Condors and Their Habitat

The California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is a surviving member of the genus Gymnogyps. These giants birds roamed the Americas in the Pleistocene epoch living off megafauna carcasses.

The 19th and 20th century brought destruction of this vulture and its habitat:

• In the California Gold Rush, condors were kept as captive pets
  
• Eggs were collected
• They got poached as museum specimens
• They suffered lead poisoning (from eating animals containing lead shot)
• DDT poisoning
• Electric power line electrocution
• Being shot at
  
• Habitat destruction and fragmentation

The remaining 22 wild condors were captured in 1987 and bred up in a zoo. In 1992 some birds were introduced into the 'wild'. In 2011, there were 394 of "the world's rarest bird species" known to be living, including 181 outside of captivity. The endangered bird is having trouble surviving in a human junkspace landscape.

" Today 70 percent (53 out of 76) of condor moralities can be attributed to human influences...For nestlings (birds younger than 6 months of age), 73 percent of known mortalities can be attributed to the consumption of microtrash, such as bottle caps and small pieces of broken glass, plastic and metal. Lead toxicosis, from the ingestion of spent ammunition, was the most important factor in juvenile condor mortality (birds between the age of 6 months and 5 years) and was the only significant cause of death in adults (birds 6 years old and older). Eight of 23 birds that died of lead poisoning still had metal or lead fragments in their gastrointestinal tract."

Image
Condor (Sarcorhamphus gryphus) Brehm, Alfred Thierleben via Zeno
video
See
Shooting endangered Eagles

Dogs Unleashed - Mauling and Other Folly

It took ages in history eradicating dangerous animals from human settlements. Bears, wolves, wild cats etc were and still are fought out of existence. The other diverse 'wildlife' gets squeezed out of a habitat and the monoculture of the human and their baggage takes its place. The dog in its so called domesticated form has been included in the 'human family' with all the benefits of that species (Medical care, rights, beauticians, sitters etc). There is serious money and emotional investment in pets. It is still a mystery how societies tolerate the destructive outcomes of dogs un-leashed.

The following arbitrary list emphasises the folly of excluding biodiversity and boosting 'pet' species. The gray wolf seems to have re-entered our domesticated space via 'the dog' (Canis lupus familiaris) off leash or gone feral:

Attacks on children:
Twenty-two-month-old Kara Compton suffered 100 bite wounds from the family's pet dog when it climbed onto her bed mauling her. The toddler passed away. Bunyip, Victoria, news.com.au 01092010

"A 10-year-old girl whose jaw was broken in two places by a pair of Rottweilers.." while riding her bike telegraph.co.uk 31082010

A "11-month-old boy was crawling on the floor when the family's pet terrier set on him. He was left with deep cuts and puncture wounds to his mouth, nose, lip and forehead." abc 23082010

Five children" were at a birthday party ... when a bull terrier broke free from a house on the same street.The children were taken to hospital with two suffering serious injuries." abc 10082010

"A two-year-old girl suffered facial injuries when she was knocked down and mauled by a dog in the hallway of her home in at Delahey" abc 230809

"A girl also suffered facial injuries after(she) was mauled by a rottweiler in McElroy Street at Sunshine West" abc 230809

"A five-month-old baby was mauled to death in Leicester yesterday by two rottweilers who were left guarding the families pub." the sun.con.uk 250906

Attacks on adults:
The NSW Dog Attack Register shows that 666 attacks occurred in the first quarter of 2010, up from 470 in the previous quart smh 16012009

"A 90-year-old man was bitten on the thigh by a neighbour's dog and then suffered head injuries when he fell off his bike." abc 23032010

"A roaming pack of wild dogs mauled a couple in rural Georgia to death...The pack of 16 dogs first attacked Sherry Schweder, 66, a retired librarian, while she was out for a stroll over the weekend near her home in the town of Lexington, Georgia, leaving her body severely mutilated." abc 200809

Attacks on domestic stock:
Warning! offensive images! Feral.org.au

The Western Australian government is making available $5 million to employ eight additional doggers to manage out of control dogs attacking stock. abc 14092010

