Sundarbans Deer Frightened the Locals as a Man Eater

 A deer strayed into Bhubaneswari village in Kultali on the Fringes of Sundarban forest early on Saturday morning, scaring villagers who initially mistook it for a man-eater.

In the morning from the distance a villager saw a yellow spotted animal in the dense bamboo forest. Just after watching that, he ran for his life assuming it as a man eater tiger. When the news spread, the villagers came with sticks and other weapons.

The deer get frightened when it saw the villagers and fell into a local pond. Villagers informed the chitori forest beat office. A forest team immediately reached the village to rescue it.

According to the Divisional forest officer Lipika Roy, “The deer was tired after fleeing a tiger and then running about when frightened by the villagers. It is not injured though.”  

Deep-sea 'graveyard' reveals fate of dead ocean giants

The chance discovery of a deep-sea "graveyard" is helping scientists to shed light on the fate of dead ocean giants, scientists report.

Footage recorded by the oil and gas industry shows the carcasses of four large marine creatures in a small patch of sea floor off the coast of Angola.

Around the dead whale shark and three deceased rays, scavengers flocked to the food bonanza.

Lead author Dr Nick Higgs, from the University of Plymouth's Marine Institute, said: "There's been lots of research on whale-falls, but we've never really found any of these other large marine animals on the sea bed."

Whale carcasses are home to complex ecosystems, first attracting scavengers such as sharks, then smaller opportunists such as crabs and shrimp-like creatures called amphipods. Osedax - or "zombie worms" - feed on the animal's bones, while specialist bacteria break down fats.

But with this latest footage, scientists have been able to see how the feeding frenzy that takes place around other big animal carcasses compares.

The video was recorded by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), which were surveying the seafloor around Angola for industrial exploration.

The dead creatures were found between 2008 and 2010 on a one-square-kilometre patch of the sea floor and had been dead for an estimated one or two months.

Three creatures thought to be devil rays were also filmed by the ROVs

The researchers mainly found scavenging fish - up to 50 around each carcass.

"We found three to four different types - but what really dominated were eel pouts. These normally sit around the carcass and wait for smaller scavengers - amphipods - to come along, and they will eat them," said Dr Higgs.

"There were lots of these fish sitting around the carcasses - they seemed to be guarding it."

But the team did not find other animals, such as the bone-eating worms, lurking around the dead whale shark and rays.

"Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence... but the ecosystem does seem different to whale falls," said Dr Higgs.

The team was not sure why, given how rare sightings like this are, that four dead animals were all spotted in a small area.

Dr Higgs said: "There are lots of these animals living in the surface waters, and through natural mortality, you will have an increased abundance of dead animals on the seabed. The reason we found them could be because of this industrial survey work - there are very few places surveyed as intensively as these areas."

The researchers estimated that the carcasses of large animals could provide about 4% of the total food that arrives on the sea floor in this area.

"These large carcass falls can be quite common and support quite a few fish in terms of the amount of food coming down there - there may be easily enough to support fish populations."

Skull malformations in lions: Keeping up the pressure

An international team of researchers led by scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) Berlin examined the incidence of skull malformations in lions, a problem known to be responsible for causing neurological diseases and increased mortality. Their results suggest that the occurrence is a consequence of a combination of environmental and genetic factors. These findings were published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

The scientists studied the morphology of 575 lion skulls in museum collections in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa and noted the incidence of malformations with respect to the death place of lions -- died in the wild or in captivity. The researchers compared the results with skulls of tigers, a similar-sized obligatory carnivorous predator. Whereas tiger skulls of captive origin had a similar incidence of malformations as those of wild origin, large differences occurred between lion skulls from both sources.

Lions have been kept in captivity for centuries and, although they reproduce well, high rates of stillbirths as well as substantial morbidity and mortality of neonates and young lions are reported. Many of these cases were attributed to bone malformations of the skull, including the narrowing of the foramen magnum, the opening at the rear of the skull through which the spinal cord connects to the brain and which can cause associated neurological diseases.

Foramen magnum of lion (Panthera leo) skulls; right: skull of a healthy lion, left: malformed skull.

A scientific collaboration between scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the IZW Berlin, University of Oxford, the Zoological Center Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan, and the Blue Pearl NYC Veterinary Specialists showed that only 0.4 % of lion skulls from the wild had a narrowing of the foramen magnum whereas the constricted opening of the foramen magnum had a forty-fold higher chance to occur in lion skulls from captivity (15.8 %). Lion skulls from captivity were also wider and had a smaller cranial volume. These findings in lions and their absence in tigers suggest the presence of an interaction of the rearing environment and a heritable predisposition of lions to the pathology. "The morphological changes in many of the lion skulls from captivity suggest that some of these lions possibly died because the hind brain and spinal cord were compressed by abnormal and excessive bone formation in their skulls, resulting in severe neurological abnormalities," says Dr Merav Shamir from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "It would be interesting to know whether this is a lion-specific phenomenon. Similar investigations in other big cats would be valuable to answer this question," added Dr Nobuyuki Yamaguchi from the University of Oxford.

This anomalous skull morphology has been documented in captive lion skulls dating back as far as the 15^th century, and been the subject of many studies since. "And yet," says Dr Joseph Saragusty from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, " the cause of these morphological changes is still not known. The ongoing loss of captive lions to the disease highlights the need for further investigation with a view to reducing its occurrence."

