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We've received some fantastic news over the weekend. The giant panda is no longer listed as endangered!
Thanks to amazing conservation efforts and the commitment of the Chinese government, this iconic species has dropped down a level on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, from "Endangered" to "Vulnerable" following a remarkable growth of their population. There are now around 1,860 giant pandas in the wild—nearly 17 percent more than in 2003.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which keeps track of threatened species, announced the positive change to the giant panda's official status at its party conference Sunday.
A Step Further From Extinction
"For over 50 years, the giant panda has been the globe's most beloved conservation icon as well as the symbol of WWF. Knowing that the panda is now a step further from extinction is an exciting moment for everyone committed to conserving the world's wildlife and their habitats," Marco Lambertini, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) director general, said.
But, while the panda's status has improved, other species are under increasing threat. The eastern gorilla is now listed as critically endangered, just one step away from extinction, due primarily to poaching.
A Symbol of Hope
The much loved panda logo was designed by WWF's founding chairman, Sir Peter Scott in 1961. Twenty years later, we became the first international organization to work in China.
Since then we've been working with the government on initiatives to save giant pandas and their habitat, including helping to establish an integrated network of giant panda reserves and wildlife corridors to connect isolated panda populations. We're also working with local communities to develop sustainable livelihoods and minimize their impact on the forests.
These efforts have seen the number of panda reserves jump to 67, which now protect nearly two-thirds of all wild pandas. They have also helped to safeguard large swathes of mountainous bamboo forests, which shelter countless other species.
After decades of work, it is clear that only a holistic approach will be able to secure the long-term survival of China's giant pandas and their unique habitat.
What if I told you there was an entire underground world below you right now? The frogs you may see in your backyard are a tiny portion of the amphibian world surrounding you.
According to Mark Mandica, amphibian conservation coordinator at the Atlanta Botanical Garden (ABG), "If you weighed all the spotted salamanders they'd weigh more than all the mammals and birds combined in a healthy ecosystem." Some salamanders on average live 50-51 weeks underground, until they emerge for their breeding season. Frogs and salamanders come in many shapes, sizes and colors and are critically important to ecosystems around the world.
Unfortunately, amphibians are dying off in huge numbers in a global mass extinction. Reasons are varied, but chief among them are habitat loss and the chytrid fungi. In the mid-90's, then amphibian conservation coordinator of ABG, Ron Gagliardo, started what is now one of the oldest amphibian conservation programs in the U.S. He and several botanists started working with frogs as a way to illustrate plant and animal relationships at the garden. From there the program gained momentum and started safeguarding rare amphibians.
Their work reached a crisis level in 2005 when the chytrid fungus was sweeping through South and Central America. Gagliardo from ABG and Joe Mendelson, director of Herpetological Research at Zoo Atlanta, swooped in urgently ahead of the fungus and collected as many frogs as possible. After the collection, that same year the fungus killed up to 85 percent of amphibians in the region.
Famed National Geographic photographer and creator of the Photo Ark, Joel Sartore, likened this to rescuing precious items from a burning house. Thank goodness they did because the frogPOD at ABG is now home to some of the world's rarest frogs. Shortly after Gagliardo and Sartore returned from their rescue mission I took my three young children to observe the magnificent menagerie. Laura Elizabeth, my then 9 year-old daughter was truly moved. She befriended Gagliardo and Sartore and wrote a children's book with their help, Our Friends the Frogs. It was important to her to educate others on the tragic plight of the amphibians and offer pointers on how anyone can help. Laura Elizabeth is now 18 and, sadly, the crisis still looms large.
The Atlanta Zoo and ABG's conservation programs are centered around Captive Assurance Colonies which are collections of endangered animals kept safely in captivity and bred with the hope they may one day be returned to the wild. For some like Toughie, the last Rabbs' Fringe-limbed Tree Frog known in existence, this will probably never be a reality. For other species at the frogPOD there is hope, but currently it is still not safe to re-release.
The chytrid fungus still remains in the area, with no known method of eradication and growing in lethality. According to Mandica, "The more out of balance an ecosystem, the more lethal the disease can become." Prof. Tyrone Hayes, UC Berkeley, released a study in 2006 positing agricultural chemical drift and specifically the most popular herbicide worldwide, atrazine, is compounding the problem. Amphibians exposed to common pesticide mixtures suffer suppressed immune systems, making them more susceptible to the chytrid fungus, among other disorders.
In the U.S. and specifically Georgia, amphibians are becoming increasingly endangered from habitat loss. Georgia is second behind North Carolina for the largest number of amphibian species. For eight years ABG has collaborated with Zoo Atlanta, the University of Georgia and Georgia Department of Natural Resources on a head-start program for their rarest frog, the Gopher Frog. They collect eggs every year, raise the tadpoles up through metamorphosis and release the baby frogs in protected habitats in South Georgia. Their habitat, the longleaf pine ecosystem, has been reduced by 97 percent. Other animals adversely affected by this reduction are the Gopher Tortoise, Indigo Snake and Mandica's favorite, the Flatwoods Salamander.
The Flatwoods Salamander is a peculiar species that has never been kept successfully in captivity. But Mandica and his team are trying to change that. They currently have three adult salamanders which they collected and raised from larvae last year. This season, they acquired 15 more as recently metamorphosed baby salamanders. Flatwoods Salamanders live underground until they emerge to return to the same small pond they were born in to breed. They have not been detected in South Carolina for six years, very few last year in Georgia and none this year. Fortunately a broad coalition is working to restore their habitat. ABG's plant and amphibian conservation efforts have targeted this endangered ecosystem and partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, San Antonio Zoo, University of Missouri, Virginia Tech, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and others.
Conserving amphibians is important for many reasons. Here in the South, we should be especially grateful for their voracious bug consumption and even better, spotted salamanders are mosquito eating experts! Mandica says a mere 1,000 amphibians can eat five million bugs a year! Due to amphibian's highly sensitive skin they are the first to show imbalances in the ecosystem. At ABG frogs can only be sprayed with filtered "frog water" because if common, highly-treated tap water were used, they would all die. There are some very important lessons there! Amphibians are also a critical part of the food chain as popular prey and bug-eating predator. To humans, amphibians can have big health implications. For example, a pharmaceutical study revealed a compound in the skin of the endangered Phantasmal Poison Frog is 200 times more effective than morphine and non-addictive.
Locals and out-of-town visitors alike can learn more about amphibian conservation from exhibits in the ABG conservatory every day at 11 a.m. They can also join Mandica's hugely popular Metro Atlanta Amphibian Monitoring Program. He gives workshops on how to identify and monitor frogs and salamanders in your backyard. On the website, maamp.us, Mandica has information, call recordings and pictures of each life stage of all 28 species we have in Atlanta. Outside the Southeast, you can visit AmphibianArk.org to learn more about amphibian conservation.
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The Bornean orangutan is now listed as critically endangered. With this update, both species of orangutan (the other being Sumatran) are now at extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published an assessment this week that found hunting, habitat destruction and degradation, and habitat fragmentation to be the biggest drivers of Bornean orangutan population loss, Mongabay reported.
The authors wrote that "the combined impacts of habitat loss, habitat degradation and illegal hunting equate to an 86% population reduction between 1973 and 2025," according to Mongabay.
Only 59.6 percent of Borneo's forests were suitable for orangutans in 2010. Most of the land, Mongabay reported, is protected by Indonesian, Malaysian and Brunei governments. But illegal logging and uncontrolled burning continues to threaten the population.
"This is full acknowledgement of what has been clear for a long time: orangutan conservation is failing," Andrew Marshall, one of the authors of the assessment, told Mongabay.
Even with the remaining forest, it might not be enough to sustain the current Bornean orangutan population, Mongabay said:
In addition, the smaller patches of remaining forest may be unable to sustain the groups currently living there. These zombie orangutan populations can adapt to survive for decades in degraded or isolated habitats, but the poor health or low numbers may prevent successful reproduction.
Habitat loss is not the only factor contributing to the decreasing Bornean orangutan population. Females reproduce once every six to eight years—the longest birth interval of any land mammal—making the population slow to rebound even if improvements to conservation are made.
This new classification for the Bornean orangutan shouldn't be a cause to give up hope though. Marshall said that recent studies have found the species to be "more adaptable, and fare better in degraded forests than once predicted," Mongabay reported.
He believes placing a higher conservation value on degraded lands could help the Bornean orangutans avoid extinction.
"Although I think things will likely get worse before they get better, it's not too late for orangutans," Marshall said.
The World Wildlife Fund reports that there are currently 41,000 Bornean and 7,500 Sumatran orangutans in the wild. Sumatran orangutans have been listed on IUCN's Red List as critically endangered since 2000.
Increasing temperatures due to climate change is altering the demographics of the central bearded dragon population and possibly sending the species into extinction.
Like a lot of reptiles, Discovery News said, the gender of central bearded dragons depends on their chromosomes and the temperature at which the eggs are incubated. The egg is born a female when incubated at higher temperatures. Increasing global temperatures could skyrocket the number of female central bearded dragons in the future, wreaking havoc on the population.
Central bearded dragons have Z and W chromosomes in the same way we have X and Y. A dragon with ZW chromosomes will be a female no matter what. The temperature-induced sex change occurs in dragons with ZZ chromosomes.
At low temperatures, these dragons will be born males. But if the eggs are exposed to temperatures above 32.5 degrees Celsius (90.5 degrees Fahrenheit), the dragons will be born females, according to ABC Science.
The change is aided by an enzyme called aromatase, which converts testosterone into estrogen.
Rising temperatures, and therefore higher birth rates of females, would be severely detrimental to the species. Scientists have already recorded a higher rate of ZZ female births than before, according to DNews. ZZ females tend to be more aggressive and produce more eggs than ZW females.
With greater numbers, ZZ female central bearded dragons could out compete ZW females. The female population would soon outgrow the male population, as well.
Depending on temperature increases, there might come a time when only female ZZ bearded dragons are born, making reproduction impossible.
The central bearded dragon can be found in a wide range of arid and semiarid regions in Australia. Adults can reach lengths of up to 60 centimeters (24 inches), with their tail accounting for more than half of the total amount.
Watch DNews' video about the central bearded dragons below:
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Center for Biological Diversity
Unlike weaker wildlife laws, the Endangered Species Act does not require a species to be at risk of global extinction to qualify for protection—it must only be at risk in a "significant portion of its range." This provision ensures species are protected before they're past the point of no return—it fulfills the Endangered Species Act's purpose of protecting the ecosystems on which endangered species depend.
Unfortunately, the policy the Obama administration is proposing would ignore historic losses of habitat and reestablish the global-endangerment criterion—a standard that has already allowed the government to downplay the urgent plight of the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl.
Please take action now to tell President Obama's Interior Department not to shut out animals and plants that desperately need the Endangered Species Act's protection.
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