Part 7 (2/2)

William Oliver, at that time scientific officer for the Gerald Durrell Jersey Zoo, organized extensive field surveys in the mid-1970s, and concluded that the only remaining small groups of the pygmy hog were in a.s.sam, in the plains to the south of the Himalayas. There were no more than a thousand individuals, and habitat destruction was continuing.

It was in 1977 that the two pygmy hogs that I met were sent to the zoo in Zurich. At first all went well: The sow farrowed and delivered healthy piglets. But then she died in an ”accident.” The piglets remained healthy, but the only female among them was, unfortunately, left with her father and brothers. She was only one year old when she became pregnant (far too young) and she died in childbirth. That hope for captive breeding was thus ended. The only other pygmy hogs sent to Europe had gone to London Zoo in 1898 where both members of the pair had died without raising young.

In 1996, with a grant from the EU, the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (then the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust) got permission to start a captive breeding program in Guwahati (the capital of a.s.sam), and six pygmy hogs were captured from the last surviving population of the species in Manas National Park.

Early in 2008, on the advice of Gerald Durrell's wife, Lee, I called Goutam Narayan, who heads up the program. The voice that traveled to me from India was warm, and he was generous with his time. He explained that, with help from Parag Deka, the excellent veterinarian on staff who has been with them from the start, the breeding program was going well. ”We followed established breeding guidelines-and common sense,” he said. Usually four or five young are born once a year. They weigh barely five or six ounces at birth, grayish pink at first, then develop faint yellow stripes by the second week. They live up to eight years in the wild but can reach ten years in captivity.

I asked Goutam if he could share any stories from his long years with the project. He told me about a local forest guard in Manas who had rescued a young hog that he had found, half frozen and almost dead, floating down a river on a cold day in October 2002. Veterinarian Parag Deka rushed to Manas and tried his best to revive the hoglet. As its condition deteriorated, it was brought to the breeding center in Guwahati where, against all odds, the little male pig miraculously recovered. He has proved a valuable addition to the breeding program, bringing new genes from the wild, and he has sired several litters during the last six years.

”From the six original individuals,” Goutam told me, ”we now have about eighty individuals, divided between two centers.” He said that the hogs were ready for release into the wild, ”but the problem is the continuing exploitation of the environment.” I could hear the frustration in his voice. The pygmy hog, he explained, is ”a good indicator species”-very sensitive to disturbances in composition of the herbs and other plants in the gra.s.s. And then he went on to emphasize that ”they must must have gra.s.s for their nests.” They hide in their nests and get protection from the heat and cold. ”They must have gra.s.s all the year round,” he reported, ”all of them.” have gra.s.s for their nests.” They hide in their nests and get protection from the heat and cold. ”They must have gra.s.s all the year round,” he reported, ”all of them.”

Meanwhile the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, alongside the Pygmy Hog Conservation Program, had been working under the guidance of William Oliver and in partners.h.i.+p with the a.s.sam Forest Department, to draw up plans for the long-term management of the species, and to find a suitable site for release. And in the spring of 2008, just four months after I spoke with Goutam, three groups of pygmy hogs, sixteen individuals in all (seven males and nine females), were taken to a facility near Nameri National Park with the goal of creating a second population of the species in the wild. There, with minimal human contact, they lived for five months in pre-release enclosures designed to replicate natural gra.s.sland habitat, getting ready for life in the wild.

At last the day came when they were moved to their final destination, the Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary, 110 miles northeast of Guwahati. After two weeks in prepared enclosures the doors were opened and they were free to leave. Their movements have been followed by direct observation at bait stations and examination of droppings and nests. Goutam told me in a recent e-mail that most of them are doing well and one of the females has even farrowed in the wild.

A major education outreach program has been initiated in the villages in the area, as it is certain that, without the cooperation of the local people, these little pigs will have no chance of surviving in the wild. At the time of writing, two other potential release sites have been found in a.s.sam, in the Nameri and Orang National Parks. On one of my trips to India I am determined to accept Goutam's invitation to go and meet these enchanting little pygmy hogs and the dedicated people who are working so hard to save them.

