Photo courtesy National Park Service Flicker page
P-45, a large adult male mountain lion, is suspected of killing at least 10 alpacas in Malibu.
By
Dana Bartholomew, Los Angeles Daily News
Posted:
A killing spree by a mountain lion that munched 11 alpaca and a
goat above Malibu over the weekend was enough to grant a state permit to
kill the cat.
But environmentalists, state and federal officials
across Southern California were up in arms Tuesday about the rancher’s
aim to hunt down the male mountain lion known as P-45.
“I
understand if you lost the animals you’re raising and are upset,” said
Michael Bell, founder of Citizens for a Humane Los Angeles, based in
Encino. “But this is a mountain lion, P-45. Famous.
“I believe he should be left alone to do what mountain lions do.
If people have livestock, they should go to great extremes to protect
their own without killing a natural predator.”
A state game warden
gave the unidentified rancher permission Monday to kill the cougar in
the mountains above Malibu after it slaughtered a dozen farm animals
over the weekend.
The
mountain lion identified as P-45 allegedly tore apart 10 alpaca at one
ranch near Mulholland Highway at Decker Canyon Road on Saturday, and
another alpaca and a goat Sunday at a second ranch.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife issued the
so-called depredation order, which under state law grants a person the
right to shoot a mountain lion if it has been killing livestock or pets.
A spokesman for the agency did not respond to a request for comment.
The
state order allowing the take-down of the 4-year-old cat coincides with
a federal study of between 10 and 15 mountain lions thought to live in
the Santa Monica Mountains between the 101 Freeway and the ocean. P-45
is equipped with a radio transmitter tracked by National Park Service
biologists.
Federal park rangers have been trying to improve the bloodlines
of the mountain lions trapped by urban freeways between Los Angeles and
Camarillo. Inbreeding between the cats, they say, could cause them to go
extinct in 50 years.
Two weeks ago, the state Wildlife Commission
approved a $7.1 million land buy along the 101 Freeway west of
Calabasas to provide habitat for the endangered subspecies. Cougar
advocates hope to raise $56 million for a wildlife crossing bridge over
the 10-lane freeway.
Federal rangers, in conjunction with state game wardens and
environmental groups, will host a “Living in Mountain Lion Country”
workshop today about local cougars and how to safeguard pets and
livestock. The meeting will be at 7 p.m. at the NPS Paramount Ranch,
2903 Cornell Road., Agoura Hills.
Malibu Hills residents are
expected to press game wardens to trap and relocate killer cats. Cougar
advocates are expected to press for greater pet and livestock
protection.
“The lion is obviously killing for sport — not food,”
Mary-Dee Rickards, who lives on a nearby ranch, had said in a statement
to KBUU radio.
The National Park Service issued a statement Tuesday saying the
only long-term solution to keeping the big cats around Los Angeles is to
erect mountain lion-proof enclosures for pets and livestock.
“Eliminating
P-45 does not solve the problem, especially given there are at least
four mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains that have killed
livestock over the past year,” said Kate Kuykendall, acting deputy
superintendent for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area,
in a statement. “Nor is P-45’s behavior abnormal or aberrant in any way.
“If animals are stuck in an unsecured pen, a mountain lion’s natural response can be to prey upon all available animals.”
State
Sen.-elect Henry Stern, who will represent the region after being sworn
in Dec. 5, said he will call upon state game wardens to find a solution
other than death to the cat.
“I think there’s a way to deal with
it,” said Stern, the incoming senator for District 27, based in
Calabasas. “Not even the ranching community wants to pull out a shotgun
and protect the herd.”
The National Wildlife Federation, whose Save L.A. Cougars
campaign is working with state and federal agencies to save the Santa
Monica Mountains cats, has offered to pay for livestock protection for
the rancher. The safeguard measures include secured pens, guard dogs and
outdoors lights.
“We want a landscape that’s safe for wildlife,
livestock, pets and people,” said federation California Director Beth
Pratt-Bergstrom. “It’s possible to do so. Mountain lions are just being
mountain lions.
“This is a predictable conflict, and one that we
can solve by being good neighbors and by taking responsibility for
securing our livestock or domestic animals,” she said.
An elusive predator returns to Europe’s mountains, helping restore
nature’s balance. A French photographer stalks the Eurasian lynx.
by Mike Unwin
November 29, 2016
An anxious female Eurasian lynx looks on as biologists tag her three-week-old cub. All Photos: Laurent Geslin
A hoarse, yelping bark rang out from the
wooded hillside. Then again. The unearthly calls, sounding somewhere
between fox and cat, continued in a steady sequence, carrying through
the forest’s mossy tree trunks and damp leaf litter, growing louder as
they approached. Then, abruptly, the woods fell silent.
