European Goshawks were extinct in Britain at the end of the 19th century (and remained rare for over half a century) but in the last 50 years have made an incredible comeback. In the new forest, in the south of England, there are thought to be hundreds of pairs living wild.
In Thetford forest in Norfolk, an estimated 52% of the goshawks diet was grey squirrel. While it is true that they will also take red squirrels, these are generally better at escaping. More importantly, it is thought that Goshawks could be used to stop the grey squirrels population from growing any further.
As I have written before, the pine marten is also important for the recovery of the red squirrel, as it is far more successful at hunting grey squirrels, and they generally do not cohabit in any part of the country.
This will likely not eliminate the direct need for grey squirrel population to be culled by humans, far from it, but may well help towards the idea of giving red squirrels breathing room.
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.
The primates are in some ways one of the most successful families. It is true that many are now endangered, however, unfortunately, that is as a result of the run-away success of the most successful member of the primate family us! Having left the rainforests behind, we have been reducing their coverage dramatically over the last few centuries.Â
The sad thing, is that while we have pushed many of our closest cousins towards extinction, the loss of forests may well cost us dearly in the future as well. As a species, we need to pull together to meet this challenge. in order to jump to the various families, click on the family of interest above – though all can also be reached by scrolling down.
Great ape Family split is thought to have split from its nearest relative – the gibbon family, around 17 million years ago.
4 million years later the Orangutan family split from the gorilla line and the human/chimp line.
3 million years after this (so around 10 million years ago) the gorilla family split from the Homo (humans) and Pan
Finally the human line (homo) split from the Pan line 5-6 million years ago.
It should be noted, that chimpanzees and Bonobos split from a common ancestor just 1.8 million years ago. This occurred as the two populations ceased to be able to have contact with each other – the Congo rive formed between 1.5 and 2 million years ago.
For more information on each species, click on their photo and this will take you to their page
It should be noted that while I have grouped eastern western and skywalker gibbon together, there is some contention that the skywalker gibbon should be in its own genus, having diverged around half a million years aog
This reserve covers a complex to trevane covered in ravines deep canyons and has a mild climate with abundant rainfall. As a result much of the area is covered by rainforest and there is a great deal of wildlife. It is a total of 1,400 square miles or 3,600 square kilometres.
Animals of particular interest include the leopard, the clouded leopard, the pygmy slow loris, the yellow belly pheasant, and long-tailed pheasant, the giant salamander, five step snake and many more. Others include the stump tailed macaque, the suman sheep, the pangolin, the black bear, the lynx, the otter, the forest musk deer, the samba deer, the jackal, the mandarin duck, the sparrow hawk and a few more.
Rare species include the bison, the wild goat, the wild boar, the wildcat, the civit cat, the flying squirrel and several more.
For years it has been assumed that it is a mixture of these two reasons that red squirrels survive but perhaps not
Food sources in conifer plantations tend to be smaller, limited to small cones and such like. As such, this suited the smaller red squirrel more than the invasive grey. However this has recently been thrown into doubt.
Where as, in broadleaf tree plantations there are a variety of food sources for pine martens and so red squirrels will not be exclusively predated, in conifer forests with less food to find red squirrels are hunted more often.
This research is based on 5 years of observations from the public and camera traps. It was carried out in northern Ireland, and looked at pine martens red and grey squirrels.
In natural woodlands there is a diverse range of prey and plenty of refuges for red squirrels, however in conifer plantations pine martens will eat far more squirrels because there is little else for it to find.
We therefore need to stop replacing large areas of natural wood with plantations.
If this is true, then the pine marten has even more pressure on it, as it must drive the grey squirrel out so reds can survive. A recent study of grey squirrels dna shows that the UK population relies far more on humans. Far from colonising the country they appear to have been moved by humans and installed in new parts of the country on many occasion. One example, showed this by the fact that the grey squirrels around Aberdeen appear to have originated with the population around the new forest.
