En La Romera, a 20 minutos del parque de Sabaneta, viven pumas

 

Los pumas permanecieron varios minutos ante las cámaras automáticas de Rastreo Colombia, lo que permitió imágenes nítidas. FOTOS Cortesía de Rastreo Colombia

 

El registro de Rastreo Colombia se destaca porque fueron grabados tres ejemplares y de día.

Panorámica que se contempla desde el alto La Romera, área protegida de Sabaneta.

 

 José F. Navarro con Negra, la perra que lo apoya en el rastreo.

Los pumas permanecieron varios minutos ante las cámaras automáticas de Rastreo Colombia, lo que permitió imágenes nítidas. FOTOS Cortesía de Rastreo Colombia

95 a 160 centímetros es la longitud de un puma. La de un perro pastor alemán ronda los 100 centímetros.

en definitiva
Ya son varios los registros de pumas en las laderas del Aburrá, lo que demuestra la gran biodiversidad que hay en estas montañas y la necesidad de conservar los bosques para protegerla.

Parece increíble que en el mismo territorio que viven tres millones y medio de personas, en el valle donde está Medellín, la segunda urbe de Colombia, habiten pumas (puma concolor) y estén por ahí, moviéndose, con pasos sigilosos ante la inmensa ciudad.

Y no se han visto una sino varias veces. La última la registró Rastreo Colombia, un grupo de biólogos y ecólogos de la Universidad de Antioquia que, con cámaras trampa, logró captar a una hembra y dos ejemplares juveniles en el alto La Romera, a solo 20 minutos del parque de Sabaneta, en el sur del Aburrá.

Los expertos vienen trabajando en la zona desde hace un año, monitoreando fauna con estas cámaras que se activan con calor y con el movimiento de los animales.

De ahí su alegría cuando el pasado 13 de diciembre, tras revisar los videos, el biólogo José Fernando Navarro Peláez, integrante del colectivo, vio los pumas en la grabación que se logró el 24 de noviembre pasadas las cinco de la tarde.

El felino más grande del país, después del jaguar, ya había sido registrado en las montañas de este valle en un amanecer de agosto de 2012 y a principios de abril de 2013; ambas, en cámaras automáticas del grupo Aburrá Natural.

“La sorpresa fue gigante; no esperábamos que hubiera pumas tan cerca”, expresó en 2013 el biólogo Juan David Sánchez, miembro de ese equipo.

Conservación


El de 2012 fue de los hallazgos más importantes de fauna silvestre del área metropolitana de los últimos tiempos. Y el de ahora sí que lo es, porque se dio en un sector mucho más cercano a la zona urbana y en las imágenes se observa cómo los ejemplares estuvieron varios minutos ante la cámara en la claridad del día.

Por eso Corantioquia, autoridad ambiental en el Aburrá rural, destacó el hecho. Luisa Fernanda Jaramillo, subdirectora de Ecosistemas de la entidad, indicó que es muy importante, porque muestra ecosistemas bien conservados en un territorio tan cercano al área metropolitana.

“Se logra la presencia de estos grandes felinos porque existen varias áreas muy bien conservadas en los alrededores, como el alto de San Miguel y las áreas boscosas entre Envigado y El Retiro”, explicó la funcionaria y les hizo un llamado a la comunidad y a los propietarios de predios para que conserven los bosques.

José Fernando Navarro contó que haciendo un trabajo en La Romera identificó excrementos de puma en marzo de 2013. “A partir de ese hallazgo puse más cámaras, desde 2.300 a 2.600 metros sobre el nivel del mar. El trabajo fue desde diciembre de 2013. Es algo de muchas horas. No se creía de estas especies de mamíferos allí; a 200 metros hay casas con perros grandes”, expresó.

Para Navarro, los pumas están dentro de “la fauna invisible del valle”, pero, sostuvo, “toda la vida han estado”.

En su criterio, la importancia del hallazgo radica en detectar que se trata de una población de pumas establecida que come lo que encuentra en el bosque. “Muy pocas ciudades del mundo tienen pumas tan cerca”, aseguró y mencionó, como ejemplo, a Los Ángeles, Estados Unidos.

En su lista roja de especies amenazadas, la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza sitúa al puma en la categoría de preocupación menor. En Antioquia están los seis felinos que habitan en Colombia: jaguar, puma, tres especies de tigrillos y el yaguarundi.

El grupo Rastreo Colombia también lo integran el biólogo zoólogo Andrés Arias Alzate y los ecólogos Juan Pablo Quintero y Paula Andrea Hurtado Parra. Ah, y muy importante, Negra, una perra con cruce de pastor belga, recogida en la calle, que les ayuda en las labores de rastreo.

“Solo usamos esta perra, la idea es entrenar más. Trabajó en rescate de fauna de Porce III, no ladra para no ahuyentar la fauna - un cazador sí lo hace - y no es agresiva. La idea es mirar quién nos financia y entrenar perros para otros proyectos”, indicó Navarro.

Según explicó, un proyecto para rastrear jaguares con personas podría costar 500 millones de pesos, pero “en Brasil entrenaron perros para encontrar excretas de jaguar y, con dos perros, en 10 días hallaron más de 300 excretas. Con ellas se pueden ver ADN, ácidos biliares, feromonas, presas de las que se alimentan, y no costó nada”.

Evitan a la gente

Tras conocer el registro de Rastreo Colombia, Juan David Sánchez, de Aburrá Natural, afirmó que varios de los pumas que se han registrado son residentes e incluso dijo que algunos han nacido en estas laderas. “Ellos establecen un territorio y los territorios son decenas de kilómetros cuadrados”, apuntó.

Explicó que los pumas se distribuyen en América, desde el nivel del mar hasta los 4.000 metros de altitud, y en el norte del continente se han documentado ataques de estos animales, pero en Colombia no se tiene conocimiento de alguno.

“Ellos tratan de evitar al máximo a la gente, las luces, el ruido y a los animales domésticos”, comentó Sánchez e invitó a quienes habitan en fincas de estos sectores del Aburrá a que caminen con perros con correa y, en caso de encontrarse con uno de estos felinos, no salir corriendo sino retroceder lentamente sin perderlo de vista, pues este tiende a hacer lo mismo y a escapar. También sugirió no dejar animales domésticos sueltos para evitar depredación.

Este biólogo estimó que cada vez estaremos más en contacto con estos animales, debido al aumento de construcciones en laderas y en zonas como el Oriente cercano. Indicó que el registro de Rastreo Colombia debe motivar la gestión de entidades ambientales para prevenir conflictos como ataques, atropellamientos y la caza por considerar al puma una amenaza per se.

