A Dream for a Better World

Ivory-billed woodpecker, formally called campephilus principalis, is a kind of endangered woodpecker. Ivory-billed woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in North America and the height is about 50cm. The woodpecker is well known for its big mouth which looks like ivory. The feather of ivory-billed woodpecker is black and white. As the bird folds the wings, the white part looks like man’s heel. Ivory-billed woodpecker ever widely scattered in forests of southwest part of America and it is the exclusive species in America. Ivory-billed woodpeckers always migrate together with their lovers and they usually mate with each other from January to May. Female ivory-woodpeckers often lay two to five eggs at a time. As baby ivory-billed woodpeckers come out of shells, their parents would raise them till they are 2 months old.
At present, ivory-billed woodpecker has been listed as an endangered bird in the world and people can not get accurate data about the precious animal. In 1800, the quantity of ivory-billed woodpecker decreased rapidly due to human beings’ rampant hunting and killing. In 1920s, two ivory-billed woodpeckers were killed in Colorado and many people thought that they had been extinct. In the year 1938, it was estimated that only 20 ivory-billed woodpeckers live in the wild environment and six to eight of them lived in a private virgin forest. However, the forest was finally destroyed and the last female ivory-billed woodpecker was killed. Since 1980s, wetland and forest were nearly substituted with villages, towns and secondary forest because industrialization developed so fast. As ivory-billed woodpeckers’ habitats were destroyed, people rarely heard the sound of the bird. By the middle of 1990s, people generally thought that ivory-billed woodpeckers had been extinct.
However, in the year 2004, a person who enjoyed the sight of birds found a kind of bird he had never seen before. He wrote down features of the bird and found that it was the ivory-billed woodpecker which people had not seen for more than 60 years. Consequently, led by two ornithologists, more than 30 ornithologists started to trace the precious bird. After 7000 hours tracking, they had traced ivory-billed woodpeckers 15 times and took many photos and videos. According to the appraisal of experts from different countries, people firmly believed that ivory-billed woodpeckers still lived in the world. There is no doubt that sharp decreasing of ivory-billed woodpeckers is caused by people’s unreasonable activities. As people see a ray of hope, they start to aggressively take measures to protect the surviving bird. Recently, reserves and viewing area for ivory-woodpeckers have been set up. In addition, people have also launched research for ivory-billed woodpeckers’ breeding. The Secretary of Interior in America has claimed that they would spend about 10 million dollars protecting the bird. Actually, decreasing of birds can cause unexpected result for people. In 1977, 35,000 to 50,000 people suffered from rabies in the world and 30,000 of them were Indian people because the quantity of vulture decreased greatly while the number of wild dogs and mice increased rapidly. Anyhow, we hope more birds could be protected better.

Hawksbill turtle, a kind of sea turtle, is a vertebrate. The length of common hawksbill turtle is about 0.6m and the length of larger ones can be up to 1.6m. The shell on the back of hawksbill turtle is quite smooth. Hawksbill turtles have short tail but they always hide it under the shell which can be made of glass frame, decorations and medicine etc. Hawksbill turtles do not have good temper. The animal is a kind of sea turtle so it lives in the sea. Hawksbill turtles mainly live on fishes, molluscs and seaweed etc. From July to September, they lay eggs on beaches of tropical and subtropical sea. Hawksbill turtles scatter in tropical and subtropical waters of Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. In China, the animal can be found in costal regions such as Fujian, Guangdong, Taiwan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong etc.
At present, there are two kinds of subspecies for hawksbill turtles. In Indian Ocean, hawksbill turtle can be found in east part of African continent, Madagascar and nearby islands, Persian Gulf, Indonesia Islands and northwest part of Australia etc. In Pacific Ocean, the animal mainly scatters in tropical and subtropical waters. But people hardly find hawksbill turtles along Mexico-Pacific coast. On Philippine Islands, people have found some nests of hawksbill turtles. Besides subspecies of hawksbill turtles in Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, the other subspecies has been found in Atlantic Ocean. Distributed regions cover Gulf of Mexico, south part of African continent and north part of America. Although hawksbill turtle is a kind of tropical sea turtle, people also have found it in those areas with high latitude in America.
In the past, people always thought that hawksbill turtles would not suffer from extinction because they have long lifespan and high reproductive rate. In fact, like most sea turtles, small hawksbill turtles have low survival rate. As people have killed grown-up hawksbill turtles, their nests are also destroyed by people or occupied by other animals. In such case, small ones will be eaten by other mammals. Experts who specially do research on sea turtles have said that the quantity of hawksbill turtles has decreased by 80% in past three generations and the number of mature female hawksbill turtles which can lay eggs has reduced 84% to 87%. In 1996, the quantity of hawksbill turtles did not increase obviously. In past years, governments in most countries have paid much more attention to protecting hawksbill turtles and they have built natural reserves for hawksbill turtles or formulated eternal laws to prevent hawksbill turtle hunting and killing. In the year 1970, hawksbill turtle was listed as the endangered animal in America. In China, the government also has set up natural reserves. Nowadays, hawksbill turtle hunting is illegal but people never stop the unreasonable behavior. Before 1994, Japan imported shell of hawksbill turtles up to 30,000kg every year and most were imported from Caribbean area. At present, some people in Hainan Island of China still make use of shell of hawksbill turtles to produce decorations. Therefore, the protection for hawksbill turtles is a long-term task.

