Yao Ming Urges China to ‘Say No To Ivory and Rhino Horn’ With New Film

BEIJING, China (August 8, 2014) -- Celebrities, conservationists, political officials and the media gathered for a special premiere screening of “The End of the Wild,” a new documentary that follows basketball legend and committed conservationist Yao Ming on a fact-finding mission into the heart of Africa’s wildlife conservation crisis. Both Yao Ming and Peter Knights of WildAid (who accompanied Yao on his 12-day trip through Kenya and South Africa) addressed the media and were joined by representatives from CCTV, which is airing “The End of the Wild,” and CITIC Publishing Group, which is releasing the film’s companion book, “Journey in Africa."
Yao visited Kenya and South Africa in August of 2012 to learn about the poaching crisis and witness the dramatic toll that poaching is taking not only on Africa’s endangered elephant and rhinoceros populations, but also on the human communities that coexist with them. “End of the Wild” follows Yao as he meets wild elephants and rhinos before encountering the butchered bodies of five poached elephants in Kenya and a poached rhino in South Africa. In Nairobi, Kenya, Yao tours the “ivory room,” an underground vault filled with thousands of confiscated elephant tusks and other wildlife remains. He also visits local school children, whose education is funded by revenue from wildlife tourism, and meets with conservationists and government officials working to protect these endangered species.
“The End of the Wild” aired in two parts on CCTV-9 on August 11 at 9:00 p.m. (21:00 CST) and August 17 at 10:00 p.m. (22:00 CST). Part one focuses on elephants and the ivory trade; part two shines a light on the recent explosion of rhino poaching.
A BIG STEP IN THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST IVORY AND RHINO HORN
In April 2013, Yao launched the “Say No to Ivory” and the “Say No to Rhino Horn” campaign with WildAid, the African Wildlife Foundation, and Save the Elephants. He has been a leader in the effort to reduce demand for ivory and rhino horn, and has been featured in television ads and billboards. WildAid’s elephant ivory public awareness messages have aired 7,697 times on over 25 television channels in 2013 amounting to US$15 million in-kind broadcast value. This is the amount certified by the media monitoring firm CTR and does not include several major media outlets and could account for only 50% of the actual total broadcast value.
In March 2014, Yao delivered a petition during the opening session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) asking China’s government to ban sales of ivory. The “End of the Wild” documentary is yet another big step in Yao Ming and WildAid’s effort to save endangered species by encouraging the public to stop buying wildlife products. In the documentary Yao clearly states his intent, "I believe what people will see in those pictures, [they] will remember it. That's what we're here for: film this, bring it back home ... and show everybody the reality."
“With this film, Yao is helping to spread the word about the ecological and human costs of the illegal wildlife trade,” explains Peter Knights, Executive Director of WildAid. “We hope that with more public awareness and support, that China will become a true global leader in conservation and help save elephants and rhinos.”
Yao previously helped to reduce China’s demand for shark fin through his campaign with WildAid. He appeared in public service messages that have reached hundreds of millions of consumers throughout China on broadcast and satellite television, LCD screens on trains and in subway and railway stations, airports, airline in-flight entertainment, shopping malls, banks, taxis, and universities and hospitals. Yao’s messages helped change public opinion and encouraged President Xi’s administration to ban shark fin from state banquets. A 2013 survey revealed that 85% of respondents in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu had stopped eating shark fin soup within the last three years. Sixty-five percent of those who quit shark fin cited public awareness campaigns as a reason.
BACKGROUND ON THE CRISIS AND THE DEMAND THAT DRIVES IT
An estimated 33,000 elephants are killed each year for their tusks, and 95% of the world’s rhinos have been lost over the past 40 years. Growing demand in China and Southeast Asia is driving sharp increases in poaching. In China, ivory is prized as a status symbol by the nation’s growing affluent and middle classes, and the country’s legal market perpetuates demand and provides a laundering mechanism for illegal, poached ivory from Africa. Rhino horn is highly sought after for purported health benefits. In Vietnam, rhino horn has a reputation as a cancer treatment and a hangover cure regardless of the fact that the horn is composed of keratin (the same substance as human hair and fingernails).
Online media kit:

• “The End of the Wild” promotional trailer: http://vimeo.com/64118789 
• 30 second PSA featuring Yao Ming, Prince William and David Beckham: http://youtu.be/xjMRURFab1I?list=UU5GSQ5TZ6mfck3HUZIlzvBg
• Travel blog of Yao’s journey to Africa: http://yaomingblog.com/
• CNN segment and interview with Yao Ming on his trip to Africa: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/01/08/pkg-watson-china-big-man-fights-ivory-trade.cnn.html
• WildAid’s elephant program: http://www.wildaid.org/elephants
• WildAid’s rhino program: http://www.wildaid.org/rhinos

Article and Photo Courtesy of:  http://wildaid.org/ 

Could grizzly bears return to the southern Sierra Nevada?

 TRUCKEE, Calif. — It’s the state animal and it’s on the flag — the California grizzly bear. And while that specific species is now extinct, one conservation organization is calling for the return of the grizzly bear to the Golden State.

 

Today, 1,850 wild grizzly bears live in the United States, spread over four states —
Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

 This summer, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to expand the federal agency’s recovery plan for grizzly bears, including returning them to their former stomping grounds across the West.

“Grizzly bears are one of the true icons of the American West, yet today they live in a paltry 4 percent of the lands where they used to roam,” Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “We shouldn’t be closing the book on grizzly recovery, but beginning a new chapter — one where these amazing animals live wherever there’s good habitat for them across the West.”

The petition, which calls for Fish and Wildlife to revise and update its 1993 grizzly bear recovery plan, identifies an additional 110,000 square miles of potential habitat in California’s southern Sierra Nevada; the Mogollon Rim and Gila Wilderness complex in Arizona and New Mexico; the Grand Canyon; and Utah’s Uinta Mountains.

Today, 1,850 wild grizzly bears live in the United States, spread over four states — Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Center for Biological Diversity would like to see that number rise to at least 4,000 and up to 6,000 spread across habitat areas to ensure their long-term survival.

Since 1975, the grizzly bear has been listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, which aims to protect and recover imperiled species and the ecosystems on which they depend.

“If we’re serious about recovering grizzly bears, we need more populations around the West and more connections between them, so they don’t fall prey to inbreeding and so they have a chance of adapting to a warming world,” Greenwald said. “If we want these incredible bears around for centuries to come, we’ve still got a lot of work left to do.”

According to the petition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has pursued a fragmented approach to grizzly bear recovery that fails to meet the intention of the Endangered Species Act to recover species across significant portions of their historic range.

Servheen said there are no additional resources to start new programs in new locations, since all available funding and personnel are dedicated to the service’s current recovery work.

“Any bears placed in new areas have to come from habitats with similar foods and habitats to maximize the probability of success,” he said. “Many areas of historic range have no similar habitats with grizzlies in them today, (which) means there are not any bears to move into such former habitat areas.”

Historically, as many as 100,000 grizzly bears once lived in western North America. Yet, within 200 years of European settlement, the grizzly population dwindled to hundreds due to slaughter.

While a California grizzly shot in 1922 in Tulare County is considered the last state grizzly, there were reports in 1924 of a sighting in what is now Sequoia National Park.

Today, Greenwald said he thinks Californians would be open to the idea of reintroducing grizzly bears to the state, since it’s “a wildlife-friendly state.”

Ann Bryant, executive director of the Lake Tahoe-based BEAR League, isn’t so sure.

“(People) can’t even co-exist with black bears,” she said. “How in the world do we think we can co-exist with grizzlies? There’s just no room, no mentality for it.”

Grizzlies have a reputation of being aggressive and territorial, especially females when cubs are involved. Documented grizzly attacks on humans have occurred over the past several decades, some resulting in death.

“The chances of getting mauled by a grizzly bear is (very small),” Greenwald said. “It is much more dangerous to drive your car to the store.”

