Day one : African Forest Elephant

African Forest Elephants (species - Loxodonta 
Cyclotis) have a body length between 3 and 4 m (9.75 - 13 ft), a tail length between 50 and 120cms (2.3 - 4 ft) and they weigh between 0.9 and 3 tonnes (0.88 - 3 tons).

They are grey in colour and they have a sparse covering of hair. Their large ears are rounded and they have straight, downward pointing, yellowish tusks. On their forefeet they have five toes and on their hind feet they have four.

They communicate with each other using low calls that can be heard by other elephants through several kilometres of dense jungle, but these sounds are too low to be detected by humans.

Forest elephants are now accepted as a unique species of elephant, distinct from their better-known cousin, the African savanna (or bush) elephant (L. africana). Forest elephants are smaller in size, with more rounded ears, and straighter, thinner tusks. Family groups may be smaller, but otherwise their social structure and life history appear to be similar to savanna elephants. DNA analysis has recently shown that African savannah and forest elephants are genetically distinct, reinforcing the very different ecology of forest elephants (more on the 'forest elephant ecology' page).

African Forest Elephants are found in the dense, lowland jungle of west and central Africa. Males are generally solitary and females live in small groups with one or two of their offspring.

Throughout their range there are networks of trails that have been created over many years and these trails link favourite feeding areas.

African Forest Elephants feed on grass, leaves, bark, fruit and other vegetation. They require an intake of water daily and can consume up to 50 gallons per day.

They gather in large groups in clearings in the forest known as "bais". At the bais they are able to obtain mineral salts by digging down into the soil.

African Forest Elephants breed at any time of the year but a female will only reproduce every 4 years. Females are only receptive for 3 - 6 days and when she is ready she will emit a low growl that can be heard for several kilometres.

After a gestation period of 22 months, a single calf will be born. The calf will eat solid foods from about 6 months old, but it will continue to feed on its mother’s milk until is it approximately 5 years old.
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O2E celebrates Elephant Week

With poaching at a high coming in 2012 we thought we would celebrate elephants for the wonderful, majestic creatures they are.

Firstly here’s an update on the poaching/ivory trade issues. Stay tuned each day this week with our “elephant-a-day” blog filled with interesting facts about these beautiful pachyderms.

Poaching and Ivory Smuggling at Record Highs in 2011
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Poaching of elephants and the illegal trade in their tusks and related ivory products were out of control in 2011, with more than 2,500 animals confirmed killed and thousands of kilograms of tusks seized by customs officials around the world. This was the worst year on record since the international ivory trade ban was established in 1989, according to TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

Most of the poaching—which is increasingly conducted by well-armed gangs from Asia and almost exclusively targets the elephants’ valuable ivory tusks—takes place in Africa, where two African elephant species (Loxodonta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis, the second of which was only recognized as its own species in 2010) still have a population of around 450,000 animals. That’s a far cry from the estimated 1.2 million that were living in the 1970s and the 600,000 that lived when the ivory trade ban was enacted. African elephants are listed as “Vulnerable” to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The IUCN lists Asian elephants (Elephas maximus, including three subspecies) as “Endangered,” with an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 animals in existence.

Final numbers for ivory seizures are still being calculated, but TRAFFIC International reported last week that there were 13 large-scale ivory seizures in 2011. By “large scale,” they mean at least 800 kilograms of ivory. The largest seizure was last month in Kenya, where a 2,575-kilogram shipment of 727 pieces of ivory was discovered in a shipping container en route to Asia. TRAFFIC points out that even this number of seizures is not a disincentive for the criminal gangs behind the smuggling because arrests rarely occur and punishments for those who are arrested are minor under existing laws.

Other large ivory seizures included a 1,100-kilogram shipment found in Vietnam in September and a 2,234-kilogram shipment in China in April. The total weight for the 13 shipments was more than 23 metric tons. There were just six such large-scale seizures in 2010, totaling 9,798 kilograms. Some shipments contained full tusks. Others contained a combination of tusks and ivory carvings.

According to TRAFFIC, these large-scale seizures represent ivory from at least 2,500 slain elephants, if not more. This does not include hundreds of smaller seizures, accounts for which are still being compiled, and probably represents a fraction of total elephant poaching in Africa and Asia as well as ivory smuggling around the world. A 2009 report from the International Fund for Animal Welfare estimated that poachers were killing more than 100 African elephants daily.

