Por las montañas del Valle de Aburrá anda libre un zoológico

ORIGINAL: El Colombiano

JUAN CARLOS VALENCIA GIL
28 de abril de 2013

Tigrillos, micos y hasta pumas deambulan por los bordes altos de la urbe. Sorpréndase. Cuídelos.

En un amanecer de agosto de 2012 se dio uno de los hallazgos más importantes sobre fauna silvestre del Valle de Aburrá de los últimos tiempos. Antes de la 1:00 a.m., una cámara automática registró el paso sigiloso de dos pumas hembras por la hojarasca de un camino de la parte alta de las montañas de esta cuenca metropolitana de tres millones y medio de habitantes.

"La sorpresa fue gigante; no esperábamos que hubiera pumas tan cerca", expresó el biólogo Juan David Sánchez, de Aburrá Natural, un grupo de apasionados por la naturaleza que, desde 2009, explora la biodiversidad de la zona.

Han documentado titíes grises, tucanes, ocelotes, zorros, pumas y hasta un tigrillo lanudo, especie vulnerable a la extinción, de la que solo había 40 registros históricos en el país, y de animales muertos, en la mayoría de los casos. Además, en flora, reseñaron los frailejones de la serranía de las Baldías, en el corregimiento San Félix, de Bello.

De los pumas tenían indicios desde que en una de sus caminatas por las laderas del suroriente encontraron excrementos y pelos, de los que no tenían duda de que eran de este felino, el más grande de Colombia después del jaguar.

Hace 20 días sus cámaras lograron otro video, y de día, por lo que obtuvieron una imagen mucho más clara que exhiben en su perfil de Facebook. El puma, a 8 kilómetros de la zona urbana. Juan David contó que también han recibido reportes de su presencia en el occidente.

Puma. Foto:Aburrá Natural

Un inventario del Área Metropolitana y la Sociedad Antioqueña de Ornitología da cuenta de que en el Aburrá hay 316 especies de aves; de ellas, más de 100 en Medellín. Un estudio del Área y la Universidad de Antioquia reseña que en el departamento hay 203 especies de anfibios, 73 de serpientes, 71 de lagartos, 6 de tortugas y 2 de cocodrilos. En 2013 el Área y Corantioquia inventariarán los mamíferos.

¿Por qué hay especies silvestres tan cerca de la ciudad? 
Juan David afirmó que no hay certeza de si los ejemplares llegaron o siempre han recorrido estos bosques. Víctor Vélez, coordinador de Fauna Silvestre del Área, consideró que han vivido en la región y se conservan por los bosques de pinos, robles, entre otros, que rodean Medellín.

Jaime Cabrera, de la Fundación Panthera, apuntó que antes se veían menos estas especies porque tenían más hábitat y no había tanta tecnología para registrarlas. Añadió que el clima de la región contribuye a la diversidad. Y Camilo Restrepo, coordinador de Fauna de Corantioquia, dijo que también se liberan animales que se recuperan del tráfico ilegal, lo que aporta a la biodiversidad.

Por la urbanización, estos bosques son fragmentados, lo que, indicó Juan David, expone a los animales a la caza, atropellamientos en carreteras, contaminación y escasez de alimentos. Esto último lleva a los felinos grandes a depredar especies domésticas, como gallinas y conejos, situación que genera conflictos con pobladores.

Expertos coincidieron en que estas especies silvestres no son peligrosas para la gente. Al contrario, sugirieron que corren riesgo por el deseo de algunos de cazarlas. Para conservarlas, lo fundamental es educar a la población. En ello trabajan autoridades ambientales, municipios y Departamento.

Este año el Área dispuso 2.200 millones de pesos para fauna silvestre. Y hay dos proyectos clave: Parque Central de Antioquia y Cinturón Verde Metropolitano, que protegerán los bosques y las especies que los habitan. Es la esperanza.

Una noche de 2012, Alejandro Campuzano, estudiante de Biología de la U. de A., vio un venado en la vía a El Retiro. También podrían rondar por partes altas del Aburrá, según Juan David. O nutrias, que ya se han visto en el río Medellín, en Barbosa; o martejas, esos micos nocturnos de ojos cobrizos. Esto, teniendo claro que convivir con la mágica fauna implica respeto y responsabilidad.

EN DEFINITIVA

Pese a la creciente urbanización, aún habita fauna silvestre en el Aburrá. Para conservarla es necesario proteger los bosques y educar a la ciudadanía en la importancia de la biodiversidad.

“Si no nos ayudan, mataremos más jaguares”, dicen en Antioquia

ORIGINAL: Vanguardia

“Si no nos ayudan, mataremos más jaguares”, dicen en Antioquia

(Foto: Archivo/VANGUARDIA LIBERAL)

Los jaguares siempre han rondado por Amalfi, Antioquia. En 1949 este municipio del Nordeste de Antioquia se hizo famoso porque cazadores mataron al “tigre”.

