Tag: food

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African elephant populations have stabilized in their Southern African homes

African elephant populations have risen and fallen incredibly fast over the last few centuries. It is estimated that as much as 20 million Savanah elephants roamed Africa in the year 1800, but in 1979 just 600,000 remained, and in 2016 just 415,000 live in Africa. At that point, over 100,000 had been poached in the previous decade.

Unfortunately, it is not merely a case of making more parks. Elephants are incredibly intelligent, but so called fortress reserves, are not good enough. Indeed, less well protected reserves, that are linked together by migration corridors, are far better for the elephant population, than the aforementioned fortress reserves.

These corridors have multiple benefits, from allowing elephants to leave overpopulated areas, to being able to move to places where food and water are available. It also means that the elephants can leave areas of heavy poaching, for instance the Virunga national park, where elephants virtually disappeared in the 1990s, but have started to return from Queen Elizabeth national park in Uganda, across the border.

Where animals cannot move, one often has a boom and bust kind of population dynamic. Now, it should be noted, that this is not always easy, as migration corridors are rarely completely empty of humans, so there is more conflict in these areas, never-the-less, it is clear that these corridors are essential, if these elephant populations are to survive into the long-term. Of course, it also leads to an interesting situation, where virtually all of the huge ecosystems in Africa are along borders, as this allows more than one country to share the cost.

Of perhaps greater worry, this population of 415,000 is both the African savannah and African forest elephant. Yet these two are completely separate species, African forest elephants are nicknamed the gardeners of the forest, and it is questionable whether it can survive as effectively in the long-term without their recovery. The African forest elephant had a population of 26 million in 1800, it is unclear how many are left, but what is clear, is that their population has collapsed in the last few decades.

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Male dominance is perhaps less the default than thought amongst primates, a new study has found

Even before the study was started, it was known that some species are not male dominated. Above is a family of Bonobos, and these great apes live in a female dominated society.

Given our assumption that on male dominance, it is perhaps surprising, that only 58% of primate species have dominant males. Perhaps not surprising, as a result, every major primate group had at least one species which was female (or co-dominant) structures.

Indeed, with the gibbons (or lesser apes on this website, to check them out, click here to visit the home page, and then expand the species database, and click on lesser apes) all 5 species examined (there are a total of 20) have been classed as non-male dominant.

Amongst primates, this likelihood is (according to Lewis, the head of the study) relatively easily predicted, as tends to occur in the species, where there is little difference between the size of male and female members.

An example here, is clear: while a male gorilla can weigh twice that of a female, siamang gibbons only have males a couple of kg heavier than females – not surprisingly, while male gorillas are dominant, this is not the case with siamang gibbons.

It should be noted, therefore, that while 4 out the 5 species of great apes are male dominated (we assume this in humans as well, though, in the modern day, it would be hard to argue that we are not more of a co dominant species. Given that likely all the lesser apes (the gibbons) are more or less co-dominant, it follows, that even just looking at the apes, more are female dominant or co-dominant.

Continue reading “Male dominance is perhaps less the default than thought amongst primates, a new study has found”
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Orca roundup (killer whale news)

Killer whale or Orca: highly intelligent, inquisitive, caring of family, no wonder they fascinate us

The Southern resident killer whale population is on the brink of extinction, but it seems, not for the reason that people thought.

Found along the coast of Washington, Oregon, California, and British Columbia, this population is thought to number just 75, but births are rare, and often end in sadness. 2 calves have been born in the last 2 years, but both have died young. This year, the mother was seen carrying her dead infant for some time (draped across her snout).

It is thought that this population is in danger as a result of a collapse in the Chinook salmon which is an essential part of their diet. However, this theory is defeated, when we look at the Northern resident killer whale population, and notice that they appear to have less access to the salmon. There is lots of shipping noise in their home, which may mean that they are incapable of communicating, which would impact their ability to hunt,

It is true that the origins of their decline lie around 120 years ago, when blackfish (orca as they were then called) were both slaughtered and captured for marine parks. The population on stopped falling fast when Canada banned capture. So is this just the straw that broke the camels back?

Why do captive orca have drooping fins?

Drooping dorsal fins are occasionally seen in the wild, so the split is not totally solid, but it is true, that while most captive orca eventually have a drooping dorsal fin, this is a far rarer site in the wild (while not being unheard of).

The fin is supported by a tough protein called callagen, and it has been suggested that with captive orca spending more time at the surface, the higher temperature from the sun may degrade the protein.

