Saving the Arabain Oryx and some sensitive ears.

Hello and welcome to my latest blog, I hope you have all been well since the last time I updated on here. Regular readers may remember a feature which focused on raising awareness of species in endanger of becoming extinct. In this edition I start a new feature Conservation success stories, where I focus on some of the successful conservation projects which have brought species back from the brink and highlight the work and dedication of passionate conservationists. Also in this update is the next instalment of the feature "senses" this time focusing on species which possess an incredible sense of hearing. As always I hope you enjoy the blog.

 Saving the Arabian Oryx Oryx leucoryx

 It's the early 1960's and the Arabian Oryx looks doomed centuries of suffering through habitat loss and hunting have brought about a decline so severe it looks like there is no way back and now, as a result of the availability of military surplus equipment, enabling trophy hunters to pursue their targets in four by four vehicles, the last of the wild population of Arabian Oryx in Arabia has just been claimed, by 1972 the species is declared extinct in the wild. Something needs to be done to save the species urgently to stop them disappearing of the face of the planet completely, the species needs a saviour and it's about to find one in the shape of Phoenix Zoo. This is the how the Arabian Oryx teetered on the edge of extinction and survived.   

Phoenix Zoo is credited with saving the Arabian Oryx from extinction, while wild populations were being decimated into oblivion; history was being made the project to help establish the first captive breeding heard in any zoo had already begun. Starting with only 9 animals in the year of 1962, the number increased slowly at first by the middle of 1964; what had become known as the "world herd" was now made up of eleven individuals. The year of 1982 signalled the re-introduction of the first of the new population of wild Arabain Oryx. By 1990 the number of wild Arabian Oryx had increased to over 1300, 112 of which had originally been captively bred and successfully released back into their native lands. The reintroduction process had not been a straight forward process, social groups needed to be firmly established alongside the familiarisation process of becoming used to new terrain and vegetation. To do this, individuals prior to being released were kept in fenced enclosures and were then progressed through a series of larger enclosures before they were at last free to roam the deserts of Jordan and Oman once more. It was necessary to establish social groups and after transportation, allow the Oryx to establish familiarity with local terrain and vegetation. The Oryx were initially confined to fenced enclosures and before being progressed through larger and larger enclosures before their final release into the deserts of Jordan and Oman. Further evidence of the remarkable turn around in fortunes of the species can be identified through its gradual re classification on the IUCN redlist. Once "Extinct in the Wild" the species is now classed as "Vulnerable" with a wild population of over 1000 individuals.

The fact this beautiful antelope once again roams at least some of its former range signals one of the great conservation success stories. Had it not been for the passion and dedication of some inspirational people this famous antelope would almost certainly have been consigned to the history books like so many species before it. Stories like this show that despite the problems caused by some groups of people there will always be others with a burning desire to right the wrongs and save a species surely giving hope for other species dicing with extinction.

http://www.phoenixzoo.org/learn/animals/animal_detail.aspx?FACT_SHEET_ID=100003 http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198204/the.yalooni.transfer.htm Senses:

http://www.goodzoos.com/Animals/oryx.htm
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/20101115oryx-phoenix-zoo-jordan.html?nclick_check=1

5 fantastic senses of hearing.

1) Quite simply the Bat - Eared Fox Otocyon megalotis is an extraordinary predator with an incredible pair of ears, which may grow up to 5.3 inches long. These ears are essential for hunting and can detect the sounds of feeding termites on short grass or larvae chewing their through their dung beetle ball underground. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/animal-guides/animal-guide-bat-eared-fox/3249/ 2)

2) The Great Grey Owl Strix nebulosa, surely one of the most beautiful birds in the natural world is another predator which owns an outstanding sense of hearing, essential for detecting its rodent prey under the thick snow. http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-great-grey-owl.html

3) African Elephant Loxodonta africana of course no section on hearing could be written without this most iconic of species being included. These magnificent animals have the ability to hear each other’s calls and subsequently reply to it from over 4 kilometres away. http://elephant.elehost.com/About_Elephants/Senses/Hearing/hearing.html 

Image taken by author.

