NEW YORK, New York, January 2, 2008 (ENS) – A new coastal marine park signed into law by the government of Argentina is the first protected area in the country designed to safeguard areas of ocean where wildlife feed as well as onshore breeding colonies.

The park in southern Argentina’s Chubut province became official in December. It protects half a million penguins and several species of rare seabirds as well as the region’s only population of South American fur seals.

The park’s creation represents a joint effort by the National Parks Service of Argentina, Government of Chubut, and the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society and its local partner Fundacion Patagonia Natural with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the Global Environment Facility.

Golfo San Jorge, Argentina (Photo by Hector
Fabian Garrido)

“The park protects one of the most productive and extraordinary marine ecosystems on the planet,” said Dr. Guillermo Harris, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Argentina Program. “The creation of this park comes in the nick of time for many species that are threatened by the region’s fishing and energy industries.”

“It is the realization of an old yearning, of a dream,” said Chubut Governor Mario Das Neves. “It is different from other parks in Argentina, protecting 40 species in addition to the birds.”

“The objectives of the creation of this Coastal Marine Park are to maintain representative samples of the terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems; to protect the landscape, cultural and natural patrimony; and to cause and to facilitate environmental investigations and monitorings as main activities in the area, the governor said.

He said the park will bring back awareness of the importance of conservation and of guaranteeing the public use of the area “to contribute to the physical and spiritual well-being of visitors.”

Located in the northern Golfo San Jorge, some 1,056 miles (1,700 kilometers) south of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, the protected area covers 250 square miles (647 square kilometers) of coastal waters and nearby islands along almost 100 miles (160 kilometers) of shoreline.

The region serves as a nesting and feeding ground for some quarter million pairs of Magellanic penguins, estimated to represent 25 percent of the entire population in Patagonia.

Magellanic penguins in Argentina Patagonia
(Photo credit unknown)

Its 50 small islands also support two nesting colonies of southern giant petrels that represent over 80 percent of its population on the entire Patagonian coast. Other denizens of this coastal oasis include the endangered Olrog’s gull, the white-headed steamer duck, and almost one third of all imperial and rock cormorants of Argentina.

WCS researchers, working with Fundacion Patagonia Natural, provided critical data of key wildlife to ensure that the park’s boundaries would include both onshore areas and adjacent waters. Researchers found that the area was in need of protection from increasing pressures by commercial fishing and the oil industry.

While the new park’s coastline is still undeveloped, its wildlife has been increasingly threatened by commercial fishing nets, which can entangle birds as they feed.

The wildlife is also threatened by expanding offshore oil drilling and oil pollution from tankers sailing from southern Patagonia to Buenos Aires.

In January 2008, the discovery of a large new oil field in Chubut province was announced by the Anglo-Argentine company Pan American Energy. It is expected to provide an annual yield of between 80 million and 100 million barrels of crude oil, twice a much as the province produces today, increasing the pressure on the area’s wildlife.

WCS has been active in Patagonia since the 1960s, conducting studies for the conservation of southern right whales, Magellanic penguins, southern elephant seals, and other unique wildlife.

The conservation organization manages some 740,000 acres of wilderness on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego, part of a major donation of land made by Goldman Sachs in 2004.

Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas has provided funding for the creation of this coastal protected area and for WCS’s multi-faceted efforts to safeguard coastal Patagonia.

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NEW YORK, New York, December 19, 2008 (ENS) – Dr. George Schaller, a world reknowned field biologist and conservationist, has been awarded the China Environment Prize for his efforts to study and protect China’s giant pandas, Tibetan antelope, and China’s wild places.

Schaller is a senior conservationist with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Asia Programs and has worked with the Bronx Zoo-based organization for more than 50 years. He has worked in China for much of the last 28 years.

The $70,000 prize was established in 2000 by the China Environmental Protection Foundation to honor and encourage individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the cause of environmental protection in China. The foundation was the first nonprofit organization in China dedicated to environmental protection.

“George Schaller has been and continues to be a role model and driving force for conservation,” said Dr. Steven Sanderson, president and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “After more than 50 years of groundbreaking field research on some of the world’s best-known wildlife, George continues to define the field of conservation biology and works tirelessly to preserve our natural heritage.”

Field biologist and conservationist George Schaller,
second from right, receives the China
Environment Prize. (Photo courtesy WCS)

One of the first foreign experts to work with the Chinese on conservation issues, Schaller’s conservation work within China began in the 1980s with his seminal research on giant pandas in the bamboo forests of China’s Wolong Mountains.

Schaller helped the Chinese government establish the massive Chang Tang Wildlife Preserve in Tibet – one of the world’s largest protected areas – in order to protect the plateau’s unique assemblage of wildlife, including wild yak, Tibetan argali sheep, and Tibetan brown bear.

