additional searches may better determine the population size in the area and help the regional government protect the birds.

ABC has worked with ECOAN to conserve the Royal Cinclodes in southern Peru, and worked with Bolivian environmental groups Asociación Armonía and Instituto de Ecología to protect the Royal Cinclodes in Bolivia.

Those efforts include:

In the Vilcanota Mountains of the Peruvian Andes, ABC has worked with ECOAN and more than 20 communities to protect and restore threatened Polylepis woodlands for the Royal Cinclodes, White-browed Tit-Spinetail, and Ash-breasted Tit-Tyrant. The initiative has planted more than 650,000 Polylepis trees, established seven community-owned and managed Private Conservation Areas covering more than 15,500 acres, and established a $2 million endowment to aid Polylepis forest conservation in this area.

In Bolivia, ABC has supported work by Armonía and the Instituto de Ecología to protect and restore Polylepis woodlands for the Royal Cinclodes and Ash-breasted Tit-Tyrant.

In both Peru and Bolivia, ABC has assisted partners in providing fuel-efficient stoves to communities to reduce their demand for fuel wood and reduce pressure on habitat for endangered birds.

Eight new mammals discovered in Peru

This video is called Manu Park, Peru.

From Wildlife Extra:

New monkey, marsupial and shrew amongst 8 new mammal species found in Peru

New night monkey discovered in Peru

‘One of the largest and most important discovery for decades’

October 2012. As Curiosity searches for evidence of life on Mars, discoveries of new life on our own planet are still being made. Often nowadays they include some new inse[c]t species, or some fish; perhaps even a couple of frogs, and very occasionally a new mammal.

Eight new mammal species

A team of scientists from Peru and Mexico, led by Gerardo Ceballos of the Institute of Ecology (IE) of the UNAM (National University of Mexico), and Horacio Zeballos of the Natural History Museum of Arequipa, have made a series of discoveries, including potentially eight new mammal species, that may be one of the most important findings for biodiversity in recent decades in the Peruvian Andes.

These new species of mammals including a porcupine (Coendou), a night monkey (Aotus), possibly a gray fox (Urocyon), a marsupial (Caenolestes), a shrew (Cryptotis), various rodents (Oecomys, Oligoryzomys, Chilomys, Thomasomys) and a new species of olingo (Bassaricyon), along with frogs (Pristimantis bustamante), and other animals. The relevance of this finding is enormous. “We found large mammals, it is still relatively common to find new species of small animals such as mice or bats, but large ones, like a porcupine, a monkey or a marsupial, which is very rare in South America, is remarkable”, said the university.

This discovery provides several lessons. “Tabaconas-Namballe National Park, where the discoveries were made, is surrounded by farms where the destruction of the ecosystem is severe. This means that without active conservation and the national park, these species would have become extinct without ever being discovered.” As happens in many other parts of the world.

More discoveries waiting to be made

Ceballos said that there is still much undiscovered biodiversity, but it is seriously threatened, as the rates of environmental destruction, both aquatic and terrestrial, are soaring. Ceballos considered the loss of species as part of the collapse of environmental systems, with has important implications for humans and their welfare, as the flora and fauna depend on the same environmental services and free benefits that nature provides; the quantity and quality of water and air, soil fertility, crop pollination, and providing products such as wood, fodder and honey.

Ceballos adds “Tabaconas-Namballe National Park, which lies in northern Peru close to the border with Ecuador, is threatened by deforestation, hunting and mining, but we want to conserve the area. It is a very special, but small, area of just 32,000 hectares. Because there is a wide range of altitude (2000 to more than 3,500 meters), the vegetation is very diverse.

At lower altitudes there is tropical rainforest, and cooler montane forests dominate the higher slopes, where it is cooler but dominated by very diverse flora, full of epiphytes, orchids, bromeliads and mosses. At the highest altitudes, grasslands and shrubs dominate and snow and frost are frequent in winter.

