Olive pythons typically stick to a diet of birds, bats, rats and small mammals, but it's not out of the ordinary for a sizeable one to take on a croc (this is not the first time that Queensland has played host to a snake-vs-croc matchup). The snakes are among the largest species in Australia and can grow up to four metres (13 feet) in length. Australian freshwater crocodiles, meanwhile, usually grow to an average length of about 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) from snout to tail.

Contrary to popular belief, snakes do not unhinge or dislocate their jaws in order to swallow large prey, but rather their mouths are built for the job. Snakes have two separate lower jaws that are connected via elastic ligaments. This allows them to stretch their mouths open wider than most animals and effectively "walk" their jaws over their prey in order to consume it. It can take some time for a snake to swallow a large meal and even longer for it to digest one. Prey like this hefty croc will likely take several months to be digested.

Header image: dilettantiquity/Flickr

Japan recently left the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and has now caught the first whale in its waters since resuming commercial whaling, 33 years after a global ban came into effect. As a non-member, Japan is no longer bound by the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) – the rules that the IWC has used to manage whaling since 1946.

The IWC’s moratorium on commercial whaling has broadly been a success – whale populations have increased where whaling was the primary threat. The humpback whale is one example of successful recovery, but species such as the northern right whale have never recovered from centuries of whaling and are in critically low numbers.

Outrage and despair greeted Japan’s decision to relaunch commercial whaling in its waters, although the conservation status of many species may be unaffected. Still, Japan’s exit from the IWC is a worrying message to the international community at a time when collaboration on environmental issues is sorely needed.

Why has Japan left the IWC?

Japan introduced a proposal at the IWC in 2018 which would allow it to restart commercial whaling. This was voted down – the proposal that was approved in its place supported a shift in the commission’s goal towards banning all commercial whaling in perpetuity.

A permanent commercial whaling ban might sound like an ordinary step, but the IWC’s purpose since 1946 has been “the orderly development of the whaling industry”. The IWC has gradually pivoted to focus more on conservation and other threats to whales since then, but one of its founding goals was to support the whaling industry and the people it employed. As the whaling industry has declined and attitudes towards whales have changed around the world, the IWC has changed too. Japan meanwhile has always been clear it wants to resume commercial whaling and is leaving the IWC because the moratorium was only meant to be temporary and lifted when whale populations could support whaling.

Japan isn’t the first country to leave the IWC because of frustration with its rules on commercial whaling. Iceland left in 1992 and rejoined in 2002 as a full member but with a reservation to the moratorium that allows it to commercially whale. Norway objected to the moratorium decision in 1982 and so kept its right to commercially whale while remaining a full IWC member.

A mixed outcome for whales

For most whale species, the exit of Japan from the convention banning commercial whaling will have few consequences. Whale populations in the Southern Ocean are even likely to benefit as Japan will lose its special research permit for scientific whaling in the region by leaving the IWC. Japan mostly took Antarctic minke whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) here, but this species is not considered endangered.

It’s a different story for whales found within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). No longer bound by the IWC’s rules, Japan can harvest whales here under the right given by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea but the number and species it will decide to take hasn’t been announced. One vulnerable population living in Japan’s EEZ which may be affected are common minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), which are genetically distinct and possibly number fewer than 5,500. It’s worrying this population hasn’t shown the same robust recovery seen among other minke whales.

Japan will want to prove to the world it can whale sustainably but the long-term future of whaling is uncertain. The market for whale meat in Japan peaked after World War II and is now a shadow of its former self. Although still eaten in cultural ceremonies and a few localities in northern Honshu, consumption is around 40g per capita each year - about the size of a slice of ham. Whether Japan’s diminished appetite for whale meat will reduce its whaling efforts though remains to be seen.

A way forward?

Research by the IWC scientific committee has greatly advanced our understanding of whale ecology and how to address other threats to their survival, like pollution, bycatch and climate change. Japan’s exit from the IWC doesn’t threaten the organisation’s activities and every effort should be made to continue this important research. But if the “International Whaling Commission” is to become a conservation organisation, then maybe its status as a whaling commission is outdated.

Countries could continue to work together on whale conservation by using the Convention on Migratory Species. This specifically targets the conservation of migratory species and their habitats, and would apply to protecting whales. In fact, there is already a regional agreement between countries that’s focused on whale conservation.

Agreements made under this convention might be better able to deal with the diverse threats facing whales. A whale research programme focused on conservation – as opposed to a whaling research programme – made up of the IWC scientific committee and Japan might have fewer conflicts as their objective would be clearer.

Japan’s exit from the IWC is a complicated issue beyond just whale conservation – it highlights the need for the international community to overcome disagreements. Asking why the IWC has succeeded and failed at different times can help us improve the way we work together on global challenges as after all, whaling is only one example of the many urgent and complex environmental issues that demand a global response. How well we work together determines more than just the fate of the world’s whales.

Sui Phang, Research Fellow in Blue Governance, University of Portsmouth and Peter Bridgewater, Adjunct Professor, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

While the sight of an oarfish would baffle most, Noah Thompson identified the creature immediately. "When I was young I’d always seen pictures of these things and dreamed of being able to hold one," Jacob told For The Win Outdoors. "Obviously I couldn’t believe it at first. I was running up to this thing. I’d seen orange on him and I just lost it. I turned around and started screaming at my brother to come look at this thing."

Oarfishes (typically in the genus Regalecus) tend to prefer deep water – up to 1,640 feet (500 metres) down – so finding one in the shallows is rare. They can grow to a staggering 110 feet (36 metres) long, however, the latest find was a juvenile and only measured in at about 8 feet (2.4 metres). Amazingly, the deep-sea dwelling fish was still alive when the Thompsons found it and they were able to guide it back into deeper water (It's unclear if the oarfish survived – if you do encounter one, it's best to contact the relevant wildlife authorities before attempting a rescue).

"It took [it] a moment to be able to stabilise and hold itself upright," Noah Thompson said. "We watched it for a couple minutes while it was trying to make its way out and then we actually saw [it] disappear out towards some deeper water."

This is not the first time a live oarfish has made an appearance off the coast of Baja. Back in 2013, two sightings of live specimens were recorded in the area raising questions about why the fish keep turning up here. The exact reasons, however, remain a mystery. Some speculate that the deep-sea fish are susceptible to injury during rough storms and they simply float inshore. Others suggest that shifting currents could play a role in redistributing oarfish prey like plankton, crustaceans and squid – forcing oarfish to spend more time in the shallows.

Some explanations are embedded in the mystical. Oarfish are so rarely seen and their appearance so unusual that, over the years, they have become characters in lore and myth inspiring ancient mariner's tales of sea serpents. In Japanese folklore, they are considered harbingers of earthquakes. While their spiny fins and ribbon-like bodies are certainly extraordinary, their ability to predict seismic activity is not. New research refutes the long-held belief in Japanese culture that oarfish emerge from the depths when an earthquake is about to hit. 

That's not to say that we shouldn't pay attention when one turns up though. Little is known about these snake-like denizens of the deep so any information scientists can glean to further our knowledge of oarfish can go a long way.

"Understanding that not many people get to see those creatures, while they’re still alive, at least, is much cooler than any other fish we could’ve caught with a fly rod," Noah Thompson told For The Win Outdoors. "I did not think I was ever going to see one of those in my lifetime."

Top header image: CSUF Photos, Flickr

Tarryn Rae, a field guide for Mankwe GAMETRACKERS, captured the tense footage while taking a guest out on a game drive in South Africa's Pilanesberg Game Reserve recently. It was a chilly morning and sightings had been unremarkable. Rae caught wind of a leopard sighting and headed over to investigate but arrived just after the cat had slinked into the tall grass. She stopped instead beside two young warthogs, using the opportunity to explain to her guest that these knobbly faced herbivores are often targeted by predators. 

"I couldn’t even finish my sentence when my guest said: 'There's a leopard!'" Rae explained to Latest Sightings. The leopard was straddling a massive warthog, sinking its teeth into its back in an attempt to bring the animal down. "The leopard kept hold of his prize, constantly trying to get a better grip," says Rae. The warthog, meanwhile, screeched and bucked in an effort to shake the predator.

The commotion attracted a second leopard, another big male that made his way across the road and marched with purpose towards the squealing warthog. "He stopped to smell around the trees where the warthog had first been caught and then headed toward the bush where the squealing was coming from." Before he could reach the warthog, however, he was intercepted by the other leopard who seemed less than keen to share the spoils.