“I knew he must be close when the call
stopped,” explains French wildlife photographer Laurent Geslin,
recounting the moment in January 2011 when he first laid eyes on a wild
Eurasian lynx. “I knew that he must have seen me.” Geslin, who has spent
the past six years pursuing this elusive beast through Switzerland’s
Jura Mountains, was confident that the cat, though shy, would be
curious. All he had to do was keep quiet and watch.
“I checked every tree and every branch,”
Geslin recalls. “And then I checked again.” He explains how a lynx’s
lightly marked grey-brown coat blends so perfectly into the dappled
backdrop of rock, leaf and shadow that it can disappear in plain view.
This time, however, his diligence paid off. One final binocular sweep in
the fading light at last revealed those telltale cat contours,
materializing from the abstract backdrop like an optical illusion. “He
was about 25 meters away, sitting on his backside, looking very calmly
at me.” Geslin’s voice still betrays the excitement. “It was a great
sensation.”
A
camera trap captures the image of a female Eurasian lynx, known to
biologists as “B218,” with the lights of Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland
in the distance.
Since then, Geslin has notched up about
30 precious sightings, ranging from distant glimpses to, on one
memorable occasion, a mother leading her three cubs to feed within
meters of his hide. This total might seem a modest return for six years
of searching—six years of pursuing every clue, staking out every
hideaway, and sitting in hides for 96 hours at a stretch. But few people
anywhere have enjoyed such success.
Just a few decades ago, such a project
would have been impossible. The lynx had not been seen in Switzerland
since 1904. Once common across much of Europe, it had also disappeared
from France, Germany, and many other former strongholds. By 1940, the
continent’s entire population had fallen to an estimated 700 animals,
confined largely to the wildest reaches of Scandinavia. This sorry tale
mirrored that of the lynx’s fellow large carnivores, the wolf,
wolverine, and brown bear. All had declined dramatically in Europe,
victims both of ruthless persecution— either for sport or because, as
hunters of wild game and occasional livestock killers, they were viewed
as competition—and the relentless destruction of their natural habitats.
An
adult female Eurasian lynx is released in Kalkalpen National Park as
part of a continuing effort to reestablish healthy populations of the
species in western Europe.
In the 1970s, however, scientists began a
pioneering project to reintroduce the lynx to Switzerland, focusing
their efforts on the Alps and, a little farther north, the Jura
Mountains. Some 30 animals from the Carpathians were, over time,
introduced to the Jura, founding a population that has since grown to
130 and spread unassisted into neighboring France. It is these animals
that Geslin has been studying, working closely with Swiss-based
carnivore conservation group KORA.
The lynx reintroduction project forms
part of a larger “rewilding” initiative, of which KORA is a leading
proponent. By returning Europe’s native large mammals to the landscapes
they once roamed, scientists hope to recreate something of the natural
environment that carpeted Europe before humankind began felling forests.
Predators, according to the basic laws of ecology, are essential to the
healthy functioning of any natural habitat. Remove them and prey
species soon proliferate, leaving the environment in much worse
condition for everything else that depends on it. “In the nineteenth
century the Jura forests were strongly over-exploited and all large
mammals, including wild ungulates, became virtually extinct,” explains
Urs Breitenmoser, KORA co-founder. Then in the 20th century,
without predators around, wild ungulate populations—including red and
roe deer and wild boar—rebounded. So much so that their numbers are
unsustainable and regularly cause significant ecological damage. Many
other regions around Europe are suffering similar effects from
burgeoning deer population.
The classic example of how bringing back
predators can turn things around is Yellowstone National Park—where, in
the 1990s, wolves were reintroduced after 70 years of absence. Elk
numbers have since fallen to sustainable levels, allowing overgrazed
vegetation to recover, beavers to return, wetlands to develop and
ground-nesting birds to thrive. Not all the complexities of this
“trophic cascade” are fully understood, but ecologists generally agree
that wolves have transformed Yellowstone’s ecology, restoring the park’s
ecosystems in a way they had not dreamed possible.
Three bewildered Eurasian lynx cubs peer out from their den after being discovered by KORA conservation biologists.
But central Europe is not Yellowstone.
How, one might reasonably ask, can we bring back large predatory mammals
that long ago proved incompatible with people to a region that has only
become more populous since the animals disappeared? If there was no
room for these predators before, surely there is even less of it now.
The answer lies in the nature of the
animal itself. The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a formidable predator.
