Too bad they all got their facts wrong.

The misinterpretations stem from a new aerial study (pdf) of the polar bear population in western Hudson Bay, conducted under the auspices of the Nunavut Department of Environment. The survey, conducted in August 2011, estimated the total population of polar bears in the region to be 1,013 animals, derived from a statistically plausible range of between 717 and 1,430 bears. The actual number of bears observed was 701.

Before this aerial survey, the most recent estimate of polar bears in that region was 935 animals in 2004, down from 1,194 in 1987. The new number, according to the wildlife director, shows that polar bear populations are increasing.

But here’s the thing: all previous counts of the polar bear population in western Hudson Bay used a different methodology called capture–recapture, in which animals are quite literally captured, studied, marked and released. Later recaptures can then provide a statistical estimate of population size. The differing methodology between the two studies—plus the fact that the aerial surveys were conducted over a slightly different and larger geographical area than the capture–recapture studies—means that the two counts are apples and oranges: They can’t be compared against each other in the hopes of determining a trend.

And in fact, the aerial study does not compare itself against the earlier capture–recapture surveys, nor does it claim that populations are increasing. Instead, it reads, “This aerial survey-based estimate is not significantly different from the 2004 mark–recapture estimate.” It does point out that the 2004 capture–recapture study predicted the population would fall to 650 by this time, but says it is too early to make any real comparisons. Another capture–recapture survey was apparently also conducted in 2011 and estimates will be released later this year, at which time the report says the two studies can be formally compared.

The aerial survey did come up with one interesting discovery: The western Hudson Bay population has a very low level of young bears, with yearlings (young between one and two years old) representing just 3 percent of the observed animals. According to Steven Amstrup, chief scientist for Polar Bears International, the number of yearlings in a population should be closer to 15 percent. “This is classic population dynamics,” Amstrup says. “If you have declining habitat quality, the first thing you’re going to see impacted is the survival of young.” He points out adult polar bears have energy stores that the young lack, so adults are more likely to survive tough times than are their offspring.

In addition to the low number of cubs, the report says the average observed litter size was the lowest ever recorded in all three Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulations—western and southern Hudson Bay and Foxe Basin—suggesting that reproductive output in the region “was poor in 2011.”

Another interesting element about the report is its reason for existence in the first place. The aerial survey was a response to concerns from the Inuit population that they are seeing more polar bears entering their communities, giving rise to a belief that there are more bears in the region rather than fewer. The report calls this a “disparity” between science and “traditional ecological knowledge.” It says the Inuit have doubts about the accuracy of the previous capture–recapture surveys and have called for new research to reassess the population.

“Many people in the ground haven’t really believed the estimate derived by the scientists because they are seeing more bears,” Amstrup says. He also says the fact that bears appear where they did not previously roam indicates that the animals’ food system is broken. “They’re going into new territories looking for something to eat.”

The lowering of hunting quotas has also caused some ill will in the region. Last year Nunavut raised the quota in western Hudson Bay, where hunting has had both traditional and economic importance, from eight bears to 21, still well below the 56 allowed in 2006. Quotas were lowered based on the projections from the earlier population studies, so any studies that show an increasing population could be used to bring quotas back up.

Ultimately, though, Amstrup says the biggest concern is not whether polar bear populations are increasing or decreasing today, but whether or not they will be able to survive into the next century. “If we stay on the path we’re on with greenhouse gases, we’re going to lose them all,” he says.

Polar bears are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The species is listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Canada lists it as a species of “Special Concern.” Canada is home to two thirds of the world’s polar bears.

Photo: A polar bear in Nunavut by Rich Durant, via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license

Well, you’re in for a treat. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) this week released the first camera trap video footage of Cross River gorillas. The footage, shot in Cameroon’s Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary, shows eight different gorillas—representing about 3 percent of the entire species—casually walking through the forest. About halfway through the two-minute video, a male silverback charges toward the camera, beating his massive chest:

“Spectacular footage such as this, which we’ve never had before for Cross River gorillas, is absolutely vital to inspire local people, the governments of Nigeria and Cameroon, and the global community to care about and to save this unique subspecies,” James Deutsch, executive director for WCS’s Africa Program, said in a prepared release. “Continued research of this kind will help fine-tune management plans to protect this rarest of apes.”

The video does contain a disturbing element if you look closely enough: one of the gorillas is missing a hand. The WCS theorizes that this could be an injury, now healed, caused by a snare left by hunters. Wildlife poaching used to be more prevalent in the region, but the sanctuary has been protected by antipoaching patrols since it was established in 2008. It is less than 20 square kilometers in size and is estimated to hold approximately 20 to 30 gorillas.

“Cross River gorillas occur in very low densities across their entire range, so the appearance of a possible snare injury is a reminder that continued law enforcement efforts are needed to prevent further injuries to gorillas in the sanctuary,” said Liz Macfie, gorilla coordinator for WCS’s Species Program.

Cross River gorillas only live in remote, mountainous regions along the Nigeria–Cameroon border, where they exist in extremely fragmented subpopulations spread out over 12,000 kilometers. The major threats to their survival are habitat loss and poaching. Most of the gorillas live outside of protected sites.

Previously in Extinction Countdown: Critically Endangered Cross River Gorillas May Have More Room to Grow

Video and still courtesy of the Wildlife Conservation Society

Grevy’s zebra populations have declined from an estimated 15,000 in the 1970s to about 2,400 today. Most of the animals live in Kenya; about 140 live in Ethiopia. The species has disappeared from much of its previous range, including Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and Sudan. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources calls the change “one of the most substantial reductions of range of any African mammal.”

As with so many other African species, poaching is a large reason for the reduction. Zebra hides can fetch big bucks, and both zebra fat and bone marrow have purported medicinal values in some traditional Kenyan medicine practices.

Other major factors in the species’s decline have been habitat loss and competition for water and vegetation from agriculture and livestock. Habitat degradation and fragmentation often forces the animals to travel great distances to eat or drink. Although Grevy’s zebras are adapted to arid conditions and can normally last up to five days without water, nursing females can only go a single day before their milk dries up. According to the Grevy’s Zebra Trust, the increasing scarcity of water resources has caused a higher rate of foal mortality.

Diseases, including anthrax, have also hurt Grevy’s zebra mortality, although research into how and why these diseases afflict the animals is still in its infancy, according to the Earthwatch Institute.

The two-day workshop to develop the new action plan was attended by government and conservation organizations as well as private landowners. The participants discussed cross-border cooperation, protecting water and pasture resources, controlling invasive species, development of new roads and oil pipelines into the zebras’ habitats, and the growing human populations in the region. They did not announce a timeline for publishing the new plan, but the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) did say that the second census of Grevy’s zebra populations will be conducted later this year. The first was taken in 2008 under the previous five-year plan.

Meanwhile, the KWS has uncovered another potential threat to Grevy’s zebra populations: the males aren’t as aggressive about finding mates as are the more common plains zebras (Equus quagga). Instead, the males wait for females to come to them. Because the two species’ habitats overlap slightly, this apparently causes some breeding confusion: KWS has found 22 hybrid zebras in the overlapping territory.

Photo: Sergey Yeliseev via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license

No such luck. There were a few half-hearted couplings in early 2011, neither of which resulted in pregnancies, but for the most part, the rhinos showed little to no interest in breeding. Maybe they had spent too much time in captivity. Maybe they were getting old. Maybe they just sensed that they were the last of their kind and wanted to go quietly into the night.

But now something incredible has happened. Not only have two rhinos suddenly started expressing interest in each other, they have actually gone ahead and mated.  Ol Pejeta Conservancy posted this bow-chicka-wow-wow video on April 30:

How did this happy event come to pass? Let’s go back a few months: The four northern whites had been kept in two different enclosures, with one male and one female in each. Rhinos named Najin and Suni lived by themselves in one 40-hectare enclosure (called a boma). Sudan and Fatu lived in a much larger boma (242 hectares) accompanied by six southern white rhinos, two black rhinos and quite a few other critters. Caretakers included the southern whites (C. s. simum) in the hope that the northern rhinos would breed with them and pass their genetic material to future generations in hybrid offspring. (In fact, one of the unsuccessful matings in 2011 was between a northern and southern white.) In January the committee responsible for the northern white rhinos’ care decided to mix things up and switch the pairs into each others’ bomas to see if their behavior would change in slightly different habitats.

