Butterfly numbers fall by 84% in Netherlands over 130 years – study

European insect populations shrink as farming leaves ‘hardly any room for nature’

Patrick Barkham

Mon 1 Apr 2019 11.47 BSTLast modified on Mon 1 Apr 2019 13.36 BST

Butterflies have declined by at least 84% in the Netherlands over the last 130 years, according to a study, confirming the crisis affecting insect populations in western Europe.

Researchers analysed 120,000 butterflies caught by collectors between 1890 and 1980 as well as more recent scientific data from more than 2 million sightings to identify dramatic declines in the country’s 71 native butterfly species, 15 of which have become extinct over the last century.

“We are quite sure that the real decline must be much larger,” said Chris van Swaay, of Dutch Butterfly Conservation and one of the co-authors of the study.

The research follows warnings of catastrophic insect declines after a global review calculated that the total mass of insects was falling by 2.5% each year, and a German study found average flying insect abundance had declined by 76% over 27 years.

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Rise in wolf attacks alarms Dutch sheep farmers

10 August 2018

Dutch sheep farmers are worried that a sharp rise in wolf attacks may force them to install expensive electric fencing to protect their flocks.

In the first half of this year wolves killed 138 sheep in the Netherlands, but the total for 2017 was less than 20, a wolf expert told the BBC.

It is a new problem for the Dutch - March 2015 was the first time for 150 years that a wolf had been confirmed roaming in the Netherlands.

Dogs kill far more sheep every year.

Maurice La Haye, a biologist at the Dutch Mammal Society, said: "It's very difficult to protect against a lone wolf - you can place electric fences round the sheep, but it's expensive."

He told the BBC that young lone wolves looking for mates were entering the country from Germany, expanding their territory and posing a risk to farmers.

But the threat has to be seen in perspective. He pointed out that the Netherlands has about 800,000 sheep, and dogs kill as many as 13,000 every year.

Wolf attacks can be very distressing for farmers, however. It has just been confirmed that one wolf in June killed 12 sheep and savaged 14 others, which had to be put down.

So the farmer, in Lierderholthuis near Zwolle in the eastern Netherlands, lost 26 sheep because of one wolf. The DNA result confirming it was a wolf came back only this week.

Continued 

Two-headed Conjoined Porpoises Hauled Up from the Deep

By Tia Ghose, Senior Writer | June 15, 2017 07:39am ET 

Two-headed conjoined porpoises were recently hauled up by a fishing boat in the North Sea, not far off the coast of the Netherlands.

The bizarre-looking creatures were already dead, and the fishermen, who feared trouble from the authorities, took photos and then tossed the duo back overboard.

It's not clear exactly why the porpoises died, but the double-headed creatures likely could not swim, said Erwin Kompanje, a researcher at the Natural History Museum and the Erasmus MC University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who recently wrote up the case in the June 7 issue of the journal Deinsea. Another cause may have been their fused hearts, which may not have worked adequately, Kompanje said. 

Conjoined twins

Conjoined twins are a rarity for humans, but they're also extremely rare for harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena), Kompanje said. That's because newborn dolphins and porpoises, which are mammals, need to immediately start swimming on their own or they drown, Kompanje said.

"Normal twins are extremely rare in cetaceans, as there is not enough room in the mother's body to have more than one fetus," Kompanje told Live Science. One case report pegged the incidence of twinning in cetaceans at less than 1 in 200.

Only one past case of a harbor porpoise bearing twins has ever been reported. Given the rarity of twinning, it stands to reason that conjoined twins are even more of an oddity, he added. In the past, only nine other cases of conjoined twins have been reported in whales or dolphins, and most of these were described in fetuses pulled from dead pregnant females, according to the study.

Read on 

Dutch Buzz: Bees Get Smaller, Men Taller

by Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer   |   February 24, 2016 02:32pm ET

A team of scientists took a closer look at declining bee populations in the Netherlands and discovered something unexpected — it wasn't just the bee populations that were shrinking. The bees themselves were getting smaller.

Over nearly a century and a half, big-bodied female bee species in the Netherlands have reduced in size by about 7 percent, according to a new study, the first to investigate variations in Dutch bee size over time. The researchers suggest that reduced habitats and resources could be causing the change, putting evolutionary pressure on the bees to shrink.