Northern Bald Ibis or Waldrapp (Geronticus eremita)

In February 2008, I met Rubio, one of thirty-two northern bald ibis or ”waldrapp” that live at the Konrad Lorenz Inst.i.tute in Grunau, Austria. These birds are about twenty-eight inches in length with the long curved bill that characterizes all ibis. They have a distinctive fringe of plumage around the nape of their necks, but their heads are bare with no facial or crown feathers except during the juvenile stage. I had hoped to sit on the gra.s.s while they flew freely around us, as they normally do, but unfortunately all were temporarily confined because the rate of predation had been unusually high.

I went into the huge flight aviary with one of the keepers and Dr. Fritz Johannes, who is in charge of the project. Seen close up, they were beautiful, for we were lucky with the weather: The cold winter sun brought out the glorious iridescent sheen on their almost black plumage, and shone on their long pink bills and pink legs. The juveniles, whose feathers are bronze, had not yet lost their feathered caps.

At first the birds preferred to take mealworms from their keeper and from Fritz, but then Rubio decided I was okay, too, and transferred from Fritz's shoulder to mine. Having consumed an inordinate number of mealworms, he began the serious business of grooming me. What really amazed me was how warm his beak felt, and how delicately and gently he used it as he preened my hair. He also made attempts to probe into my ears and nostrils-I must admit I was not too thrilled about that!

Eventually he was persuaded to return to his keeper-but not before he marked me with white liquid down the back of my jacket. This, of course, is a sign of good luck, so I tried to feel grateful!

I had the huge good fortune of visiting Rubio, one of the hand-reared northern bald ibis in Austria, who are being taught to migrate south for the winter by following ultralights. (Markus Unsold) (Markus Unsold) I was there, with the team from JGI-Austria, to learn about the attempt to teach the waldrapp to migrate from Austria to the south of Italy. In the flight aviary next to Rubio's were the birds that would take part in the spring migration over the Alps.

Extinction in Europe This ibis once ranged in arid mountainous regions from Southern Europe to northwestern Africa and the Middle East. Today, however, it is an extremely rare species, extinct throughout nearly all of its range as a result of pesticide use, habitat loss, and hunting for its tasty flesh. The last waldrapp disappeared from Europe in the seventeenth century. In the 1980s, after all the individuals from the last remaining wild colony in Turkey had been captured for captive breeding, it was thought that the species was extinct in the Middle East.

Between 1950 and the end of the 1980s, the last migratory migratory colonies in the Moroccan mountains vanished. Fortunately, however, birds from that colony had been captured during the 1960s for exhibition in European zoos, and they became the founder individuals for an international zoo breeding program. I saw descendants of those original captives in Innsbruck, where they have been bred for forty years. colonies in the Moroccan mountains vanished. Fortunately, however, birds from that colony had been captured during the 1960s for exhibition in European zoos, and they became the founder individuals for an international zoo breeding program. I saw descendants of those original captives in Innsbruck, where they have been bred for forty years.

By 2000, it was believed that only one colony of about eighty-five breeding pairs of (nonmigratory) bald ibis remained in the wild, in the Souss Ma.s.sa National Park in Morocco. But then, to ornithologists' surprise and delight, a tiny group was located in the Syrian desert. There were only seven birds, but there were three nests, and they were raising young-seven fledged in 2003.

A Human-Led Migration The (usually) free-flying breeding colony that I visited in Austria was established in 1997. Waldrapp can survive well in the Austrian Alps during the summer, feeding on insects and other invertebrates, but they cannot endure the winter months in the wild. To create a self-sustaining population, then, it would be necessary that they learn to migrate-as in the past-to warmer climes. And so a feasibility study (based on the pioneering work with Canada geese and whooping cranes described in the last section) was planned to find out whether the bald ibis could also learn to follow ultralight planes-or trikes, as they're called-on a migration route over the Alps to Tuscany in Italy.

