Tag: conservation

A huge salmon die-off is happening — and our cars might be responsible

typhlonectes:

Silvery coho salmon are as much a part of Washington state as its flag. The fish has a sacred place
in the diets and rituals of the state’s indigenous peoples, beckons to
tourists who flock to watch its migration runs, and helps to sustain a
multimillion-dollar Pacific Northwest fishing industry.

So
watching the species die in agony is distressing: Adult coho have been
seen thrashing in shallow fresh waters, males appear disoriented as they
swim, and females are often rolled on their backs, their insides
still plump with tiny red eggs that will never hatch.

“Coho
have not done well where a lot of human activity impacts their
habitat,” said Nat Scholz, a research zoologist for the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration. That’s to say the least.

A recent study traced
a major coho salmon die-off to contaminants from roads and automobiles —
brake dust, oil, fuel, chemical fluids — that hitch a ride on storm
water and flow into watersheds. The contaminants are so deadly, they
kill the salmon within 24 hours…

A huge salmon die-off is happening — and our cars might be responsible

flockdynamics:

GUYS. GUYS.

So some of you who have been around a while know I used to work at a small, privately-owned, bird-focused pet store, right? And some of those of you might remember that we had a black palmed cockatoo, Artie, there. He was wild-caught illegally back in the ‘80s–the shipment was seized by Fish & Wildlife, some of the birds were sent back to Indonesia, but some were not. Artie bounced around to a few places–a zoo, a couple private people, and eventually ended up at our store (the owner was heavily involved in the bird community and was involved with all this somehow, idk I wasn’t around). Anyway, he had been with us for more than a decade, and since he was wild caught he was never really tame, and the owner always wanted to find a breeder to take him, since black palms are so endangered. She figured since he’s here, and being wild caught his genetics would be diverse from captive populations here, it would be awesome to help propagate the species.

ANYWAY a year or so ago, he finally went to a breeder, and he almost IMMEDIATELY hit it off with one of her females, and they laid an egg very soon after. The breeder & Ruth weren’t sure it would be fertile, since it was so fast and all, BUT IT WAS AND IT HATCHED AND LOOK HOW CUTE THIS BABY IS IM CRYING.

Source: flockdynamics

GOOD NEWS:  Sea Turtles Are a Conservation Success Story – Mostly

typhlonectes:

Last month, a  paper published in the journal Science Advances announced
a conservation success: Imperiled sea turtle populations were, in
general, rising.

For example, from 1973 to 2012, the number of green
turtles nesting on a Hawaiian beach grew from 200 to 2,000. Hawaiian
green turtles are now listed as a subpopulation of “least concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

But the recent report was not all good news. The populations of
leatherback turtles in the North Atlantic continue to drop, and some
species, like flatback turtles, remain “data deficient,” meaning that
researchers have very little information with which to estimate the size
of the population…

GOOD NEWS:  Sea Turtles Are a Conservation Success Story – Mostly

did you seriously just say we should let pandas go extinct to save other animals or am i misinterpreting because that is a very questionable judgement

zoologicallyobsessed:

cyanocrylate:

biologizeable:

ALRIGHT MY FRIEND I have received about six messages in this vein since yesterday, but I worked for thirteen hours today and I have no time for this nonsense. Short answer: YES. 

I’m gonna summarize some salient points on why pandas are awful from a conservation standpoint:

  • PANDAS LITERALLY CANNOT MATE IN CAPTIVITY. IT’S UNBELIEVABLE
  • Artificial insemination and hand-rearing of cubs are basically standard practice, and still they usually die. At what point is it reasonable to give up because I think we hit it DECADES AGO
  • In 35 years, only 90 cubs have been born in captivity outside of China
  • Wild panda numbers have increased a bare (bear?) 200 individuals in 10 years, despite literal billions of dollars being poured into conservation
  • NO OTHER AREA OF ANIMAL CONSERVATION EVEN COMES CLOSE TO THE MONEY BEING POURED INTO PANDAS. NONE
  • And yet we’ve managed to literally rebuild populations of black-footed ferrets, oryx, and California condors with exponentially less money
  • Despite all of this, only 10 pandas have been released since the 80s, and all but two died
  • I bet you wouldn’t have guessed that it’s because their habitat is destroyed and fragmentary and barely protected!!!!!! 
  • The only good thing about panda conservation is that protecting their range is also protecting tons of other species. Which would be great, if more of their range was being protected effectively.
  • There is way more money in keeping captive pandas captive than in releasing them!! surprise!!!!!!
  • Zoos pay a lot of money to get pandas on loan because people just LOVE looking at pandas and they can’t afford to house and care for their other animals without people coming to visit! Or do any kind of conservation whatsoever!! Panda-economics! (this is kind of a pro as opposed to a con but its the kind of pro that makes me feel like I need a shower)
  • Pandas are endangered and sort of have a role in spreading bamboo seeds around, so they get billions of dollars. Every shark ever is MORE endangered, and without them the entire ocean ecosystem would collapse, but that’s fine they don’t need money (I’m not bitter) ((I am bitter))

I’m gonna be frank with you. We are in the middle of a mass extinction event, caused by us. Not to be a downer (jk, I’m gonna) but we’re already driving so many species to extinction that we cannot afford to save them all with the money and interest that is in conservation right now. 

Instead, we have to do some kind of awful extinction triage and assess which animals will do the most good to work to conserve – and getting into keystone species, ecosystem engineers, and other truly integral species is a whole other can of worms I’m not gonna touch on – but there are animals that are “more important” in a certain sense than others, in that they can support or affect a much wider range of other species than another. 

People only care about big, cute, fluffy animals – a common lament heard from conservationists, but it’s so true. There are thousands, if not millions of species that don’t fit this mold that conservation work would benefit eons more than pandas. It’s like fixing a pretty, stained-glass window in a house whose foundations are collapsing and thinking you’re helping. 

Pandas have always been the face of conservation, and they continue to be one of the biggest and most expensive ongoing failures. 


[Sources/ stuff to read to make sense of my incoherent response!]

Keep reading

@zoologicallyobsessed

I’m in the panda hate club right here. Fuck those black and white wastes of money

Look, I like pandas and all, but that money needs to go to other places.

The trouble is, it won’t. China keeps pandas alive because they’re profitable, in order to rent them out. If all the pandas up and died, they’d go “ugh, oh well” and put the money into other profitable things, not conservation.

But if there was a button that I could press to put all that money that goes towards pandas into more worthwhile conservation projects? I’d push it, no question whatsoever. 

There’s a post going around about jaw the wwf says like 60% of biodiversity loss is because of meat based diets. Do you do debunkings? Cuz that doesn’t seem correct

zoologicallyobsessed:

agro-carnist:

Can I get a link to the statement?

As something studying zoology on an agricultural college campus I can tell you now that that is completely false.  

Anyone that understands biodiversity would know that there’s no one major driver of loss to biodiversity, let alone one that causes up to 60% of all loss. How would you even accurately measure that in the first place, it’s all very questionable. 

Biodiversity loss is a combination of multiple, interacting causes. The main causes being; habitat change, climate change, invasive species, over-exploitation, and pollution. 

In fact meat production isn’t even the worse agricultural process in terms of effect on environment or biodiversity. Palm oil production is much worse.

[x] [x] [x]

Not to mention vegans / other people that claim ‘meat based diets’ are the main cause of environmental issues (biodiversity, pollution, deforestation, ect.) never make the distinction that all the negative effects from meat production is actually statistics for beef cattle. 

It’s not “meat-based diets” that are the issue (no matter how much they want to push that agenda) it’s cattle, which are currently unsustainability produced; due to the pollution they produce, area and time they take to raise. The solution to this is to push for alternative sources of meat that are more sustainable. 

It’s a classic example of pushing a vegan / anti-meat agenda through twisting facts.