For whom the bell tolls: cats kill more than a million Australian birds every day

On the prowl in the outback. Hugh McGregor/Arid Recovery, Author provided

John Woinarski, Charles Darwin University; Brett Murphy, Charles Darwin University; Leigh-Ann Woolley, Charles Darwin University; Sarah Legge, Australian National University; Stephen Garnett, Charles Darwin University, and Tim Doherty, Deakin University

Cats kill more than a million birds every day across Australia, according to our new estimate – the first robust attempt to quantify the problem on a nationwide scale.

By combining data on the cat population, hunting rates and spatial distribution, we calculate that they kill 377 million birds a year. Rates are highest in Australia’s dry interior, suggesting that feral cats pose a serious and largely unseen threat to native bird species.

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Read more: Ferals, strays, pets: how to control the cats that are eating our wildlife

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This has been a contentious issue for more than 100 years, since the spread of feral cats encompassed the entire Australian mainland. In 1906 the ornithologist A.J. Campbell noted that the arrival of feral cats in a location often immediately preceded the decline of many native bird species, and he campaigned vigorously for action:

Undoubtedly, if many of our highly interesting and beautiful birds, especially ground-loving species, are to be preserved from total extinction, we must as a bird-lovers’ union, at no distant date face squarely a wildcat destruction scheme.

His call produced little response, and there has been no successful and enduring reduction in cat numbers since. Nor, until now, has there been a concerted effort to find out exactly how many birds are being killed by cats.

Counting the cost

To provide a first national assessment of the toll taken by cats on Australian birds, we have compiled almost 100 studies detailing the diets of Australia’s feral cats. The results show that the average feral cat eats about two birds every five days.

We then combined these statistics with information about the population density of feral cats, to create a map of the estimated rates of birds killed by cats throughout Australia.

Number of birds eaten per square kilometre. Brett Murphy, Author provided

We conclude that, on average, feral cats in Australia’s largely natural landscapes kill 272 million birds per year. Bird-kill rates are highest in arid Australia (up to 330 birds per square km per year) and on islands, where rates can vary greatly depending on size.

We also estimate (albeit with fewer data) that feral cats in human-modified landscapes, such as the areas surrounding cities, kill a further 44 million birds each year. Pet cats, meanwhile, kill about 61 million birds per year.

Overall, this amounts to more than 377 million birds killed by cats per year in Australia – more than a million every day.

Which species are suffering?

In a related study, we also compiled records of the bird species being killed by cats in Australia. We found records of cats killing more than 330 native bird species – about half of all Australia’s resident bird species. In natural and remote landscapes, 99% of the cat-killed birds are native species. Our results also show that cats are known to kill 71 of Australia’s 117 threatened bird species.

Birds that feed or nest on the ground, live on islands, and are medium-sized (60-300g) are most likely to be killed by cats.

Galahs are among the many native species being killed by feral cats. Mark Marathon, Author provided

It is difficult to put a million-plus daily bird deaths in context without a reliable estimate of the total number of birds in Australia. But our coarse assessment from many published estimates of local bird density suggests that there are about 11 billion land birds in Australia, suggesting that cats kill about 3-4% of Australia’s birds each year.

However, particular species are hit much harder than others, and the population viability of some species (such as quail-thrushes, button-quails and ground-feeding pigeons and doves) is likely to be especially threatened.

Our tally of bird deaths is comparable to similar estimates for other countries. Our figure is lower than a recent estimate for the United States, and slightly higher than in Canada. Overall, bird killings by cats seem to greatly outnumber those caused by humans.

In Australia, cats are likely to significantly increase the extinction risk faced by some bird species. In many locations, birds face a range of interacting threats, with cat abundance and hunting success shown to increase in fragmented bushland, in areas with high stocking rates, and in places with poorly managed fire regimes, so cat impacts compound these other threats.

Belling the cat

What can be done to reduce the impact? The federal government’s Threatened Species Strategy recognises the threat posed by feral cats, albeit mainly on the basis of their role in mammal extinctions.

The threatened species strategy also prioritised efforts to control feral cats more intensively, eradicate them from islands with important biodiversity values, and to expand a national network of fenced areas that excludes feral cats and foxes.

