Male giraffe fight each other to establish dominance and the right to mate with receptive females. This video from Tarangire shows two adult males in a ritualistic fight called "necking" - a fitting fight style for those with the longest necks in the animal kingdom!
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It was dry season in Tarangire National Park during our last ungulate survey in September and October, and that means good times for the predators and scavengers. Thousands of migratory wildebeests and zebras head into Tarangire from June until the rains start in November, because the Tarangire River provides a reliable source of drinking water when the waterholes elsewhere dry up. It is a great time for tourists to visit Tarangire National Park, as the predators (lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas) and scavengers (vultures, black-backed jackals, also hyenas) are out in full force. As tourists enjoy watching the immensely popular lions and cheetahs, however, it is important to remember that these magnificent wild beasts would not be here if it were not for the ungulates (hoofed mammals). Ungulates are their primary prey. That is just one reason why we at the Wild Nature Institute are working so hard to protect habitat and migration corridors for the ungulates -- to protect an integral part of the food web of the African savanna.
Illegal poaching is harming giraffe, and the problem is starting to gain media attention (see article below). We see evidence of poaching in the Tarangire Ecosystem where we work, including snares around giraffe necks and hooves. Giraffe are poached for meat and also the mistaken belief that their bone marrow is medicinal. Poachers Are Now Slaughtering Africa's Giraffes [click for original article]
Populations have plunged 40 percent as the animals are killed for their meat, often to feed elephant hunters. By John R. Platt Giraffes are on the run. Reports from around Africa provide new evidence that giraffe poaching in several countries is on the rise, a trend that could further threaten a species that has lost more than 40 percent of its population over the past 15 years. Today fewer than 80,000 giraffes remain in Africa, and three of the nine giraffe subspecies have populations that have fallen below 1,000 animals. "Poaching is definitely on the increase," said Julian Fennessy, executive director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. "Giraffes are the forgotten megafauna. They're really not getting the attention they deserve." Poaching isn't pervasive throughout the continent, but it is particularly problematic in Tanzania, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he said. Tanzania, which displays the giraffe as its national symbol, is a poaching hot spot. About 10 years ago herbal medicine practitioners in Tanzania started touting giraffe bone marrow and brains as a way to protect people from, or even cure, HIV/AIDS. The belief continues to drive poaching in the country, according to a recent report from Tanzania's Daily News. The practice has also driven up the prices for giraffe meat, making poaching more lucrative. A 2010 report from Rothschild's Giraffe Project found that "freshly severed heads and giraffe bones" can bring in up to $140 each. Tanzania, which is also the site of massive levels of elephant poaching, typifies another reason for giraffe poaching: The animals are killed to feed the people who are hunting elephants. This also happens in the Congo, Fennessy said, where the Lord's Resistance Army, run by the notorious Joseph Kony, has been known to operate. "Giraffe are suffering as a result of indiscriminate killing for ivory," Fennessy said. Outside this criminal activity, the bushmeat trade remains one of the driving forces behind giraffe killing. Poachers "get a big bang for their buck because giraffes are an easy kill compared to other ungulates and you get a lot of meat," said David O'Connor, an ecologist with the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research. Poachers in Africa Killed 100,000 Elephants in Just Three Years Giraffes are usually killed with rifles or in steel-wire snares, which can be set either to target giraffes or to catch any animal that walks by. Kenya and Tanzania are the worst countries for this poaching, Fennessy said. All of this is going on without much public notice, said Kathleen Garrigan, media relations officer for the African Wildlife Foundation. "The giraffe, though, plays an important role in the ecosystem and is one of Africa's iconic species," she said. "To lose them simply because we weren't paying attention would be tragic. In the podcast link above, Wild Lens, Inc. talks with the principal scientist and co-founder of the Wild Nature Institute, Monica Bond. Monica, along with WNI co-founder Derek Lee, has committed herself to the conservation of ungulate species in East Africa. Ungulates are mammals with hooves, and East Africa has the greatest diversity of ungulate species anywhere in the world – but as Monica explains, these populations are now facing dire threats to their continued survival. Click here for the Wild Lens, Inc podcast page. Wild Lens, Inc. created two wonderful short films about Wild Nature Institute's work with giraffe and migratory ungulates. Thank you, Wild Lens!