Though not technically a big cat—it doesn’t sit alongside lions and
tigers in the genus Panthera—males can nonetheless top 30 kg (65 lbs),
almost twice the weight of the superficially similar Canadian lynx (Lynx
canadensis). This gives it considerable predatory punch, allowing it to
subsist not—like other lynxes—on rabbits and hares, but on hoofed
mammals such as roe deer. What’s more, this is an animal of almost
preternatural stealth. Wherever it occurs, it nearly always remains well
out of sight.
Reintroducing the lynx, therefore, is a
very different proposition from bringing back wolves and bears—schemes
that have met stiff opposition across Europe. Though large enough to
have a significant influence on ecology, the cat will slip silently into
the woods the moment it is released, never to be seen again, except by
the most dedicated. It is thus what scientists call a “soft” predator,
representing no perceived threat to the public and so prompting none of
the fuss generated by the likes of wolves. “For most people,” explains
Geslin. “This cat is like a ghost.”
KORA
biologist Fridolin Zimmerman subdues an adult female Eurasian lynx in
preparation for the animal’s relocation to Kalkalpen National Park,
Austria.
But while the animal slips under the
radar of most of its human neighbors, the foresters are beginning to
notice a difference, with roe deer populations thinning out and forests
showing signs of regeneration. It is not simply that lynx keep deer
numbers down. After all, there are only so many deer a handful of lynxes
can catch and eat. It is also that the herbivores’ behavior changes
when a predator is around. They gather in smaller numbers and, ever
alert to possible attack, become more mobile, less inclined to linger in
feeding areas. Just the scent of a lynx’s territorial markings on a
trailside tree trunk can be enough to keep them on the move. Park
rangers, Geslin reports, wish more of the cats could be introduced.
“They tell me that since we’ve had lynx they never have any problems.”
For the cat, however, problems remain.
Livestock farmers are rather less welcoming than conservationists. It is
true: lynxes can, and occasionally do, take sheep. However, studies
have shown that the cats much prefer wild prey. As forest ambush
predators, they are not adapted to hunting in the open. Only in Norway,
where sheep roam forested areas unmanaged, have significant losses been
recorded. Elsewhere, including in Switzerland, predation has had
negligible impact. Further studies have shown that appropriate
management measures—for example, grazing sheep away from forest
edges—make a big difference. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is among the
conservation organizations promoting new livestock management strategies
in the Alps, including the use of specially trained guard dogs and
protective fences, that help reduce conflicts between lynx and livestock
herders.
Biologists work quickly to collar, measure, and take tissue samples from an anaesthetized adult Eurasian lynx in the Swiss Alps.
Hunters, unfortunately, are harder to
convince. They see the cats as competition, arguing that roe deer and
chamois—a goat-like antelope native to mountainous areas of Europe—have
become much harder to hunt now that lynxes keep them more wary.
Breitenmoser points out that Swiss law protects not only lynx but also
the right of hunters to harvest wildlife. “Unfortunately such situations
regularly lead to conflicts,” he explains, “including illegal
killings.” The female with cubs that Geslin observed and photographed
fell victim to a hunter’s rifle just one month later. Another
reintroduction program in the Vosges, just south of the Jura, has
failed, with the last individuals killed by hunters. “No lynx population
in Europe will survive,” warns Breitenmoser, “if hunters actively
oppose it.”
Scientists also worry about the dangers
of inbreeding. The reintroduced lynxes have not dispersed as far as was
hoped. Penned in by roads and development, they have tended to stick to
the areas into which they were first introduced. Given the very small
number of lynxes from which today’s population is descended, this has
raised the threat of inbreeding and a prospect of genetic problems for
future populations. While things are better in the Jura than in some
other reintroduced lynx populations, the problem will need to be
addressed in the long term by increasing connectivity between isolated
populations: “Links for the Lynx,” as WWF calls it.
A wary, and bloody, adult Eurasian lynx drags a fresh kill to a more secluded location.
Nonetheless, KORA deems the program a
success. From those first 1970s releases, there are some 130 lynx in the
Jura today. The effort has now been extended to other areas of the
country and lynxes have expanded their range, naturally, into France.
Recently, KORA has also relocated individual lynxes into both Austria
and Italy, and a further relocation into Germany is in the pipeline.
“Lynx have demonstrated that they can live well in a human-dominated
environment, such as the Jura,” confirms Breitenmoser. “So the argument
that they can no longer survive in our modern world has mostly
disappeared.”
Meanwhile, lynx numbers elsewhere in
Europe continue to rise. The overall population is now estimated at
around 9,000, with the largest concentrations in Finland and the
Carpathians. This population is made up of 11 key groups, spread across
23 countries. Only five of the groups are native—indicating the success
of reintroduction efforts. The Lynx UK Trust now hopes to reintroduce
the cat to Britain, where it was last seen in AD700, and where the
environment is in serious need of a predator to control its rampant deer
populations. Surveys indicate 91% public support for the idea, with
trials proposed for 2017.
Even
lynx cubs must be handled with great care. KORA biologist Andreas Ryser
swaddles this three-week-old youngster in preparation for weighing,
measuring, and releasing the cub back into its den.
The lynx’s future depends upon
cross-border cooperation. No single country in central Europe can
support a viable population alone. A critical factor to date has been
the EU Biodiversity Directive, which compels all member states to
protect and restore populations of rare species. Only with this
cooperation, Breitenmoser believes, can the scattered populations become
better connected, allowing a flow of lynxes over a broad enough area,
and reduce inbreeding. “We need the distribution to be broader,” he
explains, “but the local abundance to be more limited.”
Meanwhile, the lynx’s enemies must still
be won over. This will take education, overturning traditional
antagonism towards predators, and convincing the public at large of how
the cats benefit the environment for everybody, including hunters. It’s a
long process and not something KORA and other conservation bodies can
accomplish without political support.
A female Eurasian lynx, known to biologists as “B123,” surveys her territory with her two cubs in Switzerland’s Jura Mountains.
Out in the forest, Geslin’s mission
continues. Tramping the trails daily in search of tracks and kills,
checking his camera traps and setting up his hides, he is learning ever
more about this most private of cats. When KORA researchers take to the
field—to monitor the lynxes, study their movements through radio
telemetry or even capture one for a GPS collar or translocation
elsewhere—he is always close by with his camera to record the action.
These are the memorable days—examining a
sedated cat or photographing a relocated individual bounding away into
its new home. Most of the time, however, things are not so easy. “Days
become weeks and weeks become months,” Geslin says. “But then I hear a
strange call or notice a slight movement and all the waiting vanishes.”
The rewards make the long, lonely vigil worthwhile. “After all,” he
confirms, “you just cannot beat a lynx.”
A new plan has been developed to help guide multi-institutional efforts in conserving the jaguar (Panthera onca) in the Amazon basin.
The vast Amazon basin is the single most important region for jaguar conservation.
Credit: Rob Wallace/WCS
The (WCS) Wildlife Conservation Society reports the publication of a plan to help guide multi-institutional efforts in conserving the jaguar (Panthera onca) in the Amazon basin.
A region known to conservationists as the central Amazon Jaguar Conservation Unit is the largest jaguar stronghold in the world. It encompasses parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname. However, even in this vast area, changes in biological diversity and jaguar populations can come quickly.
Huge extents of formerly unbroken forest, experts say, have already been lost to conversion to monoculture crops, cattle ranching, and hydro-electric, mining, and transportation projects. Development is inevitable in the Amazon, so the question becomes how to best ensure both sustainable development for local communities along with a secure future that includes the area's icon of functional ecosystems: the jaguar.
Recognizing the need to address that challenge, several leading Latin American conservation organizations working in the Amazon basin recently met in Quito, Ecuador, to review regional jaguar conservation efforts and outline priorities to maintain healthy jaguar populations in the Amazon in perpetuity. The result of the meeting is a document titled "Memorias Del Taller Internacional Planificando La Conservación Del Jaguar En La AmazonÃa."
The unique assemblage included experts from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá, Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Fundación Omacha, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Ministerio del Ambiente de Ecuador, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, E.tech, TRAFFIC, WWF, Panthera, and WCS.
The participants drew on their extensive experience to develop a plan around five central themes to help secure the long-term future of jaguars: Landscape and Corridor Scale Conservation; Research and Monitoring; Conflict Management; Legislation, Policy and Administration; and Education, Training and Communication.
"The main recommendations to come out of the meeting were related to the importance of working at large landscape scales to conserve meaningful populations of jaguars," said Dr. Rob Wallace, Amazon Landscape Conservation Expert at WCS. "This landscape approach requires an integrated threats-based strategy involving a series of long-term partnerships with territorial stakeholders such as protected areas, indigenous territories, municipal governments and others. WCS is proud of our long-standing conservation commitments to some of the most outstanding natural wilderness areas in the Amazon."
Dr. Emiliano Esterci Ramalho, Monitoring Coordinator at the Mamiraua Sustainable Development Institute and a groundbreaking jaguar researcher in the flooded forests of central Amazonian Brazil underlined the importance of collective conservation efforts. "This meeting encouraged us to create the Jaguar Conservation Alliance in Brazil, a multi-institutional initiative that aims to coordinate jaguar research and conservation efforts in the Amazon, and to ensure that our collective efforts amount to more than just the sum of their parts," Ramalho said.