The petition identifies 7,747 square miles of wilderness in the southern Sierra remote enough to support the omnivorous bruin. As for whether the region would have enough food supply to support the bear, additional study is needed, Greenwald said.

The diet of grizzly bears consists of nuts, berries, fruit, leaves, roots and animals. Males can weigh up to 1,000 pounds, and the bears are considered apex predators, with humans being their biggest threat.

Human tolerance is key for this idea to work, Bryant said.

“You’ve got to have a willing reception of that thing, and we’re not ready for that,” she said. “The mentality here right now is fear-based. Grizzlies probably invoke the most amount of fear. ... We’ve got a long way to go before this is anything I would take seriously.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is legally required to respond to the petition.

Greenwald said the Center for Biological Diversity has yet to hear back from the service since filing the petition in June.

 

 

 

 

Article and Photos Sourced From:  http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/northshore/12501540-113/grizzly-bears-bear-petition

As Mountain Gorillas Bounce Back, Rwanda Names Gorilla Newborns

Rwanda holds naming ceremony for baby gorillas born over the past year.

Jean-Felix Kinani was far from center stage Tuesday when Rwanda held its tenth annual Kwita Izina, the national naming ceremony for baby mountain gorillas born during the past 12 months. Yet the 18 baby gorillas named at the event owe much to his team of veterinarians.

This young mountain gorilla in Volcanoes National Park is one of a population
that has nearly doubled in number since the 1980s.

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Kinani, 42, is the head Rwanda veterinarian with Gorilla Doctors, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the health of the world's 880 remaining mountain gorillas—the iconic animals found in Rwanda, Uganda, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the only great apes on Earth whose numbers are increasing.

 

Since 2005, when Rwanda's tourism authorities launched the event—adapted from a centuries-old human baby naming tradition—Kinani has witnessed the naming of 163 Rwanda-born primates.

This year's infants, whose Kinyarwanda-language names were announced by a range of local and international diplomats, conservationists, and tourism officials, included Inzozi ("dreams"), Twiyubake ("self-reliance"), Ndengera ("protect me"), and Kundurwanda ("love Rwanda").

Kinani, who spends two days a week monitoring gorillas in the forest, claims to know all the animals.

"Sometimes it's difficult to recognize them, because some of them look the same," he says. "But if I go in a group, I know who I will find, and I can tell you their life story. Gorillas are like my brothers, my sisters."

 

One Gorilla at a Time

Thirty years ago, experts feared the mountain gorilla subspecies could be headed toward extinction. A 1981 census in the tri-country Virunga massif, home to one of two distinct mountain gorilla populations, had recorded an all-time low of 254 individuals. The famed gorilla researcher Dian Fossey spent years working to raise awareness about the threats the animals faced, including poaching and respiratory illnesses she suspected were transmitted by humans. Before her murder in 1985, Fossey had lobbied for the creation of a clinic to treat wounded and sick mountain gorillas.

The next year, Ruth Morris Keesling, an American wildlife enthusiast, founded the Volcanoes Veterinary Clinic in Rwanda—a precursor to the present-day Gorilla Doctors. The Virunga-based clinic began with one resident expatriate doctor, James Foster, an American who focused exclusively on emergency interventions. Since then, the project has grown to include 15 veterinarians, 14 of whom are native to the region. It has also added a component of preventive care and expanded to cover the second mountain gorilla population in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, as well as eastern lowland gorillas in the DRC.

 

Over time, rising rates of gorilla habituation, a consequence of both research and tourism, allowed the vets to monitor the health of more animals and to capture those in need of lifesaving interventions. Today, Kinani estimates that he and his team respond to life-threatening situations once a month—most commonly, gorillas caught in snares intended to trap buffalo or antelope or those ill with dangerous respiratory infections. (Video: Gorilla Doctors team rescues a baby gorilla from a poacher's snare.)

