Conservation With Kate

Sir David Attenborough (source)

It's hardly surprising that I watched and LOVED Planet Earth II. I adored Planet Earth the first time, and so I was very excited for this one. The advert alone brought tears to my eyes.

I mentioned in my previous post that I think this documentary is a game changer. I think it's a cut above anything made before, and the extent of wildlife and ecosystems filmed is outstanding. The main reason I loved it so much, was it filmed so many animals that had never been caught on camera before.

David Attenborough has been a hero of mine for as long as I can remember. His documentaries have educated people on the importance and beauty of the natural world, and his passion is so inspiring. I think the decision to film in the cities was a bold one, and an ingenious one. Showing people how our world and the natural world interacts is so important, including how detrimental it can be for wildlife.

I honestly don't have a favourite scene; but here are some of my highlights:

The iguana-snake scene. This had me on the edge of my seat the entire way through. It was unexpected, dramatic and exciting.
The urban leopard hunt. This again was really exciting, and unexpected. I didn't realise how close leopards came to people. This was also the first time this was filmed.
The beetles in the desert who form their own water from condensation.
Komodo Dragon sequence in episode one. That was spectacular!
Araguaia river dolphin footage. Just incredible and another first for the series.
Kaziranga: everything they captured there. The end of episode 5, where they show an insight into how they filmed some of the show, was possibly my favourite part of the episode. Obviously I loved seeing rhinos on the show, and to have such remarkable sightings of elephants, rhinos, buffalo and tigers must've been a dream come true for the crew and an unforgettable experience. It has made me want to visit Kaziranga National Park.

Those are just a few of my favourite bits but I could honestly go one forever, and there was no part of it that I didn't love.

People always react to "shocking" footage. Hunts, or any dying animal scenes always cause mixed reactions and controversy. I personally don't understand how you can watch a nature documentary and not expect to see hunting, or death. It's nature; it's the circle of life. I'm not saying it's not sometimes horrible to watch, and I know you're always torn between wanting the prey to live, and not wanting the predator to starve, but to be able to see some of the animals hunt in the way we did in Planet Earth II is so special. It gives a realistic insight into the natural world, and the struggles animals face to survive.

I will inevitably be re-watching Planet Earth II forever more. Sir David Attenborough, you've done it again.

Let me know if you were watching, and which bits were your favourite! And lastly, for all my fellow students out there.. the soundtrack is great to work to!

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I'm sorry I haven't posted for so long.. it's bad. I know. I have been really busy though with uni and coursework and deadlines, but as I write this I have just submitted my final piece of work for this semester! The semester is over which means I am half way through my degree! (Officially, it's not over until after January exams but this is still a scary thought.) I can't believe it's been a year and a half already, but I also sometimes can't remember my life before uni. And to think I didn't know some of my now closest friends two years ago, is ridiculous.

I am now 20! I had my 20th birthday last week, and it was fabulous, and now that it's over I am fully embracing the Christmas spirit.

I have been absolutely loving Planet Earth 2. This documentary is a cut above the rest, and the footage they've caught it outstanding. I cannot pick a favourite bit (I know David Attenborough's favourite is the snow leopard - I can see why). I absolutely love everything David Attenborough does, and this really has changed the face of wildlife documentaries, and is possibly the greatest series yet.

I also met Albina Hume, wife of John Hume, for lunch in London recently. It was incredible to meet her, and she is a lovely, inspiring woman. She told me so many amazing stories of life on the largest rhino breeding farm in the world, and sadly some of the darker sides of the conservation world. It seems that she faces some strong opinions, and some not nice people like to make it clear what they think of her. Luckily she is an incredibly strong woman, just like so many other female conservationists I know, and she can't be deterred from fighting for what she believes in.

A big thing I want to share with you is my summer plans for 2017. Surprise surprise, I'm heading back to Africa. I am joining an Opwall expedition for 6 weeks to work on a Black Rhino population and ranging patterns project, to collect data for my dissertation in my third year of uni! I am so excited and pleased that I can centre my dissertation around rhino conservation and monitoring, and I can't wait to be back in the bush.

I am planning to stay in South Africa for longer than 6 weeks, and visit some other friends and reserves, but nothing more is finalised yet.

