World's last refuge for the Asiatic #lion is under threat. Gujarat must act now

By Darshan Desai

Published: 7 February 2015

Did the Gujarat government put the lives of its lions at stake by relocating the Maldharis, the traditional cattle-herders who lived in proximity to the Gir forest, in the name of protecting the region for the illustrious big cats? 

At least the state forest department seems to believe so. 

According to a senior forest officer who did not want to be named, the lions of Gir will not survive without the Maldharis.

“Both are essential and intrinsic to the forest ecosystem,” says the officer. 

A pride of lions relaxing at Sasan-Gir, Gujarat. The state forest department seems to believe relocating the Maldharis has put the lives of the lions at stake

SURVIVAL AT STAKE 

Being cattle-herders, the animals which the Maldharis reared also acted as a source of food for the lions. 

And since the community received adequate compensation from the state government for the lost livestock, the arrangement worked quite well for both the herder and the predator. 

This changed once the government started moving out the families from the sanctuary in the name of conservation. 

As many as 580 out of the total 845 families co-existing with the carnivores were shifted in the first round itself. 

 The big cats have strayed into the neighbouring villages in the Saurashtra region desperately looking for prey (pictured: a body of a lion knocked down by a speeding train)

The process continued over the years and now there are just 300 families left. 

This has forced the big cats to stray into the neighbouring villages in the Saurashtra region desperately looking for prey. 

However, the dwindling number of Maldharis is not the only cause of concern for the lions. 

Earlier this week the state forest department revealed that as many as 66 hotels and guesthouses have come up either within the buffer zone of the sanctuary or just bordering it, throwing all norms to the winds and thus creating hurdles in the sensitive lion corridor. 

Shockingly, the government has started a “paying guest” facility to local farmers who could offer six rooms to tourists. 

 The sanctuary and its buffer zone are now peppered with hoardings and signboards of hotels and guesthouses soliciting tourists 

SIEGE WITHIN

The so-called hospitality units have come up in the sanctuary’s buffer zone in Junagadh, Amreli and Gir-Somnath districts. 

The department which revealed the illegal activities, however, did not specify, in its affidavit before the high court, what actions it would take against such illegal dwellings. 

The sanctuary and its buffer zone are now peppered with hoardings and signboards of hotels and guesthouses soliciting tourists. 

It is estimated that within a six-km radius of Sasan-Gir forest there are nearly 100 hotels and guesthouses.

According to sources in the state forest department, a tourist resort run by a renowned hotel group in the area would now need to obtain a clearance from the Union Environment Ministry since its lease has expired. 

The trauma of the lions, however, does not end here. 

As many as 14 lions were killed in accidents alone last year due to transportation and mining-related activities taking place within the forest. 

Apart from a railway line, as many as five state highways traverse through the forest, carrying a growing number of tourists whose number last year was 4.25 lakh. 

Besides all this, there are three big temples with 23 shrines, which are also a big draw for the tourists and pilgrims. 

Meanwhile, the lion population in the state has been rising steadily since 1968 when the numbers where less than 200 to the current 441, highlighting an urgent need for relocation.

RAPID FIRE

DR RAVI CHELLAM,

ENVIRONMENTALIST & EXPERT ON ASIATIC LIONS

'Lions have thrived in this region and their population has increased,' said Dr Ravi Chellam

■ THERE IS ALREADY SO MUCH HUMAN OCCUPATION IN AND AROUND GIR AND NOW THE STATE GOVERNMENT PLANS TO DEVELOP TOURISM ALONG THE FOREST IN AMRELI DISTRICT. WHAT’S YOUR VIEW?

I think we need to give credit to the government of Gujarat, the people living in and around Gir, and of course the Nawab of Junagadh for protecting the forest. We owe them and many more a very sincere thank you for having protected and ensured the survival of the Asiatic lions in and around Gir. But the issue today is: can the management be improved? Obviously, it can be. Lions have thrived in this region and their population has increased. The big problem is the protection of the habitat both within the sanctuary as well as in the surrounding landscapes. Fairly rapid change in land-use and the building of highways and other infrastructural projects, including fences and walls, are all fragmenting, degrading and destroying wildlife habitats. 

■ WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE NEED OF THE HOUR? 

The big conservation action that has not been taken so far is to comply with the Supreme Court judgment regarding the translocation of lions to establish a second free-ranging population of lions. This is an urgent and necessary issue. 

 A traditional cattle-herder who lives near the Gir forest. 'For me, the relocation of Maldharis when undertaken (first) in the 1970s was a well-intentioned move but was poorly implemented,' said Dr Chellam

■ MALDHARIS (CATTLEBREEDERS) AND LIONS HAVE CO-EXISTED FOR AGES IN GIR. DO YOU THINK IT WAS A RIGHT MOVE MANY YEARS AGO TO SHIFT THE MALDHARIS OUT OF THE FORESTS IN THE NAME OF PRESERVATION? 

I do not think there is any connection between the relocation and resettlement of Maldharis and the movement and presence of lions outside the Protected Area. Lions have historically existed over much of western, northern and central India. We need to separate the two issues. For me, the relocation of Maldharis when undertaken (first) in the 1970s was a well-intentioned move but was poorly implemented. 

■ WHAT ABOUT NOW? 

I feel there is no reason to relocate them. In fact, the Forest Rights Act gives them a lot of rights and any resettlement has to be done voluntarily with prior and informed consent of those aimed to be resettled. Large cats are territorial and as population density builds up the young and the old (especially males) will be forced to disperse outside their territories. Since all territories within the Protected Area are occupied, the only free space available is outside and hence the presence of lions outside. Lions in Saurashtra are lucky in that way as they have access to some wild prey and a lot of domestic prey to survive and thrive outside the sanctuary. 

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Cat shelter findings: Less stress with box access

14 hours ago by Nancy Owano

Out of all those cat videos that keep your eyes glued to the screen far longer than you would care to acknowledge, you may have seen some showing little and big cats trying their best to snuggle into big and too-little cardboard boxes. What makes them so content about being in a box? Scientists have spent much time looking for answers. "Will a hiding box provide stress reduction for shelter cats?" That is one such exploration, published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science, the journal of the International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE).

The three authors, from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Utrecht, studied stress in shelter cats and found that hiding boxes reduced stress, at least on the short term. They chose shelters as their investigation site because that is where the stress levels for domestic cats can be serious. The researchers assessed the effect of a hiding box on stress levels of newly arrived cats in a Dutch animal shelter. Ten cats had a box; nine did not. They found a significant difference between the two groups on observation days 3 and 4. The cats with the hiding box were able to recover faster in their new environment.