Unlike the whooping cranes-which, as we have seen, are raised by caretakers wearing strange white gowns to prevent them from imprinting on humans, these ibis are hand-reared and bonded closely with their caretakers. They are exposed to the sound of the trikes, and the foster parent-Fritz's wife, Angelika-wears the helmet she will don when flying the plane.

During training, the birds initially flew too far away from the trike, despite Angelika's constant calling. But their performance gradually improved, and the first successful migration started out on August 17, 2004, with nine waldrapp following two trikes. Just over two months later, on September 22, the trikes arrived, along with seven of the waldrapp, at the chosen wintering ground, Laguna di Orbetello, a WWF nature reserve in southern Tuscany. (The other two waldrapp failed to make the journey on their own and were brought along in boxes.) The following year, using a different trike (with old-fas.h.i.+oned wings and more powerful engine), the same route was followed and, with fewer stopovers, took only twenty-two days, from August 18 to September 8. Because this trike could fly at a lower speed, the birds were able to follow more closely so that the whole operation went more smoothly.

During the winter of 20042005, following their arrival in Tuscany, the young birds stayed close to the night roost, seldom venturing much more than half a mile. However, when summer came they began to go on longer flights-up to twelve miles-before returning. And some were seen along the migration route, heading for Austria. After some weeks they returned to Tuscany, but it seemed that the instinct to migrate was still present, and Johannes, Angelika, and the rest of the team were much encouraged.

In spring 2006, all the birds who had followed trikes from Austria to Tuscany in 2004 went on long flights while those from a second successful migration in 2005 remained in the wintering area. Thus it seems that as they get older, they are more likely to leave for the breeding grounds in Austria at the time of the spring migration, and that this is genetically programmed.

That 2006 spring was an exciting time for Fritz, Angelika, and the rest of the team. They received a number of reports of sightings, mainly from bird-watchers and hunters, of individual waldrapp that had gone on these long flights-some as far as three hundred miles. Most of them had retraced the route they had been shown by humans. A few were way off course. In some cases, this may have been because, during their human-led journey, they had been carried part of the way in their boxes (the few that were not following the plane and had to be collected); thus their ”memory” of the journey was incomplete.

Finally, in spring 2007-success! Four of the waldrapp who had been led south from Grunau in 2004 had become s.e.xually mature, and to everyone's delight they flew to Austria. These were the female Aurelia and the males Speedy, Bobby, and Medea. They all returned to Grunau safely-”the first complete migration circle of the birds independent of humans,” Fritz told me proudly. Places chosen for stopovers were not necessarily the same as those where they'd stopped during the human-led migration, but seemed determined by the type of habitat. Once back, Aurelia bonded with Speedy: They bred and raised three offspring.

The 2007 autumn migration to the wintering grounds in Tuscany started with some confusion, as the seventeen migratory birds got mixed up with the almost forty free-flying birds at Austria's Konrad Lorenz Inst.i.tute. There they lost their motivation to migrate, preferring to stay with the others instead of heading south. It was finally decided to catch the confused birds and release them about thirty-five miles southward. One adult and one of Aurelia's juveniles evaded capture and stayed in Grunau, but four adults, including Aurelia and Speedy with their remaining two offspring, headed south as hoped.

Some of the birds were fitted with a GPS data logger. This stores the position of the bird every five minutes and can be downloaded, once the bird is in range, so that researchers can reconstruct the flight path in detail. The data showed that they had exactly followed the route along which they had been led in 2004. On September 15, Medea, Bobby, and Aurelia with her offspring-but not Speedy-were seen in Osoppo, northern Italy. Five days later-one day after the parallel human-led migration ended up at Laguna di Orbetello-Aurelia (without her offspring) and Medea also arrived in Tuscany. Bobby arrived two weeks later, but the two juveniles have not been seen since.

