Best of our wild blogs: 1 Jan 11

2011 is International Year of Forests!
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!

What's so marine about 2011 International Year of Forests?
from wild shores of singapore

Bitten by a Walking Trash Collector
from Macro Photography in Singapore and Why do Spiders Decorate their Webs?

Virgin trip to Mandai Mangroves
from Urban Forest

101231 Venus Drive
from Singapore Nature

Good bye Mandai Orchid Gardens. Farewell to our feathered friends
from Life's Indulgence

Good Bye Mandai Orchid Garden
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature

Summary of Odonata Collection in 2010!
from Nature Photography - Singapore Odonata

Bad experience when photographing the Hooded Pitta
from Biodiversity Singapore

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Consider animal-less options for research

Straits Times Forum 1 Jan 10;

I AGREE with the views expressed by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ("SPCA voices concern over animal welfare, experimentation"; Thursday) and the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society or Acres ("Animals in research: Room for greater transparency"; Dec 24).

In this day and age of great technological advances, why do we still need to use animals for experiments in the name of scientific advances? As Acres pointed out, there are other options and I hope the authorities will seriously consider them.

I also join the SPCA in urging Resorts World Sentosa to be a socially responsible corporation and reconsider its decision to proceed with the importation of wild dolphins. We should not be so selfish as to enjoy at the expense of another sentient being's suffering.

Jill Hum (Ms)

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Wildlife trade: Small efforts can make a big difference

Straits Times 1 Jan 11;

SUN bear cubs, slow lorises and sacks of orchids were just some of the items up for sale when Mr Jacob Phelps visited Thailand's border markets during his field research last year. The National University of Singapore (NUS) graduate student plans to go back and fully document the orchid trade there as part of his doctoral thesis.

More than 2,000 species are traded in this region, he said. But endangered orchids can be hard to tell apart from common ones if they are not flowering, so Cites member countries voted to protect all orchids.

'In fact, we don't know much about how sensitive orchids are to harvest because we know so little about their biology,' he said.

'Each species would respond differently, but we need to take a precautionary approach - if we don't know how they respond to harvest, then we need to be careful and begin to collect data.'

Mr Phelps also commented on what Singapore can do to better monitor and tighten controls on wildlife trade.

'Not only does Singapore represent a market for wildlife products like shark's fin, animal skins, pets, sea horses and animal parts for traditional Chinese medicine; it is a hub of transport, with live wildlife and wildlife products re-exported via Singapore,' he said. For example, Singapore is a major legal exporter of farmed orchids and ornamental fish.

Currently, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) is Singapore's sole Cites authority and has both bureaucratic and independent advisory functions.

That is a potential conflict of interest, Mr Phelps pointed out, and Cites should require some sort of independent review of countries' trade decisions. Currently, there is no requirement that a country's Cites management and scientific authorities be separate.

Mr Phelps and his fellow researchers would like to see local universities and research institutes more involved in Cites work here.

In response, the AVA said it does consult the National Parks Board, the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research at NUS, and the South-east Asian Fisheries Development Centre for scientific advice, and seeks enforcement help from agencies like the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority and the Police Coast Guard.

Mr Phelps suggested the Singapore authorities should also do more spot Customs checks, train Customs officials to properly identify restricted wildlife, and use DNA techniques to correctly identify traded species.

'Wildlife trade is hugely lucrative and there are significant incentives for traders to bypass regulations. We need to invest resources and effort to catch infractions if we want to protect animals and plants from illegal trade,' he said.

GRACE CHUA

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Good food? It's grown just around the corner

Tan Hui Yee Straits Times 1 Jan 11;

MENTION 'community garden' and one thinks of retirees harvesting caterpillar-nibbled vegetables from plots the size of bathtubs or row upon row of frangipani and roses that are nice to look at but not to eat.

There are about 400 community gardens scattered around Singapore, mostly amateur efforts in residential neighbourhoods and schools that do not promise much in the way of economic returns.

But Mr Allan Lim, 38, chief executive of Alpha Biofuels, and fourth-generation farmer Kenny Eng, 37, from Nyee Phoe Group, are about to change that.

They have devised a plan to raise interest in community farming in an environmentally sustainable way and have even roped in coffee company Starbucks and downtown microbrewery Brewerkz.

The finer details are still being worked out, but this is how it will unfold once launched later this year:

Instead of throwing away used coffee grounds and hops, Starbucks and Brewerkz will give some to selected community gardens for use as compost ingredients.

Community gardeners, who will be trained to make compost from a nutrient-rich mixture of hops, coffee grounds and horticultural waste, will then sell the organic produce from their land back to Starbucks and Brewerkz and share the profits as a cooperative.

If all goes well, the two food and beverage chains will even tailor a part of their menu according to the fruit, vegetables or herbs produced by the community gardens.

Starbucks, which throws away several tonnes of coffee grounds every month from its 67 outlets islandwide, hopes to redirect up to 40 per cent of its waste to the project, says its Singapore managing director Jeff Miller.

It already runs the 'Grounds for your garden' scheme where customers can ask an outlet to save used grounds which they can then take home for free to use as compost.

Mr Lim hopes each community garden - which is expected to use 1.2 tonnes of coffee grounds or hops each year - will eventually be paired with a nearby Starbucks or Brewerkz outlet. Patrons at the Starbucks outlet in Thomson Plaza, for example, may find themselves nibbling on a gingerbread cookie made with ginger from a Thomson-area garden.

The vision is to create a small-scale, Singaporean version of the global 'locavore' movement, where environmentally conscious consumers try to eat food produced nearby to cut down their carbon footprint.

At the same time, it could help younger Singaporeans, growing up in an urban setting, develop a closer relationship with the environment their food is grown in, says Mr Eng. This is especially crucial because land-scarce Singapore imports most of what it eats.

Finally, it could raise the profile of community farming. Mr Lim says: 'When the public think about community farming, they think of it as a pastime. They don't see it as economically viable. And, most of the time, they don't grow fantastic stuff.'

Mr Fred Chong, chairman of Goldhill Gardening Club, which runs an award-winning community garden off Dunearn Road, concedes as much.

The semi-retiree, who is in his 60s, says: 'We once asked a farmer to come and grade our produce. He gave us 10 marks out of 100. The vegetables looked like rejects to him; he said he couldn't sell them on the market.

'But he gave us full marks for our enthusiasm about our koyak vegetables full of holes,' he adds, using the Malay word for 'spoilt'.

Under this scheme, the community gardeners will be encouraged not to turn to intensive monoculture farming, where only one type of crop is grown, says Mr Lim.

'They can plant three fig trees, one starfruit tree, one mango tree; it can look well designed and pleasing to the eye.'

The gardeners also need not worry about having to fulfil any production quota.

Mr Eng says: 'Size doesn't matter. It's the spirit of getting the right people to do the right thing.

'If even two bunches of bananas from these plots can be made into 10 muffins, then we would have succeeded.'

For now, both men are busy putting together various parts of the plan.

Mr Lim's company is researching the best conditions for the coffee and hop compost, which will then be tested on a pilot community garden.

They then plan to invite community gardeners for networking and information-sharing sessions. Various community development councils will help pick good gardens for the first phase of this project.

Asked who will fund the project, both men laugh nervously. Mr Lim reveals his company has already ploughed more than $6,000 into the venture while Mr Eng implores: 'We hope to convince more corporations to join us.'

They remain hopeful that more companies - big and small, from cafes to curry-puff makers - will see value in this local food venture.

Mr Lim says: 'Who's to say Old Chang Kee won't use local potatoes?'

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Rare monk seal colony found in the Mediterranean

Victoria Gill BBC News 31 Dec 10;

Scientists have found a colony of rare Mediterranean monk seals at an undisclosed location in Greece.

The species is the world's most endangered seal, and one of the most endangered marine mammals - fewer than 600 individuals remain.

Researchers are keeping the location of the colony secret to avoid having the seals disturbed by human visitors.

It is the only place in the region where seals lie on open beaches, rather than hide in coastal caves.

Alexandros Karamanlidis, scientific co-ordinator of the Mom/Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk seal, explained that this was the seals' "original behaviour".

"It is human disturbance that has caused the species to retreat to inaccessible caves," he told BBC News.

