Melting glaciers in the Alps will eradicate some invertebrates that are crucial for alpine ecosystems – new research

Jonathan L. Carrivick, Senior Lecturer in Geomorphology, University of Leeds, 

Martin Wilkes, Senior Lecturer of Life Sciences, University of Essex, 

Lee Brown, Professor of Aquatic Science, University of Leeds
Wed, May 17, 2023

The Conversation

A glacier-fed river from the Odenwinkelkees glacier, Austria. Jonathan Carrivick, CC BY-NC-ND

Glaciers across the European Alps are melting at an alarming rate. Between 2000 and 2014, glaciers in the region thinned by up to 0.9 metres on average each year. Over the entire mountain range, this rate of melting produces around 1.3 gigatonnes of lost ice mass annually.

The rapid decline of these glaciers poses a significant threat to the many animal species that live in or around the glacial meltwater rivers of the Alps. Invertebrates that are specially adapted to living in these rivers, for example, will face widespread habitat loss in the future should these rivers decline.

A multi-panel image of the invertebrate species included in the study.

And invertebrates are crucial for wider alpine ecosystems. They perform vital roles in nutrient cycling and, as prey for fish, amphibians, birds and mammals, they transfer organic matter from lower to higher levels of the food chain.

In our new study, we projected glacial losses between 2020 and 2100 to assess what impact the changing input of meltwater into alpine rivers would have on the distribution of 15 species of invertebrate, such as stoneflies, non-biting midges, flatworms and mayflies.

We found that some species will lose most of their habitat and disappear from the Alps entirely. Several other species will have to move to cold water habitats at higher elevations where glaciers still persist to survive.
Future melting

To generate our projections, we used glacier, landscape and biodiversity mapping data collected across 34,000 sq km of the Alps. We modelled glacier evolution based on the greenhouse gas emissions scenario that is currently targeted by governments and international treaties (limiting global warming to 2℃).

We then developed 3D landscape models for each decade, and mapped how changes to glaciers will affect river flow conditions as the input of glacial melt decreases. Water temperature increases as glacier melt inputs to rivers fall and river banks become less prone to erosion. Both of these are important factors in determining aquatic species abundance and diversity in glacier-fed rivers.

Using our models, we simulated key invertebrate populations for each decade between now and 2100. We then predicted the future distribution of these species across the Alps by using data from previous invertebrate monitoring studies, as well as key environmental characteristics of the glacier-fed rivers.
Consequences for invertebrates

Our results, recently published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, show that rivers across the Alps will experience major change by the end of the century. Until 2040, some will carry more water and new tributary rivers will form. But after that, most glacial rivers will become drier, warmer, flow slower and less prone to erosion. Some streams could even endure periods in a year where there is no water flow at all.

Meltwater flow from a glacier in the Sulzbach valley, Austria. 

Lee Brown, CC BY-NC-ND

These changes will all have severe consequences for aquatic invertebrates.

Our models suggest that the hardest-hit species will be some non-biting midges, stoneflies and mayflies. The habitat conditions in which some of these species thrive will become very rare and small in extent. To avoid extinction, it is likely that cold water specialists such as the non-biting midge species Diamesa steinboecki will have to migrate to higher parts of the Alps where glaciers persist.

Some of these species may be lost from the rivers entirely. Invertebrates that live on the rivers that flow into the Danube river basin are particularly vulnerable. Our projections suggest the glaciers that feed these rivers will be lost completely in the future.

But it’s far from a simple picture. Several species, including the flatworm Crenobia alpina, could benefit from the habitat changes because they thrive in warmer and more stable river flows.

Some mayflies, such as Rhithrogena loyolaea, are less at risk of habitat loss because they can tolerate mixtures of glacial- and groundwater-fed river conditions. However, a closely related mayfly species, Rhithrogena nivata, appears to be at higher risk if glaciers are lost completely.
Competing interests

Higher and colder parts of the Alps will provide refuge for some invertebrate species in the future. However, it is these areas that are also likely to see increasing pressure from skiing and other winter activities, as finding cold and snow becomes harder. As glacial rivers decline, higher parts of the mountain range could also become hotspots for hydropower.

Pockets of ice in the high Alps will be subject to intense competition. sirtravelalot/Shutterstock

Some of the invertebrate species that will seek refuge in these areas may have pharmaceutical or commercial applications that are at present unknown. Invertebrate species that specialise in cold water habitats, for example, have evolutionary adaptations (such as antifreeze proteins) that enable them to survive low temperatures.

Conservation strategies are thus needed to protect this threatened alpine biodiversity from human interference in the future. At present, these important high alpine areas are often not included within national park boundaries.

Predicting how invertebrate populations respond to climate change is key to understanding how biodiversity in high mountain areas will be affected. We focused on just a handful of species and entirely on the European Alps. But the techniques we used could be applied to other mountain environments, while advances in environmental DNA sample collection and analysis offer the promise of understanding how glacier loss will affect thousands of other species – from bacteria and fungi to invertebrates, fish and birds.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The UK’s Natural Environment Research Council contributed to the funding of this study.

Lee Brown receives funding from NERC, Royal Geographical Society, EU

Martin Wilkes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

How Tribal Hunters Became The Scapegoat For Yellowstone's Bison 'Slaughter'


Roque Planas
Sun, May 21, 2023

Every winter for the last decade, Andrew Wildbill has driven 12 hours from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation to lead a bison hunting party on the northern border of Yellowstone National Park. It’s a hit-or-miss hunt, dictated by the weather. Last year, it didn’t snow enough to push the animals north in search of forage, to where they could be legally hunted.

“We didn’t come home with anything,” said Wildbill, who serves as the reservation’s wildlife program manager. “But it’s always great just to return to where your ancestors went on an annual basis.”

This year was different. After back-to-back mild winters, the park’s bison population had ballooned to 6,000. When snow hit early, then kept piling up into the spring, bison streamed toward the park’s northern border. The result was the most successful hunt in more than a century, with tribal hunters taking home nearly 1,200 bison.

“Being able to provide bison back into our communities is great,” Wildbill said. “These foods are vital to our ceremonies.... These foods are celebrated. This hunt gives us that opportunity as Indian people to continue that relationship that was absent for over a century.”

