Rare Northern Shrike-tits found in Arnhem Land
Department of Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport, 13 July 2009
Department of Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sport (NRETAS) scientists and Yirralka Rangers have found a new population of the threatened bird species, the Northern Shrike-tit, during a recent survey of Laynhapuy Homelands in North-east Arnhem Land.
NRETAS research scientist Dr Simon Ward said that it is an exciting find because these rare birds, listed nationally and in the Northern Territory as “vulnerable”, have never been recorded in the region before. “Northern Shrike-tits are small birds, thinly-spread and difficult to see, so we have only about 30 records for them, scattered across the Top End,” Dr Ward said. “Most recent sightings have been in the Katherine region, so it is excellent to find them in Northeast Arnhem Land.” The survey was part of a joint project between NRETAS and the Yirralka Rangers to survey the flora and fauna of the Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area.
“The project includes the training of local rangers in the techniques of animal survey and identification, overseen by Charles Darwin University’s School of Australian Indigenous Knowledge Systems,” said Dr Ward. “Traditional Owner for the area, Yumutjin Wunungmurra, said he hadn’t seen the birds before, but was happy they had been found on his country and it is important that they are protected.” Dr Ward said that more surveys are needed in the area to determine what habitats the Northern Shrike-tits are using and how widely spread they are in north-east Arnhem Land. “The Yirralka Rangers will be able to continue this work efficiently and effectively in the future,” he said. “In addition to the Northern Shrike-tits, new records were found for several other species, especially reptiles, only found in North-east Arnhem Land. “There has been little survey effort in the region since the American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land 60 years ago, so these are important new records.”
New “bald” bulbul species discovered in Laos
Wildlife Conservation Society, 29 July 2009
An odd songbird with a bald head living in a rugged region in Laos has been discovered by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Melbourne, as part of a project funded and managed by the mining company MMG (Minerals and Metals Group) that operates the Sepon copper and gold project in the region. Dubbed the “Bare-faced Bulbul” because of the lack of feathers on its face and part of its head, it is the only example of a bald songbird in mainland Asia according to scientists. It is the first new species of bulbul - a family of about 130 species - described in Asia in over 100 years.
A description of the new species is published in the July issue of the Oriental Bird Club’s journal Forktail. Authors include Iain Woxvold of the University of Melbourne, along with Wildlife Conservation Society researchers Will Duckworth and Rob Timmins.
“It’s always exciting to discover a new species, but this one is especially unique because it is the only bald songbird in Asia,” said Colin Poole, director of Asia programs for the Wildlife Conservation Society. “The discovery also underscores how much there is still to learn from wild places around the world.” “I am proud to report that news of this remarkable ornithological discovery, like that of the Calayan Rail in 2004, was made public through the pages of the
Oriental Bird Club’s scientific journal Forktail,” commented Brian Sykes,Chairman of OBC.
The thrush-sized bird is greenish-olive with a light-colored breast, a distinctive featherless, pink face with bluish skin around the eye extending to the bill and a narrow line of hair-like feathers down the centre of the crown. The bird seems to be primarily tree-dwelling and was found in an area of sparse forest on rugged limestone karsts - a little-visited habitat known for unusual wildlife discoveries.
“Its apparent restriction to rather inhospitable habitat helps to explain why such an extraordinary bird with conspicuous habits and a distinctive call has remained unnoticed for so long,” said Iain Woxvold of the University of Melbourne. Fortunately much of the bird’s presumed habitat falls within legally protected areas in Laos. However, quarrying of limestone looms as a potential threat to wildlife in this area, along with habitat conversion for agriculture. In 2002 in this same area, Rob Timmins of WCS described the kha-nyou, a newly discovered species of rodent so unusual it represented the lone surviving member of an otherwise extinct genus. Three years earlier he described a unique striped rabbit in the region also new to science.
The full paper describing the Bald-faced Bulbul: An unusual new bulbul (Passeriformes: Pycnonotidae) from the Limestone karst of Lao PDR by I. A. Woxvold, J. W. Duckworth and R. J. Timmins is available upon request.
The Wildlife Conservation Society saves wildlife and wild places worldwide. We do so through science, global conservation, education and the management of the world’s largest system of urban wildlife parks, led by the flagship Bronx Zoo. Together these activities change attitudes towards nature and help people imagine wildlife and humans living in harmony. WCS is committed to this mission because it is essential to the integrity of life on Earth. Visit: www.wcs.org
The Oriental Bird Club is a UK-registered volunteer-run charity that aims to promote an interest in the birds of the Oriental Region and promote their conservation. More at: www.orientalbirdclub.org
Citizen scientists hit 1 million species!
Birdlife South Africa, 30 June 2009
Just two years ago, an exciting project was initiated to map the distribution of birds in Southern Africa using the efforts of keen civil society volunteers. Early on the morning of Monday 29 June, the millionth record was submitted to the project!
Cape Town, 1 July 2009: Southern Africa’s bird-watchers are making a massive contribution to one of the country’s most important biodiversity research projects. Ornithologists and conservationists are tapping into the skills and enthusiasm of Southern Africa’s bird-watchers to collect information about the distribution and relative abundance of its 850 or so bird species.
“The Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2 (SABAP2) builds on the success of SABAP1, which was undertaken from 1987 to 1991″, says Doug Harebottle, the manager of SABAP2. “There’s an army of enthusiastic bird-watchers out there, eager to add value to their bird-watching”, he added.
The dedication of 554 bird-watchers is certainly paying off. At about 07h23 on Monday 29 June, the one millionth bird observation was submitted to the project. Professor Les Underhill, Director of the Animal Demography Unit (ADU) at the University of Cape Town which is coordinating the project, said “The 30th June 2009 was the second anniversary of the project, with 780,000 of the million records being submitted in the past 12 months”.
SABAP2 is a partnership between the University of Cape Town’s Animal Demography Unit (ADU), the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), and BirdLife South Africa. The ADU provides the technical skills, SANBI provides the financial resources and BirdLife South Africa’s members are the ‘citizen scientists’ who are in the field collecting the data.
SABAP2 uses innovative technologies, where the submission of bird records, the verification of the data, and the subsequent preliminary analyses are all electronic. As a result, the records on the project website (www.sabap2.org) are updated every three hours. This allows the project progress to be monitored and, for example, see how the jigsaw puzzle of pentads (9 x 9 km grid cells) are filled, as atlasers travel to farflung reaches of the country to fulfil their bird-watching passion. So far, 4681 or 27% of the country’s pentads have been atlased at least once.
The project’s methods are very simple. “One essentially completes a list of the birds seen in the pentad over a minimum of two hours, visiting all the different habitats during that time,” said Doug Harebottle. “The listing of the birds in the order in which they were observed allows for a crude estimation of abundance, as common species would generally be recorded first”, he explained. The data are then entered into specially developed software, and submitted to the ADU electronically. Dr Phoebe Barnard at SANBI, chair of the project’s steering committee, says “The project has several aims, with one of the most important being to map over a fine scale the distribution of South Africa’s birds”. “This information will allow us to make comparisons over time, especially to determine climate change effects on bird distributions and to allow for fine-scale conservation planning. A total of 125 of our birds are threatened and listed in the Red Data Book, so it is also important to monitor changes
in their distribution and numbers”. We need to know whether their numbers and ranges continue to decline, and whether or not our conservation interventions are effective.
“BirdLife South Africa’s members are very involved in this project”, says Mark Anderson, Executive Director of BirdLife South Africa. “Some of our members have become very passionate about SABAP2 and their contributions to the project and ultimately to bird conservation are invaluable. It would be impossible to employ professional ornithologists to achieve the results of these ‘citizen scientists’.
Over the past few days, atlasers eagerly kept their eyes on the website, waiting to watch the meter tick over to the one millionth bird. Finally it did. The millionth record was recorded by atlaser Christopher Patton, that of a White-backed Vulture, ironically a species predicted to be negatively affected by climate and land-use change.
The project coordinators believe that it will be possible to reach two million birds by 30 June 2009.
Pacific island nations drive landmark fisheries closure
Birdlife South Africa, 25 May 2009
The collapse or near-collapse of many of the world’s most economically-important tuna stocks prompted the establishment of RFMOs (Regional Fisheries Management Organisations). These are supposed to set quotas based on scientific evidence to ensure recovery and sustainable harvesting. However, most RFMOs have become mired in political battles, and the tuna fleets continue to clear the seas as fast as possible. South Africa is a member of several RFMOs, including ICCAT (Atlantic Ocean) and CCAMLR (Southern Ocean).
Marine protected areas have been recognised internationally as a powerful means of protecting ecosystems and boosting fish stocks. Fish populations recover in these no-take zones, and these re-stock surrounding areas, thus benefiting fishermen and conservation. Countries can establish MPAs in their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which extend out to 200 nautical miles. However, there are virtually none in the open ocean because this requires agreement from many nations.
South Africa is in the process of establishing one of the world’s largest MPAs, in our territorial waters around Marion and Prince Edward islands. Mark Anderson, Executive Director of BirdLife South Africa said “This will become one of just a handful of MPAs in the Southern Ocean. BirdLife South Africa commends government for this visionary action and believes that seabirds and other marine life will benefit significantly”.