“In 23 years of compiling ivory-seizure data…this is the worst year ever for large ivory seizures,” Tom Milliken, manager of TRAFFIC’s Elephant Trade Information System, said in a prepared statement. “The escalating large ivory quantities involved in 2011 reflect both a rising demand in Asia and the increasing sophistication of the criminal gangs behind the trafficking. Most illegal shipments of African elephant ivory end up in either China or Thailand.”
Three of the largest seizures took place in Malaysia. Another three seizures had been shipped through Malaysia before they were confiscated.

Poaching nearly disappeared after the 1989 ivory trade ban but it has come back strong in recent years. The boom has been fueled primarily by two factors: growing affluence in Asia and the greater number of shipping options. “Not only have people got more cash, but the transport infrastructure has got much better—there are more flights connecting Asian markets than ever before,” James Compton, TRAFFIC senior director for Asia–Pacific, told The New York Times.

These same factors are also behind the rise in rhino poaching. In 2011 at least 443 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa, the only country that can accurately report on rhino poaching counts. This is also a high, up from 333 rhinos poached in that country in 2010.

Although it’s easy to blame the booming Asian economy for much of this, it’s important to remember that the U.S. is also a very large market for illegal ivory. A study released in 2008 found that Americans are the world’s second-largest consumers of elephant ivory products.

Taken from the Scientific American.

What you must know about Elephants

It is estimated that there were once more than 350 species of elephants in the world. Today we only have two of them left – the Asian and the Africa species. Both of them are at risk of extinction if more intense efforts to protect them aren’t in place. Between illegal hunting of them for ivory as well as the destruction of their natural habitat things are simply closing in on them at an alarming rate.

African elephants once lived throughout Africa; they now inhabit no more than one-third of the continent and are gone from the Sahara. Over the past 150 years, ivory hunters have ruthlessly hunted them for their tusks. Between 1979 and 1989, Africa's elephant population plummeted from 1,300,000 animals to 750,000, due mostly to ivory hunting. Since the 1980s, an international ban on trade in ivory has helped many populations hold steady or rebound.

However, African elephants have lost much of their habitat to ranches, farms, and desertification. The forest elephant, always far less common than the savanna subspecies, is under threat from logging and market hunting for its meat. African elephants are now found mostly in reserves. In some parks, confined elephant populations have major impacts on habitat, changing open forests into grasslands.
When you compare the two species of elephants you will notice quite a few differences among them.

There are some sub species in each of these groups to mention. With the Asian elephants there are the Indian, Sri Lanka, Sumatran, and Borneo which is also called the Pygmy. Researchers are still conducting testing right now but there is a theory that a 5th sub species does exist……bit like the yeti….?
Elephant Description:
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Genus and Species: eg. Loxodonta africana

Stay tuned as from tomorrow onwards, O2E celebrates Elephant Week!

Chick photos renew hope for endangered Caribbean seabird

Scientists working in Haiti have obtained the first-ever photos of an endangered Black-capped Petrel chick—a little ball of gray fluff that was discovered at its nest inside a mountaintop cave. The finding helps answer questions about this secretive species’ life cycle.

These crow-sized seabirds nest only in the Caribbean and feed as far away as Gulf Stream waters off the Mid-Atlantic United States. Best estimates suggest that fewer than 2,000 breeding pairs remain, and the data collected at this nest have already been incorporated into a new conservation plan for the species.

“Finding this nest shows both that gems of biodiversity are yet to be found in Haiti, despite its environmental and economic troubles, and that there’s still time to save rare species if we act swiftly,” said James Goetz, a Cornell Lab of Ornithology graduate student who helped lead the project. The nest was found on March 3, 2011, by a team from Grupo Jaragua, a nonprofit from the Dominican Republic.

Upon finding the nest, the researchers set up a motion-activated camera at the entrance to the cave. Over the next four months, the camera caught dozens of images of the parents arriving to feed the chick, as well as visits by rats and a dog, which fortunately did not disturb the growing chick.

In early July the camera photographed the chick waddling to the edge of the cave in preparation for its first flight, four months after the nest was found. The bird presumably departed safely in mid-July (the camera’s batteries ran out before then) and is now probably winging over the open ocean hundreds or thousands of miles away. Out of only a handful of nests found in the last decade, this is the only one that scientists have been able to monitor.

Black-capped Petrels are an enduring mystery among Caribbean birds. Once abundant, they fell victim to overharvest, habitat loss, and introduced predators such as rats, cats, dogs, and mongooses. By about 1850 they were thought extinct—until scattered at-sea sightings and the discovery, in 1963, of a few nesting sites in Haiti rekindled hopes for the species.

The ensuing five decades have turned up few clues about a bird that spends most of its life at sea, returning to land only a few dozen nights per year to visit nests in treacherously steep cloud forests. Only three remaining nesting areas—all on the island of Hispaniola—are known, although sightings along Cuba’s eastern coast in 2004 indicate the birds probably nest there as well.

