Toxic toad invasion puts ecology of Madagascar at risk

The Asian amphibians arrived just 10 years ago. Now in their millions, they threaten the island’s unique wildlife

Jonathan Watts

Sat 24 Feb 2018 21.07 GMT First published on Sat 24 Feb 2018 20.45 GMT

Rustling branches and a canopy cacophony – part howl, part screech, part snigger – proclaim the presence of black-and-white ruffed lemurs as visitors enter Ivoloina zoological park in eastern Madagascar.

The raucous primate is one of several critically endangered species in this biological refuge, which breeds and protects rare wildlife from the growing pressures on this island’s unique ecology.

But having kept the poachers, loggers and developers at bay, the park’s operators now fear the advance of a very different threat: Duttaphrynus melanostictus, widely known as the Asian common toad.

Nobody knows precisely how this toxic amphibian arrived in Madagascar. The most credible theory is that a small number were accidentally shipped inside a container from Vietnam that was unloaded at Toamasina port and opened at the giant Ambatovy nickel and cobalt processing plant. But what is certain is how quickly they have overrun the local habitat.

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Diversity provides stability among animals in the wild

Study on moths explains why insect pests only occur in some years

Date: August 13, 2015

Source: Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research - UFZ

Summary: Why some species of plants and animals vary more in number than others is a central issue in ecology. Now researchers have found an important finding to answer this question: Individual differences have a positive and stabilizing effect on the number of moths. Species with varying color drawing are generally more numerous and fluctuate less in number from year to year. This could help to explain why some insect species in some years are very abundant pests and cause substantial damage in agriculture and forestry.

Continued ...

Diversity provides stability among animals in the wild

Study on moths explains why insect pests only occur in some years

Date: August 13, 2015

Source: Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research - UFZ

Summary: Why some species of plants and animals vary more in number than others is a central issue in ecology. Now researchers have found an important finding to answer this question: Individual differences have a positive and stabilizing effect on the number of moths. Species with varying color drawing are generally more numerous and fluctuate less in number from year to year. This could help to explain why some insect species in some years are very abundant pests and cause substantial damage in agriculture and forestry.

Continued ...

Tracking sperm whales' ecology through stomach contents

Date:

April 4, 2014

Source:

University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Summary:

While studying pygmy and dwarf sperm whales, a researcher involved in a new project stated that "understanding what resources support populations of these incredibly rare animals is important to conservation. If there are changes in the environment or their prey, we can now hope to better anticipate the potential impacts. There had been quite a knowledge gap about these animals, but this work gives us an idea of their ecological niche and requirements in the current environment."

Continued

Large-scale fences can cause ecological meltdown, study shows

Date:
April 3, 2014

Source:
Wildlife Conservation Society

Summary:
Scientists have reviewed the ‘pros and cons’ of large scale fencing and argue that fencing should only be used as a last resort. Wildlife fences are constructed for a variety of reasons including to prevent the spread of diseases, protect wildlife from poachers, and to help manage small populations of threatened species. Human-wildlife conflict is another common reason for building fences: Wildlife can damage valuable livestock, crops, or infrastructure, some species carry diseases of agricultural concern, and a few threaten human lives. At the same time, people kill wild animals for food, trade, or to defend lives or property, and human activities degrade wildlife habitat. Separating people and wildlife by fencing can appear to be a mutually beneficial way to avoid such detrimental effects.


Continued

Ecologists learn lessons from the 'ghosts of megafauna'

By Mark Kinver

Environment reporter, BBC News

Scientists have been assessing the ecological consequences of a megafauna-depleted world and what, if anything, should be done about it.

Researchers discussed whether the loss of big beasts contributed to regional and global system changes, such as Arctic warming and more wildfires.

Megafauna (animals with a mass of 44kg or more) once dominated but disappeared in an ecological "blink of an eye".

The global scientific gathering was held at the University of Oxford, UK.

Co-organiser Yadvinder Malhi, professor of ecosystem science at the university's Environmental Change Institute, said the conference was "unique" as it brought together many disciplines that would not normally meet during their day-to-day work.

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'Steak-knife' teeth reveal ecology of oldest land predators

Date: February 7, 2014

Source: University of Toronto

Summary:

The first top predators to walk on land were not afraid to bite off more than they could chew, a study has found. Researchers suggest that Dimetrodon, a carnivore that walked on land between 298 million and 272 million years ago, was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop serrated ziphodont teeth.

