Hope for Animals and Their World

by Jane Goodall; Thane Maynard; Gail Hudson

  Before attempting to translocate precious short-tailed albatross chicks to Mukojima Island, a Japanese team of biologists from Yamashina Institute decided to work out albatross-chick-raising techniques with the non-endangered black-footed albatross species. This exercise was not very successful, but valuable lessons were learned that led to the development of better rearing techniques. So that the following year, when ten non-endangered black-footed albatross chicks were translocated to a specially prepared site on Mukojima Island, all but one of them fledged.

  This success gave all those involved the courage to translocate the first precious short-tailed albatross chicks to Mukojima Island. There was a great deal of publicity in anticipation of this event. Fortunately, Judy Jacobs wrote me, things could scarcely have gone better. Ten chicks were transported from Torishima to their new home by helicopter in February 2008. And to the huge relief of everyone, all ten fledged—just a bit earlier than their peers on Torishima Island.

  Today new technology is enabling scientists to find out exactly where the young short-tailed albatrosses spend their four to five years at sea after fledging. Twenty young albatrosses were fitted with tracking devices. Some of them flew straight from Torishima to the Bering Sea, traveling some four thousand miles in one month. This is an extraordinary journey, undertaken with no parental guidance, since the adults leave the breeding ground several weeks before the young. Of course it was particularly important to keep track of the birds that fledged from Mukojima. Five of them were equipped with satellite transmitters, as were five from Torishima. In September 2008, I got an update from Judy: All ten, she said, “are now foraging—and doing whatever else young albatrosses do—off the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.” Five from Torishima and five from Mukojima!

  Adult short-tailed albatross about to land on Torishima Island. Amazingly, 231 chicks fledged during the 2006–2007 breeding season and the population of the main colony was up to almost 2,000. (Hiroshi Hasegawa)

  The recovery plan for the short-tailed albatross, Judy told me, calls for translocations to Mukojima to continue for four more years, in the hope that by the fifth year some of the 2008 fledglings will return to Mukojima as breeding birds. And it is hoped that the decoys and sound system on the island may attract others of the species to also nest there. “It’s a lot of work,” Judy told me, “but very satisfying to play a part in the restoration of this magnificent seabird.”

  The “Patron Saint” of the Short-Tailed Albatross

  I asked Hiroshi how he felt now that other scientists were actively involved in short-tailed albatross protection. “It makes me very happy,” he said, “that conservation work that I initiated alone by myself more than thirty years ago has now developed into an international joint project to form a new colony.” He will continue to monitor the situation on Torishima Island, and ensure that there are chicks to be translocated to Mukojima. He has also set up the Short-Tailed Albatross Fund to receive contributions from the public. (You will find out more about this fund in “What You Can Do” at the end of this book.)

  Hiroshi Hasegawa has devoted the past thirty-five years of his life—risking life, limb, and terrible sea sickness—to restoring this glorious seabird. Shown here, standing at the edge of Tsubame-zaki cliff, on Torishima Island, where he has just finished counting the short-tailed albatrosses (the tiny white dots clustered on the right, near the water) in the nesting slope below. (Hiroshi Hasegawa)

  After working with these magnificent birds for so long, I wondered whether he had ever had a special relationship with any particular albatross. Not really, it seems, but there is the special pair that first nested at the new site he chose on Torishima in 1995. For twelve years now, they have maintained their bond, returning every year to the identical place to raise their chick. “And I will keep watching them,” Hiroshi told me. His eyes lit up and for a moment he seemed far away, back in spirit in the wild places with the birds that, but for his efforts, might be no more.

  THANE’S FIELD NOTES

  Blue-and-Gold Macaw

  (Ara ararauna)

  When I first went to Trinidad with my colleague Bernadette Plair, I was treated to a remarkable journey that was at times hot, buggy, sleepless, bat-infested, and Spartan-like. Journeys are often defined by what you do not have, punctuated by unexpected gifts unavailable in your normal day-to-day. What I experienced on this trip was the opportunity to see more than a hundred species of birds in just two weeks, the most notable of which was the reestablished blue-and-gold macaw, a brightly colored and loud bird near and dear to Bernadette’s heart.

  Bernadette was born in Trinidad and grew up in the Sangre Grande area of the island. A soft-spoken woman with innate island diplomacy and keen tenacity, she has played a pivotal role in the conservation of her native wildlife. Like many “Trinis,” Bernadette is of African, French, and East Indian descent, and recalls as a youngster in the 1950s and 1960s seeing and hearing the blue-and-gold macaws that the island was once famous for. “When I was a little girl,” she told me, “I would see these beautiful and brightly colored birds flying above the canopy of palm trees, and naturally I never imagined that they could ever disappear.”

  These raucous birds are hard not to notice. Macaws are the largest and among the loudest of parrot species—and the blue-and-gold macaws are particularly striking with their vibrant royal blue wings and tail, which frame their nearly electric golden-yellow breasts. Unfortunately, the bird is particularly popular as a pet, and by the early 1960s it was extirpated from the island.

  Their disappearance from Trinidad was actually the result of a number of factors. Illegal rice farming in the Nariva Swamp area of East Trinidad altered the bird’s habitat. Blue-and-gold macaws rely on the palm trees on the edges of the swamp to build their cavity nests, and as the trees fell, so did the numbers of birds. Poachers cut down the hollow palms to raid the nests of young chicks and export them for the pet trade. Although illegal, and often controlled by the same people who traffic in illegal drugs, the shipping of parrots from throughout much of the tropics continues today.

  Bernadette now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is a research scientist at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden’s Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife. During her twenty years at CREW, she has worked with many endangered species, from collecting data on the growth rate of the first captive-born Sumatran rhinoceros calf in 112 years to cloning endangered tropical plant species. All the while, she would visit her native home once each year to be with family, often noticing that most of the same problems for the island’s wildlife still existed.

  Poaching remained abundant, there was a lack of game wardens, and habitat loss due to illegal farming and development was growing. “These problems appeared to be getting worse each time I would go home,” she said, “and it was a great concern because I could tell, objectively, what was being lost.”

  Rather than wait for others to do something, Bernadette decided to found CRESTT, the Centre for the Rescue of Endangered Species of Trinidad and Tobago. Initially, her idea was to start with what seemed a relatively simple project—bringing the blue-and-gold macaw back to Trinidad. After all, their historic range of Nariva Swamp was designated a protected 15,440-acre wetland in 1993. Bernadette’s hope was that with this new protected status, putting birds back in the area would be a relatively quick and easy accomplishment. “Our hopes were indeed high in those early days,” she said to me.

  However, initial attempts to launch the program with confiscated birds met with no success. These adult birds, rescued from the pet trade, were not willing to breed in captivity on the island. They also suffered from the typical handicaps of captive animals reintroduced into the wild. The rescued macaws were naive to predators and vulnerable to new diseases, and had difficulty thriving. Still, Bernadette didn’t lose hope. In fact, CRESTT continued to gain momentum. Bernadette garnered greater support from Trinidad’s Wildlife Section and Forestry Division, as well as from international NGOs,
including the Endangered Parrot Trust, Florida Avian Advisors, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

  And by 1999, an effective pilot project was under way: Eighteen young parrots were collected in Guyana by a licensed trader, in the hope that they would eventually form nine breeding pairs. The birds were transported from the forests of Guyana into special pre-release cages in Nariva, where they could become acclimatized to the surrounding trees and swamp.

  This new system of translocating birds worked better than using captive-bred macaws. The Guyanan macaws brought with them their natural experience and savvy for survival in the wild. They quickly filled the niche vacated forty years ago in the Nariva Swamp and soon took hold.

  With these releases came success at last, but also more work for Bernadette and her CRESTT team. As everywhere, it takes a multipronged approach for conservation to work in Trinidad. As Bernadette knows, “Conservation is never completely done. The work goes onward and onward.” Government officials had to stay informed and involved in order to keep game wardens in the protected Bush Wildlife Sanctuary region of the swamp. Teams of volunteers had to be rallied to feed and water the birds while they were in big pre-release cages in the swamp. And small groups needed to camp at night near the birds to ensure their safety from wild or potentially even human predators—a very buggy but rewarding experience.

  Public education was essential to long-term success, so as to eliminate interest in again taking the macaws out of nature. Everything from newspaper coverage to television stories and a billboard campaign declaring WELCOME HOME! to the beautiful parrots made sure not a single “Trini,” or native to the island, could fail to know of the return of this once vanished creature. The result is that the blue-and-gold macaw is the flagship species of conservation in Trinidad. It is a source of pride symbolizing both the beauty of the island and the islanders’ tenacity in bringing the birds back from the brink of extinction.

  Perhaps the most joyful part of the ongoing efforts is how the Nariva Swamp and the macaws in particular have been embraced by many schools in Trinidad. Colorful festivals, parades, and musicals are all regularly performed by schoolchildren celebrating the natural heritage of Trinidad and how, with care, there is room for nature and people.

  Today, a decade and a half after Bernadette’s initial setbacks, the birds are solving their own problems. Nine of the initial parrots survived, several living in breeding pairs. In 2003, another seventeen wild birds from Guyana were released to provide new genetic stock. To date, twenty-six of the thirty-one released birds have survived, and thirty-three chicks have been produced since the first releases in 1999. And any birders worth their salt will see macaws flying over the Nariva Swamp if they spend even a day in the area. But as much as the beautiful macaws, the children are what gives Bernadette hope. “I truly love seeing these young Trinis,” she told me, smiling, “who—just like I did fifty years ago—stop on their way home to point and marvel at such a beautiful sight as a flock of macaws.”

  PART 5

  The Thrill of Discovery

  Introduction

  As a child, I longed to be an intrepid naturalist, setting off into the unknown to discover new lands, and especially new kinds of animals. I think all children are born with a desire to discover things for themselves. They are curious, they want to investigate and learn about their exciting new (to them) world. And in the course of this, they make wondrous personal discoveries.