"So this place is incredibly important - the seals feel so secure that they go out on to open beaches."

The Mom researchers, whose society name is derived from the Latin name of the species, Monachus monachus, have been monitoring and studying monk seals for more than 20 years.

This has not been an easy task when most of the animals now live in areas that are not visible from the water line.

By driving the seals into secluded caves, the scientists say, human activity has also affected the number of seal pups that survive into adulthood.

Dr Karamanlidis explained: "Because of human disturbance, [the seals] give birth in these coastal caves, [meaning that] more pups die during storms."

The number of seal pups born annually in the newly discovered colony on this tiny island is amongst the highest recorded anywhere in the Mediterranean Sea.

The team has placed cameras on the island to study the seals remotely.

The area's popularity with tourists has gradually driven the animals away from other beaches, and the scientists hope to stop the same thing happening on this island.

"It's a small island in the Aegean with nice sandy beaches," Dr Karamanlidis told BBC News.

"So if it remains open to people, the place will get crowded and the seals will start going away again."

More than half of the world's remaining monk seals live in Greece.

The society is now appealing to the Greek government to make the part of the island where the seals live, and its inshore waters, a marine protected area.

"The seals only survive in Greece because we have these isolated islands that people do not have access to," said Dr Karamanlidis.

"So we're trying to make this a place where the seals feel secure."

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Coral bleaching sighted in Gujarat, probe begins

Daily News and Analysis 1 Jan 11;

More sad news for environment lovers — after the revelation of 44% of Gujarat coast eroding, the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) is now suspecting coral bleaching along the state's coastline.

Coral bleaching — a process which causes coral to lose its colour and eventually die — can be of great concern in terms of survival of the ecosystem. The state forest department and WTI have kicked off investigations to understand its nature and causes as well as effects on the coral biodiversity.

According to officials coral bleaching is whitening of corals as a result of death or expulsion of algal microorganisms called zooxanthellae that live in a crucial symbiotic relationship with corals.

It occurs when coral loses its colour because of the stress the animal experiences. When it occurs, it serves as an indication of several things happening in the ecosystem.

"The coral reef ecosystems found in tropical seas are calcium carbonate exoskeleton of massive colonies of individual coral polyps which measure about a few millimetres in diameter. The polyps are dependent on photosynthetic unicellular algae - the zooxanthellae, for nutrition, which also give the corals their colour. Under stress (changes in water temperature, radiation levels, salinity, sedimentation etc) polyps may expel these organisms, resulting in bleaching," said RD Kamboj, Director, Marine National Park, Jamnagar.

Coral bleaching was reported from Mithapur Reef and Gulf of Kutch Marine National Park, earlier this year. The sightings of bleaching as well as the ensuing investigations are a part of the WTI's Coral Reef Securement Project which assists the state forest department in conservation of corals.

"Bleaching of corals up to a certain extent is fairly common, reversible natural phenomenon and not necessarily alarming. The problem is when the degree is higher than the critical reversible limit which can result in large scale death of colonies," said Dr Rahul Kaul, Chief Ecologist, WTI.

"We are now monitoring the bleaching and recording the recovery rate. Preliminary signs are positive, as we have seen some signs of recovery in Mithapur. Also, new recruits have been observed which means that the corals are propagating," he further stated.

"As long as bleaching is seen, it is a sign that corals are not dead. However, bleaching can end either way… recovery or death, and monitoring it will help provide more insight on the situation," said Alasdair Edwards, Emeritus Professor of Coral Reef Ecology, University of Newcastle, United Kingdom.

Forest department, wildlife trust probe bleaching of corals
R D Kamboj India Express 3 Jan 11;

The state Forest Department and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) have initiated a probe into the bleaching of corals along the Gujarat coastline. Bleaching is characterised by the whitening of corals and results in the death or expulsion of algal micro-organisms called zooxanthellae that live in a symbiotic relationship with the corals.

The probe aims to find the nature, cause and the degree of bleaching as it can lead to large scale death of coral colonies.