'I can haz blood?' The surprising world of pet blood transfusions

Don Juan, Napoleon, Gucci, Azur, and Marissa are very friendly and will rush to welcome anyone who enters their room, and that's what makes them good blood donors. "I chose them for their hematological characteristics, but also for their good disposition. We didn't want cats that would be stressed when handled or that needed excessive sedation," said Dr. Marie-Claude Blais, Professor at the University of Montreal's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Where they are housed, the five cats (four males and one female) can climb to the top of their trapeze and out into the yard through a cat flap. They can lounge on a hammock all day long or play cat and mouse. What is more, the door to their room is never locked, so they can get their daily dose of hugs, a benefit not necessarily stipulated in their contract. "Our cats are chosen by interview. In the last selection process, out of the 12 cats we evaluated, we only ended up keeping one," Blais said.

An ethics committee oversees the various aspects of this unique blood bank, which also includes canine "volunteers." Unlike their feline counterparts, Bacho, Dali, Gaspard, Bowie, and Dexter do not live at the CHUV University Veterinary Hospital, but with their families. They come to the hospital at the request of veterinarians and give blood once every six weeks at most. "It's true that the idea of animals donating blood is strange," Blais said, "but the dogs seem to adapt well. Anyway, they don't seem to mind coming to the hospital."

Which animals need blood transfusions? Mainly those on the operating table, but also bleeding accident victims or anemic animals with cancer or immune dysfunctions, for example.

The blood bank already existed before Dr. Blais arrived in 2008, but she has given it a new dimension. "Let's say I optimized the service -- everything had to be rethought, from changing the blood collection bags to redefining protocol." Maintenance and turnover of blood products requires proven expertise. Storage life is limited and the quantities needed for transfusions fluctuate constantly. "Sometimes we have immediate needs we can't meet, sometimes we have to throw out expired units. It breaks our heart," Blais said.

Clinician and researcher

Dr. Blais' research activities focus on internal medicine and veterinary hematology. "A lot of knowledge has developed in my field of internal medicine, but there is much to discover in some areas," she said. On top of her research, she is giving courses in Gastro-intestinal Diseases, Emergency Medicine, and Nutrition, running two wetlabs and supervising graduate seminars. She also devotes herself to a clinic for small animals every two weeks, which requires about 45 hours of work.

Blais came to the University of Montreal after conducting a postdoctoral fellowship in Transfusion Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 2006. She documented a new blood type in dogs: DAL for "Dalmatian." "I remember dancing in my office when I realized I was dealing with a new canine blood group," she said.

Her discovery caused a stir when her article, published in 2007 in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, received praise from the editor, Jane Wardrop of the University of Washington. In the editorial entitled "A Welcome Discovery," the author pays tribute to the Quebec researcher. Her findings provide "an exciting and welcome addition to the current body of knowledge in veterinary transfusion medicine and will hopefully prompt further research in this area," it said.

Dottie and Henriette

Blais made her discovery while following the case of a dog name Dottie. Brought by her owner to the Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania due to health problems, the dog received a preliminary blood transfusion to underg

o surgery. A few days later, a second transfusion was needed; in the meantime, however, the dog had developed antibodies that prevented a new transfusion.

In fact, no blood available was compatible with Dottie's system, and the staff wanted to stop there. "Why not investigate further?" Blais asked. "We would have done it for humans."

It must be noted that the blood system of dogs is quite different from ours. When the researcher took on the subject, 12 canine blood groups were known. Dogs do not have antibodies in their blood directed against most of these. Consequently, an animal can receive blood from almost any other individual; its immune system will accept it. It's during the second transfusion that things get complicated, because it can be fatal.

As a result, none of the 55 blood donors at the US veterinary hospital had a system compatible with Dottie's. "We had to call upon the Dalmatian breeding community, and the response was immediate. Through social networks, we had blood samples from 13 Dalmatians in 48 hours. Three were compatible."

Subsequent research showed that several Dobermans and a Shih Tzu had a similar blood type. More recently, it was discovered that a dog kept at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, a Beagle named Henriette, had the same blood type. This discovery opened up a whole new area of research.

With her team in Pennsylvania, she repeated her exploit by revealing a similar rarity among cats (she co-authored the article published in the same issue of the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine). "There are certainly other groups and sub-groups to document," says the researcher smiling.

She notes that her canine blood bank is looking for casual donors. With approximately 50 animals, the network can accommodate other "volunteers." They are looking for dogs of good size, healthy, and an easy-going temperament. They must be able to cooperate willingly with veterinary medicine.

IN THE LAST DAYS OF SABRE-TOOTH CAT

Sabre-tooth cat skull

Sabre-tooth cats, one of the most fearsome cats of all time, rule the land of the North America in the ice age. They are the top predator of the land of North America in the Ice Age. Huge preys like the Bison, horses are the main prey of the Sabre-Tooth Cat. The normal temperature of the North America never exceeded more than 40 degree in the complete Ice age era. In that time most probably the land of North America is not like this. Most probably the places are not dry and there exist huge forests with big trees and grasslands. This forest and the grasslands create huge covers for the Sabre-Tooth Cats to hunt. If we see the bone structure of the Sabre-Tooth Cat, we find that, the sabre-tooth cats are much heavier than other big cats of today. This indicates they are much slower than today’s cat. So they must be much more dependent on their sneak attack. So the covers from the grasslands and the forests with huge trees are very much in favour of them – That makes the Sabre-tooth cat the top predator of the entire North America in the ice age.