But while fences can create important havens for many threatened mammals, they are much less effective for protecting birds. To save birds, cats will need to be controlled on a much broader scale.

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Read more: The war on feral cats will need many different weapons

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We should also remember that this is not just a remote bush problem. Roughly half of Australia’s cats are pets, and they also take a considerable toll on wildlife.

While recognising the many benefits of pet ownership, we should also work to reduce the detrimental impacts. Fortunately, there is increasing public awareness of the benefits of not letting pet cats roam freely. With such measures, cat owners can help to look after the birds in their own backyards, and hence contribute to conserving Australia’s unique wildlife.

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We acknowledge the contribution of Russell Palmer (WA Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions), Chris Dickman (University of Sydney), David Paton (University of Adelaide), Alex Nankivell (Nature Foundation SA Inc.), Mike Lawes (University of KwaZulu-Natal), and Glenn Edwards (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) to this article.

John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin University; Brett Murphy, Senior Research Fellow, Charles Darwin University; Leigh-Ann Woolley, Research Associate, Charles Darwin University; Sarah Legge, Associate Professor, Australian National University; Stephen Garnett, Professor of Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, and Tim Doherty, Research Fellow, Deakin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

It’s time to stand tall for imperilled giraffes

Bill Laurance, James Cook University

Pardon the pun, but it’s time to stick our necks out for giraffes. We have mistakenly taken the world’s tallest mammal for granted, fretting far more about other beloved animals such as rhinos, elephants and great apes.

But now it seems that all is not well in giraffe-land, with reports emerging that they may be staring extinction in the face.

Why? For starters, thanks to modern molecular genetics, we have just realised that what we thought was one species of giraffe is in fact four, split into between seven and nine distinct subspecies. That’s a lot more biodiversity to worry about.

The current distribution of recognised giraffe species and subspecies. Narayanese at English Wikipedia

Even more disturbing is the fact that giraffe populations are collapsing. Where once they roamed widely across Africa’s savannas and woodlands, they now occupy less than half of the real estate they did a century ago.

Where they still persist, giraffe populations are increasingly sparse and fragmented. Their total numbers have fallen by 40% in just the past two decades, and they have disappeared entirely from seven African countries.

Among the most imperilled is the West African giraffe, a subspecies now found only in Niger. It dwindled to just 50 individuals in the 1990s, and was only saved by desperate last-ditch efforts from conservationists and the Niger government.

As a result of these sharp declines, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature recently changed giraffes’ overall conservation status from “Least Concern” to “Vulnerable”. In biological terms, that’s like a ship’s pilot suddenly bellowing “iceberg dead ahead!”

Tall order

Why are giraffes declining so abruptly? One reason is that they reproduce slowly, as might be expected of a big animal that formerly had to contend only with occasional attacks by lions, hyenas and tribal hunters, and as a result is not well adapted to our hostile modern world.

Giraffes today are being hit by much more than traditional enemies. According to the United Nations, Africa’s population of 1.1 billion people is growing so fast that it could quadruple this century. These extra people are using lots more land for farming, livestock and burgeoning cities.

Blocked by fences: a giraffe held in a small game reserve in South Africa. Bill Laurance

Beyond this, Africa has become a feeding ground for foreign corporations, especially big mining firms from China, Australia and elsewhere. To export bulk commodities such as iron, copper and aluminium ore, China in particular has gone on a frenzy of road, railway and port building.

Fuelled by a flood of foreign currency, Africa’s infrastructure is booming. A total of 33 “development corridors” – centred around ambitious highway and rail networks – have been proposed or are under active construction. Our research shows that these projects would total more than 53,000km in length, crisscrossing the continent and opening up vast expanses of remote, biologically rich ecosystems to new development pressures.

Proposed and ongoing ‘development corridors’ in sub-Saharan Africa, ranked by the relative conservation value of habitats likely to be affected by each corridor. Bill Laurance/Sean Sloan

Meanwhile, giraffes are struggling to cope with poachers armed with powerful automatic rifles rather than customary weapons such as spears. As shown in this poignant video, giraffes are commonly killed merely for their tails, which are valued as a status symbol and dowry gift by some African cultures.

Time to act

For a group of species about which we had been largely complacent, the sudden shift to “Vulnerable” status for giraffes is a red flag telling us it’s time for action.

