Seeing Through Tortoiseshell Glasses

May 23, 2014May 23, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Trade in tortoiseshell – or more properly, sea turtle shell – was banned in 1977 under the conservation treaty known as CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Beloved for thousands of years as a natural thermoplastic for everything from hair combs to furniture inlay, turtle shell in its endless varieties is beautiful, versatile, and feels warm and smooth against the skin.

I found a 2010 news item on a specialty manufacturer of tortoiseshell eyeglasses. The article claims that the fourth-generation shop uses only legal turtle shell. The current web site itself makes no such claim, even if the company is likely very careful to use legal shells. A pair of custom-made eyeglasses, handmade from turtle shell, can cost up to USD 39,000.*

Unfortunately, the sea turtles of the world don’t reproduce quickly enough and in enough numbers to keep up with the ongoing demand for their shells. Their numbers are also diminished by the usual suspects when it comes to marine life threats: habitat loss, fishing and pollution. Six of the seven sea turtle species are endangered and protected under international agreements.

Five kinds of tortoise shell (1767)
Source: Leitner/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Museum für Naturkunde

When the trade ban began in 1977, there were hundreds of metric tons of turtle shell already harvested and stockpiled for further manufacture and sale. Creating artefacts from real turtle shell requires a high degree of artisanal skill. Much like the stockpiles of banned ivory, the turtle shell stocks continue to be used for manufacture and sale, usually with the caveat that the shell in question is from turtles that were harvested ‘pre-ban’.

There are countless good alternatives to using turtle shell, from horn to various plastics. Meanwhile, illegal harvesting and trade continues because the demand remains.

Artist: Mao Fujimoto via spoon-tamago

Like any number of other animal parts increasingly valued as the animals themselves go extinct, as long as tortoiseshell is a product highly prized for exclusivity, there will be someone supplying that demand. Vintage tortoiseshell eyeglass frames can be found online, usually starting at well over USD 1000 for a pair.

Seeing the world through genuine tortoiseshell glasses, for those who desire them and wear them, strikes me as a variation on the old idiom of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Ever the optimist, the wearer sees a world with him or herself at the happy center, where modern considerations take a backseat to outdated tradition; a place in which the fulfillment of their desires is tantamount and entirely worth endangering some of the most ancient creatures on the planet.

It’s World Turtle Day.

Photo: Roger Hooper/WWF

Here’s a good, concise post on turtles around the world, and here’s a look at turtle shell trade from the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

*It’s only fair to note that the eyeglass company states that it donates 1-2% of its profits to turtle conservation projects.

Source: WWF

Snake Compass

April 18, 2014April 18, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Python skeleton
Source: Worrapol Koranuntachai /123rf

Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) are a successful invasive species in Florida that have been profiting from local wildlife and few natural predators. Native to Southeast Asia and listed by the IUCN as vulnerable or endangered in their original habitats, abandoned or escaped pythons have been thriving in the Florida Everglades, to the dismay of conservationists trying to protect indigenous species there. Not much is known about how the snakes move or take up a new residence.

As it turns out, pythons have a distinct sense of direction and territory when it comes to their habitat. A recent study published by the Royal Society journal Biology Letters suggests that pythons use a homing instinct to venture out from their usual territory and then find their way back.

A research team tracked several pythons – some of them trapped and removed miles away from their territories, some left in their adopted areas – to see whether the snakes that had been removed would be able to find their way home.

Source: Deimos in Flames / Deviantart

And indeed, all the relocated snakes demonstrated great determination to return to where they’d been captured in the first place. Most of them succeeded in finding their way back. The snakes which had been tagged and released without relocation moved around within a much more limited area, usually returning to their own territory.

The snakes clearly have both a ‘map sense’, which tells them where they are in relation to ‘home’, and a ‘compass sense’, which tells them in which direction to guide their movement. And it’s likely that this ability isn’t limited to the Burmese python – snake navigational abilities just haven’t yet been widely studied across many species.

According to this article, researchers say the internal python map “could be magnetic, like sea turtles, while the compass could be guided by the stars, olfactory (smell) cues, or by polarised sunlight – all of which have been shown to be used by reptiles.” Gaining knowledge of how snakes travel and navigate should prove useful in controlling their spread.

