Study documents catastrophic collapse of Sahara-wildlife

This shows some of the world's 

200 remaining wild addax in 

Termit and Tin Toumma National

Nature Reserve in Niger

December 2013: The world's largest tropical desert, the Sahara, has suffered a catastrophic collapse of its wildlife populations according to a study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Zoological Society of London.

The scientists assessed 14 desert species and found that a shocking half of those are regionally extinct or confined to one percent or less of their historical range. The Bubal hartebeest is extinct; the scimitar horned oryx is extinct in the wild; and the African wild dog and African lion have vanished from the Sahara.

Read on

Camera traps capture Critically Endangered Dama gazelle in Sahara

Barbary sheep, caracal and poachers also caught on camera

October 2013. Listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Dama gazelle is one of the world's rarest and most endangered antelopes. Formerly common across its grassland habitats of the Sahelian zone of Africa, it now only exists in a small handful of tiny, isolated populations in Niger and Chad. 

Overhunting means just 300 Dama gazelle left in the wild

With overhunting by far the major cause for its demise, the Dama gazelle is also prone to encroachment of its preferred habitats by livestock development and agriculture, as well by severe drought and desertification. In all, there are probably no more than 300 Dama gazelles in the wild today.

Sahara Conservation Fund (SCF) has been working to conserve the gazelle for several years and the need for more nonintrusive ways of monitoring the presence and distribution of this shy and highly vulnerable species are urgently required to formulate viable management plans.

In 2010, the Mohammed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund generously awarded SCF $26,200 for the purchase and deployment of a grid of camera traps to help monitor and manage a significant population of the Dama gazelle in Niger's newly created Termit and Tin Toumma National Nature Reserve.

Community engagement

In recent years, hunters from the local population of Toubou pastoralists have been the gazelles' main threat, with animals being shot opportunistically in ones and twos. Work with the herders and their community leaders is, however, having a positive impact.

Read on

The dangers of working in conservation - And how vital it is to carry on in times of danger

The Sahara Conservation Fund continues its work across the Sahara despite the dangers

April 2013. Working in one of the world's harshest environments to save some of the world's rarest wildlife in the world's largest desert is a challenge at the best of times, and one that the Sahara Conservation Fund (SCF) has undertaken since its launch in 2004. Now however, with wars, uprisings and the influence of Al Qaeda spreading across much of the Sahara and bordering areas, the challenge for the SCF has added dimensions. 

Niger

When SCF first began its signature project in eastern Niger to establish the Termit and Tin Toumma National Nature Reserve and to protect some of the world's rarest species, like the addax, dama gazelle and desert cheetah, security was not an issue and one could work safely almost everywhere. 

After a spate of kidnappings in Niger and Mali, however, and then the war in Libya and its aftermath, armed military escorts were deemed a sensible precaution when travelling in the desert and carrying out regular wildlife research, protection and monitoring work. Unfortunately, since the war in Mali began earlier this year, security has further deteriorated and the vast desert area we work in is now strictly forbidden to westerners, with access severely regulated for national staff. 

Continued: http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/scf-sahel.html

Slender-horned gazelles - How to count them in the Sahara?

Slender-horned gazelle - Ghost of the sands - Courtesy of  Sahara Conservation Fund

April 2012. Recently the Sahara Conservation Fund, the Zoological Society of London, and the Sahelo-Saharan Interest Group have participated in surveys of the slender-horned gazelle (IUCN ‘Endangered') in Algeria and Tunisia. Reconnaissance visits to the Algerian Erg Occidental and Erg Oriental were interspersed with camel-based surveys of the Tunisian sector of the Erg Oriental at Djebil, and most recently the Jabbes-Senghar National Park.

Mixed news - Heavily hunted, but still there
The news about this poorly known and very striking gazelle is mixed. Like ghosts of the sands, the ‘reem' as they are known in Arabic, are always elusive and difficult to see. In spite of this, our local Tunisian partners stress that almost everywhere the gazelles suffer from uncontrolled hunting, irrespective of their protected status.

Nonetheless, it is also true that, without fail, on fieldtrips to the margins of the great sand seas, fresh gazelle tracks have proved relatively easy to find. The circumstances prompt key questions. First, are we identifying these tracks correctly and not confusing them with the more widespread dorcas gazelle, which is also present at the edge of the ergs, though apparently less so in the interiors? And second, how can we find out what these observations mean in terms of numbers of gazelle?

The great difficulty with the second question is that the tumbling dune landscape favoured by well-camouflaged and very shy slender-horned gazelles, while offering memorable desert scenery, provides an almost impossible terrain for conventional ground-based survey methods, such as those we have used for dorcas gazelles in the far less sandy habitats of the Sahel. Perhaps the best option to establish numbers will be to conduct helicopter-based surveys.

