QUEST Community Science Blog Author: Amy Gotliffe

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When It Comes to Birds, Oil and Water Don't Mix

January 13th, 2010 by Amy Gotliffe

Staff at the International Bird Rescue and Research Center caring for oiled birds.

When two gigantic oil tankers collided near Golden Gate Bridge in 1971, more than 900,000 gallons of oil were spilled into the waters of the San Francisco Bay. Thousands of birds and animals were covered in oil and in great danger. Rescue centers to the scale that were needed did not exist. Concerned citizens and professionals snapped to attention and set up emergency centers, one being a facility in Richmond. Alice Berkner was one of those citizens and she was inspired by the efforts of the crew. As a registered nurse, she was also filled with ideas of how to improve on this brand new field. Alice and a group of volunteers were compelled to find the solution that worked best for future injured wildlife and The International Bird Rescue and Research Center (IBRRC) was born.

The center has since been working non-stop to save wildlife that suffers from oil spills and other disasters. In 2001, IBRRC helped to open the state-funded Oiled Wildlife Care and Education Center in Cordelia (Fairfield), California at the northern end of San Francisco Bay, a key facility in California's Oiled Wildlife Care Network. This facility contains IBRRC's new headquarters and the International Training Center for Oiled Wildlife Response. Their work includes training volunteers, consulting with the petrol industry, and managing a professional emergency response team. Their efforts have covered over 200 oil spills in 11 states, including the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. A southern rescue center in San Pedro, Los Angeles also contributes to the efforts.

What makes oil spills so toxic for birds?

Birds are made to be buoyant in the water, light in the air and warm and insulated wherever they go. Oil penetrates and opens up the structure of the plumage of birds, reducing its insulating ability, making the birds more vulnerable to temperature fluctuations. It also makes them heavy and less able to float above the water or take off for flight. In this exposed condition, they are unable to escape from predators or find food. As they attempt to preen themselves, they ingest the toxic substances. Unless there is human intervention, most birds affected by an oil spill do not survive.

Fortunate for those birds, and for us humans who are lucky enough to share the planet with them, organizations like the IBRRC exist and are powered by passionate wildlife heroes, like Jay Holcomb.

Jay Holcomb has served as director of the center for the past 24 years and has many amazing stories to tell, from pelicans to penguins.

You can hear these stories at, "Saving Seabirds – Stories from the Frontline" with Jay Holcomb of the International Bird Rescue Research Center. This will be an inspiring benefit presentation by Jay on January 28th at the Oakland Zoo. All proceeds from this event will go support future bird rescue efforts.

Discovered an oiled bird?
In California, call the Oiled Wildlife Care Network at 1-877-823-6926.

Interested in volunteering? Classes are available.




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Posted in Biology, Environment, Partners | 1 Comment

Working Dogs for Conservation

December 9th, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

Pepin is famous for going to work after just 9 weeks of training, finding 52 scats in a single day.With unemployment at an all time low, it seems controversial that some very solid jobs are going to non-humans, but there are just some things that humans will never be qualified to do. Unfair, you say? Well, let’s run down the list of job requirements for this specific position and if you can find a human that qualifies, reply at once.

This candidate must:

• Follow orders
• Be rough, energetic and adventurous
• Travel around the world
• Find things that are nearly impossible to see
• Be willing to ride in the back of a truck and wear a collar
• Run long distances
• Be a fast learner
• Be obsessed with toys
• Be willing to sniff poop
• Get compensated in rope-tugging with benefits such as scratches and belly rubs
• Come from a background of animal shelter living

Yes, the only qualified species is: Dog.

The Job: Working Dog for Conservation.

I saw these dogs in action at the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) Expo in San Francisco in October. The organization, Working Dogs for Conservation and their dog demo with Pepin took center stage during lunch. While Pepin was inside the building schmoozing with the likes of Dr. Jane Goodall, her trainers hid scat in a giant, wide open field area. Once the crowd gathered, Pepin was taken outside, given directions and once released, blasted with determination and blatant glee out into the field. Within 3 minutes she had located the scat and sat proudly next to it, indicating to her trainer that she had done her job; a job that would have taken a human hours.

Being able to find scat helps humans track down various species in the wild and provides needed species conservation information. Deployed conservation dogs have increased scat sample collection rates and have discovered samples that are smaller and more cryptic than people alone are capable of detecting. The working dogs for conservation have found scat of moose, snow leopard, grizzly bear, wolf and cougar, to name a few. The dogs have also been trained to find plants and lost pets and people.

