Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Alejandra Goyenechea, International Counsel 

Frogs, newts and salamanders all have one very important thing in common: they’re amphibians, and that means they’re members of the most endangered group of animals in the world. Amphibians are indicator species, very sensitive to changes in the environment, and their status helps scientists see how an ecosystem is functioning.

Alejandra presents her report at CITES CoP 16.

Today one-third of all amphibian species are considered threatened or endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the specific threats to this group of animals is as varied as the species themselves. It includes habitat loss, climate change, pollution, disease and more, but one thing making it all worse is the wildlife trade. Not only are frogs removed from the wild to be placed in the pet and food trades, but moving these species around the globe has contributed a great deal to the spread of diseases that affect amphibians, such as the chytrid fungus that has led to the decline in populations of countless species of frogs.

At every CITES conference, there are a number of side events — presentations to educate those attending the conference on a number of issues pertaining to wildlife and trade. Last week, we teamed up with ProWildlife and the Animal Welfare Institute to put on a presentation to highlight the impact of international trade in amphibians – a trade that amounts to millions of live frogs, newts and other amphibians traded every year for the pet and food market. The event focused a great deal on the increasing trade in live amphibians to the United States, as well as the increase in frozen frog legs to the European Union. Sandra Altherr from ProWildlife and I presented a report [PDF] that we authored together about impacts of the frog leg trade. Even in the U.S., more than half of the 25 million live frogs imported every year are part of this culinary practice.

Toad Mountain harlequin frog.

The other two experts we invited spoke not only about the direct impacts of the international amphibian trade, but also its indirect effects. Jonathan Kolby from the James Cook University of Australia and Mark Auylia from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research spoke about the spread of amphibian diseases through the international wildlife trade and the Risk Assessment of Chytridiomycosis to European amphibian diversity, respectively. Many CITES delegates and other non-governmental organizations attended the event. We were able to distribute our report to the attendees and even handed out frog pens to give people a physical reminder that amphibians are at risk from international trade. We will continue to keep this crucial issue on the conference radar.

One of the proposals we helped work on this year was for the Machalilla’s frog (Epipedobates machalilla), and I’m happy to report that it passed! I worked very closely with officials from Ecuador to help this proposal be presented and adopted – I was even able to speak on the Conference floor in support of it. Ecuador presented the proposal to list the Machalilla’s frog in Appendix II, and the Committee adopted the proposal by consensus.

Defenders 4^th annual photo contest is heading into its final week, but you still have until Wednesday, March 13^th at midnight to get your photos in for a chance to win a week-long photo tour with renowned wildlife photographer Jess Lee as he shows you the beauty of Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons in spring.

So far this year’s entries have been fantastic, with people submitting photos of the wildlife and wild lands they love so much. We get so many great photos each year that with each new contest, we like to sort through our honorable mention photos from the previous year and show them off for all to see.

Enjoy this slideshow of some of the fantastic wildlife and wild lands photos we received last year, then head to www.defenders.org/photocontest to submit your own!

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Staredown with a hawk owl ©Jim Cumming

He stared right through the lens at me...talk about being intimidated.

Brown Hares Boxing ©Ron McCombe

I spotted some brown hares in a field near Stichill in the Scottish Borders. I saw them running around and standing on their rear legs and getting ready to box.

View to a Kill ©Chris Hartzell

I was shark diving at the Guadalupe Islands when I had to lean outside of the cage to get this shot of a 15-foot 2,500-pound female great white shark.

Moment of Truce ©Peter A. Dettling

A grizzly bear challenged a wolf family over a few remains of an elk carcass in Banff National Park - Canada. This photograph shows a moment of truce between the two main rivals of the battle; the breeding male wolf and the grizzly eye to eye, noses nearly touching.

Surprise Morning ©Peter A. Dettling

First snowfall at Bow Lake, Banff National Park - Canada

Buffalo Frost ©Michelle Steinmeyer

Buffalo at Old Faithful in Yellowstone

Chipmunk ©George J. Sanker

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. An autumn snowstorm caused this chipmunk to climb seed stalks to feed.

Winter Divinity ©Mike Nakamura

A cold spell brings frigid temperatures to Dog Mountain in Washington as divinity rays illuminate the mighty Columbia River. The Dog Mountain trail is one of the most scenic trails in the area.

