Sanctuary Asia — January 2018

Sanctuary | News

ELEPHANT TROPHY BAN REVERSED

U.S. President Donald Trump prompted a global outcry from

conservationists and animal rights activists last month when

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that they would

lift the ban on import of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe

and Zambia to the U.S. In 2014, the former U.S. President

Barack Obama had banned the import. But in a meeting

between the U.S. federal agency and offi cials of the Tanzanian

government,trophies from elephants that were ‘legally hunted’

between January 21, 2016, and December 31, 2018, in Zimbabwe

and Zambia were suddenly allowed to be imported. Fortunately,

a public outcry forced Trump to reconsider the move, but the

battle has by no means been won. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service had earlier put out a notice defending their disastrous

move by stating that legal and controlled trophy-hunting would

only end up benefi tting the animals by bringing in revenues for

the protection and conservation of wildlife and their habitats.

That we know from African elephant and lion population

collapses is a wholly-failed strategy.

ONLY 30 SUMATRAN RHINOS LEFT?

Though the latest estimates claim the numbers of the Sumatran

rhinos to be close to a hundred, the truth is far from that

according to experts. Unlike the Javan rhinos whose populations

are well tracked and documented through extensive camera-

trapping exercises, Sumatran rhinos present a more diffi cult

scenario to study and photograph because of their elusive

behaviour and inaccessible terrain. Experts say it is more likely

that the number of Sumatran rhinos in the wild hover around

30. We know of four distinct Sumatran rhino populations:


31. Way Kambas National Park in southern Sumatra. 2. The Bukit
    Barisan Selatan National Park in the western coast of southern
    Sumatra. 3. The Leuser wilderness of Aceh, northern Sumatra.


32. Kalimantan in Borneo. Over the years, their population has
    declined from 400-800 individuals in 1986 to under 400 in
    1996 and a precarious 275 in 2008.

SMUGGLED BIRDS SEIZED

IN INDONESIA

Forty-one white cockatoos and 84 Eclectus Parrots, which

are legally protected under Indonesian law, were seized from

four suspected smugglers arrested in a raid conducted by the

South Halmahera Police supported by Wildlife Conservation

Society’s (WCS) Wildlife Crime Unit (WCU) and the Ministry of

Environment and Forestry. The arrests took place on November

13, 2017, and evidence including cell phones, bird cages and

COURTESY: WCS INDONESIA

WORLD

SCAN

paralon pipes was seized. The birds were found in appalling

conditions, packed tightly in pipes that were illegally being

transported to North Sulawesi, a key transit region for the illegal

wildlife trade. Batam Island and Philippines are other routes from

where wildlife contraband reaches black markets in the Middle

East, other Asian countries and Europe. The suspects face prison

terms of up to fi ve years, plus a fi ne of 100 million rupiah.

LEMUR MEAT ON THE MENU

A report published in Mongabay reveals that the meat of some

of the world’s most endangered vertebrates, lemurs, is still

available in restaurants in Madagascar. Tireless eff orts to staunch

this bushmeat trade of lemurs is failing as hunters manage not

just to kill but easily sell the meat. Bushmeat is not the only

problem. Wealthy urbanites have begun to demand lemur meat

too and this is what is driving the trade based on demands from

unscrupulous restaurateurs. A majority of the illegal hunts occur

outside Protected Areas. “I was a little bit shocked (to know) that

there are still some Malagasy restaurants that serve lemurs, said

Lando Andrianandrasana, Project Manager of the Duke Lemur

Centre. He suggested that only insiders are off ered the meat

and that some kind of passwords are used to indicate that they

want lemurs served on their plates.

CRUSHED UNDERFOOT

The next time you tread on drylands such as deserts, be careful

of what you step on for you could be destroying the small, yet,

highly rich and critical world of biocrusts! Yes, dryland fl oors are

covered with cryptic patterns and formations, barely two or fi ve

centimetres high. These are made up of a throbbing variety of

microscopic lifeforms including mosses, lichens and cyanobacteria.

As a colony, they live in dry soils, spread their roots and blossom

where plants can’t survive. Unbeknown to most, the biocrust

shapes and sustains desert ecosystems. They bind the soil

preventing soil runoff s in the event of rain and fl ood, trap water

and nitrogen from the air thus adding to soil moisture and fertility.

They also sequester carbon. Unfortunately, these hardy biocrusts

or biological soil crusts, are in as much danger from climate

change, as all other living things on our beleaguered planet. Such

drylands comprise almost a third of the planet’s surface and these

ecosystems cannot survive without biocrusts. Harbouring some

of the oldest known lifeforms on Earth, biocrusts have survived

every challenge thrown at them since life on land began. Now,

they are wilting at the hands of climate change and because

Homo sapiens, for all her intelligence, has no idea what is being

crushed underfoot.

Forty-one white cockatoos were seized from four individuals suspected

of smuggling birds to North Sulawesi in Indonesia.