LUCKNOW: The leopard deaths are continuing in the country. The anti-poaching cell of Uttarakhand forest department seized two leopard skins on Wednesday night from Chakrata in Dehradun district. There have been about 130 leopard deaths so far this year. Most of them have been reported from Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
The Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), the agency helping forest departments in UP and Uttarakhand in seizures and wildlife crime cases, estimates 81 leopard deaths from Uttarakhand alone this year. The agency's database also shows over 35 leopards reportedly killed by poachers. According to the figures released by the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) in 2008, the country did not have more than 11,000 leopards. The number is constantly going down. "Leopards live on the periphery of forests and that makes them more vulnerable," said a UP forest official.
Leopard conservation in the country is more or less clubbed with that of tigers, as quite a big number of leopards exist in tiger reserves. But no effort has been made to go for a leopard census to arrive at an exact number existing within and outside the protected areas. Conservationists feel this has affected the systematic protection of leopards.
Leopard faces the severest backlash from humans and grave threat from poachers. The declining prey base and shrinking habitat forces the big cat to venture out of the forest area. When it attacks humans and livestock, it faces a backlash. The experts are of the view that ill-will that rises in the human communities in and around forest areas, after leopard attacks them or their cattle, supports poaching and poisoning of leopards.
Leopard is a versatile cat which is not selective about its habitat. Maximum number of leopards are found in UP, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Meanwhile, Uttarakhand forest department also seized a leopard cat skin and a Himalayan black bear gall bladder.
Greenkronos
Monday, September 20, 2010
Arctic sea ice shrinks to third lowest area on record
Arctic sea ice melted over the summer to cover the third smallest area on record, US researchers have said, warning global warming could leave the region ice free in the month of September 2030.
Last week, at the end of the spring and summer "melt season" in the Arctic, sea ice covered 4.76 million square kilometres, the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Centre said in an annual report.
"This is only the third time in the satellite record that ice extent has fallen below five million square kilometres, and all those occurrences have been within the past four years," the report said.
A separate report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that in August, too, Arctic sea ice coverage was down sharply, covering an average of six million square kilometres, or 22 per cent below the average extent from 1979 to 2000.
The August coverage was the second lowest for Arctic sea ice since records began in 1979. Only 2007 saw a smaller area of the northern sea covered in ice in August, NOAA said.
The record low for Arctic sea ice cover at the end of the spring and summer "melt season" in September, was also in 2007, when ice covered just 4.13 million square kilometres.
Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC, said climate- change skeptics might seize the fact that Arctic sea ice did not hit a record-low extent this year, but said they would be barking up the wrong tree if they claimed the shrinkage had been stopped.
"Only the third lowest? It didn't set a new record? Well, right. It didn't set a new record but we're still headed down. We're not looking at any kind of recovery here," he said.
In fact, Serreze said, Arctic sea ice cover is shrinking year-round, with more ice melting in the spring and summer months and less ice forming in the fall and winter.
"The Arctic, like the globe as a whole, is warming up and warming up quickly, and we're starting to see the sea ice respond to that. Really, in all months, the sea ice cover is shrinking -- there's an overall downward trend," Serreze said.
"The extent of Arctic ice is dropping at something like 11% per decade -- very quickly, in other words.
"Our thinking is that by 2030 or so, if you went out to the Arctic on the first of September, you probably won't see any ice at all. It will look like a blue ocean, we're losing it that quickly," he said.
Greenkronos
Last week, at the end of the spring and summer "melt season" in the Arctic, sea ice covered 4.76 million square kilometres, the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Centre said in an annual report.
"This is only the third time in the satellite record that ice extent has fallen below five million square kilometres, and all those occurrences have been within the past four years," the report said.
A separate report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that in August, too, Arctic sea ice coverage was down sharply, covering an average of six million square kilometres, or 22 per cent below the average extent from 1979 to 2000.
The August coverage was the second lowest for Arctic sea ice since records began in 1979. Only 2007 saw a smaller area of the northern sea covered in ice in August, NOAA said.
The record low for Arctic sea ice cover at the end of the spring and summer "melt season" in September, was also in 2007, when ice covered just 4.13 million square kilometres.
Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC, said climate- change skeptics might seize the fact that Arctic sea ice did not hit a record-low extent this year, but said they would be barking up the wrong tree if they claimed the shrinkage had been stopped.
"Only the third lowest? It didn't set a new record? Well, right. It didn't set a new record but we're still headed down. We're not looking at any kind of recovery here," he said.
In fact, Serreze said, Arctic sea ice cover is shrinking year-round, with more ice melting in the spring and summer months and less ice forming in the fall and winter.
"The Arctic, like the globe as a whole, is warming up and warming up quickly, and we're starting to see the sea ice respond to that. Really, in all months, the sea ice cover is shrinking -- there's an overall downward trend," Serreze said.
"The extent of Arctic ice is dropping at something like 11% per decade -- very quickly, in other words.
"Our thinking is that by 2030 or so, if you went out to the Arctic on the first of September, you probably won't see any ice at all. It will look like a blue ocean, we're losing it that quickly," he said.
Greenkronos
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