Their investigation began several years earlier, with a study analyzing the main drivers of bee decline, which they linked to diminishing numbers in the bees' host plants. They found that if a plant species dwindled, the number of bees that depended on that plant would soon follow suit, and that populations of large-bodied bee species plummeted more rapidly than that of small-bodied bees.

Read on …

First evidence of Seoul hantavirus found in wild rat population in the Netherlands

Date:

February 12, 2015

Source:

Co-Action Publishing

Summary:

Researchers report discovering the first evidence of Seoul hantavirus (SEOV) in the wild rat population in the Netherlands. The discovery comes on the heels of similar ones in France, Belgium and the United Kingdom in recent years, and has some researchers concerned about the potential spread of the virus to humans.

Continued ...

Salamanders Under Threat from Deadly Skin-Eating Fungus – via Herp Digest

Sep. 2, 2013 — A new species of fungus that eats amphibians' skin has ravaged the fire salamander population in the Netherlands, bringing it close to regional extinction.

Fire salamanders, recognisable by their distinctive yellow and black skin patterns, have been found dead in the country's forests since 2010. The population has fallen to around 10 individuals, less than four per cent of its original level, but what has been killing them has been a mystery until now.

Scientists from Ghent University, Imperial College London, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Dutch conservation group Ravon have isolated a new species of fungus from the dead animals and found that it can rapidly kill fire salamanders. They have named the fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, the second part meaning "salamander-eating," and report their findings today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fungi are increasingly recognised as important threats to biodiversity. A species related to the new fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has plagued amphibian populations across the globe and is thought to have wiped out more than 200 species worldwide. It causes the disease chytridiomycosis, which the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has called the single most devastating infectious disease in vertebrate animals.

The study's lead author, Professor An Martel from the University of Ghent, said: "In several regions, including northern Europe, amphibians appeared to be able to co-exist with Bd. It is therefore extremely worrying that a new fungus has emerged that causes mass mortalities in regions where amphibian populations were previously healthy."

Co-author Professor Matthew Fisher, from Imperial College London, said: "It is a complete mystery why we are seeing this outbreak now, and one explanation is that the new salamander-killing fungus has invaded the Netherlands from elsewhere in the world. We need to know if this is the case, why it is so virulent, and what its impact on amphibian communities will be on a local and global scale. Our experience with Bd has shown that fungal diseases can spread between amphibian populations across the world very quickly. We need to act urgently to determine what populations are in danger and how best to protect them."

The fungus can be passed between salamanders by direct contact, and possibly by indirect contact although this hasn't been proven. It invades the animal's skin, eventually destroying it completely. In tests, the fungus was not able to infect midwife toads, which have been threatened by chytridiomycosis, but whether other species might be vulnerable is unknown.

The scientists have brought surviving salamanders into captivity to protect the remaining population in the Netherlands. To aid further studies, they have also developed a diagnostic tool that enables the new fungus to be quickly identified. They tested 100 salamanders from Belgium, where the population has remained healthy, but so far there is no sign that the fungus has spread beyond the Netherlands.

The research was funded by the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp, the European Research Council and Biodiversa.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Imperial College London, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the 

Journal Reference:

A Martel et al. Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans sp. nov. causes lethal chytridiomycosis in amphibians. PNAS, 2013

Paper is freely available at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/28/1307356110.full.pdf+html

Corresponding Author An Martel: an.martel@ugent.be,

Rescued Kitten Infected Girl with Rare Virus

A teenager in the Netherlands who rescued a drowning kitten from a ditch developed a large, blackened open wound on her wrist, which took multiple doctors several weeks to find its rare cause, researchers say.

The kitten that the girl rescued was sick and died the following day, and the 17-year-old went on a trip to Italy and Switzerland, during which time she developed a red wound on her wrist that blistered before turning black. She also developed painful red bumps on her arm, spanning from the wound on her wrist up to her armpit. 

Suspecting the wound was a bacterial infection, doctors prescribed antibiotics, but the medicine didn't work. Once back in her home country, the feverish girl went to the hospital again.

"When I saw the wound, I expected it to be a normal wound, so I was quite surprised when I saw the big ulcer," said Dr. Jojanneke Heidema, a specialist in pediatric infectious disease at St. Antonius Ziekenhuis Hospital in Nieuwegein, Netherlands, who reported the case.

