Bhutan is home to more than 100 tigers, a rise
of more than a third on the previous population estimate, a survey has
revealed. The first national tiger survey in the tiny Himalayan country,
conducted entirely by Bhutanese nationals, has found there are 103
tigers, up from the previous estimate of 75.
Editor : Michael BROWN 30 July 2015 / Thursday
BANGKOK - It's World Tiger Day on Wednesday (July 29) and the fate
of the iconic Asian big cat remains uncertain, with remnant populations
especially in South-east Asia threatened by a multi-billion-dollar trade
that is wiping out forests and biodiversity.
When India announced in January that its tiger population had gone up to
2,226, it deserved the congratulations that flowed. But even in India,
the situation for tigers in the wild is not as rosy as it may seem.
The census figures were initially misreported as an increase of 30 per
cent in tiger numbers. In reality, they reflected not so much a rise in
population - though it is possible the population did grow to some
degree - but more accurately the fact that a greater area was covered,
which yielded more tigers than previously counted.
But the census also revealed some places where tigers had fallen
dramatically in number. Buxa Tiger Reserve in northern West Bengal
state, for instance, yielded just three tigers - from a previously
estimated population of 20.
In the same state, the vast mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans yielded a
population of 76 tigers - down from a figure of 300. To be fair, the
figure of 300 could have been nothing more than a boast by the state
government - which is why the more scientifically rigorous result of 76
should be a serious wake up call.
Similarly in neighbouring Bangladesh, a previous survey in 2004 came up
with 440 tigers. The most recent survey data released on July 27, gave
the number as 106. Again to be fair, the previous survey must have been
flawed and yielded a wrong number, experts say. It is difficult to
accurately count tigers, they explain.
There are roughly about 3,000 tigers left in the wild; India has more than half of them.
But tiger numbers remain small, with many in scattered remnant
populations with no contact with other populations. Nevertheless, as in
India, they are stable or recovering relatively well in Russia, Nepal
and Bhutan. Bhutan on July 29 announced that it has 103 tigers, up from a
previous estimate of 75. In neighbouring Nepal, the population is 198.
But the picture in South-east Asia is dismal.
There are virtually no tigers left in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam; very
few in Thailand; and an indeterminate but most probably small number in
Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia.
"There is a tiger crisis in South-east Asia'' says Singapore-based
Michael Baltzer, leader of the World Wildlife Fund's Tigers Alive
initiative which has the ambitious aim of doubling the number of tigers
in the wild by 2022.
"Countries are not counting their tigers and are at risk of losing them
if immediate action isn't taken,'' he said. "Political support is weaker
and resources are fewer, while poaching and habitat loss are at
critical levels. Until countries know the reality on the ground they
can't take the appropriate action to protect their tigers."
Some experts say there is a risk that focusing on counting tigers is a
distraction when their numbers are known to be precariously low anyway;
instead, more resources should be mobilised to protect their habitat
from further loss, and recover habitat that has already been lost.
True, says Mr Baltzer. But "we need to do it (the count) at least once;
at this stage we need a strong baseline in order to move on," he said in
an interview. "In Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, we really don't
have a clue how many tigers they have.''
Thailand is somewhat ahead of the rest of South-east Asia in tiger
conservation, but only just. Tigers have died out from northern
Thailand, and the only real future for them lies in the sprawling
Western Forest Complex which borders Myanmar, experts say.
In Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, hunting has not only killed tigers but also decimated the prey species they depend on to survive.
"There's a fear that this may be happening in Thailand too,'' said Mr Baltzer.
India, Nepal and Russia are far more invested in tiger conservation than
those in South-east Asia. There is a dedicated budget for tiger
conservation in India. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has been
championing the cause of protecting the species since 2008 when he
personally tranquilised a wild Amur tiger in a much-publicised episode.
The number of tigers has grown to over 500 from less than 40 in the
1940s.
In the kind of practical initiative that needs to be duplicated
elsewhere, a logging company, working with local authorities and the New
York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, agreed this month to begin
dismantling abandoned logging roads currently being used by poachers to
access tiger habitat in Russia's far eastern Terney region. It is one of
the most biologically rich temperate forests in the world and home to
around 30 per cent of Amur tigers.
The roads will be made impassable through just a few simple measures:
removing bridges, digging trenches, and blocking them with rocks.
By contrast, in South-east Asia, conservationists are still trying to
push back against a tidal wave of organised transnational wildlife crime
which traffics endangered species mostly to markets in China.
They are also being swamped by powerful vested interests, from
commercial logging and plantation companies to hydro power dams, and the
ubiquitous roads that open up previously inaccessible wilderness.
One can't definitively say there are no more tigers left in Cambodia,
Laos and Vietnam, because there is always a chance there are one or two
individuals still surviving.
But the battle to save the tiger in those countries has already lost.
The big cat is functionally extinct - meaning their numbers are so small
that they do not meet and breed any more, so they may as well be
extinct.
Disparate surveys in Thailand yield a patchy picture; tigers have
reappeared in some protected areas, but have dwindled in others. And in
Myanmar, where even less data exists, vast tracts of forest have been
given out to private plantation agriculture, and towns on the border
with China are lawless free-for-alls where endangered species are traded
in violation of national and international laws and out of reach of
enforcement.
On mainland South-east Asia, only Thailand, Malaysia - and to a yet unknown extent Myanmar - have some hope of saving the tiger.
The last few days have left many grappling with the
question of what has to be so fundamentally wrong with some people that
they feel the need to dispose of part of their ample income by killing
majestic, exotic animals.
