Conservation?

Conservation. It is a word that we hear and repeat often. Ubiquitous in the media, it often conjures up a warm feeling, but as a concept conservation is largely misunderstood. Most of us view it solely in terms of individual species: if the number of animals of a certain species is sufficiently great, particularly if it is a species that we happen to like or find charismatic, “conservation” has been achieved, and we may check it off our collective to-do list. Upon closer inspection, though, we see that this conclusion is fundamentally flawed and is not only not preventing endangerment and extinction but is often leaving a trail of suffering in its wake.

The basic problem is that this limited view of conservation fails to consider the big picture—namely, the habitat in which the species that we are trying to save from extinction lives, on which it depends for its survival, and in which each animal makes a unique and significant contribution. It fails to consider the complex interrelationships between species and living systems and lulls us into believing that, as long as we have enough animals living in cages, we need do nothing about the destruction of the places they once called home; nor need we consider how certain animals do or do not fit into those places.

Perhaps no other single species embodies the conservation issue more than the tiger. Sleek and graceful, powerful and exotic, the tiger is the very definition of “charismatic mega fauna,” yet their numbers in the wild have dropped more than 95 percent in just 100 years. We respond intensely to the bold orange-and-black felines, and sometimes even more so to the almost mystical white tiger. Their ghostly white appearance and searing blue eyes are difficult to ignore. Because we are fascinated with things we consider to be rare–like gold–we value the white tiger for its rarity, and find a ready rationalization for perpetuating its existence by simply engaging one, perhaps now meaningless, word: conservation. If orange-and-black tigers are facing such a gloomy future in the wild, then, we conclude, surely the rare white tiger is in the most trouble: it could be the “poster child” for the wreckage that the reckless attitudes of human beings have left in what we used to call wild places.

But if there is any issue for which the white tiger is a poster child, it is our faulty understanding of conservation. The headlines are all too familiar: this zoo or that performer is breeding white tigers to save them from extinction and restore them to their native habitats. The media and the public adore such stories, but the heartwarming and short-lived nature of today’s news belies the real story that will surface for the white tiger cubs tomorrow. The truth is difficult for many people to accept. White tigers are not a species and do not have a native habitat. Tigers do not inhabit any section of the globe in which it would be advantageous for their survival to be white.

A Question of Biology

What we call the “royal” white tiger is in fact a genetic anomaly, caused by a double recessive gene occurring so rarely in nature that experts estimate that only one in every 10,000 tigers born in the wild is white. This anomaly, called “leucism,” prevents the pigment from coloring the skin and fur and, more importantly, robs the animal of a main tool for survival—camouflage. Without proper coloring, the ambush technique upon which tigers depend for catching food is seriously compromised. If anyone were foolish enough to attempt to release a white tiger into any habitat that tigers normally occupy, there is a good chance it would starve to death. Dr. Dan Laughlin, an international consultant on the care of zoological animals, stated it well in “The White Tiger Fraud,” an article written for the Web site of Big Cat Rescue: “when a deleterious recessive genetic mutation randomly occurs that is disadvantageous for the survival of the animal, such as white color in a tropical jungle environment, the animal does not survive to pass on that genetic mutation or disadvantageous characteristic to its offspring” (italics added). In other words, cruel as it may sound, nature does not provide a place for the white tiger.

If nature is designed to prevent the survival of genetic mutations that are a danger to the survival of an entire species, then why do we see white tigers in zoos and circuses across the United States? The answer is simple: they are produced by inbreeding. In an essay published on the Web site of Save the Tiger Fund, Ron Tilson, conservation director of the Minnesota Zoo, writes: “to produce white tigers or any other phenotypic curiosity, directors of zoos and facilities must continuously inbreed, father to daughter, to granddaughter, and so on.” According to Laughlin, in addition to the now famous and severely inbred line of white Bengal tigers that can be traced back to Mohan, a white tiger taken as a cub out of the wild in 1951 and bred back to his daughter and grand-daughters, “a second and separate origin of the white tiger … occurred spontaneously in two separate private collections in [the United States], when both owners inbred brothers to sisters.” Experts agree that genetic diversity is vital to the health of both individuals and entire populations of species. The most critically endangered felines, such as the South China tiger and the Amur leopard, are considered to be functionally extinct by some experts because with numbers as low as 20 or 30, inbreeding is inevitable. Yet in the case of the white tiger, the breeding of mothers to sons and fathers to daughters is commonplace. And there is a price to be paid for it.