Partnering with dogs is nothing new. Humans have been using the 220 million scent-sensitive cells available for canine olfaction for centuries. These animals are truly man's best friend, but perhaps they are becoming nature's best friend, as well. They certainly deserve to hold this most unusual job.




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Posted in Biology, Environment, Partners | Please Comment

Fostering Sustainable Behavior – A Powerful, New Perspective

November 11th, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

What would it take you to change your shower to a low-flow shower head?

Do you love a long, hot and powerful shower? What would it take you to change your shower to a low-flow shower head? Be honest.

• A. I understood the environmental impact that it would have
• B. I have knowledge of and compassion for the watershed
• C. Someone came to my house and put in a free low-flow shower head for me
• D. I would be publicly recognized
• E. I verbally committed to doing it
• F. Everyone else on my block is doing it
• G. President Obama and Jane Goodall are doing it (not together!)
• H. All of the above.

Canadian environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr believes that the last five reasons inspire more behavior change than the first two. I recently took a workshop with McKenzie, who coined the phrase “Community Based Social Marketing”, and was amazed to learn that studies indicate that “information intensive” campaigns are not very effective. Uh-oh – time to recycle the brochures. This is the method that we have been using to influence behavior change for years.

An earlier blog of mine explored what makes a person care about nature. Now I’m compelled to explore what makes a person change a behavior for the good of nature – the outcome I ultimately desire. Perhaps Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM) is the answer.

CBSM believes that people do not change behavior or do an activity because:

• They do not know about it
• They have many perceived barriers to the activity
• They believe it is easier to continue to do their current behavior than to change

Once the targeted audience knows about the issue, and the barriers are identified with research, it is time to convince them that the benefits outweigh those barriers.

There are many tools for inspiring the change of behavior: making a commitment, copying a well-respected community leader, being reminded with prompts, realizing that the behavior is the current social norm, clear and vivid messages, incentives, ease or a combination of these concepts. CBSM also believes that requests to change behavior are the most effective when they are at the community level and involve direct contact with humans. At the end of the program, outcomes are measured, not outputs. This makes sense!

So, with this in mind, what if President Obama and Dr. Jane Goodall arrived at your door with a lovely, low-flow shower head and installed it while they told you all about the watershed and how you are helping. They then planned to install an identical shower-head in all your friend’s bathrooms followed by thanking you all in the local newspaper. Would you change your showering behavior then? I think I would – a victim to the new concept of Community Based Social Marketing.

I can’t wait to try to get influence our zoo public to compost, our staff to recycle, and my supervisor to send me to more of Doug McKenzie’s workshops. And I will await that knock on my door.




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Posted in Engineering, Environment, KQED, Partners | Please Comment

Wildlife + Creative Thinking = Hope: A Day at the Wildlife Conservation Expo

October 21st, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

This year's Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in full swing at the Mission Bay Conference Center.

It’s a sunny, fall day in October and I am driving into San Francisco. I pass the colorful Love Parade floats revving up without a glance of longing. I pass the turn towards Golden Gate Park for Hardly Strictly Blue Grass Festival without an ounce of FOMO (fear of missing out). I giddily park outside of Mission Bay Conference Center and enter the Wildlife Conservation Network’s yearly Expo. Parades and music will have to wait; I am ready to gorge myself on colorful wildlife and rock star conservationists. Each year I am more amazed and enthralled by this extraordinary event.

The Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) was founded in 2002 in Los Altos by Charlie Knowles and Akiko Yamazaki. Their unique approach to conservation is based on the venture-capitol model and offers organizations expert networks, fundraising support, global exposure and Silicon Valley expertise. 100% of donations to WCN go to programs. It is an efficient system with measurable results and an excellent example of conservation action.

The Wildlife Conservation Expo is a dream come true for wildlife people, and after many years of attending, it feels like an international family reunion of cousins related by their passion for animals and the natural world. Flying in from 30 countries, including the mountains of Uganda, the savannahs of Zimbabwe or the steppes of Uzbekistan, they come together to share their miraculous projects. I marvel that I simply need to navigate the s-curved bridge from Oakland to be amongst this kin of conservation heroes.