Writing in Wired, Bryan Gardiner took up the topic of why cats love boxes, discussing the researchers' findings as well as other explorations into the way cats love scampering and even squeezing into boxes. One of the authors of the Dutch cat shelter paper, Claudia Vinke, was quoted in Wired: "Hiding is a behavioral strategy of the species to cope with environmental changes and stressors," Vinke said in her email.

Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine, in their observations about cat shelters and stress, said that "cats benefit greatly from the ability to hide when stressed. In shelters, this can be accomplished in a variety of ways, with a range of costs and benefits." One type of hiding spot which they recommended was a "hiding box" which they said could be "a cardboard box, a specially designed Hide-Perch-and-Go box, a sturdier plastic box or cage insert, a plastic carrier, or a commercially available "cat den." The Cornell site said that while cardboard boxes are inexpensive, they cannot be cleaned, and must only be used for one cat before being discarded or recycled.

Gardiner in Wired made the point that boxes are not the only enclosures that attract cats; bowls, a bathroom sink, or other enclosures seem to work, too. Gardiner also made the point that cats scramble for such enclosures in a fundamental search not merely to feel psychologically cozy but for heat.
"According to a 2006 study by the National Research Council, the thermoneutral zone for a domestic cat is 86 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the range of temperatures in which cats are 'comfortable' and don't have to generate extra heat to keep warm or expend metabolic energy on cooling."

Corrugated cardboard, he added, is a good insulator; if the box is a tight squeeze so much the better; it may "force the cat to ball up or form some other impossible object, which in turn helps it to preserve body heat."

More information: Applied Animal Behaviour Science, www.appliedanimalbehaviour.com… 0236-6/abstract?cc=y
Journal reference: Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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#Tiger Nations to Set Up Anti-Poaching Network

Feb 6, 2015 // by AFP 
 

A male tiger is photographed in India's Bandhavgarh National Park.

©2010 Steve Winter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View Caption + 

All images by Steve Winter and more images can be seen in his excellent book, Tigers Forever.

 

Thirteen countries which are home to the world's dwindling population of wild tigers Friday agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing network to fight traffickers, concluding an anti-poaching conference in Kathmandu.

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Around 100 experts, government and law enforcement officials attended the five-day summit, co-hosted by Nepal and conservation group WWF to hammer out a regional plan to fight poaching in Asia. "We cannot allow wildlife crime to continue to wrap its tentacles deeper into the region," said Tikaram Adhikari, director general of Nepal’s department of national parks and wildlife conservation.
"Our individual efforts may win us a few battles, but we can only win the war only if Asia presents a united front to stop the poaching, end the trafficking and wipe out demand," Adhikari said in a press statement.

Nepal has twice been recognised for going a full year with no poaching incidents involving tigers, while the population of the endangered cats rose almost two thirds between 2009 and 2013.

David Lawson of WWF's Tigers Alive Initiative said the network of national liaison officers would "help countries communicate better with each other, build trust and deepen cooperation which is essential to win the fight against poachers."

"Asian governments need to recognise that we are in the midst of a poaching crisis and that this theft of natural resources must be stopped," Lawson told AFP.

Decades of trafficking and habitat destruction have slashed the global tiger population from 100,000 a century ago to approximately 3,000, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Poachers hunt the animal for its bones, which used to be an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, its pelt, which can fetch up to $16,000 on the black market, and its penis, believed to increase male sexual performance.

Countries with tiger populations -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam -- in 2010 launched a plan to double their numbers by 2022.

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India #Tiger News

Once upon a time tigers roared in Bhitarkanika

Ashok Pradhan & Ashis Senapati,TNN | Feb 7, 2015

KENDRAPADA/BHUBANESWAR: Many years ago, tigers' roars would often rip apart the unnerving silence of Bhitarkanika. If one was lucky, one could catch a fleeting glimpse of a big cat's black and gold flashing against the forest's verdant green.

The autobiography of Jonn Beames, who was the commissioner of Odisha in 1873, clearly suggests the presence of tigers in the country's second largest mangrove forest in Kendrapada district.

"From the top of the lighthouse about sunset one would look down into the dense jungle that spread for miles and frequently see tigers crawling across the open passage...," writes Beames in "Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian."

If one doubts the Britisher's account, a tiger trap, found from the palace of Kanika royal family and kept on display at the interpenetration center in Dangamal within Bhitarkanika National Park, can be regarded as a clinching evidence of the big cat's preence at the Ramsar site.

"The tiger trap proves that the mangrove forest was an abode of tigers and leopards during the Raj era. However, more research needs to be done to establish the exact period when tigers lived here," says Kedar Kumar Swain, divisional forest officer of the park.

Biswajit Mohanty, a wildlife campaigner, says tigers are believed to have stayed in the area till early part of 20th century. "The fear of tigers would keep villagers away from the interiors of the forest till as late as the 1960s, long after a big cat was last sighted. People would never venture out in the dark and tell stories about tigers told to them by their forefathers," he adds.

While the Sunderbans, the world's largest mangrove forest is still home to a large number of big cats, Bhitarkanika seems to have lost its big cat population owing to its smaller expanse and increased port activities, Mohanty says.

Lala Ajit Kumar Singh, a wildlife researcher, says in recent memory, there was no information about tigers in Bhitarkanika. Leopards, which were frequently spotted in the area, have also disappeared. But there is strong possibility that tigers once stayed here.">

Former principal chief conservator of forests (Wildlife) Saroj Patnaik says leopards were sighted till the 1970s. "But I have not come across reports of tigers being sighted," he adds.

The existence of a century-old hunting tower in the core areas of Bhitarkanika testifies the fact that the Rajas of Rajkanika were passionate about hunting and presence of a strong prey base. Rajendra Narayan Bhanjadeo, the king of Rajkanika from 1924 to 1948, was a famous hunter. The history of Rajkanika is replete with accounts of his hunting expeditions.

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State Mulls Own Big Cat Survey to Shame NTCA

By Express News Service

Published: 07th February2015
BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Government, which has locked horns with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) over tiger estimates in the State, is seriously contemplating to take up enumeration of the big cats on its own.

Sources in the Forest and Environment department said the Wildlife Wing is examining possibilities of conducting a census to ascertain the number of tigers in the State so that it can have its pound of flesh in the confrontation with the national tiger body.

Though no formal move has yet been initiated in this connection, the Wildlife Wing is consulting experts about its plans. “If things go as per planned, we could use camera traps in tiger habitats as well as outside to find out what the ground situation is. There is no way why the NTCA result should be taken on face value when it is delivered to us incomplete,” said sources.

The recent tiger enumeration by the NTCA and Wildlife Institute of India had put the total number of tigers in Odisha at 28, less than the figure arrived in 2010. Since no break-up of tiger head count was provided for Similipal and Satkosia tiger reserves (TRs), the State has been in the dark and clueless about the status of the big cats in these two habitats.