And what of Speedy? His story is fascinating. Even during the first migration, he flew separately from the others. In spring 2007, he started alone, flying to northern Italy, then on to Slovenia and from there to Austria. Not stopping, he continued on to Styria, near Leoben, then farther northeast until he was close to Vienna. There he turned back to Styria, where-miraculously-he met up with Aurelia and Medea. He and Aurelia then flew together to Grunau.

Then in the autumn, when the group set off to fly back to Tuscany, Speedy once again separated from the group. This time he had been selected to carry a satellite transmitter instead of GPS. This technology only stores some positions every third day, but the advantage is that the researchers get these positions in real time.

Flight formation of the ibis in northern Italy, as seen from an ultralight. (Markus Unsold) (Markus Unsold) All seventeen waldrapp at the start of the 2007 autumn migration. (Markus Unsold) (Markus Unsold) Unfortunately, the device did not work-only transmitting one position on September 18. But this was a very interesting data point, because it was exactly on the flight route-which had been reconstructed from Speedy's spring GPS data-that he had followed in the spring. In other words, he was retracing his own unique flight path back to Tuscany. ”We got no further satellite positions and also no sight report,” said Johannes. Speedy seems to have disappeared. ”Nevertheless,” he told me, ”the migration of these adult birds was a great success for our project. Aurelia, Medea, and Bobby are the first free-living, independent, migratory northern bald ibis in Europe after about four hundred years! That's a great motivation for us.”

One Step Closer to Success As I sit writing this chapter in Bournemouth, in August 2008, I receive an e-mail from Johannes in Slovenia. He tells me they are trying a new route, as a result of the problems of the previous year. Now they are leading the young ibis around around the Alps instead of crossing them-and ”it is fantastic till now,” he writes. The birds have performed well, flying more than sixty miles per day, much farther than in previous years. the Alps instead of crossing them-and ”it is fantastic till now,” he writes. The birds have performed well, flying more than sixty miles per day, much farther than in previous years.

And there is also news of the six older s.e.xually mature birds that had learned to follow the trikes. In April, they migrated northward from Italy to Austria. As during the previous year, they ended up in Styria, about fifty miles from their breeding place. All six were then taken to a small village in northern Italy close to the original migration route, where a suitable aviary had been prepared. One pair has bred and successfully raised two birds. The aviary was opened in July. So far the birds have remained close by, but Johannes expects that all eight ”will start the migration within the next ten days.” If the group reaches Tuscany-”and there is a good and realistic chance of that,” says Johannes-”then we could definitely show that human-led migration is a suitable methodological tool for the introduction of independent, migratory groups of northern bald ibis.” That will be a great success for the team.

Johannes ends by telling me of the plan to start a new project in 2009 in the Moroccan Atlas region, one of the most important breeding areas for northern bald ibis until the 1980s. The first step will be to explore the food availability in a region in the northern Atlas with some hand-raised ibis.

I think of him, there with his wife and the rest of the team, getting ready for the next flight on the way to Tuscany. And if I close my eyes, I can imagine myself back in the aviary in Austria, sitting with Johannes and Rubio. There I fell in love with these endearing birds, so totally different from whooping cranes. I can almost feel the gentle touch of Rubio's warm pink beak as he groomed me. When it had been time to leave, I had given him the last of the mealworms and, reluctantly, left the colony-to continue with my own, never-ending migration around the planet.

Rod Sayler and Lisa s.h.i.+pley are working tirelessly to ensure the pygmy rabbit's survival. Shown here at the endangered species breeding facility at Was.h.i.+ngton State University, Pullman. (Sh.e.l.ly Hanks) (Sh.e.l.ly Hanks)

Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis)

In 2007, my tour took me to Was.h.i.+ngton State University (WSU) in Pullman for a lecture. It was there that I heard about the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, and the efforts being made to save it from extinction. Once you have seen one, you fall in love-a perfect little rabbit, the smallest in North America. An adult fit easily onto the palm of my hand. Childhood images of Peter Rabbit and his siblings, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, thronged my mind. I was hooked!

