Daily Archives: February 19, 2013

Armenian leopards update

Posted on by
9

This video from Armenia is called Bezoar Goats, Caucasus Wildlife Refuge.

From Wildlife Extra:

Endangered Caucasian leopard confirmed in Armenia

Leopards clinging on in the Caucasus

February 2013. … Conservation workers’ efforts to preserve habitat for the endangered Caucasian Leopard in Armenia have been boosted by confirmation of the leopard’s presence in a protected area.

Staff of the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem have run a series of genetic tests on samples of fur and faeces found in an area managed for conservation by Armenian NGO, the Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC). In the past few days, the zoo has confirmed that the samples are indeed from a rare Caucasian Leopard.

The news from Jerusalem Zoo confirms what FPWC field experts have believed but so far have been unable to prove. Ruben Khachatryan, Director of Yerevan Zoo, and founder of FPWC describes the scientific proof as highly important: “It demonstrates beyond any doubt that this majestic but unfortunately highly endangered predator still dwells in Armenia and that our efforts to protect its habitat are not in vain.”

Mary Tibbett, Conservation Programmes Officer at World Land Trust (WLT), which is supporting FPWC’s work, adds: “This finding is a great boost to conservation efforts in Armenia. Although possibly reduced to as few as 15 animals in Armenia, the Caucasian Leopard subspecies is resilient and we believe it can be saved. But if it is to prosper in the wild, we need to see better research and monitoring, improved protection for habitat, and tougher action against hunters and poachers. If we do not take steps now, it may be too late.

“FPWC are doing a tremendous job in this challenging environment and I urge anyone who cares about conservation to help secure the future of this magnificent creature by donating to WLT’s Caucasian Leopard Special Appeal, which is running until the end of April.”

FPWC’s rangers have increased the number of Bezoar Ibex in the area by reducing hunting, this increase in prey is critical to the survival of Caucasian Leopard.

“The confirmed presence of the leopard shows that the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge is increasingly becoming a safe haven for flora and fauna,” adds Marc Hoogeslag, IUCN Netherland’s Small Grants Coordinator for the Purchase of Nature Programme. “For top predators such as the Caucasian Leopard, the reserve is an attractive habitat because it shelters populations of prey species such as the Bezoar Goat.”

Largest leopard

The Caucasian Leopard is the largest sub species of leopard. It ranges across several different countries including Iran, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Georgia. In recent years, their population has been devastated by uncontrolled hunting and habitat destruction.

Iran & Azerbaijan

“Leopards don’t know borders,” explains Ruben. “Their migration routes cover not only a corridor through Armenia but also reach out in particular to Iran and Azerbaijan. Much more field exploration is necessary to map and understand this regional leopard corridor.”

FPWC is working to strengthen regional cross-border cooperation in order to form a leopard coalition uniting relevant NGOs and governmental institutions in all countries of the South Caucasus.

According to Ruben: “The involvement of international partners such as World Land Trust and IUCN NL is of vital importance for this process in the South Caucasus as they can foster cross-border dialogue and cooperation even where official contacts are difficult. ”

International charity World Land Trust (WLT) was formed in 1989 to acquire threatened land of high biodiversity value for the purposes of nature conservation. WLT’s Patrons are Sir David Attenborough, David Gower and Chris Packham.

WLT has been supporting FPWC’s work since 2010, and has recently funded the extension of FPWC’s Caucasus Wildlife Refuge and the employment of rangers to protect the site.

The first hints of a leopard in the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge (CWR) date from spring 2012, when rangers found foot prints in the snow. These were later identified by FPWC experts as typical for a big cat – most probably a leopard.

The first indication of the presence of a leopard in the Wildlife Refuge needed more thorough exploration. In the summer of 2012, FPWC field experts started a systematic investigation of all areas of the refuge considered ‘leopard friendly’. During these excursions they collected scat and pieces of fur the animal had most probably lost while passing thorny shrubs. Though the experts were sure that the samples came from a leopard, final confirmation could only be proved by genetic analysis.

