DAILY QUICK READ - JULY 8, 2016

Now Its Volcanos

Perhaps one-seventh of the world’s chinstrap penguins are in jeopardy due to the eruption of a volcano on a remote South Atlantic island.

Scientists fear that a remote volcano in the South Atlantic Ocean may have seriously harmed the world's largest chinstrap penguin colony.

Mount Curry, a stratovolcano located on Zavodovski Island—the northernmost island of the South Sandwich archipelago—has been spewing smoke and ash since March 2016, covering one-third to one-half of the island in ash.

The island is home to nearly 1.2 million breeding pairs of chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus). With 7.5 million chinstrap penguins worldwide, the colony represents over one-seventh of the species’ global population. The island is also home to 180,000 macaroni penguins (Eudyptes chrysolophus).

The penguins generally inhabit the island from November to April, using the rocky, volcanic slopes as breeding grounds. The eruption would have coincided with their annual molt, which leaves the penguins vulnerable and unable to enter the water.

Because the island is so remote—Zavodovski Island is over a thousand miles from the nearest continental shoreline—the BAS cannot survey it until a planned research expedition arrives in December 2016 or January 2017. The researchers hope the penguins were able to move away from the plume, but will not be able to confirm the impact of the eruption until later this year, at the earliest.

Urban Mountain Lions

It’s a tough life for urban lions, but somehow they manage to co-exist with humans in heavily populated urban environments. 

The National Park Service did the entire nation a huge favor this week, releasing several photos of the seriously, ridiculously cute mountain lion kittens born recently in California’s Santa Susana Mountains.

Park officials discovered the first litter of kittens, which includes three females, on June 8, according to LAist. They discovered the second den, housing two male and one female kittens, on June 22. Researchers are tracking 14 mountain lions in the region and studying the obstacles they face in the area around Los Angeles.

“The real challenge comes as these kittens grow older and disperse, especially the males, and have to deal with threats from other mountain lions and also road mortality and the possibility of poisoning from anticoagulant rodenticide,” biologist Jeff Sikich told the LA Times.

Freeways present one of the biggest threats to the felines as they get older, Sikich told LAist. When cubs are old enough to leave their mother, finding territory to call their own often means they’re forced to try and cross the busy roads that cut through their habitat ― and the result can be deadly for the mountain lions.

Large Carnivores Are Key

If we can’t find a way to coexist with large carnivores, their loss will have a major impact on the entire ecosystem. 

A paper written by Neil Carter, assistant professor in the Human-Environment Systems Research Center in the College of Innovation and Design at Boise State, and John Linnell, a senior research scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, was recently published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Titled "Co-adaptation is key to coexisting with large carnivores," the paper looks at ways to improve the ability of humans and carnivores to co-exist, which is crucial to carnivore conservation efforts around the world.

Carter and Linnell wondered what actions could help mitigate the negative impacts of these contacts, allowing both humans and carnivores to more peacefully coexist in shared landscapes. They suggest that mutual adaptations are key to success, implying that not only do wild animals have to behaviourally adapt to the presence of humans, but humans also have to adapt their behavior to the presence of wild animals. Studies conducted by the authors and their colleagues have shown that many species of large carnivores show an incredible ability to occupy heavily modified human-dominated landscapes. Many human societies also show a wide range of adaptations to the proximity of large carnivores. This includes changes to the way they keep livestock and the adoption of cultural or religious practices to "negotiate" their relationship with their wild neighbours.

"In many ways large carnivores represent the ultimate test for human willingness to make space for wildlife on a shared planet. If it is possible to find ways to coexist with these species, it should be possible to coexist with any species," says John Linnell, co-author on the study.

This is not a new concept.  Creating the space and the mindset that would allow humans and wildlife to coexist is ancient, the destruction of the wild world is a modern concept.

"Large carnivore conservation is ultimately about people," Eisenberg wrote. "Science and environmental law can help us learn to share landscapes with fierce creatures, but ultimately coexistence has to do with our human hearts."

For Eisenberg, it also has much to do with ecosystems. Wildlife scientists have documented the crucial role that large carnivores play in shaping forests and rangelands, she said.

"When you're out there on the ground and a wolf shows up or a cougar shows up and starts doing what they do, you have these 'aha' moments," Eisenberg said. "What I'm doing in 'The Carnivore Way' is providing a lot of stories and examples. There's a massive amount of science in the book, but in the end, it's sharing those 'aha' moments that help people connect with these animals."

In a world in which ecosystems are reeling from climate change and other human influences, she said, wolves and other carnivores can restore resilience that benefits the resources that people depend on. By maintaining a role for carnivores, ecosystems are more likely to rebound in the face of drought, fire and other disturbances linked to a changing climate.

"Scientists studying ecosystems worldwide have found that carnivores indirectly improve the health and vigor of plant communities by reducing the density of their prey and in some cases by changing prey behavior," said Eisenberg. "In many places in North America, for example, by preying on elk, wolves reduce the browsing pressure that elk place on plants. This enables trees and shrubs to grow to maturity and provide habitat for many other species, such as songbirds."