Which animals were helped by cites?

For the last two weeks representatives from 178 countries have been meeting in Thailand to talk about endangered species.

The CITES conference has been described as a big step towards protecting the thousands of endangered animals and plants destroyed every year for money.

But whilst some animals, like the African elephant, were given protection, others lost out.

Amidst the great celebrations of a historic moment in the history of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), when regulations on the trading of several shark species were upheld, one man stood looking a little forlorn.

170 governments have turned to CITES to ensure the legal, sustainable and traceable trade in their precious timber and forest products, with the Conference unanimously bringing hundreds of new timber species under CITES controls, along with a number of tortoises and turtles and a wide range of other plant and animal species.  Five shark species and manta rays were also brought under CITES controls following a vote.

The members States declared the 3rd of March as the World Wildlife Day and accepted South Africa’s invitation to host the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to be held in 2016.

The CITES Secretary-General, John E. Scanlon, said: “This is a big day for CITES and for the world’s wildlife.  It takes enormous effort to negotiate treaties and then make them work.  The international community has today decided to make best use of this pragmatic and effective agreement to help it along the path to sustainability in our oceans and forests". 

CITES Parties have heeded the call from Rio+20 and recognized the important role of CITES as an international agreement that stands at the intersection between trade, the environment and development.

For Shingo Ota, the spokesman for Japan's negotiating team in the conference hall, the debate and the result made it an unhappy day.

"It was not so pleasant to listen to all the clapping and sometimes screaming on the floor," he told me.

The upgrading of oceanic whitetip, porbeagle and hammerheads toCites Appendix 2 - mandating trade licenses and quotas - would not stop fishermen from catching these species, he said.

"Hammerheads are caught by small-scale fishermen - they don't care about Cites, the fins may not be exported now because of Cites listing but hammerheads will continue to die."

From CBBC News

BBC News

Cites-http://www.cites.org/eng/news/pr/2013/20130314_cop16.php

Earth Hour- 2013

Uniting people to protect the planet

The world is using the equivalent of one and a half planets to support life on Earth. WWF's Earth Hour was born out of a hope that this could change.

At 8.30pm on 23 March hundreds of millions of people will turn off their lights for one hour, on the same night, all across the world in a huge, symbolic show of support.

It is a unique annual phenomenon that focuses the world’s attention onour amazing planet, and how we need to protect it.

Bee deaths: EU delays action on pesticides ban

EU nations have been unable to reach agreement on proposals to ban the use of three pesticides that have been linked to the decline of bees.

A decline in bee numbers has been linked by the EU to use of some pesticides

The European Commission had called for a two-year EU-wide moratorium, but a number of nations opposed the plans.

A recent report by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) concluded that the pesticides posed a "high acute risk" to pollinators, including honeybees.

The commission is expected to redraft its proposals ahead of another vote.

Member states were unable to reach a qualified majority in order for the proposals to be adopted.

The news of the stalemate has angered groups that had been campaigning in favour of the ban.

Unknown consequences

A spokeswoman for Defra, the UK's environment department, said 14 out of the 27 EU nations - including the UK and Germany - had not supported the commission's proposals as they currently stood.

n a YouGov poll commissioned by the campaign network, 71% of almost 2,000 people questioned in the UK supported the commission's proposals to impose the moratorium on the insecticides.

Avaaz said that it, along with other groups, would be taking legal advice as to whether the outcome of the vote could be challenged in the courts.

The chemicals in question - imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianindin - belong to a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids.

The insecticides work by affecting the central nervous system of insects, causing paralysis and death.

From BBC News- Environment

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China pulls nearly 6,000 dead pigs from Shanghai river

The number of dead pigs found floating in a river flowing into Shanghai has reached nearly 6000.

The number of dead pigs found floating in Shanghai's main river has risen to almost 6,000.

The city authorities, still investigating where they have come from, say a number of the carcasses have tested positive for a common pig virus.

The Shanghai municipal government said in an online announcement that 5,916 swine carcasses had been retrieved from Huangpu River by 3pm Tuesday, but added that municipal water remains safe.