"They stood eyeing each other out for a second and then the claws came out and a fight erupted," Rae recalls. While the cats tussled, the warthog made a break for it and snuck away towards a nearby burrow. The leopard had managed to inflict some damage and it's unclear if the warthog survived its injuries, though the hog's considerable size will, no doubt, help give it a fighting chance.

"It was really such an adrenaline rush and a feeling of gratitude to be in a position to witness this kind of interaction," says Rae.

A new featurette from filmmaker Toby Wosskow gets to grips with the tensions and human battles related to wildlife crime and explores how poaching "tears apart communities and is driving a prehistoric species to the verge of extinction."

Wosskow was moved to create "Sides of a Horn" after a visit to South Africa in 2016 where he encountered a rhino on foot during a walking safari. "What struck me more than the animal’s vicious beauty was that this scene could have been taking place 50 million years ago or today. I was looking at a living, breathing time machine in a land that time forgot," he explains in a press release. Later that day, Wosskow learnt of the threat facing these animals and felt compelled to act.

"While there was a fair amount of international media coverage about the multi-billion-dollar illegal wildlife trade, nobody was talking much about the community members living near rhinos, the rangers who protect them, or those who had experience with the poaching trade."

The 17-minute short film centres around two family members – one, a wildlife ranger tasked with protecting rhinos, and his brother-in-law who turns to poaching in a desperate effort to save his sick wife. "Sides of a Horn" is based on true accounts and "explores how two people from the same level of poverty, the same community, and even the same family can end up on opposite sides of this war."

Wosskow set out to humanise the rhino poaching war and, without overt edification or graphic violence, he has achieved just that. "The poaching crisis is a complex issue and the conversation around it must go beyond simple right and wrong. By painting an unbiased portrait of this modern war and exposing both sides of the struggle, it is my hope that 'Sides of a Horn' will be a catalyst that inspires a greater discussion that can lead to positive change."

The film is produced by Sir Richard Branson and is supported by Virgin, WildAid, and the African Wildlife Foundation. The full film (embedded above) was released on YouTube this week following several months of screenings across the globe. 

Get a glimpse behind the scenes here:

Top header image: Matthew Rogers, Flickr

Photographs by Bruno D'Amicis | Story by Stephanie Stone

The first time Bruno D’Amicis set out to photograph wild fennec foxes (Vulpes zerda) in the northern Sahara Desert, the sand very decisively shut him down. After months of fruitless phone calls and emails, he had finally found a local guide and translator to lead him on his quest, and they’d spent the better part of their first day in the field setting up a hulking, traditional tent—woven goat and camel hair stretched across a heavy wooden frame. Then the wind picked up. “I was instantly in one of the worst sandstorms I’d ever witnessed,” says D’Amicis. “Within 10 minutes, we were covered in sand.” Two days later, the winds still raging, there was sand in their eyes, sand in their food, and sand in all of D’Amicis’ gear. They made an emergency call for extraction and retreated to a small village south of Douz, Tunisia to regroup.

Even after the trio had found sturdier lodging—an abandoned concrete hut with a still-functional well about 50 kilometers (31 miles) into the Tunisian Sahara—the sand and wind continued to pose nearly insurmountable challenges. At dawn, weather permitting, they would set out in search of fennec tracks, hoping to follow the trail back to a den. But in the Sahara, tracks never last for long. When the sun rises, the wind gathers steam, and, more often than not, smooths the sand back into a blank slate. “Believe me, nine times out of ten, the moment you’re following a nice track, the wind picks up and completely erases it,” D’Amicis says with a rueful laugh. “And then the whole day is gone. There’s nothing more to do, because there’s no animal around, so you have to wait until the next day.”

Then there were the days, too many to count, when the wind wouldn’t even allow them outside. In the world’s largest sandy desert, windstorms frequently send clouds of fine, light-reflecting grains of sand skyward, reducing daytime visibility to near zero. “It’s really difficult to keep yourself focused and in good spirits when you can’t see anything outside, when it looks like you’re in a glass of milk,” says D’Amicis. Confined to their concrete hut for the duration of the storms, all the team could do was wait, sometimes for up to seven days straight, for the whiteout to pass.

After weeks of seeing little more than sand and fleeting tracks, it’s easy to understand why D’Amicis was so overcome when he finally found a set of fennec tracks that led to a den. With a scarf wrapped around his head and a big jug of water to help him endure the searing heat, he waited, giving the den a wide berth, hardly daring to breathe for fear of disturbing its occupants. Then, after a seeming eternity, the sun sank over the dunes, and three fennec foxes emerged in succession from the den—a mother with two young kits. “When I saw that first fennec coming out, my heart collapsed. I was crying. It was absolutely one of the most beautiful moments of my life,” says D’Amicis.

Even when they’re fully grown, fennec foxes are surprisingly small. Measuring just 24 to 41 centimeters (9 to 16 inches) from nose to rump, they are the daintiest species in the dog family; an adult that is curled up and resting is just about the size of a man’s shoe. But the fennecs’ diminutive size is not their biggest claim to fame. If the foxes are known for anything, it’s for their disproportionately large ears, which extend a remarkable 10 to 15 centimeters (4 to 6 inches)—more than a third the length of their bodies in many cases.

These oversized appendages, which are laced with blood vessels that lie close to the surface of the skin, help the animals cool their core body temperature during hot desert days. They also give the foxes a more obvious advantage—a sense of hearing so keen it borders on a superpower. When hunting at night, fennecs can hear a beetle walking across the sand several meters away, or a rodent tunneling deep beneath the surface. And as D’Amicis learned during the course of the five months he spent photographing the animals in Tunisia, they can hear the click of a camera shutter from a distance of more than 150 meters (492 feet).

A fennec’s ears are not its only adaptation for surviving in the desert. Its paws are also perfectly suited for life in a hot, sandy home. Long, curved claws help the canid dig through compacted sand with speed and precision—a useful skill when tunneling to catch underground prey like lizards, insects, and burrowing rodents. Such digging prowess is also a plus when excavating a den, especially since a fennec’s daytime refuge can be a huge and labyrinthine cavern with the square footage of a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment and up to 15 separate entrances.

In addition to being well-endowed with claws, the bottom of a fennec’s paws are lined with a thick coat of fur, offering protection from the hot desert sand in the event of a rare daytime outing. Such built-in footwear would probably offer ample insulation even for a slower-moving animal, but it’s unquestionably sufficient to protect a fennec fox. “They move so fast that they don’t even seem to touch the sand,” says D’Amicis. “They look like a hovercraft.”

For many of the same reasons that fennec foxes are difficult to photograph in the wild, they are also challenging to study. In addition to the harsh physical environment and logistical hurdles, scientists attempting to conduct research in the Sahara have also had to contend with significant political instability and terrorist activity. As a result, most of what we know about fennecs today comes from either brief observations in the wild or studies of captive populations. Indeed, in the small library of publications that exist about wild fennec foxes, one of the most common sentiments is that an in-depth study of the species is long overdue.

Without comprehensive information about the fennec’s distribution and population dynamics, scientists can only make educated guesses about the species’ conservation status and prospects. However, they have at least begun to better understand the niche the foxes occupy in their inhospitable desert environment. About a decade ago, researchers working with the Sahara Conservation Fund and the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at Oxford University conducted the first, and to date only, ecosystem niche modeling study of the mammalian carnivores in the Sahara, using a nature reserve in Niger as their field site. What they found confirmed assumptions that had been made for many years: As the smallest of the Sahara’s mammalian carnivores, fennec foxes can’t directly compete for resources with larger canids and cats. Instead, they tend to target smaller prey species that other predators either can’t catch or prefer not to bother with. Additionally, fennecs are able to tolerate hotter, drier habitats than the other members of the desert carnivore guild.

Unlike other canids, fennec foxes can live their entire lives without drinking a drop of standing water, extracting all the moisture they need from their food. In part, this is because the foxes supplement their primarily carnivorous diet with juicy fruits, leaves, and tubers. But it’s also made possible by their unusually efficient kidneys, which filter out extremely high concentrations of urea with very little water loss. While fennecs will drink water if they can find it, their ability to go without allows them to occupy areas that other carnivores can’t—helping them to avoid both stiff competition for prey and the direct threats posed by larger predators.

Although these adaptations have enabled the fennec fox to carve out an existence in one of the most extreme environments on the planet, they haven’t prepared it particularly well for life alongside humans. In fact, as run-ins with people have become more common in recent decades, the fennec’s signature characteristics—namely its diminutive size and large ears—have often made it a more desirable target in the international wildlife trade.

