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Arctic Seals Edge Closer To Extinction As Sea Ice Vanishes

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seals

A hooded seal pup in the Netherlands. Image by Michael Bakker Paiva via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Arctic Seals Edge Closer To Extinction As Sea Ice Vanishes

Three Arctic seal species have moved closer to extinction, as rapid sea ice loss continues to erode their breeding and feeding grounds, according to the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The update, released Oct. 10 during the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi, “uplists” the hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) from vulnerable to the higher-threat category of endangered, and the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) and harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) from least concern to near threatened.

Arctic seals depend on stable sea ice to breed, raise their pups, rest and access feeding areas. As temperatures climb globally, they are rising about four times faster in the Arctic than elsewhere and sea ice is thinning and melting earlier every year. This loss has undermined reproduction across multiple species.

“The major driver of the declines that we are seeing is breeding habitat deterioration as a direct result of climate change,” Kit Kovacs, co-chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission Pinniped Specialist Group, told Mongabay. Kovacs participated in the uplisting decision.

When sea ice melts or breaks apart too soon, pups may drown, freeze or be killed by predators or collapsing ice. “Sea ice is disappearing and ice-dependent species of all sorts are threatened by these losses,” said Kovacs, a marine mammal biologist who lives in Tromsø, Norway, and travels regularly to the country’s Svalbard archipelago for fieldwork and to teach at the University Centre in Svalbard. “Recruitment of youngsters into the populations are failing.”

Moreover, she said, the retreating ice also makes it harder for seals to rest and feed, which compromises their overall health and survival.

Expanding crisis at both poles

Kovacs told Mongabay that IUCN’s current assessments of all pinniped species began in 2021 and she expects her working group to complete them in 2026. The three are part of a broader pattern observed over several assessment cycles. She noted that other ice-dependent species of various taxa already moved into higher threat categories in the previous assessment in 2015-16, and the trend is expected to continue.

Warning signs are now emerging in the Southern Hemisphere, where sea ice loss in the Southern Ocean is beginning to affect both ice-dependent predators and their prey, Kovacs said. The Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella), currently listed as least concern, may soon be classified as endangered, she said. The species has declined by more than 50% over the last three generations, a drop she said is likely linked to sea ice loss affecting krill and other ice-dependent prey.

“The impacts can be direct — or indirect — but track back to a changing cryosphere,” she said.

Global urgency, local actions

Kovacs said reversing seal population declines requires tackling the problem at its source. “The most important actions we could undertake to protect ice-dependent animals involve large-scale efforts to slow or reverse climate change,” she said.

In a news release announcing the Arctic seal uplisting, the IUCN said governments have an opportunity at the next global climate summit, coming up in November in Belém, Brazil, to “accelerate action that protects biodiversity, stabilises our climate, and builds a future where people and nature flourish together.”

Beyond the loss of sea ice, the IUCN noted, Arctic seals face additional pressures from shipping, underwater noise, oil and mineral exploitation, hunting and bycatch in fisheries. Safeguarding key habitats from human activities, reducing bycatch, ensuring sustainable hunting and curtailing noise impacts are critical to minimizing Arctic seal declines, the group stated.

Kovacs added that it’s also important to avoid overfishing species the seals and other predators rely on for food and to reduce pollution levels.

Beyond their own survival, ice-dependent seals are integral to the wider Arctic ecosystem, the IUCN noted in the news release. They serve as prey for polar bears and as a subsistence resource for Indigenous communities, while also regulating marine food webs by consuming fish and invertebrates and recycling nutrients. Scientists describe them as keystone species — animals whose survival underpins the stability of the entire marine environment.

“Protecting Arctic seals goes beyond these species; it is about safeguarding the Arctic’s delicate balance, which is essential for us all,” Kovacs said.

Citation:
Rantanen, M., Karpechko, A. Y., Lipponen, A., Nordling, K., Hyvärinen, O., Ruosteenoja, K., Vihma, T., & Laaksonen, A. (2022). The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979. Communications Earth & Environment, 3(1). doi:10.1038/s43247-022-00498-3

Source: WFA & Mongabay

Newly Opened Wildlife Preserve in South Africa to Expand Critical Biodiversity Corridor

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Wildlife

Newly Opened Wildlife Preserve in South Africa to Expand Critical Biodiversity Corridor

Initiative Marks Key Milestone in Rewilding and Wildlife Restoration
 
The Global Humane Conservation Fund of Africa (GH-CFA), an initiative of Global Humane Society, today announced the launch of the Brad and Alice Andrews Preserve within the Bushman’s River Biodiversity Corridor at the Tanglewood Conservation Area.
 
GH-CFA held a fence-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of the preserve, which represents a bold step forward in wildlife conservation, habitat restoration, and the transformative power of rewilding.
 