Bison roam in Yellowstone National Park in February 2022. Yellowstone is developing a new bison population management plan that could cut the number slaughtered each year and transfer more to Native American tribes. The plan would aim to maintain a population range similar to the last 20 years at 3,500 to 5,000.

Bison roam in Yellowstone National Park in February 2022. Yellowstone is developing a new bison population management plan that could cut the number slaughtered each year and transfer more to Native American tribes. The plan would aim to maintain a population range similar to the last 20 years at 3,500 to 5,000.

Success has come at a steep cost. After taking federal culling and Montana state hunters into account, this year’s bison kill tops 1,600 ― among the highest since the federal government started rebuilding the park’s herd in the late 19th century from two dozen stragglers that had escaped the species’ near-extermination. Critics have raised a furor over both the death toll and the fact that most of it takes place in a narrow corridor, describing it as a “bloodbath” that threatens the future of wild bison. Billboards posted across Montana by a pair of environmental groups read: “There is no hunt. It’s slaughter!”

Mass bison killings are politically explosive events that occur outside Yellowstone during harsh winters. They routinely happen to avoid conflict with Montana’s powerful livestock industry, which fears the bison will spread disease to cattle.

But in the past, federal authorities have culled most of them. The biggest difference this year was that tribal hunters killed far more bison than slaughterhouses did. The change has left tribal hunters in the uncomfortable position of becoming the public face of a herd-thinning strategy they have long opposed.

“It was sight unseen. The same exact thing was going on, except now the tribes are exercising their treaty rights,” said Jeremy Red Star Wolf, the former wildlife chair for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla. “Does that mean this is what we want forever? No. We would like to have animals out on the landscape.”
A Recurring Controversy

Bison once roamed across most of North America, with numbers as high as 60 million at the time Europeans first arrived. Today, America’s wild bison number around 20,000 ― less than a tenth of a percent of their former size. Yellowstone National Park holds the greatest concentration. (“Bison” and the informal term “buffalo” refer to the same species named Bison bison.)

Unlike virtually all other wildlife, Yellowstone’s bison cannot venture far beyond the park’s boundaries. The policy of caging them in the park is driven by fears that they’ll get close enough to cattle to spread brucellosis, a bacterial disease that causes weight loss and spontaneous abortion.

That dynamic causes major conflicts in years with heavy snow, which pushes the bison to amble off toward lower ground with easier-to-access food. To keep the bison and cattle apart, officials have for decades relied on the unpopular policy of culling.

The harsh winter of 1996-97 marked a major turning point. Like this year, bison steadily migrated out of the park. Officials killed enough of them to reduce the herd by more than two-thirds, tofewer than 1,100 by winter’s end.

The public outcry over the killings, along with a major court settlement with the state of Montana, led to sweeping changes.

Tribal governments began playing a greater role in managing the herd. Tribes historically connected to Yellowstone with treaties guaranteeing the right to hunt unoccupied lands worked with the state of Montana to reestablish bison hunts. And in recent years Yellowstone has increasingly trapped migrating bison, then live-shipped them to reservations, allowing tribes to build new conservation herds.

With Yellowstone’s bison confined to the park, federal and Montana authorities have historically culled with a heavy hand, removing about a quarter of the bison population during harsh winters at least three other times since 2008. They planned to do it again this year, according to Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly, with the goal of returning the park to around 4,500 bison after calves are born in the spring.

That’s pretty much what happened. By the time it became clear in March that the unusually efficient tribal hunt might push the total kill over the planned limit of 1,500, Yellowstone staff corralled bison within the park’s boundaries, at one point holding back about 1,000 animals.

With winter over and most hunting seasons wrapped up, the final count overshot the mark by about 100 animals ― a figure that includes federal culling and about 75 bison killed by hunters holding tags issued by Montana.

“I get it that people don’t like how many bison have been taken out of the population in a single year,” Sholly said. “But keep in mind, had we hit our targets in the last two years, there would have been somewhere around 1,800 bison taken out of the population.”

“I think tribal hunting opportunities and state hunting opportunities are a good way to manage the population,” Sholly added.

Though planned, the number of dead bison ran far too high for many critics.

Jason Baldes, representative of the Eastern Shoshone Tribal Buffalo Program, worried that the scale of the killing could endanger a critical bison transfer program.

Adopted in 2019, the program has moved hundreds of Yellowstone bison ― prized for their nearly cattle-free genetics ― to tribal reservations across the country to start new herds. Before they can go, park authorities trap and isolate them to ensure they are free of brucellosis. About 60% of them test positive and are killed.

“It’s good that the tribes are taking animals and exercising their treaty rights, because a majority of those animals are going to die and are not going to end up in tribal communities,” Baldes said. “But we want to ensure that we can get that 40% out of the population alive.”

If we continue down this path, the bison's going to go extinct.Dallas Gudgel, board member of the Buffalo Field Campaign

The Buffalo Field Campaign, a conservation group, views this year’s bison kill as an existential threat. A lawsuit from the group forced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year to consider whether Yellowstone’s bison merit federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. One key element is whether the park’s two distinct herds have the genetic diversity to sustain themselves over the long term.

“If we continue down this path, the bison’s going to go extinct,” said Dallas Gudgell, a board member of the Buffalo Field Campaign.

The group’s executive director, Mike Mease, called the tribal hunts a “logistical nightmare.”

“The amount of buffalo getting killed in one square mile is insane,” he said.

Still, he didn’t see hunters or treaty obligations as the problem.

“The bottom line is that this is all at the behest of the state of Montana and its zero tolerance policy for bison,” Mease said. “If you want to point the finger, the state of Montana and its Department of Livestock are 100% the cause of this calamity.”
‘Fighting For Grazing Land’

The cattle industry and the state of Montana are the two major voices saying that Yellowstone isn’t doing nearly enough to squelch the country’s largest remaining wild bison herd. In a letter from February 2022, Mike Honeycutt, the executive officer of the state’s Department of Livestock, urged the park’s authorities to “commit every effort” to cleave the Yellowstone buffalo population in half.

