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.
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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.
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GRAA AGM
As time marches on, towards the date of our AGM, 17 to 21 February 2008, at Hlalanathi. Your organizers are trying all avenues looking for donations or sponsorships for meals and drinks for the AGM to try and keep costs down for you, our members. If any reader can contribute or knows of a contact who would be willing to contribute, we would be very grateful to hear from you.
Booking forms will be going out soon so please put the date in your diaries now.
There will be a variety of field outings on offer including a birding outing with a renowned ornithologist and there are many magnificent walks & climbs in the area.
Tigers in trouble
Year of the tiger, Jerry Guo
Jerry Guo is a freelance writer in New Haven, Connecticut, reporting from China.
Nature 449, 16-18 (6 September 2007) | doi:10.1038/449016a; Published online 5 September 2007
Dubious science and looming legalization of the tiger trade threaten to derail China's efforts to save the Siberian tiger. Jerry Guo goes to the world's largest tiger-breeding facility to investigate.
The automated gates chug and clatter open as a jeep, its windows ribbed with steel, noisily announces its arrival in the tiger park. Without the usual gaggle of tourists to impress, the occupants of a neighbouring jeep toss out a skinny pheasant as the driver shouts obscenities at a dozen lounging Siberian tigers. For sightseers they would have released a bull, but they cost US$250 each. One tiger finally takes notice and lunges at the fluttering fowl, which has enough brains to scuttle under one of the jeeps. The tiger, neither as sharp nor as small as the pheasant, slams into the vehicle with a thud. And as the hulking beast shakes off the dust and disappointment of his failed attempt, the pheasant dashes into the brush. The striped leviathan promptly settles back down, seemingly deciding that the prey isn't worth the effort.
And why not, for these tigers are already well-fed, particularly by the 300,000 tourists who flock every year to the tiger park at the Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Centre on the outskirts of Harbin in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province. By most accounts, the place is an enviable success. Started in 1986 with 8 Siberian tigers, it is now home to 800 of the big cats. Compare that with the estimated 150 Siberian tigers in US zoos. The largest tiger-breeding facility in the world, Hengdaohezi — like its cousin down south at the Wolong Panda Reserve — has learned the art of churning out cubs, 100 this year alone.
But this year the centre has been subject to all sorts of media attention, from gruesome videos on the Internet of tigers eviscerating a bull as tourists gape, to reports of plans to reintroduce 600 of the cattle-fed, people-friendly tigers into the wild. At the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting this June in The Hague, the Netherlands, China's tiger-breeding programme was criticized for at best creating tourist traps, and at worst being flat-out farms for the animals. Indeed the Hengdaohezi facility was developed as a government-run enterprise to capitalize on the tiger-bone trade. Since the practice was outlawed in 1993, the park has depended on tourism for 80% of its $4 million per year operating costs. But shortly after the CITES meeting, Wang Wei, a deputy director at the State Forestry Administration in Beijing threatened the imminent reopening of the tiger trade, inviting 70 international tiger experts to Hengdaohezi in July to hear the merits of such a move (see 'Another pickle for Siberian tigers').
So far, Western scientists are unconvinced that the proceeds from farming the animals might fund conservation efforts. Moreover they doubt whether conservation is something the facility is interested in or even equipped to do. "They want to use their bones and parts," argues Sybille Klenzendorf, who toured the facility in 2006 as director of species conservation for the conservation group WWF. "It's basically a tiger farm operating under the pretence of a research facility."
In a concrete bunker off-limits to gawking tourists, mother tigers nurse their cubs in tiny cages. The park's chief scientist, Liu Dan, proudly surveys his charges. For him, the objective is straightforward. "Our goal is to reintroduce them into the wild," he says. He denies media reports of an earlier failed reintroduction. The centre did, however, send ten tigers to a small area resembling alpine forest in the Changbaishan reserve, close to the North Korean border. "It's a very good wild habitat. A good exercise in all aspects of training, but still a big difference to the wild," says Liu Dan.