The Brad and Alice Andrews Preserve is GH-CFA’s first land parcel and part of a larger conservation initiative, spanning 682 acres of critical black rhino and elephant habitats. It sits adjacent to the 2,100-acre Tanglewood Conservation Area, a crucial landscape Wilderness Foundation Africa owns. Working collaboratively with partner organizations and neighboring landowners, GH-CFA will establish a formal agreement guiding the corridor’s expansion and declaring the participating properties as a single Protected Environment, officially recognized by South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment.
 
“The launch of the Brad and Alice Andrews Preserve is a bold declaration that we will not stand by as species disappear,” said Dr. Robin Ganzert, President and CEO of Global Humane Society. “This preserve represents more than just protected land—it’s a promise for the future of Africa’s iconic wildlife. By reconnecting fragmented habitats and fostering biodiversity, we are giving nature a fighting chance.”
This initiative is a key step in connecting fragmented habitats, creating a protected environment that fosters biodiversity resilience and facilitates the natural movement of wildlife. The world has witnessed large-scale biodiversity loss in recent years, caused by climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, overhunting, and overfishing, among other factors. Approximately one million species, a higher number than ever recorded in human history, are now threatened with extinction, with many more at risk of disappearing within decades.
 
Wildlife Wildlife
Wildlife
“The Eastern Cape is one of the most unique and ecologically diverse regions in the world, and we are delighted that key stakeholders, like Global Humane Society, are investing in securing its future,” said Andrew Muir CEO Wilderness Foundation Global. “The Albany Biodiversity Corridor is a vital part of this landscape, linking protected areas, restoring essential ecological processes and fostering resilience against climate change. Each investment into this vision brings us closer to a connected, thriving landscape where conservation, communities and sustainable development can coexist for the benefit of nature and people.”
 
With natural habitats under immense pressure to preserve precious species, this initiative marks the beginning of a new era for conservation in the Eastern Cape. Significant strides have already been made in preparing the newly preserved land for the return of keystone species, including elephants, black rhinos and white rhinos. By removing barriers and restoring ecosystems, we are paving the way for a sustainable future where wildlife and people can thrive.
 
“The incorporation of the Brad and Alice Andrews Preserve into the planned Bushman’s River conservation corridor will play a significant and catalytic role in creating an ecologically viable and socio-beneficial landscape,” said Peter Chadwick, CEO of the Conservation Landscapes Institute. “Through the restoration and rewilding of this amazing conservation area, many benefits will accrue, including the creation of new rhino and African elephant strongholds and the development of youth and gender equality programs that lead to sustainable employment and a thriving nature-based economy.”
 
Through these critical actions, GH-CFA, alongside an esteemed international delegation, is laying the foundation for a thriving and interconnected conservation landscape.
 
Visit www.globalhumane.africa to learn more about GH-CFA’s work.
 
Wildlife Wildlife
About the Global Humane Conservation Fund of Africa:
The Global Humane Conservation Fund of Africa (GH-CFA), an initiative under Global Humane Society, is deeply committed to the preservation and protection of Africa’s wildlife and wilderness areas. As the international brand of American Humane, the oldest national animal welfare organization in the United States, Global Humane Society’s mission resonates with a legacy of nearly 150 years of pioneering efforts. Based in South Africa, GH-CFA focuses on conserving, rewilding, and safeguarding Africa’s diverse ecosystems and wildlife. Through our strategic initiatives – Space for Species, Wildlife & Biodiversity, and Conservation for Communities – we strive to create safe habitats, enhance genetic diversity, and promote the interconnectedness of all species. For more information, please visit www.GlobalHumane.africa, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram and subscribe to our channel on YouTube for the latest breaking news and features about the animals with whom we share our Earth.
 
About Global Humane Society:
Global Humane Society is the international brand of American Humane Society, which is the United States’ first national humane organization and the world’s largest certifier of animal welfare, helping to verify the humane treatment of more than one billion animals across the globe each year. American Humane Society has been at the forefront of virtually every major advancement in the humane movement to rescue, care for and protect animals. For more information or to support our life-changing work, please visit www.AmericanHumane.org, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram and subscribe to our channel on YouTube for the latest breaking news and features about the animals with whom we share our Earth.
 

Ground-breaking litigation launched to protect the African Penguin from extinction

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Ground-breaking litigation launched to protect the African Penguin from extinction

The African Penguin has lost 97% of its population. If current trends persist, the species will be extinct in the wild by 2035. 

On 19 March 2024, the Biodiversity Law Centre, representing BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), initiated landmark litigation in the Pretoria High Court in the interests of Africa’s only penguin species: the Endangered African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus).  

Instituted against the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, the applicants’ challenge seeks the review and setting aside of the Minister’s 4 August 2023 decision on the closures to fishing around key African Penguin breeding colonies, instead of biologically meaningful closures.

