New restrictions on vulture-killing drugs in Pakistan

15/06/2018

Vulture populations in South Asia have collapsed by over 95 per cent since the mid-1990s. The primary cause of this catastrophic decline, and still an ongoing threat, is the ingestion by vultures of livestock carcasses containing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), principally diclofenac. Although diclofenac was banned from veterinary use in Pakistan, India and Nepal in 2006, other NSAIDs such as aceclofenac and ketoprofen still pose a major threat to Critically Endangered vultures.

WWF-Pakistan and the Hawk Conservancy Trust in the UK have been partners on the Pakistan Vulture Restoration Project (PVRP) to conserve vultures in Pakistan for the past 12 years. The project consists of a vulture breeding centre in Punjab province and a community-led vulture safe zone in Sindh province, where some of Pakistan's last remaining colonies of Critically Endangered White-rumped and Slender-billed Vultures are found.

PVRP has continued lobbying for the removal of veterinary drugs which are unsafe for vultures. In a recent letter to the Department of Health for Sindh, the Secretary was urged to restrict the distribution of ketoprofen and aceclofenac in Sindh's Vulture Safe Zone. As a result, the Chief Drug Inspector of Sindh ordered all regional and district drug inspectors to restrict the use of these drugs.

Muhammad Jamshed Iqbal at WWF-Pakistan said: "NSAIDs such as ketoprofen and aceclofenac have proven to be fatal for Gyps vultures in clinical trials and their restriction in the Sindh will contribute significantly in the survival of the remaining populations of Gyps vultures in Pakistan."

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Rising sea temperatures threaten survival of juvenile albatrosses

Ecologists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) studied a population of black-browed albatross at Kerguelen Island, part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, where 200 breeding pairs have been monitored annually since 1979.

Reaching a wingspan of 2.5 metres, Black-browed Albatrosses breed on these sub-Antarctic islands during the austral summer, laying a single egg in October that will hatch in December. The chicks fledge in late March at a size similar to that of an adult.

Climate affects this seabird species in complex ways. In this study, the researchers developed a matrix population model that takes account of the combined effects of climate variables and functional traits in order to understand the entire life cycle and how population growth may be affected in light of a changing climate. Functional traits such as body size, timing of breeding, and foraging behaviour all have an impact on demographic traits such as survival and reproduction.

They found that changes in sea surface temperature during late winter cause the biggest variations in the population growth rate, through their impact on juvenile survival during their first year at sea. The effects of climatic conditions on seabirds generally occur indirectly.

"Sea surface temperature is widely used as an indicator of food availability for marine predators because warmer temperatures usually result in lower primary productivity in marine ecosystems, ultimately reducing the availability of prey", said Dr Stéphanie Jenouvrier, a seabird ecologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

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The secret treasure found off Peru’s coast: bird dung

Guano remains a highly prized fertilizer, and Peru is at the top of the field thanks to the gigantic quantity of oily anchovies that guano birds feast on – which makes their dung valuable – and the unusual nature of Peru’s desert coast. It never rains, so the guano just piles up.

By THE WASHINGTON POST |

June 23, 2018 at 8:45 am

By Lucien Chauvin | Washington Post

LIMA, Peru — Bird droppings are a nuisance for most people, but in Peru they have been a closely guarded treasure since pre-Columbian times.

Guano, a gentler word for dung, is one of the few words in English derived from Quechua, the language of the Incas. The Incas used guano harvested from islands that dot Peru’s 1,500-mile coastline as fertilizer. They fiercely guarded the source. And execution was the ultimate punishment for anyone who disturbed the sea birds or the islands where they deposited dung.

Execution is off the table today, but not much else has changed. The Peruvian government maintains strict control over the islands, which are part of a coastal protected reserve. Guano remains a highly prized fertilizer, and Peru is at the top of the field thanks to the gigantic quantity of oily anchovies that guano birds feast on — which makes their dung valuable — and the unusual nature of Peru’s desert coast. It never rains, so the guano just piles up.

Guano is harvested much the same way it was hundreds of years ago, with a squadron of workers manually scraping, sifting and bagging it. The government, through a division of the Agriculture and Irrigation Ministry, selects about 400 men each year to work eight months as harvesters. More than 60 percent of the workers return from one harvest to the next, and many are relatives. The work is limited to one or two islands, sometimes three, in each campaign.