"I think it's clear from the public outrage that there is no
justification for taking the life of a beautiful animal without cause,"
Carole Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa told ABC Action News.
That's why Baskin and her colleagues are hoping for some policy changes.
If you haven't been to Big Cat Rescue, it's a wide swath of green amid
the concrete in the suburban Citrus Park area. It houses all of the
lions, tigers, bobcats, servals and ocelots (and any other big cats)
that can live comfortably on its grounds, animals that were once chained
up in basements or made to serve as guard animals for drug dealers. The
public is allowed to tour a part of the facility, where some of the
cats occupy large enclosures.
Guides tell you not only about the story of each cat you encounter,
but also how to help stop future generations of big cats from being
illegally trafficked — they often say they hope conservation efforts are
successful enough to negate the need for sanctuaries like Big Cat
Rescue.
So speaking out in the wake of horrific events like the death of Cecil the lion is part of what they do.
In that sad event's wake, the sanctuary's staff hopes the public
outrage will lead to understanding, and probably more public outrage,
over the circumstances that allowed Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer to
kill a lion (and do other grotesque things to it we won't get into) in
Zimbabwe.
"It's such a disgraceful act, and yet the reason that it happens is
because they haven't been listed as an endangered species yet," Baskin
said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the animals as threatened.
Even though lions aren't indigenous to the Americas (well, not in the
past 10,000 years, anyway, if you want to get technical about it),
protection under the Endangered Species Act would aid in their survival.
Such protection would make it illegal to bring fur and other parts of lions killed in trophy hunts into the U.S.
A New Jersey assemblyman has filed a bill
that would outlaw transport of any threatened or endangered animal
carcasses through any airport overseen by the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey, and some airlines have refused to ship carcasses of
poached animals into the U.S.
Baskin told ABC Action News that the damage trophy hunting can do to
already vulnerable species goes beyond the needless suffering and death
of a single lion.
"Whenever trophy hunters are out hunting for a trophy, they want the
biggest, darkest-maned lion that they can kill, and that's what Cecil
was," she said. "Other, younger males try to move in by taking over the
pride, and the way they do that is by killing all of the cubs...The
mother lions love their cubs, so they will fight to the death to protect
their cubs. So just taking out one cat like Cecil ends up destroying
the entire pride."
In this undated photo provided by the Wildlife Conservation
Research Unit, Cecil the lion rests in Hwange National Park, in Hwange,
Zimbabwe. Two Zimbabweans arrested for illegally hunting a lion appeared
in court Wednesday, July 29, 2015. The head of Zimbabwe's safari
association said the killing was unethical and that it couldn't even be
classified as a hunt, since the lion killed by an American dentist was
lured into the kill zone. ANDY LOVERIDGE , AP
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOHANNESBURG – It is, for some well-heeled foreign visitors, the
ultimate African experience: the thrill of hunting a lion, one of the
“Big Five” animals whose habitats are under increasing pressure from
human encroachment. Now an American dentist’s killing of a celebrity
lion in Zimbabwe has triggered global revulsion, highlighting what
critics say is an industry of trophy hunting that threatens vulnerable
species across sub-Saharan Africa.
Hunting is banned in Kenya and Botswana, which depend heavily on
income from tourists who flock to see wildlife on tours that often
combine a sense of adventure with luxury lodging in the bush. Many more
countries, including South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania, allow it,
arguing that it benefits communities and funnels high-priced fees from
hunters back into conservation. Opponents, however, warn that
regulations are often poorly enforced or overlooked by unscrupulous
operators.
Such suspicions are swirling in Zimbabwe, where a professional
hunter, Theo Bronkhorst, was charged Wednesday with failing to “prevent
an unlawful hunt” while working for Minnesota resident Walter James
Palmer, who killed Cecil, a well-known lion with a distinctive black
mane, in early July. Conservationists say a dead animal was tied to a
car to draw the lion out of a national park, and that Palmer first
wounded Cecil with a bow before fatally shooting him with a gun after 40
hours of tracking.
Palmer, who said he relied on his professional guides to ensure a
legal hunt, has been vilified globally on social media and talk shows
and has closed his dental practice for now. “Cecil is not the first lion that has been lured,” said Ian Michler, a
South African conservationist. “It goes on all the time. Unethical
hunting is rife across the continent.”
Michler, who made a documentary film called “Blood Lions” that came
out this year, said nearly 1,000 lions that are bred in captivity in
South Africa are fatally shot every year by trophy seekers for an
average of about $20,000, and sometimes up to $50,000, in conditions
that can hardly be described as sporting. There is also an increasing
phenomenon of lion owners charging tourists, many from Europe but also
Australia and the United States, to pet and cuddle cubs earmarked for
trophy kills when they get older, he said.
South Africa maintains that its legal hunting industry adheres to
international agreements and actually contributes to the welfare of
species, including lion, elephant and rhino.
Hunting “is a source of much needed foreign exchange, job creation,
community development and social upliftment,” Environment Minister Edna
Molewa said in a July 23 statement. She welcomed a decision by the cargo
division of South African Airways, the national carrier, to lift an
embargo on the transport of legally acquired hunting trophies of lion,
elephant, rhino and tiger.
Molewa said the industry in South Africa is valued at about $490
million annually, but some conservationists believe the figure is
inflated to bolster the argument that hunting is an economic boon. In a
2013 report, a group called Economists at Large cited estimated that
trophy hunting generates $200 million in African communities, but said
the figure should be used “with caution” and is a relatively
insignificant part of total tourism revenue.