When D’Amicis first set out to photograph wild fennecs in Tunisia, he assumed his portraits of the species that had fascinated him since he was a young boy would all be set in the foxes’ natural habitat. But during the months he spent working on the project, he saw far more fennecs on leashes than freely traversing sand dunes. The captive foxes D’Amicis encountered—young kits in most cases, all presumably pulled from their dens—were being offered up to tourists for photographs or for sale as pets. And, as he later learned, such transactions weren’t just happening in Tunisia. The trade in fennec foxes, driven by poverty at the local level and deep-pocketed demand in other parts of the world, has been growing in China, Russia, the United States, and beyond. A 2015 study found that the fennec fox is now the fourth most common mammal in the global exotic pet trade.

While the current popularity of fennec foxes as pets may or may not be short-lived, it is enabled by an even more troubling, long-term shift in the region. What was once a vast, unsettled wilderness is increasingly impacted by human activities, and this change is affecting not only fennec foxes, but the Sahara ecosystem as a whole.

Nomadic people have traversed the Sahara for millennia, but they were generally few in number, possessed relatively primitive weapons, and rarely stayed in any one place for long. Those days are gone in many parts of the desert, says John Newby, the CEO of the Sahara Conservation Fund, who began working as a biologist here in the early 1970s. Since that time, he says, economic development programs that created permanent water sources and other infrastructure in the region have made it possible for once-nomadic people to settle and build permanent communities in the desert. As the human population here has grown so, too, has the prevalence of livestock, motorized vehicles, and guns—and the impacts on Saharan wildlife have been devastating.

Since becoming less mobile and more numerous, hungry domestic livestock and herders seeking fuel for their cookfires have dramatically reduced the amount of vegetation in many regions of the desert. Such plant-razing affects not only the wild herbivores that feed on these already scarce resources, but also the many species, including fennecs, that need plants for shelter. With their extensive network of roots, plants provide the dune stabilization services that enable fennec foxes and other burrowing species to create such large and effective dens. They also often offer shade and sustenance to the insects, rodents, and birds that are staples in the foxes’ diet. As these pockets of vegetation have diminished, so, too, have the many animals that rely on them.

Still, as dramatic as habitat loss and degradation have been in the Sahara, Newby emphasizes a more catastrophic factor in the demise of many of the region’s largest and most charismatic species. “Hunting, hunting, and hunting,” he says, when asked about the biggest threats to Saharan wildlife. Although the practice has been an integral part of life for as long as people have been in the Sahara, the growing human population, the relative ease with which hunters can now drive deep into the desert, and the effectiveness of the weapons they carry have taken a heavy toll.

This multitude of threats has left pronounced and potentially permanent marks on the biodiversity and ecology of the region. According to recent analyses conducted by the Zoological Society of London and the Wildlife Conservation Society, of the 14 large vertebrates that once occurred in the region, four are now extinct in the wild, and the majority have disappeared from more than 90 percent of their Saharan range. All of these species face extinction unless steps are taken quickly to reduce the threats to wildlife and their habitats—and perhaps provide additional help for the most critically endangered species through captive breeding programs.

Wildlife in the Sahara has been rapidly disappearing for more than 50 years, but it wasn’t until the last decade or so that the global conservation community started to take much heed of the losses. Unquestionably, that lag was driven in part by the many obstacles to conducting scientific research in the Sahara. But it was also the result of a commonly embraced bias toward conserving the places and habitats on our planet that support the most abundant and diverse assemblages of life.

“One of our biggest challenges when we set up the Sahara Conservation Fund was, and still is to a certain extent, getting people to recognize that the Sahara is biodiverse in its own way,” says Newby. Despite the common assumption that they are barren, lifeless places, deserts worldwide host about the same number of species as the planet’s forests. Indeed, deserts are home to 25 percent of Earth’s terrestrial vertebrate species. In places like the Sahara, these species offer valuable insights into the physiological and genetic basis of extreme heat and drought tolerance—knowledge that could inform and improve our approaches to dryland agriculture, conservation management, and even medical treatments.

When Newby talks about the need to change misperceptions about this iconic desert ecosystem, he doesn’t just mean among the general public. “We actually had to start out by getting the conservation community to recognize that the Sahara was worthy of attention,” he says. Since those early days nearly 20 years ago, Newby has found increasing support for that message. In 2013, Sarah Durant from the Zoological Society of London and 41 coauthors from across the globe published a paper that detailed the losses sustained in the Sahara and persuasively called for increased research and conservation funding in order to save what remains of the region’s unique wildlife.

While the Sahara’s growing group of scientific advocates still faces an uphill battle, several recent success stories offer hope for the future. One stars the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), a species that was declared extinct in the wild in 2000. In March of 2016, the government of Chad and the Environment Agency–Abu Dhabi worked with the Sahara Conservation Fund to reintroduce 25 captive-bred oryx to Chad’s Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Game Reserve. Today, after two additional introductions, there are 90 oryx in the park, including 18 wild-born calves.

In Niger’s Termit and Tin Toumma regions, an expansive nature reserve that was signed into existence in 2012 now provides a last stronghold for a number of endangered species, including the only viable population of wild addax (Addax nasomaculatus) and some of the last few herds of dama gazelle (Nanger dama). Encompassing 100,000 square kilometers (62,000 square miles), the park is one of the largest protected areas in Africa, making it an invaluable resource for desert species that must travel long distances to find food and water.

While these species reintroduction programs and newly created protected areas offer great promise, they won’t be successful in the long run without buy-in from the people who make their home in and around the Sahara. “The average nomad is extremely knowledgeable about their environment, and they’re not blind. They can see what’s going on,” says Newby. “And they recognize that their survival is dependent on environmental health. But they also have to feed their kids, and they’re at a loss in many cases for options and alternatives.” If fennec foxes and other species are to persist in the Sahara sustainably, the region’s growing and changing human communities must be given both reasons to value wildlife and the means to coexist with it.

One potential avenue for doing so is ecotourism—if it’s implemented in a way that actually benefits local communities. “It’s expensive tourism, because it’s logistics-heavy. And it’s never going to be like ecotourism in eastern Africa or southern Africa,” says Newby. “But there are places in the Sahara with very high tourism potential. And I think the sooner we can get people into the Sahara to see it, to spread the word, the better.” Increased awareness about the surprisingly rich and charismatic cast of species in the Sahara is a necessary precursor to stronger international investment in integrated wildlife conservation and sustainable development programs in the region.

For D’Amicis, who witnessed both immense beauty and heartbreaking destruction during his time in the Sahara, one thing gives him hope: the spirit of the people he met along the way. He tells a charming story to illustrate his point about the town he used as a home base between his trips into the desert. A few days after he first arrived, D’Amicis discovered that the town’s collective trash was all being dumped into the dunes. Disturbed, he started composting scraps behind his house and collecting paper products, figuring that if they couldn’t be recycled he could at least burn them and keep them out of the dunes. Pretty soon, he said, dozens of other people in town were picking up paper on the streets and bringing it home to burn.

“It’s really amazing how sensitive Tunisians can be to other people’s stories. They are open to debates and discussions like very few other people I’ve met,” D’Amicis says. “And I believe that they can change, because they’re very fond of their heritage. And they are easy to persuade that this is something they could lose forever. They just need help.”

Biologist Ron Pulliam is used to being at the center of America’s most pressing wildlife and public lands issues. He led the U.S. Biological Survey (now part of the U.S. Geological Survey) and served as science advisor for Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt under President Bill Clinton. But despite his high-powered positions, he says, “I never felt like I was making a difference.”

Retired now, Pulliam is still trying to make a difference — this time in the Sky Islands of southern Arizona rather than the halls of Washington, D.C. As controversy mounts over President Trump’s border wall, Pulliam finds himself knee deep in saving one of the Southwest’s most iconic species: the endangered jaguar.

But he’s not doing it through traditional conservation measures. Instead he’s launched a for-profit company that’s working to prove that saving jaguars and other wildlife has economic benefits for the community.

On the Move

Many Americans think of jaguars (Panthera onca) as the big cats of Latin America, slinking through Amazonian jungles or climbing Guatemala’s Mayan ruins. Yet jaguar populations are scattered throughout Mexico — some not far from the U.S. border — and the species once ranged from California through Texas. They essentially disappeared from the United States in the 20th century as ranching, cities and suburbs took over the scrub oak and mesquite landscape of the Southwest.

Less habitat meant less wild prey, so jaguars had more incentive to attack livestock, giving ranchers more incentive to shoot jaguars on sight.

But a renaissance of sorts has emerged over the past two decades: Since 1996 at least seven male jaguars have been spotted in southern Arizona and New Mexico, almost certainly moving north from populations in Mexico. The species that the late carnivore expert Alan Rabinowitz once called “the indomitable beast” is now trying to recover its lost American ground.

But politics could thwart that advance. A solid wall along the entire border with Mexico would stop jaguars from moving north, halting their already tenuous return. Dr. Howard Quigley, jaguar program director for the global wild cat conservation group Panthera and one of the lead authors of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Jaguar Recovery Plan, says Mexican populations are critical to the recovery of jaguars in the U.S. “If there will ever be a population in the States, it will require animals moving up from the south,” he says.

Yet even if the border remains open, other modern-day obstacles such as roads, houses, cities and ranches threaten the big cats’ survival. Jaguars need good cover, lots of prey and vast wild landscapes. They typically shy away from people, meaning that the crowded 21st century offers few routes north leading them to safe habitat. And by nature female jaguars are less likely to venture the trek. Most jaguars disappear a few years after arriving in the States without establishing a population.

A Restoration Economy

Pulliam hopes to change that by preserving the most important route for recolonizing jaguars in Arizona.

He didn’t set out to protect jaguars specifically when he retired to the region in 2009. Rather he wanted to explore new approaches to conservation that would protect large landscapes while simultaneously supporting local economies.

“From the beginning I took the attitude that we can restore an area, but in the long run this is all for naught unless local people buy into it,” he says. He held a series of workshops with local conservationists, government agencies and others, and developed criteria for choosing worthwhile projects that fit his vision of a “restoration economy,” a model that would benefit both local people and ecologies.

Jaguars, it turned out, would be the ideal conservation investment.

Based on his criteria, the location for a restoration economy conservation project first has to be valuable from a scientific standpoint. A 2008 study by scientists at Northern Arizona University identified a corridor of private land between two disconnected sections of the Coronado National Forest near the town of Patagonia, Ariz. as the most important habitat link for jaguars moving north from Mexico into Arizona.

Next the site must face an imminent threat. The jaguar corridor did: A developer had proposed a housing development on the private land bisecting the national forest. The planned 189 housing lots on more than 1,300 acres of land fell within a two-mile gap linking prime habitat in the Patagonia Mountains to that in the Santa Rita Mountains — the exact corridor jaguars would use to move upstate.

Finally, the solution has to be economically feasible. One obvious way to make money is through tourism. Patagonia is already a birding mecca, and hiking, biking and equestrian trails run throughout the property that would have become the housing development. Pulliam is working to link these trails to the nearby 800-mile-long Arizona Trail that connects the Mexican border with Utah, making the town a hiking destination as well.

Another long-distance trail — the Juan Bautista de Anza Trail, running from Hermosillo, Mexico through Nogales, Ariz. all the way to San Francisco, Calif. — lies about 20 miles away. Connecting the corridor trail network with these longer trails could increase its tourism appeal.

But the restoration economy goes far beyond that. Instead of asking a nonprofit land trust to purchase the property, Pulliam created a for-profit company called Wildlife Corridors LLC to accomplish that task. The corporation, in turn, offers investors the possibility of a profit — a high risk, low return venture, but enough for do-gooders with a few dollars to sign up.

Overcoming Challenges

However, realizing both a profit and a conservation goal has been a challenge.

The housing developers filed for bankruptcy after reportedly sinking millions into roads and connecting some lots to power and water. And so the Wildlife Corridors crew negotiated with the developers’ bank for more than a year to acquire the land for the bargain price of little more than $1 million in 2014. That included more than 1,200 acres with 173 lots (the developers already had sold 16 lots) of which 149 lay within the essential jaguar corridor.

“Six or eight [investors] pooled funds,” Pulliam says, including himself. “We raised $400,000 in equity and then bought the property with a big mortgage.”

Then they hatched a plan to generate funds to pay off the mortgage and support their conservation efforts through three income streams.

The first stream involved philanthropy. Wildlife Corridors LLC partnered with the nonprofit Biophilia Foundation, which could accept tax-deductible donations to purchase the development rights on the lots from the company and then retire the rights.

The second stream comes from selling 24 lots on the southern edge of the property, where roads and power infrastructure had already been built.

The third comes from federal grants to restore habitat on the property. So far, this has included removing invasive species, halting erosion and planting thousands of agave plants to protect the endangered lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris curasoae yerbabuena).

“The only reason we have succeeded is because we have all three revenue streams,” Pulliam says. Still, they had to weather a rough first few years, including battling a developer lawsuit that halted their income and incurred more legal expenses.

So far Wildlife Corridors LLC has retired 840 acres of development rights, sold 11 lots and reduced its debt to less than $300,000, according to Pulliam. Investors haven’t yet received any dividends, but several have swapped their investments for lots, which could appreciate in value. Pulliam remains optimistic that real profits eventually will emerge.

Wildlife Corridors is just one part of a larger effort to stimulate a restoration economy. The company works closely with nonprofit and limited-profit organizations that Pulliam and collaborators created to bring in additional revenue by restoring habitat. For example Borderlands Restoration L3C is a limited-profit corporation that sells native and pollinator plants to federal agencies for regional restoration projects. Collectively this Borderlands Restoration Network boasts a $3 million budget and employs about 20 local people — jobs that Pulliam claims are better than those offered by the mining industry because they are sustainable and will last long into the future.

“We’re tiny now,” he says, “but we’re growing.”

Pulliam believes this combination of diverse revenue streams, local jobs and engagement is critical for success in any restoration economy venture. In Patagonia people are using the land and “putting their own blood, sweat and tears into it,” he says. The mistakes of past conservation efforts, in his view, occurred when national conservation groups bought land and sealed it off, triggering local resentment.

“We won’t consider ourselves successful until we can offer as much to the local economy as mining and local extraction,” says Pulliam.

He’s got a ways to go on that front. Although the recently approved Rosemont Copper Mine 25 miles north doesn’t directly affect this restoration project, it will, if constructed, offer jobs while likely impeding jaguar movement. And of course, President Trump’s proposed border wall remains a threat.

The full economic potential will take time to emerge and so will the conservation value of the project. Camera traps on the protected property have recorded numerous mammal species, but no jaguars, although at least one jaguar has been seen in the region this year in Arizona. Two others have crossed the border in the past few years.

Challenges remain to boosting that number. But for now, with a key U.S. corridor preserved, jaguars have more of a fighting chance.

Top header image: cuatrok77, Flickr

The marsupial-munching spider was spotted dining on its unusual prey at a lodge in Tasmania’s Mount Field National Park. New Zealander Justine Latton shared photos, captured by her husband, of the rare sighting on a Facebook group dedicated to Tasmania’s spiders and insects.

Unsurprisingly, they stirred up a slew of responses. Some people were shocked (“Omg.. I can't even .. I wanna scream”), others were impressed (“Whoa that’s one strong spidey!”), while a few folk just marvelled at the grisly spectacle (“I would be so freaking excited if I were lucky enough to witness this.”)

While the prospect of possum-gobbling spiders is terrifying for some, it’s important to point out that this particular victim probably weighed less than a golf ball. The unfortunate prey is most likely an eastern pygmy possum – a tiny species of marsupial that weighs between 15 and 43 grams and reaches a maximum length of about 11 centimetres.

Huntsman spiders don’t usually prey on pygmy possums, preferring to dine on small birds, frogs or geckos. “It would be fairly rare,” Australia Museum arachnology collection manager Graham Milledge told the Guardian. “It’s the first time I’ve seen a pygmy possum as prey.”

Unusual as it may be, it’s certainly not beyond the capabilities of these arachnids to feast on sizeable prey. Back in 2016, a huntsman was filmed hauling a mouse around a kitchen in Australia. It’s unlikely, however, that the spider actually attacked and killed the rodent, but its feat of strength earned it some local fame.

Some online commenters have also raised doubts about whether the latest crazy huntsman catch was indeed a case of bonafide arachnid predation. Like many of Australia’s mammals, pygmy possums regularly enter a state of torpor, characterised by a reduction in body temperature and metabolic rate, in order to conserve energy.

Prolonged, multi-day bouts of torpor are typically referred to as hibernation. And eastern pygmy possums are particularly good at it. In a lab study from 2007, the species clocked a record-breaking 367 days without food. In a state of torpor or hibernation, possums are particularly vulnerable to predation, so it’s possible that this huntsman took advantage of the possum’s affinity for long naps.

Either way, Australia earns another point in the “crazy wildlife” column.