White tigers endure a host of health problems about which the public is largely unaware, including immune system deficiencies that cause many to live miserable and short lives, scoliosis of the spine, hip dysplasia, neurological disorders, cleft palates, and protruding, bulging eyes. Many are stillborn and many more turn out to be too deformed to display. Among the ones that look pretty, according to some tiger trainers, only one in 30 will consistently perform.

At this point someone must face the question rarely asked by the reporters who happily recounted the birth of the white-tiger cubs: what now? What happens to the 29 out of 30 white tigers that were too dull and sick to perform? We know that they could not have been, and will never be, released into the wild. The lucky ones will find permanent homes in accredited sanctuaries, but the majority will either be killed or sold to traveling zoos, circuses, and wildlife centers, living lives in quarters that are often cramped, filthy, and rarely inspected.

There is yet another side to this sad story. What becomes of the orange-and-black cubs (by far the majority) born to parents who were specifically paired to render the desirable white coloring? Their fate will most likely includawe becoming victims of canned hunts, being sold into the exotic pet trade to live out their lives as breeding animals, or being killed and dismembered, their parts shipped to markets in Asia (see the Advocacy for Animals article Fighting for Tigers). Virtually none of them will join their wild counterparts for the purpose of repopulating their severely dwindling numbers. They will never see the wild lands from which their forebears were taken.

Taking Responsibility

Meanwhile, healthy, wild tigers, able to engage in the activities for which tigers were designed, disappear at alarming rates. Just 100 years ago, there were approximately 100,000 tigers living in the wild; some experts estimate that fewer than 3,500 individuals roam the forests of our world today. Three subspecies of tigers are gone forever, and the South China tiger is well on its way to joining their ranks.

If the relentless breeding of white tigers has nothing to do with conservation, and the resulting animals are sick and doomed to life in a cage, then why do people continue to breed them? We do not have to look far to find the answer. The trade in white tigers is lucrative. White tiger cubs have fetched as much as $60,000 a piece. According to Tilson, “white tigers are an aberration artificially bred and proliferated by a few zoos, private breeders, and circus folks, who do this for economic rather than conservation reasons.” Countless thousands of dollars pass through the hands of those who trade these animals like a commodity—countless thousands that do nothing to stop the poaching of wild tigers, do nothing to stave off the destruction of wild tiger habitats, and serve only to keep dignified creatures behind bars. Do we really value genetic mutations more than the habitat in which healthy wild tigers live and thrive?

Laughlin believes that “the genealogical misrepresentation, repeated inbreeding, exhibition and sale … of white tigers … initiated the greatest conservation deception of the American public in history.” The insidiousness of this deception is that the heartwarming stories of individual cubs being born again and again creates the illusion that we are doing something. It creates the illusion that the so-called experts are solving the problems that we create with our own complacency.

It is time to face the issue squarely. There can be no conservation of species without conservation of habitats, and there can be no conservation of habitats without conservation of entire ecosystems; therefore, we are accountable for how our actions affect those ecosystems, in every choice that we make. Conservation. It is not about the white tiger. It is about us.

Will our fascination with tigers give them back the dignified, free life that they had earned by surviving every hardship nature threw at them before we came along? Or will we be satisfied that we have done our job by having enough of them living in cages, performing tricks, and dazzling us with genetic deformities we would never dream of perpetuating in humans? If we choose the second option, then there is one more reality that we must be willing to accept. If we pull animals that we like out of the sinking ship that is their destroyed habitat, put them in cages, and call it a day, every single species that we do not find charismatic goes down with that ship. And with them go clues that could unlock the mysteries of the natural world—along with answers to questions that we perhaps no longer deem fundamental, because we have so thoroughly removed ourselves from that world. It begs one of those fundamental questions: if we can’t let other creatures assume their own roles in the broader ecosystem, how can we assume ours?

—Sharyn Beach

Images: white tigers with deformities—courtesy Big Cat Rescue.

Federal Legislation

The Truth in Fur Labeling Act, H.R. 2480 and S. 1076, would require the labeling of all fur products regardless of value, closing a loophole that currently exempts products with fur valued up to $150. As winter progresses, it is evident that the season will be over before Congress deals with this issue of informing consumers so that they can make a choice about supporting the fur industry. Please don’t let another winter pass without taking action on this bill.

Please let your Representatives and Senators know that it is time to bring truth to the labeling of fur and faux fur garments

State Legislation

California A1656, has just introduced legislation that would prohibit the sale or display of any coat, jacket, or other article of clothing that is made entirely or partially of fur without having a tag or label prominently displayed with the type of animals whose fur is used and the country of origin for that fur. The labeling would be required regardless of the price of the item. Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Wisconsin already have laws requiring the labeling of fur products.

