Meet the mountain lions of LA

Elina Shatkin

10.30.2016

 

Mountain lion P-22 eating a mule deer. National Park Service via Flickr

The cougars of Los Angeles finally have online profiles (with photos!) to match their real world lives. But we're not talking about those kind of cougars or those kind of profiles.

Earlier this week, the National Park Service launched its Puma Profiles, life stories of the 53 big cats they've tagged in and around the Santa Monica Mountains during the past 14 years.

Biologist Jeff Sikich, who has overseen the long-running mountain lion study since it launched in 2002, spends a good chunk of his time in the field, trying to track down these cats.

Once they're collared, he can follow their movements, hiking in to their kills and seeing what they're eating. The goal is to understand how mountain lions survive in such a fragmented urban landscape.
"Where are they going? What's their diet? Are they reproducing and successfully raising young? Are they crossing roads? Are the crossing freeways? What are they dying from?," Sikich asks.

Take, for example, P-12, a young male who was collared in the Simi Hills in 2008. According to Sikich, he's the only lion in the past 14 years to cross 101 freeway from north to south.

Mountain lion P-12 has fathered eight documented litters of kittens, as of October 2015. Courtesy of the National Park Service

"His crossing was very cool because he actually brought new genetic material not seen in the Santa Monica Mountains. He bred with a female, had a litter of kittens and passed on some of this unique genetic material to his offspring, so his presence, actually altered the genetic structure of our population," Sikich says.

But the problem of inbreeding remains when you have an "island of habitat," in this case a roughly 275-square-mile area bounded by the 101 freeway to the north, the 405 freeway to the east, the Oxnard agricultural fields to the west and the ocean to the south. It can sustain 10 to 15 lions tops — two to four adult males, four to six adult females and some kittens and sub-adults.

Sikich is blunt: "In the future, that cannot genetically sustain a population."

After his semi-miraculous crossing and successful mating, P-12 has had no other options so he has been breeding with his daughters and granddaughters.

"We're really interested in how all these regions are connected," Sikich says. "We have these huge barriers in between a lot of these mountain ranges — freeways and developments."

Sikich says he's currently following 15 individuals not only in the Santa Monica Mountains but also in the Verdugo Mountains, the Santa Susana Mountains, one in the Los Padres Mountains and one in Griffith Park — the famous P-22.

Watching P-22, Southern California's most famous cougar, researchers have learned about the insidious effects of poisons as they work their way up the food chain.

P-22 was most likely born in the Santa Monica Mountains and crossed two major freeways to reach his current home, Griffith Park. A couple of years ago, when he was recaptured, he looked like he'd been through the wringer.

Mountain lion P-22 was trapped, sedated and treated for mange during a capture in Griffith Park. National Park Service via Flickr

He was suffering from mange and tests showed he had rodenticide in his blood. In fact, 13 of the 14 mountain lions in the study have tested positive for one or more anticoagulant compound and three have died from anticoagulant intoxication.

"We believe the likely mechanism of exposure is from the mountain lion killing and eating the coyote that killed and ate the ground squirrel that ate the poison that the golf course or apartment complex or homeowner put out," Sikich says.

Research conducted from 1996 to 2003 points to rat poison as the second leading cause of death for coyotes after roadkill.

When P-22 was recaptured this last December, he appeared healthy and seemed to have recovered, much to the delight of Angelenos. But nothing has changed in his environment and the problems faced by Southern California cougars — a tiny genetic pool, encroaching human developments, poisons — remain.

Sikich hopes that the Puma Profiles will raise awareness and interest about the big cats, enough that a wildlife bridge over the 101 freeway connecting the Santa Monica Mountains to the mountains in the north moves from long-held dream to reality. Until then, these big cats at least have a moment of online glory.

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Mongoose wins 'Tom and Jerry'-style chase with leopard

By Earth Touch October 26 2016

It's like an episode of Tom and Jerry in the African bush...

Safari guide Kevin Van Der Linde and his coworkers were enjoying a drive through South Africa's Balule Game Reserve recently when they spotted a leopard rummaging in a nearby bush – a meal clearly on its mind. "We tried to identify what it was chasing," he told Latest Sightings. The team initially thought the big cat's target was a dassie (or rock hyrax), but when the small animal eventually poked its head out, it turned out to be a slender mongoose (Galerella sanguinea).

"[The chase] was a very rare sighting for all of us (as you might have heard in the video)," says Van Der Linde. "It was an ongoing game raising our excitement levels and curiosity to see how it would play out, but after about ten minutes of the leopard aimlessly circling the bush, it finally lost interest and gave up."



This isn't the first time we've seen a mongoose evade a feline foe: back in 2014, one was spotted in Kenya's Masaai Mara National Park ferociously defending itself against four young lionesses.

We don't know whether the quartet of big cats actually intended to eat their small quarry, but South Africa's leopards, especially ageing ones, are known to hunt mongoose. In fact, one old female in MalaMala Game Reserve was given the nickname "mongoose killer" after she was seen taking down four mongoose in one go.


"It is common for older leopards to begin hunting small rodents, mongoose, birds and other dangerous reptiles – often to their detriment," explains MalaMala ranger Matt Nolden. "As a leopard ages, it lacks the strength and speed to stalk and kill larger mammals like impala and bushbuck. Thus they attempt to capture more vulnerable, but often dangerous, animals. Porcupines and black mambas are but two good examples of animals which older leopards are regularly injured by."



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Top header image: Jessica Shippee/Flickr

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Global wildlife populations: 58 percent decline, driven by food and energy demand

Date:

October 27, 2016

Source:

World Wildlife Fund

Summary:

Global populations of vertebrates -- mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish -- have declined by 58 percent between 1970 and 2012, states a new report. Animals living in the world's lakes, rivers, and freshwater systems have experienced the most dramatic population declines, at 81 percent. Because of human activity, the report states that without immediate intervention global wildlife populations could drop two-thirds by 2020.

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The top threat to wildlife is habitat loss and degradation, driven primarily by increasing demand for food and energy.

Credit: © Elena Kovaleva / Fotolia

 

Global populations of vertebrates -- mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish -- have declined by 58 percent between 1970 and 2012, states a new report from World Wildlife Fund (WWF). 

Animals living in the world's lakes, rivers, and freshwater systems have experienced the most dramatic population declines, at 81 percent. Because of human activity, the report states that without immediate intervention global wildlife populations could drop two-thirds by 2020.

"This research delivers a wake-up call that for decades we've treated our planet as if it's disposable," said Carter Roberts, WWF president and CEO. "We created this problem. The good news is that we can fix it. It requires updating our approach to food, energy, transportation, and how we live our lives. We share the same planet. We rely on it for our survival. So we are all responsible for its protection."
The top threat to wildlife is habitat loss and degradation, driven primarily by increasing demand for food and energy. According to the report, global food production is the leading cause for destruction of habitats and overexploitation of wildlife. Agriculture currently occupies approximately one-third of Earth's total land area and accounts for 70 percent of all freshwater use.

Wild animals are not the only ones at risk; the report states that increased pressure threatens the natural resources that all life -- including humanity -- depend on.

The report demonstrates the need to rethink how we produce, consume, measure success and value the natural environment, and calls for an urgent system change by individuals, businesses and governments. The report also illustrates the positive momentum that is building by highlighting recent global agreements on climate change and sustainable development. In particular, the report recognizes the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as an essential guide to decision-making that can ensure that the environment is valued alongside economic and social interests.

"A strong natural environment is the key to defeating poverty, improving health and developing a just and prosperous future," said Marco Lambertini, WWF director general. "We have proven that we know what it takes to build a resilient planet for future generations, we just need to act on that knowledge."

Living Planet Report 2016: Risk and resilience in a new era is the eleventh edition of WWF's biennial flagship publication. The report tracks over 14,000 vertebrate populations of over 3,700 species from 1970 to 2012 and includes research from the Global Footprint Network and the Zoological Society of London.

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Story Source:
Materials provided by World Wildlife Fund. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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World Wildlife Fund. "Global wildlife populations: 58 percent decline, driven by food and energy demand." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 October 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161027113306.htm>.

 

 

Why International Snow Leopard Day Matters

Posted by Wildlife Conservation Society in Cat Watch on October 23, 2016

By Peter Zahler

It would be one of the 10 largest countries in the world. It also would be the 6^th least dense country in terms of human population. It is the birthplace of many of the world’s greatest rivers – the Yangtse, Yellow, Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya, and others – that provide life-sustaining water to hundreds of millions of people. All of the mountains on earth that soar above 7,000 meters (23,000 feet) – well over 100 of them – are found here.

This huge, remote, and incredible region is the home to the snow leopard.

Camera trap picture in Lower Wakhan of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province, 2012. Credit: WCS Afghanistan Program.

Stretching for somewhere between two and three million square kilometers, from Russia in the north to Pakistan in the south and east to Nepal, it also almost exactly defines the greatest mountain ranges on the planet – the Himalayas, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Tien Shan, Pamir, Kunlun, Altais. The snow leopard roams this landscape, the apex predator of its soaring sky kingdom, hunting among the cliffs, boulders, and ice for the giant ibex and markhor goats, the massive argali and the blue sheep.

Shrouded in clouds and mystery, the snow leopard’s world is only just beginning to be uncovered. Although it was known about for centuries, and greatly familiar to the isolated mountain communities that share its home, it was really not until George Schaller went to look for the big cats and Peter Matthiessen wrote about them (and George’s adventures) in the 1970s that the cats entered into the larger international consciousness.

However, our knowledge about snow leopards, little as it may still be, is growing almost exponentially. Multiple research efforts aimed at understanding snow leopard biology and behavior are underway across the 12 range countries. New methods – satellite collars, capture-recapture individual recognition methods for (now digital) camera traps, and a host of other systems have largely replaced the old-style, slogging, binocular-driven field studies.

Those methods were largely ineffective for a creature living in such an inaccessible and difficult environment, that was so wide-ranging and at such low densities, and that was so well camouflaged that photographs of the cats often appeared to be just jumbles of rocks and cliffs, even to the photographer who knew a cat was somewhere in the frame.

Camera trap picture in Lower Wakhan of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province, 2012. Credit: WCS Afghanistan Program.

Even with these new technologies and methodologies, the huge and remote area that defines snow leopard range means that we still struggle with even the simplest of baselines – an understanding of the total number of snow leopards. However, information is beginning to pile up from new studies across Asia’s mountains. Previous estimates ranged from 4,000 to 7,000; new country estimates put that number at between 7,000 and 8,000; and a number of recent studies suggest that the number might well exceed these totals.

We’re also learning more about the significant threats that face snow leopards. Poaching (mostly for skins) and retaliatory killing (by shepherds after predation of livestock by snow leopards) were long suspected as the leading threat to these big cats, and a just-published study from TRAFFIC supports the belief that this may be leading to a decline in the snow leopard population.

The loss of wild prey, the great mountain goats and sheep that Schaller dubbed “mountain monarchs,” from overhunting and livestock impacts (competition, overgrazing, disturbance, and even disease) is also significant. Development in these high mountains is a slow and difficult task, but new roads are increasing access and the ability for mines and other extractive industries to reach the snow leopard’s home.