I am going to blog my trip (obviously) and I'm going to blog the planning. I am officially in fundraising mode to pay for it - it's not cheap but I am hoping to raise the full amount. I'm here to ask for help. If anyone has any tips on fundraising, or has done a similar thing before please get in touch!! I welcome any help at all! Equally, if anyone knows of any grants I could apply for, or ways I could get donations to get me to Africa to help work on this project for the critically endangered Black Rhino, I would hugely appreciate it!

I am back and will be blogging regularly again; as always, send in requests and I will do my best to write about what you want to read about, as well as keeping you updated on my fundraising journey! If you're interested in hearing more about my lunch with Mrs Hume, or my thoughts on the challenges she faces let me know! I would love to write a post about some inspiring people I know in the conservation industry, if that's something you would want to see.

Here are some photos from the first semester of year 2, including my birthday!

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Wild Camels: did you know there's only around 1,000 left? Take a minute to think about how few that is. That's around the same number of people who went to my secondary school.

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Of course there are more than 1,000 camels in the world, but not WILD camels. They are a separate species that live in China and Mongolia. Their species is one of the most critically endangered mammals on the planet.
Some facts about wild camels are that they are specially adapted to drink salt water. This enables them to survive in the Gashun Gobi part of the Gobi desert, China. The wild camel survived the effects of radiation from 43 atmospheric nuclear tests, and continued to breed naturally. The absence of fresh water meant they adapted to be able to drink salt water. No one conclusively knows how to this day. They migrate over huge distances in pursuit of salt water sources. They can also survive extreme temperature differences, from -40 to 55 degrees celsius.
The main reasons Wild Camels are threatened that I'm going to talk about are hunting, competition for grazing, mining, and predation by wolves.

Loss of habitat is a big threat to the wild camel. The have lost their habitat to mining and industrial development. This obvious threatens their survival as a species as they are forced to compete for food, and restrained to a smaller and smaller area. As well as each other, they have to compete with livestock and even domestic camels for food and water. This has led to farmers hunting them for threatening the survival of their livestock. When the camels migrate and leave protected areas, many of them are lost each year. Inbreeding among these domestic camel is also cause of worry, as this could lead to a the loss of the genetically distinct wild camel. Hunting is often considered the greatest threat to wild camels. In the Gobi desert, around 25-30 camels are poached each year for "domestic use"; but they are also hunting for sport and trophy.
The only predators nowadays of these camels are gray wolves. Reports of predation by wolves on camels have increased in number due to increasingly dry conditions.

The species are listed under Appendix I, and so in theory received relatively high levels of protection. The Chinese and Mongolian governments are cooperating to protect the species and it's habitat. The Gobi desert is a fragile ecosystem, and so this cooperation is critical, and they have adopted an ecosystem-based management programme to protect the Gobi desert and it's biodiversity.
Two reserves were created in 2000: 'The Great Gobi Reserve A' in Mongolia, and the 'Arjin Shan Lop Nur Reserve' in China. They provide a safe habitat for the wild camels, and a vast range of other species living in the area.
Captive breeding has also been explored as a way to prevent a genetic loss of the pure wild camel species. In 2003, a sanctuary in Mongolia was stared to lung a breeding programme, which has had several successful cases.

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Check out wildcamels.com for more info on camels, and how we can help!

This post is dedicated to my mum, who loves wild camels, and wants to see them saved.

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The CITES conference failed to legalise the rhino horn trade. If you've read any of my previous posts on this issue (link here) then you'll know that I fully support legalising the trade, and really hoped CITES would vote in favour of Swaziland's proposal.

However, they didn't. Is this really surprising? Not really. This decision was placed into the hands of people who don't understand the issue; preservationists and NGOs who profit from the plight of rhinos.

Countries/ Organisations such as the US and EU said a legal trade would reverse the work done to reduce the demand for rhino horn. This is ludicrous to me. It breaks my heart that these countries were listened to over Swaziland and South Africa, who are the ones actually protecting the rhino and the homes of the rhino. NGOs were listened to over the private owners. Most (not all, but most) rhino range countries supported Swaziland's proposal, yet the countries where rhinos are not living seemed to win. It seems ridiculous, doesn't it? Why do these countries think they know best? Why must they intervene on something they do not understand? Why would you ignore the experts?????

Manager of the WWF's South African rhino programme, Dr Jo Shaw, said "What we need now is firm action by CITES and all concerned to address poaching, trafficking and consumption of rhino horn." These are empty words until we see actions. This is exactly what should have been happening since the ban on trade began in 1977, so why are rhinos being killed at a rate of 3 a day? We need a change. How can they not see that!

