Southern Brown Bandicoot, Image from Australian Wildlife Conservancy.
According to Professor Norman Myers earth is experiencing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years with the loss of species more severe than the five mass extinctions of the geological past.
As mentioned at a previous blog post, south-western Western Australia has been listed as one of the hotspots in Australia. I asked David Ward from Western Australia for comment and he replied:
“Hello Jen,
I am not an expert on extinctions, but I believe there have been a lot in south-western Australia, especially in the cleared wheat belt.
The forests have had, as far as I know, very few losses, despite logging and regular burning for many years. I would say that lack of regular burning, followed by very fierce fires, is the main threat to forest species.
Several times, plants have been reported extinct, or endangered, only to reappear profusely after a fire. Native animals are, if anything, making a comeback, due to CALM’s fox-baiting.
The supposedly endangered Brown Bandicoot is common in the semi-rural suburb where I live, and is even regarded by some as a nuisance, digging up gardens.
A nearby golf course is swarming with kangaroos.
There is a problem with loss of habitat and species, but we should take a balanced view.
Does Norman Myers mention inappropriate fire exclusion as a threat to biota? I would say it is at least as worthy of attention as clearing.
Oddly, few university researchers have tackled it, concentrating instead on the effects of frequent burning.
Scientists may be objective in a particular study, but the choice of research question is far from objective. Four legs good, two legs bad?
Regards
David Ward“
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
A former work colleague and long time friend used the association between geology, soil types and plant communities to prospect for rare and endangered plants. From memory he had a pretty good success rate in finding isolated populations of presumed extinct species across the wheatbelt in WA, using soils maps as a principal resource. Often the notes from the original description of the plant would contain valuable soils descriptions, but the locations were poorly described; “2000 yards east of rabbit proof fence starting from the second strainer post south of the Here to There Road gate” sort of thing.
I gather a plant may be declared extinct, rare or endangered because no one has seen it for many years and the recorded populations have been difficult or impossible to relocate. My friend’s experience was that people were frequently looking in the wrong places and some of the species occured in restricted areas determined by very specific soils and landforms.
The level of misunderstanding is very high and leaves the way open for people to make sweeping and perhaps alarmist pronouncements in the interests of promoting a recently released book or similar.
I recall an argument with a concerned member of the public who complained about the deforestation of the national parks on the south coast of WA. The Fitzgerald River NP mentioned amongst the biodiversity hotspots is an example. “Would be a lot better if they hadn’t bloody logged it” and so on. His complaint astonished me at the time; he was clearly unaware that the south coast NPs are natural heathlands, they have not carried forest in recorded history, and yet this person was a champion for the the cause of protecting the environment from people like me.
This is not say we can be relaxed about this issue, and if the community is concerned about extinctions, perhaps we need to direct some resources towards quantifying the level of threat to the individual species. Many species are very restricted in their distribution and could be inadvertently be snuffed out by a change in land management, such as an altered fire regime as described by Dave Ward. A little more knowledge and a little less presumption of guilt in relation to other people might go a long way.
Reasonable men and women in full possession of all the relevant facts would be bound to throw out all of the so called biodiversity hot spots listed by Myers and the National Academy of Science and replace them with the following;
New York, London, Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Kiev, Bucharest, Belgrade, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Rio, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Gwong Jao, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manila, Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai, Tehran, Bagdad, Cairo, Athens, Algiers, Lagos, Harare, Johanesburg, Djakarta, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
And there is a couple of hundred more to add, but you get my drift. Lets get rid of the euphemisms and call these hotspots by their real name, “cities”.
In these “hotspots” we can say with absolute certainty that localised extinctions have taken place on a massive scale and in unprecedented numbers. And we have every right to ask, what proportion of London is still delivering its primary habitat services?
And the National Academy of Science is kicking the crap out of Tasmania for the beastly crime of having more than 75% of its area delivering primary habitat services.
And still they wonder why country people think urbanites are full of shit? But what would we know, we’re just eco-vandals, totally lacking in sophistication.
Professor Myers told the ABC “In the lifetime of many [television news] viewers we could lose half of all those 10 million species around the world,”
Now assuming he is over 25 and will live until 75, that’s 5 million in 50 years or 0.1 million a year, my calculator tells me that’s 273 per day for a 365 day year.
