KWS beats WWF!

KWS beats WWF!

Once again, the Kenyan Wildlife Service has demonstrated field science capabilities that far exceed its size, putting to shame better known wildlife NGOs like the WWF.

You would think, wouldn’t you, that a foundation of almost all field science is a census of the things you’re studying? Yet except for recent work by the KWS in Kenya, East Africa has had no reliable animal counts for years.

The Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) is the only organization that puts out wild animal numbers with any regularity, and they admit in doing so that they are “guesses” and not compiling true field censuses. The FZS 2007 annual report claimed to fund a large census project, but the project basically was to analyze census techniques rather than actually counting animals.

The KWS has released detailed census numbers on a variety of animals over the years. The most recent census was of Grevy’s zebra and elephant in the Laikipia region of central/northwest Kenya. It will have a profound impact. The numbers of both animals are increasing very fast. This even while other NGOs are claiming Grevy’s zebra are decreasing. These are the first hard numbers to be seen in several years.

How on earth can researchers proceed with animal conservation programs, without knowing simple numbers of the animals?

The last good lion census was in 1990. The FZS conducted a hippo survey in 2006. There have been numerous censuses of mountain gorillas. AND … that’s about it! Until last year’s KWS census.

Much of the problem is political. Animal censuses, even within certain protected wilderness areas, come under the authority of the government gazetting that protected area. It’s often an embarrassment when the government is incapable of even contributing to such a project, so.. they end up stonewalling it.

In many cases, the regions that require a good animal census extend into several different regional areas, involving multiple authorities. And to really make matters difficult, these are often served by competing NGOs, each anxious for the citation.

Somehow, the KWS got through all this. And a good list of good NGOs are those who assisted them: African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), Saint Louis Zoo, Oregon Zoo, Phoenix Zoo, Zuercher Tierschutz, Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), Marwell Conservation and the Grevy’s Zebra Trust. If anyone were to now ask me to advise what wildlife organizations are good ones, I’d go to this list.

U.S. WARNS KENYA

U.S. WARNS KENYA

Our president meets Tanzania’s president, and nobody cares. Not even the Kenyans over which it was all about.

You probably didn’t know that a week ago President Obama met with Tanzanian President Kikwete, the first African head-of-state to meet with our new president.

In fact, the only mention of the meeting in the U.S. came in an Associated Press release whose topic wasn’t this important meeting, but “Life in the White House.”

It was an important meeting at several levels. There haven’t been that many heads-of-state to meet with Obama, worldwide, yet. And it came on the same day as Obama’s detention plan was released followed the controversy with losing funding to close GITMO. It was probably a pretty busy day for Obama.

The hour-long meeting was twice as long as scheduled.

The meeting, according to reports in East Africa, was entirely about Kenya. The Obama administration is growing increasingly worried about the Kenyan coalition government.

Former President Bush also used Kikwete as a go-between to get messages to Kenyan leaders without going public.

The message was clear: get back on track, or face “serious actions” by the U.S. These serious actions will most likely start with a refusal to give Kenyan politicians visas to enter the United States. This relatively benign sanction bites hard and has been used often before, since most Kenyan politicians’ children study in the U.S. and many have investments, here.

There is a lot that isn’t secret: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Johnny Carson, and our current ambassador, Michael Ranneberger, have publicly expressed increased alarm at the pace of implementation of the Kenyan reforms that created the current coalition government. There are two specific actions that the U.S. (and its partners) are waiting for: (1) create and adopt a new constitution; and (2) develop a mechanism for discovering and possibly punishing those who promulgated the election violence of 2007.

These issues are in the forefront of the Kenyan public’s universal criticism of the current government as well. The dynamic Kenyan newspapers are filled every day with details and commentary, mostly rebukes of the current political leadership. It just doesn’t morph into violence, as it did during the election.

What does all this mean?

This is par for the course. Except for very vociferous newspapers, the public doesn’t seem disturbed. Regarding this single aspect, it’s probably not a good sign for Kenya’s future, but I do know that for tourism it’s very good… at least for now

The Kenyan public gets disturbed or elated only during elections. (The one exception to this has been the students, but remarkably at the moment, even the students are quiet.) The complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction are never-ending, but never erupt into any kind of disruption until the election cycle nears its end. We’re still 3 years away from another election.

