Endangered species

[knocker]

As an animal lover it sickens me that we in danger of wiping out some wonderful animals, basically for profit. So why not a thread discussing the issue and the animals concerned. I'm sure many have view on this. The trade in live and dead animals is worth billions. Perhaps others have a view.

 

So,e in the UK.

 

Barn Owl

Hedgeog

Kingfisher

Great Crested Newt

Water Vole

Red Squirrel

Stag Beetle

 

Etc

 

I have to sat humans are doing a great job.

 

 

I'll start by saying I dearly love tigers. Wild tiger numbers are at an all-time low. We have lost 97% of wild tigers in just over a century. Tigers may be one of the most revered animals, but they are also vulnerable to extinction. As few as 3,200 exist in the wild today.

 

It's a disgrace. WWF have a good site on them.

 

 

 

http://worldwildlife.org/species/tiger

Edited August 30, 2013 by knocker

[Just Before Dawn]

Barn owls are doing OK in the UK - they're very localised, but I live in a part of the world with a healthy, and increasing Barn Owl population.  Great Crested Newts are doing OK too - they are protected not because they're particularly rare or threatened in Britain, but because Britain has a huge percentage of the world population.

 

It's a good thread this - however it's often the charismatic stuff that gets the mentions in this discussion, and not the stuff that should be.  The mammal in the UK next in line for extinction is probably the Wildcat, not through hunting but through genetic mixing with feral pet cats.  The Vendace, the white-clawed crayfish, the Corn Bunting - these are all species either clinging on at one or two sites, or undergoing a catastrophic decline - and don't get me started on wild plants!

 

As far as Tigers are concerned, I agree, though the recent work by the WWF in Bhutan has at least identified a stable and healthy Tiger population there.

[Jax]

All our nature needs protecting, as I have said elsewhere we share the planet, not own it, and more should and needs to be done to protect our planets flora and fauna from loss and destruction.

 

I am looking at fitting some bat and swift boxes for example (even though I rent ) we can all do our bit to share this world rather than try and dominate it.

[knocker]

Barn owls are doing OK in the UK - they're very localised, but I live in a part of the world with a healthy, and increasing Barn Owl population.  Great Crested Newts are doing OK too - they are protected not because they're particularly rare or threatened in Britain, but because Britain has a huge percentage of the world population.

 

It's a good thread this - however it's often the charismatic stuff that gets the mentions in this discussion, and not the stuff that should be.  The mammal in the UK next in line for extinction is probably the Wildcat, not through hunting but through genetic mixing with feral pet cats.  The Vendace, the white-clawed crayfish, the Corn Bunting - these are all species either clinging on at one or two sites, or undergoing a catastrophic decline - and don't get me started on wild plants!

 

As far as Tigers are concerned, I agree, though the recent work by the WWF in Bhutan has at least identified a stable and healthy Tiger population there.

 

Glad to hear barn owls are doing okay in your area JBD but as but as I understand it numbers are down by 70 per cent since the 1930s to about 4,000 pairs.

 

http://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/

[knocker]

Regarding the Great Crested Newt the loss of one million ponds since 1945 together with the destroction of valuable wetlands habitats has seen the population of Britains largest newt plunge by as much as 50 percent.

 

http://www.arc-trust.org/

[be cause]

When you see the levels of intercepted ivory and the levels of ivory products on sale in the east hundreds or thousands of elephants must be being killed every month in Africa This cannot be sustained but will not end until every elephant left has a 24hour armed guard or their tusks removed... 

 

If our creator did give us 'dominion' over our fellow travellers we seem to have heard it as 'domination' ..an altogether different thing !

[knocker]

Agreed and the Rhno will be the next. Appalling.

 

An endangered Indian Rhino that took its keepers by surprise when it was born in July has made its public debut in a special 'baby-proofed' enclosure.

Komala was born at Chester Zoo and is the first greater one -horned rhino to have been bred at the zoo, with only 3000 now left in the wild.

The calf was born on 7th July and is the fourth rhino calf to be welcomed by keepers at the zoo this year.

 

http://www.clickliverpool.com/news/liverpool-news/1219707-endangered-rhino-calf-surprises-keepers-at-chester-zoo.html

[be cause]

 

this dance of death ..by licence ..in Zambia !

[knocker]

Hedgehog

 

Loss of habitat, increased road traffic and the use of pesticides have seen numbers slump from 30 million in 1950 to about one million today. Could disappear from Britain by 2025.

 

http://www.hedgehogstreet.org/

[Styx]

Hedgehog

 

Loss of habitat, increased road traffic and the use of pesticides have seen numbers slump from 30 million in 1950 to about one million today. Could disappear from Britain by 2025.

 

http://www.hedgehogstreet.org/

 

The hedgehog is not classified as endangered. From what scientific report did you pull this quote from "could disappear from Britain by 2025"?

[knocker]

The hedgehog is not classified as endangered. From what scientific report did you pull this quote from "could disappear from Britain by 2025"?

 

I realise it's not classified but it is a priority conservation species.