Now we are entering 10,000 years ago from today. The time is changing. It is the End of the Ice age era. The climate is changing rapidly. The ice is melting rapidly. The forestland with huge trees and grasslands become the place of much drier open field with short grasses. That is making the most of the herbivorous megafauna migrate. But surprisingly one megafauna is looking like very much adoptable with this environmental change – It is the Bison. And actually in this new environmental condition the bison are more comfortable and their population increases in those open field.

Imaginary body of the Sabre-tooth cat

After ruling the North America, now suddenly the Sabre-tooth is losing its grip in the wild. In fact they are decreasing rapidly. In the time of the ice age the maximum temperature never crossed 40 degree, but now the temperature is much higher, the lands become drier; the big land forests and the grasslands are gone. These cause a huge problem to the sabre-tooth cat to hunt. We know the sabre-tooth cats hunting completely depends on the fact that how much they are capable of being camouflaged. Since all the big tree forests and grasslands are now gone and they are replaced by the open fields, Sabre-tooth cats are losing their chance of being unseen. We can simply say the climate is betraying the Sabre-tooth cats in these days. Also the numbers of the Bison population increasing now – This gives the bison herds a lot of more pairs of eyes to watch their backs. So they can see the cat from a long distance and can run away. Sabre-tooth cat figure is not built to chase down a prey and hunt it down, as they are much slower than modern world cheetah, lions, tigers etc.

This new world makes the Sabre-tooth cats food less. They started to decrease from the world only because of the food. In their last days, the sabre-tooth cats lived a life where they can see their prey standing not too far from them but still out of their reach.

The last sabre-tooth cat – a female cat, most probably has two kids. She tried to hunt bison for many times but failed every time. Then she abandoned its kids and travelled long for food. It finally reaches the La Brea Tar Pit and sees some dead or trapped animals. She entered the tar pit and got trapped in the tar and died there.

The Last Sabre-Tooth Cat died like this and The Sabre-Tooth Cat extinct from the world.

Uncontrollable ice-melt? Uncorking East Antarctica could yield unstoppable sea-level rise, simulations show

The melting of a rather small ice volume on East Antarctica's shore could trigger a persistent ice discharge into the ocean, resulting in unstoppable sea-level rise for thousands of years to come. This is shown in a study now published in Nature Climate Change by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The findings are based on computer simulations of the Antarctic ice flow using improved data of the ground profile underneath the ice sheet

"East Antarctica's Wilkes Basin is like a bottle on a slant," says lead-author Matthias Mengel, "once uncorked, it empties out." The basin is the largest region of marine ice on rocky ground in East Antarctica. Currently a rim of ice at the coast holds the ice behind in place: like a cork holding back the content of a bottle. While the air over Antarctica remains cold, warming oceans can cause ice loss on the coast. Ice melting could make this relatively small cork disappear -- once lost, this would trigger a long term sea-level rise of 300-400 centimeters. "The full sea-level rise would ultimately be up to 80 times bigger than the initial melting of the ice cork," says co-author Anders Levermann.

"Until recently, only West Antarctica was considered unstable, but now we know that its ten times bigger counterpart in the East might also be at risk," says Levermann, who is head of PIK's research area Global Adaptation Strategies and a lead-author of the sea-level change chapter of the most recent scientific assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. This report, published in late September, projects Antarctica's total sea level contribution to be up to 16 centimeters within this century. "If half of that ice loss occurred in the ice-cork region, then the discharge would begin. We have probably overestimated the stability of East Antarctica so far," says Levermann.

Emitting greenhouse-gases could start uncontrollable ice-melt

Melting would make the grounding line retreat -- this is where the ice on the continent meets the sea and starts to float. The rocky ground beneath the ice forms a huge inland sloping valley below sea-level. When the grounding line retreats from its current position on a ridge into the valley, the rim of the ice facing the ocean becomes higher than before. More ice is then pushed into the sea, eventually breaking off and melting. And the warmer it gets, the faster this happens.

Complete ice discharge from the affected region in East Antarctica takes five thousand to ten thousand years in the simulations. However, once started, the discharge would slowly but relentlessly continue until the whole basin is empty, even if climate warming stopped. "This is the underlying issue here," says Matthias Mengel. "By emitting more and more greenhouse gases we might trigger responses now that we may not be able to stop in the future." Such extensive sea level rise would change the face of planet Earth -- coastal cities such as Mumbai, Tokyo or New York are likely to be at risk.

East Antarctica is sliding sideways: Ice loss on West Antarctica affecting mantle flow below

Now that West Antarctica is losing weight--that is, billions of tons of ice per year--its softer mantle rock is being nudged westward by the harder mantle beneath East Antarctica.

The discovery comes from researchers led by The Ohio State University, who have recorded GPS measurements that show West Antarctic bedrock is being pushed sideways at rates up to about twelve millimeters--about half an inch--per year. This movement is important for understanding current ice loss on the continent, and predicting future ice loss.

They reported the results on Thursday, Dec. 12 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Half an inch doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually quite dramatic compared to other areas of the planet, explained Terry Wilson, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State. Wilson leads POLENET, an international collaboration that has planted GPS and seismic sensors all over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

She and her team weren't surprised to detect the horizontal motion. After all, they've been using GPS to observe vertical motion on the continent since the 1990's.

They were surprised, she said, to find the bedrock moving towards regions of greatest ice loss.

