"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead, American anthropologist, 1901-1978
Today, SBC emailed with their annual report. They are the Spectacled Bears Conservation and they work in Peru towards the conservation of the spectacled bear, otherwise known as the Andean bear.
The bears suffer from habitat loss, habitat fragmentation and conflict between people and wildlife. There is a lack of knowedge about them, which impinges on the ability to plan for their conservation, and make decsisions. And they're the only bear species in South America. It's estimated there are about 2,500 mature individuals now.
SBC's mission is to:
To conserve and protect spectacled bears and their habitat in Peru through scientific research, education and collaboration with local communities, government and land owners.
Spectacled Bear Conservation was registered as a non-profit organisation in Peru back in 2009. The aim was to continue research into spectacled bears and to partner with local communities to protect spectacled bear habitat.
Their Annual Report gives you an idea of the work they are doing. For instance, their camera trap study in the Machu Picchu Historic Sanctuary gave unprecedented data to help strengthen conservationa ction for spectacled bears and the other wildlife in the area. Data caught on camera really gives wildlife conservation organisations evidence of the presence of wildlife and shows those in government that there is truly a need to protect these areas.
Spectacled bears are keystone species: they are essential to keep the ecosystem healthy. And they are an umbrella species, too - they have large habitat ranges. Protect spectacled bears, and you're also protecting other species such as the mountain tapir, the puma, ocelot and jaguarundi.
You can find out all about spectacled bears from the charity's website and donate to the cause of spectacled bears and the work the charity does, too! Don't forget to sign up for their newsletter - it's free to do!
In the UK, Knowsley Safari Park give resource support to Spectacled Bear Conservation - their staff contribute to technical projects, education programmes and communication campaigns, for instance. They have a couple of Andean Bears, and they have keeper talks so that people can find out more about these gorgeous bears!
There's great news from the Reteti Elephant Sancturay that a very special match was back for World Elephant Day 2024, and a whopping 9,000 milk bottles were gifted so with the match, that's 18,000 milk bottles for the elephants!
You can still donate a milk bottle here. Please note that the match has now finished but the Reteti orphans still need this milk - they drink a bottle every three hours! (19 Aug 2024).
On the 12th August, it’s World Elephant Day and a great chance to make a to that most wonderful of giants, the elephant.
The Reteti Elephant Sanctuary is Africa’s first community owned elephant sanctuary in North Kenya. Reteti takes in orphaned and abandoned elephant calves with the aim to release them back into the wild. In short, they rescue to release!
These elephant calves are orphaned or abandoned because of drought, man-made wells which they can fall into, conflict between people and wildlife, and natural deaths. Local communities wanted to retain elephants within the county and so the Kenya Wildlife Service and Samburu County Government promoted the establishment of a new Sanctuary.
The keepers are all recruited from the Namunyak Conservancy ad they have been trained in the care, rehabilitation and release of elephant calves. The Samburu have been living with wildlife for many years and deeply respect elephants. You can meet the keepers here.
You can adopt an elephant for a minimum of USD50 a year, or you can give a bottle of milk.
They want to bring beavers back to Northamptonshire. It’s been over 400 years since beavers – a keystone species - were last seen there, and the Trust has been given permission to release a family group at the Delta Pit wetland, at the Nene Wetlands nature reserve.
So here's an update (July 2024) from the Wildlife Trust on how the project is going - it's all very exciting!
The Beaver Trust visited the site and did a full feasibility study and identified the site as a suitable feeding site – it’s also quite away from the public. Furthermore, the site is a difficult one to manage, with breeding birds in summer and overwintering birds in winter, giving the Trust very limited time to do any work. so the beavers will be able to manage the habitat work for the Trust.
The beavers will be in a safe, enclosed area surrounding a lake. They are excellent eco-engineers, and have an excellent ability to create habitats that will benefit a whole range of animals.
The beavers will be busy restoring the wetland habitat – beavering away – and the humans have to do some work of their own beforehand, managing trees and constructing a fence. This fence is constructed and installed to an exact specification from Natural England – it follows a full site survey. That survey involves considering the risks, so that the Trust can make sure the beavers are safe and don’t escape. The stock gates are designed to an approved beaver-proof spec.
The beavers’ work should benefit wetland birds, creating more roosting and feeding habitat, and invertebrates and bats should benefit from it as well. The beavers will be doing what humans would be doing, but they will be doing it better (and the Trust themselves said that!)
One of the exciting things will be the monitoring of the site, to see how the beavers are doing and how their introduction and work is benefiting other species.
The public visiting the shopping centre next to the reserve will also benefit as they should be able to see the beavers when they visit!