The Columbia Basin population has been isolated from other pygmy rabbits for thousands of years, and is genetically differentiated from those found in Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, and California. They are specialist feeders, able to live on sagebrush in arid western US rangelands. They need tall, dense sagebrush plants for protection as well as food, and soils that are deep enough for the construction of a burrow system. They are one of only two North American rabbits that actually dig their own burrows.

Starting in the early 1990s, numbers of pygmy rabbits in Was.h.i.+ngton State declined following loss of habitat and fragmentation of the remaining sagebrush ecosystems as ever more land was taken over by farms, ranches, and urban development. In 1999, the Was.h.i.+ngton Department of Fish and Wildlife asked Dr. Rod Sayler and his colleague, Dr. Lisa s.h.i.+pley, if they would help them conduct studies on the declining populations. At the time, Rod and Lisa were working on a.s.sessing the influence of cattle grazing in sagebrush habitats known to be important to pygmy rabbits. These studies had barely started when it was discovered that the largest remaining pygmy rabbit population had just suffered a major crash-possibly due to disease. Probably fewer than thirty individuals remained. USFWS gave these rabbits a temporary emergency endangered listing in 2001 with a final ruling to cement the listing in March 2003. At this time, it was decided to start a captive breeding program with the goal of subsequently releasing them back into the wild.

Sixteen rabbits were captured and sent to three facilities for captive breeding. If any were left in the wild, they soon vanished. Oregon Zoo had already started breeding the non-endangered Idaho pygmy rabbits in order to experiment on the best procedures before trying with the precious remnants of the Columbia Basin population. Rod and Lisa, heading the captive breeding program at Was.h.i.+ngton State University, found that it was necessary to house the rabbits alone, except for mating, because of high levels of aggression. Much was learned from observing the rabbits at night through remote cameras and infrared lights.

It soon became apparent that, unlike Idaho rabbits, the Was.h.i.+ngton individuals had much lower reproductive success-fewer kits per female, lower kit growth rates, and some bone deformities. And all three sites struggled with disease and parasites. Eventually it was concluded that this was partly caused by inbreeding depression resulting from reduced genetic diversity in the small captive population. Every time a genetically important rabbit died, it meant that more diversity was lost and the chances for long-term viability of the tiny remaining population were reduced. Eventually in 2003, the USFWS Recovery Team regretfully came to the conclusion that the only way to improve the reproductive fitness and thus save the last Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits was to allow some of them to mate with Idaho rabbits. This, as had been hoped, considerably boosted the breeding success and the health of the hybrid offspring.

Eventually, after six years, it seemed realistic to make plans to reintroduce some of the Was.h.i.+ngton rabbits into the wild, and once again Idaho rabbits paved the way. Forty-two captive-bred Idahos, equipped with radio collars, were released into the wild in Idaho. They did well, and following the release at least two surviving females gave birth.

The Story of Gra.s.shopper My visit to WSU happened to be just before the first twenty captive-bred Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits were due to be released in eastern Was.h.i.+ngton, a hundred miles from the university, on March 13, 2007. Each was fitted with a little radio collar so that its movements could be monitored. Everyone was excited and hopeful, but everyone knew there was no guarantee of success. I met Len Zeoli, a mature PhD student, who would be studying the rabbits' adaptation to the wild. And I met Gra.s.shopper, one of the male rabbits due to be released. What an utterly adorable little rabbit he was-I was saddened that he would have to carry a radio collar. Tiny though it was, he was tiny, too.

Of course, I was eager to hear how the release went. The report came back from Len that things had gone well, and the rabbits had been ”very rabbit-like.” But there were unexpected problems-almost half the rabbits dispersed from the release area, traveling off presumably in search of new homes or mates. That did not happen in the test reintroduction in Idaho. In addition, losses to predators (coyotes, raptors) were high.

<script>