Showing posts with label extinct. Show all posts
Showing posts with label extinct. Show all posts

Tuesday, 2 May 2023

Sand cat may be more endangered than people think

The popular sand cat may be more endangered than people think. A study completed fairly recently in southern Morocco discovered that sand cats have much larger home ranges than previously thought. And they travel far greater distances during the night than previously believed.

For example, one male cat that they tracked over a year covered 232.4 km². In all, the study radio tracked 22 individuals.

One individual travelled over 1758 km² (679 mi²) in just over six months. The sand cat's home range is similar if not greater than those of the big cats such as the jaguar and leopard. And certainly, they travel the most of any small cat and have the largest home ranges of all the small cats.

Sand cat
Image: MikeB (copyright protected).

Implications for conservation

What does this mean in terms of conservation? Well, the people in charge of assessing the vulnerability of flora and fauna including the small wild cat species, estimate the population sizes of these cats. They have to estimate them because they're very hard to count. This particularly applies to the sand cat for the reason as stated that they are spread out over a very large area and are secretive.

And one way they can estimate numbers is to estimate their density in a certain area. This means that they estimate how many cats there are in a certain area within their distribution. If that estimate is incorrect and they, for example, believe that there are more cats than there really are over a set area, they will then have an incorrect estimation of the entire population size of that species.

And this recent research indicates that they are spread out, as mentioned, far more than they thought and therefore their density is far lower than they thought. This should lead to a re-evaluation of the population size of the sand cat across the planet and in turn this may lead to a re-evaluation of their vulnerability to extinction in the wild by the IUCN Red List experts who I have difficult trusting!

Underestimates as to vulnerability

Incidentally, on a separate topic, I have always thought that the IUCN Red List underestimate, in general terms, the vulnerability of the wild cat species. And I have wondered whether they are being lobbied by the sport hunters for this reason. That is highly speculative but a reasonable suggestion. 

There is in fact some evidence that they are being pressured by people whose interest is against the conservation of animals because they want the freedom to use and abuse those animals and if they are big enough and interesting enough to shoot them for pleasure (sport hunting).

And there is a lot of money in sport hunting. It is normally the wealthy who engage in it and they can apply pressure to conservationists in various ways through their associations and clubs.

At the moment the sand cat is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List people. As the classification suggests, the conservationists are unconcerned about this small cat species becoming extinct. 

They don't regard the species as vulnerable in the wild. But they could be wrong. 

Finally, the sand cat does very badly in captivity because they become ill very quickly. Therefore, humankind cannot fall back on zoo sand cats in order to save the species if things get very bad.

Thursday, 9 March 2023

Why did the saber-toothed tiger become extinct?

The saber-toothed tiger, also known as the Smilodon, went extinct about 10,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. There is no single definitive answer to why this species went extinct, but researchers have proposed several theories.

Model of a saber-toothed tiger
Model of a saber-toothed tiger. Image: MikeB based on one in the public domain.

One theory suggests that the extinction of the saber-toothed tiger was due to changes in climate and vegetation. The end of the Pleistocene epoch saw a shift towards a warmer, drier climate, which may have reduced the availability of the large prey species that the saber-toothed tiger relied on. As the saber-toothed tiger's prey populations declined, the species may have been unable to adapt and survive.

Another theory is that the saber-toothed tiger's extinction was due to competition with other predators, such as humans and other big cats like lions and tigers. Humans may have hunted the saber-toothed tiger, while other predators may have outcompeted them for prey resources.

Lastly, some researchers believe that disease or genetic factors may have played a role in the extinction of the saber-toothed tiger. However, further research is needed to understand the exact cause or combination of causes that led to the extinction of this iconic predator.

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Eastern Cougar To Be Removed from the Endangered Species List

Camera trap photograph of cougar

The Fish and Wildlife Service propose removing the Eastern Cougar from the Endangered Species List because they say that it is “likely" to be extinct.  Therefore they are not completely sure.  The reason why they're not completely sure is because there are still cougar sightings in the east of the United States.  There are often seen in North Carolina for instance.  The Fish and Wildlife Service would say that these odd mountain lion sightings are cats that have wandered in from the west or escaped captive cougars.  They might also be from Florida where there is a small population of cougars and finally they may be incorrect sightings.

I have noticed that way back in 2011 the Fish and Wildlife Service made a similar pronouncement that the cougar was extinct in the East.  The difference this time is that they are proposing removing the species from the Endangered Species List.  Obviously if an animal is extinct there is no point in listing it as endangered.

Most cougars disappeared in the nineteenth century as they were killed by European immigrants or due to loss of their habitat when forests were cleared.  In addition, the cougar's main prey, white-tailed deer, was hunted by humans and almost became extinct in North America.

One formally reported sighting of a male cougar in the east of the USA was in 2011 when a solitary young male travelled 2000 miles from South Dakota through Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York.  It was killed on the highway in Connecticut. A motor vehicle killed this cougar.  In Florida, as I understand it, the Florida panther is most often killed by motor vehicles as highways criss-cross the state.  Highways also present natural barriers to wild cougars.

I wonder how may people consider this to be a sad day to declare the eastern cougar extinct.  There is one question mark for me and that is whether the eastern cougar is a distinct subspecies.

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