The same month, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) insisted that Yellowstone’s bison population should never have passed 3,000, calling attempts to let the population grow beyond that “absurd.” He threatened to sue the National Park Service to make it happen, according to an NPS briefing statement recently made public under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Montana officials’ hostility toward the official national mammal stemmed mostly from brucellosis concerns. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has the authority to summarilyexterminate infected cattle herds, and an outbreak would threaten the state’s access to export markets for beef.

They want somebody else to raise these bison in order to fulfill their fantasy. If you love the bison, go buy some land and raise some bison.Gilles Stockton, Montana Cattlemen's Association

Because most of the national forest land along the northern migration route is too high or too wooded to produce much feed for bison through the winter, free-wandering bison would gravitate toward the private land and ranches along Paradise Valley, said Gilles Stockton, eastern director for the Montana Cattlemen’s Association.

“What’s all this nostalgia about bison?” Stockton said. “I find the advocates for that to be incredibly selfish. They want somebody else to raise these bison in order to fulfill their fantasy. If you love the bison, go buy some land and raise some bison.”

Skeptics, including many tribal leaders, often point out that no such restrictions exist on the free movement of elk, despite the fact that they also carry the disease and have spread it to cattle in the area at least 17 times over the last two decades.

“It’s the same argument that has been told since settlement began,” Wolf said. “They’re fighting for grazing land. That’s all it is.”

Returning Home

At least 27 federally recognized tribes once lived in, traveled through or hunted the area currently known as Yellowstone National Park. Eight of them ― the Blackfeet, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, Shoshone-Bannock, Northern Arapaho, Crow, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Nez Perce, and Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation ― have reached agreements with the state of Montana allowing them to hunt bison there.

Tribal hunters prize the meat, both for its cultural significance and as an especially nutritious food in communities that often struggle withdiet-linked disorders such as Type 2 diabetes.

“I’ve been to so many doors and left so much meat to different people,” Wolf said. “The smiles on the faces, the full bellies ― these are the things you cherish.”

Members of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe from Fort Hall, Idaho, prepare to harvest bison that have just crossed the border of Yellowstone National Park into the Custer-Gallatin National Forest in Montana's Gardiner Basin.

Members of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe from Fort Hall, Idaho, prepare to harvest bison that have just crossed the border of Yellowstone National Park into the Custer-Gallatin National Forest in Montana's Gardiner Basin.

Tribes that depended on bison also traditionally used the hide, bones, tail and other parts of the animal in religious ceremonies and artwork.

And traveling to the Yellowstone area for the hunt reestablishes a broken cultural link that many described as “returning home.”

“We as Nez Perce have traveled to places that contributed to our way of life,” said Erik Holt, the tribe’s fish and wildlife chairman. “To always have that connection to that place ― it’s deeply important to me.”

But the growing size of the hunt has also brought problems.

Most huntable bison funnel toward a small choke point on the Custer-Gallatin National Forest called Beattie Gulch, leading both tribal and state hunters to stack up there. The confined space and predictable bison migration in snowy years clashes with many observers’ idea of a fair chase hunt. Putting that many rifle hunters in one spot also presents safety concerns.

And this year added another glaring problem: bad optics.

Tragedy nearly struck when a bullet fragment hit a member of the Nez Perce tribe in the abdomen. The scale of the hunt left trails of blood, organs, spines and ribcages strewn across Beattie Gulch ― a spectacle described and photographed in amajor piece for The New York Times, casting national attention on the hunt.

“This year was the worst of the worst,” said Bonnie Lynn, who lives next to Beattie Gulch and has emerged as the hunt’s most prominent critic, waging a years-long legal battle to halt it and force the National Park Service to evaluate the environmental impact of such concentrated bison killing.

“I’m not against their treaty rights and I’m not against them being able to have spiritual hunts,” said Lynn, a hunter. “They deserve better than this.”

Most agree the hunting grounds are far too small for so many kills.

“What Montana has set up for political reasons is this firing range,” Gudgell said. “It’s intentionally made to have the tribes look like the bad guy. If there were tribal co-management of the bison, there would be fair chase.”

One way to relieve crowding might be to allow tribes to hunt within the park, some said. The plain language of the tribal treaties used to gain access to national forest land ― all of which precede the Lacey Act, which banned hunting in Yellowstone in 1894 ― appear to allow it.

“I do believe we have a right to hunt in Yellowstone ― a right to hunt and gather and conduct ceremonies,” Wildbill said. “At some point, that needs to be addressed at the federal level. Tribes should be co-managers of the entire national park.”

“The treaties that tribes signed didn’t give us anything that we didn’t already have as aboriginal people,” Wildbill added. “We had title to the land, we had our access, we had our sustenance, our culturally appropriate medicines and foods. The treaties gave rights to non-Indians to settle among us.”

Superintendent Sholly said that he did not know how to interpret treaty rights but that the tribes themselves would have to start the process.

“In four and a half years, I’ve never received a request formally from any tribal leader to exercise hunting rights inside Yellowstone,” Sholly said. “When those requests come in, there’s a lot to look at there.... We’ll cross that bridge when we get to that point.”
Room To Roam

The irony of all this is that tribal hunters and the conservationists decrying this year’s bison kill want the same thing: more buffalo, with more freedom to roam.

Federal and state authorities have worked with environmental groups to retire grazing permits and expand “tolerance zones” in recent years, giving the bison more access to winter range.

The state of Montana isn’t likely to support more of it. Gianforte’s letter to park officials from last year made it clear that “any assumption of continued tolerance zone expansion presumes too much.”

For many, corralling a migratory species so intertwined with Indigenous history in an area too small to hold it provides an unsubtle reminder of the same history that wrenched the tribes from their land and consigned the survivors to reservations.

“It all goes back to white supremacy and settler colonialism, and the idea to remove buffalo and remove Native peoples to make room,” said Cristina Mormorunni, director of the nonprofit groupIndigenous-Led. “Everything we’re dealing with today is the legacy of that. The tribes need to be put into a leadership, guardian position.”

In the “vast settlement era” of today, as Wolf puts it, the bison has been left with a tiny fraction of its habitat. But if it were up to tribal hunters to decide, bison would wander a lot more freely ― like elk, deer or pronghorn.

