Little Changes Today is a conservation themed blog with weekly informative posts aimed at suggesting how you can personally improve the planet. Posts include weekly articles, species information and other interesting information to allow you to become more informed about the natural world.
So there has been some good news recently in the conservation world. A species which has been experiencing a rapid unstoppable decline in its populations might be about to turn a corner.
The Tasmanian devil have suffered over a 80% decline in it's population since the original outbreak of DFTD or Devil facial tumour disease. This is a type of contagious cancer which grows on the faces of devils and expands till the individual eventually dies through starvation or suffocation.
There has been a lot of work attempting to find a cure for this disease so as to prevent the extinction of the species and recently research believe a solution has been found thanks to a evolutionary response due to the selection pressures DFTD is applying to the devil populations.
So it is a bank holiday weekend currently in the UK and
thanks to that I was able to get to West Midlands Safari Park and Cotsworld
wildlife park this weekend so because of this today's fact file will be based
around Zoos.
Zoos commit a lot of time money and effort towards the
conservation of certain endangered species, and in some cases without the input
from Zoos many of these species would either be extinct or nearer extinction. However
many endangered species aren’t represented in breeding schemes (95% of
threatened birds, 0.6% of threatened amphibians and only 3.5% of all threatened
species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species). These numbers are
extremely low. It is important to remember that these number can never be 100%
due to factors such as space and the fact that some species don’t lend
themselves to captivity.
Zoos can cause unusual problems for captive animals. This is
because they are a collection of animals from all over the world and most of
which don’t usually ever come into contact with each other. Therefore it is
possible for the transfer of new and unusual diseases and parasites to be
passed between animals. A classic example of this was when Asian and African
elephants were kept in the same enclosures many of the Asian elephants would
die as a type of elephant herpes would
be passed from host African elephants to the Asian ones, which were unable to
survive the infection unlike African elephants.
Zoos are a great source of education for all generations,
everyone remembers their childhood trip to the zoo with either their families
or school trips. In fact 175 million people visit zoos every year, and this
creates an income of $US 16 Billion annually from all zoos and aquariums
worldwide.
Finally many Zoos are trying to change the image created by
some other institutions which act as money sources. In fact in Australia four
Zoos (Taronga, Perth, Adelaide and Victoria zoo) are all acting as non-profit
organisations as when the running costs are recouped all profit is put into
conservation and welfare schemes.
So Zoos help and also neglect some issues but overall thanks to greater control and restrictions on animal welfare I believe they are a extremely useful conservation and education tool. What do you think?
There is a growing problem in some parts of the world, and
it is a problem which has already been faced in other regions where it turned
into a complete disaster, bushmeat. Hunting has always been present in human society with it
providing a key source of protein for many different cultures around the world, however like
everything with a growing population and economy it’s becoming more of an
issue.
Currently the main areas which have been affected by hunting
is lowland tropical forest that have been opened up to easy access due new forestry
roads and the increased availability of weapons which make hunting more efficient. Bushmeat began to become a problem in South East Asia just over 40 years
ago. Since then 12 vertebrates have been extirpated through over hunting driven
by the bushmeat demand within Asia. Bushmeat demand has now become a problem in the rich forests of Central Africa with
estimates of 1-3.4x106 tonnes begin harvested every single year many of which are primates and so are not being replaced due to slow breeding cycles. The trade is beginning to pick up in South America in countries such as Peru as well, with it expected to
become a major issue in that region in the next 10 years.
The bushmeat trade is mainly being driven by growing
economies. This happens because as rural populations move into urban areas and
become successful they still like traditional foods and as they can now
afford it bushmeats become a regular meal and so animals become harvested at an
unsustainable rate. For instance on the
Island of Bioko of the west coast of Africa is consuming over 100,000Kg of wild meat by some 80,000
inhabitants annually.