"It did not look like a normal bacterial infection, so I went looking for other causes of a necrotic ulcer," Heidema said. Necrotic ulcers are wounds with dead tissue.

Continued

Wolf found in Netherlands is no joke, scientists say

The first wolf found in the Netherlands in over 140 years walked there freely from eastern Europe, scientists said Wednesday, dismissing allegations its body had been dumped as joke.

The female wolf has mystified the Netherlands since its body was found by the roadside near the tiny village of Luttelgeest in the north of the country in July.

Some had even suggested that eastern European agricultural workers employed in the Netherlands had brought the wolf from their home country in order to confound the Dutch.

But now a bevvy of Dutch scientific and wildlife groups have come together to establish the truth.

The Dutch Wildlife Health Centre (DWHC) said in a statement after a press conference that "the wolf died from a heavy blow to the head, apparently from being hit by a car."

The wolf was in good health, around one and a half years old and had just eaten some young beaver, the DWHC said in a joint statement with the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, the Alterra research institute and WolvenInNederland (Wolves in the Netherlands).

The wolf apparently originally came from "eastern Europe, near the Russian border," Naturalis and Alterra said.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-08-wolf-netherlands-scientists.html#jCp

Spooked baboons baffle Dutch zoo in Emmen

Staff at a zoo in the Netherlands say they are baffled by their baboons, who have spent days sitting still, huddled together in fear and hardly eating.

The behaviour started on Monday evening, and only now are the 112 baboons becoming their normal, active selves again, said a biologist at Emmen Zoo.

The zoo still has no idea what spooked the hamadryas baboons, but it is a good sign that some are now eating apples, biologist Wijbren Landman said.

The zoo last saw such hysteria in 2007.

"What frightened them? We don't know, it's a mystery. There have been many suggestions - an earthquake, escaped snakes, aliens, thunder," Mr Landman told BBC News.

“They were immediately sitting in the trees and on the rocks doing nothing at all”, siad Wijbren Landman,Biologist.

"The other animals here are OK - they have lemurs, elephants and kangaroos as neighbours, and they show no sign of panic."

Emmen lies in the north-eastern Netherlands, near the German border.

Mr Landman said he had consulted a French baboon expert who had witnessed such baboon hysteria in the wild, triggered by awareness of a predator. But the French expert said such hysteria had not lasted as long as in the Emmen case.

Continued

Camel Burgers Go On Sale in the Netherlands

Submitted by NewsGuy on April 15th, 2013 

The exploding dromedary population in Australia has lead to a new delicacy in the Netherlands: Camel burgers.

In the video below, Johannes Hoekstra, owner of the De Schrans restaurant in the northern city of Leeuwarden, Nl., explains why the glut of camels in Australia is a blessing for his customers. Camel meat is "just as tender as beef" but sweeter and less fattening. 

The chef has bought 50 pounds of the meat, enough to make about 250 camel burgers. He serves the delicacy on a roll with a hard boiled egg, split in two, representing the two humps of the animal which is causing lots of destruction in Australia as their population runs out of control. The government has recently approved camel meat for importation and this seems to be the first instance of a chef openly advertising the unusual dish.

Here's the video:

youtu.be/L90HGg5nvjM

How long until the camel meat scandal sweeps across Europe?

Stay tuned...

Porpoises Have to Be Careful in the Eastern Scheldt in the Netherlands

Mar. 7, 2013 — The unexpected conclusion of the doctoral research project on the feeding ecology of porpoises by Okka Jansen at Wageningen University is that the Eastern Scheldt in the Netherlands may be an ecological trap. She also discovered that more than just examining stomach contents is required to find out what porpoises eat. The analyses of stable isotopes and fatty acids provide different and more complete data.

Coastal waters are rich marine ecosystems. Porpoises are the most common small cetacean species in the Netherlands' coastal waters. The numbers and distribution of porpoises have considerably changed in recent decades. The question is: what is driving these changes? Within this context, doctoral candidate Okka Jansen studied the feeding ecology of the porpoise in the Netherlands' coastal waters. 