Giraffes’ sweeping decline reflects a much wider trend in wildlife populations. A recent WWF report forecasts that we are on track to lose two-thirds of all individual birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish on Earth by 2020. Species in tropical nations are doing especially poorly.

What can we do? A critical first step is to help African nations develop their natural resources and economies in ways that don’t decimate nature. This is an urgent challenge that hinges on improving land-use planning, governance and protection of nature reserves and imperilled wildlife.

Woodland clearing for agriculture in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Jeremy Hance

We can also use emerging technologies to help us. For example, it is now possible to monitor illegal deforestation, road-building and other illicit activities virtually in real time, thanks to remarkable advances in satellites, drones, computing and crowdsourcing.

What’s more, affordable automatic cameras are being widely used to monitor the status of wildlife populations. These are particularly useful for giraffes, which have individual mottling patterns as distinctive as human fingerprints.

But all the technology in the world won’t save wildlife if we don’t address the fundamental drivers of Africa’s plight: its booming population and desperate needs for equitable social and sustainable development.

Ignoring these basic needs while tackling poaching and illegal road-building is akin to plugging the holes in a dam while ignoring the rising flood-waters that threaten to spill over its top.

We have to redouble our efforts, pushing for conservation and more sustainable societies all at once – plugging the holes while at the same time building the dam higher.

For the stately giraffe and the rest of Africa’s declining wildlife, it’s time for us to stand tall – or else wave goodbye.

Giraffes on the Serengeti Plain of Tanzania. Bill Laurance

Bill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

Alien invaders: the illegal reptile trade is a serious threat to Australia

Pablo García-Díaz, University of Adelaide; Joshua Ross, University of Adelaide, and Phill Cassey, University of Adelaide

Australians are banned from keeping non-native reptiles as pets, but there is a nevertheless a thriving illegal trade in these often highly prized animals. We have documented the threat that these species – many of them venomous or potentially carrying exotic diseases – pose to people and wildlife in Australia.

In a study published in Conservation Letters, we estimate that of 28 alien reptile species illegally traded in Victoria between 1999 and 2012, 5 of them (18%) would have the potential to establish themselves in the wild if they escape or are released. Our findings also indicate that smaller alien reptiles are more likely to establish in the wild in Australia.

Worryingly, more than a third of these illegal reptile species are highly venomous snakes (10 out of the 28 species). The presence of 10 alien venomous snakes represents a serious human health hazard, even in Australia which is already home to some of the most venomous snakes in the world.

Our warning of the dangers posed by the illegal reptile trade. Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Author provided

Previous research has focused on the overharvesting of wild populations to meet the demand for illegal wildlife products such as traditional medicine ingredients and other commodities, as well as live animals themselves.

But the trade in illegal wildlife poses a risk not just to the species being trafficked, but also to the people and ecosystems potentially exposed to new hazardous alien species as a result. Unfortunately, these risks are often overlooked or underestimated by wildlife agencies.

Frogs take their diseases with them

Effective biosecurity measures are crucial for tackling these threats. Are Australia’s biosecurity activities as good as they are made out to be in popular television shows about customs officers policing our borders?

Let’s look at the example of ranaviruses, an emerging disease that kills huge numbers of amphibians around the world. The introduction of these viruses to Australia could be catastrophic for native frogs. Alien frogs transported as unintentional stowaways can carry ranavirus, so intercepting those alien frogs will also prevent the spread of these pathogens.

In an earlier study, we examined the effectiveness of Australian biosecurity activities for stopping the introduction of dangerous alien ranaviruses. Our main conclusion was that existing biosecurity measures have significantly reduced the likelihood of introduction of alien ranaviruses.

Moreover, biosecurity activities do not need to intercept every single incoming alien frog in order to reduce significantly the likelihood that new diseases will be introduced. This is particularly good news for threatened native frogs.

Puff adders have been illegally kept in Victoria, despite being a seriously dangerous pet. Julius Rückert/Wikimedia Commons

A way forward

Unfortunately, many other countries seem to have inadequate systems for keeping unwanted species out, despite the many social, economic and ecological impacts that alien species cause across the world.

This situation paints a bleak picture for the future of biodiversity, with alien species increasingly wreaking havoc across all environments. But we believe there is hope and a way forward – as long as countries are willing to work much harder to combat the threats posed by alien species.

Foremost, we need to improve our understanding of the importance and drivers of transport pathways through which alien species travel. Armed with that knowledge, we can plan more effective management – although a lack of data is no excuse for delay in the meantime. Prevention is always better than cure, so our number one goal should be to prevent the introduction of alien species, rather than simply tackling the problems they cause.

Some important lessons emerge from our research. The illegal wildlife trade and the transport of stowaways are global issues. Therefore no country, however effective its biosecurity, can solve its problems on its own. Multilateral biosecurity agreements will be necessary to manage both stowaways and the illegal wildlife trade.

In Australia, we need to raise public awareness about alien species. We have to enlist the public in reporting suspicious activities and the presence of alien species at large. Meanwhile, supporting biosecurity activities is a no-brainer. Biosecurity is a responsibility shared by all Australians, and the general public have a role to support biosecurity activities, even if that means a few more minutes to clear biosecurity ports and airports. Be on the lookout for potential alien species, and if you spot anything unusual, report it to the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.

Pablo García-Díaz, PhD candidate in invasion ecology, University of Adelaide; Joshua Ross, Associate Professor in Applied Mathematics, University of Adelaide, and Phill Cassey, Assoc Prof in Invasion Biogeography and Biosecurity, University of Adelaide

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

Invasive predators are eating the world’s animals to extinction – and the worst is close to home

Tim Doherty, Deakin University; Chris Dickman, University of Sydney; Dale Nimmo, Charles Sturt University, and Euan Ritchie, Deakin University

Invasive species are a threat to wildlife across the globe – and invasive, predatory mammals are particularly damaging.

Our research, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that these predators – cats, rats and foxes, but also house mice, possums and many others – have contributed to around 60% of bird, mammal and reptile extinctions. The worst offenders are feral cats, contributing to over 60 extinctions.

So how can we stop these mammals eating away at our threatened wildlife?

Counting the cost

Our study revealed that invasive predators are implicated in 87 bird, 45 mammal and 10 reptile extinctions — 58% of these groups’ contemporary extinctions worldwide.

Invasive predators also threaten 596 species classed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List. Combined, the affected species include 400 birds, 189 mammals and 149 reptiles.

Twenty-three of the critically endangered species are classed as “possibly extinct”, so the number of extinctions above is likely to be an underestimate.

Until now, these shocking statistics have been unknown, and the heavy toll of invasive predators on native biodiversity grossly underappreciated. Species extinctions attributed to invasive predators include the Hawaiian rail (Zapornia sandwichensis) and Australia’s lesser bilby (Macrotis leucura).

Australia’s lesser bilby, now extinct.

Who are the worst offenders?

We found that three canids (including the red fox and feral dogs), seven members of the weasel family or mustelids (such as stoats), five rodents, two primates, two mongooses, two marsupials and nine species from other families negatively impact threatened species. Some of these species, such as hedgehogs and brushtail possums, don’t immediately spring to mind as predators, yet they are known to prey on many threatened species.

Feral cats threaten the most species overall (430), including 63 that have become extinct. This equates to one-quarter of all bird, mammal and reptile extinctions – making the feral cat arguably the most damaging invasive species for animal biodiversity worldwide.

Five species of introduced rodent collectively threaten 420 species, including 75 extinctions. While we didn’t separate out the impacts of individual rodent species, previous work shows that black rats (Rattus rattus) threaten the greatest number of species, followed by brown rats (R. norvegicus) and Pacific rats (R. exulans).

The humble house mouse (Mus musculus) is another interesting case. Despite their small size, house mice have been recorded eating live chicks of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

Other predators that threaten large numbers of species are the domestic dog (Canis familiaris), pig (Sus scrofa), small Indian mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and stoat (Mustela erminea).

Invasive mammalian predators (clockwise from top left): feral dog, house mouse, stoat, feral pig, feral cat, brushtail possum, black rat, small Indian mongoose and red fox (centre).
Clockwise from top-left: Andrey flickr CC BY 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/4M2E7y; Richard Adams flickr CC BY 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/7U19v9; Mark Kilner flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/4D6LPe; CSIRO CC BY 3.0 http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/image/1515; T. Doherty; Toby Hudson CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BrushtailPossum.jpg; CSIRO CC BY 3.0 http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/image/10564; J.M.Garg CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Herpestes_edwardsii_at_Hyderaba.jpg; Harley Kingston CC BY 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/ceWFr7 (centre).