“When they tried to wipe out the buffalo, that was our food source and our life source ― our way of life,” said Holt, the Nez Perce fish and wildlife chair. “We want to see 5 million buffalo back on the landscape, not 5,000.”

America's birds are under siege. These are among the most at risk for extinction.

Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY
Sun, May 21, 2023 

If you enjoy watching cardinals or bluebirds at a feeder or seeing a great blue heron at the water's edge, it may not be immediately apparent but the nation's birds are under siege.

"Birds are declining," said Ken Rosenberg, a conservation biologist with Road to Recovery, an organization that focuses on recovery of the nation's most rapidly declining birds. "It's death by a million cuts."

They’re imperiled by habitat loss, disease and other threats. Several incidents this spring illustrate a few of the hazards.

In northern Arizona, at least 13 endangered California condors died after being infected by avian flu, and federal officials just approved an emergency vaccine.

In Florida in April, state wildlife officials charged two men with shooting and killing colorful, migratory cedar waxwings, including a blueberry farmer trying to keep them off his bushes.

Also in Florida, a man was charged with driving a golf cart into a flock of American black skimmers on the beach, killing five birds.

California condors are among the nation's most imperiled birds, but recovery actions have built their numbers back to more than 500 birds.

Scientists estimate more than 3 billion birds have been lost in the U.S. since 1970 and dozens of species are considered endangered, threatened or at risk. While extensive conservation efforts helped recover the condors, bald eagles and others, dangers remain for many species and climate change poses additional threats to habitats and food resources.

Here's what we know about bird species of greatest concern in the continental U.S.
Which bird species are most at risk?

It's hard to quantify which birds are most threatened, said Rodney Siegel, executive director of The Institute for Bird Populations. Is it a measure of population, habitat loss, rate of decline or something else?

A Florida scrub jay sits atop an oak at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, Florida. The birds, endemic to Florida, are among the nation's most imperiled birds.

Below is a list of the birds found only in the U.S. that have the lowest populations, based on two sets of estimates kept by Partners in Flight, a network of 150 organizations in the Western Hemisphere, and a list of most imperiled birds from the American Bird Conservancy.

California condor: Largest and rarest, with an estimated 561 in 2022, including 347 birds in the wild, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.


Whooping crane: From fewer than two dozen whooping cranes in the 1940s, conservation measures have helped build the population to just under 1,000 cranes.


Island scrub-jay: Found only on Santa Cruz Island off California, these birds have the smallest range. Once numbering more than 12,000, its population is an estimated 2,300 but recovering.


Florida scrub-jay: It has vanished from 10 Florida counties and its habitat is fragmented. Available population estimates vary widely from 7,500 to 11,000. It thrives in the Ocala National Forest where conservation efforts have protected large areas of its habitat.


Gunnison sage-grouse: This bird disappeared from roughly 90% of its range and is found in only 14 counties in Colorado and Utah. An estimated 4,800 remain, according to Partners in Flight data.


Kirtland’s warbler: On the endangered species list for 47 years before being delisted in 2019, it's "a success story," said Nicole Michel, quantitative science director for National Audubon Society. "But we still need to keep working to protect them." Estimated at 4,800, the nation's rarest songbird is found almost exclusively in stands of young Jack pine in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ontario.


Cassia crossbill: These relatives of the red crossbill were named a separate species in 2017. Fewer than 5,800 remain, found only in Idaho's South Hills and Albion mountains, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.


Piping plover: With an estimated population of 8,400, its greatest threat is human activity, Michel said. People walking or playing on the beach where the birds nest on bare sand, or letting dogs run loose, can harm the birds and scare them off their nests.

A Florida scrub jay feeds a chick in the nest at Lyonia Preserve in Deltona, Florida. The jay, found only in Florida, is considered one of the most imperiled birds in the U.S.

Which other species are at a tipping point?

An estimated 104 species are at greatest threat, according to Road to Recovery, an independently funded organization to collaborate and focus on recovery of the most rapidly declining birds.

Rosenberg was lead author on the study that identified the loss of at least 3 billion birds, and Road to Recovery grew out of that effort. The group created three "alert" lists – red, orange and yellow – to target the cause of decline and develop recovery strategies.
Why are birds declining?

While general threats ‒ such as habitat loss, invasive species and human activities ‒ are broadly understood, many birds continue to decline without scientists being able to identify a specific cause despite decades of research and conservation, according to Road to Recovery.

"A lot of things point to agricultural practices, and the intensifying of agriculture," Rosenberg said.

Many fragments of native prairie and native grasslands important to birds have been cleared, he said. "Not too long ago, there were hedgerows and fallow fields, just sort of enough to sustain birds around the edges. Now it's just all gone."

A juvenile whooping crane takes flight on the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Homosassa, Florida on March 4, 2010. Adult whooping cranes are nearly 5 feet tall.

Birds with very restricted ranges, such as the Kirtland's warbler, are inherently at risk, Siegel said. “Natural disasters and disease outbreaks could take out that population much more easily than a species that is more widely distributed."

Without more successful efforts to identify why birds die and address those losses, scientists said many birds are on a trajectory that could lead to extinction..
Birds now considered extinct

At least seven birds once found in the U.S. are believed to be extinct. The status of an eighth, the ivory-billed woodpecker, is debated. They are:

Bachman’s warbler


Dusky seaside sparrow


Passenger pigeon


Carolina parakeet


Eskimo curlew


Great auk


Labrador duck
Search for the ivory-billed woodpecker

The status of the ivory-billed woodpecker – once referred to as the "Lord God bird" for its impressive stature and appearance – remains controversial. While federal officials proposed it be listed as extinct, a group of believers insist the bird is still present deep in Southern swamps.

A study released May 18 presented evidence that researchers said indicates the birds remain in unnamed Louisiana swamps, but The Associated Press reported some experts refuted the new evidence.

Latest news: Videos show purported ivory-billed woodpeckers as US moves toward extinction decision
How is climate change affecting birds?

Nearly three-fourths of the nation's birds are vulnerable to losing large parts of their range as the climate changes and sea levels rise, on top of the other threats they face, Michel said.

