In February 2008, on the last day of the Chinese New Year festivities, we arrived in Wuhan in order to try to establish the fate of the possibly extinct Yangtze River dolphin or baiji – whether it had really disappeared for good, and what factor or factors had been responsible for its precipitous decline. Working with researchers from Wuhan’s Institute of Hydrobiology, the academic institution which had kept a captive baiji called Qi Qi alive for over 22 years, we were embarking on an intensive survey of fishing communities along the Yangtze, talking to as many fishermen as we could find about their knowledge of the river’s ecology and the status of its cetaceans and fishes.
We travelled across the entire historical range of the baiji over the next couple of months, and again when we returned to China in the autumn of 2008 following the three-month fishing ban now in place to try to help depleted fish stocks recover. Moving from town to town up and down the river, we spoke to almost 600 fishermen, using a standard questionnaire that took about half an hour to complete. As a reward for their help and time, each fisherman was given a specially printed two-year calendar, with a picture of a baiji on one side and a finless porpoise on the other, and with a hotline phone number at the bottom allowing them to get in contact with staff at the Institute of Hydrobiology if they ever saw a baiji or a stranded or dead finless porpoise in the future.
As fieldwork goes, the survey was an intensely interesting experience, both for what we learned and for the way we had to go about collecting information. Instead of searching for endangered species directly ourselves, we stayed in riverside towns, working with Chinese students to interview fishermen to learn about animals that they had last seen maybe ten or twenty years ago or more. In order to find the fishermen in the first place, and to obtain the co-operation of the local community and (more importantly) the local authorities, we had to organise banquets with the staff of the local fisheries department at every new town we visited. Every couple of days, once we had collected 30 or so interviews from the local fishing community, we would move onto another town, and the whole process would begin again. Although this could be extremely frustrating at times, by the end of the survey we had collected a wealth of new information about the state of the Yangtze ecosystem that would have been completely unavailable through any other kind of survey.
So what did we learn? We are now in the process of sorting through all of the data that we collected during the survey, but some facts became abundantly clear while we were still in China. Nearly all of the fishermen told us that the fisheries along the Yangtze were in the process of collapse. Fewer fish could be caught, in particular species such as Reeves’ shad and the remarkable Yangtze pufferfish; there were fewer professional fishing boats on the river these days; and almost nobody we spoke to thought that fishing was a good career for the next generation. But the fishermen were trapped in their way of life. They obtain no state support, and it is still sadly common for their children to have received minimal formal education. Their lives were hard, and they recognized that the river’s resources were running out, but there was nothing else for them to do. Many fishermen along the river were surprisingly outspoken about how they wanted to be bought out and set up in a new livelihood, either as farmers on land or farming fish in artificial pools. This could be a win-win situation both for the fishermen and for the environment, since the Yangtze’s dwindling fish stocks continue to be overexploited by local people desperate to feed themselves and their families, and the fishing gear that chokes the river continues to kill porpoises by accident. But there is, as yet, no real support for this strategy from the Chinese authorities.
As well as learning these sobering facts about human livelihoods in riverside fishing communities, we also began to learn more about what was happening to the Yangtze’s river dolphins and porpoises. This was brought home to us within a few days of starting the survey, when we were at Hukou, a small town at the mouth of Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province. As we spoke to the last of the fishermen we needed to interview, he told us that there was a dead porpoise on the riverbank just outside the fishing village. We set off to investigate – how had this animal died?
TO BE CONTINUED
Here is the latest updated from Kimitei, our EDGE Fellow monitoring Africa’s most threatened antelope - the hirola:
It has been a great rainy season in the Tsavo East National Park for the last 2 weeks whereby the vegetation change is evident. During the survey, no new groups were identified but the former identified groups were monitored. Due to favourable conditions prevail in the hirola range, most of the groups are leaving their former places where they were sighted during the dry season to new areas.
Most typical example is the Mukwaju 2 (M2) group where some group changes had occurred. The group split to two groups of 5 and 9. Later on 5 calves were added to the group making the group 19. The group reunited and split again separating the 3 yearling females. Lastly, the group regrouped again and moved out of the area. A thorough search in the area for two weeks did not yield anything. It is during this time that we had the rough time since we had many question to answer though no answers at that moment. This question were, one, did the cheetah got up with the group? If yes, what might have happened to the calves, their mothers, the whole group? Two, where again can I find such a large group again?
Our survey continued the third week with minimum expectation to meet the M2 group. Hope came in to search for new individuals or group. In this week, we spent most of our time within Aruba and Satao. The search yielded identification of three lone males in three different places. All of the lone males were yearlings much probably born in the last season. They were energetic and strong. One of them was alone with no associate species, zebra, grant gazelles accompanied the second, and last one was with grants and giraffes.
It is during this week that we came across a group of 16 individuals. From close identification, we realized that the group was M2. M2 group had a female adult with short tail, which we identified. The calves were five with the same age variation as that of M2. The age structure and sex composition really helped in our identification. The M2 group has even given us a hint that the group can move far away from the area known to be. From the place where they were sighted last and the place they were sighted is 8.5 km apart.
As we are talking, the known Tsavo Population is now 48 individuals. Hope is high that new groups or individuals would be sighted.
If you would like to support research and conservation of forgotten EDGE species, then you can become an EDGE Champion, or donate here.
Here is the second blog from Thomas Doherty-Bone, who is carrying out research on little know amphibians in Cameroon, including a number of EDGE and highly Evolutionarily Distinct species. Here is an update Thomas wrote when he had just arrived in Cameroon, at the end of October.
Recap
Last time you were introduced to the Lake Oku Clawed Frog, Xenopus longipes, a wonderful little frog which spends its life swimming around in one small, high elevation crater lake in the highlands of Cameroon.
