Category: Research

2019 Excellence in Wilderness Stewardship Research

January 5, 2020 erinwilligan

national assessment of conservation values (a) and climate-change vulnerability as has been indicated by forward climate velocity (b) to guide conservation strategies (c)

January 6, 2020

Saving Nature’s Dr. Clinton Jenkins in collaboration with the Wilderness Society was recently recognized by the U.S. Forest Service for a pair of papers he co-authored with a team of scientists exploring how to set conservation priorities in an era of climate change. The papers consider how the migration of species challenges traditional approaches and suggest an approach to anticipate future priorities.

2019 Excellence in Wilderness Stewardship Research

The U.S. Forest Service has awarded a team of scientists, including Saving Nature’s Dr. Clinton Jenkins, with their 2019 Excellence in Wilderness Stewardship Research. The award recognizes their innovative spatial assessment of conservation values that provides guidance on conservation strategies for the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS). In this pair of award-winning papers, the authors consider how to set conservation priorities and management strategies to build resilience and protect biodiversity in an era of climate change.

The team, led by Travis Belote of the Wilderness Society, investigated how to best maintain biodiversity and ecological processes in the face of habitat fragmentation and climate change, while considering what a resilient system of protected areas in the United States would look like. The team developed maps that visualized ecological integrity, connectivity, representation of ecosystems, and biodiversity priorities. Their analysis revealed that wilderness areas are of high conservation value, but their quality depends on the protection level of surrounding lands. These maps provide an important visual reference to land managers for evaluating the relationship between the National Wilderness Preservation System and other public and private lands.

In their first paper, “Wild, connected, and diverse: building a more resilient system of protected areas.“, the authors construct an approach for delivering a more resilient system for protecting the nation’s biological heritage. In doing so, they use geospatial data to assess priorities for expanding protected areas within the contiguous United States to include the least human‐modified wildlands, establish a connected network, and better represent ecosystem diversity and hotspots of biodiversity.

In their second paper, “Mapping Conservation Strategies under a Changing Climate”, the authors rethink conservation strategies in an era of climate change. Rather than focusing on protecting ecosystems within reserves and restoring degraded lands that were missing key historical structures, processes, or species, they explore how to integrate climate induced factors, like invasive species and cross reserve boundaries create moving targets for preservation and restoration.

In doing so, the authors construct a wildland conservation value by mapping indices of ecological integrity, connectivity, and ecosystem and endemic-species representation in protected areas. They cross-reference these areas with a climate vulnerability assessment to identify areas where conservation interventions are most critical.

Categories: Climate Change, News, Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science, Science Corner

The Health of Our Oceans: Seabirds as Sentinels.

September 16, 2019 erinwilligan

September 16, 2019

The Bird Catchers

A FILM BY JAMES ROBINSON

Sooty terns have been returning to the Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys to breed from mid-January through July for untold years. Scientists have been there to meet them since the 1930’s. An ambitious research project has collected decades of data on over 500,000 birds to help reveal the secrets of their life at sea.

Scientists can learn a lot from the terns about climate change and the health of our oceans. Because of the extensive area covered on their ocean journeys, terns are yielding new insights about how humans are altering the planet. Unfortunately, most of the insights come from mortalities of the terns.

But first, they have to catch them.

We recently got a unique perspective on what it takes to monitor the 500,000 sooty terns that have been banded over the life of the project. Created by James Robinson, a student at Duke University, we see the project through the eyes of young scientists following in the footsteps of Dr. Pimm to collect the data needed to understand our planet through the journey of the terns.

Play Video

In the eight decades since research began, sooty tern populations on the Dry Tortugas have dropped 84 percent, from 3 million birds to around 350,000. Their struggles could point to troubling changes in our oceans and our climate. Rising sea levels are flooding nesting grounds. More frequent and intense storms are battering terns in the open ocean. Over-fishing is depleting their food supply.

What We’ve Learned About Hurricanes

Dr. Ryan Huang, a scientist from Duke University led a recent study on the connection between hurricanes and seabird deaths. A new map produced by the research shows that sooty terns leave their breeding colony at Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys each June as hurricane season starts. They migrate southward and eastward across the Caribbean through summer and early fall, before skirting the northern coast of South America and arriving at their winter habitat off the Atlantic coast of Brazil in November.