“Our own assessment could give us a fair bit of idea about the number of tigers in these TRs basing on which we could draw up conservation strategies for the future. It does not matter if the numbers go up or come down as compared to the NTCA figures,” said the sources.

The Wildlife Wing is mulling its options on procurement of cameras and the cost it may entail. Besides, it also has to work out a census modality which can challenge the four-phase methodology that NTCA uses.

The NTCA had adopted a dual-sampling method under which pug-marks and scats were analysed and later camera-trap images were also examined to arrive at the approximate number of tigers. This method, though, has come in for criticism from experts such as Dr Ullas Karanth who claim that double sampling does not provide an accurate result. Its camera trap method uses only source population, he had said after NTCA came out with the result last month.

The State Government also seconds the view saying the NTCA report has not taken into consideration number of tigers outside the TRs.

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Endangered Brazil jaguars adapting to changing agricultural landscape

By Stephen Gibbs

February 6, 2015 

 

One of the most iconic, beautiful, mammals in the Americas is the jaguar. It is also extremely rare. Just 15,000 are left in the wild, and most are in Brazil. CCTV America’s Stephen Gibbs traveled to the Brazilian state of Goias, where he made some unexpected discoveries about how these solitary hunters are adapting to a changing environment.

Goias is the agricultural heartland of Brazil, including mile-upon-mile of sugar cane, soya, and little else. The farms are hugely valuable and sell for hundreds of millions of dollars.

As the president of Jaguar Conservation Fund, Leandro Silveirao,is neither a farmer nor a millionaire, but the last 23 years, he has chosen to live in this isolated spot because it is one of the best places to observe the most powerful cat in the world.

Barely ever seen in the wild, these formidable hunters once roamed throughout the Americas. Now, perhaps as few as 15,000 exist.

Silveirao life’s work has been to try to understand where these usually solitary big cats live, hunt, and breed. Some of the cats are also tranquilized and tracked, using GPS transmitters, fitted to special collars.

Silveirao’s research has led him to some unexpected conclusions about the sustainability of this species. He believes that the big cats are adapting successfully to the changing landscape around them.

If an orphan jaguar cub is discovered anywhere in the country, it is likely to be brought to Silveirao’s home. “The problem of rehabilitating and releasing cats is that when you hand raise them, and then release them, they don’t fear people,” he said.

After more than two decades of research, Silveirao and his team have come to the perhaps a surprising conclusion that endangered animals and agriculture can co-exist, as long as the situation is very carefully managed.

According to Brazilian law, 20 percent of developed agricultural land must be set aside to help protect the local wildlife. Highly automated crop farming, rather than cattle farming, has also led to a relatively benign environment here for the big cats.

Silveirao has discovered that some of his tagged cats spend far more time outside a national park that has been preserved for them than inside it.

The sustainable future of the wild jaguar is not secure, but this rare big cat’s proven ability to adapt to its surroundings does offer some hope.

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Your Daily #Cat (catch-up post)

Ahimsa lying by Tambako The Jaguar

 

Another one of Ahimsa by Tambako The Jaguar

 

Jegor posing in the vegetation by Tambako The Jaguar

One man’s mountain #lion mission

Kyle Munson,

February 5, 2015

(Photo: Kyle Munson/The Register)

NEVADA, Ia. – Shane Griffin’s loner crusade to protect Iowa’s mountain lions began as he struggled to finish a story.

A few years ago he was writing a fictional account of a war veteran who embarks on a deer hunt in Iowa with his daughter. He wanted to introduce a wild animal to symbolize the main character’s own fears dredged up from his past.

That’s when Griffin noticed a news report about a mountain lion that had been shot in western Iowa.

His writerly quest for a mere plot element led to Griffin’s deep sympathy for these majestic 150-pound cats when he realized that they had been driven out of Iowa for more than a century. In the last 20 years they’ve trickled back in from the West. “I’m just a citizen who picked up a couple of books and thought something was wrong and wanted to change it,” he said.

At this point Griffin, a 43-year-old Des Moines firefighter and paramedic who lives on an acreage north of Nevada, might be Iowa mountain lions’ best friend as he lobbies lawmakers on their behalf. (The big cats also are called cougars, pumas and a host of other names.) This week he was on the prowl again at the state Capitol.

Griffin prodded his local representative, Republican Dave Deyoe of Nevada, to introduce a bill last week: “An act prohibiting the hunting or taking of cougars and making penalties applicable.”
More than a century ago when fur-bearing critters were written into the Iowa Code there were no mountain lions to speak of. So the list stopped with beaver, badger, mink, otter, muskrat, raccoon, skunk, opossum, spotted skunk or civet cat, weasel, coyote, bobcat, wolf, groundhog, red fox, and gray fox.

Ron Andrews, now retired in Clear Lake, spent more than 44 years as an Iowa Department of Natural Resources furbearer resource specialist. “Initially we kind of thought people were hallucinating,” Andrews said of the sightings that preceeded a big cat that was hit and killed by a car near Harlan in 2001 — essentially the year that mountain lions roared back to life in Iowa as a hot topic.

There have been 19 confirmed mountain lions statewide in the last two decades, seven of the animals were shot or killed by vehicles. One sighting was confirmed last year. There also were two probable and 14 unconfirmed reports in 2014.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the thousands of reported sightings tend to be anything from a bobcat to a large dog. The elusive mountain lions have no status under Iowa law, and it’s likely to stay that way in a state where livestock and wild game such as pheasants are prized. “The agricultural politics of Iowa is going to make that very, very difficult,” Andrews said of the prospects for passage of Griffin’s bill or anything similar. “I’ve already heard from a couple of hunting groups that are concerned that I filed the bill,” Deyoe admitted.

Vince Evelsizer, the DNR’s furbearer and wetland biologist who has followed in Andrews’ paw prints, admits that cougars are a “polarizing topic.” And the DNR as an institution remains neutral in the debate.

Griffin is “taking the right approach with ... doing what he can to try to get it introduced into the Legislature,” Evelsizer said. “And whether it goes through or not I think it’s good to foster that discussion.”

State Rep. Clel Baudler doesn’t expect Griffin’s bill to move past his natural resources subcommittee for one major reason: “Because mountain lions eat people.” “I don’t want them to get established,” Baudler said of the cats. “I want them to be in fear of humans.”

He scoffed at the recommendation to “look larger” if confronted by a mountain lion. “If you’re a 5-, 9-, 10-year-old kid,” Baudler said, “how do you look larger to scare a mountain lion away?”

A mountain lion advocate such as Griffin faces a tough fight on multiple fronts. On one hand, people fear being eaten. Then there are hunters who would like to be allowed to kill more of the beasts.
Ted Nugent recently posted a photo on Facebook that showed fellow musician Kid Rock proudly displaying a freshly slain mountain lion. “HAIL my Motor City boy Kid Rock for saving all those muledeer elk & livestock by whacking this magnificent mountain lion,” Nugent wrote.