"It's a force magnifier," she said.
Why birds matter

"It's not just about the birds," Rosenberg said. It's a broader message. "If we're seeing the common birds around us declining, it's telling us that the health of our environment is also."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US endangered birds include whooping crane, condor, scrub-jays: List

Ivory ban to extend to hippos and killer whales

Georgina Rannard - Climate and science reporter, BBC News
Mon, May 22, 2023

Hippo

The sale of ivory from the tusks and teeth of five more species will be banned under government plans.

The import, export and dealing of elephant ivory was banned in the UK last year. The animals that could join the list are killer whales, hippos, walruses, narwhals, and sperm whales.

The creatures are hunted and killed for their ivory which is often used in decorative carvings.

The government plans to extend the Ivory Act 2018 to include them.

People found to be breaking the law can be given unlimited fines or be jailed for five years.

Parliament must vote on the extension of the Act before it can come into force.

The species set to be included in the ban are already at risk from climate change and habitat loss, and conservationists are concerned that poaching for ivory will drive them closer to extinction.

"The Ivory Act is one of the toughest bans of its kind in the world and by extending greater legal protections to five more species, we are sending a clear message the commercial trade of ivory is totally unacceptable," said Biodiversity Minister Trudy Harrison.

Hippos, killer whales and sperm whales are targeted for their teeth, while narwhals and walruses are hunted for their tusks.

An investigation in 2022 by conservation charity Born Free found 621 individual online ivory listings in the UK, with a total guide price of over £1.2m.

This was a significant decrease in the volume traded before restrictions were introduced, the charity said.

But last year wildlife campaigners also warned that the ban on elephant ivory trafficking had led to an increase in trade of hippo teeth.

In 2020 hippo teeth were among the mammal body parts most often seized in the EU, according to a European Commission report.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare welcomed the government's proposal.

"We welcome the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs's decision to extend this powerful legislation, which will go a long way in cracking down on a damaging trade. Today is a good day for conservation and a step change towards international commitments to safeguard our natural world," said Frances Goodrum, Head of Campaigns and Programmes at IFAW UK.

The five species are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates their trade internationally.

Hippopotamus, walrus and sperm whale are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.

Ivory ban to be extended to five new species

Danny Halpin, 

PA Environment Correspondent
Mon, May 22, 2023 



It will soon be illegal to trade ivory from a hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, killer whale and sperm whale, the Government has said.

The Ivory Act 2018 is to be extended to cover these five species after it came into force last June to protect elephants.

Hippopotamus is the species most at risk of ivory exploitation after elephants, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.

Along with walrus and sperm whale, it is classed as vulnerable on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list.

All three animals already face multiple threats from human activity including from pollution, shipping lanes, armed conflict and climate change, with the ivory trade adding extra pressure, Defra said.

Naturalist and TV presenter Steve Backshall said: “This is an important moment in the conservation of these iconic species.

“There is widespread public support for the ivory ban and today by extending it further we are sending a clear message that there is no place in the UK for this vile trade.”

Punishment for breaching the Ivory Act is an unlimited fine or up to five years in jail.

A spokesperson from Defra said the new extension will take effect “in due course” depending on the availability of parliamentary time.

Biodiversity minister Trudy Harrison said: “This is a pivotal moment in delivering one of our key manifesto commitments on international conservation.

“The Ivory Act is one of the toughest bans of its kind in the world and by extending greater legal protections to five more species, we are sending a clear message the commercial trade of ivory is totally unacceptable.

“The UK has long led the way in conservation and our ban shows continued global leadership in doing all we can to protect the world’s most endangered species.”



The decision comes after an “extensive public consultation” in the approach to the anniversary of the Act on June 6 last year.

Since then, Defra has issued over 6,500 registrations and certificates for exempted items which it said was necessary to protect the UK’s artistic and cultural heritage.

Frances Goodrum, head of campaigns and programmes at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) charity, said: “As we approach the one-year anniversary of the UK Ivory Act coming into force, IFAW UK are encouraged by early indications that the ban is having a significant impact on the trade in elephant ivory.

“Yet other species are still poached globally to meet an unnecessary demand for luxury ivory products, including the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, sperm whale and killer whale.

“We welcome Defra’s decision to extend this powerful legislation, which will go a long way in cracking down on a damaging trade.

“Today is a good day for conservation and a step change towards international commitments to safeguard our natural world.”

Stop eradication of small mammals to protect vital ecosystems, say scientists

A new report suggests that policymakers should rethink the current measures to protect grasslands. The researchers propose a nature-based control strategy for more sustainable management of essential ecosystems.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

XI'AN JIAOTONG-LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: PLATEAU PIKA, A KEYSTONE SPECIES AND RELATED TO RABBITS view more 

CREDIT: KA ZHUO CAI RANG

A new article published in the Journal of Animal Ecology suggests that current measures to protect grasslands in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau are damaging the ecosystem and should be stopped.

The existing policy, introduced in 2000, calls for the eradication of small burrowing mammals. These include the mountain-dwelling herbivores, the plateau pika, and another small rodent, the zokor. Both are keystone species and are known as ecosystem engineers due to their modification of and impact on the environment.

The report's authors say that the current extermination programmes are not based on studies that considered the full effects of culling these rodents.

"The government agency's policy of conducting large-scale animal culling campaigns each year is not a good approach," says Professor Johannes Knops from the Health and Environmental Sciences department at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) and corresponding author.

Professor Knops and the first author, Dr Wenjin Li from the College of Ecology at Lanzhou University, propose replacing the eradication policy with a nature-based control strategy.

"Our research shows that using natural predators and other ecological factors to regulate burrowing mammal populations can be a more sustainable and effective approach to grassland management."

The study has important implications for grassland management practices worldwide.
Small burrowing mammals are common in grasslands, and their eradication can negatively impact ecosystem health and productivity.

A balancing act

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau grasslands play a crucial role in the quality of water flowing into major Asian rivers, including the Yangtze, Yellow, Lancang-Mekong, Indus and Ganges. Grassland degradation can also increase the chance of flooding events.

The campaign to permanently eradicate plateau pikas and zokors is part of Chinese government agencies' efforts to protect the grasslands.

The policy is part of a nationwide initiative, the Returning Grazing Land to Grassland project, and is based on the assumption that the rodents cause damage to grasslands by consuming foliage and therefore compete with grazing livestock for food, and cause soil erosion.

However, the new study discusses the irrationality and consequences of this policy and reports that small burrowing mammals can actually help to prevent grassland degradation.

Professor Knops says: "If we look at the grasslands, we will find numerous plant species, and not all animals eat the same plants, so it is crucial to consider the entire food chain rather than killing all the small mammals."

The authors also say that burrowing animals can increase plant diversity as they increase seed dispersion and light availability by consuming taller grasses. Their burrows provide refuges and habitats for other species and can help to decrease surface water runoff and soil erosion.

The researchers advise that the eradication policy needs to be reconsidered and revoked, as small burrowing mammals play crucial ecological roles in grassland management. They say that diminishing the rodent population disrupts ecosystem processes and reduces biodiversity.

The research also suggests that the current poisoning method used to eradicate small burrowing mammals has several overlooked adverse effects.

The ecological functions of small burrowing mammals in grasslands 

The arrows indicate the positive impacts of small burrowing mammals on plant, animal, microbial and soil processes

CREDIT

Wenjin Li and Lanzhou University

Collateral damage

In the paper, the authors discuss the potential unintended consequences of using the high-cost and labour-intensive poisoning method to kill small mammals in grasslands. These include the development of resistance to poisons by target species and potential harm to non-target species.

Additionally, this policy can increase human-wildlife conflict by reducing natural predator populations and creating imbalances in the ecosystem.

Professor Knops explains: "It's important to consider the knock-on effects of reducing the small burrowing mammal population. If there are fewer small mammals, there is less food for their natural predators, such as red foxes, steppe polecats, upland buzzards, brown bears and mountain weasels.

"Not only will these larger mammals start to look for alternative food sources and increasingly prey on livestock, causing more human-wildlife conflict, but their populations will also decrease.

"The eradication policy, therefore, causes the opposite effect to the one intended, as when the number of the pika and zokor's natural predators is reduced, burrowing mammal populations can increase rapidly.

"This then requires more human control, which is costly and negatively impacts non-target species and the environment."

Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, yak herders summer camp 

Yak graze widely during the day and are brought back to the camp in the evening for milking

Yak livestock returning from grazing to be milked

CREDIT

J. Knops and XJTLU

Rethinking control

The researchers suggest the goal to control burrowing mammal populations should not be totally eradicated but can be regulated with a nature-based control strategy that uses natural predators and other environmental factors such as their preferred plant species and the height of vegetation.

The report proposes measures such as providing nesting spaces for raptors and reducing the over-grazing of livestock on the grasslands. This allows the grass to grow and keeps the small mammal population at a manageable level, as they prefer shorter vegetation.

The authors argue that this approach is more effective and sustainable for long-term grassland management than traditional methods that rely heavily on human intervention and poisoning.

Professor Knops says: "By maintaining a stable, low density of burrowing mammals using natural predators and ecological factors, we can promote sustainable livestock grazing practices while also preserving biodiversity and reducing human-wildlife conflicts."

Further research is needed to refine this approach and test its effectiveness in various grassland ecosystems. Still, the study's findings offer important insights into the ecological roles of small burrowing mammals in grasslands and how their presence can benefit ecosystem health and productivity.
 

The research team conducting experiments on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

CREDIT

Wenjin Li and Lanzhou University

JOURNAL

Journal of Animal Ecology

DOI

10.1111/1365-2656.13938 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Anchoring grassland sustainability with a nature-based small burrowing mammal control strategy

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-May-2023

Elephants enjoy presence of zoo visitors, researchers find

Nina Massey
Mon, May 22, 2023 



Elephants particularly enjoy the presence of zoo visitors, a new study suggests.

Researchers found significant results regarding elephants, with social activity among the animals increasing, and repetitive behaviours – which often indicate boredom – decreasing during public feedings.

Animal behaviour experts at Nottingham Trent University and Harper Adams University looked at more than 100 previous research papers exploring the various ways in which visitors impacted behaviour across more than 250 species in zoos.

The findings indicate that elephants in particular reacted positively to visitors.

According to the researchers, the repetitive behaviours also decreased in the presence of larger numbers of visitors.

The study also found that in the period after public feedings there was increased foraging by elephants and a decrease in their levels of inactivity.

However, elephants are not the only animals that react positively to zoo visitors.

Other species which displayed a positive response to visitors included penguins, jaguars, grizzly bears, polar bears, cheetahs, servals, banteng and black-tailed prairie dogs.

The social behaviour of cockatoos was also seen to increase – possibly as a result of the visitors stimulating the birds.

Other species which displayed a positive response to visitors included penguins (PA)

While another bird, the long-billed corella, spent the majority of time on busy days closer to the visitors, it was found.

Dr Samantha Ward, a zoo animal welfare scientist at Nottingham Trent University’s School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences, said: “Some animal species have been born and raised in zoos and so have likely become used to the presence of humans.

“Zoo visitors are often aspects of a zoo animal’s environment that animals cannot control and as such can be stressful, although some species appear to show good adaptability for the changing conditions of visitors.

“There can be a lot of variation in stimuli from visitors in terms of their behaviour, the noise they make and the way they interact with the animals.

“We have identified that species show varied responses to people in zoos – some cope well, others not so well.”

According to the findings, across all studies the interpretation of the impact of visitors was predominantly neutral, with some considered positive and negative.

Animal groups for whom visitors were reported to have a negative impact included flightless birds, odd and even-toed ungulates, marsupials, ostriches, tuatara and hedgehogs.

Dr Ellen Williams, a zoo animal welfare scientist at Harper Adams University, said: “We have robust methods to measure animal welfare in zoos. Animal responses are attributed to various factors and recognising what these may be is important to improve welfare.

“In elephants and birds it was encouraging to see a reduction in those repetitive behaviours towards something more positive in the presence of people, although the absence of change in the majority of species was also really good, because it suggests enclosure design is changing to better support animals in responding to visitors.”

The research is published in the journal Animals.

In the Amazon, Brazilian ecologists try new approach against deforestation and poverty

The Canadian Press
Mon, May 22, 2023 



CARAUARI, Brazil (AP) — In a remote corner of the Amazon, Brazilian ecologists are trying to succeed where a lack of governance has proved disastrous. They're managing a stretch of land in a way that welcomes both local people and scientists to engage in preserving the world’s largest tropical forest.

