Mar | 2021 | ConservationBytes.com

How to avoid reduce the probability of being killed by a shark

31 03 2021

Easy. Don’t go swimming/surfing/snorkelling/diving in the ocean.

Sure, that’s true, but if you’re like many Australians, the sea is not just a beautiful thing to look at from the window, it’s a way of life. Trying telling a surfer not to surf, or a diver not to dive. Good luck with that.

A few years ago, I joined a team of super-cool sharkologists led by Charlie ‘Aussie-by-way-of-Belgium shark-scientist extraordinaire‘ Huveneers, and including Maddie ‘Chomp’ Thiele and Lauren ‘Acid’ Meyer — to publish the results of some of the first experimentally tested shark deterrents.

It turns out that many of the deterrents we tested failed to show any reduction in the probability of a shark biting, with only one type of electronic deterrent showing any effect at all (~ 60% reduction).

Great. But what might that mean in terms of how many people could be saved by wearing such electronic deterrents? While the probability of being bitten by a shark is low globally, even in Australia (despite public perceptions), we wondered if the number of lives saved and injuries avoided was substantial.

In a new paper just published today in Royal Society Open Science, we attempted to answer that question.

To predict how many people could avoid shark bites if they were using properly donned electronic deterrents that demonstrate some capacity to dissuade sharks from biting, we examined the century-scale time series of shark bites on humans in Australia. This database — the ‘Australian Shark Attack File‘ — is one of the most comprehensive databases of its kind.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : Leave a Comment »

Categories : Australia, behaviour, biodiversity, conservation, ecology, environmental policy, fish, human-wildlife conflict, marine, modelling, ocean, predation, predator, research, shark, water

A perfect storm of global ineptitude

18 03 2021

Given the ‘success’ (i.e., a lot of people seem to be reading it) of our recent Ghastly Future paper, I thought it would be interesting to go back and have a look at what we wrote in our 2015 book Killing the Koala on the subject. I think you’ll find that if anything we were probably overly optimistic.

An updated digest of that material follows.

When your accountant tells you to reduce expenditure, you do it or risk bankruptcy; when your electrician tells you the wiring in your house is dodgy, you replace it or risk your family dying in an avoidable fire; when your doctor tells you your cholesterol is too high, you cut back fat intake (and/or take cholesterol-reducing drugs) or risk a heart attack.

Yet few with any real political or financial power heed the warnings of environmental scientists. It is not just a few of us either — globally, ecologists, conservation biologists and environmental scientists are united in telling the world (for decades now) that growth in population and consumption cannot go on forever. They have been united in telling us if we do not clean up our planet, our life-support systems could ultimately fail.

There are now nearly eight billion people on Earth, and median projections suggest that the population will grow to ten billion or more by the end of the century. Some analyses indicate that with present technologies, Earth could only sustainably support indefinitely some 5 billion people under best-case scenarios, but assuming similar proportions of poverty and suffering as we have today. Others imply that 5 billion could be many too many.

As a result, humanity is entering that near-perfect storm of problems driven by overpopulation, overconsumption, gross inequalities, and the use of needlessly environmentally damaging technologies. The problems include the intertwined dilemmas of loss of the biodiversity that runs human life-support systems, climate disruption, energy shortages, global toxification, alteration of critical biogeochemical cycles, shortages of water, soil, mineral resources and farmland, and increasing probability of vast epidemics (as COVID-19 poignantly exemplifies).

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: collapse, human civilisation, human-nature coupling, humanity, political impotence
Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, culture gap, ecosystem, ecosystem services, education, Endarkenment, environmental policy, environmental science, extinction, governance, human overpopulation, pollution, science

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss LXV

10 03 2021

Here is the second set of biodiversity cartoons for 2021. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: carbon, Climate, climate disruption, consumption, environment, Global warming, meat, plastic, pollution, vegan, vegetarianism
Categories : anthropocene, Australia, biodiversity, carbon, cartoon, climate change, conservation, development, extinction

Recreational hunting, conservation and livelihoods: no clear evidence trail

2 03 2021

Enrico Di Minin, University of Helsinki; Anna Haukka, University of Helsinki; Anna Hausmann, University of Helsinki; Christoph Fink, University of Helsinki; Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University; Gonzalo Cortés-Capano, University of Helsinki; Hayley Clements, Stellenbosch University, and Ricardo A. Correia, University of Helsinki

In some African countries, lion trophy hunting is legal. Riaan van den Berg

In sub-Saharan Africa, almost 1,400,000 km² of land spread across many countries — from Kenya to South Africa — is dedicated to “trophy” (recreational) hunting. This type of hunting can occur on communal, private, and state lands.

The hunters – mainly foreign “tourists” from North America and Europe – target a wide variety of species, including lions, leopards, antelopes, buffalo, elephants, zebras, hippopotamus and giraffes.

Debates centred on the role of recreational hunting in supporting nature conservation and local people’s livelihoods are among the most polarising in conservation today.

On one hand, people argue that recreational hunting generates funding that can support livelihoods and nature conservation. It’s estimated to generate US$200 million annually in sub-Saharan Africa, although others dispute the magnitude of this contribution.

On the other hand, hunting is heavily criticised on ethical and moral grounds and as a potential threat to some species.

Evidence for taking a particular side in the debate is still unfortunately thin. In our recently published research, we reviewed the large body of scientific literature on recreational hunting from around the world, which meant we read and analysed more than 1000 peer-reviewed papers.

Read the rest of this entry »