Cheetah, whose formal name is Acinonyx Jubatus, is a kind of feline. Cheetahs mainly live in Africa and west Asia and they depend on fast speed to hunt food instead of sneak attack or group attack. Cheetah is the animal which runs fastest in the world and the speed per hour is up to 110km. In addition, cheetah is the animal among all feline animals with the longest history and uniqueness. There are two subspecies of cheetah in the world. One is Asian subspecies and the other is African subspecies. Cheetahs which ever lived in India of Asia have been extinct so at present, cheetahs mainly live in Africa. In Texas, Nevada and Wyoming of America, people ever found the fossil of the oldest cheetah which lived more than 10,000 years ago. At that time, cheetahs could be found in Asia, Africa, America and Europe. Afterwards, as the climate underwent great changes during ice age, various animals were extinct and some cheetahs in Europe, America, some parts of Asia and Africa also disappeared. Cheetahs live in jungle or dry wood and they like living alone. Cheetah is the most docile animal among all feline animals and it does not attack people and other animals actively except when it is hunting. People in ancient times often used it to hunt other animals. Cheetah mainly lives on small and medium animals. although they can have 50% chance to catch preys successfully, their preys sometimes are caught by stronger animals such as lions, hyena and other larger rivals. Therefore, they have to eat preys within the shortest time. If a cheetah can not get a prey or the prey is taken away by other animals for 5 times continuously, it will be starved to death because it does not have strength to hunt food. Baby cheetah have few chance to survive because they are eaten by larger animals or starved to death.
Survival of the fittest is the constant truth in the world. The number of cheetah has decreased due to two major reasons. Cheetah is often beaten down by larger animals and then it is eaten by rivals. Therefore, it is not strange that the quantity of cheetahs would decrease. In addition, people also never give up hunting cheetah. Since the year 1990, wild cheetahs living in some parts of Asia and Africa have been extinct in more than 20 countries. According to experts’ estimation, there are about 10,000 odd cheetahs in the world and 400 to 700 of them live in South Africa. Nowadays, cheetahs still face up to hunters’ illegal hunting. A nation in Africa, is a nomadic people and people do not kill cheetah but they always take away cheetahs’ preys. So poor cheetahs have to hunt preys again. As for endangered cheetah, people have set up some national parks and natural preservation zones to protect cheetahs. People also have started to breed cheetahs artificially. In addition, trade for cheetah skin has been forbidden among countries in the world. Therefore, people have to reduce hunting for cheetahs.

