fauna

Corridors Critical for India’s Big Cats

by Brian Switek

Every day, little by little, our species is creating new islands…

These are not islands in the sea. They are patches of forest, grassland, mountainside, and swamp that encompass what remains of the wild. Unlike islands dotted across the sea, though, there are sometimes pathways between these protected swaths that permit organisms to traverse the small percentage of their range that remains open to habitation. In the case of central India’s tigers and leopards, these wildlife corridors are critical for survival.

Zoologists Sandeep Sharma and Trishna Dutta of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, along with a host of coauthors, have just published a pair of studies that used felid feces to gauge the genetic diversity of tigers and leopards in central India’s Satpura-Maikal region. This area is one of the richest tiger holdouts left in the world, despite the fact that these forests have been cut back over 75 percent over the last 300 years. The need for farmland, organized hunting, and, since the 1970s, poaching have all taken their toll on tiger populations while leopards, who do all they can to avoid the remaining tigers, have been pushed out towards the fringes where the forest meets human settlements.

Spread across several conservation areas, the big cats would seem to be isolated from each other. As Sharma, Dutta, and their colleagues found, though, the roads and trails between the parks are essential for genetic exchange between the forests…

(read more: National Geographic)        

(photos: T - Brian Switek; BL - Brian Gratwicke; BR - Sandeep Sharma)

Malaysia: In the Kingdom of the Black Panther

by Jeremy Hance

The black panther has a mythical aura: Rudyard Kipling chose the animal for one of his heroes in The Jungle Book, in the 1970s it became the symbol of an African-American socialist party, while comic guru Stan Lee selected the stunning feline for his first black superhero.

But the real black panther isn’t an actual species, instead it’s a rare dark pigmentation (melanism) found most commonly in leopards, but also occasionally in jaguars and other wild cats. The rarity of the black panther—not to mention its striking appearance—has added to their mystery. However, recent studies have found that black panthers, in this case ‘black leopards,’ are astoundingly common in one part of the world: the Malayan peninsula.

“In the same way a genetic mutation can cause some individuals within a species to display albino characteristics, black panthers are simply individuals that have a genotype causing a uniformly black coloration on their coat,” Laurie Hedges, a carnivore researcher working with the non-profit research group Rimba, told mongabay.com in a recent interview. “In total 13 species of wild felids have been documented with ‘melanistic’ or black forms, but apart from the difference in coloration, they are still the same species as their patterned counter parts.”

Rimba, which means ‘jungle’ in Malay, is currently conducing camera trapping in two wildlife corridors in Malaysia: the Kenyir Wildlife Corridor and the Bintang Hijau Wildlife Corridors. The camera trapping research, headed by Rimba’s co-founder Gopalasamy Reuben Clements, has so far taken some astounding images and even video of the black leopard. Here, black leopards are actually the dominant form of leopard. A complete reversal from what occurs across the rest of the leopard’s massive range…

Development halted in crucial wildlife corridor in Malaysia

by Jeremy Hance

Kenyir Wildlife Corridor in northeast Malaysia is teeming with wildlife: elephants, gibbons, tigers, tapirs, and even black panthers (melanistic leopards) have been recorded in the 60 km (37 mile) stretch of forest.

In fact, researchers have recorded over 40 mammal species (see species list below), including 15 threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List. When these findings were presented by scientists to the Terengganu state government action followed quickly: all development projects have been halted pending a government study.

“We will not hesitate to gazette the site if the findings reveal that it is of environmental importance,” Datuk Toh Chin Yaw, chairman of the Terengganu State Industry, Trade and Environment Committee, told fz.

Connecting Taman Negara National Park—the country’s largest—to other forests in Terengganu, Kenyir Wildlife Corridor sports a stunning abundance of wildlife, according to Reuben Clements, who has been taking remote camera photos in the forest for years…

Hungry leopard gets into a spot of bother after falling into a well 

via Daily Mail UK

She may be an intimidating predator in her natural environment but this leopard looked more like a lost kitten after falling into an open well - prompting a rescue operation with a difference.

The fully grown female big cat was prowling for food near the Sonaigali village in Guwahati city, northeast India, when she tumbled into the well. Residents of the village were shocked to find the trapped animal when they made their morning trek to draw water from the well.

They notified the local police, who summoned forest rangers to tackle the angry cat. The rangers tranquilized the leopard before veterinarian Bijoy Gogoi gently carried the creature out of the well. The leopard was taken to the local zoo. It is the second time a leopard has had to be rescued from the populated area within the past month…

(read more)