The Wrestlers ©David DesRochers

Two Coastal Brown Bear cubs wrestling in Lake Clark National Park, Alaska

Moonlight and Auroras ©Mariann Rea

As the rising moon lit up the snowy mountain side the auroras danced in the sky above Norway.

A Walk In The Snow ©Karen Celella

Churchill, Canada, Tundra Lodge provided an exceptional opportunity to live among the Polar Bears as they waited for the ice to form on Hudson Bay.

Spillway Lake ©Joe Desjardins

Spillway Lake in Kananaskis Country, Alberta.

You Ate It All ©Jim Chagares

Fox Kits, Yellowstone National Park

Bear Cubs Play ©Robert Carter

Bear cubs at Yosemite National Park

Praying Mantis at Sunset ©Vedwati Padwal

This mantis is looks like it is praying against the setting sun.

Land of Fire and Ice ©Sandy Sisti

A bull elk crosses the steaming Madison River in Yellowstone National Park.

Smokey Stream ©Trisha Flaherty

A foggy creek within Smokey Mountains National Park.

Waiting Out the Storm ©Sean Pettersen

A red fox in Wheatridge, Colorado taking a rest during a snow storm.

One of the opening events at the 16th CoP of CITES.

Alejandra Goyenechea, International Counsel

This week, people from all over the world are meeting in Bangkok, Thailand to discuss how we can better protect wildlife. The Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is conducting its 16th Conference of the Parties, also called a CoP. During the Conference, delegates from 178 countries will have the opportunity to vote on a number of proposals that deal with the regulation of international trade of various endangered species. These events take place every three years at various locations around the world, and this year’s CoP is especially significant, since 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of CITES.

This is one of the most important environmental treaties in the world, and the only one created to regulate international wildlife trade. Through CITES, nations all over the world have been able to protect a number of endangered species by decreasing or banning the international trade of the animals and plants or their parts, cutting down on the demand for these items and putting fewer animals and plants at risk. For instance, CITES regulates the trade in elephant ivory. Other species and products being regulated by CITES include tiger and crocodile skins; the live trade in endangered parrots and macaws; the pet trade of pythons and iguanas; the aquarium trade of corals and sea horses; the collector’s trade of butterflies and beetles; the ornamental plant trade of orchids and cacti; the timber trade of mahogany and rosewood, among others. In total, CITES regulates the trade of more than 34,000 species of fauna and flora.

Alejandra and Juan Carlos at the CITES CoP in Thailand.

Defenders staff members have been attending these conferences and working on CITES issues since the 8th CoP in 1992. We have advocated for the protection of elephants, sea turtles, polar bears, macaws and parrots, mahogany, sharks, whales, frogs and other species. This time, we’re focusing our efforts on five species of sharks; two mantas rays; three freshwater rays; fifty species of rosewood from Madagascar, Belize, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia; and the Machalilla frog (Colostethus machalilla) from Ecuador.

Two of us are representing Defenders at CITES this year: myself (International Counsel) and Juan Carlos Cantu, director of our Mexico program. Both of us have been working on international wildlife conservation issues for a number of years. We’ll also be working alongside other members of the Species Survival Network (SSN), a group of more than 90 international NGOs of which Defenders is a member, to distribute scientific and trade information on the life history and recorded decline of several wildlife species to all of the delegates attending the conference. To ensure that the material is available in United Nations recognized languages, we produced all our information in three languages: English, Spanish and French. Juan Carlos and I are also multilingual, so we will be able to answer questions the delegates might have about the issues.

A hammerhead shark, one of five shark species we’re covering at CITES this year.

For the past two years, we have been working to encourage other nations to sponsor proposals on several species. We gathered information on each of these species and created materials to educate people on the issues and give them the opportunity to show their support. We created fact sheets, shark identification guides, posters with information about the proposals, USB drives (which included information on the species and proposals) in the shape of hammerhead sharks, and even lapel pins in the form of a manta, hammerhead shark and rosewood tree. From our booth at the convention center, we’ll be able to display and hand out these materials to the Conference delegates and other interested parties.

Our goal for the Conference is to ensure the delegates are well informed on why the proposals we are supporting are important. Delegates have the task of voting on more than 70 different species proposals, as well as 75 working documents that deal with the application and enforcement of CITES rules that regulate the trade of thousands of species. With such a job ahead of them, it is vital to provide delegates with the best information available so that they can cast an informed vote. With so many proposals on the table, and so many plants, animals and issues that need attention at CITES, our task is not easy, but we are ready to take it on to ensure protections for these vulnerable species.

From February 13, 2013 through March 13, 2013, Defenders will be accepting submissions for its 4th annual photo contest! The submission form and rules can be found at www.defenders.org/photocontest starting tomorrow, February 13th.

Based on the slew of amazing submissions we received for last year’s contest, we are teeming with anticipation at what we will see this year from photographers as they compete again for the grand prize of a week-long photo tour in June at Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Park with renown wildlife photographer and Defenders’ contributor, Jess Lee.

Given that Defenders of Wildlife’s main focus is on the protection and restoration of imperiled species throughout North America we have refocused the direction of our photo contest this year:  Please note, only North American species and landscapes will be eligible for judging in the 2013 photo contest, with special focus on our 25 key species and focal landscapes.

Check out last year’s winners here, and good luck to all of you who enter!

Now to kick off this year’s photo contest, I was lucky enough to have a sit down with Jess Lee himself and ask a few questions about wildlife photography and the photo tour to give you a tantalizing look at what our grand prize winner will be enjoying this year.

Photographer Jess Lee

What types of wildlife can our grand prize winner expect to see on your week-long photo tour of Yellowstone and the Tetons in the spring?
We will be photographing, elk, pronghorn, moose, deer, coyotes for sure. No guarantees, but we will have a good chance of seeing black bears, grizzlies and wolves.

You offer tours year round. What is your favorite thing about each tour based on season? What will you have our grand prize winner and other tour members on the spring tour especially looking for?
Each tour or workshop gives a unique perspective to the location and its inhabitants. The trips are chosen to be during a prime time for that location. Good examples would be our Alaska grizzly workshops. We go to Lake Clark, Alaska just at the end of the breeding season. This is when the flowers are just starting to bloom and the sow brown bears feel comfortable enough to bring their new cubs into places we can photograph them safely. Later in the year, we go to a different location for the bears feeding on spawning salmon. On this trip, we charter a boat so we can go where the salmon run is the best because this is where larger concentrations of bears will most likely be. We stay flexible and are not locked into one location. Same with the wild horse workshop; we time the trip when the foaling season and the breeding season is at a peak. This provides a great deal of action and variety of subjects. It also doesn’t hurt that this is the time with the arid lands of the west are greening up and flowering.

For the Defenders of Wildlife prize winning trip, as you can imagine, spring is a special time in the Yellowstone country. This is a time of birth as elk, bison, deer, moose and pronghorn babies will be out with their mothers in attendance, foraging in the new green, flowering meadows and forests. Grizzly and black bear, wolves and coyotes will be hunting to feed their own growing young. This, along with the scenic wonders of America’s first national park make this one the most productive times for nature photographers. Long, rewarding days exploring Yellowstone and its wonders will be coupled with two days in Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole, photographing the freshness of spring with great blooms and the possibilities of baby moose, bison and other mammals.

A mule deer in Yellowstone (c)Gail Cameron

What are the things you try to get your photographers to come away with as you mentor them on these trips?
I always want my students to come away with great images they would not have captured if they were on their own. but in addition, I want them to learn the “why” of what we are doing; not only the mechanics of exposure, depth of field, composition, and special techniques which are taught in the field, but the more important aspects of how to approach each subject without causing stress. I want my students to begin to understand the behavior of each animal we are capturing in our photos and how to recognize what the animal may do next so we can be prepared for those fleeting moments that make truly great images. My goal is to give my students a good understanding of how significant the animals’ relationship and survival is tied to what we as humans do to its habitat.

What is your favorite animal to photograph on your tours?  Which is the hardest to photograph?
Wolves for both!
But that’s just me. During a workshop, it’s all about the clients’ interests. I really enjoy the variety of interest each new group of clients brings. For some, it will be the elk bugling in the misty soft morning light along the Madison River or the prize of locating a good bull moose. For others, it will be capturing the speedy pronghorn chasing off rivals during the mating season or those often short times spent following a river otter along the banks of the Yellowstone.

Can you give our contestants a brief overview of the grand prize tour?
Springtime in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National parks is a time of reawakening after a long winter. The snow will still be on mountain peaks, flowers will be blooming and the wildlife babies will be there for us to capture with our cameras. All of this will enable us to bring home splendid images and increase your skill as a photographer.

Michael Tucker, International Conservation Intern

Whenever someone says the word “shark,” the great white from Jaws usually swims to mind. Unfortunately many shark species, the majority of which are harmless to humans, have paid the ultimate price for their more famous movie brethren. The porbeagle shark, an inhabitant of the colder waters of the Atlantic Ocean and a cousin of the great white, is one of those species in desperate need of assistance before it disappears from our planet’s oceans forever.

Porbeagle shark (c)NMFS

What is a Porbeagle?
Lamna nasus, also known as the porbeagle, is a relatively common shark found in the waters between Great Britain and Canada, ranging from shorelines to depths of up to 4,462 feet. The porbeagle is a stout-bodied shark with a pointed nose and a unique white spot on the rear of the dorsal fin. Like its larger cousin the great white, the porbeagle has a dual-shaded body to help it hunt fish from below and above. These sharks are also one of the only species of shark in the world that like to play — they have been found off of the Cornish coast rolling in kelp and pushing buoys around for no reason other than entertainment.

What’s the Problem?
Porbeagle sharks breed slowly and only give birth to one or two pups a year, so any significant damage done to the population takes a long time to fix. It has been estimated that it takes close to 14 years for a population to recover from excessive fishing. Porbeagles were a favorite target for fishing vessels from the 1950s to the 1990s for shark steaks until strict fishing laws were implemented during the late 1990s in order to save the species from overfishing. Although fishing for porbeagles still occurs in the northwestern Atlantic, studies have shown that the number of porbeagles landed in Europe has declined in the past 20 years.

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the porbeagle is listed as globally vulnerable, critically endangered in the northwest Atlantic, endangered in the northeast, and near threatened in the southern Atlantic. In both 2007 and 2010, proposals to regulate the trade of  the species were presented by the European Union at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), but fishing interests successfully blocked the proposals each time.

You Can Help!
For the past couple CITES meetings, Defenders has been helping garner support for a new chance at getting additional international regulations for porbeagles and other shark species to better protect them against overharvesting. Brazil, Comoros, Croatia, the European Union and Egypt will all be sponsoring the porbeagle proposal, and we’ll be at the upcoming CITES conference meeting with the delegates and advocating for the proposal. We are hoping that this time the Parties to the Convention will recognize the dire need for international cooperation to protect porbeagle sharks.  Last time, at the 2010 meeting, the porbeagle proposal lost by just a single vote! We are turning now to Panama, who could cast the decisive vote on this proposal and others like it designed to gain new protections for hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks. Click here to send a letter asking the President of Panama to support shark conservation at this year’s CITES conference!

Oregon Wolf Meets His End in Idaho

Wolf OR16 was only one year old, but showed an urge to explore far beyond his age. He was born in Oregon and was part of the Walla Walla pack, but eventually struck out on his own, crossing hundreds of miles into Washington State. He then swam across the Snake River and ventured into Idaho, all the while being tracked by researchers homing in on his GPS collar.

Wolf OR16 wakes after receiving his GPS collar in Oregon’s Union County on November 1, 2012.

But as we all know, Idaho isn’t a great place to be a wolf these days and sadly, after only 33 days on Idaho soil, OR16 was tracked by a hunter on the Boise National Forest outside of Lowman and legally killed during Idaho’s wolf-hunting season.

OR16 was an amazing animal. Wolves disperse into new areas all the time—these movements help keep wolf populations healthy and growing—but OR16’s journeys were extraordinary, even by wolf standards. His loss is even more tragic as researchers were gleaning tons of information on wolf behavior from the GPS and telemetry signals being emitted by his collar.

OR16 is the second Oregon wolf killed as part of Idaho’s wolf hunts. A year ago, OR-9 was illegally shot by an Idaho hunter. Wolves are relatively new to Oregon; recent census data shows the population slowly climbing to 53 last year.

Idaho’s wolf management practices have been taking a devastating toll on wolves in the northern Rockies since their Congressional delisting in 2011. In their latest move, the state has allocated $50,000 to kill wolves in order to inflate elk numbers for hunters.