Allowed to go feral:
Domestic feral dogs in large, disorganised packs are roaming SE Australia. "They attack just for the sport of it. They're not out just to kill for food." abc 03092010
"An increase in the severity of wild dog attacks on farm animals in the Bundaberg region...It could be only a short space of time before we have an attack on either a child or another human being" abc 13092010
Dog dumping Moscow style: 84 dogs per square mile. Financial Times 16012010
''Cave Canem'' (Beware of Dog) more unwanted dogs in Pompeii News Discovery 171109

Quotes:
“Dogs are the only naturally occurring models of psychiatric disorders.” Nature 2010

"Each year more than 100,000 Australians are attacked by dogs... Dog attacks alone result in more than 2,000 hospital admissions every year. The Australian Companion Animal Council: Most of the dogs that attack humans belong to the victim's family or friends." abc 08042010

Image:
Macke, August: In the Garden: Elisabeth and Walterchen with Wolf, 1911 via Zeno

Peppered Seal or Peppered Tasmanian Salmon? - The Habitat Grab

When one thinks of Tasmania, the extinct animals such as the Thylacine/ Tasmanian Tiger (image) or the battling Tasmanian Devil might come to mind. If one endulged in some Tasmanian farmed salmon, one might keep in mind what one is chewing on...

Various seals (Pinnipeds) along with other endemic fauna have inhabited the coastline of Tasmania for aeons. It is in the nature of these marine mammals to annually aggregate on solid ground, like beaches or rocky islands to rest and reproduce.

Human factory farming encroaches on the animals' only habitat - the ocean. A grid of commercial infrastructure clutters the coastal waters. Fish are in sea cages that are "more like the battery hen of the sea".

The aqua-'culture' encroachment of human industry entails the elimination of 'wild' habitat for the other species. The Wildland/Urban Interface (WUI), or better the ocean industrial interface (OII) is the battle ground where our species conquers bio-diversity by replacing it with a simple mono-culture. Monetizing the ocean does mean an extra $350 million!

The Battle
The remaining inhabitants can be framed as pests, in need of culling, a popular Australian strategy for endemic wildlife. Their eradication as a competitor could boost profits, as the seals might mistake a fish for their own. Members of the fishing community set to work shooting at the beasts for hours. Many get away with firearm wounds. Others resort to shallow graves for the seals. But the 'unintentional' by-kill, also known as by-catch is via fishing industry gear. Feral plastic debris causes a slow and painful death for 2% of Tasmania's seals.

In desperation seals fight for their homes and resources. Agents of the fishing industry will now be equipped with a chemical club reserved for riot control of human beings. Pepper spray (Oleoresin capsicum) is designed to disable the terrestial mammal. Aquatic marine mammals might just drown instead of dying from lead or plastic. The grab for their habitat, deeper and deeper into the ocean, will probably spell the end of many species.

When making consumer choices enquire if your fish came from an overcrowded sea cage in a seal habitat.


Links:
Seals, Parks & Wildlife, Tasmania
How green and clean is Tasmanian salmon? The 7.30 Report, abc 09/12/2009
Peppered seal the new fish farm defence abc 27/08/2010
Ocean clutter delicious tag

Image:
Albert Bierstadt, Seal Rock, California 1872 via Zeno

You might also like to read
Strangling and Piercing Fur Seals 'Unintentionally' with Fishing Gear
Tasmanian Salmon marinated in...

The Alpine Ibex

The Alpine Ibex (Capra ibex) mingled with Wooly rhinoceros and Mammoth. Today they still inhabit the steep mountains of the European Alps. The wild goat survived Cro-Magnon stone-age hunters. Intensive hunting, especially in the 19th century eradicated many Alpine ibex, except for a few in the Gran Paradiso massif (Valle d'Aosta region, Italy) The region is a protected National Park today.

At present 75% of the ibex offspring die within their first year of their life. (Via it/de) Speculation about their population collapse ranges from high temperatures and sparse grass to poisoned grass. Aircraft engine exhaust gas is thought to settle and accumulate in the snow/ soil that provides the food for the 2.500 remaining herbivores. The young simply collapse exhausted at the beginning of their life.

Images:

Marc, Franz: Steinbock, (Capra ibex) 1913 via Zeno
Brehm Alfred, Brehms Thierleben, Bergsteinbock (Capra pyrenaica) via Zeno

Blasting Light Pollution and a Right to Starlight

Due to our light pollution we can only see 150 out of 5000 stars with the naked eye today. To be able to view the sky "should be considered a fundamental socio-cultural and environmental right", according to the International Astronomical Union.

Life evolved between heaven and earth. Ancient civilisations observed constellations in the sky with their naked eye for eons. Stargazing took place in ancient Egypt, Mesoamerican civilizations, Aboriginal Australia , the Pacific and many other places. The observation of natural phenomena shaped human society, their knowledge and the landscape. Astronomy and technology developed further thanks to a dark and observable sky.

After 'the candle' and gas, electrification illuminated the industrial world in the 19th Century to work 'around the clock'. Rapid urbanisation followed at lightning speed. Aggregations of people blocked the universe out to get on with business. Networked mega cities glow 24/7, illuminating the Earth. Speeding navigation in the sky, on the waters or on the terrestial zones relies on artificial 'stars' that guide us through augmented reality. Bright billboards inform us of our desires while drifting through light tunnels. Dwellings are show cased by bright lights, announcing their presence to the universe, or prospective buyers.More (of the same) is always better, so it is with light. Perception and orientation function better with more watts. No one wants to be kept in the dark. The absence of light is more concerning than the end of energy and water on the planet. Dark is just so dark.

Ineffective lighting design and unnecessary illumination is wasting energy and water. Light pollution is also negatively affecting humans, flora and fauna.The legacy of a degraded sky is an irrevocable loss for living beings on earth. Future generations will be deprived of a social right of 'being in the universe' that all previous generations had enjoyed.

More on
Light Pollution, delicious
More on Light pollution, Mnly Blog

Images:
Milky Way, via Zeno
Vincent Willem van Gogh, The Cafe Terrace, 1888, via Zeno
Vincent Willem van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhone, with gas lighting, 1888 via Zeno

Camels - Invasive Species in Australia and Aerial Shooting

The dromedary or Arabian camel (Camelus dromedarius) was introduced in 1840 to the driest inhabited continent, Australia. As a beast of burden (images) it was to carry heavy loads and cross the dry and inhospitable lands. Their water-conserving abilities made them suitable as "draught and pack animals for exploration and construction of rail and telegraph lines; they were also used to supply goods to remote mines and settlements." Together with Muslim cameleers they pioneered inland routes of arid Australia from 1860s - 1930s.

The arrival of petrol powered motor vehicles in the 1920s made the work animal obsolete. Many were killed, but some escaped and prospered without predators. Today they are an invasive species in a desert ecosystem, constituting a threat to biodiversity.
Anthropogenic climate changes, permanent drought and increasing desertification are a stress for settlers, their stock, wildlife and feral animals. The camels are seeking the watering places where humans and their stock have settled. They are "tearing down fences and smashing troughs to get at water.""Camels are also an increasing hazard to motorists traversing outback roads."

They are to be culled in national parks and on pastoral leases. It will cost AS $19m to fire at them from helicopters, as was done in the aerial predator control programme shooting wolfs in the same way. Contraceptives are thought of as too ineffective as they would still have time to trample vegetation. Selling the meat in controlled harvest is also thought of as not feasible.

There is no doubt, invasive species have to be limited or eradicated from Australia, but is this method the most appropriate one?

Questions remain:
What is being done about live stock 'trampling' water courses and National Parks etc?
What is being done about epidemic populations of dogs and cats going feral?
What is being done about selling exotic flora and fauna?
What is being done about smuggling exotic flora and fauna?
What is being done about peak oil mobility in a desert environment?
What is being done about the many off-road vehicles in the 'outback', 'trampling' the landscape and biodiversity?

Camel season opens in Australia, The Great Beyond August 12, 2009

Update:
Another 60,000 feral camels from Central Australia will be culled through aerial shooting abc 05082010

Images:
Pisanello, Dromedary, 1425–1450 via Zeno
Camel, Abû Sa'îd 'Ubaydallâh ibn Bakhtîshû, Persian Master, 1297-1299, via Zeno

Depriving Other Species of the Right to Live on Earth

Depriving other species of the right to a habitat on planet Earth:

The Polar bear and the Pacific walrus in Alaska are disappearing due to our actions.