Griffin sees mountain lions as a central ethical debate on how we intend to relate to nature, similar to Iowa’s brewing legal war over water quality. “To me there’s such a hangover from the settlement days of come in, dominate, make it yours, produce off of it,” he said.

Mike Rentz, a lecturer in Iowa State University’s natural resource ecology and management department, recently moved from Minnesota, where cougars, black bears and other large predators are more common.

He’d like to see mountain lions make more of a national comeback. They’re all but invisible to humans, he said, if they’re “not persecuted, not hunted, not harassed.” “There are wolves in Duluth, Minn., that are in town, in the city limits,” Rentz added, “and you just never see them.”

The first wolf documented in 89 years in Iowa was shot by a coyote hunter last year in Buchanan County. If we were to act based solely on statistics, Iowans should be shooting the more numerous unleashed dogs on sight as the true hazard to kids. Lightning strikes and bee stings are greater threats than mountain lions.

Missouri established its own Mountain Lion Response Team in 1996, where state law dispenses with the clunky need to specify certain species and simply protects all fur-bearing wildlife — while still allowing people to kill the animals to defend themselves and their property.

Among the national statistics compiled by Missouri: The risk for a dog attack is 1 in 208,000, compared with 1 in 6.25 million for a mountain lion attack. “They’re not these bloodthirsty killers that people think,” said Griffin, a father with three daughters of his own — ages 14, 15 and 19 — to protect.

About 25 fatal and 95 nonfatal mountain lion attacks have been recorded within the last century in all of North America. To be sure, the attacks that do happen can be harrowing: A 6-year-old boy survived an attack by a lion in September near Cupertino, Calif. They also can be simultaneously comical and disturbing: A woman in Colorado fended off a mountain lion last summer in part by loudly singing opera.

No matter what happens in Iowa, the big cats’ numbers might be winnowed because of what’s happening in our neighboring states to the West. Tim Dunbar, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation based in California, said that his organization has been watching Iowa because we’re on the “cutting edge of lions coming into the state.”

“Some policy changes both in South Dakota and Wyoming have been really hammering that population very hard,” he said.

South Dakota opened its first mountain lion hunting season a decade ago. There have been at least 19 cats killed already this year — all but one of those by hunters. The remaining lion was hit by a vehicle.

Nebraska’s first mountain lion hunting season last year saw five cats killed by hunters but 16 total deaths, 10 of them females. The state skipped a hunting season this year and will study the issue for a few more years. Male cougars tend to roam east in a direct line, searching for a date. Females, meanwhile, tend to stray no farther than about 25 miles from where they were born — hence the migration of large numbers of the cats tends to be slow.

The first confirmed cougar in Kentucky since before the Civil War was killed there in December.
One mountain lion hit and killed by a car four years ago in Connecticut had strayed all the way from South Dakota.

That last cat’s trek sounds like an odyssey ripe for one of Griffin’s stories. After all, it’s much easier writing mountain lions into fiction than into Iowa law.



Mountain lion facts

SIZE: 6 to 9 feet long
WEIGHT: 100 to 150 pounds
LIFE EXPECTANCY: Reach reproductive maturity at age 3 and live 12 to 20 years
OFFSPRING: Two to three kits per litter (peak birth rate in July) that remain with the female for up to 18 months
DIET: Deer, small mammals, rabbits, beavers, raccoons, coyotes
BEHAVIOR: Readily climb trees to escape dogs or obtain food, capable of swimming
TERRITORY: Females range 15 to 30 square miles, males 50 to 135 square miles.
Source: Iowa Department of Natural Resources



What to do if confronted by a mountain lion

1. DON’T RUN! Running may stimulate a mountain lion’s instinct to chase.
2. Stand tall, look big, puff up, and lift your coat over your shoulders.
3. Take control of the situation. Scream loudly, throw objects.
4. Gather children close and slowly back away, keeping your eye on the animal.
5. If attacked, fight back vigorously with sharp objects and poke the eyes of the animal.
Source: Iowa Department of Natural Resources



Confirmed mountain lion sightings in Iowa, by year

1995……1
2001……5
2003……2
2004……5
2009……1
2011……1
2012……1
2013……2
2014……1
Total……19
Source: Iowa Department of Natural Resources



More information

•Visit iowadnr.gov/Education/IowasWildlife/OccasionalWildlifeVisitors.aspx for more information.

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Thai Authorities Raid Famous Buddhist #Tiger Temple for Alleged Wildlife Trafficking

By Matt Smith

February 5, 2015
Conservationists are cheering a reported crackdown on Thailand's "Tiger Temple," a Buddhist monastery that lets tourists pose with the scores of big cats on its grounds.

The temple, located about 100 miles west of Bangkok, has long been the subject of complaints by animal advocates who suspect it has links to the black-market trade in endangered tigers. This week, Thailand's government raided the facility and reportedly impounded more than 100 tigers, along with dozens of rare birds.

"I think it's about time they cracked down on them," Carole Baskin, CEO of the Florida-based Big Cat Rescue, told VICE News. Thailand's investigation may be able to prove "once and for all" that large numbers of tigers are ending up on the black market, where its pieces can fetch $50,000 to $60,000, she said. "There's way too many cats that are being bred and raised that aren't showing up in sanctuaries," Baskin said. "So we know that something really horrible has to be happening to them, and until somebody sheds light on it, it's never going to stop."

There was no immediate response to the allegations from the temple. In 2009, it unsuccessfully sought to prosecute Thai conservation groups who leveled similar claims. "I'm glad that they are investigating this, because I think they can finally make that link that proves where these cats are ending up," Baskin said.

In 2008, the British-based environmental group Care for the Wild International released what it said was the result of a three-year investigation into the organization. It found that the tigers were abused in captivity and that adults were "unsuitable for inclusion" in conservation breeding programs. "The Tiger Temple claims it received its first tigers legitimately as animals rescued from poachers," CWI reported. "However, investigators obtained evidence that suggested that, rather than continuing as a rescue centre, the Temple now operates as a breeding facility and may be involved in the illegal tiger trade."

Adam Roberts, the head of the American wildlife protection group Born Free USA, said that even without "solid proof" of illegal activity, "the place is of massive concern."

"Tiger Temple markets itself as this haven of tranquility where tigers are rescued from poachers to live a happy life," Roberts told VICE News. "The reality is that it's a zoo at which the tigers are kept in very poor conditions, fed inappropriate food and forced to interact with tourists for photo opportunities."

Turner Barr, a blogger who briefly volunteered at the Tiger Temple, told VICE News that the animals there were reproducing quickly. "They were saying, 'Oh, we're taking in these animals.' No, they're actively breeding them," Barr told VICE News. The biggest draw for tourists is being able to bottle-feed tiger cubs, "and they only stay that kind of bottle-feeding age from about 4 weeks old to about 10 weeks."

