Hi again
Herewith, some snippets from various sources.
I appeal to you to send me items to distribute to our members for the Cleft Stick, the Game Ranger magazine and to be posted on the web site. These are your magazine and website, so ensure it gets the news that you would like to see in it.
Please let me have any changes to your physical address, phone no. or e-mail address to keep the database up to date.
Thanks to all of you who have made the effort. Please will any of you who know of members who do not get this “electric” Cleft~Stick, & have access to e-mail, pass their address along to me.
Don Yunnie
7 Chalet Drive, Hilton, 3245, South Africa Local Tel & Fax (033) 343 1534 Int. Tel & Fax (+2733) 343 1534 cell 082 377 7562 E-mail dyunnie@xsinet.co.za.
If you do not wish to receive this e-mail newsletter please send a blank e-mail to me at the above address with the word “unsubscribe C~S ” as the message heading.
Thin Green Line Durban film premiere July 31
Peter Coulon has arranged this event at the Riverside Hotel, those that are in a position to help or attend please do so.
The event starts at 17 30 for 18 00 on July 31.The venue is at the Riverside hotel conference centre (located on the banks of the Umgeni river in Durban North). The function will consist of a presentation by Dr Ian Player and the showing of the premier 'The thin green line' The cost of each ticket is R150, included in this ticket is the cost of snacks served after the presentation and the balance going to the rangers fund. A bar is available at the venue to buy drinks before and after the function. Bookings are essential and will be done by Helga Coulon 0846651948, or guests can email myself (Peter) and confirm they are coming at petercoulon@elan.co.za.
Guests will be required to pay Helga at the entrance to the venue on the evening.
Regards
Peter Coulon.
US Animal Rights Groups are Destroying Kenya’s Wildlife
Dr. Laurence Frank, from the University of California, Berkeley and the Wildlife Conservation Society, has studied predators in Kenya for 37 years. He runs the Living With Lions project, working on lion conservation outside of national parks. He is not a big game hunter.
Once internationally famous for its magnificent wildlife, Kenya is in a conservation crisis, due largely to the cynical and corrupt influence of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the US Humane Society and other animal rights groups which spend millions to prevent rational conservation policies that would benefit both wildlife and impoverished rural Africans.
Seventy percent of Kenya’s wildlife has died in the last thirty years, strangled slowly in snares and sold as cheap, unidentified meat. Even animals in national parks are in serious decline due to poaching and habitat destruction on their boundaries. Lions are being speared and poisoned into extinction.
In that same period, South Africa and Namibia saw an immense increase in wildlife numbers, as over ten thousand ranches found that wildlife for trophy hunting is more profitable than cattle. Wildlife in Zimbabwe quadrupled with the growth of hunting on large conservancies, until Mugabe’s ‘land reform’ resulted in most of it being snared. Wildlife continues to flourish in Tanzania, Botswana, and Zambia, where hunting contributes significantly to national economies.
Sentimental love of animals is a luxury affordable by comfortable westerners, but meaningless to the world’s poor and hungry. With ever-increasing human numbers, wildlife in Africa is doomed unless it produces income for rural people. That is not possible in Kenya because retrogressive policies, bought by tragically naive American animal lovers, ensure that rural people resent wildlife instead of profiting from it.
For rural Kenyans, wildlife is an unmitigated nuisance: lions kill precious livestock, wildebeest and zebra compete with cattle for grazing, elephants and buffalo destroy crops and occasionally kill people. While tourism brings wealth to hotels and tour companies, virtually nothing reaches the rural people who bear the costs of living with wildlife. Telling a Masai herdsman that he should cherish wildlife is like telling an urban American that he should cherish muggers and murderers.
Although unpalatable to many urban westerners, carefully regulated trophy hunting is the one avenue through which wildlife can bring serious money to rural Africans. Foreigners pay over two hundred million dollars for hunting safaris elsewhere in Africa, taking old males with impressive horns, tusks or manes, animals that are no longer of importance to the population (as any man my age knows all too well). In North America, Europe, and southern Africa, carefully managed hunting has greatly increased wildlife populations because people value them.