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Do-gooders threatening ecology of the New Forest

Leave New Forest ragwort alone for the benefit of the insect life

August 2013. The New Forest's delicate ecological balance is being threatened by ‘do-gooders' who have unofficially taken it upon themselves to pull up ragwort from various parts of the open Forest. 

Ragwort within dried hay is known to cause illness in horses and hay-growers have a duty to remove it from their hay crop. But horses and ponies will not eat it as a live plant within open heathland and pasture. Indeed, ragwort and New Forest ponies have co-existed happily for centuries with no recorded cases of ragwort poisoning.

Insects love ragwort

However, ragwort pulling can have a disastrous impact on the insect life of the New Forest where ragwort is one of the most important forage plants for butterflies, bees and other flower-visiting insects. With so much concern for the plight of bees and other pollinators within the arable landscape of Britain, the flowery areas of the New Forest, which are free from harmful pesticides such as neonicotinoids, are more important than ever.

A ‘Damaging acitivty'

Steven Falk, Entomologist at Buglife and an expert on the New Forest's insect life said "ragwort pulling in the New Forest is a truly ill-informed and damaging activity that is totally unnecessary. There are so many rare insects in the Forest, and it is well known that a general reduction in the number of flowers in the Forest over recent decades has placed many insects under severe threat of extinction there. Examine any patch of flowering ragwort in fine weather and you will see an astonishing array of bees, butterflies, hoverflies and beetles".

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/new-forest-ragwort.html

River Regulation Influences Land-Living Animals

Feb. 28, 2013 — Forest-living insects and spiders become less abundant and birds are adversely affected along regulated rivers. Three different studies by ecologists at Umeå University in Sweden show that river regulation has a negative effect also on land-living animals.

It is already well known that river regulation influences salmon migration, aquatic insects and streamside vegetation, but effects on land-living animals have been poorly studied.

When free-flowing rivers become regulated, there is a reduction in the number of aquatic insects that, during spring and summer, emerge and fly onto land where they become food for land-living animals.

"Our studies show that the number of flying insects is lower along regulated rivers than along free-flowing rivers. This results in fewer forest-living insects and spiders along regulated rivers, as the resource they feed upon -- emergent aquatic insects -- is reduced," says ecologist Micael Jonsson, the lead author on two of the articles.

Together with a group of researchers, he has compared the abundance of insect-feeding animals along similar river stretches at four regulated and four free-flowing large rivers in northern Sweden and the Finnish Kemi River. Along these rivers, flying and ground-dwelling insects were caught. The flying insects were caught with a net mounted on the top of a moving car, and the ground-dwelling insects and spiders were caught in pitfall traps.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130228080238.htm

Where the Wild Things Go … When There's Nowhere Else

Feb. 28, 2013 — Ecologists have evidence that some endangered primates and large cats faced with relentless human encroachment will seek sanctuary in the sultry thickets of mangrove and peat swamp forests. These harsh coastal biomes are characterized by thick vegetation -- particularly clusters of salt-loving mangrove trees -- and poor soil in the form of highly acidic peat, which is the waterlogged remains of partially decomposed leaves and wood. As such, swamp forests are among the few areas in many African and Asian countries that humans are relatively less interested in exploiting (though that is changing).

A lack of fresh water makes swamp life hard for animals such

as the endangered Zanzibar red colobus monkey, pictured here

 drinking from a container of fresh water provided by locals. 

(Credit: Photo by Katarzyna Nowak)

Yet conservationists have been slow to consider these tropical hideaways when keeping tabs on the distribution of threatened animals such as Sumatran orangutans and Javan leopards, according to a recent Princeton University study in the journal Folia Primatologica. To draw attention to peat and mangrove swamps as current -- and possibly future -- wildlife refuges, Katarzyna Nowak, a former postdoctoral researcher of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton, compiled a list of 60 primates and 20 felids (the large-cat family that includes tigers and leopards) known to divide their time between their natural forest habitats and some 47 swamp forests in Africa and Asia.

Because swamp forests often lack food sources, fresh water and easy mobility, few mammals are exclusive to these areas, Nowak reported. Consequently, conservation groups have not intensely monitored the animals' swamp use.

Continued

Animal Bite Force: Size of Lunch Dictates Force of Crunch

Feb. 12, 2013 — Even in the same animal, not all bites are the same. A new study finds that because the force in a muscle depends on how much it is stretched, an animal's bite force depends on the size of what it is biting. The finding has direct implications for ecology and evolution.