The document also includes a post-workshop addition highlighting the emerging threat of hunting and illegal trade of jaguars in the Amazon and beyond. Forty years ago, jaguars benefited from international trade policy decisions such as the inclusion in 1975 of the jaguar in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that prohibited all commercial trade in spotted cat skins for the international fur trade. Since then, in areas with effective conservation measures, jaguar populations have stabilized and in a number of cases, bounced back. However, conservation is an ongoing process of vigilance and actions to counter new threats. Jaguar hunting for trade has re-emerged, this time for teeth and other body parts for markets in Asia.
"Protecting and restoring critical habitats that also provide connectivity between habitats are the main goals for which we have to work together in order to ensure the survival of jaguars in the Amazon River Basin," said Diego Amorocho. WWF Species Program Coordinator Latin America & Caribbean
"The globally significant Amazon jaguar population merits strong international cooperation not only to proactively maintain its habitat and prey, but also to actively and effectively counter any resumption in trade in jaguar parts," said Dr. John Polisar, Jaguar Conservation Program Coordinator for WCS.
Court to Monterey County: Lawsuit Over Wildlife Services Animal-killing Contract Can Move Forward
SALINAS, Calif.— The California Superior Court issued an order Monday evening denying Monterey County’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit, filed in June by animal protection and conservation organizations, that challenges the county’s contract renewal with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services. This notorious federal program has killed more than 3,000 coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions and other animals in the county in the past six years, largely in the name of protecting livestock.
Monterey County’s renewal of its contract with Wildlife Services violates the California Environmental Quality Act because the county failed to analyze environmental impacts and wrongfully claimed an exemption from the Act, according to the lawsuit. In today’s order the court rejected arguments made by the county that the wildlife conservation organizations brought their claim too late and against the wrong parties.
The lawsuit now moves forward, with the nonprofit organizations slated to submit their opening legal brief in November. The county has recently retained an outside law firm from Sacramento to represent it in the case.
“Monterey County taxpayers should be aware that they’re footing the bill for this program and for the county’s aggressive legal defense in this case,” said Collette Adkins, an attorney and biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We hope our lawsuit spurs Monterey County to realize that people don’t want their tax dollars used to evade environmental laws and eradicate wildlife, such as coyotes and other predators, that control rodents to the benefit of the county’s farmers.”
“An increasing body of evidence demonstrates that Wildlife Services’ lethal predator-control program is ecologically destructive, ethically indefensible and economically unjustifiable,” said Camilla Fox, founder and executive director of Project Coyote. “This federal agency bears the burden of proof to justify their actions using the best available science, which we have demonstrated it has failed to do.”
“We are glad to see that the judge was not misguided by any of the tactics used to minimize the simple fact that the county needs to comply with CEQA before hiring Wildlife Services,” said Tara Zuardo, Animal Welfare Institute wildlife attorney.
Background Over the past six years, Wildlife Services has killed more than 3,500 animals in Monterey County using traps, snares and firearms. From June 2014 to June 2015 alone, Wildlife Services killed 105 coyotes, three mountain lions and two bobcats. Nationwide the program killed more than 3.2 million animals in 2015. The agency’s use of poison and traps has also injured people and killed more than 1,100 dogs since 2000.
Peer-reviewed research shows that such reckless slaughter of animals — particularly predators — results in broad ecological destruction and loss of biodiversity. The program’s controversial and indiscriminate killing methods have come under increased scrutiny from scientists, the public and government officials. Wildlife Services has killed many threatened and endangered species, as well as family pets.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund was founded in 1979 to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system. To accomplish this mission, the Animal Legal Defense Fund files high-impact lawsuits to protect animals from harm; provides free legal assistance and training to prosecutors to assure that animal abusers are punished for their crimes; supports tough animal protection legislation and fights harmful legislation; and provides resources and opportunities to law students and professionals to advance the emerging field of animal law. For more information, please visit aldf.org.
The Animal Welfare Institute is a nonprofit charitable organization founded in 1951 and dedicated to reducing animal suffering caused by people. AWI engages policymakers, scientists, industry, and the public to achieve better treatment of animals everywhere—in the laboratory, on the farm, in commerce, at home, and in the wild. For more information, visit awionline.org.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places: biologicaldiversity.org.
Project Coyote, a national nonprofit organization headquartered in Northern California, is a North American coalition of wildlife educators, scientists, ranchers, and community leaders promoting coexistence between people and wildlife, and compassionate conservation through education, science, and advocacy. For more information, visit ProjectCoyote.org.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 2 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, Montana, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.
For 30 years, the Mountain Lion Foundation has worked with member volunteers and activists to further wildlife policies that seek to protect mountain lions, people and domestic animals without resorting to lethal measures. For more information, visit mountainlion.org.
