Wild Animal Life Research Articles

Effects of persistent organic pollutants on telomere dynamics are sex and age-specific in a wild long-lived bird

Chemical pollution is a major man-made environmental threat to ecosystems and natural animal populations. Of concern are persistent organic pollutants (POPs), which can persist in the environment for many years. While bioaccumulating throughout the lives of wild animals, POPs can affect their health, reproduction, and survival. However, measuring long-term effects of POPs in wild populations is challenging, and therefore appropriate biomarkers are required in wildlife ecotoxicology. One potential target is telomere length, since telomere preservation has been associated to survival and longevity, and stressors as chemical pollution can disrupt its maintenance. Here, we investigated the effects of different classes of POPs on relative telomere length (RTL) and its rate of change (TROC) in wild long-lived Alpine swifts (Tachymarptis melba). As both RTL and TROC are often reported to differ between sexes and with chronological age, we tested for sex- and age-specific (pre-senescent vs. senescent, ≥ 9 age of years, individuals) effects of POPs. Our results showed that senescent females presented longer RTL and elongated telomeres over time compared to pre-senescent females and males. These sex- and age-related differences in RTL and TROC were influenced by POPs, but differently depending on whether they were organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) or industrial polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). OCPs (particularly drins) were negatively associated with RTL, with the strongest negative effects being found in senescent females. Conversely, PCBs led to slower rates of telomere shortening, especially in females. Our study indicates diametrically opposed effects of OCPs on RTL and PCBs on TROC, and these effects were more pronounced in females and senescent individuals. The mechanisms behind these effects (e.g., increased oxidative stress by OCPs; upregulation of telomerase activity by PCBs) remain unknown. Our results highlight the importance in wildlife ecotoxicology to account for sex- and age-related effects when investigating the health effects of pollutants on biomarkers such as telomeres.

The secret life of wild animals revealed by accelerometer data: how landscape diversity and seasonality influence the behavioural types of European hares

ContextLandscape composition and configuration, as well as seasonal landscape dynamics shape the behaviour, movement and energy expenditure of animals, i.e. foraging, hiding or fleeing, and ultimately survival. Especially in highly modified agricultural systems, it is crucial to understand how animal behaviour is influenced by landscape context to develop sustainable land management concepts.ObjectivesWe show how landscape composition and configuration, together with seasonal dynamics affect animal behavioural types, accounting for the different life-history events in both sexes.MethodsWe investigated 34 European hares in two contrasting agricultural landscapes (a simple and a complex landscape) by using tri-axial accelerometer data to classify the animals’ behaviour into five categories: resting, foraging, moving, grooming and standing upright (i.e. vigilance behaviour). We tested whether the amount of behaviours per category changed with landscape composition and configuration, season and sex.ResultsDuring peak breeding, hares in areas of high habitat diversity rested more, moved less and spent less time searching for resources. During winter, hares moved more and rested less. Females rested less and foraged more in areas with large agricultural fields.ConclusionsA complex landscape is particularly important during the breeding season, allowing animals to allocate enough energy into reproduction. In winter, hares in areas of low habitat diversity may not find enough thermal and anti-predator shelter to move as much as they would need to meet their requirements. Hence, high habitat diversity and small field sizes guarantee species persistence in human-altered agricultural areas throughout the year.

LEGAL REFLECTION ON SPURRING WILDLIFE INVESTMENTS WHILST EMBRACING WILD ANIMALS CONSERVATION IN TANZANIA

Tanzania is diversifying wildlife investments. The Special Wildlife Investment Concession Area, (the SWICA) is set aside. The regulations to achieve the purpose are in place.The regulations enlighten on the procedures of carrying out investments within the SWICA. This paper reviewson this new investment schemewhether itwill spare the ecosystem, specifically, the safety and survival of wild animals.The invited investments activities connote disturbance on the lives of wild animals. This paper observes that, the cumulative promulgation of the regulations threatens the life of wild animals. The apprehension of ecosystem disturbances in the SWICA is too wide to connote probable security on the lives of wild animals. Moreover, the avenues for some actors to excises their wisdom, aside of the regulations may invite unnecessary difficulties between the investors and the authority. Lastly, wild animals are likely to suffer a significant prejudice if investments in the SWICAs get through.

