Eco-viaducts are built to facilitate movements of wildlife, but do they work?

A black giant squirrel utilising a wildlife crossing beneath a viaduct.

Banded leaf monkeys photographed under a viaduct – Gopalasamy Reuben Clements

Eco-viaducts are built to facilitate movements of wildlife, but do they work as such? With that question in mind, biologist Dr Gopalasamy Reuben Clements embarked on a research with the Wildlife and National Parks Department.

Between 2011 and 2013, he monitored animal movements through camera traps at 10 viaducts each at the Aring-Tasik Kenyir road in Terengganu and at the Gerik-Kupang road which traverses the Bintang Hijau Range in Perak and Kedah. (Only three of the viaducts were specifically built for animal crossings; the rest are normal viaducts which can also function as such because of the passageway underneath.)

Gopalasamy found the animal crossings being used by almost half the mammal species recorded in nearby forests.

“However, this does not mean that the viaducts are effective crossing structures because some species were recorded just once under the viaduct during our entire study. Also, the same number of species may be crossing the road without the viaduct,” says the associate professor at Kenyir Research Institute in Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. Read more

Source: thestar.com.my

World Rhino Day 2014

Birthday package of snake and toads

IPOH: The Perak Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) has seized a “birthday present” containing a viper, 12 toads and various insects at the post office here.

State Perhilitan director Fakhrul Hatta Musa said the gift-wrapped package with words “Happy Birthday” and Selamat Hari Jadi written all around it had three separate transparent plastic containers to keep the animals and bugs.

“The Malaysian Quarantine Inspection Services Department uncovered the animals with a scanner during a routine check at the post office today (Friday) at about 10.30am.

“We discovered that the animals were kept inside the supposed birthday present,” he told a press conference here yesterday.

He said the package, which had been shipped from Taiwan, arrived at the post office on Thursday. Two of the transparent containers for the reptile and amphibians had holes poked in them to allow air in. “We believe that the animals were meant to be kept as pets.

The other box contained the insects which are believed to be used as food for the animals. “We are not sure about the market value for these animals but it is wrong to smuggle them in without permits from the authorities,” he said, declining to reveal the address of the recipient.

Fakhrul Hatta added that they would investigate the matter with other agencies. “The birthday box is a new method used by smugglers to confuse us. “This is the first time we encountered such modus operandi,” he said.

He said anyone found guilty of importing or exporting such animals can be fined a maximum of RM100,000 for each animal and not more than RM1mil on aggregate. They could also face a maximum jail term of seven years together with the fine, he added.

Source: thestar.com.my

No place to hide for Africa's pangolins amid China buying spree

A giant pangolin walks in the woods in Lope National Park in Gabon in this picture provided by Panthera September 14, 2013.
CREDIT: REUTERS/LAILA BAHAA-EL-DIN/PANTHERA/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS

Slaughtered pangolins are seen on the ground after they were seized by the authority, at an underground garage in Guangzhou, Guangdong province September 11, 2014.
CREDIT: REUTERS/STRINGER

(Reuters) - Alongside dirt roads twisting through the dense tropical forests of Gabon, the scaly bodies of lifeless long-snouted pangolins dangle from sticks stuck in the ground by hunters.

The pangolin, a mammal that looks like an anteater but has the tough scales of a crocodile, has long been prized in central Africa as a bushmeat delicacy.

But growing demand for it from Asia, where pangolin scales are used in Chinese medicine to help women lactate and to cure skin disorders, now threatens to hasten its demise and rob African countries of a precious resource.

Conservationists say the demand boom is due to declining wild populations in Asia as well as high numbers of Chinese workers in Africa's resource and timber sectors, located in remote regions of the continent's interior.

The example of Africa's elephants, whose numbers have been slashed by demand from Asia for their ivory, have prompted conservations to mobilize to protect the pangolins.

"It's always been ivory but the new pressure is on the pangolin," said Lee White, the British-born head of Gabon's national parks agency, which runs the 13 national parks covering just over a tenth of the country's territory.

"We're looking out for workers here putting out orders for pangolin and we've had to train sniffer dogs at the ports." Read more

Source: http://uk.reuters.com

Malayan tiger now critically endangered, numbering as few as 250

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia's national animal, the Malayan tiger, is being being pushed to the point of extinction.

Current estimates have pegged Malaysia's tiger population at as little as 250 to 340 tigers in Peninsular forests, nearly half of the previous estimate of 500 tigers.

"Despite all efforts, including the strengthening of legislation and increased patrolling, tiger conservation across the vast tropical forest landscape continue to face challenges."

"Poaching for illegal commercial trade is the greatest and most urgent threat to tigers in Malaysia, followed by loss and fragmentation of forests," said a joint statement by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (Mycat).

It was added that the new estimates were made from studies conducted between 2010 to 2013 using camera traps under a standardised protocol at seven sites across three major tiger landscapes in Peninsular Malaysia.

Though it said that more sites needed to be surveyed to determine a more robust tiger population estimate here, it added that the Malayan tiger now met the IUCN Red List criteria of "Critically Endangered".

It previously classified as "Endangered" in 2008.

Previous moves to increase Malaysia's tiger population to 1,000 by 2020, such as specified in the National Tiger Conservation Action Plan, were now considered "unachievable".

Immediate tiger conservation efforts are being explored, including the setting up of tiger patrol units in the Belum-Temengor, Taman Negara and Endau-Rompin tiger priority areas.

Also included were a comprehensive national Tiger Survey in the Peninsular's remaining major forest landscape, and the strengthening of existing forest and tiger conservation mechanisms.

It was added that though federal funding and donations from Mycat's NGO donors had helped thus far, more resources were needed.

There are no Malayan tigers in Borneo.

According to the Mycat website, tiger populations a century ago measured about 100,000 worldwide, declining to about less than 3,200 today. 

Sorce: thestar.com.my

Pangolins being eaten to extinction, conservationists warn

Scaly anteaters are now the most illegally-traded mammal in the world, with all eight species listed as threatened

An African white-bellied pangolin – poachers are turning to African pangolins because Asian populations have been denuded. Photograph: IUCN/ZSL

Pangolins are being "eaten to extinction" due to a demand for their meat at banquets in China and Vietnam and their scales for use in Chinese medicine, conservationists have warned.

In an update last week to the authoritative Red List of endangered animals, all eight species of the scaly anteaters were upgraded to threatened status.

Resembling a pine cone on legs, they are the world's only scaly mammal, using their scales for armour to protect against predators and their long, sticky tongues to catch prey.

According to experts at the Zoological Society of London, the demand for the animals in Asia has been so great that poachers are now turning to Africa, where four of the species are found. Conservationists say there is already evidence of an underground, intercontinental trade in pangolins between Africa and Asia.

More than a million are believed to have been illegally caught in the wild over the last decade globally, giving them the unenviable record of being the most illegally-traded mammal in the world. Read more ...

Source: theguardian.com

457 dead pangolins found in 4 fridges in China

PHOTO: NEWS.QQ.COM

Guangdong police received a report this week of 457 dead pangolins, or scaly anteaters, that were found in Shijing Town.
A total of four large fridges full of pangolin bodies were seized and four suspects were arrested, according to Shanghaiist via Tencent News.
All the carcasses were placed in a morbid spread on the ground of a room, with the largest weighing more than 20 pounds.
A pangolin is a rare, scale-covered mammal whose armour is believed to cure cancer and asthma, as well as other ailments in traditional Chinese medicine. Read more

Source: STOMP