The hirola antelope, one of EDGE’s cherished focal species, is the IUCN Species of the Day!
The hirola is a very special antelope and is often referred to as a “living fossil”. Diverging from its closest relatives about five and a half million years ago, it is the sole survivor of a formerly diverse group and is now Critically Endangered.
Threats to the hirola include disease, competition with domestic livestock for grazing and water, habitat loss and severe drought. The hirola was once a common sight throughout East Africa, but now you are hard-pressed to find any survivors as their numbers have dwindled from around 14,000 in the 1970s to an estimated 600 found only in Kenya near the Somalian border. It has been illegal to hunt hirola in Kenya since 1971 but poaching still occurs and, without effective conservation action, the future for this beautiful beast looks bleak.
Fortunately, plans are afoot to save the hirola before it is too late. The Hirola Management Committee was established in 1994 to plan conservation measures for this species, including: the creation of protected areas; the mitigation of risk of exposure to diseased livestock; population monitoring; and the promotion of eco-tourism for the hirola to generate much-needed income to guarantee its survival. EDGE has been supporting EDGE Fellow Kimitei Keneth, an assistant research scientist with the Kenya Wildlife Service, to monitor a translocated hirola population in Tsavo East National Park and raise awareness of the plight of this noble animal. The results of his study will reveal essential information about this new hirola group, such as population size, habitat requirements, threats and whether these hirola are successful reproducing in their new surroundings.
You can help conserve the hirola by donating to the EDGE of Existence programme and help us support vital efforts to save this incredible species.
Joe Nunez-Mino: An update on all our activities is long overdue, apologies to everyone following our progress.
While I have been away in the UK, Pedro has been kept pretty busy here in the Dominican Republic exploring some new areas (something you can read about further down). While on the subject of exploring new areas, the project has now obtained permits to continue doing research on the solenodon and hutia at the nationwide level rather than being restricted to three of the national parks (which was the situation up until now) thanks to the support of the Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources.
While I was in the UK we held a very successful event at the London Apothecary Centre which consisted of a series of talks and accompanying photo exhibition. We managed to raise over £1000 for the project and also raised awareness of the project at several levels. We had visitors from the Dominican Republic Ministry of Tourism in addition to representatives from the Dominican Republic London Embassy including his Excellency the ambassador Anibal de Castro. All were very encouraging and pledged their support for the project.
We hope to hold similar events in the future both in the Dominican Republic and the UK. In fact, plans are developing to hold a reception in the Dominican Republic to celebrate the first year of the project as part of the International Year of Biodiversity in October. The UK ambassador to the Dominican Republic, his Excellency Steven Mark Fisher, is to host the event at his residency in Santo Domingo. Further support for the event has also been pledged by the director of the Dominican Republic national zoo, Dr Patricia Toribio.
Let me hand you over to Pedro.
Pedro Marinez: This time it is my intention try to draw a field report of the crew activities during late June through to July which is the time that Joe was taking his vacation back in the UK.
We had a first trip to Parque del Este during this time and set our camp in Boca de Yuma. We soon realised that staying there was a matter of life and death. After almost being eaten alive by a plague of mosquitoes, we decided to move the camp to Guaraguao another one of the park’s cabins in the Bayahibe area. There things went a little bit better although we did not escape the merciless mosquito attack completely but, at least we had electricity and water.
Honestly, not all was that bad during this trip. We found in some areas of the park what we think could be very different evidence from what we have been seeing in the other two parks where we have been working (Parque Jaragua and Parque Sierra de Bahoruco). We definitely need some more conclusive evidence but at the same time the idea that we have encountered something different is very exciting to us.
From Parque del Este we moved to Parque Jaragua where little work had been done there. Parque Jaragua is a different kind of environment, a very dry type of forest with lot of cactus and a tree called Guao, that no matter how far you pass them, you have the feeling that a nest of Amazonian killing ants is heaven.
I hope the next issue brings even better news.