Many animals prefer food -- snails, nuts, etc. -- that must be cracked and crushed. Scientists have measured the maximum force of their impressive bites before, but a new study introduces a significant subtlety: bite force depends not only on the size and strength of the eater, but also the size of the eatee. That insight has important implications in the lives of predators and prey.

"Everybody measures bite force as one value," said Nicholas Gidmark, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University and lead author of the new study published Feb. 14, 2013, in Biology Letters. "There's a lot more nuance to it than that."

The nuance comes from a well-understood phenomenon of physiology that had never before been measured in terms of a living animal's bite force: The force a muscle can exert depends on how long that muscle gets preparing for the chomp.

Read on:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212210116.htm

Young cricket characters shaped by 'song'

The experiences of youth can change the adult personalities of crickets, a new study has found.

Scientists discovered that juvenile males that did not hear a cricket chorus while young grew into more aggressive adults.

It suggests that the animals can pick up behavioural traits while young which then become fixed in adulthood.

The scientists believe that personality may play a crucial role in ecology and evolution.

The findings of the team from the University of California, Davis, US are published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

In conducting the experiment the team captured juvenile field crickets that had not yet developed a tympanum, the equivalent to an ear, which grows on the cricket's front legs.

"We isolated them all effectively before any of them could hear anything," said lead author Nicholas DiRienzo.

While one group of crickets were reared in silence, another were played a looped recording of five calling males.

"In the sound treatment there was a chorus of five different crickets playing back, calling, to mimic just what you would hear on a summer night, lots of different crickets calling and singing."

The silence was similar to the conditions experienced by juveniles hatching in spring when the cricket population tends to be at a low density, and hence quieter. Any juveniles born later tend to find a denser population of crickets, which is louder.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19248230

How to Make Global Fisheries Worth Five Times More

ScienceDaily (July 13, 2012) — Rebuilding global fisheries would make them five times more valuable while improving ecology, according to a new University of British Columbia study, published July 13 in the online journal PLoS ONE.

By reducing the size of the global fishing fleet, eliminating harmful government subsidies, and putting in place effective management systems, global fisheries would be worth US$54 billion each year, rather than losing US$13 billion per year.

"Global fisheries are not living up to their economic potential in part because governments keep them afloat by subsidizing unprofitable large scale fishing fleets with taxpayer money," says study lead author Rashid Sumaila, a fisheries economist and director of the UBC Fisheries Centre. "This is like sinking money into a series of small, cosmetic fixes in an old home rather than investing in a complete, well thought-out renovation that boosts the home's value."

Despite the US$130- to US$292-billion price tag for transitioning global fisheries, the study's authors estimate that in just 12 years, the returns would begin to outweigh the costs and the total gains over 50 years would return the investment three- to seven-fold.

Read on:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120713223937.htm

Conservation group plans to sue county, feds over halted Gold Butte roundup – via Herp Digest

By Keith Rogers, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Posted: Apr. 30, 2012 | 12:30 p.m. 

Updated: May 1, 2012 | 8:36 a.m.

The other shoe has dropped in the long-simmering feud between the Bureau of Land Management and Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy over the bureau's insistence but reluctance to round up hundreds of Bundy's renegade cattle in the Gold Butte area.

An environmental watchdog, the Center for Biological Diversity, served a 60-day notice Monday of its intent to sue the BLM, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Clark County for failing to implement provisions of the Endangered Species Act. The act mandates the agencies comply with a permit for the Clark County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan.

The permit allows the county to remove federally protected desert tortoises, a threatened species, in areas targeted for development in exchange for protecting critical habitat, including where 700 head of Bundy's cattle roam near his former grazing allotment. The allotment was closed in 1994 to preserve tortoise habitat, 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, but Bundy continued to graze his cattle there despite a 1998 federal court order to remove them.

The BLM had hired a helicopter roundup company to gather Bundy's cattle on April 11 and impound the cattle, but bureau officials decided to postpone the gather indefinitely after Bundy stated he would do "whatever it takes" to stop the impoundment action.

"BLM has failed and refused to 'provide adequate law enforcement presence to ensure that management actions and restrictions are implemented for the conservation of' the desert tortoise as required," Center for Biological Diversity Conservation advocate Rob Mrowka and center senior attorney Lisa T. Belenky wrote in the 60-day notice letter. The letter cites regulations and BLM's legal obligations under the county's multiple species habitat protection plan.

Representatives for the BLM, Clark County and the Fish and Wildlife Service said in an emails that they wouldn't comment on pending litigation.

Mrowka, who is an ecologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, said, "Enough is enough."

He noted that the number of cattle grazing the Gold Butte area - 700 to 1,000 in the center's estimate - is up to 10 times more than what was legally permitted when the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the desert tortoise as a threatened species in 1990.

"Grazing reduces vegetation the tortoises need to live and spreads noxious weeds by disturbing the soil with hooves and fur that carry invasive seed," Mrowka said.

Marine Food Chain Becomes Clearer With New Revelations About Prey Distribution

ScienceDaily (May 2, 2012) — A new study has found that each step of the marine food chain is clearly controlled by the trophic level below it -- and the driving factor influencing that relationship is not the abundance of prey, but how that prey is distributed.

The importance of the spatial pattern of resources -- sometimes called "patchiness" -- is gaining new appreciation from ecologists, who are finding the overall abundance of food less important than its density and ease of access to it.

Results of the study are being published this week in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Kelly Benoit-Bird, an Oregon State University oceanographer and lead author on the study, said patchiness is not a new concept, but one that has gained acceptance as sophisticated technologies have evolved to track relationships among marine species.

"The spatial patterns of the resource ultimately determine how the ecosystem functions," said Benoit-Bird, who received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010. "In the past, ecologists primarily used biomass as the determining factor for understanding the food chain, and the story was always rather muddled. We used to think that the size and abundance of prey was what mattered most.

Continued:
  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120502123424.htm

Fungi-filled forests are critical for endangered orchids

Older forests with just the right fungi may be secret to saving vulnerable plants.

When it comes to conserving the world's orchids, not all forests are equal. In a paper to be published Jan. 25 in the journal Molecular Ecology, Smithsonian ecologists revealed that an orchid's fate hinges on two factors: a forest's age and its fungi.

Roughly 10 percent of all plant species are orchids, making them the largest plant family on Earth. But habitat loss has rendered many threatened or endangered. This is partly due to their intimate relationship with the soil.

Orchids depend entirely on microscopic fungi in the early stages of their lives. Without the nutrients orchids obtain by digesting these host fungi, their seeds often will not germinate and baby orchids will not grow. While researchers have known about the orchid–fungus relationship for years, very little is known about what the fungi need to survive.

Biologists based at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center launched the first study to find out what helps the fungi flourish and what that means for orchids. Led by Melissa McCormick, the researchers looked at three orchid species, all endangered in one or more U.S. states.

After planting orchid seeds in dozens of experimental plots, they also added particular host fungi needed by each orchid to half the plots. Then they followed the fate of the orchids and fungi in six study sites: three in younger forests (50 to 70 years old) and three in older forests (120 to 150 years old).

After four years they discovered orchid seeds germinated only where the fungi they needed were abundant—not merely present.

In the case of one species, Liparis liliifolia (lily-leaved twayblade), seeds germinated only in plots where the team had added fungi. This suggests that this particular orchid could survive in many places, but the fungi they need do not exist in most areas of the forest.

Meanwhile, the fungi displayed a strong preference for older forests.

Soil samples taken from older forest plots had host fungi that were five to 12 times more abundant compared to younger forests, even where the research team had not added them. They were more diverse as well. More mature plots averaged 3.6 different Tulasnella fungi species per soil sample (a group of fungi beneficial to these orchids), while the younger ones averaged only 1.3.

Host fungi were also more abundant in plots where rotting wood was added. These host fungi, which are primarily decomposers, may grow better in places where decomposing wood or leaves are plentiful.

All this implies that to save endangered orchids, planting new forests may not be enough. If the forests are not old enough or do not have enough of the right fungi, lost orchids may take decades to return, if they return at all.

"This study, for the first time, ties orchid performance firmly to the abundance of their fungi," McCormick said. "It reveals the way to determine what conditions host fungi need, so we can support recovery of the fungi needed by threatened and endangered orchids."