Huang and his colleagues charted the migratory path by recording and mapping the dates and locations of all sooty terns banded for study at the Dry Tortugas since the 1950’s but found dead elsewhere. They also mapped locational data retrieved from birds that were fitted with satellite-telemetry tracking tags. When they overlaid all this data with maps of hurricane paths from the same period, they discovered a striking correlation between bird deaths and hurricanes.

Migration itself is a very stressful, very taxing process for these birds to undergo,” said Huang. “Encountering a storm adds even more stress, forcing the birds to fight strong winds and rain. Those that can’t handle that will likely die.” Unlike many shorebirds, sooty terns do not have special feather oils to help repel water, so they’re susceptible to drowning.

What We’ve Learned About Overfishing

In another recent study, tern feathers provided insights into the effects of overfishing. The feathers gave the scientists a window into broad changes in the terns’ diets over time. Starting at the end of the last century, presumably due to overfishing, the terns started eating more squid and small crustaceans, and fewer fish.

The change in diet corresponded with a decline in the sooty tern population. Fish are loaded with protein and fats and as such are a nourishing food source for seabirds and their fast-growing chicks; squid and crustaceans are not a good alternative.

Please support conservation efforts that fight climate change. For the terns. For all of us.

Categories: Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science Corner

Helping Species Adapt to Climate Change

July 11, 2019 Stuart Pimm 2 Comments

Help species trying to escape climate change. Help Saving Nature plant trees to offset your carbon footprint and give species an escape route.

July 19, 2019

In the face of climate change, species are fleeing to the poles and to higher elevations. Saving Nature is trying to help them get there.

HELPING SPECIES ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Every year, the world’s increasing population adds approximately 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from industry, agriculture, forestry, utilities, and transportation.

Deforestation — of which the burning of tropical forests is the major component — contributes about 10% of these emissions. It is also the principal driver of biodiversity loss.

Our unrelenting carbon dioxide emissions have surpassed the planet’s ability to absorb these greenhouse gases, leading to climate disruption and species extinctions.

Species Moving to Higher Elevations as the Climate Warms

While governments struggle with finding solutions for climate change, species must seek higher ground with habitable temperatures for their survival.

Even under the most optimistic scenarios, we aren’t going to reduce the high levels of carbon dioxide anytime soon. Species do not have the option of waiting. They are moving towards the poles and, in the tropics, to higher elevations. That is, when they can.

Some species may not reach the refuge of higher elevations and will go extinct. The cycle of deforestation and climate change blocks their passage through degraded wastelands. As a result, they become trapped them in an uninhabitable landscape, dooming them to extinction.

Evidence from a 40-year Study: 1978 vs. 2018

Ph.D. student, German Forero-Medina, under the direction of Dr. Pimm, examined the distribution of birds along an elevation gradient in the mountains of Peru. Forty years earlier, Dr. Pimm’s Duke colleague, John Terborgh, had surveyed this same mountain chain at various elevations.

Returning to the original sites and using the same methods, the team compared where the birds are now versus in the past. Simply, they are at higher elevations — though not as high as one expects.

This suggests that the already threatened birds in the isolated patches of forest are in deep trouble. Isolation is bad enough, the inability to move to higher elevations is even worse news.

Saving Nature Builds Corridors to Safe Harbors

Our approach is a simple, effective, and scalable solution to reducing carbon dioxide and preventing extinctions. Restoring degraded land and reconnecting isolated forests achieves two objectives – it absorbs atmospheric carbon emissions and helps species adapt to climate change by finding safe harbor.

Simply put, the corridors we create in biodiversity hotspots connect forest fragments and liberate species trapped and isolated in increasingly inhospitable habitats. By reconnecting isolated forests, we create vital migration routes for species seeking higher ground.

In doing so, we get massive leverage by financing local partners to buy relatively small amounts of land to create significant protected refuges and strategic connections. Merging isolated forest fragments is critical to facilitating colonization of previously inaccessible areas. Doing so diversifies genetics and builds resiliency. In this era of climate change, the forest corridors also serve as the routes to survival as the climate warms.

How Can You help?

We will continue to use both science and savvy to connect, protect, and restore forest corridors. We invite you to join us in this ambitious effort!

Donating to Saving Nature puts trees in the ground for biodiversity, and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. In short, supporting Saving Nature helps fight the two most pressing environmental problems the world faces—mass species extinction and global warming—at the same time!

Categories: Birds, Carbon Offsets, Climate Change, Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science

Lessons in Camera Trapping

October 26, 2018 erinwilligan

October 26, 2018

by Bridgette Keane

LESSONS IN CAMERA TRAPPING

As a student at Duke University, I worked with Dr. Stuart Pimm during the spring to plan a trip to monitor protected areas in Ecuador and Colombia that his organization is working to connect and restore. As part of the “camera trap team,” I spent a semester familiarizing myself with the use of camera traps for conservation work. This involved skimming dozens of scientific articles and reviewing different camera trap models from outdoor retail websites.

Once I arrived in the field, I realized that you can only learn so much from websites and articles. I was lucky to have received advice from Dr. Jim Sanderson about how to set-up camera traps. His guidance helped reduce the amount of troubleshooting we needed to conduct in the field.

We visited two project locations, starting with the Jama Coaque Reserve, run by the Third Millennium Alliance. We then travelled to La Mesenia in the Colombian Western Andes, run the The Hummingbird Conservancy for our second installation.

Navigating the Owner’s Manual

We spent the first few days at Jama Coaque placing traps on nearby trails to evaluate various camera settings. Basic recording options included pictures, videos, or both – but there was so much more to consider.

Other settings included image/video format and size, LED control (how many LEDs you want to go o for night images), motion sensor level (how sensitive you want the sensor to be set to), and the time interval between pictures (how long you want the camera to wait before it takes another picture/video if it is being triggered many times in a row).

Setting Our Traps

Once we actually started positioning cameras in the field, I quickly discovered that there was much more to think about than just the camera settings, as Jim Sanderson had warned me. First of all, I was not familiar with the reserve. I came in with an idea of a placement pattern for monitoring the corridor. Once there, I realized that placing the traps depended much more on the trails and in some cases, security issues.

I had to do my best to crawl my way through game trails, scouting locations in the path of animals, but away from people. I carried a machete to clear any vines or branches along the trails near the camera. Anything moving in the wind in front of the camera may inadvertently trigger it.

Finding the right spot was just one of the many challenges to placing camera traps. My days in the field usually involved hiking for hours up steep hillsides to a predetermined GPS location. Once there, I spent another hour finding the right tree, clearing the area, and positioning the camera. (Picture me jamming sticks behind it to get the perfect angle and checking the line of sight by squatting in front of it, resulting in some wonderful photos).

Unexpected Discoveries

As we learned the in’s and out’s of camera trapping, we start rethinking the technology’s possibilities. In the short-term we simply wanted to understand what species are using wildlife corridors in various stages of renewal. For the Jama Coaque Reserve, it was especially important to monitor areas of forest that were newly restored.

We were beyond thrilled to find ample movement of various species through very young forest in just the two weeks that we spent at the site. The most surprising and exciting discovery was a video of an ocelot moving through forest that was open cattle pasture just a few years ago.

Our two week stay at the reserve at La Mesenia, Colombia was even more challenging from a terrain perspective. The hikes were steeper, longer, and much more treacherous. They often took an entire day and needed to be planned out with and led by one of the reserve’s local rangers. In the short time we had at the reserve, it was simply too difficult to check them. However, our partners will be checking the cameras regularly to make sure they are running properly and will hopefully find some quality videos!

A View From the Canopy

For long-term research, the camera trapping project in Jama Coaque will next extend into the canopy. The idea is to record pictures and videos of animals that rarely come down to the ground. The research team will also pair each canopy trap with one on the ground. This protocol for corridor monitoring transcends the typical limits of camera traps by expanding camera placement to include a vertical dimension. As a result, we’ll have a more complete picture of how the entire forest is being used.