Wild Nature Institute's Monica Bond and colleague Natasha Hagemeyer published a new scientific paper documenting termite insectivory by Bateleurs (Terathopius ecaudatus) in Tarangire and Mkomazi national parks, Tanzania. Bateleurs are magnificent eagles of the African savanna. Tawny and Steppe eagles are known to feast on termites during emergence, but no one had yet published data on termites as a food source for Bateleurs. Greetings from the East African savanna! We are currently conducting our dry season surveys for giraffe and other ungulates in the Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem. This baby giraffe was cooling off in the shade in Tarangire National Park. Tarangire is one of the strongholds for the Tanzanian population of Masai giraffe. We will share more photos when we return from the bush.
A new peer-reviewed paper was just published in the Natural Areas Journal by GEOS Institute's Dominick DellaSala and others, including Wild Nature Institute's Monica Bond. The paper describes the ecological importance of "complex early seral forests" and provides recommendations for identification and management. Patches of highly burned forests provide critical habitat for a large number of native plants and animals and deserve the same degree of protection we give our precious old-growth forests. Click here to download this paper and other Wild Nature Institute studies about burned forests.
Sonoma Index-Tribune
Thursday, July 24, 2014 By Derek E. Lee Fire season has arrived, and California’s drought means there will inevitably be a large forest fire this year. Media will invariably quote employees of the U.S. Forest Service, the federal agency that administers our National Forests. These spokespeople, fire ecologists and firefighters will offer sound-bites about the unusual size and severity of the fire, the need to restore the burned forest, and the need to cut trees to prevent future fires. Unfortunately, most of these quotes will be untrue. They say these things because the Forest Service’s core business is now firefighting, spending $2 billion to $4 billion every year to put firefighters at risk in largely ineffectual efforts to suppress big forest fires. Why? Because the Forest Service makes much more money by promoting fire hysteria and declaring fire emergencies than it would by letting most fires just burn themselves out, as called for in the prudent, scientific, data-driven 1995 Federal Fire Policy. The Forest Service gets a blank check to fight fires. Congress gave the agency the right to unlimited overspending during fire “emergencies,” and the Forest Service is happy to oblige. But fire, including large areas of intense fire that kills most or all trees, is natural, normal and restorative in western U.S. forests, and forest fires will self-extinguish. Big fires always come during extreme winds when expensive fire suppression efforts are useless – and extremely dangerous to the firefighters involved. Since the 1995 federal decision to let most fires burn and to reduce suppression efforts on our national public lands, the Forest Service has made a series of self-serving policies that undermined the scientific consensus and expanded its budget. Today, nearly half of its $4.9 billion budget is devoted to fire-related activities, and the agency overspends on firefighting every year. During fires, the Forest Service tells us that “forests are burning more” and that “fires are getting bigger and hotter” or are “uncharacteristically severe.” These statements are untrue, but sound compelling and defend the millions of dollars spent each day to fly tankers and mobilize thousands of firefighters, who risk their lives earning triple overtime at taxpayer expense until the winds finally decrease and the fire dies out. The rest of the Forest Service’s budget is plumped up through “fuels reduction,” “restoration” and post-fire “salvage” logging – misguided and pointless activities that destroy both green and burned forest habitat critical for wildlife and rare plants. Laws that protect public lands from destructive activities have reduced most commercial logging in our national forests, but the Forest Service has a loophole to log our trees: fire. Worse, they do it on our dime. Congress always lets the Forest Service take money from the General Treasury to pay for timber sale administration, road building and logging costs, and then the agency keeps the profits from those sales. The Forest Service enriches itself at the people’s expense by selling the people’s trees. This is the incentive for another agency deception: that the forest “will never be the same” without “restoration” work. This presumes forests don’t naturally regrow on their own – which of course they do, in what scientists call “succession,” one of the first ecological processes ever described. Don’t believe it either when they tell you we might have avoided a big fire if only we had removed “excessive fuels” beforehand. Studies show that logging doesn’t prevent or stop big fires during extreme weather when most acreage burns. But it does enrich the Forest Service. In the 2006 court case, Earth Island Institute v. U.S. Forest Service, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the U.S. Forest Service has a financial conflict of interest when assessing the need to cut trees in our forests. Think of that the next time you read a Forest Service quote in the newspaper or see an agency rep on TV, fire blazing away on the split screen. Instead, demand that reporters and editors contact a real, independent fire scientist for the expert opinions. • • • Derek Lee is a nationally known expert on fire and wildlife, and author of many peer-reviewed scientific articles on the subject. He is principal scientist of the Wild Nature Institute (wildnatureinstitute.org). CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL SONOMA INDEX-TRIBUNE ARTICLE Please enjoy some photos from our most recent ungulate survey in the Greater Tarangire Ecosystem. |
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