The day consists of short and sweet speaking sessions from these 24 wildlife powerhouses, each one more inspiring than the next. Between sessions, participants visit the many tables featuring local, national and international groups and projects. The Oakland Zoo table was surrounded by such favorite groups as Africa Matters, Animals Asia, WildAid, Reptile & Amphibian Ecology International, Project Tamarin, Mountain Gorilla One Health Program, Red Panda Network, Elephant Voices, or our Teen Wild Guide’s favorite, The Saiga Conservation Alliance. Add in mingling with hundreds of like-minded people, and it is a day that can’t be beat. Oh, did I mention Jane Goodall is the keynote speaker? As I write this, I watch her graciously speak with participants, sign books and scratch the head of one of the Working Dogs for Conservation. Lucky dog.

At Dr. Jane’s presentation, she begins with her uncanny chimp-like pant-hoot greeting and reminds us that passion is the most powerful asset one could have. That if we all explored and exercised our passions, what a different world it would be. As usual, I leave WCN with new ideas, new reasons to be hopeful and renewed gratitude for WCN.

The 2010 dates have yet to be decided. Watch the website for details.




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Posted in Environment, Events, KQED, Partners | 1 Comment

Repeat After Me: Monkeys Have Tails.

September 9th, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

Hmmm… I think I 'm a monkey… but how do I know for sure?? Image credit:

law_keven / CC BY-SA 2.0

Monkeys have tails. Monkeys have tails. Monkeys have tails. If you leave the zoo learning one thing about primates, learn that monkeys have tails and apes do not. This is one zoo science standard that we try to teach all visiting school children, even the kindergarteners. They are quick to learn, and teach others. They do not hesitate to correct a parent who is pointing to our tail-free chimpanzees saying, "Look at the monkey". Makes me proud.

In preparation for our upcoming Conservation Speaker Series presenter, Noel Rowe, Founder of Primate Conservation, Inc, I decided to delve further into understanding primates by picking up his book, The Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates. After being in the zoo industry for eight years, I figured I knew quite a bit, but I opened up the book with some of my most experienced and knowledgeable co-workers and we were all awe-struck.

Let's begin by getting clear that a primate is a monkey, ape or prosimian. A monkey has a tail, an ape does not and a prosimian is like a lemur or bush baby. The word "prosimian" means "before apes" and is still not recognized by spell check who insists I must mean "promising." Let's hope that is the case for all primates. My hope for this blog is to expose my top 4 new favorite primates.

Western Tarsier -These little guys have gigantic eyes, are carnivorous and have a long, grooming claw on the third toe. They can rotate their heads 180 degrees, like an owl as they leap around trees in Indonesia, Borneo and Sumatra. Prosimian.




Pygmy Marmoset - This animal makes me want to say the C-word. The one we are not supposed to use to describe fuzzy, furry, tiny, big-eyed animals. Only 14-16 cm in length, they are the smallest true monkey. Also called a Dwarf Monkey, they live in the rainforest canopies in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Tail = monkey.




Gelada Baboon – This is an old world monkey with a unique hour glass-shaped area of naked, bright pink skin on the chest. It is this area that becomes swollen to signal estrus. Various bands can form a herd of up to 600 baboons, traveling throughout the high plateaus of Ethiopia, where they sleep on cliffs.  Tail = monkey.




Mountain Gorilla – OK. This is not a new favorite, but the book reminded me of how much I truly am in awe of these creatures. From the majesty of the silverback to the playfulness of the juveniles, I will always list this mostly leaf, shoot and stem eating animal as a favorite (connect other blog). No tail = ape.




If I open this book again tomorrow, I will have 4 new favorites and on and on until I cover all 250 or so primate species. It is indeed a wondrous world of animals.

To quote Jane Goodall in the book's forward, "without our help, many monkeys, apes and prosimians will vanish." You can begin helping by attending Noel Rowe's lecture at the Oakland Zoo on September 23^rd where he will introduce us to the 25 most endangered primates. The lecture and silent auction are an annual benefit for The Budongo Snare Removal Project in Uganda.

PS.  Monkeys have tails.




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Posted in Biology, Environment, Events, KQED, Partners | 4 Comments

The Cove

August 12th, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

The Cove opened on August 7.

The Cove is a documentary like no other I have seen. Like other such films, it aims to inform viewers of an issue or species, but unlike others, it also hopes to use its creative powers to send you sailing out of your seat screaming, “Get out of my way, I want to help!” I knew this already, as I attended the premier of the film in San Francisco last Friday, and wondered if it would work for me, a Conservation Manager who has seen many, many movies about the plights of animals.

So, I sat back, marveled at the audience rich with environmental leaders, munched my popcorn, and proceeded to have my world rocked. The Cove is indeed a nature and conservation movie, but throw in spy movie, hero movie, horror movie and action flick and you have a more accurate description.