La Alcaldía de Sabaneta reportó que estaba enterada del trabajo con cámaras trampa, pero no del hallazgo de estos pumas. Sergio Montoya Montoya, funcionario de la Secretaría de Medio Ambiente, confesó que no imaginaban que en el municipio hubiera de estos felinos.

Informó que en el Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial (POT) de la localidad, La Romera figura como parque ecológico y recreativo. “Allá no se puede construir; de la cota 1.800 hacia arriba es área de protección”, añadió y especificó que el parque está entre las cotas 1.900 y 2.650.

Parque de borde
Sergio Montoya agregó que La Romera se convertirá en parque de borde, como una de las estrategias del Cinturón Verde Metropolitano. La primera etapa de este proyecto del Municipio, el Área Metropolitana y Corantioquia consiste en el mejoramiento de la vía de acceso con obras de cunetas y recolección de aguas lluvias, lo que cuesta cerca de 1.300 millones de pesos.

La intervención empezó el pasado 10 de noviembre y va hasta finales de marzo del presente año. Etapas posteriores estiman adecuación de senderos y aulas ambientales. Esto se haría en unas cuatro hectáreas que serían el área de acceso para el público en general.

Contexto de la Noticia

INFORME 

Inversiones para proteger la riqueza ambiental de La Romera

• Según información de Rastreo Colombia, en las 184 hectáreas de La Romera “encontramos más de 150 especies de aves, ocho de anfibios y reptiles y en sus quebradas han sido reportadas cinco especies de peces. El área cuenta además con 28 especies de mamíferos (entre murciélagos, roedores, perezosos, zorros, armadillos y tigrillos)”. Para este grupo, el Valle de Aburrá debe ser considerado territorio felino.
• Corantioquia reportó que La Romera es área protegida local. La entidad tiene un convenio con el Área Metropolitana para reforestar predios públicos. Detalló que en 2014 se reforestaron 8,5 hectáreas con especies nativas y se aisló con 4.500 metros de cercos para una inversión de 79’312.541 pesos.
• Para 2015 se tiene proyectado enriquecer 12 hectáreas con especies nativas y aislar 5.000 metros lineales de bosques con una inversión estimada de $96’833.714. “Lo anterior se realiza con la unión de esfuerzos técnicos, administrativos y financieros entre Corantioquia y el Área Metropolitana del Valle de Aburrá”, puntualizó Corantioquia.

ORIGINAL: El Colombiano
Por Juan Carlos Valencia Gil
04 de enero de 2015

These Incredible Tiny Islands Suck Pollution Out of Water

ORIGINAL: Take Apart

By Kristina Bravo

July 12, 2014 

A Scottish company is building floating ecosystems to clean up rivers and lakes.

(Photo: Biomatrix/Facebook)

Cleaning up dirty water has been on the agenda of many scientists lately. That’s no surprise—water pollution poses a health risk pretty much everywhere, especially in developing countries, where kids play among sewage, workers toil in muck daily, and millions die from drinking contaminated water every year. Scotland-based Biomatrix Water offers one more innovative way to clean up the mess: installing islands that suck up pollution from the water they're floating in.

The islands look and work like wetlands. Man-made structures hold together their vegetation; the pollutant-sucking process works naturally. Roots suspended beneath the islands promote the growth of aquatic biofilm (the green slime you find on rocks) that “cleanse[s] the water through the breakdown, sorption, and metabolic transformation of nutrients and impurities,” explains the Biomatrix website. Treatment plants have used biofilm filters for decades, reports Fast Company. But the company’s engineering additions, such as columns of synthetic fiber, maximize the growth of the beneficial bacteria that absorbs pollutants.

The islands come in different shapes and sizes and can be modified to grow local greenery. Besides increasing biofilm in the water, they also serve as fish refuges and feeding zones, creating low-maintenance ecosystems that could improve the area’s biodiversity while thriving for more than 20 years. The buoyant structures are also nice to look at: They can hold trees, driftwood, and even sculpture.

From

To

From

To

Partnering with conservationists and local governments, the company has already installed the pseudo-wetlands in the Philippines, India, China, and other countries.

Ingeniero de petróleos explica sequía en Casanare

El profesor de hidrocarburos de la Universidad Industrial de Santander mostró con videos la responsabilidad de las empresas petroleras en la tragedia ecológica del norte de Casanare.

El ingeniero de petróleos con máster en hidrocarburos, Óscar Vanegas aseguro que la mortandad de más de 20 mil chigüiros y otras especies por la sequía en Paz de Ariporo, Casanare, no es un problema solo del cambio climático o del a siembra de la palma.

Según él, la responsabilidad la tienen las petroleras cuando sacan el crudo del suelo. Vanegas, asegura que en la sísmica la forma para detectar petróleo, se utilizan hasta 10 kilos de explosivos SISMIGEL, que al explotar dentro del a tierra, su onda dice donde hay crudo.

Explicó el profesor de la Universidad Industrial de Santander –UIS- que cuando se saca el petróleo, de paso se está extrayendo miles de litros agua que están por debajo de la tierra, provocando daños colaterales.

Vanegas, dijo que en el 2012, campesinos y ambientalistas registraron como era como era Paz de Ariporo antes de la extracción de crudo.

El profesor aseguró que muchas veces los operarios de las petroleras no tapan donde se produjo la explosión, creando una tierra movediza, convirtiéndose en trampa para los animales.

Óscar Venegas, dijo que es urgente una legislación sobre la política de petróleos o en 50 años no solamente Paz de Ariporo será un desierto.

ORIGINAL: Noticias UNO

NoticiasUno

Marzo 30, 2014

Q&A: On Her 80th Birthday, Jane Goodall Discusses Her Legacy—and What's Next

As field biologist and activist, she has spent her life understanding and protecting our chimp cousins.

On April 3, Jane Goodall turned 80. Her work in behavioral primatology, for which the world first came to know her, focused on the chimpanzees of Gombe, a small forest reserve (now a national park) on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, in Tanzania.

She began her chimp studies there in July 1960 and continued until 1986. By then she had become acutely aware of the threats facing wild chimpanzees and of the sufferings of chimps held in captivity for medical research. (See "Being Jane Goodall")

So she left the satisfactions of doing field biology and became an activist. For almost three decades now she has spent most of her time on the road, lecturing, speaking with schoolchildren, testifying in public, using her gentle but forceful suasion on government officials, world leaders, other scientists, and anyone else she might meet.