What I find interesting is how well the Burmese python has adjusted its internal compass to an entirely new corner of the planet from where it evolved. Having said that, another study published late last year suggests that Burmese pythons are among the most rapidly evolving vertebrates in the world.

How did the Burmese python learn to redefine home so quickly?

Source: gortan123/123rf

Bumblebee Stumble

April 7, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

A bumblebee climbs out of a roadside nest.
Photo: PK Read

I was running a couple of days ago when I heard the thunderous buzzing of a bumblebee. A big fellow bobbed past my head and took a sudden dive, disappearing into the roadside greenery. I waited for a moment, and the bumblebee (or one of its relations) came clambering back out of a hole.

Bumbleebees build nests rather than bee hives; they are unlike honeybees in other ways, as well. The nests usually contain fewer than 200 individuals rather than the thousands of bees that populate a hive, and among bumblebees, only the queen survives the winter in her next, living off the contents of tiny honey pots.

What bumblebees share with honeybees, however, is that they are under threat from habitat loss, climate change, intensification of agriculture, pesticides, and illness.

It looks like some of the viruses that have been affecting honeybees may be making the jump to bumblebees, as well.

Illustration of Queen/worker Short-haired bumblebee
Image: Geoff Allen / Short-haired Bumblebee Project

There are over 250 known species of the Bombus genus, family Apidae, mostly native to the northern hemisphere.

An estimated quarter of Europe’s bumblebees are now at risk of extinction – the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed 16 of Europe’s 68 bumblebee species as at risk. Three of Europe’s five most important insect pollinators are bumblebees species.

Bumblebees can nest in a variety of places, from porches to house wall cavities, but bumblebees rarely sting unless threatened, and won’t damage structures.

For the moment, our area still seems to have a thriving number of bumblebees. At any rate, enough of them that they bumble into me on walks and runs.

Bumblebee lifecycle
Source: Bumblebee.org

Life Pods

April 3, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Photo: Samoo

The plan for the enclosed ecosystems of the South Korean National Research Center for Endangered Species is to breed and raise endangered birds for release into the wild. Further biodomes will house centres for other endangered indigenous animal species such as toads, tortoises, and foxes.

The domes look intriguing, the planners have high conservationist goals, and they might just succeed in drawing tourists to Yeongyang-gun, a semi-wild areas in one of the most densely populated regions in the world.

According to Wikipedia, the area is is barely cultivable due to its steep mountain ravines, is home to the Yeongyang Chili Pepper Experimental Station (which sounds like a mecca for diners of a certain bent), and is a center of literature.

Construction is due to begin in December 2014, the opening is planned for 2016. The project was designed by Samoo, and foresees visitor centres as well as research areas.

I’m not sure whether these biodomes, a major conservation project planned for a remote area of South Korea, won’t end up as the newest version of a high-tech zoo, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less valuable if they end up saving species.

Photo: Samoo

Serendipitous Find

March 27, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Loggerhead turtle eggs.
Photo: Palm Beach Post

It’s one of those stories which, if it were written in a story, would be labeled implausible.

An amateur fossil collector is walking along the banks of a river when he sees a strange-looking stone sticking out of the mud. He bends down to have a closer look, and realises that the stone is, in fact, a bone. Thinking it might be a dinosaur fossil, he takes it to a museum.

The curator at that museum also happens to be someone who has seen another fossil that looked similar at another museum, a fossil that had been found 163 years earlier, origin unknown. He thought it might be interesting to compare the two.

And as it turned out, the two fossils did indeed have something in common: They were two halves of the very same bone.

More evidence that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Ancient sea turtle bones found 163 years apart are a perfect match.
Photo: Drexel University

The fossil half that was found in 2012 by Gregory Harpel on the banks of a brook in New Jersey and donated to the New Jersey State Museum and which was matched to the fossil half found in 1849 and kept in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University did more than surprise by its mere discovery.

The location of the original fossil find hadn’t been recorded – now paleontologists know its origin. Monmouth County, New Jersey.

The bone that was broken millions of years ago, and the discovery of the second matching half, proved bones and fossils can stay intact when exposed to air for much longer than expected.

It helped researchers further describe the giant sea turtle, Atlantochelys mortoni, that swam the seas in 70 million to 75 million years ago during the Pleistocene or Holocene eras. The sea turtle most resembled the loggerhead turtle, which is currently considered endangered.