Tanzania has set aside over 100,000 square miles of wilderness for hunting. It has more wildlife than any country in Africa, and half the world’s remaining lions. In Botswana, a very few male lions are shot every year, earning $65,000 each for the rural community in which the lion was taken, and half that amount for the national conservation agency. The community profit would pay for 350 cattle taken by lions, or support teachers, nurses or wildlife rangers. Lions and all the associated wildlife are a source of income, to be valued and protected.
In Kenya, that lion is only a cattle-killing nuisance, to be poisoned and left to rot in the sun. A rural community would earn far more from a single old male impala shot as a trophy than a poacher earns from snaring an entire breeding herd of females and young for bushmeat.
Kenya shut down legal hunting in 1977, when the world was outraged by hunters’ reports of industrial scale poaching of elephants for ivory, abetted by high government officials. The ban silenced the hunters and the elephant slaughter continued. In the absence of the hunters’ anti-poaching patrols, bushmeat snaring exploded. Vast regions of this country that teemed with large mammals thirty years ago are now barren of any animal bigger than a rabbit.
In spite of plummeting wildlife numbers, that failed policy has been maintained by foreign animal rights groups. Whenever real conservationists try to reform Kenyan policy to reverse the decline in wildlife, these groups launch disinformation campaigns in the local press, relying on racial resentment combined with outright fabrication: “Rich white foreigners want to kill all the animals in our national parks; only rich whites will profit from hunting”. They hire mobs to disrupt public policy meetings and fill the press with nonsensical claims that hunters would indiscriminately slaughter all game.
It is widely believed that these groups rely heavily on bribery, spending huge sums to buy sympathetic media coverage for their propaganda, and to buy influence at the highest levels of government. In a young democracy struggling against entrenched corruption, large scale bribery by westerners is stunningly irresponsible.
Worst of all, these ideologues apparently do not seem to care that millions of animals die wretchedly in snares, so long as none are shot for profit. They boast to their American supporters that their donations prevent hunting in Kenya, never telling them that, as a result, there is little wildlife left, either.
Building Parks Can Help to Climate Proof Cities
Dear BIOPLANNERS,
As the global response to climate change ramps up, many adaptation and mitigation responses will provide opportunities for delivering some biodiversity benefits at the same time.
See below for an example where something that is proposed purely as a human adaptation response could provide biodiversity benefits if green areas and trees are carefully selected and designed to provide biodiversity benefits through use of the right species and collections of species and also to provide urban populations with increased opportunity to keep their "love of nature" alive in a world increasingly dominated by TVs, DVD, and internet chat sites.
This example highlights the need to not live in a "biodiversity bunker", but to get out and work with other sectors,, especially in land use planning, to mainstream biodiversity thinking into other economic sectors.
Best wishes
David Duthie
UNEP-GEF Biosafety Unit, Geneva, Email: david.duthie @ unep.ch
Building Parks Can Help to Climate Proof Cities
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2007/2007-06-12-04.asp
MANCHESTER, England, June 12, 2007 (ENS) - British scientists looking at the effect global warming will have on major cities say a modest increase in the number of urban parks and street trees could offset decades of predicted temperature rises. The parks and trees also would help retain rainwater that otherwise drains away into streams and rivers, eventually returning to the sea.
The University of Manchester study has calculated that a mere 10 percent increase in the amount of green space in built-up centers would reduce urban surface temperatures by as much as four degrees Celsius, or 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
This drop in temperature, which is equivalent to the average predicted rise through global warming by the 2080s, is caused by the cooling effect of water as it evaporates into the air from leaves and vegetation through a process called transpiration.
"Green space collects and retains water much better than the built environment," explained Dr. Roland Ennos, a biomechanics expert in Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences and a lead researcher in the team.
"As this water evaporates from the leaves of plants and trees it cools the surrounding air in a similar way to the cooling effect of perspiration as it evaporates from our skin," he said.