Lions are designated as vulnerable on an international “red list” of
species facing threats. By one estimate, fewer than 20,000 lions exist
in the wild, a drop of about 40 percent in the past two decades. Another
estimate puts the number at closer to 30,000. The International Union
for Conservation of Nature has taken note of successful lion
conservation in southern Africa, but said West African lions are
critically endangered and that rapid population declines were also
recorded in East Africa.
Cecil, the Zimbabwean lion that was killed, was wearing a satellite
collar installed by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the
University of Oxford. “Our goal is to understand the threats that lions face, and to use
cutting-edge science to develop solutions to those threats,” director
David Macdonald said on the unit’s website. He said the unit has tracked
the movements of over 100 lions by satellite.
Prince Mupazviriho, permanent secretary in Zimbabwe’s ministry of
environment, water and climate, said the hunting of a collared lion was
an isolated incident. “Short of going on a culling exercise where you are just shooting
animals willy-nilly in order to reduce numbers, there is need to have a
scientific way of doing it, which also brings resources for purposes of
conservation,” he said.
This year, Zambia announced the lifting of a 2-year-old ban on hunting lions and other big cats, Zambian media reported in May.
On its website, a group called Central African Wildlife Adventures
offers hunts in Central African Republic, though it has suspended
operations for now because of political instability and violence there.
The website describes an almost mystical experience in which the hunter
and the hunted lion are equals.
It says: “The last and final contact is usually done at close range,
with the lion appearing from nowhere in the green foliage. Without a
warning or a sound, the King of Beasts is suddenly there and the time
has come for two of the most powerful predators on earth to meet.”
This handout photo provided by Stuart Pimm shows a lion in Kenya. (Stuart Pimm via AP)
BY SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The circle of life is closing in on the king of the jungle.
When Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer killed Cecil the lion, the
Internet exploded with outrage. But scientists who have studied lions
say the big cats have been in big trouble for years.
They’ve watched the African lion population shrink by more than half
since 1980 and dwindle even faster in East Africa, where lions used to
be most abundant. They’ve seen trophy hunting like Palmer’s — promoted
as a way of raising cash to preserve wildlife populations— fail to live
up to its promise. And even more importantly, they’ve seen lion habitat
shrink and many beasts killed by local residents because of conflict
with livestock and agriculture.
When humans and lions clash, the king of the jungle usually loses. “We should be very worried,” said Oxford University lion researcher
Hans Bauer, who is based in Ethiopia. “The numbers are clear. They are
in dramatic decline.”
Experts estimate there were about 75,000 African lions in 1980; now
there are between 20,000 and 32,000. Last year the United States Fish
and Wildlife Service proposed placing African lions on the
threatened-but-not-endangered list. On its red list of species in
trouble, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature calls
the lion “vulnerable,” one step away from endangered. This handout photo provided by Stuart Pimm shows a lion in Kenya. (Stuart Pimm via AP)
The number of lions in East Africa dropped 59 percent between 1993
and 2014. Lion counts in West Africa fell 66 percent in the same time
period; lions there “are on the brink of extinction, they are
desperately rare,” said famed Duke University conservation biologist
Stuart Pimm.
Only in the southern part of Africa are lions’ numbers rising,
slightly, because of efforts to protect them. And that’s where Cecil was
shot. “The reason Cecil was becoming iconic was that it lived in a national
park; It lived in protection,” Pimm said. He said if hunters can lure
out of the park and kill even Cecil — legendary in Zimbabwe, known for
his majestic black mane — “it does not bode well” for other lions.
That’s why even though hunting isn’t the main cause for the lions’
decline, it splits the conservation community more than any other
factor, Pimm said. Some see it as a way to provide money for
conservation — just as duck hunters do in the United States — while
other see it as ineffectual, too costly and even unethical. “Hunting in Africa is a complex issue,” said Pimm. “Kenya does not
allow hunting of any kind and Tanzania sets aside more of its land for
hunting than it does for ecological parks.”
A decade ago, top lion researcher Craig Packer and his team came up
with a way to allow limited trophy hunting of lions and not hurt their
dwindling numbers. If only certain, older, unattached lions,
identifiable by nose color, were hunted in specific ways, the practice
could be sustainable. His team even published a guide on telling the age
of a lion by nose color to help trophy hunters go after lions in a
sustainable way. “It led to me being kicked out of Tanzania,” said Packer, on phone
from a game preserve in South Africa. “In Africa it’s a business. It’s
very cynical and very corrupt.”
Other scientists say his vocal anti-hunting advocacy got him in trouble.
Bauer takes a more nuanced position on trophy hunting. Studies show
hunters pay as much as $50,000 to governments and guides, with some of
the money going to conservation while the rest boosts the economy. In
theory, Bauer said, “there’s a lot of habitat in Africa where lions
exist because of trophy hunting.” While it removes individual lions, “it
preserves habitat.”
But Bauer added, “it’s very often poorly managed as in the case of
Cecil where a lion gets lured out of the habitat. This type of
mismanagement happens much more than hits the news.”
Bauer and his Oxford colleague Claudio Sillero said as bad as trophy
hunting can be — estimates of lions killed each year range from 600 to
more than 1,000 — habitat loss and conflicts between lions and locals
over livestock and agriculture are bigger problems. “Rapid land use changes are reducing the extent of wild habitat and
most crucially the availability of wild prey,” Sillero said in an email.
There used to be a giant band across Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to
the Indian Ocean where lions could roam and people were few, but that’s
changed. Wars in the region have hurt too, Pimm said.
“It’s still king of the jungle,” Bauer said. “There’s not so much jungle anymore.”