But before they did that, the team wanted to add two female southern whites into the enclosure containing Najin and Suni, a move intended to acclimate them to presence of other rhinos. The first southern white rhino moved into the enclosure February 23, followed by a second March 8.

The addition of the two new rhinos to the boma, however, had an unexpected effect: Najin and Suni suddenly started acting…differently. As the conservancy posted on its web page: “On Friday March 27th, just two weeks after their new companions arrived, Najin and Suni became really interested in each other. The courtship ritual involved Suni smelling Najin’s rump to determine her pheromone levels, and both of them grunting and chasing each other around. This lasted close to 12 hours—and we even caught it on video!”

What caused the pair’s sudden mood change? The conservancy speculated: “Could the introduction of two extra females have excited Suni and made him want to mate? Or could the presence of other females have regulated Najin’s cycling period? Whatever the case, we’re happy our northern white rhinos are in the mating mood!”

It’s too early to know if this rare and important mating has resulted in a pregnancy, but remain hopeful with fingers crossed for the future of this critically endangered species.

Photo: Two northern white rhinoceroses mating. Screen grab from video posted by Ol Pejeta Conservancy

The world’s last 35 Javan rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros sondaicus) are a little bit safer this week as 120 new camera traps have been installed in Ujung Kulon National Park, located on the western corner of the island of Java, in Indonesia. The new video cameras were donated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Rhino Foundation (IRF). They join 40 cameras that were already in use. The park is the only habitat for this critically endangered species. There are no Javan rhinos in captivity.

Javan rhinos, like all rhino species, have been heavily poached for their horns, which are valued in traditional Asian medicine, despite the fact that they have no actual medical value. The Javan rhinoceros subspecies previously found in Vietnam (Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus) was declared extinct in October 2011 after the last individual was poached in 2010. Populations on Java have been stable for a few years, thanks to intense conservation efforts and armed guards that have helped keep poachers out of the park since 1998. “Additional video traps are believed to provide an important step for ensuring the survival of existing Javan rhinos,” IRF Director Susie Ellis said in a prepared statement from WWF.

“With the total of 160 video camera traps placed simultaneously around the park, we can collect various information, not only on Javan rhino but also other wildlife,” according to Moh. Haryono, head of Ujung Kulon National Park Office, who said in the WWF statement that the cameras will help achieve Indonesia’s goals of increasing the rhino population 3 percent by 2014. Haryono told the Jakarta Post that the cameras can also monitor human activities in the park, allowing quick response by officials if anyone tries to harm the rhinos.

Adhi Hariyadi, coordinator of WWF Indonesia’s Rhino Conservation Program, said the footage from the camera traps will be used in conjunction with DNA monitoring from scat and other samples to help develop a better understanding of Javan rhino behavior and population.

The announcement about the 120 new cameras was quickly followed by the release of new video footage, shot in 2011, which shows that five of the 35 rhinos in the park are juveniles.

The footage was released by Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), a multibillion-dollar company that has been heavily criticized for its role in destroying the native forests of Indonesia to make way for commercial pulp plantations. APP has pledged $300,000 over five years to support a public-private partnership called the Javan Rhino Conservation Working Group (CWG), which formed last year to support the Indonesian government’s rhino conservation action plan.

In an APP press release, Haryono, who is also chairman of the CWG, said, “The video we are distributing worldwide today shows that the battle to save the Javan rhino from extinction is not lost. There is a small but thriving community of rhinos within the national park which can grow if the conditions are right.”

Of course, the presence of juvenile Javan rhinos in the park is not news. WWF and Indonesia’s National Park Authority released footage of two adult rhinos and their calves in February 2011.

APP gives itself a lot of credit for the health of the rhino population, but others accuse the company of trying to greenwash its record. “APP has a well-documented track record of intentionally misleading consumers and investors with massive PR campaigns to mask the truth behind its clear-cutting operations in Indonesia,” says Rhishja Cota-Larson, founder of Saving Rhinos, LLC.

The CWG says its goal is to increase the Javan rhino population to 75 animals in five years. I can’t discount that this is a lofty—if perhaps overambitious—goal or that the CWG is comprised of people who want to help the rhinos. But when APP’s press release says this five-year plan is “on track” and that the species is “flourishing,” it seems more like PR-speak than reality.

Photo courtesy of WWF

Fuertes’s parrots, also known as indigo-winged parrots, were thought to be extinct for 90 years after their only known habitat was logged and cut down in 1911. About a dozen individuals, however, were discovered by ProAves biologists in 2002 in the area that would later become the nature reserve. Conservation efforts since then have brought the population up to an estimated 250 birds, about a fifth of which live in the reserve, where man-made nest boxes have been used since 2004 to provide safe breeding sites. The nature reserve was formally established in 2009.

The new land acquisition will be an important step in preserving the Fuertes’s parrot and 11 other endangered species that live in the area, because the region is still threatened by deforestation and pending gold mining. “One of the world’s largest discoveries of gold [was] recently uncovered by AngloGold Ashanti just miles from this key population of the Fuertes’s parrot,” Paul Salaman, CEO of World Land Trust–U.S., said in a prepared statement. Gold-mining companies, including AngloGold, are planning to invest $2.1 billion in Colombia over the next three years. “We were able to quickly respond to the urgent request of our Colombian partner and assist them in buying and permanently protecting this critical site.”

Moving the birds to another location is not feasible, because they depend on the region’s epiphytic (air plant) mistletoe berries (Antidaphne spp.) for food. “There seems to be a close relationship between forests with this plant and the parrot,” according to Benjamin Skolnik, International Program Officer for the American Bird Conservancy, who says the birds do not appear to migrate, so the reserve should continue to provide vital habitat for the species.

Meanwhile, Giles–Fuertesi Nature Reserve is just one component of what has been dubbed the “threatened parrot corridor,” a nearly continuous string of reserves managed by ProAves that, combined, encompass more than 7,200 hectares, including approximately 70 percent of the Fuertes’s parrot’s known habitat and population. “There is a patch of forest between the Giles–Fuertesi Reserve and the other protected areas in the threatened parrot corridor that needs protection,” Skolnik says.

The corridor also protects four additional endangered parrot species: the rufous-fronted parakeet (Bolborhynchus ferruginefrons), brown-banded antpitta (Grallaria milleri), yellow-eared parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis) and golden-plumed parakeet (Leptosittaca branickii). In addition, the expanded reserve provides protected habitat for four other endangered bird species, three endangered frogs, threatened spectacled bears (Tremarctos ornatus) and endangered mountain tapirs (Tapirus pinchaque).

Photo courtesy of Fundación ProAves

Now a team of scientists working in Belgium have come up with one potential clue: the chytrid fungus may sometimes be carried to new habitats on the toes of waterfowl such as geese.

According to research published April 13 in the journal PLoS One, geese are “potential environmental reservoirs” for the Bd fungus, because waterfowl and amphibians often co-occur in the same habitats. The team studied 497 wild geese—which had been rounded up from six wildlife areas in East Flanders as part of an invasive species eradication program—and found that the keratinous toe scales of 76 of the birds tested positive for Bd. The fungus was present on both species of geese that they tested: invasive Canada geese (Branta Canadensis) and domesticated geese (Anser anser domesticus) that had been living in the wild.

The researchers then took some toe scales, heated them in an autoclave, and exposed them to Bd zoospores, which over the course of the in vitro experiment both adhered to and proliferated on the toe cells. After four days, the fungus developed discharge tubes and released new zoospores, showing that the geese’s toe scales provided not just a site for the fungus to reside but also to reproduce.

The team also incubated Bd zoospores on the surface of toe tissue from a dead whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus) and two dead Moscovy ducks (Cairina moschata) that had been brought to their facility for postmortem examination, with similar results.