The good news, however, is that we are also exponentially growing the number of tools in our ‘conservation toolbox’ to find solutions to these threats. Predator-proof corrals are being built across the mountains, protecting livestock and halting retaliatory killing of these cats. New technologies are also being applied to stop poaching and trade in snow leopards.

WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) is rolling out SMART – an enforcement software tool to better manage anti-poaching patrols – in Mongolia and Afghanistan, and they have also developed a hand-held phone app to help enforcement officers identify illegal wildlife products. Panthera and Fauna and Flora International (FFI) are piloting the use of sniffer dogs to identify snow leopard and other illegal wildlife products by customs and border agencies.

Camera trap picture of snow-leopard in Afghanistan. Credit: WCS Afghanistan Program.

Other projects are building on old systems – WCS now has over 100 community rangers patrolling and monitoring in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, while the Snow Leopard Conservancy works on sacred sites to help preserve the snow leopard and other wildlife of these high mountains.
Perhaps most exciting is that the international community is seeing the importance of snow leopard conservation in terms of helping support not just these big cats and biodiversity but also the marginalized and poverty-stricken mountain communities that live with them.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) have joined forces to support numerous projects across the region aimed at helping both the snow leopard and local people. These win-win initiatives are helping to improve local governance, providing incentives for better resource management, and helping to build local capacity to protect mountain wildlife.

Under the leadership of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, all 12 range countries have joined forces under the umbrella of the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP) and agreed to take action to save the snow leopard. A number of UNDP-GEF funded projects aimed at transboundary protection of the snow leopard and its high mountain environment are now ongoing, yet another way that the snow leopard is bringing countries across this region together.

It is amazing that we still know so little about one of the world’s great cats. However, our knowledge and efforts on behalf of what was once a near mountain phantom are growing, even as the snow leopard helps to bring communities, government, and the international community together. On this International Snow Leopard Day, there is a growing sense that we may be able to save one of the last great wildernesses in Asia, and the great cat that defines it.
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Peter Zahler is the Snow Leopard Program Coordinator and Regional Director for Asia at WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society).

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America's celebrity jaguar 'El Jefe' is a bear hunter

By Ethan Shaw October 19 2016

A male jaguar called El Jefe ("The Boss") has been in the news a lot lately. He's the only known wild representative of his kind in the United States, and his turf – the Santa Rita Mountains of southeastern Arizona – is being considered for a hugely contentious open-pit copper mine.

And according to a recent Smithsonian Magazine profile, America's celebrity jaguar is also a bear killer.

El Jefe, the only known wild jaguar in the United States, wandering the Santa Rita Mountains. Image: Conservation CATalyst

While shadowing El Jefe in the Santa Rita backcountry, biologist Chris Bugbee discovered the strewn bones of a black bear, including a crushed, tooth-punctured skull (photographer Bill Hatcher was able to capture several snapshots of the remains). Assisting with the El Jefe-tracking task was Bugbee's dog Mayke, a Belgian Malinois specially trained to sniff out jaguar and ocelot poop.

Back at the lab, analysis later confirmed that jaguar scat collected at the scene contained bear hairs. According to Bugbee's colleague (and wife) Aletris Neils, with whom he runs the nonprofit Conservation CATalyst, the bear skeleton likely belonged to a young adult sow.

The unusual find, Bugbee suggests, marks the first known instance of a jaguar preying on a black bear. Such an event could only occur in the American Southwest or northern Mexico, where the stomping grounds of the mainly temperate black bear and the mainly tropical/subtropical jaguar overlap. "It was north against south, and south won," Neils tells Smithsonian.

As El Jefe's bear lunch suggests, jaguars are opportunistic hunters. They often actively prowl in search of prey, then attempt to stalk and kill any they encounter. More comfortable getting their paws wet than most felines, they'll also cruise riverbanks and wetland fringes questing for huge capybaras, as well as caimans, which can make up nearly 50 percent of jaguar diets in water-logged habitats. And as this footage plainly shows, the bigs cats are not afraid to pounce on full-sized caimans in their watery element, showing some mind-boggling strength hauling the reptiles ashore.

That same muscle power and ease in the water come in handy when hunting supersized rodents – just watch this Brazilian jaguar in full submarine mode as it wrestles a capybara from the depths.

In the Smithsonian article, Bugbee speculates El Jefe could have taken down the black bear by ambushing the unsuspecting animal as it foraged. The bear's mangled skull fits a distinctive pattern of jaguar kills: the big cats commonly dispatch capybaras by puncturing their braincase, a feat that requires precise fang placement and massive crushing power. (Jaguars have proportionately the strongest bite of any big cat, which also serves them well when munching turtles.)

Interestingly, some evidence suggests that spectacled bears, the only South American representatives of the bear family, avoid jaguars where the two share habitat.

More than a hundred species have been recorded as jaguar fodder across the cats' range, although recent research suggests they especially favour capybara, caiman, collared peccaries (or javelina), nine-banded armadillos, wild pigs, white-nosed coatis and giant anteaters (though as we saw just last month, giant anteaters aren't pushovers when it comes to jaguars). The study, nicely summarised here, speculated that jaguars might have escaped the great megafaunal extinctions at the end of the last ice age in the Americas by adapting to smaller prey, and consequently diminishing in size themselves.

Jaguars only rarely tackle adult South American tapirs, the biggest terrestrial mammals in the Neotropics, although a beefy male named Aratiri in the Argentine Atlantic Forest is an accomplished tapir-hunter.

Aratirí, seen here with a tapir carcass, is one of the largest jaguars known to inhabit the Atlantic Forest, which spans parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Image: Emilio White/Proyecto Yaguarte

El Jefe's bear lunch sheds a little light on the "phantom ecology" of jaguars in the American Southwest, which were mostly shot and poisoned out by the mid-twentieth century. Since the cats weren't well studied before effectively disappearing, we don't know much about their food preferences.