Joe Nunez-Mino: shortly after my return to the Dominican Republic we decided to launch into the field which is where I am writing to you from right now. At the moment I am in very comfortable Punta Cana where we are looking to confirm the presence of solenodon. We have strong evidence that they are here but it is not yet conclusive – camera traps have been strategically placed and the next few days will be crucial. By the way, we have officially launched our twitter site - http://twitter.com/solenodon_joe which we will update whenever and wherever we have a phone signal. This will give a blow by blow of what the team is up to.
The first five days in the field were spent in Parque del Este where we explored very remote areas in the southern part of the park which can be accessed by boat although this is expensive and our budget does not quite stretch to it. Instead we took the much harder route by foot. It involved six hour treks through blistering hot sun and although mosquitoes and sand flies were a problem they were no where near as unbearable as the previous trip that Pedro took to this area. The park hut that we stayed in, Las Palmillas, is right next door to a very popular tourist site. Tourists are shipped in daily in a variety of boats in order to dine on Lobster. The beaches are spectacular in the area, the forest equally so.
A local park guard accompanied us in our surveys in order to become acquainted and trained in the survey methods we use. We found further ‘different’ evidence just like Pedro and the team had discovered further north although we still don’t have anything conclusive. We will continue our quest to establish the whys and why not’s of the evidence we are finding in this region of the country.
Other news includes the fact that the project has now been listed on the website for the British Chamber of Commerce for the Dominican Republic. Although not directly connected to the project its great to report the fact that the Dominican Republic has now released a stamp with a solenodon on it.
Dr Rebecca Coe who is an educational officer from London Zoo will be arriving in the Dominican Republic next week to work along side Ivelisse Diaz Sosa who heads up the educational department at the national zoo. Jointly they will further develop the educational program that will aim to increase the knowledge and awareness of solenodon and hutia amongst school children at the nation wide level.
We hope not to take so long before the next update but remember you can always follow our progress on facebook or for more regular updates on twitter.
Read previous blogs from The Last Survivors project here, and to support the conservation of EDGE species please donate here.
Sometimes finding an amphibian can be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. As much as you don’t think it’s there, there’s always that nagging feeling that if you just looked a little harder you might just find it.
Amphibians are, after all, often shy, nocturnal creatures that are highly adept at playing hide and seek over vast areas. Although amphibians are threatened globally and many are declining in number, there is always a chance that some of the ones we think have already slipped though the net are still alive and kicking and desperately in need of our help. Others simply have not been seen for a very long time due to limited and/or out-dated research.
PHOTO 1: Hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer): an ancient frog that has not been seen since 1955. Its habitat in the Hula wetlands was drained in the 1950s in an attempt to eradicate malaria and develop agriculture land uses.
In response to the muffled cries of the world’s rarest and least-studied amphibians, Conservation International has launched a campaign to find “lost” amphibians. In their own words:
May of the top 100 species being sought are on our EDGE lists and some are already considered to be extinct. Rediscoveries of amazing species like the Northern and Southern gastric brooding frogs of Australia or the Hula painted frog of Northern Israel would bring hope to global efforts to stop the extinctions of the world’s incredible and crucially important amphibians. Please follow the campaign at: www.conservation.org/lostfrogs
PHOTO 2: Southern gastric brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus): females of this extraordinary frog cared for their developing young within their own stomachs by shutting down all digestive processes and fasting for up to 7 weeks. This species has not been seen since 1979. I REALLY HOPE THEY FIND IT!!
In fantastic news for nature conservation, the New Zealand Government announced today it has abandoned plans to mine 7000 hectares of land protected under Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, including strongholds of two top priority EDGE Amphibians.
Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee and Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson declared that the government has decided not to remove any land from Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act (which provides protection) for the purposes of further mineral exploration or extraction.
Numerous rare species were threatened by the proposal, including top priority EDGE Amphibians Archey’s frog (Leiopelma archeyi) and Hochstetter’s frog (L. hochstetteri). These prehistoric frogs have survived mass extinctions and represent half of New Zealand’s native amphibian fauna, but are currently struggling to cope with increasing human pressure. Years of work have gone into preventing the extinction of these remarkable frogs, so it is fantastic that these efforts have not been in vain.
