Emergency Intervention to Stop Extinction of Gorillas, Polar Bears, Cetaceans & Birds

For Immediate Release
Renegade Humans Killing, Eating Last Wild Gorillas
EMERGENCY INTERVENTION NEEDED TO PREVENT EXTINCTION

Jan 17 3:31 PM US/Eastern

By TODD PITMAN
Associated Press Writer

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- Rebels in eastern Congo have killed and eaten two silverback mountain gorillas, conservationists said Wednesday, warning they fear more of the endangered animals may have been slaughtered in the lawless region.

Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain in the world, 380 of them spread across a range of volcanic mountains straddling the borders of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda in Central Africa.

One dismembered gorilla corpse was found Tuesday in a pit latrine in Congo's Virunga National Park, a few hundred yards from a park patrol post that was abandoned because of rebel attacks, according to the London-based Africa Conservation Fund. Another was killed in the same area on Jan. 5, said the group, which based its report on conservationists in the field.

The group blamed rebels loyal to a local warlord, Laurent Nkunda, for the latest killing. Nkunda is a renegade soldier who commands thousands of fighters in the vast country's east who have in recent years assaulted cities and clashed sporadically with government forces.

Silverbacks are older adult males and usually group leaders, though some are loners.

Paulin Ngobobo, a senior park warden, wrote an Internet blog about finding the latest remains.

"We've learned a lot: the gorilla had in fact been eaten for meat. His name was Karema, another solitary silverback that had been born into a habituated group _ meaning that he had grown to trust humans enough to let them come to within touching distance," Ngobobo wrote.

"We learned that the remaining gorillas are extremely vulnerable _ the rebels are after the meat, and it's not difficult for them to find and kill the few gorillas that remain."

Ngobobo said the first gorilla reported killed had been shot by rebels and eaten.



"A local farmer was ordered to help the rebels collect the meat of the gorilla," Ngobobo said. "He told them that the meat was dangerous to eat, and immediately informed us."

Robert Muir of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, who accompanied Ngobobo, said: "We need to impress on Nkunda and his men that it is inexcusable to destroy national and world heritage of such critical importance. ... Now that we know that the slaughtered gorilla was eaten, the gorillas habituated for tourism are at extreme risk _ and we are worried that more have been killed already."

The last remaining hippo populations in Congo are in Virunga and are also on the verge of being wiped out. Conservationists have blamed rebels and militias for slaughtering them, and say more than 400 were killed last year, mostly for food. Only 900 hippos remain, a huge drop from the 22,000 reported there in 1998.

Virunga park has been ravaged by poachers and deforestation for more than a decade. The 1994 Rwandan genocide saw millions of refugees spill into Congo, marking the beginning of an era of unrest, lawlessness and clashes between militias and rebel groups.

Mineral-rich Congo, which held its first democratic elections in more than four decades last year, is struggling to recover from a 1998-2002 war that drew in the armies of more than half a dozen African nations.

The job of protecting the country's parks falls on local rangers, and the risks are high. In Virunga alone, some 97 rangers have died on duty since 1996, the Africa Conservation Fund said.

On his blog, Ngobobo also described being shot at and beaten by the military, who he and other rangers were trying to persuade to stop cutting down the forest.

Richard Leakey, a conservationist credited with helping end the slaughter of elephants in Kenya during the 1980s, said: "The survival of these last remaining mountain gorillas should be one of humanity's greatest priorities. Their future lies with a small number of very brave rangers risking their lives with very little support from the outside world."

On the Net:
Virunga Park Warden Paulin Ngobobo's blog, http://www.wildlifedirect.org/gorillaprotection

Get Active: http://bushmeat.net/





Dear Bravo,

Thanks to you, the polar bear won Round One of its fight for survival against the ravages of global warming.

Your activism and support of NRDC helped persuade the Bush Administration to propose protecting the bear under the Endangered Species Act.

Round Two is now beginning. The Administration is starting a 12-month review process that will lead to its final decision about whether or not to protect the polar bear.

But they won't hold nationwide public hearings during that process unless we speak up now! They will take your request for public hearings until February 23.

Please send a message to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service right away, telling them to hold nationwide hearings on the fate of the polar bear!

Your message can have a big impact. The Fish and Wildlife Service is not required by law to hold such hearings. But they can be swayed by an outpouring of public concern.