The African Penguin faces extinction in the wild by 2035 if more is not done to curb the current rate of population decline. The crisis is driven primarily by their lack of access to prey, for which they must compete with the commercial purse-seine fishery which continues to catch sardine and anchovy in the waters surrounding the six largest African Penguin breeding colonies. Critically, these six colonies are home to an estimated 90% of South Africa’s African Penguins.

Ground-breaking

Kate Handley, Executive Director of the Biodiversity Law Centre, says: “This is the first litigation in South Africa invoking the Minister’s constitutional obligation to prevent extinction of an endangered species. It follows her failure – since at least 2018 – to implement biologically meaningful closures around African Penguin breeding areas, despite scientific evidence that such closures improve the species access to their critical sardine and anchovy food source, thereby contributing toward arresting the decline of the African Penguin.”

The Minister has statutory and constitutional obligations to ensure that necessary measures are put in place to prevent the African Penguin’s extinction. “The Minister has failed to fulfil these obligations to African Penguins, South Africans, the international community, and future generations. It is for this reason that we are taking her office to court,” Handley explains.

For more than six years, the Minister has placed her preference for a consensus-driven solution above her obligation to ensure the survival of the Endangered African Penguin. All the while, the African Penguin population has suffered an alarming decline of 8% per year on her watch.

Dr Alistair McInnes, Seabird Conservation Manager at BirdLife South Africa, says: “The African Penguin’s survival depends on the right decision being taken now. African Penguins at breeding colonies need access to food. Our challenge seeks to have the Minister take science-based decisions that are grounded on the internationally recognised and constitutionally enshrined precautionary principle. This is something that the Minister has consistently failed to do since 2018, notwithstanding having called multiple reviews.”

The impugned decision

The core of the applicants’ complaint against the Minister is her failure to implement biologically meaningful closures around African Penguin breeding areas. Instead, on 4 August 2023, she announced the continuation of inadequate “interim closures” around breeding colonies at Dassen Island, Robben Island, Stony Point, Dyer Island, St. Croix Island and Bird Island. These closures were first imposed in September 2022 while an international panel of experts extensively reviewed the science collected since 2008 as part of an Island Closure Experiment (ICE).

The panel recommended that closures of sardine and anchovy fishing grounds to commercial small pelagic fisheries around six main breeding colonies was an appropriate and necessary conservation intervention with demonstrable benefits to African Penguin populations. It also provided a method for determining the appropriate island delineations which would seek to optimise benefits of closures to African Penguins, while minimising costs to the small-pelagic purse-seine industry. In doing so, it put an end to scientific debates on how to determine closure delineations and also confirmed the appropriate method for determining African Penguins’ preferred foraging range.

The Panel’s recommendations were provided to the Minister in July 2023 with the express purpose of enabling the Minister to take definitive, science-based decisions regarding island closures after years of indecision and debate. During this time, in 2023, the species fell below the 10,000 breeding pairs mark for the first time in history. On 4 August 2023, the Minister announced her decision.

Dr Katta Ludynia, Research Manager at SANCCOB, says:

“The Minister was selective about which recommendations she followed. Inexplicably, she failed to follow the critical recommendation regarding how closures should be delineated. Instead, the Minister decided to extend the meaningless interim closures, unless agreement between the conservation sector and the fishing industry could be reached on an alternative.

The African Penguin population in South Africa has plummeted from 27,151 breeding pairs in 2008, when the ICE commenced, to 15,187 breeding pairs when the results of the experiment were first published and peer-reviewed in 2018, and now to only an estimated 8,750 breeding pairs. The Minister has unfortunately failed to act. Biologically meaningless closures are now in place until December 2033 – just more than a year from the possible extinction date of 2035.”

An irrational and unlawful decision

The applicants argue that this approach was patently irrational. First, it is unclear why certain recommendations should be followed but not others.  Second, and critically, the interim closures themselves are incapable of meeting the purpose of closures, namely to reduce competition between African Penguins and the purse-seine commercial fishing industry for sardines and anchovies. “Moreover, the notion that an alternative set of closures could be delineated by agreement between conservationists and industry defeats the purpose of the panel, which was initiated to end many rounds of disagreement between these stakeholder groups and the various conservation and fisheries focused branches of the DFFE,” says McInnes.

According to Handley, the Minister has also acted unlawfully. She says: “The Constitution and legislative scheme give rise to a duty to implement urgent measures to prevent the impending extinction of the African Penguin. These include the imposition of fishing closures which limit purse-seine anchovy and sardine fishing activities. Despite this clear obligation, the Minister has consistently failed to implement such closures.”

The applicants are asking the court to ensure that a set of meaningful closures identified using the recommendations of the panel are imposed around all six islands.  The Minister has had ample opportunity to do so, and a court faced with the evidence the applicants are placing before it will be in as good a position as the Minister to ensure the necessary conservation actions are urgently implemented. 

What are we doing about this crisis?