However, A. mortoni was the largest known turtle in history, measuring over three meters (10 feet). Much larger than the loggerhead, and at least as impressive in size as the wild tale of two matching fossil halves found over a century-and-a-half apart.

Loggerhead sea turtle (C. caretta)
Photo: Jorge Candan

The Mirror Test – International World Wildlife Day

March 3, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Numerous studies on various animals have surprised and delighted human observers by demonstrating that some animals are much more intelligent and self-aware than previously thought.

If over the centuries or millennia we humans were able to persuade ourselves that we were alone in being self-aware, intelligent and moral, those haughty self-assessments have given way to a reluctant acknowledgement: While other creatures on the planet may not be quite as dizzyingly verbal, deft or introspective as we consider ourselves, they nonetheless meet the criteria for being sentient.

Path of Life
Artist: MC Escher

A recent study furthered this realization with examples of just how very smart elephants are, and even plants have a kind of sentience that is just starting to reveal itself. We are all a part of the same fabric.

One study after another has shown that the very animals we have hunted almost into extinction, whom we are loathe to offer the same respect we would offer a house pet, are among the most empathetic creatures alive, our close cousins in feeling. Elephants, chimpanzees, orangutans, bottlenose dolphins, magpies – all of them pass the so-called Mirror Test.

Source: Flickr

The Mirror Test is a means of evaluating whether an animal is able to recognize itself in a mirror, and is used to indicate whether a non-human animals possesses self-awareness.

This very first International World Wildlife Day (WWD), proclaimed by United Nations General Assembly to mark the March 3 anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), is meant to raise awareness of endangered species around the world.

I’d like to call attention to the literal awareness of our fellow creatures. The sentience of animals, whether we understand it or not, is as important and mysterious as our own. Do we pass the real Mirror Test – that we can mirror the life we value for ourselves in how we treat our fellow creatures?#WWD

Playing Favorites

February 18, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

As with anything else, there tend to be trends and favorites when it comes to endangered animal species. The polar bear, the orang-utan, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the lion are the iconic poster animals of conservation. The animals that draw attention, affection, and donations. We like to identify with our favorites, and like to think that our favorite animal says something about who we are as individuals.

They are often the alpha creatures of their ecosystems, the main hunters or the largest animals. Maybe it’s in human nature to associate ourselves with the big guys. And from the standpoint of conservation, it’s not the worst approach. Saving the big guys, by definition, means trying to save all the other elements that support their survival. The ecosystems, the prey, and territory.

And then there are the little guys. The ones that fill a niche between smallest and largest, or look like any number of other, similar animals, or are too little known to achieve star conservation status.

These forgotten species come from all corners of the animal world, from snails to clams to sloths to owls. Or, until recently, the pangolin.

What prompted me to write this today, however, was the small news item that a famous pop singer, Lady Gaga, was bitten by a slow loris that had been brought in as a prop for her music video, which was being shot in Los Angeles.

Loris faces
Source: Wikipedia / Lydekker, R. (1904)

There was another recent slow loris story when Rihanna had her photo taken with a captive loris in Phuket, Thailand, last year. I’m pretty sure neither of them knew that the slow loris population is rapidly decreasing, and that whoever held a slow loris up next to them had directly contributed to that decline.

All eight species of the slow loris (genus Nycticebus) are currently listed as vulnerable or endangered, due to their popularity in the pet trade, or to their supposed medicinal values. The slow loris is a small primate that doesn’t travel well, it doesn’t breed well in captivity, and it doesn’t make a good pet. I won’t even go into the unspeakable treatment undergone by the slow loris to make it ‘suitable’ for handling. But it has those adorable eyes.

The total number of animal species on Earth is estimated at 8.7 million.
Source: National Geographic / IUCN

I suppose, and hope, that the slow loris will win its conservation advocates, perhaps even aided by these stories, because it is particularly cute and looks more like a toy than like a real animal. With any luck, these stories won’t make more people head out to the markets where the slow loris is sold openly, in spite of its status and the ban in all countries on selling it or any of its parts.

I suspect the multitude of endangered arthropods and molluscs won’t have it as easy. The endangered list grows longer by the day, even as there are efforts in the United States to roll back the Endangered Species Act.