___
Online:
International Union for Conservation of Nature page on African lion: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/full/15951/0
Australia is looking to impose a harsh curfew on house cats.
According to The Independent, the country wants owners to keep their felines inside 24 hours a day, turning outdoor cats into full-time locked-down pets.
This new rule comes from Gregory Andrews, Australia's first
threatened-species commissioner, in an effort to protect small
endangered animals that are often the victims of cat attacks.
Andrews hopes all citizens, cat lovers included, will embrace
the new proposed rule and work to keep domestic kitties inside and away
from threatened species.
Australia is currently dealing with a feline overpopulation
problem, with a growing number of feral and outdoor cats tinkering with
the ecosystem. Government officials from the country have also
considered enacting a controversial "cat cull" to handle the issue,
which would allow the country to legally kill 2 million felines.
It’s not the sort of friendship you expect to see out in the African bush.
But this gentle lion was spotted making friends with a delicate butterfly at a wildlife park in Botswana.
The adult lion with the delicate butterfly resting on his paw
The brave butterfly swoops in and lands on the lion’s paw
as he washes himself in the afternoon sunshine and the lion seems very
attached to his new friend.
The adorable pictures were captured by Kobus Swart, 46,
from Pretoria, South Africa, while on a camping holiday with his wife
and some friends.
The adult lion with the delicate butterfly resting on his paw
He said: “The lion was busy with an intensive grooming session, washing himself from top to bottom.
“At one stage while he was licking his paw this butterfly landed on his paw, presumably looking for some moisture.
“He had been fluttering around the lion for a few minutes,
and seemed to be looking for a chance to land somewhere safe on the
lion.
The lion is sad that the butterfly has left its paw
“It was just there for a couple of minutes the lion just looked at it intensely, he could have eaten it with one quick bite.
“When it flew away he actually seemed to be upset, it’s like they formed a really cute friendship.
The lion is sad that the butterfly has left its paw
“You seldom get to have such a peaceful close-up lion sighting, so we were blessed.
“The lioness was fast asleep the whole time, but the male
was grooming himself thoroughly they had been seen and heard mating in
the area over the previous few days, so I guess he was using the time to
make himself look good for his lady!”
Cecil the lion, pictured above, was widely photographed and
somewhat habituated to a non-threatening human presence in Hwange
National Park. Photo by Brent Stapelkamp
By Wayne Pacelle
July 29, 2015
Cecil the lion is dead because Walter Palmer the dentist is a morally deadened human being.
The man traveled clear across the world – from the suburbs of
Minneapolis into the pay-to-slay world of Zimbabwe, where dictator
Robert Mugabe sells off hunting rights and other natural resources to
the highest bidders – for the chance to kill the king of beasts. In
this case, the victim was a lion who has been widely photographed and
somewhat habituated to a non-threatening human presence in Hwange
National Park. The hunt was a “guaranteed kill” arrangement, where
Palmer paid about $50,000 to hire professional guides to help him
complete the task. The local guides knew exactly what they were doing.
In the dark of night, they lure a famed, black-maned lion from an
otherwise protected area, with a dead carcass as bait. Palmer then stuck
Cecil with an arrow.
Even though he’s used that weapon to kill countless other rare
animals all over the globe – from leopards to black bears to Argali
sheep – Palmer didn’t deliver a killing shot. He wounded the animal, and
because he did it at night, I bet he didn’t have the courage to track
the animal at that time. So he waited, while the lion tried to live
minute to minute and hour to hour after receiving the stab wound from
the arrow. At some point, Walter and the professional guides resumed the
chase. It took them nearly two days to find him, and then they
apparently shot him with a firearm. The killers then removed a radio
collar nestled around his neck – because Cecil was also the object of a
study by Oxford researchers. Some reports say they tried to disable the
signal from the collar, unsuccessfully. The team took the customary
pictures of the westerner guy standing atop a beautiful, muscled animal,
and then they decapitated and skinned him, as keepsakes for Palmer’s
global crossing in order to conduct a pointless killing.
The lion
is one of Safari Club International’s Africa Big Five, along with
elephants, rhinos, leopards, and Cape buffalo, and the idea of killing
each of them motivates thousands of wealthy people to do it. It’s one of
more than 30 hunting achievement and “inner circle” awards you can get
if you become a member of Safari Club – including Cats of the World,
Bears of the World, and Antlered Game of North America. If you win all
of the awards, and there are plenty people who do, you have to shoot
more than 320 different species and subspecies of large animals. In the
process, you spend millions of dollars, in addition to spilling an awful
lot of blood and spreading a lot of death.
The United States is the world’s largest importer of African lion
parts as hunting trophies and for commercial purposes. Between 1999 and
2013, the United States imported about 5,763 wild-source lions just for
hunting trophy purposes; and the last five years of this period averages
to 378 wild-source lions per year. Worse, this number has increased in
recent years. That’s a lot of Walter Palmers doing ugly things.
The Oxford University study Cecil was part of was looking into the
impact of sports hunting on lions living in the safari area surrounding
the national park. The research found that 34 of 62 tagged lions died
during the study period. Of these, 24 were shot by sport hunters.
When we think of Bengal or Siberian tigers, we think of big cats
nearing extinction. We should think the same way about lions, since
their populations have been plummeting. They are in danger of extinction
in the foreseeable future.
For most of us, when we learn they are in crisis, we want to help —
to protect them from harm, because we empathize with their plight.
But for one subculture in the U.S., when wildlife are rare, that
means they want to rush in and kill them precisely because they can do
something that few others can. It’s like the rush of trophy hunters to
Canada to shoot polar bears when the United States announced it planned
to list them. “Let me shoot a polar bear before they are all gone!” They
want to distinguish themselves from others who live in the world of
competitive hunting.