Sus pobladores relataron que hace cuatro años estos felinos atacaron caballos en la zona rural. Pero todo estaba calmado hasta ahora, cuando campesinos de la vereda Mangos Calenturas mataron un ejemplar de dos metros de largo, 70 centímetros de alto y 150 kilos de peso.

“Si uno no defiende lo suyo, ¿entonces quién?”, se preguntó Dago León Piedrahíta, habitante de la vereda, al explicar que, desde hace 20 días, cuando se supo de sus andanzas, hasta el pasado martes, cuando lo sacrificaron, el felino se comió siete yeguas, seis vacas, treinta gallinas y dos perros.

Los habitantes de esta vereda, ubicada en la ladera oriental del cañón de la hidroeléctrica Porce Tres, a media hora del casco urbano, dijeron que la suya es una de las tierras más tranquilas de la localidad. Allí, en medio del canto de los pájaros y la brisa que atenúa el calor, 23 familias viven de la minería de oro en el río, los cultivos de café y la ganadería.

Sin embargo, aseguraron que los felinos acabaron con la paz. Y hablaron de varios porque, señalaron todos, la hembra del jaguar y un cachorro siguen libres en la cordillera.

“Como se comieron las bestias, hay gente que ya no tiene en qué salir a mercar. La mula es la mano derecha del campesino, pero si nos atacan un niño, ¿qué hacemos?”. El comentario es de Iván Zapata, otro residente en la vereda.

Su expresión resume la preocupación de los lugareños porque en el Centro Educativo Rural Mangos Calenturas estudian 12 niños de primaria que temen que los jaguares los ataquen.

The Power of Life

ORIGINAL: Open Your Eyes

Elephants push back against India's growing villages

ORIGINAL: TheNational

Gethin Chamberlain

Apr 20, 2012 

A watchtower built to keep lookout for elephants.

The moment the elephant's trunk wrapped itself around Fulmani Urao's waist, she must have known it was all over. She did not even try to struggle. There was no point.

Asman Urao survived an attack in which his mother was killed.

It was about 1.30am when the huge, bad-tempered bull elephant smashed its way into Fulmani's house. Her five-year-old son Asman, asleep in her lap, managed to wriggle free, but there would be no escape for his mother. This was an elephant with murder in mind.

The animal dragged her out of the house, onto the road, and beat her head against the ground until she was dead. Afterwards, just to make sure, he trampled her body. Then he trumpeted and faded back into the night.

An Indian elephant in Chilapata forest in northern Bengal. Photos by Gethin Chamberlain

It is a myth that the ground shakes as elephants approach. The truth is that for Fulmani and hundreds of thousands of others who find themselves in the path of the wild herds, death comes on five-tonne tiptoes.

At least 400 people a year are killed by elephants in India and the conflict between humans and elephants is growing as India's human population expands inexorably, increasing the demand for land and eating into the elephants' territory.

Forests are cut down and converted into agricultural land; corridors along which the animals traditionally move have been farmed, built upon and traversed by railway tracks. At the same time the success of anti-poaching campaigns has seen elephant numbers rise. In north Bengal, where Fulmani lived, the last elephant census in 2010 counted more than 500 animals.

Indian elephants are slightly smaller than their African counterparts, with the largest males standing about 3.5 metres high. They usually weigh between three and five tonnes. There is a perception that the Asian elephant is less aggressive than the African, but that is little consolation for those who do battle with these creatures every night.

In the darkness on the edge of the Chilapata forest a group of men are lighting bundles of jute sticks to use as torches. The harvest is over, but the elephants are still around, hungry for the stored crop. Every night they come and every night the villagers form up in these halla (noise) parties to chase them off.

Ramkishor Kindo and fellow villagers use torches to drive off animals.

The dogs are barking; the herd is on the move. Orange flames leap from the torches, clouds of sparks rising into the night air. A few of the men are carrying sticks; one has a large spear.

A mile away, Jayanta Roy stands in the middle of a paddy field, turning slowly, searching for signs of the herd, the beam of his powerful torch cutting through the dark. He turns again and suddenly there they are, two large males, no more than 40 metres away, staring straight at him. There is a split second to register the shock and then he is running for his life. It is like this every night, the villagers say.

It is two weeks since Nikil Rava heard the elephant tearing up the paddy field. His father Bilu Rava, 60, sits on the step of the house in the village of Mendabari, a long spear cradled in his lap.

Bilu is looking at an X-ray of Nikil's arm, which shows an ugly break, the bone snapped clean through and projecting through the skin. The young man is still in hospital.

X-ray of the broken arm of Nikil Rava, 26, who was trampled by an elephant as he tried to drive it away from fields next to his village in Mendabari, north Bengal. His right arm was snapped in two. The area is the frontline of a growing conflict between elephants and humans which claims the lives of about 400 people a year in India.

"Nikil was trying to scare the elephant away but he stumbled and fell on the ground," he says. "I remember that before trampling him, the elephant sounded a trumpeting noise. My son was screaming, he was saying 'father, I've lost my hand'."