The Caucasus Wildlife Refuge offers excellent habitat for this rare predator. Due to recent measures to prevent hunting, populations of prey species such as Bezoar Goats have increased tremendously so there is plenty of potential leopard prey.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Holocaust survivor on French neo-fascism

Posted on by
12

This video is called Oswiecim, Poland: Auschwitz.

By Sadie Robinson in Britain:

Tue 19 Feb 2013

Holocaust survivor warns: Don’t let Nazis tell their lies

Cleo Yvel was living in France when Adolf Hitler’s Nazis were targeting Jews across Europe during the Second World War.

She escaped being transported to a concentration camp because her family hid her. Her family, however, did not escape.

“My father was Jewish,” said Cleo. “He was deported to Auschwitz and never returned.

“If you visit the museum of Auschwitz you will find many things left behind by victims sent to the gas chambers. There are piles of shoes and suitcases labelled with addresses from many parts of Europe.”

Around six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, along with gypsies, gay people, socialists, disabled people and others.

Today Nazis try to downplay this slaughter or claim it never even happened.

Cleo is furious that Marine Le Pen, leader of the fascist Front National (FN) in France, was speaking in Cambridge on Tuesday of this week.

“How dare you come here Marine Le Pen? Your father had the audacity to tell the world that the concentration camps were a ‘mere detail of history’.”

Some see Marine Le Pen as different to her father, FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen. Yet she has made her views clear.

Difference

“Try as I might, I can’t find any point of difference with my father’s programme,” she said. “I am 100 percent Le Pen through and through.”

Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the FN in 1972. He was backed by ex-SS officers and a new generation of fascists. They aimed to appear “respectable” to win support.

The Nazis continually update their targets to try and attract people.

“Marine Le Pen is even trying to recruit Jews, playing the anti-Islamic card,” Cleo said. “The Muslims and Gypsies have become the new scapegoats of the far right in Europe.

“The Nazis blame other groups, such as foreign workers. But foreign workers are exploited. Migrant workers often arrive in the West having been given false promises. Many do not have the means to return to their countries.

“But the extreme right will try to win over vulnerable people with inflammatory and pompous speeches. Do not be deceived by it.”

Many people can’t imagine the Nazis taking power in a country today.

But as Cleo pointed out, “It only took ten years for the Nazis to deceive the German population and others. I ask you to read the history.”

Cleo is now aged 77 and is still fighting the Nazis. She stressed that fascism remains a threat today and appealed for people to join her in fighting against it.

“Remember that not to have acted against the rise of fascism had catastrophic consequences during the Second World War,” she said.

“It allowed Nazism to seize power. The few survivors often could not speak of the treatment they endured, or of how much they suffered.”

Related articles

Tourists’ whale shark photos help scientists

Posted on by
13

This 2017 video from Tanzania is called Investigating the Mysterious Whale Sharks of Mafia Island | National Geographic.

From Wildlife Extra:

Scientists using holiday snaps to identify whale sharks

Holiday snaps could be a major research tool

February 2013. Holidaymakers’ photos could help scientists track the movements of giant endangered sharks living in the waters of the Indian Ocean. A new study, led by a researcher from Imperial College London, is the first to show that these publically sourced photographs are suitable for use in conservation work.

Tourists scuba diving and snorkelling in the Maldives frequently take underwater pictures of the spectacular and docile whale shark, the world’s largest fish. Conservationists have long hoped to use this photographic resource to help them trace the sharks’ life history, relationships and geographic distribution, although the value of these amateur snapshots has never been properly measured.

Tim Davies of Imperial’s Department of Life Sciences is the lead author on a study published in Wildlife Research, the first to examine how reliable photographs sourced from the public actually are. He and his team did this by comparing results using tourist images with results based on surveys by marine researchers specifically aiming to track the sharks.