Sadly, Cecil’s story is not unique – American hunters kill hundreds
of African lions each year and are contributing to the steady decline of
the species. Today we sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, which recently took steps to protect chimpanzees and African
elephants, urging the agency to make final its regulation to upgrade the
legal status of lions, to restrict people from trekking to Africa and
bringing back their parts for no good reason. Not for food. For
vanity. For ego gratification. And because they are morally deadened.
T-24,
the Ranthambhore tiger that was shifted to a cage in Sajjangarh
Biological Park in Udaipur by forest officials for allegedly killing a
forest guard has got a clean chit from Indian Veterinary Research
Institute (IRVI), Bareilly.
The institute, a Central
government-approved body reportedly did not find any human body particle
in the samples sent by the forest department immediately after the
incident.
According to sources, the institute said that in its
investigation of the samples it didn’t find human body particles, which
means that the tiger didn’t eat human body after alleged killing.
The
report has belied forest officials’ claim that T-24 was a man-eater and
he has become dangerous for human life thus it was necessary to shift
him to a cage.
On the basis of field officials’ report in
Ranthambhore national park that claimed that T-24 had killed four people
since 2011 including a forest guard in May, the forest department had
immediately shifted it to Sajjangarh Biological Park even before the
committee constituted by the forest minister submitted its report.
Although,
experts and wildlife enthusiasts alleged that the forest officials
acted in haste under pressure from the hotel and tourism lobby.
For weeks now reports have been streaming out of
Zimbabwe Africa about who killed the beloved lion Cecil that strayed out
of Hwange National Park, These reports point to trophy hunters as
Cecil’s killer.
Hunting for the biggest, toughest wild animal is trophy hunting. Let
us refer to a well known trophy hunter Ermest Hemingway, July 21, 1899 –
July 2, 1961, and a famous American literary writer.
“Hemingway’s trophies included a lion and other large game that
roamed the African grasslands.” Quote from Ernest Hemingway Collection http://www.ernesthemingwaycollection.com/about-hemingway/ernest-hemingway-in-africa
Photograph is of Ernest Hemingway in Africa with lion he killed
Killing of Africa’s wildlife in what was called, Wild Big Game Hunts
or African Trophy Hunts that have existed since Europian man entered the
continent. Trophy hunting is not sporting. Trophy hunting is barbaric
and can be compared to men fighting to the death in Roman games. Its a
blood sport where wildlife is being hunted for bragging rather than for
sustenance . Trophy hunts should not be condoned as a legitimate sport,
especially in any civilized society. It is killing not sport.
Just who Killed Cecil the beloved lion?
Watch the following video
New reports point to an American Dentist from Minnesota as Cecil’s Killer
Cecil The Lion’s Killer ‘Revealed As American Dentist Walt Palmer’
Who Bribed Guides £35,000, The Huffington Post UK | By Lucy Sherriff,
28/07/2015 “The man who is believed to have paid wildlife guides £35,000
to let him hunt and kill Zimbabwe’s beloved lion Cecil, is reportedly
an American dentist who had already been in trouble with the law after
slaying a black bear…Walter Palmer, who has been identified by the
Telegraph, and famed for being an “elite hunter”, allegedly shot Cecil
with a bow and arrow earlier this month in Hwange National
Park.” http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/07/28/man-killed-cecil-the-lion-american-dentist-walt-palmer_n_7886186.html?1438090549
“A wild lion is a scrappy thing. A fierce, disheveled, fly-bitten
beast with battle scars from nose to tail and a matted, grimy mane. This
is a rug you don’t want on your living room floor. But the beast has
been cleaned up and rebranded in one of the greatest wildlife marketing
stunts of all time.”
” Since humans painted them on a cave wall in France 30,000 years ago,
lions have populated our imagination. Despite being extinct in Britain
and Europe for thousands of years, they have grown in stature through
myths and legends.” Read more about this in the link above.
Africa’s wildlife in danger
My heart sinks heavy as reports keep coming out of Africa about
canned hunts, trophy hunts, I dreamed of traveling to Africa as a young
girl and walking along the African savanna viewing vast herds of
wildlife.
I will keep my dream alive and know that there are many people working to stop the slaughter of African Wildlife.
‘Blood Lions” is a must see filmed about canned lion hunts.
A logging company has agreed to begin dismantling
abandoned logging roads currently being used by poachers to access prime
Amur (Siberian) tiger habitat in the Russian Far East.
An Amur tiger walks along a forest road in Primorye, Russia. .
A logging company, working with local
authorities and WCS, has agreed to begin dismantling abandoned logging
roads currently being used by poachers to access prime Amur (Siberian)
tiger habitat in the Russian Far East.
The agreement was made by the Terney County Forest Service, WCS, and
the largest logging company in the region, TerneyLes. The roads will be
made impassable through a combination of bridge removals, trenches, and
bulldozing bottlenecks such as where a road runs between a river and
cliff.
The roads crisscross Terney County in the Russian Province of
Primorye, a coastal region that borders China, North Korea, and the Sea
of Japan. Primorye -- only one percent of Russa's total area -- is one
of the most biologically-rich temperate forest zones in the world, and
30 percent of all endangered species in Russia (including Amur tigers)
are concentrated there. In fact, Primorye contains some of the best Amur
tiger habitat in the world, with dense forests of oak and pine teeming
with deer, boar, and other tiger prey species.
