Category: Wild Places

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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

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Bringing back the Amur tiger to the western part of its range! (The Caspian tiger)

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.

The Caspian tiger went extinct in 1970, many pictures are far older

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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As global warming continues, Tigers and Leopards are extending their range higher into the Himalayas: how will snow leopards cope?

Nepal has significant populations of Tigers Leopards and Snow Leopards. Historical knowledge would state that tigers rule on the countries southern plains, Leopards rule in the mid country hill region and Snow leopards in the Himalayas.

This photo of a tiger high in the Himalayas was taken by a BBC crew for a documentary a few years ago
Continue reading “As global warming continues, Tigers and Leopards are extending their range higher into the Himalayas: how will snow leopards cope?”
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Kenyan boy of 4 somehow survives for 6 days on the edge of the Tsavo east national park -where spotted hyenas and jackals roam

The boy wandered 11 miles from his home through wilderness that surrounds the national park. Tsavo east is an incredibly important reserve, and together with Tsavo west, together protect one of the biggest single ecosystems of east Africa.

This is what Tsavo and the surrounding area looks like. As with many reserves they have a relatively soft edge. Animals such as Elephants are intelligent enough to know when they are relatively safe in the reserve, but many animals may have to roam outside for water or food.
Continue reading “Kenyan boy of 4 somehow survives for 6 days on the edge of the Tsavo east national park -where spotted hyenas and jackals roam”
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Wildcats could potentially reintroduced into England for the first time in hundreds of years

Wildcats have been restricted to parts of Scotland for hundreds of years, despite once being found throughout the UK. Indeed, it is a problem where a significant number of people now refer to it as the Scottish wildcat, something that is only temporary, and should not be the case for ever.

Although looking sweet, British wild cats are impressive hunters, and can on occasion take deer
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Bringing the Kiwi back to Wellington wilds

The Kiwi is an interesting bird. As with many birds that developed on islands without mammals, they cannot fly.

As you can see, not really looking like a bird anymore, it is incapable of flight

In the case of new Zealand, the problem is simple. Those migrating to the island, brought with them rabbits. The rabbits escaped, and without any predators increased to silly levels. In order to control the rabbit population, stoats and similar predators were introduced, but these found the Kiwi a far easier meal.

In this instance, 11 birds have been introduced to the wilds near Wellington, for the first time in 100 years. These are the first of 250 birds that will arrive to settle in this area. Being the capital of new Zealand, it is impressive to have any surviving wildlife nearby. Yet Wellington prides itself on this work, and this is not its only move in the direction of rewilding.

It is thought that before humans arrived, as many as 12 million Kiwis roamed free in the country. Currently just 68,000 remain, however this number is growing slowly but surely. The arrival of Kiwi in this area, has required the countries biggest intensive Stoat trapping network as well as buy-in from a disparate array of land users.

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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
Continue reading “How do we save the worlds remaining wildlife? Animals like Orangutan need huge areas to survive and thrive”
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Wild chimpanzee mother and baby sighted in Cameroon park Douala-Edea national park for the first time

It is unfortunately true, that in many of the reserves that have been formed, we do not know what lives within the park. In many places there has been so much poaching that animals keep well clear of any human visitors.

It is also true, that in parks with little or no tourism infrastructure, it is incredibly difficult to find animals. Never-the-less, while this makes it clear that when setting up national parks you need to give them some resources if you wish them to be a success tourism-wise, they can still have impressive conservation successes.

In this instance, clearly chimpanzee are still surviving and even breeding.

First Chimpanzee recorded in Douala-Edea national park, and its a mother with offspring
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Vast seagrass forest is discovered by strapping cameras to sharks, and extend the area of seagrass by more than 40%

Tiger sharks are incredibly fierce, and can grow to be more than 16 foot (nearly 5m long). However, by strapping cameras to these fascinating animals (researchers attached cameras and trackers to the dorsal fins of tiger sharks, giving them hours of footage each time.

seagrass meadows are incredibly biodiverse, incredible carbon sinks and a huge new one increase the amount by 40%
Continue reading “Vast seagrass forest is discovered by strapping cameras to sharks, and extend the area of seagrass by more than 40%”
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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.

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