There were 126 tigers at the temple when he volunteered in August 2013, including six that were under eight weeks old. "At that kind of birthrate, you'd think there would be way more than that," Barr said. But he added, "There's no transparency. There's just this black hole of, 'Where the fuck are all the tigers?'"

Barr said he knew about the complaints when he signed on for a minimum one-month stint at the temple, where several Westerners were also volunteers. He lasted 18 days, saying he was "sickened" by the experience. "I think people get a little starry-eyed when they visit," Barr said. "They kind of forget the bigger-picture questions like, 'Is this ethical?' or 'Why is this monastery of monks having this huge tiger facility?' "

Roberts, whose organization works closely with CWI, urged tourists to avoid the temple "at all costs" and treat the raid "as a wakeup call."


Baskin said there's a growing market for luxury goods made tiger other body parts, particularly among the newly wealthy of China. "It's the teeth and the pelts that cost so much money," she said. "Or the bones that are steeped in wine, and those bottles of wine are openly traded even though it's illegal to use the derivatives of tiger bodies. They're still openly traded between high-ranking Chinese officials as luxury gifts or bribes."

JA Mills, author of Blood of the Tiger, told VICE News that organizations like the Tiger Temple fuel poaching in Asian countries. Villagers take tiger cubs out of the wild and sell them to reservations for $20 to $100b— "a lot of money for someone who lives on a dollar a day" — or to people who buy them as pets, only to give them away when they can no longer take care of the animals. "There are many facilities like this in Thailand and all over Asia that are laundromats, where they have live animals coming in the front door and animals going out in parts out the back door," Mills said.

A spokesperson for the Tiger Temple told VICE News: "Nothing has changed at the Tiger Temple; it is business as usual. The Tiger Temple is under Royal Thai patronage to Princess of Thailand, so nobody can close it down."

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Mumbai: 4 year old #tigress dies, vets suspect leukemia

Thursday, 5 February 2015 - 12:02am IST | Place: Mumbai | Agency: dna webdesk

• Gitanjali Das

 

A four-year-old Royal Bengal tigress died of septicemia at Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) on Thursday evening. Puja was born to Palash and Basanti in the park itself.

A four-year-old Royal Bengal tigress died of septicemia at Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) on Thursday evening. Puja was born to Palash and Basanti in the park itself.

According to park officials, she had been suffering from a wound at the base of her tail since September last year and had been on treatment for the past 4 months. They also suspect that she could have been suffering from autoimmune disease (when the body's immune system starts attacking healthy tissue) or leukemia (cancer or the bone marrow, blood).

Shailesh Deore, superintendent of the lion and tiger safari, told dna, “She kept developing wounds on different parts of her body. We treated the wound at the base of her tail. But then it reappeared, along with four to five more. We conducted several tests including an ultrasound and her blood samples were sent for lab tests. Her body had a tendency to resist antibiotics. She was also quite obese as compared to other tigresses.” The park's director, Vikas Gupta, could not be reached for comment.
Questions however have been raised about whether the big cats of the national park were receiving adequate and correct treatment after a spate of deaths last year. Last year, four leopards and a lion died within three months. The last death was in December.

Poman, a 15-year-old leopardess who had been suffering from leptospirosis, a bacterial infection spread by rodents. A source who did not wish to be named said that the big cats were suffering because of inadequate treatment. Vets often did not tend to them for long periods of time. Moreover, sometimes, they would fling haldi at the cat, targeting an infected wound, instead of applying it. The haldi would often spill instead on the cat's face, said the source. SGNP now is left with seven Royal Bengal tigers and three White tigers. A post-mortem report will determine the exact cause of Puja's death.

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Why #cats love boxes

When it comes to cats, there is surely only one question on everybody’s mind. “Why do they like boxes so much?” Luckily science now has an answer, so we can all rest easy knowing our top brains have been put to the best possible use.


According to Wired, “Veterinarian Claudia Vinke of Utrecht University in the Netherlands is one of the latest researchers to study stress levels in shelter cats”. Vinke found that cats provided with a box had significantly lower stress levels and adapted far quicker to a new environment than cats denied the sweet embrace of a cardboard sanctuary.

Wired, quoting from The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behaviour, says “Cats do not appear to develop conflict resolution strategies to the extent that more gregarious species do”. In other words, cats are big scaredy-cats whose first reaction in the face of any perceived discomfort is to run, and probably hide under the desk, staring back accusingly.

The box then, functions as a kind of den, a cat-cave where felines can escape the unbearable, existential angst of having nothing else to do except lie around and contemplate their fall from Ancient God, to object of internet ridicule.

“Within this mighty fortress, I alone am the master!”  
“Isn’t that the box the new toaster came in?” “...”

Wired suggests that cats also use boxes to keep warm, the comfort-zone temperature for a cat being quite a bit higher than for us humans.

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Big #Cats Become Big Attraction At Bridgeport's Beardsley Zoo

by Skip Pearlman  02/05/15

An Amur leopard roams the grounds at the Beardsley Zoo. Photo Credit: Skip Pearlman

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Bridgeport's Beardsley Zoo is the place to go to see the big cats in town - as well as monkeys, tigers, birds and reptiles, too.
Soon the zoo will add an anteater exhibit - expected to open late spring or summer. "Our most popular animals are probably the tigers, the leopards and wolves," said Zoo Admissions Manager Jill Koos. "The monkeys always have big crowds, and anything new is always big. In the summer we have tortoises, and our camel rides (expected back this summer) are very popular. Come on down to the zoo - there's always something exciting and new!"

Last weekend, 5-year-old William Mapel, of Oxford, was visiting the tigers. "I learned a lot about animals," said William. "I had a birthday party here. ... It was a lot of fun."

"We love seeing the animals," added William's mom, Kim. "We've been here a few times, and we both really enjoy seeing the animals."

The zoo is open year-round, and also hosts birthday parties.

Amur tiger. Photo Credit: Skip Pearlman

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Snuff out demand in China for #tiger parts and you save the big cats, say experts

Published: February 3, 2015 

From thousands that once roamed forests in South and Southeast Asia alone, tiger numbers have plummeted to 3,000 worldwide. — Reuters file pic KATHMANDU, Feb 3 — Conservationists must try to reduce the demand for tiger parts in China as part of a campaign to save the big cats, wildlife experts warned at an anti-poaching conference in Kathmandu.

Thousands of tigers once roamed forests in South and Southeast Asia but numbers have plummeted to about 3,000 worldwide. Experts say poaching is fuelled by a thriving trade in China, where tiger parts are prized as status symbols and often used in traditional medicine.“There is a culture among more and more wealthy people in China (to own tiger parts),” said Michael Baltzer, leader of the WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, referring to people who mount tiger heads and decorate living rooms with rugs made from their pelts. “Tiger farming in China encourages (poaching) by stimulating demand for tiger parts,” said Debbie Banks, head of the Tiger Campaign at the British-based Environmental Investigation Agency.

One hundred tigers a year have been killed for the illegal trade since the turn of the century, said James Compton, Asia’s programme director for TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network.
The numbers are based on tiger parts seized and reported by authorities, and suggests actual killings could be much higher.

Tigers would be hunted as long as there is such demand, said Anil Manandhar of conservation group WWF Nepal. “Our goal should not only be zero poaching, but also for zero demand of wildlife parts,” Manandhar told the conference.

Nepal is hosting the anti-poaching conference attended by delegates from 13 countries and several conservation groups to come up with a strategy to fight poaching in Asia. India and Nepal are among countries praised at the meeting for their efforts to raise tiger numbers and curb poaching.

India’s tiger population increased by nearly a third to 2,226 in four years, a survey showed last month. Nepal reported 198 tigers in 2013, with the population of the elusive cats increasing by 64 per cent in half a decade.

The country has marked two years since the last reported case of a tiger killed by poachers in 2012, said Tulsi Sharma of Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. “This has been possible due to involvement of local communities in conservation efforts,” said Sharma, adding that volunteers work as informers or guards to patrol national parks. “Fifty per cent revenue generated at national parks goes to local communities to get them involved in anti-poaching drive,” he said. — Reuters

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Mountain lions survive near cities, but at what cost?

January 30, 2015 

Conservation This Week

The samango monkeys living near South Africa’s Lajuma Research Centre have learned that they can rely on humans as lookouts while they forage for food. The monkeys have learned that if humans are around, then they’re probably safe from leopards. When left alone, the monkeys spend less time foraging for food and more time scanning their surroundings to avoid becoming someone else’s dinner. The mountain lions of California have a different tale to tell.

For them, human presence isn’t helpful. Instead of focusing on eating and leaving the predator patrol to the humans, it’s the humans themselves that make mountain lions wary. The fear provoked by predators is known to affect their prey in ways that can affect entire food webs. What isn’t well known is how the fear provoked in predators by humans might likewise ripple through the food web.

Large carnivores, like mountain lions (which are also called pumas, cougars, or panthers, depending on where you are), are sensitive to human disturbances because they have slow life cycles, require large territories, and suffer persecution by humans for real, imagined, or anticipated losses of pets or livestock. As a result, developed landscapes tend not to serve as homes for these apex predators.

Their localized decline or extirpation commonly leads to two phenomena: mesopredator release, which is the proliferation of smaller carnivores, like coyotes or foxes, and the overpopulation of primary consumers, like deer. But some large carnivores have found a way to persist in human landscapes. Rather than running away, they modify their behavior to reduce run-ins with us. Take P22, the famous mountain lion photographed underneath the Hollywood sign. He’s lived in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park for several years, and if not for a series of camera traps, would generally remain undetected.

Even if they’re not driven away completely, the mountain lions’ modified behavior is still likely to alter their communities. That’s what University of California, Santa Cruz researchers Justine A. Smith, Yiwei Wang, and Christopher C. Wilmers wanted to find out.

Think of it as the tale of the city mouse and country mouse, but replace the rodents with very large, very hungry cats. Do mountain lions who spend their time in more developed areas have different foraging behavior than their more rural counterparts?

Wilmers’s group used data from thirty GPS-collared mountain lions (Puma concolor) who live along a gradient of urbanization in the Central Coast region of California, from mostly natural landscapes with no housing development to suburban regions with up to ten houses per hectare.

As typical solitary hunters, mountain lions expend quite a bit of energy bringing down large ungulates like deer, and gain a considerable amount of nutrition from the carcasses for several days. They’re physically constrained by the amount of food their guts can contain, which is why they keep returning to the same kill site to feast upon their leftovers.

In cities, carnivores like mountain lions can be displaced from their kill sites by human activity. That leaves the carcass open for scavenging by other predators or carrion eaters and, if left long enough, to decomposition. Taken together, the big cats might suffer from reduced caloric intake due to a perceived risk from human activities. Wilmers hypothesized that this would occur more often in more developed areas.

As a consequence of not being able to finish their meals, it turned out that city cats’ hunger simply drove them to take down more deer just to get the same amount of food. For the females, at least. Their overall time spent eating declined by 42% as housing density increased. Those in more urbanized areas killed 36% more deer than the females in the most natural habitats.

(The male lions killed the same number of deer per year regardless of their proximity to urban development. They may already spend less time at kills owing to their need to patrol their territories, which are three times larger than the females’.)

What that means is that the females are expending more energy to obtain an equivalent amount of nutrition, and more deer are dying as a result. And that could have consequences for their reproduction. “The tagged female living in the most developed habitat in our study area has lost at least three litters in the last 3 years, one of which was confirmed as abandonment,” write the researchers. Those living in more natural landscapes appear to have healthier litters. While there are many elements of city life that could result in this pattern, the increased energy expended while hunting is certainly a contributing factor.

The pattern is also likely to modify the entire wildlife community. More deer are dying to feed the mountain lions, and partially eaten carcasses provide a nutritional bounty for the ecosystem’s carrion eaters, scavengers, and smaller carnivores. Mesopredator release is usually associated with the extirpation of apex predators, but these findings suggest it could occur simply as the result of behavior changes among those apex predators.

Population declines and extirpations are both more intuitive and easier to explain to the public than the more subtle ways in which human behavior leads more resilient species to modify their behavior.

But if humans are to co-exist peacefully with wildlife, it is prudent to better understand how animals respond to our behavior. That requires a shift in thinking: humans are not superimposed onto otherwise natural ecosystems; we are full, active participants in a new sort of emulsified ecosystem, part wild and part domestic. – Jason G. Goldman | 30 January 2015

Source: Justine A. Smith, Yiwei Wang, & Christopher C. Wilmers. (2015). Top carnivores increase their kill rates on prey as a response to human-induced fear, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282 (1802) 20142711-20142711. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.2711

Header image: shutterstock.com

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Your Daily #Cat

 

Profile of a yawning lynx by Tambako The Jaguar

Local Bobcat That Killed 3 #Cats Captured In El Dorado Hills

February 2, 2015

EL DORADO HILLS (CBS13) – A bobcat that was terrorizing a local neighborhood for almost a week was finally captured. The animal was captured Monday in El Dorado Hills off of Roco Ridge Way.
A neighbor says she called a wildlife expert saying three of her pets had been killed by the big cat.
The animal was then trapped in the neighbor’s backyard.