Construction of eco-crossing on traffic roads in areas of preserved nature

With the implementation of the project "Reconstruction and modernization of the main road M-18 Podgorica-Danilovgrad", which was financed by the EBRD, an upgrade and reconstruction of the 15 km long section was carried out. In this project, which included: widening of the road from 2 to 4 lanes, reconstruction of bridges, construction of new roundabouts and installation of water drainage systems, special attention was paid to environmental protection. As the section of the road is located within a key biodiversity area, during the preparation of the project numerous biodiversity studies have been carried out, all in accordance with domestic and international standards in the field of environment. During construction, numerous environmental protection measures were implemented, and one of them is the construction of an eco-crossing for animals that will enable the safe crossing of animals from one side of the road to the other. These are alternative crossings over or under major roads, in areas of preserved nature, which aim to disrupt the way of life of wild animals as little as possible and prevent their extermination, i.e., to contribute to species conservation. In addition to this, fenced openings are left on the dividing island so that the animals have enough natural light. The goal of this report is to show that, with the adaptation of the project solution, the ecological value of the project area was preserved, and that this example of adapting the road to its living space represents a successful campaign in raising environmental awareness.

English

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are significant in protecting the habitat of wild animals and preventing animal fatalities resulting from human development. The construction of land transportation systems through the wildlife habitat has compromised the life of wild animals, thus invoking the implementation of advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT). Motivated by these aspects, this article proposes a system incorporating IoT and LoRa-based technology to prevent human-wildlife confrontations by creating a real-time warning to commuters about animal movement on the road. The proposed system, consisting of a vision node, a display layer and a data visualization layer, was realized in real time by deploying the system on a selected road on the animal corridor. Vision node data is transmitted through LoRa communication and visualized on the serial monitor.

The influence of railway lines on the life of wild animals

Abstract: Railway lines have an impact on the surrounding environment, both during the construction or modernization phase and during operation. Animal mortality due to collisions is an increasingly well-known impact, but usually the barrier effect that occurs as a result of line fencing is a much more serious threat. Collisions also have other aspects: train delays and damage, and a threat to traffic safety. Most often they occur in the morning and afternoon hours, and in the annual cycle during the mating season of a given species and after the separation of young animals from their mothers. Since the train does not resemble a predator, wild animals do not instinctively fear it and learn to ignore the movement of the trains. Keywords: Railway lines; Environmental impact; Wildlife

Suffering and Meaning in the Lives of Wild Animals

This article advances some considerations that undermine the overall justification for what I call “beneficent interventions,” or interventions aimed at reducing the suffering of wild animals. I first appeal to Susan Wolf’s (2010) account of meaning in life to argue that wild animals can and do have meaning in their lives. I then argue that the meaning in animal lives can offset their suffering, making their lives more worth living. This source of positive value in the lives of wild animals undermines some of the justification for those beneficent interventions that aim to reduce wild animal suffering by reducing the numbers of wild animals who either suffer or inflict suffering upon others.

Wildlife in the Digital Anthropocene: Examining human-animal relations through surveillance technologies

Digital surveillance technologies enable a range of publics to observe the private lives of wild animals. Publics can now encounter wildlife from their smartphones, home computers, and other digital devices. These technologies generate public-wildlife relations that produce digital intimacy, but also summon wildlife into relations of care, commodification, and control. Via three case studies, this paper examines the biopolitical implications of such technologically mediated human-animal relations, which are becoming increasingly common and complex in the Digital Anthropocene. Each of our case studies involves a different biopolitical rationale deployed by a scientific-managerial regime: (1) clampdown (wild boar); (2) care (golden eagle); and (3) control (moose). Each of these modalities of biopower, however, is entangled with the other, inaugurating complex relations between publics, scientists, and wildlife. We show how digital technologies can predetermine certain representations of wildlife by encouraging particular gazes, which can have negative repercussions for public-wildlife relations in both digital and offline spaces. However, there remains work to be done to understand the positive public-wildlife relations inaugurated by digital mediation. Here, departing from much extant literature on digital human-animal relations, we highlight some of these positive potentials, notably: voice, immediacy, and agency.

Some Specific Featues of Investigating Illegal Hunting

The authors analyze key problems in the investigation of illegal hunting. They specifically note that, in spite of the active work of many nature protection bodies, the damage inflicted by illegal hunting amounts to about RUR 19 bln. annually. The remoteness of the areas where such crimes are committed poses a considerable obstacle to the work of investigation-operative groups. The authors conducted a detailed study of the problems in the identification and, consequently, effective investigation of such crimes. It is also highlighted that their investigation and detection require expert knowledge of the specific features of hunting and the life of wild animals. In conclusion it is stressed that the existing problems make it easier to commit crimes under discussion, and the situation requires a most active participation of the law enforcement in the fight for preserving biodiversity and the improvement of the effectiveness of investigations.

Animal City: The Domestication of America. By Andrew A. Robichaud (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2019) 338 pp. $39.95

One of the phenomena that has accompanied the impact of covid-19 on cities has been the appearance, or more accurately, the re-appearance of wild animal life in cities, as human activity has sharply deceased. This is not to say that all animals had vacated urban sites, but many of the species that have been returning had not been resident urban dwellers or at least not visible for many decades. These sites were originally the domain of many species of wild animals that were gradually displaced by human populations, the built environment, and domesticated animals. Coincidentally, even before the pandemic, while animal life was returning to cities, the publication of books about the history of animals in cities was also increasing after their absence for many years.In the introduction to his edited collection, Animal Cities: Beastly Urban Histories (New York, 2012), Peter Atkins asks the question “Why So Few Animals in Urban History?” Of the three reasons that he lists the most persuasive is that in the twentieth century, the study of cities was anthropocentric, leaving animals to play only “bit parts.” Now various historians attempt to fill this gap in the literature of urban history.In the book under review, Robichaud demonstrates the centrality of animals to urban life as he explores the “massive shift in how most Americans experienced and interacted with animals, with one another, and with their governing institutions” (10). He presents a series of chapters detailing different animal–human-related themes in a variety of cities but especially San Francisco and New York. These themes include the transformation of the city as a place of free-roaming animals to one of animal exclusion and control; the development, impact, and regulation of New York’s urban feedlot dairies; the emergence of organized slaughtering in San Francisco and the issues of changing location and nuisance; shifting animal–human relationships in the later nineteenth century as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (spca) attempted to enforce animal-welfare laws, including those relating to the labor of horses and dogs; and examples of animal entertainment and changing attitudes toward it.Robichaud deals with these issues in a thorough and sensitive fashion, viewing them from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. He maintains that animals deserve a place in historical scholarship because of the perspective that they present on human–animal relationships. Although Americans live increasingly in a world devoid of overt animal suffering and death due to their own reform efforts, violence toward animals is inherent in the hidden “machinery” of “post-domesticity” (Richard Bulliet’s term, 265), though out of sight.Many of the insights that this book offers about animals in the life of the city are striking, especially regarding the places where Robicheaud uncovered unintended consequences of actions that had originally been intended as reforms. A real test of human–animal relations in the city will evolve from how cities and humans act as they confront the newly enlarged presence of wild animals on their streets, in their malls and parks, and in their backyards. If these confrontations can be managed humanely, they could possibly result in a new stage of urban animal–human interactions. Whether this outcome produces modifications of the “machinery” that oppresses animals outside the city has yet to be seen.One final note regarding the style of this book: A close reading reveals that it could have used a more thorough editing. Numerous passages contain excessive verbiage, word repetition, and unnecessary detail. The book would also have benefited from more images and, even though it is extensively documented, a bibliography of published sources. Despite these shortcomings, the book is a worthwhile addition to the historical literature of animals in the city.

Trophy Hunting, Canned Hunting, Tiger Farming, and the Questionable Relevance of the Conservation Narrative Grounding International Wildlife Law

Trophy hunting, canned hunting, and tiger farming have attracted much negativity from the general public because of their trivialization of wild animals’ lives and welfare. Yet they persist because of their perceived conservation value. This article seeks to demonstrate that whether these activities have conservation value or not is irrelevant. As science demonstrates Darwin’s theory that the difference in cognitive abilities between humans and non-human animals is one of degree, it becomes more and more difficult to justify the objectification of animal life enshrined into international wildlife law and conservation policies. This trivialization of animal life is the result of the utilitarian narrative that grounds conservation policies reflected in international wildlife law where the end justifies all means, no matter how ethically controversial they may be. As the lives of wild animals are objectified and trivialized as these activities exemplify, conservation for sustainable use remains the sole yardstick to legalize or ban wildlife exploitation-based industries at the international and national level. The weight of scientific evidence demonstrating high cognitive abilities of non-human animals in several orders of the Animal Kingdom, however, supports many animal ethics theories that wild animals and animals’ lives in general have intrinsic worth. As such, wild animals are at least moral patients, entitling them to a minimum of specifically tailored rights that cannot be automatically overridden by mere trivial anthropocentric interests, but rather weighted against them. A more zoocentric rights-based approach to international wildlife law could yield better conservation results than the current utilitarian species-focused approach.

Penyusunan Rancangan Qanun Pengelolaan Satwa Liar di Aceh

Human conflict with wildlife is a complex problem because it isn’t only related to human safety but also with the safety of wildlife itself. Conflicts that have occurred have pushed the Government of Aceh, District/City Government and related parties to be more wise in understanding the lives of wild animals so that the handling and prevention measures can be optimized and based on the root of the problem. For this reason, a legal protection is needed in the form of a qanun which is expected to be able to integrate all available resources to protect wildlife in Aceh. The method of implementation in community service is to get involved with the expert team Commission II DPRA in drafting the Qanun of Wildlife Management until finally the qanun was ratified on 27 September 2019 and then promulgated to be Qanun on 29 October 2019. The participation of the authors in the drafting of the draft qanun of wildlife includes part of the process of forming the qanun, including starting from the stages of planning, drafting, and discussion. While the stages of ratification or stipulation, enactment and dissemination are carried out by the DPRA and the Government of Aceh itself in accordance with their respective duties, functions and authorities.

RENTE EKONOMI PERDAGANGAN SATWA LIAR DAN TERPINGGIRKANNYA KESEJAHTERAAN HEWAN

The state has made various efforts to protect the lives of wild animals from the risk of illegal trade. Various regulations starting from the CITES convention have been ratified and followed up with various other regulations. Although, a series of efforts have been made to protect wild animals from extinction, but animal trade continues. This study explores how the commodification of wild animals carried out by the state since its habitat causes the life of animals threatened. This research is a desk study conducted by tracking secondary data from environmental organization monitoring reports, government reports, journal articles, online media related to the topic being studied. The results of the study show that the forest territorial initiation process carried out by the state through species control, unilateral determination of forest area boundaries and formal control through various institutions and regulations actually causes wild animals and their habitats to be threatened by economic exploitation efforts. Residents around the territorial forest that were affected by territoriality were forced to become hunters to make a living. The state apparatus also cannot be separated in taking advantage of opportunities to be involved in hunting wild animals. Illegal hunting is a supplier for the trade in wild animals involving various modes of sale. The lives of wild animals have truly been threatened by making them commodities. The food chain has changed by making economic rents the main predator for wildlife.

Why implantation of bio-loggers may improve our understanding of how animals cope within their natural environment.

Bio-loggers are miniaturized autonomous devices that record quantitative data on the state of free-ranging animals (e.g. behavior, position and physiology) and their natural environment. This is especially relevant for species where direct visual observation is difficult or impossible. Today, ongoing technical development allows the monitoring of numerous parameters in an increasing range of species over extended periods. However, the external attachment of devices might affect various aspects of animal performance (energetics, thermoregulation, foraging as well as social and reproductive behavior), which ultimately affect fitness. External attachment might also increase entanglement risk and the conspicuousness of animals, leaving them more vulnerable to predation. By contrast, implantation of devices can mitigate many of these undesirable effects and might be preferable, especially for long-term studies, provided that the many challenges associated with surgical procedures can be mastered. Implantation may then allow us to gather data that would be impossible to obtain otherwise and thereby may provide new and ecologically relevant insights into the life of wild animals. Here, we: (i) discuss the pros and cons of attachment methods; (ii) highlight recent field studies that used implanted bio-loggers to address eco-physiological questions in a wide range of species; and (iii) discuss logger implantation in light of ethical considerations.

Fuzzy risk assessment modelling of wild animal life in Bijar protected area

Bijar protected area (BPA) is suffering from land use change and livestock grazing. Since 1977, the number of main species (Ovis orientalis gmelini) living in BPA has reduced from 2000 to 435. In order to study the wild animal life (WAL) risk of BPA, a Fuzzy model in Geographical information system (GIS) environment and remote sensing was utilized. The seven selected input indices for the model were 'BPA conversion rate', 'Natural resource', 'Population density', 'Population growth rate', 'Social status', ' Security threat', and 'Livelihood status'. BPA conversion rate was obtained based on Landsat 8 Satellite images of 2016 and agricultural area maps of BPA villages. The weight and Fuzzy rules ranges of the sub-indices were created based on an expert opinion survey (questionnaire) developed according to the related literature. Sub-indices were union in vector format in the GIS environment to acquire the main indices and they were overly in raster format based on Fuzzy membership functions to obtain the WAL risk in three levels of high, moderate and low. Results showed that the areas with high risk were (i) agricultural lands, (ii) lands that underwent use change (rangelands to agricultural lands), (iii) areas with a large number of livestock, (iv) areas within the proximity to roads, and (v) areas far from the protected stations. From the results it can be concluded that low level of livelihood, low number of protective stations and weak protective regulations are the main reasons behind increasing WAL risk in BPA.

Wild animal suffering and vegan outreach

Ng’s strategic proposal seems to downplay the potential benefits of advocacy for wild animals and omit what may be the most effective strategy to reduce the harms farmed animals suffer: vegan outreach. Eze Paez, lecturer in moral and political philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, studies normative and applied ethics, especially ontological and normative aspects of abortion and the moral consideration of nonhuman animals. He is a member of Animal Ethics. upf.academia.edu/ezepaez Underestimating the importance of wild animal suffering. Ng’s (2016) view is not that animal advocates should focus only on farmed animals, to the exclusion of those that live in the wild. He concedes that our efforts must also be directed toward raising awareness of the harms suffered by animals in nature. Nonetheless, he seems to suggest that these efforts should be minimal relative to those devoted to reducing the harms farmed animals suffer. Ng underestimates the potential benefits of advocacy for wild animals in terms of net reduction in suffering perhaps because he is overestimating people’s resistance to caring about wild animals and to intervening in nature on their behalf. He may also be underestimating the magnitude and moral importance of wild animal suffering, even though in 1995 it was Ng himself who emphasized the predominance of suffering over positive wellbeing in nature. In 2016 Ng writes that “we should put [...] more [emphasis] on the environment and true welfare for both humans and other animals”; that “[t]he additional consideration of animal welfare further strengthens the case for greater conservation and against environmental disruption”; and that “it may be that environmental and animal welfare protection is not really costly at all.” Here Ng is implicitly assuming that environmental conservation and the reduction of animal suffering are compatible aims. That may be true regarding the suffering of farmed animals. But it appears to be at odds with Ng’s own analysis (1995), according to which suffering vastly outweighs positive well-being in the lives of wild animals. Omitting vegan outreach. According to Ng (2016) “the initial focus of animal welfare advocates [should] be on reducing the enormous gratuitous suffering in factory farming.” He is concerned to find the most effective strategies for achieving that aim. Yet of the several potential regulations he considers, only one is related to factory farming (better regulation Animal Sentience 2016.087: Paez Commentary on Ng on Animal Suffering 2 of the chicken industry). There is one other example from the food industry (fish mongers), but it concerns small-scale local practices rather than factory farming. One wonders why Ng focuses on such examples to further what he regards as our initial priority rather than other strategies, affecting many more animals. Perhaps this is because Ng is only concerned in this paper with strategies for reducing suffering through institutional change (e.g., legal reform). Within the set of regulation-oriented strategies, those he mentions might indeed be the most cost-effective ones to pursue. Yet if our goal is to reduce the suffering of farmed animals, other strategies might be more beneficial. Analyses by meta-charities suggest that vegan outreach is a more effective strategy to help farmed animals. This is the strategy of convincing individuals that they must cease to consume animal products, for the sake of the animals themselves. The costs of lobbying to achieve legal reform are simply too high, and the gains in nonhuman wellbeing too low in comparison. Presently, through legal reform one can only hope to attain better regulations against cruelty, or a prohibition of practices which affect relatively few individuals (such as foie gras production). In contrast, according to the estimates of Animal Charity Evaluators, with merely $1,000 an organisation dedicated to vegan outreach would spare 13,200 animals from suffering and dying in the industry (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2014). The kind of advocacy Ng proposes can make a difference for many animals. But vegan outreach may have a greater impact, both for short-term behavioural changes and long-term attitudinal ones. This suggests that, in line with Ng’s own aims, what we ought to do for farmed animals is the most effective vegan outreach possible.

