Mountains: The Last Frontier For Endangered Species

14 Aug, 2018

The threats faced by wildlife around the world continue to increase. Each year, thousands of animal species are lost to extinction. Mountain areas provide one of the last safe havens for endangered plant and animal species. But even these last safe havens are now under threat by irresponsible human activities.

A large number of mammals have taken up homes in mountainous areas. The most cited reason for this is environmental variation, which is the evolution of different species that live in the valleys and mountains. But studies have revealed that the high level of biodiversity in mountains can also be attributed to the protection mountains offer to endangered species. Animals are taking refuge in mountains because we've driven them from other ecosystems.

Mountains provide safety to animals that have come near extinction. But these last safe areas for wildlife are continually faced with a myriad of challenges which include animal agriculture, human development, insufficient water, climatic changes, desertification and declines in biodiversity.

The brown bear once flourished in Asia, North America and Europe. But now they can only be found in mountainous areas due to the threats faced in lowlands. In the past 100 years, only 1% of the entire population of brown bears has survived in the United States.

Pumas, otherwise known as mountain lions, are mostly found in the mountains – especially in the Andes and Rockies. It took its home in these areas primarily due to the threats they face from the activities of man.

Red pandas are mostly found in the Himalayan mountain chain. Even though this region is reasonably inaccessible to humans, the red panda is having a difficult time surviving as bamboo, which it feeds on, continues to be depleted. For the giant panda to survive, three things are important; high mountains with deep valleys, lush bamboo vegetation, and rippling streams – all of which are threatened by human activities.

The golden eagle has its home in the Northern Hemisphere. Like many other endangered species, the number of golden eagles has plummeted due to human actions.

Not only do mountain forests serve as protection for wildlife, but billions of people depend on them for their income. 60% of the world’s fresh water comes from the mountains even though they cover just 12% of the Earth’s surface. The quality and quantity of water supplied to industries and lowland communities is influenced heavily by mountain forests. If there are no forests in the mountains, erosion is bound to occur, leaving the quality of water in jeopardy.

Most cities source their water supply from the mountains. For instance, 95% of Vienna’s water comes from mountain forests of the Northern Alps. Honduras and Tegucigalpa get 40% of their water supply from the cloud forest of La Tigra National Park. 97% of Kenya’s electricity is generated from Mount Kenya using hydroelectric technologies. The Tibetan plateau serves as a water tower for more than 3 billion Asians.

A large amount of carbon in contained in mountain forests. When these mountain forests are lost, a massive amounts of carbon will be released into the atmosphere.

Threats to Mountain Animals

Every day mountain forests continue to face threats from human activities.

Agriculture

As the world’s population continues to increase, farmers are migrating to higher lands, contributing to the depletion of forest life. More than half of Africa’s mountainous areas have been turned into grazing lands. Excessive grazing leads to the destruction of fragile vegetation. 10% is used for growing crops. This practice is unsustainable due to the fact that crops do not do well on highlands. Most mountainous areas are unproductive lands. Only a meager 3% of mountain land is suitable for growing crops.

Development

About 25% of mountain lands across the world have been used for roads, dams, pipelines and mining projects. Every year, billions of minerals are extracted from mountains. Not only does road construction lead to erosion, it also provides easy access to cut down trees.

Warming

Mountain habitats are very susceptible to climatic changes. As glaciers continue to melt, snowcaps are receding. Scientists believe this will eventually lead to a series of landslides which will eventually affect water reserves. As climatic conditions continue to change, there will be an increase in the number of pests which further endanger forest life.

War

Civil wars have a devastating effect on mountain areas. Insurgents base their stations in the mountains. It has been estimated by the United Nations that 67% of African mountain regions have been used for violent activities.

Action Is Needed

Governments have slowly begun to take small steps to reduce forest depletion. National parks are being erected in different parts of the world to conserve some fragile regions and to serve as refuges to endangered species. Although national parks are protected, they are still subject to environmental pressure. The high rate at which animal species are being lost is a clear indication that mountain strongholds are still being attacked by poachers.

Mountains are vital to all life on earth, including humans. What happens on the highest mountain peak affects all life in the lowlands. Lands, freshwaters and even oceans are affected by moutains. Much larger steps must be taken now to save these last wild areas from animal agriculture, development and other human impacts.

Polar Bears In Danger

14 Aug, 2018

Our oceans, seas, rivers and lakes are home to a large percentage of the animal species of earth. Many mammals have adapted to life in the water. Even those that never leave it still have lungs to breath oxygen and give birth to live young. Most of us know that whales and dolphins are aquatic mammals, living exclusively in the ocean, but there are semi-aquatic mammals, like seals, sealions, manatee and walrus, that live both in the sea and on the land. Among them, with a classification of its own, is one of earth’s largest carnivores: the polar bear.

The scientific name for the polar bear is ursus maritimus, or marine bear. Polar bears are uniquely adapted for life in the sea. Their front feet are large, flat and oar-like and they have long necks and narrow skulls that give them a streamlined shape. With these advantages, the polar bear is a powerful endurance swimmer. Individuals have been seen in open Arctic waters as far as 200 miles from any land.

Only the Kodiak bears of Southern Alaska can rival the Polar bear for size. Polar bear males weigh 550-1700 lbs (250-771 kg) and females 200-700 lbs (91-318 kg). The polar bear will gain a height of 8 to 10 feet (2.4 - 3m). To support their enormous size, such large animals must constantly hunt. They will travel great distances in search of prey, feeding largely on ringed seals and, to a lesser extent, on bearded seals. Under some conditions, they have been known to eat walrus, birds, vegetation, kelp, and even the carcasses of beluga and bowhead whales.

Polar bears don't need to drink water. Their prey provides them with all the liquid they need. Polar bear cubs are 12 to 14 inches long at birth and weigh around one pound. They will nurse until they are about 20-30 pounds before emerging from the den with their mother in March or April.

Polar bear populations are distributed in Artic regions throughout Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland and Norway. They must have pack ice to survive and can travel thousands of miles over the course of a year, following the advance and retreat of sea ice. Seal populations are abundant on pack ice, where currents and wind interact with the ice, continually melting and refreezing the edges, making it accessible to both predator and prey.

Older, stable pack ice is essential to the polar bear’s continued existence. It is where polar bears hunt, mate and den. Pregnant females make dens in the soft deep snows of the ice. They will give birth in these dens and the snow will insulate both mother and cubs over the harsh Arctic winter. Without a stable ice pack to accumulate sufficient snow, there can be no dens.

The ice is also the seal’s habitat. Polar bears are strong swimmers, but they are not adept at catching seals in open water. The ice is necessary for successful hunts, where the bears stalk the seals using their breathing holes. Changes in the conditions of the ice have forced seals to move and give birth in different areas, making it more difficult for the polar bears to find and feed on them. Without ready and plentiful food, pregnant female polar bears cannot build the fat reserves they need to survive a denning period.

With shrinking ice and inaccessibility to prey, polar bears could be extinct by 2050. Their habitat is melting away. When animals lose their natural habitat they will seek other means to secure food. Just as black bears will come into towns and communities in search of food, polar bears, attracted by garbage or animal carcasses, will enter areas of human population. When they do so, they can be killed. Although it is illegal to kill a polar bear, human caused mortality still remains a factor in the decline of this endangered animal.

To help save the polar bear, we must support strengthening of the Endangered Species Act and include the polar bears’ prey base, suspend new Arctic gas and oil development until the bear population and their sea-ice habitat are fully protected and eliminate all trophy hunting throughout the Artic. Laws against poaching must be strictly enforced and programs implemented that offer rewards for information leading to their conviction.

Logging: Cutting Down Wildlife Habitats

10 Aug, 2018

Forests are vital for the health and well-being of humans, wildlife, and the Earth. They provide habitat for about two-thirds of all land-dwelling animals and plants. Around the world, these critical ecosystems are being ripped apart as a result of a booming demand for furniture, flooring, lumber, and other building materials. Trees are used to make paper, packaging materials, pencils, fuel for cooking and heat, and other wood-based products. In addition to wood products, logging is also occurring at an alarming rate to make room for animal agriculture and subsistence farming, oil and gas extraction, mining operations, and ever-increasing development. The world's natural forests cannot sustain the increasing global demands of current forest management practices.

Years of irresponsible exploitation have destroyed and degraded much of the planet's forests. Half of the Earth's global forest land has already been lost. In the United States, 90 percent of continental indigenous forests have been removed. Around the world, 15 billion trees are being cut down each year. The destruction of important wildlands is displacing communities, endangering habitats of rare and endangered plants and animals, and negatively affecting the environment. Most of the world’s remaining indigenous forests are located in Canada, Alaska, Russia and the Northwestern Amazon basin. We must protect what is left before it is too late.

Logging generally falls into two categories: selective logging and clear-cutting logging. Selective logging involves taking only trees of high value. Clear-cutting involves the taking of all trees in an area, thus clearing the entire forest. While selective logging is promoted as being more environmentally responsible than clear-cutting, it can be very damaging to the surrounding trees which are left standing. The heavy equipment used in logging often damages the surrounding trees. Around 40 out of 100 trees die from just one tree being selectively logged.

Logging Threatening Species

The massive activity of logging, both legal and illegal, involves the felling of trees on such a large scale that it is one of the major forms of deforestation. Only thirty-one percent of our Earth's surface is still covered by forests. Of this, rich tropical forests like those found in the Amazon, Congo River Basin and Mekong River Basin account for almost three-fourths of the covered area. For the timber industry, these precious million-year old forests are prime targets for logging. It is in such tropical forests of the world that 80 percent of endangered species reside. The impact on the general ecology and habitat of all living creatures is in danger when over fifty thousand hectares of forests continue to vanish every year.

Seven countries account for approximately 60 percent of the total deforestation on Earth, including Canada, the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, China, Russia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa. About half of world’s timber and up to 70% of paper is consumed by the United States, Europe and Japan. An estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest are lost every year. One and a half acres of forest is cut down every second. Up to 28,000 species may become extinct in the next quarter of a century from deforestation.