The American people are alarmed by the plight of the polar bear -- and escalating damage from global warming.

We should be allowed to express our concern -- and our support for polar bear protection -- directly to Fish and Wildlife officials before they make their life-or-death decision.

Let the Fish and Wildlife Service know that you want public hearings on polar bear protection!


Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council


http://www.nrdconline.org/ct/7p_h64E1EuuG/



1918 Killer Flu Tested on Monkeys

Jan 17, 11:06 PM (ET)
By SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists who tested monkeys with the resurrected 1918 killer flu virus now have a better idea of how the deadliest epidemic in history attacked and killed so many people - by over-amping the victims' own immune systems.

Those findings in a first-of-its-kind experiment also help explain why so many of the roughly 50 million who died in the Spanish flu pandemic were young and healthy. Based on what was seen in monkeys, the human victims' strong immune systems likely were overstimulated, causing their lungs to rapidly fill with fluid.

"Essentially people are drowned by themselves," said University of Wisconsin virology professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka, lead author of a study being published Thursday in the journal Nature.

Scientists believe the results open a window into what could happen if the current bird flu in Asia morphs into a highly lethal strain that spreads easily among people.

The 1918 virus was reconstructed with reverse genetics, relying on tissue from victims of the early-day flu pandemic. The virus is kept only in two labs where scientists are studying it: the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the Public Health Agency of Canada's lab in Winnipeg where the monkey experiment was done.

When seven macaques were given the virus at the high-level biosafety lab there, scientists were struck by how suddenly and overwhelmingly the flu struck. The virus spread faster than a normal flu bug and triggered a "storm" response in the animal's immune systems.

Their bodies' defenses went haywire, not knowing when to stop, researchers said. The lungs became inflamed and filled with blood and other fluids.

The scientists believe the virus had the same effect on humans in 1918.

The macaque experiment was supposed to last 21 days, but after eight days the monkeys were so sick - feverish, in pain, and struggling to breathe - that ethical guidelines forced the researchers to euthanize them.

"There was some surprise that it was that nasty," University of Washington virologist and study co-author Michael Katze said. "It was the robustness of the immune system that helped victimize them."

The virus is very good at replicating itself, said Peter Palese, chairman of the microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Its effect on the immune system "triggers what one refers to as a cytokine storm," he said. Cytokines transmit messages among cells in the immune system. Palese wasn't part of the study but has worked on the resurrected virus before.

No other flu virus is deadly to monkeys, and the speed in its spread and the overwhelming immune system response is similar to those in the H5N1 bird flu, Kawaoka said.

If bird flu spreads person-to-person, scientists believe understanding the 1918 virus may give them clues about how to protect people from the new one.

The new work "gives us another tool," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, who was not part of the research. Fauci praised the study and said what it found in the effects on the body are stunning: "There aren't a lot of things that can induce that robust of an inflammatory response that quickly."

The 1918 flu research suggests that those fighting the bird flu in the future could try using drugs that reduce inflammation and control the body's immune response, Katze said.

In the Winnipeg research, the first controlled introduction of the 1918 flu to primates, the monkeys were given extra high doses of the flu virus by nose, mouth, eye, and direct injection into the trachea to ensure infection.

The virus had been tested before on mice, but macaques provide better models of how viruses work on humans, the scientists said.

The fate of the monkeys was sealed within hours of their infections, Katze theorized.

In normal flu, the immune system response wanes, but in the 1918 flu "the innate response stayed up and didn't go down," Katze said.

Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, a Mount Sinai microbiology professor who conducted some of the earlier mouse work, cautioned that it may be a mistake to focus so heavily on immune system response. The 1918 flu "induces an overwhelming and probably damaging immune response system" but it is largely because the virus grows so much, he said.

In mice, when the overactive immune response was eliminated, mice died because of high viral levels.

"It's like a vicious circle, you get more viruses, you get more immune response and this results in damage," Garcia-Sastre said.

On the Net:
http://www.nature.com




Unraveling where chimp and human brains diverge

Six million years ago, chimpanzees and humans diverged from a common
ancestor and evolved into unique species. Now UCLA scientists have
identified a new way to pinpoint the genes that separate us from our
closest living relative- and make us uniquely human. The Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences reports the study in its Nov. 13
online edition.

"We share more than 95 percent of our genetic blueprint with chimps,"
explained Dr. Daniel Geschwind, principal investigator and Gordon and
Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics at the
David Geffen School of Medicine. "What sets us apart from chimps are
our brains: homo sapiens means 'the knowing man.'

"During evolution, changes in some genes altered how the human brain
functions," he added. "Our research has identified an entirely new way
to identify those genes in the small portion of our DNA that differs
from the chimpanzee's."

By evaluating the correlated activity of thousands of genes, the UCLA
team identified not just individual genes, but entire networks of
interconnected genes whose expression patterns within the brains of
humans varied from those in the chimpanzee.

"Genes don't operate in isolation- each functions within a system of
related genes," said first author Michael Oldham, UCLA genetics
researcher. "If we examined each gene individually, it would be
similar to reading every fifth word in a paragraph ? you don't get to
see how each word relates to the other. So instead we used a systems
biology approach to study each gene within its context."

The scientists identified networks of genes that correspond to
specific brain regions. When they compared these networks between
humans and chimps, they found that the gene networks differed the most
widely in the cerebral cortex -- the brain's most highly evolved
region, which is three times larger in humans than chimps.

Secondly, the researchers discovered that many of the genes that play
a central role in cerebral cortex networks in humans, but not in the
chimpanzee, also show significant changes at the DNA level.

"When we see alterations in a gene network that correspond to
functional changes in the genome, it implies that these differences
are very meaningful," said Oldham. "This finding supports the theory
that variations in the DNA sequence contributed to human evolution."

Many of the human-specific gene networks identified by the scientists
related to learning, brain cell activity and energy metabolism.

"If you view the brain as the body's engine, our findings suggest that
the human brain fires like a 12-cylinder engine, while the chimp brain
works more like a 6-cylinder engine," explained Geschwind. "It's
possible that our genes adapted to allow our brains to increase in
size, operate at different speeds, metabolize energy faster and
enhance connections between brain cells across different brain
regions."

Future UCLA studies will focus on linking the expression of
evolutionary genes to specific regions of the brain, such as those
that regulate language, speech and other uniquely human abilities.

From UCLA Labs

http://www.janegoodall.org/



"Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History"
is a program that will probably make many viewers cry.

But Allison Argo felt she had to stay as dry-eyed and clear-sighted as
possible while making this documentary, which she also narrates.

It can't have been easy.

The documentary, which on Sunday night launches the 25th season of
PBS'"Nature" & available on DVD, explores the sad story of generations
of captive chimps - our very genetically close relatives, with almost
the same DNA as humans.

Gloria Grow and her husband, veterinarian Dr. Richard Allan, run the Fauna
Foundation, which has become a haven for abused animals, including
chimps used in biological research. Even chimps that were once people's
pets, or performed to audience laughter in circuses and commercials, can
end up in research facilities. Once they get to about five or six years
old and can no longer be handled safely they are often dumped in medical
laboratories or imprisoned in isolation.

Grow's nonprofit foundation, based near Montreal, Canada, is featured in
the documentary.

So, too, is Dr. Carole Noon's Save the Chimps group, of which she is
founder and director. The nonprofit central Florida organization works
to create a safe and suitable habitat for chimpanzees, such as those
used in numerous experiments by the United States Air Force, which in
1959 captured dozens of baby chimps in Africa. These naturally social
animals, whose life span in the wild mirrors humans, have long been
locked in separate cages, taken out only to be used in grueling,
dangerous, and painful research, which may or may not ultimately benefit
mankind.

One of the chimps featured in the program is Lou, a 42 year old veteran
of the Air Force programs.

The documentary is about "the chimps having a voice finally," said Grow.
"Allison Argo was able to speak on their behalf ... about the tragedy of
their lives."

The sight of an aged chimp, a victim of years of confinement, trying to
summon up the courage to walk free beneath the sky, is just one of the
many devastatingly emotional moments in Argo's movie.

"I'm not a raving animal-rights person, but I do think there is a need
for accountability," said Argo.

She understands, she said, there are other points of view than the
animal-lovers' about the use of chimps in research. But the medical
community she tried to have a dialogue with, she said, chose not to
respond.

