30 Dec 2016
Record-shattering birds stay in air for 10 months: Study
A common swift (Image courtesy: Wikipedia/Creative Commons)
Endangered or vulnerable? Cheetah numbers decline as African habitat shrinks
Highlights
- Conservationists are sounding alarm bells for the cheetah, the fastest animal on land.
- An estimated 7,100 cheetahs remain in the __wild across Africa and in a small area of Iran.
- Human encroachment has pushed the wide-ranging predator out of 91 percent of its historic habitat.
A couple of cheetahs are photographed in the Tamboti Game Reserve, near Lephalale, South Africa. (AP Photo)
25 Dec 2016
Poaching alert: 76 tigers dead this year
Highlights
- As many as 76 tiger deaths have been reported in the country from January to October this year
- Madhya Pradesh tops the list, accounting for nearly a third of all mortalities
- Karnataka, which boasts the highest tiger population among states, was in second spot with 13 deaths
47 of 68 fish species in India under threat, says study
Highlights
- The vulnerability stems not only from changes in climate but from fishing pressure and lower productivity
- Sea surface temperature rose by between 0.50.8C along the Indian coast since 1975
Representative image
Prize Murrah bull Yuvraj set to be star attraction at global agri show
Yuvraj, worth crores, has fathered over 1.5 lakh calves through sperm donations.
Environmentalists welcome Uttarakhand HC order banning killing of big cats
Representative image (PTI photo)
'Many more' corals die in Great Barrier Reef bleaching
An undated handout photo received from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Stu... Read More
World's last wild frankincense forests are under threat
Cliffs near Daalo in the Cal Madow mountains in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. The last wild frank... Read More
Highly-contagious bird flu found in Japan, culling start
Health officials investigate a chicken farm in Sekikawa village, northern Japan, after a highly contagious avi... Read More
21 Dec 2016
Major restaurant chain follows our advice and commits to improve chicken welfare
Panera is one of the first major restaurant brands in the United States to announce an __animal welfare commitment of this magnitude
We welcome the commitment made by bakery and café chain Panera Bread to improve the welfare of the chickens in its supply chain. The move follows our work helping the company identify ways to make change for chickens.
Panera’s commitment includes much-needed __animal welfare measures. This includes the use of slower-growing chicken breeds, providing birds with more space, and offering improved living environments with natural lighting and enrichment.
Priscilla Ma, our US executive director, said: “We applaud Panera Bread for this industry-leading commitment to give chickens better lives.
“We’re honoured to have had the opportunity to work with the company in identifying opportunities to improve animal welfare practices, and the steps Panera is taking will have a significant positive impact for chickens. We echo Panera’s call to the wider food industry to work together to bring about sustainable change that chickens need and consumers want.”
Panera is one of the first major restaurant brands in the United States to announce an animal welfare commitment of this magnitude for broiler chickens. Pret A Manger, Compass Group USA, Aramark, and Perdue Foods, the country’s fourth-largest national poultry producer, have also announced commitments this year to improve broiler chicken welfare.
On average, 60 billion meat chickens are raised for global consumption each year. An estimated two-thirds of these animals (40 billion) live in overcrowded sheds or cages with little or no natural light or fresh air, unable to perform many natural behaviors, such as foraging, perching, and dustbathing.
Many chickens will experience painful conditions including lameness, and suffering overworked hearts and lungs as a result of an unnatural growth rate. They can also suffer wounds, skin sores and burns from spending too long in wet, poorly managed litter.
By committing to practical improvements that directly address these severe animal welfare problems, food companies can transform the welfare of the chickens in their supply chain.
Through our Change for chickens campaign, we're calling on major food retailers including KFC, to improve the welfare of the billions of chickens farmed for meat around the world.
We're calling for:
- the use of chicken breeds that grow at a slower, more natural rate
- more living space for chickens
- more enrichments for chickens to engage with and explore, such as perches and hay bales
- the introduction of natural light in sheds
Priscilla added: “Panera is implementing the far-reaching change for chickens that we’re hoping for from the food industry at large.
“Through the cage-free egg movement, consumers have shown that animal welfare is important to them in their purchasing decisions, and today’s businesses must take this into account. Importantly, Panera has also committed to reporting publicly on its progress in implementing its animal welfare commitments, and we look forward to following the company’s progress.”
16 Dec 2016
Reindeer are shrinking: warming threatens Xmas icon
Reindeers belonging to Vilhelmina Norra Sameby run during a reindeer herding near Dikanaess village, outside S... Read More
Centre proposes strict rules to regulate pet shops in India
Highlights
- The rules make it mandatory for all pet shop owners to register themselves with the State Animal Welfare Board of the respective State govt/UT
- The rules define space requirement for birds, cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea pig, hamster, rats and mice in the pet shops.