Ongoing Research

The team in La Mesenia is also shaping a long-term plan to monitor species moving through the corridor. As we collect date over the long-term, we will better understand what species use the corridors as they mature. These insights will help conservation scientists understand how to best reverse the dynamics of forest fragmentation and help species have access to the resources they need.

Please support our research into the science of wildlife corridors and species recovery. Your support helps mentor young scientists.

Categories: Camera Trapping, Ecuador, Research, Saving Nature Collection

Protecting 20% of Land to Save Two-Thirds of Plant Species

September 5, 2013 erinwilligan

September 5, 2013

You’ve heard the adage, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” But new research by Saving Nature scientists offers an amazing conservation ‘deal’. Backed up by top-flight science and data, it’s too good to pass up. So what is the deal? The new paper, published today in Science, was co-authored by Saving Nature founder Stuart Pimm and Vice President Clinton Jenkins, and by Lucas Joppa of Microsoft Research, who completed his Ph.D. with Pimm.

PROTECTING A FIFTH OF THE WORLD'S LAND TO SAVE TWO-THIRDS OF ALL PLANT SPECIES

The key finding of the paper is that protecting a fifth of the world’s land area will save two-thirds of the world’s endemic plant species. Using the Kew Gardens plant database, the authors looked at the geographical distributions of 110,000 plant species. From this analysis, the researchers identified the smallest set of regions that contain the largest number of plant species.

They discovered that nearly two-thirds of the world’s plants occur in just 17 percent of the world’s land. The bad news is that less than a sixth of that 17 percent is currently protected. “Our study identifies regions of importance. The logical – and very challenging – next step will be to make tactical local decisions within those regions to secure the most critical land for conservation.” Pimm said.

Incorporating years of data, Jenkins created a detailed, color-coded map of Earth. The map illustrates where endemic plants are concentrated. This information helps conservation ecologists, policy makers, and economists to prioritize locations for conservation eorts. Because of ecological food webs, protecting endemic plants not only helps save rare plant species—it helps save dependent species, such as specialist herbivores, epiphytes and so on. “We also mapped small-ranged birds, mammals and amphibians, and found that they are broadly in the same places we show to be priorities for plants,” said Jenkins. “So preserving these lands for plants will benefit many animals, too,” he said.

According to Pimm, to achieve biodiversity conservation goals, the world needs to protect more land than we currently do and much more in key places such as Madagascar, Colombia, and coastal Brazil. These are all places where Saving Nature works.

Saving Nature relies on cutting-edge science to make its conservation decisions. With the limited amount of conservation funding available, we must use the best science to maximize the number of threatened species of wildlife and plants we can save. The report’s findings truly oer conservationists a great deal.

SCIENTIFIC NOTE: The work in Science focused on endemic species of plants. Endemic species exist only in specific places, such as a particular mountain range or forest. Endemic species are typically very rare, because of their limited geographical distribution. Endemic plants are also crucial to ecosystems that support other endangered species and, more broadly, biodiversity. Because they exist only in one place, endemic plants are often hosts for other endemic species that depend on them—insects, animals, and even other plants such as epiphytes.

Categories: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science, Science Corner, Sumatra

Data Shows Limited Recovery for Hawaiian Sea Turtle

May 26, 2013 Stuart Pimm

Two green turtles basking. Courtesy Mark Sully, NOAA/NMFS Hawaii Monk Seal Research Program. Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

May 26, 2013

By Stuart Pimm

Historical Data Suggests Hawaiian Sea Turtle Recovery is Limited

Hawaii is famous for its tranquil beaches, surfing, and for pairing pineapple with pizza. But it is Hawaii’s green sea turtles that are one of the most popular tourist draws today.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists trek to Oahu’s North Shore every year to see these creatures haul out of the ocean to bask on the sand under the tropical sun.

The turtles seem so numerous today it is easy to forget that only a few decades ago most feared their extinction. The population had been harvested for food – like fish – by local residents and for a commercial fishery that targeted turtles. All harvests were banned in 1978, however, and surveys by NOAA scientists have documented a steady increase in nesting at one rookery ever since.