I love the charity Free the Bears. They are an Australian wildlife conservation and animal welfare organization and they work with local communities and governments in Asia to help sun bears, moon bears (Asiatic black bears) and sloth bears.
So they need protecting.
As governments work to tackle the illegal wildlife trade, so Free the Bears has more to do, rescuing bears who have been held captive for bear bile farming, educating the public, looking after the bears they have rescued – so far 950 in all. As more bear bile farms close and Free the Bears rescue those bears, so they need to build more enclosures. These bears have been captive, in some cases for a very long time. They cannot go into the wild upon release – they need gentle, loving and knowledgeable expert care, sometimes for ever.
Free the Bears rescue bear cubs in Laos!
Free the Bears' government partners in Vientiane in Laos had captured a major wildlife tracker. And 17 orphaned endangered bear cubs were in his possession. Tragically, one of them had already died. Free the Bears went to the rescue
These bears have bear necessities
They need a healthy diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, with dog biscuits for protein and also pulses and grains
They are clever so they need a variety of enrichment activities to stimulate their minds
They love to have their own space so they have climbing platforms and hammocks – most bears don’t see other bears in the forest; they are very private
Many of the bears need veterinary care, some for a while. Remember that many have been used for bear bile farming – a needle has been injected into their gallbladders to access their bile whilst the bears have been drugged
Their enclosures have an environment that’s as near as possible to the natural habitat the bears would normally enjoy – these enclosures need maintaining.
Of course, this all costs. Donations help Free the Bears do these things:
Give immediate medical attention and care to the orphaned cubs
Support on-going conservation efforts to protect both bears and their habitats in the years ahead.
This bear cub was rescued in March 2023.
Free the Bears need help!
There are a number of ways you can help care for the bears in the care of Free the Bears:
Be a bear carer – there are different levels available from £5.00 a month.
Sponsor a bear (£240 for a year)
Send a gift to the bears such as a jar of honey, a hammock, a climbing frame, a cub care kit donation, a bathing pool donation, a treat ball donation
Send a gift for a bear lover to your human!
Simply donate!
Take part in Night in a Cage on 13th April 2024 (or a night to suit you in April 2024) and raise funds for Free the Bears - or you could sponsor someone who is doing it.
It's time for A Night in a Cage!
This is a great fundraiser - and a really important one - to help Free the Bears care for the bears they have rescued. In the case of the 18 bear cubs just rescued, the estimated cost of caring for them over their life times is $50,000.
The CEO of Free the Bears, Matt Hunt, the charity's incredible founder, Mary Hutton OAM, and bear carers around the world will be spending the night in a cage to raise awareness of the plight of endangered sun bears and moon bears.
Now, if you've only just heard about A Night in a Cage and would love to do the challenge, you can do it any time in April - so you can choose a night in April that suits you.
Sun bears are the smallest of all bears, but they have a tongue which is 30cm long (that’s a foot!), huge paws and a sun-shaped patch on their chest which gives them their name.
Sun bears are excellent climbers – they live in tropical forests in South East Asia. There they spend more time than other bears in trees, and make nests there. They are crucial for seed dispersal and pest control. The problem sun bears have is that they have lost 60% of their land due to habitat destruction and over-exploitation. Not only that, they are hunted for their paws and their gallbladders – these are sold on the black market.
The bears need us all to act. They have been rescued and they need our help to ensure they get all the wonderful loving care and attention they need for the rest of their lives.
Around the world there are many people who are willing to put their lives on the line in order to protect endangered animals and habitats.
The International Ranger Foundation (IRF) is the official body representing rangers around the world. It was established on 31st July 1992, after a year spent setting up and planning for the establishment and development of the organisation. The aim now is to drive through this development so that there is a professional body of rangers around the world. It's based in Australia. International Ranger Foundation UK is here.
Mokala National Park observing World Ranger Day, South Africa This shows how dangerous the job of being a ranger can be and gives you an insight into the life of a ranger. THANK YOU to rangers, everywhere.
2023 was an important year because it was the first year of the newly set biodiversity framework, with lots of targets. Target three is especialy important because it sets a target of 30% of the world having effectively managed areas by 2030. To achieve this, it will be vital to have a professional body of rangers around the world and the numbers of rangers worldwide will need to increase from 286,000 today to 1.5 million. There will be benefits for wildlife and biodiveristy of course, but also for people, who will benefit from the economic and social services outcomes which come about from such a development.
So the theme for World Ranger Day for 2024 is 30 x 30, reflecting target three.
There is a lot of information about rangers on their website, so please explore their website. It works with The Thin Green Lineto promote the initiative of World Ranger Day.