Hopefully, the U.S. pressure will work. Three years is not as far away as it might seem.

POACHING WAR?

POACHING WAR?

The Tanzanian military is poised to enter game parks in anti-poaching capacities. Poaching is probably on the rise in this economic downturn, but this just doesn’t bode well.

Two weeks go, Tanzania’s Tourism Minister, Shamsa Mwangunga, announced that Tanzania’s military is being trained to enter the national park to deal with “sophisticated poaching syndicates and networks with international links [that] are swelling and imposing a serious threat to our helpless-wild-animals.”

In a truly laughable incident, the Minister reported conviscating zebra meat and hides that he said were headed to a “Pakistani niche.” I’m not sure what the “niche” is, but Pakistan is about as far from Tanzania as Disneyland in Paris.

There’s something more going on, here. I’ve written before how poaching always increases during economic downturns, and I’ve also written about how the breakdown of the CITES convention banning ivory sales has also contributed to increased poaching. But something just doesn’t sound right, here.

The Tanzanian military may be among East Africa’s best – after all, it was they who ousted Idi Amin. But they are still a rowdy bunch compared to the heavily trained and educated park ranger. I, for one, wouldn’t want them in my wilderness.

The end of April there was a huge explosion at a military ammunition depot in Dar-es-Salaam that has still not been explained. The BBC reported on May 20 that eight Tanzanian soldiers in Dar-es-Salaam beat a traffic policeman senseless; the man was only saved by a crowd of on-lookers who started shouting at the soldiers. And perhaps most noteworthy, a recently released transcript from a court case in Arusha last February named former Tanzania Peoples’ Defense Forces officer, (read: “soldier”), Nathaniel Kiure, guilty of illegal possession of giraffe meat and hides.

Hmmm.

People need to eat. Soldiers are people, and as reported by the Arusha Times Tanzanian soldiers’ pay is falling behind. Like many places in the world, recruits to the military often come from industrious if ambitious lads who have hit a brick wall in their search for a regular job. They’re already mad. Now, if they’re not being paid, and maybe not being fed very well, what are they to do?

CRY LION!

CRY LION!

Cry Lion! Blame Maasai!
Blog 12.5.9.1

Lions are in rapid decline. But celebrity scientists and popular media like National Geographic are sensationalizing the problem with a racist swipe at the Maasai.

There has been a barrage of appeals from wildlife organizations and celebrity scientists recently for funds to “save lions.” Three months ago, National Geographic sent an urgent appeal to donors to replenish a $150,000 emergency grant it had given well-known conservationists, including the film-maker Dereck Joubert, to save Amboseli lions.

In February, the prestigious African Wildlife Foundation sent out an urgent memorandum from CEO Patrick Bergin for $85,100 to save Tarangire lions.

In March, CBS’ 60 Minutes featured the decline of lions by interviewing Dr. Laurence Frank of the University of California Berkeley, who actually claimed on air that it is likely the lion will go extinct, because… Maasai are poisoning them.

In all the above it was the Maasai’s fault. Frank claimed it was poisoning. National Geo said it was spears. And AWF claimed it was stealth murder of undefined sorts for lions killing domestic stock.

The remedies – which I consider outrageously laughable – were to (AWF) build high wire fences around domestic stock; (NatGeo) compensate Maasai whose stock had been taken; and (60Min) collar every lion and track it, then send a text message to Maasai cell phones when a lion is found in the area.

I can’t believe this.

Let me catch my sanity before I continue. First of all, I believe this nonsense is a logical marketing ploy in today’s milieu of needing to affirm imminent doom. And simple doom, not complicated doom. We can’t handle complicated doom: The swine flu is going to wipe us all out. The recession is a depression. Iran and North Korea are going to blow up Guam. Maasai are killing lions.

Lions are in decline. And they have been in decline for the better part of a half century, and that decline has accelerated noticeably in the last decade. A half century ago there may have been as many as 200,000 lion in Africa, and today there are around 30,000.