As a result of this rebound, some have called for the species to be removed from federal protection, de-listed as a threatened species, and for harvests to reopen.

A new study published in the journal Ecography, however, demonstrates that 80% of the historically major nesting sites for the population are extirpated or dramatically reduced and shows how this concentrates the risks posed by climate change.

The authors of this synthesis represented a diverse collaboration of ecologists, geographers, and historians – in what’s become known as the discipline of historical ecology.

Historical ecology is deceivingly simple.

Modern scientific data are chronologically limited, forcing scientists to look at proxies such as ice cores, sediments, or tree rings for long-term data sets. In historical ecology, researchers mine historical records for any information on the abundance, distribution, or demographics of wild populations.

Art, restaurant menus, ethnography, newspaper articles, and naval journals have all shown to be rich sources of information for species as diverse as Atlantic cod, African rhinos – and Hawaiian sea turtles.

I think most ecologists are fascinated by the idea of historical ecology. Who wouldn’t want to travel centuries back in time and see wild nature?” said study author Dr. Kyle Van Houtan, who leads NOAA’s Marine Turtle Assessment Program, based in Honolulu.

The question with historical observations has always been how they might be organized to inform conservation management today.”

Gaining Insights Before Exploitation

To answer that question, Dr. Van Houtan and his team scoured historical information in a host of museums, libraries, and Internet databases like Google Books and Project Gutenberg. They were rewarded with hundreds of historical accounts of sea turtles in Hawaii.

In Hawaii today, more than 90% of the green turtles nest on a low-lying coral atoll in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. However the study found nesting was significant and widespread across Hawaii, even a major nesting area on the island of Lanai that was hunted to oblivion shortly after World War I.

This historical perspective this study provides is important then for context for the recent decades. Many species on the U.S. Endangered Species Act were listed there in the 1970s, when their populations were at all-time historical low points.

According to Dr. Van Houtan, “the unprecedented modern population bottlenecks probably are not the basis for setting recovery targets, healthy populations are. This is where historical data are useful – to give insights before exploitation.”

The study appeared this week in the Early View at the journal Ecography. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2013.00245.x/abstract

Categories: Hawaii, Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science

Oil and Gas Can Coexist with a Thriving Amazon

May 16, 2013 Stuart Pimm

May 16, 2013

by Stuart Pimm

Oil and Gas Development Does Not have to Destroy the Amazon

When one thinks of the Amazon, it is usually of lush rainforests or indigenous people living amongst a wild landscape. Certainly, that is part of the Amazon’s story, but there is more, some of which may be a surprise. There is a good chance that the Amazon also produced the gasoline that powered your car today. The vast forest holds not just biological and cultural riches, but also hydrocarbon riches. The font line of the conflict between a wilderness wonderland and the modern petrochemical age is the western Amazon, one of the most biologically and culturally diverse zones on Earth.

A Framework of Best Practices for Hydrocarbon Development in the Amazon

Now a new scientific study by NGS grantees Clinton Jenkins and Matt Finer, along with engineering expert Bill Powers of E-Tech International, proposes a 10-point framework of best-practices for hydrocarbon development in the Amazon.

By combining advanced engineering criteria with consideration of ecological and social concerns, they present solutions for reducing the many potential impacts of hydrocarbon development.

For example, by using extended reach drilling (ERD), a technique to reach a larger subsurface area from a single drilling location, it is possible to greatly reduce the total number of needed drilling platforms as well as access roads for a given project, says Clinton Jenkins of North Carolina State University.

Using ERD along with other key components of best practice, such as reduced pipeline right-of-way and a prohibition on new access roads, could reduce project-related deforestation by more than 75 percent.

Avoiding Conflicts

According to Clinton Jenkins, it is not just better engineering that can prevent problems. The vast majority of currently planned drilling wells, production platforms and pipeline routes overlap sensitive areas such as protected areas, indigenous territories, critical ecosystems and vital watersheds. By identifying these types of potentially conflictive overlaps early in the planning process, best practice can be essential to avoiding future conflicts.

