**NEWS RELEASE** CONTACT: STEPHEN SAUTNER: (1-718-220-3682; ssautner@wcs.org) JOHN DELANEY: (1-718-220-3275; jdelaney@wcs.org)
Wildlife Conservation Society’s George Schaller Named “Hero of the Planet” by Time Magazine
NOVEMBER 13, 2007 – Renowned conservationist Dr. George Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society was recently named by Time Magazine as one of 60 “Heroes of the Planet.” He joins an elite group of environmental champions, including former Vice President Al Gore and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev.Time’s editor’s honored Dr. Schaller for his five-plus decades of work to protect some of the world’s most beloved wildlife, including pandas, tigers, gorillas, lions and many other species. He is the Vice President of Science and Exploration for the Wildlife Conservation Society, the parent organization of the Bronx Zoo.
Dr. Schaller began his career in conservation in the mid 1950s in Alaska, culminating in wildlife surveys that led to the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. From there, he initiated the first-ever biological studies of mountain gorillas, paving the way for Dian Fossey’s crusade to protect these gentle giants. Then Dr. Schaller went onto to conduct seminal wildlife studies of tigers in India, lions in the Serengeti, pandas in China, and snow leopards in Tibet. He helped establish one of the world’s largest protected areas – the 115,000 square-mile Chang Tang Reserve in Tibet, created in 1993.
In recent years, Dr. Schaller has worked in the rugged trans-boundary region shared by Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and China. There, he hopes to establish a new protected area to safeguard the spectacular and highly endangered Marco Polo sheep.
###
The Wildlife Conservation Society – Since 1895, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has worked to save wildlife and wild lands around the globe. Today WCS has field staff at work in over 60 nations, protecting many of the last wild places left on our planet. To bring the mission home, the Bronx Zoo based WCS is distinguished as the only global conservation organization that also operates the world’s largest system of urban wildlife parks, educating more than 4 million zoo and aquarium visitors each year about the importance of wildlife conservation.
-- Kim Murray Berger, Ph.D. Wildlife Ecologist Northern Rockies Field Office Wildlife Conservation Society 205 Natural Sciences Bldg. University of Montana Missoula, MT 59812 tel: 406-549-8866 mobile: 208-351-2431 email: kberger@wcs.org
Police Crack Down on Illegal Animal Trade in London
Operation Charm, an effort to target the illegal trade in traditional Chinese medicines that contain ingredients derived from endangered species, is seeing results in
Earlier this month, a rare fur dealer in
For more information on the raid in
For more information on Operation Charm, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6155244.stm and http://www.operationcharm.org/
Eric York Fondly Remembered
Eric York, field biologist and classmate of SLN director Tom McCarthy, sadly passed away on November 2nd after suddenly contracting an illness while conducing field research in Arizona. Eric is fondly remembered for his kind attitude and skill in the field.
Link to the Felidae Conservation Fund Eric York Memorial Page.
Helen Freeman, Snow Leopard Conservation Pioneer, Fondly Remembered
Source: ISLT Website
Honoring a Conservation Hero
It is with sadness that we announce the passing of Helen Freeman on September 20th after a long, courageous battle with lung disease. Helen was a remarkable woman, mother, wife, and friend. She was loved dearly and returned that love with all her heart. During her seventy five years she accomplished many things that have made the world a better place.
Born Helen Elaine Maniotas, daughter of Harry and Goldie Maniotas, on March 10, 1932, she grew up as the only child of Greek immigrants in Everett, Washington. Her parents owned and operated the London Café in Everett for over forty years and made her college education a priority. After graduating from Washington State University in 1954, she began dating Stanley Freeman. It was the simple boating trip turned shipwrecked adventure which convinced her to marry this future safety engineer. Thus began a 49 year marriage of enduring love and an endless series of safety debacles. Helen’s life of adventure would take her halfway around the world where she consorted with Maharajas in India, trekked the Himalayas in Nepal, sailed the Yangtze River to Chungking in China, and organized and participated in Snow Leopard Symposia in the Soviet Union, China and India.
Helen and Stan have two sons, Doug and Harry, who carry with them their mom’s love of animals (Doug is a veterinarian) and love of people (Harry is a developmental psychologist). Once Doug and Harry were old enough to go to school she began her career at the Woodland Park Zoo as a volunteer docent and returned to school at the University of Washington to complete a second degree in animal behavior. It was at this time she found the second love of her life, the snow leopard. She spent countless hours studying this elusive cat and ultimately became one of the world’s foremost experts on the behavior of the captive snow leopard. Meanwhile she took a job at the zoo and worked her way up to Curator of Education in the early 1980s. In 1981 she founded the International Snow Leopard Trust. Under her guidance the ISLT pioneered new approaches to snow leopard conservation and its habitat in Asia. Traveling and working in Asia, many times as a lone woman, she earned the respect of local government officials and conservationists across Asia, Europe and the United States. She pioneered innovative conservation practices that placed local peoples at the center of the movement. Helen inspired so many people to help her cause that the Snow Leopard Trust continues to grow stronger and accomplish goals Helen envisioned almost thirty years ago.