The predators once flourished alongside grizzlies and Mexican wolves in the isolated mountain ranges of Arizona and New Mexico, along the Mogollon Rim, and occasionally beyond: as far north as the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and eastward into South Texas thornscrub (and maybe even the swampy Texas-Louisiana border). Today, the nearest population of breeding jaguars to the US border exists in eastern Sonora.

El Jefe, who first came on biologists' radar in 2011, is only the latest of a string of male jaguars – known to be impressive wanderers – to reclaim southern Arizona territory over the past couple of decades. (His most famous predecessor was Macho B, a longtime resident of the state's Tumacacori Highlands until he was controversially euthanised in 2009.)

To encourage more of the great spotted cats to repopulate borderland habitat, conservationists hope to establish protected corridors between the Sonoran jaguar population (which finds refuge in the remote Northern Jaguar Reserve) and the US line – but obstacles such as the proposed copper mine, not to mention Donald Trump's visions of "an impenetrable and beautiful wall", threaten to stand in the jaguars' way.
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Top header image: cuatrok77, Flickr

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Mountain Lions Putting Fear Into Santa Monica Mountain Ranchers

October 12, 2016 

MALIBU (CBSLA.com) — Fear and concern is on the rise among ranchers living in the Santa Monica Mountains because they say mountain lions are on the attack, killing precious livestock.
CBS2’s Amy Johnson reports, they’re afraid they may kill humans next.

A lion named P45 is well known in the area but ranchers say he’s getting more and more hungry.
“He’s dangerous,” said Wendell Phillips. “This particular mountain lion has decided he has a taste for domestic animals and once they do that they usually don’t stop.”

Credit: Wendell Phillips

Phillips says the lion has killed five of his alpacas – also known as small llamas.

“I’d like to see the mountain lion relocated,” Phillips said.

Phillips was told by the National Parks Service it’s against policy to move the mountain lions and his livestock needs to be protected from dusk to dawn. Phillips says  it’s too costly to keep them locked up with high fences.

The mountain lions in the area have been observed for the last 14 years.

“When a mountain lion kills unprotected livestock it’s an easy meal for him,” Kate Kuykendall, of the National Parks Service, said. “It’s not a sign of aggressive or abnormal behavior.”

The National Parks Service said it will be offering workshops for ranchers on how to better protect their livestock.

“It’s grizzly, but it’s nature,” Kuykendall said.


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Pallas's cats to get their own 'palace' in Siberian mountains

By Olga Gertcyk

04 October 2016

The world's fluffiest feline get a first-in-the-world scientific zone where the endangered wildcats will be protected and studied.

Native to remote regions of southern Siberia, as well as Central Asia and China, Pallas's cats are seldom seen, and known for their reclusive and solitary lives. Picture: Sailyugemsky Nature Park

The 32 square kilometre site at Sailyugemsky Nature Park in Altai Mountains is seen as a key step in protecting the secretive animal which are known for their expressive faces and adorable looks - although they are far from tame.

Native to remote regions of southern Siberia, as well as Central Asia and China, they are seldom seen, and known for their reclusive and solitary lives.

A recent international conference in Novosibirsk on the Pallas's cat agreed on measures to protect the rare species, and the park's enhanced role in monitoring and observing.

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The 32 square kilometre site at Sailyugemsky Nature Park in Altai Mountains is seen as a key step in protecting the secretive animal. Pictures: The Siberian Times, Sailyugemsky Nature Park

The park - which hosted the conference with representatives from Russia, the US, the UK, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Sweden, Mongolia and Ukraine - has 15 photo traps geared to watching these animals, and infrastructure which will be used to help their survival.

The wildcat is in the Russian Red Book, although in neighbouring Mongolia it is hunted on with dogs for fur. Researchers believe that this can lead to complete extinction of the Pallas cat population in border areas.

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'The Pallas' cat is unfairly forgotten in the world although the animal is on the edge of extinction.' Picture: Sailyugemsky Nature Park

Poachers are also a direct threat to the cat in Russia. Data on the wildcats is incomplete but it is known they live in TransBaikal region, and the republics of Tuva and Altai.

Denis Malikov, deputy director of Sailyugemsky Park said: 'The Pallas' cat is unfairly forgotten in the world although the animal is on the edge of extinction. There are only a handful of researchers studying it in Russia.'

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The park has 15 photo traps geared to watching these animals, and infrastructure which will be used to help their survival. Picture: Sailyugemsky Nature Park

The park is to become a global platform for study of the Pallas' cat, he said. Researcher Alexey Kuzhlekov said: 'We need to estimate the number of Pallas's cats, and study the habitat area.

'The latest data on this species is outdated. It hasn't been updated over the last 3 or 4 decades. We created a database that is also available online. Information about every encounter with the rare cat is uploaded there.'

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The pictures taken during a voluntary expedition to the Altai Republic, organised by the Altai Nature Reserve, WWF and Argali Regional Fund. Pictures: Altai Biosphere Reserve

First estimates of the feline population in Altai will be released in November.

Dr Jim Sanderson, director of the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation, said: 'Our peers from Russia are doing a great job monitoring felines. All the world knows that this is where the snow leopard lives and that the park is responsible for its protection. The Pallas's cat also needs protection.'

Pallas's cats kittens in Mongolia. Video: Dr Bariushaa Munkhtsog



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What have cats ever done for us? Here's what...

October 4, 2016

 

andrewpotter4/shutterstock.com

Author: Catherine Douglas

Lecturer in Animal Science, Newcastle University

Newcastle University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

The bird experts and authors of the book Cat Wars recently called for all free-roaming cats to be euthanised or kept on a lead. They argue that cats’ tendency to kill birds and small mammals has lead to a catastrophic decline in the numbers of these creatures. As humans’ most popular pet, it’s inevitable that cats would have some effect on the environment, but when it comes to cats we have lots to be thankful for.