Handley says: “The review application is a watershed, and potentially precedent-setting case, as it stands to give content to the South African government’s obligation to protect Endangered species and, particularly in this instance, the African Penguin. It also takes a stance on the role of science-led decision-making in ensuring that future generations have their environment, and the well-being of an endangered species, protected.”

About the applicants

  • BirdLife South Africa is a non-profit organisation whose vision is a country and region where nature and people live in greater harmony, more equitably and more sustainably, while its mission is to conserve birds, their habitats and biodiversity through, inter alia, scientifically-based programmes and supporting the sustainable and equitable use of natural resources. BirdLife South Africa actively works towards the conservation of African Penguins through its Seabird Conservation Programme.
  • SANCCOB is registered as a non-profit company, non-profit organisation and public benefit organisation in terms of the laws of South Africa, operating from two facilities in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. SANCCOB’s primary objective is to reverse the decline of seabird populations – flagship species being the endangered African penguin – through a multi-faceted conservation approach that includes rehabilitation and release of seabirds, implementation and consultancy of preparedness and response in the event of oil spills affecting marine wildlife, carrying out integral scientific research, provision of in-situ support to conservation managing authorities, skills development, and public awareness via environmental education.

About the Biodiversity Law Centre

  • The Biodiversity Law Centre is a non-profit organisation that seeks to use the law to protect and restore indigenous species and ecosystems in Southern Africa. As part of its Oceans and Coasts Programme, the Centre is committed to protecting African Penguin populations by addressing the key drivers of the species’ decline, including competition with small pelagic fisheries, and ship-to-ship bunkering in Algoa Bay.

Source: SANCCOB

Fireflies are facing extinction due to habitat loss, pesticides and artificial light

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By:  Katie Hunt

Fireflies

This photo taken on August 18, 2015 shows fireflies kept in jars during in Guangzhou in China’s southern Guangdong province.

Around the world, fireflies light up the night with their shimmering bodies. But scientists say this magical display is under threat — with the loss of their natural habitats, pesticide use and artificial light putting some of the 2,000 or so species at risk of extinction.

Habitat loss is leading to the decline of many wildlife species, with some fireflies suffering because they need certain environmental conditions to complete their life cycle, said Sara Lewis, a professor of biology at Tufts University, who led the research published Monday in the journal Bioscience.
 
For example, she said, one Malaysian firefly (Pteroptyx tener), famous for its synchronized flashing displays, needs mangroves and the plants they contain to breed but across Malaysia mangrove swamps have been converted into palm oil plantations and aquaculture farms.
More surprisingly, the researchers found that the use of artificial light at night, something that has grown exponentially over the past century, was the second most serious threat to the creatures.
 
Firefires

A female glow-worm, from the same family as fireflies, will shine for hours to attract her mate but artificial light can disrupt the process.

Skyglow

Artificial light includes both direct lighting, such as street lights and commercial signs, and skyglow, a more diffuse illumination that spreads beyond urban centers and can be brighter than a full moon.
 
“In addition to disrupting natural biorhythms — including our own — light pollution really messes up firefly mating rituals,” said Avalon Owens, a PhD candidate in biology at Tufts and a co-author of the study, in a news release.
 
Many fireflies rely on bioluminescence — chemical reactions inside their bodies that allows them to light up — to find and attract mates, and too much artificial light can interfere with this courtship. Switching to energy efficient, overly bright LEDs is not helping, said Owens.
The study noted that, according to conservative estimates, more than 23% of the planet’s land surface now experiences some degree of artificial brightness at night.
 
The authors of the study, who are affiliated with the International Union for Conservation of Nature Firefly Specialist Group, surveyed 350 members of the Fireflyers International Network to catalog the threats faced by the insect.
 
They said that more monitoring studies, with long-term data, were needed to understand to what degree firefly populations were declining. Most evidence about firefly numbers is anecdotal, they said.
 
Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex in the UK, said the ranking of habitat loss as the single most important driver, with pesticides a significant secondary concern, is in line with what is believed to be driving declines of insects more broadly.
 
Fireflies

A firefly in Komono, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan.

 
“Of course fireflies are particularly vulnerable to light pollution, more so than perhaps any other insect group, so it makes sense that this also emerges as a major concern,” said Goulson, who was not involved in the research. Scientists have detailed a “quiet apocalypse” among insect populations, with 41% of bug species facing extinction, according to a recent report on insect decline for the UK Wildlife Trusts authored by Goulson.
 
The firefly paper highlighted the risk posed by insecticides, like neonicotinoids, which is used in the US for corn and soybean seeds.

Firefly tourism

Another factor was what the authors called “firefly tourism.” In places like Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia, it’s long been a recreational activity to watch the spectacular light displays put on by some firefly species. However, it is now becoming more popular and widespread — attracting more than 200,000 visitors per year — impacting firefly numbers as a result.
 