Schaller’s research on Tibetan antelope helped reveal that the rare animal is in fact the source of “shahtoosh,” the world’s finest wool, which is smuggled by poachers into Kashmir, India. He has lobbied to shut down the trade and protect critical habitat in China for this antelope species.

His recent work includes efforts to establish a trans-boundary protected area along the mountainous borders of China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan that is inhabited by Marco Polo sheep, ibex, and snow leopard.

Schaller’s reputation in the conservation field was established long before his work in China.

His field work as a graduate student in northern Alaska in the 1950s led to the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and Schaller remains an advocate for permanent protection of the refuge. He has expressed the hope that the incoming administration will safeguard this pristine and ecologically rich part of America’s landscape.

Schaller initiated the first scientific study of mountain gorillas in Africa’s Virunga Volcanoes in 1959. Since 2001, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Agency for International Development have invested over $15 million towards conservation of great apes in Africa and Asia, with an additional $14 million coming from private donors and conservation organizations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Schaller also pioneered behavioral examinations of big cats, with the first ever ecological studies of tigers in India and lions in East Africa. His work resulted in a successful popular work, “The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations,” which won the National Book Award in 1973. He has also studied jaguars and other cat species.

Schaller’s work over the years on several species listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has helped raise awareness on the growing rates of global illegal wildlife trade.

His studies have been the basis for his numerous scientific and popular writings, including several books such as The Stones of Silence, The Year of the Gorilla, and The Last Panda. In addition to the China Environment Prize, Schaller has received numerous national and international awards for conservation, including the International Cosmos Prize from Japan and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in the United States.

Dr. Schaller is now working primarily in Iran and Tajikistan, but he will be in New York on February 26, 2009 to keynote a daylong conference devoted to his work.

He will be the featured speaker at the Fairfield Osborn Memorial Conference and Lecture at Rockefeller University. The conference, titled George Schaller: Practicing the Art of Conservation, will celebrate his conservation work over the past 50 years.

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NEW YORK, New York, November 24, 2008 (ENS) – Americans are out of touch with the fact that the American bison, or buffalo, is in trouble as a wild species, but they do love them as an important symbol of their country, and as a meal on the dinner table.

These views were expressed in a public survey released by the Wildlife Conservation Society at a national conference on restoring bison populations in North America held last week in Rapid City, South Dakota.

The survey is part of an effort spearheaded by the American Bison Society, which is a program of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based at New York’s Bronx Zoo.

The American Bison Society aims to achieve ecological restoration in the next 100 years by encouraging government agencies, conservation groups, ranchers, and others to do all they can to restore the bison’s ecological role as an important species.

The national survey asked 2,000 Americans more than 50 questions about bison to gage public awareness about this iconic species, as conservationists grapple with how to best restore populations to the American West and elsewhere.

The survey showed that fewer than 10 percent understood how many bison remain in the United States.

American bison (Photo © Julie Larsen
Maher courtesy Wildlife Conservation Society)

More than 74 percent of those surveyed believe that bison are an extremely important living symbol of the American West, and more than half view the bison as emblematic as a symbol of America as whole.

Before European settlers arrived in North America, at least 30 million bison are estimated to have roamed the Great Plains and grasslands from Alaska to Mexico. Bison dominated the prairies for nearly 10,000 years, shaping the land with their grazing patterns and migrations.

They were wiped out by commercial hunting and habitat loss that resulted from the settlers’ westward expansion.

While an estimated 500,000 bison remain in the United States, most of those animals live on private ranches, with only about 9,000 plains bison considered free-ranging in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. An additional 7,000 free-ranging wood bison live in Canada.

Today, the genetically purest descendants of those wild bison are the targets of a government campaign that has slaughtered over 5,000 wild bison since 1985. Domestic cattle have encroached into the bison’s native range, which raises the specter of disease transmission from bison to cattle. Despite the fact that there has not been one case of Brucella abortus transmission from wild bison to cattle, bison are not tolerated outside Yellowstone National Park by Montana’s livestock industry and the state and federal agencies that back them.

The National Park Service, U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Montana Department of Livestock permit and participate in the killing of American bison within and migrating from Yellowstone National Park.

Yet the Yellowstone population, unlike most other bison populations held in the public trust, are genetically pure Bison bison, unmixed with cattle breeds.

“The results of this survey clearly show that the American public wants more to be done to restore the bison,” said Dr. Kent Redford of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “We know it will take decades of strategic planning and a wide group of stakeholders will need to take appropriate action.”

Wildlife Conservation Society is calling on the federal government to better coordinate management of bison across federal agencies, take down barriers to the production and sale of ecologically raised bison meat, and work with Canada and Mexico on bison management.