The
team’s research uncovered that the genome of the Amur leopard is
composed of 2.57 billion base pairs, with roughly 19,000 genes. (image:
Flickr/ elPadawan)
SEOUL, Nov. 1 (Korea Bizwire) –Korean
scientists have successfully mapped the reference genome of the Korean
leopard, better known as the Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis),
the National Institute of Biological Resources announced Tuesday.
According
to the institute, the complete genetic blueprint of the Amur leopard is
the result of an 18-month study, which it conducted jointly with UNIST.
The two organizations took part in an international consortium to
decoding the genome of a cat family.
The
Amur leopard is currently extinct in South Korea, but it was an apex
predator alongside Siberian tigers (also extinct in Korea) in the past.
It is classified as Critically Endangered by the ICUN, with as many as
70 surviving in southeastern Russia (Primorye region) and the Jilin
Province of China, near the North Korea-China border.
A
genome is the complete set of genes of an organism, and is a
near-complete genetic record of a species. The recent breakthrough will
provide an important foundation for future preservation and restoration
efforts of the Amur leopard, said an official.
The
research team first launched its project by mapping a reference genome
of a leopard that died in a Daejeon zoo in 2012. The team then decoded
the genome sequence of a wild Amur leopard, for a comparison analysis of
the two.
The
team’s research uncovered that the genome of the Amur leopard is
composed of 2.57 billion base pairs, with roughly 19,000 genes. It also
found that instances of genome sequence variation are rare, leading to
low genetic variety, hence a higher risk of extinction.
“For
the first time globally, we succeeded in decoding an entire genome of
an Amur leopard, and secured an important reference for restoration
efforts of the cats,” said an institute official.
(image: Flickr/ Eric Kilby)
Furthermore,
the research revealed that the cat family (Felidae) had genes related
to muscle movements, neurotransmission, and light detection better
preserved than omnivorous Hominidae or herbivorous Bovidae, while
Hominidae had better genes for fat metabolism, and Bovidae, for
perceiving smell.
The
team also found that Felidae had genes for carbohydrate digestion and
detoxification of plant poison degraded over time through a prolonged
carnivorous diet. And although the diet improved the digestive functions
of protein, genes for regulating blood sugar (related to diabetes) were
no longer functioning due to genetic mutation.
Such
discoveries are expected to help scientists better understand, at a
genetic level, mankind’s physical capabilities – such as muscular
strength and vision – as well as diseases that are believed to be
affected by a prolonged meat diet.
The full research findings will be published in the November 2 edition of Genome Biology. By Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
Noninvasive genetic survey on wild Mesoamerican jaguars is largest of its kind, reveals conservation priority
Date:
October 26, 2016
Source:
American Museum of Natural History
Summary:
The largest gene-based survey of its kind on wild jaguar populations in Mesoamerica has now been published. The analysis is based on nearly 450 jaguar scat samples collected in Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. This work identifies areas of conservation concern for Mesoamerican jaguars and underscores the importance of large-scale genetic monitoring efforts when prioritizing conservation and management efforts for this near-threatened, and elusive, carnivore species.
A photo of "Junior," a jaguar conservation ambassador at the Belize Zoo.
A research group led by the American Museum of Natural History and global wild cat conservation organization Panthera has published the largest gene-based survey of its kind on wild jaguar populations in Mesoamerica. The analysis, published in the journal PLOS ONE, is based on nearly 450 jaguar scat samples collected in Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. This work identifies areas of conservation concern for Mesoamerican jaguars and underscores the importance of large-scale genetic monitoring efforts when prioritizing conservation and management efforts for this near-threatened, and elusive, carnivore species.
"Mesoamerica has one of the highest deforestation rates worldwide, potentially limiting movement and genetic connectivity in forest-dependent jaguars across this fragmented landscape. Large-scale conservation genetics studies on wild jaguars spanning across several range countries assessing these threats are rare and suffer from low sample sizes for this region," said Claudia Wultsch, the lead author of the paper, a scientist in the Museum's Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, and a conservation research fellow at Panthera. "Over the last 100 years, jaguars in Mesoamerica have been pushed out from more than 77 percent of their historic range."
To get a better idea of the genetic health and connectivity of jaguar populations in this area and the effectiveness of the existing wildlife corridors (i.e., stretches of habitat that facilitate movement between local populations), the researchers turned to DNA obtained from field-collected jaguar scat.
This non-invasive technique lets researchers gather large DNA sample sizes of difficult-to-study wildlife species, such as big cats, without physically capturing, handling, or disturbing the animals. Since these samples quickly degrade in the warm and humid conditions of the tropical countries, however, a great deal of laboratory work has to be done to successfully analyze the DNA.
