Category: Wild Places

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Almost 1/3 of the wild koala population has been lost in the last 3 years.

Koalas are often listed as one of the most popular animals worldwide. Living only in Australia, most of us are not going to see them in their natural setting.

Increasingly it is looking like, no one will see them in their natural setting unless you are travelling to Australia soon.

A mix of droughts, heatwaves and bushfires have all contributed to deal this huge blow to this unique species.

There are now estimated to be just 58,000 wild koalas, down for 80,000 in 2018. Another problem occurs when developers clear land to build a property – which is continuing to occur in Koala habitat.

Earlier this year, Australia announced that it was considering listing the East coast koala as endangered. With a precipitous fall in population like this, it seems odd that there is any decision to be made – of course the Koala is endangered, and if the government is considering listing a particular subspecies as endangered it must be very bad.

Estimates as high as 1 billion are quoted for the number of animals killed in the fires.

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Montana has moved to limit wolf hunts after more than intended, but commissioners won’t reinstate quota ended by Republicans

The rules about hunting around Yellowstone, are like elsewhere quite absurd. When the animals roam across an arbitrary line, they can be shot. One side is fully protected land, the other side open season.

Now it is encouraging that the wolf hunt has ended early. The commission vote (passed unanimously) made a rule that hunting and trapping would end when 82 animals had been killed (76 had died at the time).

Montana wolf

23 wolves from park packs have been killed this year – more than in any season since wolves were reintroduced 25 years ago.

Continue reading “Montana has moved to limit wolf hunts after more than intended, but commissioners won’t reinstate quota ended by Republicans”
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Wildcats have returned to the Netherlands on their own after centuries of absence

Many of the environmental issues that the UK faces continue to be worse because we are an island off the coast of Europe. Unlike France, we have to make the conscience choice to reintroduce wolves, where as in France they have returned naturally.

Recent rewilding efforts in Germany and Belgium, saturated the local wildcat population leading to them spreading to Holland next door.

Wildcats disappeared from Holland in the middle ages. With flatter heads and longer legs than its domestic cousin, the wildcats reappearance is hugely encouraging for environmentalists.

The wildcat started to return in 2013. Pine marten have also returned since 2015.

Long may this move continue

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An area twice the size of London is set aside for driven grouse moors in our national parks, why?

One of the most nature deprived parts of the UK is the driven grouse moors. While grouse are native to the UK these grouse moors are definitely not.

While national parks can be important places for conservation, and in Africa are the home of many of the big animals, in the UK that is not the case at all.

Driven grouse moors are regularly burnt of all their natural vegetation. In addition birds of prey in the area suffer pretty blanket illegal persecution.

Alarmingly, these areas makeup 44% of the Cairngorms national park,28% of north moors national park and 28% of the peak district.

If this huge area of land was given over to rewilding, far more of the British population could enjoy these areas. Furthermore, this land would hold vastly more carbon in its natural state, never mind the fact that with a proper balance, we could see many highly endangered animals return to thrive in the UK.

Boris Johnson pledged to preserve 30% of the UK for nature, and importantly included national parks in that total. If these driven grouse moors are not eliminated that is a claim that cannot stand. We are the only country in the world that undertakes this dangerous practice.

It really should not be the case, that large parts of public land are set aside for the extremely wealthy, who could afford to do this on their own private lands.

In the last year, the government has listened to the anger, stopping burning of moorland where peat is more than 40cm thick. While this is a good move from the environmental side of things it is not the sole thing that bothers the average person in the UK.

Grouse shooting interests point out that the industry supports 1500 full time jobs. This is good, but the 23 large scale rewilding sites in the UK have increased employment by 47% in the areas that they operate, which suggests that 1500 is probably a very low number of jobs to what could be supported.

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Lab-grown tuna steaks could save the wild tuna?

Tuna are struggling in the wild. As a predator high on the food chain, they do not breed very fast. Added to this, we have been catching them in completely unsustainable numbers.