Much of her effort is channeled through the Jane Goodall Institute and its programs, such as Roots & Shoots (involving young people especially in efforts to mitigate the human impact on the natural world) and TACARE (promoting conservation-related development in villages surrounding Gombe and elsewhere). She also continues to write—her new book is Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder From the World of Plants. (Related: "Happy 80th Birthday and Thanks Jane Goodall!")

But sometimes even a dinner conversation with a key decision-maker (as she explains below) can yield important results. National Geographic spoke with Jane shortly before her birthday.

Q: Eighty years old. It seems a good time for looking forward.
A: [Laughs.] Somebody asked me the other day at a lecture—they said, "Your life has gone into these neat phases. What do you think the next phase is?"

What do you think the next phase is?
I said, "Well, I suspect it's death."

No, no, the next phase is something . . . else. What are the things you most hope still to get done?
Well, growing Roots & Shoots. I'm really passionate about that. It's in 136 countries. As far as we can estimate, it's approximately 160,000 active groups. We got a commitment yesterday to form an adult group among the staff of the World Bank.

And the TACARE program?
All around Gombe the villagers put land aside to be a buffer. The chimps apparently have three times more forest now than ten years ago. Some of the trees are 30 feet high. Other villagers have put land aside to make a corridor toward this other group [of chimps] in the south.

This is how it was originally conceived. Taken a long time, but you mustn't give up. Now the villagers are our partners instead of our competitors, and they're realizing the value of the forest to them. Better water supply and no more erosion. No more silting of the valleys, no more mudslides—which killed a few people a while back.

And now coffee? Some of the villagers are growing forest-friendly coffee?
Coffee is going super well. Over 2,000 individual farms, and they've got this cooperative. It's amazing.

So Gombe National Park is less isolated now, and the chimps aren't necessarily doomed to isolation effects, such as inbreeding?
Yes. Getting towards that. We're still not sure if it's going to work. But it's all we can do. We've tried, and it looks as though it might be working.

About chimps in captivity, and their use in medical experiments: You began working against that years ago, yes? As it was then practiced within agencies such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health?
1986, '87, I suppose, was the first interaction with the National Institutes of Health about the conditions they were keeping their chimps in. We had the first conference, funded actually by HSUS [Humane Society of the United States] and NIH. It was the first time that lab people and veterinarians had sat down with [animal] welfare people and field people. Ever. I got a lot of flak for that. Sitting down with the enemy. You don't talk to the enemy, nothing can change.

And that sort of dialogue, that engagement with "the enemy" toward better treatment of chimps, has continued? Have you pressed it with them recently?
Just last year, maybe the year before. Francis Collins is the director of the NIH. I sat next to him at dinner, and he said he didn't know much about the chimps. Because I asked him. So of course I spent the rest of dinner telling him all about it. Bless him, he got together a committee. And at first it was very biased toward the lab people, but he let me look at it. So we added in some field people, and there was a hearing on the Hill, and I testified at it. And this committee, their finding—do you know what it was? Not one single [research] protocol involving chimps being done today is useful to human health. And so Francis Collins said that they would retire almost all the NIH chimps to sanctuary. He has been wonderful! It's taken all that time, but we got there.

ORIGINAL: NatGeo
David Quammen for National Geographic
April 2, 2014

¡Comprenda, los bosques son más que madera!

10 servicios de los bosques que debemos conocer.

¡Comprenda, los bosques son más que madera!

El concepto de Servicios Ecosistémicos se refiere a los beneficios obtenidos directa o indirectamente por la biodiversidad. Los servicios directos incluyen recursos como el agua, que depende para su calidad y regulación de la conservación de los bosques en las cuencas abastecedoras. Los alimentos obtenidos directamente de plantas cultivadas o silvestres. Por su parte, los servicios indirectos comprenden otros beneficios como la regulación del clima, el control de la erosión, la recreación y la polinización.

Según algunos estudios recientes, el valor real de todos los servicios ecosistémicos es inmenso y supera el total del producto interno bruto mundial, por ejemplo, el valor global estimado para el servicio de polinización puede alcanza cifras tan grandes como 153 mil millones de euros por año.

Aquí les presentamos 10 servicios de los bosques que debemos conocer.

¿Cómo se beneficia la sociedad con los servicios ecosistémicos?

Abastecimiento

• Alimentos
• Agua Potable
• Madera y Fibras
• Combustibles 

Reguladores

• Control climático
• Control de inundaciones
• Control de enfermedades
• Purificación del agua 

Cultural

• Estético
• Espiritual
• Educacional
• Recreativo

Desde hace algunos años, el Jardín Botánico de Medellín viene realizando investigaciones que se enmarcan en el tema de la conservación de la biodiversidad y el cambio climático. Actualmente, cuenta con un laboratorio de investigación SECC (Servicios Ecosistémicos y Cambio Climático) que entre otras actividades, también ofrece un portafolio de servicios.

Grupo de investigación en servicios ecosistémicos y cambio climático - SECC

Líneas de investigación

1. Cambio climático y ecosistemas tropicales
2. Conocimiento y uso tradicional de la biodiversidad
3. Conocimiento, modelación y monitoreo de la biodiversidad
4. Contenido y flujos de carbono de los bosques tropicales
5. Restauración de ecosistemas
6. Servicios ecosistémicos y ecología del árbol Urbano
7. Valoración de servicios ecosistémicos.

 

Bosques, servicios ecosistémicos y cambio climático

Desde hace algunos años, el Jardín Botánico de Medellín viene realizando investigaciones que se enmarcan en el tema de la conservación de la biodiversidad y el cambio climático.

Es líder en el tema del monitoreo del bosque y ha generado gran parte de la información sobre dinámica y diversidad a partir de parcelas permanentes de vegetación. Avanza en la investigación de energía alternativas mediante la identificación y domesticación de especies de plantas nativas de Colombia con alto potencial para la producción de biocombustibles.

En la actualidad, los jardines botánicos están encontrando nuevos usos para las herramientas tradicionales de investigación, como la información contenida en los especímenes de herbario y las fotografías históricas, que son cada vez más utilizados para obtener información sobre el comportamiento de las plantas en el pasado. El trabajo adicional sobre especies invasoras y los estudios comparativos de las respuestas a las variaciones climáticas están proporcionando puntos de vista sobre importantes cuestiones ecológicas, evolutivas y de manejo de las plantas. Con sus grandes colecciones vivas y de herbario especies de plantas de todo el mundo, los jardines botánicos están bien posicionados para expandir sus actividades con el objetivo de liderar la investigación y la educación sobre el cambio climático y la educación.