"We believe that these jaguars were once continuously distributed over the whole landscape of Mesoamerica, but human activity has resulted in smaller populations that are isolated from other groups," said George Amato, director of the Museum's Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics and the paper's senior author. "We want to know whether this fragmentation is resulting in reduced gene flow or inbreeding or other things that might be detrimental to the animals. But most importantly, we want to figure out ways to reconnect these populations or, even if they're not completely isolated, to engage in activities that allow jaguars to move more freely across the landscape. One of the only ways to do this is through genetic analysis."
The researchers analyzed DNA from 115 individual jaguars spread across five Mesoamerican countries. Overall, they found moderate levels of genetic variation in the jaguars, with the lowest diversity in Mexico, followed by Honduras. Low levels of genetic diversity could decrease reproductive fitness and resistance to disease, and generally lower animals' potential to adapt to a changing environment.
When assessing genetic connectivity in Mesoamerican jaguars, the scientists found low levels of gene flow between jaguars in the Selva Maya -- the largest contiguous tropical forest north of the Amazon, spreading over northern Guatemala, central Belize, and southern Mexico -- and those in Honduras.
This suggests that there is limited jaguar movement between these two areas, which is somewhat surprising since they are so geographically close. Although more data are needed to fill gaps in the study, the authors say that the region connecting these sites faces rapid land-cover changes, which have severely increased over the last two decades, putting remaining stepping-stone habitats for jaguars at further risk. This region represents a conservation priority and the authors recommend continued management and maintenance of jaguar corridors and mitigation of jaguars' main threats (e.g., human-wildlife conflict).
"Large-scale conservation strategies such as Panthera's Jaguar Corridor Initiative, which are instrumental to protect broadly distributed species such as jaguars, maintain their connectivity, and by doing so to ensure their long-term survival, need to incorporate genetic monitoring of wild populations to fully understand how these species respond to environmental changes and increasing levels of human impacts," Wultsch said.
Claudia Wultsch, Anthony Caragiulo, Isabela Dias-Freedman, Howard Quigley, Salisa Rabinowitz, George Amato. Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Mesoamerican Jaguars (Panthera onca): Implications for Conservation and Management. PLOS ONE, 2016; 11 (10): e0162377 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162377
American Museum of Natural History. "Jaguar scat study suggests restricted movement in areas of conservation importance in Mesoamerica: Noninvasive genetic survey on wild Mesoamerican jaguars is largest of its kind, reveals conservation priority." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 October 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161026151152.htm>.
The brains of wild cats don’t necessarily respond to the same evolutionary pressures as those of their fellow mammals, humans and primates, indicates a surprising new study.
The cheetah is social, like primates, yet unlike primates its frontal lobe is relatively small. Why? It may be a consequence of its unusual skull shape, an adaptation for high-speed pursuits.
The brains of wild cats don't necessarily respond to the same evolutionary pressures as those of their fellow mammals, humans and primates, indicates a surprising new study led by a Michigan State University neuroscientist.
Arguably, the fact that people and monkeys have particularly large frontal lobes is linked to their social nature. But cheetahs are also social creatures and their frontal lobes are relatively small. And leopards are solitary beasts, yet their frontal lobes are actually enlarged.
So what gives? Sharleen Sakai, lead investigator of the National Science Foundation-funded research, said the findings suggest that multiple factors beyond sociality may influence brain anatomy in carnivores.
"Studying feline brain evolution has been a bit like herding cats," said Sakai, MSU professor of psychology and neuroscience. "Our findings suggest the factors that drive brain evolution in wild cats are likely to differ from selection pressures identified in primate brain evolution."
Sakai and colleagues examined 75 wild feline skulls, representing 13 species, obtained from museum collections, including those at MSU. The researchers used computed tomography (CT) scans and sophisticated software to digitally "fill in" the areas where the brains would have been. From that process, they determined brain volume.
Sakai's lab is interested in uncovering the factors that influence the evolution of the carnivore brain. One explanation for large brains in humans and primates is the effect of sociality. The idea is that dealing with social relationships is more demanding than living alone and results in bigger brains, especially a bigger frontal cortex.
"We wanted to know if this idea, called the 'social brain' hypothesis, applied to other social mammals, especially carnivores and, in particular, wild cats," Sakai said.
Of the 13 wild feline species examined, 11 are solitary and two -- lions and cheetahs -- are social.
Here are some of the key findings of the research:
*Surprisingly, overall brain size did not differ, on average, between the social and solitary species of wild cats. But the part of the brain that includes the frontal cortex did differ between the two species.
