Snakes eat poisonous toads and steal their venom

Toads on the Japanese island of Ishima seem to be losing their evolutionary battle with snakes. Most snakes, and indeed most other animals, avoid eating toads because of the toxins in their skin. Rhabdophis tigrinus snakes, however, not only tolerate the toxins, they store the chemicals for their own defensive arsenal.

Deborah Hutchinson at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, US, and colleagues, found that snakes on Ishima had bufadienolide compounds – toad toxins – in their neck glands, while those snakes living on the toad-free island of Kinkazan had none.

The snakes are unable to synthesise their own toxins, so they can only have derived bufadienolide compounds from their diet. Hutchinson’s team confirmed this by feeding snake hatchlings either a toad-rich or a toad-free diet. Toad-fed snakes accumulated toad-toxins in the nuchal glands on the back of the neck; snakes on a toad-free diet did not.

“Rhabdophis tigrinus is the first species known to use these dietary toxins for its own defence,” says Hutchinson.

Fight or flight

What is more, when attacked, snakes on different islands react differently. On Ishima, snakes stand their ground and rely on the toxins in their nuchal glands to repel the predator. On Kinkazan, the snakes flee.

“Snakes on Kinkazan have evolved to use their nuchal glands in defence less often than other populations of snakes, presumably due to their lack of defensive compounds,” says Hutchinson.
Moreover, baby snakes benefit too. The team showed that snake mothers with high toxin levels pass on the compounds to their offspring. Snake hatchlings thus also enjoy the toad-derived protection.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas0610785104)

SOURCE URL

Congratulations to the Virgin Mother - Komodo Dragon

January 22, 2007 Chester, England, United Kingdom The product of a virgin birth, this baby komodo dragon is one of five hatchlings that made their appearance at the Chester Zoo in England this week. Their mother, Flora, never had a mate and instead reproduced asexually (Read "Virgin Birth Expected at Christmas—By Komodo Dragon" [December 2006].) This marked the second recorded incidence of asexual reproduction in a female komodo dragon, the other having taken place in April 2006 at the London Zoo. Two more of Flora's eggs have yet to hatch.

Rhinos Back To Wild

IFAW Releases Rhinos Back To Wild in India

(Assam, India – 30 January 2007) – IFAW (the International Fund for Animal Welfare, www.ifaw.org) and its partner, WTI (Wildlife Trust of India), today announced the successful release of two one-horned Asian rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) back to the wild in India with support from Assam Forest Department.

The rhinos, female calves nicknamed Manasi and Roje, were rescued from the floodwaters that annually spill over the banks of the Brahmaputra River. The pair, both three years old, were rescued in the summer of 2004 and rehabilitated at the Centre for Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC). CWRC is located near Kaziranga National Park, in North East India, and was founded in 2001 through a collaboration between WTI, IFAW and the Assam Forest Department. CWRC was one of India's first multi-species rehabilitation centres and is designed to care for a variety of animals until they are capable of surviving release back into the wild.

"The rhinos will wear radio collars for post release monitoring," said Dr. Ian Robinson, who heads up IFAW's Emergency Relief team. "We want to do everything possible to assure a successful transition back to the wild for these animals."

The rhinos were translocated from CWRC, via an overnight convoy, to Manas National Park and released at an event attended by more than 100 onlookers, wildlife experts, and dignitaries including Abhajit Rabha, Director of Manas National Park and Ritesh Bhattacharjee, Field Director of the Manas Tiger Project.

"We are confident that the rhinos will do well in Manas as we are involving not just governments but also the local people," said M.C. Malakar, Chief Wildlife Warden of Assam. "The CWRC rescue centre has helped us rescue and rear more animals than before. I thank IFAW for setting up the rescue centre with WTI."

"Manas once supported a lot of rhinos, however certain problems wiped them out. Now, as these rhino calves are released, it is good to release them in Manas as it is conductive to rhino populations," said D.M. Singh, Director Kaziranga National Park. "Earlier we would rescue animals and take them to the zoo and that was the end. But now the CWRC rescue centre has made rehabilitation into the wild a possibility."

At Manas the two rhinos will be held in an enclosure and will later join a four year old rhino that was moved there last year. IFAW and WTI released that female rhino at the same location in February 2006. It was the first rhino in Manas in more than a decade. Wild rhinos in Manas National Park, a World Heritage site, once numbered more than 100.

"The enormous effort of veterinary doctors, IFAW, the staff of the forest department, and the WTI animal keepers at the CWRC rescue centre has made this possible," said Professor P.C. Bhattacharjee of WTI.

About IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare)
Founded in 1969, IFAW works around the globe to protect animals and habitats promoting practical solutions for animals and people. To learn how you can help, please visit www.ifaw.org

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0701/S00421.htm

No real attempt to save trees

[ 17 Mar, 2003 2310hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
(situation isn't better four years later, actually worse!)

AHMEDABAD/VADODARA/SURAT: According to a scientific study, a tree with a life span of about 50 years generates Rs 3,75,000 worth of oxygen per year. It recycles Rs 4,50,000 worth of water and provides Rs 3,75,000 worth of soil erosion control and soil fertility.

It also provides Rs 7,50,000 worth of air pollution control and provides Rs 3,75,000 worth of shelter and home for animals and birds. Going by these figures, it is difficult to estimate the losses suffered by the environment in Gujarat on every Holi.

Approximately 30,000 Holi fires are lit across the state. And considering that 100 kg of wood go up in flames in each bonfire, the final figure touches a mindboggling 30,00,000 kg of wood and, in the process, taking toll of over 7,500 trees.

"These figures do not include the value of the fruit, timber and beauty the tree provides in its lifetime," says Gopal Jain of the Centre for Environment Education. However, the forest department officials argue that most of the trees used in the religious fire is 'desi bawal'. "The wood mainly comes from the farm forests," informs chief conservator of forest, Balaguru Swami.

According to N Nagori, former president of the Gujarat Timber Merchants' Association, a large chunk of the wood is brought from the Kheda district. It's mainly cut from the roadside.

Says Himanshu Nagori, president of the Ahmedabad Timber Merchants' Association, "The wood used during Holi is mostly useless." Haribhai Panchal of Sadvichar Parivar, an organisation which has been working hard to spread awareness on the issue, believes it's high time something has be done to save the environment.

"Thousands of tonnes of wood are burnt on Holi. Instead of having numerous Holis, we should have one symbolic fire. Can you imagine around four lakh kg of wood is burnt in Ahmedabad alone?" he says. Panchal recollects one instance when jail inmates had taken the Parivar's advice seriously and had a Holi fire using waste products instead of wood.

In Vadodara, if the authorities are to be believed, bonfires will consume as much as 2 lakh kg of wood.

"A housing society that has more than 100 houses would require almost 200 kg of firewood, whereas those with a lesser number of houses will utilise anywhere between 50 and 100 kg of firewood, on this day. The wood commonly used comprise neem, tamarind, gulmohar and banyan," says general secretary of International Society of Naturalist (Insona), GM Oza.

"According to a recent estimate, almost 100 to 200 kg of firewood is burnt by small as well as medium-sized societies in the city," says deputy conservator of forests, social forestry division IA Chauhan.

In Surat, at more than 300 places holika dahan will be organised and on average in each case, one to two quintals of wood would be burnt, according to chief fire officer G M Kotwal of the Surat Municipal Corporation.

Deputy forest conservator D B Patti told TNN that though vigil has been stepped up on the occasion to prevent ferrying of timbers from the forest region to the city areas, in almost all the cases, only fuel-wood, collected from fields or purchased from wood sellers, is used for the purpose.

Source URL : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/40597284.cms

Unique Sanctuary

Unique sanctuary
pls keep patience....n read the whole article.....this sanctuary...is really unik!

By NDUNG'U NJAGA

THE KITALE CONSERVANCY- a 136-hectare botanical garden with over 850 plant species , has finally been opened to the public.

The garden is owned by career educationist Boniface Ndura, who says that a country's identity should not be determined by culture only but also the uniqueness of its vegetation.

The plant species in the garden are planted systematically according to families to facilitate learning and understanding by laymen.

All the species are indigenous, depicting distinct ecosystems in Kenya, from the tropical rain forest in Kakamega, the alpine meadows on Mt Kenya to the semi-desert areas like Garissa in the northeastern.

The park is 6km from Kitale town on the Kitale-Kapenguria highway.
Mr Ndura advocates the promotion and conservation of indigenous plant species in their diversity not only for ecological usefulness but also for "our ecological identity."

