Help pygmy hippos in Liberia
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Do you agree with the statement: Rhino horn belongs only to rhinos? If you do agree with it, please sign the African Wildlife Foundaton’s pledge, saying “Rhion horn belongs only to rhinos”. World Rhino Day takes place on 22 September, and the AWF says we must make one thing clearer than ever: Rhino horns are not for sale. Let’s make it very clear: Rhino horns do not cure cancer or hangovers or any ailments. But the demand for rhino horn is there, as people believe it has medicinal benefits and is a symbol of high social status. Rhino horn is made of keratin – as human nails are – and it is as effective as curing cancer as chewing on your fingernails is. RHINO HORN BELONGS ON A RHINO. There are less than 6,000 critically endangered black rhinos left. Unfortunately, poachers, traffickers and consumers don’t care. We must stop them. Please give rhinos your support on this World Rhino Day. Join one of 50,000 wildlife advocates and fight for these rhinos. Sign the AWF’s pledge if you agree that rhino horn belongs on a rhino. |
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There’s news from South Korea of a rare Asiatic black bear having been spotted in the DMZ. The DMZ is the Demilitarised Zone which divides North and South Korea. The area is very cut off and as a result, it’s become a pristine nature reserve.
Although South Korean soldiers reported seeing bears in the past, there wasn’t any photographic evidence. The South Korea National Institute of Technology installed cameras – and the bear was spotted!
The DMZ is 155 miles long and 2.5 miles wide and it runs across the Korean Peninsula. It’s heaviliy mined and fortified with barbed wire with surveillance cameras and electric fending. It was created after the armistice which brought an end to the 1950-53 Korean War. Hiking trails are being established in the DMZ now as recently ties between North and South Korea have improved. |
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I had an interesting email from Polar Bears International (PBI) today. They have noticed that polar bears are showing up in odd places. An exhausted polar bear was seen recently in a village on Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula – and that’s 600 kilometers plus from its home range. Their Senior Director of Conservation, Geoff York, thinks this could be that the bear hitched a ride on an ice floe and drifted south, as the ice broke up earlier in the Bering and Chukchi seas this spring. Unusual and fast ice loss this year has displaced polar bears form their preferred hunting areas. Seals give birth to their pups in spring In snow lairs or on the sea ice surface. This makes the polar bear’s dinner more abundant and accessible than at any other time of the year. However the Russian polar bear was far from this area. It was decided to air-lift him back north, to Chukotka in the Russian Arctic. But there have been other unusual occurrences in the region over several months. Some have been far from the sea. This could be because of unstable ice cover. Sustained early sea ice is bad news for polar bears Polar Bears International know from other regions that sustained early sea ice break up doesn’t do polar bears any good.
If there’s less sea ice in the Arctic, it gets more difficult for polar bears to make a living from the frozen ocean. Of course people living on the Arctic rely on stable ice to get around on, and to gather food. We all need a frozen Arctic ecosystem to regulate our climate. So we ALL need the Arctic to be in good health.
Education and outreach. As more polar bears appear onshore, the charity works to help keep polar bears and people safe, with outreach on best practices for avoiding human-polar bear conflict. These include getting rid of things such as open garbage dumps and installing bear-proof ones. Research – the charity is studying the effectiveness of using surveillance radar to detect approaching polar bears. This means alerts can be given before a bear enters town. PBI help with research on the best deterrants – and that includes putting together a history of polar bear attacks, and their causes to help avoid future conflicts. Climate Action. PBI is one working to solve the climate crisis, sharing their knowledge of polar bears and coming up with solutions. This includes the Climate Alliance training program for zoo staff members, outreach to motivate citizen involvement, and advocacy to policy makers on the urgent need to act. |
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Researchers doing some photo monitoring in the Vorontsov Land of the Leopard National Park have identified 91 adult leopards, as well as 22 cubs! As a rule, a qualitative increase is possible when the population has at least twice as many females as males. The high percentage of cubs too is good news. The new trend amongst Far Eastern Leopards suggests stabilisation of this rare cat’s population. They are also known as Amur Leopards. The Land of the Leopard National Park accounts for about 70% of the leopard’s natural habitat. This was a key decision: it means that the Far Eastern Leopard can now live safely on an area of almost 2,800 square kilometres. To count the wild cats, national park employees went through nearly a million camera trap images. About 10,000 of them had leopards on them! To complete the picture, experts from the Russian national park are eagerly waiting for the results that their Chinese colleagues are producing; they too have been monitoring photos. These data are vital now that the Land of the Leopard has become a “birth centre” for the spotted cats; many young leopards move to the Chinese borders to look out new territories. Some return, but a certain number stay in China – and that means that the leopard population can grow! Far Eastern Leopards is an autonomous non-profit organisation. Far Eastern Leopards’ mission is “to protect and restore the Far Eastern Leopard population in its historical habitat in the Russian Far East. It supports the photo monitoring at Land of the Leopard and the Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve. About 360,000 hectares are being monitored in the national park. 400 automatic camera traps can be found in the national park, so it’s the largest camera trap network in Russia!
Camera trap images enable scientists to do several things:
Find out about Far Eastern Leopards here – there’s lots of information on Far Eastern Leopards and also the organisation trying to protect and restore the species. Reasons for the very low numbers of these leopards are:
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