Tahlequah has given birth again (famous for carrying her first calf after it died)

Tahlequah carried a former calf for 17 days after it died, and for more than 1000 miles. This means it is rather lovely to see that she has had another calf. However, the calf has already been observed being pushed by the mother and does not look healthy. The mother is very experienced, so it is hoped that she can succeed, but time will tell. This mother is part of the Southern resident population which i mentioned above, which is small and with few births in recent years. It is therefore very concerning to find that 2 related calves died so close together.

A new video shows a mother orca teaching her calves how to hunt

I should say, that the article I read suggested this was the first time that it had been seen, but the below clip is from several years ago. Even so, it is fascinating to see a mother actively teaching her offspring how to hunt/

Orca have been seen, for the first time off Chile, hunting dolphins

As can be seen from the video above, orca are known to hunt and eat dolphins in various places around the world. However, this behaviour has never been seen in this population, so they had to work out how to do it for themselves. While in the past they have been filmed eating sea lions (and using local boats to hide their approach), they have now been filmed hunting dusky dolphins.

The study was looking at the eating habits of orcas in the southern hemisphere, so as to be able to conserve them more effectively. It suggests that Chile Orca are turning to these food-sources. While Orca have been filmed harrasing or even killing porpoises and dolphins, this is the first time that they have been filmed eating them.

Orca facing uncertain future as the marine zoo shuts

Marineland Antibese near Cannes France, is shutting, after the French government brought in more strict rules of their care. The law was passed in 2021, but comes into force in 2026. It is thought that 90% of the visitors come to see the killer whales and other dolphins, so without them they are not viable.

It is unclear as to what will happen with the Orca. They are from Icelandic waters, but having spent so much time in captivity, would not be able to look after themselves in the wild. A deal had been made to send them to a Japanese park, but there was outcry as their treatment would be worse, so the French government blocked it. There is another zoo in the Canary islands. A facility in Eastern Canada has suggested netting off around 40 hectares of a sea bay for them, where they could live out their lives, in relative comfort, and yet still be looked after by a team of vets and other carers.

Something similar has happened before. Keiko was the orca from the film Free Willy, and was rescued from captivity in 1996 and released into a similar bay in Iceland in 1998. Having spent more time in the wild, though he was able to relearn some skills and in 2002 he left with some wild orca. He swam to Norway, but unfortunately died from an infection in 2003.

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Hyper-carnivorous extinct California Grizzly bears were actually mostly vegetarian – before Europeans arrived

Extinct Californian Grizzly bear photo credit Vahe Martirosyan CC by SA 2.0

Before Europeans arrived, Grizzly bears were relatively common in California, with an estimated population of 10,000, around 20% of the USA population at the time.

Continue reading “Hyper-carnivorous extinct California Grizzly bears were actually mostly vegetarian – before Europeans arrived”
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Deforestation and palm oil stories: Deforestation is not a desire, there is demand for what is done with the land

Cattle in a newly deforested area on the edge of more Amazon rainforest – threatened in the future? photo credit Alice Mitchel

The problem with stopping deforestation, is that for the majority of the world we are far removed from rainforests (from where I sit in the UK, I would have to travel 3250km (over 2000 miles) to the nearest rainforest, which is an area on mainland India). Indeed, rainforest is generally something that only survives in developing countries.

This means that, for most people, they either live far removed from the rainforest, and so cant see it impacting them, or they live near a rainforest, but are struggling to provide for their family and those around them. It is quite true that many people in both the first and third world would like the rainforest to survive – indeed, should you talk to people in the west, many are very worried about the survival of the great apes, who are rapidly loosing land.

The problem is simple. Those living in the third world are living hand to mouth, so unless they work in tourism, the rainforest is often an inconvenience that makes life harder.

In 2023 a total of 6.4 hectares of forest were destroyed – more than 25,000 square miles. However, more concerning is the fact that 62.6 million hectares of forest (almost quarter of a million square miles) was degraded – for road building, logging, and forest fires. Degraded land is often less good for carbon storage, as well as conservation of the worlds wild species. It is often, then not long, before someone comes along a removes the rest of the plants so that the land can be used for something else.

And what was this deforestation for (other than logs)? Beef, soy, palm oil paper and nickel.

The Brazilian Amazon is one of the bright spots, where since the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, deforestation has fallen 62%. Unfortunately, in the same time period, Indonesia’s deforestation is up 57%

It seems hard to see how the world will meet its goal of cutting deforestation to zero by 2030 as most countries have pledged. Also, despite reductions in deforestation, the Amazon has had one of the hardest years in terms of forest fires – something that only gets more likely as rainforests are lost, and climate change increases the temperature in many parts of the world. It is a sad fact, that there is often not a great deal of temperature difference between a rainforest which is functioning, and one that dries out and becomes a fire hazard.