The research, published in the journal "Built Environment," also examined the effect increased green space would have on the amount of rainwater urban areas capture and retain.
"By the 2080s, our summers will be hotter and drier but winters are predicted to become wetter," said Ennos. "An extreme wet winter’s day by the 2080s will deliver almost 50 percent more rain than is currently experienced.
The Manchester teams has calculated that these more powerful storms would increase the amount of runoff from urban areas by more than 80 percent.
Once a year winter daily storms - that is, the biggest average storm in any given year - presently produce 18 millimeters of rainfall. By the 2080s, the team calculated, once a year winter daily storms will deliver 28 mm of rainfall.
"Unfortunately," Ennos said, "increasing the amount of green space only has a limited effect in reducing runoff and so flash flooding will become an increasing problem in our cities."
While winters will be wetter, the warmer, drier summer months will reduce the amount of water available to plants and, during the longer droughts, this will reduce transpiration with its associated cooling effect.
"In order for the cooling effect of green spaces to work when it is most needed, cities would need to develop ways to store additional water, which could then be used to irrigate the green spaces during drier months," Ennos said.
He worked on the study with Professor John Handley and Dr. Susannah Gill in the Manchester University's School of Environment and Development.
Taking Greater Manchester as their model, the team used Geographic Information System, GIS, mapping to build up a picture of land use in the metropolitan area.
The team then worked out the impact that increasing the amount of green space would have on the urban climate and on water retention.
They found that urban areas can be up to 12 degrees Celsius, or 21 degrees F, warmer than more rural surroundings due to the heat given off by buildings, roads and traffic, as well as reduced evaporative cooling.
An increase of 10 percent green space reduced surface temperatures enough to overcome temperature rises caused by global warming over the next 75 years, effectively "climate proofing our cities," the team said.
The researchers advised that cities increase green space cover wherever structural changes are occurring within urban areas, as well as planting street trees and developing green roofs.
The Bateleur newsletter
Thank you for including me in your Cleft Stick sending.
I really do enjoy and appreciate receiving your news and read it from top to bottom.
Looking at the long list of incorrect emails triggered a thought:
"Do you think some of your members might like to get The Bateleur newsletter?
There might be some of your members who, by reading our news, realise that they could ask us for flight assistance for environmental or conservation issues. Note though that we never fly for commercial or private interests.
If anyone would like our newsletter could you suggest they drop us an email - to info@bateleurs.org"
Many thanks,
Nora Kreher
Chairman: The Bateleurs, 9 Woolston Road, Westcliff 2193, Johannesburg
Tel. +27 (0)11 646.1596, Fax +27 (0)11 486.2238, e-Mail: info@bateleurs.org
Wetlands Wire
Wetland Park managers are monitoring the state of the St Lucia Lake since the breaching of the mouth on 2 March 2007. After having been closed for almost five years, the mouth of St Lucia estuary was breached by a combination of high seas (caused by Cyclone Gamede), strong onshore winds and very high tides. The waves washed over the natural beach berm and into the St Lucia estuary - creating gullies. One of these gullies eroded to become the new estuary mouth.
Two weeks later, high seas caused by a storm at sea combined with extremely high equinox spring tides (resulting in the highest tides in 18 years) caused waves of 8m-12m (said to be a 1:50 year event). This undercut dunes and scouring away sand along the KwaZulu-Natal coastline including the Wetland Park. The St Lucia estuary mouth at high tide covered about a 1000m strip of beach area as waves washed over entered the entire width of the estuary. This brought in large quantities of sea water. The outflowing water was much less, and contained to a channel of 60 to 80 m wide. With more water coming in than leaving, and with the very low water levels in St Lucia - which have been below mean sea level - the lake has been filling rapidly with sea water.
The circular patches of the submerged Potamogeton water plant have been washed away by the strong currents, and as the plants cannot tolerate seawater salinity, they rapidly died. In places the reedbeds that line the margins of the estuary are also being killed by the salt from the inflowing seawater. However, the mangroves are adapted to the tidal flushing and will have been rejuvenated as the aerial roots of mangroves are being covered by water for the first time in 5 years of drought.