In Haiti, poverty creates intense pressure on natural resources. Agricultural clearings reach to the tops of most mountains, no matter how steep. Loss of habitat threatens more than a dozen endemic Hispaniolan species, as well as wintering North American birds such as the American Redstart and Bicknell’s Thrush, a vulnerable species.

Lessons learned from studying this nest and the chick’s progress will help inform new efforts to discover nesting areas on Hispaniola and other islands. Until now, researchers have had to draw on details of better-known relatives such as Bermuda and Hawaiian petrels. “For such a poorly known species, every new scrap of information helps us gain ground in learning how to make conservation work for it,” Goetz said.

Middle East Country takes first step in deterring wildlife pets

Pet Cheetahs, and all big cats, are illegal

In September 2011 images were published of the Porsche driver in Dubai walking his pet cheetah on a leash in the middle of a busy urban center?

The article highlighted the legal inequalities in the United Arab Emirates where trafficking illegal drugs in the United Arab Emirates can earn offenders a death sentence, but trafficking wild animals that are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) apparently goes unnoticed if committed by a rich Emirati.

Although the United Arab Emirates has been an official member of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Wild Species in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora, since 2002, officials appear to look the other way when blatantly illegal wildlife trafficking spills into the UAE’s public realm.

“No wild animal should be kept on leash and be walked through public places. Wild cats are dangerous to the public … Wildlife is always best in its natural habitats, not in human company.” Dr Khan, member of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas

Ajman, one of the smallest of the seven Emirates is looking to be tougher on these crimes. Had this Dubai resident been a resident of neighboring Ajman, he could have received a massive fine and the animal would have been confiscated. This is the first Gulf Country to pass legislation which makes it clear that keeping lions, cheetahs, and crocodiles as pets is not ok.

Law 54

In 2011 the Ajman Municipality passed Law 54, which states that the possession of all wild animals and reptiles in homes, apartments, and hostels is illegal.

This move followed a spate of incidents of non-domesticated animals “escaping” residents and endangering other people. Hmmmm…wonder how that happened? Apparently this new law “protects the community from any danger and damages” that occur when crocodiles and other wild animals break free from their “owners.”

The Penalty

Ajman’s Executive Director of Public Health and Envrionment Khalid AlHousani states that the law was passed following surveys carried out by the department and complaints received from citizens and residents of the Emirate.

He added that anyone caught with a wild animal or reptile in their home (including lizards) will receive “a penalty of 10,000 Dirham (or $2,720) and the animal will be transferred to a zoo or reserve park.”

AlHousani says “Ajman is the first to pass such a Law. We hope that others will do the same.”

It’s a Start

Whilst I could comment on the discrepancies in this statement and the law itself with respect to the animals themselves and their welfare and treatment, it is a step in the right direction for the region.

At least a law has been created and hopefully will serve as a deterrent to people looking for their next pet.

Though $2,720 isn’t much of a fine to a Dubai resident driving a Porsche (into which he stuffs his pet cheetah), perhaps in Ajman is has more of a financial impact…. Time will tell.

For now, salute Ajman for recognising that wildlife shouldn’t live in an apartment nor be transported in a Porsche.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

When you travel, you may witness these kinds of distressing events. Get details where you can and report it to the authorities.

Contact wildlife trade monitoring and action organisations such as TRAFFIC , WWF and International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN

From captivity to freedom - orangutans released

The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation reports that the first 6 of 600 orangutans have finally been released. After rescue from captivity, the orangs have been meticulously retrained to ensure survival in the wild. Read on....

"The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation will release at least six orangutans into the wild on April 22, a foundation official said on Tuesday. That is just a small percentage of the 600 orangutans the group says are ready for release, with budget constraints slowing the process. "We'll release six orangutans initially because we can't release all of them at once. We will follow their every move for two years because it's not easy to adapt to the wild after being in captivity for so long" said Bungaran Saragih, the founder and chairman of the foundation.

The foundation has two rehabilitation centers,one in Nyaru Menteng, Central Kalimantan,and the other in Samboja Lestari, East Kalimantan.They house 850 orangutans rescued from captivity, and Bungaran said at least 600 were ready to be released into the wild in East Kalimantan.

"They've gone to school,they've gained their health back, we just need to send them back to the forest.But the money is not ready yet because we need a helicopter" he said."We need at least Rp 60 million [$6,000] per hour to move them, and the trip takes about 3.5 hours."However,the more pressing problem,"he said,"is saving the forest so the orangutan have somewhere to go".

