United Kingdom ZSL Science and Conservation lecture series

Crowthorne

Crowthorne

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10+ year member
The planned talks for this season of Science and Conservation lecture series can be found here:

What's on

I am planning on attending the November talk on extinct Madagascan megafauna, if anyone else was in London and also hoped to attend :)

Madagascar's missing megafauna: life after lemurs, hippos and elephant birds

Madagascar's missing megafauna: life after lemurs, hippos and elephant birds

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12 Nov 2019 18:00 - 19:45
What can we learn from these extinct ecosystem engineers?

Famed for its incredible biodiversity and charismatic lemurs, the island of Madagascar is considered by many to be a forest-island paradise. The reality is that the island has had an ecosystem collapse, lost most of its natural forests, wetlands and grasslands, and is in dire need of conservation and regeneration. Large animals, or ‘megafauna’, are key parts of ecosystems around the world, distributing nutrients, engineering landscapes and propagating plants, yet they are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate during the current extinction crisis. Madagascar was host to a diverse array of megafauna, including giant lemurs, hippos and elephant birds, which together tell us a great deal about the landscapes of the island before humans began deforestation and development of agriculture around 1000 years ago. Without these ecosystem engineers, Madagascar has only retained its much smaller animals to perpetuate healthy and productive biomes. What can we learn about Madagascar’s past, present and future by exploring the diversity of these now-extinct giant animals? How does the recent palaeontological record inform conservation? How are conservation organisations fighting back against Madagascar’s extinction crisis?
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It's unusual for me to miss one of the ZSL Scientific Meetings; the November one should be especially interesting so I'll definitely attend.

I'll see both "Crowthorne" and "Dassie rat" there.
 
Sadly this is the day before the AGM, I have a choice to make as I certainly can't make both
 
pipaluk said:
Sadly this is the day before the AGM, I have a choice to make as I certainly can't make both
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Indeed, it's inconvenient that next month's ZSL Scientific Meeting and the ZSL AGM are on consecutive evenings. I will attend both but I appreciate that could be awkward for those who don't live in the London area.
 
The talks last night were really very interesting. It was fascinating to learn more about the recent fossil history of Madagascar, and what this can tell us about past habitats and comparing those to existing habitats today, with implications for potential future rewilding. The story of the reintroduction of the Madagascar Pochard to new lakes was also very interesting, although it would have been nice to hear more about the work done at Slimbridge on the project.

Looking forward to next month's talks on surveillance technology and conservation :)
 
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