(Representative image)
Ancient trees at China's famous Mountain get digital ID cards
Highlights
- About 20,000 ancient trees on the renowned Mount Tai in east China's Shandong Province now have "digital ID cards".
- The cards will provide a range of info about the environment, climate, diseases & pests.
- The system can calculate whether a tree is healthy, weak or dying.
The sacred Mount Tai in east China's Shandong Province. (Image courtesy: Twitter/@chinaorgcn)
One lakh ducks to be culled in Kerala, says Kerala animal husbandry minister K Raju
(Representative image)
7 Dec 2016
Indonesia expands protection for peatlands, climate
The product conceptualized by Shyam Bedekar and implemented by his wife Swati is an eco-friendly incinerator m... Read More
6 Dec 2016
Open Philanthropy $500k grant will help us improve millions of pigs’ lives in China
The Open Philanthropy Project has granted us US$500,000 to help create better lives for millions of pigs. We’ll pilot higher welfare pig farms, and increase engagement with the public and key decision makers to improve life for pigs in China
The Open Philanthropy Project, a philanthropic organisation currently focussing on farm __animal welfare, has chosen to invest half a million US dollars in our farming campaign. The grant will allow us to effectively work with producers, retailers, civil society and __animal welfare bodies in China, and ultimately create better lives for millions of pigs.
Suffering on a huge scale
As global demand for pork increases, pork producers are lowering animal welfare standards in an attempt to sell as much as possible, in the shortest amount of time.
China is the world’s largest pork producer, rearing around half of the world’s pigs every year – around 700 million animals.
Sows and piglets on the Yue Gangs' farm in Beijing, China
To keep costs low, many of these pigs are farmed in industrial systems. Sows are confined to narrow stalls for most of their lives, where they can’t even turn around and will never see daylight.
The growth in large-scale industrial farming has resulted in poor welfare for hundreds of millions of pigs around the world.
How will the grant help pigs?
The grant by the Open Philanthropy Project is set to:
- pilot and promote higher-welfare pig farming solutions with leading Chinese pork producers
- engage and influence food retailers to improve the welfare of the pigs in their supply chains
- influence the government to implement higher welfare standards
- educate the public about the suffering of pigs in low welfare systems and raise consumer demand for higher welfare pork products.
Lewis Bollard, Farm animal Welfare Program Officer, at Open Philanthropy Project says: "This is a great opportunity to shape the future of farm animal welfare in China. We’re excited to be supporting World Animal Protection’s work to promote the adoption of higher-welfare pig farming models in China."
An important investment for pigs
Jonty Whittleton, our Director of campaigns for animals in farming, says: "Due to extreme boredom and frustration, these highly intelligent and social animals often show abnormal behaviour such as bar biting. They suffer poor health from lack of exercise and from lying on hard, uncomfortable floors. The crowded conditions that growing pigs are reared in can lead to the spread of infection, increasing the need for antibiotics.
"We welcome the investment by the Open Philanthropy Project, which will play a key role in driving the adoption of higher welfare group-housing systems in China. Our work in China is good news for pigs and for businesses, improving the bond of trust between consumers, retailers and producers."
Further progress for farm animals
We already work with businesses to improve the lives of farm animals, such as Brasil Foods (BRF), one of the world’s largest pork producers. This partnership has led to a commitment to eliminate stalls for the 365,000 sows in its supply chain by 2026, which will allow the animals much more freedom to express normal behaviours.
We look forward to helping even more animals through partnerships, using the Open Philanthropy grant.
Read more about our partnership with BRF.
4 Dec 2016
Migrating birds travel faster in spring: Study
(Representative image) Researchers found that the birds speed up during spring because arriving late to their breeding grounds can affect their reproductive success.
Past studies have shown that migrants take shorter breaks in spring, but it is harder to tell whether they also move faster in the air.
Researchers at the University of Oklahoma in the US used high-tech weather surveillance radars and found that birds did indeed fly faster in spring and compensated more for crosswinds that could blow them off course.
"Many migration studies look at a few individuals, maybe on the scale of hundreds, but with radar, we're now documenting the behaviours of millions of individuals on a given night," said Kyle Horton of Oklahoma.
"That's a lot of data, and when you do see flight behaviour results that are regionally or seasonally different, it is quite compelling," said Horton.
He hopes birds' ability to adjust their migratory behaviour for different conditions will buffer them against the effects climate change, which may cause large-scale shifts in wind intensity.
The study was published in journal The Auk: Ornithological Advances.
Giant panda is no longer endangered, experts say
(AP photo) The International Union for Conservation of Nature said in a report released on Sunday that the panda is now classified as a "vulnerable" instead of "endangered" species, reflecting its growing numbers in the __wild in southern China. It said the __wild panda population jumped to 1,864 in 2014 from 1,596 in 2004, the result of work by Chinese agencies to enforce poaching bans and expand forest reserves.
