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It is back in the 1940s that wolves were last resident in the Grand Canyon national park. This is why it was so exciting that a grey wolf is roaming the northern rim of the grand canyon.
2200 polar bears live on the west coast of Greenland. It is unknown how many live on the east coast, but this group appears to be living in a place where they were formerly thought incapable of surviving.
The African savannah elephant has declined by 60% over the last 50 years, and the African forest elephant has declined by 86% over the last 31 years.
So how close are these species to disappearing? There are currently 415,000african elephants in the wild, spread across 23 countries.
Unfortunately, their situation is highly different on different parts of the continent. Botswana still supports 130,000 Savanah elephants, while Tanzania lost 60% of their elephants between 2009 and 2014 (though some reserves till have healthy populations), one place hit particularly hard was the Selous which 40 years ago had over 150,000 and currently hosts 15,000 elephants.
While the African forest elephant was only recognized as a separate species in 2021 (there has been much argument about its status), what is not in question is its horrific decline in numbers. Indeed finding a web page that gives you an accurate figure is hard work, This may well because one does not exist. There has been horrific population declines over recent years, and the density is incredibly varied across its range.
Unfortunately one thing is clear, in areas of the Congo rainforest where elephants have lost, the forest does less well. There are many plant species which rely on elephants to carry their seeds from from where they are dropped. As such, without forest elephants we are likely to loose many species of trees – to the extent that it might threaten the survival of the Congo rainforest itself.
So how are Asiatic elephants doing? Unfortunately not great. There are 5 subspecies
First, the Indian elephant. This is the best known and most wide spread. Currently their Indian population is thought to be between 27,000 and 31,000, with between 10,000 and 14,000 across another 10 countries. While I am listing 4 subspecies these all look relatively similar.
Borneo elephant – the most positive estimate, suggests that there are 1500 remaining in the rainforests of Borneo
Sumatran elephant 2400-2800
Sri Lankan elephant 7500
Syrian elephant – this species was lost as much as 1000 years ago, and occupied the western most part of the Asiatic elephant range.
As such what is clear, is that while African elephant populations are falling fast there is time to check this decline. The Asiatic elephant populations are far more in danger.
In the UK, it has been shown that at every solar farm looked at, there were more species, from insects such as butterflies, to mammals such as hares do well.
I would argue that these areas are not as good as reserves, but it is still a positive benefit. Indeed, it is conceivable that if wolves and bears returned to the UK, these sites could be fantastic for these animals.
The wildlife of Indonesia now often looks like relatively unique to those islands. This is not the natural state of affairs. 60,000 years ago, a cousin of the orangutan lived on the mainland. Unfortunately, what appears clear, is that humans were responsible for the extinction of these animals as with so many more.
There are 2 species of Indonesian Rhino, the Javan rhino and the Sumatran rhino. Now it should be noted that these names are not an indication of a small range (or if it is, it is wrong) in reality, both rhino species were far more widely spread. Indeed mainland specimens lived within the 21st century.
Continue reading “The Indonesian rhinos that once roamed across much of Asia”A report has calculated that the reintroduction of 9 species would do so much benefit to the ecosystems that they are found in, that these reintroductions would help us to keep global warming to 1.5° C.
While some of these would require human adaption, many would have benefits far beyond climate change.
These species are
Continue reading “Another report stresses the importance of rewilding for climate change, and reintroductions”I have been away with my family for 10 days.
Hopefully a handful of videos will drop in the next few days, with an attempt to raise our profile so that we can do what we set off to do.
Our first week was spent down in Devon, near one of the beaver lodges. Interestingly, the guide I reached out to stated that they did not operate this early in the year, as the beavers emerge to late in the evening. We decided to go down late in the week, anyway, on the off-chance. In actual fact we spent a couple of hours each evening down on the river with wild beavers in front of us for a significant part of the time.
Beaver watching is great for both adults and children. While the beavers return is incredibly good for the future of British ecosystems, it can also have direct impacts for humans. It is true that for most farms (largely all those not based on a flood plain) they gain more from the presence of the beavers, in terms of reduced flooding, water table management and increased insect health (for pollination).
We are building our beaver watching page up further, do take a look
3 Asiatic cheetah cubs were born in captivity recently. This was exciting, because this species is on the brink of extinction – there is only thought to be about 12 remaining in the wild, down from about 100 in 2010, a survey in 2017 stated fewer than 50 mature individuals.
Is this the last gasp for this species? Will the sight of a young cub like this never occur again?
Continue reading “Last of the Iranian Asiatic cheetah cubs in captivity has died”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.
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.
Continue reading “Returning Jaguars to the USA”Across the world many species have huge ranges – look at the leopard, found across Africa and much of Asia. It is not a surprise that these animals have a great deal of genetic variability.
However, until recently, far to much of the decisions about subspecies status went on the look of the animal.
Continue reading “Bringing back the Amur tiger to the western part of its range! (The Caspian tiger)”
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