| From: Les H | 6/21/2024 9:32:46 PM | | | | | | Calif. Family Spots Pet Donkey Missing 5 Years Living with an Elk Herd: He's a 'Wild Burro Now'
Diesel the donkey disappeared on a hike in northern California in 2019 and remained missing for years despite his owners' search efforts
By Charlotte Phillipp Published on June 21, 2024
people.com |
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| From: Brumar89 | 6/22/2024 1:31:07 PM | | | | | | Endangered Red Wolves in eastern North Carolina fading fast
by: Madie MacDonald, Nick Broadway
Posted: Jun 20, 2024 / 07:50 AM EDT
Updated: Jun 20, 2024 / 08:01 AM EDT
DARE COUNTY, N.C. (WAVY) – With the wild Red Wolf population in eastern North Carolina fading fast, experts are discussing ways to bring the species back.
From what biologists know, there are currently only 18 adult Red Wolves remaining — and they say vehicles and guns are to blame for the declining numbers.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Red Wolves were among the first animals to be designated under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 in the year 1967. The wolves are native to North America, with habitats up and down the east coast, and as far west as Texas.
Through the Red Wolf Recovery Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were able to re-introduce the wolves to the wild — primarily at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in Dare County, just west of Manteo.
By 2012, the Red Wolf population was able to rebound to about 120 known adult wolves, and now, their numbers are down to just 18. Experts said the leading cause of death since then have been gunshots.
Perrin de Jong with the Center for Biological Diversity told 10 On Your Side the wolf shootings started as more developers moved onto the land.
“Poaching ran rampant, and Red Wolves were being killed systematically by people who, to this day, have not been prosecuted for it,” Jong said.
But as the number of shootings have slowed down in recent years, experts have noticed an upsetting trend as more and more wolves are being hit by traffic.
Highway 64 cuts through the northern section of the refuge, and within the past year alone, four of the wolves have been killed by vehicles, according to officials.
Now, the Center for Biological Diversity is raising money for wildlife crossings which run across Highway 64, hoping this will help prevent the wild Red Wolves from disappearing completely.
Another issue the refuge is dealing with is the Red Wolves breeding with coyotes, diluting the species as a whole. Experts are now working on sterilization programs to help slow the problem.
Recently though, there was some good news for the Red Wolves, with a new litter of eight pups recently discovered.
“That’s the biggest known wild litter that’s been born to Red Wolves in many years,” Jong said. “And so, that’s a cause for celebration and hope. But of course, these vehicle strikes continue.”
Endangered Red Wolves in eastern North Carolina fading fast | WAVY.com |
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| From: Brumar89 | 7/1/2024 2:02:42 PM | | | | | |
Officials welcome first wild bison in 10,000 years after major restoration initiative: 'It's a learning process for us too'
Kaiyo Funaki
Sun, June 30, 2024 at 6:30 PM CDT
Non-profit conservationist group Rewilding Europe has announced the release of eight European bison at the Herdade do Vale Feitoso Estate in the Castelo Branco District of eastern Portugal.
The Polish State Forest, European Friends Society, and the European Bison Conservation Center translocated the herd from reserves throughout Poland. According to the Good News Network, the hope is that the bison will help prevent wildfires and invasive species spread while fostering biodiversity across the 7,600-hectare area.
The large grazers reduce the risk of wildfires by consuming flammable vegetation, creating natural firebreaks, and clearing forested areas to allow more light, which, in turn, leads to the growth of grass instead of scrubs.
It's a crucial factor, considering the extreme temperatures that have led to devastating wildfires in the country.
Bison also can support Portugal's diverse landscape of forests, scrubs, grasslands, and other micro-habitats through their grazing, foraging, trampling, and fertilizing. Studies have shown that the herbivores can promote and protect biodiversity and even enhance carbon sequestration in vegetation and soil through these behaviors, making them a keystone species crucial to the climate and ecosystem.
These bison are the first of their kind to live in the Iberian Peninsula since the now-extinct steppe bison roamed the region thousands of years ago during the last ice age. While they aren't native to Portugal, research has found that European bison introduced to southern Spain have acclimated to the hot and dry conditions of the Mediterranean.
That makes the rewilding project mutually beneficial — similar to the giant anteater in Brazil and the white rhino in South Africa — as the creature is listed as near threatened by the IUCN's Red List but has experienced a revival. The European bison population has spiked from 2,500 to 9,000 over the last decade, thanks in part to Rewilding Europe's efforts in Romania, Bulgaria, Germany, and Poland.
Tour groups can view the bison once they have adjusted to their new habitat, adding ecotourism as another positive dimension to their translocation.
"We are viewing this translocation as a pilot," Rewilding Portugal team leader Pedro Prata said in a statement. "The bison will be closely monitored to see how they acclimatise to the local landscape and climate. This is the first time that Rewilding Portugal team have managed bison, so it's a learning process for us too. Members of the team will receive training in bison management."
Officials welcome first wild bison in 10,000 years after major restoration initiative: 'It's a learning process for us too' (yahoo.com) |
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| From: Snowshoe | 7/6/2024 6:45:34 AM | | | | | | The Last Wild Horses Are Finally Returning to Their Natural Habitat
scientificamerican.com
July 4, 2024 - By Allison Parshall
Przewalski’s horses, once extinct in the wild, are revitalizing Kazakhstan’s “Golden Steppe”
“They’re truly wild animals,” says Oliver Ryder, a conservation geneticist who works with Przewalski’s horses at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Once the animals were a crucial piece of the ecosystem in the steppes of Central Asia. But they began disappearing in the 1800s, and by the 1960s, humans and environmental changes had driven them to extinction in the wild. Fortunately, at least a dozen or so horses capable of reproducing survived in captivity, and with carefully managed breeding, the population has made a comeback. This June conservationists reintroduced seven of them to the Golden Steppe of Kazakhstan—the horses were flown to a reintroduction center on the steppe, where they are acclimating to life outside captivity under the watchful eye of conservationists.
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On the Golden Steppe, or Kazakhstan’s Altyn Dala State Nature Reserve (altyn dala means “golden steppe” in Kazakh), these horses are once again galloping and grazing, filling the hole they left in the ecosystem, explains Stephanie Ward of the Frankfurt Zoological Society. Ward serves as the international coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, a conservation partnership with the government of Kazakhstan.
“If you go into the steppe, it’s like you’re in a sea of grass. And at first, it just all looks the same,” she says. But that sea is teeming with life. Birds build their nests in the brush, and burrowing animals tunnel beneath it. Large herbivores such as horses and antelope have historically kept this grass short, which prevented it from drying out and allowed other animals to access the ground beneath, Ward explains. Their dung fertilized the ground, and their grazing promoted carbon sequestration in the soil.
“Grasslands need to be grazed,” Ward says. By the 2000s, however, many of the steppe’s large herbivores were gone or critically endangered. That included not only the Przewalski’s horse but also a wild ass called the kulan and the saiga antelope. “The absence has caused this slow degradation of the ecosystem. The species of plant get fewer and fewer, and they get less and less resilient,” she says. |
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