  I was as exhilarated as any explorer in olden days when my friend and I crept out at midnight on a forbidden trip to a small, wild, undeveloped plot and discovered, in the moonlight, that a pair of barn owls had their nest there. It was a real adventure, for they swooped down and threatened us fiercely when we got too close—something I think back on when I read about all those who risk the wrath of the adults when they clamber up dangerous cliffs to inspect the eyries of birds of prey. That plot is built over now, the barn owls long gone, driven out by relentless development of the wild places.

  I have been fortunate in my life—born in time to see some of those wild places before they were spoiled. And I treasure the memories of how things were. But there is still much to discover. Just yesterday (August 2008) came the report from Central Africa of lowland gorillas found in large numbers—doubling the estimated number of this endangered species. When I heard about those gorillas, it took me back to the few days in 2002 that I spent with Mike Fay and Michael “Nick” Nichols in the ancient, never-logged forest of the Goualougo Triangle in the heart of Congo-Brazzaville. When they first went there, they found animals that had never learned to fear humans—for even the pygmy hunters had not crossed the great swamps that protected the area for so long. Indeed, those swamps would have deterred anyone except Mike—but he found a secret way through and invited me for a visit. The journey started in a truck along a disused logging trail. Then came an enchanted time of silently moving along a gentle river, poled in our piraques by pygmy guides. And then a very, very long walk.

  When at last we reached the camp in the forest it was after 10 PM, and I was too tired to appreciate anything—except the campfire and a deliciously simple meal cooked by the pygmies. But the next day, as I walked under the tall and ancient trees, I thrilled to the magic of a place that had not been explored by humans—at least not for hundreds of years. I put my hand on the trunk of one of those forest giants, sensed the rising sap, and knew great joy because, thanks to Mike, that whole forest is now a protected area. Safe—for the gorillas and chimpanzees and elephants. And for the trees. Because of Mike and others who care, many forests in Gabon have also been listed as protected.

  In 2006, there was an expedition to the wild “Heart of Burma” where many new or thought-to-be-extinct species were found. Even more recently, an expedition to the remote Yariguies Mountains of Colombia discovered a fascinating array of species new to science. As did another to the wild, remote wilderness of the Foja Mountains of Papua. One benefit from these expeditions is that by discovering and writing about the last of nature’s undiscovered wilderness areas, it is usually possible to get local and international support and pressure to protect them for future generations.

  In the three chapters of this section, we share stories of discovery. Some of the discoveries are exotic—a new kind of monkey, a cave system sealed off from the outside world for at least five million years, a fish known only from fossils unearthed from the Devonian period—sixty million years ago! These are the stories that capture the imagination of the general public, creating headlines in international newspapers. Other discoveries seem less exciting, and are heralded simply by short notes in the local press or some specialist journal. Yet they are often thrilling to the biologists who find them—I have spoken to several, and their enthusiasm is contagious, shining from their eyes or sounding in their voice as we talk over the phone.

  It is not just the joy of discovery—it is knowing that the life-form is important in the scheme of things. It all depends on your perspective. After all, it will make little difference to an elephant if a small plant vanishes; it will make all the difference between survival and extinction to a butterfly whose larvae feed exclusively on the leaves of that plant. And the biologist knows that all living things are interconnected in the web of life; that losing even the smallest strand can have unforeseen consequences.

  It is true that we are experiencing the “sixth great extinction on earth,” with thousands of species (mostly small, endemic invertebrates and plants) disappearing, forever, every year. And while we sink into despair or anger as we see how our own prolific and self-centered species continues to destroy, there is yet this feeling of hope. There are surely plants and animals living in the remote places, beyond our current knowledge. There are discoveries yet to be made. And the stories we share here, reports of fascinating new species discovered or rediscovered, give me new strength to face and fight the challenges that threaten our still-mysterious, still-magical planet.

  This cavern and lake existed unkn
own and unseen by humans for about five million years. Israel Naaman was one of the first people to enter this cave and discover its secret. He took this photo of his friend Eitan Orel, who helped him map the cave. (Israel Naaman)

  New Discoveries:

  Species Still Being Discovered

  So many of the books I read as a child were about intrepid explorers setting off into the unknown. They faced danger and tough conditions—and they came back with tales of strange and often fearsome creatures, then quite unknown to the Western world. It was hard to separate truth from fiction. There were descriptions of terrifying tribes fiercely attacking white strangers with spears; of cannibals with pointed teeth; of strange hairy creatures, half human and half animal, living deep in the forest. There were terrifying sea monsters that could sink a ship and mermaids luring sailors to a watery death. Gradually myth gave way to fact. The hairy men revealed themselves as great apes, the sea monsters were probably giant squid, and the mermaids were probably sea cows—dugongs or manatees. Linnaeus worked on his classification of the families, genera, species, and subspecies, arranging the animal and plant kingdoms into neat order. Charles Darwin sorted out how they got to be the way they were.

  Gradually, during the past fifty years or so, discoveries of new species among the larger mammals and birds have become less and less frequent. But they have not stopped. And for those scientists studying the invertebrate hordes, finding a new species is, for the most part, no big deal—although, as we shall see, there are some pretty exciting finds in this area also. New fish and amphibian species are discovered quite frequently and, as we shall see in this chapter, there are occasional thrilling descriptions of larger creatures found.