The IUCN report warned that although better forest protection has helped increase panda numbers, climate change is predicted to eliminate more than 35 percent of its natural bamboo habitat in the next 80 years, potentially leading to another decline.
Still, animal groups hailed the recovery of the bamboo-gobbling, black-and-white bear that has long been a symbol of China and the global conservation movement.
The panda population reached an estimated low of less than 1,000 in the 1980s due to poaching and deforestation until Beijing threw its full weight behind preserving the animal, which has been sent to zoos around the world as a gesture of Chinese diplomatic goodwill.
The Chinese government and the World Wildlife Fund first established the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan province in 1980. wild panda numbers have slowly rebounded as China cracked down on the skin trade and gradually expanded its protected forest areas to now cover 1.4 million hectares (5,400 square miles).
International groups and the Chinese government have worked to save wild pandas and breed them at enormous cost, attracting criticism that money could be better spent saving other animals facing extinction.
But the WWF, whose logo has been a panda since 1961, celebrated the panda's re-classification, saying it proved that aggressive investment does pay off "when science, political will and engagement of local communities come together."
China's State Forestry Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
India records highest number of tiger seizure: Report
Highlights
- According to a report by wildlife trade monitor, India has recorded the highest number of seizure of tigers and parts among all 13 tiger range countries
- The report said India has observed a rapid decrease in number of seizures reported since 2010.
- The highest number of seizures was recorded in 2009 & the lowest in 2013.
Four of six great apes species face extinction
Four of the six great apes - Eastern Gorilla, Western Gorilla, Bornean Orangutan and Sumatran Orangutan - are now listed as Critically Endangered, that is, they are only one step away from going extinct. The remaining two - Chimpanzee and Bonobo - also under considerable threat of extinction and are listed as Endangered.
"To see the Eastern gorilla - one of our closest cousins - slide towards extinction is truly distressing," says Inger Andersen, IUCN Director General. "We live in a time of tremendous change and each IUCN Red List update makes us realize just how quickly the global extinction crisis is escalating. Conservation action does work and we have increasing evidence of it. It is our responsibility to enhance our efforts to turn the tide and protect the future of our planet."
This latest IUCN Red List update also reports the decline of the Plains Zebra due to illegal hunting, and the growing extinction threat to Hawaiian plants posed by invasive species. Thirty eight of the 415 endemic Hawaiian plant species assessed for this update are listed as Extinct and four other species have been listed as Extinct in the Wild, meaning they only occur in cultivation.
The IUCN Red List now includes 82,954 species of which 23,928 are threatened with extinction.
The Eastern Gorilla (Gorilla beringei) is made up of two subspecies. Grauer's Gorilla (G. b. graueri), one subspecies of Eastern Gorilla - has lost 77% of its population since 1994, declining from 16,900 individuals to just 3,800 in 2015. Killing or capture of great apes is illegal; yet hunting represents the greatest threat to Grauer's Gorillas. The second subspecies of Eastern Gorilla - the Mountain Gorilla (G. b. beringei) -is faring better and has increased in number to around 880 individuals.
The once widespread and abundant Plains Zebra (Equus quagga) has moved from Least Concern to Near Threatened. The population has reduced by 24% in the past 14 years from around 660,000 to a current estimate of just over 500,000 animals. Three species of antelope found in Africa - Bay Duiker (Cephalophus dorsalis), White-bellied Duiker (Cephalophus leucogaster) and Yellow-backed Duiker (Cephalophus silvicultor) - have moved from Least Concern to Near Threatened.
"Illegal hunting and habitat loss are still major threats driving many mammal species towards extinction," says Carlo Rondinini, Coordinator of the mammal assessment at Sapienza University of Rome "We have now reassessed nearly half of all mammals. While there are some successes to celebrate, this new data must act as a beacon to guide the conservation of those species which continue to be under threat."
This update of The IUCN Red List also brings some good news and shows that conservation action is delivering positive results.
Previously listed as Endangered, The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is now listed as Vulnerable, as its population has grown due to effective forest protection and reforestation. The improved status confirms that the Chinese government's efforts to conserve this species are effective.
Similarly, the Tibetan Antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) has moved from Endangered to Near Threatened. The population underwent a severe decline from around one million to an estimated 65,000-72,500 in the 1980s and early 1990s. This was the result of commercial poaching for the valuable underfur - shahtoosh - which is used to make shawls. It takes 3-5 hides to make a single shawl, and as the wool cannot be sheared or combed, the animals are killed. Rigorous protection has been enforced since then, and the population is currently likely to be between 100,000 and 150,000.
Other conservation successes include the Greater Stick-nest Rat (Leporillus conditor) and the Bridled Nailtail Wallaby (Onychogalea fraenata), both endemic to Australia.