Portafolio de servicios

Video: How wolves can alter the course of rivers

The credits for the video above:

Created by: SustainableMan.org

B-Roll footage:

“Greater Yellowstone Coalition – Wolves” (http://bit.ly/1lK4LaT)
“Wolf Mountain” (http://bit.ly/1hgi6JE)
“Primodial – Yellowstone” (https://vimeo.com/77097538)
“Timelapse: Yellowstone National Park” (http://bit.ly/1kF5axc)
“Yellowstone” (http://bit.ly/1bPI6DM)
“Howling Wolves – Heulende Wölfe” (http://bit.ly/1c2Oidv)
“Fooled by Nature: Beaver Dams” (http://bit.ly/NGgQSU)

Music credits:
“Unfoldment, Revealment, Evolution, Exposition, Integration, Arson” by Chris Zabriskie (http://bit.ly/1c2uckW)

Wolves will travel to drink from a river. But could the presence of wolves lead a river to change its behavior?

George Monbiot: For more wonder, rewild the world

In his TED Talk, George Monbiot poetically explains how reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park after a 70-year absence set off a “trophic cascade” that altered the movement of deer, sent trees soaring to new heights, attracted scores of new animals to the area (think: beavers, rabbits, bears, bald eagles and more), and stabilized the banks of rivers making them less susceptible to erosion. Above, see that story set to music — and howls — by SustainableMan.org, who took the audio track from the talk and laid it over beautiful nature footage. It’s a glorious glimpse of how deeply the natural world is interconnected.

If you love this short video, definitely check out Monbiot’s whole TED Talk too. In the talk, he shares some ways we can get more involved in the re-wilding of the world … and why it matters to all of us.

ORIGINAL: TED
By: Kate Torgovnick May
February 18, 2014 at 12:00 pm EST

What's a humpback whale doing in the forest?

This eye-opening video could change your perspective about the oceans.

This surreal short video made by Gentleman Scholar for Whales and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) is so striking, you have to see it (make sure to watch in HD and full-screen mode):

It silently makes the point that if whales and dolphins were floating around us this visibly, maybe we would care more about their protection. Sadly, for most people, what's out of sight is out of mind, and our ocean ecosystems are suffering tremendously from overfishing, pollution and global warming.
Related on MNN: 
 Overfishing: Are there really plenty of fish in the sea?
7 major threats to our oceans
10 of the world's most famous whales

ORIGINAL: Mother Nature Network
By Michael Graham Richard
Nov 18 2013

Google's New 'Street View' Maps Let You Dive in the Galapagos Islands!

ORIGINAL: Inhabitat
by Charley Cameron, 09/13/13

Google has coursed the Amazon, swam the Great Barrier Reef and scaled the Burj Khalifa – and now the tech giant has launched their latest Street View Trekker project with a collection of incredible maps of Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. Allowing users to become “Darwin for a Day,” the 360-degree street view maps swim with marine life and hike over islands that Darwin likely encountered in his historic venture 178 years ago. Viewers can even help with ongoing conservation in the region by identifying the plants and animals on screen.

Conducted in collaboration with the Galapagos National Park, the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Catlin Seaview Survey, Google collected the images over the course of ten days this May. Taking their distinctive cameras both on backpack treks over the islands and down into the surrounding waters, the mapping expedition provides a thoroughly unique documentation of the region’s unique ecosystem.

As Google highlights, many of the animals one will encounter as one travels through the maps exist only on the Galapagos Archipelago, including the Galapagos region’s own majestic giant tortoises, sea lions and lesser-known marine iguanas. Many of these unique creatures are believed to have inspired Charles Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection when he studied the area in 1835.

But these incredible animals, as well as marine- and landscapes are under threat from invasive species, and research in the field is costly and time consuming. So in addition to providing awe-inspiring armchair entertainment, the extensive documentation of the islands will assist conservation groups as they study the “environment, conservation, animal migration patterns, and the impact of tourism on the islands.”

Amateur scientists as well as experts in less exotic climes can become involved too. Google has partnered with iNaturalist to create the “Darwin for a Day” program, which enables users to help catalogue the plants and animals shown in the Street View images, further advancing the perhaps unexpected use of Google Street View as a conservation tool.

+ Google Street View Trekker: Galapagos Islands

Kobe in struggle to fight off invasion of Argentine ants

ORIGINAL: ASAHI
By KOICHI HOTTA/ Staff Writer
August 25, 2013

An Argentine ant (Provided by Japan Wildlife Research Center)

Argentine ants march in procession in Kita Park on Port Island in Kobe’s Chuo Ward on Aug. 9. (Koichi Hotta)

KOBE--At a restaurant along a main road on Port Island in Chuo Ward here, a steady procession of alien Argentine ants could be seen marching near the entrance and parking lot.

“Those ants enter my restaurant three or four times a year. Though I spray a chemical agent, I cannot prevent them from coming into my outlet,” the manager of the restaurant, who noticed the ants in his kitchen for the first time in 2008, said in mid-August.

Argentine ants, an alien species that destroys the natural ecosystem by expelling indigenous ants, have invaded various parts of Kobe and are infesting other prefectures.

They were confirmed for the first time in 1999 in Port Island, an artificial island in Kobe Port. Recently, however, they have also been confirmed in commercial areas in the central part of Kobe and residential areas in the suburbs.

“If Argentine ants take root, it will be almost impossible to eradicate them," said Mamiko Ozaki, professor of biology at Kobe University’s Graduate School of Science. "If you take measures sooner, it is better.”

Argentine ants, which are native to South America, are 2.5 to 3 centimeters long and brown colored. Though they are not poisonous, they have strong reproductive powers as several queen ants are living in one nest.

According to the Environment Ministry, Argentine ants were discovered in Japan for the first time in 1993 in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima Prefecture. At present, they are confirmed in 12 prefectures, including Tokyo, Kanagawa, Osaka and Kyoto.

Argentine ants move more quickly than indigenous ants. They have been reported to be entering homes and collecting around food, and even infesting sleeping areas, preventing occupants from sleeping soundly. In one case, the procession of ants reached the eighth floor of an apartment building.