World Ranger Day is a chance for all of us to show our appreciation for the work that wildlife rangers and guardians do and offer our support in whatever way we can and to remember those who have died or been injured doing this vital work and to think of the families they leave behind.
The Thin Green Line says that often rangers' families are left behind without any support. Donations and support give a gift of hope and an urgent lifeline to families left behind.
And it’s good to know that there is something you can do to help wildlife and locals in their communities at the same time, and we thought we’d do a roundup of charities and organisations working to help in this way. Sometimes wildlife rangers are called wildlife guardians.
The Foundation works with ranger groups, ranger associations and conservation partners in over 60 countries. They say it’s estimated that over 1,000 park rangers have been killed in the line of duty over the past 10 years. They are dedicated to providing Rangers worldwide with the assistance they deserve and need.
Other organisations supporting wildlife rangers
Ol Pejeta Ol Pejeta Conservancy is a 90,000 acre wildlife conservancy in Kenya. They have 150 rangers who are dedicated to protecting the wildlife there and neighbouring communities. They also have a K9 unit, whose dogs work hard also to protect wildlife.
Project Ranger supports a range of patrols such as horse patrols, foot patrols, motorbike, aerial, truck and K9 patrols. In doing so it protects a number of species in national parks, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, conserved land and wildnerness areas. There are plenty of ways to support their work so visit their website to find out more!
The World Land Trust has a Keepers of the Wild initiative. The rangers are working on the front line of conservation, safeguarding some of the world’s most threatened animals and the crucial habitats in which they live. They protect reserves from poaching and logging, and importantly, link to local communities, building trust, helping to change attitudes and find practical solutions to problems. You can support Keepers of the Wild by making a donation.
The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation works to support rangers in both Asia and Africa. You can support wildlife rangers here and help them conserve nature. Their work includes carrying out anti-poaching and anti-trafficking patrols across national parks, finding and removing wildlife snares and collecting essential data on endangered speices and their habitats. They also work with communities to raise awareness and mitigate wildlife conflict.
This organisation works to save wildlife from extinction through education, anti-poaching and conservation efforts. It does this by using anti-poaching units, awareness and education and on the ground action, working on wildlife’s problems. You can adopt a ranger (also there’s a K9 poacher tracking unit) – find out what the options are to adopt a ranger here.
African Parks has an anti-poaching team of 1,000 rangers making up their law enforcement team. Thei rangers are stabilising force both for parks and regions
Virunga National Park is located on the eastern edge of the Congo Basin in Africa, and it's home to over 1,000 species of mammal, bird, reptile, and amphibian and a third of the world’s endangered mountain gorillas. It has 750 male and female rangers, all working hard and putting their lives on the line to protect the park and local communities. There's a canine unit as well. Find out more
The Gorilla Organisation has a supporting rangers scheme in the Democratic Republic of Congo and they act as the eyes, ears and voice of the forest. They cut snaes, save injured gorillas, combat the militias running the blood minerals trade, monitor the gorillas’ health and collect vital conservation data every day. Find out more here.
Tigers4ever have anti-poaching patrols in Bandharvagh, India, to protect tigers. They equip forest patrols, provide anti-poaching patrols and provide permanent solutions to water scarcity for wildlife
Become an Orangutan Guardian and help the Orangutan Foundation’s 60 Indonesian staff work on the frontline of conservation in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve. Their role is to guard and patrol the forests and rivers, to rescue and monitor the orangutans and to replant and nurture tree saplings. And crucially, they need to gain the trust and support of local communities. Become an Orangutan Guardian!
The Lewa Security Team consists of field rangers, radio operators, gatekeepers, baby rhino keepers, anti-poaching rangers and the tracker dog unit. The Anti-Poaching Rangers and Tracker Dog Unit work day and night to protect wildlife and keep them safe, especially rhinos and elephants. The tracker dog unit has four dogs and their handlers, the dogs act as efficient trackers, as they can pursue suspects for lengthy distances.
Save the Rhino makes sure that ranger teams have the the equipment they need to do their job as safely as possible. It has expanded canine units across the projects it funds, which in turn helps apprehend criminals. Find out more from Save the Rhino
Tusk
The charity Tusk give a Wildlife Ranger Award every year to give international recognition to the men and women who face danger every day to protect the wildlife and its ecosystems in Africa.
There are also rangers in other countries such as Australia and America and the UK, working for organisations such as national parks and they are also essential to protecting the environment and keeping wildlife safe.
And a very big thank you to each and every wildlife ranger working to care for and protect our wildlife and their habitats. And thank you to their families too.