Top header image: Mark Yokoyama/Flickr

Photographer Victor Devalles was snorkelling off the coast of Spain recently when he captured this short clip of a jellyfish unwittingly trapped in a 15-second spin after straying too close to an air-filled bubble ring.

Devalles was, in fact, responsible for creating the bubble ring, though he never intended to send the jelly into a high-speed whirl. "I was trying to make a video of the jellyfish swimming through the bubble ring,” he explained to the Daily Mirror. Instead, it touched the edge of the ring and was sucked into a dizzying spin.

Bubble rings are a kind of vortex and divers can create them by exhaling air in a certain way while facing the surface of the water (more here if you’re keen to try it out). If the bubble of air is big enough it can form a donut-shaped ring that grows in size as it floats towards the surface. “The water pressure at the bottom of the bubble is greater than at the top, so the pressure pushes the air up faster,” Tessa Koumoundouros explains for Science Alert. “This squeezes the bubble until the bottom meets the top and punches a hole through the middle, where water flows through.”

The water circles around the air bubble forming a ring of vortices:

The buoyant rings become more stable the faster the vortices spin and they can make it all the way to the surface if left undisturbed. If, however, an unsuspecting jelly slams into one, then all of that circular energy can funnel into the animal in dramatic fashion.

Fortunately the jelly appeared uninjured after the spin, according to Devalles. It’s likely that jellyfish are accustomed to turbulent currents. Research indicates that they are fairly adept at reorienting themselves if they do get swept off course and will swim against the current if they feel they are losing their way.

As for dizziness, let’s hope they don’t experience it like we do.

Top header image: Geoffrey Gilmour-Taylor, Flickr

Fatherly Freight

When it comes to daddy duty, giant water bugs really know how to put their backs into it. A female will actually 'glue' her eggs (as many as 150 of them!) onto her mate's back – and he'll diligently haul that precious cargo around until hatching time, protecting it from predators, and regularly cleaning and aerating the eggs to keep them healthy. Weeks before the eggs hatch, dad will even stop eating ... just to avoid the temptation of snacking on his cargo. What's the prefect gift to help him out with all of this fatherly freight? A handy little egg cart!

Bun in the oven

Seahorse dads certainly take the reins when it comes to parenting. Male seahorses carry up to 2,000 fertilised eggs in a special pouch before 'giving birth' to the babies (called fry). The eggs develop inside the dad for 10-25 days – much like they would during a pregnancy! When the tiny seahorses are ready to be born, the male actually undergoes muscular contractions to expel them. It's time to give back to these devoted dads … with a much-deserved pair of pregnancy pants!

Safe in storage

What better gift than mouthwash for a dad that swallows his babies? Don’t panic yet … when the giant African bullfrog gulps down his young, it's for their own good. Thousands of fertilised eggs are stored in the male frog's large vocal sac (for safekeeping). After six weeks 'in storage', the babies are spat out into the bright, beautiful world for the first time!

Eggs on ice

Keeping eggs on ice is risky business, but emperor penguins have found a solution to the incubation equation. Each winter, thousands of male penguins pop recently laid eggs onto their scaly feet, which keeps them off the frozen ground below. A fold of skin on the birds' abdomen covers the eggs, offering additional warmth. During the two-month incubation, the male penguins will not eat – and must sleep most of the time to conserve energy. Once the eggs hatch, the chicks will stay cozily on their fathers' feet for 7-8 weeks … so this Father's Day, it's time to reward those tired penguin toes with a nice foot-spa soak.

What do all of the over 45,000 described spider species on Earth have in common? Each makes at least one type of silk. And there are an awful lot of types out there.

An individual orb weaving spider – the kind that spins the classic two-dimensional aerial spiral webs that seem to always be suspended at human face-height – can produce seven different silks, each with unique material properties.

Dragline silk forms the frame of an orb web and is famous for its strength and toughness, comparable to that of steel. The capture spiral is made of a highly stretchy version called flagelliform silk. Orb weaving spiders use an additional type of silk to wrap prey and create web decorations.

But there’s another kind that, on the surface, doesn’t resemble silk at all: the sticky glue with which some spiders cover their silk capture threads. It doesn’t look like the classic threads that come to mind when thinking of spider silk, but the gluey substance from these webs is in fact a silk protein.

For many years, researchers have been uncovering the secrets of spider glue, which stays wet in its open air environment and sticky over many rounds of attachment and release. Its genetic blueprint has remained elusive, however, meaning scientists haven’t been able to think about setting up large-scale production of this potentially useful biomaterial.

Using new technology, my colleague and I have been able to sequence the first full genetic sequences that code for spider glue proteins.

A silk that’s really a sticky glue

Under a microscope, orb weaver glue resembles beads on a string – little glistening spheres along a strand of stretchy support silk. Instead of being spun into a fiber as it leaves the spider’s body like other silks, the glue proteins are extruded as a jumbled mass. Their job is to stickily retain prey that get caught in the web.

Different spider species produce glue tailored to their habitat’s conditions and prey.

The glue of tropical orb weaving species is sticky in the spider’s wet habitat, but downgrades to just tacky in low humidity. The glue of orb weavers from dry regions becomes dilute and thin if the humidity is too high.

Bolas spiders forgo the orb web, and instead produce a large globule of glue at the end of a long strand of silk that they whirl rapidly through the air. The glue of this sticky snare is specialized for capturing moths covered with loose scales.

Widow spiders produce vertical, glue-covered trip lines that detach from the ground when encountered by an unsuspecting victim, springing the prey into the air where it hangs suspended. Unlike orb weaver glue, widow glue is resistant to fluctuating humidity.

These various specialized adhesive properties have intrigued biomaterials researchers who can dream up plenty of uses for artificial versions of spider glues. But without knowing the genes that code for these proteins, there hasn’t been a clear road map for how to produce synthetic spider glues.

Cracking a long, repetitive code

Surprisingly, researchers have only sequenced around 20 full-length spider silk genes despite the incredible diversity of spiders and decades-old interest in silk as a useful biomaterial.

It turns out that not only are the properties of spider silk amazing, but so is the DNA code that stores the instructions for making the protein. Spider silk genes are extremely large; in itself that’s not a problem, but the bulk of their sequence is made from repeats of the same small DNA bits.

Imagine that the sentence “THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG” is a sequence of DNA that encodes for a protein, but whose exact order of letters is still unknown.

In order to discover this sequence, the main method of DNA sequencing technology available today has three main steps. Once a DNA sample is collected, many copies of the sentence are randomly broken up into small pieces. For example, you might end up with a collection of fragments like “THE QU” “QUICK B” “BROWN FO” “WN FOX J” “AZY DOG” and on and on.

Then a DNA sequencing machine discovers each letter of each piece. The final step is stitching all the short pieces, technically called “reads,” back together in one sequence to figure out the original sentence.

For the sentence above, this is an easy task. The sequence of letters is unique, and as long as there are at least five characters in each read, it’s possible to figure out where one fits relative to another.

Now imagine a similar sentence: “THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.” Given many random short reads from the middle region like “UMPS J” or “S JUMP,” no matter how you slice and dice, it’s impossible to use this method to figure out the number of “JUMPS” in the complete sentence.

Sequencing a long read of DNA in one go

For many years DNA sequencing has been limited to this short-read strategy: breaking a gene into bits and then reassembling into one cohesive sequence.

Setting aside some difficult and expensive techniques that are out of reach for standard labs, the best way to fully discover a long, repetitive gene is to sequence the repetitive part from start to finish in one go. Fortunately, emerging technology, while still in its infancy, is starting to allow this long-read sequencing by getting around the chemistry limitations of the short-read method. For those that study super-repetitive DNA this is excellent news: New types of DNA sequencers are finally resolving the “JUMPS.”

Now that two spider glue genes are fully sequenced, the first step towards making a synthetic version is complete. Researchers can now insert the genes into other organisms, like bacteria or yeast, to make the glue in bulk.

Unlike solid silks, the glue proteins do not have to be transformed from a liquid to a solid fiber, something spiders do effortlessly but that scientists have trouble replicating. The glue has the potential for many unique applications and is biodegradable, water soluble and stays sticky for months or even years.

Imagine safer pest control or washable filters. Or frat boys wrestling in a kiddie pool of the stuff. Either way, someday soon it might be possible to reach your hand into a bucket of spider glue – the tricky part will be not sticking to whatever you touch next.

Sarah Stellwagen, Postdoctoral Researcher in Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Commonly called ’flying rays' for their habit of leaping out of the water in spectacular fashion, mobulas migrate en masse off the coast of Mexico, and Baja California is home to some of the largest schools in the world.