4) The Tiger Moth Arctiidae has evolved remarkably to deal with the threat of predation by bats. Their hearing is so sensitive they can hear the ultrasonic chirps of bats resulting in them being able to escape their predators. http://largestfastestsmartest.co.uk/animals-with-the-best-sense-of-hearing-in-the-world/

5) Pigeons as a family (also in the same family as Doves), have remarkable hearing, able to detect sounds at frequencies as low as 0.1 Hz. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/amaze.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Dove

That is all on this occasion everyone, I really hope you enjoyed this blog and be sure to keep an eye out for the next one, have a good week! George.

A new series and a disgusting trade.

  Hello and welcome to my latest blog, hope you have all been well and enjoying everything life has to offer. I have been very busy with coursework and also with writing my entry for the BBC wildlife travel writing competition, more on that in the weeks to come. This edition marks the start of a new series Senses, which will highlight the incredible adaptions of nature which never fail to amaze us. This week smell is chosen sense, prepare to be amazed by the capabilities of the animals and birds we share the planet with. I also look at a trade which sadly shows no sign of stopping and can be described best as inhumane and sickening. As always I hope you enjoy the blog.


                                     5 Super sensitive noses

1) Sharks are one of the top predators in the underwater world and a keen sense of smell is hugely effective for locating prey. A shark can detect one drop of blood in a million drops of water and can smell blood from a quarter of a mile away ( Enchanted Learning 2013).


http://oceanlink.island.net/biodiversity/shark/shark.html

2) The Spotted Hyena Crocuta crocuta has a keen sense of smell and is able to detect a carcass from several kilometres away ( Predator Conservation Trust 2013).

3) The American BisonBison bison has such an acute sense of smell,it can detect other animals from over two kilometres away which can prove to give valuable early warning about the approach of predators (American Bison Online 2007).




Natural History Notebooks 2007


4) The Polar Bear Ursus maritimus, surely has one of the most amazing senses of smell in the animal kingdom. Food can be scarce for this top predator so being able to pick up the scent of a seal from five miles away is an invaluable asset.Even being hidden under snow and ice up to three feet thick is not enough to prevent a seal from being detected from this Arctic hunter (Petersen 2008).


 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

5) Several species of Fruit Bat from the genus Pteropus, has the ability to seek our over ripe fruit as a result of their long muzzles which provides plenty of room for olfactory receptors. The tree or bush from where the fruit is fed upon as a result is kept healthy and free of problematic Fruit Flys Tephritidae (Petersen 2008).

                            A disgusting trade.

The pictures do the talking in this highlighting a truly vile trade. Why people think this is an acceptable way to treat any living creature is incredible. The driving force behind this trade is of course human greed and until something is done to ban this most horrendous market, there will always be people who are either uninformed about the suffering of the animal or whose only concern is to jump on the bandwagon of the next must have craze regardless of the suffering it may cause to continue to fund an obscene trade.

http://www.examiner.com/article/china-vendors-selling-live-turtle-and-fish-keychains

That's all from me this week, I hope you enjoyed it and have a good rest of the week,
George .

Quick update.

Hello everyone sorry it has taken me so long to give write this however time has been limited recently with coursework and work taking priority. This edition really is as the title suggests a quick update as to what I have been up to recently. I hope you all have been enjoying the dry but colder weather recently ! so without further delay here is the latest edition !

    Plovers, news and humour.

On a recent excursion to a nearby seaside town I was surprised and pleased to see a Ringed Plover confidently patrolling the pavements picking up scraps of food no doubt dropped y passing pedestrians. I watched for several minutes as it seemed unfazed by the strange bipedal creatures which shared its adopted feeding station. Eventually it it moved off, most likely in search of more dropped tasty morsels.
 
 http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=HMKWDLzsqaSehM&tbnid=uZRMrw18qClRbM:&ved=0CAQQjB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.birdforum.net%2Fopus%2FRinged_Plover&ei=LEUuUdDmFuXV4gSp04GYCQ&bvm=bv.42965579,d.d2k&psig=AFQjCNFX_kkgXM-6u31-Gteot6xJTJyx-Q&ust=1362073252914970


 Flights booked! my return to South Africa has picked up pace with the confirmation of my flight to Durban. I will be out there for a little over two weeks to work with some of the most endangered large carnivores on the planet the African Wild Dog. This is a project I am very excited about participating in and hopefully in some way contributing towards making a   difference in  the conservation of this most incredible predator.



