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Off the eastern coast of Australia, the Norfolk Island parakeet population nearly collapsed in the 1980s, but rebounded after a focused conservation effort. However, there are concerns that on-going rat and cat predation may again be causing a serious decline in numbers. The Fund helped researchers investigate the situation.
Read more…
Plants endemic to the remote Pacific island of Socorro (Mexico) are being grown ex-situ by Dr. Juan Martinez-Gómez in preparation for the reintroduction of the Socorro dove. The plants, upon which the Socorro dove depend, have been devastated by sheep that were introduced 150 years ago.
The Socorro dove project involves many conservation partners addressing the many different conservation challenges facing this reintroduction. The Mexican Navy, for example, is providing transportation and helping to retrofit abandoned buildings by turning them into greenhouses and captive breeding facilities.
You can read more about the project and view a photo essay in our case study pages.
In a video produced by the Fund, the NYU Abu Dhabi coral research lab explains a research project investigating the effects of water temperature and coral parentage on survivorship.
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The Fund provided NYU Abu Dhabi with a small grant to assist their study of Staghorn coral in the Arabian Gulf. Once covering vast areas along the UAE shores of the Arabian Gulf, the staghorn coral is quickly disappearing. Threats such as coastal development, raising sea temperatures, and dredging have significantly affected these historically resilient coral.
The Fund produced a short documentary about the project. You can watch it here….
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The recent discovery of a second site where the Amani flatwing dragonfly lives may help increase its chances of survival.
The Fund gave Dr. Viola Clausnitzer $8,000 to help conserve the Amani flatwing dragonfly (Amanipodagrion gilliesi) in Tanzania. The grant helped fund a community workshop and train local field guides to identify and conserve this Critically Endangered species. Dr Clausnitzer recently reported to the Fund that “The field guides, who do the monitoring, have reported a 2nd site, where they found the Amani Flatwing. The future of this species is in much safer hands than before, just because the local people are aware of the rarity within their forest.” Read more…
The Advisory Board met this week in Abu Dhabi to review nearly 500 grant applications. These grant applications were submitted between 1 July and 31 October 2013. In total nearly $10m was requested from all these applications.
With a grant from the Fund, the African Wild Dog Conservancy has confirmed the existence of a significant and widely distributed wild dog population in the North East and Coast Provinces of Kenya, from just north of the equator to the Indian Ocean, and near the Kenya/Somalia border region to Tsavo National Park. This wild dog population was previously unknown to the international conservation community.
Given the limited availability of water for human settlement, relatively low density of people, and that the dominate ethnic group living in much of the core area does not hunt game (wild dog prey species), this region is a potential long-term stronghold for this endangered canid.
Also promising, interviews with locals indicate that wild dogs accounted for only 4% of overall livestock losses to predators; approximately half of those losses occurred in one area. All reported losses due to wild dogs occurred while grazing, not in bomas where livestock is kept. This information will be incorporated into AWD’s education outreach program.
Overall, the program is very interesting and we encourage you to visit AWD’s website to learn more about their project at http://www.awdconservancy.org/
Two time Fund grant recipient Camille Coudrat recently informed us that she published the results of her first grant in the Journal Oryx. The Fund provided financial support to Dr Coudrat to study a population of Red-shanked douc in Laos. After walking 300km along transects in the Nakai–Nam Theun National Protected Area, she estimated that more than 4,000 groups of these non-human primates inhabit this part of east central Laos. Possibly comprising the most significant population of these Endangered primates.
Through a second grant, the Fund is helping Dr Coudrat establish a research and outreach center for the continued study of this important population. Dr Coudrat will investigate the behavioral ecology of Red-shanked douc and work with the local community to help ensure its long-term survival.
For more information about this project and the work of Dr Coudrat and her colleagues visit the Conservation Laos webiste.
Mr. and Mrs. Giuliano Colosimo
The Fund provided support to Mr. Giuliano Colosimo, a graduate student at Mississippi State University, to study the population genetics of Andros Rock Iguanas in the Bahamas. Although Andros is considered to be the largest island of the Bahamas archipelago, it is composed of four large landmasses, North Andros, Mangrove Cay and Alcorine Cay, and South Andros, separated by saline tidal channels called bights. Giuliano wanted to know whether or not these landmasses were home to genetically distinct sub-populations of iguanas.
A fish, thought to be extinct, was recently rediscovered in the Western Ghats in India by grant recipient Rajeev Raghavan. “Our very first survey brought us a surprise. We collected a single individual of Hemibagrus punctatus – a species red listed as Critically Endangered and possibly Extinct.”