The botanical garden has a special focus on endemic and endangered species and the management argues that they need to be replicated elsewhere from their original habitats to save them from extinction through the genetic drifts that affect confined gene pools.
All the traditional uses of the plants are being studied and documented to preserve the rich ethno-ecology and wisdom, that Mr Ndura says has been accumulated over prolonged periods and should not be allowed to die with the few elders scattered in various communities.

Mr Ndura says his botanical garden is a sign of what commitment can do.
"Many institutions spend huge sums of money from donors but hardly produce anything worth the name," he laments.

He says the main reason conservation fails in Africa is because of the mentality that we must be "funded" to conserve our resources, arguing that conservation is a culture and attitude.
Western Kenya has only a few natural habitats set aside for conservation of either indigenous forests or natural populations of wildlife.

The main conservation areas are the trans-boundary Mt Elgon National Park and Saiwa Swamp, the smallest national park in Kenya. Both are managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service.
While private conservation is common in the savanna areas of Machakos, Laikipia and Naivasha, it is less so in western Kenya.

At Endebbess, there is the Delta Crescent Sanctuary, which was hitherto the only successful sanctuary of rare species like the Rothschild giraffe and white rhino. It is also a popular tourist destination, offering camping and horse riding.

Kitale Conservancy is the second significant private conservation initiative in the area.
Besides education — its main purpose is offering recreational activities like boat riding, camping and nature walks.

Beyond the restaurant at the gate, the trail is lined with indigenous tree species from different ecosystems in Kenya and the management has documented their ecological and cultural significance to the communities where they originate.

The nature trail then winds through different habitats, among them a thick riverine forest along the Sabwani River, a tributary of the Nzoia. Then there aredry grassland and marshy land, all hosting the appropriate species.

From a conservation perspective, the most unique species are the De-Brazza's monkeys, the sitatunga and crested cranes.

The De-Brazza's monkeys is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN, or the World Conservation Union) as an endangered species in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda because its habitats are being eroded by cultivation and deforestation.

In Kenya, the species is found only in the west of the country, with pocket populations in Kakamega forest, Mt Elgon National Park and Saiwa Swamp National Park, 15 km from Kitale Conservancy.

IT IS SIGNIFICANT THAT KItale conservancy is the only private conservation area where the species occurs.

Although the monkey is shy, a patient visitor has a chance to spot it either on the nature trail along the river or near the restaurant at the main gate. The farm hosts a population of about 30 of this elegant species which are attracting researchers from different learning institutions worldwide.

The sitatunga is listed in literature as rare or locally endangered in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Lake Chad. It is the only amphibious antelope in Kenya, distinguished by its shaggy long legs with splayed hooves and spreadeagled stance. These are an evolutionary adaptation for living on boggy ground.

In Kenya, the sitatunga is found mainly on the shores of Lake Victoria and in minor pockets of western Kenya. Saiwa Swamp national park is the only protected area where sitatunga live and breed, though there is some conflict with neighbouring farmers.

The Kitale Conservancy has a 20-hectare wetland dedicated to sitatunga conservation and, with the assistance of KWS, the farm is now a sitatunga sanctuary making it the second private farm, after Lewa Downs in Nanyuki, to become a sitatunga sanctuary.

The Saiwa swamp is the only known protected area in Kenya where the Uganda crane and the black crowned crane breed.

The two cranes are unique in that they are virtually endangered due to loss of wetland habitats in the country, most of which have been reclaimed for agriculture.

While the conservancy's conservation credentials are unassailable, the farm has a controversial component.

Among the principal attractions is a set of livestock with bizarre genetic deformities.
Mr Ndura says he decided to offer sanctuary to these animals to save them from persecution.
Such animals are taboo in some communities, where they are killed immediately after birth, but Mr Ndura says they have a right to exist like other animals, adding that their presence on the farm offers great educational insight.

He says he has on several occasions hosted university students of veterinary genetics and some external scholars in the field who confess to having read about but never seen such evolutionary aberrations.

For Mr Ndura, the opening of the park to the public is the culmination of a dream nurtured since he bought the first 45 hectares of land in 1974.

He painstakingly bought more land to ensure a viable area for conservation and hopes to finally use the park to teach the public that "conservation" is not waste of agricultural land but a profitable land use as well."

http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/current/
Magazine/Magazine2201075.htm