"They are running out of forest"he said."That's why my suggestion to the Forestry Ministry is that you can't just have a "one man, one tree" slogan. It won't be enough. If one trillion trees are planted on the road, it's not going to be a forest. We need forests, not trees."

To create an area where orangutans can be released, the BOSF founded Restorasi Habitat Orangutan Indonesia. The organization has already been granted 86,450 hectares of former forest concession land in East Kalimantan, and is now trying to secure a permit to manage 120,000 hectares in Central Kalimantan."

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

There is a desperate need for funds to expedite the release of the remaining orangs as well as the ongoing monitoring to ensure they all stay safe and healthy. Contact BOSF and make a donation!

Learn more about the plight of orangs in these regions.

Check out O2E past blogs on the No Palm Oil campaigns and products.

Images taken from Borneo Orangutan Survival

The circus is no place for animals

It is logical to many of us that the circus is not the place for the rights of animals and their welfare to be respected. Would you believe that only one scientific study has been completed on this subject?!

The University of Bristol (2009) concurred that the physical and behavioural impacts are significant on animals. Unfortunately the authors do not include ALL animals. This study has had some effect with some local councils banning circus that include performing animals.

Here's some key findings of this paper for you:

"A comprehensive synopsis of the welfare of captive, wild (ie non-domesticated) animals in travelling circuses is missing. We examined circus animal welfare and, specifically, behaviour, health, living and travelling conditions. We compared the conditions of non-domesticated animals in circuses with their counterparts kept in zoos.

Data on circus animals were very scarce; where data were absent, we inferred likely welfare implications based on zoo data. Circus animals spent the majority of the day confined, about 1-9% of the day performing/training and the remaining time in exercise pens. Exercise pens were significantly smaller than minimum zoo standards for outdoor enclosures. Behavioural budgets were restricted, with circus animals spending a great amount of time performing stereotypies, especially when shackled or confined in beast wagons. A higher degree of stereotyping in circuses may be indicative of poorer welfare. Inadequate diet and housing conditions, and the effects of repeated performances, can lead to significant health problems.

Circus animals travel frequently and the associated forced movement, human handling, noise, trailer movement and confinement are important stressors. Although there is no conclusive evidence as to whether animals habituate to travel, confinement in beast wagons for long timeperiods is a definite welfare concern. Circuses have a limited ability to make improvements, such as increased space, environmental enrichment and appropriate social housing.

Consequently, we argue that non-domesticated animals, suitable for circus life, should exhibit low space requirements, simple social structures, low cognitive function, non-specialist ecological requirements and an ability to be transported without adverse welfare effects. None of the commonest species exhibited by circuses, such as elephants and large felids, currently meet these criteria. We conclude that the species of non-domesticated animals commonly kept in circuses appear the least suited to a circus life."
Whilst not inclusive nor supportive of non-animal circuses in total, at least it's a start.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?

AnimalsAustralia is a fantastic source of ideas and campaigns for the rights of our animals. Currently they have an online campaign running to stop a zoo from handing over 2 lion cubs to a circus! (can you believe it)

Here's a few links and ideas
Join the online campaign Help save Spike and Spot from life in a circus' then Send this campaign to friends.

Take the pledge not to support exotic animal circuses . The most entertaining circus productions rely exclusively on the skills of talented human performers, proving that you don't need cruelty to make a great circus ;Cirque du Soleil ,Circus Oz ,Circus Sunrise The Flying Fruit Fly Circus will have you enthralled, so look out for these and other non-animal acts when they visit a town near you!

Write to your council and state government to demand a ban on exotic animals in circuses.

If you want to get active and know of an exotic animal circus coming to your town, download the circus campaign pack and/or write a letter to the editor of your local paper, or speak on talk-back radio about the cruelty involved in animal circuses and why they should be banned.

Support Animals Australia's lifesaving work and model it for your own areas.

Thank you again for creating a kinder world for animals.

Malaysia protects its elephants

New laws have been set in Malaysia to protect their Asian elephants.

At a recent wildlife conference, a government spokesperson explained that whilst regions heavily relied on agriculture as well as thru company buy in to the products source in the regions, it was imperative that Malaysia moved to protect its wildlife.

This type of thinking was a seemingly incredible move and applauded by conservation and animal welfare groups.

The penalty for killing a Malaysian elephant will be a mandatory maximum 5 year sentence with financial penalties of around $12000USD as well.

An important part of the protection program is to encourage companies to educate and communicate to their staff that the killing of wildlife with habitat in the agriculture windows is unacceptable and not sanctioned.

With rumours that some companies may pay staff to "remove" nuisance wildlife, it will be interesting to see 1. The company official statements on this legislation and 2. The real actions taken by them as the grass roots level.