Anthrozoology, the study of human-animal interaction – which encompasses aspects of medicine, veterinary science, education and social work – has revealed the significant benefit to people and the economy of pets, or “companion animals” to give them their preferred title. As cats are such common pets and their relationship with humans so culturally embedded, it’s not surprising to find that they have been the subject of many studies.

For example, The Cats Protection charity summarises the wealth of scientific findings highlighting the benefit of cats, including reducing childhood allergies and school absenteeism in children, improving mental health, especially in those with depression or post-traumatic stress, aiding diabetes control, and cutting down hospital stays. Caring for pets can promote independent living among the elderly, and help rehabilitate offenders.

Saving our health, and wealth

Florence Nightingale recognised the benefits of pets in aiding recovery, though her “pet” of choice was an owl, Athena, which she apparently carried in her pocket. Her beliefs have been supported by more recent research that found that pet-owners recover better from heart attacks than those that don’t own pets, are at a lower risk from coronary heart disease, suffer fewer minor ailments and make 15-20% fewer visits to their GP. Estimates in 2000 for cost savings to health care systems from pet ownership were for €5.6 billion (£3.6 billion) in Germany and $3.86 billion (£1.5 billion) in Australia.)

With an ageing population, the effects of dementia and similar illnesses is increasing. The National Institute for Health Research recognises the promise of pets as alternatives or additions to medication to enhance cognitive function, language, motor skills and mood, and therefore improve the quality of life of those with dementia. However, other studies suggest robot cats even robot seals can have a similar affect (and are less likely to ladder your tights while kneading your lap or form a trip hazard in care homes, and as such may even be preferable to real cats).

The International Federation on Ageing acknowledge the “extensive and therapeutic benefits to elderly people provided by pets … and the associated positive social and economic influences for local communities and society as a whole”. It suggests more research in the area should inform better policies around healthy ageing.

The young benefit from experience of pets too. Children benefit from greater engagement in the classroom and through fostering empathy with animals become more compassionate to fellow humans

Taking over. Dominic Lipinski/PA

From persecution to purrfect

Undoubtedly the popularity of cats is high – just look at the cat take-over of Clapham Common tube station’s advertising hoardings. But although more households now own cats than dogs across Europe and America, we have not always appreciated them.

Cats were persecuted in Europe during the Middle Ages due to their lasting association with witches and witchcraft, and like witches were often burned at the stake. Pope Gregory IX even declared cats to be heretical. This antagonism towards cats wasn’t felt elsewhere in the Middle East or Asia, and was perhaps less strong in the nascent American colonies, as the colonists were grateful to cats for their part in ensuring the Mayflower’s safe passage. By that time, cats had become vital parts of a ship’s crew, keeping vermin at bay and preventing them from chewing through ropes or eating food that couldn’t be replenished at sea.

We still don’t understand our companions’ full capabilities. Take for instance Oscar the cat, whose uncanny ability to predict the coming death of elderly residents in a care home was even reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. It seems, through their prehistoric association with humans, dogs have hogged the research limelight, perhaps because they are considered more able to be trained to work within the human world. But, given their easier management and growing popularity, cats could yet become top dog in this research field.

Our companions’ future

From keeping us sane and healthy to protecting foodstuffs from vermin and people from plague, cats have done lots for us. What have we ever done for cats? We should repay their companionship with high-welfare cat-friendly environments and careful breeding – avoiding for example, breeds like the Scottish fold that appeal to our sense of cuteness but live unhealthy and painful lives. Even if you don’t, personally, like cats, consider the overall benefits they confer to society.

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Romania bans trophy hunting of brown bears, wolves, lynx and wild cats

Unexpected move reverses a trend that has seen increasing numbers of large carnivores shot by hunters each year since Romania’s accession to the European Union

In 2016, the largest hunting quotas yet gave hunters the mandate to shoot 550 bears, 600 wolves and 500 big cats over 12 months. Photograph: Radu Sigheti/Reuters

Luke Dale-Harris

Wednesday 5 October 2016 

Romania has banned all trophy hunting of brown bears, wolves, lynx and wild cats in a surprise decision that gives Europe’s largest population of large carnivores a reprieve from its most severe and immediate threat.

The move on Tuesday reverses a trend which has seen the number of large carnivores being shot by hunters grow year on year since Romania’s accession into the European Union in 2007. In 2016, the largest hunting quotas yet gave hunters the mandate to shoot 550 bears, 600 wolves and 500 big cats over 12 months.

Over the last decade, hunting has grown into a multimillion-euro industry in Romania, with hunters from all over the world paying up to €10,000 (£8,800) to claim a ‘trophy’ – hunting parlance for the carcass of a hunted animal – from the Carpathian mountains.

The government has claimed that in order to exist, the industry relies on a loophole in European law which allows for the culling of wild animals that have been proven to be a danger to humans. Under the habitats directive, all large carnivores are protected in European Union member states, yet the state can order the killing of specific animals if shown to have attacked a person or damaged private property.

“Hunting for money was already illegal, but it was given a green light anyway,” environment minster, Cristiana Pasca-Palmer, told the Guardian. ‘The damages [clause in the habitats directive] acted as a cover for trophy hunting.”

Each year, hundreds of hunting associations across the country would submit two numbers; the total population of each large carnivore species, and the total number which they believed to be likely to cause damages. The second number would then act as a basis for a government-issued hunting quota for each species. These quotas were then carved up between hunting companies and sold as hunting rights to the public.