Short-term effects of the mouth opening are positive with high inflow of seawater bringing fish, larval crabs and prawns into the estuary. These will grow up in the estuary where the decaying vegetation provides an abundance of food. Larger fish are also entering the system - improving fishing.
However, the inflowing water also brings in sediments and levels of salinity in the lake which could impact negatively on the estuarine vegetation, birds, fish and other fauna should the drought continue. The functioning of St Lucia will be severely affected should large quantities of salt enter the system over the next several months.
The bird life is changing. The ducks and small waders have moved away from the high water levels to the upper reaches of Lake St Lucia where there is still shallow water. A recent bird count showed that there are over 17 000 waterbirds in St Lucia. These include about 1700 White Pelicans, 3000 flamingoes, 3000 Avocets and numerous other birds. In the mouth area and the Narrows, the crocodiles are not as easily seen as before the breach as there are fewer suitable basking areas in the Narrows. However, they are still present and visitors need to be cautious at all times.
Since the breaching of the mouth the water surface area has increased from well below 50% to above 80% of the St Lucia Lake basin. Salinity throughout the lake is now close to that of seawater. In recent weeks there has been a shallowing of the mouth, and sand bars have formed on either side of the mouth channel. There is a strong possibility that the mouth will close in the near future. Should this happen, it will be allowed to remain closed until we are sure that the drought is over, and that the rivers entering St Lucia are once again flowing strongly.
Although virtually no rain was recorded for the month of May, June started well with good rains - over 120 mm were recorded at all the rain gauges around Lake St Lucia on 2 June. For the first time in years boats are launching from Charters Creek. Anglers have been catching fish, but should be aware that the ban on the capture of Kob is still in effect.
News from IRF
Video on Rangers Fighting Poaching in Chad
The National Geographic Magazine web site has a nine-minute-long video on the efforts that rangers in Chad are making to stop elephant poaching. It's called "Ivory Wars: Last Stand In Zakouma." Go to the web site below, then click on the video:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0703/sights_n_sounds/index.html
Here's a description from the web site:
"Zakouma National Park in southeastern Chad is home to one of the world's largest remaining concentrations of elephants. Despite a tumultuous history of slavery, colonialism, and civil war, conservationists have managed to create a wildlife refuge here. Zakouma's armed guards have ensured sanctuary for the hundreds of species that reside within the nearly 1,200 square-mile park (3,100 square kilometers). Often at great personal risk, the guards fight a dangerous war against poachers who hunt the animals for their value on the black market or as cultural talismans. As the perennial rains arrive to replenish the desert landscape, some 3,500 elephants search for better forage outside the park's perimeter, where poachers await them."
It's quite compelling.
Bill (Bill_Halainen@nps.gov)
SAWMA symposium 2007
To be held at Didima camp at Cathedral Peak More information can be obtained from Peter Thomson, KZN Wildlife, petetom@kznwildlife.com Note that cut off for submission of titles has been extended to end June (and there is even some, reasonable, flexibility in this).
Southern African Wildlife Management Association
Symposium 18 - 21 September 2007
Conservation in Developing Economies
Registration form and more info available from email (elma@mweb.co.za) or fax: 0866729882)
The formal announcement, symposium registration information and forms are now available! Thank you for your patience while we were finalising the symposium theme and registration information.
The main theme for this year symposium will be:
Conservation in Developing Economies
Sub themes:
Please submit paper topics and registration forms as soon as possible. The venue can take maximum 138 people. To make full use of the facilities, delegates are encouraged to share. Accommodation is also available at Cathedral Peak Hotel. We are currently negotiating a price with them for only bed and Breakfast. Note that accommodation needs to be booked and paid directly with Didima and not through SAWMA.
We would like to emphasise that presentations are not limited to researchers and academics. We would welcome submissions from wildlife managers too!.