Yet the ABC reported Professor Myers says if governments do not do more, the planet will continue to lose 50 species per day compared to the natural extinction rate of one species every five years.
That a fifth of his original claim. At 50 a day or 18,250 a year that’s going to be 274 years before we lose half.
The other thing to note about the 50 species a day loss is that American Biologist EO Wilson in 1993 claimed we were then losing 30,000 a year. So in 12 short years we have effectively acted to cut the rate of loss by almost half.
Whilst on the Maths lets just check the 10 million claim. According to the Year 12 Environmental Science book published in 1996 by the Australian Academy of Science we find on page 53 “We don’t know how many species there are in the world.” “Estimates of the number of species range from 3 million to 30 million.
On page 283 “Estimates of all species…vary from 5 to 50 million”
Not surprised that there is inconsistencies in the available data.
Fact is we do not have enough detailed information on many species groups, mostly invertebrates, to determine where the hotspots are for them. So we assume that a hotspot for vertebrates is also likely to be a hotspot for inverts…probably.
The biodiversity hotspots also seem to be equated by many with, or equivalent to, extinction hotspots….are they actually the same thing?
Certainly the presence of high levels of endemics is a guide to the presence of a biodiversity hotspot and is typically based on the presence of habitat types not found elsewhere. But does it necessarily follow that all of these biodiversity hotspots are therefore extinction hotspots?
Two examples I know reasonably well might serve to illustrate this issue.
The Nigerian/Cameroun highlands are a biodiversity hotspot, with a very high level of endemicity in flora, and vertebrates….the invertebrates remain very poorly known as elsewhere, but as might be expected, the more mobile species, or those with good dispersal mechanisms are typically widely distributed, while there appears to be a number of endemics among less mobile groups. This area is definitely also an extinction hotspot as expansion of human settlement (agriculture) and logging is removing the forest. The access to forest provided by logging roads (mostly illegal) provides access for hunters. The majority of vertebrate species in this hotspot are restricted to it. Some such as the chimpanzee and mountain gorilla are found elsewhere in similar habitat in Central Africa, but there too their habitat is being relentlessy converted and as it contracts, so do their numbers.
The other area I am quite familiar with is the western end of the island of Papua New Guinea, and there the biodiversity from the mountains to the sea is also very high with many endemic species. To date the area remains largely intact as a consequence of low human population and the sheer inacessability of much of the region. At present I would not class this area as an extinction hotspot, although it clearly is a biodiversity hotspot.
Russell the biodiversity concept of hotspot involves both a richness of species AND a risk of extinction. It doesn’t necessarily follow that an area that’s rich in species is a hotspot, ie is at risk of extinctions, however some of the richest areas are in the tropics where there is poverty, high population density and high risk of extinctions.
“34 regions worldwide where 75 percent of the planet’s most threatened mammals, birds, and amphibians survive within habitat covering just 2.3 percent of the Earth’s surface. An estimated 50 percent of all vascular plants and 42 percent of terrestrial vertebrates exist only in these hotspots. This includes 75 percent of the planet’s most threatened mammals, birds, and amphibians.”
http://www.conservation.org/xp/CIWEB/regions/priorityareas/hotspots.xml
The original motivation for ‘hotspots’ was given the spread of pressures, to identify particularly valuable areas under threat, ie to concentrate conservation efforts to get more bang for you buck if you please.
The hotsite for hotspot info is here:
http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/xp/Hotspots
Cinders: estimates of species vary widely because there is so much we don’t know, but also because it depends on the definition of a species used. Asking “what is a species?” is a bit like asking “what is life?”. You’ll be happy to note that the commonly used classification methods give lower species estimates.
I seem to recall some debate in the US over whether the Florida Cougar was distinct from the broader southern Puma and which in turn was distinct from the northern Puma. When put together they produced fully fertile offspring. But that didn’t stop the proponents who needed the Florida ones to be designated as a separate species for other political ends. But when all was said and done, the only real distinction was in the common local names for the same animal. Oh, and that the Florida ones, and the rest of the southern branch were more adept at raiding suburban garbage bins than the northern guys found mostly in the Rockies.
This desire on the part of elements of the green community to maintain any minor pocket of genetic line gives an inappropriate significance to the “hillbilly assumption” in the name of diversity. It flies in the face of what nature goes to great lengths to avoid whenever given the opportunity, ie nature loves a mixed gene pool.
And this fragmentation of single species into numerous obligations to preserve nuances smacks of the ecological equivalent of racial purity.
So does that make it OK to wipe out the Florida panthers or any other “minor pocket of genetic line”? Racial purity…so if Homo sapiens are genetically all one and the same, then it is no great loss to wipe out Brazilian or PNG tribes that might be standing in the way of progress, like said Florida panther?
Ian you must agree that species are under increasing pressure – from increased human populations, development, hunting, habitat removal, introduction of exotic predators and pests, pollution, and perhaps from climate change too. Now let’s consider that species have some limited ability to evolve in response to these pressures and adapt for better survival.
How do you expect species to adapt if humans incessantly reduce their genetic diversity and their opportunities to move to new, more favourable habitat areas? Sub-species and local variants can be first steps towards the evolution of new species. Evolution happens slowly but pressures are increasing rapidly. Now that they’re between a rock and a hard place you want to throw stones at their head.
Yr conclusion that they’re all the same animal is without support. There are 15 recognised subspecies of Cougar in Nth Amer that I’m aware of. Another 12 in Sth Amer.
Par for the course, Travis. You imply from my statements on fragmentation of classifications that I am arguing a case for wiping out PNG Tribesmen! Your extrapolation to an extreme scenario is the hallmark of a person willing to act on the basis of a delusion.
Thinksy, you are implying that the only response that wildlife can make to changing habitat is by way of genetic response. But the very pace of change rules out the possibility of any successful genetic response to altered habitat.
They adapt to change in the same way that we humans adapt. We modify our behaviour, cougars raid chook pens and garbage bins. They particularly like the dumpsters at back of KFC outlets in Atlanta. And the burden is placed on anyone arguing that the Florida Cougar is distinct from the Alabama Cougar to explain what it is about state boundaries that stops female cats in heat from bonking well travelled adolescent males.
And both you and Travis should explain why you could possibly assume that a reduction, or even a “wipe-out”, in one local population will not be followed by migration of neighbouring adolescents seeking their own territory.
Not at all Ian. Are you arguing the case for wiping out Florida panthers? I would be interested in seeing the reference to the cats raiding KFC dumpsters. Do you have more information on this?
Tell me, how does migration happen when there are no suitable routes to migrate along, or is there no such thing as fragmentation?
You don’t understand these issues very well Ian or you’re deliberately playing ignorant because every point you made above is faulty.
Mating does not alone provide a species definition.
In NO way did I say or imply that the ONLY possible response is an evolutionary one. Ecological responses can also occur.
How can you make an absolute, narrow statement that ‘the very pace of change rules out the possibility of any successful genetic response’? ARe you prepared to argue that there is no evidence whatsoever, anywhere, in recent times, that any species is evolving in response to modern day pressures? (Are you arguing that the climate is changing rapidly now? Or that we’re logging too much too fast? Doubt it.) It’s not solely the pace of change that’s the problem, it’s the nature and extent of the pressures too.
You should be aware that you argued against yourself. Some behavioural responses can have genetic foundations. eg if garbage-raiding individuals successfully live and reproduce, yet non-garbage-raiding individuals die of starvation, and if that behaviour is hereditary, then the population’s gene pool will be skewed towards garbage raiders, ie adaptation is occurring. However if you getting locking lids on the bins, then they’ll all starve to death. Voila, extirpation. No doubt you’d like to shoot a few more just to test the boundaries between extirpation and extinction.
As Travis asked, where are the references for you ill-considered arguments? Either you were playing silly buggers or you know next to nothing on this topic and should spend less time mouthing off on areas where you’re ignorant and more time learning how to assess the full extent of the biodiversity on your property. Forget the cougars, what’s threatened in your backyard (aside from treehugging greenies)?
Fine, Thinksy, instead of “rules out the possibility of any successful genetic response”, I will substitute “reduces the probability of any successful genetic response”. Once again you are extrapolating my statements to an extreme to facilitate your usual “bile movement”.
And I am merely pointing out that change has already taken place rapidly, in the form of past habitat modification and that we are unlikely to see much genetic modification in our lifetime.
And your example of a behavioural adaption with a genetic foundation was no such thing. For a behavioural adaption to have a genetic foundation it would need to relate to an action that could not have been learned without the genetic change. Raiding dumpsters is nothing more than a modification in the hunting behaviour of Cougars.