Fireflies

Fireflies are seen at a sanctuary conserved and protected by the National Forestry Commission near Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala, Mexico on July 20, 2017.

 
In Thailand, the authors said that motorboat traffic along mangrove rivers in Thailand was toppling trees and eroding river banks and destroying habitat, while flightless species were getting trampled on by tourists in North Carolina and Nanacampila in Mexico.
The authors said guidelines were needed to establish and manage tourist sites that outline the best way to protect the fireflies from trampling, light pollution, and pesticides.
 
“Our goal is to make this knowledge available for land managers, policy makers, and firefly fans everywhere,” said co-author Sonny Wong of the Malaysian Nature Society. “We want to keep fireflies lighting up our nights for a long, long time.”
 
Source: CNN
 
 

The ultra-rich are illegally buying cheetahs as pets and it’s leading to their extinction

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cheetahs

Three tiny balls of fur huddle together for warmth inside a cardboard box. The baby cheetahs are just a few weeks old, but they’ve had a traumatic start to life.

A smuggler was attempting to spirit the cubs out of Somaliland, a breakaway state from Somalia, when he was caught red-handed by the authorities.
 
The cubs, who will soon be taken to a safehouse, are the lucky ones. Some 300 young cheetahs are trafficked out of Somaliland every year — around the same number as the entire population of adult and adolescent cheetahs in unprotected areas in the Horn of Africa, according to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF).
 
The trend is of “epidemic proportions,” according to CCF, an organization devoted to saving cheetahs in the wild. At the current rates of trafficking, the cheetah population in the region could soon be wiped out.
 
“If you do the math, the math kind of shows that it’s only going to be a matter of a couple of years [before] we are not going to have any cheetahs,” said Laurie Marker, an American conservation biologist biologist and founder of CCF.
 
Somaliland is the main transit route for cheetah-trafficking in the Horn of Africa. The animals are smuggled across Somaliland’s porous border, then stowed away in cramped crates or cardboard boxes on boats and sent across the Gulf of Aden towards their final destination: the Arabian Peninsula.
 
cheetahs

Two of 32 rescued cheetahs currently at CCF’s safehouse in Hargeisa. The cats get fed fresh camel meat twice a day, with a sprinkling of “Predator Powder” to give them nutrients they would only get in the wild.

Status symbols for the rich

There are less than 7,500 cheetahs left in the wild, according to CCF. Another 1,000 cheetahs are being held captive in private hands in Gulf countries, CCF estimated, where many are bought and sold in illegal online sales.
 
While many of these states — including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — ban the private ownership and sale of wild animals, enforcement is lax.
 
The overwhelming majority of these cheetahs end up in Gulf Arab mansions, where Africa’s most endangered big cats are flaunted as status symbols of the ultra-rich and paraded around in social media posts, according to CCF and trafficking specialists.
 
In one such post, a video shows a “pet” cheetah watching a National Geographic show and becoming visibly agitated when it sees one of its own on the screen. “She’s fixated on her family,” reads the caption. Other posts show cheetahs laying on luxury cars, being shoved into pools, getting force-fed ice cream and lollipops, and being taunted by a group of men. One cheetah is seen getting declawed; another is dying on camera.
cheetahs

Cheetahs for sale

A CCF study last year documented 1,367 cheetahs for sale on social media platforms between January 2012 and June 2018, largely from Arab Gulf states.
 
Most of those sales were conducted on Instagram and YouTube. While advertisements for those sales have been recorded in 15 countries, more than 90% of them originated in Gulf nations — with 60% of those in Saudi Arabia.
 
The three top sellers of pet cheetahs globally are based in Saudi Arabia, according to CCF, and those Saudi sellers posted one fifth of all advertisements.
 
With a simple Google search, CNN found an online Saudi marketplace with cheetah listings, alongside car and mobile phone ads. A Riyadh-based cheetah seller was also advertising lions.
 
“Whatever cheetah you want, you request, we will import. You want male, you want female. It’s not an issue,” the Saudi dealer told CNN over the phone.
 
cheetahs

Three rescued cheetahs at CCF’s safehouse. Around 300 cubs are smuggled out of Somaliland every year.

 
The seller boasted that he had brought more than 80 cheetahs into the kingdom. He told CNN he had just sold out, but that he could deliver a cheetah within 25 days.
 
“From Africa … we import through a website with a guy, and we have another Saudi trader. He gets them for us. He buys them in cash and ships them to us immediately,” he explained.
 
The seller spun a tale of the cheetahs being brought up in good conditions on farms. He recommended feeding them chicken, something that veterinarians say causes health problems.
 
He said cubs aged around two or three months were on offer, as were older cheetahs. Anything was possible, he said, for prices starting at 25,000 Saudi Riyals ($6,600). He said he does discounts orders of more than one cheetah.
 
Other sellers CNN found online were selling for more than $10,000 per cheetah. The Saudi government did not respond to CNN’s repeated requests for comment.

Illegal but lucrative

Trading cheetahs is prohibited under Appendix 1 of the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES). Still, wildlife trade is a big business, and the seller CNN spoke with was likely part of a larger trafficking ring, according to law enforcement and trafficking experts.

Wildlife trafficking is estimated to be worth up to $20 billion per year, according to the UN and Interpol, and is among the top five illicit industries globally, along with drugs and human trafficking.

Illegal live animal trade used to predominantly take place on Facebook and Instagram, but Facebook has doubled down on finding abusers, says Crawford Allan, a wildlife trafficking expert with TRAFFIC at the World Wildlife Fund.

Facebook relies heavily on automated algorithms to detect prohibited content. They also have at least 5,000 manual reviewers, although the majority deal with other types of issues, such as terrorism and child abuse, rather than wildlife, according to Allan.
 
They are among a number of social media, tech and e-commerce companies joining the WWF’s Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, pledging to reduce online trafficking by 80% by 2020.
 
“Our Community Standards do not allow for the sale of endangered species or their parts, and we remove this material as soon as we are aware of it,” a Facebook company spokesperson said in a written statement. Facebook is the parent company of Instagram.
 
There has been some success taking down illegal ads for wildlife, with eBay removing 100,000 illegal wildlife ads over two years, according to Allan. But policing the practice is challenging, and criminals adapt to changing surveillance methods on the internet.
 
“There are enough places to hide on the open web,” Allan said.
 
cheetahs

Veterinarian student Neju Jimmy lives in the shelter and is the main care-giver of the rescued cheetahs.

Racing to save the cheetah

Somaliland is one of the least developed parts in the world, and poverty is pushing people to engage in this illicit and highly lucrative trade. But its government says it has prioritized cracking down on wildlife traffickers in the last couple of years.
 
At CCF’s shelter in Somaliland, 32 rescued orphaned cheetahs are cared for at a safe house now bursting at the seams. The harsh reality of the cyber-trade is evident here. By the time rescued cubs arrive at the shelter, they’re barely alive.
 
International staff and volunteers are rushing to build a bigger shelter, eventually releasing cheetahs into a wildlife sanctuary.
 
“I love them so much I don’t even see my mom once a week,” said veterinary student Neju Jimmy, who lives at the shelter and is the cheetahs’ main caregiver.
 
Costs are climbing, she said, as more cats are brought to the shelter. Expenses currently total $10,000 a month, says CCF’s Marker.
Somaliland’s environment minister, Shukri Haji Ismail Bandare, said there was only so much authorities could do to stop the source of the trade. “We have to be stopping the demand from the Arab countries,” she told CNN.
 
Marker has called on the leadership of those countries to raise public awareness on the issue.
 
“We really need influencers, we need the governments, the kings, the princes, or the queens to actually say this is not right,” she said.
 
“If we can save them, we are going to give them the best life that they can have, but they shouldn’t be in our care. They should be in the wild.”
 
If you would like to donate to the Cheetah Conservation Fund, click here.
 
Source: CNN

Global insect decline may see ‘plague of pests’

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Global insect decline may see 'plague of pests'

Many species of butterfly are in retreat according to the review

A scientific review of insect numbers suggests that 40% of species are undergoing “dramatic rates of decline” around the world.

The study says that bees, ants and beetles are disappearing eight times faster than mammals, birds or reptiles.

But researchers say that some species, such as houseflies and cockroaches, are likely to boom.

The general insect decline is being caused by intensive agriculture, pesticides and climate change.

Insects make up the majority of creatures that live on land, and provide key benefits to many other species, including humans.

They provide food for birds, bats and small mammals; they pollinate around 75% of the crops in the world; they replenish soils and keep pest numbers in check.

Many other studies in recent years have shown that individual species of insects, such as bees, have suffered huge declines, particularly in developed economies.

But this new paper takes a broader look.

Published in the journal Biological Conservation, it reviews 73 existing studies from around the world published over the past 13 years.

The researchers found that declines in almost all regions may lead to the extinction of 40% of insects over the next few decades. One-third of insect species are classed as Endangered.

“The main factor is the loss of habitat, due to agricultural practices, urbanisation and deforestation,” lead author Dr Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, from the University of Sydney, told BBC News.

“Second is the increasing use of fertilisers and pesticides in agriculture worldwide and contamination with chemical pollutants of all kinds. Thirdly, we have biological factors, such as invasive species and pathogens; and fourthly, we have climate change, particularly in tropical areas where it is known to have a big impact.”

Global insect decline may see 'plague of pests'

Dung beetles are on the retreat according to the new review

Some of the highlights of study include the recent, rapid decline of flying insects in Germany, and the massive drop in numbers in tropical forests in Puerto Rico, linked to rising global temperatures.

