Pexels
By Jason Bittel
In the late 1990s, scientists discovered that elephants had a secret way of communicating, a vocalization so low in frequency it is imperceptible to the human ear. It's called infrasound. The ponderous pachyderms transmit these secret messages at least partly through the ground. When an elephant really lets loose, its infrasound can reverberate almost four miles through the rocks and sands of the savanna.
<p style="">Now, scientists think eavesdropping on such vibrations might one day be used to protect elephants from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/poaching">poachers</a>. The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ivory">ivory</a> trade has reduced East Africa's elephant population in recent decades. And even though African elephant poaching has lessened up a bit in the past few years, the animals still need all the help they can get—even if it means giving up a little privacy.</p><div id="3e972" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8RKB481576661806"><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-version="4" style=" background:#FFF; border:0;
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word-wrap:break-word;" target="_top">NRDC on Instagram: “Just a few months after promising to uphold an Obama-era ban on hunters importing elephant and lion trophies into the US, Trump has…”</a></p>
</div></blockquote></div><p style="">In a <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(18)30420-2" target="_blank">study</a> published in May in the journal Current Biology, researchers showed that they could listen in on the calls elephants make with their trunks and mouths as well as the thud-thud-thuds of their panicked running. To hear it, they broke out equipment typically reserved for detecting earthquakes.<br></p><p style="">Just like the T. rex in <em>Jurassic Park</em>, a single elephant can make a heck of a lot of noise by simply walking around. And a herd of angry or alarmed elephants? That's quite a rumble in the jungle. If scientists can learn to characterize all the different vibrations elephants create, perhaps we could develop an early-warning system that alerts local authorities when something nefarious is afoot. Instead of trying to patrol everywhere elephants go (these wanderers cover a lot of ground), rangers could wait until they hear about elephant emergencies through the grapevine, so to speak.</p><p style="">Before we can develop any kind of infrasound poaching-alert system, though, we'll need a lot more data. "We will need examples of panic running from different-size elephants, when it's raining, when it's not, and in different types of terrains," said lead author <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/people/beth-mortimer/index.html" target="_blank">Beth Mortimer</a>, a research scientist at the Universities of Oxford and Bristol in the UK.</p><p style="">Of course, elephants don't run only from poachers. Lions and bees also send the herbivores packing. So the scientists would have to be able to decipher differences between natural elephant behaviors and those associated with human threats. But Mortimer, who previously studied how spiders obtain information from the vibrations of their webs, sees a lot of potential here. Seismic sensors have already proved themselves capable of working rapidly, reliably and in remote locations, and Mortimer said they could be a much more affordable way to non-invasively gather data in the wild than methods requiring lots of rangers or even drones to monitor threatened populations.</p><p style="">Scientists are also still trying to work out just how much elephants use this vibratory information. For instance, Mortimer said they don't know how sensitive the animals are to the noises or how far away they can pick them up. And as you can imagine, the data in this field are limited by the fact that 13,000-pound animals can't exactly be plopped down into a controlled laboratory experiment.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzg3MjAzNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDAxOTUzN30.ALGi-nHhpx1WREgOSibhYnhe0zaAHJaWLYRJoBerUhI/img.jpg?width=980" id="dbe2a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="af38b42b342f62f05ce3d394035084f0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Scientists Beth Mortimer and William Rees record ground vibrations.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Mortimer et al. 2018</small></p><p style="">What we do know is that elephants respond to recordings of their calls during scientists' so-called seismic playback experiments. That's not all. We know elephants can tell whether a message is from an acquaintance or a stranger. "They can even discriminate the identity of the sender based on the characteristic waveform that you're playing back to them," said Mortimer.</p><p>The research has also unearthed another way humans might be doing elephants dirty. Depending on how much the animals rely on infrasound to communicate, our civilization's daily din could be jamming their chit-chat.</p><p style="">Mortimer found that even a little bit of anthropogenic noise was enough to drown out the elephants' infrasound. This could be anything from cars, water pumps and generators to planes overhead and mining activity down below. If it makes vibrations, it could be detrimental to the elephants' version of tin cans and string.</p><p style="">"It's an interesting kind of noise pollution," she said, adding that anthropogenic noise was the single largest factor standing in the way of her models picking up and distinguishing among various elephant sounds.</p><p style="">If we stopped making our own racket for a moment and added a few more electronic ears to the ground, who knows what we might learn?</p><p style=""><em><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/can-we-protect-elephants-eavesdropping-their-underground-messages" target="_blank">onEarth</a>.</em></em></p>
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Christine Hof / WWF-Aus
A new study reveals increasing temperatures are turning green turtle populations almost completely female in the northern Great Barrier Reef (GBR).