Tigers often use such roads as travel corridors and therefore are
easy victims to poachers who drive the same roads in vehicles armed with
spotlights and high-powered rifles. And tigers are not the only
victims: ungulates such as red deer and wild boar (key prey species for
tigers) are common targets, and northeast Asian endemic species like
Blakiston's fish owl, mandarin ducks, and a vast array of fish also
suffer from the impacts of these roads. Additionally, the increased
traffic brings more human-caused fires.
Except for in protected areas, the region has been targeted by
logging companies over the last thirty years. Subsequently, logging
roads have grown exponentially. According to a recent WCS satellite
analysis of the region, in 1984 there were an estimated 141 miles (228
km) of roads in Terney County (home of Sikhote-Alin Reserve), and in
2014 this had ballooned to an estimated 3,900 miles (6,278 km) of roads,
nearly all of them built to facilitate logging.
While selective logging can actually be good for tigers by opening up
the understory and promoting vegetative growth that attracts ungulates
and thus tigers, the network of roads left behind after loggers leave
has serious impacts on wildlife and biodiversity preservation.
The process of dismantling the first roads will begin later this summer.
Aleksandr Levchenko, Head of the Department of Forest Management for
TerneyLes, said, "We at TerneyLes recognize the value of Primorye's
forests as a reservoir of biological diversity, and we take our
responsibility to help manage these resources seriously. Closing roads
is just one of many things we do to help protect these resources while
providing sustainable employment to the citizens of Terney County."
WCS and the Provincial Wildlife Department will monitor the closed roads to make sure that poachers do not detour around them. "This development is a tremendously important step towards reducing
vulnerability of tigers and the unique wildlife and natural places in
the southern Russian Far East outside of protected areas, and we applaud
TerneyLes for their efforts," said Jonathan Slaght of WCS's Russia
Program.
This important work was funded by International Programs of the U.S.
Forest Service, Department of Agriculture; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service Rhinoceros & Tiger Conservation Fund; Keidanren Nature
Conservation Fund; and The Baobab Fund.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Wildlife Conservation Society. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
A Siberian tiger cub feeds at a private zoo in Abony, east of Budapest May.Reuters
The number of tigers is
dwindling by the day and if we do not put in effort to save them, the
coming generations would only know them through pictures and
descriptions. Many organisations like CITES and India's Project Tiger
have made some advancement with regards to spreading awareness of tiger
conservation, and even maintaining natural habitats for them.
We also celebrate World Tiger Day as a way of celebrating whatever we
have been able to achieve in this regard and also to promote further
requirements in tiger conservation. In honour of World Tiger Day 2015,
which falls on Wednesday, 29 July, here are some powerful quotes and
slogans that will inspire you to fight for the splendid wild cats.
Protecting a top predator like the tiger keep forests and grasslands
intact, and ensures that other species like rhinos and elephants can
thrive. - Justin Winters, Executive Director of Leonardo DiCaprio
Foundation:
When it comes to looking after all the species that are already
endangered, there's such a lot to do that sometimes it might all seem to
be too much, especially when there are so many other important things
to worry about. But if we stop trying, the chances are that pretty soon
we'll end up with a world where there are no tigers or elephants, or
saw-fishes or whooping cranes, or albatrosses or ground iguanas. And I
think that would be a shame, don't you? - Martin Jenkins, "Can We Save
the Tiger?"
Slogans
Look at the tigers mighty and strong, killing them for their skin is very wrong.
Tiger Tiger burning bright, will not let you fade out of sight, that is my promise and for you we will fight.
When they are gone, when every last life is stolen, how will you remember them? Extinction is FOREVER.
Man charged with trespassing after invading cougar enclosure
The cougars appear to enjoy Newell's attention
YouTube
A MAN who jumped over a zoo fence to pet two cougars has been charged with trespassing.
Shaky
footage shows prankster Joshua Newell, 35, climbing over the outer
fence of the big cat enclosure at Columbus Zoo in Ohio, US.
He
then pushes his hand right up to the inner fence and strokes the deadly
predators through the wire while cooing: “Kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Zoo chief Tom Stalf said in a statement: “Animal welfare and safety are two of our top priorities.
Newell is seen pushing his fingers through wire
“Barriers, like the fence line at the cougar habitat, are in place to keep our guests safe.
“The actions taken in this video were alarming and resulted in our decision to press charges.”
Newell, who posted the footage on YouTube, is due to appear in court on Wednesday.
The video, which has been watched almost 100,000 times, was blasted by viewers online.
Katie Kleber wrote: “You stupid idiot! Did you know that these animals could rip your arm off — they have the potential?
“How do you know you did not infect them with some disease to which they have not been vaccinated?”
Viewer Wizewon added: “This dude doesn’t even have the brains of a turnip.”
The population in the mangrove forest is far less than believed,
officials say, after a census uses cameras hidden in trees to record
numbers
A rescued tiger leaps into a river after being released from a cage in the Sunderbans on the border of India and Bangladesh.
Photograph: Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP/Getty Images
Agence France-Presse
Only around 100 tigers remain in Bangladesh’s famed Sundarbans
forest, far fewer of the endangered animals than previously thought,
according to a census.
Some 440 tigers were recorded during the previous census in 2004 in
the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and one of the last
remaining habitats for the big cats.
But experts said better methodology was the reason for the huge drop
in the numbers, saying hidden cameras used this time around, rather than
pugmarks, gave a much more accurate figure.
Tapan Kumar Dey, the government’s wildlife conservator, said analysis
of camera footage from the year-long survey that ended in April found
numbers ranged between 83 and 130, giving an average of 106.