10 birds die in Deer Park, anti-virus operation ordered
A Zoo staff member covers his face while spraying chemicals to prevent the Bird Flu (H5N1 avian influenza viru... Read More
2 Dec 2016
New species of pika found in Sikkim
File photo of Pika (Via AP) Identified as 'Ochotona sikimaria' -- the new pika species was discovered by the study based on genetic data and skull measurements. The study has been published in the journal 'Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'.
These members of the rabbit family look like tailless rats and have been in the news in North America for their sensitivity to impacts of climate change, like increasing temperature, which has caused several of the populations in pika series go extinct.
Nishma Dahal, the first author of the paper, started by collecting pika pellets to get its DNA and identify the species. On comparing the DNA sequences from the pellets with that of all known pika species in the world, she saw that these were quite different.
To prove that this is indeed a new species, she had to compare the Sikkim pika to its close relatives. It took two years for collaborations with researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zoological Museum of Moscow and Stanford University to get detailed data on these possible sister species.
"Pikas are among the most fascinating mammalian species. Unlike other mammalian species inhabiting such harsh environments, pikas do not hibernate. They prepare for winter by collecting and storing hay piles for their winter food.
"We must investigate their vulnerability to increasing global temperature. To do so we must better understand their ecology and population dynamics. Such information is lacking for Asia pikas," Dahal said.
The new species appears limited to Sikkim. The National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) team searched for Sikkim pika in other Himalayan regions including Arunachal Pradesh, Central Nepal (Annapurna and Langtang), Ladakh and Spiti without success.
Surveys in Bhutan, neighbouring regions of eastern Nepal and China are pending and will require international collaboration.
Apart from genetic data, the study also included morphological and ecological data of this species. With its sisters as earlier, this pika was thought to be a subspecies of the Moupin pika.
The new NCBS research reveals that while it looks similar, it is actually very distinct from the Moupin pika from genetic and ecological perspective. Such discordance between genetics and morphology has never been reported in pikas.
"Pikas are ecosystem engineers, and we must understand more about them so we can effectively protect them in the future" said Uma Ramakrishnan, whose laboratory at NCBS led the study.
Bangladesh zoo throws wedding for lions with meat cake
Some 400 guests attended the reception laden with balloons on Wednesday for long-time resident and lioness Nova and newcomer Nabha at the Chittagong zoo in the country's south.
"This is an unusual function no doubt. And we made an effort to give a festive look to this zoo with colourful decorations to welcome the union of the lion and lioness," government administrator of Chittagong district Mesbah Uddin told AFP.
"We brought the lion named Badsha, renamed Nabha, from the Rangpur zoo to stay here with the lioness Nova for the purpose of breeding," Uddin said.
A pre-wedding party was also held for school children that included a small concert, deputy zoo curator Monjur Morshed said.
But the highlight of the festivities was a 10-kilogramme (22-pound) cake for the couple. The cake was made mainly of meat that included beef, chicken, eggs and fried liver, he said.
Nova was born in Chittagong zoo some 11 years ago and has been living without a male partner for most of that time, until Badsha arrived two weeks ago.
The lions would remain in separate but adjacent cages for another three days to give them time to get used to one another, Morshed said.
'Living fossil' crabs mysteriously dying in Japan
Technician Tom Bentz prepares a group of horseshoe crabs for bleeding at a lab in Chincoteague Island. (AP file photo) Horseshoe crabs, known for their blue blood, are a regular summer visitor to tidal flats in south and western Japan including one near Kitakyushu city where they lay their eggs.
Some invariably die in the process, but this year a local conservation group noticed that the number of the precious marine arthropods that perished was unusually high, a local official told AFP today.
"The conservation group spotted about five to 10 remains every day during the egg-laying period, so they started to tally them," said Kitakyushu city official Kenji Sato.
"In total the number of dead horseshoe crabs reached about 500," Sato said.
The Asahi Shimbun daily reported that the amount of dead crabs was eight times higher than normal.
Sato said that local officials have sought guidance from experts but that so far a consensus on what caused the unusually high number of deaths this year has proved elusive.
A number of academics, however, point to "oxygen shortage due to higher sea water temperature, or parasite infestation or a disease peculiar to horseshoe crabs" as a possible cause, he added.
Japan's environment ministry designates the helmet-like crabs as an "endangered species" as its population has declined sharply due to coastal habitat destruction in tandem with Japan's economic development.
But there is no legal obligation to take concrete measures to protect the species, an environment ministry official said.
The horseshoe crab — "kabutogani" in Japanese, meaning literally "warrior helmet crab" has survived for 200 million years.
Enthusiasts established the Japan Horseshoe Crab Association in 1978, which counted up the dead creatures this summer, according to local officials.
"The biology of the horseshoe crab is still a mystery and we don't know much about it," Sato said.
Record-shattering birds stay in air for 10 months: Study
A common swift (Image courtesy: Wikipedia/Creative Commons)