Clue dived in and managed to capture mesmerising footage of thousands of rays cruising in the hazy blue water.

Mobulas hail from the same group as the better-known manta ray and they can reach an astonishing width of 17 feet (5 metres) – that's second only to the manta in size. These winged fish are capable of launching themselves more than two metres (6.5ft) out of the water and can sometimes stay airborne for several seconds before splashing back down.

When they aren’t soaring above the waves, they may be diving deep below them. Mobula rays in the Azores have been recorded diving to depths of nearly two kilometres (1,24 miles). A special mass of blood vessels helps keep the rays’ brains warm in the icy conditions of the deep sea.

The horn-like protrusions at the front of the mobulas’ head are another adaptation perfect for deep-sea living. This appendage – known as a cephalic fin – helps funnel food into the ray’s mouth and may be useful when they forage in the darkness of the ocean depths.

Header image: Leonard Clifford

Maine resident Daniel Wadleigh was scouting for new fishing spots in the Great North Woods recently when he happened upon a pair of Canada lynx working out some issues in very vocal fashion.

Lynx are rarely spotted at all, let alone a duo distracted enough to allow someone to film and photograph them. The slender wildcats are elusive across their range, including in this northernmost New England state where the largely uninhabited conifer backwoods comprise one of their most vital strongholds in the contiguous US.

But Wadleigh found himself with front-row seats to a roadside lynx showdown complete with eardrum-piercing caterwauling. “I figured they would see me and run,” he told Bangor Daily News. “But they stayed right where they were.” It’s not entirely uncommon for the typically skittish cats to ignore human onlookers when they are engrossed in a territorial dispute like this. The footage is not the fist that we’ve seen of lynx yowl-offs captured on backroads or trails.

Kendall Martin, a regional biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, was not too surprised by the sighting. Canada lynx are at home in the spruce and fir flats of Somerset County where this sighting took place. At this time of year, caterwauling “conversations” are common as lynx begin to rear their young, Martin points out.

“It could have been just general territoriality or two males or a female asserting dominance,” Martin explains. “Without much context, it is hard to see, but it is pretty normal for a lynx to be very vocal without a lot of displays of aggression.”

Felid fights often involve more noise than anything else, Dr Daniel Harrison, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Maine told us about a similar sighting from 2017. "Cats are so well-equipped that they kind of avoid violence at all costs, because when they do get in a fight somebody gets hurt."

The bizarre noises are intended to intimidate as each cat tries to proclaim its dominance. It's not unlike when you're sleeping at night and hear two tomcats outside," Harrison explained.

It’s also no coincidence that the sighting took place beside a road. "Lynx use roads for travel corridors, so lynx encounter other lynx along roads," he explained. "The vast majority of lynx on roads we never see because they're in the woods before we notice them."

For Wadleigh, the rare sighting was a first.”It’s just pure amazement to me that I was able to get that video and happen to be in the right place at the right time, all while being in one of my favourite places,” he said. “I mean, can it get any cooler than that?”

Top header image: Abigail Brodsky

Rhino die every day, so why is the world mourning the loss of Tam? Tam was the last male Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia and was thought to have died of old age in his thirties – elderly for a Sumatran rhino. He was taken from the wild in 2008 to a sanctuary in Malaysian Borneo. His health had been deteriorating since April 2019 and he finally succumbed in May. He is survived by a single female, Iman, who cannot reproduce due to a ruptured tumour in her uterus.

The news isn’t good, but an estimated 80 individuals survive in the wilds of Indonesia – not a great number, but marginally better than the Javan rhino which may be as few as 58. By comparison, the African white rhino, which draws a great deal of concern, is thought to number 20,000. But populations of the Sumatran rhino – the world’s smallest and hairiest rhino – have declined 70% in the past two decades, mainly due to poaching and habitat loss, and are now classed as critically endangered – the highest possible risk of extinction.

The majority of the remaining Sumatran rhino are reckoned to be on Sumatra – the largest island of Indonesia – with a handful likely in the wild in Indonesian Borneo. For such a rare species with a scattered distribution that lives in dense mountain forests, evaluating the population size isn’t easy. Camera trapping is the main tool for counting this relatively diminutive and shy rhino, but even confidence in the estimate of 80 individuals isn’t high. There may be more but there are likely to be less – possibly as few as 30.

On Sumatra, populations are thought to be isolated as their habitats have fragmented into smaller pockets due to deforestation. The result is inbreeding and means that genetically these sub-populations have a bleak future. They have been extinct in the wild in Malaysia since 2015. Captive Tam and Iman were already a lost cause at that point. With no possibility of reproduction, the Malaysian population of Sumatran rhino have been functionally extinct for many years.

Low population sizes, few rhinos living close together and the isolation of viable habitats have combined with fatal consequences for the Sumatran rhino. If females don’t regularly mate, they have a tendency to develop uterine cysts and growths. It was this that left Iman infertile. This is what conservation biologists refer to as an “Allee effect”: the lower a population becomes, the less successful individuals become at reproducing. Ultimately, this leads to an extinction vortex.

Captive breeding

Tam’s death may yet encourage an ambitious plan to save the Sumatran rhino – with a concerted effort to capture as many of the remaining wild rhino as possible, and breed them in captivity.

A young female called Pahu – whose forest habitat was literally being removed from under her feet by mining companies – was captured in 2018 and is apparently doing well in captivity. Sadly, there is a risk to this strategy. By removing rhino from their habitat, we further reduce the probability of them breeding successfully in the wild.

As an ecologist, captive breeding is something that I find hard to celebrate. But it may be the only hope to save a species that, otherwise, appears doomed to slowly dwindle into extinction.

That said, the breeding success of Sumatran rhino in captivity still isn’t assured. There has been some success in US zoos, but from 45 rhino captured since 1984, only four calves have been born. Even geopolitics deals this species a bad hand. Malaysia holds Iman and her eggs – the single surviving captive Sumatran rhino on the island of Borneo – and the sperm of recently deceased Tam. But the country must now collaborate with Indonesia, which holds seven rhino in captivity which have so far produced two offspring.

Back from the dead?

The last throw of the dice may have to involve something akin to resurrection – using stored eggs and sperm from rhino, including Iman and Tam, for artifical insemination or IVF in captive surrogates of the same species. Sumatran rhinos are truly unique – they are the only member of their genus. With no related rhino species, the only surrogate candidate must be another Sumatran rhino. If successful, offspring could potentially come from otherwise lost genes, as has been suggested for the African white rhino.

While the science is developing, “de-extinction” is still an expensive and unlikely long shot that raises its own practical and ethical dilemmas. If successful, we could end up farming an ecologically dead species. I want wild animals to be in the wild contributing to the ecosystems within which they evolved – not living in zoos forever.

Both modes of rescue – captive breeding and genetic resurrection – are too little, too late, like firefighters taking action when the damage is already too far gone. The longer that society waits to help a declining species, the greater the delay in addressing the driving forces of endangerment, be they poaching, habitat loss, non-native species, or climate change. And the lower the probability of success, and the greater the cost of the attempt.

So, Tam was just one rhino. He was not the last of his species, or even the last male of his species, but he is one more loss from an already limited population. The lower the population size, the greater the impact of losing another individual. Tam is another alarm bell alerting us to our inability to act quickly enough to remove the threats to species, and ultimately to save life on Earth. Every dead Sumatran rhino is now met with publicity and concern. Rightly so, but we need to start getting the conservation action right early enough for it to work.

Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Header image: Stephen Belcher

“What started out as a typical relocation turned into a once-in-a-lifetime event,” the team from the Parry Creek Farm Tourist Resort and Caravan Park in East Kimberley wrote in an update on their website.

After spotting the olive python (Liasis olivaceus) hiding out in a carport Jongedyk, concerned for its safety and the wellbeing of the chickens on the resort, made the decision to relocate the 3.5-metre (11.5-foot) snake to a nearby billabong. Shortly after releasing the hefty python, the Jongedyks noticed that it had “started to bend and move strangely”.

For the next minute, the couple watched in fascination as the snake regurgitated another olive python of about the same length. Amanda Jongedyk managed to snap some photos of the incident which were posted to the park’s Facebook page and have since been shared almost 3000 times.

Although rarely witnessed, it is not uncommon for snakes to dine on their own kind. King cobras are especially noted for their snake-gobbling abilities, while Australia’s eastern browns will snack on a snake if the opportunity presents itself.