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South coast RSPB reserve attracts rare American Royal tern

Pagham Harbour.

By Diana Challen

Published: 21:07 Wednesday 20 June 2018

A RARE American Royal tern has appeared at RSPB Pagham Harbour this week, which is believed to be a first for the UK mainland. RSPB Pagham Harbour, West Sussex, has gained a reputation for being one of the best locations to spot rare tern species, with threatened roseate and black terns briefly visiting last year. Thousands of visitors flocked to the site last June, when a rare elegant tern arrived with a breeding colony of sandwich terns. ‘Our staff and volunteers have undertaken huge improvement works to tern habitats at the reserve in the last few years. As a result, we have increased our colonies of common and little terns, making this one of the best breeding grounds for the species in the South East,’ warden Ivan Lang said. Coravin Wine Preservation System Promoted by Coravin ‘We are delighted that the works are attracting new species to the area. It will be interesting to see if the American Royal sticks around.’ Currently home to over 55 breeding pairs of terns, the reserve hopes to continue its success in restoring population numbers of rare little terns. At last count, there were 19 little tern, 12 common tern and 24 Sandwich tern nests - making it a great place to watch fluffy chicks grow and fledge.

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After Great Indian Bustard, Lesser Florican too faces threat of extinction

Vijay Pinjarkar| TNN | Updated: Jun 25, 2018, 12:46 IST

NAGPUR: Like Great Indian Bustards (GIBs), the Lesser Florican, an endangered agro-grassland bird, is on the verge of extinction in Maharashtra. An estimation by Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, did not record a single bird in 2017 in Akola, Washim and Yavatmal districts where the bird is found. It is the smallest bird of the bustard family.

The three districts were part of a national status survey designed by the Endangered Species Recovery Program of WII and was jointly implemented with the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Corbett Foundation, and the state forest departments across four states.

Lesser Florican is one of the four bustard species of India, all of which are threatened as per IUCN, and is endemic to this country. Though lesser florican has been given the highest degree of protection under Schedule-I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, its numbers have declined, necessitating its declaration as an endangered species in the IUCN Red list.

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Protected red kites poisoned in Northern Ireland

June 20 2018

The PSNI have launched an investigation after a pair of protected birds died after being poisoned in Co Down.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) NI and the PSNI have appealed for information after the pair of protected red kites died.

A male bird was found in distress close to a known nest site in the Katesbridge area on April 24. A member of the public alerted RSPB NI but the bird died shortly afterwards.

When the RSPB NI red kite project officer attended the scene, she found the female parent bird immobile on the nest – she too was dead. A rescue mission was launched in an attempt to save three orphaned eggs found in the nest beneath the deceased mother.

The bodies of the parent birds were collected and taken for toxicology testing by the PSNI. This has now revealed that both birds – known as Blue 21 and Red 63 because of their identifying tags - died from Carbofuran poisoning.

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Bird family tree shaken by discovery of feathered fossil

by Helen Briggs BBC News

25 June 2018

They're some of the strangest birds in the world, known for their bright plumage and their penchant for fruit.

The turacos, or banana-eaters, are today found only in Africa, living in forests and savannah.

A beautifully preserved fossil bird from 52 million years ago is shaking up the family tree of the exotic birds.

The fossil's weird features suggests it is the earliest known living relative not just of the turacos, but of cuckoos and bustards (large long-legged birds).

And the fact the remains were unearthed in North America shows the distribution of different birds around the globe would have been very different in the past.

The banana-eaters

"Our analyses show with some strong support that the fossil is the earliest known representative of this group, the turacos, or the banana-eaters, that today are only found in sub-Saharan Africa," said Dr Daniel Field, a vertebrate palaeontologist in the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath.

"Although, our fossil comes from western North America and it's about 52 million years old."

The attractive and colourful turacos of Africa are noisy, gregarious birds. They feed mostly on fruits and enjoy bananas, as their name suggests.

Dr Field said these fascinating birds, which he has photographed all over Africa, are a group well known to bird watchers.

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