Whereas Bd thrives in moist environments, the paper points out that it can survive a drying period of up to 30 minutes, during which time a goose could fly up to 30 kilometers—more than enough time for a bird to move from one pond to another.

The researchers did add two caveats: first, because the in vitro experiment used scales from destroyed birds that had been heated in an autoclave, the tissue may have been altered in the process, although they saw no specific macroscopic evidence of such. Second, they note that direct contact between amphibians and geese “might be rather limited.”

Although this research does not prove avian-to-amphibian fungal transmission, it appears to be an important step into understanding the possible transmission paths of this deadly fungus.

Read my previous stories on the chytrid fungus here.

Photo 1: An invasive Canada goose in Belgium by Peter Van den Bossche. Photo 2: A dead frog infected with Bd by Brian Gratwicke. Used under Creative Commons license

The Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) reports that the Pinsker’s chick hatched on April 2 at its breeding program in the village of Malagos and weighed 57.2 grams. Its parents are both rehabilitated birds that were turned over to PEF after being injured in the wild. The chick’s gender will not be known until it matures in four to five years.

The Pinsker’s hawk–eagle is endemic to the Philippines and, to date, has not been heavily studied by science. In fact, its taxonomy is actually still a matter of debate. Some scientists consider it a subspecies of the Philippine hawk–eagle and call it Spizaetus philippensis pinskeri. Others consider it a full species and classify it as either N. pinskeri or Spizaetus pinskeri. BirdLife International, which tracks the health of bird species around the world, does not at this time accept Pinsker’s hawk–eagle as its own species; the organization estimates the total wild population of both Philippine and Pinsker’s hawk–eagles at between 1,000 and 2,500 individuals.

PEF has been successfully breeding Philippine eagles (Pithecophaga jefferyi) for two decades. Its first artificially inseminated eagle hatched in January 1992 after 10 years of research. Philippine eagles remain critically endangered, with approximately 400 pairs in the wild and 36 birds housed at the PEF center.

PEF used its experience with the Philippine eagle for its Pinsker’s hawk–eagle breeding efforts, but a lot remains to be learned about successfully breeding and raising the birds, let alone keeping them safe in the wild. “Nothing is known about its breeding biology,” PEF executive director Dennis Salvador told The Star. He told The Inquirer that foundation scientists will be monitoring the chick as it progresses and that he hopes “it will survive and we will be able to improve our breeding techniques of this species through this experience.”

A number of factors could affect the chick’s survival, according to Anna Mae Sumaya, curator of PEF’s conservation breeding program. “Basic things such as food, temperature and response to stimulus are being monitored.” This will be the first time that the developmental stages for this species have been recorded, she says.

Hawks and eagles both come from the family Accipitridae, and hawk–eagles are considered an intermediate between those other types of birds of prey. BirdLife International recognizes 16 different species of hawk–eagle and lists the Javan hawk–eagle (Nisaetus bartelsi) as endangered and the Flores hawk–eagle (Nisaetus floris) of Indonesia as critically endangered.

Photo: Composite image of the 10-day-old Pinsker’s hawk–eagle chick and its mother, courtesy of Philippine Eagle Foundation
(Updated April 19 to include a quote about monitoring the chick’s development.)

Now tuatara have one more habitat to help ensure their long-term survival. On March 25, 60 tuatara were released on Motuihe Island, located a ferry’s ride away from the city of Auckland. The New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) and the Motuihe Trust spent many years ridding the island of non-native predators and other pests, making it a safe haven for many threatened species unique to New Zealand.

“DOC eradicated Norway rats and mice from Motuihe in 1997,” DOC Auckland Area Manager Brett Butland said in a prepared release. “We made the island completely pest-free by removing feral cats and rabbits in 2005. Removing the pests, particularly rabbits, enabled the Motuihe Trust to establish a nursery on the island that produces up to 55,000 native plants a year.” The growth of native plants has enhanced the island’s suitability as a habitat for New Zealand native species, and the tuatara now join other endangered or threatened species that have been released on the island, including the little spotted kiwi (Apteryx owenii), kakariki (parakeets of the genus Cyanoramphus), tieke (Philesturnus carunculatus), bellbird (Anthornis melanura) and shore skink (Leiolopisma smithi).

The 60 tuatara moved to Motuihe came from another DOC-managed isle, Lady Alice Island, which was cleared of all rat species in the 1990s. The relocated tuatara represent less than 1 percent of the reptiles from the Lady Alice population, according to the DOC.

The public will be able to visit Motuihe to see the tuatara in the wild, but keeping the island predator-free will remain vital to their survival there. “We need everyone traveling to Motuihe, and other pest-free islands in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, to check their boat, kayak and gear to ensure they’re not carrying stowaway pests,” Butland said.

Half of the 60 tuatara were released during a public event, which included a special “handing over ceremony” from the Ngātiwai Maori iwi (society) representing the Northland region of New Zealand, which includes Lady Alice Island. (Stuff.co.nz has footage of the ceremony and the first tuatara release here.) The rest of the reptiles were released after the public had left to ensure the new residents’ safety.

Tuatara are not currently endangered, due to years of intense conservation efforts, although they remain at risk. Eight of the islands they inhabit still contain Polynesian rats, which prey on eggs and the youngest reptiles, affecting their populations’ ability to grow. The reptiles are also valued in the European illegal pet trade, where a single tuatara can fetch more than $40,000 on the black market.

Meanwhile, scientists fear that climate change could further threaten the two species. Like many reptile species, the gender of tuatara hatchlings is determined by the temperature of their eggs in the nest. Unlike most reptiles, which produce more females when nests are warmer, tuatara eggs tend to hatch more males when temperatures rise. Tuatara populations already skew slightly more male than female.

The relocation cost of about $33,000 was raised by the Motuihe Trust. The DOC and the Trust hope these 60 tuatara will eventually grow to a population of 18,000—although they say that could take about 300 years.

Tuatara are medium-size reptiles, about half a meter in length and weighing up to one kilogram. They mature slowly, reaching sexual maturity at about age 23, and breed only once every nine years, but have been known to live to be more than 100 years old. The two species are the only survivors of the order Sphenodontia, which dates back more than 200 million years.

Photo: A Cook Strait tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) by Sid Mosdell via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license

The best of the news items covers the critically endangered Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), probably the rarest cat species on the planet, with a wild population of approximately 40 to 50 individuals. Russia, which is home to the majority of the animals, announced April 10 that it is finally establishing the long-in-the-works Land of the Leopard National Park, which will protect approximately 60 percent of the leopard’s remaining habitat in the Russia. The 262,000-hectare park, located in the easternmost portion of the country, encompasses all of the leopard’s known breeding areas in Russia.

The Russian government will invest $16.6 million toward developing the park, which will include protected areas for wildlife, an economic development zone and an ecotourism recreational zone. Russia has also committed an additional $1.3 million for upkeep of the park.

“Amur leopards are … teetering on the brink of extinction,” Sybille Klenzendorf, head of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF’s) species conservation program, said in a prepared release. “With the establishment of Land of the Leopard National Park, in conjunction with other conservation efforts, we can now start to focus on how to begin bringing them back.”

Land of the Leopard National Park will contain portions of Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve and Leopardoviy Federal Wildlife Refuge, which are already the cats’ only Russian habitats, as well as some of the territory surrounding the two parks. But creating the park is just the first step: the entire area is in need of preservation measures to ensure the long-term health of its ecosystems. In 2010 Russia’s then deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov, arguing for the park, told the 14th Congress of the Russian Geographical Society that the current state of the leopard habitat is degraded and exploited; for example, there are several military facilities located within the Leopardoviy refuge. The region is also prone to wildfires made worse by poor forest management. Just last month, the Leopardoviy refuge was hit by a fire that destroyed nearly 1,500 hectares of leopard habitat. None of the cats were injured in the fire.

Russia is not the only home to Amur leopards. Approximately nine to 12 of the animals live in nearby China. The WWF says it hopes to establish a cross-border reserve territory to allow the leopards to expand their habitat and freely travel between the two countries. China has two wildlife reserves on its side of the border.

