New Scientist Australian Edition - 24.08.2019

12 | New Scientist | 24 August 2019

THE US and Mongolia are backing

a ban on the trade of a critically

endangered species of antelope

that has seen its numbers in the

central Asian steppes devastated

by hunting and disease.

The saiga antelope (Saiga

tatarica) once lived across Europe

and Asia but is today confined to

Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

In 2015, the species was hit by an

outbreak of a bacterial infection

that killed more than half of its

population. There are now only

165,000 individuals left.

Governments are deciding

whether to ban all trade of

parts from the antelope at the

international conference of the

Convention on International

Trade in Endangered Species

of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)

taking place in Geneva,

Switzerland, this week. “The saiga

is a big one: their population is

critically endangered by poaching

and the die-offs,” says Sue

Lieberman of the US-based

Wildlife Conservation Society.

The proposal is likely to face

opposition from Kazakhstan.

The saiga’s numbers are slowly

starting to rise in the country,

leading those with trade interests

to say it has recovered, says

Lieberman. Two Kazakh rangers

have been killed this year by

antelope poachers. The saiga

is predominantly killed for

its horns, which are used in

traditional medicine in Singapore

and other countries.

Lieberman is hopeful that the

proposal will pass. It is one of 53 on

the table at the summit. Among

others are competing proposals

for African elephants. Moves to

ban all trade involving African

elephants and their tusks were

defeated at the last CITES summit

in 2016 but are being pushed again.

However, countries including

Zambia and Botswana are leading

proposals that would weaken

protections for their populations of

elephant, known as downlisting.

“There is a possibility Zambia

might get its downlisting but

with zero quota [for trading],”

says Mary Rice of the campaign

group Environmental

Investigation Agency.

An unusual proposal is Israel’s

suggestion of giving protections

to the woolly mammoth.

Restricting trade in an extinct

animal might seem odd, but the

intent is to limit laundering of

elephant ivory as mammoth ivory,

which is collected in Siberia from

melting permafrost. Rice expects

the proposal will fail to get enough

backing, despite having merit.

More likely to pass are proposals

to limit the trade in guitarfish,

wedgefish, sea cucumbers and

the mako shark.

The summit, which comes in

the wake of a UN report that found

humanity is threatening a million

species, will also discuss the

strategic future of CITES and how

it will mesh with international

biodiversity goals to be thrashed

out at a UN conference in Beijing

next year. ❚

CITES summit

Adam Vaughan

ROSTISLAV MASHIN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

News The latest on biodiversity
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165,

Estimated population of the

endangered saiga antelope

Ban on saiga trade?

Stronger laws considered to protect antelopes and elephants

Mental health

Having kids makes

you happy... once

they move out

WHEN it comes to who is happier,

people with kids or those without,

most research points to the latter.

Now it seems that parents are

happier than their peers later in

life – when their children move out.

Most surveys of parental

happiness have focused on those

whose children still live at home.

These tend to show that people

with kids are less happy than their

child-free peers because they have

less free time, sleep and money.

Christoph Becker at Heidelberg

University in Germany and his

colleagues wondered if the story

might be different for parents

whose kids have left home.

To find out, they analysed data

from a European survey that asked

55,000 people aged 50 and older

about their emotional well-being.

They found that those with

children had greater life satisfaction

and fewer symptoms of depression

than people without children, but

only if their kids had left home

(PLoS One, doi.org/c9mr).

This may be because when

children grow up and move out they

provide social enrichment to their

parents minus the day-to-day stress

of looking after them, says Becker.

They may also give something back

by providing care and financial

support to their parents, he says.

The picture is similar in the US,

says Nicholas Wolfinger at the

University of Utah. He recently

analysed 40 years of data and

found that empty-nest parents aged

50 to 70 were 5 to 6 per cent more

likely to report being very happy

than those with kids still at home.

If parents baulk at the idea of

waiting for their kids to move out to

maximise their potential happiness,

they could move to a country with

better childcare support, says

Wolfinger. A 2016 study found that

parents with children at home were

slightly happier than their child-free

peers if they lived in places that

have paid parental leave, generous

childcare subsidies and holiday

and sick leave, like Norway, Portugal

and Sweden. ❚

Alice Klein

An infection killed more

than half of all saiga

antelopes in 2015

“ People with children who

had left home had greater

life satisfaction and fewer

symptoms of depression”