Whale shark, also called rhincodon typus, is the largest fish in the world at present. Whale shark is a kind of shark but not whale. In Vietnam, whale shark is considered as the God and people call it Ca Ong. Whale sharks in Mexico and most middle American area have spots on the body so they are called pez dama or dimino in local region. Some other whale sharks often appear in Belize Barrier Reef which is near to Sapodilla Cayes so people call them Sapodilla Tom. In Kenya, it is called papa shilingi because people believe that when the God pour shilling on its body, then it has the spots. In Madagascar, people call whale sharks marokintana. In Philippine, people call it butanding. The length of common whale sharks is about 10m but some can be up to 20m. the weight of whale shar is about 10 to15 tons. Whale sharks mainly live in upper part of warm ocean and they are very mild and do not attack human beings. A unconfirmed report demonstrates that even people turn over the body of whale shark to clean the parasite, it will keep still. In addition, people can swim with the mild animal together without any danger. Whale sharks swim not very fast and they often float on the sea to enjoy warm sunshine. But recently, scientists have realized that whale shark is not the animal which swim slowly but it can dive into the deep ocean with high speed like eagles. Plankton, crustaceans, molluscs and small fishes are the delicious food for whale sharks.
Whale sharks almost do not have natural enemies. Human hunting is an important factor for the quantity decrease. Whale shark is a kind of economic fish along coastal regions. The liver can be made of cog liver oil, industrial oil and the material for soap, paint and candles etc. the skin can be made of leather and the fresh, bone and visceral can be made of fish meal. When whale sharks gather in some season, people will hunt them for aquaculture development. Southeast Asia, especially Taiwan, is the main hunting area for whale sharks and people often eat the fresh when they get a whale shark. In Fujian which is near to Taiwan, local fishermen ever hunted a whale shark and it was bought at 85,000 RMB very soon. Then it was killed for selling. In other regions, people do not hunt it deliberately but sometimes also hunt it for mistake. At present, scientists are not able to estimate the quantity in the world but they consider it as endangered animal. Consequently, some countries also formulate some laws to protect whale shark. For example, in Philippine, the government started to forbid commercial hunting, selling and importing and exporting for whale sharks in the year 1998. But in China, the government has not formulated any laws to protect whale shark and the hunting is completely free. Maybe people are lack of survey for whale shark distribution and they think that there is no whale shark in China so law-makers seems to neglect the protection for whale sharks.

A coalition of 12 environmental groups is taking the US government to court in an attempt to overturn the gray wolf’s loss of protected status.  After its ‘endangered’ status was removed, management of the wolf reverted to state control. Now environmentalists are claiming some states are too carefree with culling.  They think that recent actions by the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, and by individuals, since wolves were delisted demonstrate the need to resume federal safeguards for wolves until state plans are in place that ensure a sustainable wolf population in the region.  For example, on the very day delisting took effect — March 28, 2008 — Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed into law a new Idaho law allowing Idaho citizens to kill wolves without a permit whenever wolves are annoying, disturbing, or “worrying” livestock or domestic animals.

The humpback whale has been moved from “Vulnerable” to “Least Concern” on the 2008 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.  It is estimated that there are 40,000 mature individuals and there are good reports for the current breeding season in the Southern hemisphere. But now, scientists have also found hundreds of baby whales in a bay on the north west of Australia, which is thought to be one of the world’s biggest humpback whale nursery grounds.  The commercially important large whales have for the most part responded well under protection.  The southern right whale is also now listed as having a low risk of extinction. Several other whales, such as the blue and sei whales, are also growing in number, but are still listed as endangered.  In all, nearly a quarter of the 86 cetacean species assessed, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, are considered threatened, with nine species listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered. It is believed that this is most likely underestimating the situation as there is not enough data to classify 44 of the species.

By some counts the black-footed ferret is the most endangered animal in the United State.  So the fact that ferret spotters have spotted fifteen of them in Kansas is reasonable grounds for celebration thanks to an artificial breeding program in Washington.  The biologist that sighted the ferrets was extremely pleased to finding the four families.  Last December 24, adult ferrets were released in Kansas and with the recent sighting of young mustelids means that for the first time in more than 50 years, the state can lay claim to wild-born black-footed ferrets on Kansas soil.  Wildlife biologist are now asking for 50 more ferrets this year to release, but it is doubtful that will happen due to a recent outbreak of the plague in nearby South Dakota that could harm the ferret population.

The world’s rarest otter, the hairy-nosed otter, was spotted in a national park in Southern Vietnam.  A local biologist came across two of the otters while conducting night observations in the park.  This is the first sighting of these extremely rare otters since 2000.  Before then, during the 1990s, it was believed that the otters were extinct until several of them were sighted in several Southeast Asian countries.  The news of the recent sighting was kept private for fears of revealing the otters’ location to hunters; however, the discovery is so important that announcing it will hopefully persuade the government to protect the animals’ habitat.  Currently, the otters’ habitat is being threatened by logging, hunting and over-development in and around the national park.