The goal is ambitious, counter the forces that have destroyed 10% of the forest in less than four decades and create something that can be replicated in other parts of the Amazon.

It began with a four-month expedition along the Juruá River in 2016. Researchers visited some 100 communities that at first sight looked similar: rows of wooden homes on stilts along the water. But they were struck by contrasts in the living conditions.

To understand what they saw, it's important to know that 29% of the Amazon, an area roughly three times the size of California, is either public land with no special protection, or public land for which no public information exists, according to a study by the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment.

These areas have been shown to be more vulnerable to deforestation. Land robbers drive traditional communities off the land and then clear it, hoping the government will recognize them as owners, which usually happens.

“It's very unequal. Inside protected areas, there are many positive things happening, but outside, they seemed to be 40 years behind,” João Vitor Campos-Silva, a tropical socio-ecologist, told The Associated Press.

The researchers were aware that the part of the river known as Medio Juruá, near the city of Carauari, has remarkable social organization and people manage its fish and forest products, such as acai, sustainably. The land designation here is “extractive reserves,” public lands where residents are allowed to fish and harvest some crops.

But outside these reserves, in many places, people take orders from self-appointed landowners, Campos-Silva said. Entire communities are denied access to lakes, even to fish to feed their families. People don´t own the land, and they don’t know who does.

“We started thinking that it might be interesting to design a conservation model based on a basin scale,” where communities could harvest forest produce and fish and protect the forest, instead of moving to the city or resorting to illegal activities, such as unlicensed logging and overfishing.

So they created the non-profit Juruá Institute and purchased a 13 km (8 miles) rainforest property along the Juruá River. It includes about 20 lakes, some with good potential for raising prized pirarucu, the world’s largest freshwater scale fish, which can reach up to 200 kilos (440 pounds).

The goal, Campos-Silva said, is to promote high-quality science, grounded in working together with the region's people.

In the vicinity of the Institute's land there are 12 communities of former rubber-tappers. Brazilians call them “ribeirinhos,” or river people, as distinguished from Indigenous residents.

In the past, the chance to make a living from rubber trees drew their grandparents to the Amazon. Nowadays the main revenue comes from pirarucu. Controlling that fishery has proved to be sustainable, reviving a species that was in decline and generating income without the need to clear the forest, with all that means for loss of biodiversity.

The Amazon rainforest, covering an area twice the size of India, also holds tremendous stores of carbon and is a crucial buffer against climate change. Driven by land-robbers, deforestation surged to a 15-year high in recent years while Jair Bolsonaro, who left office in January, was president. Destruction in the eastern Amazon has been so extensive that it has become a carbon source, rather than a carbon sink.

To involve the riverine communities in governance, the institute set up a steering committee and launched a series of public meetings called “community of dreams,” where people could prioritize the improvements they want most.

To avoid potential gender and age biases, they worked in three groups - women, youth, and men, said Campos-Silva.

The president of the river communities' association, Fernanda de Araujo Moraes, said the main purpose is to prevent river people from moving to Amazon cities, where unemployment among low-skilled people is rampant and violence is widespread, thanks to drug-trafficking.

In her own community of Lago Serrado, where 12 families live in stilt houses, both the women and men listed 24-hour electricity as their top priority. Currently, it's only available three hours a day. The youths chose fishing training.

Moraes believes this kind of collaboration is the fastest route to progress. “We want to improve people’s lives and the Institute wants the same thing," she said, seated on the floor of her house, tending to her infant daughter. The government, she said, is not always on the same page.

“This is something that doesn’t exist here in the Amazon, it doesn’t exist anywhere in Brazil. If it works, which it will, it will attract a lot of people’s attention,” said resident José Alves de Morais, in an interview by the lake just behind the community.

Morais works as a lake keeper, watching for trespassers who might take fish or cut trees. His family hopes to take part in the institute's management of pirarucu fishing, which awaits federal approval.

On the scientific front, the institute has built a houseboat and a wooden house for as many as 20 researchers to spend seasons along the Juruá River. One is studying the uakari monkey. Others are looking at what makes social arrangements successful in the region. They created a program, Forest Scientists, to train local high school students in field collection, data systematization, and how to prepare reports.

The initiative is led by Carlos Peres, an Amazon-born professor of tropical conservation ecology at the University of East Anglia, in the United Kingdom. In April this work, begun as an experiment, got some recognition from a Swiss nonprofit when he and three other scientists won the Frontiers Planet Prize, which comes with $1.1 million. The money will be reinvested in the project, which has already received support from Synchronicity Earth, National Geographic and Rolex within Perpetual Planet Project.

The winning study used data gathered during that 2016 trip. Co-authored by Campos-Silva and others, it found communities living inside protected areas enjoy better access to health care, education, electricity, and basic sanitation, plus a more stable income, than communities in undesignated areas. They found only 5% of adults inside protected areas aspire to move to a city, compared with 58% of adults in unprotected areas.

The article argues that in tropical countries with limited resources, it is possible to achieve conservation and benefit local communities at the same time, by putting more power in their hands.

Peres, the Institute's scientific director, says it hopes to inspire solutions across the Amazon region, by integrating traditional knowledge with the science of Western models.

“We do not have all the answers,” he said. “But we have the audacity to try to advance on these issues.”

____

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Fabiano Maisonnave, The Associated Press

Few things spark uproar like trophy hunting photos - now some want to change the narrative

Sky News
Sun, May 21, 2023 



In July 2015, American dentist Walter Palmer sparked global outrage when a photo was shared of him standing over Cecil the lion.

The majestic big cat, who was 13 years old, was the most popular visitor attraction at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe until Mr Palmer shot him with a bow and arrow.

It is inarguably one of the most high-profile examples of the inevitable uproar whenever images of smiling hunters, posing with guns in front of dead animals, make their way on to the internet.

To many of us, trophy hunting is an inexcusable trade and an abhorrence that should be punished - a fate more than 140,000 people tried to force upon Mr Palmer by sending a petition to the White House.

