Positive Wildlife News 2023

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Action Plan for Great Bear Sea Reflects A Collaborative Vision That Upholds Indigenous Leadership, Science and Coastal Resilience

Today’s unveiling of a blueprint for a network of marine protected areas across the Great Bear Sea marks an important step towards protecting a globally rare and productive ecosystem, while supporting the strength and resilience of coastal communities and bolstering marine-based economies.

The Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network Action Plan has been endorsed by 15 First Nations, the Government of Canada, and the Government of British Columbia (B.C.). It reflects more than a decade of science and collaboration across governments, as well as engagement with industries, communities and many others. The process has been guided by Indigenous knowledge and robust science to inform the identification of more than 100 marine protected areas and their ecological and cultural conservation objectives.

Action Plan for Great Bear Sea Reflects A Collaborative Vision That Upholds Indigenous Leadership, Science and Coastal Resilience
 
Rare Peruvian Diving-petrels nesting on Chañaral Island following decades of absence

A growing chick demonstrates the success of the project to restore this threatened bird on the largest historical nesting site in Chile.

For the first time in more than 40 years a Peruvian Diving-petrel chick has hatched on Chañaral Island, representing a significant milestone on an island once devastated by invasive species. Team members from nonprofit Island Conservation, working in partnership with Chile’s National Forestry Corporation (CONAF), The Nature Conservancy and Universidad Católica del Norte, discovered a downy chick in a naturally dug burrow – a breakthrough that offers hope for a species considered “endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) just two years ago.

An Island Healing From Destructive Invasive Species

Peruvian Diving-petrels (known locally as “yuncos”) are small ground-nesting seabirds endemic to the Humboldt Current System that flows along the western coast of South America. Chañaral Island, located just a few miles off the coast of Chile, once supported what may have been the world’s largest population of the species before invasive rabbits and foxes were introduced many years ago. Coral Wolf, Conservation Science Program Manager at Island Conservation, explains the negative impact this had over the years:

“Rabbits and foxes decimated the island’s sensitive desert landscape. Foxes fed on yuncos, while rabbits ejected them from their nests, and stripped bare the herbs and shrubs. As a result, Diving-petrel numbers decreased dramatically. Eventually, no Diving-petrels were living on Chañaral, and within the region they could only be found on a handful of islands. They were at risk of global extinction.”

However, in 2013, in an effort to restore and rewild the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve, Island Conservation and CONAF began a project to remove the invasive rabbits from Chañaral and neighboring Choros Island.

“Since the invasive rabbits were successfully removed in 2017, and with no foxes on the island for many decades, we have been focused on re-establishing the Peruvian Diving-petrel population and building resilience for them and the many other species unique to this region,” says Wolf.

PRESS RELEASE: Rare Peruvian Diving-petrels nesting on Chañaral Island following decades of absence
 
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and partners expand vital conservation corridor with Hendrie Ranch conservation easement

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, have acquired a perpetual conservation easement on 661 acres of the Hendrie Ranch in Highlands County. While the landowner will continue to manage the land as a cattle ranch with this easement, future development will not be permitted.

The property lies within some of the state’s existing high-priority land acquisition projects, including the Lake Wales Ridge Ecosystem Florida Forever project and the Hendrie Ranch project of the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program. Together, these programs have secured hundreds of thousands of acres for conservation of the state’s natural resources and protection of valuable agricultural lands.

FWC and partners expand vital conservation corridor with Hendrie Ranch conservation easement
 
Green and gossamer, and not gone: A Sri Lankan dragonfly flits back to life
  • Sri Lankan researchers have rediscovered an endemic dragonfly species that was last seen in 1970 and thought to be extinct.
  • Macromia flinti was described more than half a century ago based on a single male specimen; in their surveys in Sri Lanka’s central foothills, researchers encountered a live female of the species, and observed other male specimens, also live.
  • Their observations suggest the species has a wider range than previously thought, and could lead to an improvement in the dragonfly’s conservation status from the current category of critically endangered.
  • But they note there’s still more research to be done, as well as conservation of the unprotected freshwater habitats that M. flinti appears to favor.
The first time that scientists described the beautiful metallic-green dragonfly that they would later call Flint’s cruiser was in 1970. Based on a single male specimen, they named the species Macromia flinti, endemic to Sri Lanka.