Microbiological Analysis and Antibiotic Sensitivity of Water for Wild Animals in Nandankanan Zoo, Odisha

The incidence and prevalence of bacterial pathogens affecting zoo animals is increasing due to consumption of contaminated water containing the various persistent bacterial pathogens with increased antimicrobial resistance. The consumption of this antimicrobial resistance water causes transmission of several water borne bacterial diseases. Hence to save the lives of wild animals and to protect the ecological balance of our environment, a critical routine systemic analysis of supplied water with good monitoring practice and development of a database for routine screening of the water for captive animals is very much essential. So, the experiment was conducted to assess the microbial load in the form of CFU/ml and the identification of antibiotic resistant bacteria by antibiotic resistance test (ABST) in the supplied water from the enclosure pools at Nandankanan Zoo, Odisha. It was found that several bacterial isolates like E. coli, Pseudomonas spp, Salmonella and Corynebacterium spp are exclusively present in this contaminated water based on the cultural, morphological and biochemical characterization. Under antibiotic sensitivity test (ABST), tetracycline and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim was found resistant for E.coli in all the collected samples of wild animal species including birds and reptiles. Cephalothin and Sulfisoxazole were moderately resistance to E. coli in case of birds whereas Gentamycin and Neomycin were moderately resistance to the sample collected from Lions enclosure.

Refusing Help and Inflicting Harm: a Critique of the Environmentalist View

Due to a variety of natural causes, suffering predominates over well-being in the lives of wild animals. From an antispeciesist standpoint that considers the interests of all sentient individuals, we should intervene in nature to benefit these animals, provided that the expectable result is net positive. However, according to the environmentalist view the aim of benefiting wild animals cannot justify intervening in nature. In addition, harmful human interventions can sometimes be justified. This view assumes that (i) certain entities such as ecosystems or species have intrinsic value, and that (ii) at least sometimes these values are more important than nonhuman well-being. In this article I review the arguments in support of this view advanced by three prominent environmentalists (Albert Schweitzer, Paul W. Taylor and J. Baird Callicott) and show how none of them succeed at grounding these assumptions.

Thinking about television audiences: Entertainment and reconstruction in nature documentaries

Documentary reconstruction is a creative production decision which involves reconstructing a reality or event rather than filming it as it occurs spontaneously. This article studies the use of the resource in the filming of nature documentaries for the series El Hombre y la Tierra. All of the action scenes in the series were reconstructions, which required rehearsals and involved a large amount of editing work. Without documentary reconstruction and the handling of animals it would have been impossible to film the majority of the hunting sequences, and the series never would have achieved the success that it did. Even today El Hombre y la Tierra is a point of reference in entertainment in nature documentaries and continues to raise debate about how to communicate the lives of wild animals in a respectful and truthful way to ever more demanding audiences, as well as about the need for, and boundaries of, entertainment in scientific television programmes.

Pesticides and the British Environment: An Agricultural Perspective

Abstract Pesticides formed an essential part of the post-war 'chemical revolution' in British farming. Advantage is taken of surviving files of the Ministry of Agriculture to extend what might otherwise be learned from the archives of the nature-conservation bodies in reconstructing historically the course and significance of moves to protect the environment from the side-effects of such pesticides. The files reveal how, from the very first reports of the unintended impacts upon horticultural crops, the manufacturers and users of such products were required to heed the consequences for other user-interests in the countryside. However circumstantial the environmental evidence might be, such impacts on game and wild-animal life warned of a potential risk of the more-persistent pesticide residues to human health itself.