If you live in California, call your state Representative to support passage of this bill.

New York companion bills A8472 and S4632 would require teachers to notify students of their right to choose an alternative project prior to any dissection activity, while another New York bill, A3467, would require the local Board of Education or trustees of a school district to develop a policy to give reasonable notice to students and students’ parents or legal guardians of their rights not to dissect animal in New York schools, and to distribute that notice at least once per year. A3467 already passed the Assembly once last year, but failed to pass in the Senate in 2009. It was returned to the Assembly for reconsideration in 2010 and is now on the verge of being passed a second time. The New York Senate will be seeing it again shortly.

If you live in New York, send a letter to your state Senator to support passage of this bill.

The New York Senate is considering a different type of bill, S6729, which would re-categorize horses kept for recreational purposes as “companion animals.” In most states, horses are defined as livestock, even if they are kept only for riding, showing or otherwise treated as a member of the family. This bill would redefine horses as “equine companions,” which could have a positive impact on how cruelty to horses is viewed.

If you live in New York, call your state Senator to support passage of this bill.

In Utah, S36 takes a strong stand against tolerating wolves anywhere in the state. Wolves located in some parts of the state were taken off of the federal endangered species list last year, while wolves living in other areas are still listed as endangered or threatened. This bill would mandate the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources to take whatever action is needed—including killing them—to avoid the establishment of a viable pack of wolves within the areas of the state where the wolf is not listed as endangered or threatened. If a wolf is found in an area where it is still protected, the federal government would be notified to remove that wolf from the state. Unfortunately, the wolves don’t know where they are protected and where they are not. The bill was passed very quickly by the Senate and is now in the House for consideration. Don’t allow Utah to destroy wild animals for moving freely throughout habitat because of arbitrary distinctions.

URGENT: If you live in Utah, please call your state Representative TODAY and ask him/her to oppose passage of this bill.

For a weekly update on legal news stories, go to Animallaw.com.

Live Skinning Raccoon Dogs and Other Tales from the Fur Farm

(Originally published on Animal Blawg in May 2009)

Sometimes, information presents itself that is so stirring, so disturbing, so utterly inconceivable that even those of us paying attention to these issues are shaken to the core.

Such was the case when I chose to view the undercover video of a Chinese fur farm taken by investigators of Care for the Wild, EAST International, and Swiss Animal Protection. [Warning: This video is extremely graphic and disturbing.]

For those who don’t have the stomach to watch this kind of video, here is a description of the scenes. The investigation reveals that before the raccoon dogs are skinned alive, they are thrown to the ground with a forceful blow to the head and then bludgeoned with metal rods in attempt to stun the animal. More often than not, the animal’s bones are broken and they are temporarily stunned rather than dead. Many animals are still alive and struggling desperately when workers flip them onto their backs or hang them up by their legs or tails to skin them. The video shows workers on these farms cutting the skin and fur from an animal’s leg while the free limbs kick and writhe. When the fur is finally peeled off over the animals’ heads, their naked, bloody bodies are thrown onto a pile. Reports indicate that some of the animals are still alive, hearts beating for as long as 10 minutes after they are skinned. One investigator recorded a skinned raccoon dog on the heap of carcasses who had enough strength to lift his bloodied head and stare into the camera.

Prior to their unimaginably painful death, the animals live in the cruelest of conditions as they pace and shiver in outdoor wire cages, exposed to all of the elements—rain, freezing nights, or scorching sun. Not surprisingly, injury and disease are commonplace. Anxiety-induced psychosis leads to self-mutilation, infanticide and other extreme, desperate behaviors.

The Swiss Animal Protection / East-International 2007 report, Dying for Fur—A Report on the Fur Industry in China, informs us that “there are no regulations governing fur farms in China—farmers can house and slaughter animals however they see fit.” Two of the most important laws covering animals in China—the Environment Protection Law and the Wildlife Protection Law – only protect wildlife in the wild. Wild animals in captivity are treated as mere property, resources, or objects. China is one of the few countries in the world without any legal provisions for animal welfare and furthermore, there are no acts banning cruelty in the Chinese legal system.

Based on a survey of U.S. retail outlets many of the mass-marketed fur-trimmed garments carry the “Made in China” label. However, with our globalized market, China-originated fur pelts are disbursed through international auctions prior to being sewn in other countries. Therefore, the final fur product label could read “Made in Italy” or “Made in France,” making it impossible for consumers to know where the fur originates. Furthermore, manufacturing techniques such as dying often deceive shoppers into thinking they are buying fake fur.