R D Kamboj, Director, Marine National Park, Jamnagar, said: “The coral reef ecosystems found in tropical seas are calcium carbonate exoskeleton of massive colonies of individual coral polyps which measure about a few millimetres in diameter. The polyps are dependent on photosynthetic unicellular algae — zooxanthellae for nutrition, which also give the corals their colour. Under stress (changes in water temperature, radiation levels, salinity, and sedimentation), the polyps may expel these organisms, resulting in bleaching.”

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Pakistan floods, fighting destroy wildlife

Sajjad Tarakzai Yahoo News 31 Dec 10;

KUND, Pakistan (AFP) – Disaster struck out of nowhere. The flash floods were so sudden that wardens at one of Pakistan's most famed parks could do nothing to save their animals.

Leopards, deer and bears all drowned as the murky waters quickly engulfed them.

Kund park, a tourist spot located where the Kabul and Indus rivers meet 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of Islamabad, lost all its wildlife including 100 endangered species in this year's flood crisis.

It was the worst single natural destruction of wildlife in Pakistan, where experts say the floods, military offensives against the Taliban and spreading militancy threaten natural habitats and species, some of them already endangered.

"Floods destroyed everything. It killed all the animals and species in this park. It was a great loss to wildlife," said Mumtaz Malik, formerly the top wildlife official in northwest Pakistan.

"None of them were rescued. Nobody expected such a catastrophe."

Among the dead were two leopards, 70 deer and 24 bears, said Ayan-ud-din, one of the caretakers at Kund.

Peacocks, ducks and pheasants were also lost.

All the animals drowned while locked in cages and enclosures. The bears had been rescued from human cruelty, only to die in Pakistan's worst natural disaster after monsoon rains swept north to south in July and August.

"When we came back, only two bears were alive. They were shifted to another bear centre in Punjab," Inayat ur Rehman, manager of the bear centre, told AFP.

The floods had crippled the park's perimeter and destroyed the bear centre.

The sanctuary started out as a research station in 2000 to provide veterinary care and shelter to 27 bears formerly used for baiting.

Fifty turtles kept for research purposes were also washed away and killed.

The state of wildlife receives little attention in Pakistan, the front line state in America's war on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. US drone attacks target militant commanders in the mountains of Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt.

Pakistan's army and air force have battled homegrown Taliban foot soldiers for years, but militant groups have carved out sanctuaries in the mountains and valleys -- all of which is affecting wildlife, experts say.

"Bombing and shelling in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani tribal areas have disturbed the resident wildlife," said Malik.

Authorities say they have no access and are unable to enforce wildlife protection law in the semi-autonomous tribal belt, so instead they piece together details from local tribesmen and hunters.

According to conservative estimates, from 500,000 to a million birds migrate through Pakistan each year, flying south from Siberia to pass the winter in central and south Asia.

Birds search for natural habitats along the Indus and the Kabul, the two major flyways of waterfowl and other waterbirds migrating through Pakistan in November and December from breeding grounds in Siberia and Central Asia.

There are no precise statistics, but experts chart a steady decline, blamed in part on fighting, but also on the more typical enemies of wildlife the world over -- hunting, deforestation, urbanisation, global warming and pollution.

"These situations have forced birds to change the routes that they have been using for generations," said Asad Lodhi, deputy wildlife conservationist in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

"Unrest is definitely a cause. Arms and ammunition bring destruction and these birds are so sensitive that they change their routes," Lodhi said.

Fakhar-i-Abbas, head of the Bioresource Research Centre in Islamabad, says that out of 650 bird species in Pakistan, about 275 are winter visitors.

"Complaints about a reduction in the number of these visitors started early in the first decade of this century," he told AFP, listing drought, flooding, fighting and pollution as possible causes.

But the lack of accurate statistics means that the reasons cannot be confirmed, he warned.

Hundreds of hunters prey on waterfowl during the hunting season from December to March, and kill a large number of birds, experts say.

The most notorious hunters in Pakistan are sheikhs and princes who flock to Pakistan each year to hunt the houbara bustard bird with falcons, arriving by private charter jet from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Their wildly extravagant parties are allotted private hunting grounds in Sindh, Baluchistan and Punjab provinces by the Pakistani government, which is scheduled to receive 222 million dollars in aid this financial year from Saudi Arabia.

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