Local governments in various parts of Japan have started programs to eradicate them. Unlike indigenous ants, however, Argentine ants form a super colony, which means that ants of different nests live together and, as a result, many nests are connected. Therefore, eradication is extremely difficult.

Since 2009, the city government of Tahara in Aichi Prefecture has been engaged in eradicating Argentine ants in areas totaling about 90 hectares, including their habitats, in cooperation with local residents.

However, an official of the city government said, “We have no prospect (of eradicating them completely).”

Meanwhile, the Kobe city government has yet to embark on eradication efforts.

“We have not received concrete complaints from our citizens (against Argentine ants),” said an official of the city government’s living and sanitation section.

However, the ants' habitat is gradually expanding. According to a survey conducted by the Environment Ministry in November 2012, they were confirmed not only on Port Island but also in commercial areas and the Meriken Park, near the bustling Motomachi area. They were even found in a wharf near Suma Kaihin Park in Suma Ward, about seven kilometers west of the central area, and some residential districts in the ward.

In the spring, the Environment Ministry started eradication work in areas around Suma Kaihin Park on an experimental basis, saying, “There is a possibility that the habitats will spread.”

The Kobe city government has also said that it recognizes that Argentine ants are troublesome, because an eradication method for them has yet to be established.

“First of all, we want to ask our citizens to give us information on their habitats by showing the characteristics of Argentine ants in leaflets and on our city government website,” said the city government official.
By KOICHI HOTTA/ Staff Writer

The Plight of the Honeybees (Magazine Article Preview)

ORIGINAL: TIME
By Bryan Walsh

Aug. 19, 2013

Mass deaths in bee colonies may mean disaster for farmers--and your favorite foods 

Photograph by Hannah Whitaker for TIME

You can thank the Apis mellifera, better known as the Western honeybee, for 1 in every 3 mouthfuls you'll eat today. Honeybees — which pollinate crops like apples, blueberries and cucumbers — are the "glue that holds our agricultural system together," as the journalist Hannah Nordhaus put it in her 2011 book The Beekeeper's Lament. But that glue is failing. Bee hives are dying off or disappearing thanks to a still-unsolved malady called colony collapse disorder (CCD), so much so that commercial beekeepers are being pushed out of the business.

So what's killing the honeybees? Pesticides — including a new class called neonicotinoids — seem to be harming bees even at what should be safe levels. Biological threats like the Varroa mite are killing off colonies directly and spreading deadly diseases. As our farms become monocultures of commodity crops like wheat and corn — plants that provide little pollen for foraging bees — honeybees are literally starving to death. If we don't do something, there may not be enough honeybees to meet the pollination demands for valuable crops. But more than that, in a world where up to 100,000 species go extinct each year, the vanishing honeybee could be the herald of a permanently diminished planet.

What's the problem with balloons and sky lanterns (formerly known as Chinese lanterns)?

ORIGINAL: MCSUK

When balloons and sky lanterns are released, they don’t just disappear.
They float back down to earth where they are the same as any other litter. But balloons and sky lanterns are particularly dangerous pieces of litter. Balloons are mistaken for food by many species of wildlife, especially turtles.

Once balloons have been eaten they can block digestive systems and cause animals to starve. The string on balloons can also entangle and trap animals.

What is MCS doing?

We want to get outdoor balloon and sky lantern releases stopped. Read our Pollution Policy and Position Statement.

We do not want to stop people having fun – we just want to protect our vulnerable marine species and reduce litter.

In Wales, we are working with Keep Wales Tidy, the Welsh eco-schools and Cardiff Council. As a result of a petition in 2012, urging the Welsh Government to ban all intentional outdoor balloon and lantern releases, the Welsh Environment Minister asked officials to collect further evidence on this issue. In May this year this evidence was published.

The evidence highlights a significant fire hazard posed by sky lanterns; particularly to crops and aviation. It also acknowledges the ongoing risk to coastal rescue services who are falsely alerted to call-outs (when lanterns are mistaken for flares). The Minister for Natural Resources and Food will be writing to all welsh local authorities encouraging them to bring in a voluntary ban on council owned land.

We continue to encourage all schools, organisations and businesses in Wales to sign a pledge to not release balloons or lanterns, to find out more click here.

We encourage all organisations that are planning balloon or lantern releases to choose an event that will not threaten wildlife. We are trying to get every council to ban releases on their land – many have done so already.

To learn more about what happens to balloons and lanterns when they are released and to see some alternative ideas click on the link to download our booklet.

How you can help
Use our Don't Let Go Action Pack to try and get balloon or sky lantern releases stopped in your area, please let us know how you get on. Report your success here or write on our facebook page or tweet us.

Unfortunately we do not have the resources to contact every balloon or lantern release event organiser ourselves, however if you are not confident in doing this yourself, you can report an upcoming release in your area and we will do our best to get in touch and ask them to change their plans. If you are planning a balloon or lantern release, please try one of our wildlife friendly alternatives instead - Thank you.

Enzymes, ants and bio fuel - Audio Transcription

ORIGINAL: Univeristy of Wisconsin - Madison
Frank Aylward:, Research Fellow
Department of Bacteriology
UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
faylward@wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 265-0689

August 2nd, 2013

2:59 - Total Time
0:17 - New enzymes discovered
0:49 - What is and enzyme
1:01 - What makes this discovery different
1:27 - A set of entirely new enzymes
2:05 - Much like brewing beer
2:32 - A few years to go
2:49 - Lead out

Frank Aylward. Dept. of Bacteriology UW-Madison, 6145 Microbial Sciences 1550 Linden Dr., Madison, WI 53706. faylward (at) wisc.edu

TRANSCRIPT
Sevie Kenyon: Frank, can you introduce us to this new enzyme you found?

Frank Aylward: These enzymes are produced by a fungus cultivated by leafcutter ants. So the name of the fungus is Leucoagaricus gongylophorus, but it is cultivated by leafcutter ants in Central and South America. It’s essentially a mushroom, and it produces a lot of these enzymes, a lot of these proteins that are very useful for taking plant biomass and converting it into simple sugars. And we’re very interested in finding novel enzymes that can be used to degrade plant biomass and convert it into sugars.

Sevie Kenyon: Can you tell us what an enzyme is?

Frank Aylward: An enzyme is a protein that is a catalyst, and in this case, it will degrade plant biomass and convert it into a simple sugar.

Sevie Kenyon: And this enzyme you discovered, what makes it different?