The main character is Ric O’Barry, the original trainer for Flipper the bottlenose dolphin, TV star of the 70’s. Ric believes it was partly his doing that brought the world to love these marine mammals too much, leading to their exploitation. He is determined to help a tragically suffering population of dolphins in one cove in Japan. As we are introduced to the issues, we feel Ric’s pain, and his quiet hopefulness. He longs to reveal to the world the truth about this cove and we long for his success.

And then, somehow, it gets fun.

Ric enlists friends. Talented friends. Lots of them. Louie Psihoyos is one of them. Master photographer and nature documentarian, he and his group, the Ocean Preservation Society (OPS), take on the job of movie making, though they have never done such a thing before. "We’re all professionals", they joke, "just not at this." Louie steps up as Film Director and seeks out other adventuresome teammates. On board jumps an Expedition Director, as well as a Head of Clandestine Operations, giving me a serious case of job title envy. Throw in two world-class free divers, a DNA scientist and various mold makers from Industrial Light and Magic’s Prop Shop, cue the thriller music, and the game is on.

As we, the audience, experience the thrill of their journey to covertly make the film, we are amazed by their courage, compassion and humor and are reminded that humans can be phenomenally brave, powerful and imaginative. We are schooled in the reality of certain industries and asked to make entertainment and recreation choices with knowledge and compassion. We are awoken to the fact that dolphins are likely more wonderful and fantastical than we ever dreamed and it is simply a privilege to live on this planet with them.

At the very end, the film offers the audience ideas of how we each can help. It invites us to climb aboard their ship of dreamers and change-makers, and exposes the media’s greatest strength; the power to inspire change for the better.

As the credits rolled, the free dolphins soared through the clear water and the Wallflowers brought us home with “I want to swim, like dolphins can swim…” My heart pounded, my eyes teared-up and my hands clenched into fists. I think I ran over three environmental leaders as I busted into the hallway screaming “Get out of my way, I want to help!” I guess it worked for me.

See if it works for you.






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Posted in KQED, Partners | 5 Comments

Nature Play: Notes from the Field

July 1st, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

Searching for tadpoles in Arroyo Viejo Creek at the Oakland Zoo.

It Day #2 of Nature Play, a new Oakland Zoo ZooCamp program that I have been assigned to teach. I know all about “Nature Deficit Disorder” and “No Child Left Inside”. I have read “Last Child in the Woods” and even blogged about the issues, but now I find myself out in nature with 12 curious and excited children, and I have no idea what will happen.

Nature Play was created in response to childrens’ desire to experience true nature – to look up at trees, observe tadpoles and connect with wildlife in their own backyard. The idea behind Nature Play is to offer the campers supervised and loosely facilitated exploration outdoors that is self directed.

Parents were so game to give these simple pleasures to their children, this program sold out.

Now, here we are. Our afternoon agenda is creek time and fort building. It is a beautiful afternoon at Arroyo Viejo Creek, a small tributary that runs through the zoo grounds. Though there are tigers, lions and elephants close by, this is where the campers are most excited to be. I have given minimal direction: look, listen, smell and feel, and record something in your nature journal. They have nets, jars, binoculars and wildlife guides, and one hour.

Immediately the group swarms to their favorite spot that they discovered yesterday. It is near one of the outdoor classrooms and features a giant, ground-leaning willow tree to crawl under, two logs that rest across the creek to climb over and water loaded with tadpoles and water gliders. I watch and listen myself.

“There are 1000 water striders here! They are riding on top of each other.” “No, that is a shadow”. “I am crossing the log by scootching” “I will help you”. “I found a secret trail!” “I am putting this leaf in my journal”. “I can write with a rock.” “I heard a frog!” I am a frog!” “The sun makes me silly and happy.” “I see tadpoles!” “Let’s call this place Willow Cove.” “I don’t want to go home.”

A few things amazed me about this hour. One, they were never bored. They went on and on with their play and exploration in this small area with gusto the entire time. They were imaginative, inventive and stimulated. Two, they learned. They learned that frogs are quiet when they are noisy. They learned that they could balance better holding their arms out. They did not need my fascinating animal facts to gain knowledge. Three, they truly and intuitively cared about the habitat. They picked up a couple of pieces of garbage, told each other not to handle amphibians and put rocks back where they found them without being told. Four, and most interestingly, they got along fantastically. Earlier in the day there were a few squabbles over this or that, but out here, they helped each other, supported each other and shared the nets like pros. They seemed to be at peace.

A little later at Fort Building, the group divided into two as they followed two natural leaders and their fort visions. As we debriefed about the two forts, they came to the conclusion (themselves) that tomorrow they should build one fort with all the materials, then sit in it and tell stories about animals.

I saw it all with my own eyes. This nature stuff works. Now this explorer is going to sleep. I am exhausted!







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Posted in Education, Environment, KQED, Partners | 1 Comment

Holistic Help for Hornbills

June 3rd, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

Ain't love grand? Once courtship and mating are over, the female hornbill finds a tree hollow and seals herself in with dung, fruit and pellets of mud.

I love our hornbills. Situated in the Rainforest section of the Zoo, between our gibbons and our chimps, they are often overlooked, yet I find them fascinating.

The female has the bright blue gular pouch (an expandable throat sac, used for short-term storage of food) and the male has the pale yellow version.  Like all hornbills, they have a distinctively large and down-turned beak.  These Malayan Wreathed Hornbills are one of the 54 species found in Asia and Africa.

Their dramatic nesting ritual is what makes them so interesting. Once courtship and mating are over, the female finds a tree hollow and seals herself in with dung, fruit and pellets of mud. The male gathers the pellets from the forest floor and swallows them, later regurgitating small saliva-cased building materials. He then gives them to the female who stays inside the nest leaving a slit for a window big enough to receive food and materials. For the next 6-8 weeks the male feeds the female through this opening. She does not emerge until she has molted and re-grown fresh feathers and her young has grown and become feathered, as well. Then, both mother and child knock down the wall and appear on the scene, happy and healthy. Last year the public was enthralled, as our hornbills participated in this ritual.

The zoo is concerned with the status of hornbills in the wild, and since 2004, the Oakland Zoo Conservation Fund has worked with a fantastic program coordinated by the Hornbill Research Foundation. Besides collecting data, the foundation has launched a Hornbill Nest Adoption Program, which works to foster conservation of these beautiful birds. Illegal logging and the poaching of young birds for the pet trade are the key issues facing hornbills. The Nest Adoption Program employs local people to look after the hornbills in their nests and collect scientific data about them.

When you adopt a nest, you get a wonderful pamphlet of information about the hornbill, a map of the location of your particular nest, a profile of your guard and, my favorite, a break down of what food the male brought to the female (2 figs, .3 millipedes, 1 lizard).

This summer, eighteen Oakland Zoo teens and staff will embark on a journey to visit Thailand and will spend a day at Khao Yai National Park with the intention hope to spot birds, nests and learn first hand about the project.  They will also visit with the Young Bird Conservation Club, which creates Hornbill art to sell to zoos for their Conservation Projects. To prepare for their trip, these inspired have been attending workshops and raising funds to adopt two nests of their own.

Back at the zoo, the summer will be filled with more hornbill conservation action as ZooCamp 2009 has adopted the species as their official summer animal. With a hornbill on the front of their t-shirt and the Hornbill Research Foundation logo on the back, all campers will be learning about this animal and the project that supports them. Each camper has also contributed a bit of their camp fee into the program and will surely leave camp with the contribution of knowledge and compassion for these incredible birds.

Come by and visit our hornbills, join us this summer at ZooCamp ,or adopt a nest yourself (http://www.zoo.org/conservation/hornbill.html).




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Posted in Environment, KQED, Partners | Please Comment

What's the Scoop on Kitty Poop?

May 6th, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

What are the options for eco-friendly cat litter?In researching this blog post, I continually ran across the word "conundrum" – which is defined as a puzzling question or problem. Used in a sentence, one might say, "I am a cat owner who cares about the environment. What to do about their poop presents quite a conundrum."

Let's explore the facts around this puzzle.

Fact: There are approximately 88.3 million companion cats in the United States, according to the Humane Society of the US.

Fact: All of them poop. The poop and the kitty litter must go somewhere.

Fact: The traditional clay litters have been criticized for being resourced through strip-mining, and may contain harmful chemicals that cats can lick from their fur.

These three facts alone are reason enough to feel the effects of a conundrum, but let's explore further.

Fact: Flushing cat poop down the toilet is an option once suggested by environmentalists, but is now an eco- No-No. Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite found in cat's intestines, can be passed through the feces.

When flushed, the T. Gondii travels with the toilet water from your house to a treatment center (where it resists treatment) to the bay to the Pacific Ocean and into the habitat of many sea creatures, including the Sea Otter.