Jeff Duke with Duke Wildlife Control says with the drought he expects business to pick up. “They’re coming out of the hills where there’s no water and they’re coming around houses and homes where little house cats and dogs are easy to grab,” said Jeff Duke with Duke Wildlife Control.

Duke says the bobcat had killed three housecats.

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*Don't blame the bobcat because you don't keep your "house" cats indoors*
~Lin

More #tigers in PTR than Cenus states, say wildlife officials

Dhritiman Ray,TNN | Feb 3, 2015 

RANCHI: Though the tigers are walking tall across the country, their numbers are dwindling in Jharkhand with only three left, says a recent census by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). However, if the state's wildlife officials are to be believed, there are more prowling in the Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR). Close to a month after it gave a jolt to the state's environmentalists and animal lovers, officials of the state wildlife department ruled out the WII census as inappropriate, citing Maoist interventions and inadequate data collection as the reasons for the goof-up.

"We don't think the report is comprehensive and there are certainly more than three in the reserve," said Bankim Chandra Nigam, the principal chief conservator of forests-wildlife (PCCF-WL). "The census itself shows the count to be three plus, a provision saying there may be more," Nigam added.

The royal cat population, despite its dwindling habitats, shot up by 30% across 18 tiger states in the report that was published early in January. At present, there are 2226 adult tigers in the wild, with Karnataka having 408 in total. In 2010, the nationwide tiger population was estimated at 1706, showing a steady increase from 1411 in 2006. However, the figures have dropped ominously in Jharkhand from 2010, when there were 10 tigers in the PTR.

"Normally, the census is a lengthy process and is finished by May. This year, however, the study was wrapped up five months in advance," an official said. The survey gave wildlife workers very little window to track and document the tiger population in the sanctuary which has a huge presence of left-wing extremists, sources in the department said. Apart from chasing away surveyors, all workers of the sanctuary, the Maoists also destroyed high-resolution cameras placed at strategic locations to spot the big cats.

"Though the cameras are placed at knee-height, they would come break it as a precautionary measure. They would come down heavily on our men, beat and shoo them away so that they do not return with such devices in the future," the official said. The camera trapping apart, other scientific methods to determine tiger presence - namely the scat collection for DNA sampling and habitat analysis were also affected by the Maoists, who continue to camp near the reserve.

But what explains the sharp decrease in number from 2010? Environmentalists and forest officials widely attributed the fall in numbers to growing illegal settling around the reserve. Carved out of the Betla National Park in the 1970s, the PTR had only a handful of hamlets in its buffer area (an area outside the core area). As of 2012, the numbers shot up close to 140 that further confine the royal cats to the core area. In addition to that, poaching and Maoist activities still remain big threats to the tigers in the state. 

 

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With 38 new tigers and lions, G.W. Zoo asks for donations

Feb 03, 2015 By: Lauren Smith

WYNNEWOOD, Okla. -- The G.W. exotic animal park is once again asking for the public's help to keep their zoo going, after bringing in dozens of additional tigers and lions. "All of the cages for the 38 we just brought in were already constructed so we had room to bring those 38 in," says Joe Schreibvogel with the GW exotic zoo.

He says they do all they can to keep the hundreds of animals on their privately owned property in Wynnewood healthy and happy, but in a Facebook post this week, zoo representatives pleaded with the public to help keep the business alive, as the number of animals, and operating costs, keep growing. "You know the extra propane to keep some of the animals warm. The electric bill goes up trying to heat all the buildings. The telephone and the water. Just our water bill alone is $7,000 a month."

Schreibvogel, who says they're purely funded by visitors and donations, also attributes their growing bills to a lack of attendance during winter months. "Over the weekend we would normally see probably close to a thousand people on a Saturday and a Sunday and this weekend when it was cold and raining we probably saw about 25," said Schreibvogel.

According to Federal court records, Schreibvogel is still in bankruptcy, after he was ordered by a federal judge two years ago, to pay one million dollars to a big cat sanctuary in Florida for trademark infringement.

Last year, OSHA cited the zoo for failing to "properly protect employees from wild animals." And the USDA cited them for not providing adequate veterinary care. But Schreibvogel says most of the cats he takes in would have been euthanized if he had not offered to house and feed them. "That's another sad thing about what's going on in this industry right now is other states are banning them and making them illegal, but nobody wants to pay the cost to move them and take care of them."

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Number of #tigers falls on demand by Chinese

AFP-JIJI

Feb 3, 2015

KATMANDU – Soaring demand for tiger parts in China has emptied Asia’s forests, frustrating efforts to protect the big cats, wildlife experts said as an anti-poaching conference opened in Katmandu on Monday.

Around 100 experts, government and law enforcement officials from 13 nations are attending the five-day summit, co-hosted by Nepal and conservation group WWF to hammer out a regional plan to fight poaching.

Anil Manandhar, chairperson of WWF Nepal, said conservationists’ goals should not limited to “zero poaching but (include) zero demand as well.”

Mike Baltzer, leader of WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, praised Beijing for its efforts to save the wild cats from extinction and said: “China is doing a lot but the demand (for tiger parts) is so huge that it’s very difficult to address the issue.”

“We have been successful in reducing poaching in some countries, but we haven’t been successful in decreasing demand,” Manandhar told reporters after the opening session.

Without tackling the demand side, the success of some countries in controlling poaching will only mean that poaching increases in other countries where anti-poaching drives are less successful, Manandhar said, citing the example of South Africa where more than 1,000 rhinos were poached in 2013, and more than 1,200 last year.

“When you have a cultural perception among wealthy people in China that owning a tiger is a matter of prestige, you can’t change it overnight,” Baltzer told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.
“Dealing with demand will take a long time, poaching needs to be the focus otherwise it will be too late to save the tiger,” he said.

Decades of trafficking and habitat destruction have slashed the global tiger population from 100,000 a century ago to approximately 3,000, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Tiger bones have long been an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, supposedly for a capacity to strengthen the human body.

The animal is also hunted for its skin, which can fetch up to $16,000 on the black market, and for its penis, believed to increase male sexual performance.

Conservationists singled out India and Nepal for their strong performance and urged other countries attending the summit to prioritize wildlife protection.

India in January reported a 30 percent jump in its tiger population since 2010, while Nepal saw numbers rise almost two-thirds between 2009 and 2013.

Countries with tiger populations — Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam — in 2010 launched a plan to double the big cats’ numbers by 2022.

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Your Daily #Cat

 

Rolled puma! by Tambako The Jaguar

#Tiger and two cubs spotted in Uttarakhand

By Raju Gusain

Published:  1 February 2015

A tiger and two cubs were spotted for the first time at Timli village, located near the Uttarakhand-Uttar Pradesh border, on Saturday. 

The news has excited the forest department, which now plans to use trap cameras to track the movement of the recently-traced big cats. 