Compounding this issue is the fact that Chinese fur farms deal not only in minks, foxes, and raccoon dogs, but domestic cats and dogs as well (some with their companion collars still affixed). The fur’s original species is indistinguishable to the typical end user. All the more reason to be relentless with the message to all who will listen that fur—even if it is “fake”—is a frivolous, unnecessary, and irresponsible purchase that supports animal cruelty in its worst form.

As I sit here in the middle of the couch, flanked by a peacefully resting dog to my left and cat to my right, the contrast in how some humans treat animals is a profound mystery to me. How is it that we are all of the same species (humans) and yet our values and, thus our capabilities, regarding treatment of animals can range from doting to mere tolerance to depraved indifference to barbarism? And I don’t just mean those who skin the animals. The people who buy the fur are just a culpable as those who hold the skinning knife.

A Small Victory for Live-Skinned Raccoon Dogs

On January 29th, [2010], the Humane Society of the United States announced a settlement had been reached with clothing retailer Saks Fifth Avenue on the matter of false advertising and mislabeling of fur garments. As a result, Saks has agreed to impose new garment labeling practices and change advertising policies. Lord & Taylor and Andrew Marc retailers have similarly settled, with Macy’s and Neiman Marcus refusing to budge in the HSUS lawsuit.

At issue is a regulatory loophole that currently allows many fur-trimmed items to be sold without informing consumers whether and what kind of fur those products contain. As reported on the HSUS website, dozens of falsely advertised or falsely labeled fur garments were identified across the industry with Raccoon Dogs as the most commonly misrepresented type of fur. A previous post [above] explained that Raccoon Dog fur is often labeled as a different animal, as “faux” fur, or possibly not even labeled at all.

Saks is now supporting legislation that will close the labeling loophole. The Truth in Fur Labeling Act (S. 1076/H.R. 2480) was introduced by Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Susan Collins (R-ME) and Representatives Jim Moran (D-VA) and Mary Bono Mack (R-CA). The proposed law will eliminate an exemption to fur product labeling requirements for products containing relatively small quantities or values of fur. The bill is currently under committee review in both the Senate and House (and has been since May 2009).

—Michelle Land

Images: Raccoon dog—courtesy Animal Blawg; captive raccoon dogs—courtesy Animal Blawg.

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If you’re a fan of the tarantula and kindred large spiders, here’s another bit of good news: a team of biologists from the University of Haifa–Oranim have discovered a hitherto undocumented species of tarantula-like spider in the Sands of Samar of the Arava Desert of southern Israel. Dubbed Cerbalus aravensis, the newly described spider is the largest of its kind in the Middle East, measuring 14 centimeters in legspan.
The bad news is that the big spiders don’t have much room to move. “In the past, the sands stretched across some 7 square kilometers,” the university’s press release notes, “but due to the rezoning of areas for agriculture and sand quarries, the sands have been reduced to fewer than 3 square kilometers.” Perhaps some kind soul within the government will set aside some of this dwindling land to give the spiders their place in the sun—and with the prospect that scientists will find other unknown creatures within this rare dune region.

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Yogi and Boo Boo dare not go looking for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at Sequoia National Park these days. Reports the Journal of Wildlife Management, between 2002 and 2005, rangers there embarked on a program of aversive conditioning to convince some 150 “food-conditioned” black bears to head the other way rather than toward food-bearing humans within the park. The rangers found that the bears seemed to understand that their yelling indicated trouble to come, but that the more effective deterrent was a shotgun full of rubber pellets. Granted that human–bear interactions are growing as bear habitat becomes increasingly smaller, considering what I’ve seen at Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and a couple of other national parks, the rangers might better consider targeting the humans that feed the bears instead.

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My young Chicago-based friend and colleague Daniel Silver has embarked on an ambitious program to prepare data sheets on hoofed mammals for the Brookfield Zoo—but, given his broad interest in all things connected to the animal world, I’m sure he won’t stop there. To see what he’s up to, please stop by Daniel’s Animal Facts blog. Suffice it to say that, thanks to his research, I have a newfound fascination for the warthog. Excelsior!

—Gregory McNamee

Image: Cerbalus aravensis—Yael Olek, University of Haifa/Getty Images.

