Chester Zoo unites
with University of Oxford to deliver world class conservation science
CHESTER Zoo and the
University of Oxford’s famous Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU)
have joined forces to deliver high-impact conservation research.
The new partnership
is designed to investigate major challenges in conservation by combining some
of the international projects that Chester Zoo coordinate with cutting-edge
scientific research.
Over the next seven
years this new partnership will see up to 10 doctoral and postdoctoral
researchers placed into Chester’s conservation projects around the world.
Jane Goodall on the
mysteries of primate behaviour
Ever since 1971,
when she published In the Shadow of Man, her groundbreaking field study of
chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania, Jane Goodall has been the best known
primatologist on the planet. In the decades since, she has remained an
indomitable campaigner and conservationist, and now at the age of 83 she sits
atop a naturalists’ Olympus that she shares perhaps only with David
Attenborough.
In 1999, after
almost 40 years visiting the chimps of Gombe, she co-authored a letter to
Nature, in which she sought to calibrate the use of the world “culture” in
relation to wild chimpanzees.
Multiple long-term
studies, she and her colleagues wrote, showed “significant cultural variation”
between colonies.
“The combined
repertoire of these behaviour patterns in each chimpanzee community is itself
highly distinctive,” the letter concluded, “a phenomenon characteristic of
human cultures but previously unrecognised in non-human species.”
Our understanding of
what chimpanzee “culture” might mean took a further turn last year, thanks to
another paper published in Nature.
The study, led by
Christophe Boesch of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
(one of Goodall’s co-authors on the 1999 letter), reported that in several
chimp colonie
A concrete prison
for animals without hope
Monkeys sightlessly
gaze into the distance, listlessly hanging from the bars of their cages. Their
lethargic behaviour depicts the untold story of their suffering at one of the
city’s most famous zoos. The usually hyperactive animals seem depressed to be
confined in this concrete jail.
This seems to be the
story of every animal at the Landhi-Korangi Zoo, which needs the urgent
attention of the authorities. Even visitors have also expressed dissatisfaction
over the maintenance of the zoo. The concrete animal enclosures look mo
RSPCA officers
obtain search warrant to investigate animal cruelty allegations at Dalton zoo
ANIMAL charity the
RSPCA has confirmed they have executed a search warrant at South Lakes Zoo in
Dalton amid allegations of animal cruelty.
The RSPCA said its
officers, in assistance with Barrow Borough Council, is investigating historic
offences of animal cruelty and neglect relating to the Dalton animal park.
A search warrant was
executed at the zoo on Thursday, April 6.
It is not yet known
if the investigation relates to the death of animals as detailed in an
inspection report published after a visit in January which revealed almost 500
exhibits had died at the zoo in less than four years.
The causes of their
deaths included emaciation, exposure and
Zoo Science for
Keepers and Aquarists
Professor Lee White:
Will elephants survive this generation?
Called a
"real-life Tarzan" by National Geographic, Prof. Lee White is a
British-born zoologist who has lived and worked in Gabon since 1989 and since
2009 has served as the Director of Gabon’s National Parks Agency. In this
dramatic video interview with the World Bank-led Global Wildlife Program, White
discusses the devastating decline of forest elephants to poaching in the last
decade and how the international demand for ivory has led to the elephants
becoming refugees to avoid being massacred. “I don’t want to be the generation
that killed the African elephant, and if we’re n
SEX AND THE SINGLE
PARROT
Fatal cheetah attack
spotlights big cat breeding industry
A captive cheetah on
March 18, 2017 fatally mauled the
three-year-old son of Jacob Pieterse, an
employee at tiger breeder and filmmaker John Varty’s Tiger Canyon wildlife farm
and tourist attraction.
Police spokesperson
Motantsi Makhele told media that the victim died while being flown to a
hospital in Bloemfontein.
Cane toad poison
used against amphibian pest in Queensland-designed bait trap
Poison taken from
Queensland's most notorious pest, the cane toad, is being turned against them
through world-first specialised traps developed by Brisbane researchers.