“This method raised some questions,” says Pasca-Palmer. “How can hunting associations count how many animals are causing damages a priori – before the damages have happened? By introducing the ban, what we are doing is simply putting things back on the right track, as the habitats directive originally intended.”

Wildlife NGOs claim that the methodology also tended to dramatically overestimate the populations of large carnivores. The official figure for the number of bears in Romania is over 6,000, and for wolves is 4,000. Yet with hundreds of hunting associations each responsible for monitoring a small area of land, and animals prone to wandering, it is understood that individual animals were often counted multiple times, potentially pushing the total population statistics up by thousands.

 

Announced late on Tuesday evening, the ban is expected to divide Romania’s population, pitching rural and urban dwellers against each other. The government’s decision has strong support in the larger cities, which have seen a growing movement against hunting in recent months. But in much of Romania’s remote countryside large carnivores are a daily threat to villagers and a persistent nuisance to livestock farmers, and many see hunting as the only solution.

Csaba Domokos, a bear specialist with wildlife protection NGO Milvus group, is convinced that the success or failure of the hunting ban rides on the government’s ability to address the rural population’s fears.

“Damages caused by large carnivores are a very real concern in the countryside,” he said. “The system up until now did not work; hunting does not reduce conflicts between carnivores and humans; in fact many studies show that with wolves and large cats, it can actually increase the problem.

“But the rural population believe that hunting is the answer, and unless they can be convinced otherwise, people may well start to take the problem into their own hands. The ban is a great step, but we don’t want hunting to be replaced by poaching.”

Domokos points out that hunters also have a vested interested in the protection of their quarry. “To some extent, hunting acts as a financial incentive for wildlife management, from preventing poaching to conserving habitats. There is some concern that once you take that away, the government will not invest enough to replace it.”

Hunters pay up to €10,000 to trophy hunt in the Carpathian mountains. Photograph: Nick Turner/Alamy

The government’s response is to take management into its own hands. A special unit is to be set up within the paramilitary police force that will assess any reports of damages by large carnivores and deal with the culprit animal directly. The ministry of environment have discussed the possibility of relocating the target animals abroad to countries interested in ‘rewilding’.

The ban comes amid a growing push for the protection of Romania’s wild mountains that has seen anti-corruption officers convict dozens of foresters, hunters and local officials in recent years.

Gabriel Paun, an activist and conservationist behind a petition that collected 11,000 signatures in the weeks before the hunting ban, sees the government’s decision as a step towards a safer future for Europe’s wild spaces: “The Carpathian mountains are home to more biodiversity than anywhere else in Europe, but for too long they have been ruthlessly exploited for forestry and hunting. Let’s hope the government’s decision is a sign of things to come.”


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S. Arizona’s Mountain Empire: Sanctuary for Rare and Unusual Species by @Defenders of Wildlife

 

04 October 2016

Posted by: Rob Peters

 

Imagine a little-known national treasure — a largely wild land home to ocelots, exotic and imperiled birds like elegant trogons and Mexican spotted owls, imperiled reptiles and amphibians like the threatened Chiricuahua leopard frog, and El Jefe, the only jaguar currently living in the United States. This is the Mountain Empire of southern Arizona, a place as special as Yosemite or Yellowstone, and worthy of international recognition. Extending across the border into northern Sonora, Mexico, this region is bounded by mountains that rise from the flat desert floor to touch the sky. With one of the richest concentrations of biodiversity in the U.S., the Mountain Empire is a sanctuary for imperiled species. But even a sanctuary can be threatened.

Refuges in the Sky

One reason the Mountain Empire has so many rare and unique species is the rugged sky island mountain ranges. Each range, like the iconic Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson, stands alone surrounded by desert flatlands like an island in the sea, with mountains so tall that they span climate zones from hot, dry desert to moist forests at higher altitudes. Together, these characteristics give the mountains their nicknames of “sky islands.” For many species, the sky islands are refuges where human impacts have been relatively small. Streams rise from the rocks, nurturing rare fish, frogs, snakes, and nesting habitat for birds like threatened yellow-billed cuckoos, southwestern willow fly catchers and hummingbirds.

There are so many hummingbird species in the Mountain Empire that the Tucson Audubon Society founded the Paton Hummingbird Center, dedicated to conserving hummingbirds and other local biodiversity.

Birders visit from countries around the world for the chance to see so many species in one place. One of Defenders’ board members, Dr. Ron Pulliam, works with the Mountain Empire group Borderlands Restoration to restore the plants that hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, and moths need along Harshaw and Sonoita Creeks in the Patagonia Mountains. The globally imperiled Patagonia eyed silk moth, once widespread in native grasslands, is now making its last U.S. stand in the Patagonia Mountains. The threatened southwestern willow flycatcher, once common near Tucson in now-vanished gallery forest along the Santa Cruz River, is today found higher up in riparian vegetation along still-flowing mountain streams.

One of the gems of the Mountain Empire is the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area: 45,000 acres of rolling grasslands, oak-studded hills, along with the Cienegas Creek wetlands. This is home to the world’s largest population of endangered Gila topminnow and other federally threatened and endangered fish, frogs and snakes. Las Cienegas provides a vital corridor of protected lands that connects the Santa Rita and Whetstone sky islands.

The most revered animal in the Mountain Empire is El Jefe, a powerful male jaguar. Video of him prowling along a stream in the Santa Rita Mountains recently went viral, with at least 20 million viewers. He and other jaguars and ocelots most likely came north to the U.S. from Sonora, Mexico in the past decade, travelling along sky island mountain corridors with little human activity.

Threats to the Empire

Sadly, as much healthy habitat as there is in this region, there’s also a problem: Industrial mining. The Mountain Empire is riddled with old abandoned mines and grandiose plans for new ones. As you can imagine, mining has a massive impact on an ecosystem, from the land itself, to the noise that can scare wildlife away, to the traffic that would come in and out of the mining project. And perhaps most importantly, there’s the water.

Throughout the Southwest, so much groundwater has been pumped for agriculture, industry, and towns and cities that water tables have dropped and streams and ponds have dried up, desiccating wildlife habitat in a land already parched. This is why so many water-dependent species have vanished, or are threatened or endangered. In Arizona, 20 of 35 surviving native fish species are endangered and one is already extinct. Mining presents yet another threat to the water supply, using up billions of gallons of groundwater over the course of years, and often contaminating it with pollutants.

The diversity of the “sacred” Santa Rita Mountains in the Coronado National Forest is threatened by mining interests.

The giant open-pit Rosemont Mine is planned for the Mountain Empire’s Santa Rita Mountains, where it would destroy habitat that is home to El Jefe and endangered ocelots. It would also decrease the water for the topminnow and other species in the Las Cienegas wetlands.

Two other mines are planned for the Patagonia Mountains in the center of the Mountain Empire. A Canadian company (ironically called Arizona Mining) is planning the Hermosa mine, which means beautiful in Spanish. There is nothing beautiful about this proposed silver mine: If done by the most economical open-pit method, it would gash a huge 4,000 foot wide hole in the mountains and dump the waste rock on the ground. A recent study by Earthworks and the Patagonia Area Resource Alliance estimated that an open-pit mine here would take as much as 1.2 billion gallons of water per year from nearby streams and wells, harming wildlife as well as the local economy, which is based largely on ranching and tourism. Exploratory drilling (to prove the minerals are worth mining) is already taking place right next to Harshaw Creek, up against the protected activity center for a pair of threatened Mexican spotted owls and habitat for threatened yellow-billed cuckoos.

Thankfully, none of these projects are going unchallenged. Defenders and the Patagonia Area Resource Alliance (PARA) are currently reviewing and preparing formal federal comments on a proposal by Arizona Mining to expand exploratory drilling onto Forest Service land. Last year, Defenders and PARA also joined in a lawsuit that overturned the Forest Service’s illegal approval of plans by another mining company, Regal Resources, to drill exploration cores along Harshaw Creek.

The Mountain Empire is an irreplaceable landscape in the Southwest. Defenders will keep working with local activists to monitor toxic spills and stop illegal mining that would harm the jaguars, ocelots, and other rare species that make it their home.

Rob Peters, Senior Representative, Southwest Office

As a jack-of-all trades in the Tucson Office, Rob collaborates with the Defenders Renewable Energy Group, helping evaluate and influence renewable energy policies and projects to ensure that renewable energy is developed wisely, with minimum harm to natural ecosystems. He also works on jaguar issues, helping plan for the eventual return of a viable population in the U.S., and he is the lead on Defenders efforts to safeguard Arizona’s Mountain Empire, a Defenders’ priority area surrounding the town of Patagonia. This area contains some of the last best native grasslands in the Southwest, along with important habitat for jaguar, Mexican spotted owl, and other endangered species. 

 

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These photos are the first evidence of endangered snow leopards in a new location

By Earth Touch 

October 06 2016

The Shamshy Sanctuary in Kyrgyzstan's northern Tian Shan mountains is a haven for diverse wildlife. Ibex, mountain sheep, badgers and predators like lynx, wolves and foxes all roam these snowy stretches – and now we have photographic evidence of another, more elusive, resident. 

These are the first photos of snow leopards in Shamshy Sanctuary.

Earlier this year, the team from the Snow Leopard Trust (SLT) spotted telltale tracks and scratches in Shamshy that told them snow leopards were about, and back in May, local rangers reported seeing one of the cats. Wanting to confirm the presence of these rare spotted predators, and to conduct a more complete survey of Shamshy's wildlife, rangers set up camera traps in the reserve's higher reaches, where the lofty ridgelines form ideal snow leopard habitat.

"We knew that this area had great potential as a snow leopard habitat," says Kuban Jumabai uulu, Director of the Snow Leopard Foundation Kyrgyzstan and SLT's country programme manager. "Now, these pictures prove the cat's presence in the sanctuary."

The camera traps certainly delivered. Snow leopards were photographed at five different locations in a total of ten encounters.

Once a 100-square-mile hunting concession where ibex and argali (mountain sheep) were hunted commercially, Shamshy was recently transformed into a wildlife sanctuary as part of a unique pilot project, and it's now a place for research and limited ecotourism. "The snow leopard photos are not only evidence of this cat's presence in the Kyrgyz Ala-Too range, they're also an encouraging sign for an innovative new conservation approach that is being tested in Shamshy: the co-management of a former hunting concession as a nature reserve by conservationists, the government and the local community," says the SLT in a press release.

With hunting now outlawed, conservationists hope the ibex population here could double or even triple in the next decade. And plenty of prey on offer would make Shamshy a contender for a key snow leopard stomping ground. The area is too small to support a big population of these cats on its own, but it could become an important part of their larger habitat in the Kyrgyz Ala-Too ("Snowy Mountains") range. 

With hunting now banned, conservationists hope the area's ibex population will thrive in the coming years.