"From computer models, we knew that the bedrock should rebound as the weight of ice on top of it goes away," Wilson said. "But the rock should spread out from the site where the ice used to be. Instead, we see movement toward places where there was the most ice loss."

The seismic sensors explained why. By timing how fast seismic waves pass through Earth under Antarctica, the researchers were able to determine that the mantle regions beneath east and west are very different. West Antarctica contains warmer, softer rock, and East Antarctica has colder, harder rock.

Stephanie Konfal, a research associate with POLENET, pointed out that where the transition is most pronounced, the sideways movement runs perpendicular to the boundary between the two types of mantle.

She likened the mantle interface to a pot of honey.

"If you imagine that you have warm spots and cold spots in the honey, so that some of it is soft and some is hard," Konfal said, "and if you press down on the surface of the honey with a spoon, the honey will move away from the spoon, but the movement won't be uniform. The hard spots will push into the soft spots. And when you take the spoon away, the soft honey won't uniformly flow back up to fill the void, because the hard honey is still pushing on it."

Or, put another way, ice compressed West Antarctica's soft mantle. Some ice has melted away, but the soft mantle isn't filling back in uniformly, because East Antarctica's harder mantle is pushing it sideways. The crust is just along for the ride.

This finding is significant, Konfal said, because we use these crustal motions to understand ice loss.

"We're witnessing expected movements being reversed, so we know we really need computer models that can take lateral changes in mantle properties into account."

Wilson said that such extreme differences in mantle properties are not seen elsewhere on the planet where glacial rebound is occurring.

"We figured Antarctica would be different," she said. "We just didn't know how different."

Ohio State's POLENET academic partners in the United States are Pennsylvania State University, Washington University, New Mexico Tech, Central Washington University, the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and the University of Memphis. A host of international partners are part of the effort as well. The project is supported by the UNAVCO and IRIS-PASSCAL geodetic and seismic facilities.

Ice-loss moves the Earth 250 miles down

Antarctic iceberg. Scientists have shown for the first time how the mantle below Earth's crust in the Antarctic Peninsula is flowing much faster than expected, probably due to subtle changes in temperature or chemical composition.

An international research team led by Newcastle University, UK, reveal Earth's mantle under Antarctica is at a lower viscosity and moving at such a rapid rate it is changing the shape of the land at a rate that can be recorded by GPS.

At the surface, Antarctica is a motionless and frozen landscape. Yet hundreds of miles down the Earth is moving at a rapid rate, new research has shown.

The study, led by Newcastle University, UK, and published this week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, explains for the first time why the upward motion of Earth's crust in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula is currently taking place so quickly.

Previous studies have shown Earth is 'rebounding' due to the overlying ice sheet shrinking in response to climate change. This movement of the land was understood to be due to an instantaneous, elastic response followed by a very slow uplift over thousands of years.

But GPS data collected by the international research team, involving experts from Newcastle University, UK; Durham University; DTU, Denmark; University of Tasmania, Australia; Hamilton College, New York; the University of Colorado and the University of Toulouse, France, has revealed that the land in this region is actually rising at a phenomenal rate of 15mm a year -- much greater than can be accounted for by the present-day elastic response alone.

And they have shown for the first time how the mantle below Earth's crust in the Antarctic Peninsula is flowing much faster than expected, probably due to subtle changes in temperature or chemical composition.

This means it can flow more easily and so responds much more quickly to the lightening load hundreds of miles above it, changing the shape of the land.

Lead researcher, PhD student Grace Nield, based in the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University, explains: "You would expect this rebound to happen over thousands of years and instead we have been able to measure it in just over a decade. You can almost see it happening which is just incredible.

"Because the mantle is 'runnier' below the Northern Antarctic Peninsula it responds much more quickly to what's happening on the surface. So as the glaciers thin and the load in that localised area reduces, the mantle pushes up the crust.

"At the moment we have only studied the vertical deformation so the next step is to look at horizontal motion caused by the ice unloading to get more of a 3-D picture of how Earth is deforming, and to use other geophysical data to understand the mechanism of the flow."

Since 1995 several ice shelves in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula have collapsed and triggered ice-mass unloading, causing the solid Earth to 'bounce back'.

"Think of it a bit like a stretched piece of elastic," says Nield, whose project is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

"The ice is pressing down on the Earth and as this weight reduces the crust bounces back. But what we found when we compared the ice loss to the uplift was that they didn't tally -- something else had to be happening to be pushing the solid Earth up at such a phenomenal rate.

"Collating data from seven GPS stations situated across the Northern Peninsula, the team found the rebound was so fast that the upper mantle viscosity -- or resistance to flow -- had to be at least ten times lower than previously thought for the region and much lower than the rest of Antarctica.

Professor Peter Clarke, Professor of Geophysical Geodesy at Newcastle University and one of the authors of the paper, adds: "Seeing this sort of deformation of the Earth at such a rate is unprecedented in Antarctica. What is particularly interesting here is that we can actually see the impact that glacier thinning is having on the rocks 250 miles down."

Asian tiger numbers could triple if large-scale landscapes are protected

The tiger reserves of Asia could support more than 10,000 wild tigers -- three times the current number -- if they are managed as large-scale landscapes that allow for connectivity between core breeding sites, a new study from some of the world's leading conservation scientists finds. The study, published in Conservation Letters, is the first assessment of the political commitment made by all 13 tiger range countries last November to double the tiger population across Asia by 2022.

The study finds that the commitment made by tiger range states in November's historic tiger summit to double the wild tiger population is not only possible, but can be exceeded. However, it will take a global effort to ensure that core breeding reserves are maintained and connected via habitat corridors. The paper also notes that tiger landscapes can potentially "pay their way" through payment schemes for carbon storage and sequestration and other ecosystem services.

The tiger reserves of Asia could support more than 10,000 wild tigers -- three times the current number -- if they are managed as large-scale landscapes that allow for connectivity between core breeding sites, a new study finds.

"In the midst of a crisis, it's tempting to circle the wagons and only protect a limited number of core protected areas, but we can and should do better," said Dr. Eric Dinerstein, Chief Scientist at WWF-US. "We absolutely need to stop the bleeding, the poaching of tigers and their prey in core breeding areas, but we need to go much further and secure larger tiger landscapes before it is too late."

Wild tiger numbers have declined from about 100,000 in the early 1900s to as few as 3,200 today due to poaching of tigers and their prey, habitat destruction and human/tiger conflict. Most of the remaining tigers are scattered in small, isolated pockets across their range in 13 Asian countries.

"Tiger conservation is the face of biodiversity conservation and competent sustainable land-use management at the landscape level," said Dr. John Seidensticker of the Smithsonian Conservation Research Institute. "By saving the tiger we save all the plants and animals that live under the tiger's umbrella."

The authors found that the 20 priority tiger conservation landscapes with the highest probability of long-term tiger survival could support more than 10,500 tigers, including about 3,400 breeding females. They also looked at historical examples to prove that a doubling or tripling is possible using large landscapes:

• In the jungles of lowland Nepal, tiger numbers crashed during civil conflict from 2002 to 2006. However, tigers did not disappear because Nepal and India's tiger reserves are linked by forest corridors, which likely allowed for replenishment from India.
• In the Russian Far East tigers almost disappeared in the 1940s, but the region was re-populated by tigers moving in from northeastern China.
• Recently designated habitat corridors across the Sino-Russia border are helping tigers re-establish themselves in China's Changbaishan mountains, where they had disappeared in the 1990s
• In India's Nagarahole National Park, tiger numbers are "healthy and resilient" because the park is connected to other reserves in the region. Tigers number almost 300 in this large landscape of connected parks and reserves.

In contrast, the authors point to two of India's premier tiger reserves to show how lack of connectivity can preclude tiger population recovery. Tigers disappeared from Sariska and Panna tiger reserves in 2005 and 2009 due to poaching and were not able to re-colonize because these reserves are not connected to other reserves through habitat corridors. Consequently, wild tigers had to be translocated into these reserves to attempt to re-establish populations.

Besides poaching and habitat loss, the $7.5 trillion in infrastructure projects like roads, dams and mines that will be invested in Asia over the next decade threatens tiger landscapes. A focus only on core sites and protected areas like reserves, instead of larger landscapes, could be seen by developers and politicians as a green light to move forward with infrastructure projects outside of core sites.

The authors insist that conservationists and governments must be involved in helping design infrastructure projects to mitigate their impacts on tigers both inside core sites and in current and potential forest corridors. A recently built oil depot in India's Terai Arc, for example, severed a vital elephant and tiger corridor. Conservationists are now in litigation to remove the depot. Early intervention could have avoided this.

"Following the St. Petersburg Declaration, Nepal has committed to the goal of doubling wild tiger numbers across our country by 2022," said Deepak Bohara, Nepal's Minister for Forests and Soil Conservation. "This analysis shows that it can be done, not just in Nepal, but, if done right with careful study and planning, across the entire tiger range. It is also worth noting that tiger conservation provides carbon credits, protects water resources, and complements community development efforts. Thus, it is important to promote regional cooperation to maintain a healthy tiger corridor between different reserves."

Nowhere to hide: Tigers threatened by human destruction of groundcover

The elimination of ground-level vegetation is bringing another of the world's tiger subspecies to the brink of extinction, according to Virginia Tech and World Wildlife Fund researchers.

The Sumatran tiger, native to Indonesia, could be the fourth type of tiger to disappear from the wild. This is due, in part, because of deforestation and the loss of thick groundcover, also known as understory cover, said Sunarto, lead scientist on a study that is the first to systematically investigate the use of both forests and plantation areas for tiger habitat.

Although tiger's prefer forest to plantation areas, the study found that the most important factor was that availability of thick ground-level vegetation which apparently serves as an environmental necessity for tiger habitat, regardless of location.

"As ambush hunters, tigers would find it hard to capture their prey without adequate understory cover," said Sunarto, who earned his doctorate at Virginia Tech and now is a tiger expert for the World Wildlife Fund-Indonesia (WWF-Indonesia). "The lack of cover also leaves tigers vulnerable to persecution by humans, who generally perceive them as dangerous."

Within forest areas, tigers also strongly prefer sites that have low levels of human disturbance as indicated by their preference for areas closer to forest centers and farther from human activity centers such as bodies of water and areas bordering plantations and towns.

Tigers occupy only around 7 percent of their historic range. Estimates place the current wild tiger populations at as few as 3,200 tigers, including only about 400 Sumatran tigers, which are listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.

"These study results indicate that to thrive, tigers depend on the existence of large contiguous forest blocks," said study co-author Marcella Kelly, an associate professor in Virginia Tech's Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and Sunarto's graduate advisor.

The Indonesian government has set aside many areas and national parks for the conservation of endangered species but about 70 percent of tiger habitat in Sumatra, an island in western Indonesia, remains outside these protected areas. The preservation of such habitats, which requires support from government, landowners, and concession holders, is critical for conservation of the species, the study authors emphasize.

A recently published Indonesian presidential decree on land use in Sumatra points out the importance of building wildlife corridors between critical areas, where commitments from concession owners are key to successful implementation.

"Even with current legal protection for the species, tigers are not doing well in many places, especially those outside protected areas," Sunarto said. "As long as forest conversion continues, tigers will require active protection or they will quickly disappear from our planet."

The study is the first of its kind to systematically investigate the Sumatran tiger’s use of different land cover types for habitat.

The study concludes that in order to protect tigers, it is critical to stop clearing Indonesia's remaining natural forests for plantations. With adjustments in management practices on existing plantations to include more understory and riparian forest corridors, tigers could use a mosaic of forest patches across fragmented landscapes.

"We hope that plantation managers and concession owners can use the recommendations of this report to apply best management practices to further protect Sumatran tigers from extinction," said Anwar Purwoto, director of the Forest, Freshwater, and Species Program at WWF¬Indonesia.

"Ensuring that tigers are able to roam freely in natural forests and restored habitat is crucial to their survival," said co-author Sybille Klenzendorf, head of WWF's species program, who earned her master's and doctorate degrees in wildlife science from Virginia Tech. "This study is a reminder of just how important it is for us to protect the natural forests that tigers and other animals rely on."

The report was published in the Public Library of Science's online journal PLoS ONEon Jan. 23, and was a collaboration between the university and WWF, with support from the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry.

Human activities threaten Sumatran tiger population

Sumatran tigers, found exclusively on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, are on the brink of extinction. By optimistic estimates, perhaps 400 individuals survive. But the exact the number and locations of the island's dwindling tiger population has been up for debate.

Virginia Tech and World Wildlife Fund researchers have found that tigers in central Sumatra live at very low densities, lower than previously believed, according to a study in the April 2013 issue of Oryx -- The International Journal of Conservation.

The findings by Sunarto, who earned his doctorate from Virginia Tech in 2011, and co-researchers Marcella Kelly, an associate professor of wildlife in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, and Erin Poor of East Lansing, Mich., a doctoral student studying wildlife science and geospatial environmental analysis in the college, suggest that high levels of human activity limit the tiger population.

Researchers studied areas and habitat types not previously surveyed, which could inform interventions needed to save the tiger.

"Tigers are not only threatened by habitat loss from deforestation and poaching; they are also very sensitive to human disturbance," said Sunarto, a native of Indonesia, where people typically have one name. "They cannot survive in areas without adequate understory, but they are also threatened in seemingly suitable forests when there is too much human activity."

The smallest surviving tiger subspecies, Sumatran tigers are extremely elusive and may live at densities as low as one cat per 40 square miles. This is the first study to compare the density of Sumatran tigers across various forest types, including the previously unstudied peat land. The research applied spatial estimation techniques to provide better accuracy of tiger density than previous studies.

Sunarto, a tiger and elephant specialist with World Wildlife Fund-Indonesia, collaborated on the paper with Kelly, Professor Emeritus Michael Vaughan, and Sybille Klenzendorf, managing director of WWF's Species Conservation Program, who earned her master's and doctoral degrees in wildlife science from Virginia Tech. The WWF field team collected data in partnership with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry staff.

"Getting evidence of the tigers' presence was difficult," Kelly said. "It took an average of 590 days for camera traps to get an image of each individual tiger recorded."

"We believe the low detection of tigers in the study area of central Sumatra was a result of the high level of human activity -- farming, hunting, trapping, and gathering of forest products," Sunarto said. "We found a low population of tigers in these areas, even when there was an abundance of prey animals."

Legal protection of an area, followed by intensive management, can reduce the level of human disturbance and facilitate the recovery of the habitat and as well as tiger numbers. The researchers documented a potentially stable tiger population in the study region's Tesso Nilo Park, where legal efforts are in place to discourage destructive human activities.

The study -- "Threatened predator on the equator: Multi-point abundance estimates of the tiger Panthera tigris in central Sumatra" -- indicates that more intensive monitoring and proactive management of tiger populations and their habitats are crucial or this tiger subspecies will soon follow the fate of its extinct Javan and Balinese relatives.

Hope for tigers lives in Sumatra

In time for the third annual International Tiger Day, recent findings from a camera trap survey in Sumatra, Indonesia have uncovered a burgeoning tiger stronghold on an island that typically makes headlines for its rampant loss of forests and wildlife.

Mr. Tomy Winata, an Indonesian businessman, conservationist and founder of Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation (TWNC, which is a 450km2 privately managed concession), has carried out critical tiger conservation initiatives in the region since 1996, and recently partnered with Panthera, a global big cat conservation organization, to implement this successful survey.

The study's preliminary camera trap data recently indicated an unexpected density of six tigers per 100km2 in the southern region of TWNC. This estimate is nearly double the highest recorded for the island to date. These findings, including camera trap images of tiger cubs like that above, have identified Tambling, which is part of the globally significant Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (BBSNP), as a beacon of hope for the last remaining 400-500 wild Sumatran tigers.

Panthera's CEO and tiger scientist, Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, stated, "The extraordinary tiger densities that have been discovered in Tambling are the tangible result of Mr. Tomy Winata's program not just to provide tigers sanctuary, but to protect them. Simply put, the main threat to tigers across their range is from poaching. Poaching is not a disease we can't see or a threat we can't identify. It can be beaten if the will is there to do so. Armed with a zero tolerance policy towards poaching, Mr. Tomy Winata and his team have successfully secured a significant area utilizing effective enforcement. This fact, coupled with good science and monitoring, has had the desired results; tigers are now breeding. Tambling is a model tiger conservation site that is giving the Sumatran subspecies a real chance not just to recover...but to thrive."

Prior to TWNC's efforts, Tambling's tigers were subjected to high levels of poaching and habitat loss. However, Mr. Tomy Winata's use of law enforcement patrols carrying out strict protection efforts, and maintenance of lowland tiger habitat and prey populations, has allowed Tambling to emerge as a key site for tigers in Sumatra and across their range. TWNC's initiatives have also benefited Tambling's local fishing community, which Mr. Tomy Winata has supported by providing villagers with employment opportunities, contributions to the community health clinic and school, student scholarships and more.

Mr. Tomy Winata stated, "I am doing all this because it is my belief that nature has provided us with everything we need to survive and live in this world, and yet so many people have taken from her for their own benefit without giving anything back in return. So I hope that my efforts in wildlife conservation and forest and ecosystem sustainability can be a role model for others, so that together we can help save Mother Nature and never forget where we came from."

Situated within a picturesque peninsula forming the southern tip of BBSNP, the TWNC region encompasses a privately managed concession which is critical to the protection and connectivity of core tiger populations in the larger BBSNP landscape -- an area extending 3,568 km2 that represents one of the largest contiguous protected regions of Sumatra.

A wild tiger cub walks past a camera trap in Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation, Sumatra, 2013.

Panthera's tiger conservation efforts in southern Sumatra began in 2012 with the filming of the BBC Natural World documentary, Tiger Island, which follows Dr. Rabinowitz as he assesses the state of Mr. Tomy Winata's wild tiger conservation initiatives in Tambling.

Today, Panthera's wild cat scientist and post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Robert Pickles, is working with the TWNC team to extend the population density analysis to the northern region of TWNC and implement extensive habitat analyses to determine the vitality of Tambling's ecosystem. Expanding the reach and efficacy of the Tambling tiger conservation project, the field teams will soon implement a new monitoring software known as SMART to track evidence of illegal activities and better evaluate and target law enforcement efforts. Additional activities include assisting local authorities with park boundary delineations and determining additional threats and their solutions, besides poaching, to tigers, their prey, and their habitat.

Through this joint initiative, Panthera is working with Mr. Tomy Winata and TWNC to establish its first 'Tigers Forever Legacy Site.' Dr. Rabinowitz concluded, "There would be no greater legacy than creating safe havens for tigers where the legacy is that they live on, in the wild forever. Together with TWNC, we're one step closer to that becoming a reality."

Sumatran 'tiger map' reveals tiger population higher than expected

Scientists have created the highest resolution map of Sumatran tiger distribution ever produced, revealing that the island now hosts the second largest tiger population on earth. The research, carried out with the Wildlife Conservation Society's Indonesia Program and Forum HarimauKita, will be published in a special issue of Integrative Zoology, on tiger conservation and research methodologies.

Hariyo T. Wibisono and Wulan Pusparini conducted a questionnaire-based survey across the island to identify the status of Sumatran tiger distribution. They found that tigers still occupy a large majority of the remaining available habitat in Sumatra. Of the 144,160 square kilometers (55,660 sq mi) of remaining potential habitat, tigers are present in over 97% (140,226 sq km; 55,141 sq mi). However, only 29% of the habitat found to contain tigers is protected.

"These findings imply that Sumatran tiger population might be much larger than we believed, and could potentially be the second largest tiger population in the world after India," said Wibisono.

The survey also revealed that tigers occupy a great diversity of ecosystems. Tigers were found from 0 meters above sea level in coastal lowland forests, to 3200 meters (10,500 feet) above sea level in high mountain forests and in every eco-region in between.

"There is a need for further scientific population assessment," said Wibisono, "but if the population is indeed as large as this new survey suggests then real actions and more support from tiger experts and the international community should be mobilized in the conservation of Sumatran tigers."

Based on their findings, the scientists recommend that at least five habitats should be reassessed as Tiger Conservation Landscapes (TCLs). A TCL is an area where there is sufficient habitat for at least five tigers and in which tigers have been confirmed to be present in the last 10 years.

Tigers are able to live in a wide range of habitats. A male tiger photographed by a camera trap in montane forest habitat within the Leuser Ecosystem, North Sumatra Province, Sumatra. In this region, tiger signs were discovered at up to 3.200m asl by WCS survey teams.

These habitats include: 1.) Leuser Ecosystem which contains lowland to montane habitat in the northwest, 2.) Berbak-Sembilang containing lowland peat swamps and coastal habitat in southeast, 3.) Ulu Masen Ecosystem containing lowland to montane habitat in northwest, 4.) Batang Gadis containing lowland to lower montane habitat in central Sumatra, and 5.) Giam Siak Kecil in the central part of the island.

Mr. Wibisono sought to undertake this survey because he believed, based on his extensive experience working on the ground in Sumatra, that previous studies underestimated tiger population distribution. He and his colleague's findings verify his hunch and demonstrate that tigers are present at an island-wide scale in Sumatra.

The world tiger population has declined by 50% since 1998, and only an estimated 3,200-3,600 remain in the wild. The presence of tigers over a wide area of habitat in Sumatra is one of the few bright spots in the current state of wild tigers, but more protection is needed to ensure a viable future for this magnificent animal.