And as for the reference to Cougars in dumpsters, I don’t recall whether it was in an email string or a published reference. So you can choose to either ignore it or accept the possibility that something could exist as fact without having been referenced.
Your statement, “and if that behaviour is hereditary, then the population’s gene pool will be skewed towards garbage raiders, ie adaptation is occurring.” is typical of your soggy intellect. You used a conditional “if, then”, to proclaim a conclusive fact, ie “adaption is occurring”, instead of retaining the conditional, “adaption would, or may, occur”.
This taking of a conditional case on board as some sort of self evident fact, is par for the course for schizophrenics and heavy dope users. You can actually test for it with an MRI scan. And given Travis’ persistence with his wipe out accusations, it might pay to take him along with you.
And Travis’ question, “how does migration happen when there are no suitable routes to migrate along, or is there no such thing as fragmentation?” is simply begging the question.
What does he think a suitable route for a cougar to migrate along might be? A continually linked canopy of trees? Does he think they won’t migrate across an open paddock at night? Does he think they won’t go through a corn field or along a creek bank? Do they never cross roadways to get to the chook pens, garbage bins and dumpsters?
These moggies have obviously managed to get across the mighty Mississippi so Travis might like to justify his implication “when there are no suitable routes to migrate along”, by taking out a map of southern USA and identifying what it is on the boundary of the Florida and Alabama state line that severs connectivity.
Again we have this conclusion of fact from an imaginary circumstance. All that green propaganda has rotted your brain.
Sorry to confuse you Ian, my reference to migration was not specifically linked to cougars. It was a question relative to any species, not just your unsubstantiated KFC dunpster raiding cats. The asking for a reference is because I have read a number of things from you that seem to have no factual basis whatsoever when pressed for more information. So in relation to creatures large and small that do not have suitable areas to migrate through, how do these fill the niche created by the no longer existing population? I trust I can look forward to a suitably neanderthal response, as you seem to have filled that niche quite ably.
Name an instance where you have pressed me for more information. If not then retract the statement!
Indicate an instance when you pressed for more information and I declined. If not then retract the statement!
You are still begging the question and blatantly weasling. Tell me what an “unsuitable area to pass through” might be.
I can give you one good example of such connection without “suitable areas to pass through” and that is the way eggs of certain aquatic species stick to the feet of ducks and get transported to newly constructed farm dams. No connectivity but nature finds a way.
Motty’s on the rampage again. The more pressure we exert on species and subspecies, the fewer opportunities there are for them to make either evolutionary or ecological adaptations. Period.
You’ve made a valiant attempt, as usual, to argue. But the standard pattern is emerging – the sketchier your understanding, the noisier you get. As you acknowledge, your examples are unsubstantiated (& unAustralian) so there’s no point examining them further, particularly as we know too well how you revert to lumberjack humour as a diversionary tactic when you’re grasping for straws. If you want to demonstrate any knowledge of this topic Ian, give some decent examples from your own region.
Ian Mott writes,
Thinksy,
Given your response to my not having a reference to the Florida Panther story was to imply that this was a multiple case, I did go back to a highly relevant discussion on the Lanholders News & Views in May 2004.
Discussion, Redefining a species to suit a political Agenda
“U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST CHARGES MANIPULATION OF SCIENCE ON FLORIDA PANTHER”
A veteran biologist at the U.S. Fish and wildlife Service (FWS) has filed a legal complaint against FWS, charging it with
intentionally using flawed scientific data in decisions regarding the endangered Florida panther.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service is under severe pressure from its political superiors to commit scientific fraud to avoid inconveniencing campaign contributors,” says Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which joined FWS scientist Andrew Eller, Jr. on the May 4 complaint.
Eller, a 17-year employee of the FWS, has worked on Florida panther recovery efforts for 10 years. Eller and PEER charge that “[p]anther literature considered ‘best available science’ by the USFWS contains unsupported assumptions, uses inappropriate analytical methods, and selectively uses data to support conclusions.”
FWS has cited this literature to justify overestimates of the panther’s breeding population, reproductive and survival rates,
and underestimates of the panther’s habitat needs – using the panther’s less active daytime habits to estimate the range for the mostly nocturnal species.
The errors have been exposed in published peer reviews, field reports, court declarations, and by a 2003 independent, joint review team of the FWS and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. FWS has 60 days in which to accept or
contest the Eller/PEER complaint.
