Tag: spread

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Black rhino calf born in Kenya

The eastern black rhino is incredibly endangered, with just 1000 spread across a huge area. In this region, just 8 are known to live, so to see young is incredibly rare.

Rhino horn is incredibly valuable on the far East traditional medicine market, despite the fact that multiple scientific studies have shown that the rhino horn does nothing for humans. Never-the-less, this unmet demand for rhino horn, linked with the huge explosion of wealth in places like China, means that rhino horn is incredible valuable. While eastern black rhino horns rarely weigh more than 3kg, this can still be worth $200,000, which is very tempting, in a country where the average salary is under $200 a month.

As living conditions increase in the area, the desire to poach these animals is likely to decrease. Of course, these rhino are also likely to be worth similar amounts in tourism dollars across their lifetime, but that is a long-term thing, and something that the whole area benefits from (rather than the poacher, who is often struggling to make ends meet – though middlemen are instead making a fortune).

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Beavers have been returned to the South-down national park after a 600 year absense

Having been released near Petersfield in the South of England, they will be tracked by a team of academics, to make sure that they survive and thrive.

These beavers will help with the rejuvenation of a wetland area on the river Meon. Currently, the area consists of a straight section of the river, with a sort of duck pond beside it, however, once the beavers get to work, this will change dramatically – turning the pond into a series of ponds, and making it suitable to house a wide variety of British wildlife.

As found elsewhere in the UK, the beavers are likely to have a rapid impact on water quality (for the better). A second pair were introduced to an estate near Basingstoke just last year (they had their first kits in September this year).

As in other parts of the country, these beavers will spread out from where they have been reintroduced (if allowed) and are likely to link up with other populations, such as the Devon beavers, within a small number of years – it seems likely that without a sustained attempt to remove the beaver once again, it is only a matter of time, before they spread to all parts of the UK.

Apart from the joy of knowing they are there, there are many positive impacts of their presence: they will reduce flooding (areas that they do flood with their dams, are places which we likely should not have built anyway), clean water and create habitats for many other creatures. Perversely, they have also been shown to help forests recover (by creating a mosaic of different habitats) and therefore should be a positive for the forestry industry in the UK, despite fears to the contrary.

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EJC has ruled against Austria on wolf hunting

Wolves have only recently returned to Austria, with an estimated 80 wolves spread throughout the country. It is perhaps not surprising therefore, that animal welfare activists, took the government to court, when it set cull numbers at 20, or 25% of the population a year.

The Austrian government had pointed to a condition in the 1992 EU directive on protecting wildlife, which states that wolf hunting to prevent financial damage can only be done if the population is in a favourable conservation status – something certainly not true in Austria. This condition can only apply to a wolf population which is stable.

I would also suggest that plans to kill 25% of the population each year, should also damage this, but this is a discussion for another day – when the population is far larger than it currently is. Other countries like Holland have similar sized wolf populations, and so this ruling could be applied in a variety of places.

Regional governments have absurdly argued that the wolf is no longer endangered in Austria, and that therefore its protection should be reduced. had the government listened would a ruling similar to the USA have come forward? Such that open season could be declared?

It is a good thing that wolves are so good at holding on, as we have spent much of our time attacking.

It is funny to think, that it is estimated our relationship with wolves (in the form of domesticating them as dogs) likely goes back to a similar point to the advent of growing crops, and well before the time that we started to keep livestock.

Given our fondness of dogs has deeper roots than our fear of wolves, it seems odd, that wolf persecution ever really got underway. It is true that wolf populations do need handling, but their existence is more good than bad. Places like the UK where they are missing, show this (when looked at the situation rationally)

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The EU restoration plan was postponed in March, yet passed in August – what will it do, and will the UK do something similar?

There is still large areas of wildernesses in places like Romania, but this needs to spread across the continent.

What will it do?

  • Restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 
  • Restore all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050 
  • Set legally binding targets for nature restoration in terrestrial, marine, freshwater, and urban ecosystems 
  • Maintain and increase urban green space and urban tree canopy cover 
  • Restore at least 25,000 km of rivers into free-flowing rivers by 2030 
  • Plant at least three billion additional trees by 2030 

This plan was dropped in March as a result of Hungary blocking it, as well as Austria and a variety of other groups. It is unfortunate, that often in order to meet an agreement, the environmental rules are often watered down so much as to become meaningless. It was cleared, after Austria changed its mind (it should be noted that the Hungarian MEPs were in favour and it is only the Hungarian government that got in the way – as they often are; unfortunately the leader of Hungary Victor Orban is not helpful, and is often the block for the EU. Whether this will change in the near future is anyones guess.