And then, for the next half century, they never saw another one. No flash of iridescent green and yellow, no flutter of gossamer wings. Nothing.

Until this year, that is, when a group of young Sri Lankan field researchers resurfaced the species that was thought to be extinct, and in the process shed new light on one of the least-known dragonflies around.

“It was only known from a single location based on a single specimen and had no recent records,” Amila Prasanna Sumanapala, one of the researchers and the lead author of the newly published paper highlighting the rediscovery, tells Mongabay. “M. flinti has been categorized as a critically endangered species [on the IUCN Red List], indicating ‘possibly extinct’ status. There had also not been any other surveys to confirm its status either.”

So Sumanapala, from the University of Colombo’s Department of Zoology and Environmental Sciences and a member of the IUCN’s Dragonfly Specialist Group, set out to find it. Together with colleagues Tharindu Ranasinghe of the Butterfly Conservation Society of Sri Lanka and M.G. Sanjaya Pushpalal from the Young Zoologists Association, their field surveys turned up multiple observations of Macromia dragonflies resembling M. flinti, highlighting the need to undertake further research.

The climax of their search was getting their hands on a female specimen of M. flinti during a biodiversity assessment conducted at Dabar Estate, in the Deraniyagala area, something no other scientists before them — not even those who first described the species in 1970 — had ever done.

https://news-mongabay-com.cdn.amppr...-sri-lankan-dragonfly-flits-back-to-life/amp/
 
Highly endangered Florida panther has more space in South Florida

The Florida panther was just given a little more land on which to roam as the highly endangered animal teeters on the edge of extinction.

The Hendrie Ranch in Highlands County sold the rights to develop – in this case never develop – 661 acres along the Florida Wildlife Corridor, which is 18-million-acre network of public and private lands, waterways, and wildlife habitats that stretches from the Everglades in the south to the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.

“The acquisition of an easement on this property is a great step in conserving a valuable connection between existing public lands securing an important corridor for many species, including the Florida panther,” said Melissa Tucker, director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Division of Habitat and Species Conservation.

https://news.wgcu.org/section/envir...her-has-more-space-in-south-florida?_amp=true
 
‘We’ve had pups try to head to the pub’: grey seals make remarkable UK comeback

With record numbers of the once heavily hunted mammal popping up around the UK, they have been seen in some unlikely places.

Grey seal numbers are booming in the UK. After nearly disappearing a century ago, they are now so abundant that in the past few weeks pups have been rescued from outside kebab shops, fish and chip restaurants and farmers’ fields.

It is a remarkable conservation success story, say environmentalists. Numbers dropped as low as 500 in the early 20th century due to hunting, as seals were often treated as pests in fishing communities. Today, about 120,000 grey seals make the UK their home, representing about 40% of the global population. They have become more common than the UK’s other main seal species, the common seal, sometimes known as the harbour seal.

Apart from the odd killer whale, the lack of predators and rich fishing waters make the British Isles the perfect habitat for the large marine mammals.

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...27/grey-seals-make-remarkable-comeback-uk-aoe
 
New Reserve in Ecuador Safeguards over 3 million acres of Amazon Rainforest and Strengthens Indigenous Territories

Andes Amazon Fund is thrilled to announce the creation of the Tarímiat Pujutaí Nuṉka Reserve,
which spans 3,057,671 acres (1,237,395 hectares) of Andean and Amazonian forests in eastern Ecuador. Located in the Morona Santiago province, this new reserve primarily encompasses the territories of the Shuar and Achuar Indigenous communities who have guarded these forests for thousands of years.

