Congo rebels seize habitat for endangered gorillas

 USA Today

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Rebels have seized an area in eastern Congo that serves as a wildlife habitat for endangered mountain gorillas, threatening one of the last known populations of the animals, conservationists said Sunday.

Shelling and heavy gunfire could be heard from the headquarters of the Virunga National Park, and rangers were forced to flee over the weekend, said the international conservation group WildlifeDirect.

Only 700 mountain gorillas exist in the world, of which more than half live in the Virunga conservation area, a huge swath of territory at the intersection of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.

Rebels loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda have frequently battled over the park in their clashes with the army. Caught in the crossfire are the rare gorillas, 10 of which have been killed this year.

“This is a human conflict that is involving the mountain gorillas. They are not a target, but can so easily get caught in crossfire and shelling,” said Emmanuel de Merode, the director of the international conservation group WildlifeDirect.

“We still cannot protect our gorillas. This conflict has no place in the park, least of all in the habitat of these animals. We hope they will be unharmed,” said Norbert Mushenzi, director of the southern section of the park for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.

The area containing the mountain gorillas was also attacked in January, when two silverbacks were killed. Four months ago, the dead body of a female gorilla was found. Conservationists say she was killed execution style.

International wildlife groups concerned about the welfare of the gorillas are funding a $100,000-crisis management program to increase the number of rangers patrolling the habitat.

“This appalling security situation is making it virtually impossible to implement the emergency program. There is a lot that we need to be doing, and we simply cant,” said Lucy Fauveau of the London Zoological Society.

Earlier this month, hundreds of people, including rangers and their families, fled the park after fighting broke out. Wildlife groups said huge swaths of the park, including several patrol posts, had been occupied by Nkunda’s insurgents and looted.

Since then, Nkunda’s forces allowed a handful of rangers back to track the gorillas and they accounted for 18 of the estimated 72 mountain gorillas on the Congo side of the park, WildlifeDirect said.

But the most recent outburst of fighting forced the rangers who had returned to flee again, leaving no one to track the rare animals.

Virunga National Park, established in 1925 as Africa’s first national park, is located in a lawless swath of eastern Congo that the country’s government has struggled to bring under control for years.

Eastern Congo has been gripped by violence involving militias and rebels for more than a decade. Government forces have failed to prevent sporadic outbreaks of violence since the end of the country’s four-year war in 2002.

Hatcheries may not save endangered fish

Nature News

A single generation in captivity cuts reproductive success in the wild.

Breeding a species in captivity offers a strategy to save threatened populations, but a new study with steelhead trout shows that even a few generations of domestication can hinder the reproductive success of these animals in the wild.

Every year, fish hatcheries release more than 5 billion juvenile salmon and steelhead trout in the Pacific Northwest, primarily for harvest purposes. Recently, the practice has been tested as a means to supplement declining wild populations with captive-bred individuals.

But after time in captivity, these fish lose their ability to avoid predators and often differ in their mating behaviours. Researchers assumed that such changes required many generations to take hold — new research now shows that it can happen much more quickly.

Captive at heart

In 1991 the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) in Salem began supplementing wild steelhead trout populations in Oregon’s Hood River. Every year, wild steelhead are collected on the river, allowed to breed at the nearby Parkdale Hatchery, and their offspring are released a year later. When these fish are ready to spawn, they swim upriver where they are trapped at the Powerdale Dam, which forms a complete barrier across the river. There, project staff catalogue, measure and then sample DNA from almost every adult fish, before releasing them to spawn upstream or returning them below the dam.

During 3 years in the late 1990s, large numbers of captive-reared fish returned to the dam and were crossed with wild fish. By comparing reproductive outputs of fish with one wild parent to those with two wild parents, researchers led by Michael Blouin of Oregon State University in Corvallis estimated the consequences of just one generation of captive-rearing.

“What’s starkly clear,” says Blouin, “is that using hatchery fish to produce another generation of hatchery fish causes a very rapid decline in fitness.” Simply raising fish in captivity cuts their reproductive success by 15%. As the researchers report in this week’s Science ¹, having one captive parent in addition to being raised in captivity will reduce reproductive success by an additional 45%, thanks to genetic effects.

Downstream effects

Scientists working with steelhead agree that the new research could have a lasting impact on management decisions. Barry Berejikian, who runs a project to supplement fish numbers on the Hood Canal for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says there may be ways to minimize the problem. His project, for instance, does not require artificial spawning. Eggs are collected from the wild, raised in captivity, and released again, without any mating between captive fish.

Even so, Berejikian questions whether Blouin’s results can be generalized to other captive-bred species. “I’m yet to be convinced that this is going to be the case for other salmon,” he says.

Kevin Goodson, a conservation coordinator at the ODFW, agrees that steelhead trout have a unique life history, and does not believe the study will put an immediate end to programs in other fish such as Chinook salmon. “We’ve got some situations where there aren’t a lot of options,” he says.

Blouin, however, says that his research adds to the weight of previous studies showing fitness losses in hatchery fish. And his findings may not be all bad news. If genetic changes appear so quickly when wild fish are brought into captivity, it may only take a few generations back in the wild for reproductive fitness to recover through natural selection. “What happens when you add the first generation of hatchery fish to a wild population?” he asks. “We don’t know yet.”

State govt issues grant for conservation of ghariyals

Express India

Lucknow, October 7 The state government has issued a grant of Rs 15.77 lakh to the Kukrail Gharial Rehabilitation Centre (KGRC) for the conservation project of “critically endangered” ghariyals.

The state Forest department has also asked the Centre for a Rs 1.45-crore grant for the upgrade of the rehabilitation center, famous for captive breeding.

The step was taken following a survey undertaken by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). As per the survey, the Indian Ghariyal (Gavialis Gangeticus) is on the red list of critically endangered species this year.

The mature ghariyal population in India stands at less than 200. The estimated population of ghariyal is 1,976. However, the state officials said the IUCN figure might be representing the gharials in their natural habitat. 

Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (wildlife) D N S Suman said that the state will take special measures to protect the Ghariyal.

“It is a matter of concern that the IUCN has categorised the ghariyal as critically endangered species in the recent list, which was in the endangered category till now. We have been devising the plan for their conservation. Plan is being worked out where the state Forest department and the Madras Crocodile Bank will work together for the protection of the rare indigenous reptile,” he said.

Ramesh Pandey, Divisional Forest Officer of Katarnia Ghat (another natural habitat), said the ghariyal was losing congenial habitat threatening their existence. “The construction of various structures on rivers like dams, barrages and activities like sand mining has put pressure on their riverine habitat.”

Sources said the grant released by the state would be used for the upgrade of the rehabilitation centre. The KGRC would be upgraded in such a way that would provide as a favourable habitat for the breeding of ghariyals.

The tourism zone would clearly be separated from the breeding zone, as instructed by the Central Zoo Authority. The wildlife museum would be renovated and a new watchtower would be constructed for the tourists.

The state Forest department had started the Ghariyal Rehabilitation Project in 1975 at the behest of the Centre. Over the years, the KGRC kept the successful breeding and survival record of ghariyal over 90 per cent.

Deputy Forest Conservator (endangered species) Renu Singh said that the KGRC has released around 3,782 ghariyals in different rivers in the country. It has also gifted 288 ghariyals to various countries and organisations in cities like New York, Tokyo, Islamabad and Kabul.

Sources said the project started suffering when the Centre stopped the financial assistance in 1992-93 and the state government pulled its hands in 1998-99.