In exciting news EDGE is being supported by an innovative, ambitious, and some say crazy campaign aiming to Storm The Charts in 2010. Their plan is to get 40 different unsigned bands into the top 40 chart in the same week!
On the Storm the Charts victory scale they ‘call a ’success’ finding some good new music; a ‘win’ getting 2 or more songs in the charts, and anything above that is epic’.
Storm the Charts organiser, Wes White, set up a Justgiving page in support of EDGE because he felt that the outsider musicians raising money for overlooked unusual animals just made sense.
Enter a Band
Storm The Charts is still accepting entries for bands (over 140 have applied already!) so if you qualify enter by emailing stormthecharts@gmail.com with the subject heading ‘For your consideration’. The final 40 bands will be chosen from all entries (up to the 1,000th band) by a mix of votes on Facebook and an expert panel, in preparation for the Storm The Charts week later in 2010.
Make a T-shirt
Storm The Charts are also teaming up with t-shirt printers Dizzyjam to supply the official t-shirts for the campaign, with the proceeds of the sales going to our amazing EDGE species. The official t-shirt will be chosen through a design competition. The closing date for entries it the Sunday, March 14th so there is still time to enter ; take a look at the design guidelines, and send your entries to stormthecharts@gmail.com.
So a huge thank you to both Storm the Charts and Dizzyjam for their support, now get designing, and why not listen to an original unsigned band while you think…?
I simply can’t write this blog without mentioning the devastating earthquake that hit Hispaniola on the 12 of January 2010; it was felt throughout the island although its destructive impact was concentrated on the Haitian capital (Port-Au-Prince). I was in the capital of the Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo) at the time and we felt it there too; some people in Santo Domingo ran out of and away from buildings in fear.
In terms of the project, this natural disaster is likely to have a real impact in the future. Thousands of people have lost everything and many have been displaced. In the short term, the immediate humanitarian need obviously takes precedence. However, I hope that in the long term the environmental/conservation aspect is taken into account as part of Haiti’s recovery plan.
The field work has kicked off in earnest since my last blog and there has been a lot of research activity despite the fact that I spent two weeks back in the UK since then, most of this progress can be credited to our genius research assistants Nicholas and Lleyo. Not only have they surveyed some extensive areas but they have managed to get even more great video footage of solenodon and hutia in the wild. Our library of DNA samples from hutia and solenodon is also growing steadily.
Unfortunately, two lots of samples have come from animals that were found dead, one in the east of the island killed by dogs and one we found in the south west of the island which died of unknown causes but possibly poisoned. Nicolas and Lleyo’s trapping abilities have become increasingly refined so we have managed to collect most of our samples far less destructively with their help. In the future, these samples which are being analysed by a team led by Dr Sam Turvey at the Zoological Society of London (London Zoo) will establish just how genetically separated different populations of the species are.
The other exciting news is that our team is now complete since a local counterpart field project manager has been appointed. I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome and introduce you to Pedro Martinez our newest team member. Pedro is a Dominican Republic national and comes with a wealth of experience after working for several conservation organisations over a number of years. I’m sure his extensive expertise combined with his local knowledge will strengthen our team even further. You will get to know him better over the coming months as he starts to contribute to these blogs.
I’m afraid I dropped Pedro in the deep end as his first expedition into the field as part of the project started on his third day of work when we ventured into Parque Jaragua to do our first extensive survey in the dry cactus forest. It was tough going with extremely spiny cactus surrounding us all the time and razor sharp limestone under foot, Pedro appeared to take it all in his stride. We found evidence of both species even in this harsh landscape but mainly in hollows, dips and valleys where soil was a bit deeper, temperature a bit cooler and the forest was dominated by non-cacti species.
Unfortunately during Pedro’s time in the field we also came across several charcoal ovens along a valley we surveyed near the border with Haiti – it was a sad site to come across magnificent large trees being felled for charcoal. Many of the people doing this are desperately poor and see very few viable alternatives to this activity. The people carrying out this type of deforestation are well aware that it is illegal and live in fear of getting caught, several fled into the forest when we approached a charcoal oven that was in the middle of being built.