Increasing environmental threats in the region drove the Shuar and Achuar communities to seek protection for their lands, leading to years of work in collaboration with Nature and Culture International. On February 1st, 2023, they achieved their goal with the official establishment of Tarímiat Pujutaí Nuṉka (meaning Territory for Well-Being in the Shuar language), Ecuador’s newest provincial reserve, which is now one of the largest reserves in the Amazon region.

3 million acres protected in Ecuador
 
Jake’s Woods Acquired by Jones County, Georgia

The historic site will be protected and accessible for climbing and other recreation.

Today, The Conservation Fund and Jones County announced the protection of the historic, 28-acre Jake’s Woods property in Clinton, Georgia, which will become a new county park open to the public starting in 2024.

Jake’s Woods gets its namesake from Jacob Hutchings, a stone mason who hand-quarried this 28-acre granite boulder field both as a slave pre-Civil War and as a free man and business owner after emancipation. He acquired the quarry property during the Reconstruction period and went on to become one of the first Black legislators in the Georgia General Assembly. The Hutchings family continued to pass down and steward his property for generations. They worked with the County, The Conservation Fund and many local partners to see their land permanently protected for all to enjoy.

Historic Jake's Woods Boulder Field in Georgia Acquired | The Conservation Fund
 
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife moving forward with estuary restoration projects in North Puget Sound

Restoration of intertidal marsh habitats on WDFW-managed lands in Skagit, Stillaguamish and Snohomish estuaries has benefits for salmon and other species.

Puget Sound’s estuaries are teeming with life; from salmon smolts to dabbling ducks, seals to shorebirds, bull trout to bivalves. Estuaries are vitally important for many species of fish and wildlife. During the last century, widespread reduction or alteration of estuaries through conversion to support agriculture and land development has contributed significantly to species declines.

This loss of naturally functioning estuary habitat has been particularly harmful for juvenile Chinook salmon, who use intertidal marshes and sloughs to feed and grow before venturing further into Puget Sound and on to the open Pacific Ocean. To recover this iconic species, we need to restore more of our region’s estuaries.

Along with Native American tribes, state and federal agencies, and many other partners, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is working to restore estuary habitat on lands we manage on behalf of Washingtonians and our state’s fish and wildlife.

WDFW moving forward with estuary restoration projects in North Puget Sound
 
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State funding secured for Red-tailed Phascogale reintroduction to Scotia

Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) has secured $115,000 in state government funding to assist with the reintroduction of the locally extinct and nationally threatened Red-tailed Phascogale to Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary in south-west NSW.

Over the next three years, the NSW Department of Planning and Environment’s NSW Environmental Trust will provide funding for the translocation of up to 150 of the small carnivorous marsupials to the sanctuary. The individuals will be sourced from a breeding program at Zoos SA. This breeding program was originally established in 2021 to provide animals for reintroduction to Mallee Cliffs National Park, also in NSW. The program will now be extended to provide a founding population of Red-tailed Phascogale for Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary, where they will be released into an 8,000-hectare feral predator-free area.

The significant reintroduction will help secure a much-needed second population of the species in western NSW – joining the population reintroduced to Mallee Cliffs National Park by AWC and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) in November 2021. Prior to this work the Red-tailed Phascogale had been extinct in the wild in NSW for more than a century. Establishing a second population at Scotia will promote the adaptive potential of the species by exposing individuals to more of the environmental conditions prevailing across its former range.

State funding secured for Red-tailed Phascogale reintroduction to Scotia
 
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Beavers nearing return to Cairngorms after absence of 400 years

Concerned farmers and landowners will have the chance to question experts on plans to reintroduce beavers to the Cairngorms region.

The species is set to make a comeback soon after an absence of more than 400 years from the strath.

As part of this, the Cairngorms National Park Authority – which is leading the project – is to host a series of Beaver Blethers next month.

The first one will take place at Kincraig Community Hall on Wednesday 1st March from 2pm to 7pm and will be specifically for local farmers and landowners.

The CNPA is working closely with a range of partners to develop a carefully considered proposal to bring beavers back to the area – having been lost from the Cairngorms since the 16th Century.