But it isn’t due to any simple act, like Maasai aggression, which can be remedied or forestalled by building fences, compensating herders or putting collar data on Facebook.

It’s due to many reasons, and one of the least direct ones is human/animal conflict. Certainly anything that effects local populations, like an economic downturn, is going to stress all sorts of fragile ecological dynamics. Yes, Maasai probably are killing more lion now than a decade ago, and especially this year, because the Kenyan government has closed the public schools for lack of money, and there are a lot of kids with less to do.

The grain that was supposed to be distributed throughout Tanzania and Kenya has been mercilessly diverted by corrupted officials themselves stressed by less aid, and undoubtedly every remaining goat or cow is more precious than ever. There are fewer tourists to provide jobs, and sustenance living is becoming more pronounced. There are all sorts of end reasons why Maasai probably are killing a few more lion than they used to.

BUT THAT ISN”T THE MAIN PROBLEM. And these cockamamy remedies will do little but limelight the organizations and celebrities promoting them.

Let’s move to some real science.

Recently, the Kenyan Wildlife Service completed careful review of more than 250 studies submitted them in the last decade regarding lion declines. The results were unequivocal.

According to Dr Samuel Kasiki, KWS’ deputy director for biodiversity research, the problem is climate change: specifically, extreme weather and air pollution.

“We have only begun some serious work in this area and perhaps in five years time, we will be in a position to talk more confidently on the issue,” Dr Kasiki said in an interview for Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper. With the care we should expect from real science, he went on to explain that adequate scientific data on climate change and global warming and its impact on wildlife is still lacking in the country.

Whereas poisoning, spearing and gruesome lion kills of goats are satisfactorily documented?

Kasiki’s initial findings make for fascinating science. One of the many discoveries he would now like to fund for more study was that increasing temperatures and poorer air quality are leading to a reduction in the lions’ manes. It has been shown that lions with better manes enjoy longer reproductive life-spans and higher offspring survival. The lack of a better mane – due to global climate change – ultimately results in fewer lions.

“The lion is more prone to rising temperature levels, which consequently leads to abnormal sperm and low sperm count,” Kasiki reported. He also documented that lions’ hunting success declines as temperatures rise.

Perhaps the most respected lion scientists in the world – someone who has dedicated his life to lion study – is Dr. Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota. Packer has spent much of his life in East Africa.

His studies are voluminous and therefore difficult to compile in one page urgent memos or air on prime time TV. But his more than 30 years of careful study has detailed lion decline, especially through periods of what he calls “mass die-offs.”

I hesitate to simplify his extraordinary science, but I think it’s fair to say he believes that like Dr. Kasiki, climate change is the ultimate villain.

His most recent findings target outbreaks of canine distemper virus (CDV) and infestations by a tick-borne blood parasite called Babesia. The two diseases are normally completely unrelated and in a more balanced ecology would be very unlikely to occur at the same time.

But climate change changes this. First in 1994, then again in 2001, and now maybe again now, what Packer calls a “perfect storm” of extreme drought followed by heavy seasonal rains – a growing condition common on the equator with increasing global temperatures – triggers the two devastating diseases to converge.

When they did in 1994, the Serengeti lost a third of its lion population. The same thing happened in Ngorongoro Crater in 2001.

And it may be happening, again, today. Not those troublesome Maasai spearing or poisoning lions; not the revenge of school kids on vacation, but … climate change.

Packer even discovered the exact link of the tick disease to the lion. It wasn’t that ticks were infesting lions directly, but rather, through Cape buffalo. And forgive my interjection of non scientific anecdotes, but in the last few years we’ve seen more and more lion feeding on buffalo.

Rarely, do we find buffalo actually hunted then killed by lion – that’s really too difficult for most lion. But we often see them feeding on what had to have been a buffalo that had already died before the lion found it.