 

http://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/leaflets/sobh.pdf

 

Which originated

 

http://www.ptes.org/index.php?page=492

 

Funny enough they have just been discussing the Water Vole on the radio. It's Britain's fastest decling mammal with fewer than 900,000 remainng. The 90 per cent in numbers since 1990 is due partly to loss of wetland habitat, but mainly because of predation from the introduced North American mink.

[Styx]

Dreamers flesh out hopes that the thylacine still exists in Tasmania's wilderness

[*]SIMON BEVILACQUA

[*]Mercury

[*]September 07, 2013 12:00AM

Former Penguin artist Wolfgang Grasse used the great interest in the thylacine as the inspiration for his work, Tasmanian Tiger Under Scrutiny. Source: Supplied

ROB Blakers has spent decades, camera in hand, trekking through the Tasmanian wilderness.

The award-winning photographer has covered thousands of kilometres in pursuit of the perfect landscape.

But, like most bushwalkers lured into this island's ancient wilds, he wanders with a quiet hope haunting the recesses of his mind.

Mr Blakers dreams one day he might see a thylacine -- and who better to find the presumed-extinct carnivorous marsupial than an expert lensman with his camera?

"Through 30 years of back-country travel in all sorts of out-of-the-way places across Tasmania and in all seasons, although ever hopeful for a glimpse, there's never been a thylacine," he said.

That, however, is not the end of his fascinating story.

"Just once, 10 or more years ago, clear in the stillness of an autumn night on a lonely and unvisited mountain in the region of its old haunts, I was instantly awake when a haunting, rising and falling cry came from the valley below," he said.

"Repeated several times over the space of several minutes it was completely unbirdlike -- a howl, a wail, primal and electrifying. Utterly distinctive. I've heard nothing like it before or since. On that night it was hours before I drifted back to sleep."

The Tasmanian tiger is the poignant symbol for today's Threatened Species Day because it is a tragic reminder of the finality of extinction. The last captive thylacine died in a Hobart zoo on this day 77 years ago.

But many, including retired government biologist Nick Mooney, believe it lived in the wild beyond that date.

No one in the world has as much inside knowledge of the thylacine.

He spent 30 years officially investigating sighting reports, and was privy to confidential information.

Mr Mooney believes there were about 2100 adult thylacines on the island when the British arrived 200 years ago, and estimates 100 were left in the wild when the last tiger was reported captured in 1933.

"As to the fate of those last 100 thylacines ... my suggestion is they were fragmented into small groups, some of which just fizzled out like flags being brushed off a war game," he said.

Ask Mr Mooney whether the thylacine exists today and he becomes philosophical.

"It seems necessary to most Tasmanians to know whether they are there or not, but I cannot find it in me to fully co-operate with our Western penchant for putting everything in a box," he said.

"That would be a forced decision, artificial and therefore somewhat diminished. Nor for me the fey, winking, wisdom that, 'I don't believe in it but I know it's there'. I prefer a more open mind, the more boring, 'it's probably not there but it just might be'.

Thylacine enthusiast Col Bailey suffers none of Mr Mooney's lack of certainty. Mr Bailey has searched for the tiger since the 1990s and in his book Shadow of the Thylacine claims to have seen one.

"My resolute stance of an extant thylacine population in Tasmania has evolved over the past 20 years, initially from an encounter with a living, breathing thylacine in the Weld Valley in the summer of 1995 in what was an unforgettable experience," he said.

"To come close enough to actually smell the distinctive odour of a thylacine early one morning and to listen to its unique high-pitched hunting call in the dead of night in various remote wilderness areas are memorable experiences that will remain with me forever."

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/dreamers-flesh-out-hopes-that-the-thylacine-still-exists-in-tasmanias-wilderness/story-fnj4f7k1-1226713569302

 

 

Volunteers praised for endangered orchid find

By Felicity Ogilvie and Ellen Coulter

Posted Fri 6 Sep 2013, 9:37pm AEST

Photo: The dainty leek orchid (Prasophyllum amoenum). (By Peter Fehre )

Audio: Volunteers find endangered orchids on Mount Wellington (PM)

Map: Fern Tree 7054

There is hope the endangered status of a Tasmanian orchid could be downgraded after dozens of plants were found in Hobart.

Volunteers came across 180 dainty leek orchids on Mount Wellington last summer, extending its known range to more than nine kilometres.

The new information has prompted the Scientific Advisory Committee to consider changing its conservation status.

Magali Wright from N-R-M South says the volunteers' work has been critical.

"We've gone from knowing that there was about 20 plants to knowing now there's about 200 plants," she said.

"We previously knew it was from Snug Tiers and there had been a few records of seeing it up on Mt Wellington and we spent a day up there searching and we found a lot of extra plants."

Volunteer Peter Fehre says the hunt for rare orchids will continue this spring and summer.

"If you talk to people in the volunteer network about whether they'd seen it, many people hadn't seen it. Now we've got more and more people who've seen it, who've recognised it and can keep their eyes open for it."

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-06/surprise-discovery-of-rare-orchids-near-hobart/4942160?section=tas

 

Surprise encounters and discoveries: Just goes to show you never know whats out there!

Edited September 9, 2013 by Styx