Next on the agenda is drafting similar legislation for fisheries, relating to the hunting of sharks in Malaysian waters in order to stem the shark fin trade.

Tap of the hat Malaysia

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Carol Buckley tackles India's treatment of elephants

Earlier this week we looked at the growing problem of elephant poaching and the illegal ivory trade, which has risen to its highest levels since the 1989 international trade ban on ivory products went into place. Today we look at a positive project in India, one meant to rescue some captive Indian elephants (Elephas maximus indicus) from the unhealthy and often-abusive conditions that they currently endure.

The animals are currently trapped in a kind of legal purgatory. In 2009 India’s Central Zoo Authority, a government body that owns all of India’s zoos, mandated that all elephants be removed from the nation’s zoos and circuses. The authority issued the order, which will eventually affect about 146 animals, after a five-year study by a citizens’ committee found zoo life can be profoundly unhealthy for the animals. Unfortunately, the elephants have had no place to go.

Life in the worst Indian zoos “can be quite horrible,” says Carol Buckley, co-founder and former director of The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee and now founder of Elephant Aid International. In some, elephants spend their lives in stark concrete bunkers where they are perpetually chained and can barely move. Animals who are somewhat better off can also suffer. “There’s a zoo in Bangalore where a family of elephants is exhibited on a tiny dirt yard during the day where they can barely turn around,” Buckley notes, but when the zoo closes each day, the animals are released into the bordering forest.

Buckley is about to leave for Bangalore, India, where her nonprofit intends to build the first Elephant Care and Rehabilitation Center, currently in the planning stages. When completed, the 80-hectare facility is expected to become home to seven former zoo elephants and to be a model for other rehabilitation centers throughout India. “Once everything is working smoothly, the government will jump on and replicate this effort throughout India,” Buckley says. She also expects the government to take in hundreds of other privately owned elephants, such as those living in temples.

This is the first real action since the mandate was issued. Buckley says the government originally thought the elephants would be moved into government-run forest camps, where wild elephants—usually “rogues” that have threatened humans—are often “broken” and given jobs like carrying soldiers on anti-poaching patrols. “The elephants in these camps are usually trained and maintained quite brutally, but they’re also allowed to stay in the forest most of their lives,” Buckley says. “The government assumed that these zoo elephants could be absorbed into forest camps, but camp directors said no, this won’t work. There was no recognition that the elephants would need a rehabilitation phase where they would be reconditioned to live in a wild environment and collect their own food.”

That’s where Buckley came in. After visiting India around the time that the mandate passed, she proposed creating rehab centers where the elephants could be taught to be semi-wild and live the rest of their lives in a forested setting. It took two years to get government approval for the project, which was finally granted in November.

When Buckley arrives in India in two weeks, she says, she will walk the land that has been acquired for the facility, determining where to build fences and working with Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation, a partner organization, to learn how to work with Indian contractors. “I have a very clear vision about fencing, what elephants should be allowed to do, and how much freedom they need to thrive,” she says. Other infrastructure that must be built includes shade structures, corral areas for medical attention and training (as well as sleeping), a veterinary lab and administrative office, plus housing for staff. The site already includes a 12-hectare facility that will be adapted for some of these needs.

The veterinarians will be provided by the government, but Buckley plans to recruit the rest of the staff, which will include a dedicated mahout (Hindi for elephant trainer) for each of the resident elephants. The mahouts themselves will be trained in the compassionate elephant management technique developed by Buckley, which eschews the traditional pain-based training methods used throughout India. Most mahouts (as well as many Western trainers) control animals by jabbing a sharp metal pole and hook combination called the ankus into elephants’ mouths, ears and other sensitive areas. Buckley’s technique instead uses food and praise as positive reinforcement and focuses on building a relationship between elephants and their mahouts. “The mahout is like a shepherd,” she says. “They will allow the elephants to graze in daytime and then corral them and bring them home at night. You have to have someone to watch out over the animals.” The center will have a full-time facility director, as well as housekeepers, cooks and other staff. “Everything that is normal in Indian society,” Buckley says.

The facility will also attend in other ways to the needs of the people who will work in the rehab center and those who live nearby. “When I started the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, I didn’t have to consider much beyond elephant welfare,” Buckley says. “But in India, I also need to address human welfare. The programs I have developed have a strong component for education, not just for the public but also addressing the public welfare of the mahouts and their families.” By ensuring that the mahouts are well paid and provided for, she says, she’ll ensure that they will in turn be there to take care of the animals’ needs.

The total cost for the rehab center is estimated at $200,000. Elephant Aid International is accepting donations to help make it a reality.

Source : Scientific American