Spot pattern used for ID

In order for a shark to be clearly identified, any photograph must capture the distinctive pattern of spots located directly behind the gills. This unique marking serves as a ‘fingerprint’, which can then be scanned with a computer programme to tell the animals apart.

85% id success

The study looked at hundreds of images taken by the public, of which many were downloaded from image-sharing websites such as Flickr and YouTube. Individual whale sharks could be successfully identified in 85 per cent of cases, surprisingly close to the 100 per cent identification possible in photographs taken by researchers.

Speaking about the results, Davies said: “Globally, this outcome provides strong support for the scientific use of photographs taken by tourists for whale shark monitoring. Hopefully, this will give whale shark research around the world confidence in using this source of free data. In the Maldives in particular, where whale shark tourism is well established and very useful for collecting data from throughout the archipelago, our results suggest that whale shark monitoring effort should be focused on collecting tourist photographs.”

Although they are widely thought to be rare, the conservation status of the whale shark has long remained uncertain. This study therefore allowed the team to measure the populations of whale sharks in the area, which they estimate have not declined in recent years. Davies added: “Hopefully, as more data come in from tourists over the years and from further across the archipelago, we will be able to build up our understanding of the Maldives population and monitor its status closely.”

Holidaymakers heading to the Maldives, as well as to other regions, can assist researchers in monitoring whale shark populations by uploading their shark photos to the ECOCEAN whale shark identification library website (www.whaleshark.org).

For more information on Maldivian whale shark visit the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme website.

March 2013. Plans to capture and keep some Whale sharks in an enclosure off the south coast ok Kenya threatens Kenya’s hard fought for reputation as a responsible tourism destination. Under the sham pretence of conservation, the company involved is hoping to make money from visits and people paying to swim with whale sharks.

May 2013. A new-born Whale shark pup that was recently freed by fishermen from nets in the Indian state of Gujarat has provided a clue that that the world’s largest fish may be breeding off the coast of Gujarat: here.

Related articles

Horse meat scandal previous history

Posted on by
9

Horse butcher's shop in 1870, during the German siege of Paris

When, in 1870-71, German troops besieged Paris, horse meat was the only meat available in the city (after elephants had been killed).

From the Alpha Galileo site:

Horsemeat Food Scandal Has History

19 February 2013 Taylor & Francis

Publication title: Horsemeat as Human Food in France
Author: Daniel Gade
Publication type: Other

Recently, headlines have been focused on stories of horsemeat being found in supermarket meat products world-wide. Numerous reports have been filed including a recall on Findus beef lasagna products, which are distributed to the main UK supermarkets. With all of this commotion, one may question the root of this epidemic and seek knowledge in the use of horsemeat as human food.

History of this rising issue appears in Ecology of Food and Nutrition (Volume 5, Issue 1, published by Taylor & Francis). In this article, titled Horsemeat as Human Food in France, Daniel Gade explores the acceptance of horsemeat as an appealing food for humans in France. Due to a food shortage crisis, resistance to hippophagy evolved making France the horseflesh center of the Western world by 1910.

Access the article Horsemeat as Human Food in France FREE for a limited time:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03670244.1976.9990440

USA: Many Europeans are fretting these days over horse meat, and whether it might have adulterated their shepherd’s pie. Over here, it’s all about the red snapper: here.

Related articles

Coral-destroying starfish research

Posted on by
7

This video from Oman says about itself:

The crown of thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci ) [is] one of the oceans’ most efficient coral predators. They can grow to more than 1 m in diameter; have 16 to 18 arms, the entire upper surface of its body covered in long venomous spines. This species was recorded in our … survey at Musandam peninsula.