Perhaps lab grown tuna will arrive first? I know a great number of vegetarians are there because for some reason they do not think that it is right (either because they do not think we should be killing animals, or more recently because they believe that we shouldn’t eat it because it has a high carbon footprint.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for both views.

However, with tuna, even those who pay little attention to what is going on in the world around them are likely to have noticed the many adverts about sustainable tuna and the like.

Lab grown tuna could be truly sustainable. Once some cells are harvested, you should not need to touch the animal again.

BlueNalu is a start-up cell-based sea food aiming to provide the fish without the negative environmental issues.

His company was aiming to capitalize on two moves that have been under way in the public. There has been a rapid move from red meat to meats such as fish as these are more healthy for people. The other thing he noticed was that while there was much innovation in making plant foods taste like meat, the process of growing actual meat from cells were doing far better.

BlueNalu will be producing the high value fillets rather than something you might find in fishcakes, and it will start in restaurants as at the beginning quantities will be so small and here can support more expensive ingredients.

This like many other moves, will be one to watch.

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The Asiatic cheetah species is not closely related to the African one as previously thought

11 years ago a DNA assessment was done on the Iranian cheetah. This cheetah population is the last Asian cheetah population remaining.

It was thought that all cheetah went through a bottleneck 10,000 years ago, meaning that all cheetah were closely related. However this is not as all encompassing as we thought.

Wild Iranian cheetah
Continue reading “The Asiatic cheetah species is not closely related to the African one as previously thought”
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Land speculators are moving into Camps Amazonicos National park

Deforestation has leapt 37% over the last 5 years. Large numbers of people have been moving into this park in the hope that Bolsonaro will loosen its protection, and then their land claims will become legal.

Deforestation in this reserve has accelerated dramatically

This is unfortunately the effect that often occurs when a new administration doesn’t care about conservation.

In various moves, the current Brazilian government has encouraged these land seizures by not punishing or indeed legalizing the seizure.

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Bears should be given more respect as predators

It is often suggested that bears are merely opportunistic when it comes to meat eating. The suggestion is that bears are vegetarians who are capable of scavenging from dead animals.

Now, of course we need to be careful as bears have a wide range of intelligences. Brown bears have an intelligence on par with chimpanzees, where as black bears are far less bright (though they are still one of the brightest animals).

Elk in an open field Marie and Alistair Knock
Continue reading “Bears should be given more respect as predators”
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New effort to try to find the Asian ‘unicorn’ Saola

No biologist has ever seen one in the wild, and they were only confirmed to exist in 1992 becoming one of a very rare group of mammals only discovered in the last few decades.

image of a Saola

Camera traps have photographed them a handful of times, and possibly even local villages have tried to keep them in captivity. Unfortunately, they have never survived -presumably because they were not given suitable food.

In 1992 2 skills and a pair of trophy horns were discovered. Over the next few years about 20 more specimens including a full skin were collected, and in 1993 DNA evidence revealed it was not only a species unknown to science, but exists in a new genus of the Bovid family (which include cattle antelope goats and sheep).

The name means spindle horns.

Although not directly hunted, poaching has exploded in its range – likely reducing its population further. While efforts to mount more patrols have been undertaken, there are thousands of people setting up snares, with millions in the forest.

Other species like the Large-antlered Muntjac have also become critically endangered.

In 2001 the Saola population was estimated to number 70 to 200 individuals. More recently, this has been reduced to ‘no more than 100’. It was last camera trapped in 2013 with villagers continuing to report its presence.

The problem with species like this is simple. If you imagine looking for a small antelope with a small population in a large forest, it is clear how rarely you would stumble upon it; if you add that it is shy and good at hiding, it makes it particularly hard to protect.

Its thought that the Saola has lived on earth for 8 million years, as it is present in the fossil record. At the moment, there is an effort underway to find and catch enough to create a captive breeding program; though we must hope that if they succeed, the scientists will be more successful than the villagers in keeping them alive.

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