Frank Aylward: Well these enzymes have never been identified before. So it’s a novel genome with novel enzymes that have not been characterized before. We think that the enzymes are particularly useful for the degradation of plant biomass because ants, leafcutter ants are extremely good at taking huge volumes of plant biomass and converting it into nutrients for themselves.

Sevie Kenyon: How many different kinds of enzymes are there?

Frank Aylward: We identified over two-hundred total. So we have a lot of enzymes that are sort of working towards a common goal. It’s like a team is working towards this common goal of winning a game. So with the enzymes, it’s very difficult to evaluate a specific enzyme individually because they all work together, they’re all synergistic. So that’s why we really think it’s interesting that we found this set of about two-hundred or so enzymes, because altogether they are degrading plant biomass very efficiently, and that’s why we’re really interested in the fungus- garden ecosystem itself.

Sevie Kenyon: Do you think these enzymes will come in buckets, and they’ll be dumped on corn stover? How might that look?

Frank Aylward: The actual fermentation process is probably going to be very similar to what you might expect at a brewery. In that respect, it’s not all that different than what many of us are very familiar with. I think this is a great example of how by analyzing ants, by looking at leafcutter ants in Panama, we’re actually able to come up with some enzymes which may have a tangible impact on our lives here in Wisconsin.

Sevie Kenyon: Frank, how long do you think it will be before we’re actually using these enzymes?

Frank Aylward: Well, you know it could be very soon, it could be a few years from now; it really depends on the future directions of this research. So I think the next step is to start testing these enzymes for the degradation of plant biomass, and you know how soon we can actually start using these enzymes for the production of bio fuel.

Sevie Kenyon: We’ve been visiting with Frank Aylward. Department of bacteriology, University of Wisconsin in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Madison, Wisconsin, and I am Sevie Kenyon.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:59 — 2.7MB)

Aylward, F.O., Burnum-Johnson, K.E., Tringe, S.G., Teiling, C., Tremmel, D.M., Moeller, J.A., Scott, J.J., Barry, K.W., Piehowski, P.D., Nicora, C.D., Malfatti, S.A., Monroe, M.E., Purvine, P.O., Goodwin, L.A., Smith, R.D., Weinstock, G.M., Gerardo, N.M., Suen, G., Lipton, M.S., and C.R. Currie . Leucoagaricus gongylophorus produces diverse enzymes for the degradation of recalcitrant plant polymers in leaf-cutter ant fungus gardens. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 2013, 79(12):3770-3778. , DOI: 10.1128/AEM.03833-12 

Ocean Elders call on Putin to protect Antarctica’s ocean

ORIGINAL: Mission Blue
July 14th, 2013

Today Ocean Elders, including Sir Richard Branson, Dr. Sylvia Earle, James Cameron, Jean-Michel Cousteau and Capt. Don Walsh, wrote a letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin calling for the protection of Antarctica’s Southern Ocean at CCAMLR’s meeting in Germany 2013. 

Below is a copy of the letter:

Dear President Putin,

As you are aware, in Bremerhaven, Germany this week (July 11th – 16th) there will be a special meeting to consider marine protected area (MPA) proposals for the Ross Sea and several areas off the coast of East Antarctica. The Ross Sea remains one of the most intact marine ecosystems on the planet, with robust populations of whales, penguins, seals, albatrosses and other species. East Antarctica is a remote region of high ecological importance, home to a significant proportion of the Southern Ocean’s penguins, seabirds, seals and whales. Russia’s position will be crucial to the protection of these areas which are amongst the most iconic areas for marine wildlife on earth.

Russia was a founding member of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and has an extensive Antarctic exploration history as well as a long tradition of important scientific research. As such, Russia has a critical leadership role to play in determining the future of Antarctica.

CCAMLR’s 2009 decision to establish a network of MPAs was a bold and forward-looking step. Agreeing to designate meaningful MPAs at the CCAMLR meetings this year will help fulfill this commitment. If the Ross Sea and the East Antarctic marine protected areas are designated, they will be the largest in the world and would more than double in size the area of ocean that is afforded significant protection worldwide. This would reaffirm the leadership of CCAMLR member countries on marine conservation of the high seas and leave a substantial legacy for future generations.

The proposed MPAs in these regions offer all CCAMLR Members unprecedented research and monitoring opportunities for scientists to understand how large-scale, fully functioning ecosystems work, and also how such ecosystems are influenced by climate change and ocean acidification. Thus far, the Ross Sea and East Antarctica have been spared the impact of widespread pollution, invasive species, bottom trawling and other large-scale commercial fishing operations that are imperiling other marine areas around the world. But conditions are changing, and the need to take steps to better protect key areas in the Southern Ocean is compelling.

We hope that with your leadership Russia will support the Ross Sea and East Antarctica marine protected area proposals at the Bremerhaven meeting this week. We stand ready to assist in any way.
Kind regards,

Sir Richard Branson James Cameron Jean-Michel Cousteau
Dr. Sylvia Earle Capt. Don Walsh

Placing a price on nature: Payment for Ecosystem Services

ORIGINAL: OxBridge Biotech
2nd July 2013

In 2011 the world population reached an unprecedented 7 billion; a number that is still rising. Humans depend on the environment to provide them with food, fuel, fresh water, temperate climate and a host of other benefits, i.e. the things we think of as being free. These natural processes are referred to as ‘Ecosytem Services,’ but as the demand on the environment rises due to the ever increasing population size, so does the severity of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss.

In 2001, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment brought together over 1360 scientific and sociology experts from around the world, in order to assess the state of the world’s ecosystems with human well-being in mind. One of the main findings, according to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), was that more than 60% of the assessed ecosystems worldwide are degraded, and that degradation has happened more rapidly over the past 50 years than in any other period of human existence. Although these results make for a bleak forecast, this study produced the first ever large scale audit of earth’s ecosystems, which highlights the services provided by ecosystems and the costs thereof to the environment [1].

In a financially driven world, measurement of these services as benefits allows for economic quantification of the value of ecosystems. According to the World Bank, the existing benefits of land use can have significant costs for downstream land users. A hypothetical scenario is where the use of fast-growing introduced species to curb land erosion caused by farming, have a negative impact on native fauna and flora or result in increased water usage that can harm downstream land users. In order to mitigate these downstream costs, and ensure sustainability of natural resources, several approaches, mostly remedial, must be adopted. One of the more promising approaches developed over the past decade is the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) framework, which offers monetary incentives for land-users to restore, maintain, and manage ecosystem services as well as use natural resources in a sustainable manner [2]. In general these frameworks account for market failures under two distinct categories: “Steward-Earns” schemes or “Polluter-Pays” schemes. These agendas, whether voluntary or mandated by law (e. g. carbon tax), have resulted in investments toward preserving natural resources by industries, governments, NGOs, and private land users, and are currently widely implemented worldwide.