Beavers nearing return to Cairngorms after absence of 400 years
 
A community in southern Sonora created refuge areas to protect the future of fishing

Water laps against a dock in Agiabampo, a coastal town on the southern edge of Sonora.

It’s a windy, overcast day, and a few raindrops spatter the waves as we load into Jesus Antonio Reyes’s small blue and white fishing boat and motor out into the choppy water toward a vast mass of green leaves just off the coast — a mangrove forest in the Estero El Sopahui.

Part of a major wetland system off the Gulf of California known as the Sistema Lagunar Agiabampo Bacrehuis Rio Fuerte Antinguo, it provides important habitat for fish and shellfish, marine mammals and migratory birds.

It’s also one of two fishing refuges in the bay, says Gilberto Diaz, a biologist and operations technician with the conservation group Nature and Culture International.

A community in southern Sonora created refuge areas to protect the future of fishing
 
Australia to make area the size of Germany a marine park in Southern Ocean

Plan to triple size of Macquarie Island protection zone to shield ‘remote wildlife wonderland’

The Australian government plans to make an area about the size of Germany in the Southern Ocean a marine zone, strengthening protections around Macquarie Island for millions of penguins and seals.

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, announced that the government wants to triple the size of the Macquarie Island marine park, describing it as a globally significant contribution to marine conservation that would put 388,000 sq km under high protection.

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...e-island-marine-park-southern-ocean-australia
 
Orange County, California Is Getting A New Wildlife Preserve. Here's How It Will Help A Cute Little Endangered Shrimp (And Other Species)

After operating as a privately owned oil field for more than 80 years, Banning Ranch in Orange County has been purchased by conservationists, and is going to be rehabilitated and preserved. That was
announced Monday.

Now known as Randall Preserve, the 387-acre property is quite unique. It's one of Southern California’s few undeveloped pieces of land along the coast, hosts a whole bunch of different ecosystems, and is a critical home for several endangered and threatened species, including the adorable little San Diego fairy shrimp.

“It’s a great opportunity in an urban setting to really showcase how you can do habitat restoration, increase wetlands to address sea level rise, in an urban setting while still having public access,” said Guillermo Rodríguez, California State Director for the The Trust for Public Land, one of the organizations involved in the purchasing of the land.

OC Is Getting A New Wildlife Preserve. Here's How It Will Help A Cute Little Endangered Shrimp (And Other Species)
 
Mexican wolf program is making strides after 25 years of effort – Cronkite News

On a frigid morning in late January, biologists set out in a helicopter to begin the annual Mexican wolf population count with hopes of finding at least one more wolf than last year.

Their painstaking work helps identify the number of wolves in Arizona and New Mexico and is vital to the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program that began 25 years ago when the animals were nearly extinct.

Since 1998, when 11 Mexican wolves raised in captivity were released in eastern Arizona, the population has increased to 196, with 84 found in Arizona and 112 in New Mexico. Wildlife officials hope to identify more during this year’s count. Those numbers are expected to be released in March.

https://prescottenews.com/index.php...after-25-years-of-effort-cronkite-news/?amp=1
 
Ducks Unlimited Canada celebrates Manitoba Government’s newly designated Provincially Significant Peatlands

The first of their kind, two unique biodiversity-rich Manitoba landscapes will enjoy long-term protection.

Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) applauds the Manitoba Government’s decision in designating Moswa Meadows and Fish Lake Fen as Provincially Significant Peatlands—the first of their kind in the province. Manitoba is home to 17 per cent of Canadian peatlands, with these ecologically valuable areas covering over one third of the province’s landmass. Peatlands offer valuable environmental and social benefits, including water management and filtration, remarkable carbon storage capacity, and habitat for wildlife.

Designation of these Provincially Significant Peatlands builds on the Manitoba Government’s Peatlands Stewardship Act, regulations previously developed for the sustainable management of peatlands. According to Kevin Smith, national manager of boreal programs for DUC, this addition is an excellent next step.

Ducks Unlimited Canada celebrates Manitoba Government’s newly designated Provincially Significant Peatlands — Ducks Unlimited Canada
 
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