“So plus or minus we have around 106 tigers in our parts of the
Sundarbans. It’s a more accurate figure,” Dey told Agence France-Presse
about the survey, which has not yet been publicly released.
About 74 tigers have previously been counted on the Indian side of
the Sundarbans, which makes up nearly 40% of the forest straddling both
countries over 10,000 sq km (3,860 sq m).
Bengal tigers live mainly in India, where nationwide there are 2,226, with smaller populations in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar.
Monirul Khan, a zoology professor at Bangladesh’s Jahangirnagar
University and the nation’s foremost tiger expert, said the survey
confirmed his worst fears.
“It seems the population has declined more than we had feared,” Khan
said, saying his studies showed the figure was no more than 200.
Khan said the government needed to do more to protect the animals,
whose numbers were shrinking because of poaching and rapid development
on the edge of the forest.
The World Wildlife
Fund says tigers worldwide are in serious danger of becoming extinct in
the wild. Their numbers have fallen from 100,000 in 1900 to around
3,200 now.
Officials have conceded that the pugmark tracking system used in 2004
was unreliable and cameras were installed in trees throughout the
forest for the latest survey.
YV Jhala, professor at the Wildlife Institute of India, told AFP the new figure was the “reality”.
“The 440 figure was a myth and an imagination. Bangladesh parts of
the Sundarbans with its prey size can support up to 200 tigers,” he
said, also urging authorities to act to better protect the cats.
The world’s big cats are dangerously close to being driven from
existence. A man with a camera lens who is intent on saving these
handsome animals brings their story to New Zealand next month.
A male tiger in Bandhavgarh National Park , India. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic
According to award-winning wildlife photographer Steve Winter, he didn't choose big cats, they chose him. "I
was working in Guatemala and a jaguar came to my door one night -
scared me to death. I heard him walk up, scratch under the door and then
sniff. I was like a babe in the woods. The next story I did was the
first ever jaguar story for National Geographic. Certain things in life are meant to be."
Before
that fateful encounter in 1991, Winter had been a globetrotting
photojournalist. These days, he is recognised as one of the world's top
big cat photographers, and he's coming to New Zealand early next month
to talk about his amazing adventures in the wild with his stage
presentation My Nine Lives. "I love to tell stories and I
love to talk about what I do because I'm passionate about trying to save
big cats. Luckily, I'm an outgoing person, and I just get up on stage
and organise the stories of what happened to me in the field with each
different cat. I love doing it. I can't tell you how much I love doing
it."
Like a lot of people, Winter grew up with the fantasy of one day working for National Geographic. But, unlike most people, he eventually made it. "I'll
never forget lying on the living room floor in front of my fireplace
and daydreaming about going to some remote exotic location and hanging
out with people and cultures that I could hardly imagine even existed.
That's when I decided I wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic."
In
addition to his work for the magazine and his global speaking
engagements, Winter has also successfully channelled his passion into an
on-screen role. "I just spent the last month in front of a
camera in India. We've been shooting a TV show on me doing leopards, so
instead of just getting on stage and talking about what I do, I'm
actually talking to camera while I'm in the field doing it. That'll be
on National Geographic Channel."
The various outlets give
Winter a chance to get people thinking about the preservation of the
magnificent creatures he spends time with. "Habitat loss is the
number one problem for these animals. Poaching for the endangered
species trade is big also. I started working with scientists, giving
them pictures. They're out there trying to get money for their project,
trying to save these animals, and that became my job also. Because why
would you spend two years working with an animal, and then just walk
away? You just can't do it. That's why I got into this. Wildlife photographer Steve Winter. Photo / Supplied "Being a photojournalist was in my favour. I learned the
value of telling a story, because pretty pictures aren't going to change
anybody's mind. You have to tell the story of these animals and the
people who live with them and their environment, and how we as humans
are affecting their lives."
Modern technology has made
photography more available and accessible than ever, and Winter says
this has enhanced the power of the photographic image.
"The
reason is we have more people who are photographers. Everybody with a
smartphone is a photographer, which makes them more visually literate.
When we become more visually literate, the image means more to us. We're
inundated with images from morning to night. If we can find images
people haven't seen before and catch their eye, then they're more likely
to investigate what's going on."
National Geographic
Presents: My Nine Lives with Steve Winter in Auckland on August 5 and
Wellington on August 6. To book call 0800 111 999 or see ticketmaster.co.nz. A remote camera captures a radio collared cougar in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic A remote camera captures a radio collared cougar in Griffith Park. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic A female cougar and her kitten use rock
outcrops to provide shelter and cover for hunting. Photo: Steve
Winter/National Geographic A poacher's snare cost this six-month-old cub its right front leg. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic Tigers in Bandhavgarh National Park , India. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic A female tiger grooms her cub near their den om Bandhavgarh National Park , India. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic A male and female lion. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic A jaguar hunts for caimans along a riverbank in Brazil's Pantanal. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic A jaguar takes a swim in the blue waters of Cancun. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic A remote camera captures an endangered snow leopard. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographic A remote camera captures a snow leopard in the falling snow. Photo: Steve Winter/National GeographicTheir tail helps snow leopards stay warm and keep their balance. Photo: Steve Winter/National Geographicsource
This Dutch cat brought a bird home. A recent study found that cat owners rejected the idea that their pets threaten wildlife.Credit
Jelger Herder/Minden Pictures
Jennifer
L. McDonald is an ecologist by profession and a cat person by
avocation. Some years ago, Tiggy, her ginger-and-white shorthair, would
bring home freshly killed mice and shrews for her consideration.