A UC Davis study of otters that live in areas near freshwater runoff, found that 42% of live otters and 62% of dead otters tested positive for T.  Gondii.

In fact, recent legislation will require kitty litters bags to include warning labels about flushing.

(Editor's note: QUEST's very first TV story, ""What's Killing the Sea Otters?" – 2/6/07- " covers this topic in detail.)

Now that we are clear on the conundrum, let's explore some options.

Reclaimed Wood Litter: Litter made from reclaimed wood is an greener option. Pine and cedar sawdust that would normally end up in landfills is concentrated without the use of dangerous chemicals to produce environmentally safe litter. Feline Pine, Nature's Earth and Catfresh are options.

Recycled Newspaper Litter: Try litter made from recycled newspapers. The paper absorbs just as well and re-uses resources. Two great brands are Yesterdays News and Good Mews.

Plant-based Litters: Plant-based litters are made from materials such as corn, corncobs, cornhusks, wheat by-products, wheat grass and beet pulp. These biodegradable materials, have no odor, are very absorbent and don't produce the same kind or volume of dust as clay litters.

Biodegradable Bags: These are available at most pet stores. Use the biodegradable litter with them.

Composting: Being a Zoo employee, we are BIG composters of our herbivore poop, creating rich and wonderful soil to grow our botanical paradise at Knowland Park. NatureMill, makers of the pet-friendly composter claim that it is possible to compost pet poop, as well.  This composter, made from recycled and recyclable materials, is an easy to use alternative. Just add food scraps and the computerized composter heats up the ingredients to the 140 degrees (the EPA suggests over 130 degrees). Out comes soil for your flowerbed.

Make Your Own Kitty Litter: The DIY-crowd may even wish to attempt a hand-crafted solution.

These are all great alternatives that, of course, present more questions. Like all environmental issues these days, each solution may lead to a new puzzle or conundrum for us to wrap our greening brains around. Let's keep on exploring!




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Posted in Biology, Health, Partners | 1 Comment

Predators in Peril in Uganda

April 8th, 2009 by Amy Gotliffe

Lions and humans are in conflict in the wild parks of Uganda

Last October, I gazed out at the expanse of Queen Elizabeth Park, in Uganda, close to the comfy Mweya Safari Lodge where we were staying. The landscape was beautiful, peaceful…and kind of empty. Though we had seen a large and lovely herd of elephants the evening before, on this fine, clear morning, the habitat was clearly missing one of the most important parts of the eco-system: predators. All we could find were tracks.

We gazed down at the enormous cat foot prints, still clearly cut into the mud, and looked to Dr. Ludwig Siefert, a Makerere University lecturer, lion ecologist and our guide for the day. He explained the situation to us: The footprints belonged to a lovely female lioness who was clearly recently here, and tragically was no longer. This lioness, like many other predators in the area, had met a painful death by poison.

Later that day, we came across 3 juvenile lions, scruffy and likely to be hungry; they had lost their chief bread winner.

Our night drive also proved surprisingly empty. Dr. Siefert and his team sent hyena calls into the starry night, only to receive a quiet response. Eventually we saw four hyenas. Great news, except that our teen trip in July had observed thirty of them. It seemed likely that many hyenas were killed in the three months that had passed since then. This is not what we expected when we came to Uganda.

But we could guess what had happened to all these predators. Local Basongora herdsmen, or pastoralists, choose to graze their cattle inside the park, although they have access to lush pasture outside the park. The lions, searching for food, find cattle grazing in their habitat and naturally do what a lion does: have lunch. The Basongora solution for lions, leopards and hyenas that prey on their livelihood: put poison on carcasses and leave them as bait. The poison often includes furadan, an agro-chemical which causes a painful and not so quick death.

Death of magnificent predators is not the only issue with the practice. Eventually the hotels, restaurants and tour companies will face a loss of tourists.

The planet faces many cases of human-wildlife conflict, especially as the human population grows, habitats shrink and humans and animals are forced to live even closer to each other. Yet there are quite a few inspiring examples of solutions that honor the fact that all parties, human and non-human, must be granted health, space and means to eat. Other African countries are finding solutions to similar problems. When all parties work together, there are indeed solutions.

It is our hope that the ecologists, pastoralists, park rangers and predators find one in Queen Elizabeth Park. We sure would like to return.

To contact Dr. Siefert and support his work: lion@vetmed.mak.ac.ug.






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Posted in Biology, Partners | Please Comment
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