<p style=""> The Current Biology paper says the northern GBR population of more than 200,000 nesting females—one of the largest in the world—could eventually crash without more males. Increasing temperatures in Queensland's north, linked to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a>, are being blamed because the incubation temperature of eggs determines the sex of turtles with a warmer nest resulting in more females. </p><p style="">There are two genetically distinct populations of green turtles on the reef. One population breeds at the southern end and the other nests in the far north, mostly at Raine Island and Moulter Cay. Scientists caught green turtles at the Howick Group of islands where both populations forage. Using a combination of endocrinology and genetic tests, researchers identified the turtles' sex and nesting origin. </p><p>Of green turtles from warmer northern nesting beaches, 99.1 percent of juveniles, 99.8 percent of subadults and 86.8 percent of adults were female. Turtles from the cooler southern GBR nesting beaches showed a more moderate female sex bias (65 to 69 percent female). </p><p style="">Lead author Dr. Michael Jensen, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (<a href="http://www.noaa.gov/" target="_blank">NOAA</a>), said northern GBR green turtle rookeries have been producing primarily females for more than two decades resulting in "extreme female bias." </p><p>"This research is so important because it provides a new understanding of what these populations are dealing with," said Dr. Jensen. </p><p>"Knowing what the sex ratios in the adult breeding population are today and what they might look like five, 10 and 20 years from now when these young turtles grow up and become adults is going to be incredibly valuable." </p><p style="">The scientific research was facilitated through the Great Barrier Reef Rivers to Reef to Turtles project, which WWF-Australia leads, with WWF's Marine Species Project Manager Christine Hof also being a scientific researcher in the study. WWF-Australia CEO Dermot O'Gorman said Australians, and many people around the world, would be concerned at yet another climate change impact on the nation's most popular icon. </p><p>"First back-to-back mass coral bleaching and now we find that virtually no male northern green turtles are being born," said Mr. O'Gorman. </p><p>"These impacts show that the Great Barrier Reef really is at the frontline of climate change. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/turtles-great-barrier-reef-2430168418.html">Australia</a> must adopt ambitious climate change targets that will save the reef and its unique creatures. Finding that there are next to no males among young northern green turtles should ring alarm bells, but all is not lost for this important population. Scientists and wildlife managers now know what they are facing and can come up with practical ways to help the turtles. One possibility is shade cloth erected over key nesting beaches, like at Raine Island, to lower nest temperatures to produce more males."</p>
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Maxime Aliaga
By Jason Bittel
Scientists have discovered a new orangutan species in the mountainous forests of northern Sumatra. Of course, the Tapanuli orangutan has been here for quite a while—but it's new to us!
"Discovering a new species of great ape in this day and age just shows how little we know about the world around us and how much there still is to learn," said Erik Meijaard, a conservation scientist at the Australian National University and one of the authors of the new paper about the discovery, published online today in the journal Current Biology.
<p style="">The Tapanuli now joins the ranks of the other two known orangutans, the Sumatran (<em>Pongo abelii</em>) and the Bornean (<em>Pongo pygmaeus</em>), which lives across the Java Sea. Most of us might look at this new ape and just see another cinnamon-colored orangutan, but to experts, the differences are striking. The Tapanuli's frizzy body hair distinguishes it from its Sumatran neighbor, whose hair is long and smooth, and its skull and teeth measure differently from those of its two cousins. The Tapanulis also have distinct mating calls and eat plant species that Meijaard says nobody has ever observed orangutans dining on before.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMzMwNTQzMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTc1MTM4NX0.WRC-bLcn3srIYopDrVWP2XtA7CkP3y5rhYakcXoFMmo/img.jpg?width=980" id="3bd01" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1abc110cd91de950764281d052fe4a20" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small placeholder="add caption..." class="image-media media-caption">The skull of the new orangutan species, the Tapanuli.<span></span></small><small placeholder="add photo credit..." class="image-media media-photo-credit">Matthew G. Nowak</small></p><p style="">But even as the scientists are announcing this species' existence, they are in the same breath also cautioning us on its potential extinction. With just 800 individuals in an area of only 386 square miles (roughly three-quarters the size of Los Angeles), the Tapanulis are in trouble. In fact, if the scientists' population estimates are accurate, the International Union for Conservation of Nature will have no choice but to declare the new orangutan among the most endangered great apes on earth.