During her illustrious career she received many awards and acknowledgments of her achievements. These include the Alumni Achievement Award from Washington State University in 1990, Acknowledgment of Appreciation from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1997, the prestigious Evergreen Award in 1998 “In Recognition of Worldwide Partnerships in Wildlife Conservation and Understanding”, and also a medal of honor from the Woodland Park Zoological Society for conservation and education.
Helen was a force of love and indefatigable determination. She lived with a chronic and degenerative lung condition for thirty years. During this time she founded an international conservation movement, published a collection of memoirs, read veraciously and always, till her last breath, challenged us to be true to ourselves. All this and she knew how to laugh at life and find the absurd in her daily struggles. For instance, she might reply, after briefly recovering from a particularly lengthy bought of coughing, “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play.” She thrived on discussion and would probe, question, and challenge us to look deeper into what is essential and meaningful in our lives and follow our hearts. Some might say that in the end she lost her battle with her illness, but they would be mistaken. She managed her disease, not the other way around. It did not diminish her but strengthened her resolve and, as with business and family, she negotiated and compromised, but in the end, it was her call.
Helen is survived by her husband Stanley, their son Doug and his wife Julie, and their children Madison and Mallory; their son Harry and his wife Grace, and their three children, Elena, Harrison, and Willa. Although her lung condition did not slow her enthusiasm and involvement in her grandchildren’s lives, they did slow her scooter with various grandkids hanging off the handlebars as she motored along forest trails. Now we will carry Helen with us along our own trails and look to her for guidance along the way.
Record Cache of Snow Leopard Parts Seized in China
Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News
September 10, 2007
The pelts of 27 snow leopards were recently seized from a black market trader in China. The record bust highlights the menacing threat to one of the world’s most endangered cats, experts say.
Acting on a tip, agents from China’s State Forestry Administration raided an apartment in western China last month, according to state media.
Police arrested the fur trader, identified only as Mr. Ma, after discovering the cache of pelts, along with 104 bear skins and parts of clouded leopards and lynx.
“Police found three snow leopard heads and two snow leopard skeletons in the raid,” Ge Yun, of the China-based nonprofit Xinjiang Conservation Fund (XCF), told National Geographic News.
The seizure is reportedly the largest haul of leopard pelts since Chinese officials began keeping records in 1949.
An official with China’s State Forest Administration, who identified himself as Mr. Li, confirmed the arrests in a telephone interview but declined to offer details.
“The snow leopard is endangered, and the government is working very hard to protect it,” he said.
Elusive, Valuable Cat
An elusive cat with short front limbs, large paws, and elongated hind legs, the snow leopard is able to traverse snowy mountain terrain, scrubland, grassland, and steppes.
Its range includes the rugged lands of South and Central Asia—including parts of China, India, and Nepal—where its skin and bones are sought for garments and traditional remedies (see map).
In harsh, politically unstable regions within the animal’s range, a single snow leopard pelt can mean a small fortune.
Mr. Ma, for example, told police he bought the pelts in Tibet and the northwestern province of Qinghai last year.
He had since sold two for a profit of 4,000 yuan (U.S. $530), according to news reports.
The illicit traffic in pelts has been the main culprit in the snow leopard’s decline, conservation groups say, and activists have called for stronger multinational enforcement of wildlife laws.
According to one estimate, only 3,000 to 7,000 of the cats remain in the wild.
Changing Threats
The dynamics of pelt- and animal-smuggling in the region are changing gradually amid increased law enforcement and redoubled efforts by conservation groups and religious leaders to change traditional attitudes.
But the black market remains.
In 2005, XCF published an investigation on the poaching and illicit trade of snow leopards in Xinjiang Province in northwestern China.
“We found that the trade in skins in India, Nepal, and China targets markets in Tibet and Sichuan,” XCF’s Yun said.
Tibetans are known for wearing coats of tiger, leopard, and snow leopard skin, displaying them during a traditional horse festival in the town of Litang in Sichuan Province.
“There, local skin dealers buy big cat pelts from the [nearby] Gansu Province,” Yun said.
She and others have been encouraged by the recent efforts of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader, who has asked followers to stop using, selling, or buying wild animals and their derivatives.
Conservationists who recently visited the Litang horse festival saw positive signs, Yun said.
“They were very happy to see that not one single wild animal skin was used,” she said.
But in Gansu Province, near where Mr. Ma was arrested and where the majority population is Muslim, attitudes are still fixed.
“There, cat-skin sales are still rampant,” Yun said, adding that her group is planning to write a series of conservation documents that draw from the Koran.
“We would like to convince the local spiritual leader of Muslims to give teachings on wildlife conservation,” she said.
Beyond Attitudes
Other experts say threats to the big cats go beyond the demand for skins. Instead, shrinking habitats and dwindling prey are putting snow leopards in disastrous contact with farmers, they point out.
“Poaching still is a threat to the [leopard] population in Tibet,” said Dawa Tsering of the conservation nonprofit WWF in China.
“However, the root cause of poaching is not because of skin trade but human-wildlife conflict.”
Habitat fragmentation and declines in the numbers of wild goat and sheep—the snow leopard’s natural prey—are forcing cats to attack domestic livestock, conservationists say.
The result has been an increase in what Tsering called “reprisal killings” by farmers and herders.
Even so, Tsering said, officials in Tibet have made gains in cracking down on poachers.
“In general, large-scale illegal poaching has been stopped by the government,” he said.
“The Tibet local government invests large resources to protect wildlife that includes Tibetan antelope and snow leopard.”
(Read related story: “Tibet’s ‘Movie Star’ Antelope Slowly Rebounding, Expedition Finds” [February 6, 2007].)
He said police stations are frequently found across remote wildlife preserves and that officials have proved willing to work with international groups to better enforce local laws.
“However, it is essential to deal with the conflict to reduce retaliatory killing,” Tsering said.
Faisal Saleh Hayat Meets Leo the Snow Leopard
August 1, 2007-
While nothing is known about Leo’s reaction, the minister is said to have been “delighted”. Leo was gifted to the
Leo, who was found in the care of a shepherd in the Northern Areas’
Source: The Daily Times
Ecotourism Supports Ladakh Residents
In the remote Ladakh region of
The Mountain Institute and Snow Leopard Conservancy, both organizational members of the Snow Leopard Network, implemented this program to great success five years ago. Since then, it has become the local model for eco-tourism. In addition to providing a bed and meals, guides are available to lead hikes and point out snow leopard signs.
For more information, see Eco-tourists take to village life in India’s ‘Little Tibet’ or check out the Himalayan Homestays web site.
Father and Son Charged with Selling Illegal Skins, Including Snow Leopard
Father, like son, charged in selling of tiger skin
Friday, July 20, 2007
A father might be going the way of his son if federal prosecutors have their way.
Barry McMaster, of Greensburg, is charged with violating the Endangered Species Act by selling a tiger skin to an undercover agent.
His son, Kevin McMaster, is currently serving a 25-month prison sentence for doing the same thing.
Both men were caught as part of an undercover investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
According to an affidavit for a search warrant filed in the case, agents first became aware of the McMasters’ business, Exotic & Unique Gifts, when Kevin McMaster sent an unsolicited e-mail to an undercover agent, asking if he was interested in “cat skins.”
What followed was a yearlong business relationship, in which the undercover agent, Timothy Santel, sent Kevin McMaster $17,800 for the skins of a tiger, a snow leopard and two leopards.
Kevin McMaster ran the Exotic & Unique Gifts location in Port St. Lucie, Fla. His father runs the store on South Pennsylvania Avenue in Greensburg.
Yesterday, Barry McMaster answered the phone at his store but refused to respond to any questions.
He is charged with two federal counts involving interstate commerce, including offering an endangered species for sale and shipping an endangered species.
According to court papers, he was paid $8,500 by an undercover U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent for a tanned tiger skin in December 2004.
The Exotic & Unique stores specialized in selling “skins, mounts and horns.”
A catalog Mr. McMaster gave to the undercover agent lists a number of available animals, including tigers, leopards and panthers, as well as blue and black wildebeest, impala, African lions, crocodiles, gazelle, vervet monkey and zebras.
“If you don’t see what you are looking for, please ask,” the cataglog reads. “We have two stores and import from Africa regularly.”
The affidavit for the search warrant recounts the conversations between both the McMasters and the undercover agents.
Often, Kevin McMaster told Mr. Santel that he couldn’t actually sell the tiger hides to him, but that they would be a gift in exchange for buying a legal zebra skin.
According to an affidavit for a search warrant, neither father nor son had ever been issued any wildlife permits or licenses, including threatened or endangered species. They also had never presented any wildlife imports to the Fish and Wildlife Service for clearance.
The affidavit for the search focuses primarily on Mr. Santel’s dealings with Kevin McMaster, who pleaded guilty in January 2006 in Miami to selling more than $200,000 worth of skins and other items, including gorilla skulls and baby tiger mounts, from 2003 to 2004.
Mr. McMaster told him: “All of the spots and stripes have died of old age or medical reasons.”
But Mr. Santel said yesterday that doesn’t matter.
“It’s the simple rule of supply and demand,” he said. “Regardless if the tiger skin came from a roadside zoo or the wilds of India, if someone has one, someone else is going to want one.
“It creates a demand for it.”
And that means it won’t always be captive-raised animals that are taken.
“We do see the wild populations being affected,” Mr. Santel said. “It’s extremely difficult to know the true origins of the skins.”
First published on July 19, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Paula Reed Ward can be reached at pward@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2620.
China, India and Nepal work together to address illegal trans-boundary wildlife trade
| From the TRAFFIC Newsroom: | ||
|
||
Saving a Cat with a Precious Pelt
The Seattle Times examines the illegal (yet still widely accepted) selling of snow leopard skins in the markets of
For the full story, see http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003530006_snowleopards18m0.html