You were told about how its restricted range, vulnerability to disturbance (such as fish introduction) and its unique evolutionary characteristics place it on the EDGE list. You were also informed of our recent observations on morbidities and mortalities of this critically endangered frog, and the uncertainty as to their causes, and even implications (though we are assuming the worst, despite hoping for the best). This time you will be informed of what is being done to address the conservation problems of Xenopus longipes, EDGE species # 34.
The 2008 Expedition
This year, in October, a research project will be initiated to find out whether these sick frogs are a sign of a population in collapse. Supported so far by grants from the Zoological Society of London, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and the British Ecological Society, this project will conduct surveys on the population of X. longipes and gather information from its environment. The latter will include water chemistry of the lake and temperature. The training of local technicians will take place so to establish a monitoring programme for this frog and its lake.
By obtaining consistent data on the lake’s seasonal fluctuations, and of its frog, it may be possible to deduce what are natural fluctuations and what are abnormal changes in population size; features of the lake; or both. Disease will also be monitored, especially Ranavirus, where a strain different to the known European variety may be present in Lake Oku. This virus could be a natural part of X. longipes’ microparasite diversity, perhaps regulating the population, a co-evolved interaction between a host and its parasite. There is also the odious possibility that this disease arose from an introduced pathogen, as seems to be the case of the chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which will also be monitored.
Not Just Frogs
This is part of the wider Conservation Research for Amphibians Unique to Cameroon (CRAUC) project, involving staff of the Natural History Museum, London, Oku community and Cameroon Herpetological Project (CamHerp). On top of this frog, work will involve tracking down several caecilian species (“worm-like” amphibians) that are unique to Cameroon, but have not been seen since their original discovery: some for decades, such as Herpele multiplicata; one species, Crotaphatrema bornmuelleri has not been seen since 1893!
Herpele multiplicata specimen
We hope to find out the conservation status of these endemic caecilians, and to gain further biological information (evolutionary phylogenetics, breeding biology, habitat preferences, etc) that has not been accessible for so long. It is hoped that when I am not wandering around the shore of Lake Oku, I will be able to do a quantitative survey of caecilians in the soil around Mount Oku, especially the endemic Crotaphatrema lamottei. I encountered one specimen of this species in 2006, apparently the 6th official specimen recorded by science.
Watch This Space
I arrived in Cameroon nearly 2 weeks ago, and have since travelled to North West Province, where I am still in the process of arranging permits, meeting with community figures and sorting logistics for a base camp near the lake. To catch up on our progress, see the next blog in the next week or so.
Marwell Zoological Park is celebrating the birth of a pygmy hippopotamus, EDGE Mammal species number 21.
Born three weeks ago, the hippo is part of a conservation breeding programme to help save the species from extinction; with less than 3000 in the wild, Marwell’s latest arrival is a vital addition to this rare and threatened species.
Pygmy hippopotamus are related to their larger cousin the common hippo but are, as the name suggests, much smaller. Marwell’s baby pygmy hippo now weighs around 10 kilos (22 pounds) and has already formed a strong bond with her mum Wendy, spending many hours swimming together in their pool. To watch a video of the new arrival click here.
The pygmy hippo’s natural habitat in west Africa has been increasingly logged and farmed over the last 100 years, with large areas of their natural habitat being lost in last 30 years. Their numbers have steadily declined and the species is now listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. If their natural habitat continues to decline their future is uncertain: the population is likely to continue to decline by 20% over the course of the next 20 years.
EDGE Fellow John Konie is currently monitoring pygmy hippos in Sapo National Park, Liberia’s only national park and its largest protected area of rainforest. Earlier this year Konie and a team from ZSL managed to get the first ever images of a Liberian pygmy hippo using camera traps, confirming the presence of the rare species in the park despite civil wars, poaching and logging threatening its survival. Konie’s monitoring surveys continue, and in time will show whether the Sapo hippo population is stable.
Keepers at Marwell invited people to select a name for the baby hippo, and from the shortlist the name Lola was the people’s choice from the web vote, beating the other three options - Loko, Kadina and Zimmi.
To support the conservation work of EDGE Fellows such as Konie, you can become an EDGE Champion, or donate here.
Kimitei, our EDGE Fellow monitoring the Critically Endangered hirola population in Tsavo National Park, Kenya, has sent us this update:
Rains are now dropping in Tsavo East and the whole place is turning out to green from its dry vegetation that has been in the place. Though not much change have been seen, but temperatures are now low, the sky is covered by clouds and hirola groups are now emerging from their hide outs to open areas where more food can be found than before. These conditions prevailing has enhanced our search and monitoring of hirola groups. For two days we have been in the field, three new groups are identified and named.
The first group was seen near Satao Camp close to Satao (SAT) group 2 kilometres away. This group consists of 4 yearling females. They were desperate and run up and down showing they might be having a problem. For three hour monitoring, they settle and again a heavy down pour hit the area.
The second group was that of 2-bachelor herd in the Dika Plains. This group was close to the Dika Plains herd (DP) and thus named Dika Plains 2 (DP2).
The third group was along Voi River near Aruba Lodge. The group consists of 11 members of 3 adult males, 2 adult females, 4 yearling females and 2 calves (3 weeks male and 2 weeks female). This is the only group found with 3 adult males together. In fact the males seemed to be friendly to each other from their friendly play using their horns. One of the adult females were very old but in good health.
Up to now we have managed to locate 7 groups where M2 group has already split into two groups. The current known population of Tsavo East is 45 hirola - 38 yearlings and above with 7 calves of less than one month old.
If you would like to support research and conservation of forgotten EDGE species, then you can become an EDGE Champion, or donate here.