The PES approach has become prominent in restoration of ecosystems and conservation of biodiversity, and is therefore increasingly important in environmental policy [3]. Biodiversity acts as a regulator of ecosystems (i.e. microorganisms for decomposition), as a service (pollination of crops) and as a good (conservation of wild life or maintenance of national parks)[4]. Most PES schemes focus on water quality, reforestation especially with regards to carbon sequestration, and biodiversity restoration. One of the first global PES schemes forms an important part of the international Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) agreement. The best documented example of a reforestation PES scheme was implemented in 1997 in Costa Rica. Farmers and landowners are paid to protect forests, reduce land usage and establish plantations. In return, carbon offsets can be traded as a commodity, and have indeed been sold to countries such as Norway. Although this is viewed as one of the PES success stories, several studies have shown small-scale decreases in deforestation and very limited ecological restoration [5]. Reforestation increases canopy cover which is good, but often occurs through the establishment of plantations which commonly involves fast-growing exotic species and does not necessarily translate into conservation of any aspect of native biodiversity.

Similarly, other reforestation projects, such as the Grain to Green Project (GTGP) in China, has resulted in the conversion of more than 8 million hectares of cropland into forest land that significantly decreased soil erosion, but also often made use of non-native tree species that increased water usage. The GTGP project also incurred several socio-economic disadvantages, such as an increased the gap between rich and poor (more land equals bigger income), and financial loss due to lowered grain production. Almost 20% of the reforested land has been reconverted for farming purposes [6].

In many cases, biodiversity conservation is not the main target, and in an aim to equally distribute funding for poverty alleviation, low-risk areas are often included. In many third world countries, property rights are also a major issue that confuses the eligibility of payment for ecosystem services. Furthermore, very few PES studies have been designed to truly evaluate their effectiveness compared to other conservation initiatives [7]. Together with both a socio-economic and a scientific issues that still needs to be overcome, the biggest challenge that PES projects face is a lack of universal measurement parameters with which to determine the successful outcome and sustainability of such projects. Though the PES concept works in theory and brings the natural world into an economic context, better management and understanding of such frameworks will be necessary if they are to succeed in the future.

References:
http://www.unep.org/pdf/PaymentsForEcosystemServices_en.pdf
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/ENVIRONMENT/EXTEEI/0,,contentMDK:21010580~menuPK:1187844~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:408050~isCURL:Y,00.html
Bullock JM, Aronson J, Newton Ac, Pywell RF, Rey-Benayas JM. (2011) Restoration of ecosystem services and biodiversity: conflicts and opportunities. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 26, 541-549
Mace GM, Norris K, Fitter AH. (2012) Biodiversity and ecosystem services: a multilayered relationship. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 27, 19-26
Daniels AE, Bagstad K, Esposito V, Moulaert A, Rodriguez CM. (2010) Understanding the impact of Costa Rica’s PES: Are we asking the right questions? Ecological Economics, 69, 2116-2126
Chen X, Lupi F, He G, Ouyang Z, Lui J. (2009) Factors affecting land reconversion plans following a payment for ecosystem service program. Biological Conservation, 142, 1740-1747
Pattanayak SK, Wunder S, Ferraro PJ. (2010) Show me the money: Do payments supply environmental services in developing countries? Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 4, 254-274

Giant Fluorescent Pink Slugs found living in a Australian Mountain

ORIGINAL: Our Amazing Earth
by Amazing Earth
May 31, 2013

Giant fluorescent pink slugs found living at the top of Mount Kaputar in Australia.

Rangers for National Parks and Wildlife Service in New South Wales, Australia have discovered giant bright pink slugs living on the top of Mount Kaputar. “The slug measures 20 cm or 7.8 inches long” and “can only be seen in a particular area” of the mountain top.

The slugs are thought to be a relic from when the area was surrounded by rainforest 17 million years ago. Volcanic activity in the area created arid conditions that caused the rainforest to recede. High elevation protected the small ecosystem from the effects of the volcano, leaving it isolated. Scientists believe this isolation has been crucial to their survival.

From biotech to high-tech

ORIGINAL: MIT News

Rob Matheson, MIT News Office

March 20, 2013 

Newer Kendall Square firms attribute their success to innovative ideas — and to location, location, location. 

Tom Leighton, co-founder and CEO of Akamai Technologies Photo: M. Scott Brauer 

Second in a two-part series

At 8 Cambridge Center — in the heart of Kendall Square, a stone’s throw from MIT — sits the headquarters of Akamai Technologies, a web-services company that provides one of the world’s largest distributed-computing platforms. Much as nearby Biogen Idec got its start during Kendall’s rebirth as a life-sciences hub in the 1970s and 1980s, Akamai opened during the tech boom of the late 1990s.

Akamai has moved its operations to several different locations in Kendall Square since its 1998 founding, “but never more than a few blocks from MIT,” says co-founder and CEO Tom Leighton, a former professor of applied mathematics at MIT. (He stopped teaching at the Institute after becoming Akamai’s CEO in January.) 

Indeed, MIT was a big part of why the company opened and stayed in Kendall Square: Many of the company’s first employees, engineering and technology licenses came from the Institute. In Kendall, Leighton says, “You are at the epicenter in terms of the university, in terms of MIT, and Harvard, and that’s special. So it makes perfect sense that you grow around that.”

Leighton and Akamai co-founder Daniel Lewin ’98 — along with others from MIT, including a postdoc and students in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program — worked on the company’s early, novel coding, called consistent hashing, in what is now MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Consistent hashing would evolve into the core of Akamai’s commercial technology, essentially duplicating a client’s online content — HTML code, media, software downloads, and so on — and redirecting its customers to an Akamai server with the best connection for faster download times and fewer vulnerabilities to network issues.

From concept to company

During Akamai’s earliest phases, Leighton’s group had no intention of founding a company; that decision was spurred by the team’s 1997 participation in the $50K Entrepreneurship Competition (the precursor to today’s $100K contest). “It was through that process that we learned about forming a company and met people who would be helpful to do that,” says Leighton, who served as Akamai’s chief scientist for 15 years before becoming CEO. “In late ’98, we decided to form a company, seeing it as the only way to get the technology used in practice.” 

