Best of our wild blogs: 26 Oct 08

Dialogue Session on Sustainable Singapore
upcoming session on the AsiaIsGreen and wild shores of singapore blog

Eurasian Curlew at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
and how it uses its massive bill on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Upcoming Singapore Energy Conference
on AsiaIsGreen

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Singaporean filmmaker showcases Lim Chu Kang in documentaries

Lynda Hong, Channel NewsAsia 26 Oct 08;

SINGAPORE: Singaporean filmmaker Eng Yee Peng has spent nearly a hundred thousand dollars on a documentary close to her heart.

Eng, who used to stay in Lim Chu Kang, felt compelled to preserve the rural landscape's history by making not one, but two documentaries, aptly titled "Diminishing Memories".

"For Part One of the film, I felt that I have something to improve. But Part Two of the film, there's nothing else better I can do already, based on my limited time, resources and budget," said Eng.

Audiences, especially the last surviving farmers from Lim Chu Kang, were moved to tears when the film was screened in Singapore recently.

Tickets for the initial six screenings at The Arts House were snapped up within a week. Due to the overwhelming response, another 10 more screenings of the film have been scheduled.

Part One of the documentaries has been shown at international festivals and on television in Australia and South Korea.

Part Two was later made but went 200 per cent above budget at US$60,000 – all from the director's savings. She also took a year, working 15 hours each day to complete the 49-minute film.

Eng said: "I need to stop filmmaking for a few years. I am not sure if I can continue. If you want to continue this journey in the long run, do not exploit yourself. Get enough funding and do not be afraid to justify enough funding for your project."

The director, who is a former MediaCorp producer for current affairs programmes, said she is taking on video-editing jobs for now before deciding on her next big project.

Related links

Diminishing memories website http://diminishingmemories.spaces.live.com/ with details of screening dates.

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Chemical regulations 'a turning point' for Barrier Reef

ABC News 25 Oct 08;

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says the Queensland Government's plan to introduce mandatory regulations on the use of chemicals in agriculture is a turning point for the Great Barrier Reef.

At the Reef Water Quality Summit in Brisbane yesterday, Premier Anna Bligh admitted a voluntary approach to saving the reef had failed.

WWF spokesperson Nick Heath says the Government's decision to get tough on chemical run-off could be the key to the reef's survival.

"I think if we can cut these pesticides, cut these fertilisers, save farmers money we'll save the reef," he said.

"It'll be more resilient before climate change comes through. But then I'm an optimist and I'll be working very hard with the farmers and with WWF and the scientists to try and make that happen."

Mr Heath says although the restrictions are a good start, the Government must follow it through with adequate funding.

"We still need the details to come out. We like what we're hearing but we want to see some money," he said.

"If these regulations are going to work, we need a very strong and long, significant financial commitment to implementing these regulations."

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Researchers: Seven orcas missing from Puget Sound

Phuong Le, Associated Press Yahoo News 25 Oct 08;

SEATTLE – Seven Puget Sound killer whales are missing and presumed dead in what could be the biggest decline among the sound's orcas in nearly a decade, say scientists who carefully track the endangered animals.

"This is a disaster," Ken Balcomb, a senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, said Friday. "The population drop is worse than the stock market."

While the official census won't be completed until December, the total number of live "southern resident" orcas now stands at 83.

Among those missing since last year's count are the nearly century-old leader of one of the three southern resident pods, and two young females who recently bore calves. The loss of the seven whales, Balcomb said, would be the biggest decline among the Puget Sound orcas since 1999, when the center also tracked a decline of seven whales.

Low numbers of chinook salmon, a prime food for these whales, may be a factor in the unusual number of deaths this year, Balcomb said.

"It was a bad salmon year and that's not good for the whales," he said. "Everybody considers these wonderful creatures, but we really have to pay attention to the food supply."

The three pods, or families, that frequent western Washington's inland marine waters — the J, K, and L pods — are genetically and behaviorally distinct from other killer whales. The sounds they make are considered a unique dialect, they mate only among themselves, eat salmon rather than marine mammals and show a unique attachment to the region.

The population reached 140 or more in the last century, but their numbers have fluctuated in recent decades. They were listed as endangered in 2005.

"We may be in the beginning of another decline in the population," said Howard Garrett, director of the Orca Network, a nonprofit education and advocacy group.

He said the whales seem to be having a harder time finding chinook salmon.

The whales recently have been traveling over greater distances than usual, suggesting they may be ranging farther for food, said Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Lack of food may be a concern, but it's too early to know the reason for the unusual number of presumed deaths, he said.

Pollution and a decline in prey are believed to be the whales' biggest threats, although stress from whale-watching tour boats and underwater sonar tests by the Navy also have been concerns. In the late 1960s and early '70s, the population fell as dozens were captured for marine parks.

The whales were making an apparentg comeback in recent years, reaching 90 in number in 2005, "but it's been a downhill trend now for three years," Balcomb said.

Among those missing are two female whales of reproductive age, both of which recently produced calves. One of those calves, L-111, is missing, while the other, J-39, is not.

It's not unusual to lose older or younger whales, but losing two females in reproductive prime is "a bit of a concern" since they typically have a high survival rate, Hanson said.

One female whale, known to scientists as L-67, had the potential for two or three more calves, Hanson said.

She was the mother of "Luna," a juvenile killer whale from Washington waters that made headlines in 2001 when he became separated from his pod and turned up in Nootka Sound, off the west coast of Canada's Vancouver Island. A killer whale believed to be Luna died in Nootka Sound in 2006 when it was hit by the propeller of a large tugboat.

L-67 showed clear signs of emaciation — a depression behind her blow hole — before she disappeared in September, Hanson said.

"It definitely shows that she was not eating," he said, but it's unclear why. Researchers are performing tests on samples they collected from her weeks before she disappeared.

Others missing, according to the center, include K-7, the 98-year-old matriarch of K-pod, and L-101, a 6-year-old male who is a brother of "Luna."

The count also includes a calf, J-43, that was born in November but is believed to have not survived the winter.

The whale census may increase if baby orcas are born this fall. And there's a slim chance the whales may reappear elsewhere, as "Luna" did, Hanson said.

But Balcomb said: "We've been monitoring. They're just gone."

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Marianas leaders oppose Bush plans for huge marine reserve

Yahoo News 24 Oct 08;

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AFP) – Political leaders in the US-administered Northern Mariana Islands have publicly rebuffed attempts by Washington to persuade them to support a huge marine sanctuary in their waters.

A US official said during a visit to the western Pacific territory this week that President George Bush wanted to establish the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument before he leaves office in January.

Supporters of the 115,000 square mile (297,850 square kilometre) reserve said it would be an important part of Bush's legacy as he leaves office.

"To be as blunt as possible, we do not feel... that stealing our birthright to curry favour with posterity is appropriate," Northern Mariana leaders said in a joint letter published Thursday.

Northern Marianas Governor Benigno R. Fitial, the Senate president and the House of Representatives speaker wrote to Bush's senior advisor on environment and energy James Connaughton, who led a trip to the territory earlier this week to promote the sanctuary.

Local leaders oppose the reserve because they say it would remove resources from local control, banning fishing and any future mining in the area.

The sanctuary would surround the territory's uninhabited northern islands of Maug, Asuncion and Uracus, and include parts of the Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean waters in the world.

Connaughton told legislators on Monday the waters around the three islands were chosen because they have the "greatest marine diversity on the face of the earth and all (the) corals are intact."

But local politicians said they felt they were being railroaded into supporting the plan.

"We certainly do not appreciate the rush to judgment that necessarily must take place, and possibly has already taken place, to secure the designation prior to January 2009," the letter added.

"Even though this was ostensibly the beginning of discussions, many present were left with the feeling that the result was pre-ordained and the discussion was more pretence than substance."

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China's threatened elephants turn into killers

Local people believe the animals are getting angry as the country's runaway development destroys ever more of their habitat

Dinah Gardner, The Independent 26 Oct 08;

There are fewer than 300 wild elephants left in China, so when Jeremy McGill, an American tourist, stumbled across a group of adults earlier this year in a nature reserve in Yunnan province, near the border with Laos, he whipped out his camera and started taking pictures. It almost cost him his life.

"I was alone when I came across the four elephants," he said. "One scooped me up into his mouth and bit me. My body was folded in half, my head between my knees, and then the elephant spat me out and stomped on me. Suddenly they stopped and walked away. I was found about an hour later, just lying there with my intestines hanging out of my body."

A few weeks later, a Chinese migrant worker returning to his home village was stamped to death by an elephant. In Wild Elephant Valley, the same reserve where Mr McGill was attacked, a woman selling food was killed in June. Elephants will get aggressive if they feel threatened, but so many attacks in the space of six months is unusual, according to Grace Gabriel, Asia regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), who has worked on elephant conservation projects in China for a decade.

Humans and elephants are coming into contact increasingly frequently as Yunnan's development sees forests cut down to make way for rubber and paper plantations, new highways, dam projects and factories. China's elephant population is split into nine groups in isolated pockets of jungle that are becoming ever smaller, but Ms Gabriel thinks this is not the only cause of fatal encounters. Like local people, she believes the elephants are angry.

In recent years, she points out, several baby elephants have been caught in traps set by poachers for other animals. But when they are rescued by the local nature conservation authority, they are not released back into the wild, and she says at least two have died in captivity. Jin Yanfei, an ecology student from Beijing Normal University who studies the elephants in Wild Elephant Valley, said local officials wanted to breed elephants to perform tricks for tourists and to sell on to zoos.

Two young elephants are being kept at Wild Elephant Valley's "propagation centre". The youngest, Yongyong, was rescued last year when he was a few months old – in the wild, elephants normally stay with their mothers until they are least eight years old. We found him alone in a bare concrete yard, pacing agitatedly as far as the chain on his front leg would allow. I was told that Yongyong was kept like this 24 hours a day; after a few minutes, an official from the centre ushered us away.

Zhang Jun, a taxi driver in nearby Jinghong, the regional capital, spelled out the local view. "The park took in an injured elephant a few years ago, and the family came looking for her," he said. "That's why they've been attacking people. Everyone knows the elephants are angry."

Local farmers are also angry about loss of their crops to marauding elephants. Over the past three years the provincial government has paid out an average of about 5m yuan (£460,000) a year in compensation, but this covers only 30 per cent of the damage at most. Although poaching for ivory is a problem in Laos and Vietnam, Chinese farmers have not so far tried to harm or kill the elephants. Apart from the fact that guns are illegal, killing elephants, which are a protected species, carries a possible death penalty.

Ms Gabriel is campaigning for forest corridors to join up the patches of jungle where China's remaining elephants live. "These elephants have nowhere to go," she said. "If these habitats are not linked, if corridors are not built, China may not have wild elephants 100 years from now."

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