Image taken by author

I was pleased to hear that the Zambian government has recently banned the trophy hunting of Leopards and Lions. The government received an income of 3 million dollars a year from the "sport" which was deemed not enough to justify the impact this has on wildlife. Tourism minister Sylvia Masebo had this to say "why should we lose our animals for 3 million dollars a year? the revenue we get from tourists is much higher".
Source BBC Wildlife magazine March 2013.

A source of amusement via Mathew Button

This is really funny have a look at this !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lOhvS-xyrA

And this as well I'm sure there are people out there that can relate to this !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ffwDYo00Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ffwDYo00Q

Thats all from me for this week untill the next time take it easy and thanks for reading,
George.

Jaguars, Madagascars Mighty Mitsinjo and a little from myself.

Hello and welcome to the long overdue latest edition to my blog, I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and New Year. Time has been limited with the strain of preparing for exams taking its toll and therefore my priorities have had to be academic, but I am back now and hopefully this edition will be worth the wait. We are lucky to have a guest article written by Matt Ward on Madagascars Mighty Mitsinjo, which resolves around the amphibian crisis and the work being done to try and save them, Matt is extremely knowledgeable on the subject having himself travelled to Madagascar and has also given many lectures around England on the subject, needless to say his report is well worth a read. Other sections include my observations on anything involving the natural world and the ten facts on this time focuses on one of the biggest but also one of the most elusive members of the cat family, the Jaguar, as ever I hope you enjoy the blog.

                                                      Ten facts on : Jaguar Panthera onca

1) The very name Jaguar originates from the native Americans word Yaguar, which translated means "he who kills with one leap".

2  Jaguars break the trend from many other cat species as a result of their tolerance of water, in fact Jaguars are excellent swimmers and will even do some of their hunting in water.

3 The diet of the Jaguar is widely varied, prey species include ;Fish, Turtles, Caimans, Birds,Deer, Peccaries, Capybaras, and Tapirs.

4 The range of the Jaguar has significantly decreased over time, once found to roam from the southern tip of America right down down to the northern end of the region surrounding the U.S -Mexico border, nowadays however the only large populations of the species can be found in small regions of Central and South America in particular the Amazon basin.

 

5 The major threats facing Jaguars include habitat destruction, which then has a knock on effect to how Jaguars hunt as they are sometimes forced to encroach onto cattle ranchers land, sometimes taking their livestock. This then leads to conflict as the cattle ranches retaliate. Jaguars are also persecuted for their beautiful fur, which has played a huge part in the decline in their population.

6_ Jaguars are closely related to Leopards Panthera pardus, however they are both heavier and sturdier than them, and it has been said that Jaguars have the most powerful bite out of all the big cat family.

7 Like fingerprints are unique to humans the rosettes which appear on the Jaguars fur coat are also identical to them, this helps to provide excellent camouflage. It has been noticed that Jaguars who inhabit denser rainforest, tend to be be both smaller and size and darker in colouration than individuals who prefer to spend greater amounts of time in more exposed, open areas.

8) Male individuals territories may overlap with numerous females, however they are fiercely territorial with other males. Marking of their territories may be done through three main ways of defining the borders of their territory to potential intruders through scent marking, visual signals such as scratching on trees and through vocal communication.

9 Cubs are usually born between the months of December and March however it is not unusual for them to be born at other times of the year. Usually the number of young born is two to three and are born blind. Just after  two weeks  they open their eyes for the first time and rely on their mother solely to provide them with food for the first six months of their lives, after which they will start to follow their mother on hunts. It will take at least another six months however for them to start to look for a territory of their own.

10) The Jaguar is listed by the IUCN as a species which is threatened in its surrounding environment, it is estimated there are 15,000  thousand wild individuals left prowling the rainforests.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=5WaCx-aZJWWlXM&tbnid=tmrVFk6js3mfpM:&ved=0CAQQjB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fanimals.nationalgeographic.com%2Fanimals%2Fmammals%2Fjaguar%2F&ei=VMYCUajwMoSp0AWZ0YCwCQ&bvm=bv.41524429,d.d2k&psig=AFQjCNGAA9JccWGi4LP-DawX30rMFFydVQ&ust=1359222732107378

All facts in this section were originally sourced from : a-z animals and National Geographic.

