Extremely rare jaguar spotted near Arizona mountains

Photos of an extremely rare jaguar roaming Forest Service land near Arizona's Santa Rita Mountains have been published by the Arizona Daily Star, which got the images from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The male jaguar, believed to be the lone known unconfined jaguar in the U.S., has been in the area since at least September 2012, when its image was captured by a hunter's motion-detector camera.

Jeff Humphrey, public outreach specialist with the Fish & Wildlife Service, who spoke with Yahoo News, explained that around the time the hunter captured the photo, the Fish & Wildlife Service and the University of Arizona began using funds supplied by the Department of Homeland Security to monitor the movement of jaguars along the Mexico border. The mission of that project is to learn how border patrols affect jaguars, Humphrey explained.

As part of the project, the university installed motion-activated cameras. For the past seven months, "whenever [researchers] go and download the pictures of things moving in the woods, they've collected photos of the jaguar as well as ocelots."

It's presumed, he noted, "that it's from a wild population of jaguars that occur in northwest Mexico."

Humphrey added that there has been no attempt to capture the jaguar. "We're letting the jaguar do its thing," he said. "We're trying to ascertain what area it is using by using photo detection."

According to a news release from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, "Once fully operational, up to 240 paired cameras will be in place throughout the project area to capture images of ... detected animals."

Federal wildlife officials are considering whether to designate more than 1,300 square miles in New Mexico and Arizona as a critical habitat for the jaguar.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/extremely-rare-jaguar-spotted-arizona-mountains-201801945.html

Rare hatchling opens eyes for first time

KOB Eyewitness News 4 got a unique opportunity to be present as a baby bird at the Albuquerque Biopark Zoo started to open its eyes for the first time.

It may not sound like such a big deal, but KOB4 discovered the Guam Micronesian Kingfisher was opening his eyes to a world with very few birds like him - his species is practically extinct.

The species is so rare that the chick is only one of 135 throughout the world. Right now it's being raised by Albuquerque Biopark Zoo staff.

Peter Shannon, the zoo's curator of birds, has dealt with hundreds - if not thousands - of species, but said this one is special.

"This species disappeared from the wild on Guam - by 1988 there were none left in the wild," Shannon said.

For almost 25 years the species has only survived in zoos and conservation centers.

The zoo now has five of the birds and Shannon said he's been caring for the newest member ever since he hatched.

Read more and see video:  http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S2714409.shtml?cat=504

Sci-fi Devices Find New Application – Finding Colonies of Mystery “Devil” Bird

The sci-fi world of high tech devices such as night vision goggles, thermal imaging readers, and portable radar systems is finding a new and unusual application – helping to save the Black-capped Petrel, an endangered bird so rare and reclusive that conservationists have a hard time even figuring out where its nesting areas are. Its known nesting range on Hispaniola in the Caribbean, its nocturnal habits, and the strange sounds it sometimes makes have conjured devilish associations, and provided it with its local name, “Diablotin,” or Little Devil.

By using cutting-edge technology — portable radar systems and thermal imaging devices — researchers were recently able to produce pictures of 150 individuals in a span of only four hours, in an area where only four or five individuals had previously been identified, and then only by the sound of their calls.

“The novel application of this technology allowed us to discover new breeding sites of these birds recently on Hispaniola. We investigated a site where we had previously heard only a handful of individuals, and were amazed at how many birds were actually there,” said Dr. Jessica Hardesty Norris, Seabird Program Director for American Bird Conservancy, and co-author of the recently produced conservation plan to protect the species. 

Read on:  http://www.surfbirds.com/community-blogs/blog/2012/03/19/sci-fi-devices-find-new-application-finding-colonies-of-mystery-devil-bird/

2 rare Guam rail chicks hatch at National Zoo; bird is extinct in the wild

WASHINGTON — National Zoo officials say two rare Guam rail chicks have hatched there. The birds are extinct in the wild.

The small, flightless birds hatched March 3 and 4. The total population of the birds is now 162.

In several weeks, zookeepers will perform routine medical exams and take feather samples to determine the birds' sexes.

Eighty-two chicks have hatched at the Zoo and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. Some of have been sent o Guam for release and breeding.

Guam rails were plentiful on the island until the brown tree snake arrived in military equipment shipped from New Guinea after World War II. The snakes had no natural predators and hunted the Guam rails and eight other bird species to the brink of extinction.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/02d7b0678744424a9ba30e8d534bb60b/DC--Rare-Birds-Hatch/ 

New population of Critically Endangered monkey found in Colombia

One of the top 25 threatened primate species in the world

February 2012: The only confirmed population of an extremely rare sub-species of brown spider monkeys in a national protected area has been found in Selva de Florencia National Park in Colombia.

The brown spider monkey is one of the top 25 threatened primate species of the world. The species resides in two separate populations on either side of the Magdalena River in central Colombia partially within the Eje Cafetero landscape. Each population represents a different subspecies: A. hybridus hybridus living on one side of the river, A. h. brunneus on the other.

Although both subspecies are in danger of extinction, A. h. brunneus was most at risk because no national protected areas contained populations of this uniquely Colombian primate until now.

Maybe now the monkey population can grow in number‘This exciting discovery of brown spider monkeys in Selva de Florencía National Park emphasises the importance of protected areas to safeguard wildlife – even for previously unknown species,' said Julie Kunen, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Director of Latin America and Caribbean programmes. ‘The fact that the species was found in a protected area gives conservationists hope that populations will be safeguarded and can perhaps even grow in number.'

When Selva de Florenica was created as a national park in 2005, the only known evidence of A. h. brunneus was a captive specimen living with colonists in the park. Subsequent studies were unable to record the species living in the area; therefore it was considered most likely locally extinct.

But in early November last year, a local farmer in the village of El Silencio reported the possible presence of the species, setting into motion a rapid exploration of the area by officers of the National Parks Unit and researchers from WCS. At least two individual brown spider monkeys were observed, making Selva de Florencia National Park the only national protected area that currently protects this subspecies.

Unfortunately, the park is in the southernmost area of the species' range, thus its population is even more vulnerable to extirpation. To ensure the continued conservation of the brown spider monkey in Colombia, next steps will be a rigorous evaluation of the population status of the species in this park and restoration of degraded habitat to provide connectivity with other northern populations currently being studied by WCS.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/colombia-monkey.html