On the midnight of January 31, a patrol team of Kalsi forest division spotted a tiger with two cubs on the Vikasnagar-Saharanpur highway near Timli village. 

A tiger and two cubs were spotted for the first time at Timli village, prompting excitement. (Picture for representation).

“Ranger Mahaveer Rawat with other staff were on routine patrol and saw a tiger with two cubs near Timli. There is little chance of confusion as our staff saw the big cats with the vehicle light directly hitting them. We have failed to discover the pug marks, but will now be using trap cameras to track the movement of the tigers,” Kalsi forest division’s DFO Ram Gopal Verma said. 

A decade ago, some Gujjars had informed forest staff about tiger presence in Kalsi forest division, but the report was never verified. 

“As Timli is connected with the Rajaji National Park, so presence of tiger can’t be ruled out there. Even in 2005, there were reports about presence of big cats in that area,” Wildlife scientist Bivash Pandav said.

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#Leopard sightings reported in Gr Noida, Gzb and Hapur

Lalit Kumar,TNN | Feb 2, 2015 

GHAZIABAD: The straying of a leopard into Hapur sparked panic on Saturday morning but wildlife experts and foresters believe more such wild encounters could be in store as leopard sightings are being reported from Ghaziabad, Hapur and Greater Noida.

Experts said the big cats are straying from the Hastinapur wildlife sanctuary.

Saturday's episode, where villagers hacked the leopard to death in a field, was the third leopard death in a month. Forest officials said that considerable efforts have been made to trap the big cats in Greater Noida and near the Hindon air base in Ghaziabad.

Greater Noida's NTPC range officer PK Srivastava said several leopard sightings had been reported in the region in December. "We laid traps in many places, but with no success. We could not catch any, partly because leopards are very sharp animals. The forest department has also laid traps in the forested area at the Hindon air force base in Ghaziabad," he said.

Ghaziabad's district forest officer Joga Singh said, "Cages have been sent to Hapur from Ghaziabad, in case any leopard is caught. There is also a team there with tranquilizer dart guns."

Experts said that the sightings are a sign that the big cats are being forced out of their habitats because of encroachments. Vijaypal Baghel, a Ghaziabad-based wildlife activist, said that concrete jungles taking over the greenery was responsible for the leopards straying. "All the leopards killed in Hapur and Ghaziabad were aged between one and two years. That is the when the cubs are abandoned by their mother and have to fend for themselves," he said.

Director of Wildlife Protection Society of India Belinda Wright said leopards have been present in Ghaziabad, Greater Noida and Hapur for several decades. They live in hiding very close to human settlements, she said, but have not been reported to attack humans. "Leopards are highly adaptable and live in populated areas.

They have even been known to breed in drains. In the three areas, they would be eating mainly the smaller neelgai, wild boars, hares and even pea fowls and other birds," said Wright.

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Your Daily #Cat

 

Coto on the rock by Tambako The Jaguar

Two rescued lionesses settle in at the Shamwari Game Reserve

Coastweek -- Two rescued lionesses are settling into their new home at the Born Free Foundation’s Big Cat Rescue and Education Centre at Shamwari Game Reserve, South Africa. PHOTOS - BORN FREE FOUNDATION

 Eight year old sisters, Maggie and Sonja, first travelled from Natuurhulpcentrum (a wild animal rescue and rehabilitation centre) in Belguim, to London’s Heath-row airport early on Tuesday 20th January.

At Heathrow they were met by Singer, TV Star and Born Free Patron, Peter Andre, who watched them being safely loaded onto the inaugural Kenya Airways Dreamliner flight to Johannesburg via Nairobi.

Peter, who has supported Born Free’s compassionate conservation work for a number of years, was overwhelmed by the opportunity to get close to these majestic creatures, as they waited in their crates at the airport.

He said: “What an incredible day ! A once-in-a-lifetime chance to be involved in a project which will make a huge difference to these animals’ lives.

Coastweek-- Lionesses Maggie and Sonja being transported in Land Rovers during the last leg of the journey to their new home at the award winning Shamwari Game Reserve in Port Elizabeth.

“It’s heart breaking to think that Maggie and Sonja spent the first years of their lives in misery, but I’m absolutely delighted that they will now be enjoying a more natural environment in Africa, thanks to the Born Free Foundation and their fantastic supporters around the world.”

Katrina Hanson, Cargo Manager Kenya Airways, added:

“We were thrilled to offer our services to carry this amazing, unique cargo.

“With the expertise of our support teams and our African network it is great we made this logistically happen for Maggie and Sonja.”

After touching down in Johannesburg on Wednesday 21st January, the sisters’ were handed into the expert care of Land Rover Experience for the last leg of the journey to their new home at the award winning Shamwari Game Reserve in Port Elizabeth.

Maggie and Sonja travelled in specially arranged trailers, towed by Land Rover Discovery vehicles, and once they had arrived, they were released straight into their large natural enclosure, where they were introduced to the sights and sounds of Africa for the first time.

Shamwari Wildlife Director and vet, Dr Johan Joubert, and Born Free’s Big Cat Expert Tony Wiles, were present at every step of the journey.

Dr Joubert said: “I am very satisfied with the rescue and translocation of the lionesses Maggie and Sonja from the Natuurhulpcentrum in Belgium to Shamwari Game Reserve.

“Although it was a long journey for them, they travelled well.

“It was snowing when they left, two days ago, and now they are adapting to a hot African summer’s day.

“They experienced natural grass and trees today for the first time in their life. I am sure they have a good life ahead of them here at Shamwari Game Reserve.”

Tony, who has more than 20 years’ experience working with Big Cats, is pleased that the lionesses are already growing in confidence in their new environment.

He says: “These are relatively young cats, and so despite being a bit tired from the journey, they should adapt quickly to their new surroundings.

“Already they are exploring the enclosure’s natural features and taking the opportunity to stretch their legs and bask in the southern hemisphere’s summer sunshine.”

He added: “After spending most of their lives in cramped and squalid conditions, it feels great to be able to offer these girls a safe, happy and natural place to live out the rest of their lives. That’s what it’s all about.”

Richard Gouverneur, Managing Director of Jaguar Land Rover South Africa and sub-Sahara Africa was elated with the news of Maggie and Sonja’s safe relocation.

He said, “It’s difficult to imagine the hardships faced by these lions, and sad that people could even do this to animals meant to roam free.

“Land Rover is proud to have been part of their 6,000 mile journey that now sees these majestic animals set paw on African soil, where they’ll have a second chance to live out their days in a nurturing and natural environment.”

To find out more about Maggie and Sonja’s new life, meet some of Born Free’s other rescued animals, or make a donation to enable the Foundation to continue its work with some of the world’s most vulnerable animals, visit: http://www.bornfree.org.uk/

The lionesses move to South Africa was supported by Kenya Airways and Land Rover.

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