*updated* Saving Rhinos website and facebook page

*updated*: Louwtjie sent me this update on the rhino situation in S. Africa, like i said, its bad news "Rhino dump found on govt park - Limpopo officials have discovered a rhino cemetery containing 17 rhino carcasses at the Letaba Ranch, on the western border of the Kruger National Park." -MA

original post:
Maybe you have noticed I haven't been posting too much bad/sad conservation news lately, and there is a lot of it happening right now, I simply cannot keep up. The rhino poaching situation in South Africa is out of control it seems...consider 'liking" the saving rhinos facebook page or visiting their website at savingrhinos.org to keep up to date with the arrests, releases and poaching situation. -MA

Lionesses with manes!

Has anyone studied these lionesses? Although a genetic explanation would be interesting (it reminds me of of how a pseudo-penis has evolved in hyenas out of clitoral tissue, and whose society is female dominated, although what is cause and what is effect is not entirely clear...), I worry a little about environmental reasons that also may be playing havoc with the endocrine system or epigenetics of these lions. Pedigree/genetic information could help to tease these things apart. A quick google search shows at least one captive lioness (from the Philadelphia Zoo) also has a mane which for me at least, leans towards the latter explanation....would love more info/insights into this, post a reply to me if you know more please-MA

From the Africa Geographic blog (post 1, post 2)
by GRANT ATKINSON
post 1 - may 2010
There are many opportunities to make a fool of yourself when you’re a field guide. I was once leading a group on a game drive at Mombo [Botswana], when we came across a pride of lions. Mombo is well known for its healthy lion population. We spent some time with the lions, and I carefully described what we were seeing, estimating ages and talking about the pride structure, which included two slightly smallish-looking young males.

Much later that same day, as it was getting to the end of our drive, we swung by the lions once again. This time there was another vehicle from camp in the sighting. I pulled up nearby, and began quietly talking to my group again, aware that I needed to add some new information to what I had already shared with them in the morning. I was busy mentioning how it wouldn’t be too long before the two young males in the pride would be ready to move off on their own, when the guide in the vehicle alongside caught my attention. “They’re females,” he tried to whisper. I didn’t hear him well enough, so he said it again, louder this time. “Ah,” I responded, sheepishly. As I was not based at the camp, and was travelling with my guests from one to the next, I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t looking at young males, but rather a pair of young female lions that have grown manes. The Mombo guides had been seeing the very unusual lions for some months and I had heard the news, but during the excitement of the sighting, I had forgotten all about them.

I felt like a real idiot, but fortunately the lions were interacting with one another, and my blunder took second place. Back in the late 1980s there was another lioness with a mane, nicknamed Martina (after the tennis player) by the camp guides. She was seen regularly at Mombo until eventually her entire pride drifted toward the edges of the game-drive areas and the sightings stopped. There were no more sightings of lionesses with manes until 2008, when a pride new to the area began to be seen around camp. This pride had two young females with quite substantial manes.

Clearly Martina’s genes were still out there, *or* perhaps others that were just very similar to hers. Nowadays I take a careful look at the back end of lions before I begin to talk!

post 2 - july 2010
A few months ago I posted a story with pictures about female lions with manes. The lionesses I wrote of were all seen at Mombo, in the Okavango Delta.

Since then I have visited Mombo again, and was lucky enough to encounter the pride with the unusual lionesses. However, I only had one brief sighting of the lioness, so the images I have included with this text are not great pictures, but they illustrate her size and features.

Unfortunately there are no longer two of these maned lionesses in the pride. One of the females was killed, apparently in the course of hunting buffalo, which is a dangerous pastime for lions whether they are equipped with a mane *or* not.The remaining lioness has grown bigger, and much heavier than the last time I saw her, which was almost a year back. Her mane has grown too, which makes her look even more like a male. I was most interested to hear from the Mombo camp guides that the pride males for this group of females, a pair of males known as the Western Boys, no longer spend much time with them. We have assumed that the Western Boys fathered the two maned lionesses. The Western Boys are a fine-looking coalition pair of males, and they are now consorting with another female pride, still in the Mombo area.