The Florida panther was listed as endangered under the ESA in 1967. There are only an estimated 60-80 wild panthers left, numbers so few that the species is on the edge of genetic collapse. Cougars from Texas have been introduced into the Florida population to diversify the gene pool”.
Some thoughts on the Panther story. – Walter Starck, UCQ
The American panther (aka cougar, mountain lion, puma, catamount) has long been recognized as a single species that ranges throughout temperate and tropical North, Central and South America. Like many other wide ranging land mammals its population is divided into numerous sub-populations that differ slightly from one another but which can and will readily interbreed
given the opportunity. By any reasonable definition of species these sub-populations are not even subspecies but at best simply races.
Systematists have long recognized one species with little question or disagreement. For purposes of incurring the Endangered Species Act however environmentalists have redefined the species concept to suit their agenda and any detectable difference in populations can and often is accorded species distinction.
Over the past 50 years panthers, raccoons, grey wolves, coyotes, American opossums, armadillos, and sundry other creatures have markedly increased their range, habitats, and populations in the U.S. In part this is due to better game laws and probably decreasing hunting but there has also been a change in the behaviour of some of these animals as well. Somehow they learned to live with humans and instead of continuing to retreat they started to move in. Foxes, raccoons, and opossums are now common in many cities and coyotes and panthers are increasingly seen in suburban areas. Wolves have notably expanded their range eastward.
Wildlife has a much greater capacity to adapt than is generally credited and given half a chance many species will literally move in with us.
Here in Australia we have an ongoing example of adaptability with the geographic spread on cane toads. When they first arrive in a new area naive predators eat them and die creating hysteria among even more naïve environmentalists. In a short time however most predators leave them alone and a few figure out how to eat them while avoiding the poison glands. Then the toads spread into another area and the eco-hysteria follows never looking back to see that all the dire predictions of extinctions didn’t happen.
Pointing such things out however never finds hopeful interest among environmentalists, only denial and anger. Their commitment is to the problem, not its solution.
Walter Starck
Ian Mott (Landholders Institute) Comments
I couldn’t agree more, Walter. Have you read Tim Low, “the new nature”, which has hundreds of examples of same.
The real story in this article is the fact that the Texas Cougar has been mated with the Florida Panther to diversify the gene pool [and thereby remove the very minor distinctions that were used to justify its listing as a separate species]. This is another way of saying that they are essentially the same species. This fragmentation of the one species into a number of species, apparently based on human state boundaries, can only serve to mislead the public on the true spread and population of that species.
It is a bit like the way sub-tropical Byron Shire has included the plains dwelling Brolga on it’s list of threatened species. True, one may have been sighted there but one has also been sighted in New Zealand (presumably after a big night in Bondi). It’s listing may well also be based on the inputs of the sort of “esteemed scientists” that the PEER statement above refers to (is that high or low esteem?). But one can truthfully state that any modification made to environmental values in either place will have absolutely zero impact on the sustainability of Australia’s Brolga population.
One might ask, “what about the Georgian Panther, the Alabama Panther or the Louisiana Cougar”? Surely, these would be even more closely related to the Florida Panther. An old sceptic might ask why their closer genetic material was not introduced instead. The only plausible reason these Cougars/Panthers (Couthers?) from in between were not introduced would be due to some deemed lack of [sufficient] genetic differentiation that would not solve the Florida Couther’s supposed inbreeding problem.
And the very pregnant (sic) conclusion to be drawn from this is that roving young single Couthers in heat, like young single humans from Byron to Bali, may be in the habit of crossing more than one state boundary in the hope of getting laid.
One could reasonably suspect that US FWS Biologists may also be guilty of manipulating science by over compartmentalising the one species (Dixie Couther?) into a number of less numerous species and failing to distinguish between it’s ordinary (mum and dad) night time range in search of food and their much, much, larger mating range. This, along with the species
willingness to cross, and exploit, so called “gaps” between habitat clusters is, of course, the real determinant of sustainability.
For as any owner of an orchard, chook pen or Mango tree will testify, farms and backyards are rarely classified as “habitat” but they seem to deliver remarkable levels of “habitat services” to a remarkable array of both threatened and non-threatened species.
But you will never read that on BushGreenwatch, will you? And as for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), one could ask, what next? Paedophiles for the Rights of Children? Ian Mott”
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