WCS Opens New Home for Great Cats

Snow leopards now have their own exhibit at the Central Park Zoo, thanks to the WCS.

The Wildlife Conservation Society 6/11 opened a new exhibit at the Central Park Zoo. From the WCS website:

The exhibit’s design makes use of the latest behavioral enrichment ideas and technology. Hot rocks provide warmth during the winter; and shallow caves and trees offer shade in summer. Fog and a waterfall add ambient cooling and dramatic visual effect; rocks and deadfall encourage the cats to pounce and play.

The off-exhibit area will serve as the breeding area and can accommodate cubs. All the WCS snow leopards are a part of the Species Survival Program (SSP), which helps ensure healthy populations of select endangered species in zoos. WCS has been involved in the management of the snow leopard SSP for many years.

Updates from the Conservation Field

Here are some tasty tidbits I’d love to share with all of you:

• The Environmental Defense Fund wants you to meet America’s endangered species with their new ‘Warming and Wildlife’ program.  Find out about 7 species you can help today, including the polar bear, monarch butterfly and Canada lynx.

• The state of Florida Wednesday declared the peregrine falcon officially delisted. Due to past DDT use, populations dipped to 650 in 1965, down from 20,000 in the late 1930s. However, there are now more than 3,100 breeding pairs within Florida.

• On Monday, five non-profit organizations filed a complaint regarding the Great Lakes wolf delisting in Federal District Court.  The groups requested an injunction of a reinterpretation of the term ‘listing’–i.e. that delisting should not be implied.  Among the organizations were the HSUS and the Center for Biological Diversity.

More updates soon to come.

>>For now, follow my Endangered Species Coalition Twitter account.

A DA Resurrection

Dear Readers,

Being in school (including accelerated summer classes:-/)
has unfortunately taken a toll on my time to devote to
DA.  I am preparing more news release-style, vs. editorial, posts as I write this, which means DA will soon be a source of the latest-breaking issues and petitions being undertaken by different NGOs.

So sit tight–the new DA is almost here:)

The Year in (Gorilla) Numbers

This year remained dismal for 3 out of the 4 remaining gorilla species.

Mountain gorillas now number only 700.

Plenty Magazine’s Extinction Blog notes that the year entailed
the declaration of these species as endangered.
According to the post, only 700 mountain gorillas remain, with only
300 Cross River and 5,000 Eastern Lowland gorillas left.

The fourth, the Western Lowland gorilla, remains critically endangered
with a higher population, approximately 150,000.

Why all of this at once, and what, if anything, is being done about it?

Some reasons:

• Africa’s bushmeat industry
• Poaching
• Deforestation due to the logging and charcoal industries
• Disease

The UNEP Convention on Migratory Species (CMS),
in partnership with UNEP and UNESCO’s Great Ape Survival Partnership
(GRASP) program and the World Association of Zoos and
Aquariums (WAZA), have jointly declared 2009
Year of the Gorilla (YoG).

The three organizations will together fund research and awareness
campaigns.  Moreover, the 10 gorilla-populated regions will be
reviewing their anti-poaching laws for greater efficacy.

We will certainly be watching.
For more information:

• YoG 2009
• UNEP
• UNESCO

The Petition Record: Don’t Let Mexican Grey Wolves Pull Their Disappearing Act

With only 52 individuals left due to livestock industry pressure, the Mexican grey wolf is still suffering even after USFWS Southwestern reintroduction ten years ago.

However, the FWS currently faces 2 lawsuits and a poll showing a majority of AZ and NM residents support wolves.  View the results for yourself–then sign this Sierra Club petition today to get your voice heard and the wolves’ survival closer to guaranteed.

This petition currently has only about 3,600 signatures and requires 10,000.

Sign today and prevent the wolves’ disappearing act>>

Analysis: The War on Primates: Part 1

Two different primate species have recently shown us just how
fragile [area] ecosystems are.  Reports from TreeHugger
and Plenty Magazine came flowing in about the newly-endangered status
of orangutans in Indonesia.  The cause: rainforest habitat destruction
due to palm oil harvests for EU biofuels, at the rate of 300 football fields per hour, to feed an 88% demand increase that is still growing.  Never mind that Indonesia’s amount of CO2 emissions at this
deforestation rate amounts to 400 mega-tons annually.

As if that wasn’t enough, the same sources reported here and here that a fledgling Tanzanian primate genus, known as the kipunji, is now threatened
due to the same effect, but for illegal logging.
Now only 1,117 in number, the kipunji was discovered 3 years ago,
and its two populations are described in science journal Oryx’s July interviews with experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Environmental Sciences Research Centre as “[not] viable” and “degraded”.  Their recommendation for the genus’ status listing was as ‘Critically Endangered’.

In these situations, there is no time for obvious questions.
Instead, we need answers to important ones, such as,
Why are there no protections against Indonesian deforestation
for the orangutans? And, how has the kipunji population been allowed
to deteriorate, leaving its numbers as fragmented as they are?
Moreover, who in Tanzania is getting away with illegal logging?

There are no easy answers to such stark observations.
The Indonesian government must either allow amendments, or the orangutans will inevitably be left at the gentle hands of wildlife rescuers.
But it shouldn’t come to that.

And any loophole that allows for Tanzanian illegal logging needs to be
investigated and prevented–at the risk of losing one of our planet’s newest and most unique creatures.

The Petition Record: Alaska’s Grey Wolves Threatened by Aerial Gunning

Defenders of Wildlife needs 4,000 more signatures to reach its 60,000 goal to help Alaska’s grey wolves, threatened by aerial gunning.  The Federal Airborne Hunting Act exists to prevent this very threat, and Rep. George Miller (CA) is currently working to introduce amendments to this act to prevent hunters from exploiting its loopholes.

Make a difference today: Sign the petition here.

Lessons Learned from the Grey Wolf, Polar Bear Campaigns

Recently the grey wolf’s return to the Endangered Species List has been the buzz of enviro bloggers everywhere.  Several non-profits, including EarthJustice, Defenders of Wildlife, The Sierra Club and the Humane Society, sued the U.S. government over the Administration’s sudden removal, which had apparently been urged by several Wyoming hunters and ranchers.
This victory clearly demonstrates the power of non-profits against the Bush Administration’s industry-bent decisions.

While huge for the non-profits involved, the situation also demonstrates several things: namely, the close ties of industry to these issues; and a species’ vulnerability to it.

The environmental front learned this the hard way with the government’s failure to place polar bears on the Endangered Species List (due, naturally, to oil industry pressure), as such a placement would require protections from habitat damage (read: No ANWR drilling).  As an amendment, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowed what it defined as ‘nonlethal, incidental, unintentional take’ of walruses and polar bears.  ‘Take’ in their eyes means to succeed or attempt to ‘harass, hunt, capture, or kill’ either of these animals.

Mother Jones’ Blue Marble hit the nail on the head: ‘Fish and Wildlife has just authorized oil companies to accidentally harass, hunt, and capture polar bears.’

That’s right, accidentally. While the wolf case was a 100% victory, the polar bear one still remains to be corrected.   Therefore this species is still extremely vulnerable.

What’s left to muse on is this: If species protection can be taken away by the whinings of a few dissenters, we need to keep our ears and eyes open, and hope that whatever action needs to be taken, it turns out as effective as it proved to be for the wolf campaign.