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Asia News International Via Daily India.com

A New Zealand primatologist has found a previously unknown species of uakari monkey in the remote Amazon, which is already endangered.

According to a report in National Geographic News, Jean-Phillipe Boubli of the University of Auckland found the animal after following native Yanomamo Indians on their hunting trips along the Rio Aracá, a tributary of the Rio Negro in Brazil.

“They told us about this black uakari monkey, which was slightly different to the one we knew from Pico de Neblina National Park, where I’d worked earlier,” said Boubli.

“I searched for that monkey for at least five years. The reason I couldn’t find it was because the place where they were was sort of unexpected,” he added.

Though uakaris normally live in flooded river forests, this one turned up in a mountainous region on the Brazil-Venezuela border, far from its nearest relatives.

Little is known about the creature’s habits, but according to Boubli, it lives in social groups and is likely a seed-eater, based on his observations of other uakaris.

But the newfound ‘Ayres uakari’ is already endangered as it appears confined to a very small area outside any preserve and is hunted by locals.

“We’re going to have to create a park or reserve, because it’s habitat is not a protected area,” said Boubli. “The population is quite small, so they are quite vulnerable. I’m a bit concerned,” he added.

According to Boubli, “It’s very important to define what those monkeys are doing there, how big their range is, because we want to make a case for the Brazilian government to create a reserve.”

“Finding a relatively large monkey as a new species these days is pretty cool. It shows how little we really know about the biodiversity of the Amazon,” he added.

Guardian - Andrés Schipani in Mazán and John Vidal
Tuesday October 30, 2007

Deforestation and climate change are returning the mosquito-borne disease to parts of Peru after 40 years

Map: Where malaria occurs in South America (pdf)

The afternoon is hot and sticky on the banks of the Napo river, an arm of the Amazon, but Claudio, a logger, is shivering in his creaky wooden bed.

“I feel bad, very bad, pain all over my body, fever, high fever, shudders,” he says. “I have malaria; this is the 17th time so far. I don’t know what to do any more.”

The mosquito-borne illness has returned to the many villages only accessible by boat in the Peruvian Amazon, inflicting on the inhabitants days of fever, permanent anaemia and - in the worst cases - death.

In Peru, malaria was almost eradicated 40 years ago, but this year 64,000 cases have been registered in the country, half in the Amazon region. It is thought there are many more unregistered cases deep within the massive and humid rainforest, where health authorities find it almost impossible to gain access.”Malaria is present. There have been 32,000 cases this year in this area alone - that says malaria is very much present,” said Hugo Rodríguez, a doctor at the Andean Health Organisation, which is fighting malaria in border areas of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.

His organisation distributes mosquito nets to some villagers, spreading the message through the area that the illness is dangerous and - where they can identify the cases - helping in post-infection treatment.

“Now we are not talking about eradicating malaria any more, as that is impossible and unsustainable; we are doing our best to try and control it,” he added.

Climate change and deforestation are behind the return of malaria in the Peruvian Amazon.

Off-season rain is altering the pattern of mosquito development, leaving puddles containing the lethal larvae in areas where malaria had been nonexistent.

“The actual malaria problem of the Peruvian Amazon is caused by constant climate changes,” said biologist Carlos Pacheco, head of the mosquito control unit in Iquitos, the regional capital south of Mazán.

And deforestation is having a similar effect, forcing the mosquito to move to new areas and spreading the disease to places where people are not aware of the disease, where villagers lack the means to get hold of mosquito nets and preventive medicines, and where health authorities have no presence.

“Every time we fight the mosquito, we feel we are fighting against a much more evolved and adaptable one, one that can easily migrate to areas that were clean of malaria before and that are very hard to access,” said Mr Pacheco.

Two scientific reports last year linked malaria with deforestation. Peruvian researchers found that frontier areas cleared of trees for logging, settlements, roads, farming or mining were far more likely to harbour malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

In one Peruvian study, researchers said the biting rate of mosquitoes in deforested areas was nearly 300 times greater than in virgin forests. Increases in human population density had no impact on biting rates.

The insects lay their eggs and thrive in open, sunlit pools of water. Roadbuilders dig channels and culverts which become blocked, silt washes off farmland blocking streams, and opencast mines and new settlements create ideal breeding grounds.

Anyone who catches malaria in the Amazon region has few opportunities for treatment. Even in the most densely populated areas, there are few health centres.

Loggers are the mosquitoes’ main victim.

“The districts with the higher logging activity are the critical ones, making the disease there to be almost impossible to control,” said Dr Rodríguez.

“It is very hard to access the areas where the clearing of the rainforest occurs and these people are not conscious of the risks and once infected - and sometimes because of the illegality of this activity - loggers are very reluctant to get treated by health authorities.”

Alongside the Amazon river and its many tributaries, poverty-stricken loggers like Claudio move deep into the rainforest, in areas where malaria is prevalent, without taking any precautions and for meagre wages.