But do those provocative images tell the whole story?

Jens Ulrik Hogh has hunted in Africa more than 40 times, and thinks it's time to change the narrative.

Speaking to Leah Boleto on the Sky News Daily podcast, the hunter said while he understood why many observers found such photos "problematic", they had given hunting itself an unfair reputation.

"It's very counterintuitive to understand that hunting is beneficial for, say, the black rhino population, because the black rhino is listed as critically endangered," he said.

"But in fact, the only two countries in the world with a rising population of black rhino are Namibia and South Africa.

"And coincidentally, they are also the two countries in the world that allow very limited, and very harshly regulated, hunting of black rhinos."

'We should be proud'

Maxi Pia Louis is a community leader working in conservation in Namibia.

She told the Sky News Daily that trophy hunting does in fact support their efforts to protect species like the black rhino and elephants.

"It's a pillar in terms of income that is generated for our GDP - it's the third-largest," she said.

"Those funds coming in, they contribute quite heavily to some of the work we are doing to try and conserve wildlife in those areas, but also making sure there is motivation for people to manage those resources."

She believes her country should be "very proud" of its approach to elephant hunters - there are 24,000 elephants now, compared to around 7,000 in the 1980s.

It's a stance that will no doubt prove difficult to understand for many in the UK, where a prospective ban on trophy hunting imports returns to the House of Lords for debate next month.

Time to consign hunting to history?

Henry Smith, the Conservative MP who put the ban forward, told the Sky News Daily body parts from endangered species should no longer be imported "just for some sort of sick display".

"We're not telling countries in Africa how to run their conservation efforts," he insisted. "[But] I'd say there's very little evidence to suggest that fees from hunting trophies go back into African communities.

"If an animal is endangered and on the brink of extinction, then it seems very strange to me that you would kill that animal to conserve that animal."

Wildlife expert Professor Amy Dickman, from the University of Oxford, is sympathetic to Mr Smith's stance - trophy hunting can look "horrible", she admits.

But the reaction to images like those shared by Mr Palmer almost eight years ago can do more harm than good.

"Saying we must ban it, what you're very likely to have is those areas get less economically valuable, people convert them maybe to farmland, cropland, livestock keeping - then people will snare lions, will poison them," she said.

"No one will see those pictures on the front of the Daily Mail, but we will see them in the field. And those deaths are horrifying and far worse in terms of conservation and welfare, actually, than most trophy hunting deaths."

Nordic hunter Hogh describes himself as an animal lover, but also a man who enjoys the hunt.

To ensure his hobby remains "sustainable", he wants hunters to think again about the images they share online.

"We go out hunting because we really enjoy hunting," he said.

"I don't think that any hunter goes out to say: 'I want to help conservation today.'

"But of course we would not do this unless conservation worked because we need our hunting to be sustainable, meaning that we can do the same next year. Our children will be able to do the same in the future."

Two of the ‘rarest big cats on the planet’ born at Colorado zoo. Look at the cute cubs

Paloma Chavez
Mon, May 22, 2023 

Screengrab from Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's Facebook page

A zoo in Colorado welcomed two Amur leopard cubs, a species that’s critically endangered, officials said.

Anya, a 9-year-old Amur leopard, became a first-time mama on Wednesday, May 17, three days after Mother’s Day, according to a May 19 Facebook post by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

The two cubs make up 4% of the endangered species’ population, the Colorado Springs zoo said.

There are around 100 Amur leopards — described as “the rarest big cats on the planet” — left in the wild in Russia and China, zoo officials said.

“I think Anya is absolutely incredible. She looks confident and comfortable with the cubs, and we’re elated for her and her babies,” the post read. “I’m so proud of our animal care team and their commitment to Anya and the future of the Amur leopard species.”

Animal care manager Rebecca Zwicker said the first few weeks after a leopard cub’s birth are “extremely fragile” but that there’s no reason for concern as their mother is “patient and attentive.”

The first baby “quickly showed instincts to nurse,” which helped Anya get into mommy-mode when the second cub arrived, the zoo said.

“Once cub #2 smelled where cub #1 was having its meal, it made a baby beeline for the nipple. After a short sibling squabble, a full-bellied cub #1 moved aside for cub #2 to settle in for its first meal,” the post said. “Since then, both cubs have been nursing regularly and cub #2 is quickly catching up to its sibling’s energy level.”

Anya is the only one to have seen her cubs in person as the zoo is watching remotely from cameras placed in her den, officials said.

Officials haven’t identified the cubs’ sex and won’t be able to for some time, the post said.

As for naming, the zoo plans to keep its tradition by waiting 30 days before giving the cuties a name.

Colorado Springs is about 70 miles south of Denver.

Captive breeding helps endangered Iberian lynx population hit record

Reuters
Fri, May 19, 2023


: A female Iberian lynx, a feline in danger of extinction, named Ilexa is released in Arana mountain range, southern Spain

MADRID (Reuters) - The number of endangered Iberian lynx in the wild in Spain and Portugal reached 1,668 in 2022, Spain's environment ministry said on Friday - a new record since a conservation push began 20 years ago to save a population that had dwindled to below 100.

In 2002, the species was on the brink of extinction due to poaching, road accidents and encroachment on their habitat by farming and industrial development. Only 94 specimens were registered in Spain and none in Portugal at that time.

Known for its pointy ears, long legs and leopard-like spotted fur, the Iberian lynx is a species distinct from the more common Eurasian lynx found from France to the Himalayas.

According to the annual population survey by the ministry, 563 kits were born last year to 326 she-cats, continuing the strong growth trend seen since 2015, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature downgraded the threat level to "endangered" from "critically endangered".

There are now 15 core habitats spread across the Iberian Peninsula, with more than four fifths of the wild cats located throughout central and southern Spain and the rest in Portugal, where 261 lynxes have been counted.

The ministry's report partly attributed the demographic boom to the success of a captive breeding and reintroduction programme launched in 2011. Since then, 338 lynx born in captivity have been released into the wild.

"This positive demographic evolution allows us to be optimistic about the reduction of the risk of extinction," the ministry said.

However, it added that it was necessary to continue ongoing conservation efforts, given that the species remains classified as endangered.

(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Alison Williams)