Meanwhile Russia has announced the preliminary results of a count of its Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) population: it has found that between 400 and 450 individuals of the critically endangered tiger subspecies roam there. Russia conducted its survey by counting tiger paw prints in the snow. If the count is correct, it would mean that the population has grown dramatically since 2010, when estimates put the figure as low as 250 animals. The country recently ended logging of cedar trees in the tigers’ habitat, which not only directly protected the big cats, it also increased the crop of cedar nuts, which fed and helped to boost the population of wild boars, the tigers’ favorite prey.

Previously in Extinction Countdown:

• Good News for 2 Rare Leopard Species
• Mystery Tiger Deaths Solved: Canine Distemper Plagues Siberian Tigers
• Russia’s Tiger Forum: One Last Chance to Save Tigers from Extinction?

Photo 1: Camera trap photo of an Amur leopard, © WWF-Russia/Institute of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, used with permission. Photo 2: Amur tiger by Appaloosa via Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons license

When the three species were first protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2005, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) added what is known as a “blanket exception” that allowed captive-bred animals to be hunted on private ranches. The animals are highly valued by hunters and routinely fetched prices of $5,000 or more from people looking for “exotic” trophies.

The logic behind the blanket exception was simple: the private hunting ranches had bred so many of the endangered antelopes over the years that they had, according to FWS, “contributed greatly to the conservation of these species.” Conservationists, however, argued that the blanket exception was a violation of the intentions of the ESA, which normally prohibits hunting of endangered animals. The courts, after much back and forth, eventually agreed, and in January the FWS published a new rule that requires individuals “who possess these three antelope species and wish to carry out otherwise prohibited activities, including interstate or foreign commerce, import, export, culling or other forms of take, [to] obtain a permit or other authorization.” That rule took effect on April 4.

Ranchers have been arguing for years that removal of the blanket exception would also remove any financial incentive for them to keep the antelopes alive on their lands. When I wrote about this subject in 2009, one rancher commented on my story: “Since we can’t hunt and eat them anymore, the ranch I work on will now be forced to stop its breeding program and exterminate the remaining stock as feral pests.” Many other ranchers have said that they would go so far as to kill off their stock or release them into the wild—actions FWS points out are illegal under the ESA.

The industry’s main spokesperson is Charly Seale, executive director of the Exotic Wildlife Association, who told the Associated Press that many ranches, his own included, have sold off their antelopes. Seale also said that the average price tag for hunting the animals has already dropped 50 percent and will further plummet now that the new rule has taken effect.

But that’s the thing: the new rule still allows hunting of these three endangered species. Ranches just need to apply for two permits first, one to register captive-born wildlife, which costs $200 and lasts for five years, and another allowing “culling” and interstate traffic, which costs $100, lasts one year and has a rapid-renewal process. It is still legal to own and breed the animals even without a permit. FWS has promised that the permit process will take fewer than 90 days, and the agency aims to reduce that to 60 days or fewer. (The full FWS’s FAQ on the process is here [pdf].)

Unfortunately, that’s apparently too much government intrusion for some property rights–conscious Texans. Seale told the AP that only 10 percent of the ranches that currently hold these antelope species have applied for the permits. “Ranchers in this country are very private-property individuals,” Seale told McClatchy Newspapers. “We bought the animals with our own money and they’re telling us what to do with them. They are not anybody’s animals but ours.” FWS spokesperson Vanessa Kauffman told McClatchy that approximately 50 ranches out of the 400 that belong to the Exotic Wildlife Association have applied for permits, half of which have already been approved.

Yes, most ranches are purposefully getting out of the antelope business rather than paying a few hundred dollars and filling out a couple of forms. Seale told both the AP and McClatchy that this is the beginning of the end for exotic antelopes in Texas, saying the herds of thousands of animals will soon shrink to fewer than 1,000.

Ranchers and hunters accuse conservationists of dooming the three species to extinction in the name of ideals. Friends of Animals, the organization that filed the lawsuits that inspired the new FWS rule, says breeding rare animals solely to be hunted is not conservation. “It’s merely commercial exploitation in a strange, macabre touristy world,” Friends of Animals Vice President for Legal Affairs, Lee Hall, told McClatchy. In January the organization’s president, Priscilla Feral, told CBS’s 60 Minutes that she would rather see the animals not exist at all in Texas than have them living there only to be hunted.

One place the scimitar-horned Oryx won’t disappear is the same place where they started in Texas: Selah Bamberger Preserve, home of the Scimitar-Horned Oryx Survival Program. The preserve was founded by David Bamberger, who in 1980 devoted more than 240 hectares of his 2,225-hectare ranch to the animals, which were gathered there from zoos across the U.S. and Europe, in all likelihood saving the species from extinction in the process. Today, many zoos maintain captive breeding populations of these animals, but that might never have been possible if Bamberger had not stepped up first. Of course, Bamberger’s ranch also provided many of the animals raised there to brokers, who in turn sold them to Texas hunting ranches, which is how we ended up with this conundrum in the first place.

Meanwhile, some ranches will continue to allow hunting while also possibly going back to the courts to try to remove the new rule. “We’re not giving up on these species,” Kevin Reid, owner of Morani River Ranch in Texas, told McClatchy. “We’re not going to get rid of them. We’re continuing our plan to manage the herd and shoot the old males past breeding age. That’s what we hunt.”

Even though they still raise these endangered species to ultimately be hunted, not conserved, it’s people like Bamberger and Reid who blow holes in the arguments of ranchers like Seale, who would rather be possessive, stubborn and spiteful than lift a finger to do anything they don’t want to do. These ranchers claim to love the animals they raise and shoot. Their actions tell a different story.

Photo: Scimitar-horned Oryx by Beth Wilson via Flickr, used under Creative Commons license. Photographed at Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, an educational facility in San Antonio, Texas

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) confirmed April 2 that WNS had been found on three bats in two caves, exactly two years after the fungus was first observed there. “White-nose syndrome in Missouri is following the deadly pattern it has exhibited elsewhere,” Mollie Matteson, a bat specialist with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), said in a prepared statement. “First the fungus shows up on a few healthy bats. A couple of years later, the disease strikes. And if the pattern continues, we can expect that in another few years, the majority of Missouri’s hibernating bats will be dead.”

The names and locations of the Missouri caves, which are closed to the public, were not disclosed in order to limit the chance of humans accidentally stressing the remaining bats. “Disturbing bats in caves while they roost or hibernate can increase their stress and further weaken their health,” MDC bat biologist Tony Elliott said in a prepared statement.

WNS has, in just the past few weeks, been confirmed in Delaware, Alabama, Maine’s Acadia National Park, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina. The disease has also spread to new locations in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. The fungus appears to be transmitted from bat to bat, or by humans visiting bat caves. The disease threatens four endangered species: Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis), which have been killed by WNS: gray bats (Myotis grisescens), on which the fungus has been found; and the Virginia big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii virginianus) and the Ozark big-eared bat (Plecotus townsendii ingens), both of which live in areas affected by the fungus.

As the WNS name suggests, the fungus first manifests as white fuzz on the faces of infected hibernating bats, but according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Fort Collins Science Center, the real damage may come when it spreads to bats’ wings: “Wing membranes represent about 85 percent of a bat’s total surface area and play a critical role in balancing complex physiological processes. Healthy wing membranes are vital to bats, as they help regulate body temperature, blood pressure, water balance and gas exchange—not to mention the ability to fly and to feed.” According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), bats with WNS behave uncharacteristically, such as flying outdoors during the cold winter months or gathering at cave mouths when they should be hibernating. Such behavior could cause bats to burn off their winter fat reserves, leaving them susceptible to freezing or starvation.

Although WNS and the Geomyces destructans fungus appear to have no effect on humans, their potential impact on human health is troubling. As the bats disappear, growing insect populations could spread disease or devastate agricultural crops. Citing just the most recently afflicted state as an example, Missouri’s 775,000 gray bats eat more than 223 billion bugs each year, according to the CBD. Although the potential effect on U.S. agriculture has not yet been felt, a recent study found that the loss of North American bats could lead to agricultural losses of more than $3.7 billion per year.