The themes are to be seen as guidelines for submissions, but we will try and accommodate your topics as far as possible. All provisional titles should be in by 31 May 2007.
Looking forward to hearing from you and will appreciate if you could distribute the information to as many people as possible.
Eating wild in China
Hi all - See below for some info on eating wild in China. The Chinese currency, Renminbi (RMB) also known as Chinese Yuan (CNY), is worth about ZAR0.95, so a pangolin would cost about R665/kg, an owl R1710 and a monitor lizard R190/kg. Also note the reasons people gave for eating wild meat:
45.4% of people think wild animals are nutritious, 37% ate wild animals out of curiosity, and 12% ate wild animals to display their wealth.
Wild animals smuggling investigation in Guangzhou province: more than one million wildlife (animals) were eaten by people every year http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-05-31/103813120764.shtml May 31, 2007
On 22 May 2007, police in Yangjiang (Guangdong province) uncovered two cases of smuggling wild animals. The cases involved 5400 monitor lizards, 30 pangolins, 3000 different kinds of tortoises and several bear paws were found. The seizures included so many wild animals that China's Safety Administration and government leaders in Guangdong province are paying great attention to these cases.
According to the director of the Yangjiang's government administration in charge of protecting wild animals, the animals were brought to Guangzhou, where eating wild animals is very popular.
In Guangzhou, there are three famous markets located along Zengcha road, in the Baiyun district. They are 1) Three-one food market, 2) the South China building, and 3) the Dongwang frozen food market.
During the day, the market is very stagnant. But at night, large numbers of wild animals are brought here to be traded, and are hung up for sale.
In Guangzhou, the most popular wild animals are pangolin, owls and monitor lizards. The price of pangolin is RMB700 per kg, an owl is RMB1800, and monitor lizards is RMB 200 per kg. Financial incentives for smuggling wild animals is so high that more and more people are undertaking this activity, and transporting animals through covert means, thus it is getting harder to seize them.
Guangzhou police said that animals that reach Guangzhou are quickly brought to the three markets, where restaurants buy the animals to cook right away.
Restaurants know that the cooking and selling of rare wild animals is illegal, thus they only sell to acquaintances. Other 'security measures' are also taken. For example, they use false names of the animals - for example, 'big bird' is used instead of 'eagle', or 'Big snake' instead of pangolin. Some restaurants even don't write the animals' names. Some restaurants also rent houses near their restaurant to use as a 'secret' kitchen, where they cook the rare animals to avoid possible punishment.
We checked vehicles stopped outside of such restaurants, and found that many government officials are consumers of rare animals. They also protect the illegal restaurants from being punished by enforcement officers.
The result of an investigation conducted by the Guangzhou Forest Administration showed more than half of people in Guangzhou have eaten wild animals. The reasons given for this were: 45.4% of people think wild animals are nutritious, 37% ate wild animals out of curiosity, and 12% ate wild animals to display their wealth.
In actuality, wild animals live in dirty environments, especially monitor lizards, which eat rotten meat, thus they carry a lot of parasites. It is very difficult to think that so many people like eating them.
Data from the Wild Animal Rescue Centre of Guangzhou province records they have accepted and rescued 110 thousand wild animals in 2006.But they believe these seizures equal only about 5%-10% of smuggling cases, so it is estimated that more than 1million wild animals were eaten by people in Guangzhou each year.
From Jan. 2001 on, the government of Guangdong province has taken more action to protect wild animals. Currently, however, because of a shortage of policemen and because of the 'social atmosphere', eating wild animals is still popular. The government should enforce rigid laws to reduce this type of smuggling.
The above is a summary of a longer investigative article at: http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-05-31/103813120764.shtml
Zimbabwe: One Million Wild Animals Killed Since Farm Invasions
SW Radio Africa (London) Tichaona Sibanda
The Zimbabwe Conservation Taskforce estimates that close to a million wild animals on farms, private game ranches and conservancies, have been killed since the farm invasions began in 2000.