"Both species are imperiled due to the loss of their sea-ice habitat due to global warming, oil and gas development, and unsustainable harvest...Polar bears and walrus are under severe threat, and unless we act rapidly to reduce greenhouse pollution and protect their habitat from oil development, we stand to lose both of these icons of the Arctic"

Via Center for Biological Diversity (2009, June 19). Polar Bear And Walrus Populations In Trouble, Stock Assessment Report Suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 20, 2009

The report by the Marine Mammals Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the walrus and the Polar bear.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Study of the landscape, natural resources, and natural hazards of Alaska
The Cryposphere Today

Image: American Photographer, 1898 Alaska Goldfever stampede via Zeno

Shooting Wombats

The ancestor of the wombat, the diprotodon "existed from 1.6 million years ago until about 40,000 years ago". The 2.5 tonne wombat-like Diprotodon was 1.8 metres tall and 3.5 metres long. Kangaroos reached 2.5m height at that time.

The wombat today is a surviving shrunk-down version of this mega fauna. 100 % vegetarian, it eats mainly grasses and roots. Home is a burrow which they defend fiercely.

The problem today is, that they are running out of a habitat, or it is fragmented and criss-crossed by roads and dangerous vehicles. Additionally, it has to compete with all the invasive species that have been introduced to Australia.

Formally protected in its habitat, mainly 'National Parks', it seems ignorant of human real estate and wanders great distances to be a wombat. Private landholders of the South Coast and Southern Highland do not wish to share and asked to shoot the 'intruders'. 'Property damage' was a 'knock-me-dead' argument to the wombat's guardians, the National Parks and they handed out 200 licences to shoot the marsupials this year. "Most of these shooting licences are restricted to 10 or 20 animals and that can be the whole wombat population that is on a particular farm"

Soon tourists wishing to see the iconic wildlife of the area, will only be able to view the impeccable fences and pipes of private properties. An alternative would be to bestow effective protection on to the native fauna and require, vineyards and other private enterprises to install appropriate fences to signal their unwillingness to share the land with the indigenous fauna.

Update:
And the slaughter continues:
'Farmers are illegally slaughtering thousands of wombats in South Australia. Burrows of southern hairy-nosed wombats are being bulldozed or blown up on Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas and in the Murraylands. Farmers can get permits to destroy a few wombats, but that it not a licence to wipe out the entire population. Mass killings with petrol bombs or bulldozing'.. abc 011009

Images:
1. Wombat and Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger), lithograph, 1878, via Wikimedia Commons
2. John Gould, Vombatus ursinus,"Mammals of Australia", Vol. I Plate 55, 1863, via Wikimedia Commons

Strangling and Piercing Fur Seals 'Unintentionally' with Fishing Gear

Fur Seals were killed during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries to lubricate human progress. In proud defiance the glorious deeds are continued today, despite the marine mammals protected status.
It is common practice in Australia in the 21 Century to shoot the sea creature with bullets or arrows. Recently a pair emptied 100 bullets in an hour into a fur seal colony on Canowa Island near Wilson's Promontory. If not intentionally eradicated, then they are apparently "unintentionally" pierced, strangled and cut up by the marine debris left by mind-less "recreational" fishing people. Here is one example from Victoria's Bass Coast:

"Over the past 10 years, seal rescue crews have found more than three entangled seals for each day they spend researching the colonies...Thirty-one seals were found entangled in discarded fishing debris at Seal Rocks in the year to June 2008. The shark hooks were embedded deep. One was lodged in the side of the seal's head; the other was caught in the underside of its tongue. It looked like it had a bridle on because it had these two hooks through its head and a wire trace." connecting between them...Material like fishing line starts to wear its way into the seal pretty quickly, then they get wounds opening up and they can die of dehydration because they've got these big open wounds weeping all the time. Squid jigs and hooks create the most gruesome scenes, while recent missions have also found seals trapped in a pair of fisherman's overalls and another seal was found sporting a degraded baseball cap."

The fin-footed mammals escaping fishing debris have to deal with other human 'debris, toxic pollution and oil spills'.

Toothless 'appeals' do not pose effective conservation of the species. Make "recreational taking" with such a high by-kill rate illegal in wildlife protected areas and densely populated areas. Enforce the law, otherwise the 'ecotourism' industry will get to see 'Seal Rocks' in name only, as it is so common in Australia.
Images:
1. Baldung Grien, Hans, 1516 (altered) via Zeno
2. Skeleton of a seal, A. Brehm, (altered) via Zeno

>> Peppered Seal or Peppered Tasmanian Salmon? The Habitat Grab

Leatherback Turtles out of a Habitat

For 100 million years the giant leatherback turtle (Dermochelyidae) swam in the warm and open oceans and sought to lay its eggs on a beach. It can get up to 3m long, can weigh up to 550 to 1,545 pounds (250-700 kg). The dinosaurs, came and went, but the largest living sea turtle continued on its long migration paths. One has been recorded swimming 20,000-kilometers (13,000-miles), from Indonesia to the U.S. looking for food. It loves eating jellyfish and other marine invertebrates. The the human species expanded and robbed it of all of its habitat.