"We're thrilled to see that the snow leopard is already there in Shamshy," says Musaev Almaz, director of the country's department of natural resources. "This cat is an important part of our national culture and heritage, and we're committed to securing its future." Listed as endangered by the IUCN, snow leopards (Panthera uncia) face a growing number of threats, and only a few thousand remain in the wild.
In Shamshy, the future of the cats and other wildlife hinges on close collaboration between conservationists and local communities, who must also eke out a living here. While hunting is no longer permitted, and rangers now patrol the area, local communities still have the right to graze their livestock here, as they have done for decades. "Local communities can be our best allies for conservation," Kuban says. "Our goal is for them to be proud of this reserve, and feel that it's theirs as much as ours."
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Top header image: Mark Dumont, Flickr

 

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Environmental groups seek to block predator trapping that could harm ocelots

By Howard Fischer 

Capitol Media Services

Updated Oct 5, 2016

PHOENIX — Two environmental groups are asking a judge to block moves by a federal agency to trap and remove predators from sections of Arizona and Texas until they ensure it won’t harm the endangered ocelot species.

The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity and the Animal Welfare Institute are targeting the Wildlife Damage Management Program, which now seeks to remove coyotes and bobcats when there are conflicts with people; the conflicts are often with ranchers.

An attorney for the environmental groups, Collette Adkins, contends the methods are “fundamentally nonselective, environmentally destructive, inherently cruel and often ineffective.” She particularly cites leg-hold traps as inhumane. The lawsuit filed by the environmental groups also mentions the use of poisons.

The lawsuit does not seek to stop the practice overall, but argues that poisons and traps also can kill or ensnare ocelots, not just coyotes or bobcats.

Adkins said the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Wildlife Services division did a legally required study in 2010 and implemented measures where ocelots had been found, to help minimize the risk of capturing or killing them as part of the program. That includes areas around Globe in Gila County and the Whetstone Mountains in Cochise County.

But she said those measures haven’t been expanded and applied to the Huachuca and Santa Rita mountain ranges where there have been more recent sightings of ocelots. About 100 of the cats are believed to remain in the United States.

“We’re concerned that traps that are set for other similar-sized predators like coyotes and bobcats could accidentally take ocelots if they’re placed in areas where ocelot are known to occur,” Adkins said in an interview. “We want the agency … to work together with the expert wildlife agencies … to make sure that this predator-killing program is done in a way that minimizes the risk to ocelots.”

There was no immediate response from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

According to the environmental groups, ocelots have been detected at least five times in Arizona since 2009. The species was listed as endangered in 1982.

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How Jaguars Survived the Ice Age

Posted Wed, 01/27/2016

A jaguar at the St. Louis Zoo. Photo by Brian Switek.

The mastodons, ground sloths, and sabercats are all gone. They all slipped into extinction around 10,000 or so years ago, along with an even wider variety of fantastic beasts and birds that fall under the category “megafauna.” But not all the Ice Age megamammals died out. We spend so much time mourning the losses that we often forget the survivors that carry whispers of the Pleistocene world. Among these resilient beasts is the jaguar.

Jaguars are old cats. They first evolved in Eurasia sometime around three million years ago before spreading both west and east, eventually inhabiting a range from southern England to Nebraska and down into South America. Today’s range of southern Arizona to Argentina—over 3.4 million square miles—is only a sliver of their Ice Age expansion. And it wasn’t just the jaguar’s range that shrunk. Today the spotted cats are about fifteen percent smaller than their Pleistocene predecessors.

Nevertheless, jaguars survived while the American lion, the sabercats, and other predators vanished. How? In order to investigate this question, biologist Matt Hayward and colleagues looked at the jaguar diet and how the cat’s prey preferences changed over time.

Drawing from 25 published studies documenting 3,214 jaguar kills, Hayward and coauthors found that jaguars are pretty finicky for apex predators. The big cat’s menu spans 111 species—ranging from cattle to rodents to monkeys to turtles—but, contrary to what has often been written about the cat, the jaguar is not really a generalist that hunts anything and everything.

The most common parts of the jaguar diet, Hayward and colleagues found, are capybara, wild pig, caiman, collared peccary, nine-banded armadillo, giant anteater, and white-nosed coati. These species account for 16-21% of the jaguar diet. The stats also showed that prey including peccaries, brocket deer, giant anteaters, and coatis which were hunted 85% of the time when they were present in the jaguar’s range. Crunching the numbers a bit further, the zoologists found that jaguars seemed to especially target capybara and giant anteater. On the other hand, jaguars never preyed upon tapirs and almost never touched primates.

Jaguars come out of all this as a paradox. They are burlier than leopards, yet they prefer to hunt a narrow range of prey that falls in the shallow end of what jaguars should be able to tackle. This might have something to do with why the cats have shrunk. Jaguars aren’t large enough to take on tapirs alone, yet human hunting on mid-range prey—such as deer—has made such herbivores too rare to rely upon. So despite their size, jaguars responded by picking out smaller prey which Hayward and coauthors dub “suboptimal” for what the cats initially evolved to do.

The jaguar’s not alone in this. Coyotes have gone through similar changes. The scrappy canids are Ice Age survivors, too, and they were significantly larger during the Ice Age. When all their competition disappeared, coyotes became smaller and ended up living on the fringes in a world heavily influenced by humans.

Flexibility made all the difference for these carnivores. Even though jaguars no longer prowl as much of the world as they once did, and are currently listed as “near threatened” on the IUCN Red List, they were able to persist where so many other carnivores perished by shifting their diets. “It may be that jaguars survived this mass extinction event by preferentially preying on relatively small species,” Hayward and coauthors write. The fossil record of cougars tells a similar story: By eating parts of carcasses other cats didn’t want, mountain lions were able to survive the tough times. And even though the cause of the loss of many Ice Age celebrities remains debated, the survivors are truly the animals we should be looking at in greater detail. How they succeeded may hold the secrets to why so many other species failed.

Reference:
Hayward, M., Kamler, J., Montgomery, R., Newlove, A., Rostro-García, S., Sales, L., Van Valkenburgh, B. 2016. Prey preferences of the jaguar Panthera onca reflect the Post-Pleistocene demise of large prey. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2015.00148


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