Chairman of the animal welfare group, Johnny Rodrigues, told Newsreel on Tuesday that farm seizures ordered by Robert Mugabe's regime seven years ago triggered massive attacks on wildlife and a huge decline in numbers on private farms and conservancies.
A report released by the ZCT on Sunday said the drop also closely followed a dramatic decline in the number of the country's privately owned wildlife ranches, which the group blamed on government land policy. Rodrigues said they based their estimations on the fact that there were 620 private game farms prior to the land invasions, but only 14 are left today.
'Before the land invasions we also had 14 conservancies but we have only got one left which is the Save Valley Conservancy,' Rodrigues said.
Zimbabwe is home to some of Africa's largest game reserves but experts say several animal species such as impala, warthog, kudu and wildebeest are at risk from rampant poaching by people struggling with hunger and rising poverty and from cross-border trophy hunters. The welfare group said it studied 62 farms, 59 of which reported wildlife losses totalling 42,236 animals including lion, elephant, python and blue duiker that were already on the list of endangered animals.
'If 60 farms can lose 42 000 animals you can imagine the scale of destruction if you were to add animals slaughtered from 620 farms,' said Rodrigues.
ZCT estimates that an average of over 900 animals were killed from each farm largely to be sold as meat by the war veterans who seized the farms.
'Most of what was slaughtered found its way to bush meat markets where it was sold cheaply to consumers and this partly set off the country's economic meltdown,' he said.
Help for a visiting colleague
Hi All,
Gonzalo Nion is a Forest Ranger from Uruguay and will be visiting Southern African PA’s as part of a sponsored group of Rangers from this South American country.
If anyone can accommodate this person over parts of the period mentioned above please contact Juan-Carlos Gambarotta at the above-mentioned e-mail address (Not supplied contact Arrie). Some of you might remember Juan-Carlos or as we call him JUCA. He had a similar experience after the International Rangers Federation Congress in Berg-en-dal in 2000 where he was accommodated by several rangers on KNP and also in Mozambique and he still remembers this experience with passion and fondness. Please see compressed picture attached to this message.
It will be highly appreciated if you could assist in any way.
Thanks,
Arrie
H.A. SCHREIBER
Private Bage X1013, Post Net Suite 7, Phalaborwa, 1390
Tel: +27 (0) 13 735 3531 Mobile: +27 (0) 82 805 6163
E-mail: arries@sanparks.org, Visit www.sanparks.org and experience your natural heritage
Far Ranging
Herewith an email recently received – anyone interested contact Far Ranging
Hi Don
If you would be willing, I would very much appreciate you publishing the following note in your E-Newsletter:
'Far Ranging: Dispatches From International Protected Areas' is a website currently under development seeking daily, weekly, or monthly updates from park rangers, game wardens, and other protected area staff members from around the world exploring aspects of the job, the culture of national parks, the struggle to keep them safe and secure, and the necessity of maintaing protected areas for our world. The website seeks to be a forum and resource for the general public to look inside the world of protected wildlife, nature, and cultural areas and see both how important and how vulnerable they can be. Anyone interested in contributing periodic updates for the site, please contact: Matt Hansen at far.ranging@gmail.com.'
Please let me know if you require any further information for me. Thanks for being so generous with your time.
All the best,
Matt.
Tailpiece-
PERKS OF BEING OVER 40 (you youngsters have something to look forward to!)
1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run--anywhere.
4. People call at 9 pm and ask, Did I wake you????
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.
7. Things you buy now won't wear out.
8. You can eat supper at 4 pm .
9. You can live without sex but not your glasses.
10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room.
13. You sing along with elevator music.
14. Your eyes won't get much worse.
15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.
17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
18. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size.
19. You can't remember who sent you this list .
PS Forward this to every one you can remember
Matter of Fact
This is an electronic newsletter of the Game Rangers' Association of Africa. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Association, nor of the Editor. This is intended to be an exchange of news snips, ideas and communication between members. Newsletter content may be copied and re-distributed without authorisation. Correspondence should be addressed to the Editor at dyunnie@xsinet.co.za