Habitat destruction – Page 3

April 14, 2023April 27, 2023

Red Panda population has halved in the last 20 years, what is the future for the giant pandas little cousin?

Have you ever seen a red panda in the zoo? While the wild population has halved from 5000 to 2500. Yet at the same time the number in zoos has increased.

Although far smaller, the red panda can be fascinating to watch. Recent analysis shows it is not just looks, these animals are surprisingly similar

Europe now has about 407 individual red pandas and while figures are harder to find elsewhere, there are probably more red pandas now in zoos which in comparison to the giant panda population in zoos is around 500 world wide. Why is this?

April 6, 2023March 31, 2023

Orangutans are roaming into villages in Sumatra – bad news

At first glance, you could look at this headline as good news – in most instances, wild animals do not start looking outside their habitat for places to live, unless there are too many and they are being forced out. However, they also start looking elsewhere when they struggle to find food where they are, or as a result of encroachment.

Tapanuli Orangutan mother with young – *Image by Aditya Sumitra/Mighty Earth.*

In this instance it is thought to be as a result of construction of a hydroelectric dam. Perhaps more alarming, these are the Tapanuli Orangutans, which only number 800 and which if this dam is completed, will lose most of their range.

As the 8th great ape, it may also be the first great ape pushed to extinction and in their case as a direct choice of the local authorities.

March 29, 2023March 23, 2023

COP 15 aimed to create a framework to halt the biodiversity loss on earth, what will its effect long-term?

COP15 ended with a hug biodiversity agreement, but will it succeed? Well that it is a hard question to answer, but I thought that 3 months after its signing, it would be worth returning to it and looking at what was promised!

Will our grandchildren look back at what happened with horror, or will this be a turning point?

March 28, 2023March 21, 2023

Could old growth trees lock away more carbon than we thought?

A study in Oxfordshire last year, looked at how much carbon was locked away in 1000 trees. This study showed that old trees are more important than we thought, with them storing as much as twice as much carbon initially estimated.

For a long time the ecological benefit of ancient woodland has been known, but here we realize that ancient woodland is equally important for carbon sequestion

Why is this important?

Simple!

It shows that the destruction of the rainforest in Africa, Asia, and South America, cannot be offset by planting a similar number of trees in the north. Even worse, if the UK government decides to build a motorway that requires clearing an ancient woodland, replacing the trees one for one is not good enough.

This must rapidly be added to calculations

March 25, 2023March 21, 2023

Could road crossings threaten the survival of the Texas Ocelot?

Ocelots are often thought of as relatively exotic animal. Looking like a small leopard or Jaguar, this is not particularly surprising. Never-the-less, like their bigger cousin, the jaguar, they are a native cat of the USA.

Unfortunately, as it is dangerous, this Ocelot crossing is not rare

Road deaths are a significant problem, as with a total population not thought to number more than 60-80, 8 were lost in under a year (2015-2016). Texas has created 27 wildlife crossings, with many in Ocelot areas, but clearly more are needed, along with driver education.

Perhaps more unhelpful, as Ocelots are largely nocturnal, they are usually crossing the road when hardest to see. Once relatively common in the southern USA, just 1% of its optimal habitat remains, and this is criss-crossed by road.

March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

Returning Jaguars to the USA

While few animals have been completely exterminated from north America in the last 300 years there are a few on the brink.

One such animal is the Jaguar.

Could Southern Arizona become a place for ecotourism in the future?

The last known Jaguar roams the Rocky lands of Southern Arizona and is called Sombra. The last known female was shot 60 years ago this year. Conservationists are calling for Jaguars to be reintroduced into the Gila national forest, a 3 million acre wilderness in New Mexico, along with protection for millions more acres which Sombra currently roams.

January 13, 2023January 9, 2023

The worlds 3 most destructive industries are fossil fuels, farming and fisheries, yet all three are protected by (and subsidized) by governments

Unfortunately these 3 activities appear to be most responsible for collapse or incredible pressure on ecosystems across the globe.

Both fossil fuel extraction and farming have required huge areas to be deforested

January 10, 2023January 9, 2023

How do we save the worlds remaining wildlife? Animals like Orangutan need huge areas to survive and thrive

One proposal, is named as half earth. The idea is to set aside half of the land on earth as a human-free nature reserve in order to preserve biodiversity, proposed by Eo Wilson.

It is asad fact, that were humans to disappear from the planet tomorrow, Orangutans would probably recover pretty quickly. Photo credit Carine06

November 24, 2022November 24, 2022

Wolves, Bears and white tailed eagles are making great comebacks across Europe and other species are also doing well

Wolf numbers have increased by 1800% since the 1970s with a total of over 17,000 now inhabiting the continent. Bears started from a less precarious place, but have still increased by 44% over the same period

While wolves were missing for some time from France, they are well and truly back and we who share the space must recognize that and adapt

Among herbivores, beavers are one of the big success story (and unlike many of the others are living in the UK once again in large numbers in a series of populations from Devon right up to Scotland.

November 23, 2022November 24, 2022

EU blocks uplifting the Hippopotamus to an Appendix 1 endangered animal from an Appendix 2

Hippopotamus populations have declined by 30-50% over the last decade. This is an animal which is moving fast in the direction of extinction, yet despite a plea from 10 african countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Gabon, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo) to move them to appendix 1 has been blocked.