New species of giant rat discovered on the Solomon Islands

28 September 2017

A new species of rat, four times larger than regular rodents, has been discovered on the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The creature, stretching almost half a metre (19in) in length, lives among the trees and survives on nuts that it cracks open with its teeth.

The Solomons are already home to eight other species of rat, but this is the first new discovery in 80 years.

The new variety, named Uromys vika, has long been spoken of in island folklore.
Hidden in trees

Located about 1,800km (1,100 miles) off the coast of Australia, the chain of islands that make up the Solomons is biologically isolated.

Most of the mammals that live there are found nowhere else on Earth.

"When I first met with the people from Vangunu Island in the Solomons, they told me about a rat native to the island that they called vika, which lived in the trees," said Tyrone Lavery, a researcher at the Field Museum, in Chicago, who made the discovery.

Despite searching for the creature since 2010, Dr Lavery failed to turn up any evidence of the big rat, apart from large droppings.

Continued

Guys…researchers have discovered a glow-in-the-dark sea turtle

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

by Brett Smith

While diving off the Solomon Islands in the Southwest Pacific Ocean, marine biologists discovered the first-ever case of biofluorescence in reptiles.

According to a report from National Geographic, scientists found the endangered hawksbill sea turtle exhibiting red and green biofluorescence – when an organism absorbs light, transforms it and re-emits it as a different color.

The most common biofluorescence colors are red, green, and orange. Biofluorescence is different from bioluminescence, which is when an organism generates its own light. Corals, fish, crustaceans and mantis shrimp have all been found to fluoresce.

"I've been (studying turtles) for a long time and I don't think anyone's ever seen this," Alexander Gaos, a hawksbill conservationist who was not involved in the find, told Nat Geo. "This is really quite amazing."

The team was actually in the Solomon Islands to film biofluorescence in small sharks and coral reefs, when they stumbled upon the glowing endangered turtle. Team member David Gruber, a marine biologist at City University of New York, said the hawksbill turtle looked like a large alien spacecraft, with glowing patches of red and green all over its body.

Gruber was able to capture video of the turtle using just his camera and a blue light, which matched the color of the surrounding ambient light. The turtle’s biofluorescence was also made more visible through the use of a yellow filter on the camera.

  Read more at 

Solomon Islands dolphin hunts cast spotlight on small cetacean survival

Date:

May 6, 2015

Source:

Oregon State University

Summary:

A new study on the impact of 'drive-hunting' dolphins in the Solomon Islands is casting a spotlight on the increasing vulnerability of small cetaceans around the world. From 1976 to 2013, more than 15,000 dolphins were killed by villagers in Fanalei alone, where a single dolphin tooth can fetch the equivalent of 70 cents -- an increase in value of five times just in the last decade.

Continued ...

700 – 1000 dolphins killed in Solomon Islands

2011 agreement to stop dolphin slaughter didn't last long

January 2013. In July 2011 the Earth Island Institute announced that the people of the Solomon Islands had halted their dolphin hunting practice. On the island of Malaita, three villages had for decades been engaged in dolphin hunting. The meat was eaten, and the teeth have been used as a form of money. But the villagers told Earth Island representatives that the dolphins were getting harder to find, and the fishermen had to paddle out farther and farther to find them and haul them back to the island.

Earth Island Institute reached an important agreement so the villagers pledged to stop killing dolphins, and Earth Island pledged to raise funding that could be used to support projects for sustainable fishing, alternative energy, and sanitation/clean water. Earth Island provided $21,000 each to two villages. A third village that formulated a similar agreement was given $3,000.

700-1000 dolphins killed
However, it appears that something has gone badly wrong with this agreement, and now some 700-1000 dolphins have been killed by some villagers, apparently as they claim that the money there were promised has not been forthcoming, though this is disputed by the Earth Island Institute. The International Marine Mammal Project (A project run by the Earth Island Institute) claims that the original agreement stands, and that a renegade bunch of villagers have killed the dolphins. 

Either way, as ever, it is the dolphins that are suffering terribly.

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/solomons-dolphins-2013.html

Dolphin dies on plane to Singapore

WORLD'S SADDEST DOLPHINS

The “Save the World’s Saddest Dolphins” campaign (www.saddestdolphins.com) was launched in May 2011. Over 680,000 individuals have joined ACRES in urging RWS to please let the dolphins go. The campaign is in partnership with Earth Island Institute. 

Wild caught dolphins shipped to Singapore resort

December 2012. Wen Wen, one of 27 wild-caught dolphins purchased by Singapore's Resort World Sentosa (RWS), died on the plane that was taking the remaining (2 died in captivity in the Philippines) to Singapore for a new attraction at RWS. The 27 dolphins were caught from the wild in the Solomon Islands.