Having said all this… a study in Indonesia has found that controlled low-intensity logging doesn’t have to negatively impact a forest in terms of carbon storage or food availability – this in turn means that much wildlife can survive.

The problem often is that if the land is in private hands, then low- intensity logging is not going to happen. If the landowner has decided to deforest, they will raze the land. In national parks, in theory low intensive logging would be possible, but this would require people to control the logging, and this is the issue that we have in the first place. Unfortunately, despite the pledge by 140 countries, deforestation is coming back.

In a related subject, the Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto has stated that palm oil expansion won’t deforest because palm oil has leaves. There are many issues with this, but perhaps primarily amongst them, when forests are cut down, they are usually replaced with grass lands for grazing cattle – these are also covered in leaves. This is obviously stupid – it may well be a better thing, that the rainforest is going to be replaced with plantations, but it has been shown that palm oil plantations take up a tiny proportion of the carbon that rainforests take up.

In another article, there was a finding that macaques living in palm oil plantations have an alarming infant mortality. Unfortunately, these macaques are not unique in being threatened by palm oil, but others include orangutans, elephants, tigers, pangolins, bonobos, and Irrawaddy dolphins.

While palm oil may be a better vegetable oil than other crops, it still looks like it will lead to us loosing most of our rainforests, unless a grip on this is found.

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Demonstrating their high intelligence, monkeys took up stone tools during covid, when tourist handouts stopped

Long-tailed macaque using stones to access food

Scientists and researchers have been able to watch the introduction of a new skill, but this one arrived very fast, on some of the islands within Thailand. This perhaps shows the intelligence of the Long-tailed macaques in question rather than being any sudden change. The requirement to develop the skills occurred because the arrival of COVID meant that tourists, who often give food to the monkeys, dried up almost overnight.

While many of these tourism activities were (and likely are) labelled as eco-tourism, clearly there needs to be a big change, if humans had such a big impact on these monkeys wild behaviour.

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Demonstrating their high intelligence, monkeys took up stone tools during covid, when tourist handouts stopped

Monkeys on Thailand islands, rapidly developed tool use when Covid dried up the tourist handouts

Monkeys around the world often come to rely on tourist handouts far to readily. Monkeys on some of the Thailand islands rapidly developed the ability to use tools, when the tourist handouts ended as a result of covid.

This shows their incredible intelligence and their ability to adapt rapidly, and it also shows how much easier tourists are making the lives of some wild animals (while at the same time making life for others hard or impossible).

It also asks the question – is taking food from tourists tool use? If so, there are a very wide range of species that use a tool, if one which requires very little intelligence on the part of the animal

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If octopus are smart, should we farm them for food?

Octopus can appear extremely intelligent, as a result of their intelligence being quite specific. They are superb problem solvers (and are capable of watching other octopus and learning through this), very capable escape artists (in an aquarium, an octopus was shown leaving its tank, and entering the neighbouring tank to catch fish at night) and have a phenomenal ability to change their body colour and texture to match the background.

Their brain setup, is completely different to mammals similar to humans, as their brain is spread through their body.

It should be noted, that an octopus can grow at 5% a day, which means that they are a very efficient way to create meat. Still, I would be very hesitant to eat them regularly (and obviously, any octopus that you might consume must come from populations that are being harvested in sustainable ways).

I would argue that farming highly intelligent octopus for food may not be great, but is much better than hunting wild octopus for food.

What do you think?

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The smallest elephant in the world is in danger of being lost

There has been much discussion about the history of elephants in Borneo, and whether their loss is a problem

The origin of elephants in Borneo is unknown. Known for hosting the smallest elephants in the world, there are 2 theories as to how the elephants got to the island. The first is that they were released by a ruler in the 17th century (The most rapid population growth ever seen was 7,1% after the end of poaching in a reserve in Tanzania, a population of 30 elephants could become 1000 in just 50 years) – if this was the case, then their loss would not be bad; and the second is that actually the elephants arrived on the islands hundreds of thousands of years ago (as high as 300,000 years).

It is increasingly agreed that the second one of these ideas is likely to be correct. Though having said this, genetic analysis suggests that the whole population started with just 28 elephants.

Just 1000 are found on the island at the current time.

All wildlife on Borneo is at threat, as the palm oil industry continues to demand increasing quantities of prime rainforest be cut down. As this happens, elephants are forced into human areas, in their search for food, and then into conflict.

The Borneo elephant has only recently been assessed by the IUCN red list as a separate subspecies, but it is hoped that this recognition might increase tourism on this species as well as conservation dollars to save this species from its slow slide towards extincion

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