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February 21, 2003
Annual Report of Organisation Cetacea
ORCA No.2, the annual report of Organisation Cetacea, has just been published.
The 145 page, A5, full-colour report provides a comprehensive account on the abundance, distribution, ecology and conservation status of an incredible 19 species of cetacean and 36 species of seabird recorded in the European Atlantic during 2000. Exciting discoveries detailed within the report include encounters with black-browed albatross, blue whale, Sowerby's beaked whales, false killer whales, and the first confirmed live sighting of a True's beaked whale in the eastern North Atlantic. In addition to detailed species accounts, there are also articles on the cetaceans of the French Channel coast, cetacean observations on a seismic survey in the Faeroe-Shetland Trench, the implications of the Habitats Directive for marine mammals in the UK and cetaceans / seabirds observed from a cargo ship en route between the UK and South Africa. Concerns over current threats to marine life are also represented by articles on cetacean by-catch, current threats to marine mammals in the Channel Islands, and the effects of shark finning. All the above articles are preceded by English, Spanish and French summaries.
A series of detailed distributions maps accompany the text, showing distribution and groups sizes for all principal cetacean species, basking shark, ocean sunfish and swordfish. The report is illustrated with over 80 high quality, colour photographs, featuring 14 species of cetacean (including 3 species of beaked whale taken in North Atlantic waters), 7 species of seabird and 2 species of shark. The report is published by ORCA (Organisation Cetacea) and part-funded by PO Portsmouth, English Nature and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. ORCA is a non-profit making organisation dedicated to conservation, research and education.
Editors: Graeme Cresswell and Dylan Walker
ISSN: 1477-1217
The report costs £8.00 plus £1.00 postage and packing. Copies can be obtained from:
Organisation Cetacea, c/o Graeme Cresswell, 35 Melrose Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7PN, U.K.
Please make cheques payable to ‘Organisation Cetacea’
Posted by Surfbirds at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
Last Wild Condor Shot
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, working closely with the California Department of Fish and Game, is investigating the senseless shooting and killing of Adult Condor 8, one of the last California condors taken into captivity in the 1980s and a matriarch of the captive-breeding program. AC-8 was found dead on February 13, and a subsequent necropsy determined that the bird died of gunshot.
No arrests have been made.
One of only a few dozen endangered California condors in the wild, AC-8 was the last female condor captured in 1986 in a last-ditch effort to save the species from extinction. She spent 14 years in captivity in the captive-breeding program and was the first of the original wild birds to be released in April 2000.
"The death of this majestic bird is a great tragedy and a tremendous loss," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said. "While we have had great success in our condor recovery efforts to date, we cannot accept the needless loss of any of these great birds. We are actively pursuing a full investigation of this matter."
"This unnecessary death at the hands of a poacher marks a sad day for California," said California Resources Secretary Mary D. Nichols. "We have lost one of the last wild condors, but we remain committed to bringing back these magnificent birds from the edge of extinction. I call on the public to support us in that effort, and also help us find the poacher responsible for this senseless killing."
With the death of AC-8, only 79 birds remain in the wild. Another 118 are in captivity at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo.
AC-8 was believed to be more than 30 years old. She produced 12 offspring in captivity.
The bird's carcass was recovered in a remote area of southern Kern County, California. The necropsy was conducted at the Service's forensics laboratory in Ashland, Oregon.
The California condor is listed as an endangered species and is protected by both federal and California law. Violation of the Federal Endangered Species Act carries a maximum penalty of one year confinement and a fine of $100,000.
"We will not let the tragic death of AC-8 slow the forward momentum of condor recovery," said Marc Weitzel, project leader of the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex and the California Condor Recovery Program. "AC-8's legacy will carry on. Condors are exhibiting breeding behavior in the California and Arizona populations and we fully anticipate wild-born condors again in the near future."
Anyone with information regarding the shooting of AC-8 is encouraged to call the Service's Office of Law Enforcement at 916/414-6664. The Service will pay a substantial reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons involved. The amount of the award will be determined by the value to the investigation of the information provided.
Those with information can also call the Department of Fish and Game's CalTIP Program line at 1-888-DFG-CALTIP.
The Service's California Condor Recovery Program is a multi-entity effort to recover the endangered species. Partners include the U.S. Forest Service, San Diego Wild Animal Park, Los Angeles Zoo, California Department of Fish and Game, the Peregrine Fund, and Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary. The newest Mexican partners include the Center for Scientific Investigation and Graduate Studies in Ensenada and La Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales.