Over the following months we are going to be pretty busy. We will continue doing a lot more extensive field work as well as stepping up on the educational and awareness raising front with the help of both the Sociedad Ornitologica de la Hispaniola and the national zoo (Parque Zoologico Nacional de la Republica Dominicana). We are also working with Daniela Rusowsky from Funk Productions to produce a series of infomercial video films. Potentially, a couple of graduate students will also be joining the project and our plan for doing research into the sounds these species make should also be taking shape. Exciting and busy times all round.
I was interviewed by an online magazine in January and you can read the results of this at: http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0118_hance_nunezmino.html. The project now also has its own dedicated website: www.thelastsurvivors.org which gives a lot more information about both species and everyone involved in the project as well as setting the project into the wider context of what’s happened to the endemic mammals of the Caribbean. If you are keen to find out more then I strongly recommend you log on, although as always we are always happy to answer any questions directly.
For now and until our next update, I bid you farewell.
A partnership of UK conservation organisations – BirdLife International, the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Zoological Society of London’s EDGE of Existence programme – has secured funding from Defra’s Darwin Initiative in support of vital conservation action to prevent the extinction of Haiti’s unique biodiversity.
Haiti’s forests support an incredible diversity of range-restricted endemic animals, including two highly threatened land mammals and 13 EDGE Amphibians. However, only 3% of the Haitian forests remain and these are being lost at an alarming rate (approximately 10% every five years), with the result that many species are globally threatened or even possibly extinct.
The Massif de la Hotte is a mountainous area in south-westernmost Haiti, and is one of the few areas in the country still retaining a patchwork of forest cover, all within the Macaya National Park. These forests represent one of the most important places in the world for the conservation of 42 globally threatened mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians that live there. These include the Hispaniolan solenodon, ranked 4th on the EDGE mammals list, and the most highly-ranked of the Haitian EDGE amphibians, the false green robber frog and Casillon robber frog (equal 129th), which are endemic to the Massif de la Hotte.
The forests of the Massif de la Hotte also provide important ecosystem services for local communities, including the daily provision of fresh water and firewood and protection from landslides and flooding during tropical storms. It is the maintenance and improvement of these services, and increasing the resilience of the forests to the effects of global climate change, that lie at the heart of an integrated approach to conservation in the massif.
“The last patches of forest in the mountains of southern Haiti support some of the world’s highest levels of threatened unique biodiversity, and provide invaluable ecosystem services for local communities. Without immediate conservation action and sustainable management, Haiti’s last endemic vertebrates are likely to disappear,” says ZSL’s Dr Sam Turvey, who will be coordinating the project’s mammal field surveys.
An EDGE expedition in April 2007 visited the Massif de la Hotte and confirmed the continuing survival of both the Hispaniolan solenodon and Haiti’s only surviving native rodent, the Hispaniolan hutia, although solenodons were reported to be rare by local communities. EDGE has continued supporting conservation in the region through the EDGE Fellows programme - we have trained and funded Osé Pauléus, a young Haitian keen to protect his country’s natural heritage, to continue the research carried out on the initial expedition.
The devastating 12th January 2010 earthquake had no immediate material impact within the Massif de la Hotte. However, the aftermath is starting to be felt with people fleeing Port-au-Prince to find refuge in the remote communities around the Macaya National Park. The Darwin Initiative funding comes at a critical time to help work towards accommodating earthquake victims in the communities around Macaya, and to ensure a sustainable future for people and for the area’s unique wildlife.
If you would like to contribute to the conservation of EDGE species and training of conservationists in developing countries, then please become an EDGE Champion, or donate here.
The pygmy hippopotamus is today featured as the IUCN Red List ‘Species of the Day’, which is running throughout 2010 to mark the International Year of Biodiversity.
Ranked 21st on the EDGE Mammal conservation priority list, the pygmy hippo is also one of our focal species for conservation action. The lesser-known of the two extant hippopotamus species, the pygmy hippo is also less common and has a smaller range, and is listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Standing just 1 metre tall, the pygmy hippopotamus is significantly shorted than its larger cousin, and is also much lighter, at less than 1/5th of the weight of the common hippo.
The family Hippopotamidae diverged from their closest relatvies, the whales and dolphins, approximately 60 million years ago, so the two remaining hippo species in the group represent an incredible amount of evolutionary history.
The pygmy hippo is now only found in a series of fragmented populations across West Africa, in Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Sub-populations in Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau are almost certainly extinct.