The areas proposed for mining exploration included several long-term frog monitoring sites representing over 40 years of the best data on frog populations anywhere in the world. In addition the proposed mining area includes the ‘type’ locality of Archey’s frog (Tokatea on the Coromandel Peninsula) and Hochstetter’s frogs (Coromandel Peninsula). Archey’s frogs only occur in two areas and the Coromandel is considered the ‘stronghold’ population.
The government received 37,552 submissions on its discussion paper. “The vast majority of submissions were focused on the proposal to remove 0.2 per cent of land from Schedule 4 to allow for wider mineral prospecting on those sites,” Mr Brownlee said. “Most of those submissions said we should not remove any land from Schedule 4. We heard that message loud and clear.”
Ms Wilkinson said the government had agreed to continue with its proposal to add 14 areas totalling 12,400 hectares of land to Schedule 4. In addition, in the future all areas given classifications equivalent to current Schedule 4 areas (such as national parks and marine reserves) will automatically become part of Schedule 4, receiving the protection listing provides. Ms Wilkinson also confirmed that the idea of mining in national parks in New Zealand was “off the table”, now and in the future.
This decision represents a fantastic victory for the conservation of these ancient frogs, but actions are still required both within and beyond protected areas to guarantee the survival of these species. We look forward to supporting continued efforts to protect the New Zealand frogs.
You can support conservation of the world’s most unusual threatened species by donating here.
A massive occupancy monitoring programme has been initiated over the past 18 months to assess the persistence of lorises in over 100 of the remaining fragmented rainforest patches spread across south-western Sri Lanka. The principal threat facing the slender loris is habitat change, resulting from nearly two centuries of over exploitation for coffee, tea, rubber, and cinnamon. Combine with the facts that the species is endemic to central and south-western Sri Lanka, and is typically found in the southern “wet zone” of the island, up to the central “intermediate zone”, and the picture is bleak.
Fortunately, the ZSL EDGE programme has teamed up with the Open University of Sri Lanka and
FOGSL of the University of Colombo wildlife experts to develop a species conservation strategy. The overall programme is being monitored by the National Steering Committee on slender loris appointed by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resource, Sri Lanka.
A major objective of the project is to provide the first spatial data on loris species at this scale in Sri Lanka allowing questions regarding habitat use, forest preferences, and distribution to finally be answered. To focus attention and resources on this mammoth task, seven hypotheses were selected for slender loris occupancy monitoring:
1 - Loris occupancy is highest in lowland rainforest ecotype compared to sub-montane and montane, 2 - Loris occupancy is related to connectivity to other habitat patches 3 - Protected and managed areas have greater loris occupancy than gazetted but unmanaged and unprotected areas, 4 - Loris occupancy is highest in secondary forest compared to primary forest and agroforestry systems, 5 - Loris occupancy changes according to patch size, 6 - Loris occupancy is highest in forest with highest substrate connectivity than moderately connect and no connection; 7 – Different loris species has difference occupancy.
The first round of the occupancy monitoring programme for slender lorises was completed in March 2010. Nocturnal transect surveys (2km each) were repeated across some 115 forest patches in the wet zone and intermediate zone of the country – totaling over 1000 surveys!
The team are now beginning to process and interpret a huge amount of data, to reveal some of the secrets of loris life. One early success has been the rediscovery the virtually unknown Horton Plains slender loris (Loris tardigradus nycticeboides). Originally documented in 1937, there have only been four known encounters in the past 72 years. The rediscovery and capture by the team (working under the ZSL EDGE programme) has resulted in the first detailed physical examination of this sub-species.
The Horton Plains slender loris is evidently extremely rare and was only found after more than 200 hrs of nocturnal transect surveys in the known habitat. The red slender loris is a focal EDGE species, and the rarity of L. t. nycticeboides resulted in it being listed as one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates.
More results of the fieldwork will follow in the next blog………
