logo

Welcome


AboutZoos, Since 2008





201307Sep10:55

Relo­ca­tion » A new method to re-​home endan­gered species

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 07 Sep­tem­ber 2013 | mod­i­fied 26 July 2014
Archived

Con­ser­va­tion sci­en­tists at the Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Lon­don (ZSL) have devised a novel method to iden­tify suit­able new homes for ani­mals under threat from cli­mate change.

Hihi male matt gribbleThe sci­en­tists used their knowl­edge on species ecol­ogy to cre­ate habi­tat suit­abil­ity maps and cor­rectly iden­tify sites that will remain viable in the future regard­less of chang­ing cli­mate. How­ever, the key for suc­cess is to under­stand, and account for, the link between vari­a­tion in species pop­u­la­tion size, cli­mate and how the cli­mate may change. Their research is pub­lished on 6 Sep­tem­ber in the Jour­nal of Applied Ecology.

Almost half of all bird and amphib­ian species are believed to be highly vul­ner­a­ble to extinc­tion from cli­mate change. Species in extreme or rare habi­tats such as the emperor pen­guin in the Antarc­tic and Amer­i­can pika in the USA have already expe­ri­enced dras­tic declines in pop­u­la­tions due to the impact of cli­mate change on their home.

Our work shows that assisted coloni­sa­tion may be the only way to guar­an­tee the sur­vival of this unique species under cli­mate change
Dr Alienor Chau­venet, lead author »

As cli­mate changes, many species will need to move to a dif­fer­ent loca­tion in order to sur­vive. For species that aren’t able to do this nat­u­rally, the only chance of sur­vival is a help­ing hand through the use of translocations.

Dr Nathalie Pet­torelli, ZSL’s cli­mate change coor­di­na­tor and senior author on the paper, says: “Cli­mate change poses a wor­ry­ing threat to many ani­mals, and relo­cat­ing vul­ner­a­ble species to new and more suit­able habi­tats may be the only way to pro­tect them. How­ever, this is an extreme con­ser­va­tion action, which needs to be thor­oughly jus­ti­fied, and requires clear guid­ance on where threat­ened pop­u­la­tions should be moved. Our research shows how these key require­ments can be met.”

The team used the hihi bird as an exam­ple because of the con­ser­va­tion suc­cess which came after efforts put into its relo­ca­tion since the 1980s. Yet, despite large invest­ments into its pro­tec­tion, cli­mate change is now pos­ing a sig­nif­i­cant threat to its future survival.

ZSL’s hihi work

Hihi are sex­u­ally dimor­phic medium sized for­est dwelling passer­ines endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. They are the sole rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the New Zealand bird fam­ily Notiomys­ti­dae. Hihi rely on native veg­e­ta­tion for nec­tar and fruit but also feed on inver­te­brates. They are sup­ple­men­tal fed sugar water year-​round and ad libi­tum. Hihi nest in cav­i­ties usu­ally located high up live mature trees of a vari­ety of native species but also read­ily use arti­fi­cial nest boxes when mature trees with cav­i­ties are lim­ited. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion here.

Dr Alienor Chau­venet, lead author of the study, says: “All cur­rent hihi pop­u­la­tions are sur­rounded by either a large stretch of water or unsuit­able habi­tat such as farm­land or cities with plenty of non-​native preda­tors. This iso­la­tion makes it very per­ilous for them to move and indi­vid­u­als attempt­ing to relo­cate nat­u­rally are unlikely to survive.

Translo­ca­tions will con­tinue to be an impor­tant part of con­ser­va­tion as cli­mate changes. ZSL’s novel method shows how these inter­ven­tions can be planned to be suc­cess­ful even under the influ­ence of a chang­ing envi­ron­ment. The method can be applied to any species threat­ened by cli­mate change, and is likely to con­tribute to the suc­cess of future translocations.

Translo­ca­tions

Con­ser­va­tion translo­ca­tions are defined as “the delib­er­ate move­ment of organ­isms from one site for release in another” by the Inter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature Species Sur­vival Com­mis­sion (IUCN SSC). Two broad types exist: rein­tro­duc­tion within a species’ his­tor­i­cal range, intro­duc­tion or assisted coloni­sa­tion out­side a species’ indige­nous range. In guide­lines for rein­tro­duc­tion and other con­ser­va­tion translo­ca­tions recently pub­lished by the IUCN SSC (2012), one explicit require­ment for any translo­ca­tion is that the cli­mate at the release site remains suit­able in the near future and that the new habi­tat meets the abi­otic needs of the species.

(Source: ZSL press release, 06.09.2013)


UN Biodiversity decade
WWF Stop Wildlife Crime
Fight for Flight campaign
End Ivory-funded Terrorism
Support Rewilding Europe
NASA State of Flux

Goal: 7000 tigers in the wild

Tiger range countries map

Tiger map” (CC BY 2.5) by Sander­son et al., 2006.

about zoos and their mis­sion regard­ing breed­ing endan­gered species, nature con­ser­va­tion, bio­di­ver­sity and edu­ca­tion, which of course relates to the evo­lu­tion of species.
Fol­low me on: