3091. Lessons From Increased Mountain Gorilla Population

By James Gorman, The New York Times, November 19, 2018

A 10-month-old mountain gorilla in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. Suzi Eszterhas/Minden Pictures

Last Thursday there was a bit of good news relating to the impending extinction and destruction of everything.

The mountain gorilla, a subspecies of the Eastern gorilla, was upgraded from critically endangered to endangered. There still are only about 1,000 of them, up from a low point of a few hundred, so it’s not like they were declared vulnerable (better than endangered), or just fine (not a real category). And the Eastern gorilla as a species overall is still critically endangered.

But the mountain gorillas are in fact doing better, according to the announcement from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. It bases its decisions on information gathered from scientists and conservation experts.

The gorillas’ population has been increasing for about 30 years. And it has taken a tremendous amount of struggle and work to get this far.

That raises a question: If things have improved so much for an animal in such a dire situation as the mountain gorilla, should we then give in to hope.

I know this isn’t the accepted way of speaking about the planet and its creatures. In public discourse, hope is the one thing you should never give up. But in our minds (well, in my mind, anyway, and I can’t be the only one), the reasoning behind that often expressed sentiment is not so clear.

What if a rational look at the facts points in the other direction? What if, for instance, the planet were getting warmer every year, and there was a lack of political will to try to stop the trend? What if we were in the middle of a mass extinction caused by humans?

Imagine, just for a moment, that the planet had 7.7 billion people, who had already used up a lot of the space for bears and wolves and lions and — oh, I don’t know — gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans. Suppose that all of the great apes were either endangered or critically endangered.

And, just as a thought experiment, what if there were going to be 9.8 billion people in 2050 and 11.2 billion people in 2100? Imagine that the population of Africa, where all gorillas live, is one of the fastest growing, with 26 countries expected to double in size by 2050.

Of course, all those things are actually true. Perhaps I am blinded by my own pessimism, but I do often wonder whether hope is a rational response to reality.

On the other hand, hope does seem to have played a role in the mountain gorillas’ rebound. After we reduced them to a point where it seemed they would go extinct by the year 2000, some humans worked incredibly hard to protect them. And the gorillas survived, even through the very dark period of the Rwandan genocide.

Their success so far, according to Tara Stoinski, a scientist who has studied gorillas for more than 20 years and is the head of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, is the result of intensive work, of the gorillas’ charismatic appeal, of the buy-in to conservation on the part of government, and finally the result of an extremely high commitment of resources that she calls “extreme conservation.”

The gorillas are watched over by lots of field staff — 20 times the global average per square kilometer in protected areas. What makes that possible is ecotourism, which is made possible by the great charisma of gorillas. If they were legless skinks, it might be hard to work up that kind of support.

But that is a quibble. What is clear is that irrational hope combined with dedication and decades of work culminated in pulling back mountain gorillas one step from the brink.

So, should we give in to hope? I think that Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford professor, neuroscientist, author of many books and giver of many talks, has the answer.

He’s a public science star of sorts. He may not be as well-known as Neil deGrasse Tyson, but he’s doing pretty well for a (self-described) strident atheist who points out in his recent book, “Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst,” that free will, the way we usually imagine it, is an illusion.

He’s not a Pollyanna, is my point. No sugarcoating from Dr. Sapolsky.

But, surprisingly, he is an eloquent admirer of certain forms of irrationality. He gave a funny, rich and convincing talk in 2009 to Stanford seniors on what separates humans from animals. I know it’s not brand new, but I still turn to it occasionally because it’s so clear and persuasive. It has more than 400,000 views online.

After describing many differences between humans and animals, even our close relatives, like the mountain gorillas, Dr. Sapolsky presents what he sees as one of the most remarkable human qualities: the ability to hold on to two contradictory ideas at once and find a way forward.

His main example is Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the book “Dead Man Walking,” based on her work ministering to death row inmates. She said that the more unforgivable the sin, the more it must be forgiven, and the more unlovable the person, the more important it is to love him or her.

That is not, Dr. Sapolsky argues, a conclusion any animal could come to. But a human can spend her life acting on that conviction. And that ability, he said, is the “most irrational, magnificent thing that we are capable of as a species.”

In fact, he tells the Stanford graduates-to-be that this is precisely what they need to do.