Island species most at risk

Species found only on islands (insular endemics) account for 81% of the threatened species at risk from predators.

The isolation of many islands and a lack of natural predators mean that insular species are often naive about new predators and lack appropriate defensive responses. This makes them highly vulnerable to being eaten and in turn suffering rapid population decline or, worse, extinction. The high extinction rates of ground-dwelling birds in Hawaii and New Zealand — both of which lack native mammalian predators — are well-known examples.

Accordingly, the regions where the predators threatened the greatest number of species were all dominated by islands – Central America and the Caribbean, islands of the Pacific, the Madagascar region, New Zealand and Hawaii.

Conversely, the continental regions of North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia contain comparatively few species threatened by invasive predators. While Australia is a continent, it is also an island, where large numbers of native birds and mammals are threatened by cats and foxes.

Along with feral cats, red foxes have devastated native mammals in Australia. Tom Rayner

Managing menacing mammals

Understanding and mitigating the impact of invasive mammal predators is essential for reducing the rate of global biodiversity loss.

Because most of the threatened species studied here live on islands, managing invasive predators on islands should be a global conservation priority. Invasive predators occur on hundreds of islands and predator control and eradication are costly exercises. Thus, it is important to prioritise island eradications based on feasibility, cost, likelihood of success and potential benefits.

On continents or large islands where eradications are difficult, other approaches are needed. This includes predator-proof fencing, top-predator restoration and conservation, lethal control, and maintenance of habitat structure.

Despite the shocking statistics we have revealed, there remain many unknowns. For example, only around 40% of reptile species have been assessed for the Red List, compared to 99% for birds and mammals. Very little is known about the impact of invasive predators on invertebrate species.

We expect that the number of species affected by invasive predators will climb as more knowledge becomes available.

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This article was co-authored by Al Glen from Landcare Research, New Zealand.

Tim Doherty, Research Fellow, Deakin University; Chris Dickman, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, University of Sydney; Dale Nimmo, Lecturer in Ecology, Charles Sturt University, and Euan Ritchie, Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.
 

Feral feast: cats kill hundreds of Australian animals

By Tim Doherty

Feral cats are estimated to eat tens of millions of native animals each night in Australia. But what kinds of wildlife are they eating? In research published today in the Journal of Biogeography, my colleagues and I show that cats kill hundreds of different kinds of animals, including at least 16 species considered globally threatened.

Feral cats are a serious threat to wildlife globally, contributing to the extinction of numerous birds, mammals and reptiles worldwide. In Australia, cats have been implicated in the extinction of at least 20 mammal species and sub-species, including the lesser bilby and desert bandicoot.

Cats are widespread across the country, so it’s likely that their diet varies according to the local environment and fauna community – which might be affected by many factors, such as the amount of rainfall that an area receives or the native plant life.

Knowing what cats eat can help us decide how best to manage them.

Feline feast

What we found supports earlier research – the feral cat is an opportunistic predator – a generalist carnivore that eats a wide range of wildlife across Australia.

A feral cat degustation.
Tim Doherty, Author provided

Feral cats help themselves to a phenomenal number of species in Australia – 400 different vertebrates. This includes 123 bird species, 157 reptiles, 58 marsupials, 27 rodents, 21 frogs and nine exotic medium- and large-sized mammals. This is more than double the 179 species of animals that cats have been recorded eating on other islands worldwide.

However, this list only includes those species that have been recorded in diet studies, so it’s likely that there are many other species of native animals that cats kill and eat, that we just don’t know about yet.

Feral cats also eat many threatened species in Australia, and have been implicated in the decline of many species including the bilby, numbat, and western ground parrot.

We found that cats kill at least 16 globally threatened species and 12 others classed as near-threatened. This include mammals like the critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum and the brush-tailed bettong (woylie); the endangered northern quoll; as well as the critically endangered Christmas Island whiptail-skink and the vulnerable malleefowl.