Contrary to popular belief, snakes do not dislocate or unhinge their jaws in order to swallow large prey, but they are specially adapted for the task. Snakes are equipped with two lower jaws that are connected by elastic ligaments allowing them to move each one independently. When faced with a large meal, snakes use the toothy parts of their upper jaw like an anchor and “walk” their lower jaws over their prey. For particularly large snake meals, king cobras (and possibly other species) compress the vertebral columns of their prey like an accordion in order to package it perfectly to fit into their gastrointestinal tracts.

After consuming a large meal, snakes become sluggish and lethargic (sound familiar?). They will usually retreat to a safe spot where they will spend the next few days digesting their prey. In this case, it’s likely that the snake felt threatened following the relocation and, in an effort to escape the perceived threat, it quickly got rid of its meal.

“Sadly he lost his lunch but we hope he grabs something else and the birds get his left overs,” the resort posted on Facebook.

Header image: dilettantiquity/Flickr

On April Fools' Day in 1976, primatologist Dian Fossey and her research team – embedded in the dense jungles of Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park – recorded the birth of a mountain gorilla. They named her Poppy and, according to Fossey’s journals, the newborn was “winsome and appealing”. At the time, Fossey could not have predicted that tiny Poppy would go on to live into her forties providing researchers with a wealth of vital knowledge about the species.

Now, 43 years later, Poppy is presumed dead. Last seen by trackers in the Virunga mountains in August last year, the famed primate was the last living mountain gorilla made famous by "Gorillas in the Mist" – Fossey’s written account of Rwanda’s threatened primate population.

Poppy was gifted with a strong genetic legacy. She hailed from one of the area’s “royal families” according to a statement from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund released earlier this week. Her mother, Effie, was a formidable matriarch whose family members are now scattered throughout Volcanoes National Park, while some of her other relatives include famous silverbacks, Cantsbee and Isabukuru. Poppy’s sister, Maggie, was a one of actress Sigourney Weaver’s favourites while filming the Academy Award-winning film-adaptation of Fossey's book.

“Being able to observe Poppy over so many stages of life gave researchers a wealth of knowledge,” says Dr. Tara Stoinski, Fossey Fund President and CEO/Chief Scientific Officer. “She taught us so much about the rich social and reproductive lives of female gorillas, their dominance structure, and of course, their personalities.”

After spending almost ten years with the original family she has born into, Poppy transferred to the Susa group in November 1985, just a few weeks before Fossey was killed. As a young gorilla, Poppy spent three decades with the group where she quickly rose to dominance and raised many offspring. In 2015, she surprised trackers when she joined a newly formed group and teamed up with a young silverback named Iyambere. At 41, Poppy become the oldest mountain gorilla on record to give birth.

“Poppy broke the mold for what we know about mountain gorilla females – transferring at an older age, joining a very young and inexperienced male, having a baby so late in life,” says Veronica Vecellio, Fossey Fund gorilla programme senior advisor. “It is so wonderful that we know about her infancy from Dian Fossey’s journals. She was one of Fossey’s favorites, and we all felt such privilege to know her and observe her in her final years. Surely, this means we will remember her forever.”

The team from the Fossey Fund continue to work tirelessly to ensure the future survival of these endangered primates. When Fossey first established a camp within Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park in 1967 she found a species in trouble: just 240 gorillas roamed the dense jungle. As of June 2016, estimates indicate that the population has grown to 604 in the five decades since Fossey first began her fight for the species. 

In Poppy’s memory, the fund is offering the public a chance to "adopt" Mahane (Poppy's sister) and her baby, to help researchers continue the legacy of Dian’s “little darling.”

Top header image: Rod Waddington/Flickr

Remote-activated cameras allow researchers to peep into the otherwise secretive lives of an array of different species. Camera traps have brought us footage of a Eurasian eagle owl plucking a long-legged buzzard chick from its nest, river otters returning to Japan after a 40 year absence, and a glimpse at how many animals visit a single tree in Italy's National Park of Abruzzo (it's a lot more than you would think).

The most recent remarkable snippet of animal behaviour comes to us from Minnesota. It shows a wolf mother carefully relocating her seven pups one by one from a den that was beginning to flood.

The camera trap was put in place by the Voyageurs Wolf Project, a collaboration between the University of Minnesota and Voyageurs National Park with the goal of learning more about the ecology of wolves and their prey during the summer months in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem. "Throughout summer, wolves are primarily doing two things: hunting prey and raising pups," the team states on its Facebook page. "By studying both of these aspects of wolf ecology, we can get a glimpse of the secret lives of wolves during the summer."

The team positioned a camera just outside of a previously used den site back in March in the hopes that a mother wolf would move in. In early April, a pregnant female did just that and promptly gave birth to seven pups. Just five days later, rapidly melting snow caused the den to flood putting the pups in danger of drowning. Carefully and methodically, the mother wolf retrieved each of her newborns and relocated them to a safer spot.

"Being able to see that was just mind-boggling," Ph.D. candidate Tom Gable told Tbnewswatch. "It was astounding. I've been up here doing this for five years, and we never get to see our wolves in that sort of detail, ever. It was really cool."

The current fate of the pups remains unknown. "We are still trying to get a GPS-collar on a wolf in that pack so we can find out where the new den is," the team explained on Facebook.

In addition to camera traps, the Voyageurs team also fit selected wolves with GPS tracking collars to glean information about their movements and territories. Some of Minnesota's wolves range as far as Ontario covering over 4,800 kilometres (almost 3,000 miles) in less than a year!

To keep up to date with the latest development, visit the Voyageurs Wolf Project's Facebook page.

The Botswanan government announced yesterday (May 22) that it was “lifting the hunting suspension in an orderly and ethical manner” – a decision that seemed inevitable, but nevertheless is an enormous blow for Botswana’s tourism and conservation reputation.

Since President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s announcement last year proposing lifting the hunting ban, the process has seemed a well-orchestrated election campaign, casting hunting as the solution to Human Elephant Conflict (HEC), rural poverty, and elephant population control.

The Botswana Democratic Party has been in power since independence in 1966, but dropped to a record low of 46% of the voters’ support in the last election. By lifting the hunting ban, it is believed that Masisi hopes to retain the rural votes that he desperately needs to win the elections in October.

The main justification for lifting the hunting ban has been the supposedly increasing levels of Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC), particularly involving elephants. There is no doubt that HWC is a real problem to the people living with wildlife on a day-to-day basis, and this indeed needs to be addressed.

However, there is no research-based evidence that suggests HWC is actually increasing. Furthermore, trophy hunting can never and should never have such an impact on elephant or other wildlife densities that it would actually reduce HWC. Communities should be assisted in finding better and more sustainable ways to deal with elephants and other wildlife.

The government is now not only talking about lifting the ban on elephant hunting, but also predators, as the government claims predator numbers are also increasing.

Again, there is no scientific evidence to back up any of these statements. Many areas in Botswana are still trying to recover from overhunting in the 1980 to ‘90s, particularly of the lion population. The mature elephant bulls that would be of interest to the trophy hunter are under siege from increased poaching. with recent surveys indicating a material drop in numbers of bulls.

Masisi claims the hunting ban had negative impacts on the livelihood of local communities, which is to be expected, as the vast majority of ex-hunting blocks in Botswana were never successfully put out for tender, and hence were not occupied by the photographic tourism industry; a number were in fact retained by the existing hunting concessionaires.

Tourism, the second largest industry in Botswana, was barely consulted in Masisi’s Social Dialogue process, and has been cowed by statements such as “you know which side your bread is buttered on”.

Clare Doolan (Sales and Product Manager – Safari Destinations) says: “We believe more creative solutions need to be found for communities impacted by HEC, by giving these communities access to tourism revenue through diversification of the tourism product and increasing community participation.”

All chimpanzees eat animals at least sometimes, including anything from ants and termites to bushpigs and even baboons. Monkeys, in fact, are typically the most frequent item on the menu, and in some cases chimpanzees can eat so many monkeys they threaten to wipe out entire populations. One group in Senegal even hunts tiny, mouse-like primates known as bushbabies by using spear-like tools to first probe the holes the bushbabies hide in during the day, before reaching in to grab their prey.

So chimpanzees are rightly known as resourceful eaters. But until now scientists had never observed them eating reptiles.

That has all changed, thanks to a group of wild chimpanzees in Loango National Park along the Atlantic coast of Gabon in Central Africa. These chimps have recently become used to the presence of humans, which means scientists can now see them act exactly as they would in nature. And, writing in the journal Scientific Reports, a group of researchers say they have already observed behaviour not previously seen in chimpanzees.