Still this will have to be implemented across the continent to be useful. Having said this, should it be successful it is likely to have a big impact.

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Orca now attacking boats off the coast of France

I wrote (several years ago) about the odd attacks orca were making on boats off the coast of Portugal (around the straits of Gibraltar). Unfortunately, this behaviour has now spread to French waters, with 2 orca ramming a sailboat of northern France, damaging the rudder so badly, that coastguards had to tow it back to land.

While this is in a new area, this is one of nearly 700 attacks by orca on boats along the Atlantic coasts of Europe since 2020 – with around half of these attacks causing mild to serious damage. The Orca tend to attack the rudder, making it impossible to steer the boat.

This behaviour has been linked to a group of 35 Iberian orca, from which 16 individuals engage in these interactions (4 adults and 12 juveniles).

It is unclear what causes this behaviour. Some experts have suggested that it is a form of misbehaviour in teenage orcas, though other suggest that it was actually a result of an animal being entrapped at some point by a sailboat – causing phsycological trauma – leading to a need for revenge in the population. This may have been the same orca, as they tend to follow their prey of Atlantic blue-fin tuna north to the Bay of Biscay (in the summer) so these could have been some of the same animals.

It should be noted, that this is still thought to be restricted to a small group of animals (especially if it is shown to be members of the original group), and so people should not fear orca as a species.

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As water buffalo return, they are revitalizing the kizilirmak delta – formerlly destroyed by becoming industrial wastelands

There are many species around the world which are so important to their habitat, that even a reduction in the population can cause problems – this is one of them. After tadpoles have lost their tails, many will climb onto the hairy back of the water buffalo, getting a ride to other rich feeding areas (and the buffalo gets any irritating flies eaten). There can be as many as 20 frogs on each water buffalo.

Water buffalo were first domesticated 3000 years ago, in Asia, but have proved to be so useful, there are now 200 million spread across 77 countries, on 5 continents. Initially considered as useful animals for plough and similar farm work, in recent times, it has been recognized for its ecosystem engineer duties.

Thriving in wetlands, they can force their way through places that other herbivores fail. While they are not native to many of their current homes, they are capable of filling ecological niches that have long been empty after the initial large cattle like animals were killed off, or all taken into captivity. It should be noted, that in some places, like Australia, there are few to no predators, to control such a large animal, which has lead to a population of 200,000. There is a native water buffalo (Anatolian).

A variety of characteristics help this species to easily fill the ecological niche of the European water buffalo (lost around 10,000 years ago). From transporting seeds in their fur, they fill in many of the roles that the extinct European water buffalo did in the long past. Even in places like the UK, which is one of the most nature depleted countries, the water buffalo are replacing long extinct species, and recovering ecosystems as a result.

This sort of behaviour has to be carefully managed, as in many places, introducing a closely related species can be very costly. In the UK, the grey squirrel has decimated the population of the native red squirrel, and this is not an isolated example, with many others from around the world. However, so long as their effect is closely managed, and there is not a closer relation to the missing species, the impact is likely to be a net positive. Over the last 50 years, 1/3 of the worlds wetlands have been lost, these species, when carefully managed, are likely to be able to bring some of this back.

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Badger vaccinating is found to be far more effective than culls

The UK has been culling badgers since 2013, and since then over 230,000, yet a recent study has shown that vaccination is far more successful than culling.

This trial in Cornwall, found that the rate of bTB in the study area fell to zero.

Why is this important? One of the big shames of the British government is the fact that experts have been telling them since the beginning of the cull, that it will not work. This is for a very simple reason. Badgers are required to mingle to breed, and when you cull badgers, while you can largely eliminate them in the centre of your trial area, in the area further out, you merely reduce the numbers.

As a result, young males and females that are looking for a mate are required to roam further in order to find one. As a result, any local concentrations of bTB get spread around, causing the rate of the illness to increase. The study area covered 12 farms, and they vaccinated 265 badgers.

The next step is to fund a study over a far larger area.