There is a new male with the Western Boys former pride though. Unfortunately, he was not around whilst I was there. News from the Mombo guides is that this male has taken to attacking the maned lioness, and attempts to chase her away from her female pride mates. He is apparently viewing her as a potential rival for mating rights. I did notice a well-healed scar on her neck during the sighting, which may have come from such a clash.

If this lioness has a normally functioning reproductive system, perhaps powerful chemical cues will override the male’s objection to her as it is now. Time will tell.

For more pictures go here and here

last white rhino in SAfrican reserve killed: Shot from plane with tranquilizer, horn sawed off, and left to bleed to death

From TreeHugger.com
Poachers Kill Last Female White Rhino in South African Reserve
by MATTHEW McDERMOTT

One more symbol of the rising global demand for rhino horn and its devastating effect on rhinoceroses in both Africa and Asia: The Guardian reports that the female white rhino in South Africa's Krugersdorp nature reserve has been killed by poachers--who used a tranquilizer gun, fired from a helicopter, to bring down the animal, prior to hacking off its horn, leaving it to bleed to death and orphaning its young calf in the process.

A private airport near the 1500-hectare reserve may have been the launching point for the attack. Japie Mostert, chief game ranger at Krugersdorp:

The exercise takes them very little time. They first fly over the park in the late afternoon to locate where the rhino is grazing. Then they return at night and dart the animal from the air. The tranquilizer takes less than seven minutes to act. They saw off the horns with a chainsaw. They do not even need to switch off the rotors of the helicopter. We do not hear anything because our houses are too far away. The animal dies either from an overdoes of tranquilizer or bleeds to death

Rhino Horn Worth More Than Gold
Rhino poaching is at a fifteen year high as demand for the horn--still used in Traditional Chinese Medicine despite being officially removed from the pharmacopeia--continues to rise. At the end of last year, rhino horn trades for about $1610 an ounce, more than gold.

The southern white rhino population is listed by the IUCN as near-threatened, and is the most abundant rhino population in the world. By contrast the northern white rhino is considered critically endangered or extinct in the wild, with well under 10 individuals left.

Total African rhino population--including the 3,000 or so black rhinos left in the wild--have been reduced from an estimated 65,000 animals in the 1970s to about 18,000 today.

related: WATCH VIDEO - Discovery News: Poaching Endangers Black Rhinos

grey area? poaching indivduals to save populations...

I can appreciate some arguments:
"rhino conservationists could not rely on the animals acting as a draw for tourists on wildlife-watching safaris in Africa as the industry was financially “not very high yielding”."..."The realities of 21st-century conservation means compromises and difficult decisions need to be made.”...“It will be cash that saves the rhinos, not tears,”

but the whole thing does seem a bit shady and I doubt the following:
“The [African] governments have retention schemes and they track the money. They distribute and allocate it to how they see fit into rhino conservation and sustainable development. Most of, if not all, the money is returned to rhino conservation.”..."In Namibia, where all black rhinos are owned by the state, money from the hunts is also said to be distributed to the local population, giving them an incentive to keep the rhino populations viable."

It is good food for thought in any case, perhaps sad just to acknowledge that we are really coming to the end of the line when people, who I am sure care very deeply about wildlife, feel these are the measure they must resort to (click here to go to a disturbing gallery of big white hunters and their "trophies". Actually, on that note I will refer you back to today's earlier post on empathy)- MA

From Africa Geographic via the Africa Geographic facebook page
A pregnant rhino mother and calf have been killed by poachers on a South African farm in the same week as British charity Save the Rhino has endorsed the shooting of rhinos

Daniel Foggo, reporting for The Sunday Times:

Save the Rhino, the British charity set up to protect one of the world’s most endangered animals, is endorsing the shooting of them for fun and is directly profiting from “trophy hunts” of other species. The London-based charity has decided to endorse the controversial practice of rich hunters shooting rhinoceroses after being approached by a hunting lobby group offering money. Safari Club International (SCI) has so far donated about £32,000 to the charity, much of it raised by auctioning the trophy hunts to shooting enthusiasts.