From Wildlife Extra:

Reef devastation caused [by] Crown-of-thorns outbreaks still a mystery to researchers

Researchers tackle the coral-killing starfish

February 2013. Crown-of-thorns Acanthaster planci is the principle natural enemy of reef-building corals. Outbreaks of this coral-feeding starfish occur periodically, due to reasons that remain unclear. It decimates entire reefs in the space of just a few years, as has been the case in French Polynesia since 2004. A new study conducted by IRD researchers and their partners describes this population explosion around Moorea, the “sister island of Tahiti“. The rate of living coral cover in ocean depths and lagoons alike dropped from 50% (healthy reef) to under 5% in 2009. The ecosystem will need at least a decade to be restored to its original state.

The starfish has spread from island to island

The archipelago has been suffering from a new population explosion of the predatory starfish since 2004. It is one of the most intense and devastating outbreaks ever recorded. The outbreak of Acanthaster began in a very specific location in the Austral and Leeward Islands, then in 2006, the starfish colony spread to Tahiti and Moorea. Thanks to a dozen stations around the island of Moorea, scientists were able to make spatio-temporal observations of the dynamics of the infestation of coral populations. Thus, in a new study published in PLoS One, they described the spread of the coral reef invasion.

Ocean depths and lagoons alike

The starfish first settled in the deeper areas along the outer slopes of the reef, around 20 to 30 metres below the ocean surface. It then rose to a depth of approximately 6 metres, and even colonised certain parts of the lagoon. The damage was gradually observed: from 47% of living coral cover at one of the stations in 2006, for example, this rate dropped to 21% in 2007, 6% in 2008 and 2% in 2009: a disastrous state of affairs that disrupts the structure and functioning of all reef communities (including other coral-feeding species, such as butterflyfish, etc.).

The causes remain unclear – High rainfall is an indicator

What are the reasons behind outbreaks of Acanthaster planci? In Australia, where the pest is also rife, invasions occur after years with high rainfall. Rainfall leads to the excess release of nutrients from human activities and the proliferation of algae on which echinoderm larvae feed. In Polynesia, however, anthropic pressure seems too low and localised to explain such an outbreak of the starfish. The current lack of data on the subject means the phenomenon remains a mystery.

Since the causes of outbreaks remain unclear, there is limited ability to fight against Acanthaster planci in order to protect economic activities around the coral barrier, such as tourism and diving. Researchers are currently studying processes to “recruit” new corals, in other words to repopulate the reef and make it more resilient. Without a new widespread disturbance, a coral ecosystem would need 10 to 30 years to be restored to its original state.

One of the greatest mysteries of modern coral reefs is how they evolved from ancient corals. A critical knowledge gap has long existed in the record of coral evolution. This evolutionary gap occurs during a period of dramatic fluctuations in sea level and changes in the Earth’s climate between 1 and 2 million years ago. During this period many “old” corals went extinct, and the modern reef corals emerged. To fill this key temporal gap and understand the evolutionary and ecological transition to modern Caribbean reefs, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded a University of Miami (UM) project to study corals along the southern coast of the Dominican Republic. It is one of the few areas that contain a record of coral reefs from this period of climatic change: here.

Study finds starfish shed arms to protect against overheating: here.

A mystery illness is turning starfish to goo: here.

Massive outbreak killing California’s starfish, melting them into goo: here.

Related articles

Horse meat scandal in context

Posted on by
8

Beef carcasses at a wholesale meat market in Paris

Beef carcasses at a wholesale meat market in Paris. The quest for ever cheaper meat has ’caused a web of water and air pollution that is damaging human health’, a UN report says. Photograph: Francois Mori/AP

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Halve meat consumption, scientists urge rich world

UN study says horsemeat scandal exposed dark side of cheap meat and shows how farming practices destroy natural world

People in the rich world should become “demitarians” – eating half as much meat as usual, while stopping short of giving it up – in order to avoid severe environmental damage, scientists have urged, in the clearest picture yet of how farming practices are destroying the natural world.

They said the horsemeat scandal had uncovered the dark side of our lust for meat, which has fuelled a trade in undocumented livestock and mislabelled cheap ready meals. “There is a food chain risk,” said Prof Mark Sutton, who coined the term demitarian and is lead author of a UN Environment Programme (Unep) study published on Monday. “Now is a good time to talk to people about this.”