BirdLife South Africa endorses the ecosystem approach to fisheries and has worked since 2006 to ensure that seabird bycatch from tuna longliners is minimized. Last year, with BirdLife South Africa’s Albatross Task Force involvement, the foreign-flagged longliners in South Africa reported an 85% reduction in seabird bycatch. BirdLife International’s Global Seabird Programme (GSP) has been working with RFMOs since 2004 to ensure that seabird bycatch, which is responsible for an estimated 300,000 accidental deaths globally each year, is addressed.
At a commission meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in Korea last month, 17 Pacific island nations brought forward an ambitious resolution - to close 20 million square miles of ocean to tuna purse-seine fishing. Some powerful fishing nations strongly opposed this measure.
However, the islanders had an ace up their sleeves. They pointed out that much of the proposed closed area was within their combined EEZs, and they were no longer issuing permits to fish there anyway. It was clear that the closed area would mostly clear out pirate fishing vessels. Eventually the opposition capitulated, and the resolution was passed.
Andrew Wright, Executive Director of WCPFC, commented “the landmark Pacific islander decision to restrict tuna fishing stands out because [the other four global tuna] commissions have a history of avoiding decisions that have a real and measurable impact on … threatened stocks”.
“This resolution sets a global precedent - which is exactly what irresponsible fishing nations didn’t want. BirdLife International will be encouraging other RFMOs to follow suite.” said Dr Ross Wanless, Africa Coordinator for the GSP and the head of BirdLife South Africa’s Seabird Division. “A major obstacle is the consensus decision-making rule, which means that a single rogue nation can block a good resolution that everyone else agrees to. It cripples RFMOs. It’s depressing when countries oppose measures such as closed areas, which benefit everyone by allowing stocks to recover without reducing effort” he continued. South Africa has a good record of supporting RFMO decisions.
South Africa’s bustards are in trouble
Birdlife South Africa, 25 May 2009
South Africa’s bustards are in trouble, with six of the country’s ten species listed in the South African Red Data Book. “They are threatened by a variety of factors”, says Mark Anderson, Executive Director of BirdLife South Africa “…with some of the most important threats being habitat destruction and power-line mortalities”.
BirdLife South Africa is concerned about the precarious conservation status of the country’s bustards and korhaans. At a workshop in Johannesburg in May, the status, threats and necessary conservation measures relevant to these birds were discussed by the country’s bustard experts.
Populations of Ludwig’s Bustard and Denham’s Bustard are probably in decline due to a single mortality factor, collisions with the cables of power-lines. “These birds fly in groups during low light conditions and due to their limited manoeuvrability are not able to avoid electricity cables in their flight path”, says Jon Smallie, Manager of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s (EWT) Wildlife Energy Interaction Group (WEIG) and the Eskom-EWT Strategic Partnership. Studies by Mark Anderson and the University of Cape Town’s Dr Andrew Jenkins, have found that, on average across six patrolled sites, about one Ludwig’s Bustard collides per kilometre of power-line per year at these sites. There are approximately 16,000 km of transmission (>132000volts) power-lines criss-crossing the Karoo indicating the potential severity of this problem. The Eskom-EWT Partnership’s Central Incident Register documents no less than 265 confirmed Ludwig’s Bustard mortalities from power-lines. In response, Eskom is currently funding research into bustard collision rates, movement patterns and visual acuity - all critical aspects if we are to mitigate this threat. According to David Allan, ornithologist at the Durban Natural Science Museum and a world authority on the biology of bustards, “The global population of Ludwig’s Bustard has been estimated to only number between 56,000 and 81,000 individuals. The thought that we could be potentially losing them at a rate of over 10,000 birds killed annually by this factor alone is terrifying”.
The Blue Korhaan, which mainly inhabits grasslands in the central and eastern regions of South Africa, is severely threatened by afforestation, crop farming, overgrazing, burning, urbanization and mining. Analyses of information from the Coordinated Avifaunal Roadcount Project (CAR) suggest that this korhaan has “…declined in both numbers and range during recent years”, stated Donella Young, the CAR coordinator at the University of Cape Town’s Animal Demography Unit. The Blue Korhaan is only found in South Africa and marginally in western Lesotho, so we have an important obligation to protect this localized species.
The White-bellied Korhaan, another species that is restricted to the grasslands and open thornveld, is listed as *Vulnerable* in the South African red data book. It prefers tall, undisturbed grassland, and is thus threatened by human population pressure and inappropriate farm management. The White-bellied Korhaan is also found in central, west and east Africa, but there is some debate about whether the South African population is a separate species (Barrow’s Korhaan). If genetically distinct, there is even more pressure on South African conservationists to attend to the numerous threats which are impacting on this threatened species.
It was decided at the bustard workshop, which was made possible through funding from E. Oppenheimer & Son, that a Bustard Working Group would be formed under the auspices of BirdLife South Africa. The group will have several aims, but will focus, at least initially, on disseminating information about bustards to the relevant authorities and stakeholders, prioritizing research needs, and determining urgent conservation interventions.
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