Track surveys
In the meantime, however, we are making good progress with track interpretation. Slender-horned tracks are generally reckoned to be significantly larger than those of the dorcas gazelle, but until recently we had little or no solid data on how much larger and particularly on what degree of overlap might occur between the two species. To answer this question we are measuring footprints from known captive adult animals on similar substrate at the Sidi Toui National Park. The results show average hoof print size could be considered diagnostic in 14 out of 17 individuals measured, with one large dorcas and two smaller slenderhorned gazelles falling in a zone of overlap and uncertainty.

Widely distributed but uncommon
The study provides useful reassurance that for the most part we have not been confusing tracks of the two species. Since the tracks indicate that slender-horned gazelles are well distributed, if not common, this also confirms the value of attempting a helicopter survey to try and answer the bigger question of how many gazelles might be out there. The full results of this study can be downloaded from our website on the Reports pages.

The author of this article, Dr Tim Wacher, is a Senior Conservation Biologist with the Zoological Society of London.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/slender-horned-gazelles.html

Scimitar-horned Oryx to be reintroduced into the wild in Chad

Extinct in the wild since 1990s - Courtesy of  Sahara Conservation Fund 
April 2012. The last wild scimitar-horned oryx probably died sometime in the early 1990s in the vast, open, sub-Saharan grasslands of Chad or Niger. 

The species' disappearance mirrors to a very large extent the colonization of its prairie rangelands by human beings and the growing impact of technology, changing land-use and climate change.

Once abundant - Hunted to extinction
The oryx was once abundant across its Sahelian habitat, from the Atlantic coast in the west to the Nile Valley in the east. For lack of accessible water for many months of the year, the area was only lightly occupied by nomadic herders. And while the oryx has always been a target of choice for traditional hunters, the odds were always in the antelope's favour until modern firearms and off-road vehicles made their appearance, first in North Africa, where the oryx became extinct by the mid- 19th Century, and then more gradually south of the Sahara.

Coupled with periodic drought, changing land-use patterns, habitat loss and civil strife, hunting has had a catastrophic impact on the oryx and many of the other species, like the addax and dama gazelle, with which it shares the Sahel and Sahara.

Chad was last stronghold
Up until its extinction in the wild, central Chad was the oryx's last major stronghold, with a population of at least 5000 animals occupying the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Game Reserve, an Indiana-sized piece of sub-desert rangeland established in the 1960s specifically for the species' protection. Migratory in behaviour, it was possible to witness massed herds of oryx numbering over a thousand when gathered in undisturbed areas of fresh grazing.

Civil war
Civil war in Chad in the early 1980s put paid to all that but luckily a number of oryx had previously been captured and dispersed amongst zoos to form the basis of what is today the quite substantial oryx populations held in captivity in formal breeding programs and private collections.

Reintroduction into Chad
Since 2009, SCF has been spearheading efforts to develop a strategy for the restoration of the oryx. This has included range state and expert meetings, as well as two major ground surveys carried out by SCF and its partners, Chad's Wildlife Department and the Zoological Society of London, in the framework of the Pan Sahara Wildlife Survey.

Currently, SCF are working closely with Chad's Environment Ministry and the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi (EAD) and other players to develop a project to reintroduce oryx back to the Ouadi Rimé reserve. In the coming weeks SCF will be carrying out further fieldwork and holding high level meetings in Chad to forward this initiative and to set out a timetable for the project's implementation. Both Chad and the reserve offer a very significant but increasingly rare opportunity to restore this magnificent animal back to its native habitat.

We would like to thank the following organizations for their generous support in this truly ambitious project: St Louis Zoo, Addax & Oryx Foundation, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, Al Ain Zoo, Convention on Migratory Species, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, and the Antelope, Reintroduction, and Conservation Breeding Specialist Groups of IUCN.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/scimtar-oryx-reintroduction.html

Rare white Dorcas gazelle and unusual birdlife spotted in Sahara

By John Newby of the  Sahara Conservation Fund  (SCF)

"In almost 40 years of travel throughout the Sahara and Sahel I have never seen a white dorcas gazelle before" summed up SCF's Director, John Newby, when presenting his team's findings on a recent survey of Chad's Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Game Reserve to ministry officials in Chad's capital city N'Djaména.

John and team-mates, Tim Wacher and Renata Molca-nova, were there as part of SCF's ground breaking Pan Sahara Wildlife Survey (PSWS); an outstanding initiative that continues to turn up new extremely valuable information on the fauna and flora of some of Africa's least studied countries. 

The project, funded most generously by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, through the Emirates Center for Wild-life Propagation, is nearing the end of a 2-year pilot phase in which it has to date surveyed 6 sites in Niger and Chad.