The San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, a westerly extension of the Rockies, are spectacular even by the high standards of that mountainous state. From the shoulder of 12,968-foot, pyramid-shaped Engineer Mountain, the view stretches out fifty and more miles in all directions, taking in reddish-walled glacial valleys to the south, lakes and tall canyons below, and, everywhere, off on the horizon and close at hand, more mountains—hundreds of peaks in all, a baker’s dozen of which rise above 14,000 feet mark.

The mountain’s roof-of-the-world vastness yields to a more intimate scale down below, in dozens of glacier-carved valleys laced with streams full of caddisflies, flowing with good trout water, dotted with crystal-clear lakes, the air alive with hummingbirds and magpies. But even so, the operative word for the San Juans is big, the operative impression one of unending space. And rightly so. For here, in mountains, in canyons, in narrow riparian corridors all but hidden from view, lies a huge expanse of little-explored country: a region that measures nearly 90 miles long by 50 miles wide and that incorporates some 1.5 million acres of wilderness and roadless area, one of the largest tracts of wild land in the United States.

Yet, until very recently, it was possible for a human wandering through the San Juans to be without the company of many of the southern Rockies’ characteristic animal species. With the arrival of livestock ranchers and commercial hunters in the 19th century came a decades-long campaign against predators large and small, from river otters, extirpated in 1906, to grizzly bears, the last confirmed sighting of which was in 1952; from the lynx, unknown in the wild after 1973, to the mountain lion, hundreds of which were killed in the last century. Predators were not the only animals to fall: over the years, game species such as the moose and bighorn sheep, scavengers such as the badger, and a host of other creatures were removed from the land in appalling numbers.

In the last decade, however, scientists and conservationists have been diligently working to restore some of the wildness to the wild San Juans. One of their successes has been the return of the lynx, that medium-sized, tufted-eared cat that is native to a large swath of the Northern Hemisphere, from Siberia to Turkey, from Germany to Canada. The natural corridor of the Rocky Mountains long served as a pathway linking populations of the cat in the northern and southern extents of the range, ensuring genetic health and diversity by preventing isolation. Now, most of the surviving cats in North America, probably numbering a few thousand altogether, live north of the international border in Canada, with perhaps a thousand across the line in mountainous places such as Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Recognized as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, a lynx population from Canada was introduced into the San Juans beginning in 1999, numbering 218 individual cats in all. Some 82 died during the last decade—some to starvation in areas where competition with coyotes and mountain lions threatened their food supply (preferably snowshoe hares), some to automobiles, some to human predation. This high mortality rate has been worrisome for a number of reasons, since lynx are not long-lived in the first place and since, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the reintroduced population simply did not reproduce for several years.

However, in the summer of 2009, a census of the San Juan population revealed that ten kittens had been born in five dens throughout the range, which came as very good news indeed. In that year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who hails from Colorado, authorized a U.S. Forest Service lynx recovery project that designated 39,000 square miles of forest in six states as lynx habitat, while lessening the impact of logging, mining, and recreation on habitat in federally managed forests throughout the West.

Some conservationists argue that the Forest Service plan is not far-ranging enough, particularly given the tenuous hold of the lynx in the San Juans and the fact that the protected zone does not include portions of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico that were part of the lynx’s historic range in the southern Rockies. Still, it’s a start, and Defenders of Wildlife, which has been involved in restoration efforts from the start, rightly remarks, “It is one of the largest ‘critical habitat’ designations in the history of the Endangered Species Act, and significantly boosts our ability to protect the most important areas of lynx habitat in the lower 48.”

Meanwhile, things are looking less promising for the Iberian lynx, now reckoned to be the single most endangered cat in the world, threatened with an extinction that would be the first utter disappearance of any cat species since the saber-toothed tiger. A century ago, several thousand Iberian lynx occupied the high country throughout the peninsula. Now there are fewer than 200 in two fragmented habitats in the mountainous southern province of Andalusia. Busy highways cross both areas, hunters are a constant threat, the local rabbit population has been devastated by an epidemic, and land suitable for hosting a healthy lynx population is disappearing rapidly as more and more forests are cleared in southern Spain for sprawling agricultural plantations. In 2009, ten kittens were born in Iberia, too—but the prospects for the survival of their kind seem ever poorer.

—Gregory McNamee

Images: San Juan Mountains, southwestern Colorado—© Rich Grant/Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau; Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis)—Philip Wayre/EB Inc.; an Iberian lynxs looks out from its enclosure at a nature reserve in Cabarceno near Santander in northern Spain—Victor Fraile—Reuters /Landov.

To Learn More

• Iberian Lynx photo gallery
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan for the lynx
• Defenders of Wildlife page on the Canada lynx