The quest for ever cheaper meat in the past few decades – most people even in rich countries ate significantly less meat one and two generations ago – has resulted in a massive expansion of intensively farmed livestock. This has diverted vast quantities of grain from human to animal consumption, requiring intensive use of fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides and, according to the Unep report, “caused a web of water and air pollution that is damaging human health”. The run-off from these chemicals is creating dead zones in the seas, causing toxic algal blooms and killing fish, while some are threatening bees, amphibians and sensitive ecosystems. “The attention this meat scare has drawn [highlights] poor quality meat. It shows society must think about livestock and food choices much more, for the environment and health,” said Sutton.

The answer, Sutton said, was more vegetables on the plate, and less animal protein. “Eat meat, but less often – make it special,” he urged. “Portion size is key. Many portions are too big, more than you want to eat. Think about a change of culture that says, ‘I like the taste, but I don’t need so much of it.'”

By filling plates with vegetables as well as the meat, people will be better nourished. “Most people don’t notice,” he said, citing a recent UN event at which the chef used a third the amount of meat, more vegetables to make up for it, and more than 90% of guests were just as satisfied.

Sutton was speaking about the rich west, the US and Europe in particular. He wants the change in diet to be pioneered in Europe, as the US will be a tougher nut to crack. The UN scientists said people in poor countries should be allowed to increase their consumption of animal protein, which billions of people are lacking. But if that is so as not to cause environmental harm, the move to meat in the developing world must be balanced with a reduction in the amount consumed in developed countries.

Chicken and pork are likely to be the meats that cause less environmental damage in relative terms, though standards of welfare and the circumstances in which livestock are raised can make a big difference. “Chicken is one of the most efficient [meats] as it grows very quickly and you can collect the manure,” said Sutton. Meat production accounts for 80% of the nitrogen and phosphorus used in farming, according to the Unep report, entitled Our Nutrient World: The challenge to produce more food and energy with less pollution. These nutrients are produced at great expense globally, but most of them end up wasted through the animals’ manure. In some areas of the world, the nutrients are in short supply, resulting in lower crop yields.

Unep warned: “Unless action is taken, increases in pollution and per capita consumption of energy and animal products will exacerbate nutrient losses, pollution levels and land degradation, further threatening the quality of our water, air and soils, affecting climate and biodiversity.”

The report also set out a variety of measures by which farming could be made more environmentally friendly, from simple steps such as storing fertilisers more securely and using them more sparingly, and capturing greenhouse gas emissions from their production. Nitrogen use could be cut by 20m tonnes by 2020, saving £110bn a year. Reusing waste, such as manure, and treating sewage using modern methods would also save hundreds of billions.

See also here.

Related articles

Nestlé horse meat scandal

Posted on by
18

Nestle Buitoni Beef Ravioli, with label not mentioning its horse meat

From Reuters:

Nestle withdraws beef products after horse DNA found – FT

Mon Feb 18, 2013 10:29pm GMT

Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, removed beef pasta meals from shelves in Italy and Spain on Monday after tests revealed traces of horse DNA above 1 percent, the Financial Times online reported, citing a company statement.

Swiss-based Nestle, which just last week said products under its labels were not affected by the escalating horsemeat scandal, said it had informed the authorities, the FT reported.

Nestle was not immediately available for comment.

The discovery of horsemeat in products labelled as beef began in Ireland last month and has rapidly spread across Europe, resulting in several product withdrawals and government investigations into the long and complex food-processing chains that criss-cross the continent.

Nestle withdrew two chilled pasta products, Buitoni Beef Ravioli and Beef Tortellini, in Italy and Spain, the FT said. Lasagnes à la Bolognaise Gourmandes, a frozen product for catering businesses produced in France, will also be withdrawn.

(Reporting by William Waterman; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Related articles