Friday, March 23, 2018

Yesterday we reviewed the challenges that Jaguars have co-existing with the current practices of Cattle Ranchers in Guatamala, South America.........Today, we focus on whether "Reduced Impact Logging" can be compatible with the lifestyle needs of "El Tigre"(the Jaguar).......... "Reduced-impact logging" aims to ensure that strict standards are met during felling and removing timber".............. "This includes minimizing the number of roads constructed, avoiding sensitive areas and strictly regulating hunting".................. ""The presence of jaguars in a logging concession is testimony that environmental guidelines are being followed".........."Two recent Wildlife Conservation Society case studies from Guatemala and Peru indicate that certified logging operations can play an important role in maintaining vital habitat for jaguars and other large wildlife species"............"The bottom line is that certified, low-impact timber management by community groups and industrial operators constitutes one of the most effective jaguar conservation strategies available to jaguar-range countries"................ "Properly managed concessions help forests persist in the face of more intensive land uses, generate income for local stakeholders who become lead defenders of the forests, and maintain habitat for jaguars and their prey as they range beyond fully protected areas"

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https://phys.org/news/2018-03-jaguars-well-managed-concessions-coexist-conservationists.html Jaguars and well-managed logging concessi...
Thursday, March 22, 2018

"The jaguar is the largest cat in the Americas and historically was found from southwestern/southeastern USA to central Argentina".......... "Today, jaguars are an endangered species throughout their natural habitat, and have almost been completely eliminated from the United States".............. "Outside of the Amazon, they are present in only 20 percent of their original range"............ "This drastic change is a result of human factors: habitat loss leading to reduced prey availability and persecution for cattle depredation........'To illustrate the challenge the Jaguar has of making a living, it has been determined that in the South American Country of Paraguay, mean home range size for Jaguars is 818 km2 (310 sq. miles) in the Dry Chaco and 237 km2 (90 sq. miles) in the Humid Chaco/Pantanal"..........."In fact, with Paraguay deforesting 800 hectares a day(1840 acres) for beef cattle grazing, the Dry Chaco region has the largest home ranges ever recorded for Jaguars..........If you eliminate the Forest, you eliminate the Jaguar's prey,,,,,,,,,,,,,,As a result, they have to range far and wide to find their preferred food items of Capbara,Tapirs, Peccaries and Caiman--invariably running into domestic cattle and getting killed by the Ranchers who tend those herds

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://phys.org/news/2018-03-problem-jaguars-space-western-paraguay.html&ct=ga&c...
Wednesday, March 21, 2018

The Central american Country of Belize is following though on Nobel Winning Ecologist Edwin O. Wison's call to SAVE HALF EARTH by creating a 110 square kilometer(42 square miles) nature reserve to be known as the BELIZE NORTHEASTERN BIOLOGICAL CORRIDOR...................Here at home in the USA, the Country that developed the World's first National Park, EcoIogist Wilson challenges all of Americans to think equally as big as Belize.........He asks: "Is the caring for the environment a matter of being a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative, a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddist or a non believer?"............ "Can preserving biodiversity be something that all of us can work toward together?" "May we forget for a while our metaphysical, religous and secular differences, lower the volume on the culture war, and meet on this common ground of saving the creation - that is saving biodiversity which is in such peril worldwide?".............."if we continue to the end of the century on our curent path of land alteration and degradation, it is likely that we will have exterminated about half of the known species of plants and animals".................. "Why let tis happen when the value of the services that ecosystems give us are unmeasurably positive"............. "The assemblages of natural living plants, animals, and microorganisms provide us with purification of water, the management of water reserves, pollination, the renewal of the soil, the purification of the air we breathe and half of our medicines and pharmaceuticals".............."Those services amount roughly to the total of the gross world product - that is all the combined national products of every Country in the world-- in the vicinity of $30 trillion!!!"...................And we get all of those ecosytems services scot-free!!!"................ "So that ought to be reason enough for not disposing of that biodiversity and trying to substitute at high expense the human contrivances that probably don't do it as well"............"Humanity must make a decision and make it now, right now!"............. "Conserve earth's natural heritage or let future generations adjust to a biologically impoverished world"..............."Large parts of nature are still intact — the Amazon region, the Congo Basin, New Guinea".......... "There are also patches of the industrialized world where nature could be restored and strung together to create corridors for wildlife"............."In the oceans, we need to let life there recover."............"The oceans are part of that 50% HALF EARTH that I propose be kept in their natural state"............... "This proposal does not mean moving anybody out of their homes"..........."It means creating something equivalent to the U.N.’s World Heritage sites that could be regarded as the priceless assets of humanity".................... "I offer this maxim: Do no further harm to the rest of life"------Edward O. Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University and recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes, the author of 30+ books on our natural world and humanity

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/belize-creates-one-of-central-americas-largest-biologic...
Tuesday, March 20, 2018

"New Research from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, South America has revealed that starting 2500 years ago, the Maya(First Nations People) started bringing dogs, Wild Turkeys, Jaguars and Pumas to Ceibal, Guatemala from the distant Guatemalan highlands".........."Ceibal was an important Maya urban center with a nearly 2,000-year occupational history (1000 BC to AD 950), allowing for a long-term examination of animal-related activities".............."The possible ceremonial contexts of these captive-reared animals suggests Animal Management played an important role in the symbolic development of political power".............."Whereas "In Asia, Africa and Europe, Animal Management went hand-in-hand with the development of cities, in the Americas people may have raised animals for ceremonial purposes that may have played a significant role in societal development"

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sciencedaily/plants_animals/~3/E96ykqLK_A0/180319155742.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email Fi...
Monday, March 19, 2018

"It is estimated by esteemed Nobel-Winning Ecologist Edwin O. Wilson that only 2 of the 10 million species living on earth today are known"............"Paleontologists estimate that before the global spread of humankind, the average rate of species extinction was one species per million in each one- to 10-million-year interval"........... "Human activity has driven up the average global rate of extinction to 100 to 1,000 times that baseline rate"................"At this present rate of human caused extinction, it is estimated that we will eliminate more than half of all species by the year 2100"............."Wilson's solution to stop this biological genocide is called HALF EARTH".............."To reverse the extinction crisis, we have to enlarge the area of Earth devoted to the natural world enough to save the variety of life within it"............. "The formula widely agreed upon by Wilson and many other conservation scientists is to keep half the land and half the sea of the planet as wild and protected from human intervention or activity as possible"............. "Wilson's 'Island Biogeography Theory' states that the more isolated an ecosystem, the fewer species it supports"........... "Half EARTH would mitigate 'ISLAND ISOLATION OF SPECIES impacts by stitching together the largest natural areas left on the Planet via 'nature highways'----greenways that allow animals and plants to move freely back and forth carrying their genes and carrying out their ecological services functions across their bioregions"............."We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity--source:. E. O. Wilson

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CLICK ON LINK TO READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/opinion/sunday/species-conservation-extinction.html The 8 Million ...