New mammals

Part of the scientific exploration of the area was to list the species present, and during the inventory, many new species were found. One of the most surprising appears to be a grey fox, similar to the grey fox of Mexico. The nocturnal marsupial shrew is also very unusual, as there are only three species in America.

Microendemics

Most, if not all of these new species are ‘microendemic’ species, which means that they only exist in a very small region and are therefore very vulnerable to extinction. Following the discoveries, a further expedition to the sanctuary, which is also home to other notable species such as the mountain tapir and the spectacled bear (South America’s only bear species), will be run as part of the Second International Course at Machu Picchu, to held in November.

New sanctuary

The Peruvian government has taken note of the importance of the discoveries, and is looking at the possibility of creating a 100 hectare wildlife corridor to join Tabaconas-Namballe to a second reserve. Actions are also being undertaken to strengthen local conservation initiatives, and further studies will continue to recognise the importance of the region for biodiversity.

Ceballos said that he will continue the research. “We will study the fox and other species, including an[o]ther porcupine with orange skin that could prove to be new to science.”

“If there are this many new large species, imagine what we might find from the insect world” said Ceballos.

The description of each species will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Finally, the university felt that this project is an example of the importance of collaboration between scientists from the National University, other countries in Latin America, and the world.

The study was undertaken by staff from the Institute of Ecology of the National University of Mexico, including: Academic coach Jesus Pacheco, PhD student Lourdes Martinez, and Dr. Andrés García, researcher of the Institute of Biology, specializing in reptiles and amphibians.

February 2013. A report leaked to British newspaper, The Guardian, has revealed secret plans by Argentine gas giant Pluspetrol to explore for natural gas in Peru’s Manu National Park World Heritage site and an area inhabited by uncontacted tribes in southeast Peru: here.

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• Gas company targets protected Manú park in Peruvian Amazon (climate-connections.org)
• Gas company targets protected Manú park in Peruvian Amazon (guardian.co.uk)
• Docs Reveal World’s Most Biodiverse National Park Targeted by Gas Company (commondreams.org)
• Australian wildlife news, good and bad (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Scientists reveal humans are descended from a shrew (itv.com)
• Ancestor of All Placental Mammals Revealed (news.sciencemag.org)

Monkeys in danger in Peru

This video from Peru is called Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey in La Esperanza.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Crisis in the cloudforest for woolly wonders

The yellow-tailed woolly monkey has long been hunted for its meat and fur, but now local attitudes are changing, as Simeon Tegel reports from Corosha, Peru

Monday 10 September 2012

Homero Francisco Lopéz grimaces as he recalls how his wife prepared the carcass of the monkey he had shot, serving him a bowl of thick stew, complete with chunks of cassava and a tiny hand for him to gnaw on. “It was normal here,” he says. “Everyone did it. We didn’t realise how few there were.”

Now Mr Lopéz, a 58-year-old subsistence farmer, has become one of the strongest voices in his village of Corosha, in the heart of the precipitous cloudforests of northern Peru, in defence of the yellow-tailed woolly monkey, Oreonax flavicauda, one of the world’s most threatened primates.

“This monkey is the only one of its kind,” he says with the zeal of a convert. “It is a beautiful animal and thinking about the future without it is just too sad.”

No one knows for sure but there are now thought to be fewer than 1,000 yellow-tailed woolly monkeys in the wild, all living in a thin band of chilly, damp forest in this corner of Peru, between 5,000ft and 9,000ft above sea level as the Andes sweep down into the Amazon. Yet many of those individuals live in small, increasingly inbred groups of a dozen or fewer, stranded in shrinking patches of forest as peasant farmers clear the improbably steep slopes to plant coffee, beans and other crops. According to Fanny Cornejo, one of a tiny handful of local primatologists, that lack of genetic variety is now a major threat to the species, leaving it more vulnerable to disease.

Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of Mr Lopéz and Ms Cornejo, many impoverished locals continue to hunt the monkey, prized for its meat and its thick, unusually soft fur. Poachers prefer to target nursing mothers as they can also sell the babies as pets.

The monkey’s long breeding cycle and inquisitive nature have added to its vulnerability. They are drawn to the sound of gunfire and often stay around to see what is happening when one of their group has been shot.

The species is classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the most threatened category for species that still exist in the wild. It is also listed as among the 25 most threatened of the nearly 670 primate species.

“It should be OK for the next two decades but after that it is impossible to say,” says Russ Mittermeier, who has chaired the IUCN’s primate specialist group for more than 30 years. “We have a serious challenge ahead of us.”

The yellow-tailed woolly monkey has always been extremely rare. It was first recorded in 1812 by the great German explorer Alexander von Humboldt. Yet he never actually witnessed a live animal. Instead, he saw a saddlecloth made from a fine, mahogany-coloured fur.

Despite the name, the monkey’s tail is the same colour as the rest of its body. What is yellow is a large tuft of fur that adults of both sexes have covering their genitals. The species was actually thought to have been extinct for most of the 20th century until an expedition led by Mr Mittermeier, now the head of Conservation International, rediscovered it in 1974.

The fact that the species even survives at all may be thanks to its difficult natural habitat, which could hardly be less accessible to its only predator, humans. Reaching the group Ms Cornejo studies involves a three-hour uphill scramble in deep mud through thick, sodden forest. Even indigenous peoples rarely stray here.

But that is changing rapidly. A massive influx of migrants from the nearby mountain region of Cajamarca, fuelled in part by mining companies buying up peasants’ land there, is putting an unprecedented strain on the area around Corosha.

“There were just 20 families here when I was growing up,” says Mr Lopéz. “Now there are 200 and many of them don’t respect the community’s decision to conserve our natural resources.”

With the support of Conservation International, Corosha has now established the 5,600-acre Hierba Buena-Allpayacu Community Conservation Area, with the twin goals of protecting the forest’s headwaters and the yellow-tailed woolly monkey’s habitat. The village is also building a lodge to cater for a growing stream of Peruvian and international tourists.

Yet conflicts within the community, between the newcomers and families who have lived here for many generations, are becoming increasingly common. The new migrants, unfamiliar with the traditional, sustainable horticultural techniques, tend to clear forest to make way for their crops and livestock whereas the locals rotate their subsistence plots between existing gaps in the forest.

The destruction is at its most intense in a supposed nature reserve, the Alto Mayo Protected Forest, which straddles a low-lying stretch of the Andes southwest of Corosha. The regional government has put a road through the park, while poachers and land-squatters even live in the heart of the reserve.

“The solution is not more and more park guards but education, so that the local population realises how important the forest is, that it provides them with water, and houses so many different species,” insists Gustavo Montoya, the reserve director.

Mr Mittermeier is now calling for a concerted effort to educate locals about the monkey and even encourage them to identify with it. “You have to get the communities excited about this magnificent species,” he said. “It is the only way. They must find a way to coexist with it and become invested in its survival.”

Endangered Primates

Although no primates became extinct in the 20th century, many of the order’s nearly 700 species face urgent threats today. The IUCN’s primate specialist group say that more than 70 per cent of Asian primates are threatened with extinction, as are all gibbon species and the four great apes: gorillas, chimpanzees, orang utans and bonobos. The total global budget dedicated to primate conservation is about $10m (£6.25m). About 90 per cent of that is dedicated to the great apes, leaving just $1m worldwide for other species. The IUCN estimates that a budget of just $100m could save 98 per cent of all primate species.

Patas monkeys are considered the fastest primate on Earth. With slender bodies and long limbs they can achieve top speeds of 55km/h whereas the finest Olympic 100 metre champions can only manage 36-37km/h. These bursts of speed are essential for a life spent on the ground and are used to evade predators such as lions and hyenas: here.