Chad survey
During the recent survey carried out in Chad in September, further sightings of the critically endangered Dama gazelle were made. Also present were many Dorcas gazelles, including the pale animal shown above.

Migrant birds
It is at this time of the year the reserve is also home to a large number of migrant birds, mostly from Europe but also inter-tropical mi-grants from within Africa. One very striking example is the magnificent Denham's bustard, one of the largest and most graceful of the entire group. The birds seem to arrive in pairs and only spend 2-3 months in the region before flying back to countries like the Central African Republic, Uganda and beyond. During their stay, the bustards inhabit areas of dense, seasonal grassland, gorging themselves on the abundant grasshoppers and locusts present.

Migrating wader hotspot!
Unlikely as it seems, the desert is also a hotspot for migrating waders and other waterbirds, that enjoy the abundant pondlife of the temporary pools and wetlands. These ephemeral waterholes also provide much-needed stopover and resting points to long-distance migrants, some of which, like the many thousands of swallows, swifts and martins, eventually head on to Southern Africa.

Demoiselle cranes
Whereas white storks are fairly often seen on migration, the sleek, grey Demoiselle crane (right) is a far less often observed bird. This year we were lucky and spotted several large groups of this flighty and increasingly rare species.

More articles about the work of the Sahara Conservation Fund 

Reports on PSWS surveys can be found in the Re-sources section of the SCF website.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/white-gazelle.html

Fish Swam the Sahara, Bolstering Out of Africa Theory

Fish may have once swum across the Sahara, a finding that could shed light on how humanity made its way out of Africa, researchers said.


The cradle of humanity lies south of the Sahara, which begs the question as to how our species made its way past it. The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, and would seem a major barrier for any humans striving to migrate off the continent.

Scientists have often focused on the Nile Valley as the corridor by which humans left Africa. However, considerable research efforts have failed to uncover evidence for its consistent use by people leaving the continent, and precisely how watery it has been over time is controversial.

Now it turns out the Sahara might not have been quite as impassable as once thought ­ not only for humanity, but for fish as well.

"Fish appeared to have swam across the Sahara during its last wet phase sometime between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago," researcher Nick Drake, a geographer at King's College London, told LiveScience. "The Sahara is not a barrier to the migrations of animals and people. Thus it is possible ­ likely? ­that early modern humans did so, and this could explain how we got out of Africa."

Using satellite imagery and digital maps of the landscape, the researchers found the Sahara was once covered by a dense network of rivers, lakes and inland deltas. This large waterway channeled water and animals into and across the Sahara during wet, "green" times.

In their analysis, Drake and his colleagues found evidence that many creatures, including aquatic ones, dispersed across the Sahara recently. For example, 25 North African animal species have populations both north and south of the Sahara with small refuges within the desert, including catfish (Clarias gariepinus), tilapia (Tilapia zillii), jewel cichlid fish (Hemichromis letourneuxi) and freshwater snails such as the red-rimmed melania (Melanoides tuberculata). Indeed, more animals may have once crossed over the Sahara than over the Nile corridor, the researchers said ­ only nine animal species that occupy the Nile corridor today are also found both north and south of the Sahara.

http://www.livescience.com/animals/fish-possibly-swam-across-sahara-101228.html

Groundbreaking green ideas unveiled

Filling parts of the Sahara desert with mirrors to create clean energy and making livestock behave like herds of wildebeest to lock in carbon are among a number of innovative proposals put forward to help tackle climate change.

Innovators from across the world gathered in Manchester to present groundbreaking plans to a panel of experts on how greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced.

The best proposals put forward at the Manchester International Festival could go on to become more widely used if they convince investors and policy makers.

Dr Gerry Wolff, formerly from the University of Wales, Bangor, advocated the use of mirrors to capture energy in places such as Africa's Sahara Desert.

Dr Wolff explained that mirrors positioned to reflect sunlight onto special power stations could provide huge amounts of energy.

He said: "The major attractions of this is it's very clean - there's very little pollution. You can store the electricity fairly cheaply, it's very quick to put up and can deliver power on demand. It's hard to think of any down sides."

The technology is already being installed in parts of North Africa and is supported in a number of European countries such as Spain.

Chartered accountant and farmer Tony Lovell from Queensland, Australia, told the conference that huge amounts of carbon could be stored by farming cows in a manner that mimics wild herds. He explained that the world's natural grasslands when grazed naturally by animals such as wildebeest, could lock in or sequester massive amounts of carbon.

But traditional farming methods meant livestock graze in a totally different manner which damages the landscape and actually releases huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere instead.

Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy at Google is one of the conference judges who will cast their eyes over 20 proposals. He explained: "So many climate related topics are focused on the problems, this is focused on pathways and solutions instead."
http://environment.uk.msn.com/news/headlines/article.aspx?cp-documentid=148365481