The extinction of a species - watching it happen

Costa Rica

Wow! What a stunning sight. The sunset in the distance, the interesting black sand and all those beautiful turtles. There are so many of them. It's an incredible scenic picture to behold. 

Our world is an amazing place. Images and memories like this one above need to a cherished and remembered. It won't always be like this. Yep - sorry but I'm putting a downer on the tranquility settling into your mind as you watch this picturesque moment.

Ready?

Woo there.....what's this? Family day? Picnic?

This is Costa Rica. Current Day.

Turtle egg poaching is a family affair. 

A coming together to "harvest" the eggs and sell them off.

Once they are gone...they are gone.

Make smart choices. Be informed. 

Know where your food comes from. 

Understand how products are made. 

Say NO.

Breeding program saving wild cats

At O2E we generally don't support breeding programs. It's such a controversial topic. We have seen projects that breed for bushmeat or commercial trade. We have also seenprograms that breed with all good intention only to find they have no resources or habitat to release into. Subsequently these animals live in captivity their entire lives, requiring constant care and attention. Some may say, 'well at least they are not extinct'. Is that good enough? To my mind, it's kind of like a living museum....or dare I say...a zoo, albeit without the kids and ice cream.

This article makes me think a little harder about the subject.

In April 2011, three young cats from the world’s most endangered species have been released into the wild in Spain from a captive breeding program at the La Olivilla breeding centre in Juan .

The Iberian lynx, once widespread across Spain and Portugal, were down to just 150 by 2005 — there were 4,000 in 1960. Scientists were forced to take drastic action and captured many from the wild population and put them in a captive breeding program.

Miguel Simon, director of the Lynx LIFE project, said:

“The situation was really dramatic: there were only two populations left in the wild. In order to preserve this species, we had to create a captive population in case the wild population became extinct.”

The Lynx LIFE team admits that radical intervention like this is a last resort. But if it works, these cats could be the first of many to roam free once again.

If the lynx went extinct it would be the first cat extinction (that we know of) since that of the saber-toothed cat at the end of the ice age.

"The cat’s decline was down to habitat loss, poisoning, road casualties, feral dogs and poaching. Its habitat loss is due mainly to infrastructure improvement, urban and resort development and tree monocultivation, which serves to break the lynx’s distribution area. It has also suffered the loss of its main food source: rabbits, which were wiped out by disease.

That breeding program has proved successful and there are now around 100 cats bred at the centre.

Concurrently, work to protect the habitat in Jaen and the Donana National Park in Andalucia,over the past decade has commenced and the wild population is now believed to be up to 300.

Dr Simon said: "The Iberian lynx is a key species in the Mediterranean ecosystem. It is a top predator, and if we preserve this species, we are preserving the whole ecosystem."

"It is our heritage, and we have to preserve it for future generations."

The Spanish Environment Ministry, Fundación CBD Hábitat and Ecologistas en Acción, supports the work of Lynx LIFE and together they have implemented a range of important projects including lynx supplementary feeding, habitat improvement, rabbit repopulations and awareness campaigns with the local human population.

The three lynx were released in early April into a protected area in Sierra Morena, a hilly, forested region, packed with shade for the cats to sleep in when the sun becomes unbearably hot — and it has plenty of rabbits.

Radio collars will help researchers monitor the released lynx

The cats received a careful pre-release check-up to ensure they are in good health then they were fitted with radio collars, allowing the conservationists to track their every move.

As the cats were released, they were a little confused at first, unsure of their new surroundings.
But after tentatively taking a few steps, they bound into the wild, ready to explore their new home.

Dr Lopez said: "Just a few years ago, everything seemed so difficult, and now we are approaching the successful conservation of the species."

A total of 15 releases have taken place this year, and if new wild populations begin to establish, more and more of the captive cats will be introduced to the wild.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
When you are looking to support an animal program, do your research. Do they have a breeding program? What happens to the captive bred population?


Information by Paul Canning and BBC News

Paul Canning is a long-standing LGBT and human rights activist and the Editor of LGBT Asylum News. He contributes to a number of other publications, including Care 2 Make A Difference.

United States' labs source research animals from pound

Tiger RIP (pic from PETA)

PETA’s expose on the United States laboratory culture is hard to read about.

It seems that labs were going to the homeless cats and dogs’ home and buying cats to use in research!

The story of Tiger – or as the University of Michigan's Survival Flight training program called him “E8269” – is heartbreaking.

Fortunately PETA’s campaigning has caused labs to stop this practice…with cats.

Pigs are not so fortunate.

This story is reprinted from PETA’s laboratory campaign article.


“Tiger's intake report showed that he was a healthy, friendly cat when he entered a University of Michigan (U-M) laboratory. Five days later, Tiger was dead.

While Tiger's name before he was taken to the laboratory may never be known, once there he was treated as little more than a label, a cat known as "E8269." Given his stripes, we're honoring this handsome cat with a name more befitting him, Tiger.

Like the cats many of us share our homes with, he probably enjoyed being scratched behind the ears and purred when he saw his food dish. But U-M officials certainly didn't care about Tiger's likes and dislikes when they tossed him into their intubation training lab—a grim laboratory in which cats had plastic tubes forced down their windpipes—and then killed him.

PETA exposed the abuse of animals in the University of Michigan's Survival Flight training program. We showed that university officials misled the public when they said that all the cats in their labs—healthy, lovable cats like Tiger—were adopted after they endured hideous procedures in the course. In fact, records show that more than half of the cats used in recent years were quietly killed.

PETA's exposé and vigorous campaigning caused a public uproar. Unable to ignore our fury, U-M announced that it had ended its use of cats in its laboratories—a wonderful victory for cats!

The cats have been replaced with modern, effective simulators. But U-M plans to continue to harm and kill pigs for other procedures in this training course.

That means that gentle, intelligent pigs will have holes cut in their throats and chests and needles jammed into the tissue surrounding their hearts and will ultimately be killed just as cats like Tiger were. Pigs continue to suffer at U-M, and millions of other animals are suffering right now in cruel chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics tests, biology lessons and training exercises, and horrible experiments." PETA, 2012

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Make a donation to help PETA fight for the replacement of pigs at U-M with simulators and support all our lifesaving efforts to expose and stop cruelty in university laboratories or wherever it occurs

Speak out in your local areas about the use of animals in research. With the technology of today, there is NO NEED. EVER.

Be careful and do your research when you buy cosmetics and other products that may have been tested on animals. The company may use third party testing companies so don't be too trusting! For example, Avon and Estee Lauder have stated that they do no test on animals, however they do contract a Chinese company to do that for them. Sneaky sneaky Avon. Boycott these companies and make it know to your friends and family that you do and why.