Key points:
Cane toad toxin is
being applied to food, targeting toad tadpoles
Bait traps using
this food are being tested across Queensland
Researchers are
relying on volunteer toad catchers to help make the bait
The traps use baits
that replicate the smell of food, made from the poison of adult cane toads, to
capture and eradicate up to 10,000 juvenile toads in one hit.
University of
Queensland (UQ) researchers have developed and are currently trialling the
traps around the state.
If successful,
researchers hope to have the product on supermarket shelves in a cou
Brazil’s response to
a huge yellow fever outbreak: Kill the monkeys
A yellow fever
outbreak is tearing through Brazil leaving thousands dead in its wake —
thousands of monkeys, that is.
The epidemic, the
worst Brazil has seen in decades, has killed more than 200 people so far. But
it's also threatening to wipe out some of the country’s most endangered
primates. Not only are monkeys susceptible to yellow fever, but local residents
have begun pre-emptively killing monkeys, incorrectly assuming that they help
spread the disease.
As the epidemic
advances, rural towns are littered with monkey corpses falling from trees,
terrifying villagers. One town in the southern state of Minas had to close down
a park after 38 dead monkeys were found in its premises.
But, contrary to
local lore, these primates don’t transmit the disease. In fact, they play a
crucial role in preventing its spread. A dead monkey is often the first sign
yellow fever has reached a new town, which can serve as an alarm bell for
authorities directing vaccination campaigns. It’s a warning sign that allows
hea
Wild Hearts:
Conserving the Brazilian Jaguar with Assisted Reproduction
The jaguar (Panthera
onca) is the largest wild cat native to the Americas and a focal species for in
situ conservation efforts. Its name is derived from the South American
Tupi-Guarani word jaguaretê, which means “he who kills with one leap,”
highlighting the jaguar’s phenomenally strong bite and preference to hunt by
stalk and ambush rather than engaging in a lengthy chase.
Due to poaching and
habitat loss and fragmentation, jaguars have declined substantially throughout
their natural range. The species has been classified as ‘near threatened’ with
a declining population trend in Latin America, and as ‘vulnerable’ in Brazil. The most robust wild populations are found in
the Amazon and the Pantanal. However,
even jaguars in these areas are subject to restricted gene flow, increasing
their risk of inbreeding, reduced genetic variation, and extinction.
Assisted
reproductive technologies, such as semen banking and artificial insemination,
represent one way to link fragmented jaguar populations and maintain genetic
diversity. Semen cryopreservation permits long-term storage of genetic
resources within liquid nitrogen tanks, allows transport of frozen semen as an
alternative to translocating live animals, and—when paired with artificial
Security tightened
at public zoos, aquariums
Security forces were
deployed in various areas around the Giza Zoo which attracts a large number of
visitors during official holidays, said Ragaei.
It was decided
during the meeting that controls would be put in place to ensure that no one
could enter the park with explosive materials or other weapons that might
threaten the public, he added.
Why some species are
kept in zoos?
Many questions arise
concerning keeping animals in the zoos around the world. Richard Primack B.
Primack in the book of “A primer of conservation biology” page 200 of chapter 6
wrote: “Zoos, along with affiliated universities, government wildlife departments,
and conservation organizations, presently maintain 500,000 terrestrial
vertebrate individuals, representing almost 8000 species and subspecies of
mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians." But there are some protests
here in Iran against the presence of species such as Persian squirrel, brown
bear and also birds such as flamingos in the zoos. What is the reason for this?
Apes in Asian
Circus-Style Shows on Rise — So is Trafficking
Asian zoos, circuses
and safari parks are mounting large-scale productions with costumed, dancing,
roller-skating great apes. Investigations show that nearly all of these trained
primates were not bred in captivity, but illegally traded out of Africa and
Indonesia, with destinations in China, Thailand and other Asian countries.
The United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP) estimates that the illegal trade may have removed as
many as 22,218 great apes from the wild between 2005-2011. An estimated 64
percent were chimpanzees, whereas 56 percent of great apes seized by
authorities were thought to be orangutans.
Wild young apes are
traumatized by their capture, and many die along the supply chain, or with
their final owners by whom they are frequently poorly treated. Young great apes
trained in captivity become increasingly unmanageable as they age, and many are
retired to tiny, solitary cages, or simply disappear.
Trafficking arrests
are rare. UNEP recorded just 27 arrests in Africa and Asia between 2005-2011,
over which time more than 1,800 cases of illegally trafficked great apes were
documented, with many more undetected. Solutions are i
www.zoolex.org in April 2017
~°v°~ ~°v°~ ~°v°~ ~°v°~ ~°v°~
Hello ZooLex Friend,
We have worked for your enjoyment!
~°v°~
NEW EXHIBIT PRESENTATION
The Nutria Exhibit at Fasanerie Wiesbaden shows a group of these social
animals in a green environment with lots of water. Visitors can see the
animals across waterplants on ground level and in the water as well as
up-close through a glass panel on elevated ground and under water. The
water is recycled through reeds in the background of the exhibit.
We would like to thank our intern Kara Chirgwin for preparing this
presentation.
~°v°~
NEW TEMPLATE
We have re-organized the form in a more logical order that is useful
when collecting information on site. The appearance of the template has
not changed much, but the text boxes and lines are now easier to fill in
on the computer. The template is offered in English in the formats MS
Word, Open Office Word and pdf.
Take advantage of these improvements and submit exhibit presentations
for the ZooLex Gallery. You may hand over the template to an intern or a
volunteer who is interested in zoo design because it is an excellent
education tool as well. There is a lot to learn from the research that
is necessary for filling in the form. The template is used all over the
world to teach students about zoo design.
Just send in the completed form and we will take care of publishing your
exhibit presentation. You can also upload information to the ZooLex
database yourself after getting registered for free:
~°v°~
We keep working on ZooLex ...
The ZooLex Zoo Design Organization is a non-profit organization
registered in Austria (ZVR-Zahl 933849053). ZooLex runs a professional
zoo design website and distributes this newsletter. More information and
Frog snot gives hope
for flu cure
The mucus of a rare
frog that lurks in the South Indian jungle could provide the basis of a
powerful new class of drugs to combat influenza, scientists have said.
The bright orange
tennis ball-sized Hydrophylax bahuvistara was found to contain “host defence
peptides” that proved able to destroy numerous strains of human flu, whilst
protecting normal cells.
Researchers are
excited because the peptide showed it could bind to a protein that is identical
across “dozens” of strains of the disease, increasing its potential potency as
a
Group size and
visitor numbers predict faecal glucocorticoid concentrations in zoo meerkats
Measures of
physiological stress in zoo animals can give important insights into how they
are affected by aspects of their captive environment. We analysed the factors
influencing variation in glucocorticoid metabolites in faeces (fGCs) from zoo
meerkats as a proxy for blood cortisol concentration, high levels of which are
associated with a stress response. Levels of fGCs in captive meerkats declined
with increasing group size. In the wild, very small groups of meerkats are at a
higher risk of predation, while in larger groups, there is increased
competition for resources. Indeed, group sizes in captivity resemble those seen
in unstable coalitions in the wild, which may represent a stressful condition
and predispose meerkats to chronic stress, even in the absence of natural
predators. Individuals in large enclosures showed lower levels of stress, but
meerkat density had no effect on the stress measures. In contrast with data
from wild meerkats, neither sex, age nor dominance status predicted stress levels,
which may reflect less food stress owing to more equal access to resources in
captivity versus wild. The median number of visitors at the enclosure was
positively correlated with fGC concentrations on the following day, with
variation in the visitor numbers having the opposite effect. Our results are
consistent with the hypothesis that there is an optimum group size which
minimizes physiological stress in meerkats, and that zoo meerkats at most risk
of physiological stress are those kept in small groups and small enclosures and
are exposed to consistently high numbers of visitors.
Giraffes must be
listed as endangered, conservationists formally tell US
Conservationists
have lodged a formal request for the US government to list giraffes as
endangered in a bid to prevent what they call the “silent extinction” of the
world’s tallest land animal.
A legal petition
filed by five environmental groups has demanded that the US Fish and Wildlife
Service provide endangered species protections to the giraffe, which has
suffered a precipitous decline in numbers in recent years.
According to the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which listed giraffes as a
threatened species in December, just 97,500 of the animals exist in sub-Saharan
Africa today, a drop of almost 40% since 1985. There are now fewer giraffes than
elephants in Africa.
Giraffes have
suffered from loss of habitat, disease and illegal hunting for bushmeat. They
also face the risk of collisions with vehicles and power lines. But the
petitioners argue that the species is facing added pressure from “trophy”
hunters who travel to Africa to shoot their big
Mali the Elephant
May Not Be as Lonely as You Think
The Unpopular
Opinion is Esquire’s space to provide additional insight and introduce new
perspectives to issues that we may think have foregone conclusions. These
articles don't always reflect our editorial stance, but we publish them here to
continue the discourse.
Dear friends here in Manila and abroad,
In the last couple
of days, the same old PETA campaign has again been making the rounds on
Facebook. It shows Manila Zoo's 43-year-old elephant as the loneliest elephant,
so sad that she is comforting herself by holding her tail. Sad, right? Then you
click on the link and it talks about Mali's poor life at the zoo.
First, the facts.
The elephant holding its tail is not Mali (alternatively spelled Maali). It's a
photo of an elephant at a Russian zoo from forever ago. PETA knows this, of
course, but it's a photo with a story that's designed to tug at your
heartstrings! So you, the animal lover that you are click the link, sign the
petition, and show your support for the idea of transferring Mali to another
country.
Let me tell you my
personal Mali story.
Tammie and I moved
to Manila in March 2012 after spending 12 years in the U.S. and Canada training
animals. We both have degrees in Exotic Animal Training and Management from
Moorpark Co
The science of
saving endangered species
The love for all living creatures is the most noble
attribute of man.” — Charles Darwin
Personally, I agree
wholeheartedly. But love alone will not be enough to save the thousands of
plant and animal species hovering on the brink of extinction. Only science can
do that. At San Diego Zoo Global, we have seen first hand that it is only
through careful observation and experimentation that we approach the level of
understanding needed to safeguard endangered species at the zoo, as well as
successfully conserve them in the wild. Science plays a critical role in
guiding our decision-making, and inevitably leads us to better and more
sustainable long-term outcomes.
Vancouver Aquarium
says unknown toxin killed belugas last year
The Vancouver
Aquarium says an unknown toxin was the cause of death for two belugas last
year.
Aurora, aged 30, and
her calf, Qila, 21, died within nine days of each other in November 2016.
The aquarium says
the determination followed a five-month investigation involving
"dozens" of aquarium and external specialists.
Critically-ill
Sumatran rhino Puntung on road to recovery following surgery
Puntung, one of
three remaining Sumatran rhinos in Malaysia which was reported to be
critically-ill last month, is recovering following surgery this morning.
Sabah Wildlife
department director Augustine Tuuga said the female rhino underwent a
two-and-a-half hour operation to extract two molars and a premolar from the
upper left side of her jaw, which had been causing a severe abscess.
The surgery was
performed by veterinary dentist Dr Tum Chinkangsadarn from Thailand, who found
that the source of the abscess was a formation caused by an accumulation of
bacteria on the severely-calcified molars.
The calcification
also loosened two adjacent teeth.
For the past two
weeks, Puntung had not shown any signs of recovery, despite being administered
antibiotics.
"This was a
remarkable and successful operation that came about as a result of global
discussion and multi-national collaboration over the past two weeks.
"Sabah thanks
Dr Tum and the team who did a fantastic job, as well as Dr Abraham Mathew,
senior veterinarian at the Singapore Zoo, who had helped with
anaesthesia," Augustine said in a statement, adding that the department
was also assisted and supported by South Africa's ‘Saving the Survivors’, the
Wildlife and National Parks department in Peninsular Malaysia and the Borneo
Rhino Alliance (Bora).
He added that the
procedure began at 7am, with X-rays taken under sedation for 110 minutes.
"She started
feeding two hours after the operation.
"But we are not
done yet, as there will be a
Researchers Find Yet
Another Reason Why Naked Mole-Rats Are Just Weird
Animals, especially
mammals, need oxygen to keep their bodies and brains humming along.
But leave it to the
African naked mole-rat to buck that trend. The rodents are bizarre in just
about every way. They're hairless, ground-dwelling and cold-blooded despite
being mammals. Now, scientists report in the journal Science that the animals
are capable of surviving oxygen deprivation.
"They have
evolved under such a different environment that it's like studying an animal
from another planet," says Thomas Park, a neuroscientist at the University
of Illinois at Chicago.
He and his
colleagues knew that naked mole-rat bodies work differently than those of other
mammals.
For example, instead
of generating their own heat, they regulate body temperature by moving to
warmer or cooler tunnels, which lowers the amount of energy they need to
survive. They're also known to have what Park calls "sticky
hemoglobin," which allows them to draw oxygen out of very thin air. And
because
Science is core to
saving wildlife
The following
statement was issued today by Wildlife Conservation Society President and CEO
Cristian Samper on the importance of science to wildlife conservation:
"Science is at
the core of wildlife conservation. It allows us to understand how to conserve
wildlife and wild places and measure the impact of our work to save them. At
WCS, we march for science every day through our field work in nearly 60 nations
and in our zoos aquarium in New York City.
"We could not
do our work without science. Our WCS scientists produce more than 400 research
papers a year. Science has informed our work throughout our 122-year history --
helping to discover new species, to prevent the extinction of species, to achieve
recovery of species, to establish protected areas, and to inform policies that
help wildlife and communities thrive together.
"In our early
years, science helped us prevent the extinction of the American Bison; it
helped us inform the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and it
helped us inform a ban on commercial whaling, among many other conservation
successes during our first century.
"More recently,
science has given us important data that will help with the recovery of forest
elephants that have been decimated by poaching. In a paper published last year
in the Journal of Applied Ecology, researchers found that forest elephants begin
breeding later and have much longer calving intervals than other elephants,
which means the population takes much longer to increase. Low birth rates mean
that it will take forest elephant populations at least 90 years to recover from
their losses. WCS scientist Andrea Turkalo, lead author of the study who
collected data over several decades, said this research provides critical
understanding regarding the dire conservation status of forest elephants.
"In another
paper published last year in Nature Communications, a team of scientists
revealed a complex story of how humans are altering natural habitats at the
SUKAU BRIDGE OFF;
DISCLOSURE ON CANCELLED PROJECT MADE IN LONDON
The highly
controversial Sukau road-bridge is a no go.
This was announced
in London on Wednesday night by Sam Mannan, Chief Conservator of Forests, in a
speech at the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership (SEARRP) dinner
held at the Royal Society.
In a statement
issued to the media and sighted by BorneoToday, Sam said the Chief Minister of
Sabah had taken into consideration all the concerns and opinions expressed
relat
Optimism: Why the
Future of Wildlife Depends on it
There’s plenty of
negative information out there about the (lack of) future for wildlife in
today’s world. With climate change and its ill-effects already happening, the
loss of more wild places caused by the explosion of human populations across
continents, and a host of other factors…let’s face it, it’s easy to think, why
bother?
Is it a fool’s
errand then, to ask people to believe that endangered wildlife might survive if
given a chance? Is it unrealistic of us—who work in wildlife conservation–to
hope that our efforts to protect endangered species will actually work?
No. Absolutely not.
While threats like
poaching and habitat loss are indeed despairing, we need to remember that every
single day, there are positive changes happening and victories where things
once seemed impossible. The fuel behind these changes is hope. Hope brings people
together and gives them courage to believe and fight for an outcome that may
(in that moment) seem like an
Rediscovering the
African wolf
The Egyptian wolf
was first described almost 200 years ago, yet for almost as long taxonomists
have debated whether it is truly a unique species. Nils Christian Stenseth and
Suvi Viranta describe how recent research has clarified the debate and how
their new study, published today in BMC Zoology, confirms that the African wolf
is a true species - "clarifying two centuries of wonder and
confusion".
Scientists Launch
Global Quest To Track Down Long-Lost Species
The race is on to
rediscover a list of 25 species that collectively have not been seen in more
than 1,500 years.
There’s the Wondiwoi
tree kangaroo, last spotted in 1928 in Indonesia; the pink-headed duck, missing
since 1949; and the bullneck seahorse, a species native to Australia never
before seen in the wild.
This week,
Texas-based Global Wildlife Conservation launched “The Search for Lost
Species,” described as the “largest-ever global quest to find and protect”
animals and plants missing for decades.
Don Church, GWC’s
president and director of conservation, said the organization’s “most wanted”
list includes “cute and cuddly” species, the kind people are drawn to and that
provide an opportunity to raise awareness about today’s biodiversity crisis.
“It’s about raising
the profile both of the species that we’re looking for, but more so the places
where they occur,” he told The Huffington Post. “The reason those places are
important is because they have extreme biodiversity value, but very few people
have heard about them. People hear about the Ama
Why Volunteering
With Animals Does Nothing For Conservation
Lots of people want
to give up their free time to help support conservation. By ‘lots’ I mean
relatively – google shows 2,900 searches* for ‘conservation volunteering’ last
month – but still, that’s pretty good. This is brilliant news of course, and
should be wholeheartedly applauded.
Overall, this must
add up to tens of thousands of hours of effort from volunteers every year, as
well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations/fundraising to make it
possible. With all this money and effort, conservation could really go places.
I should leave it there and chalk it up as a success story. There are lots of
ways to support conservation, but truth be told every time someone comes up to
me after a talk and says they want to help conservation so are heading off to
A) An elephant orphanage, B) A primate sanctuary or C) To work with big cats,
my heart sinks.
Tension at SF Zoo
exposed in conflict over cancer-stricken monkey
A dispute about the
euthanization of a cancer-stricken monkey at the San Francisco Zoo has
highlighted growing tension between employees and management over animal care
at the facility, which in the past decade has come under scrutiny following a
tiger’s killing of a guest and the accidental crushing death of a baby gorilla.
Zookeepers and other
animal care workers at the facility have accused Executive Director Tanya
Peterson of unnecessarily allowing a 15-month-old patas monkey to suffer for
almost a week before it was put to sleep. Peterson said the assertion has no
merit.
The monkey, named
Bernardo, was diagnosed late last month with a rare, fast-growing cancer on its
nose that hampered its breathing and eating. Animal care workers and the
veterinarian at the zoo agreed to euthanize the animal on April 7, but
zookeepers said Peterson ordered them to halt the procedure until the animal
showed more signs of slowing down.
An employee
eventually called the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and
BBC - The Monkey Lab
(2017)
Why Man-Eating Lions
Prey on People—New Evidence
"I have a very
vivid recollection of one particular night when the brutes seized a man from
the railway station and brought him close to my camp to devour. I could plainly
hear them crunching the bones, and the sound of their dreadful purring filled
the air and rang in my ears for days afterwards.” —Lieutenant-Colonel John
Henry Patterson, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo: And Other East African Adventures
These chilling words
recount how African lions terrorized a railroad-construction project in Tsavo,
Kenya, more than a century ago, killing and eating 35 workers. But how and why
the big cats became “man-eaters” is still a matter of scientific debate.
For instance, some
experts have suggested a lack of prey, brought about by a drought and disease
epidemic in the late 1800s, forced the lions to feed on people out of
desperation. But there's a problem with that theory—starving lions would have
likely made the most out of every meal, eating the humans bones and all.
The Galápagos
Tortoise Next Door
The sun is blazing
down when I meet endangered Galápagos tortoises for the first time. They look
like modern-day dinosaurs, lazily ambling around on scaly, dusty bowlegs. I
proffer a carrot to the largest of the three—a 300-pound female—who grabs it
with strong, beaklike jaws, neatly splitting it in two. After consuming it she
extends her long neck forward, inviting me to gently rub her under the chin.
This intimate
encounter takes place nowhere near the wild deserts of the Galápagos
Islands—I’m more than 3,000 miles away, in a white-fenced suburban backyard in
Long Island, N.Y. The three tortoises crawling around me—“Peewee,” “Maxine” and
“Tony”—belong to Michael Soupios, a smiling, bespectacled 67-year-old graduate
adviser and professor of political science at Long Island University Post.
Soupios has spent
years studying Galápagos tortoises, and easily rattles off facts about their
history i
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