###

The University of Alaska Fairbanks and Purdue University also contributed to this study. The abstract will be available here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2012.05468.x/abstract.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/s-ffa012412.php

Early Warning Signs Of a Dying Lake (Via Herp Digest)

Early Warning Signs Of a Dying Lake
The Scientist, By Richard P. Grant, October 1, 2011

THE PETER LAKE FOOD WEB

Originally, the food web was dominated by minnows eating zooplankton such as water fleas, which survive by consuming tiny water-borne plants. The few largemouth bass in the lake fed on the minnows. But tweak the top of the chain and an ecosystem shift ensues: the increasingly numerous bass devastated the minnow population, leading to large swings in phytoplankton amounts until the food web settled into its new state.

Forecasting the future is a tricky art, but a field test of an important ecological theory now shows that drastic environmental shifts can be predicted, potentially paving the way for preventive intervention. Trophic cascades occur when a layer in the food web is added or removed and an entire ecological system shifts catastrophically as a result. For example, if a top predator becomes extinct-say, by overfishing or hunting-pressure is relieved on its prey. This can have destructive effects on other organisms lower down the food chain as they suddenly experience a higher rate of predation. Steve Carpenter at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues have now shown that such regime shifts, in this case caused by the deliberate addition of a top predator to a lake in Wisconsin, can be predicted up to a year in advance.

Healthy ecosystems can readily accommodate small disturbances. If the number of fish or the amount of phytoplankton changes, for example, the balance soon recovers. However, in the face of a coming regime shift, ecological theory predicts that recovery will become much slower. But few field studies of entire ecosystems-and none on a large-scale-have tested the hypothesis. Carpenter and his team deliberately created a trophic cascade in Peter Lake, Michigan, using the adjacent Paul Lake as a control, and measured the numbers of each species in both lakes, in order to watch for patterns of change that would precede the trophic cascade. In July 2008, the team initiated the cascade by more than doubling the population of adult largemouth bass-a top predator fish-bringing the total to 81. Paul Lake contained more than 300 adult largemouth bass.

Every summer day for three years, Carpenter and colleagues counted minnows (which eat plankton) and measured the amount of chlorophyll, a proxy for the amount of phytoplankton, in each lake. The chlorophyll could be measured precisely and at high frequency (every five minutes), and it were these data that gave the researchers the first inkling that change was under way. By September 2009, there were large swings in the amount of chlorophyll and "it was pretty clear," says Carpenter, that a major ecosystem shift was already in progress. By September 2010, the shift was complete: the food web was dominated by larger fish.

Many human-driven catastrophes, such as desertification, fishery collapse, or algal blooms, are caused by small or slow changes in management which lead to collapse. Russell Moll, at the University of California, San Diego, who evaluated the paper at F1000, says, "If there was some way to predict when a regime shift is going to occur in advance," it might be possible to nudge it back towards a more healthy state. "Having any kind of advance knowledge that we're about to enter into a regime shift would be useful from both a scientific and a management perspective," he adds.

But Carpenter sounds a note of caution. The appropriate indicators-the "canaries in the coal mine"-for other ecosystems remain to be discovered. "Before we manage ecosystems using this method we need a lot more research," he says.

The paper
S.R. Carpenter et al., "Early warnings of regime shifts: a whole-ecosystem experiment," Science, 332:1079-82, 2011. Free F1000 Evaluation

Correction (10/5/2011): The original version of this article incorrectly stated that water fleas were insects. They are zooplankton, and the article has been corrected. The Scientist regrets the error.

Wildwood welcomes new red fox

Wildwood is pleased to welcome Baxter, our new red fox.

The new addition brings number of red foxes at Wildwood to 3 and Baxter is getting on well with his new acquaintances, Wildwood residents Ellie and Chris.

Baxter was brought to Wildwood by The Fox Project, a charity based in Kent and the South East that helps sick and injured foxes and abandoned cubs, providing for their care, treatment and rehabilitation back to the wild.

Baxter, a young male, was rescued by the Fox Project team after being found abandoned as a cub. They cared for him until he was strong enough to fend for himself but sadly he is not suitable to be returned to the wild so has been brought to Wildwood to live with our existing foxes.

Wildwood’s head keeper Paul Wirdnam said “Wildwood has worked with the Fox Project for a number of years, their team do a fantastic job have rehabilitated thousands of foxes just like Baxter. We are very proud to work with them”

Baxter is now on display in Wildwood’s specially designed red fox enclosure and is just one of the huge range of British animals that can be seen at the Wildwood Discovery Park, for more information visit the website at www.wildwoodtrust.org or telephone 01227 712 111

Wildwood is an ideal day out for all the family where you can come 'nose to nose' with British Wildlife. Wildwood offers its members and visitors a truly inspirational way to learn about the natural history of Britain by actually seeing the wildlife that once lived here, like the wolf, beaver, red squirrel, wild boar and many more.