It requires a widening of the gaze to stop playing favorites, changing our habits, and an acknowledgement that not all creatures are simply there for our amusement and consumption.

Heroes and Villains

January 13, 2014May 21, 2015 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Update below.

You know a cause has achieved cult status when it makes it into the comic books.

Marvel Comics has come out with a double pack of comic books featuring the popular character of Wolverine and the issue of the illegal trade in endangered animal parts. Written and illustrated by the great Phil Jimenez, the comics couldn’t be more timely.

The Dallas Safari Club auctioned off a chance to hunt an endangered rhino for $350,000 last week, over widespread protests and petitions.

Savage Wolverine #12
Art: Jimenez/Marvel

Ostensibly, the money will go towards conservation efforts in Namibia. The hunt has been sanctioned by the government.

I can understand the need to cull non-breeding, older male rhinos from a herd to promote younger, healthier males that might otherwise be attacked or intimidated. I can understand the Namibian government wanting to earn hard cash for a cull that would otherwise only cost them time and money.

But let’s not kid ourselves: Paying a vast sum of money for the thrill and privilege of hunting an endangered animal, even in the name of conservation, does little more than glorify the illicit status of that animal’s value to humans, and add value to the illegally traded body parts of poached animals.

This auction comes the same week that saw an Irish native, Michael Slattery Jr., convicted and sentenced to almost two years in prison for coming to the United States to buy mounted rhino horns, which he sold on to Asian buyers for an estimated $30,000 per pound.

Horns of endangered black rhinos. According to the prosecutors in the Slattery case, the horns he sold were resold twice and tripled in price before leaving the U.S. Photo: US Attorney's Office - Eastern District of New York

Endangered black rhino horn.
Photo: US Attorney’s Office – Eastern District of New York

Mr. Slattery claimed he was just doing business and saw no connection between his actions and its effect on endangered species. According to the prosecutors in the Slattery case, the horns he sold were resold twice and tripled in price before leaving the U.S. Slattery argued that he was just a salesman, turning a dollar on something already there.

As Judge John Gleeson of United States District Court, who presided over the trial, is quoted as saying by way of comparison to Slattery’s defense, “‘I didn’t make these drugs, all I did was distribute them; I didn’t create this child pornography, I just distribute it.’”

The hunters and poachers in Savage Wolverine don’t fare well at the hands (well, claws) of Wolverine, but he reserves just as much anger for those who trade in the endangered animal business.

I wonder where Wolverine would stand on the trophy hunt auction of endangered animals.

UPDATE: 21 May 2015. The rhino auctioned for hunting was shot dead on 20 May 2015 by Corey Knowlton, the Texas hunter who won the auction bid.

From the AFP: Knowlton stated, “I think people have a problem just with the fact that I like to hunt… I want to see the black rhino as abundant as it can be. I believe in the survival of the species.”

Since 2012, Namibia has sold five licences each year to kill individual rhinos, saying the money is essential to fund conservation projects and anti-poaching protection. The only rhinos selected for the hunts are old ones that no longer breed and that pose a threat to younger rhinos.

Sorry, I just don’t agree. This is no different from countries selling off illegal rhino horn or elephant ivory seized from traders.

As long as the animals are worth more dead than they are alive, for any reason, poaching and the trade in illegal animal parts will be encouraged.

Savage Wolverine #13
Art: Jimenez/Marvel

Elvers Wait

December 4, 2013February 28, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

I’ve written several times before regarding the harvesting of elvers, the young of the American eel. It’s time for another update.

Once numerous, eel populations have dropped over the past hundred years due to a number of factors. Most of these have to do with man-made changes to the eel migration routes along the rivers of the eastern North American coastline.

More recently, there have been concerns about the possible overfishing of elvers, which are harvested and sold to stock eel aquaculture farms in Asia.

Via: glooskapandthefrog.org

According to the Canadian Wildlife Federation, Canadian assessments of the American eel population levels have shown a 90% decline and as of 2007 the eel has been listed as Endangered under the Ontario Endangered Species Act. Elver harvesting is very strictly limited.

South of the Canadian border, however, the economic promise of high elver prices in a depressed economy has proven a strong incentive for delaying any far-reaching decisions on further regulations and licensing restrictions.