Few consumers are aware that the timber used for their hardwood floors, kitchen tables and cabinets come from illegal felling operations carried out in African forests that house elephants, lions, rhinoceros, gorillas and many rare and endangered species. Illegal logging has resulted in loss of habitats in regions spread across wide geographies from the Amazon, Congo Basin, Borneo in Indonesia and the forests of Siberia. Particularly threatened by such activities are the dwarf gorillas of the southern Congo basin, orangutans in Borneo and the great Siberian tiger.

In a virtually dry continent like Australia, rare tropical forest cover has been reduced by half as a result of logging. Precious eucalyptus forests cover only 8 percent of Australia, but house 47 percent of its animals that use hollows in trees as their homes. The yellow-bellied glider, the brush-tailed phascogale, the greater glider, the Leadbeater’s possum and various squirrel species are some of the animals that depend on tree hollows and have been affected by logging. Australian blue gum plantations are home to thousands of the iconic koala bear and the continuous felling of these trees are a constant threat to the endangered animal.

In South-eastern Australia logging has led to increased light penetration that facilitates the growth of lantana, a toxic plant preferred by the bell miner – a species of bird that preys on insects that inhabit these plants. The bell miner drives out smaller species of birds that would have otherwise fed on such insects. Sudden increases in insect loads means they feed on eucalyptus leaves, eating into a vital food source of the koala bear.

In Pennsylvania an astonishing 99 percent of the population of the northern long-eared bat, and 75 percent of the Indiana bat, have been lost to intensive logging and related activities. These two species of bat depend largely on the older and larger trees of the forests for foraging and roosting.

Forests of Madagascar, isolated from mainlands for tens of millions of years, have developed a quality of timber unmatched anywhere in the world. Loggers in search premium wood have mercilessly felled trees over the decades for export to affluent markets of China and the Far-East. The bio-diversity evolved over the millions of years in Madagascar forests has created a stunning array of 200,000 species of plants, insects, mammals and birds found nowhere else in the world. Forests that house thousands of endemic species like baobabs, lemurs, and Uroplatus geckos, have halved in cover since the advent of man on the island just 1,000 years ago. The very survival of such wildlife is in danger.

Careful planning and the use of reduced-impact logging (RIL) practices can help avoid some of the destructive damage caused by logging. RIL practices include better planned logging roads, directional felling so that cut trees do not crush trees left standing, and cutting vines that may pull other trees down with those being harvested. However, any type of logging can result in devastating impacts on forest animals, and on mammals and amphibians in particular.

Humans must realize that even now seventy percent of our Earth's land animals live in forests. It's time for a proper substitute to timber. For the timber and paper industry, profits should take a back seat to conservation. We must save the only habitats the endangered wildlife of the world have left.

Logging Effects On Wildlife And The Environment

Logging causes a loss of bio-diversity. When forests are logged, species lose their habitat, food sources, and shelter. Primary trees also provide seeds for new trees. The seed source is lost when the trees are harvested.
Logging causes extinction. Many animal species rely on trees for their food sources and shelter.
Logging causes ecosystem fragmentation. Habitats are cut into fragments, affecting food availability, migration patterns and shelter. Forest fragmentation is threatening the survival of many species.
Logging causes erosion. Trees and leaf litter are essential nutrients for the soil in forests and prevent erosion by absorbing water – keeping nutrients in the top-soil from washing away.
Logging causes flooding. Trees stable soil by absorbing rain water. When trees are removed, flooding and mud-slides can result.
Logging obstructs streams and rivers. Erosion and flooding caused by logging causes soil and silt to flow into water systems. Clouded water can prevent fish and other species from laying eggs and constructing nests.
Logging is changing the climate. Trees store carbon. When forests are harvested, the carbon is released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. A greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide absorbs heat and creates global warming.

What You Can Do

You can help save forests by making responsible daily choices. By consuming less, eating sustainable food, choosing recycled or certified sustainable wood products, and opting for alternative products, you can reduce deforestation.
Choose more sustainable products whenever possible. Hemp is a fast-growing and sustainable crop that produces more construction-grade fiber per acre than most trees. Bamboo is also a fast-growing plant stronger than most slow-growing trees. Soy can be made into a variety of products and can make traditional wood products safer - replacing dangerous glues, formaldehyde, and other toxic solvents. Additional plant fibers and recycled materials are being used to create a vast array of items. Composite materials combine wood with other components.
When you do buy wood products, choose 100 percent post-consumer content materials when available. When purchasing products made from virgin forest fiber, look for a seal from a credible forestry certification system.
Support companies that have adopted forest-friendly policies.
Reduce, reuse and recycle to lower the need for more raw materials from trees.
Reduce or eliminate meat, eggs and dairy from your diet. A plant-based diet drastically reduces the devastating deforestation happening around the world from animal agriculture practices.
Educate others about how their everyday choices impacts forests.

Vultures At Risk

10 Aug, 2018

Vultures. Cartoon characters in parched deserts often wish them to disappear, since circling vultures are a stereotypical harbinger of death. In reality, vultures in some parts of the world are in danger of disappearing. And according to recent research, such a loss would have serious consequences for ecosystems and human populations alike.

The primary threat to vultures is the presence of toxins in the carrion they consume. On many continents, vultures are the unfortunate victims of poisoned carcasses — especially impactful because dozens — or even hundreds — of vultures can feast on a single carcass. Populations of most vulture species around the world are now either declining or on the brink of extinction.

Losses of vultures can allow other scavengers to flourish. Proliferation of such scavengers could bring bacteria and viruses from carcasses into human cities.

In 2004, Çağan Şekercioğlu from the University of Utah, published a study examining the respective extinction risks of all bird species throughout the world. He noted then that vultures represented the single most threatened group of birds. More than a decade later, Şekercioğlu and Evan Buechley examined factors affecting the extinction risk of more than 100 bird species, including 22 species of vultures, which eat carrion exclusively, and other scavenging birds that have broader diets. Their results suggest several inherent ecological traits that likely contribute to vultures’ extinction risk, including their large body masses, slow reproductive rates and highly specialized diets. The greatest external threat to vultures, however, is poisoning.

Poisoning

Poisoning is the greatest extinction risk facing vultures, and impacts 88 percent of threatened vulture species. The poisons come in many forms.

In North America, the California condor, a vulture, experienced sharp declines until only 22 individuals remained by 1982. The leading cause of decline? Toxic lead bullet fragments in the gut piles left behind by hunters after animals had been field-dressed. Intensive conservation efforts helped the species to rebound. The condors now number well over 400, and range over large areas of California, Arizona, Utah and Baja California, Mexico.

In the mid-1990s India experienced a precipitous vulture decline, with more than 95 percent of vultures disappearing by the early 2000s. The cause was eventually traced to diclofenac, a veterinary anti-inflammatory drug that relieved pain in cattle, but proved highly toxic to vultures. Hundreds of vultures would flock to each cattle carcass. And if the cow had recently been treated with diclofenac, hundreds of vultures would die. Because of this highly gregarious feeding behavior, less than one percent of cattle carcasses contaminated with diclofenac could account for the steep vulture decline. Fortunately, international cooperation led to a total ban on veterinary diclofenac use. Buechley says the numbers of vultures have stabilized, and are now showing signs of slowly increasing.

Now, the center of the vulture crisis is in sub-Saharan Africa. Potent newly affordable poisons are used to control predatory pests, such as lions or jackals. The poisons are so toxic that they can cascade through ecosystems: birds, mammals and insects are often found littering the area around these poisoned carcasses. But, as the predominant scavenger, vultures take the brunt of the poisoning and face the largest number of casualties. For example, an elephant carcass poisoned in Namibia killed as many as 600 vultures. In other cases, vultures are the victims of poachers who poison carcasses so that vultures do not give away the location of illegally taken animals.

Rise Of The Facultative Scavengers

In vultures’ absence, other scavenger populations increase to take advantage of all of the uneaten carrion. By some estimates, in Central America, South America and Africa, vultures eat more meat than all predators combined. Without vultures, animals that eat carrion as a part of their diet (called facultative scavengers, as opposed to vultures, which eat only carrion) proliferate to take advantage of the available nutrients in a dead carcass.

Crows, rats, dogs — any of these species can suddenly become abundant and dominant, to the point of crowding out the remaining vultures. Hundreds of vultures on a carcass can easily frighten away packs of dogs. But when only a few vultures are left, the dogs can rule.

Such changes in populations of certain animal groups can upset the balance of food webs. All these facultative scavengers are also predators, and so they also go out and eat other organisms, causing a cascading effect.

Human Impacts

The impact of vultures’ declines are not limited to the realm of ecology, however. Vultures are highly efficient consumers of carrion, sometimes locating and consuming carcasses within an hour, before other forms of decay can set in. And vultures’ stomachs are highly acidic, killing nearly all bacteria or viruses that may be present in carrion. Combined with the fact that vultures rarely come in contact with humans, vultures serve as a barrier to prevent diseases from proliferating in dead animals and spreading to humans. Other facultative scavengers are not so adapted, and could pass along those diseases into human populations, as many are already fixtures in cities.

For example, following the decline of vultures, India experienced a strong uptick in feral dogs — by an estimated seven million. The increase in dogs, potentially feeding on disease-ridden carcasses, is thought to have at least partially caused the rabies outbreak that was estimated to have killed 48,000 people from 1992-2006 in India — deaths that may have been avoided if not for the disappearance of vultures.

Members of the Parsi sect of Zoroastrianism experienced a different impact. For thousands of years, the Parsi people have placed their dead on exposed mountaintops or tall towers for vultures to consume. The practice is called “sky burial.” But with few vultures and unable to properly handle their dead, the Parsis experienced a crisis within the faith. Some constructed captive vulture aviaries. Others talked about desiccating bodies using focused solar mirrors. The Parsis’ plight exemplifies the vultures’ role in south Asian society — and the various impacts if the vultures aren’t there.

Learning From The Past

Although the vulture crisis in Africa is ongoing, scientists can predict what the outcome will be, based on previous experiences in India. Crows, gulls, rats and dogs will boom. And the rabies outbreak in India may just be a prologue, because several sub-Saharan Africa countries already have the highest per-capita rabies infection rates in the world. Rabies is only one of the many potential diseases that vultures had helped regulate.

The poisoning that is killing vultures is also affecting many other organisms throughout ecosystems. But vultures are the most sensitive canaries in ecological coal mines. The story of the California condor shows that recovery is possible, but at a high cost that countries in the developing world may not be able to pay.

“It’s good news and bad news,” Şekercioğlu says. “It shows that we can bring back these scavengers. But the bad news is that once we get to these numbers, it costs tens of millions of dollars and decades to bring them back. You don’t want to go there. And once you go there, we can afford to save only a few species.”

So, Buechley argues, “the better solution is to invest in vulture conservation here and now, in order to stem incalculable damage from trophic cascades and increased human disease burden in the developing world.”

Seals & Sea Lions Under Siege

7 Aug, 2018

The image of seals and sea lions conjures up thousands of these creatures basking on the rocky beaches of the U.S. West coast, Australia and Tasmania and ice floes of the Arctics. While similarities between these two amphibious mammals seem apparent, there are some inherent differences.

The pinniped, the family to which these two belong, consists of the phocidae or true seals and otariidae or sea lions. True seals are believed to have descended from a terrestrial creature closely resembling the weasel, while the sea lion traces back its origins to a bear-like animal. True seals fall in the category of earless seals because they lack the external ear flap which sea lions, or "eared seals", have. The sea lions have much larger front and hind flippers than the seals, which allow far more locomotion. So while on land the seal slushes forward at snails' pace on its belly, the sea lion virtually gallops forward thanks to it bigger flippers. Like most aquatic mammals, both the seal and sea lion are expert swimmers.

All pinnipeds, like many other wildlife species, have not been spared the ravages of mankind. The hunting of millions of seals for their meat, blubbers and pelts reduced their numbers significantly. Later they were killed by fishermen who over-harvested fish, then blamed the seals for depleting fish stocks in the ocean.

Extensive commercial fishing has harmed pinnipeds in more ways than one. Reduced food, resulting from irresponsible fishing practices, is suspected to be behind a declining pinnped population. Seals and sea lions also get entangled in fishing gear, causing injury or death.

A high amount of industrial and toxic waste is a potent threat to the health of seals. Algal biotoxins and disease caused by such pollutants are proving to be fatal for seals and sea lions. Non-biodegradable marine debris, such as drifting trawling nets, plastic packaging straps and monofilament gill nets, are hazards that have killed nearly 2 percent of Tasmanian seals.

Climate change is also a deadly threat to seals and sea lions. Changes in temperatures in ocean currents has wreaked havoc in the food patterns of these mammals and affected their reproductive cycles. Species which primarily rely on ice – like the ribbon, ringed, spotted and bearded seals – have been direct victims of rapid ice loss leading to premature separation of mothers from their cubs during the milking period. The inability of the mammals to build dens during such periods of ice loss has resulted in high mortality among pups.

Other threats to seals and sea lions include introduced species and barbed wire. The introduction of animals like dogs, especially in Alaska, has made seals prone and exposed to disease. Barbed wire barriers have been erected that are known to cause severe injuries to sea lions.

Seals have long been commercially hunted for their pelts, meat and blubber. As a result, the Caribbean monk seal was hunted to extinction. In 1911 the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention made it illegal to hunt seals at sea, but hunting babies seals on land continued. All pinnipeds are now protected in U.S. waters under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but baby seals are still being killed in other countries for their fur.

Each year thousands of seals are killed in Canada. Although the Canadian seal hunt is the largest in the world and has the highest profile internationally, sealing is also carried out in a number of other countries across the world including Greenland, Namibia, Russia, Norway and Sweden.

Seal hunting is inhumane. Groups have campaigned on the issue for years and their evidence shows all the horror of the hunt.

Seals and sea lions are also common victims of the animal entertainment industry. Aquariums and marine mammal theme parks are part of a billion-dollar industry built on the suffering of intelligent, social beings who are denied everything that is natural and important to them. Animals are taken from the wild; their families torn apart. Marine parks have shown no more interest in conserving marine mammals' natural habitats than they have in educating audiences.

Cetaceans do not belong in captivity where they are forced to perform meaningless tricks. They are often separated from family members when they’re shuffled between parks. Most die far short of their natural life spans. The living conditions at these attractions are often dismal, with animals confined to tiny, filthy, barren enclosures. Even the best artificial environments can’t come close to matching the space, diversity, and freedom that cetaceans have in their natural habitats.

The monk seal and the Galápagos fur seal are endangered. Local populations of some seals, such as gray seals in the Baltic Sea, are also endangered. The hooded seal and northern fur seal are vulnerable.

Fighting Desertification

7 Aug, 2018

The world's great deserts were formed by natural processes interacting over long intervals of time. During most of these times, deserts have grown and shrunk independent of human activities.

Paleodeserts, large sand seas now inactive because they are stabilized by vegetation, extend well beyond the present margins of core deserts, such as the Sahara. In some regions, deserts are separated sharply from surrounding, less arid areas by mountains and other contrasting landforms that reflect basic structural differences in the regional geology. In other areas, desert fringes form a gradual transition from a dry to a more humid environment, making it more difficult to define the desert border.

These transition zones have very fragile, delicately balanced ecosystems. Desert fringes often are a mosaic of microclimates. Small hollows support vegetation that picks up heat from the hot winds and protects the land from the prevailing winds. After rainfall the vegetated areas are distinctly cooler than the surroundings. In these marginal areas, human activity may stress the ecosystem beyond its tolerance limit, resulting in degradation of the land. By pounding the soil with their hooves, livestock compact the substrate, increase the proportion of fine material, and reduce the percolation rate of the soil, thus encouraging erosion by wind and water. Grazing and the collection of firewood reduces or eliminates plants that help to bind the soil.

This degradation of formerly productive land, desertification, is a complex process. It involves multiple causes, and it proceeds at varying rates in different climates. Desertification may intensify a general climatic trend toward greater aridity, or it may initiate a change in local climate.

Desertification does not occur in linear, easily mappable patterns. Deserts advance erratically, forming patches on their borders. Areas far from natural deserts can degrade quickly to barren soil, rock, or sand through poor land management. The presence of a nearby desert has no direct relationship to desertification.

Unfortunately, an area undergoing desertification is brought to public attention only after the process is well underway. Often little or no data are available to indicate the previous state of the ecosystem or the rate of degradation.

Scientists still question whether desertification, as a process of global change, is permanent or how and when it can be halted or reversed.

Desertification became well known in the 1930's, when parts of the Great Plains in the United States turned into the "Dust Bowl" as a result of drought and poor practices in farming, although the term itself was not used until almost 1950. During the dust bowl period, millions of people were forced to abandon their farms and livelihoods. Greatly improved methods of agriculture and land and water management in the Great Plains have prevented that disaster from recurring, but desertification presently affects millions of people in almost every continent.

Increased population and livestock pressure on marginal lands has accelerated desertification. In some areas, nomads moving to less arid areas disrupt the local ecosystem and increase the rate of erosion of the land. Nomads are trying to escape the desert, but because of their land-use practices, they are bringing the desert with them.

It is a misconception that droughts cause desertification. Droughts are common in arid and semiarid lands. Well-managed lands can recover from drought when the rains return. Continued land abuse during droughts, however, increases land degradation. By 1973, the drought that began in 1968 in the Sahel of West Africa and the land-use practices there had caused the deaths of more than 100,000 people and 12 million cattle, as well as the disruption of social organizations from villages to the national level.

In 1988 Ridley Nelson pointed out in an important scientific paper that off-road vehicles significantly increase soil loss in the delicate desert environment of the western United States. In a few seconds, soils that took hundreds of years to develop can be destroyed.

While desertification has received tremendous publicity by the political and news media, there are still many things that we don't know about the degradation of productive lands and the expansion of deserts. The desertification problem and processes are not clearly defined. There is no consensus among researchers as to the specific causes, extent, or degree of desertification. Contrary to many popular reports, desertification is actually a subtle and complex process of deterioration that may often be reversible.

Global Monitoring

In the last 25 years, satellites have begun to provide the global monitoring necessary for improving our understanding of desertification. Landsat images of the same area, taken several years apart but during the same point in the growing season, may indicate changes in the susceptibility of land to desertification. Studies using Landsat data help demonstrate the impact of people and animals on the Earth. However, other types of remote-sensing systems, land monitoring networks, and global data bases of field observations are needed before the process and problems of desertification will be completely understood.

Local Remedies

At the local level, individuals and governments can help to reclaim and protect their lands. In areas of sand dunes, covering the dunes with large boulders or petroleum will interrupt the wind regime near the face of the dunes and prevent the sand from moving. Sand fences are used throughout the Middle East and the United States, in the same way snow fences are used in the north. Placement of straw grids, each up to a square meter in area, will also decrease the surface wind velocity. Shrubs and trees planted within the grids are protected by the straw until they take root. In areas where some water is available for irrigation, shrubs planted on the lower one-third of a dune's windward side will stabilize the dune. This vegetation decreases the wind velocity near the base of the dune and prevents much of the sand from moving. Higher velocity winds at the top of the dune level it off and trees can be planted atop these flattened surfaces.

Oases and farmlands in windy regions can be protected by planting tree fences or grass belts. Sand that manages to pass through the grass belts can be caught in strips of trees planted as wind breaks 50 to 100 meters apart adjacent to the belts. Small plots of trees may also be scattered inside oases to stabilize the area.

On a much larger scale, a "Green Wall," which will eventually stretch more than 5,700 kilometers in length, much longer than the famous Great Wall, is being planted in northeastern China to protect "sandy lands" deserts believed to have been created by human activity.

More efficient use of existing water resources and control of salinization are other effective tools for improving arid lands. New ways are being sought to use surface-water resources such as rain water harvesting or irrigating with seasonal runoff from adjacent highlands. New ways are also being sought to find and tap groundwater resources and to develop more effective ways of irrigating arid and semiarid lands.

Research on the reclamation of deserts also is focusing on discovering proper crop rotation to protect the fragile soil, and on understanding how sand-fixing plants can be adapted to local environments.

If we are to stop and reverse the degradation of arid and semiarid lands, we must understand how and why the rates of climate change, population growth, and food production adversely affect these environments. The most effective intervention can come only from the wise use of the best earth-science information available.

Rhinos: Ancient Animals At Risk

4 Aug, 2018

The rhino is one of the largest and most powerful animals on earth, and one of the most ancient. Its origins can be traced back 50 million years when it was know as Paraceratherium, the giant rhinoceros. This monstrous creature weighed nearly 20 tons and roamed the grasslands that ranged from Europe to China. It survived the ravages of the Ice Age, migrated continents, fought against predatory adversaries like the crocodile and prehistoric hyenas, and evolved into what we know as the present day rhinoceros. Human hunting and unstable conditions of habitat have reduced this majestic animal, that once roamed half the earth, to just five broad species found only in pockets of Asia and Africa.

Rhinos are in serious danger of going extinct. Poaching of rhinos is on the rise by organized international criminal syndicates. Two rhinos are estimated to be killed by poachers every day in Africa. If rhino poaching is not stopped, African rhinos could be lost forever. Threats to Indian rhinos include expanding human populations, agriculture, and poaching.

Dagger handles made from rhino horns are symbols of status and wealth in Arab countries. In Far East countries, rhino horns are sought for alleged medicinal properties. There is no scientific evidence of their medical value, but they continue to be used in traditional Asian medicine – ground into powder to treat a variety of illnesses.

Rhino horns have fetched as much as an astonishing $50,000 on the black market. Its value tempts even subsistence farmers and poor herdsmen to be a part of the trade. Poaching gangs have reached great levels of sophistication and use night-vision equipment, veterinary drugs and even helicopters in their hunt for rhinos.

Northern White Rhinos

There are no longer any northern white rhinos in the wild. There were around 500 of them in the 1970's scattered over northwestern Uganda, northeastern Congo, parts of Central African Republic and on the eastern fringes of Lake Chad. By 1980 their numbers were down to just a paltry 15. Now only three of them are to be found in the Garamba National Park of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Southern White Rhinos

The southern white rhinoceros is the biggest of all species, standing almost 6 feet up to its shoulders. Its immense body weighs as much as 5,100 lbs (5 tons). They are pale grayish in color and have two horns, the front one curved and big at the snout of the nose, followed by a very small one behind it. They are found in the Savannah grasslands of South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, and in some measure in the arid expanses of the Kalahari. From a position of complete extinction in the early part of the 20th century, the southern white rhinoceros has witnessed a dramatic rise in its numbers thanks to the efforts of conservationists, wildlife agencies, game sanctuary authorities and support of local governments. Presently, the number of these rhinoceros stand at 21,000. Despite now being the only rhinos that are not endangered, a surge of poaching in recent years once again threatens the southern white rhinoceros. Legal hunting also threatens their future, as white rhinos in South Africa and Swaziland were downlisted to Appendix II to allow the export of live rhinos and hunting trophies.

Black Rhinos

The black rhinoceros is another species that is making a comeback from the brink of extinction in the early 1980's to a count of 5,000 today. They are found in East Africa and South Africa. They are smaller in size in comparison to the white rhino. They have an acute sense of smell but very poor eyesight that make them easy targets for poachers. The growing number of rhinoceros in the Southern half of the continent, along with the great demand for horns among the nouveau riche Chinese, has created an incentive for poachers. Cases of poaching in South Africa are up from 15 in 2007, to an alarming 1,200 in 2014. Black rhino horns are in great demand in Vietnam and other South-East Asian countries where they are powdered and used for medicinal purposes.

Indian Rhinos

The Indian rhinoceros, or the great one-horned rhino, is the predominant of the two Asian species. They are mostly found in the north-eastern state of Assam in India in reserves like the Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary, Manas National Park and half a dozen sanctuaries scattered over the state. The rhinos found in the Kaziranga, Orang and Pobitara inhabit the alluvial flood plains of the river Brahmaputra that flows through the state. There are a little over a hundred of this species in the Jaldapara National Park of the West Bengal state bordering Assam. The sanctuaries of Parsa Wildlife Reserve, Chitwan National Park, Bardia National Park and Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal hold about 645 of these animals.

The male Indian rhinoceros can stand up to a height of 5 feet 8 inches at its shoulders. It weighs up to 4,800 lbs and is much bigger than the female which weighs just 3,500 lbs. It has a thick skin that is grayish brown in color and has a single black-colored horn. Despite its poor eyesight, it has a heightened sense of smell and can become a scary looking animal when it breaks into runs of almost 55 kms per hour.

Although massive conservation efforts have resulted in the count of Indian rhinos rising to almost 2,600 from an extinction phase a couple of decades ago, threats in the form of expanding human population pressure, farmlands eating into rhino grasslands, and poaching remain. Organized crime networks are at work catering to the demand for Indian rhino horns, sought for their alleged medicinal values among the affluent Chinese and the rich of the South-East Asian countries. The forest protection personnel of India are not as well equipped as their South African counterparts and are poorly staffed. At the political level, conservation of rhinos is not a priority, and efforts to that end at the grassroots level become difficult. Massive seasonal flooding of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries are turning out to be a major threat to rhinos of Assam. There seems to be no solution in sight. Many of the creatures have drowned or died of sheer hunger, having being displaced from their habitat by raging waters.

Javan Rhinos

The Javan rhinoceros is among the most endangered species of animal on earth. Just a century and a half ago, it roamed the wilds of Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java. Only 63 of these animals are presently found in the Ujung Kulon national park in the western-most tip of Java, Indonesia.

The Java species stand up to 5.5 feet and weigh up to 2,300 lbs. They have a single horn which is the smallest of all species and measures just 25 cms. It is amphibious like the Indian rhino, and spends a considerable amount of time in the shallow swampy waters of the Javan tropical jungles. Although protected by law, and numbers now too few to act as incentive to poachers, other threats exist. The Arenga palm, or Arenga pinnata, that is a native to Indonesia, poses a grave threat to plants which the rhinos of Java survive on. The Arenga palm is an invasive plant that grows and spreads quickly.

To counter the threat of real extinction this species is facing, a population is being kept in captivity outside of Ujung Kulon by wildlife conservationists. This may give the endangered Java rhinoceros a last chance of long-term survival.

Time Is Running Out

Several rhino species will likely be extinct in just a few decades. The others will follow in less than 100 years. Hunting, animal agriculture, habitat change, and human population growth are taking their toll on these magnificent animals. Without immediate intervention, they will disappear from the Earth causing ecological, social, and economic ramifications. We must act now, before it's too late.

Why Mountains Matter

4 Aug, 2018

Mountains have the power to move us. They have always been a source of wonder and inspiration for humans. Their majesty impresses us, their wildlife captivate us, and their tranquil ecosystems bring us peace. Millions of people visit mountains every year to take in their stunning scenery and relaxing atmospheres.

But these ancient and majestic mountains are in jeopardy. Once their remoteness protected them from excessive human exploitation, but now they are under increasing threat. These last wild areas are fast disappearing to animal agriculture, development and other human impacts. Changes in climate could destroy vast areas of mountainous regions.

Mountain environments cover a large portion of the world. Half the human population depends on their resources. Millions of people also live in mountainous areas. These ancient landscapes are more than breathtaking backdrops to peaceful pastoral lands. Their contributions to humans is immense.

Mountains are vital to all life on earth, including humans. What happens on the highest mountain peak affects all life in the lowlands. Lands, freshwaters and even oceans are affected by moutains.

Water

About 80 percent of our planet's fresh water originates in mountains. Mountains are the source of most rivers. They provide the water of most reservoirs. Many areas derive practically all their water from mountains. About half the population of the planet lives in southern and eastern Asia and depends on precipitation that falls on the huge mountain chains of the Himalaya-Karakoram-Pamirs-Tibet regions.

Mountains conserve winter snow, slowly releasing moisture during spring and summer. In arid areas of the planet, irrigation often requires water from melting snows in distant mountains. Mountains often have forested slopes that absorb rain like a sponge, allowing water to travel downhill gently – preventing devastating floods.

Wildlife

Protected by their remoteness and limited agricultural potential, mountains have faced less human encroachment than other ecosystems. They have become sanctuaries for countless plants and animals that may have been eradicated in lowland areas. Over a third of land plants and vertebrates have been squeezed into less than 2 percent of the planet. Many of these species live in rich, unspoiled areas referred to as biological hot spots. Many hot spots are mountainous areas.

A small mountainous area in Malaysia, Kinabalu National Park, contains 4,500 species of plants—more than 25% of the amount of plant species in the entire United States.

The survival of many animals depends on mountains, including central Asia snow leopards, China's giant pandas, and the Andes condors.

Numerous mountain animals are threatened with extinction.

Food

Many of our most important food crops came from wild plants in mountains. Corn came from the highlands of Mexico. Wheat came from the Caucasus. Tomatoes and potatoes came from the Peruvian Andes. Countless other food sources still await discovery.

Recreation

A third of all parks and protected lands are found in mountainous areas due to their stunning natural beauty. They are a popular destination for tourists and their local communities benefit from the tourism industry.

People

Mountains are often valued purely for their abundant natural resources. But their inhabitants, both wildlife and humans, deserve just as much appreciation and protection. Indigenous humans of the mountains possess a body of ecological knowledge that often rivals modern science.

Traditional knowledge accumulated by mountain peoples is invaluable in protecting these vital ecosystems. This wealth of knowledge needs protected just as other mountain assets do.

Antelopes In Double Jeopardy

1 Aug, 2018

Antelopes are an increasing conservation concern, with one-third of the world's 87 species now listed as threatened. Loss of habitat, game hunting, poaching, and loss of grazing land to cattle farmers are some of the biggest threats to antelope populations. Adding to the threats to antelope populations is changes in climate.

For 82 percent of African antelope species, forecasts show a decline in suitable habitat by 2080 due to the effect of climate change. About one-quarter are likely to see their range size drop in half. None of Africa's antelopes are predicted to improve their threat status on the IUCN Red List as a result of changes in climate, and the threat status of ten species is predicted to worsen as a direct result of climate change. Antelopes preferring cooler and drier climates are likely to be the hardest hit.

Researchers say that climate change will cause a disproportionate decline in African antelopes with the smallest geographic ranges, placing the most-threatened taxa in "double jeopardy." Recent findings suggest that animals already living in the most-restricted areas will be hardest hit as the climate shifts in the coming decades.

Several antelope species are in need of urgent conservation action to avoid extinction. Scientists had suspected that animals with the smallest ranges to start with might be at the greatest risk as the climate changes. That's because small ranges imply that species thrive under a very narrow range of conditions. Even small changes in climate could push those species outside of their comfort zones.

Species that are found only in very restricted areas are usually more demanding in the combination of temperature and rainfall conditions they require, and therefore suitable areas are more likely to disappear when temperature and rainfall do not change together.

There is some good news: if we switch to more conservation-friendly land use, the threatened species with small ranges stand to benefit the most, having the greatest potential to expand their ranges. A major priority is to target the increasing fragmentation of wilderness areas, which prevents wildlife from tracking shifts in their environment.

Mangrove Forests Are Suffering

1 Aug, 2018

Mangrove forests are made up of trees that live along tropical and subtropical intertidal shorelines. The trees are easily recognizable by their dense mats of thick, stick-like roots that rise out of the mud and water. These roots (called “prop roots”) slow the movement of water as the tides flow in and out, allowing sediments to settle onto the muddy bottom.

There are approximately 80 species of mangrove trees, all with varying degrees of tolerance to tidal flooding, soil salinity, and nutrient availability. This creates zones of mangroves with the most salt-and water-loving species, such as the red mangrove, growing on the shoreline and in the water. The least salt-tolerant, such as the white mangrove, lives on higher ground where they are rarely inundated by tidal waters.

Because they cannot tolerate freezing temperatures, mangroves are only found in tropical and subtropical climates.

Mangrove Forests Provide Numerous Benefits

Equivalent to salt marsh wetlands in temperate zones, mangroves perform several of the same functions and provide many of the same benefits, making them extremely important habitats for both human and ecological communities.

- Nursery for juvenile fish

- Habitat for oysters, crabs and shrimp, and birds

- Carbon sequestration and storage, decreasing the effect of global warming

- Stabilize shorelines and prevent erosion

- Buffer against hurricanes and tropical storms

- Provide nutrients to neighboring ecosystems such as coral reefs and sea grass beds

Mangrove Forests Are Suffering and So Are We

Unfortunately, mangroves are highly threatened ecosystems. It is estimated that at least half of the world’s mangroves have been lost and continue to be destroyed at a rate of about one percent per year.

Among the stressors are:

- Coastal development driven by growing populations and tourism

- Development of aquaculture, particularly shrimp farming

- Agricultural run-off carrying pesticides and herbicides

- Man-made changes in tidal or river flow that starve the system of sediment input

- Sea level rise

The loss of mangrove forests means the loss of the benefits that these systems confer. Mangrove deforestation reduces the amount of carbon sequestration possible, and releases carbon stored in the soils, exacerbating the greenhouse gas effect. Coastal communities are left unprotected from the ravages of hurricanes and tropical storms, often causing millions and sometimes billions in damage to their buildings and infrastructure, not to mention the loss of life.

Deforested shorelines are subject to greater rates of erosion and are unable to keep pace with sea level rise. Nearby coral reefs, already heavily impacted by warming sea surface temperatures, ocean acidification, disease and overfishing, suffer further pressure from sedimentation when mangroves are removed and can no longer filter the water.

Loss of mangrove habitat also impacts marine life and biodiversity.

Wild Animals In The Concrete Jungle

29 Jul, 2018

If you thought cities were all about concrete jungles and the teeming millions of humans inhabiting it, you are wrong. Quite astonishingly, it's not just man who is moving from the country to big cities; it's their four-legged and furry friends, too. There have been sightings of bobcats, deer, raccoon, coyotes and squirrels in the areas surrounding Laurel Canyon Boulevard, a major arterial road of Los Angeles. It's not unusual to find a crocodile basking in the Biscayne Bay shores of Florida alongside accommodating boaters. Chicago city's well tended patches of forests and wetlands are home to skunks, coyotes and shorebirds migrating from the Illinois corn hinterland.

One of the most common American animal, the coyote, has adapted to the urban life seamlessly. The coyote is a true survivor of all conditions. It can be found in swamps, grasslands, dense forests, deserts and high mountains and it can live off just about anything. Being a natural scavenger, the call of the cities makes it one more addition to its habitat. Over and above its normal diet of snakes, rodents, rabbits, frogs, birds and grasshoppers, it has added dog and cat food and garbage to its repertoire. Coyotes resemble collie dogs and have brownish gray fur and a belly that is cream-colored. They weigh 20 - 45 pounds and are highly reproductive animals, something that has made its proliferation into towns and cities easier. Big parks and landscaping surrounding golf courses are some of the creature’s favorite urban hangouts.

The American red fox is another animal that has made cities its home. It mostly moves around after dusk and before dawn scavenging for food. Its tiny size makes it difficult to spot and gives it the advantage to move around unnoticed. While the diet of the rural fox consists entirely of meat, its constitutes just 50 percent of its urban cousin who feeds on pigeons, insects, worms, fruits, vegetables and city garbage.

The raccoon has taken to urban America quite successfully. Found almost all over country, the first city sighting of this creature was in the early 1920's in the suburban areas of Cincinnati. Since then it has proliferated to most cities. The raccoon is just 16 to 28 inches long and weighs from 8 to 20 pounds. Its grayish coat covers its entire body including the belly. Its face is a mixture of black and white and its eyes look like a pair of sunglasses from afar. Among its favorite sleeping places in the cities are abandoned houses. Gardens are favorite targets of raccoon scavenging for fruits or vegetables. Garbage leftovers are another good food source.

The tiny Virginia opossum, whose natural habitat is the Rockies and areas east of it, are quickly migrating to cities. More like a rodent in appearance, but a bit more furry, this gray and white colored creature now competes with the raccoon for city trash in the backyards of American urban homes. Basements, sewers and chimneys are ideal hiding places for the possum during busy city day hours. This Virginia native is now found all over the Western states since it was introduced in the region during the Great Depression as a source of food for humans.

The skunk is another common squirrel-like American animal which is found in its towns and cities. Although its white and black striped coat gives it a cute look, it is dreaded for the terribly pungent odor it emits. Bird nests and eggs are favorite targets of the skunk. It prefers to come out at night, although day sightings of the creature in cities are not uncommon.

Astonishing instances of urban sightings also include a new species of leopard frog discovered in 2013, not in the backwaters of Florida, but in Staten Island, New York.

Ospreys, a 24-inch fish-eating bird resembling a hawk, are fast abandoning their nesting habitats in the wild and moving them to unusual havens in cities. Cell phone towers, channel markers, power pole cavities and other man-made structures are the new safe houses for their elaborate 250 pound nests. The ospreys have become familiar with humans and have begun nesting close to busy highways.

Apart from squirrels, which are the most common wild urban creatures, various species of deer, foxes, coyotes and wild turkey are being frequently sighted in parks and golf courses skirting cities. The adaptability of these new denizens in urban environs heralds a new era of human awareness and tolerance to the co-existence of creatures of the wild in their midst.

Many species of wildlife have adapted to city and suburb life. Some of the animals have made themselves at home by nesting in chimneys, attics and basements. They dig through trash cans to find food, and even eat dog feces that are not properly disposed of. While these animals are beautiful to see from a distance, up close encounters can be shocking.

Tips To Live In Harmony With Wild Urban Animals

Make sure trash is secure at all times. Trash receptacles should be kept tightly closed at all times. Wild animals will not live where they cannot eat. Removing the food source is the most effective way to evict them.

Inspect properties regularly for places where the animals can live. Make sure that your chimneys are capped so animals can’t nest in your fireplace. Keep flues closed so they don’t invade living areas. Inspect attics, crawlspaces, and basements for holes.

Use caution repairing holes in the spring, as there may be babies already in nests. Try playing loud music to encourage animals to leave before patching holes.

If putting out food for alley cats, only put out enough food to satisfy their hunger. Pick the food up when the cats finish so the leftovers don’t attract rodents or wild animals. Always trap, neuter and return cats in a feral colony you are managing.

Try deterrents. Sprays and other agents that are designed to keep unwanted animals away can be purchased at most garden or hardware stores. Moth balls or ammonia soaked rags can also aid in deterring animals from a specific area.

Keep trees well trimmed. If there are trees hanging over your house, animals are likely gaining access to the rooftop by climbing the trees.

10 Interesting Things About Ecosystems

29 Jul, 2018

Coral reefs are beautiful and fragile. Coral reefs are busy underwater ecosystems. Some people call them the “rainforests of the sea.” The corals look like rocks but actually are animals. They have hard calcium carbonate skeletons like clams. They form a base for lots of other organisms to live. You’ll find crabs, sea stars, worms, clams, sponges, jellies, sea turtles, and lots of fish. Coral reefs are complicated and very fragile. They are easily affected by pollution.

The bottom of the ocean has thriving communities. At the bottom of the ocean, there are small underwater volcanoes spewing scalding hot water, gases, and chemicals like methane and ammonia. They’re called hydrothermal vents. It’s a dark place to live, but some animals love it there. Giant tube worms over 6 feet (1.8 meters) long, clams, and shrimp call these vents home. The tube worms have bacteria inside them that make food out of the methane and ammonia from the vents.

Freshwater ecosystems have rare species. Ponds, lakes, streams, and rivers are home to lots of different species that can’t live in salty ocean water. There are freshwater ecosystems all over the world. They are home to some amazing creatures. There are many kinds of frogs, fish, insects, and microscopic organisms like amoebas. And there are rare species like river dolphins in Asia and South America, otters in North America, beavers in North America and Europe, and platypuses in Australia.

Wetlands are home to baby fish. Swamps, marshes, and bogs are types of wetlands. Wetlands can have freshwater, salt water, or a mixture of both. They are home to lots of different aquatic plants and animals. Wetlands can serve as nurseries for lots of animals. Fish, frogs, alligators, and crocodiles lay eggs here. It’s a great place for the babies to hatch and grow. They are also home to many different kinds of insects like dragonflies.

Boreal forests are home to lots of trees. Much of North America, Europe, and Asia is in a temperate region, between the Arctic and subtropics. Here, the weather is generally not too hot, not too cold, with distinct seasons. There are many big forests. The trees here are usually pine, spruce, and larch. They are green all year around and have needles instead of leaves. Animals like bears, porcupines, and eagles make homes in these vast forests.

Half the world’s species live in tropical rainforests. Tropical rainforests are near the equator where it’s almost always warm and wet. These are the key ingredients for making lots of lush plants and trees. Half of the whole world’s species—types of living things—live in tropical rainforests. It’s a very busy ecosystem with many kinds of plants, animals, fungi, and microscopic organisms. Many of them live here and nowhere else. The plants in tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth’s oxygen.

To live in the desert, you have to save water. In the world’s many deserts, there is very little rain. The land is very, very dry. Here, living things have creative ways of finding and saving water. Cactuses are very good at storing water. They can live without rain for months. The kangaroo mouse lives in the Nevada desert. It never needs to drink water. It can get all its water from the seeds it eats.

Grasslands are all around. Every continent except Antarctica has grasslands. These are areas with medium rainfall. You’ll find many different types of tall grasses, herbs, and flowers all mixed together. From the savannahs of Africa to the prairies of Kansas, grasslands are home to lots of different species that live in the soil, feed on the grass, or eat the animals that eat the grass. In the United States, that could be buffalo and cows. In Africa, it’s gazelles, lions, and elephants.

In the tundra, it feels like winter all the time. Tundra occurs near the north and south poles of our planet. We call them the Arctic and Antarctic tundra. There is also tundra at the top of the world’s tallest mountains. It’s a hard place to live. There are short but hardy shrubs, mosses, and lichens. In the Arctic tundra, there are polar bears, foxes, and reindeer. In the Antarctic tundra, there are seals and penguins resting on the shores between swims in the ocean.

There are ecosystems even in big cities. Big cities around the world have interesting ecosystems too. There are many animals that share living spaces with people near roads, houses, and buildings. In many cities, raccoons, coyotes, opossums, skunks, foxes, birds, and all sorts of insects are common neighbors. And in some places, people build wildlife crossings. These are special bridges over roads that animals can use. It lets them move between places without getting hurt by cars.

What Is A Wetland?

25 Jul, 2018

A wetland is an area of land that is saturated with water. There are many different kinds of wetlands and many ways to categorize them.

Wetlands generally fall into five general types: marine (ocean), estuarine (estuary), riverine (river), lacustrine (lake), and palustrine (marsh).

Common names for wetlands include marshes, estuaries, mangroves, mudflats, mires, ponds, fens, swamps, deltas, coral reefs, billabongs, lagoons, shallow seas, bogs, lakes, and floodplains, to name just a few!

Often found alongside waterways and in floodplains, wetlands vary widely due to differences in soil, topography, climate, water chemistry, and vegetation. Large wetland areas may also be comprised of several smaller wetland types.

Wetland habitats serve essential functions in an ecosystem, including acting as water filters, providing flood and erosion control, and furnishing food and homes for fish and wildlife.

They do more than sustain plants and animals in the watershed, however. Many wetlands are not wet year-round because water levels change with the seasons. During periods of excessive rain, wetlands absorb and slow floodwaters, which helps to alleviate property damage and may even save lives.

Wetlands also absorb excess nutrients, sediments, and other pollutants before they reach rivers, lakes, and other waterbodies. They are also great spots for canoeing, hiking, and bird-watching, and are enjoyable outdoor "classrooms" for people of all ages.

What Is The Greenhouse Effect?

25 Jul, 2018

What is a greenhouse? A greenhouse is a house made of glass. It has glass walls and a glass roof. People grow vegetables and flowers and other plants in them. A greenhouse stays warm inside, even during winter. Sunlight shines in and warms the plants and air inside. But the heat is trapped by the glass and can't escape. So during the daylight hours, it gets warmer and warmer inside a greenhouse, and stays pretty warm at night too.

How is Earth a greenhouse? Earth's atmosphere does the same thing as the greenhouse. Gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide do what the roof of a greenhouse does. During the day, the sun shines through the atmosphere. Earth's surface warms up in the sunlight. At night, Earth's surface cools, releasing the heat back into the air. But some of the heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That's what keeps our Earth a warm and cozy 59 degrees Fahrenheit, on average. Greenhouse effect of Earth's atmosphere keeps some of the sun's energy from escaping back into space at night.

You might think 59 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty cold. Or, you might think that's warm. It depends on what you are used to. That temperature would melt all the Arctic ice. Yes, it's colder than 59 degrees in a lot of places, and hotter than 59 degrees in a lot of places, but 59 is the average of all of the places.

If the atmosphere causes too much greenhouse effect, Earth just gets warmer and warmer. The point is, if the greenhouse effect is too strong, Earth gets warmer and warmer. This is what is happening now. Too much greenhouse gases in the air are making the greenhouse effect stronger.

Why can't we just plant more trees? You might well wonder, because, after all, trees—like all plants—take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Well, that might help a little. But, instead of planting more forests, some people are cutting them down and burning them to make more farm land to feed the growing human population. Animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gases than all transportation put together, a staggering 51 percent or more.

The ocean also absorbs a lot, but not all, of the excess carbon dioxide in the air. Unfortunately, the increased carbon dioxide in the ocean changes the water, making it more acidic. Ocean creatures don't like acidic water. Bleached out, unhealthy coral are just one example of what acidic water can do.

Don't clouds keep Earth cooler? Water in the atmosphere also acts as a greenhouse gas. The atmosphere contains a lot of water. This water can be in the form of a gas—water vapor—or in the form of a liquid—clouds. Clouds are water vapor that has cooled and condensed back into tiny droplets of liquid water. Water in the clouds holds in some of the heat from Earth's surface. But the bright white tops of clouds also reflect some of the sunlight back to space. So with clouds, some energy from the sun never even reaches Earth's surface. How much the clouds affect the warming or cooling of Earth's surface is one of those tricky questions that scientists are aiming to answer.

Here is a riddle—a serious one, not a joke: As the ocean warms up, more water evaporates into the air. So does more water vapor then mean more warming? And does more warming mean more water vapor? And ‘round and ‘round we go?

At night, clouds trap some of the heat from Earth's surface. Thus, it does not escape back into space. Or, since more water vapor means more clouds, will the fluffy white clouds reflect enough sunlight back into space to make up for the warming? During the day, clouds reflect the sun's energy back to space, before it has a chance to heat Earth's surface.

This cloud riddle has scientists scratching their heads and trying to figure it out.

Whales Facing Multiple Threats

23 Jul, 2018

Whales are among the most fascinating and talked about creatures on the planet. These mammals are not just the largest creatures of the ocean, but of the Earth. Even the smallest species, the dwarf sperm whale, is 8.5 feet long and can weigh at least 135 kilograms. The biggest, the blue whale, is over a 100 feet in length and can weigh as much as 210 tons.

Whale species include the killer whale, blue whale, humpback whale, the narwhal or narwhale, beluga whale, gray whale, bowhead whale, fin whale, North Atlantic right whale and dozens more.

The whale has a thick layer of fat that makes it immune to cold ocean waters. These submarine-like creatures are found roaming all the oceans and seas. Since the whales' habitat spans such a vast area of the globe, their diets can differ dramatically. The most common diet is fish, plankton, shrimp, crabs, larvae, krill and squid. The killer whale preys on large animals like sea lions, walruses, seals, sharks, seabirds and even large whales for its food.

Whales come up to the ocean surface intermittently to take in air and spew out a long fountain of water from a duct right on top of their heads. While many whales have sharp, uniformed rows of teeth, the baleen whales have a bristle-like formation in place of teeth that helps them sift food from water. Whales communicate with each other by way of mysterious, elongated squeaks than can travel miles through the waters.

The whale, like many other endangered species, is not immune to the ravages of man. From 1900 to the 1970's, as many as 350,000 whales were hunted down and killed in the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere alone. In a bloody year of 1931, a staggering 29,000 blue whales were butchered. As a result, they are among the most endangered species and just 10,000-25,000 of them remain today. The North Atlantic right whale, especially, is under the greatest threat of extinction with just 300 of the creatures left.

Rapidly rising human activity in marine environments like harbors, landfills, shipping channels, and fish farming (aquaculture) is resulting in the loss of whale habitat. Recreation in the form of heightened boat traffic, ocean liners and resort development is driving the whales further away from shores where they find their natural food.

Warm ocean temperatures, along with melting of ice in the polar regions, pose more threats for the whales. Sea ice that produces krill is a major food source for the whales and could vanish with the water becoming warmer. Melting ice could destroy 30% of the Antarctic minke whales' habitat and could push the humpback whales' feeding zones 300-500 kilometers away into the seas.

Many whale species specially feed on herring, cod and mackerel. The huge commercial demand for these fish has led to their over-fishing, which in turn has robbed the whales of one of their main diets.

The whale is itself a delicacy and its body oils and parts find commercial use in quite a few parts of the world. In fact, whaling is a huge industry in countries like Japan and Norway. Norway is now the world’s leading whaling nation. The Norwegian government is funding a number of projects, both to promote domestic sales of whale products and to develop alternative commercial products derived from whales, including dietary supplements, medicines, and cosmetics.

Hundreds of thousands of whales were killed by the Japanese until commercial whaling was banned in 1986. But that has not stopped Japanese whaling fleets from killing 2,000 of the mammals every year since under the guise of "scientific whaling" for the bogus purpose of "scientific research". Why one has to kill whales to understand them simply confounds logic.

Exploration of offshore oil and gas is another threat to whale habitats. Studies by scientists have shown that oil finds, and subsequent drilling, have completely destroyed habitats of whales. Noise emanating from the equipment used for underwater seismic surveys have hugely impeded on the whales' delicate sense of sound and affected the communication among the creatures. There were instances in the early 1990's where eardrums of humpback whales off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada were found ruptured by sounds of undersea blasts used for exploration activities. Pollutants emanating from toxic chemicals used by the oil and gas industry is another serious hazard to whale health.

The over-fishing of fish species has led to a slowdown in the commercial fishing industry in recent times. The cause for decline in supplies was laid on whales. The culling of the mammals was promoted to revive the fortunes of the fishing industry, but conservationists exposed the fallacy of the claim that whales are to blame. Unsustainable fish harvesting and other human actions are the true culprits of reduced fish populations.

Although most whale species have been protected by stringent laws, man has found indirect ways of hunting down the creatures. While the levels of killing have dropped drastically over the years owing to endeavors of conservationists, whale-lovers and concerned authorities, the recovery of their populations will remain a huge challenge. For instance, the population of humpback whales, which was close to 1.5 million in the beginning of the 19th century, is only 20,000 now.

Oil & Gas: A Threat To World Wildlife

23 Jul, 2018

Of all the industries on Earth, the oil and gas industries are among the biggest and most destructive. The round-the-clock operations of the businesses, and the massive amounts of land they eat up and destroy, has a profound effect on the ecosystems and wildlife they displace.

Wherever oil and gas can be easily found, land has already been exploited. The search is now focused on remote places, which means a direct invasion into virgin ecosystems and their inhabitants. New and unproven technologies are being used recklessly to extract hydrocarbons from deep within the Earth. The environmental consequences can be devastating.

Oil and gas exploration and production activities cause both direct and indirect effects on wildlife. Leaks and spills of oil, brine, and other contaminants are a key concern. Soils, vegetation, water quality, fish and wildlife, and air quality can all be harmed by the release of contaminants. Fish and wildlife habitat can be altered, fragmented, or eliminated. Oil and gas activities can disturb and displace wildlife, cause physiological stress, and can result in wildlife deaths.

Introduction of invasive species, especially along road and pipeline routes, can alter habitats. Disturbances caused by oil and gas activities can result in fundamental changes in ecological functions and processes, and lead to increased predation of declining species, reduced reproduction, and increased susceptibility to disease. Fish and wildlife may be injured by human presence, vehicles, exposure to contaminants, loss or degradation of habitat, or unauthorized takings.

The activities associated with oil and gas exploration cause a degree of disruption to the environment that's hard to replace, restore or repair. Development activities in the coastal areas of the Arctic Refuge (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) have affected habitats of caribou, muskox and porcupine to an extent that even their watering sources have been polluted. Instances of bears feeding on wastes emanating from oil fields that have displaced its natural habitat are all too common. Maternity dens of polar bears have been disturbed, affecting their reproductive cycles.

Ecosystems, that fine balance between plants, organisms and wildlife evolved over millions of years, can be destroyed overnight by human activity. In addition to forest clearing and excavation, irritants like noise arising out of vehicular traffic can disrupt sleeping, resting and even hunting cycles of animals.

Access along seismic lines may require disturbing levels of vegetation removal. Vehicle travel along seismic lines damages soils and vegetation. Water quality may be degraded from sedimentation. Small spills and improperly handled wastes can degrade soils and waters, harm vegetation, fish and wildlife, air quality, and aesthetics. Air quality can be degraded from dust and engine emissions. Natural sound is interrupted by vehicles and drilling noises.

Pad construction removes or compacts soil and vegetation and may accelerate erosion and sedimentation. Leaks, spills, and discharges of oil, drilling muds, wastes, or other contaminants can degrade and harm soils, surface and ground waters, vegetation, fish and wildlife, and air quality.

Poorly cased and cemented wells (or improperly plugged wells) may lead to groundwater contamination. Wetlands may be damaged by road and pad construction or threatened by leaks and spills. Dark night skies can be impacted by night-time lighting on drilling rigs and gas flaring.

Natural sounds can be overwhelmed by construction and drilling noises. Air quality may be degraded by gas flaring, contaminant spills, dust, and engine emissions.

Offshore oil spills affect marine mammals through direct contact, ingestion of toxic oil, and inhalation of numerous chemicals. Immune system suppression, cancer, reproductive failure, liver and kidney damage, brain damage, and other health effects are the results of such spills.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has thoughtlessly issued permits to scores of oil drilling projects near protected zones, despite the harmful effects on wildlife from toxic wastes of such exploration activities.

Millions of gallons of chemically treated water, pumped out of a process known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, spill out on a daily basis into neighboring forests and farmlands – polluting water used by animals and livestock.

Oil companies are responsible for the destruction of wildlife in some of the most protected and sensitive zones. A project off the coast of Sakhalin Island in Russia's Siberian region has affected the habitat of the critically endangered Western Grey Whale to a point where only 100 of these creatures are left today, of which breeding females comprise an appallingly low number of just 20. Exploration endeavors off the County Mayo coast in Ireland is threatening to wipe away wildlife habitats in the form of sand dunes, peat bogs and even grasslands bordering the shore. Habitats of the Brent geese and other popular regional birds that find safe havens in Broadhaven Bay in the Count Mayo stand threatened thanks to exploration activities in the region.

In Africa, roads, pipelines and the subsequent decimation of forest lands have eaten into territories of protected and endangered species like the Nigerian-Cameroon gorillas, the Western gorillas in Angola, the dwarf mongoose and the rare Angolan python.

Imagine gas being flared 24 hours a day for almost 50 years without a break by oil companies in just one region. That is the case in Nigeria, the world's largest oil flarer. Coupled with massive greenhouse emissions from such flares, oil spills and fires have completely obliterated not just wildlife, but all farmlands in the once naturally rich Niger Delta – making it one of the most polluted regions of the world. Places like the Virunga National Park in the Congo Basin in Africa and the Arctics, which still have enormous oil and gas deposits, are lucrative targets waiting to be exploited.

The lasting damage to the environment resulting from wanton oil and gas exploration is hard to fathom. The disruption of the ozone layer from excessive flared gas emissions, with direct effects on climate change and the decimation of entire ecosystems and wildlife, play havoc to the environment. A disturbing amount of greenhouse gas emissions can be traced to oil and gas extraction. The main component in natural gas, methane, is as much as 84 times more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Methane traps heat more effectively and intensifies global warming.

Humans are also effected by gas and oil exploration. Entire communities depend on the health of the ecosystems being destroyed. Public use of refuge areas are being restricted or prohibited. Although the areal extent of oil and gas exploration and production may be limited, the cumulative effects often extend to a much larger area. Cultural resources are threatened by increased human accessibility and fire. Scenic quality can be degraded by drilling rigs, roads, pads, and other equipment. Large crews disrupt visitors’ experiences.

Oil and gas exploration is a dirty and dangerous business that disrupts wildlife, human health, water sources, public lands and recreation. Energy resources that are environmentally-safe and easily accessible can reduce the harmful effects associated with oil and gas production. Renewable energy technologies and energy conservation, along with more responsible exploration practices, are essential to reducing the destructive effects of oil and gas production.

Kelp Forests In Danger

20 Jul, 2018

Numerous natural impacts, as well as human activities, affect kelp forest environments. The factors influencing kelp forest stability are diverse: kelp harvesting; grazing by fishes, sea urchins, and crustaceans; plant competition; storms; El Niño events; sedimentation; and pollution. By most accounts, because of its spectacular growth rates, kelp recovers quickly from physical disturbances such as storms that might uproot the fragile plants. However, as in all natural environments, the health is proportional to the number of adverse conditions to which it is exposed.

Commercial kelp harvesting is potentially the greatest threat to long-term kelp stability. It has supported a multitude of industries over the past century. From the extractions of kelp during World War I for potash, to the modern use of kelp for food additives and pharmaceutical products, kelp has proven to be a dynamic and highly demanded product.

Kelp harvesting during World War I peaked in 1919 when 400,000 wet tons were used to make potash for gunpowder and fertilizer. In the 1930s the food, pharmaceutical, and scientific communities began extracting algin, a thickening, stabilizing, suspending, and gelling agent. Algin is an additive used in a wide variety of dairy products, frozen foods, cakes, puddings, salad dressings, shampoos, and toothpastes. It smooths and thickens ice cream, emulsifies salad dressing, and keeps pigments uniformly mixed in paints and cosmetics. Additionally, some mariculture farms hand-harvest kelp to feed abalone. In the 1980's alone, kelp harvesting supported an industry worth more than $40 million a year, and in 1993, more than 4,700 wet tons of kelp were extracted from the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Large numbers of opaleye or halfmoon fishes can damage kelp forests, particularly when the kelp is exposed to unfavorable growing conditions. As in all ecosystems, a balance exists in this complex environment, and the predators such as sea otters generally contain sea urchins or grazing fishes enough to limit the damage by grazing. This balance of power is usurped when the predatory populations go into decline, as exemplified by the huge explosion of sea urchins when otter populations suffer from oil spills or disease.

High energy storms or swells can uproot entire plants and break away fronds. Characterized by severe storms and warm water, El Niño Southern Oscillation Events, often devastate kelp forests. The strong swell activity, winter storms, and warm weather associated with the 1997-1998 El Niño were the primary sources of kelp mortality on the California coast in 1998. Kelp forests south of Point Coneception sustained up to 100 percent mortality in some regions, although comparable habitats north of that region "were relatively unaffected." Researchers attribute the discrepancy between southern and central California to ocean temperature gradients; the El Niño brought unusually high ocean temperatures to southern California where the heat degraded the health of the giant kelp forests. The combined warm water temperature and strong wave energy caused high mortality in the south. Central California bull kelp forests remained in cooler waters and thus in better condition when the winter swells hit, and a much greater percent survived.

Non-point and point source pollution including sewage, industrial disposal, and coastal runoff might contribute to kelp forest degradation. For instance, high sedimentation from coastal run-off may bury new plant shoots.

Similarly, kelp may experience reduced growth rates and reproductive success in more toxic waters and sediments. Studies on microscopic stages of kelp suggest that kelp is sensitive to sewage, industrial waste discharges, and other causes of poor water and sediment quality.

Kelp monitoring projects actively continue. With ongoing surveys of kelp extent, physical oceanic conditions, and associated biota, the researchers will gain a more complete understanding of natural and antropogenic impacts on kelp forests.

What Are Coral Reefs?

20 Jul, 2018

Hidden beneath the ocean waters, coral reefs teem with life. Coral reefs support more species than any other marine environment and rival rainforests in their biodiversity. Countless numbers of creatures rely on coral reefs for their survival.

Corals are animals, even though they may exhibit some of the characteristics of plants and are often mistaken for rocks. In scientific classification, corals fall under the phylum Cnidaria and the class Anthozoa. They are relatives of jellyfish and anemones. There are over 800 known species of reefbuilding coral worldwide and hundreds of species of soft corals and deep-sea corals.

Although individual coral polyps are tiny, they create the largest living structures on earth—some reefs are visible from space!

Coral reefs are also living museums, and reflect thousands of years of history. Many coral reefs were alive and thriving centuries before the European colonization of the nearby shores. Some reefs are even older than our old-growth redwood forests. They are an integral part of many cultures and our heritage.

These important habitats are threatened by a range of human activities. Many of the world’s reefs have already been destroyed or severely damaged by an increasing array of threats, including pollution, unsustainable fishing practices, and global climate change. As a result, 22 species of coral are now listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. However, we can still protect and preserve our remaining reefs if we act now.

Why Are Coral Reefs Important?

Healthy coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse and valuable ecosystems on earth, providing vital ecosystem services across the globe.

Coral reefs are an important habitat. Fish, corals, lobsters, clams, seahorses, sponges and sea turtles are only a few of the thousands of creatures that rely on reefs for their survival.

In addition to supporting an abundance of marine life, coral reef ecosystems provide people with many goods and services, including shoreline protection. Coral ecosystems protect coastlines from storms and erosion; provide habitat, spawning, and nursery grounds for fish; provide jobs and income to local economies from recreation and tourism; are a source of new medicines; have cultural significance; and are hotspots of marine biodiversity.

The benefits of healthy reefs are seen not just in the ocean, but also on land. Coral reefs contribute billions of dollars to world economies each year. The continued decline and loss of coral reef ecosystems will have significant social, cultural, economic and ecological impacts on people and communities in the U.S. and around the world.

What Threatens Coral Reefs?

The top threats to coral reefs, global climate change, unsustainable fishing, and landbased pollution, are all due to human activities. These threats—combined with others such as tropical storms, disease outbreaks, vessel damage, marine debris and invasive species—compound each other.

Climate change impacts coral reef ecosystems through increased sea surface temperatures that lead to coral bleaching events and disease, sea level rise and storm activity. Additionally, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide alters ocean chemistry and negatively impacts reef-building corals.

An estimated 20 percent of the world's coral reefs are damaged beyond recovery and about half of the remaining coral reefs are under risk of collapse.

Unsustainable fishing practices in coral reef areas can lead to the loss of ecologically important fish species. Such losses often have a ripple effect on the coral reef ecosystems.

Impacts from land-based sources of pollution (e.g., coastal development and agricultural runoff) can impede coral growth and reproduction, disturb ecological function, and cause disease.

While some of the biggest threats facing coral reefs are global in nature and require action on a similar scale, addressing local stressors—like reducing runoff—is key.

Although research is critical to increasing what we know about the causes of reef decline, effective coral reef conservation can’t happen without you. Even if you live far from a coral reef, you can contribute to their conservation. Simple actions, like using less water, recycling, disposing of trash responsibly, and going vegan, can have big and far-reaching impacts.

An Elephant Killed Every 15 Minutes

17 Jul, 2018

Tens of thousands of elephants are killed every year, one every 15 minutes. Driven by demand for ivory as a symbol of wealth or prestige, the illicit profits of ivory trade finance wars, terrorism, illegal drugs and human trafficing.

Trade in ivory has been around for centuries. It reached its peak when Africa was colonized. This coincided with the industrial revolution in United Kingdom, Western Europe and America creating a vast demand for ivory. It found use in diverse objects like piano keys, billiard balls, ornaments, jewelry, bow clips, hair pins, needles, buttons, etc. The worst and obvious victims of the trade were the elephants.

Entire populations of this beast was wiped out in North Africa about a thousand years ago, before the Europeans came. The colonization period saw the virtual decimation of the elephant in South Africa during the 19th century and West Africa in the 20th century. The two World Wars in the 20th century saw a sharp fall in ivory trade and provided some respite to the elephants. But the rising affluence from Japan's industrial revival, and the burgeoning wealth of the Middle-eastern oil-rich states in the 1970's, brought back a renewed interest in ivory. The affluent middle class in China since the 1990's created another great market for the product.

The Asian elephant's population has witnessed a decline of nearly 50 percent, from over a 100,000 a century ago to just over 50,000 presently. The male elephant carries tusks while the female does not. The tusk can reach a length of 5 feet and weigh up to 47 kilograms. The tusk of the Asian elephant is in demand for products that require intricate carving. Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf states are some areas where this ivory is in high demand.

The African elephant consists of two subspecies. The forest elephants are shorter and darker than their Savannah cousins. They are found in the central and western equatorial forests of Africa, primarily in Congo. The 1890's and early 1900's witnessed the mass decimation of this animal by the Belgian colonialists when slave labor was extensively used to transport ivory to North African ports for its ultimate destination in Western Europe.

The bush elephant that inhabited the bush areas of Kalahari in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe is another sub-species that was driven to extinction from rampant hunting by the Dutch and British colonialists.

But the main targets of the ivory trade have always been the Savannah elephants, the largest of all species, known for their huge and magnificent tusks. The male tusks can measure up to 7-8 feet and weigh up to 100 lbs. Unlike their Asian counterparts, even the females have tusks. These mighty creatures are often seen in the vast expanses of the Savannah grassland plains straddling Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The most shocking decline of this elephant species has been witnessed recently in Tanzania in a span of just six years. The count reduced dramatically from 109,000 to 43,000, which is a devastating drop of 60 percent. The Selous Game Reserve is a gold mine for ivory looters who have accounted for as many as 32,000 Savannah elephant deaths.

There are only about 470,000 elephants roaming the continent of Africa presently. Compare this to 3 to 5 million that roamed the vast expanses at the beginning of the 20th century. It's a frightening drop of 90 percent.

Governments and wildlife agencies have woken up to this terrible loss of wildlife. Virtually every country in the continent, from South Africa to Zimbabwe to Uganda and Tanzania, have placed a ban on ivory trading. Although these bans were put into effect decades ago, only 20 percent of the African elephant habitat is under formal protection.

From over 100 seizures made in the continent in the last 15 years, almost 465,000 pounds of ivory were recovered. That translates into the deaths of over 30,000 elephants. But this hasn't dampened the illegal trade in ivory. Tens of thousands of elephants are lost every year; one killed every 15 minutes.

Organized crime is involved in the transportation of ivory to its preferred destinations, mostly the US and China. The US has put a complete ban on the sale of ivory and ivory items. The immense demand for ornaments and jewellery carved from ivory make China the biggest consumer for the product. Steps have been taken in China to end domestic sales of ivory. In places like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, ivory is in demand for its alleged medicinal properties.

Despite recent efforts, elephant poaching is at its highest level in decades. Valued at US$19 billion annually, illegal wildlife trade ranks fifth globally in terms of value. Domestic ivory markets provides cover for criminals to launder illegal ivory from poached animals. The Internet is utilized for secret, fast and convenient communications and transactions. The criminals that smuggle ivory also smuggle guns, people, and drugs.

Unless the slaughter of elephants is halted, we will likely see these magnificent animals disappear within a few decades. Stopping the crisis will require efforts from a diverse coalition of governments, institutions, organizations, media, scientists, and individuals.

Vanishing Grasslands

17 Jul, 2018

Grasslands (also known as prairies and savannah) differ around the globe, from the prairies of North America to the African Savannah, but they all support a wide variety of wildlife. Birds, reptiles, insects, grazing mammals and predators all call grasslands home.

Nearly two thirds of land on our planet was once covered by grasslands, but much of these magnificent ecosystems have been lost to farming. The result is a catastrophic reduction of critical wildlife habitat. Remaining grasslands cover about half of African lands, while less than 4 percent of prairies survive in the United States.

Temperate grasslands are home to bison, wolves, coyotes, pronghorn, hawks, prairie dogs, gophers, owls, foxes, badgers, sparrows, black-footed ferrets, grouses, meadowlarks, and quail. Tropical grassland animals include giraffes, zebras, elephants, buffaloes, kangaroos, wildebeest, mice, moles, rhinos, gophers, jackals, wild dogs, squirrels, lions, leopards, snakes, worms, termites, beetles, hyenas, and warthogs.

Tropical grasslands are located near the equator, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. These grasslands can be found in areas of Australia, South America, and India. Temperate grasslands are located north of the Tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn, including the the pampas of South America, the steppes of Eurasia, the veldts of Africa, and the plains of North America.

As grasslands around the globe continue to be converted to ecologically irresponsible farming systems, wildlife suffers the consequences. The natural vertebrates in grasslands, plant-eating grazers called ungulates like deer and zebras, are quickly being replaced by domestic ungulates such as cattle and sheep. The native grasses are being replaced with corn, wheat, and soy.

Grassland soil is so rich almost anything can be grown in it. But poor agricultural practices have destroyed many grasslands, turning them into barren, lifeless areas. When crops are not properly rotated, precious soil nutrients are stripped out. Grasslands are also destroyed by grazing livestock.

About 47 percent of temperate grasslands have already been converted to agriculture or urban development. Around 16 percent of tropical grasslands have been converted.

Threats to Grasslands

Land that once provided habitat for prairie wildlife is quickly being converted to row crops. GMO wheat, soybeans, and corn are expanding into native grasslands. Grasslands are also increasingly being development into urban areas. Global warming could convert marginal grasslands into deserts. Monoculture, the cultivation of a single crop in a given area, results in the spreading of pests and diseases increasing the use of toxic pesticides. Poaching is also a significant threat in grasslands.

Solutions

Educational efforts must stress the importance of protecting the soil and preventing soil erosion. Crops must be rotated to eliminate the reduction of nutrients. Wetlands, an element of grassland ecology, must be restored and protected. Trees must be planted as windbreaks. Dry season burning can promote fresh growth and restore calcium to the soil.

Agriculture must shift from animal production to providing vegetable based food sources. Animal agriculture is the primary driver of topsoil erosion, species extinction, and habitat loss. Raising animals for food requires massive amounts of land, food, energy, and water. It takes 12 times as much land, 13 times more fuel and 15 times more water to make a pound of animal protein than to make a pound of plant protein. Livestock consumes up to 50% of all grains produced each year. 45% of the earth's entire ice free land is used for animal agriculture.