The surge in the dumping of dead pigs - believed to be from pig farms in the upstream Jiaxing area in the neighbouring Zhejiang province - has followed police campaigns to curb the illicit trade of pork products harvested from diseased pigs.

Shanghai authorities said the city has taken proper measures to safely dispose of the pig carcasses and that the city's water plants are stepping up efforts to disinfect public water and testing for six common swine viruses.

The Shanghai government reported no major swine epidemic, widespread pig deaths or dumping of pigs within the city boundaries of Shanghai.

The state-run China News news agency said Monday that Zhejiang province had reported no swine epidemic but that a provincial agriculture official blamed cold weather for the deaths of the pigs.

The official, who was identified only by his family name Gu, told China News that the practice of dumping dead pigs into rivers lingers among some pig farmers in the city of Jiaxing.

From BBc News and News.com.au

Deadly poison threat to tigers

Poison is emerging as the latest and most dangerous threat to the survival of the last remaining wild tigers in Thailand.

OUTRAGEOUS!

Poachers targeting tigers for their valuable skins and body parts are turning to insecticide as an easy way to kill the iconic animals.

In what's regarded as Thailand's most important tiger sanctuary, wildlife rangers report mounting evidence of gangs setting traps with fresh meat, laced with poison, as bait.

In one particularly shocking incident, two tiger cubs were found close to death after eating the bait. By the time they had been discovered, it was too late to save them.

Rangers described the frustration of finding the cubs and seeing them in extreme pain but too far gone to be revived.

The two tiny animals had crawled into the bush to die so the poachers had failed to notice them. But they had evidently located the cubs' mother and made off with her body because no trace was seen of her.

For the rangers, it was a painful loss. As the superintendent of the sanctuary, Sompoch Maneerat, put it: "any time we see even one tiger killed, I feel a pain in my heart".

It really is painful to come across these acts against unprotected endangered species  living in the wild.

Fragile stronghold

Tigers are vulnerable because their numbers are already desperately low. In the Huai Kha Khang sanctuary, only 38 have been definitively identified, with statistical models suggesting that the actual total might be 53-65.

In the country as a whole, the best estimate is that no more than 200 tigers remain in the wild - a massive decline in the space of a few decades.

Huai Kha Khang is seen as the most viable tiger stronghold but even here their survival is highly fragile.

With prices soaring for the tigers' skins, genitals, bones and teeth, poaching gangs have become increasingly aggressive and well-organised, even mounting intelligence-gathering operations against the rangers to understand their patrol patterns.

From BBC Environment

Seabirds washed up covered in oil on Yorkshire coast

Oil washed up along on North Yorkshire beaches has affected up to 50 seabirds, say Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.

The oil began to build up on Sunday afternoon along a 15-mile stretch of coastline.

A clean-up operation is being carried out and beach users have been advised to take care.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust say the largest reports of oiled birds have come from Scarborough - and warns that this kind of substance can be very dangerous for the animals.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust says guillemots and black-headed gulls have been hit by the spill.

Andy Skelton, Scarborough Borough Council's Head of Environmental Services said:

"We are currently in the process of clean up operations on a 15 mile stretch of our coastline between Scarborough and Speeton after deposits of oil were washed up onto beaches late yesterday afternoon and overnight.

"At this time, it is not known where the oil has come from but the strong easterly winds and heavy sea conditions are thought to have assisted the oil's journey to the shoreline.

"The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has been trying to determine the source of the pollution, including conducting a surveillance flight, and together with the Environment Agency, is arranging for samples of the substance to be tested.

It's not known for sure yet what caused the oil spill.

From CBBC and Hull Daily Mail

Traffic noise driving songbirds to the limit in cities

The rising level of noise in urban areas may be preventing some species of songbirds from setting up home in developed areas, a study has concluded.

Canadian researchers found that noisy surroundings masked the lower frequencies of bird songs, affecting the way some species communicated.

Unable to hear all elements of a song, females could perceive singing males as ill-suited mates, they added.

The findings have been published in the Global Change Biology journal.

"There has been a growing interest in preserving or increasing the biodiversity of songbirds in urban areas," explained co-author Darren Proppe.