While the findings in this study will be applicable across the Amazon, the direct focus is the department of Loreto, a vast Amazonian region in northern Peru that is home to extraordinary biological and cultural diversity. Loreto recently made headlines when the Peruvian government declared an environmental state of emergency following years of extensive oil contamination.

In the words of author Dr. Matt Finer of the Center for International Environmental Law,

Loreto makes an ideal case study because it is one of the largest and most dynamic hydrocarbon zones in the Amazon. Following the state of emergency, there is an added urgency to develop methods to minimize the impacts of any future development.”

The study also concludes that utilizing best practices should not increase project costs and may actually be cheaper in the long run. According to author Bill Powers of E-Tech International, “The engineering section of the guidelines addresses the full range of key project components. In addition to greatly reducing negative impacts such as deforestation, we found that best practice does not impose substantially greater costs than a conventional project, and may in fact reduce overall costs.”

The research was funded in part by the National Geographic Society.

Categories: Peru, Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science

Biodiversity Needs You – and your Smartphone!

May 11, 2011 Stuart Pimm

Photograph of a coastal horned lizard about to be entered into INaturalist. Photo by Ken - ichi Ueda.

May 9, 2011

by Stuart Pimm

Biodiversity Needs You and Your Smartphone

Our knowledge of biodiversity is not good. We don’t know the names of most species. For the ones that we do, we don’t know where they once lived, let alone where they live now. It’s even worse for species that are rare, for they may soon not live anywhere.

Now, armed with your iPhone and a great new app, you — and I do mean you — can change all that.

First, the prosaic details. We have over a million scientific names for animals and about 350,000 names for flowering plants. There are probably another 15% more flowering plant species waiting to be discovered.

For animals — which are mostly insects — best guesses — and I do mean guesses! — involve several million. So, the great majority are unknown.

It gets worse. We have maps of geographic ranges for only a tiny fraction of species worldwide — birds, mammals, and amphibians.

For only some countries do we have some other species. The British, living on their cold, damp sceptred isle off the continent at the very bottom of the international league table of biodiversity, seem to have maps of just about everything. “Another Eden”, according to Shakespeare; perhaps, but they don’t have many species to worry about.

How do we produce those maps? The conventional way is to go to museums, look at the specimens there, and record where they were collected.

That’s so 19^th Century!

Now, the news. All this is about to change with that 21^st Century innovation — the smart phone — and a great new project that started when Dr. Scott Loarie of the Carnegie Institute for Science at Stanford, in California teamed up with Ken-ichi Ueda, a software developer in Silicon Valley.

Scott also lives in Silicon Valley, spends hours in front of a computer writing code, and fills out many of the boxes on the checklist of being a nerdy techie. So you have to watch my video of him: he isn’t.

In the field, he moves from flowers to birds to lizards with an enthusiasm that is instantly infectious. I’ve never met anyone who is so passionate about the outdoors of California and few with such a wide ranging knowledge of its natural history.

“I study the impact of land use change and climate change on biodiversity.”

Holding up a coastal horned lizard, (Phrynosoma coronatum) Scott asks:

If I wanted to know where this lizard survives and where it doesn’t, I’d go to a museum and look at all the specimens collected over the last 100 years or so. It used to live in most of the chaparral around here, in the Bay Area of San Francisco.”

“But this is one of those species that is rapidly disappearing. And we’re not exactly sure why. It may be climate change. It may be changes to the ants that make up its diet. It might be the urban sprawl that is isolating its habitat.”

“We need to know exactly where this species persists. And, we need more data.”

Scott’s solution is not an army of well-funded professionals with sophisticated equipment. That isn’t going to happen. He wants you — the citizen scientist and a piece of equipment you likely already own — your iPhone. And, of course the App.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

The simplest way to do things is to take a photo of an animal or plant, upload it to the web — at www.inaturalist.org — along with the location where you saw it.

That’s so late 20^th Century!

— not that I want to discourage you. Your smart phone, however, is technology straight from Star Trek. You point, you click, it takes a photo, it records your exact location using the build in GPS and the application uploads this to the web site.

My fellow Trekkies, will naturally sing Commander Data’s song “life forms, tiny little life forms … where are you?” while they do this.

Doing this (whether singing or not) helps with the problem as old as time — we all tend to put things off. After that long day in the field, it’s all too easy to forget. Now, you can record a species the moment you see it.

So what happens if I don’t know the name of my species, or am unsure? The world can help — putting the observation up means others can comment, help, discuss, argue, threatened duels with feather dusters at 50 paces over rival interpretations — all that kind of thing.

Bird people have many places to share their observations. It’s a great community tool, one that works well. Yes, birders make mistakes, or see something that they cannot identify, and make outrageous claims. We know so very much more about where bird species are found worldwide than we do for any other group of species, because citizen science is both nurturing and demanding.

In time, the collections of observations on iNaturalist are going to provide a unique record of where a given species lives. And with more time, we’ll understand more about how that “where” is changing.

iNaturalist also works “backwards,” too.

One can ask: what species am I likely to find on (say) Mount Diablo, in California — where I interviewed Scott?

When Scott first met Ken-ichi, iNaturalist was a social network for naturalists. Scott quickly persuaded Ken-ichi that beyond the potential of getting citizen scientists together with each other for fun was the chance to unite them with scientists to tackle one of the most pressing environmental issues of our age.

iNaturalist is intentionally subversive, in another way too. Scott told me.

What I think is so compelling about iNaturalist is that we are using these technologies — iPhones, apps — that are cutting us off from the natural world. Too often, these are keeping us indoors, narrowing our focus. Now we’re using them to get back out in nature. To the extent we can use this new tool to get people enjoying the outdoors, tuning in with the world around them, that’s a great thing!”

Categories: Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science, Technology

Pythons in Florida Everglades

September 6, 2009 Stuart Pimm 1 Comment

Burmese python caught in Everglades National Park Photo courtesy NPS

September 6, 2009

By Stuart Pimm

Special Contributor to National Geographic Voices

Pythons have invaded the Everglades, where they flourish in warm, wet habitat that has an abundant buffet of native species to feast on.

The giant snakes were imported to North America as pets, but released or escaped into Florida’s wetlands they are proliferating, challenging alligators for the top of the food chain, and potentially positioning themselves to invade much more of the United States.

Conservation biologist Stuart Pimm has dedicated his life to protecting species–but an infestation of 16-foot alien snakes in Florida’s iconic Everglades National Park has got him wondering how to eradicate this one. He is worried about the impact on indigenous species–and what could happen if pet owners release other big reptiles into the watery wilderness.

Everglades National Park, Florida

Most April mornings for the last 15 years have started well before dawn, with a cup of coffee and the drive into Everglades National Park. We’re in the helicopter while the sun is still below the horizon. No brilliant conversation at this hour.

Through my headset I hear, “Seven eight four, one six three bravo hotel.” A women’s voice echoes, “seven eight four, one six three bravo hotel.” Our pilot replies, “heading west from the Beard Center to 80 46 30, 25, 41 15, four souls on board, two and half hours of fuel.” The women’s voice repeats the numbers.

“Roger that, thank you,” and the conversation ends. There is no chit chat. We let the Park know where we’re going just in case the helicopter breaks down–which happens, but not often.

The sun is still not up and the colors are muted. The stands of pine trees are dark green, the prairies are dark buff. There’s a mist over them, gray in this light, but thin, translucent, rumpled by the most gentle breeze. Anything stronger would destroy the veil. It’s thin enough, sometimes, that I will stand with my head above it when we land.

The helicopter leaves and I listen in complete solitude. There’s a faint “bzzzz” to the north, so I check “one” on my clipboard. The Cape Sable sparrow– one of the rarest birds in North America and one found only in the Florida Everglades, is at home.

I know what you want to ask. Alone–and a very long, tough walk from the nearest road–what happens if I run into an alligator (there are lots of them), or a cottonmouth (you smell them first), or a Burmese python? A Burmese python?