As reported in Maine’s Portland Herald: “The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) eel management board voted to postpone passing new regulations that would go into effect in 2014, opting instead to vote on new rules next spring that would be effective in 2015, (according to) commission spokeswoman Tina Berger.

“In the interim, state officials will work with eel fishermen and dealers in Maine to create a plan that results in next spring’s catch being 25 percent to 40 percent smaller than this year’s spring harvest.””

A handful of elvers
Photo: AP via Portland Press

And from the Bangor Daily News: ““There are no specific requirements imposed by the [ASMFC eel] board” on how the cuts are to be achieved, Berger said. “Maine will report back to the board in February regarding its intended plan of action.”

“Patrick Keliher, commissioner of DMR (Maine Department of Marine Resources), said (…) the delay in adopting new rules will allow regulators to include the most recent data on the elver fishery.

“This decision will also give me time to work with [the] industry to find common ground and an approach forward,” Keliher said.

“According to ASMFC officials, new requirements in an updated fishery management plan for the American eel fishery could include the allowance of glass eel fisheries in states where harvest is currently prohibited, a coastwide quota, monitoring requirements, enforcement measures and associated penalties, quota transferability and timely reporting.””

Eel fyke net
Source: FishingTackle

New meetings between Maine state officials and fishermen have been taking place this month, during which the possibility of requiring licensed fishermen to record all sales via an electronic swipe card is being discussed.

Developing a state-wide plan must also include negotiating traditional elver fishing rights held by the Passamaquoddy tribe. The state has tried to set limits on the number of licences the tribe may issue, while the tribe maintains that the state resources board does not have the authority to set limits on its licensing.

The species currently is under review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for possible listing under the Endangered Species Act.

For me, the situation of the enigmatic American eel, endangered on one side of an international border and fair game on the other, continues to be a case study in the collision of economics, lack of scientific baselines and studies, local and regional politics, and the general lack of interest in the decline of an animal that is neither cute nor cuddly.

American eel (Anguilla rostro.) Image: Sidhat

American eel (Anguilla rostrata)
Image: Sidhat

EDIT: I have posted a brief update regarding the 2014 elver season here.

Fragile Armour

April 17, 2013 / PK Read / 6 Comments

The eight pangolin species Via: http://novataxa.blogspot.fr/2013/02/pangolin-manidae.html

The eight pangolin species
Via: Novataxa.blogspot.fr

Pangolins, or the scaly anteater, are a strange branch on the phylogenetic tree of mammals. A single order, Pholidota, with one extant family, Manidae, with one single genus, Manis, comprised of the eight remaining species at left. They are the only mammals with hard keratin scales, and this undoubtedly is part of the reason they are both popular for hunting as well as endangered.

Pangolin skin makes for interesting and unusual leather products, similar to armadillo, while the odd scales considered to have (unsubstantiated) medicinal properties for asthma and lactation. As pangolin scales are little different from toenails, it seems unlikely that humans would derive much more benefit from their consumption that we would by becoming nailbiters. Pangolin has been a bushmeat favorite for many years. On a habitat level, when they aren’t rolling themselves into impressively armoured balls, pangolins are important for controlling insect populations.

It’s been illegal to trade pangolin products since 2002, and yet, when I did a quick search today for pangolin products, it turns out they are being openly offered on the Internet. Whether the dealers offering pangolin meat and scales for sale can actually deliver the goods is something I don’t intend to explore. It’s an oddity of human nature that the more endangered and rare a product, be it pangolin products or platinum, the more hotly we imbue that product with delicate and rare qualities.

So when a Chinese “fishing” ship carrying approximately 2000 frozen pangolins destined for illegal trade ran aground on reefs in Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Philippines, the main source of surprise wasn’t the illegal cargo. After all, the Chinese market has to be sourcing its pangolin habit somewhere, so it makes sense the traders were flying under a Chinese flag.

The real surprise, for me, is the irony of traders who deal illegally in endangered and protected animals traders being undone by an endangered and protected reef.

Project Pangolin website

Associated Press article (via Huffington Post) – Pangolin Meat from China

Annamiticus article

Mongabay article

Tree pangolin (Manis tricuspis)
Source: Valerius Tygart/Wikipedia

champagnewhisky

Never cry over spilt milk. It could've been champagne. Or whisky.

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