Progress is already being made, Redford said. For example, last month, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced an initiative that will work with state, tribal and agricultural interests to strengthen bison conservation efforts to help bison recover and thrive.

Forty percent of survey respondents said that they have tried eating bison and 83 percent of those said it tastes as good or better than beef.

Redford said, “The survey also showed that one road to bison conservation may be a pragmatic, market-based approach, namely to grow sustainable markets for wild, free-ranging bison meat.”

The three-day conference entitled “Building blocks for bison ecological restoration,” was co-sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society, American Prairie Foundation, Linden Trust for Conservation, The Nature Conservancy, Safari Club International, and World Wildlife Fund.

The conference was attended by more than 100 participants and covered all aspects of bison ecological restoration. It was attended by representatives from U.S. federal, state and Canadian agencies, private ranchers, and indigenous groups.

Ecological restoration will likely take a century, says the Wildlife Conservation Society, and will only be realized through collaboration with a broad range of public, private and indigenous partners.

Ecological restoration of North American bison would occur when large herds of plains and wood bison can move freely across extensive landscapes within all major habitats of their historic ranges, said Redford. It would include bison interacting with the fullest possible set of other native species, as well as inspiring, sustaining and connecting human cultures.

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NEW YORK, New York, October 10, 2008 (ENS) – The government of Argentina has banned commercial fishing along an underwater island submerged in the South Atlantic Ocean 136 miles off the long country’s southern tip.

Known as Burdwood Bank, the protected area encompasses 694 square miles rich in hard and soft coral species found nowhere else on Earth.

Burdwood Bank serves as an important feeding ground for whales, sea lions, penguins, and albatross. It is also the breeding ground for two ecologically important fish species – southern blue whiting and Fuegian sardines.

The community of top predators and migratory species in this area come from as far away as Antarctica, South Georgia Island, and New Zealand.

Rockhopper penguins are one of the species
that depend on Burdwood Bank. (Photo
by K. Pütz courtesy Wildlife
Conservation Society)

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society has identified Burdwood Bank as a critical wildlife area under its Sea and Sky initiative, which seeks to promote precautionary management of the vast Patagonian Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem, one of the most productive regions in the southern hemisphere.

On September 26, Argentine Fisheries Secretary Carlos Cheppi implemented a Federal Fisheries Council mandate, which permanently banned all fishing activities in the area including bottom trawling – an industrial fishing method that employs large, heavy nets dragged across the seabed.

While the method captures the desired target fish, it also kills corals, sponges, and other animals. The method is known to be destructive of underwater ecosystems that serve as spawning grounds and ecological storehouses.

“Armed with sound science, Consejo Federal Pesquero has taken a big step in ensuring sustainability in Argentina’s fishing industry by protecting Burdwood Bank,” said Dr. Claudio Campagna, of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Sea and Sky Program.

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s involvement in the region dates back to the 1970s and has included research, training, education, and policy development.

The Sea and Sky initiative seeks to promote precautionary management at the ecosystem level for this vast oceanscape, within which Burdwood Bank is an essential link.

“With the protection of this small, but critical area, the ocean is better able to replenish what we take from it, and equally important, Argentina’s unique biodiversity is preserved,” said Campagna.

The ecosystem which contains and surrounds the Patagonian Shelf, harbors some of the southern hemisphere’s richest marine resources, sustained by the nutrient-rich Falklands-Malvinas and Brazil currents.
The southernmost small dotted area is Burdwood Bank.

The Patagonian Large Marine Ecosystem has a history of exploitation to the point that populations of many species are declining and have been given IUCN Globally Threatened Status.

Unsustainable, illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing by commercial fleets threatens many fish and squid species found on the continental shelf and slope off Argentine Patagonia, and adversely impacts wildlife higher in the food chain.

Some of the species that depend on the food resources of the Patagonian Large Marine Ecosystem are the Southern elephant seal, the Southern right whale, the South American sea lion, South American and subantarctic fur seals, and Patagonian toothfish.

Trawlers in the South Atlantic have nearly exhausted populations of Argentine hake, a popular food fish that once was common along the coast of Argentina. A commercial fishing ban on the Burdwood Bank may help to revive the species.

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NEW YORK, New York, September 16, 2008 (ENS) – The two African nations of Rwanda and Burundi, enmeshed in tribal killings for decades, have signed an agreement to safeguard the largest remaining block of mountain forest in East Africa. The area is inhabited by endangered primates such as chimpanzees, rare owl-faced monkeys, and other species found nowhere else on Earth.

Blue valleys of Nyungwe Forest in
Rwanda (Photo by Juha-Pekka)

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society facilitated the agreement, which was signed in Huye, Rwanda on September 10.