The charity said it adopted its stance, which is at odds with many other wildlife organisations, after deciding to be “not sentiment-driven” about conservation and encourage the “sustainable use” of animals. “We don’t want to see animals being killed but it’s the situation we are in,” said Lucy Boddam-Whetham, the charity’s fundraising manager, who admitted the issue was “extremely emotive”. “It’s looking at all the different ways we can make sure we get money for conservation coming in.” She said the charity had formed its view on trophy hunting after being approached by SCI with offers of money in 2006. Since then SCI has donated sums of between £6,000 and £10,000 a year.

“Our position came out of whether we would accept funds from SCI,” Boddam-Whetham said. “Having discussed the pros and cons we felt overwhelmingly in favour of the SCI partnership. The realities of 21st-century conservation means compromises and difficult decisions need to be made.” She said rhino conservationists could not rely on the animals acting as a draw for tourists on wildlife-watching safaris in Africa as the industry was financially “not very high yielding”.

Matthew Eckert, manager of conservation for SCI, said his hunting organisation was only too pleased to find a willing recipient of its money in Save the Rhino. It had been snubbed by some other charities. He said: “We are struggling with gaining credibility. It’s difficult with being a hunting organisation who hunts endangered *or* threatened species when the public doesn’t know that hunting these species can actually benefit them.”

Although there are five rhino species remaining worldwide, only two — the black and white rhinos that both live in Africa — can be legally hunted.

Since 2004, hunters have been able to pay to shoot up to 10 black rhino a year in Namibia and South Africa, at a cost of up to £170,000 each. The animal, which is officially listed as critically endangered, numbers only about 4,200 in the wild. White rhinos, which were once facing extinction as a species, now number about 17,800 and have the status of “near threatened”. They can be hunted in South Africa on private reserves at a cost of about £12,000 each.

Both species are threatened by poachers who kill them for their horns — which can be sold for up to £41,000 a kilo and are used in Chinese medicine and for ornamental purposes. Other threats include the steady erosion of their natural habitats.

Campaigners for trophy hunting say that by allowing hunters to shoot rhinos, the proceeds can be invested into ensuring the future safety of the species by paying for more anti-poaching measures.

Eckert, whose club’s members number 53,000 worldwide and include hunters who have shot rhino, said: “The [African] governments have retention schemes and they track the money. They distribute and allocate it to how they see fit into rhino conservation and sustainable development. Most of, if not all, the money is returned to rhino conservation.”

He said only mature males past their reproductive prime were selected to be hunted and that by removing them, the breeding females were more likely to mate with younger, more virile specimens.

In Namibia, where all black rhinos are owned by the state, money from the hunts is also said to be distributed to the local population, giving them an incentive to keep the rhino populations viable. Concerns have been raised, however, that rhino hunts in South Africa are not as strictly regulated and even that some hunts might be implicated in the illegal trade of rhino horn.

Laura Bailey, the fashion model who was until recently one of Save the Rhino’s patrons, said she was “very surprised” to hear about the charity’s endorsement of hunting the animals it wanted to save. “I will look into it privately, but I’m not going to comment without doing some more research,” she added.

Some other wildlife campaigners oppose Save the Rhino’s policy. Will Travers, chief executive of the Born Free Foundation, an animal welfare charity that opposes trophy hunting, said: “I find the whole concept deeply depressing.” He added: “There seems something deeply unethical about championing rhino conservation and then using the money from rhino killed for ‘fun’ to protect some of those that remain.”