*The female lion had the largest frontal cortex. Female lions are highly social, working together to protect and feed their young, hunt large prey and defend their territory. In contrast, males may live alone and may be dominant in a pride for only a few years. The larger frontal cortex in females compared to male lions and the other wild cats may reflect the lionesses' demands of processing social information necessary for life in the pride.
*The social cheetahs, in contrast, had the smallest overall brains and the smallest frontal cortex of the wild cats. Small brains weigh less and require less energy, factors that might contribute to the cheetah's remarkable running speeds. "Cheetah brain anatomy is distinctive and differs from other wild cats," Sakai said. "The size and shape of its brain may be a consequence of its unusual skull shape, an adaptation for high-speed pursuits."
*Leopards' frontal lobes were relatively large. Although the leopard is solitary, it is noted for its flexibility and adaptability -- behaviors associated with enhanced brain processing and larger brain size in other species.
The study, published online in the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy.
Sharleen T. Sakai, Bradley M. Arsznov, Ani E. Hristova, Elise J. Yoon, Barbara L. Lundrigan. Big Cat Coalitions: A Comparative Analysis of Regional Brain Volumes in Felidae. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy, 2016; 10 DOI: 10.3389/fnana.2016.00099
I cover food, luxury, and occasionally tennis (when Nadal is playing).
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Given all the luxury pet spas and fat camps exclusively for dogs, it’s about time cats get some love.
Earlier this month, UK brand Green Pantry launched a luxury cat food for a whopping $918 per month. (That’s the equivalent to $11,000 per year, $15.3 per serving or about $1.53 per mouthful.)
British Banquet (Photo credit: Green Pantry)
Each 2kg-packet—priced 30 times the average cat food at $306 and expected to provide ten days’ supply—contains Arenkha caviar, line-caught Scottish salmon, hand-caught Norfolk lobster, and locally-sourced Devon crab. With organic asparagus, quinoa, and saffron, it’s completely free from preservatives, GM, additives and artificial colors.
Named British Banquet after its high-quality British ingredients, the idea of this luxury cat food came about when celebrities and other VIPs reached out to Green Pantry for a more luxurious product, according to Simon Booth, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Green Pantry. And as the manufacturer of holistic pet foods for cats and dogs, the team felt a lot of emphasis within the pet trade is geared toward dogs. So to provide a high-quality dietary alternative for cats—which at this point is still largely based on cereals and their derivatives, the team spent two years developing this product.
Some of the luxurious ingredients in the British Banquet include: Arenkha caviar, Line-caught Scottish Salmon, hand-caught Norfolk lobster, locally-sourced Devon crab, Organic Asparagus, Quinoa, and Saffron. (Photo credit: Green Pantry)
Understandably, given the remarkably high cost of the ingredients, Green Pantry cannot mass-produce this luxury product. Currently, all the British Banquet is only available by special request via the company’s website. U.K. orders will be delivered for free, while customers from outside of the U.K. will be expected to pay an extra $61 for a 2kg-parcel, which roughly amounts to $183 for a month’s supply or a total of $2,196 for annual supply to cover postage and packaging, and administration costs. (In other words, for $11,000 of cat food per year, be prepared to shell out $13,196 if you don’t live in the U.K.)
So far, the response to the British Banquet has been wholly positive, according to Booth. However, what do feline experts think? While it’s no surprise that the uber-luxurious product comprise of high-quality ingredients, but do they really provide the benefits for the cost?
Dr. Eric Dougherty, Feline Veterinarian and Medical Director of The Cat Practice in New York City, doubts it. “Cats are obligate carnivores, so foods like asparagus, quinoa or saffron are not necessary at all,” he said. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, cats don’t particularly fare well with a seafood diet.
According to the feline expert, cats that are fed with strict seafood diet (and no other supplements such as taurine) have a higher risk of Pansteatitis (inflammation of fat as a result of prolonged deficiency of Vitamin E), and are more susceptible to mineral deficiencies plus serious cardiac issues.
“At $11,000 per year, this is clearly a product tailored for the one percent,” said the feline veterinarian. Since a cat would unlikely be able to distinguish the real benefits of Nova Scotia salmon from Scottish salmon, Dougherty believes this product is clearly more geared for the owners’ wants than the cats’ needs.
“Odds are, the people who would buy this cat food are the same people who would splurge $5,000 on a burger. And while I think this luxury cat food could make for a nice treat once in a while, what cats really need are high-quality protein like duck, turkey or chicken and lots of water within their diet,” he said.
As for those looking to create homemade or raw diets, check out Balance IT and Catinfo.org. “With everything you need to make a nutritionally balanced diet, Balance IT even customizes a diet with you, and makes sure that every step is designed for the best of your cat,” noted Dougherty.