Singapore charity ACRES campaigned for the dolphins to be returned to the wild. 27 wild Indo-Pacific dolphins were caught in the waters of the Solomon Islands in 2009, and were shipped to Ocean Adventure Marine Park in the Philippines. The Philippines was never their intended final destination though, more a ‘holding pen' whilst the vast Resorts World Sentosa was being built in Singapore. The dolphins were and are held in the Philippines until the Marine Life Park, part of Sentosa, was ready, and so they could be ‘trained' before reaching the resort.

ACRES launched the next phase of the campaign to urge Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) to let the dolphins go at an event in Singapore. Members of the public held candlelight vigils and memorial services for Wen Wen in Singapore, Indonesia (Jakarta), The Philippines (Manila) and Thailand (Bangkok).

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/dolphin-plane.html

Philippines halts shipment of 25 live dolphins to Singapore resort

25 dolphins awaiting shipment to giant new Singapore resort

October 2012. 27 wild Indo-Pacific dolphins were caught in the waters of the Solomon Islands in 2009, and were shipped to Ocean Adventure Marine Park in the Philippines. The Philippines was never their intended final destination though, more a ‘holding pen' whilst the vast Resorts World Sentosa was being built in Singapore. The dolphins were and are held in the Philippines until the Marine Life Park, part of Sentosa, was ready, and so they could be ‘trained' before reaching the resort.

Solomon Islands restrict dolphin capture
They were imported from the Solomon Islands by Resorts World Singapore (RWS) into the Philippines in three batches in 2008, 2009 & 2011 despite scientific reports from the IUCN stating that the harvest of wild dolphins from the Solomon Islands could put the survival of the species at risk. The IUCN report titled "Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin Assessment Workshop Report" estimates that the population of this particular species in the island nation is less than 5,000 individuals. To protect the species from extinction, the Solomon Island government banned dolphin hunts in their territorial waters starting January 1, 2012. Island officials have also limited the captures to one dolphin every 5 years.  

According the Ocean Adventure, the dolphins are not on display there, they are just being held and trained before they are shipped to Singapore. Which seems to Wildlife Extra to go against their own mission statement: "To establish a world-class marine attraction that provides a highly entertaining and informative guest experience through presentations and direct interaction with marine mammals, and viewing of marine life exhibits. To increase public awareness on the need to protect and conserve marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of the surrounding communities."

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/solomon-dolphins.html

Solomon Islands at centre of "captive breeding"

Cockatoos, parrots and Birds of Paradise exported illegally

July 2012. Tens of thousands of wild birds exported from the Solomon Islands have been laundered into the global wildlife trade by declaring them as captive-bred, a new TRAFFIC study has found.

Between 2000 and 2010, more than 54,000 birds, mainly parrots and cockatoos, were exported from the Solomon Islands and declared as captive bred. Yet local authorities confirmed to TRAFFIC that the Solomon Islands is not known to have substantial bird breeding facilities and registered bird breeders in the islands primarily use their facilities as holding sites for wild-caught birds bound for export.

All the birds were of species listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), which restricts trade in wild-caught individuals, but has less stringent rules if they are captive-bred.

Native species exported included 18,444 Yellow-bibbed Lories, 15,994 Solomons Cockatoos, 8,050 Eclectus Parrots, 5,803 Cardinal Lories and 4,957 Rainbow Lorikeets. 12,820 of these birds were declared as wild-caught and 40,428 were reportedly captive-bred. 

Scam
"Declaring exported birds as being captive-bred has all the hallmarks of a scam to get around international trade regulations," said Chris R. Shepherd, Deputy Regional Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia and an author of the new report.

More than 13,000 non-native birds, mostly species naturally occurring in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, were exported, yet no export records exist that could explain how any stock for captive-breeding operations had reached the Solomon Islands.

They included Critically Endangered Yellow-crested Cockatoos, which cannot be commercially traded under CITES regulations even if captive-bred, plus other threatened parrots, such as Pesquet's Parrot, Chattering Lory, Blue-eyed Cockatoo and White Cockatoo, all claimed to be captive-bred.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/solomon-island-birds.html

Solomon Islands 'launders' exotic birds

The Solomon Islands has become a hub for "laundering" wild birds into the global captive-bred bird trade, says the wildlife trade watchdog Traffic.

Thousands of parrots, cockatoos and other exotic birds have been exported over the last 10 years, they report.

But officials say there are no major captive breeding units in the islands.

The Solomons recently joined CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, which sets different conditions for trading captive-bred and wild animals.

"Declaring exported birds as being captive-bred has all the hallmarks of a scam to get around international trade regulations," said Chris Shepherd, Traffic's deputy director for Southeast Asia.

Some of the 35 bird species exported from the Solomons are on the internationally recognised Red List of Threatened Species.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18858872