Climate change, Packer explains, has seriously weakened buffalo populations. Buffalo eat grass; only grass. Droughts wipe out the grass. Downpours following the droughts (a climate change phenomenon as explained above) bring out the Babesia-carrying ticks en masse which then infect the buffalo big time. The buffalo die. The lions feast on weakened, parasite-infested buffalo. Lion infected with CDV then get the double whammy from the tick, and… die.

“CDV is immunosuppressive—like a short, sharp bout of AIDS—thus greatly intensifying the effects of the Babesia,” Packer said. This co-infection, or synchronization of the diseases, caused the mass die offs, Packer and his colleagues concluded.

Packer warns that as temperatures continue to increase producing these drought/flood conditions on the equator, “potentially fatal synchronized infections are likely to become more common.”

So I’m now appealing for your urgent $50 donation to end – once and for all – climate change.

You see, the real reason is more onerous, complicated and far more difficult to deal with than what I consider a near racist swipe at the Maasai. Calm down, America, and enact Obama’s energy policy please.

Hominid Uno?

Hominid Uno?

New research nails man’s birthplace near the Kalahari Desert. Science continues to trump the dwindling support for creationism or anything anti-evolutionist.

Today’s announcement by Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania that continuing analysis of worldwide human DNA nails the birthplace of modern man near the Kalahari is a much sexier story in the U.S. than elsewhere. And I like that. Sort of like the continuing twisting of the screw of “I gotcha” into the bungled cork ideology of intelligent design, the last and dying religious ideology about hominid creation.

New research puts our birthplace in what is now the Kalahari Desert. Less than 100,000 years later, a few dozen of our surviving ancestors migrated into the Middle East to create modern humanity.

Olduvai Gorge has always been one of my very favorite places on safari. The first picture that I ever had taken in Africa was of myself spreading my arms above Olduvai Gorge in the early 1970s. Not a year has passed since that I haven’t visited it multiple times.

The spectrum of public interest and debate that has accompanied my developing love for the paleontology of Africa is mind boggling. In my career in Africa the science has increased more than anyone could have imagined. But so have the social politics of evolution.

Emerging from the liberal society of the 1960s, evolution was hardly more controversial than gravity. A generation later state legislatures were outlawing it. Science leaped forward while American society uturned back to the Dark Ages.

This was almost exclusively an American phenomenon.

For years, literally generations, paleontologists have postulated that our birthplace had to be in Africa. This wasn’t just because that’s where the vast majority of early hominids were found, but also because diligent (I should say, ‘unrelenting’) science in related areas like geology and chemistry were coming to likewise deductions.

The first real hard scientific evidence came from three pioneering academics in 1987. Publishing somewhat to their peril, they described their discovery of Mitochondrial Eve. Rebecca L. Cann, Mark Stoneking and Allan C. Wilson described a shortcut if blueprint for later, more thorough DNA analysis of where man began.

It was very hard science and that was very hard for much of poorly educated American society to grasp, and easy for fanatics from the pulpit to contest. But for most of us half-educated dimwits, it was extraordinarily exciting.

But it was the human genome project that reenforced “Mitochondrial Eve” in spades. Two scientists from the University of Cambridge used the results appearing in the genome project to conclude in a May, 2007, study that not only did we originate in Africa, but all of us are ancestors of a small band (several dozen, maybe) of modern humans who entered the Middle East from Africa 50,000 years ago.

Toomas Kivisild and Phillip Endicott were not field researchers. They were numbers guys, crunching the data collected by the genome project in their offices in England. It was, as they said, “simple numbers.”

The earliest hominid may be 7 million years old, but they all died off. All of us are related to someone who walked out of Africa into the Middle East only 50,000 years ago.

Now, continuing study of the human genome project has added even more to our understanding of that “first man.” Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania has determined that maybe 100,000 years before that fateful crossing into the Middle East, the ancestors of that small band of humans was formed near the Kalahari Desert. That is when modern man emerged as a mutate from earlier forms of hominids.

That makes us the newest and most youthful of all forms of hominids, probably including the otherwise short-lived Neanderthals. We’re a mere 150,000 years old. Of the as many as 20 other forms of early hominids, none lived for less than a third of a million years.

We’ve got a long way to go to be Hominid Uno. Hope we can make it!