Genetic sleuths
The park contains roughly twice the number of Siberian tigers that exist in the wild, and letting loose even a few captives would have widespread conservation implications — especially in the small remaining natural range in northeastern China where perhaps ten tigers reside. But reintroduction wouldn't be just about bolstering the wild population.
In 2004, Michael Russello and his colleagues at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, published a study in Conservation Genetics indicating that all but 2 of the roughly 60 wild Siberian tigers they sampled shared a single mitochondrial haplotype1 — a set of genes that is inherited en masse. "The genetic diversity was about as low as it gets," Russello says. In particular, his data suggested that captive tigers, at least those in North America, may be more genetically diverse than their wild counterparts. But he doesn't know if this corollary holds true for Hengdaohezi's 800 tigers. If so, "they could re-inject variation that has been lost in the wild".
At Wolong Panda Reserve, keepers are increasing the population to maintain a healthy genetic reservoir in case of a sharp drop or extinction in the wild. Three hundred pandas is apparently the magic number, and tourists are no less impressed. There, as in Hengdaohezi, even keeping the animals caged can benefit conservation, as long as pedigrees are tracked and specific pairs matched to maximize diversity, says Shujin Luo, a conservation biologist at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland. That's not the case at Hengdaohezi. Although Luo is currently analysing the genetic diversity of wild versus captive Siberian tigers, like Russello and other Western researchers,
she has not been able to obtain any samples from Hengdaohezi.
One person who has obtained samples says he is confident in the diversity of the Hengdaohezi stock. Across town from the facility, forensic geneticist Xu Yanchun of Northeast Forestry University in
Harbin, has collected 500 blood samples from the place and plans to have a completed 'genebank' of the captive population by this winter. "I'm sure genetic diversity here is higher than in the wild," he argues, citing indicators such as heterozygosity and allelic distribution from his unpublished data. "This population is quite high in genetic diversity because they are well managed," Xu says.
Fuzzy breeding
The tourists love the liger enclosure — they can't snap enough pictures as the tour bus slowly rolls past lions, tigers and their enormous hybrid offspring, all basking next to each other. The huge animals, a cross between a male lion and a female tiger, are a dramatic sight, but such disregard for intermixing could lead to bigger problems. The property also contains Bengal tigers, technically a different subspecies from their Siberian cohabitants, and the subspecies could produce harder-to-spot hybrids together.
In general, Hengdaohezi's breeding strategy is crude compared with Western practices. Unlike US and European zoos that use computer models to calculate exactly which animals should mate together — and stud books to track every individual at Hengdaohezi, Xu's genetic pedigrees are mostly ignored. Liu Dan concedes that the centre doesn't control or record which tigers breed together (as long as they're not brother and sister). "We don't have the resources," he says.
"Now they're all breeding haphazardly," says Liu Yutang, a cryogeneticist at Northeast Forestry University. "We have to wait until our technology is better so that we can control which tigers will mate." In captivity each female may mate with several male tigers when sexually receptive, confusing keepers on the paternity of the resulting cubs. The centre also rarely exchanges tigers with other breeding facilities. US zoos regularly shuttle tigers across the country to breed, explains Kathy Traylor-Holzer, the Siberian tiger stud-book keeper for American zoos. "The fear is to accept an animal from Harbin as they may carry genes from other subspecies," she says. "If you don't manage the population, you automatically lose genetic diversity."
The breeding facility is not a member of the international stud book for Siberian tigers, which includes almost all US and European zoos. "It's because they breed the same animals over and over again, which you would never do as a registered stud-book zoo," says Klenzendorf. Xu, who serves as a breeding consultant to Hengdaohezi, refuses to use the international stud book's standard software program, SPARKS, which calculates the degree of inbreeding for each individual. "The prediction is not accurate," he says, citing more unpublished data that indicate that sperm genetically similar to the female's genotype stand less of a chance in the oviduct, a case of 'selective fertilization'. "This model has the precondition that all alleles are passed on randomly, which is not accurate because of my selectivity theory," says Xu.