Wildwood is situated close to Canterbury, just off the A291 between Herne Bay and Canterbury.

FACTS - Red Fox Vulpes vulpes

Recognition:

Reddish orange fur, small dog sized; thick bushy tail in winter
Head/body length: average 67-72cm for males; 62-67cm for females; tail about 40cm
Weight: average 6-7kg for males; 5-6kg for females.

General Ecology:

A highly adaptable species, found in nearly all habitats from salt marshes and sand dunes to the tops of mountains. In Britain, more than elsewhere in Europe, foxes have also adapted to life in urban surroundings.

Foxes hold territories, the size of which depends on habitat; they can be as small as 0.2 square kilometres in urban areas or up to 40 square kilometres in hill country. Each territory is occupied by a fox family group. These often consist of a pair - dog fox and vixen - and their cubs. However, in areas where foxes are not persecuted and where there is a plentiful supply of food, a family group may contain several adults.

Foxes have a very wide and varied diet. On salt marshes they eat crabs and dead seabirds, while in upland regions carrion may be important, particularly during the winter months. In lowland rural areas small mammals, especially field voles and rabbits, are the major source of food, with earthworms, beetles, fruit (particularly blackberries) and small birds also being eaten.

Urban foxes glean large amounts of food. Much of this is deliberately supplied by local householders, and is supplemented by scavenging from dustbins, birdtables and compost heaps. Unlike rural foxes, those living in some urban areas eat many small birds and feral pigeons.

Usually only one vixen in a group produces cubs, once a year in the spring. Litters average four to five cubs which are born blind and deaf in a den (called an earth). The earth may be dug by the foxes, or they may enlarge a rabbit burrow or use holes made by other animals. In urban areas cubs are often born under garden sheds. A vixen stays in the earth with her cubs for the first two weeks of their lives. At about four weeks old, usually in late April or early May, cubs begin to come into the open, when they are often seen by city householders.

Foxes generally do not live very long; although they have been recorded up to nine years old in the wild, most survive only one or two years.

Conservation:

Foxes have little legal protection. In some areas they are subjected to much persecution including shooting, hunting, being snared and dug out with terriers and caught with lurchers (fast, long-legged dogs). Self-locking snares and gin traps, both of which were once used to catch foxes, have been outlawed. Free running snares are legal, but they must be inspected at least once a day. These humanitarian provisions are the sole protection received by foxes.

Despite their lack of protection foxes are widespread and abundant. The success of the fox is due to its adaptability and it is in no need of active conservation measures. There remain about 190 fox hunts in England and Wales, but these probably kill a small proportion of foxes compared to those captured in snares and killed by other means. In the early 1980s many foxes were killed each year for their fur, most of which was exported to West Germany. However, with the decline in fur prices, this trade has decreased substantially.

BP oil spill: The environmental impact one year on

In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 people and resulted in 4.9m barrels of oil being discharged, threatening marine life and hundreds of miles of coastline. Yet, one year on, what environmental impact did one of world's largest accidental oil spills have on the region's wildlife and habitats, and has it been as bad as it was feared at the time?

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News

Scientists have warned that it is too soon to attempt to offer a considered assessment on what impact the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest of its kind, has had on the Gulf of Mexico's wildlife.

Scientists have warned that it is too soon to attempt to offer a considered assessment on what impact the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest of its kind, has had on the Gulf of Mexico's wildlife.

In short, they said, nature did not work in such a way that the full picture will present itself within just one year.

Also, they added, more data needed to be gathered in the months and years ahead to gauge the full extent of the incident, which covered such a vast area.

Dr Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) - one of the federal agencies leading the clean-up operation - said there were reasons to be optimistic.

In an interview with the AP news agency, she said that the health of the Gulf is "much better than people feared", but the jury was out about what the end result would be.

"It's premature to conclude that things are good. There are surprises coming up - we're finding dead baby dolphins," she observed.

Researchers and conservation groups said it was difficult to access information being gathered as part of an investigation by a federal Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process.

The NRDA is a formal framework in which government agencies look at the damage caused by the spill to natural resources and services - such as fisheries, wetlands, protected species, agricultural land - and calculate how much it would cost to repair the "injuries".