Feral cats prey on the endangered northern quoll.
University of Technology Sydney/AAP

Desert desserts

What feral cats eat varies depending on where they are.

In our study, cats ate rodents most often in Australia’s tropical north. They ate medium-sized mammals, such as possums and bandicoots, most frequently in the south-east of the country. Still, cats ate rodents three times more often than other small, carnivorous mammals known as dasyurids (like dunnarts for example).

Cats also ate many mammals from a group that has suffered severe declines and extinctions over the past 200 years. These are known as “critical weight range” mammals, and weigh between 0.35 and 5.5 kilograms. Unfortunately, these mammals make suitable sized prey for many predatory species such as the feral cat and the introduced red fox.

What cats eat also depends on the amount of rainfall an area receives. Cats fed on reptiles most frequently in the central deserts, where rainfall is lowest. These deserts are also the most reptile-rich part of Australia (and the world).

Cats commonly feed on another widespread pest species: rabbits. Where cats ate fewer rabbits, the frequency of small mammals (rodents and dasyurids) in their diet increased. In Australia’s tropical north where rabbits are mostly absent, cats ate the highest frequency of rodents and dasyurids of anywhere in the country.

Rabbits are a major food source for feral cats.
Eddy Van 3000, CC BY-SA

This has important implications for how we manage pest animals. If rabbits are culled from an area, but cats aren’t controlled at the same time, then cats might switch prey and eat more small native mammals.

Past experience tells us how these programs can go awry. For example, when feral cats were eradicated from Macquarie Island in 2000, rabbit numbers exploded because the cats had kept the rabbits in check. Rabbits caused severe damage to the island’s native vegetation before being eradicated themselves in 2014. This suggests that a multi-species approach should be adopted for pest animal control.

Cat control

Large-scale control of feral cats is very difficult, particularly on the mainland, although some programs have been successful on islands. The use of poison baits can reduce cat density, but even low levels of cat predation can exterminate threatened mammal populations, such as when cats killed at least seven bilbies reintroduced outside the Arid Recovery reserve in South Australia.

Predator-free islands and fenced reserves on the mainland are the most effective short-term protection for our threatened mammals. However, fences that exclude predators are very expensive to build, and they require constant monitoring, maintenance and funding.

Non-lethal methods have traditionally been overlooked in the fight against invasive predators, such as the feral cat. However, new research suggests that smart fire and grazing management can help preserve the natural shelters that provide native animals with refuge from predators.

Reducing the impact of feral cats on our native animals is a challenging endeavour, but it is essential in the fight to conserve our unique fauna.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

We have more parks than ever, so why is wildlife still vanishing?

By Bob Pressey, James Cook University and Euan Ritchie, Deakin University

While we can never know for sure, an extraordinary number of animals and plants are threatened with extinction — up to a third of all mammals and over a tenth of all birds. And the problem is getting worse.

At the same time, we have more land and sea than ever in protected areas (“parks”) — more than 200,000 protected areas covering about 15% of the world’s land area and 3% of the oceans.

So why are protected areas making so little difference?

This is a vital question about the future of nature that should be discussed at Sydney’s World Parks Congress, beginning today.

This once-in-a-decade Congress, led by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), will be attended by thousands. A sobering reality will lie behind the excitement and networking: while protected-area systems expand, we are losing the planet’s species at an alarming rate.

One reason is that protected areas are only one of our tools, and will never do the job alone. IUCN could say, though, that it’s doing the best it can.

But another reason, more confronting for IUCN, is that protected areas tend to be in the wrong places.

Bison in Yellowstone National Park in the United States
Rich Flynn, CC BY-NC-SA

Protecting the leftovers

Just about anywhere people have looked, the majority of protected areas are residual — leftover areas of the world pushed to the margins where they least interfere with extractive activities such as agriculture, mining, or forestry.

On land, protected areas are mainly remote or high, cold, arid, steep, and infertile. Similar patterns are emerging in the sea.

Residual protected areas, by definition, make least difference to conservation.

Meanwhile, biodiversity continues to be lost in landscapes and seascapes suitable for clearing, logging, grazing, fishing, and extraction of minerals, oil, and gas.

Residual protection also gives the false appearance of progress because many people equate the number of protected areas and their extent with success.

These figures are only “good news” if they tell us about the difference these parks make to conservation. They don’t.