These chimpanzees regularly catch, kill and consume tortoises that have been grabbed from the forest floor. For people like us, who also research chimpanzee behaviour, the discovery is particularly exciting because the animals obtain the tortoise meat by pounding the shell repeatedly onto a tree trunk until it cracks.

This sort of “percussive foraging” – the pounding of certain food items until a breaking point – has been seen in chimpanzees elsewhere, but never to obtain meat. For instance chimps in Senegal have been observed pounding baobab shells to extract the softer fruit-covered seeds inside. From Sierra Leone to the Ivory Coast, Western chimpanzees use stone and wooden hammers to crack open encased nuts from protective outer shells.

Broadly, this sort of pounding has been suggested as the first step towards more complex tool use that allowed early human ancestors to flourish. The question of why other chimpanzee communities do not do this too, despite the clear benefits of obtaining otherwise protected nuts, seeds – and now meat – remains unanswered.

This newly discovered percussive behaviour in chimpanzees leaves a significant damage pattern on the tortoise shell and potentially damages the anvil on which it was cracked. The evidence left behind is therefore of interest to us primate archaeologists who use archaeological techniques to understand the physical remains of non-human primates. Our work in this emerging discipline relies on material artefacts – shattered tortoise shells, for instance – to reconstruct contemporary primate behaviour in the same way we do for early hominins.

We have long assumed that reconstructing hominin meat-eating behaviour was dependent on our finding fossilised stone tools and cut marks left on processed animal bones. To this select list we can now add tortoise shell. Previously, scientists had looked at fractured turtle remains and argued the animals may have been an important part of early human diets, but the Loango chimpanzees provide us a glimpse of the role this meat may have played for our early ancestors.

The new findings also reveal something even more remarkable. Among their observations, the researchers describe another novel behaviour, the storage of one of the tortoise shells in the fork of a tree that is later retrieved and consumed by the same male chimpanzee.

Such “future-oriented cognition” has long been considered uniquely human, but experimental evidence suggests other species, including apes and some birds, may possess it as well. If chimpanzees can indeed anticipate a future state (I will be hungry) as being different than their current one (I am not hungry), then a more nuanced interpretation of their cognition is required. Indeed, a careful study of the species may uncover many more examples of this future planning.

It is now clear that with every new wild chimpanzee community that becomes used to humans, scientists observe new and unexpected behaviour – some of which challenges our understanding of evolution and what it means to be human. Furthermore, the difference in behaviour from group to group highlights the extraordinary cultural diversity among our closest living relatives.

The opportunity for comparisons with our own evolution has become a run against time as the human infestation of the planet threatens wild primate populations worldwide. We know that the presence of humans directly destroys not only the habitat and lives of primates but also leads to the loss of behavioural diversity. Conserving the last remaining populations of wild apes has become urgent, otherwise our fellow primates will disappear forever. With their extinction will disappear a part of their own heritage and a window back to our own evolution.

Lydia Luncz, Research Fellow, Primate Models for Behavioural Evolution Lab, University of Oxford; Alexander Piel, Lecturer in Animal Behaviour, Liverpool John Moores University, and Fiona Stewart, Visiting Lecturer in Primatology, Liverpool John Moores University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Top header image: David C, Flickr

Baboons are large, smart, ground-dwelling monkeys. They are found across sub-Saharan Africa in various habitats and eat a flexible diet including meat, eggs, and plants. And they are known opportunists – in addition to raiding crops and garbage, some even mug tourists for their possessions, especially food.

We might be tempted to assume that this ecological flexibility (we might even call it resilience) will help baboons survive on our changing planet. Indeed, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which assesses extinction risk, labels five of six baboon species as “of Least Concern”. This suggests that expert assessors agree: the baboons, at least relatively speaking, are at low risk.

Unfortunately, my recent research suggests this isn’t the whole story. Even this supposedly resilient species m⁠a⁠y⁠ ⁠b⁠e⁠ ⁠a⁠t⁠ ⁠s⁠i⁠g⁠n⁠i⁠f⁠i⁠c⁠a⁠n⁠t⁠ ⁠r⁠i⁠s⁠k⁠ ⁠o⁠f⁠ ⁠e⁠x⁠t⁠i⁠n⁠c⁠t⁠i⁠o⁠n⁠ ⁠b⁠y⁠ ⁠2⁠0⁠7⁠0⁠.⁠

We know people are having huge impacts on the natural world. Scientists have gone as far as naming a new epoch, the Anthropocene, after our ability to transform the planet. Humans drive other species extinct and modify environments to our own ends every day. Astonishing television epics like Our Planet emphasise humanity’s overwhelming power to damage the natural world.

But so much remains uncertain. In particular, while we now have a good understanding of some of the changes Earth will face in the next decades – we’ve already experienced 1°C of warming as well as increases in the frequency of floods, hurricanes and wildfires – we still struggle to predict the biological effects of our actions.

In February 2019 the Bramble Cay melomys (a small Australian rodent) had the dubious honour of being named the first mammal extinct as a result of anthropogenic climate change. Others have suffered range loss, population decline and complex knock-on effects from their ecosystems changing around them. Predicting how these impacts will stack up is a significant scientific challenge.

Maybe the final Bramble Cay melomys died in a group. Maybe one last little rat had a period of solitude before the end, more profoundly alone than any human has ever been. Either way, this is a more important story than anything you’ll see on cable news today. https://t.co/z0iZDAdIBP

— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) February 20, 2019

We can guess at which species are at most risk and which are safe. But we must not fall into the trap of trusting our expectations of resilience, based as they are on a specie’s current success. Our recent research aimed to test these expectations – we suspected that they would not also predict survival under changing climates, and we were right.

Baboons and climate change

Models of the effects of climate change on individual species are improving all the time. These are ecological niche models, which take information on where a species lives today and use it to explore where it might be found in future.

For the baboon study, my masters student Sarah Hill and I modelled each of the six baboon species separately, starting in the present day. We then projected their potential ranges under 12 different future climate scenarios. Our models included two different time periods (2050 and 2070), two different degrees of projected climate change (2.6°C and 6°C of warming) and three different global climate models, each with subtly different perspectives on the Earth system. These two different degrees of warming were chosen because they represent expected “best case” and “worst case” scenarios, as modelled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Our model outputs allowed us to calculate the change in the area of suitable habitat for each species under each scenario. Three of our species, the yellow, olive and hamadryas baboons, seemed resilient, as we initially expected. For yellow and olive baboons, suitable habitat expanded under all our scenarios. The hamadryas baboon’s habitat, meanwhile, remained stable.

Guinea baboons (the only one IUCN-labelled as Near Threatened) showed a small loss. Under scenarios predicting warmer, wetter conditions, they might even gain a little. Unfortunately, models projecting warming and drying predicted that Guinea baboons could lose up to 41.5% of their suitable habitat.

But Kinda baboons seemed sensitive to the same warmer and wetter conditions that might favour their Guinea baboon cousins. They were predicted to lose habitat under every model, though the loss ranged from a small one (0-22.7%) in warmer and dryer conditions to 70.2% under the worst warm and wet scenario.

And the final baboon species, the chacma baboon from South Africa (the same species that are known for raiding tourist vehicles to steal treats) is predicted the worst habitat loss. Under our 12 scenarios, habitat loss was predicted to range from 32.4% to 83.5%.

Wider implications

The IUCN identifies endangered species using estimates of population and range size and how they have changed. Although climate change impacts are recognised as potentially causing important shifts in both these factors, climate change effect models like ours are rarely included, perhaps because they are often not available.

Our results suggest that in a few decades several baboon species might move into higher-risk categories. This depends on the extent of range (and hence population) loss they actually experience. New assessments will be required to see which category will apply to chacma, Kinda and Guinea baboons in 2070. It’s worth noting also that baboons are behaviourally flexible: they may yet find new ways to survive.

This also has wider implications for conservation practice. First, it suggests that we should try to incorporate more climate change models into assessments of species’ prospects. Second, having cast doubt on our assumption of baboon “resilience”, our work challenges us to establish which other apparently resilient species might be similarly affected. And given that the same projected changes act differently even on closely related baboon species, we presumably need to start to assess species more or less systematically, without prior assumptions, and to try to extract new general principles about climate change impacts as we work.

Sarah and I most definitely would not advocate discarding any of the existing assessment tools – the work the IUCN does is vitally important and our findings just confirm that. But our project may have identified an important additional factor affecting the prospects of even seemingly resilient species in the Anthropocene.

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Isabelle Catherine Winder, Lecturer in Zoology, Bangor University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Header image: Peter Stewart