<br></p><p style="">According to the team's population viability models, which take into account variables such as range size, life span (up to around 50 years) and how long it takes a species to reproduce (Bornean orangutans have young every seven to eight years, Sumatrans every nine years), the Tapanuli orangutans could be in danger of dying out if they lose more than 1 percent of their population yearly. That would mean just eight or so orangutans. Losing adult females would make the species' outlook even worse, since they are in charge of raising the next generation, which takes up to seven years.</p><p style="">That puts the Tapanuli in a delicate position. Meijaard and his coauthors say the species is threatened by road construction, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation">deforestation</a>, hunting, the wildlife trade and conflicts with humans over crops. In fact, the skeleton the scientists measured that identified the ape as a new species was the result of a human–ape incident. The researchers write that the animal, an adult male, "died from wounds inflicted by local villagers in November 2013."</p><p style="">Combined with the species' dwindling numbers is the possibility of dwindling genetic diversity. Although the scientists had access to the DNA of just two animals, they found a surprising amount of "homozygosity" in their genomes. In other words, the pair were a little too related, and the researchers suspect the population may already be inbreeding due to a lack of mating options.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMzMwNTUxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDc4ODYzNX0.GV7bryCcSS2vCb1sRD1BqpYyNizGRE3uuUDRmHIPhgM/img.jpg?width=980" id="eb06d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="43dc4c2e097fd9c2a4ea5619497d642f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small placeholder="add photo credit..." class="image-media media-photo-credit">Tim Laman</small></p><p style="">There's a possibility the Tapanulis could mix it up with the <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/sumatran-orangutan" target="_blank">Sumatran orangutans</a>, but their populations are about 62 miles apart. Any mating between the two would require a cross-island trek to even get within sniffing distance of each other. Plus, the Sumatran orangutan is itself critically endangered.</p><p style="">Living in remote forests can have its perks, though. One of the <a href="https://orangutan.org/rainforest/the-effects-of-palm-oil/" target="_blank">biggest dangers</a> to orangutans at large is the clearing and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/palm-oil-fires-1986362890.html">burning of forests for palm oil</a> plantations, but so far the Tapanulis have escaped this agricultural scourge. "The habitat is too mountainous and oil palm growers prefer flat lowlands," said Meijaard.</p><p style="">That said, the geographic isolation concerns <a href="https://anthropology.uwosh.edu/anthropology-program/faculty-and-staff/" target="_blank">Stephanie Spehar</a>, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh who is unaffiliated with the paper. "If we want this population to be viable over the long term, it really can't afford to get any smaller or be fragmented any more than it already is," she said. "Conservation measures must be implemented swiftly."</p><p style="">Of course, this is easier said than done. Spehar says conservation in Indonesia is usually difficult and complicated, requiring the cooperation of the government, local communities, private companies and NGOs. And unfortunately, she adds, there are typically more incentives for exploitation than for conservation.</p><p style="">Paper coauthor <a href="https://www.theorangutanproject.org/projects/project-leaders/dr-ian-singleton/" target="_blank">Ian Singleton</a>, conservation director for the <a href="https://www.theorangutanproject.org/" target="_blank">Orangutan Project</a>, however, says the country's changing political climate gives him hope. "Indonesia's younger generation understands the power of public pressure," he said. They've seen that protests can work—in the late nineties, they even led to the end of three decades of corrupt rule under President Muhammad Suharto. Today's Indonesians also have the benefit of Internet access and more experience working with NGOs, which multiplied in the country after the devastating 2004 tsunami. Put it all together, says Singleton, and you have a whole new generation of well-informed citizens, which just may translate eventually into better management of the country's natural resources.</p><p style="">"I can see some improvements over the coming decades," said Singleton. "The challenge, however, is to ensure there are still forests then."</p><p style="">As well as species to inhabit them, such as the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/saving-the-sumatran-rhino-requires-changing-the-status-quo/" target="_blank">Sumatran rhino</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2017/apr/03/sumatran-elephants-a-fragile-future-in-pictures" target="_blank">Sumatran elephant</a>, the <a href="https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/10/rising-sumatran-tiger-numbers-shows-impact-intensive-protection-zone/" target="_blank">Sumatran tiger</a> and, of course, the island's now two species of orangutan.</p><p style=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/scientists-discover-new-and-endangered-orangutan-species" target="_blank">onEarth</a>.</em></p><p style=""><strong>RECOMMENDED</strong></p><p style=""><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-budget-wildlife-2505448120.html">Trump Budget Undercuts U.S. Commitment to Global Wildlife Conservation</a></p><p style=""><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/west-coast-drift-gillnet-fishery-2504503658.html">Whales, Sea Turtles Threatened by Trump Administration Proposal</a></p>
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