Failing to stop the losses

The most rigorous estimates of the difference that protected areas make are small.

By 2008, only 7% of Costa Rica’s much-lauded protected-area system would have been deforested in the absence of protection.

Sloth in Cahuita National Park, Costa Rica
Marika Lüders, CC BY-NC

Globally, in 2005, the loss of native vegetation prevented by protected areas was 3% of their extent.

These numbers get to the very purpose of protected areas. They are small because protected areas are mainly residual.

Aiming for the wrong targets

Protected areas that make little or no difference should be a major concern for IUCN, especially because targets for protection endorsed by the Convention on Biological Diversity at best obscure and at worst encourage the failure of protected areas to make a difference.

The Convention’s targets are meant to guide decisions on protected areas to 2020. The only unambiguously quantitative target (number 11) says nothing about making a difference. It aspires to 17% of land and 10% of the sea under formal protection.

The result has been a rush to proclaim large, remote protected areas where they are easiest to establish and make least difference. The story is familiar in conservation and beyond: provide a simplistic metric that implies success, and it will be manipulated to achieve high scores.

Another of the Convention’s targets (number 5) gets closer to the real purpose of protected areas, but remains problematic: “By 2020, the rate of loss of all natural habitats, is at least halved and where feasible brought close to zero, and degradation and fragmentation [are] significantly reduced.”

But there are problems here too. Before we halve the rate of loss, we need to know what the “baseline” rate of loss is — and over what period it should it be measured. Should it be measured in the past, when loss might have been slower, or now? Habitat loss also varies across the world — does that mean that reduction in loss rates of some areas can offset faster losses elsewhere?

Several kinds of tropical forests, for example, housing most of the world’s terrestrial species, are being lost rapidly. For these, even a halving of the rate of loss will mean mass extinction.

Australia setting a bad example

IUCN’s mission is hindered by recalcitrant governments.

Australia, as host of the World Parks Congress, will show off its conservation wares. The display window is less impressive than when Australia genuinely led global conservation thinking from the 1970s to 1990s.

Our protected areas on land, such as those in the host state, are strongly residual (claims of an improving trend are based on inadequate data).

Australia’s marine parks, which are directed more at satisfying total protected area than protecting threatened marine biodiversity, show other countries how not to protect the sea.

Australia is setting a bad example of how to protect our oceans
Chris Ford, CC BY-NC

And the only quantitative targets in Australia’s Strategy for the National Reserve System — for protected extent and coverage of regional ecosystems — leave plenty of scope for more parks that make little or no difference.

Not content with marginalising protection, Australian governments are weakening what’s there. Parks on land are being opened up for livestock grazing, industrial logging, mining, “conservation hunting”, and commercial development.

No-take zones in marine parks are being opened up for fishing. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is in jeopardy and the plan to fix it is destined to fail.

Four steps to make parks work

Here are four ways for IUCN to lead the way to parks that make a bigger difference:

• Stop using targets that give the illusion of conservation progress. These include the number and extent of protected areas and percentages of countries, states, or regions covered. At best they will inadvertently obscure the real signal. At worst they will be used perversely to dress up residual protection.
• Measure success as the difference protected areas make relative to no protection. This is “impact evaluation” in fields such as medicine, education, and development aid, where difference means saving and improving human lives. If saving species is also important, evaluating the impact of protected areas is essential.
• Establish an IUCN Task Force to develop ways for evaluating the impact of protected areas, considering both biodiversity and human livelihoods. Assess the impact of current protected areas to provide lessons for management and future planning. And test approaches to setting priorities as the predictions they are.
• Develop targets for the impact of protected areas: how much threat should be averted and how much loss should be avoided?

Ultimately, the success of conservation depends on what natural resources are left unexploited by humans so that other species can survive.

Protection that does not avoid the loss of species and ecosystems merely gives the appearance of conservation progress under exploitative business-as-usual.

Real conservation – the kind that makes a difference – depends on IUCN’s leadership. Every year of delay means irreversible, avoidable loss of biodiversity.

This article was co-authored by Dr Piero Visconti, Board Member of the European Section of the Society for Conservation Biology in Washington, D.C.

The authors do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. They also have no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Republished with permission). Read the original article.