"What we know is very sketchy," said Claude Gascon, chief science officer for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

"We have tried, and many others have tried, and it is almost impossible to get any idea what that group of agencies and researchers are actually finding.

"The simple reason for that is that there is going to be so much potential litigation in terms of settlements etc, " Dr Gascon told BBC News.

"So it is very difficult to know at the moment, the scale of the impact has been and will be in the future.

"All of us, including conservation organisations, professionals and academics, are keenly awaiting whatever the federal process will release into the public domain."

There was also agreement that it was too soon for long-term impacts to manifest themselves, such as disruptions to ecosystems' food chains.

This is why it was important for the data collection currently being carried out by the NRDA to continue, even if there was an out-of-court settlement, said Stan Senner, director of conservation science for Ocean Conservancy.

"It is too soon to draw any conclusions about impacts, especially within the marine environment," he told BBC News. "We certainly cannot gauge long-term effects just 12 months after the spill.

"For example, there were things like the massive use of dispersants, which was unprecedented. And because the well was so far offshore (50 miles), there were undoubtedly many, many impacts that were out of sight and we may never have the capacity to work out what really happened.

"Right now, there are far more questions than answers."

Understanding risks

Referring to the NRDA, Dr Senner said: "If the process runs its full course, it could take several years, may be more, to go through the damage assessment studies, then develop a restoration plan and present a claim for the cost of restoration to the responsible parties."

"All of us, including conservation organisations, professionals and academics, are keenly awaiting whatever the federal process will release into the public domain."

There was also agreement that it was too soon for long-term impacts to manifest themselves, such as disruptions to ecosystems' food chains.

This is why it was important for the data collection currently being carried out by the NRDA to continue, even if there was an out-of-court settlement, said Stan Senner, director of conservation science for Ocean Conservancy.

"It is too soon to draw any conclusions about impacts, especially within the marine environment," he told BBC News. "We certainly cannot gauge long-term effects just 12 months after the spill.

"For example, there were things like the massive use of dispersants, which was unprecedented. And because the well was so far offshore (50 miles), there were undoubtedly many, many impacts that were out of sight and we may never have the capacity to work out what really happened.

"Right now, there are far more questions than answers."

Understanding risks

Referring to the NRDA, Dr Senner said: "If the process runs its full course, it could take several years, may be more, to go through the damage assessment studies, then develop a restoration plan and present a claim for the cost of restoration to the responsible parties."

See more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13123036
(Via Dawn Holloway)

Spelman pledges £110m to revive unhealthy waterways

13 April 2011

Otters and salmon will benefit from a £110m boost in spending on England's lakes, rivers and streams, the government has said.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said the funds would revive "lifeless" bodies of water, allowing wildlife to flourish by tackling invasive weeds.

She also said that ministers wanted people to become more involved in caring for local waterways and streams.

Ralph Underhill, of campaign group Our Rivers, welcomed the announcement.

£92m will be provided over the next four years to combat non-native invasive weeds and clear up pollution.

Redundant dams, weirs and landings in England will also be removed.

The funding will be shared between the Environment Agency, Natural England and charities such as the Association of Rivers Trust.

This boost is earmarked for England alone because funding for waterways is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

An additional £18m will be provided this year to help farmers protect water courses near agricultural land, the government added.

Grass roots

Announcing the move, Mrs Spelman said: "The health of our rivers has come along in leaps and bounds, but we still see nasty invasive weeds and lifeless waters blight blue spaces in cities and across our countryside.

"With this funding, we'll help all our waterways and streams thrive by tackling problems that until now have been sitting in the 'too-hard' basket.

"Our new grass-roots approach to boosting healthier waterways and flourishing wildlife has local experience and knowledge at its heart."

Mr Underhill warned that the funding would not "solve all the problems overnight".

But he hailed the announcement as "fantastic news for our rivers and the wildlife they support".

"Rivers are a national asset and in the current financial climate it is great to see a new investment being made in their future," he added.

Conservation charity WWF-UK said it was delighted by the government's extra funding.

Tom Le Quesne, freshwater policy manager, said: "We recently withdrew legal action against the government which was originally taken because the previous government's 2009 plans for implementation of the Water Framework Directive did not deliver for rivers.

"We hope this funding shows the beginning of a long-term drive to improve the quality of our rivers and helping wildlife thrive."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13053394
(Via Dawn Holloway)