                                                           Madagascars Mighty Mitsinjo - By Matt Ward

In the town of Andasibe, Madagascar, there is a new facility built in 2011 for the protection of the countries extremely rare amphibians. The Mitsinjo (Mit-sin-zoo) association, meaning community in local Betsimasarek language, was born from the desire of local people wanting to conserve the wildlife of the rainforest that the government wasn’t prepared to and the influence of some western scientists with the drive to help. After the purchase of some land and a few years of guiding tourists a German conservation called Rainer Dolch helped the association to improve their conservation work by starting the reforestation of large empty patches of land with natural primary forest trees grown in their own nursery. In 2011 however more foreign scientists were brought in to help the association with the protection of their local amphibians. Whilst the local guides were very knowledgeable about how to find these species they didn’t have the biological knowledge of how to keep them or recognise when they were under threat.

For the past 50 years a killer fungus has been spreading across the globe killing all amphibians in its way and the spread has sped up in the past two decades. This fungus called Bataracachytridium dendrobatidis (Chytrid for short) is found in every country with amphibians except for 3, one of which is Madagascar. Due to the aquatic lifestyle of the fungus, its hyper aggressive spread speed and its contagiousness if it was to get into the rainforest of Madagascar it would almost certainly cause catastrophic damage and kill at least 80% of the national population.  This is one of the reasons that the global conservation group the Amphibian Ark helped to initiate the installation of an amphibian conservation centre in Madagascar. Madagascars wildlife is under massive threat from destruction of habitat and illegal poaching and the threat of a fatal fungus could push the frogs (Madagascars only amphibian order) over the edge, 98% of which are endemic and many are even locally endemic to areas of only a few hundred hectares.

At the end of 2010 construction started on the facility in the heart of the rainforest with the idea being a three roomed concrete laboratory. The construction was finished in May 2011, with one room designated for the rearing of frog food (3 cricket species and fruit flies), one room to be a breeding room with terrariums for the frog populations and a quarantine room for new animals, research, hatching and sick animals. A team of 7 local technicians were trained by some of the world’s amphibian experts in the building of terrariums, breeding of live prey and monitoring frog behaviour to detect disease and stress. After 2 weeks of the building being completed the first populations to be introduced were all local, non-endangered species, in order to develop a smooth operating system and help train the native technicians. After only 4 weeks with the initial stock of 5 species, 4 of them had produced egg clutches with all females laying. The tadpoles were then used in a research project to identify the best food source to increase survivorship and vigour. After a few months in operation the government then announced that they had sold a large part of forest to the mining company and therefore were going to have to relocate some frogs which came into the new Mitsinjo facility. This turned out to be 140 critically endangered Golden Mantella, a species only found in 4 areas of the eastern rainforest marshes. Although the facility was fairly new they took on the new population and are now successfully breeding them with intent to release back into the wild upon location of ideal habitat. The association also do bi-annual disease surveys to try and find any cases of chytrid before it is too late and also population surveys to keep up to date information on the wild species. Thanks to the rapid expansion of the Mitsinjo associations conservation work and their collective knowledge and experience of the countries wildlife they have made lots of influential friends. Including being used by the BBC multiple times, ITV, National Geographic, Arkive and a host of zoos around the world including Durrel and Henry Dorley Omaha and being recognised by the conservation organisations in awards for their work against the destruction of this biodiversity hotspot.

 

                                                A final word from myself.

Make sure you give the bird life in your back garden all the help you can to get through the cold winter your help will make a big difference to their fortunes. If your patient enough you could be rewarded with some wonderful sightings, two of note in our own garden include a pair of Blackcaps Sylvia atricapilla ( males and females can be easily distinguished between by the colour of their caps as the name suggests, the males is black while the females is a lovely looking chestnut colour).  The other stand out sighting recently was a striking looking Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula , which I was disappointed to miss out on seeing as they are one of my favourite garden birds.
Has anyone been  watching the rather spectacular new wildlife series on the BBC "Africa" ? Personally one of my highlights of the series so far has to be the amazing scenes of Agama Lizards Agama agama, hunting flys on the backs of Lions Panthera leo! amazing television and of course narrated by Sir David Attenborough, always makes a series extra special, will there ever be someone  who equals his endless list of achievements? probably not.
That's it for this week I hope you enjoyed it and keep an eye out next Friday, for the next edition as from now on I am back to a normal schedule!
Have a great weekend,
George.