Dr. McDonald, now an associate research fellow at the Center for Ecology and Conservation
at the University of Exeter in England, was curious about the impact of
pet cats like Tiggy on wildlife. Fewer mice might be nice. But cats,
natural hunters, pounce on birds and rabbits, too.
“You
can’t pick and choose a cat’s prey,” Dr. McDonald said. If owners
realized how much prey their pets killed, she wondered, would they be
willing to contain their cats to protect wildlife?
She and her associates studied the question. The answer, published recently in the journal Ecology and Evolution was unequivocal and emphatic.
No.
In
recent years, debates about the predatory effect of cats on wildlife,
particularly endangered songbirds, have only intensified. But most
public opinion surveys have focused on the management of feral cats,
which make up the majority of domestic feline marauders, particularly in
the United States.
Photo
This nest box in Sweden was
intended for birds, not cats. A British study found that cat owners did
not accurately estimate how much prey their cats brought home.Credit
Bengt Lundberg/Minden Pictures
Dr.
McDonald surveyed owners in two British villages about cats they
allowed to roam outdoors. Owners were asked to predict the amount of
prey taken by their cats and document the actual killings. Owners in one
village were then asked whether they believed pet cats had an
ecological impact.
Researchers
also asked owners about their willingness to keep cats indoors during
prime hunting time, from dusk to dawn. The idea was flatly rejected,
with some owners providing unsolicited commentary: “My cat chooses for
herself whether to stay in or go out,” one wrote.
Pointing
to “a dissociation between actual and perceived predatory behavior,”
the researchers concluded that “the cat owners in this study reject the
proposition that cats are a threat to wildlife.”
Sara J. Ash,
a professor of ecology and conservation biology at the University of
the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky., said that the results highlighted
the deep divide between cat owners, who see their individual animals as
doing what comes naturally, and ecologists, who view cats as a
predatory, nonnative species.
“These
owners think, ‘My cat only kills two mice a day,’ ” Dr. Ash said. “But
they don’t think about the high density of well-fed cats throughout
their neighborhood.”
The
study’s cat owners were generally able to predict whether their pets
would bring home prey, but they fared poorly at estimating how much.
Among 43 cats tabulated in the Cornwall village of Mawnan Smith, the
average monthly catch ranged from none to 10. Over four months, the cats
delivered a total of 325 animals: Nearly 60 percent were rodents, and
27 percent were birds.
(According to researchers, 6.2 percent were
unidentifiable.)
Although
Mawnan Smith and another village in the study, Thornhill, in Scotland,
are in rural settings, these owners’ reactions corresponded with those
of urban cat owners in Britain. In a 2012 study, they said
overwhelmingly that they did not believe cats depleted certain bird populations.
John Bradshaw,
a professor of anthrozoology at the University of Bristol in England,
pointed out that the owners in this latest study counted only the prey
their cats had brought home, and did not know how many creatures the
cats might have left elsewhere — scenarios vividly illustrated in a 2013
University of Georgia study by researchers who attached “kitty cams” to 55 pet cats. Those cats left behind nearly half the prey they had killed.
But Dr. Bradshaw, the author of “Cat Sense,” questioned whether cats were really having an ecological impact.
“No
doubt pet cats kill lots of little animals, but are they doing
long-term harm in the United States and Britain?” said Dr. Bradshaw, who
feels that the evidence is “flimsy.”
Some
researchers argue that while cats do have an impact on endangered
species, notably on oceanic islands with few indigenous predators, the
danger they pose in Europe and North America is hardly as significant as
housing development, drought or pollution.
Noting
that the biodiversity threat was insufficient to persuade owners to
keep their cats indoors, Dr. McDonald and her colleagues suggested a
different tactic: emphasizing the deadly hazards to pets that wander at
will from, road traffic, for example, and larger predators.
Increasingly, in the United States, that has meant coyotes.
According to a new study in The Journal of Mammalogy, cats, and possibly some owners, are getting the memo.
American wildlife researchers investigated whether cats, which they
assumed hunted mainly in residential areas, were also foraging in parks,
where biodiversity is richer. Or were cats avoiding those areas because
of coyotes?
With
nearly 500 volunteers, researchers placed cameras in 32 parks and one
urban area in six states, recording cat and coyote traffic. They found
that many coyotes, but very few cats, stalked those protected public
lands.
That was even true of Rock Creek Park
in Washington, D.C., which is surrounded by residences and likely
thousands of pet cats. Yet in six months, researchers caught coyotes on
camera 125 times in the park, but photographed a cat only once.
Perhaps
wary owners were keeping their cats indoors. “And maybe cats smelled
coyote urine, and it struck primal fear into their little pet hearts, so
they’re staying away,” said Roland Kays, the lead author and a research associate professor of wildlife and forestry at North Carolina State University.
But
cats and coyotes did overlap in what researchers described as “small
urban forests” — smatterings of woodland along greenways in suburban and
exurban neighborhoods where coyotes are encroaching.
Studies have shown that such encounters may not end well. “Letting the cat out is not only a risk to the birds but to the cat,” Dr. Kays said.
BANGKOK - It's World Tiger Day on Wednesday (July 29) and the fate
of the iconic Asian big cat remains uncertain, with remnant populations
especially in South-east Asia threatened by a multi-billion-dollar trade
that is wiping out forests and biodiversity. 
The last few days have left many grappling with the
question of what has to be so fundamentally wrong with some people that
they feel the need to dispose of part of their ample income by killing
majestic, exotic animals.
Newell is seen pushing his fingers through wire