Pointing at his neighbour’s one-year-old son who is recovering from the disease, Arquímedes of the village of Manacamiri near Iquitos said: “Here most people suffer from this disease, from malaria.

“There are no other diseases like this, no other problems like this here … We have now become the malaria zone.”

Behind him, the bank of the low Nanay river seems nothing more than a mud puddle with mosquitoes buzzing around.

“Children, elderly, how many deaths we already had,” said Arquímedes.

“At the beginning we had no idea what it was, and it was malaria … there is not a single day without a malaria patient.”

Associated Press

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - 1 of the rarest species of beetle in the country may be in its last stages of existence, and saving it could cost millions of dollars to two Nebraska counties.

The endangered Salt Creek tiger beetle is found in rare saline wetlands in Saunders County, south of Ceresco and north of Lincoln. The wetlands were once common here but urban expansion and farming have degraded the beetle’s habitat.

Designating critical habitats for the beetle could reduce land values and restrict development in certain areas, but could also bring in conservation dollars from the government and nonprofits. That’s according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A survey this summer found 263 tiger beetles, down from 777 in 2002.

 Independent

Efforts are being made this week to prevent Britain’s first species extinction in the new millennium – of a beetle that was discovered only two years ago.

The streaked bombardier beetle is officially the UK’s rarest insect, known from only one colony, on a brownfield site on the Thames estuary in east London. However, the site is about to be redeveloped for housing, and the rubble-strewn habitat it has found congenial is to be obliterated.

In an attempt to save the beetle, the developers have created an alternative site on the edge of the housing area, and this week volunteers from the London Wildlife Trust have tried to relocate the insects. Otherwise, disappearance looms for Brachinus sclopeta, which only a month ago was added to the UK’s list of priority endangered species.

“This isn’t an extinction in a remote rainforest on the other side of the world,” said Jamie Roberts of Buglife, the invertebrate conservation charity. “It’s happening right here on our doorstep, and could have been avoided if the site had been protected. It’s very sad that a deliberate choice has been made to plough on with this development, regardless of the consequences to wildlife.”

Bombardier beetles are among the insect world’s more remarkable creatures. They possess an effective defence mechanism, which comprises their ability to fire a boiling chemical spray from the tip of the abdomen. This is fatal to other insects and discouraging to larger potential enemies, including humans.

There are about 250 species of bombardier beetle, but in Britain there was thought, until recently, to be only one – the common bombardier, Brachinus crepitans, which, despite its name, is scarce. But in May 2005, one of Britain’s leading entomologists, Richard Jones, discovered the colony of streaked bombardiers while conducting a survey for the developers of the building site, which is near the Thames Barrier.

The insect was regarded as “missing, believed extinct”, as it had not been seen in Britain since 1928, and before that the last reliable records were from the mid-19th century, so it immediately became Britain’s greatest invertebrate rarity.

Mr Jones has been instrumental in persuading the company to create an alternative site nearby, and he has led the way in finding and moving the insects, so far having moved about 10. A search on Monday with a dozen volunteers produced only one more.

One of the difficulties with translocation is the beetle’s life cycle; the larvae of bombardiers are known to prey on specific examples of other beetle species, especially of the ground beetle genus Amara, but it is not known which Amara species is the prey of the streaked bombardier. To provide for this eventuality, Mr Jones has also been translocating examples of Amara beetles from one site to the other.

Matt Shardlow, the director of Buglife, said the charity was sceptical of the possibilities of success, but wished the enterprise well.

A number of insect species are believed to have become extinct in Britain in recent years, including the short-haired bumblebee, last seen on the Kent coast in 1988, and the large blue butterfly, which died out in 1979. However, the large blue has been reintroduced successfully and is now thriving at a number of sites in the West Country

The Globe and Mail

Global crisis growing more grim, World Conservation Union says, adding new threatened species to its death watch

Even the vultures are in trouble. They are drowning in water troughs, colliding with power lines and going hungry because there are fewer dead animals to feed on.

The World Conservation Union released its annual Red List of Threatened Species yesterday, the most authoritative catalogue of species on the brink. The 2007 report contains sobering news about the escalating global extinction crisis, and the increasingly tenuous hold of vultures, great apes and other creatures and plants.

Of the 41,415 vulnerable species on the list, 16,306 are in danger of disappearing forever, up from 16,118 last year. At least 785 plant and animals species have already been wiped out, and now the white-headed vulture, found in sub-Saharan Africa, could follow them into oblivion.

“Threats include reduction in carrion, including medium-sized mammals and wild grazing mammals,” the report says. Habitat loss is also a factor, as are encroaching humans; the birds will abandon their nests if they are disturbed by people. Vultures have also died after eating carcasses deliberately laced with insecticides, which were intended to kill hyenas, jackals and other livestock predators.