A British shooting magazine, Sporting Rifle, has also announced an auction of trophy hunts of animals such as wild boar, muntjac and red deer with all the proceeds to go to Save the Rhino. Peter Carr, editor of Sporting Rifle, said the magazine was hoping to raise a minimum of £6,000 for Save the Rhino from its auctioning of hunts for which readers will email bids. “It will be cash that saves the rhinos, not tears,” he said.

Since it was founded in 1994, Save the Rhino has attracted numerous high-profile supporters. Its founding patrons included Douglas Adams author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, who helped raise its profile by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in a rhino costume. Runners in similar suits completing marathons for the charity have since become a familiar sight. Save the Rhino’s current patrons include Martina Navratilova, the former tennis champion, who won £86,000 for the charity on the US version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Much success!: INTERPOL's 'Operation Mogatle' seizes 400 kilo of ivory and rhino horn

Ivory seized during Operation Mogatle

From Interpol.int
llegal ivory and rhino horn trade target of INTERPOL co-ordinated operation across southern Africa

A transnational operation co-ordinated by INTERPOL targeting wildlife crime across southern Africa has resulted in the location and closure of an illegal ivory factory, the seizure of nearly 400 kilos of ivory and rhino horn with a market value of more than one million dollars, as well as the arrest of 41 people.

The two-day operation (13-14 May), codenamed Mogatle, involved nearly 200 officers from police, national wildlife, customs and national intelligence agencies across six countries – Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe – who carried out inspections and raids on markets and shops.

Checks were also made on suspect vehicles at border crossing points where for the first time in a wildlife crime operation, sniffer dogs provided by South African and Swaziland police were used at check points at the Mozambique/Swaziland border.

“The success of Operation Mogatle is not only in relation to the seizures and arrests which have been made, but is a demonstration of the commitment of national and international law enforcement and other involved agencies to working together to combat wildlife crime,” said Peter Younger, manager of INTERPOL’s OASIS (Operational Assistance, Services and Infrastructure Support) Africa wildlife crime programme.

“Taking these illegal items off the market is just the first step,” added Mr Younger. “Information gathered as part of this operation will also enable law enforcement, both in Africa and abroad, to identify smuggling routes and eventually to further arrests of other individuals involved in these crimes.

“The impact of wildlife crime is wide-ranging. People are threatened with violence, law enforcement officers have been killed while carrying out their duties, and there is the wider economic impact on a country and therefore the livelihoods of ordinary people.”

Supported by INTERPOL’s National Central Bureaus and INTERPOL’s Regional Bureau in Harare, Operation Mogatle was co-ordinated by INTERPOL’s OASIS Africa initiative, which is funded by the German Federal Government. Additional support and funding was also provided for the operation by the Humane Society of Canada and the Born Free Foundation.

INTERPOL’s OASIS programme helps countries in Africa develop a global and integrated approach to fighting 21st century crime by building operational capacities for policing in the region and enhancing the ability of INTERPOL member countries to tackle crime threats nationally, regionally and globally.

Operation Mogatle - named in honour of the late Professor Keitirangi Mogatle, assistant director of the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks and principle motivator behind effective wildlife law enforcement in Botswana – was the third multi-agency wildlife operation co-ordinated by INTERPOL.

The first, Operation Baba (November 2008) resulted in the arrests of nearly 60 people and the seizure of one ton of illegal elephant ivory following co-ordinated actions in Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

The second, Operation Costa (November 2009) across Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, led to the arrest of more than100 people and the recovery of 1.5 tons of ivory and hundreds of other illegal wildlife items.

Thanks to Boo M. for the link!

"They’re a reminder that talent is universal, although opportunity is not"

picture from village of Tai, Cote d'Ivoire

Young Superheroes in a Hut
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
From the NYTimes.com
(VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe)

Why is Africa poor?