He acknowledges that they have probably learned enough to realize that it’s impossible for any one person to make a difference in the world. But, “the more clearly, absolutely, utterly, irrevocably, unchangeably clear it is that it is impossible for you to make a difference and make the world better, the more you must.”

I’m sure this is completely obvious to people who actually do things, rather than write about them: that you don’t have to give in to hope, but that you shouldn’t always give in to reason, either. If you take the long view, the good news for gorillas may be a bit like a Mega Millions lottery ticket. But somebody won more than a billion dollars recently.

Dr. Sapolsky’s concluding challenge to the well educated, well connected, savvy Stanford seniors could be taken to heart by anyone burdened by the weight and apparent rationality of their own pessimism, which may be why I’ve listened to it more than once.

“There’s nobody out there who is in a better position to be able to sustain a contradiction like this for your entire life and use it as a moral imperative. So do it.”

2010. On the Occassion of the International Threatened Species Day

By Mongabay, September 7, 2015

September 7 is Threatened Species Day, a designation established by the Australian government to commemorate the death of the last remaining thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian tiger, at the Hobart Zoo in 1936. While the day is intended to focus on Australian species, which on average are much more highly endangered than species in other large countries, this year we’re highlighting a small selection of non-Australian species that are considered at risk of extinction globally.

The following pictures show threatened animals in a variety of sites around the world, including individuals in rescue centers, zoos, semi-wild habitats within protected areas, and the wild. All photos taken by Rhett A. Butler.

Morelet’s tree frog or the Black-eyed tree frog (Agalychnis moreletii) from Central America is Critically Endangered.

The Micronesian kingfisher (Todirhamphus cinnamominus) is Extinct-in-the-Wild according to IUCN Red List.

The Kihansi spray toad was listed as Extinct-in-the-Wild until it was recently reintroduced into its native habitat in Tanzania after years of ex-situ conservation efforts. Photo taken at the Bronx Zoo, which is run by WCS.

A giant panda at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. The panda is listed as Endangered.

An Aruba island rattlesnake (Crotalus unicolor) at WCS’s Bronx Zoo. IUCN classifies this snake as Critically Endangered.

The Endangered Blue Iguana (Cyclura lewisi) from Grand Cayman.

The Golden lion tamarin ((Leontopithecus rosalia) from Brazil’s Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlantica) is listed as Endangered by IUCN.

Golden mantella from Madagascar is Critically Endangered.

The Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) is classified as Endangered by IUCN.

Mother Panamanian golden frog with green baby. This species is Extinct-in-the-Wild, according to IUCN.

The Electric blue gecko (Lygodactylus willoamsi) from Tanzania is Critically Endangered.

Black-and-white ruffed lemur is Critically Endangered.

The Endangered Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi).

The Lemur tree frog (Hylomantis lemur) is Critically Endangered.

The Ebony langur (Trachypithecus auratus) is Endangered.

Coquerel’s sifaka is classified as Endangered due to habitat loss in its native Madagascar.

An Endangered Borneo orangutan in Malaysia.

An Endangered snow leopard at the Bronx zoo.

The Hyacinth Macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) is Endangered.

The Ankarana sportive lemur (Lepilemur ankaranensis) from Madagascar is Endangered.

Young lowland gorilla in Gabon.

This white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) in South Africa is listed as Near Threatened.

The knobbed hornbill (Aceros cassidix) is Vulnerable, according to IUCN.

1631. Chinese President’s Delegation Tied to Illegal Ivory Purchases During Africa Visit

By Dan Levin, The New York Times, November 5, 2014

Chinese customs officers stand guard in front of confiscated ivory on Jan. 6 in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, where it was displayed before being destroyed. Photo:  Vincent Yu/Associated Press

BEIJING — When President Xi Jinping of China and his entourage of government officials and business leaders arrived in Tanzania in March 2013, it was to officially promote economic ties between the two countries.

But according to a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nongovernmental organization based in London, members of the Chinese delegation used Mr. Xi’s visit as an opportunity to procure so much illegal ivory that local prices doubled to about $318 a pound. Two weeks before Mr. Xi arrived, Chinese buyers purchased thousands of pounds of poached tusks, which were “later sent to China in diplomatic bags on the presidential plane,” said the report, which was released on Wednesday.

The Chinese government has been trying to prove itself a responsible state actor that is serious about abolishing corruption and abiding by international law. But the report, “Vanishing Point: Criminality, Corruption and the Devastation of Tanzania’s Elephants,” details Chinese diplomats and military personnel colluding with Tanzanian officials and Chinese crime syndicates to send illegal ivory to China, decimating Tanzania’s elephant population in the process.