"I couldn't even get the NIH (National Institutes of Health) to grant us
an interview," she said, adding that laboratories can't or won't supply
any detailed records.

Argo, who made the Emmy-winning 2000 documentary "The Urban Elephant"
for "Nature," said the film took nearly three years to make, because,
"It's such a complex topic and there are so many hot buttons that it
really needed to be researched thoroughly."

Despite all the sadness in the film, Argo feels it can be viewed in a
positive light.

"I think that the main thing that gives me hope it that I don't think
people realize what happens. I think people who laugh at the chimps in
the commercials just don't know. The purpose of this film is to just
open the window so that people can look into the chimps' lives, see
what's on the other side, the dark side, and what the consequences are."

http://www.janegoodall.org/chimp_central/



Global warming may wipe out most birds

Agençe France-Presse

Nearly three quarters of all bird species in northeast Australia and more than a third in Europe could become extinct unless efforts to stop global warming are stepped up, a report says.

Up to 72% of bird species in northeastern Australia and 38% of bird species in Europe could disappear completely if the planet's temperature continues to rise, according to the international environmental group WWF.

"This report finds certain bird groups, such as seabirds and migratory birds, to be early, very sensitive responders to current levels of climate change," says WWF's director of climate change policy Hans Verolme.

"Large-scale bird extinctions may occur sooner than we thought," he says in Bird species and climate change: the global status report, released today on the sidelines of the UN climate change conference in Nairobi.

"If high rates of extinction are to be avoided, rapid and significant greenhouse gas emissions cuts must be made," WWF says.

Rising sea levels, changes in vegetation and altered temperatures are among the effects of climate change linked to greenhouse gas emissions that impact negatively on bird species worldwide, it says.

In the Great Plains of North America, where up to 80% of the continent's ducks come to breed, three quarters may face extinction because of adverse global warming-related changes to their habitat, the report says.

While the effects would be most significant if the Earth's surface temperature rises 2°C above its pre-industrial level - it is currently 0.8°C above - some birds are already feeling the heat.

The penguin population of the Galapagos Islands has decreased by half since the early 1970s, due to starvation and an inability to reproduce resulting from the effects of the El Niño climate pattern.

While migratory, mountain, island, wetland, Artic, Antarctic and seabirds are all at high risk from climate change, other species that are able to move easily to new habitats will not be as badly effected, it says.

Scientists also point out that existing conservation programs do not provide sufficient protection, as bird species often shift into unprotected zones, the report says.

http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1787976.htm?enviro



Dead porpoises on Scottish beaches more evidence of global warming?

FRANK URQUHART
(furquhart@scotsman.com)

Increase in number of porpoise deaths due to malnutrition Decline in sandeel numbers thought to be due to climate change Sandeel decline also affecting seabid population Key quote
"It is a worrying change. Harbour porpoises eat lots of other fish - haddock, whiting and the occasional cod, mackerel or herring. But it seems that, particularly in the spring in the Scottish North Sea area, sandeels are very, very important to them." - COLIN MACLEOD, ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY

Story in full HARBOUR porpoises are starving to death in the North Sea as a result of rising water temperatures, scientists have revealed.

Climate change has resulted in a dramatic decline in the numbers of sandeels - a major part of the staple diet of the porpoises.

Marine scientists have recorded a significant rise in the percentage of porpoise deaths due to malnutrition. They are also becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of the declining sandeel populations on other species such as the bottle-nosed dolphin and the minke whale, believing this could jeopardise the future of Scotland's booming whale-watching sector.

The potential crisis was highlighted yesterday in a study by a team of scientists from Aberdeen University and the Scottish Agricultural College in Inverness, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Previous reports have already revealed that seabird populations around Scotland's coast have been seriously hit by the decline in sandeel numbers.

But, unlike seabirds that only eat sandeels, it had always been assumed that harbour porpoises and other cetaceans would simply switch to eating other fish species when sandeel numbers fell, without suffering any ill-effects. The study, however, suggests that this is not the case.

Sandeels are anchovy-like fish which spend most of their lives buried in the sand before emerging for a few months in the spring when they become a vital food source.

Separate studies have found the number of sandeels living to adulthood falls during warmer winters, when they grow at too fast a rate to be supported by the available food.

The percentage of stranded harbour porpoises on the North Sea coast of Scotland found to have died as result of malnutrition has risen from 5 per cent to 33 per cent in the past six years.

Colin MacLeod, the scientist at Aberdeen University who led the research, said: "The problem is that climate change is not like bycatch or chemical pollution that can be solved at a local or regional level, it's a global issue that is affecting porpoises at a local level. This was not an effect of climate change we expected for harbour porpoises.

"It makes you wonder how many more hidden impacts of climate change there are for whales and dolphins that we simply did not expect to occur and so haven't taken into account when deciding on suitable conservation strategies."

Mr MacLeod said there were an estimated 350,000 harbour porpoises in the waters around the UK, with 120,000 in the northern North Sea.

Scientists, examining the stomach contents of stranded porpoises from the east coast of Scotland since 1992, have already confirmed that the cetaceans rely heavily on sandeels for food.

But the researchers have now discovered a dramatic change in the cause of death for recent strandings.

Mr MacLeod said that of about 90 animals found stranded on the east coast of Scotland in the late 1990s, only 5 per cent had died of starvation. However, seven of the 21 animals found in the same area between 2002-3 had died from malnutrition.

"These are small numbers but we have shown using statistical analysis that this is a real effect," he said. "There is an increase in the number of harbour porpoises who are dying of starvation but we haven't done the research yet to find out whether that is having a knock-on effect and reducing the overall population. But, certainly, the decline in sandeels cannot be good for population."

He said: "It is a worrying change. Harbour porpoises eat lots of other fish - haddock, whiting and the occasional cod, mackerel or herring. But it seems that, particularly in the spring in the Scottish North Sea area, sandeels are very, very important to them."

Mr MacLeod added: "If, as predicted, the waters of the North Sea continue to warm, the numbers of sandeels are expected to continue to decline."

Peter Ftevick, the science director with the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, said: "Evidence on the west coast suggests sandeel populations are down. The increase in the number of stranded animals which starved to death is quite dramatic, but how that extrapolates into the population is a little hard to say."

STAYING CLOSE TO THE COAST
THE harbour porpoise is one of about 80 cetacean species around the world.

As their name implies, they stay close to coastal areas, largely in river estuaries or in areas with a mean temperature of 15C. They often venture up rivers, being seen hundreds of miles from the sea.

They measure about 75cm at birth, grow up to 1.7 metres long and live up to 25 years.

The flippers, tail fin, dorsal fin and back are dark grey, while the sides are lighter and speckled.

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=47902007



Giant German Rabbits to Ease Hunger in North Korea

Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail --straight to Pyongyang and eventually, North Korean ovens. A German breeder is exporting oversized rabbits to the People's Republic to help fill empty stomachs.

Karl Szmolinsky is taking his first trip abroad this April. But he's not going to a Mediterranean island, or Greece or Italy, or any of the other sunny spots most Germans choose for their vacations. He's headed to one of the most hermitically sealed countries on earth, ruled with an iron fist by an unpredictable dictator, and he's taking his bunnies along.

The 67-year-old is exporting his "German grey giants," which he's bred since 1964, to North Korea, which suffers from chronic food shortages and where, although hard information is nearly impossible to get, malnutrition and even starvation are believed to be common.

"I just want to help the Koreans," said Szmolinsky, who lives in the eastern German town of Eberswalde. He isn't going to get rich off the business deal. He'll receive around 80 euros ($104) per rabbit, meaning his profit margin is going to be small.

Ten of his rabbits are already there, and they've been placed in a petting zoo for children to run their hands through their plush coats. When Szmolinsky arrives, he will advise officials on breeding techniques for these biggest rabbits in the world, which can reach a weight of 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and produce seven kilograms (15.4 pounds) of meat.

Szmolinsky first heard that North Korean wanted rabbits in October. Shortly thereafter, an armored Mercedes limousine arrived at his place and asked the breeder to show him a few animals and then weigh them. The North Korean left impressed and the deal was done. Those bunnies were about to be on their way to the workers' paradise.

The breeder's rabbits could soon be common throughout Kim Jong Il's realm. In mid-September, the state news agency KNCA told the population that rabbits are the most "economically advantageous pets" around and that rabbit hutches should be put up pronto since the German giants produce "a lot of meat with just a little feed."

Now that's news they could use.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2307544,00.html