Nature Ramble

How the threat to lions, leopards and wolves endangers us all

Though fearsome killers, big carnivores are also a precious resource, as their feeding habits keep many delicate ecosystems in balance. But too many predators are now facing extinction

Lions kill a buffalo in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. Photograph: Jonathan & Angela Scott/Getty Images/AWL Images RM

They are the planet’s most prolific killers – and also some of nature’s most effective protectors. This is the stark conclusion of an international report that argues that lions, wolves, pumas, lynxes and other major carnivores play key roles in keeping ecosystems in balance. It also warns that the current depletion of numbers of major predators threatens to cause serious ecological problems across the globe.

The paper, written by a group of 14 leading ecologists and biologists from the US, Europe and Australia and published in the journal Science, calls for the establishment of an international initiative to conserve large carnivores and help them to coexist with humans. Failure to protect our top predators could soon have devastating consequences, they warn.

“Globally, we are losing our large carnivores,” said William Ripple, the report’s lead author. “Many of them are endangered and their ranges are collapsing. Many are at risk of extinction, either locally or globally. And, ironically, they are vanishing just as we are learning to appreciate their important ecological effects.”

The report has been produced, in part, to show that the classic vision of a large predator, such as a lion or a wolf, being an agent of harm to wildlife and a cause of widespread depletion of animal stocks is misguided. Careful analysis of predators’ food chains reveals a very different picture. “In fact, the myriad social and economic effects [of large carnivores] include many benefits,” it states.

Ripple, a professor at Oregon State University’s department of forest ecosystems and society, and his colleague Robert Beschta, have documented the impact of wolves in Yellowstone and other national parks in North America. When wolf numbers have been reduced, usually by hunters, this has led to an increase in numbers of herbivores, in particular the elk.

Elks browse on trees such as aspen, willow, cottonwood, and various berry-producing shrubs, and the more elks there are, the more browsing damage is done to these trees. The knock-on effect is striking, says the report.

“Local bird populations go down because they have fewer berries to eat,” added Ripple. “The same is true of bears, which also eat berries. Beaver populations are also affected. They have less plant life to eat and less wood for making their dams.

“For good measure, the roots of the willow and other shrubs help to hold the soil of river banks together, so they do not get washed away. This does happen, however, when you have no wolves, lots of elks and, therefore, poor levels of vegetation. So you can see that the wolf – which sits at the top of the food chain in midwest America – has an impact that goes right down to having an effect on the shapes of streams.”

Yet wolves were once considered to be such a menace that they were exterminated inside Yellowstone national park in 1926. The park’s ecology slowly transformed with their absence until, in 1995, they were reintroduced.

“Very quickly, the park’s ecosystems returned to normal,” said Ripple. “I was impressed with how resilient it proved.”

Another example of the ecological importance of large carnivores is provided by lions and leopards. Both animals prey on olive baboons in Africa, and as numbers of these key predators have declined, numbers of olive baboons have increased. The population of lions in particular has been so reduced that it now only covers 17% of its historical range, while numbers of olive baboons have risen in direct proportion.

The consequence of this increase has been significant, say the authors. Olive baboons are omnivores and eat small primates and deer. When olive baboon numbers rise, populations of local monkeys and deer plummet. There is also an effect on human populations.

“Baboons pose the greatest threat to livestock and crops in sub-Saharan Africa, and they use many of the same sources of animal protein and plant foods as humans,” states the Science paper. “In some areas, baboon raids in agricultural fields require families to keep children out of school so they can help guard planted crops.”

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Nature Ramble

Staying in South America this week and heading north to one of the lesser known countries.

Everybody knows about Argentina and Brazil, but few know about Guyana; it used to be British, you know and they drive on the left.

But, where is Guyana?

Image – MongaBay

South America is home to one of the most beautiful of the big cats; the jaguar.

I have seen one at a distance of about 400 metres, close enough thank you. I had to use a 200mm + 2x teleconverter to get a good shot, but alas that is a photo lost to the ravages of time.

That was in the Pantanal.

But they range far and wide, from Argentina to the Darien Gap, that inhospitable stretch of land that connects the south to Central America and has defied all man’s attempts to traverse with transport.

Railways and roads have failed.

Proof that man cannot tame all the wilderness.

Rusting in the forest, a train bears mute testimony to failure to connect Central and South America

Guyana pledges to protect jaguars

The South American nation is in talks to establish a ‘jaguar corridor’ a network of pathways that would link core populations

Jaguars once roamed widely from the south-western United States to Argentina, but have lost nearly half of their natural territory and have disappeared altogether from some countries. Photograph: Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty Images

The lushly forested nation of Guyana on Thursday joined a regional pact to protect jaguars, the elusive spotted cat that is the biggest land predator in the Americas but has become vulnerable as expanded agriculture and mining carves away at their fragmented habitat.

Leaders of the government’s environment ministry were signing an agreement with the New York-based conservation group Panthera, which is trying to establish a “jaguar corridor”, a network of pathways that would link core jaguar populations from northern Argentina to Mexico. Guyana is pledging to ensure the protection of jaguars, the national animal that is a near-threatened species.

The South American nation, with some of the region’s least spoiled wilderness, joins Colombia and nations in central America in recognising the corridor and agreeing to work towards the long-term conservation of jaguars, according to Esteban Payan, regional director for Panthera’s northern South America jaguar program.

A network of cameras equipped with motion sensors and fixed to tree trunks has revealed tantalising glimpses of sleek, solitary jaguars slinking through Guyana’s dense rainforests and vast grasslands stretching to the country’s border with Brazil.

Scientists reported finding a relatively healthy jaguar density of three to four animals per 161 miles in Guyana’s southern Rupununi savannah. That means that preserving grasslands are as important to conservation of jaguars as protecting the dense rainforests, they say.

Evi Paemelaere, a Belgian jaguar scientist with Panthera, said villagers in remote spots in Guyana have helped her set up cameras along the roads and hunting trails that the big cats like to travel on.

“Amerindians are very keen on being part of the project,” she said from the capital of Georgetown.

Jaguars once roamed widely from the south-western United States to Argentina, but have lost nearly half of their natural territory and have disappeared altogether from some countries. Heavy hunting for their spotted coats decimated their numbers in the 1960s and early 1970s until the pelt trade was largely halted. No one has any reliable estimates of how many jaguars are left in the wild, where they prey on peccaries, tapirs and, as they are powerful swimmers, river turtles.

Guyana, a country roughly the size of the US state of Idaho where most of the 756,000 inhabitants live along its Atlantic coastline, has been widely recognised for balancing progress with preservation. In 2009, it began a low-carbon push aimed at maintaining very low rates of deforestation and combating climate change, while also promoting economic development. It could receive up to $250m from Norway by 2015 as an incentive to protect its forests through sustainable mining, timber harvesting and other projects.

Alan Rabinowitz, Panthera’s CEO and a zoologist whose research in Belize in the 1980s led to the creation of the world’s first jaguar preserve, said Guyana’s signing of the jaguar agreement “demonstrates the government’s continued commitment to its legacy of conservation alongside economic progress and diversification”.

More photos:

Image: travelbabyonline

Image: curiousanimals.net

Cubs – Image: redbubble.com

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