“Tanzania is the largest source of poached ivory in the world and China the largest importer of smuggled tusks,” the organization said in a statement.

A Chinese official denied the accusations and denounced the organization that issued the report.

In the past four years, Tanzania has lost more elephants than any other country, an estimated 10,000 in 2013 alone, according to the organization. The elephant population in Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve, a vast wilderness larger than Switzerland, plummeted 67 percent between 2009 and 2013, to 13,000.

International conservation groups have long accused Beijing of turning a blind eye to China’s major role in the illegal ivory trade, which has surged since officials with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, permitted China to buy 68 tons of African ivory in 2008.

The Chinese government had lobbied hard to allow a legal domestic trade in ivory, arguing that it would undercut poachers and thus protect elephants herds. Instead, illegal ivory has flooded Chinese markets, where it is carved into jewelry, trinkets and religious sculptures for wealthy collectors. The price of ivory in China has tripled in the last four years, according to a report published in June by Save the Elephants.

The slaughter of African elephants has increased along with China’s influence on the continent, and a report by the Tanzania Elephant Protection Society said relations between the two countries “fuel elephant killings.”

“At the root of Tanzania’s elephant disaster lies a toxic blend of governance failures, corruption and criminality,” the Environmental Investigation Agency report said.

Game rangers share information on patrol patterns and the location of herds, it said. Police officers rent out weapons and transport tusks. Officers with the Tanzania Revenue Authority permit shipping containers full of ivory to exit the country’s ports. This year, the report said, 21 game rangers were fired for cooperating with poachers after an internal investigation by Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.

The organization has traced bribery and collusion in ivory smuggling to politicians from Tanzania’s governing party, led by President Jakaya Kikwete. When he took office in 2005, there were about 142,000 elephants in Tanzania. By the time Mr. Kikwete is to step down next year, the population is expected to have declined to just 55,000. Tanzania currently bans all domestic and international trade in ivory.

The Tanzanian government under Mr. Kikwete has tried three times to gain permission from Cites to sell its ivory stockpile. It has also sought to ease restrictions on Tanzania’s elephants in order to take advantage of a growing demand for ivory in Asia, particularly in China.

“This business involves rich people and politicians who have formed a very sophisticated network,” said Khamis Kagasheki, a former Tanzanian Natural Resources and Tourism minister.

Investigators with the organization have documented, often with hidden cameras, Chinese and Tanzanian smugglers acknowledging that they had bought and sold illegal ivory, which several Chinese traffickers said accounted for 90 percent of the Chinese ivory market.

“Even if they kill all the African elephants, it won’t be enough to make these,” said one Chinese smuggler on camera, referring to the ivory chopsticks in his hand.

Chinese smugglers have set up a widespread network in Tanzania that includes staff members of the Chinese Embassy in the country’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, the organization said.

During a November 2013 raid on a house in a suburb of Dar es Salaam, the police found 706 tusks, large amounts of cash, scales, a minibus with a secret compartment for hiding ivory, and license plates. The three Chinese men arrested were packing the tusks in sacks under snail shells and garlic. According to the report, the suspects used a business exporting seafood to conceal their ivory smuggling.

A month later, the official connection became apparent when a Chinese naval fleet docked at the port of Dar es Salaam for four days of “cultural exchanges.” The official visit benefited local ivory traders, the report said, with one dealer boasting of earning $50,000 from sales to Chinese naval personnel. During the visit, a Chinese citizen named Yu Bo was arrested trying to enter the port with 81 tusks — ivory from about 40 elephants. Convicted of ivory smuggling and fined $5.6 million, Mr. Yu was sentenced to 20 years in prison; he is the only person to have been convicted in eight major cases since 2009.

Meng Xianlin, the executive director general of China’s endangered species trade authority, denied that Chinese officials were involved in the illegal ivory trade. In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Mr. Meng called the Environmental Investigation Agency report “highly irresponsible,” for “spreading rumors and damaging China’s image without any evidence.”

Describing the E.I.A. as a “dodgy organization,” Mr. Meng also said he had never heard of Mr. Yu.

“If such a Chinese national was caught, I would have seen police reports,” he said. “There was no such report from Tanzania or anywhere.”