But Xu's claims about the population's high genetic diversity draw doubts even from colleagues such as Liu Yutang who says physiological problems from inbreeding already run rampant. "Some tigers are very weak, have different stripes, high cub mortality rates, and reduced immune systems," he says. "And when they're all related, then it's easier for something to wipe them all out," he adds, citing the waves of deaths from bird flu and canine parvovirus. Liu Dan says he's not aware of these tiger deaths, but Xu says they numbered in the "several tens" in 2005.
Luo says she reviewed one of Xu's papers on the genetic fitness of Hengdaohezi tigers and didn't consider it good enough for publication. "Every few months we receive papers from China about tigers; overall the quality is disappointing," she says. So far, Xu's data from the past decade at Hengdaohezi have not been published in a Western journal, although he did publish a paper in Forensic Science International detailing a genetic fingerprinting method to combat Siberian tiger poaching.
Siberian sperm bank
In his university office, Liu Yutang grabs a giant syringe equipped with a video camera and a light. To help bring the centre to Western standards by controlling exactly which tigers mate, he has developed
this gadget for artificially inseminating the females. He tried it earlier this year with no luck. Still it was an improvement on the prototype, which, he says with a grimace, was "too sharp".
Liu Yutang says he is attempting to assemble a Siberian tiger sperm bank with samples from the entire Hengdaohezi population for artificial insemination. He's even eyeing wild tigers as possible targets for collection, but there's still a lot to learn. He admits his team doesn't yet know all of the basics, such as when tigers produce sperm. "A lot of this work is through trial and error," he says. For example, 8 of 23 semen samples he has extracted so far from the captive tigers yielded no sperm.
Liu Dan's plans to reintroduce tigers into the wild have faced further criticism. "They'll wreak havoc in the villages after being fed chickens and getting used to jumping on cars," says John Goodrich, a conservationist with the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York. "And there's absolutely no need to release tigers at all when tigers from Russia will move into China."
For now, the Siberian tiger's foothold seems sturdier than that of its cousin, the South China tiger. As a result of poor breeding and poaching, the South China population now numbers 66, all caged in a handful of zoos. Xu says the existing population is extremely inbred, with high mortality and low fertility. A paper under review at Current Biology paints an even bleaker picture. Yue Bisong of Sichuan University in Chengdu, notes that of 45 tigers he sampled, only 13 were pure South China tigers, the rest were hybrids with other tiger subspecies.
With its baffling breeding techniques and plans to open a market in tiger parts, Hengdaohezi hardly seems the safest place for Siberian tigers, but how they would fare in the wild is even more uncertain. So perhaps it is fortunate that the reintroduction campaign is mainly hype for now. Although media reports mention plans to release 600 of the captive tigers (apparently hoping to coincide it with the Beijing Olympics), the centre has not yet separated any group for eventual reintroduction, selected any potential release sites, or built specialist training enclosures. As Liu Dan broods over his nursing mothers, he defends the conservation work of the centre, posing the rhetorical question that if they weren't keeping the tigers around for a greater purpose, wouldn't they be just another tiger farm? "From breeding to reintroduction is a long process," Liu Dan says. "The programme isn't mature yet."
References
1. Russello, M., Gladyshev, E., Miquelle, D. & Caccone, A. Conserv. Gen. 5, 707–713 (2004)
2. Xu, Y. C. et al. Foren. Sci. Int. 151, 45–51 (2005)
Police Find Two Tigers in Hanoi Woman's Fridge
VIETNAM: September 6, 2007
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/44158/story.htm
HANOI - Police found two frozen tigers in a fridge and two soup kettles filled with animal bones in an outdoor kitchen in Hanoi, Vietnamese newspapers reported on Wednesday.
The 40-year-old woman confessed to police she hired three experts to cook tiger bones to make traditional medicines that she sold for about US$800 per 100 grams. Police arrested the woman and the three cooks.
The woman stored the tigers in a fridge inside her apartment and cooked outside the building in an area where people regularly gathered to eat porridge for breakfast.
Although Vietnam is party to a treaty to protect endangered species, animals and animal parts are still smuggled from neighbouring countries and around Vietnam for use as medicine.
"She has been doing this publicly for a long time," Tienphong (Vanguard) newspaper quoted a neighbour as saying. "The smell from the kitchen polluted the neighbourhood."