The Beaches ashore - no place to nest

• Beachfront developments, infrastructure and the activities of people destroy their habitat
• SUVs on beaches damage the eggs and light pollution disorients the hatchling orientation.
• Poaching turtles, eggs, leather or oil or commercializing the 'out-door zoo' is devastating
• Nesting beaches are disappearing through human caused global warming-induced sea level rises and cyclone destruction.

At the Ocean of foreshore - a dangerous place to be

• It becomes bycatch/bykill through ineffective fishing activities (longline and gillnet, crab pots and trawls)( "An estimated 50 000 leatherback turtles were likely killed incidentally by the pelagic longline fishery in 2000".)
• It gets eaten as meat or used as an aphrodisiac to boost the human population
• It gets entangled or injured in the marine plastic debris form the fishing industry (lines, fishing hooks, nets, ropes, floats or traps)
• It eats the plastic litter (especially plastic bags, as they look like a jelly under water) and dies.
• Boats and ships strike it and cut up the soft 'shell' with sharp propellers and anchors contributed to the mortality of the turtle.
• Pollution and pathogenic bugs (sewage) dumped into the ocean impact on the health of the turtle
• Urban shark nets trap turtles
• Deliberate acts of cruelty by human beings
• Sea grass depletion and reduced water quality

No Place to Live

• In Baja California, Mexico," almost 3,000 sea turtles were found dead along a 27-mile stretch of coast during a five-year period from 2003 to 2007."
• "Leatherback sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean have declined by more than 90% over the past three decades as a result of drowning in industrial longline and gillnet fisheries targeting swordfish, sharks, and tunas."
• "Nesting in the Pacific (principally Japan and Australia) has declined by more than 90 percent over the past 25 years."

Swimways - lobbying for turtle real estate
To reduce the risks for the sea turtle in "areas of highest risk/interaction with fisheries" 'safe swimways' are to be created. "The IUCN is urging nations to protect the leatherback turtle from the world's industrial fisheries by identifying and creating marine protected areas along the Pacific leatherback's migratory routes. " It is to be seen what coastal habitat is put aside for the giant to reproduce and not hit the extinction vortex.
A giant jelly bloom in a dead sea is sure to be left behind without the jelly eater. "If current trends continue, Pacific leatherbacks are predicted to go extinct within the next few decades...Now it's time to turn the high-tech science into political will and conservation action for critically endangered leatherbacks."

Images:
1. Part of Chelonia, E.Haeckel via Wikipedia
2. Discomedusa, plate 8, E.Haeckel via Zeno

Links:
SWOT Report, The State of the World's Sea Turtles
As a Threatened Species, NSW
Conservation Status, gov.au
Tagging (attaching huge radio transmitters on their backs) to hopefully go beyond the gathering of hard 'census' data.
How NOT to eat turtle as a bycatch/bykill
Boat strike and entanglement, Queensland.gov.au.

Updates:
- In the name of conservation, 'hard data' has to be gathered on the species to be protected. Previously animals had to be cut up, stuffed and staged in dusty museums. The mode of the day is to tag them or 'observe them in captivity'. So it is that the 100 million years survivor, potentially making it to the size of a small car is serving science today. The leatherback is being kept for 2 years in captivity with a rubber harness to "generated new information crucial for the conservation of the critically endangered species." On the human-wildlife interface, it is only the 'wild-life' that serves as object to be managed. The anthropogenic values and impacts are not on the agenda. The human can continue to roam and erase the other species unhindered in their habitat. A 'blind spot' of 'science' ?
Howard, Peter, The Beast Within: An Exploration of Australian Constructions of Wildlife, Griffith University, 2007
Soft Rubber Harness Enables Researchers To Study Leatherback Turtles In Captivity For Years. University of British Columbia (2008, November 1) ScienceDaily.