It should be noted, that farmers funded the study, and it has been shown that not only are vaccines more effective at eliminating bTB, but also significantly cheaper. Furthermore, they found that more badgers were vaccinated per km than were culled on nearby land – suggesting a far higher reach within the badger population.

Might we finally be at a place, where with bTB outbreaks, we can vaccinate rather than cull the badgers, so as to reduce the spread in cattle (though as I have written before, much of the spread comes from moving cattle around, rather than from the badgers anyway.

In south Africa, the bTB reservoir is found within the wild lion population. Understandably, few people would want these lions to be culled, but the ability to fire vaccine darts at them, might well be feasible in eliminating bTB here as well, where around 54% of lions have been shown to carry the illness. Whether or how fast the vaccine idea will reach South Africa is something that we will have to look out for.

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Platinum Rhino, the worlds largest captive rhino breeding operation sold to africaparksnetwork! (update, instagram embed did not work)

Hearing this news, one might think “great, another 10-20 rhino”? Think again.

Platinum rhino holds as much as 15% of the current wild population in its operation -2000 individuals. Here is an instagram on the news!

This could be great! Current rhino numbers are estimated to be in the low 2000, down 79% since 2011. Releasing the whole herd back into the Kruger could allow numbers a sizable boost, and rapidly move the kruger back towards its former stronghold of the white rhino. However, in the first half of 2023 over 200 rhino were poached from the Kruger, suggesting that this is not going to be easy.

Unfortunately, the Kruger is already one of the best preserved large reserves in the world. Thankfully, rhino horn has dropped in value from its peak in 2012 of $65,000 per kg, down to a current $8000 per kg. It would be good to depress this further, however the risks for the poacher are very high: not only are many poachers killed by the rhino, they are also often killed by other wildlife such as lions – and the Kruger has a sizable number of man-eating specialists.

I suspect the organization will spread the rhino around, across many of their reserves. Hopefully the recognition that farms like this make no sense, will allow them to thrive back in the wild.

Education is still needed in China, Vietnam and elsewhere. Rhino horn is the same substance as your finger-nails, Keratin. Consuming it will make no difference to any medical condition, science has tried to show any positive health benefit, and can see nothing scientific – at best a placebo effect.

Below, is a video about this farm, 6 years ago back in its heyday. Hopefully, all these rhino can recover white rhino populations far and wide.

Tinamous: 46 birds from the order Tinamiformes

Tinamous: 46 birds from the order Tinamiformes

The family is split into 2 subfamilies (there was a genus outside both, but it is extinct). All species are found in South America and Central America. While at the current time, I am not adding a full page for each, they are still ready to be used for Ecotourism – simply include some information alongside your listing for you tourism outfit, and we will create a page for the species in question.

The first subfamily is called Tinaminae species is spread across 3 genus

Crypturellus (21 species)

barred tinamou Least Concern
Bartlett's tnamou Least concern
Berlepsch tinamou Least Concern
Black capped tinamou Least Concern
Brazilian Tinamou Least Concern
Brown Tinamou Least Concern
Choco Tinamou Least Concern
Cinereous tinamou Least Concern
Grey legged tinamou Least Concern
Little Tinamou Least Concern
Pale brown Tinamou Near Threatened
Red legged Tinamou Least Concern
Rusty Tinamou least concern
Slaty breasted Tinamou Vulnerable
Small billed Tinamou Least Concern
Tataupa tinamou leasts concern
Tepui Tinamou least concern
Thicket tinamou least concern
Undulated Tinaou Least Concern
Variegated Tinamou Least Concern
Yellow legged Tinamou least concern

second Genus Tinamus with 5 species (row one)  and third genus Nothocerus with 3 species (row 2)

Black tinamou vulnerable
Great Tinamou Least Concern
Grey Tinamou vulnerable
Solitary Tinaou near threatened
Whte throated Tinamou Near Threatened
Highland Tinamou least concern
Hooded tinamou least concern
Tawny breasted tinamou least concern
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Golden Jackal found in France for the first time

Golden jackals are not native to France, probably as a result of of the presence of wolves. Unfortunately, wolf populations have dropped so low, that their presence is not stopping the spread of animals like this.

In this instance, the female was too young to have arrived on its own, suggesting that not only are golden jackals present, but they are breeding.

We will have to watch this space, and see what is happening. Will the recovering wolf population stop the spread, or are golden jackals going to become a permanent part of west Europe’s fauna?

To read more about golden jackals visit our golden jackal page here

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