There is hope with some bushmeat however as long as they are
harvested sustainably. In South America studies have shown that many animals
such as peccary (a species of wild pig), grey brocket deer and paca can all be
harvested due to their r selected breeding systems, while tapir and many
primates will suffer if the same levels of bushmeat harvest were to continue.
It isn’t just the meat that wild animals are hunted for in
Java many thousands of snakes are captured every year to provide skins for the
fashion trade. Within living memory the average length of the large
constrictors has dropped by over a foot (from a little over 4ft to less than
3ft). This is a sad fact as until recently there had been a smaller call for
animal based fashion products since the protests in the 20th
century. These protests have slowly been forgotten about and I believe that
they is a need for a reminder of the pain fur and skin fashion industries cause
on wildlife.
Finally it’s important to remember that although bushmeat
usually refers to the collection of terrestrial meat, but can also be stretched
to include marine life as well. Due to the fact that both Japan and South Korea
refuse to monitor their marine bycatch market a large number of whales are
being caught and not reported, number from genetic data recently have suggested
that twice the numbers of whales which have been reported are being sold in
markets. This is due to the fact that a single whale has a worth in excess of
$100,000 and so it is economic greet and demand driving this trade.
So how can the effects of illegal and unsustainable bushmeat
harvesting be reduced? Well to start with more money needs to be spent in
developing rural areas so as the villages don’t have to resort to hunting as a
source of income. Currently in Peru for
example, the rural hunting sector is worth US
$1,131,910 annually so is see as
a profitable sector to enter and this is a view we need to change.
Secondly people need to be educated so as to understand that
these methods ‘they have always used’ are no longer an option simple due to the
large number of people wanting to practice them.
So if you read the post on Monday you would have heard about the excessive amounts of freshwater melting from the polar ice caps. To follow this on a article which has become available in Nature Communications has been using elephant seal behaviour to assess how the increased input of fresh water is changing the salinity of the sea water which in turns disrupts the great ocean currents.
So how did Elephant seals help this study? Well they were fitted with sensors which would record critical information whilst the seal is diving (sometimes up to 500m) and then proceeds to upload this information to satellites. This method of collecting information is extremely helpful as it can provide a near constant stream of information as opposed to if it was manly collected it would be slower, expensive and extremely time consuming.
So as I’ve just started a new job related to rivers this
week’s fact file will focus on the aquatic world.
Only 0.8% of the earth’s surface is covered with 0.01% of
the Earth’s water, despite the size of freshwater ecosystems they still contain
100,000 different described species (6% of all those known). It is also
believed that they is the potential for many more invertebrate species to yet
be discovered and even many other vertebrates left to be ‘discovered’.
Water debt is a serious problem, climate change is
disrupting the world’s distribution of fresh water and it is believed that by
2050 4.8 billion people will be at risk due to water stress. To put this in a
different way 45% of the total GDP in 2050 ($63 trillion) will be at risk due to the
lack of water, that’s 1.5x the current global economy. This would be mainly because of the lack of crop production.
In fact water is so important in densely populated areas
that the water is likely to be abstracted from the river treated, used, cleaned
and returned multiple times before it flows through its entire course. For instance
water in the Thames which passes through London is commonly used multiple times
and there have been proposals that in the future (2025 onward) it will pass through
at least seven people due to high demands.
Finally a fact not directly about rivers but one linked to
them, and a fact which is very sad. A team of UK researches has been analysing
satellite image of ice sheets and have recently concluded that 1 trillion
tonnes of ice has been lost from Greenland’s ice sheet from 2011-14. This loss
is believed to have been because of an increasing number of lakes (nearly 8000
more lakes from 2000-2013) forming on the surface of the ice sheets, due to increased temperatures, which
effect the stability of the ice.
Thanks for reading!
I hope these fact have created some food for thought about
why we need to protect all rivers globally not only for the natural world but
for humanity as well.
If you’ve liked this post please follow the blog and check back on Wednesday for another post.