"Although tigers are clearly in peril, I am encouraged by the historic commitments made at the recent global tiger summit to increase the number of tigers worldwide," said Zhibin Zhang, editor-in-chief of Integrative Zoology. "At the end of November, the International Tiger Conservation Forum was held in St. Petersburg, Russia. The governments of the 13 tiger range countries agreed to double tiger numbers by 2022."

"By publishing this special issue on tiger conservation and research methodologies we hope to contribute to the efforts by governments, scientists and conservationists to brink tigers back from the brink."

White tiger mystery solved: Coat color produced by single change in pigment gene

White tigers today are only seen in zoos, but they belong in nature, say researchers reporting new evidence about what makes those tigers white. Their spectacular white coats are produced by a single change in a known pigment gene, according to the study, appearing on May 23 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

White tiger at Chimelong Safari Park in China.

"The white tiger represents part of the natural genetic diversity of the tiger that is worth conserving, but is now seen only in captivity," says Shu-Jin Luo of China's Peking University.

Luo, Xiao Xu, Ruiqiang Li, and their colleagues advocate a proper captive management program to maintain a healthy Bengal tiger population including both white and orange tigers. They say it might even be worth considering the reintroduction of white tigers into their wild habitat.

The researchers mapped the genomes of a family of 16 tigers living in Chimelong Safari Park, including both white and orange individuals. They then sequenced the whole genomes of each of the three parents in the family.

Those genetic analyses led them to a pigment gene, called SLC45A2, which had already been associated with light coloration in modern Europeans and in other animals, including horses, chickens, and fish. The variant found in the white tiger primarily inhibits the synthesis of red and yellow pigments but has little to no effect on black, which explains why white tigers still show characteristic dark stripes.

Historical records of white tigers on the Indian subcontinent date back to the 1500s, Luo notes, but the last known free-ranging white tiger was shot in 1958. That many white tigers were hunted as mature adults suggests that they were fit to live in the wild. It's worth considering that tigers' chief prey species, such as deer, are likely colorblind.

Captive white tigers sometimes do show abnormalities, such as crossed eyes, but Luo says any frailties are likely the responsibility of humans, who have inbred the rare tigers in captivity. With the causal gene identified, the researchers ultimately hope to explore the evolutionary forces that have maintained tigers in both orange and white varieties.

Diverse gene pool critical for tigers' survival, say experts

New research by Stanford scholars shows that increasing genetic diversity among the 3,000 or so tigers left on the planet is the key to their survival as a species.

Iconic symbols of power and beauty, wild tigers may roam only in stories someday soon. Their historical range has been reduced by more than 90 percent. But conservation plans that focus only on increasing numbers and preserving distinct subspecies ignore genetic diversity, according to the study. In fact, under that approach, the tiger could vanish entirely.

"Numbers don't tell the entire story," said study co-author Elizabeth Hadly, the Paul S. and Billie Achilles Professor in Environmental Biology at Stanford and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. She is a co-author of the study, which was published April 17 in the Journal of Heredity.

That research shows that the more gene flow there is among tiger populations, the more genetic diversity is maintained and the higher the chances of species survival become. In fact, it might be possible to maintain tiger populations that preserve about 90 percent of genetic diversity.

Rachael Bay, a graduate student in biology at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station and the lead author of the study, said, "Genetic diversity is the basis for adaptation."

Loss of diversity

The research focused on the Indian subcontinent, home to about 65 percent of the world's wild tigers. The scientists found that as populations become more fragmented and the pools of each tiger subspecies shrink, so does genetic diversity. This loss of diversity can lead to lower reproduction rates, faster spread of disease and more cardiac defects, among other problems.

The researchers used a novel framework, based on a method previously employed to analyze ancient DNA samples, to predict what population size would be necessary to maintain current genetic diversity of tigers into the future. The authors believe this new approach could help in managing populations of other threatened species.

The results showed that for tiger populations to maintain their current genetic diversity 150 years from now, the tiger population would have to expand to about 98,000 individuals if gene flow across species were delayed 25 years. By comparison, the population would need to grow to about 60,000 if gene flow were achieved immediately.

Neither of these numbers is realistic, considering the limited size of protected tiger habitat and availability of prey, among other factors, according to the researchers.

Limited habitat

"Since genetic variability is the raw material for future evolution, our results suggest that without interbreeding subpopulations of tigers, the genetic future for tigers is not viable," said co-author Uma Ramakrishnan, a former Stanford postdoctoral scholar in biology and current researcher at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India.

Because migration and interbreeding among subspecies appear to be "much more important" for maintaining genetic diversity than increasing population numbers, the researchers recommend focusing conservation efforts on creating ways for tigers to travel longer distances, such as wildlife corridors, and potentially crossbreeding wild and captive tiger subspecies.

"This is very much counter to the ideas that many managers and countries have now - that tigers in zoos are almost useless and that interbreeding tigers from multiple countries is akin to genetic pollution," said Hadly. "In this case, survival of the species matters more than does survival of the exclusive traits of individual populations."

Understanding these factors can help decision-makers better address how development affects populations of tigers and other animals, the study noted.

Conservation efforts for other top predators have shown the importance of considering genetic diversity and connectivity among populations, according to the report. One example is Florida panthers: since individuals from a closely related panther subspecies were introduced to the population, Florida panthers have seen a modest rise in numbers and fewer cases of genetic disorders and poor fitness.