The two adult Indochinese tigers, weighing 250 kg and estimated to cost about US$20,000 each, could have been bought from Myanmar or Laos, newspaper reports quoted officials as saying.
"The tigers could have been bought in Laos and transported back to Vietnam by ambulances or hidden in coffins," forest ranger Vuong Tri Hoa was quoted as saying by Nong Nghiep Vietnam (Agriculture Vietnam) newspaper.
Police also found four bear paws, ivory and various other wild animal parts in the woman's apartment on Tuesday, the reports said.
Last month, eight men were jailed for up to 11- years for poisoning a tiger in a zoo and selling it for US$15,000 in southern Tien Giang province.
Vietnam signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, in 1994 and conservationists said only about 150 tigers survive in the wild in the Southeast Asian country.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
BLACK RHINO HORNS STOLEN
EZEMVELO KWAZULU-NATAL WILDLIFE, MEDIA RELEASE No: 2007 – 10
For immediate release
At about 06.00 on 4 September 2007 Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife staff patrolling in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park in the Ndondweni area of the Masinda section to the south of the R618 "Corridor Road" between Mtubatuba and Hlabisa, discovered the remains of an adult black rhino with both horns missing.
The rangers immediately alerted the Conservation Manager of Imfolozi who mobilised an investigation group, which included the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife Veterinarian.
In accordance with the established procedure for such incidents, the area was cordoned off and a thorough examination of the carcase and location conducted.
This included a post mortem examination to try to determine the cause of death.
The Veterinarian Dr Dave Cooper, estimated that the animal had died about two to three days previously and as the carcase had been extensively scavenged by hyenas and other animals was unfortunately not able to determine a cause of death.
There was no sign of bullet wounds and it is presumed that the animal might have died of natural causes and the horns removed some time after death.
A thorough forensic examination of certain tissue removed from the carcase is being conducted by the SAPS.
Dr Cooper noted that one of the horns had been removed by chopping with a cane knife and the other removed by a fine saw.
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife staff are working closely with the the SAPS Organised Crime Unit to trace the missing horns and would like to remind the public that possession of any rhino parts without a relevant permit is an offense carrying with it severe penalties.
EKZNW further appeals to any member of the public who might have information regarding the missing rhino horns to contact the staff of Imfolozi on 035 550 8481.
Ends
AJG/ Media Release No: 2007 - 10
Media:
For further information contact the Media Manager on 033 845 1235; email jeff@kznwildlife.com or fax
033 845 1299.
Wildlife biologist killed by helicopter
A veteran state wildlife biologist was killed Saturday afternoon in the Yakima River canyon when he accidentally walked into the rotating blades of a sitting helicopter, officials said.
Rocky Spencer, based in King County, had worked for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife since 1978. He earned a reputation as a knowledgeable and well-liked mentor to many in the agency, department spokesman Craig Bartlett said Saturday evening from Olympia.
He was part of a team assigned to relocate bighorn sheep from private property in the canyon to a Pullman research facility for Washington State University, Bartlett said.
About 3 p.m., the helicopter landed east of Highway 821 and 13 miles north of Selah.
Bartlett said Spencer had flown on wildlife helicopters before, but this time the craft came to rest on angled ground, causing the rotor blades to point downward more than usual. When he stepped out of the helicopter, he apparently walked into the blades, Bartlett said.
"Rocky was doing what he loved, and it's a dangerous job. He was really one of the best we had at doing this kind of thing," Bartlett said.
The exact cause of the incident remained under investigation, and Bartlett could not immediately address the agency's protocol for safely exiting helicopters. Pilots generally recommend landing on as flat a surface as possible to avoid rollovers and other mishaps.
Fish and Wildlife uses contractors for helicopter missions across the state. Bartlett said he did not know which firm was hired for Saturday's project.
Spencer's tenure with the agency began in 1977, when he volunteered to trap and band grouse, according to a biography posted on the Fish and Wildlife Web site. He started as a temporary scientific technician in 1978.
He worked in Olympia and at several regional offices during his career.
Helisar mailing list Helisar@lists.altadena.net
POSITION(s) AVAILABLE
PROJECT MANAGER - LOCAL OCEAN TRUST, WATAMU, KENYA
Local Ocean Trust's mission is to conserve the biodiversity of Kenya’s marine environment, encouraging wise sustainable use of marine resources for the benefit of and in co-operation with Kenya’s communities. The focus of LOT's field activities is in the Watamu/Malindi Marine National Parks and Reserve, acting as a demonstration site for national conservation efforts. LOT undertakes a range of conservation, research, awareness, community development and campaign programmes to achieve its aims and encompasses the Watamu Turtle Watch project. See http://www.watamuturtles.com/ for more information about LOT's work.
LOT is seeking a committed project manager to manage its challenging marine conservation programmes. The project team consists of LOT Trustees and staff working in conjunction with relevant government agencies, NGOs and communities.
LOT is offering a 2 year contract, starting 15 January 2008, with a benefit package that includes: local rate salary (taxes paid), housing, medical insurance and one return flight home per year. We are offering one position and will support the legal fees for one work permit, however the housing is suitable for a couple, and we warmly welcome applications from couples.
Major duties and responsibilities:
Minimum qualifications and experience:
Skills and Abilities:
Please send covering letter and CV to Richard Zanre at rzanre@yahoo.co.uk
Closing date 31st October 2007
Apologies but only short listed candidates will receive reply
---
Fauna & Flora International (FFI)– Cambodia
Law Enforcement Ranger Adviser
Salary: USD 30,000 per annum
Start date: As soon as possible
Duration of contract: 12 month fixed-term contract
Fauna & Flora International’s Cambodia Programme is seeking a Law Enforcement Ranger Adviser, to be based in Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary, Samlaut District, Battambang Province, Cambodia. The Sanctuary is a remote area of forested mountains containing some of the world’s most threatened wildlife. It also contains a significant human population, many of whom depend on the forest for survival. FFI has been working in the Sanctuary with the Ministry of Environment for 5 years.
The Law Enforcement Ranger Adviser will build effective, efficient and confident ranger teams that are able to meet the considerable law enforcement challenges of the Sanctuary. The main duties will be to:
1: Advise and train a group of twelve local rangers to patrol the Sanctuary and prevent illegal logging, poaching, land grabbing and other forest crimes.
Applicants should have the following skills and experience:
For a detailed job description, please visit our website at www.fauna-flora.org. Applications, consisting of a detailed letter of application and CV, should be sent to the Project Manager, Cardamom Mountains Wildlife Sanctuaries Project, Fauna & Flora International, 8b Street 398, (PO Box 1380), Phnom Penh, Cambodia, or emailed to davidbradfieldffi@gmail.com
Please mark your application ‘Law Enforcement Ranger Adviser’. Only short-listed candidates will be notified.
Closing date for applications: Monday 24th September 2007
Tailpiece 1-
WARNING
Province of Inhambane
Ministry of Fish and Wildlife
MOZAMBIQUE
Due to the rising frequency of human-lion encounters, the Ministry of fish and Wildlife, Inhambane Branch, Mozambique is advising hikers, hunters, fisherman, and any motorcyclists that use the out-of-doors in a recreational or work related function to take extra precautions while in the bush.
We advise outdoorsman to wear little noisy bells on clothing so as to give advanced warning to any lions that might be close by so you don’t take them by surprise.
We also advise anyone using the out-of-doors to carry “Pepper Spray” with them in case of an encounter with a lion.
Outdoorsman should also be on the watch for fresh lion activity, and to be able to tell the difference between lion cub droppings and big lion droppings. Lion cub droppings is smaller and contains lots of berries and dassie fur. Big lion dung has bells in it ans smells of pepper.
Enjoy your stay in Mozambique
Tailpiece 2
An angry man marches into the doctor’s rooms and demands to see the Dr.
When he goes into the doctor’s office he strikes out hitting him full in the face. The Dr. falls back into his chair and asks what this is all about. The man shouts “how dare you tell my wife she has a cute virgina”
The Dr. asks who he is talking about, and then explains that after he had examined her he had told her that she had acute angina.
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