"Most studies of the feeding ecology of porpoises are based on examinations of stomach contents," says Okka Jansen. "But this method falls a long way short of the mark in telling us everything about what they eat. I performed additional research using two other techniques: analysis of stable isotopes and analysis of fatty acids in porpoises and their prey. These three methods combined give the most accurate reflection of the diet of porpoises." The analysis of stable isotopes (from bone and muscle tissue) mainly provides information about the location in which and how high in the food chain the animals have foraged. Fatty-acid analysis indicates the most probable composition of the diet of porpoises in recent months.

"The combination of these three techniques is unique in sea-mammal research," says doctoral thesis supervisor Prof Peter Reijnders. "Examination of the stomach contents only enables you to see recent food ingestion, whereas fatty-acid analyses allow you to trace back what animals have eaten over a slightly longer period, and analyses of stable isotopes (extracted from bone tissue) indicate what they have eaten over a much longer period. In this way, Okka's research showed that the diet of porpoises in the Netherlands' coastal waters consists of inshore fish species, such as gobies, smelt, and dragonet as well as schooling species from deeper waters further from the coast, which were eaten a longer time ago, such as mackerel and herring. The porpoise is in essence an opportunistic predator. By contrast, the white-beaked dolphin, which she also studied, turned out to be much more of a specialist; with the exception of extremely young animals, the staple part of their diet always consists of cod and whiting, irrespective of their habitat."

Read more:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130307092330.htm

Pike found choked on zander in Netherlands

Anglers are scratching their heads after a pike was found dead with a zander - a fish of similar size - jammed in its mouth in the Netherlands.

Rene Spaargaren, from Almere near Amsterdam, noticed the dead fish locked together in water near his home and dragged them out with a boat hook.

"It was clear that the pike had bitten off more than it could chew - or swallow, rather," he told BBC News.

British angling expert Charles Jardine said the event was "really unusual".

"What on Earth possessed the pike to take on prey that size?" he asked. "Gluttony just killed that fish."

Mr Spaargaren reported his find to the Dutch nature conservation news website Natuurbericht, which published the story and one of his incredible photographs.'Not a python'

He came across the fish while doing some work by his jetty this week.

Continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20971848

Thriving beaver population 'threatens' Dutch flood banks

A thriving beaver population is threatening the stability of the Netherlands' sea defences, a group of experts has warned.

The Mammal Society has brought together other wildlife groups to work out how to protect these important water-blocking dykes from the small but potentially destructive semi-aquatic rodents.

Beavers play an important ecological role in the Netherlands and were initially brought in to increase biodiversity.

In forests, they gnaw through trees, creating space for other species to survive; in water they build dams, which allow insects and plants to thrive.

The beaver-breeding programme began in 1988, and since then the beaver population has grown exponentially. There are now an estimated 700 beavers residing in the country's streams and canals.

Triumphant mating habits combined with the beavers' ability to breed so successfully in the Dutch countryside mean they have been moving beyond the southern province of Limburg and entering towns and cities that may not be prepared for the influx

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20315417

Hive in the Sky Gives Bees Urban Dwelling

Urban beekeepers often keep their operations on the downlow for fear of violating local ordinances, but a new adjustable-height hive prototype being tested in Europe could mean sweet success all-around. Meet the "Sky Hive."

The Dutch city Maastricht, population around 120,000, is currently testing out a new system that places beehives on an adjustable stand that beekeepers crank up to the top of a pole nearly 20 feet tall. The bees get to do their thing while staying far above the potentially allergic and freaked-out public.

A local cooperative between beekeepers and designers called the Bee Collective pioneered the Sky Hive, which is intended to stimulate beekeeping in a contemporary living environment. The hive is located in Sphinxpark, a central area that once housed industrial factories and recently became a temporary park. Eventually the park will be developed into a residential quarter.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/21577-sky-hive-gives-bees-an-urban-dwelling.html

Orphaned baby seals taken to sanctuary after storms

A seal sanctuary in The Netherlands has been overwhelmed by the arrival of hundreds of seals that have been washed up on beaches because of storms and disease.

Many of them are orphaned pups, torn from their mothers in heavy winds off the north coast of the country.

Others have been weakened by increasingly high levels of pollution and overfishing which has depleted the supplies that the seals normally rely on.

Our reporter Anna Holligan sent this report from the sanctuary just outside Groningen.

Video at:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16573522