Other experts say the findings are “gravely sobering”.

“It’s not just about bees, or even about pollination and feeding ourselves – the declines also include dung beetles that recycle waste and insects like dragonflies that start life in rivers and ponds,” said Matt Shardlow from UK campaigners Buglife.

“It is becoming increasingly obvious our planet’s ecology is breaking and there is a need for an intense and global effort to halt and reverse these dreadful trends. Allowing the slow eradication of insect life to continue is not a rational option.”

Pests on the rise

The authors are concerned about the impact of insect decline up along the food chain. With many species of birds, reptiles and fish depending on insects as their main food source, it’s likely that these species may also be wiped out as a result.

While some of our most important insect species are in retreat, the review also finds that a small number of species are likely to be able to adapt to changing conditions and do well.

“Fast-breeding pest insects will probably thrive because of the warmer conditions, because many of their natural enemies, which breed more slowly, will disappear, ” said Prof Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex who was not involved in the review.

“It’s quite plausible that we might end up with plagues of small numbers of pest insects, but we will lose all the wonderful ones that we want, like bees and hoverflies and butterflies and dung beetles that do a great job of disposing of animal waste.”

Prof Goulson said that some tough, adaptable, generalist species – like houseflies and cockroaches – seem to be able to live comfortably in a human-made environment and have evolved resistance to pesticides.

He added that while the overall message was alarming, there were things that people could do, such as making their gardens more insect friendly, not using pesticides and buying organic food.

More research is also badly needed as 99% of the evidence for insect decline comes from Europe and North America with almost nothing from Africa or South America.

Ultimately, if huge numbers of insects disappear, they will be replaced but it will take a long, long time.

“If you look at what happened in the major extinctions of the past, they spawned massive adaptive radiations where the few species that made it through adapted and occupied all the available niches and evolved into new species,” Prof Goulson told BBC News.

“So give it a million years and I’ve no doubt there will be a whole diversity of new creatures that will have popped up to replace the ones wiped out in the 20th and 21st centuries.

“Not much consolation for our children, I’m afraid.”

Source: BBC

Somalia’s cheetah smuggling ring

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Somalia's cheetah smuggling ring

Cheetah cubs rescued in Somaliland, which is on the trafficking route from East Africa to countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are cared for at a centre in Hargeisa set up by Namibia’s Cheetah Conservation Fund.(Laura Orozco)

Africa’s big cats are being trafficked to rich households in the Middle East who want ‘something more exotic’

Dubai — Campaigners are calling for urgent cross- border action to halt the illegal trafficking of cheetah cubs from the Horn of Africa into wealthy Gulf states, where the animals are kept as pets and traded and paraded on social media sites.

In the past two months, 11 cheetah cubs have been rescued in three raids by the authorities in Somaliland, an autonomous region inside Somalia, which has become a main trafficking route for cheetahs out of East Africa into the Middle East.

Somalia's cheetah smuggling ring

Laura Orozco

Technology firms have made public commitments to crack down on their sites being used by illegal wildlife traders, but the online platforms remain awash with adverts for endangered animals, including cheetahs.

“The rising trade in cheetahs and other animals for luxury pets in the Middle East is helping to drive critical populations of wildlife to extinction in Somaliland and North and East Africa,” said Shukri Ismail, Somaliland’s environment minister.

The rescued cheetahs are being cared for by Somaliland vets and the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), a Namibian research and lobby institution, which has 14 cubs in a temporary “safe house” in the capital, Hargeisa.

Since the CCF began working with the Somali-land government in 2011, it has intercepted more than 50 attempts to traffic cheetahs.

But, said the CCF’s assistant director of Illegal Wildlife Trade, Patricia Tricorache: “We believe as many as 300 cheetahs are smuggled from Africa into the Middle East every year.”

She said the animals are usually smuggled across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen and then taken to Saudi Arabia and beyond.

Luxury pets

In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), many owners of big cats and primates post pictures of themselves and their animals on social media sites, sometimes posing with celebrities. In August this year, for example, a newly opened café in an upmarket suburb of Dubai shared videos on its Instagram feed of a cheetah eating meat off its floor after a customer brought the animal inside.

Somalia's cheetah smuggling ring

The big cats are in demand by rich clients in the Gulf States who post pictures of their exotic accessories on social media.

Tim Husband, the technical director at the new Dubai Safari Park, estimates there are as many 3 000 big cats kept domestically in the UAE. “It’s a status thing,” he said. 

“People already have a fast car so they want something else, something more exotic.”

The images posted by the UAE’s super-rich could not be further away from the harsh reality of the cubs’ capture by traffickers, the grim conditions of their journeys and their slim chance of long-term survival.

Daniel Stiles, a Kenya-based independent wildlife consultant, said more needed to be done to discourage people from keeping pets like cheetahs. “You need to stop the demand and that means addressing cultural aspects,” he said. “Animals like cheetahs are status symbols and as long as they are regarded as such, people will still want to have them.”