“We commend Rwanda and Burundi for collaborating to protect and conserve these vulnerable species, which both nations have the privilege to share,” said Dr. Steven Sanderson, president and chief executive of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

“Trans-boundary conservation offers unique challenges, but also unique opportunities to safeguard wildlife on a regional, international scale,” he said. “Burundi and Rwanda are clearly leading the way in Eastern Africa on this front.”

Rwanda and Burundi representatives applaud the
new agreement. From left: Penelope Kantarama,
governor of Western Province, Rwanda; Rosette
Chantal Rugamba, director general of Rwanda’s
Office of Tourism and National Parks; Fidele
Ndayisaba, governor of Southern Province,
Rwanda; Ntungumburanye Adelin, director
general National Institute for the Environment
and Conservation of Nature Burundi; and
Nduwimana Sonnel, representing three
Burundi governors. (Photo courtesy WCS)

The agreement is intended to help improve conservation in Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park and Burundi’s Kibira National Park.

The two parks, known as the Nyungwe-Kibira Landscape, form a single protected area shared by both nations.

Most species move freely between the parks, underscoring the need for trans-boundary collaboration.

The landscape is increasingly threatened by illegal harvesting of bamboo and timber, along with mining of gold and coltan. A derivative of coltan is used in consumer electronics products such as cell phones, DVD players, and computers.

Authorities of Rwanda and Burundi have informally discussed these issues for some time, but until now, there have been no formal agreements to protect the greater Nyungwe-Kibira Landscape.

At the signing ceremony, Rosette Chantal Rugamba, director general for Rwanda’s Office of Tourism and National Parks, said, “The event is a great achievement that will allow us to lessen threats that have been undermining the integrity of the landscape for ages due to lack of concerted vision and strategies.”

Ntungumburanye Adelin, director general of Burundi’s National Institute for the Environment and Conservation of Nature, said, “It has taken long to reach today’s event. But this signature is the only beginning of a long journey, as there is much more to be done.”

The agreement is the result of years of work by the Wildlife Conservation Society, a global conservation organization based at New York’s Bronx Zoo.

A rare owl-faced monkey
(Photo by Tyler Massey)

Dr. Sanderson says the signed agreement will accelerate collaboration to a much higher level and will help guarantee the long-term conservation of the region and its wildlife.

According to the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Nyungwe-Kibira Landscape is inhabited by more wildlife species than anywhere else in the Albertine Rift – a network of valleys in Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Tanzania that lie alongside some of Africa’s largest mountain ranges.

The rift itself is considered one of Africa’s most important areas for conservation.

Supported by the MacArthur Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Wildlife Conservation Society has been working in the Albertine Rift since the 1950s to advance conservation and establishment of national parks.

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NEW YORK, New York, September 5, 2008 (ENS) – With just 300 individuals left in the wild, Cross River gorillas have found new conservation support from the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria, the only two countries where these great apes live.

Representatives from the two nations agreed last week to improve trans-boundary cooperation to protect the critically endangered species, as well as other endangered wildlife.

The agreement was reached at an international meeting in Akamkpa, Nigeria at the head office of Cross River National Park.

Cross River gorilla in Cameroon’s Limbe
Wildlife Centre (Photo by Arend de Haas
courtesy African Conservation Foundation)

From the Nigerian side of the border, participants included Cross River park representatives and Cross River State government officials.

From the Cameroon side, representatives of Korup National Park and the proposed Takamanda National Park participated in the meeting.

Financial and organizational support from the New York based Wildlife Conservation Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the global conservation group WWF made the meeting possible.

“The protected areas involved in this meeting share a number of trans-boundary challenges, which must be addressed if a future is to be secured for Cross River gorillas as well as other threatened and endangered species,” said Dr. James Deutsch, director of WCS’s Africa Programs.

The participants agreed to reduce the bushmeat trade and illegal logging, strengthen field monitoring, increase community involvement and conservation education, and improve law enforcement within the parks.

“It is hoped that this renewed commitment will further encourage increased support for the continued protection of these trans-boundary protected areas,” said Deutsch.

The meeting was held soon after the first joint survey of the trans-boundary area, involving park rangers from the Okwangwo Division of Cross River National Park and their colleagues from the proposed Takamanda National Park in Cameroon.

The survey revealed that a number of large mammal species range between these two protected areas, including a previously little-known group of Cross River gorillas.

Other threatened and endangered species found in the two parks include Preuss’s monkeys, chimpanzees, elephants, and drills. These large, short-tailed forest baboons are one of the most endangered of all African primates.

The Cross River gorilla is one of four gorilla subspecies, the others being the western lowland gorilla, eastern lowland gorilla, and mountain gorilla.

Classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Cross River gorilla is the rarest of the four subspecies. The population numbers fewer than 300 individuals across its entire range, which consists of 11 scattered sites in the moist broadleaf forests of Cameroon and Nigeria.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Great Apes Conservation Fund supports the conservation and protection of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gibbons which are being hunted for food and are facing rapid loss of habitat in west and central Africa as well as southeast Asia.

The Great Apes Conservation Program is funded annually at $4.5 million, $2.5 million of which is directed from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Congo Basin Forest Partnership for targeted conservation work on great apes in Central Africa.

Launched in 2002, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership includes 30 government and nongovernmental partners, including the U.S. government and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Researchers measure the size of a
Cross River gorilla nest site in
Cameroon’s Kagwene Gorilla
Sanctuary. (Photo by Marion
Rawson)

The Congo Basin forest is the world’s second largest tropical forest, covering 700,000 square miles in six countries, and containing a quarter of the world’s remaining tropical forest. This vast area hosts over 10,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds, and 400 species of mammals.

It is also home to more than 24 million people, most of whom depend on the forest for their livelihoods, which are under threat by the continued loss of the forest.

Logging, often illegal or unregulated, and clearing of land for agriculture are shrinking the intact ecosystems, which are being degraded at the rate of two million acres a year. The hunting of wildlife to supply bushmeat to urban and commercial forestry settlement markets is a primary threat to the animals’ survival.

In April, another milestone in the conservation of the Cross River gorilla was achieved with the formal announcement that the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary is recognized as part of Cameroon’s protected area network.

Despite its relatively small size, only 19.8 square kilometers, the montane forests of Kagwene are “crucially important for the conservation of Africa’s rarest ape,” said Aaron Nicholas of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is involved in developing and managing the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary.

Kagwene has been supported with initial funding from WWF, the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation and further funding from Great Apes Trust of Iowa and Berggorilla.

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NEW YORK, New York, August 9, 2008 (ENS) – Five scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society had to evacuate their remote field camp in northern Alaska because of a new kind of threat brought on by global warming – a polar bear stranded on land.

Polar bears would normally be out on sea ice this time of year, the WCS says, but with recent warming the ice is miles from shore and bears are becoming increasingly trapped on land well away from their prey of seals.

“It is ironic that our efforts to understand how climate change is affecting wildlife were disrupted by the top Arctic predator displaced by climate,” said Dr. Steve Zack of the Wildlife Conservation Society, who had to evacuate the camp.

Polar bears have been trapped on land in Arctic Alaska all spring and summer unable to swim out to sea ice and pursue seals, the scientists said. The bears’ condition and how dangerous they might be is unknown.

Polar bear in Arctic Alaska
(Photo courtesy USFWS)

The field camp was stocked with food for weeks that might have been tempting to hungry polar bears. Although the crew had bear safety training, the uncertainty of how dangerous this or other polar bears in the region might be led to the decision to charter a bush pilot to get the crew out before a major storm made such a rescue unlikely for days

“We saw the polar bear on our first clear day after several days of poor weather,” said conservation scientist Joe Liebezeit. “The bear didn’t come near us, but the prospect of maintaining a round-the-clock vigil while trying to do our surveys had us concerned.”

Earlier this year, the federal government listed the polar bear as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to climate change.

The WCS crew was surveying wildlife on the shorelines north of Teshekpuk Lake that are eroding due to climate change.

The crew was conducting surveys of shorebirds feeding on the shorelines prior to their southward migrations.

Every summer the area around Teshekpuk Lake, located about 175 miles west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, draws hundreds of thousands of migratory birds of dozens of species.

The study is an attempt to understand how erosion is affecting the ability of shorebirds trying to eat enough to fuel their southward migrations to Asia and South America.

The Teshekpuk region was recently granted some protection from expanding oil development by the Department of Interior because of its importance to wildlife. This protection was advocated by WCS and other conservation groups. WCS has been studying Arctic wildlife in Alaska since 2001.

Zack and Liebezeit, who lead the Arctic studies team for WCS, and the other scientists will continue their work on post-breeding shorebirds in the Prudhoe Bay region this season.

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EDINBURGH, Scotland, August 5, 2008 (ENS) – Unknown to the outside world, more than 125,000 endangered western lowland gorillas have sheltered in the remote northern forests of the Republic of Congo in Central Africa, the Wildlife Conservation Society revealed today. Documented by WCS and Congolese scientists, the discovery of these imperiled animals shows that there is hope for the conservation of other endangered species, scientists said.

The new census of these Critically Endangered gorillas was revealed at a press conference during the week-long International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh.

The census found more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas living in two adjacent areas covering 18,000 square miles.