In 1993 the global population was estimated at 2,000 – 3,000 individuals. However, continuing habitat loss and reports of hunting suggest that the population will have declined since this estimate, and these factors remain the major threats to the pygmy hippo.
EDGE is working to help monitor and protect the remaining wild populations, and to raise awareness of the extinction risk to the pygmy hippo. In January 2008 we led the establishment of a monitoring programme in Liberia’s Sapo National Park, using infra red camera traps to survey pygmy hippos and sympatric species. We are now supporting EDGE Fellow John Konie to continue management of the project.
Konie was working as a biologist at Sapo for the Liberian Forestry Development Authority (but has since been promoted to Chief Park Warden) and was trained by ZSL staff in using camera traps as a biodiversity monitoring technique. We continue to support Konie, giving him both technical advice and financial help to continue the monitoring programme, providing valuable data that feeds into the management of the protected area.
The camera trap survey quickly presented the first known photographs of wild pygmy hippos in Liberia which featured in news stories worldwide, helping to raise awareness of this little-known threatened species. These images were also shown to the Liberian President, Her Excellency Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was reportedly excited by the findings and has since visited Sapo and showed support for good management of the National Park and the survival of the pygmy hippo.
EDGE has now teamed up with ZSL’s Africa conservation programme, and together we plan to expand our pygmy hippo conservation work throughout the species’ range, working with local and international partners to produce a range-wide conservation strategy for this species. We hope that this will guarantee the survival of this extraordinary but underappreciated hippo.
To help us conserve unique and threatened EDGE species, please become an EDGE Champion or donate here.
This week the list of the World’s 25 most endangered primates was released, highlighting which of man’s closest relatives are on the brink extinction and are most in need of conservation attention.
The report, Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates, 2008–2010, compiled by 85 experts from across the world, reveals that almost half of the world’s 634 primate species are classified as threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™. The main threats are habitat destruction, particularly from the burning and clearing of tropical forests (which results in the release of around 16 percent of the global greenhouse gases causing climate change), the hunting of primates for food (bushmeat), and the illegal wildlife trade.
Six of the species on the top 25 most endangered primates list also appear on the EDGE Mammals list of conservation priorities. The greater bamboo lemur, ranked =23rd on the EDGE list, was believed to have gone extinct in the twentieth century but was rediscovered in 1972. One of few mammals adapted to eating bamboo, this species is unable to adapt to its rapidly changing habitat.
The Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey was protected until the 1970s by the inaccessibility of its habitat, but road constructions have fragmented the restricted habitat and has led to increased logging. Fewer than 250 individuals are thought to survive today, and this monkey is ranked 79 as a conservation priority on the EDGE Mammals list.
The other EDGE species in the most endangered primates list are the orangutan (ranked 97), Tana River red colobus (rank 149), gorilla (165) and northern sportive lemur (=623).
Donate to EDGE conservation projects here, or become an EDGE Champion.
The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates: 2008–2010, by region:
Madagascar
Greater Bamboo Lemur (Prolemur simus)
Gray-headed Lemur (Eulemur cinereiceps)
Sclater’s Black Lemur/Blue-Eyed Black Lemur (Eulemur flavifrons)
Northern sportive lemur (Lepilemur septentrionalis)
Silky Sifaka (Propithecus candidus)
Africa
Rondo Dwarf Galago (Galagoides rondoensis)
Roloway Guenon (Cercopithecus diana roloway)
Tana River Red Colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus)
Niger Delta Red Colobus Monkey (Procolobus epieni)
Kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji)
Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli)
Asia
Siau Island Tarsier (Tarsius tumpara)
Javan Slow Loris (Nycticebus javanicus)
Simakobu or Pig-Tailed Snub-Nose Langur (Simias concolor)
Delacour’s Langur (Trachypithecus delacouri)
Golden-headed Langur or Cat Ba Langur (Trachypithecus p. poliocephalus)
Western Purple-faced Langur Trachypithecus (Semnopithecus vetulus nestor)
Grey-shanked Douc Monkey (Pygathrix cinerea)
Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus)
Eastern Black Crested Gibbon (Nomascus nasutus)
Western Hoolock Gibbon (Hoolock hoolock)
Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii)
Central and South America
Cotton-top Tamarin (Saguinus oedipus)
Variegated or Brown Spider Monkey (Ateles hybridus)
Peruvian Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey (Oreonax flavicauda)