When the rice is being harvested, he and the other landowners from the village build watchtowers in the fields and sit up every night waiting to chase the elephants away. The spear is to prod the animals, not to kill them, he says. Like many Hindus, he regards the animals as sacred.

In the village of Singhijhora, Ganga Adhikari perches on the step of the family home, watching her mother Debi praying in front of their shrine to Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu deity. A wire clothesline runs behind the shrine; it saved her life, says Ganga.

"We were trying to drive the elephant back into the forest. I shouted but then the searchlight stopped working and he started to chase me. He was chasing so fast that I knew I would not reach our house, so I tried to run to a neighbour's."

She darted under the washing line and in doing so saved her life. The elephant halted. "It is something in their heads," says Ganga. "Mentally they have to know what it is in front of them, that it won't hurt them. It didn't know, so it stopped and I had time to get inside. But I was crying for a long time afterwards."

The worst months are October, when the rice is harvested, and March and April, the corn reaping season, when the elephants know they will find the grain stored inside people's homes.

Each night the men take to the watchtowers that dot the landscape. Yet so silent are the animals, that for many watchers the first inkling of the presence of an elephant is when the tower starts to fall.

Ratan Ray, 24, was supposed to be protecting the potato crop, but it had been a quiet night and by 1.30am he and his brother Tapan, 22, had dozed off. "I woke up and found myself on the ground," he says. The elephant had torn one of the tower legs out of the earth.

He looked up to see the elephant pushing against the remains of the tower with its head, while his brother clung on desperately. "There was a bamboo stick next to me and all I could think was to grab it and hit the elephant on the legs," he says. It worked. The elephant lumbered off into the darkness.

But this is not an entirely one-sided conflict. Local records show that in 2010 there were 52 people killed by elephants in the Dooars region (an area of about 9,000 square kilometres in the foothills of the Himalayas), while in the previous five years, 49 elephants were killed by trains, illegal electric fences or by pesticides used in tea plantations.

As the problem intensifies, so too does the search for a solution. In a clearing on the edge of the jungle, the forestry department's great hope is eating a banana.

Shankari is three years old. The little female elephant stands in the shade of a tall tree, a thick chain fastening one of her hind legs to the tree trunk to stop her escaping.

Shankari, a three-year-old wild elephant calf, is used to chase herds away from both villages and crops.

Shankari was born wild in the jungle. Somehow she became separated from the herd and was found by the mahouts, who brought her here to train as a kunki - a captive elephant used to drive off the wild herds.

When a wild herd enters a village area, the mahouts arm themselves with firecrackers and guns, climb up onto their kunkis and head out.

"It is a very difficult situation," says Sunil Kheria, the chief mahout. "I would never go alone into a wild herd. You have to think of yourself and make sure you are properly armed."

But it is working, he says: the wild herds are not coming as often as they once did here. Other states are trying different methods including electric fences, deep trenches and chilli-coated ropes.

In Singhijhora, Nidhi Singh is banking on string. She has persuaded a group of farmers to encircle their fields with the stuff, which is attached to a musical alarm that plays a Hindu religious song. It works, up to a point, but if the elephants are determined enough, they will get through. Something more is needed, she says; people have to be prepared to share the land with the elephants, instead of blocking their traditional routes.

"Our thought process in India is traditionally to coexist," she says. "We can live together but greed has increased with commercialisation. Greed is everywhere, in the minds of farmers, forest officials, tea plantation owners, so that is creating conflict. There has to be a will to change."

Gethin Chamberlain is a photojournalist based in South India.

ParaHawking en Nepal: Lo que es verdaderamente volar con las aves

ORIGINAL: OpenCulture / ParaHawking
March 19th, 2012

Siempre hemos tenido el deseo de dejar a nuestros cuerpos apegados a la tierra y volar con las aves. Hemos logrado el milagro de volar más de un siglo atrás. Pero solo recientemente se ha creado un robot que puede reproducir mecánicamente la belleza de las aves en vuelo. Y ahora hemos dado el siguiente paso, unirnos a las aves en el aire verdaderamente.
En el siguiente video se puede apreciar el "ParaHawking" en acción, una fusión entre la cetrería y el parapente que permite interactuar con las aves de presa en su propio entorno. Todo tiene lugar en Nepal. Y todo es parte de un esfuerzo para conservar la amenaza de la población de buitres de Asia. Más información acerca de estos esfuerzos de conservación de los buitres en Nepal y el ParaHawking en sí mismo, por supuesto, en Parahawking.com.

Sitio Web: http://www.parahawking.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/parahawking
Nueva película de Parahawking - http://www.flightforsurvival.com

Aquí está la versión corta de la Parahawking en Nepal - Lo mejor de 2010/2011 en vídeo.

Los buitres son una especie en peligro de extinción. El conservacionista Scott Mason trabaja arduamente para evitarlo.
Su pelícuta "Flight for Survival" difunde su mensaje, este es un avance de ella.

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Y si quiere ver lo que le sucedió a un parapentista no afiliado a este proyecto cuando se cruza accidentalmente con un águila, mire el siguiente video: