Mountain gorillas seen disarming poachers traps!

Everyday, animal trackers set out from the Karisoke Research Center into an isolated area of Rwandan rainforest aiming to find and disarm as many of the dangerous and illegal traps set by poachers as they can find. The trackers efforts are crucial in helping to protect the extremely rare mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) that inhabit the region, which are classified as being 'Critically Endangered' by the IUCN and are predicted to become extinct within 10 years if we fail to conserve them.

When tracker John Ndayambaje set out one morning he was fully expecting to see poachers traps. Sure enough, he located a clan of gorillas and spotted a snare trap nearby. Although many poachers don't set snare traps to catch gorillas, as adults of the species are easily strong enough to break free, they are capable of killing juveniles so he knew that he must disarm it.

When John moved to approach the trap however, a silverback called Vubu grunted at him, presumably warning him to stay away. As John watched, two younger gorillas named Rwema and Dukore made their way over to it and carefully broke it, working confidently and quickly, which suggests that they've had extensive experience with the traps in the past. Rwema and Dukore then searched the surrounding foliage, joined by a third member of the Kuryama Clan called Tetero, and disarmed several more traps that John hadn't yet seen.

Rwema and Dukore work together to disarm a snare trap set by poachers.

This remarkable ingenuity has undoubtedly arisen in response to the very real dangers that the traps pose and is a superb example of mountain gorilla intelligence and their ability to learn. Researchers at the Karisoke Research Center believe that the gorillas watched human trackers tackling the traps and copied how they disarmed them. Although fascinating to watch, Veronica Vecellio (the Centre's gorilla program coordinator) was not surprised by the events and said that she is "always amazed and very proud when we [the Centre's researchers] can confirm that they are smart".

First new monkey discovered in 28 years!

Recently, a team of scientists have been cataloguing the animals present in the Tshuapa-Lomami-Lualaba region in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The area consists of around 6, 500 square miles of undisturbed forest and is one of the few unexplored areas left in Africa. Very early on, their efforts found the region to have an abundance of primate life, being home to bonobos and at least 10 other primate species, making it an important link in understanding the evolution of primate diversity.

Scientists have named the newly discovered Lesula monkey after the nearby Lomami River, calling it Cercopithecus lomamiensis.

What is even more remarkable than this significance, is what the researchers found in Opala, one of the towns that they were using as a base for their research. In a visit to a local primary school, the team was shown a young female monkey that was being kept as a pet by one of the directors. What is truly remarkable, is that this monkey was a member of a new species that had never before been seen by scientists. Known as a  lesula by the locals, the species belongs to the family of African guenons - a group which scientists previously believed that they knew very well! It appears that the two nearest rivers, the Congo and the Lomami, have isolated the species from its cousins so that the lesula evolved fairly independently via a process known as allopatric speciation.

Extensive investigation has revealed many more individuals of lesula kept in captivity in the surrounding area and individuals have been found living freely in the forest. It is hoped that the uniqueness of the species, along with the fact that many more undiscovered animals could be waiting in the forest, will be enough to legally protect the diversity of the area. Plans are already in motion to officially declare this protection, turning the Congo Basin into the Lomami National Park.

How effective are captive breeding programs?

One of the most amazing attributes that humans have is our unprecedented ability to alter our surrounding environment so that it is more suitable for our daily needs; with the most obvious of such alterations being the clearing of land to make room for housing and agricultural crops. Whilst we are not the only animals to alter our habitat (many other species such as beavers and termites also build large structures), we are the only species to build and destroy at such a large scale. The fact is that we have now spread onto every continent - even having science stations of Antarctica - and wherever we go, deforestation soon follows. The result of this is that there is very little true 'wilderness' left on Earth and many animals have lost their habitats due to our destructive ways and face imminent extinction in the near future as a result.

'Slash and burn' agriculture is an ancient way of clearing land that dates back to our earliest endeavours of farming 12, 000 years ago and involves setting blaze to, sometimes, vast acres of forest. Obviously this technique is highly destructive and displaces all of the resident organisms that were previously living there, destroying their homes. The problem is made worse by the fact that land gained in such a way is very infertile so that farmers need to create new plots of land every year.

In fact, the problem is now so bad that research undertaken during the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) has found that in the past 50 years humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than at any other comparable time throughout our entire history! This has resulted in a huge and irreversible loss of Earth's biodiversity and the MEA found that we have already destroyed over half of the planet's forests, 20% of its coral reefs and 35% of its mangroves - all of which are essential ecosystems for providing habitats to animals, providing ecosystem services to us and in preserving the planet's future evolutionary potential. To make matters even worse, the MEA has predicted that the degradation of ecosystems is likely to get considerably worse during the first half of this century at the very least! This loss of habitat has had profound implications on the survival of many species, which are now already extinct or are endangered and this destructive human behaviour is unlikely to change any time soon. The question then, is whether or not we should try to preserve at least some of the species and ecosystems that we are threatening and of course, many people believe that we should. As the result of this, there are countless specialised conservation organisations across the globe like the WWF and the IUCN.

One of the methods that we can use to preserve endangered species then, is via captive breeding programs in which we take animals from the wild and breed them ex-situ in institutes such as zoos and aquariums. Captive breeding programs have been very successful in the past and have been sufficient to restore the natural populations of endangered species back to relatively 'safe' numbers. A good example of this is the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), which has now made a remarkable recovery after its entire population was removed from the wild and bred in captivity, with reintroduction schemes running since the early 90's. In addition to breeding rare animals in an environment that is safe from illegal poaching, captive breeding programs also allow the animals to be studied by scientists; allow the public to see foreign and exotic animals in zoos, which is both interesting and may help to raise their awareness of the importance of conservation; and furthermore, helps to maintain a 'stock' population against unforeseeable events like natural disasters (which become a huge problem if all the individuals of a particular species are only found in one place!).

These elephant tusks were seized after an anti-poaching raid in Tanzania. Sadly, despite the great efforts to protect wild elephants, illegal poaching for their highly valuable ivory tusks still goes on as is very difficult to protect wild populations. Bringing endangered species, such as elephants, into captivity however makes this much easier.

However, even though captive breeding programs sound like a good idea at first glance and definitely have their good points, are they really feasible on a large scale? The IUCN has estimated that 2, 000 - 3, 000 species of terrestrial vertebrates will have to be captive bred in the near future in order to save them from extinction and sadly, the space and money that is available globally is nowhere near sufficient enough  to cope with such an epic undertaking. Thus, we may have to decide to save some species at the expense of others - decisions that would undoubtedly be both unpleasant and controversial: why is one species more important than another?

Obviously then some animals will be more suitable for captive breeding programs than others: mainly, small creatures that can be kept and maintained cheaply in small enclosures. Amphibians are a great example of such animals and furthermore, can be easily released back into the wild because they don't have any learnt behaviours that must be taught to them in order for them to survive. This is one of the main problems with reintroduction schemes, which is particularly evident in predators - without learning how to hunt and kill their prey, captive-bred animals cannot survive in the wild and thus depend on humans for their entire lives! The fact that amphibians make such good candidates for breeding in captivity is very fortunate, as over a half of all amphibians are now endangered due to the Chytid Fungus that is killing them in large numbers across the globe and due to their extreme susceptibility to anthropogenic environmental pollutants.

The endangered black-eyed tree frog, Agalychnis moreletti, is currently being bred in captivity in Chester Zoo. The zoo is participating in an international effort called the Amphibian Ark (AArk) program that aims to preserve amphibian life and safe-guard them against their global decline.

The lack of space that is available in zoos however, sadly makes the captive breeding of large animals much less feasible than programs that incorporate smaller species. This is particularly true for large predatory mammals such as lions and tigers, which need very large territories to thrive and do not respond well to being kept in captivity. In addition, they require so much space and cost so much to keep that zoos can only afford to keep relatively small numbers of them in captivity. This means that only a small number of individuals can be bred from so that the captive populations would become vulnerable to inbreeding depression and would suffer from low genetic diversity and have reduced fitness as a consequence. To explain this further, a small breeding population rapidly becomes inbred because simply put, there are no animals available for a individual to breed with that they are not related to. Over time the population becomes more and more inbred and deleterious alleles build up in individuals. Usually such maladaptive alleles are recessive and are masked in outbred individuals who have a 'normal' and healthy allele for the gene so that they don't suffer from its effects, even if they are carrying it. However inbreeding increases the chances of an individual having two copies of the deleterious allele (which are then are said to be homozygous for the allele) so that they suffer from its ill effects - a phenomenon known as inbreeding depression.

The lion, Panthera leo, is one of the most majestic predators in the world. Sadly however, captive lions usually have extremely low sperm counts and a very high percentage of what little sperm they do produce is abnormal. This problem, due to inbreeding depression, is very common in species of big cat and is exacerbated even further by the fact they they rarely even try to mate when in captivity! Problems that makes them very unsuitable for captive breeding programs.

As well as inbreeding depression, captive breeding programs have two other serious problems. The first is that keeping many animals of the same species in a small confined space that often has poorer than desirable hygiene means that the spread of infectious diseases becomes very likely (unless a vaccination against the disease is available). This can be disastrous for the recovery efforts of a species, which is highlighted in the case study of the before-mentioned black-footed ferrets where canine distemper killed all of the first ferrets that were taken into captivity! Sadly this could easily have led to the extinction of the species as more individuals had to be removed from the wild - an example that highlights the final disadvantage of captive breeding programs: removing individuals from an already dwindling population could actually push the species into extinction in the wild, as there may be too few left to breed successfully! Unfortunately, there is no way around this problem and all conservationist biologists can do is make a decision on what they think would be best for a species in its own specific case of circumstances and hope that it's the right one!

So in conclusion, captive breeding programs are undoubtedly very effective measures for preventing species from becoming extinct. However, due to the lack of space that is available and the unsuitability of some species for such schemes, they cannot be used to save every endangered species of animal so we must also take measures to preserve them in-situ in the wild. Often, this is accomplished by protecting animals from hunting under law and by setting up designated animal reserves or parks that specifically aim to protect them and conserve nature (click here for a recent example of a national park).

Tragedy of the commons? Don't be so melodramatic...

The 'tragedy of the commons' is a fairly well known ecological dilemma, which arises from the fact that people will exploit a shared resource to exhaustion before they will deplete a resource that they own themselves. This concept was first described by the ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968 and is often used to help plan for sustainable development in an area.

The basic principle underlying the tragedy of the commons is this: an individual who uses their own resources for a service gets the benefit of that resource, but at a cost - they have had to use up resources that they personally own and consequently, cannot use them again. However, an individual who uses a shared resource for a service still gets that all of the benefits that this entails, but they are not using up their own resources. Thus, the individual gets all of the benefits from a service, but at no personal cost. So using common resources seems like a good idea, right? And yes, it is for an individual at their own personal level. The problem is however, that many individuals will have worked out that they can use the resource at no cost to themselves and as such, the common ground will be over used and will be exploited until it is completely depleted and becomes useless. This fact led Hardin to coin the phenomenon of the 'tragedy of the commons': multiple individuals that are acting rationally and in their own personal best interests (as they usually are) will ultimately deplete a shared resource, even when it's clear that this is not always in the best interests for the resource for them to do so.

Note how most of the sheep in this photo have red paint sprayed onto them with one (left), instead having yellow paint. This tactic is often used by farmers to mark their own livestock when grazing them on shared resources so that they can identify their own animals later.

The classic example for the tragedy of the commons and the one used by Hardin to first describe it, is medieval land tenure by European herders. A group of herders all have their own land on which to graze their animals, which by using, they will benefit by having their livestock fed and healthy. However, by feeding their animals off their land they are using up their own grass and without grass, the land's soil is washed away and it may eventually become useless. Knowing this, herders take their livestock to the village or town common instead - land which none of them own and allow their livestock to graze here. Therefore, their animals are still fed but they are not degrading the quality of their own land so that the herders, on a personal level, are in a 'win-win' situation. But, although this is good for a single herder, there is a major problem with this as you've no doubt realised. The problem is that while a single herder may have for example, 10 sheep, which would take a very long time to use up and deplete a field, multiple herders are using the field at the same time. Hence, if 10 herders use it who all have 10 sheep, then 100 sheep are all feeding off the same field - meaning that its resources will quickly be depleted. This rapidly degrades the quality of the common, meaning that soon it will not be able to support livestock and, with poor muddy ground, cannot really be used for recreation either (the purpose for which it was made available to everyone).

This photograph shows the heavy land use of grazing cows. It is unlikely that a single farmer owns so may cows so this is probably a shared resource - a resource which is clearly being overexploited. Even though this overgrazing will rapidly degrade the quality of the land, it allows farmers to feed their cattle at no personal cost to themselves so that they will be inclined to use it until it has been exhausted.

The tragedy of the commons can be applied to all common resources and modern-day examples include overfishing in the world's oceans and industrial logging in the world's rainforests: such resources are either not privately owned or are too big for that ownership to be enforced effectively, so that they are overexploited by multiple groups and as a result, are being rapidly degraded.

The tragedy of the commons is frequently used in arguments that support sustainable development programmes, allowing such programmes to satisfy both conservation and economic entities by encompassing economic growth and environmental protection. Furthermore, it is regularly used as a warning against the implementation of policies that restrict the use of private property or espouse the expansion of public land - factors that may drive individuals into exploiting shared resources! The tragedy of the commons is also used to argue for the privatisation of resources in order to protect them and although desirable, this is often impractical. How, for example, can you privatise the ozone layer or honeybees? To complicate things even further some areas, such as the Amazon Rainforest, are just too big - even it was completely privately owned it is unlikely that it could be protected in its entirety and therefore it is unlikely that illegal logging could be effectively prevented!

Therefore the tragedy of the commons is an issue of logic, where any rationally acting individual will first exploit a shared resource before using their own because this is in their best interests. This means that it is very hard to prevent and in order to combat it, policies must be put into place to control overexploitation and where possible, encourage individuals to use their own resources preferentially to shared ones.

Extinct bee is re-introduced into the UK

The short-haired bumblebee has been extinct in the United Kingdom since 1988, where its numbers declined as the result of the dramatic increase in farming that followed World War II. This extensive farming was needed to fuel Britain's rapid population growth and sadly, about 97% of the bees wildflower-rich grasslands have now been lost. 

The short-haired bumblebee, Bombus subterraneus. Bees vision is at the ultraviolet end of the electromagnetic spectrum so the insects see blues and purples very prominently, as well as light that our eyes cannot see. As a result, they seem to prefer blue and purple flowers to those that are red or yellow.

However, the loss of their habitat hasn't phased conservationists in the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in their reserve at Dungeness, Kent (one of the larger counties in the UK). The team have spent the last three years planting as many many wildflowers as possible and have created lush meadows that are already benefiting other species of endangered bee that are still endemic in the UK, such as the shrill carder bee, and the RSPB now thinks that they are ready for the short-haired bumblebee to make its return.

"There will be a really good chance that it [the short-haired bumblebee] will establish, it will  become self sustainable and spread." Nikki Gammons from the Short-haired Bumblebee Project.

The generosity of the Swedish government has made the bee's return possible, who have given scientists permission to go and collect up to 100 new queens from their countryside. The short-haired bee is still common in Sweden and removing a small number of queens such as this shouldn't have an impact on their populations there. Once in the UK, 20 - 30% of the queens are expected to survive their hibernation over their first winter here (which is very high odds for the survival rates of an introduced species) and the colonies that they form are expected to be able to survive fairly well in RSPB Dungeness, persisting there long-term.

Many local farmers are also involved in the project, which also been funded by Natural England and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (in addition to that of the RSPB), who are planning to leave the edges of their fields untouched. These wild strips, or 'corridors', will contain many of the flowers that the bees need to survive and will help the short-haired bumblebee to spread across its ancient endemic ranges throughout southern England.

Want to help the bees?

Although the re-introduction of the short-haired bee into the UK will hopefully be a success, it doesn't change the fact that bee numbers are crashing worldwide. There are various reasons for this - some are due to man and some are not; but regardless, their loss will have profound implications to us. Bees are estimated to be involved in the production of around a third of all human food by pollinating our crops and represent US$40 billion in terms of the services that they provide to the human agricultural industry - in the UK alone, bees contribute more than £400 million a year to our economy by pollinating crops and medicinal plants!

The production and use of highly toxic neonicotinoid pesticides is one of the major contributors to the demise of bees, a fact that AVAAZ is trying to remedy. By signing their petition you can support AVAAZ when they confront Bayer (one of the major producers of the pesticides) and try to get the company to stop their production. Please consider spending a few seconds to sign this petition - bees are crucial organisms for global ecosystems and need our help!

Should wolves be re-introducted into Scotland?

Farmers have been at war with wolves for thousands of years, desperately trying to protect their livestock from being killed and eaten by the wild animals. This war has led to many familiar jobs to protect livestock, such as shepherding and even to the creation of certain breeds of dog! A fairly obvious example being German Shepherds... Since the advent of guns and their ready availability to farmers however, the war tipped in favour of humans and wolves have since been eradicated from much of their historical ranges across Europe and North America.

The United Kingdom is no different from these countries and has also eradicated the endemic populations of the grey wolf, Canis lupus, that once lived here; with the species being officially extinct in the UK in 1769. Over the past few decades  however, the interest in the re-introduction of wolves has been increasing in many countries, partly due to a better understanding of their ecological importance in pest control and partly due to the aesthetics of seeing them in the wild (many people just like knowing that they're out there). The re-introduction of grey wolves in the USA (such as in Yellowstone National Park) and in many countries throughout  Europe has been a great success and in such countries, the re-introduction of wolves has even been economically beneficial! (Despite the belief that they will cost a country money by killing farmers livestock.)

The grey wolf, Canis lupus, once roamed freely throughout much of Europe, Asia and North America until the heavy hunting by farmers and loss of their habitat due to human activity led to a huge decrease in their numbers - completely wiping them out in many areas. Thankfully, efforts have been made to restore the species and its numbers have greatly increased; with it now being classified as being of 'Least Concern' by the IUCN.

The UK's interest in re-introducing grey wolves is also increasing, particularly in releasing them back into Scotland, which still has much of their natural habitat left throughout the Scottish Highlands, so is the most suitable location for them to live in. In addition, much of the Scottish Highlands are unoccupied and are relatively unused by humans, which will help to reduce the contact between wolves and man - a factor that is essential for the re-introduction scheme to be a success; mainly due to the problems that wolves can cause farmers via eating their livestock - sheep in particular.

The Cuillin Mountains in the Scottish Highlands offer as much of an untouched environment for the re-introduction of grey wolves as now exists in the United Kingdom.

However, the re-introduction of wolves into Scotland has met with opposition and not everyone is as eager to see wolves return to the wild as conservation biologists. These people, predominantly farmers, believe that they will lose out if wolves once again roam the wilderness since the wolves will kill their livestock. Obviously, this represents a significant monetary loss for farmers who are unable to sell the sheep, for example, or use it for breeding. Farmers would have also invested a fair amount of money for the maintenance of the sheep via food costs, vets bills and its general care - money that will not be returned as the farmer cannot sell the animal! However, this has rarely been a problem in countries where grey wolves have been re-introduced and many of the governments in such countries subsidise the cost of anti-wolf devices, such as effective fencing; throat-protection (that make it harder for wolves to kill sheep) and anti-wolf collars; auditory and visual alarm systems; guard dogs; and non-lethal projectiles for farmers that help to reduce attacks. Furthermore, many governments now compensate farmers for the loss of a sheep to a wolf pack, meaning that farmers are reimbursed for the value of the sheep and the cost for maintaining it.

Large breeds of dog, such as the German Shepherd, are very effective at deterring wolves from attacking sheep and other livestock. The German Shepherd (or Alsatian) is a relatively new breed of dog, with its origins dating back to the late 1800s and itself, possesses a large amount of wolf DNA.

Thus, the presence of grey wolves in Scotland shouldn't hinder the efforts of farmers so long as we put some sort of scheme(s) in place to minimise the loss of their livestock and the related damage that it causes to them, meaning that the negative aspects of their reintroduction can be controlled for. This means that the only effects that the re-introduction of wolves will have overall, should be positive. Obviously, an endemic wolf population may well boost tourism to Scotland as many people would like to see wild wolves, helping to raise money that can boost our economy and possibly be used to aid various conservation efforts. Also, many jobs would be created (at least at first) when they are released into and established in the Scottish Highlands, both for the care of the wolves and in the scientific study of the process (such as how wolves adapt to a new environment).

However, these benefits of releasing wolves into Scotland are only secondary and the main positive influence that they would have is in helping to control the populations of the red deer, one of their main sources of prey. Since wiping out wolves from Scotland (and from the UK in general), the populations of red deer, among other prey species, have risen dramatically as they no longer have any natural predators. Their high numbers makes them very damaging to their environment due to the over-exploitation of its resources and their extensive overgrazing can destroy large areas of vegetation. This therefore, reduces the resources that are available to other woodland animals and the overall biodiversity of our woodlands has fallen in such areas; with many species of insects, birds and small mammals being unable to survive there!

The population size of the red deer, Cervus elaphus, has increased dramatically due to the eradication of grey wolves and its other natural predators from the UK. Trophy and meat hunting by humans is not extensive enough to keep their population in check by itself and as a result, their unnaturally large numbers can be very destructive to ecosystems.

As well as being detrimental for the health of ecosystems and to conservation efforts overall, this destruction of ecosystems by deer can itself damage farmers livelihoods, as red deer may eat many of the berries, apples and pears for example, that farmers sell over the summer. Furthermore, large numbers of deer can also be harmful to our health as they carry the potentially fatal Lyme disease, a blood-bourne infection that is spread from to deer to humans via ticks! Thus, in order to control the pesky red deer populations and to help ecosystems to remain balanced (there still needs to be some deer in the environment for it to remain healthy), the UK's government must periodically spend large sums of money to cull the populations of red deer once they become too large to be sustained by their environment, with the Deer Commission for Scotland aiming to maintain a population density of 6 deer per square kilometre.

Obviously, such measures are extreme and are highly unpopular as nobody wants to know about a deer massacre (however necessary). The re-introduction of wolves into Scotland however, can provide a natural alternative to this by regulating red deer populations via predation, which is both cheaper and more desirable. In addition, the abundance of red deer also means that it is unlikely that wolves will attack farmers livestock since wolves are 'creatures of habit' and have preferred species of prey. Much of the research into the behaviour of grey wolves has found that if their preferred prey (which varies between populations and packs) is present in an area, then the wolves rarely hunt other game! Obviously this has implications for farmers, meaning that re-introduced wolves may not attack their livestock at all!

However, the critics that oppose wolf re-introduction have one last argument against unleashing wolves into Scotland: wolves are highly mobile and have very expansive territorial ranges. This means that wolves are unlikely to stay solely in the areas where they've been released and could quite easily move into more heavily farmed areas than what is seen in the Scottish Highlands, where deer numbers are smaller so that the wolves would be more likely to attack livestock. Furthermore, grey wolves could quite easily spread south into England and eventually even into Wales, which are much more heavily urbanised and therefore, much less suitable for endemic wolf populations. Other than rebuilding Hadrian's Wall, it would hard to stop this migration - a fact that is of great concern to both critics and re-introduction policy makers alike; sadly, helping to make their re-introduction less likely...

Hadrian's Wall, spanning from the west to the east coast of Great Britain, was build on the order of the Roman emperor Hadrian on the border between Scotland and England in AD 122. Whereas it is disputed whether the wall was to defend the edge of the Roman Empire from the Scots or was built merely to mark the boundary of the Roman Empire, rebuilding the wall would undoubtedly help to keep wolves out of England...

Sadly, due to the problems that re-introducing wolves back into the UK would have and the long-held negative perceptions towards wolves held by farmers, their re-introduction looks unlikely at the moment even despite the many benefits that it would have. However, the will to re-introduce grey wolves is still here and maybe, after seeing how successful the new populations of wolves have been in Europe and North America, the eerie howls of wolves will one day in the future, once again drift across the Scottish Highlands...

Land of the Leopard: Russia provides hope for Amur leopards & Siberian tigers

The Amur leopard is a subspecies of leopard that is resident to the south-western Primorye region of Russia and has been classified as 'Critically Endangered' by the IUCN since 1996. It is estimated that as few as 30 individuals may remain in the wild, occupying a tiny area of land. Therefore, the Russian government has just announced that they are creating a 1, 011 square mile big cat reserve called the 'Land of the Leopard National Park' in order to try and save the cat.

The 'Critically Endangered' Amur leopard, Panthera pardus orientalis, which the Land of the Leopard National Park hopes to conserve.

The reserve, declared on the 9th April 2012, aims to safeguard Amur leopards, along with Amur (Siberian) tigers, by protecting them from illegal poaching and hunting by farmers. The Wildlife Conservation Society, which has supported the Russian government in conserving big cats since 1996, has heralded the new reserve saying that: 

"it will provide a critical refuge for some of the most endangered big cats on the planet" (Dale Miquelle, Russian programme director). 

The Land of the Leopard National Park combines three already protected areas: Kedrovaya Pad Reserve, Barsovy Federal Wildlife Refuge and Borisovkoe Plateau Regional Wildlife Refuge (partly to make them easier to manage), with a large expanse of previously unprotected land along the Chinese boarder. Migration between wild leopards and tigers between the reserve into China and vice versa is essential for the conservation of the species since it allows genes to 'flow' between the remaining populations, helping to avoid the negative effects of inbreeding (inbreeding depression) that often occurs in small, protected populations.

Although some conservationists are sceptical that the reserve will help to save the leopard, saying that is too little, too late (to use a cliché), they agree that it is a huge step in the right direction and will definitely be of help in the recovery efforts of Siberian tigers. However, there is still hope for the recovery of the Amur leopard, as many species have recovered successfully from such a dwindling population sizes in the past and the Land of the Leopard may be enough to save the cat, particularly if poaching can be successfully prevented.

The Amur (or Siberian) tiger, Panthera tigris altaica, which is classified as endangered by the IUCN. Numbers of Amur tiger have increased dramatically since its protection in the 1930's and there are now an estimated 500 of the tigers remaining in the wild.

Is evolution in danger of extinction?

Everyone is familiar with the concept of extinction. Sometimes species are lost forever, whether it is due to natural and unavoidable catastrophes like a large asteroid hitting our planet, which many scientists believe wiped out the dinosaurs, or due the activities of humans. The extinction of a species is sad, but the brutal fact is that it is not all bad and the death of one species allows the evolution of another to occur and fill the now empty niche. A good example is that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs allowed the previously oppressed group of mammals to evolve and become one of the most dominant forms of life on the planet, which has worked out pretty well for us... These events are called extinction spasms and follow all mass extinction events, with the 'bounce-back' time of species taking millions of years. For example, it took 20 million years after the Cretaceous Tertiary Extinction Event for the surviving marine invertebrates to establish as many new families of organisms as they'd lost.

The Barringer Crater in Arizona is 1 mile wide and 570 feet deep. It is believed to be the crash site of the city-sized KT asteroid that hit the Earth 65 million years ago with the force of million nuclear bombs, wiping out half the life-forms on the planet, including the dinosaurs.

Therefore, life has always recovered after mass extinction events and many new species have appeared after them. This is mainly because the past five mass extinction events have left many of the key environments for evolution intact, such as rainforests and underwater environments. Such environments are sometimes called 'evolutionary powerhouses' and are critical for the development of new species, having produced substantially more new species of organism than any other environment, including almost every major group of vertebrate.

The planet is currently undergoing its sixth and largest mass extinction event, which is due to the destructive activities of humans. The most damaging of our activities are mainly mass hunting and deforestation, which have resulted in many species already falling extinct. The problem with this mass extinction however, which sets it apart from the others, is that we are destroying the powerhouse environments and are killing every other category of animal at the same time, rather than just certain ones. This is resulting in a rapid loss of the planet's overall genetic diversity - diversity that is essential for life to recover after we wake up, stop destroying the planet and take steps to halt the extinction event.

An aerial view of the border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic (right). The heavy logging in Haiti for the charcoal and firewood industries has resulted in mass deforestation and as a result, only 3% of Haiti's forests now remain.

As according to Charles Darwin, evolution works when a gene randomly mutates and that this mutation gives the individual an advantage over others of its species, helping it to survive for longer. Thus, the individual can breed more because it is around for a greater length of time and gradually, the mutated allele (which is naturally selected for), increases in frequency throughout the population of the species. Once a species has gone however, its genes are lost and cannot change or be passed on so their potential for evolving into a new species is also gone. New species usually evolve when separate populations of a particular species live in different environmental conditions and cannot breed with each other. Therefore, the different populations will be under different selection pressures for new genes and will undergo speciation, slowly becoming different subspecies and eventually, different species altogether.

Thus, the recovery of life after a mass extinction event depends upon the species that survive it and the genes that remain - genes cannot just appear from nowhere! Therefore the rapid loss of forested habitats, which have survived remarkably well in past mass extinctions, is greatly reducing the planet's genetic 'resource base' and is pushing even more species extinct. Worryingly, it is looking more and more likely that the process of evolution will become severely limited in its capacity to create new species of life and ultimately, may fail and become extinct itself. If this should happen life on Earth will die (eventually humans will die out as well as we'll have no food) and will not be replaced, leaving the planet as just another barren and lifeless rock drifting through space...

The Alpine ibex - a lesson in outbreeding depression

The Alpine ibex, Capra ibex, is a species of wild goat that lives in the European Alps. Historically the goat ranged throughout the whole mountain range, but the heavy hunting beginning in the 1500s caused dramatic declines in its populations. As a result of this overexploitation, the goat became extinct in France, Switzerland and Germany by the 18th Century and in Austria and north-east Italy by the 19th. Fortunately, the Italian Gran Paradiso National Park was established in 1922 in order to protect the ibex and its population was used to help recolonise other areas of its historical range.

The anti-poaching enforcement efforts in Gran Paradiso were successful and, as a result, the population of the ibex began to rise. Once the population had grown large enough the next stage of the conservation plan was implemented and the ibex were used in the recolonisation efforts of the species in the Tatra Mountains in Czechoslovakia, one of the areas that it was now extinct. However, this was where a massive and unpredicted problem began. Capra ibex ibex from the park was not the only subspecies of the mountain goat used the scheme, since conservationists believed that their population would grow faster and the scheme would be more successful if they used as many goats as possible to recolonise the mountain range. Thus, the subspecies Capra ibex nubiana from Sinai and Capra aegagrus from Turkey were also used in the scheme and bred with Capra ibex ibex. The problem with is was that these additional subspecies of goat were from much warmer drier climates; climates to which they had become locally adapted to.

The Alpine ibex, Capra ibex ibex.

Consequently, when the additional ibex subspecies' mated with Capra ibex ibex, the hybrid offspring had genes that had been selected for by the environmental conditions of the hotter climates. As a result, the hybrids rutted in autumn instead of winter and the resulting kids (baby goats) were born in February, the coldest month of the year and the whole population rapidly became extinct. Thus, the scheme failed because conservationists had failed to predict the effects of mixing different sub-populations, with slightly different adaptations, together.

This problem is known as outbreeding depression, which occurs because populations in different geographical areas do not breed with each other and are under selection pressures from their environment. Over time, these selection pressures cause different alleles to be most favourably expressed in the different populations and if they breed, the young will likely have reduced fitness (survival and reproductive ability). This problem of local adaptation is an issue for all conservation schemes that move species from one habitat to another; so, before such a scheme's implementation, conservationists must first research whether or not outbreeding depression will be an issue. If it is, the scheme will likely fail at great monetary expense and expense to the endangered species itself, which will already have a small population. Unfortunately, extensive research isn't always possible because of the rapid rate at which species are disappearing and often, management decisions have to made very quickly, without complete genetic knowledge.

However, even though this particular reintroduction scheme failed, the population of the Alpine ibex is now well over 20, 000 and the species is listed under 'Least Concern' by the IUCN. 

Species conservation: simple right?

You may think that conserving a particular species is easy, assuming that all you have to do is stick a few individuals into a zoo, breed them and then release their babies back into the wild. However, you'd be wrong and it is actually much more complex than this, with lots of unpredictable factors that only become apparent once a conservation scheme has been launched. The conservation of the black-footed ferret, Mustela nigripes, in the USA helps to highlight just this.

The black-footed ferret is a small mustelid, from the same family as European and Siberian polecats, such as weasels that were historically found across most prairie grasslands in the USA. However during the mid 20th century, the population of the ferrets began to decline and by the 1960s they were considered rare. In response to this, they were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and a conservation scheme was developed in order to help save the species. However, this took far too long and by the time conservationists were ready to implement the plan, the ferret had disappeared, seemingly becoming extinct. By chance, the species was rediscovered in Wyoming in 1985 and conservationists leapt into action to remove 6 ferrets from the wild, placing them into a captive breeding program. 

The black-footed ferret, Mustela nigripes

However, the initial excitement of capturing the ferrets soon turned into despair. Two of the captured ferrets carried canine distemper, a disease to which the ferret is unusually susceptible to and, as a result, all of the ferrets died. This meant that 6 new ferrets had to be removed from the wild for breeding, further reducing an already small population. Very small populations of a species are a major issue for conservation because the population soon becomes inbred, meaning that deleterious alleles of genes begin to build up and they lose genetic diversity. This problem, which is known as inbreeding depression, means that the species suffers from greatly reduced fitness and is less able to cope with environmental changes; thus, becoming much more likely to fall extinct.

Therefore, removing 6 additional ferrets from the population was of great concern to conservationists, especially because the wild population continued to decline. Around this time, it was discovered that the population of black-tailed, Gunnison's and white-tailed prairie dogs, the main diet of black-footed ferrets, was also decreasing due to the Sylvatic plague. With horror, conservationists realised that the main reason black-footed ferrets were going extinct was because its main source of food was declining - they should have been trying conserve the prairie dogs all of this time, rather than the ferret itself. However, by now the distribution of prairie dogs had fallen to only 2% of its historical geographical range, due to both the plague and the actions of farmers, who wrongly believed them to be pests. To make matters worse, conservationists couldn't merely focus on saving the prairie dogs because only 4 black-footed ferrets now remained in the wild!

The now endangered Gunnison's prairie dog, Cynomys gunnisoni.

To try and preserve both species, the decision was made to pull the remaining black-footed ferrets from the wild and add them to the breeding program, whilst applying the burrows of prairie dogs with a poison that would kill fleas, the vectors (carriers) of the Sylvatic plague. It was hoped that this would be sufficient to help their populations to recover. At the same time, just to be sure, they launched an education campaign in order to change the long-held beliefs of farmers that the prairie dogs were pests and that they had to be preserved, or else they could become extinct.

Fortunately, the populations of both species are now beginning to recover, even though they are both still rare. The black-footed ferret has been a particular success, with kit (baby ferrets) reintroduction schemes running since 1991. However, the species may not have been so fortunate and the case study highlights the importance of identifying why species are declining in the first place. Ironically, by trying to save the black-footed ferret, we could have easily driven it to extinction as we did not fully consider the complicating factors of the ecosystem and the full impact of humans on the ferret. This is a lesson that needs to be learnt for new species conservation schemes, elsewise they could fail, at great expense to conservation funds.