Beginning in 1992, the Service began reintroducing captive-bred condors to the wild. Birds have been released near the Grand Canyon in Arizona, in the Ventana Wilderness and the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex in California, and most recently in Baja California, Mexico.
Note to the news media: For photos and B-roll of AC-8, contact Denise Stockton at 805/644-5185
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System which encompasses 540 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 70 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
Posted by Surfbirds at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2003
Pro-Act Tunkinsky valley Threat
"In the past ten years the unique and inimitable natural beauty of our small homeland, the Tunkinsky valley, has been subject to extremely harmful human impact - fires, forest clearances and the drainage of the Koimorsky marsh. The creation of the National Park within the Tunkinksy region has hardly weakened man's influence on the fragile and vulnerable nature of the Tunkinsky region. And now a new disaster threatens: there are plans to lay a gas pipeline through the Tunkinsky valley in order to pump gas to China and other countries." [A conservationist in Buryatia]
The territory of the Park is covered with so-called taiga - primeval cedar-tree forest. There are 200 mineral water springs in the park.
Rare, protected species in the Park include Snow Leopard Uncia uncia, Siberian Ibex Capra sibirica, Black Stork Ciconia nigra, Bean Goose Anser fabalis, Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos, White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla and other rare fauna.
Russian Ecologists stress that the future not only of Tunkinskaya Hollow is at stake; but also conservation per se in the Russian Federation.
Help Russian and local conservationists in their battle against the pipeline. The next major deadline is 1 April 2003. You can join others in protesting to the President of Buryatia in whose country the park lies.
Join Proact and others and add your support at < http://www.proactnow.org/ppsi/id22.html >
David Conlin
Proact, campaigning for birds and their habitats .... joining costs nothing...doing nothing costs birds!
Join in at < www.proactnow.org/team > the internet lobby forum by birders - for birders.
Posted by Surfbirds at 11:18 PM | Comments (1)
February 17, 2003
BTO Appeals to Birdwatchers
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is appealing to birdwatchers in the UK to do more for birds by taking part in Migration Watch this spring. Migration Watch is a web-based survey to chart the arrival of birds returning from Africa. What Migration Watch hopes to do is to record the arrival of the first migrants, track their flow through the country and see how quickly sites fill-up. Migrant birds face many threats on their long flights from Africa and if, as predicted, climate change leads to more extreme and windy spring weather they could find life even more difficult. Migration Watch will help the BTO to understand the effects of weather patterns upon important species such as Cuckoo and Spotted Flycatcher on the amber and red lists of conservation concern, respectively.
Thousands of people look forward to the arrival of birds like Swallows and Cuckoos each spring and we encourage them to report their sightings on our website. Taking part in Migration Watch is easy, its just a case of visiting the website (www.bto.org/migwatch), registering as a recorder and then recording your sightings using the specially designed webpages.
The best way to take part in Migration Watch is to choose a walk that you do on a regular basis on the way to work or while walking the dog, for instance and to make a note of the birds you see or hear each time. You could even record the birds you see from your garden for this survey. Migration Watch is not just about the first birds you see, so by regularly recording from a site we can build up a picture of the pattern of arrival and flow through the site. We hope that volunteers will keep watching until all of the summer migrants have arrived.
Migration Watch was piloted in 2002 and, thanks to the support of 2,500 keen birdwatchers, there are already exciting findings to view on the website. The animated maps showing the locations of migrants week-by-week are really good! 2002 was a strange year; many people noticed how late birds such as House Martins were. Sand storms in Morocco and heavy rain over much of Spain and Portugal held up many migrants. We were starting to think that there had been huge mortality when suddenly birds flooded in during late April.
The Migration Watch website opens on 16 February, although only the luckiest of birdwatchers will have anything to report that early. Once open, there will be daily bulletins of new arrivals, based on the information received in the previous 24 hours. To take part in Migration Watch, visit the website at www.bto.org/migwatch or send an e-mail to migrationwatch@bto.org for further details.
Migration Watch has been generously funded by the Swallow Appeal and Northumbrian Water Ltd.
Dawn Balmer
Migration Watch Organiser
Posted by Surfbirds at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2003
Airport at Cliffe is fatally flawed
As the Government prepares to launch its revised consultation on the future of air transport in the UK, the RSPB says the option of a new airport at Cliffe is fatally flawed and it should be dropped.
The Society highlights five key issues that make the Cliffe option a non-starter:
* Environmental importance - the outstanding international importance of the Thames estuary for birds (1), means that the Cliffe area is heavily protected by UK and European conservation laws (2). EU Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom has already indicated that the Cliffe option would only be allowed in the absence of alternative solutions and if the Government could demonstrate it was in the "overriding public interest"(3). Legal battles arising from a decision to pursue the Cliffe option would be likely to lead to years of delays, thereby demolishing any business case that can be made for Cliffe.
* Passenger safety - siting an airport where planes would take off and land through an area that supports concentrations of up to 200,000 wading birds, ducks and geese, poses a major risk of birdstrikes on a scale that could easily down aircraft, with disastrous consequences. The Government's own Birdstrike Avoidance Team has said of Cliffe: "There is a very serious potential birdstrike risk at the new airport site. Indeed, it is difficult to envisage a more problematic site anywhere else in the UK. " (4)
* Funding - Government will not foot the bill for a new airport at Cliffe and there is no evidence that anyone else is willing to meet the massive costs of a new airport, plus the necessary transport, business and social infrastructure to go with it. Estimates of the final cost of the Cliffe option range from £11.5bn to £23bn (5). This does not include the cost of compensating for direct and indirect habitat loss - which could run into hundreds of millions of pounds.
* Business viability - there is no support for the Cliffe option within the aviation industry. Airlines have identified Cliffe as their least favoured option, with some suggesting they would need massive financial incentives to consider moving there (6). BA has said: "We don't think it is possible to build a new airport in the time scale needed for new runway capacity in the southeast of England." (7)
* Technical challenges - Environment Agency staff have said that if the airport is built at Cliffe there is a real possibility of flooding in London, as well as in the Cliffe/Cooling marshes area and that in the long term a second Thames Barrier may be required in the Gravesend/Tilbury area. (8)
More -
Dr Mark Avery, RSPB Director of Conservation, said: "The case for a new airport at Cliffe is so weak that the Government should acknowledge it's a non-starter and kick it out of the revised consultation process. An airport at Cliffe would be the single most environmentally destructive planning development the UK has ever seen. The airlines don't want it, the City isn't prepared to pay for it, it's illegal and it's dangerous."
Additional notes:
1. Up to 200,000 wading birds, ducks and geese winter in the areas affected by the proposal, including large numbers of Bewick's swans, brent geese, white-fronted geese, shelducks, gadwall, teal, ringed plovers, grey plovers, knot and black-tailed godwits. Breeding birds affected would include the UK's largest heronry (160 pairs) at Northward Hill, little egrets, avocets and marsh harriers.
2. The proposed airport at Cliffe would be the single most destructive development affecting nationally and internationally protected wildlife sites in the UK since the passage of the Wildlife Countryside Act in 1981. The combination of the airport footprint and 13 kilometre birdstrike safeguarding zone would impact upon no less than four internationally important wetland sites, hosting annual peak counts of 200,000 waterfowl.
These are: The Thames Estuary and Marshes Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar site; Medway Estuary and Marshes SPA/Ramsar site; Benfleet and Southend Marshes SPA/Ramsar site; The Swale SPA/Ramsar site. Special Protection Areas are designed under the EU Birds Directive and are the most important places for birds in the European Union. Ramsar sites are wetlands of global importance listed under the Ramsar Convention. Hundreds of hectares of internationally protected wildlife sites would be destroyed in the process and the whole of the Northward Hill SSSI/High Halstow National Nature Reserve, an RSPB reserve since 1956, would be lost.
3. Responding to a question from Dr Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for south-east England, Commissioner Wallstrom said the proposed development at Cliffe, which lies within the Thames Estuary Marshes Special Protection Area, would be subject to an environmental assessment and any "significant damage" to the SPA would be allowed only in the absence of alternative solutions. The Government would also have to demonstrate any development would be in the "overriding public interest".
4. Central Science Laboratory Birdstrike Avoidance Team - North Kent Marshes Study Phase 1 Report, Jan 2002.
5. Costs of recent major infrastructure projects (Channel Tunnel, Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Jubilee Line extension) have overrun by between 67% and 108%. If applied to the Government's projected cost for Cliffe airport of £11.5bn, the final cost could be anywhere between £16bn and £23bn.
6. In a poll of the top 33 carriers using London airports, not one was prepared to move to the proposed site at Cliffe. Only three airlines did not rate Cliffe bottom when asked which out of Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Cliffe they would move to if they could not operate from their current preferred base. More than half declared that only a subsidy might persuade them to move to Cliffe. (The poll was conducted by consultants Citigate for Medway Council - full details can be found at www.medway.gov.uk).
7. Air Cargo World Online, October 2002.
8. Evidence from Barrie Neaves of the Environment Agency to Medway Council's Air Transport Consultation Task Group, September, 2002. (For more info see www.medway.gov.uk).
Posted by Surfbirds at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)