The idea that legal trade goes against education is laughable. Leaving trade illegal gives the monopoly on trade to criminals. However, it also gives these same criminals the control of the supply, price and most importantly, the information. Legal trade means rhino horn products would be sold on the high street, manufactured and packaged legally. This means people will know exactly what they are buying. When you buy something on the black market, you are trusting people who are essentially just criminals that it is what they say it is, when they have every reason to lie to you. A legal trade goes hand in hand with increased awareness and education. Tell people when they buy paracetamol with rhino horn extract in it that there is absolutely no scientific evidence that rhino horn has medicinal value. Tell people that when they buy an expensive rhino horn ornament, they are essentially buying matted hair thats been sculpted, and is practically worthless. Decreasing the demand will be so much quicker and easier under a legal trade.

I've said this so many times, and I'm going to keep saying it until people listen: There is no ONE solution to save the rhino. What we are trying to do with a legal trade is save the rhino from extinction. It is also going to have strong regulations and conditions. Legal trade is not the end; it's the beginning of a long road to save this species.

This vote is not the end either. We do not own this planet, and we never will. This vote is just motivation to keep fighting.

This post is dedicated to a rhino I knew called Charlie. She spent her whole life fighting, even though the odds were always stacked against her. She just wanted to live.

Save the rhino, not it's horn.

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As I'm sure a lot of you know, the CITES CoP17 (Conference of the Parties) is currently taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa. This conference is very important for the conservation of many species, and so I'm going to try cover it as much as possible.

Many people were fighting to move lions to Appendix I. CITES has appendices to classify the endangered state of different species of flora and fauna. The Appendix which a species falls under determines the level of protection given to it by law in terms of trade. If a species comes under Appendix I, then no international trade of that animal can take place, unless for non-commercial reasons (i.e. for scientific reasons, where both an import and export permit is needed). Animals under Appendix I are considered to be threatened with extinction.

Lions are being threatened by trade for their bones. I wrote a post about the endangered status of lions: Endangered Species: Lions. Before I go on I'm sure you'll have noticed, I am against the trade in lion bones, but pro legalising trade in rhino horn. This is because I believe that each case must be treated differently, as they are different species. Each species must be dealt with in a way that is best suited for their conservation needs, and unfortunately there is no one solution that will help save all species. I wish there was, but there isn't and we must not assume that all trade is bad, or all trade is good. That's what conservationists are for; to determine the best possible route to help save each species.

The movement of lions to Appendix I was intended to help bring an end to the lion bone trade. What has happened at CoP17, is that lions are remaining under Appendix II, with a "zero annual export quota for bones, bone pieces, products, claws, skeletons, skulls and teeth removed from the wild and traded for commercial purposes." What does this mean?

Well it all seems pretty vague is my first thought. Vagueness is a conservationists worst enemy, because it can be twisted and interpreted. Vagueness is one of the main reasons Canned Hunting exists; making a legally-undefined practice illegal is rather impossible. You may also notice that skins aren't included.

The glimmer of light coming from this is that South Africa is allowed to set it's own export quota for the same body parts (but not skills) from their captive bred lions. Trouble is, there is no way of guaranteeing this will prevent trade in wild lions as it is difficult to tell whether you have a wild lion's bone, or captive bred lion's bone.

Appendix II supposedly still has tight controls over trade, but the species here are not moved to Appendix I unless it is deemed that the trade is detrimental to the survival of the species. To most intelligent people it is clear than lion bone trade is having a detrimental effect on the species. I think lions are definitely past the point of consideration, and should have been moved to Appendix I with little question of doubt. A quote from the EU's final document was "The population is not characterised by a marked decline in the population size in the wild on its whole range and does therefore not meet the criteria for inclusion in Appendix I." Quite frankly, that's the most ridiculous statement they could have come out with. There is countless evidence showing a decline in the population. I think they were very careful in their choice of words.. "whole range" suggests they can say that because in one area theres no decline, the whole population is fine. This is obviously not the case; that would be the same as saying just because one country has a high average life expectancy, the whole population is going to live a long time. It's completely illogical and quite frankly, it's incorrect. The "close control" promised is also somewhat questionable. These are just words, and actions speak louder than words.

This is bad news for the lion population, of around only 20,000 in the wild. CITES was trusted with such an important decision to help lions, and they've failed. It worries me for what is to come from the rest of this conference.

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