"At the same time we know that these areas have pretty high levels of anthropogenic noise.

Dr Proppe, now based at Calvin College, US, but carried out the study while based at the University of Alberta, added: "We sometimes find areas within cities that have what seems like suitable habitat, yet we get lower diversity (of songbirds).

"So we wanted to investigate the hypothesis that there was link between bird diversity and noise levels."

City bird limits

In order to do this, the team surveyed species at 113 sites in natural areas within the city of Edmonton.

"What we found was that the number of species we had at each location tended to be lower when noise levels were higher," Dr Proppe observed.

"The decrease in species richness was one of the study's major findings."

He said that the study also focused on seven species that did inhabit the area to see if their abundance was affected as the urban noise increased.

The species that were selected met a number of criteria, including: relatively common across the study area; forest or forest-edge dwelling; some elements of the species' songs overlapped by the dominant frequencies of road noise.

"What we found is that three of the species did have lower abundances in locations that were noisier," Dr Proppe explained.

He added that the team did find that the presence of lower frequency elements in a song was predictive of whether a species' abundance would be affected by noise.

"This potentially could be down to the fact that those lower frequencies could be overlapped by the dominant frequencies of road noise, which also tend to be fairly low, resulting in a masking of communication between birds.

"We certainly know that birdsong and the perception of songs by females for mate selection, so in the paper we did speculate that maybe this was a mechanism these observed declines were occurring."

He suggested that females may perceive the song as abnormal if they could not hear the lower frequencies and, over a period of time, this could have a potential impact on the abundance of the species as if adults were not pairing and mating then the number of offspring would decrease as a result.

From BBC News- Environment

EU ban on animal tested cosmetics

A ban on selling cosmetics that have been tested on animals comes into force throughout the European Union today.

It comes after decades of protests against using animals to test the safety of our toiletries.

Before these products hit the shelves they have to be tested to make sure they're safe and sometimes this involves using animals.

But animal rights campaigners say tests - like rubbing chemicals into the skins of rabbits and mice - are cruel.

Many companies had already stopped testing cosmetics on animals - such tests were was banned from happening in the EU in 2009.

But in other countries like China animals are still used.

Today's ban means that if the product has been tested on an animal anywhere in the world, it can't be sold in the EU.

Find out more: Why does animal testing happen?

From CBBC News

Good news for the Iberian Lynx

The Iberian Lynx conservation efforts are giving very good results last year. 60 cubs were born in five breeding facilities in Spain and Portugal this spring, and 44 are still alive. This is the highest number of gestated pups from the beginning of the 'ex-situ' breeding program and gives a total of 115 cubs since 2005.

Currently, the total 'ex-situ' population is 122 individuals (62 males and 60 females), 33 from the wild and 89 born in captivity (data from Iberian Lynx ex-situ conservation programme).

Since the beginning of the reintroductions in 2009, more than 30 lynx have been released in two areas of Andalucia (Spain), and 20 are still alive. One was photographed in April in Castilla la Mancha, far north from the distribution area. And one female, born in captivity and then reintroduced, gave birth this spring to four cubs, all of them still alive after the most critical phase of mortality. 

From the 97 individuals censused in 2001, the estimated population in 2011 was 326 (Government of Andalusia). This is very good news for the most endangered cat in the world!

From Rewilding Europe

Water vole sanctuary created in Bridport

A water vole sanctuary is being built on a Dorset river.

Across the country the population of water voles has dropped from 1.2m to 400,000 in 10 years

A pond is being restored and an island created on the River Brit at Bridport by the Environment Agency to give the endangered mammals a refuge.

The Environment Agency said the protected animal was "fast disappearing" due to habitat loss and predators.

The water vole sanctuary at Allington Pond is expected to take around a week to complete.

The agency said the work would provide a valuable habitat for the water voles to take cover.

Once a common sight in the county, the species is now only found in a "tiny fraction" of rivers and streams, the agency said.

The UK's water vole population has dropped 90% since the late 1980s, making it the UK's fastest declining mammal.
From BBC News