Two other African species - Ruppell’s griffon and the white-backed vulture, are also at risk, although are not considered in such imminent danger. In Asia, the red-headed vulture is now considered critically endangered, the World Conservation Union’s red alert category.

The “vulture crisis,” as it has been dubbed, is part of a grim trend.

“This year’s IUCN Red List shows that the invaluable efforts made so far to protect species are not enough. The rate of biodiversity loss is increasing and we need to act now to significantly reduce it and stave off this global extinction crisis,” says Julia Marton-Lefevre, director-general of the World Conservation Union. It used to be known as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and has kept its old acronym, IUCN.

This year, scientists reassessed the status of the great apes, which includes six species of gorillas, chimps, orangutans and bonobos, and a number of subspecies. They found our closest relatives are moving more swiftly toward extinction than previously believed.

The western lowland gorilla has lost 80 per cent of its population in three generations. The gorillas have been hit by the commercial bush meat trade and the Ebola virus. About one-third of the animals living in protected areas were killed by Ebola in the past 15 years.

A vaccine is being tested and might help, says Mike Hoffmann, a program officer with the IUCN in Washington. The gorillas are more vulnerable to Ebola than humans; 95 per cent of infected animals die, compared with the 50- to-85-per-cent mortality rate in people.

But Ebola is only part of the picture. Habitat destruction is a major factor in the decline of the gorillas and the other great apes, Dr. Hoffmann says.

Habitat protection is also key to saving many of the 50 plants and animals that live in Canada and are on the 2007 list, including the shortnose sturgeon, the whooping crane and the sea otter. But most threatened birds, mammals and amphibians live in the tropics. Australia, Brazil, China and Mexico have particularly large numbers of threatened species.

The World Conservation Union has been evaluating species on a global scale for 30 years. More than 10,000 scientists from 147 countries work on the inventory. They put plants and animals into one of nine categories: extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, near threatened, least concern, data deficient and not evaluated.

They added corals to the list for the first time this year, including 10 species from the Galapagos Islands. Seventy-four species of Galapagos seaweed were also put on the list.

The only species to be declared a goner in 2007 was the woolly stalked begonia, a Malaysian herb that has not been seen for 100 years.

HUMANS THREATEN LIFE OF PLANET

Of all the species found by the World Conservation Union to be threatened, 99 per cent are at risk from human activity.

There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List and 16,306 of them are threatened with extinction, up from 16,118 last year. The total number of extinct species has reached 785 and a further 65 are only found in captivity or in cultivation.

Almost one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70% of the world’s assessed plants on the 2007 IUCN Red List are in jeopardy.

NEAR THREATENED

The Breede River Redfin declines in Africa are the result of alien invasive species and agricultural practices.

ENDANGERED

The great hammerhead shark is found in tropical waters throughout the world and is threatened by demand for its fins and by being accidentally caught by fishermen.

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED

Floreana coral, native to the Galapagos Archipelago. Colonies disappeared from all known sites after the 1982-1983 El Nino.

Increased sea temperatures are thought to be responsible.

PLANTS

In 2007, 70 per cent of the species evaluated were considered threatened:

1996/98: 5,328

2007: 8,447

VERTEBRATES

Number threatened in 2007, as a percentage of species evaluated:

Mammals: 22%

Birds: 12%

Reptiles: 30%

Amphibians: 31%

Fish: 39%

1996/98: 3,314

2007: 5,742

INVERTEBRATES

Number threatened in 2007, as a percentage of species evaluated:

Insects: 50%

Mollusks: 44%

Crustaceans: 83%

Corals: 38%

Others: 51%

1996/98: 1,891

2007: 2,108

SOURCE: IUCN - THE WORLD CONSERVATION UNION

(Kyodo) _ A rare subspecies of stag beetle found only in the Amanos Mountains of southern Turkey is now threatened with extinction as it is being exploited for sale to beetle enthusiasts in countries like Japan, a local conservationist has warned.Nazim Sonmez, of the Amanos Environmental Protection Association, said the beetle is being over-harvested owing in part to the popularity among Japanese children of “Mushiking: The King of Beetles,” an arcade game in which players engage in virtual battles between beetles from all over the world.

Sonmez said some Japanese passing themselves off as researchers have come to the Amanos area of Hatay Province to catch or otherwise acquire the rare and distinct beetle, which goes by the scientific name Lucanus cervus akbesianus.

Locals are also involved in exploiting them to sell to foreigners, especially Japanese, at exorbitant prices amounting to as much as 1,450 lira (some 13,000 yen).

They sell for as much as 40,000 yen on Japanese Internet auction sites.

According to Sonmez, the popularity of the Mushiking interactive card game, which has spawned offshoots like cartoon films and novels, has increased the demand for stag beetles in Japan.

“At this rate, this beetle will go extinct,” he lamented, while calling for urgent measures to protect the subspecies.

The beetles are known as “stag beetles” because males possess enlarged mandibles that resemble the horns of male deer.