Research into WNS is ongoing, and there are a few small rays of hope. Some European bat populations that have come in contact with the G. destructans fungus appear to be resistant to it, and in fact some scientists theorize the fungus may have originated in Europe and recently been carried to the New World by humans. In addition, a few small populations of little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) in Pennsylvania and Vermont also appear to have remained healthy despite three years of contact with the fungus, for as-yet-unknown reasons.

For more information on WNS, visit the FWS resource page about white-nose syndrome, including their safety guide for cavers, or follow FWS’s White-Nose Syndrome in Bats page on Facebook. The CBD’s Save Our Bats campaign offers several actions people can take to encourage government efforts to help slow the spread of the disease.

Photos: White-nose syndrome on a little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) taken March 30, 2012, in Missouri, courtesy of Missouri Department of Conservation. Map of white-nose syndrome by county/district as of March 30, 2012. Courtesy of Cal Butchkoski, Pennsylvania Game Commission, via the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Correction April 4: The list of affected endangered bat species has been updated.

According to a paper published in the Journal of East African Natural History, the two species were rediscovered in the remote, highly fragmented and rarely explored Namatimbili–Ngarama Forest, 35 kilometers inland from the Indian Ocean.

Erythrina schliebenii had only been known from two samples collected near Lake Lutamba in the 1930s, an area that has since been clear-cut. A specimen was rediscovered in a tiny patch of forest in 2001, but a Dutch company cleared the area to create a biofuel plantation in 2008.

The second tree, Karomia gigas, was first discovered in 1977 when a specimen was observed in Kenya’s Mwara Kaya sacred forest. It was only seen one other time, in 1993, 600 kilometers away in Tanzania. The initial specimen was chopped down a few years after it was identified, and the second has since also been lost.

“The rediscovery of these two trees highlights the lack of information in a forested region where we could be losing species without ever knowing they are there,” co-author Neil Burgess, senior advisor to the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) conservation and Africa program, said in a prepared statement. “Conservation of these forests, in partnership with local villages, is essential. This can also lead to standing forest being used as an income source for communities through the development of sustainable logging initiatives.”

According to the WWF, the coastal forests where these trees were rediscovered are increasingly fragmented or cleared as the area’s human population grows and expands. “Erythrina schliebenii has only survived because it grows in rocky areas that are not usually cleared for cultivation, but even those areas will be cleared one day if nothing is done,” said co-author Cosmas Mligo, a botanist from the University of Dar es Salaam.

Exact counts of these trees are still not available, but the authors estimated the population of each at fewer than 50 individuals and warn that they remain critically endangered.

Photo 1: Erythrina schliebenii, courtesy of WWF. Photo 2: Co-author Cosmas Mligo with a leaf and twig of Karomia gigas, © Cosmas Mligo, used with permission

Scat shows no scare in a study, published March 15 in PLoS One, that analyzed fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGM) levels of Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in in the Malaysian state of Sabah between 2008 and 2009. The community-operated organization Red Ape Encounters, which operates there, maintains strict ecotourism guidelines designed to protect the apes.

The research team collected feces samples 24 hours before ecotourism visits, as well as the day of and the day after. Many of the samples came from two orangutans—Jenny, a then-32-year-old female, and Etin, her 11-year-old offspring—both of whom were gradually habituated to encounters with ecotourists over a period of several years. The rest came from four other unidentified orangutans that were not habituated to humans. In each case, the samples collected the day after the encounters showed elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“An elevated cortisol level in response to ecotourists would be completely natural and expected,” says the study’s lead author, Michael P. Muehlenbein, professor of anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington. “It just means an activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Short-term fluctuation of cortisol levels is completely to be expected under most circumstances.”

Muehlenbein and his fellow researchers were concerned that the orangutans might have shown extremely elevated levels of cortisol or none at all. That would have indicated levels of chronic stress and a systemic breakdown in the animals, as has occurred in some other species regularly encountered by ecotourists. For example, yellow-eyed penguins (Megadyptes antipodes) have exhibited significantly lowered breeding success in populations exposed to tourism, while ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) showed degraded fur coats. (The paper equates these reactions to post-traumatic stress disorder in humans.)

But short-term fluctuations showed, at least on an fGM level, that the orangutans were not exhibiting signs of chronic stress. “You need the fight-or-flight response,” Muehlenbein says. “If you become habituated to a process, and you don’t react accordingly when there’s a danger, then you have a problem.”

Muehlenbein says the fGM test is just one more item in the veterinary or conservation toolbox to make sure that animals encountering humans are healthy. “Cortisol metabolites are very sensitive to a number of things, such as disease, diet and sexual activity. It’s not a perfect measure. It should be combined with the other tools that we already have.”

According to the paper, tourism accounts for 9 percent of world GDP and can contribute greatly to conservation efforts for rare species. In the case of orangutans, at least, ecotourism done right does not appear to be harming the apes in the process. Red Ape Encounters’s guidelines limit visitations to groups of seven and a period of one hour. Sick tourists are excluded, and all visitors must keep a 10-meter minimum distance between themselves and the orangutans.

Muehlenbein is now working at a nearby orangutan rehabilitation center, where he is interviewing ecotourists about their behavior to try to calculate the risk for disease transmission from humans to animals. Apes have been known to catch coughs, colds and other viruses from humans, which can prove fatal. Although this human-to-primate transmission has been documented, there is no conclusive evidence to date of disease transmission from tourists to apes. “We know that a significant number of travelers visit ecotourist sites even though they haven’t been well-enough vaccinated or they show signs of illness,” Muehlenbein says. Some orangutan tourism sites might habituate their animals more rapidly, overexpose them to humans or even allow people to touch or feed the apes, all of which could contribute to chronic stress and, in turn, make the orangutans more susceptible to human diseases. “Humans pose an undocumented risk. We should put time, money and effort into hiring health professionals at these primate-based destinations and educating tourists about the risk of disease transmission.”

Photo: Marco Abis via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license

The skink was last seen in Hawaii in the 1960s. Extensive surveys between 1988 and 2008 failed to turn up any sign that it exists in the islands. It can, however, still be found on other Pacific island chains.

“No other landscape in these United States has been more impacted by extinction events and species invasions in historic times than the Hawaiian Islands, with as-yet unknown long-term cascading consequences to the ecosystem,” USGS director Marcia McNutt said March 20 in a prepared statement. “Today we close the book on one more animal that is unlikely to ever be reestablished in this fragile island home.”

It’s unclear why the skink was extirpated in the Hawaiian islands but in a paper published this week in Oryx, USGS biologist Robert Fisher and Ivan Ineich of the Paris-based National Museum of Natural History point to a few possible factors, including evidence that the invasive big-headed ant (Pheidole megacephala) was preying on the lizards. According to the Offshore Islet Restoration Committee, big-headed ants, just one of the invasive ant species plaguing Hawaii, eat native plants and insects and have been shown to swarm over seabird chicks.

The researchers also say the introduction and spread of two lizards that look like the blue-tailed skink may have confused people looking for it. The first, the delicate skink (Lampropholis delicata), spread into the extirpated species’s habitat. The other, a “sibling” species often referred to as the azure-tailed skink (Emoia cyanura), not only has a similar name as the blue-tailed skink, it also looks so much like the Hawaiian species that it could have been mistaken for its already missing relative. (E. cyanura has since become extinct in Hawaii.)

Fisher and Ineich call this a “cryptic extinction”—a species extinction that goes unnoticed for decades because it is easily confused with similar species. “The extinction of native Hawaiian bird species is well documented, partly because their presence and sounds had been so distinctive to humans,” said Ineich. “But without regular field surveys, we tend to overlook the disappearances of smaller, secretive species, along with the causes of their extinction.”

The researchers plan to continue studying at-risk species in the Pacific Islands.

Hawaii has more flora and fauna on the U.S. endangered species list than any other state. Dozens of others are awaiting protection.