The UAE is taking steps to clamp down on exotic pets. Since January last year it has been illegal to own, breed and trade cheetahs and other animals, including snakes and primates. Federal Law 22 is a regional first and has been widely praised by animal welfare campaigners.

Hiba Al Shehhi, acting director of biodiversity at the UAE’s ministry of climate change and environment, said that “cracking down on the illicit wildlife trade is one of the government’s top priorities” and that it had been partnering in awareness campaigns in schools, shopping malls and airports in a bid to change attitudes towards exotic pets.

Dubai’s customs officers have received training and detection equipment to help them to spot wild animals being smuggled into the country.

Al Shehhi said that UAE border officers seized 11 cheetahs (out of a total of 21 big cats) between 2013 and 2017 and that the ministry was developing an “integrated system for reporting and tracing wildlife violation cases”.

Thriving black market

It is still possible — and legal — to get a private zoo licence in the UAE, and a number of wealthy families continue to keep exotic pets. And, despite the new law and its threat of stiff fines (up to R1.9-million) and imprisonment, a thriving online market for big cats and other now-banned animals, such as monkeys, snakes and crocodiles, continues.

A search revealed scores of UAE-based animal dealers selling a variety of animals on Instagram and WhatApp groups. For example, a female cheetah was advertised for R156  000, a tiger cub for R156  000, a serval for R183  000, a meerkat for R19  000, a slow loris for R11 700, a baboon for R15 600, a young monkey for R9 700, a hyena cub for R58  000 and an albino python for R7 000.

In several cases, the online posts could be clearly linked by phone numbers, branding and Google map locations to licensed pet shops in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other Emirates.

An independent data analysis of the online cheetah trade by a wildlife crime agency published in September, found that between February 2012 and July this year, 1 367 cheetahs were offered for sale in 906 adverts on various websites and social media channels. Instagram accounted for 77% of all adverts, with the rest appearing on YouTube and other local classified sites. Almost two-thirds of the adverts were linked to Saudi Arabia and the top four sellers appeared to be located there, and 10.8% were associated with the UAE.

Al Shehhi said the ministry had partnered with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority to monitor online sales, but said that most of the adverts were “posted by fake channels outside of the country”. She said 60% of “such content” had been taken down. She didn’t say how the percentage was calculated.

Instagram and its parent company Facebook (which also owns WhatsApp) are among the companies that, earlier this year, joined the Global Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, along with organisations such as the World Wildlife Fund, which aims to reduce wildlife trafficking online by 80% by 2020.

An Instagram statement said: “Our community standards do not allow for poaching or the sale of endangered species or their parts, and we remove this material as soon as we are aware of it … We have systems in place to prevent the sale of illegal goods, and do not allow ads around the sale of endangered animals.”

Last year the photo-sharing site launched a pop-up content advisory warning triggered by hashtags associated with the sale of endangered animals and animal abuse. But the system does not have a setting for Arabic language posts, and in two months of monitoring UAE-based Instagram accounts, which are mostly in Arabic, there were no such advisories. There was also no option to report posts for their animal-related content.

International action

According to the findings of a questionnaire submitted at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Russia last month, there were only 32 confiscations of cheetahs globally between January 2015 and June last year. The UAE said it made no confiscations during this period.

None of Somaliland’s 50 seizures have been included in the Cites data because the country is not formally recognised as an independent nation and is therefore not party to Cites.

Recognised or not, the government in Hargeisa is trying to stop the smugglers at source and in August passed a new forestry and wildlife conservation law, giving added protection to wild animals as well as new powers to prosecute illegal animal traffickers.

Just days after the law was approved, the country recorded its first successful prosecution of two men who had been caught with six malnourished and dehydrated cubs in El Sheikh near Berbera on Somaliland’s northern coast.

Ismail called for more international dialogue, especially with Gulf countries, about the trade in endangered animals. “We are very concerned that if this goes on any longer, the cheetahs will go from being an endangered species to being extinct and we will not be able to rescue them,” she said.

Endangered

Once found all over Africa and Asia (including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Arabian Peninsula), cheetahs are now thought to live wild in just a handful of African countries and in a small area of Iran.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List, the globally recognised conservation inventory, designates cheetahs as “vulnerable” (one category away from “endangered”) and in 2015 estimated the adult population as under 7 000.

Infringement on their habits as a result of agriculture, roads and tourism and depletion of food stocks are two of the main reasons for their dwindling numbers. But hunting in retaliation for livestock attacks and trophy seekers have also played a part. 

Historic records refer to people catching cheetahs to use them to hunt as sport for the aristocracy. Today, the wealthy buy them as exotic accessories to show off to their friends. 

Source: Mail & Guardian
By: Louise Redvers Louise Redvers