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Lecture 29, 03 Dec 2009Con Bio in Practice

Sustainability?

Conservation BiologyECOL 406R/506R

UA Fall 2009

Kevin BonineMary Jane Epps

Lab Friday 04 Decsee website for assignments

1pm NW BSE(incl AME202 3pm?)

506 THANK YOU!

ReadingsDonlan et al. 2005, and optional readingsPrimack Ch 8-9

Tues 08 Dec: Chan 2008; Lackey 2007; Noss 2007all three are fairly short

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Q9(Due by 6am Mon 07 December as .DOC attachment to MJ (mycota@gmail.com) via email.)

If you were to work for the Nature Conservancy, US Fish and Wildlife Service, or the National Parks system, which would you choose and why? What would be your job and what would you hope to accomplish in the context of conservation biology?

OR

In the context of conservation biology, what questions arose during the discussion period with Mike Rosenzweig, Scott Bonar, and Guy McPherson that you would like answered? Choose one or two of them to answer in this essay. More sophisticated, integrative, and interesting questions will garner more points than simple questions such as ‘where does Guy live in New Mexico?’.

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• SNRE Grads and any other interested parties!

This week Rosa Jessen will be presenting:

Research in the Amazon

I started my field work in the Peruvian Amazon last summer where I aminvestigating neotropical tree squirrels and their potential as indicatorspecies. For my first field season I was assisted by graduate students MelissaMerrick, Tim Jessen, and Geoffrey Palmer and Dr. John Koprowski was also therefor the start up of the project. For this presentation we will be showingpictures of our trip to the rainforest and the great biodiversity we foundthere.

Snacks and drinks provided!

Hope to see you there Thursday in BSE 225 @ 5pm!

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ECOL/RNR 464/564Offered Spring 2010

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Translating Environmental Science

• Scientists and journalists learn to “translate”science into language suitable for the general public.

• Writing style appropriate for newspapers, magazines and web-based publications, public reports and grant proposals.

• Students work in groups and with instructor to produce publication-quality articles on assigned or student-selected topics.

• Time: 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. Tuesdays & Thursdays, Veterinary Science room 105

• Instructor: Dr. Melanie Lenarthttp://www.u.arizona.edu/~mlenart/

SWES 415 / 515 in Spring 2009Soil, Water & Environmental Sciences (3 credits)

Contact: Dr. Lenart at mlenart@email.arizona.edu

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Interested in a preceptorship for spring 2010?

I would like someone to assist with Environmental Biology (ECOL 206)

Please contact me with questions.

Thanks,Kevin

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UA House of Minimal Effect?

SAHRA, OALS, SNRE, EEB, SWES, LTRR, Jim Riley, Solar House, Solar Car, Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture,

Sustainability Committee, Parasol, etc.

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1. Echinoderms, Ecology, and Eleni Sikelianos

In the last installment of the UA Poetry Centers fall series Oh Earth, Wait for Me, poet Eleni Sikelianos will read from her work, which has been described as avant-garde pastoral and is often about place as seen from an ecological perspective. The reading will be held on Friday, December 4, at 8 PM. Drawn to oceanography and microbiology, Sikelianos briefly was a biology student in her undergraduate career. The language of wild oceanaria and cellular activity has continued to inform her writing; in her work she discusses nature using terms unexpected in poetry, such as wentletraps, nudibranchs, and echinoderms. In addition to the reading, Sikelianos will give an open-topic colloquium on December 4 at 3:30 PM at the Poetry Center. The audience is invited to bring questions. For more information, visit http://www.environment.arizona.edu/events/574.

SEE the IE website for more info and more talks.

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BRAVO!

First Place Tie:-Bryant (mesquite table)-Ross (photo shoot w/masks)

Third Place Tie:-Bonnie (water colors in book)-Lauren (mirror etc.)

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A few photos…

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Conservation in Practice

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Should conservation biologists manage

extinctions or restore natural processes?

(restore to what?)

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Pleistocene Rewilding(Donlan et al.)

Proactive Solution?

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17azDailyStar_23Feb2007

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Barely Extinct Mammals of the SW

• If you go to Southern Africa you will find many habitats like South Western US and Mexico:

• Deserts, grasslands, woodlands, tropical dry forests with many species of plants that look similar to ours.

• But you will also see elephants, lions, rhinos, zebras, and many deer and antelope.

(Thanks to Larry Venable via Kathy Gerst)

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Barely Extinct Mammals of the SW

• North America was like that until only ~12,000 years ago.

• Our pronghorns probably run so fast because they evolved alongside the American Cheetah.

• Horses and camels evolved in America before moving to the old world.

• We got ripped-off (by our Clovis hunter predecessors)!

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Barely Extinct Mammals of the SW• Bison latifrons

(longhorn bison)• Camelops• Hemiauchenia• Horse• Euceratherium

(shrub ox)• Nothrotheriops

shastensis (Shasta ground sloth)

• Tapirus (tapir)

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Barely Extinct Mammals of the SW

• Mammuthus columbi(Mammoth)

• Mammut (Mastodon)

• Panthera (jaguar)

• Panthera leo atrox(American lion)

• Canis dirus (dire wolf)

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Pleistocene Rewilding

extant

extinct

Late Pleistocene

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Re-wilding of North America

• Start with non-threatening herbivores:

• The 50-kg Bolson tortoise (Gopherusflavomarginatus) – still in Mexico

• Feral horses (Equus caballus) and asses (E. asinus), critically endangered Asian asses (E. hemionus) and Przewalski'shorse (E. przewalskii).

• Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus), now on the verge of extinction in the Gobi desert.

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Re-wilding of North America• Then bring in the big guys on private

property:

• small numbers of African cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), Asian (Elephasmaximus) and African (Loxodonta africana) elephants, and lions (Panthera leo).

• Eventually create 'ecological history parks', covering vast areas of economically depressed parts of the Great Plains.

• Perimeter fencing would limit the movements of otherwise free-roaming ungulates, elephants, and large carnivores.

• (like parks in Africa)

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Rubenstein et al. 2006

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Reactive vs. Proactive?

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29Brennan and Withgott 2005

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Conservation Discussion

The only known population of a rare beetle species exists in several small patches of privately owned scrub within a large city. In what ways could the landowner be convinced to protect and manage this land for conservation?

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RelocationRestorationEx Situ Strategies

A few examples…

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Either returned (18/18, <1km) or died? (7/7, 1-25km)

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Last year, $5 million was spent on condor recovery efforts, including $1.2 million from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Arizona-based Peregrine Fund spent more than $1 million each, and the Los Angeles Zoo, which operates on damaged birds, spent more than $500,000, according to the report.

CALIFORNIA’$ CONDOR$

Human aid has led to “inappropriate behavior” of the condors, which are attracted to people and man-made structures, the 57-page report found. The gregarious birds perch on utility poles, risking electrocution and, in Southern California, have taken to soaring with hang gliders and mingling with humans to pick through food wrappers. So much effort is required to feed, nurse and protect wild condors, the scientists wrote, “that one might argue that they constitute little more than outdoor zoo populations.”Since the last wild condor was captured in 1987, federal and state agencies, zoos and conservation groups have spent tens of millions of dollars breeding more than 300 birds in captivity. About 150 have been released to fly free over forests and deserts in California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Baja California. Survival of freed condors doubted They depend on man-made ‘feeding stations’ of lead-free carcasses, a practice that has damaged their ability to forage. Scientists call for removal of such ammunition.By Margot Roosevelt, August 09, 2008 in print edition B-1 LA Times

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By John Ritter, USA TODAYSAN FRANCISCO — One of the great feel-good environmental stories of the past 30 years is the recovery of the majestic California condor, North America's largest bird, a scavenger-turned-billboard for the campaign to save endangered species.On the brink of extinction, saved by a captive-breeding program, the condor population has grown from just 22 birds in 1982 to 289 today; 135 are in the wild and more are released every year.Even so, condors have failed to gain a secure foothold in the hills and deserts of California and Arizona because of lead poisoning, the most often diagnosed cause of death, environmentalists say. Environmental groups say the most likely source is condors' eating of game that was shot by hunters using lead bullets. Frustrated that most hunters have not switched to substitutes, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other groups notified California officials in July that they will sue under the Endangered Species Act to force a ban.

Lead poisoning eyed as threat to California condor

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http://cres.sandiegozoo.org/index.html

38http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/research.asp

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http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/default.php

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