The alligator and cottonmouth belong in the Everglades, but I really don’t relish the prospect of meeting a 4-meter (13-foot) constrictor, curled up on her eggs, as I wait for the helicopter to return to pick me up. I’m just not a snake person. And the pythons do not belong there.

There are snake people, of course. And the problem is that there are people who thought they were snake people, but grew out of it. Well, the snake grew them out of it, more correctly.

One of the Ten Largest Snakes in the World

The Burmese python grows to be one of the ten largest snakes in the world. Without doubt, it’s a beautiful animal. And a very popular pet. Type the name into Google and you immediately get advice on how to care for one.

It also comes with a warning too few people heed: They can grow to more than 5 meters long (16 feet) and weigh more than 80 kilos (200 pounds). And you have to feed them. And they get very large very quickly.

What starts out as a cute, mouse-eating novelty, can become a liability in a couple of years.

I talked to Dr. Nicolette Cagle, a Duke University colleague who did her Ph. D on snakes. Her husband, Mark–a vet–was an essential part of the conversation: It took both of them to hold Boa, their pet boa, as can be seen in the photo below.

Boas are snakes related to pythons and, like pythons, grow quickly to a large size. “They’re fascinating creatures,” Nicolette told me, “so many people are afraid of them–but there’s no reason to be.

For the most part, they’re even-tempered–we like to show her to school groups.”

Nicolette and Mark have had Boa since she was just over a meter (four feet) long. But handling such a large snake requires dedication.

So, what to do if you are unable to manage such a large reptile?

If you live in South Florida, the temptation often proves irresistible–you let your pet go.

Many people have done this, even though this is against the law and there are humane alternatives. The result is that today the Everglades is home to perhaps thousands of Burmese pythons. And they’re breeding.

It’s not just pythons that are immigrants in the Everglades. The waters of this unique freshwater marsh have been populated by a veritable United Nations of tropical fish species. They too were dumped by owners who tired of them.

There are green iguanas across southern Florida, too–and the list of alien species that have taken up residence in the Sunshine State goes on.

The damage that such invasive species cause is huge and, in the Everglades, many native species could be at risk. Alien species of all kinds are eating native species, or their food. Pythons could be emerging as the Everglades’ alpha predator.

On the far side of the world, the brown treesnake was responsible for eating all of Guam’s birds to extinction in the wild. That’s what can happen when an alien predator is introduced into a habitat where it has no natural enemies. (You can read more about the Guam situation on the USGS Web site.)

Python hunters have been recruited to go after the snakes in Florida. But even with the help of snake-sniffing dogs, the bag has not been impressive thus far.

What I do for a living is to understand why species go extinct– and what we can do to prevent extinction. In this case, we want to know how to make Burmese pythons extinct in the U.S. wilderness, somewhere they do not belong.

So what are this species’ vulnerabilities?

I talked to Dr. Lucas Joppa, another Duke University snake expert. “These pythons have an amazing advantage in the Everglades,” he told me. “They are superb predators on the land–and they are superb predators in water, too.”

A weakness, however, may be the python’s need for warm places to lay its eggs. After giving birth, female snakes remain with their eggs for over a month to keep them warm,” Joppa added.

Joppa thinks one way to control pythons in the Everglades may be to provide them with a kind of battery, or solar-powered electric blanket. “Create somewhere nice and warm to lay eggs and that’s where mother python will be in the breeding season.”

Ironically, pythons are threatened with extinction in the wild, Joppa noted. “They’re hunted for their skins and for their meat.”

Hiss-kabobs

Even if python stir-fry, or my personal suggestion, hiss-kabobs, might not catch on, the skins could create interesting incentives for python hunting.

Perversely, because the snake is listed by CITES — the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species — trading python skins internationally is illegal.

Burmese pythons top the list of reptiles for sale by pet dealers, but they are not the only species on the list.

Boas are a popular pet and have the same size issues as pythons. Are they and other big snakes also headed for the Everglades?

I worry that the worst is to come.

Categories: Florida, Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science

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Pythons have invaded the Everglades, where they flourish in warm, wet habitat that has an abundant buffet of native species to feast on.

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One of the Ten Largest Snakes in the World

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Hiss-kabobs

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