 

Although humans can do little to stop the most common source of mountain gorilla mortality—the infanticide that occurs when an adult male silverback asserts dominance over a group—data suggest that close to three decades of veterinary work have been effective. One 2011 study, which tracked numbers in the Virunga massif from 1967 to 2008, found an annual population growth rate of 4.1 percent for habituated gorillas, versus an annual decline of 0.7 percent for unhabituated animals. The authors say the findings confirm the effectiveness of what they call "extreme conservation measures," including close monitoring of animals and veterinary care.

 

According to the report, "veterinary interventions could account for up to 40 percent of the difference in growth rates between habituated versus unhabituated gorillas, with the remaining difference likely arising from greater protection against poachers."

 

Overall, Virunga's gorillas have nearly doubled in number since their 1980s low, reaching 480 in 2010, the time of the last census. Similar growth has been observed in Bwindi, where numbers rose from approximately 300 in 1997 to 400 in 2011.

 

Traditional Intore dancers perform at Rwanda's tenth annual Kwita Izina ceremony on July 1, 2014.

 

 

"One Health" Medicine

As Kwita Izina makes evident, Gorilla Doctors' work is not just about the region's famed primates.

Held at Volcanoes National Park's Kinigi headquarters, in the shadows of the Virungas' Mount Sabyinyo, this year's event drew nearly 500 international guests and an estimated 40,000 local residents, drawn to entertainment by traditional Intore dancers, Rwandan pop stars, and a procession of children in gorilla suits, who served as stand-ins for the babies of honor, which remained in the nearby mountain forests.

 

Aside from celebrating the mountain gorillas' revival, the event also recognizes the animals' importance to Rwanda's growing tourism sector, which generated $294 million in 2013, up from $62 million in 2000. As Valentine Rugwabiza, CEO of the Rwanda Development Board, told Kwita Izina guests, the Rwandan government invests 5 percent of all profits from its national parks in adjacent communities, where the money is used to construct roads, schools, and other local projects.

In Kinigi and other communities in the Virungas—an area home to one of the highest rural population densities on Earth—residents also benefit from Gorilla Doctors' presence. With humans and gorillas living so close, and the primates susceptible to human-borne diseases, the organization works according to a "one health" philosophy, which emphasizes the integrated nature of all species, including humans, that make up the Virunga ecosystem. As part of its "one health" approach, the organization facilitates annual health screenings for park rangers and staff, provides rabies vaccinations for domesticated dogs and cats, and monitors the health of livestock and other wildlife, with an eye toward potentially risky pathogens.

 

As Jan Ramer, Gorilla Doctors' regional manager, explains, it's all part of an effort to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and stay a step ahead of a possible outbreak that—recent increases in the gorilla population notwithstanding—could prove disastrous.

 

"Right now, there are 880 left on Earth, in two populations," Ramer says. "Thankfully, all the eggs are in two baskets. But if an infectious disease—for example, measles—raged through, it could decimate the population. That's why we're being so vigilant."

 

 

 

Jon Rosen is a freelance journalist based in Kigali, Rwanda. Last month he profiled "The Battle for Africa's Oldest National Park."

 

Article and Photos Sourced From:  http://mindyhenderson.blogspot.com/2014/08/as-mountain-gorillas-bounce-back-rwanda.html

Pictures: The World's Tigers—There Are Only 3,200 Left in the Wild

Tigers may be relegated to zoos in the future if we're not careful. Only about 3,200 tigers can be found in the wild today—a far cry from the iconic cat's situation a century ago, when 100,000 tigers roamed vast stretches of the Asian continent.

"People don't realize how dire the situation is for tigers because we see them all the time. We see them in zoos, we see them in circuses, so we think they're doing all right," said Sharon Guynup, a writer who co-authored the book Tigers Forever: Saving the World's Most Endangered Big Cat with National Geographic photographer Steve Winter.

To mark International Tiger Day—which is held annually on July 29—National Geographic spotlights Asia's largest cat species and the conservation challenges that it faces.

In this photo, a tiger is carried by Burmese villagers in 1922 after it was killed following an attack on their village.

—Katie Langin

Article and Photos Taken From:  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/pictures/140729-tigers-conservation-cubs-hunting-environment-science/#/4-mm7231-071025-1334-00118016_82121_600x450.jpg