To round off this Olympic week the creature we’ll be
learning about today is the national animal of Brazil, the jaguar.
Jaguars are the third largest feline in the world behind
tigers and lions; this also means that they are the largest cat in the
Americas. Unlike many of the other large cat species jaguars currently have
fairly sizable populations in different areas of South America and so a survey
in 2008 made the IUCN red list classify them as near threatened. This is due to
the ever increasing pressure being applied on the species through deforestation
because of illegal logging and other activities. Despite the sound of this
information though it is important for efforts to be made to protect and
conserve the jaguar, because as of 2002 54% of its historic range had been destroyed
and so there is a strong likelihood of a tipping point coming soon which will see
a drastic decrease in total populations driven by lack of habitat. This time
point is drawing ever closer as populations have been slowly decreasing since
2002.
Contrary to popular belief jaguars unlike other cats
actually enjoy water in fact a large amount of their diet is made up of fish,
turtles, capybaras and even caimans. However due to their original large range
which used to stretch from Argentina to Arizona the jaguar will take an
extremely wide variety of prey. It is common for jaguars to hunt on the ground
but not unheard of some animals taking up positions in trees which allows them
to pounce onto their unsuspecting prey from above. Once they have succeeded in
catching a prey item jaguars sometimes bury their prey so as to save it for
later.
Like the majority of big cats (excluding lions) jaguars are
solitary animals usually only coming together to breed. In Brazil, Peru,
Colombia and Mexico it is estimated that there are around 1.7-4 adults per
100km2 with males possessing territories which overlap several small
female territories.
Along with the habitat destruction which is creating heavily
fragmented populations which jaguars have to cope with there is also pressure
being applied through poaching. Up until the mid-1970s the jaguars coat was in
high demand, thankfully demand has declined to some extent. However there is
still a trade of jaguar parts for traditional medicine which has created a black
market for jaguar goods. Some jaguars are also being shot due to cattle farmers
claiming they cause a risk to their herds and so they are seen as a pest by
some.
As this is an Olympic themed post it’s sadly important to bring
to the attention to everyone what happened during the Olympic torch relay. In
the city of Manaus a jaguar escaped its handler in the ceremony that was taking
place. Despite then being shot with four tranquilizing dart the jaguar
proceeded to attack a soldier and was shot dead with a pistol. This is sadly
another example of when humans and wildlife simply don’t mix and we shouldn’t
be creating situations like this as it is believe the animal escaped and
attacked due to the stress it was being put under from being surrounded by
hundreds of people.
Hopefully although the jaguar is currently still in a stable
(ish) situation they will with the correct conservation effort remain at decent
total population number for many many more years to come.
Thanks for reading!
Check out this video of a jaguar hunting from classicgrag
So to continue the Olympic theme for this week I will be
bring you some information about the Zika virus. So this has been a subject
which has been hotly debated in the run up to the Olympics with many different
news headline and lots of Olympians refusing to compete in the event due to the
risk.
Hopefully if you read a couple of these links hopefully you’ll
be able to get a very basic understanding of what the Zika virus actually is. I
say basic but it’s important to remember however that very little is known or
understood about this virus.
The virus does have some history however as it didn’t first
appear in April 2015 (when it started appearing in the media). The virus was
actually first recognised in 1947 in the Zika forest of Uganda, it wasn’t till
1952 however that it’s first found in humans. It then was another 55 years till there was a
recognised significant outbreak of the disease in the Island of Yap (2007).
WHO website has a some interesting information on the virus
and is the place I suggest that you you start using this link.
In 2016 a article was published in The New England Journal
of Medicine which proved that it was indeed the virus which was the source of
birth defects in babies.
There has been good news on the Zika front recently however,
this article talks about the production of a test which uses saliva to
establish whether a patient is infected with the virus.
Finally this post from science alert was published a little
over 10 days ago and gives a slight insight into the stages at which vaccines
are which will bring Zika outbreaks under control (hopefully)