Previously on Extinction Countdown:

• Hawaii admits possible defeat to invasive species, researches “hybrid ecosystem” instead
• How to save Hawaii’s endangered birds? Get rid of the mosquitoes
• Sea urchins bred to eat invasive seaweed in Hawaii
• Newly Discovered Hawaiian Bird Could Already Be Extinct

Photo: A copper-striped blue-tailed skink (Emoia impar) photographed in Samoa during a USGS field survey. By Chris Brown, courtesy of USGS

Cameroon sent 150 soldiers into the park on March 1, but the damage had already been done. “The forces arrived too late to save most of the park’s elephants, and were too few to deter the poachers,” Natasha Kofoworola Quist, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Central Africa program, said during a press teleconference on March 15. One soldier had been murdered by poachers by that time and at least 20 more elephants had been killed, despite the military presence. The raiders have also extended their poaching beyond the confines of the park, killing elephants in nearby forests.

Before this slaughter began, the park held 95 percent of Cameroon’s savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana), representing 80 percent of that species’ remaining population in all of central Africa. The country also holds an estimated 1,500 to 5,000 forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis).

According to Richard Carroll, vice president of WWF U.S. Africa Programs, the Sudanese raiders travel more than 1,000 kilometers through Chad and the Central African Republic, where they have already wiped out all of those countries’ elephants, to get to Cameroon’s animals. It’s a journey that has been made for decades, but the meter-long spears they used three decades ago have been replaced with automatic weapons, enabling indiscriminate and more efficient kills. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which visited the park in early March, the poachers have slaughtered both adult and juvenile infant elephants, often hacking off their trunks and tusks with machetes while the animals were still alive. The bodies of infant elephants too young to even have tusks have also been found.

It is expected that the poachers will soon travel back to Sudan, carrying the ivory on horseback and on camels, where they will be sold in the markets at Khartoum before heading to their most likely destination: China. There, the tusks will be carved and sold around the world, despite the fact that the international ivory trade has been banned since 1988. The money raised in the Khartoum markets will likely be used to buy more weapons, further feeding the civil war that plagues that country.

As Quist said during the teleconference, “This is not just a wildlife issue, and it is not just a Cameroon issue. This is a global issue.”

Bouba N’Djida National Park is not normally protected and its rangers are unarmed. Cameroon has unprotected, “porous” borders with Chad, the Central African Republic and other nations.

WWF has asked Cameroon to take whatever steps necessary to protect the remaining elephants in the park, and to engage the governments of Chad and Sudan to prosecute the border-crossing criminals.

The Daily Mail has several graphic photos of the slain elephants here. (The images may be disturbing to some readers.)

Previously in Extinction Countdown: Poaching and Ivory Smuggling at Record Highs in 2011

Photo: Elephants in Gorom, Cameroon, by the Center for International Forestry Research via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license. Detail of Africa map via Wikimedia Commons

Maui’s dolphins are a subspecies of the endangered Hector’s dolphin (Cephalorhynchus hectori), which are also found around coastal New Zealand. Maui’s dolphins are approximately 1.7 meters long and weigh about 50 kilograms. By comparison, the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) grows up to four meters in length and weighs up to 650 kilograms. The Maui’s live about 20 years, but only reach sexual maturity between seven and nine years of age; they can only calf once every three years, giving them a very slow reproduction rate.

The study, which surveyed the dolphins in February and March 2010 and during the same period in 2011, analyzed DNA samples collected via dart biopsies to estimate the population for Maui’s dolphins over one year of age. Of the 39 Maui’s dolphins sampled, 23 were female. The team also encountered two female Hector’s dolphins during their survey—a never-before-observed occurrence, because their habitats do not overlap. There is no evidence at this time of Hector’s and Maui’s interbreeding.

The World Wildlife Fund, which was not involved in the study, has called for additional protections for Maui’s, including a ban on the use of set nets throughout the range of both the Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins. Set nets are already banned in the main portion of the Maui’s habitat. “The Maui’s population has been declining since the 1970s, and protection measures introduced in 2008 have not succeeded in turning the situation around,” said WWF New Zealand marine program manager Rebecca Bird in a prepared statement. “It is a national tragedy that our critically endangered dolphins are still dying needlessly in fishing nets. We need to act immediately to get nets out of the water, including harbors and estuaries, to protect these dolphins throughout their range.”

In a prepared statement, the New Zealand government said it is considering additional protective measures that would extend the ban on set nets along a larger stretch of the North Island coast and extend the existing West Coast North Island Marine Mammal Sanctuary out 22 kilometers from the coast into the ocean. But Minister for Primary Industries David Carter also said the needs of the local fishing community must be considered.

Local fishermen were not pleased by the idea of expanding the net ban area, saying it would put them out of business. Egmont Seafood Managing Director Keith Mawson told New Zealand’s 3 News, “There is a real possibility that the population will become extinct whether they extend the ban or not.”

Photo: New Zealand Department of Conservation

Although the birds have been protected for more than a decade under Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999, their numbers have declined because of habitat loss and competition from other species.

Carnaby’s cockatoos (also known as short-billed black cockatoos or large black cockatoos) nest in the hollows of large trees. Many of these trees, typically 100 years old or more according to Australia’s DEC, have been lost to logging or development, or to people trying to neaten up their properties. Meanwhile, loss of wild habitat means that other cockatoo species—galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla) and western long-billed corellas (Cacatua pastinator)—and feral European honey bees (Apis mellifera) are all crowded into the same region and are now competing with the endangered cockatoos for tree hollows. Meanwhile, loss of habitat—enhanced by drought and wildfires—have created what has been called a “food crisis for cockatoos,” pushing starving birds into the suburbs around Perth in a quest for food. As if all of that weren’t bad enough, the birds are also prized in the pet trade and illegal poaching remains a threat despite their protected status.

“Carnaby’s cockatoo populations have halved in the past 45 years and…their range has retracted by about a third,” Birdlife Australia program manager Cheryl Gole told Australian Geographic.

While Gole called the recent loss a “red flag,” she cautioned that it is too early to start considering this drop to be a trend. The Great Cocky Count has produced reliable numbers only for 2010 and 2011. The first count, in 2006, relied on a different statistical model and is not held up as a comparison with the newer counts.

Nevertheless, the results have some conservation groups up in arms. “To lose more than a third of an endangered species in just one year is a devastating result and shows that current conservation measures are failing,” said John McCarten, spokesperson for the Conservation Council of Western Australia, in a prepared statement.

Meanwhile, some people are angry that it took nearly a year for the government to release the 2011 count results and blame Western Australia Minister of the Environment Bill Marmion. “This is not the Great Cocky Count, this is the Great Cocky cover-up that Bill Marmion’s been engaged in,” shadow environment minister Sally Talbot, representing the opposition party, told PerthNow. “Eleven months after the 2011 Great Cocky Count he still didn’t have the numbers, and now we can see why the minister was so anxious to not make them public. This is such a dramatic decline in the species that the government must be absolutely ashamed of its inaction.”

For his part, Marmion told the media that “more research needs to be done to verify species numbers,” and he defended the government’s handling of the birds’ plight, noting that it has invested more than $9.7 million in conservation funding and habitat preservation since 2008 to protect the Carnaby’s cockatoo and two other threatened cockatoo species.

But the conservationists, it seems, have some reason to mistrust the government’s commitment. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, it recently approved construction of new housing for the University of Western Australia that would be built over existing Carnaby’s cockatoo habitat and is considering a highway expansion project that would further impact the cockatoo and more than 100 other bird species.

The DEC says people in Western Australia can help Carnaby’s cockatoos by planting food plants or future nesting trees or erecting artificial habitats on their properties.

The 2012 Great Cocky Count will be held on April 15. BirdLife Australia is currently signing up volunteers, who may contact them at greatcockycount@birdlife.org.au

Photo by Ralph Green via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license

The donation, the largest the Fossey Fund has ever received, will be used to build field stations from where rangers can protect gorillas from armed groups fighting over natural resources in the war-torn nation. The Fossey Fund is also in the process of hiring five Congolese team leaders and 25 gorilla trackers who will collect data and monitor the animals.

Grauer’s gorillas can only be found in the DRC, where they currently receive very little protection. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, their population has “experienced a significant population reduction in the past 20 to 30 years” and is expected to continue to drop because of habitat loss, political instability, mining, the bushmeat trade and other factors. Current estimates, which are merely educated guesses, place the species’s population from as low as 4,000 to as high as 27,000 individuals. The gorillas’ few remaining habitats are also home to other rare and endangered species, including the forest elephant, okapi and eastern chimpanzee.

“It comes down to this,” Turner said in a prepared statement. “Every single gorilla counts; every single person counts in protecting the gorillas; and every single dollar counts in supporting the work to protect the gorillas.”

His ultimate goal might be even loftier. “I wanted to make a statement,” he told the Atlanta Journal–Constitution. “If mankind can learn to stop killing the great apes, maybe we can learn to stop killing each other.”

Turner visited the DRC in 2009 and trekked to Virunga National Park to see the other subspecies of eastern gorilla, the famous mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), which have better protections than the lowland cousins.

The Fossey Fund was founded by the famous naturalist Dian Fossey who studied mountain gorillas and was murdered in 1985.

Turner’s announcement came just days after billionaire Richard Branson and actress Bo Derek lent their star power (but apparently no cash) to efforts to protect polar bears in Canada.

In other gorilla news, an international team of researchers has decoded the DNA of the western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). You can read more about that achievement and what it tells us about ourselves here.

Photo: Young Grauer’s gorilla by Dean Jacobs, courtesy of Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International

Rhino horn—possession of which is banned under international law—is valued for use in traditional Asian medicine to treat cancer and other disorders, even though the horns—made of keratin like that in our fingernails and hair—have no actual medicinal value. Still, demand is so high that horns can fetch prices higher than gold. As a result, poachers have devastated rhino populations across Africa and Asia in the past decade, sending multiple species into extinction and threatening those that remain. At least 448 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa in 2011, up from 333 in 2010 and just 13 in 2007. At least 80 more have been killed in South Africa in the first two months of 2012.

Thanks to decades of conservation efforts, the southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) is the most populous remaining rhino species on Earth, with approximately 17,000 animals in the wild, 93 percent of which live in South Africa.

The attack on the three white rhinos took place on Friday, March 2, at the privately owned Kariega Game Reserve in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. Poachers darted the family with sedatives, then killed one of the animals and left the other two for dead after removing their horns.

One of the surviving animals, a male, suffered injuries to his leg when he was tranquilized and may need to be euthanized. “He sustained a serious amount of tissue damage to his left back leg,” Kariega general manager Alan Weyer told Dispatchonline, saying the rhino fell on its leg during the attack. “That amount of tissue damage is not something that a veterinarian can fix. At the moment, he can walk but he is limping quite badly.” According to the Saving Private Rhino page on Facebook, the rhino was treated with anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics on Saturday, the day after the attack. On Monday, the animal was treated for wounds on his face where its horn had been hacked off. The leg injury and resulting risk of infection is the biggest threat to the rhino’s survival. Kariega veterinarian William Fowlds reported that “there are large areas of his left back leg that have little or no blood supply.” In addition, his right eye is clouded over, limiting his vision, and he has not been observed eating or drinking since the attack.

Photographer Paul Mills provided the following footage of the wounded male rhino. (Warning: Some viewers may find the video below disturbing due to its graphic nature.)

The other surviving rhino, a female, was not located until early March 4, when she was found grazing near the site of the attack. The wounds on her body and head, although not immediately life-threatening, were quite severe. On Monday, Fowlds reported the heartbreaking details:

“Her body appears to be recovering well but her facial injuries are worse than they appear from a distance. There is an area 30 centimeters long and 15 centimeters wide of exposed hacked skull and gaping holes into the underlying sinuses. The infection has already set in and maggots have started in the crevices left behind by the panga [machete] lesions. We cut away as much dead tissue as possible but there is still an area of bony tissue that will need removing probably at a later stage. An application of medical tar will sort the maggots out but there is a long road ahead for this poor lady. Her fighting spirit is humbling to witness as her face depicts such utter shame on humanity. The whole team were deeply moved by this horrendous experience and the bravery if this soul.”

It is extremely rare for rhinos to survive poaching attempts, as they usually bleed to death from their wounds. Another dehorned Kariega rhino was found in February. Its injuries were so severe that the animal had to be euthanized.

Sadly, the rising rhino death toll in South Africa is sometimes enabled by the very people who are supposed to protect the animals. All of the following incidents occurred in the past week in South Africa: four employees of Kruger National Park—the site of more than half of South Africa’s rhino poaching—were arrested on charges connecting them with poaching; three veterinarians appeared in court in Johannesburg to face charges of distributing veterinary drugs often used to subdue rhinos in order to hack off their horns; a game ranger and two farmers were arrested after they cut the fence around Mkuze Falls Private Game Reserve, where they allegedly planned to target seven rhinos; and a former police officer was arrested for possession of two rhino horns.

According to the organization Saving Rhinos, LLC, conviction rates for rhino-related crimes is below 5 percent and crimes committed by white persons appear to receive lower punishments than those committed by persons of color.

On March 6 Kariega announced that the two injured rhinos have been named: “Our rangers have come up with two beautiful Xhosa names for the surviving Kariega rhinos. Our strong and willful female has been named Thandiswa, meaning tenacity and courage; and for our young male, Themba, the Xhosa word meaning hope.” Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. The Kariega Foundation has also set up a fund to help care for and rehabilitate the animals.

Photo courtesy of Paul Mills

Leopards (Panthera pardus), which live in increasingly fragmented populations in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, are protected under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which completely prohibits commercial trade in the animals or their body parts. But as is the case with tigers and other species, poaching and illegal trade—along with other factors such as habitat loss—put enormous pressure on leopards. All nine of the world’s leopard subspecies are listed as “Near Threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources due to declining populations. (Snow leopards, which are endangered, are a separate species.)

According to WPSI, at least 356 Indian leopards (the subspecies Panthera pardus fusca) died in 2011, 52 percent of which were killed by poachers. The organization and its partners warned that these numbers might represent just a portion of the actual deaths. “The cases that we have reported are just the tip of the iceberg,” Anish Andheria of Sanctuary Asia, which helped gather the statistics, told New Delhi’s NDTV. “The loss could be three to five times more because most of the incidents happened outside the forest range and also due to improper intelligence gathering.”

Outside of poaching, 41 Indian leopard deaths last year were caused by conflicts with humans (usually from wandering into villages that have been established near leopard habitats), 29 by accidents (such as vehicle strikes), 21 by other animals and 65 by unknown reasons. An additional 14 leopards died following unsuccessful attempts to rescue the animals from human conflicts, such as a male that died in January 2011 after being caught in a farmer’s wire snare or a female that died in May 2011 after panicked villages threw stones at it while waiting for forestry officials to arrive.

Thirty percent of the deaths occurred in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, which is also the state with the highest number of poached tigers.

All of this represents a continuous rise in Indian leopard deaths in the past decade. According to WPSI, there were 180 leopard deaths there in 2010, whereas 161 were recorded in 2009 and 126 in 2007. Only 89 leopards were killed in 2002, but nothing in the past decade compares with the 1,278 leopards killed in 2000.

Leopard deaths haven’t slowed down in 2012: According to WPSI, 29 leopards have been poached (or their bodies seized from poachers) so far this year, and another 27 have died in other incidents.

Leopards are protected under India’s Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. This law doesn’t seem to stop poachers, but it does give authorities the ability to arrest and prosecute. On February 23 two men were arrested in Pune with a leopard skin worth more than $14,000. That same day, five leopard skins were seized from poachers in Uttarakhand. On February 28, Indian forestry officials in Ranchi announced that they arrested one man and sought his three accomplices for poaching a leopard in the Palamau Tiger Reserve and for trying to sell its skin, which they planned to price at more than $10,000. The leopard’s claws and other body parts, which fetch lower prices, were missing and had probably already been sold.

Photo by Vineet Radhakrishnan via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license

Another invasive species plaguing Australia is a beautiful flowering plant known as mother-of-millions (Bryophyllum spp.). Introduced from Madagascar as a garden ornamental, the plants quickly escaped from Australian backyards to more rural areas. Mother-of-millions plants, as their name suggests, reproduce prodigiously and don’t need much water, allowing them to outcompete native plant species. They are also highly poisonous, often claiming the lives of cattle that feed on the plants during drought.

But while mother-of-millions is an invasive species that has damaged the Australian ecosystem, new research shows it has one unexpected benefit: It is actually helping one lizard species to protect itself against the poisonous cane toad.

According to a study published in the March 2012 issue of American Naturalist, the toxins of cane toads and mother-of-millions plants are quite similar. When eastern blue-tongued skinks (Tiliqua scincoides scincoides)—shown above— in the states of Queensland and New South Wales ate the mother-of-millions plants, they gained a resistance to the cane toad toxins, known as bufadienolides. Cane toads are not present in that region, and the eastern blue-tongued skink is not a species at risk, but the cane toads endanger other species of blue-tongues in other parts of Australia.

Richard Shine, a biologist at the University of Sydney, and his colleagues had been studying the ecological impact of cane toads when they noticed that some lizard populations appeared to have a high tolerance to bufotoxins, even in areas where cane toads were not a threat. They collected blue-tongue lizards from places with and without mother-of-millions and injected each animal with a tiny amount of cane toad toxin. The result: the lizards from places where mother-of-millions is common had less of a reaction to the toxin than those from places where the plant does not exist. Shine and his co-authors say this suggests that eating the plant drove natural selection over a period of 20 to 40 generations and resulted in populations of lizards that could tolerate the bufotoxins.

“Now it appears,” Shine said in a prepared release, “we have a population of eastern bluetongue lizards that are able to defend themselves well against cane toads—even though they’ve never actually met one—whereas the devastation of the cane toads on the northwestern lizard population [where the plants have not yet spread] continues. Eating this plant has pre-adapted the eastern ‘blueys’ against cane toad poisons.”

Shine says this will help the Australian government to fight cane toads by concentrating expensive eradication efforts on regions where mother-of-millions is not present and, therefore, where the toads have more of an impact on native species.

Previously in Extinction Countdown: “Don’t Eat That: Endangered Quolls May Benefit From Aversion Therapy”

Photo: Eastern blue-tongued skink via Wikipedia. Used under Creative Commons license

Necropsies uncovered the source of the lesions: a fungal infection called Chrysosporium. “Chrysosporium causes disease in bearded dragons and in other snakes, and it’s a bad bug,” according to Matthew Allender, visiting instructor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, speaking in a prepared release. “We see it in captive animals worldwide, but we don’t typically find it in free-ranging animals.” Allender is the lead author of a paper on the fungal infection, which appears in the December 2011 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The infected rattlesnakes were all found in a park near Carlyle Lake, Ill., where a long-term monitoring program has been studying the eastern massasauga since 1999. The four snakes’ heads were covered in ulcers and swelling that extended throughout their skin and skeletal muscles, and obscured their nasolabial pits. One snake had an infected eye, with only a small fragment of its cornea remaining. The snake with the most severe infection suffered from extreme swelling around the maxillary fang.

Further testing revealed that the Chrysosporium fungi were molecularly related to samples from the diseased skin of a captive black rat snake. This suggests that the fungus could have come from released or escaped pet reptiles.

Allender first reported on his findings at a meeting of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), after which he heard of similar infections that have occurred in other parts of the Northeast over the past five years. “They seem to be having a similar problem in timber rattlesnakes in New Hampshire and Massachusetts,” Allender said.

Allender called the Illinois infections a “yellow flag” that shows a need for further study.

The eastern massasauga, one of the smallest rattlesnake species, is a candidate for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. It currently has no federal protection, although it is protected by state laws throughout its habitat, which extends from western New York State to southern Iowa. According to the FWS, the snake is threatened by destruction of wetlands and persecution by people who have an innate fear of venomous snakes.

Carlyle Lake is home to the only viable eastern massasauga rattlesnake population in Illinois, according to a report published in 2000 by the Illinois Natural History Survey.

Photo: United States Geological Survey (pdf)

The euthanized frog, another male, had been experiencing a “marked decline in health and behavior” according to a Zoo Atlanta news release. Scientists made the decision to end its suffering and preserve its genetic material for future studies.

The team says it could have let the frog die naturally, but feared it could have died at night when no humans were on site. “Amphibians decompose much more rapidly than do many other classes of animals,” herpetology curator Joseph Mendelson said in the Zoo Atlanta press release. “Had the frog passed away overnight when no staff members were present, we would have lost any opportunity to preserve precious genetic material. To lose that chance would have made this extinction an even greater tragedy in terms of conservation, education and biology.”

The Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog, native to a small area of Panama, was only identified by scientists in 2005 but has not been observed in the wild since 2007. According to Zoo Atlanta’s Web page about the species, the frog’s only known population “was drastically reduced immediately upon the arrival of the fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, into the region in 2006. One individual was heard calling in December 2007. None were heard or observed in 2008, despite considerable time afield.” This makes yet another frog driven into extinction by Bd, better known as the deadly chytrid fungus, which has been blamed for more than 100 recent amphibian extinctions around the world.

“This is the second time in my career that I have literally seen one of the very last of its kind die and an entire species disappear forever with it,” said Dwight Lawson, deputy director of Zoo Atlanta. “It is a disturbing experience, and we are all poorer for it. The ongoing amphibian extinction crisis has taken a rich diversity of animals from us, and more effort and resources are desperately needed to halt the losses.”

Zoo Atlanta released this PSA below about frog extinctions—featuring the Rabbs’ tree frog—in April 2011.

Photo courtesy of Zoo Atlanta

It was just one of the nearly four dozen illegal pangolin shipments seized in Indonesia, Vietnam, India, China and other countries in 2011. Conservationists estimate that as many as 41,000 to 60,000 pangolins (eight African and Asian armored anteater species from the genus Manis) were illegally killed last year for their meat and for use in traditional Asian medicine.

Pangolins, often referred to as “scaly anteaters,” are declining in all of their natural habitats due to rampant poaching. The three Asian pangolin species are protected under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but that hasn’t stopped the illegal trade in the animals, which the wildlife trade organization TRAFFIC International says has grown to “ridiculous levels.” Pangolin meat and fetuses—yes, you read that right—are considered delicacies in China. Meanwhile, their scales—which, like rhino horns, are made of medicinally useless keratin—are hawked in China and Vietnam as “cures” for everything from cancer, weight loss, improved liver function and enhanced lactation for breast-feeding women. Pangolins are also used in African traditional medicines known as “muti.” To a lesser extent, pangolin skin is also used for leather and fashion items.

Project Pangolin, a Web site published by Saving Rhinos, LLC, has declared February 18 World Pangolin Day to bring attention to the plight of the scaly anteaters.

Like most wildlife crime, the punishments for killing or smuggling pangolins are low enough to make the risk worthwhile. In Zimbabwe recently three men were found with a live pangolin in the trunk of their car. They intended to use the animal “in superstitious rites to improve their mining business,” according to The Zimbabwean. Each man was fined the equivalent of $1.38—still a relatively large amount in the terrible economy of that country, but the conservation group Tikki Hywood Trust, which uses the pangolin as its logo, is currently petitioning the Zimbabwe government to increase fines 10-fold.

A 2009 report from TRAFFIC and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that pangolins were the mammals most frequently seized from smugglers in Asia. TRAFFIC found that laws to protect pangolins “lack bite,” a pointed comment echoing the fact that the animals have no teeth.

Meanwhile, the environmental impact of removing these creatures from nature is not yet known, but it could potentially be huge, since each pangolin can eat tens of thousands of insects per year. “Pangolins save us millions of dollars a year in pest destruction,” Simon Stuart, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, said in the 2009 report. “These shy creatures provide a vital service and we cannot afford to overlook their ecological role as natural controllers of termites and ants.”

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species currently lists two pangolin species—the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) of China and the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) of the Philippines—as “Endangered,” with all eight species identified as having declining populations.

Photos: Baby pangolin by Ruslan Rugoals via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license. Pangolin soup © TRAFFIC