Western lowland gorilla in the Republic
of Congo (Photo by Thomas
Breuer/Wildlife Conservation
Society-Max Planck Institute
for Evolutionary Anthropology)

“These figures show that northern Republic of Congo contains the mother lode of gorillas,” said Dr. Steven Sanderson, president and chief executive of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “It also shows that conservation in the Republic of Congo is working.”

“This discovery should be a rallying cry for the world that we can protect other vulnerable and endangered species, whether they be gorillas in Africa, tigers in India, or lemurs in Madagascar,” Sanderson told reporters.

Successful long-term conservation management of the country’s protected areas is partly responsible for the survival of these gorillas, and the remoteness and inaccessibility of some of their key locations as well as a food-rich habitat contributed to their survival, WCS said.

WCS has worked with the government of Republic of Congo in the northern area of the country for nearly 20 years, helping establish the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park and manage the Lac Tele Community Reserve while working with logging companies outside of protected areas to reduce illegal hunting.

Western lowland gorillas inhabit parts of seven Central African nations. Estimates from the 1980s placed the entire world population of these gorillas at fewer than 100,000. Scientists had believed that over the past 25 years this number had been cut in half by hunting and disease.

The new census that documented the existence of an additional 125,000 gorillas was the result of intensive field work carried out by the Bronx Zoo-based WCS and the government of Republic of Congo.

Researchers combed rainforests and isolated swamps to count the sleeping nests gorillas construct each night from leaves and branches.

In the Ntokou-Pikounda region researchers found 73,000 gorillas, and another 52,000 were documented in the Ndoki-Likouala landscape – including a previously unknown population of nearly 6,000 animals living in an isolated swamp.

Population densities of eight gorillas per square kilometer were recorded in one particularly rich forest patch, which ranks among the highest gorilla densities ever recorded.

“We knew from our own observations that there were a lot of gorillas out there, but we had no idea there were so many,” said Dr. Emma Stokes, who led the survey efforts in the area known as Ndoki-Likouala.

Western lowland gorilla mother
and baby (Photo by Thomas
Breuer/Wildlife Conservation
Society-Max Planck Institute
for Evolutionary Anthropology)

WCS cautioned that many of the gorillas live outside of existing protected areas, though the government of Congo has committed to creating a new national park in the Ntokou-Pikounda region.

Claude Etienne Massimba of the Republic of Congo’s Department of Wildlife and Protected Areas said, “We hope that these results will speed up the classification of the Ntokou-Pikounda zone into a protected area.”

“We hope that the results of this survey will allow us to work with the Congolese government to establish and protect the new Ntokou-Pikounda protected area,” said Stokes.

WCS has worked with the government of Republic of Congo in the northern area of the country for nearly 20 years, helping establish the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park and manage the Lac Tele Community Reserve while working with logging companies outside of protected areas to reduce illegal hunting.

Successful long-term conservation management of the country’s protected areas is partly responsible for the survival of these gorillas, and the remoteness and inaccessibility of some of their key locations as well as a food-rich habitat contributed to their survival, the scientists said.

Across Central Africa, gorillas are threatened by hunting for bushmeat and the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, which kills apes as well as humans. WCS is working with partners to combat Ebola, eliminate commercial hunting, and secure this last stronghold for Africa’s apes.

Many gorilla conservation projects are funded through two primary programs of the United States government – the Congo Basin Forest Partnership at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Great Apes Conservation Fund at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Both of these programs are at risk of being cut in the Fiscal Year 2009 federal budget. Although the budget process in Washington has stalled, WCS is calling for Congress to restore and grow these programs by completing work on the Fiscal Year 2009 budget before the end of September.

Western lowland gorillas are one of four gorilla subspecies, which include mountain gorillas, eastern lowland gorillas, and Cross River gorillas. All are classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, except eastern lowland gorillas, which are classed as Endangered.

The Wildlife Conservation Society is the only conservation group working to safeguard all four subspecies.

WCS’s conservation work in Central Africa was funded in part from admission fees to the Bronx Zoo’s Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit, which has raised more than $8.5 million for conservation in Central Africa since it opened in 1999.

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JACKSON, Wyoming, June 17, 2008 (ENS) – To protect the 150-mile round-trip movement of pronghorn in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the U.S. Forest Service has established the nation’s first designated wildlife migration corridor – the Path of the Pronghorn.

This seasonal movement of pronghorn antelope, Antilocapra americana, between Grand Teton National Park and the Upper Green River Valley in northwestern Wyoming is the longest remaining migration of any land mammal in the lower 48 states.

“This represents a tremendous conservation victory and demonstrates that by working together we can find solutions to preserve our nation’s wildlife heritage,” said Dr. Kim Murray Berger, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society who has studied the pronghorn migration since 2003.

Based at New York’s Bronx Zoo, the Wildlife Conservation Society is part of a coalition of local, state, and federal agencies, conservation groups, and private citizens that has called for permanent protection of the migration corridor to prevent the animals from going extinct in Grand Teton National Park.

A pronghorn antelope in Wyoming
(Photo by Julie Maher courtesy
Wildlife Conservation Society)

Archaeological evidence indicates that pronghorn have traveled this same ancient migration route, which is less than 150 yards wide in some places, for at least 6,000 years.

By adopting the amendment to the Bridger-Teton National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan, the agency assures that future activities on Forest Service lands within the corridor will be compatible with the continued successful migration of pronghorn.

The amendment was signed on May 31 by Bridger-Teton National Forest Supervisor Kniffy Hamilton, who said, “With the signing of the amendment, we are pledging to assist the preservation effort of this corridor.”

“This migration is an important part of Wyoming’s history and we want to do all we can to maintain it,” she said.

As the fastest land animal in North America, pronghorns migrate annually across tremendous distances, at speeds of up to 55 miles per hour. During the fall migration, the animals move southward 30 miles a day for three or four straight days. In the spring, the pronghorn move northward at a slower pace, as they follow the receding snowline.

Dr. Joel Berger, senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s North America Program, studies pronghorn from his base at the WCS Teton Field Office, with scientists Dr. Kim Murray Berger and Dr. Jon Beckmann. He says natural gas exploration is making pronghorn migration difficult.

“The gas field proliferation in Wyoming has been daunting. In just five years, there has been more than a tenfold increase in traffic in areas where pronghorn winter,” he says.

“We’ve seen up to six animals splattered on the road, all killed by a single vehicle,” Berger says. “The habitat is being degraded and fragmented, and animals are starting to avoid areas they formerly relied on to make it through the winter. I understand our nation’s need for energy, yet I also know many Americans have made massive commitments to protecting wildlife, and these are often ignored.”

The amendment just signed does not protect the entire pronghorn migration – it applies only to 45 miles of the migration corridor located on Forest Service lands. The remaining 30 miles of the migration route occur on private lands and areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management, BLM.

Conservationists hope the BLM will follow the Forest Service and pledge to limit the construction of fences, roads, and natural gas wells that could interfere with the migration.

On private lands, voluntary conservation easements and construction of wildlife-friendly fences can facilitate wildlife movements.

Although pronghorn are not endangered, the population that summers in Grand Teton National Park numbers fewer than 200 animals. Because snow in the park is too deep to allow the animals to survive the harsh winters, obstruction of the migration corridor would result in the local extinction of pronghorn from Grand Teton National Park.

The National Park Service heralded the signing of the amendment as an important step in protecting the biological integrity of the ecosystem.

“We remain concerned about the long-term persistence of this migration corridor because it is a life link for our pronghorn population,” said Steve Cain, senior wildlife biologist for Grand Teton National Park, who partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society on the 2003 migration study. “We would not have pronghorn if the corridor became impassible.”

Permanent designation of the entire migration corridor would mark another milestone for the state of Wyoming, which hosts the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone established in 1872; the first national forest, the Shoshone established in 1891; and the first national monument, Devil’s Tower established in 1906.

Globally, the designation of this wildlife migration corridor is important because long-distance migrations are disappearing, due to habitat loss and construction of roads, subdivisions, and other infrastructure associated with extraction of natural resources and human population growth.

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NEW YORK, New York, March 4, 2008 (ENS) – The call of the loon has sounded over the waters of northeast lakes for centuries. Now those lakes are polluted with so much mercury that the loons are being poisoned, new research shows.

A long-term study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the BioDiversity Research Institute, and other organizations has found and confirmed that environmental mercury from human-generated emissions is damaging the health and reproductive success of common loons in the Northeast.

The results of the 18 year study on loons appear in the most recent edition of the journal “Ecotoxicology.”

“This study demonstrates how top predators such as common loons can be used as the proverbial canaries in the coalmine for pollutants that concern humans as well,” said David Evers of the BioDiversity Research Institute, lead author of the study. “Our findings can be used to facilitate national and global decisions for regulating mercury emissions from coal-burning plants and other sources.”

Metallic mercury and inorganic mercury compounds enters the air from mining ore deposits, burning coal and waste, and from manufacturing plants and falls into bodies of water such as the northern lakes inhabited by loons.

Methylmercury is formed in water and soil by bacteria, and this methylmercury builds up in the tissues of fish. Larger and older fish tend to have the highest levels of mercury. Since loons are fish-eating birds, they ingest high concentrations of mercury.

The common loon (Photo by Stephen
Lang courtesy Wisconsin DNR)

The human nervous system is very sensitive to all forms of mercury. Exposure to high levels of metallic, inorganic, or organic mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus. The study was conducted to determine its effects on loons.

The study uses data from nearly 5,500 samples of blood, feathers, and eggs collected from captured and released loons from some 80 lakes in Maine, New York, New Hampshire, and other states and provinces.

With behavioral observations from 1,529 loon territories between 1996 and 2005, the researchers made correlations between the behaviors of individual birds and their levels of methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury that accumulates up the food chain.

Loons with high levels of mercury were found to spend some 14 percent less time at the nest than normally behaving birds. Unattended nests have a higher rate of failure due to either chilling of the eggs or predation by minks, otters, raccoons and other egg robbers.

High levels of mercury were found in about 16 percent of the adult population in the study area.

Researchers found that loon pairs with elevated mercury levels also produced 41 percent fewer fledged young than loons in lakes relatively free of mercury.

Other behavioral impacts due to elevated mercury were sluggishness, resulting in decreased foraging for fish by the adults for both themselves and for chicks.

In addition to behavior, the concentration of mercury in loons has physical impacts as well.

Researchers found that loons with high mercury loads have unevenly sized flight feathers. Birds with wing asymmetries of more than five percent must expend 20 percent more energy than normal birds to fly, a deficiency that may impact their ability to migrate and maintain a breeding territory.

“This study confirms what we’ve long suspected – mercury from human activities such as coal-burning power plants is having a significant negative impact on the environment and the health of its most charismatic denizens, and potentially, to humans, too,” said Nina Schoch of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Adirondack Program.

“Thus, it becomes even more urgent for the EPA to propose effective national regulations for mercury emissions from power plants that are based on sound science,” she said.

Many northeastern states have implemented stringent mercury emission rules, but a nationwide regulation has yet to be passed.

The U.S. District Court of Appeals recently struck down the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed cap-and-trade rule for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, which critics say would have led to localized “hotspots” of mercury.

Schoch says, “The ecological impacts of mercury identified in this study illustrate the need for comprehensive, national regulations to limit mercury emissions.”

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NEW YORK, New York, December 20, 2007 (ENS) – Conservationists estimate that today 5,000 tigers remain in the wild, down from 100,000 tigers that inhabited Asia alone just 150 years ago. Now, a new study of the potential for tigers to survive in Thailand has hope soaring that the endangered big cats may not be headed for extinction.

Scientists at the New York based Wildlife Conservation Society, working with a scientific team in Thailand Department of National Park, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation, have been studying Thailand’s Western Forest Complex – a 18,000 square kilometer network of parks and wildlife reserves.

They learned that this area can potentially support some 2,000 tigers, which would make it one of the world’s tiger strongholds.

“Working together with WCS scientists helps set a standard for tiger monitoring and conservation here in Thailand,” said Saksit Simcharoen, a tiger specialist working for the Thai government.

“The tiger and prey population monitoring and patrol improvement systems have given people hope and direction to do better for tigers and other wildlife,” he said.

The scientists found that the entire Western Forest Complex currently supports an estimated 720 tigers. These tiger densities are lower than those reported by Wildlife Conservation Society scientists from some protected areas in India with similar habitat, but better enforcement.

For example, tiger densities of as many as 12 tigers per 100 square kilometers were measured in India’s Nagarahole, Bandipur and Kanha forests.

By comparison, four tigers per 100 square kilometers were found in Thailand’s Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary.

The authors of the study conducted intensive surveys of tigers in Huai Kha Khaeng, using camera traps to estimate a population size of 113 individual animals living in the 2,810 square kilometer protected area.

Tigers are under increasing
pressure from human
encroachment. (Photo by
Elizabeth Kemp courtesy
WWF-Canon)

Despite the lower densities, plenty of good tiger habitat remains in Thailand, with 25 percent of the nation still forested, and 15 percent of it managed under wildlife protection legislation, says the Wildlife Conservation Society.

To make these numbers a reality, better enforcement to safeguard both tigers and their prey from poachers is critical, according to the study, which appears in latest issue of the journal “Oryx.”

“Thailand has the potential to be a global centerpiece for tiger conservation,” said Dr. Anak Pattanavibool of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Thailand Program and a coauthor of the study.

“This study underscores that there is an opportunity for tigers to thrive in Thailand – provided tigers and their major prey species are protected from poachers.”

The entire Western Forest Complex is experiencing habitat fragmentation driven by human encroachments as forests are felled and cleared to make room for a growing human population.

Last year, the Panthera Foundation, a new group that works in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society, announced its Tigers Forever program, pledging a 50 percent increase in tiger numbers in key areas over the next decade. Panthera saves in situ populations of the world’s 36 species of wild cats and the ecosystems they inhabit in all regions of the world.

The Wildlife Conservation Society is based at New York’s Bronx Zoo and supports the work of hundreds of scientists in more than 60 countries.

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