Is it a legacy of colonial exploitation? Tropical diseases and parasites? Or is it that local mammals, like the zebra and the African elephant, were difficult to domesticate and harness in agriculture?

There’s truth in each of these explanations. But a visit to Zimbabwe highlights perhaps the main reason: bad governance. The tyrannical, incompetent and corrupt rule of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, has turned one of Africa’s most advanced countries into a shambles.

In a village less than a day’s drive from Victoria Falls, I stumbled across a hut that to me captured the country’s heartbreak — and also its resilience and hope. The only people living in the hut are five children, orphans from two families. The kids, ages 8 to 17, moved in together after their four parents died of AIDS and other causes.

The head of the household is the oldest boy, Abel, a gangly 10th grader with a perpetual grin. He has been in charge since he was 15.

At one time, the two families reflected Zimbabwe’s relative prosperity. One mother was a businesswoman who traveled abroad regularly. A solar panel that she brought back from Zambia lies in the courtyard.

One of the fathers was a soccer coach who named his son Diego Maradona. Diego may have inherited some of his father’s talent, but he has no soccer ball and no soccer shoes — indeed, no shoes at all. And here, as in much of Zimbabwe, a once-impressive system of schools and clinics has pretty much collapsed, along with tourism, agricultural production and the economy itself.

The household stirs to life each morning when Abel rises at 4 and sets off barefoot on a nine-mile hike to the nearest high school. He has no watch or clock, so he judges the time from the sun, knowing that it will take three hours to get to school.

Abel and the other children have no money to pay school fees or buy notebooks. But the teachers allow them to attend class anyway, because they are brilliant students who earn top grades. They’re a reminder that talent is universal, although opportunity is not.

After Abel leaves for school, responsibility shifts to Diego Maradona, who is 11. He wakes the three younger children, feeds them cold cornmeal mush left over from the previous night’s dinner, and walks with them to the elementary school they all attend a few miles away.

When Diego and the younger children return in the afternoon, they gather firewood, fetch water, tend the chickens and sometimes search for edible wild plants. Abel returns by about 7 p.m. and cooks more cornmeal mush for dinner. He dispenses orders and affection, nurses the younger ones when they are sick, comforts them when they miss their parents, spanks them when they are naughty, coaches them with their schoolwork, begs food from neighbors, fixes the thatch roof when it leaks, and rules the household with tenderness and efficiency.

Abel’s goal is to graduate from high school and become a policeman, because the job will provide a steady salary to support his siblings. He does not know how he will come up with the modest fees to take graduation exams.

I asked Abel what he dreams of. “A bicycle,” he said. Then he would be able to get home from school more quickly and manage the household better.

“Life was a lot better when I was younger,” he said, a bit wistfully. “From what my parents used to tell me, life was a lot better under white rule. There was a lot more food and clothes, and you could afford to buy things.” But Abel insisted that he was optimistic that life would eventually get better again.

Westerners sometimes think that Africa’s problem is a lack of initiative or hard work. Nobody could think that after talking to Abel and Diego Maradona — or so many other Zimbabweans who display a resilience and courage that left me inspired.

I found Zimbabwean superheroes like Abel often in my week of surreptitious reporting in Zimbabwe. (Mr. Mugabe subjects journalists to imprisonment, so it seemed best not to advertise my presence.) Parents sacrifice meals to keep their children in wretched schools (one teacher showed me his two textbooks for a class of 50). And a growing number of Zimbabweans risk crocodiles, drowning and violence to sneak into South Africa in search of work.

So Zimbabwe’s tragedy isn’t its people, but its leader. Likewise, Africa’s failure has been, above all, one of leadership. It is telling that Africa’s greatest success story, Botswana, is adjacent to one of its greatest failures, Zimbabwe. The difference is that for decades Botswana has been exceptionally well and honestly managed, and Zimbabwe pillaged.

For more musings by Mr. Kristoff, read his blog, On the Ground, watch his YouTube videos and join him on Facebook.