Since then, the firm has grown and grown: As of 2012, Akamai has roughly $1.3 billion in annual revenue and employs more than 3,000 employees in some 50 locations worldwide. Its network houses the most-distributed cloud-optimization platform, with more than 127,000 servers in 81 countries.

As Akamai grew, Leighton watched tech firms and other businesses sprout up around its headquarters, transforming Kendall Square from a “rundown, tired industrial area” to a veritable tech mecca. Leighton says Kendall’s high-tech infrastructure and innovative culture is now rivaled only by Silicon Valley. 

“Outside that, I don’t see anywhere better,” Leighton says. “The more [the infrastructure] draws people to the area, it creates more of a talent pool to draw from. And we’re part of a vibrant community with a lot of ideas, the desire to start something different. That’s the type of culture we want to have at Akamai. You want to have people in the ecosystem and workforce like that: It keeps the company young and agile.”

Akamai has been a reigning leader in its field for years. But growth inevitably brings competition: Kendall newcomer Amazon is not only a potential competitor for Akamai’s service, but also for its talent. Leighton says he isn’t worried — in fact, he says, competition is another upside of a vibrant Kendall Square. 

“We want to be a better place to work than those guys,” Leighton says. “So we compete for employees, when they’re right next door. It keeps you on your toes.”

The ecosystem has helped fuel Akamai, but does the recent boom — which comes with an influx of big businesses, and a resulting rise in prices — threaten to dissuade startups from moving to Kendall Square? Leighton thinks not: “Here you can get all the talent and resources you need and really focus on building a company,” he says. 

HubSpot, rising tech star

An example of Kendall Square’s ongoing lure is HubSpot, an inbound-marketing software company co-founded in 2006 by MIT Sloan School of Management graduates Brian Halligan MBA ’05 and Dharmesh Shah SM ’06. The firm’s “inbound marketing,” a marketing strategy that helps companies leverage social media and other digital tools to attract customers, has itself attracted more than 8,600 customers in 50-plus countries. It recently pushed past the 500-employee mark, opened a branch in Dublin, and made business headlines when it reported an 82 percent growth in annual revenue in 2012, to $52.5 million. 

Brian Halligan MBA ’05, co-founder of HubSpot Photo: M. Scott Brauer 

Although large now, HubSpot operated for four years in Kendall Square’s startup haven, the Cambridge Innovation Center — which was founded in 1999, and now houses more than 450 startups, many MIT-affiliated — before moving half a mile up the road.

Despite Kendall’s rising prices, Halligan says it was a “no-brainer” for his small company to remain local rather than heading off to Silicon Valley. “In the Valley, you’re a small fish in a large pond,” he says. “And talent is more expensive. The war for talent is heated there. There’s something in the culture of the Valley: It’s entrepreneurial and that makes it great, but it’s also hard to retain people. We would have had a much harder time building HubSpot if we moved there.”

HubSpot set up shop in Kendall Square early enough for Halligan to witness today’s innovation ecosystem spring up around his company; that atmosphere, he says, helps feed his company. “It’s nice being around a lot of other smart people,” Halligan says. “There’s certainly an energy and a buzz that’s infectious. It’s very hard to quantify that stuff, but there’s something to it: It’s a very attractive place to work.”

The company was hatched when Halligan and Shah realized that the “old-school” marketing techniques used in most businesses — cold-calling, online ads, email, and so on — weren’t working. “The playbook was the same everywhere, and the problem was the playbook was broken,” Halligan says.

So the two changed the playbook: They created software and services that now help businesses convert to HubSpot’s inbound-marketing strategy, which uses Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and other social media to gather leads. The concept involves several stages:

• attract traffic to websites; 
• convert visitors to leads; 
• convert leads to sales; 
• turn customers into repeat, 
• higher-margin customers; and 
• analyze for continuous improvement. 

“It’s like a gym membership,” Halligan says. “The more you use it, the better shape you get in.” 

Despite its growth, HubSpot plans to remain headquartered near Kendall Square, Halligan says — not only for access to MIT’s intellectual capital, but also to help promote Boston as the next big innovation hub. For Halligan, this goal is personal: “When I was a kid, my dad worked for BBN [Technologies], another MIT-founded company,” he says. “When he was my age, Boston dominated. Then, we missed the PC, then the Internet. But I want to bring Boston back. I want HubSpot to be an anchor company, if we can pull it off.”

So, to all tech startups seeking an area to develop, Halligan says, “You should stay in Boston. There’s plenty of access to capital, plenty of know-how, and tons of talent.”

Silenciosos caminan los pumas por las montañas

ORIGINAL: Aburrá Natural

aburranatural.org 

1 de abril de 2013. 

Silenciosos caminan los pumas por las montañas. 

Existen algunos documentos históricos que hablan de la presencia de mamíferos grandes en el Valle de Aburrá, entre los cuales se destaca el Puma (Puma concolor). También conocido como Lión o León en ciertas regiones colombianas. 

El Puma en términos generales es un felino grande de color café, que presenta una distribución muy amplia en América, estando presente desde Canadá hasta la Patagonia y desde el nivel del mar hasta alturas de más de 4000 m, aunque desafortunadamente ha sido eliminado de grandes áreas de su distribución original. Sus presas van desde venados hasta pequeños roedores y reptiles. En los bosques andinos se ha encontrado que consume venados, guaguas, puercoespines, perezosos, liebres, cusumbos y algunas aves como tinamúes. 

Si bien es difícil imaginar que el Valle de Aburrá pudiera haber albergado a tan asombroso felino en épocas pasadas, resulta mucho más difícil creer que en esta región existan actualmente algunos individuos. A nosotros también nos sorprende, pero las recientes evidencias son contundentes: hemos encontrado excrementos, pelos sueltos y, como si fuera poco, dos individuos -posiblemente una madre con un juvenil- han sido filmados por nuestras cámaras automáticas en repetidas ocasiones. ¿Han estado ahí siempre y nadie los había visto? Sospechamos que son nuevos en el área pues no habíamos observado rastros de ellos en los muchos años que llevamos investigando la fauna de este valle. Independientemente del tiempo que lleven con nosotros, es importante ahora que todos los ciudadanos nos documentemos adecuadamente sobre la presencia de este felino. 

Desde la primera vez que aparecieron en nuestras cámaras, aburranatural.org informó a las autoridades ambientales sobre la existencia de estos animales. Luego analizamos profundamente si debíamos dar a conocer esta noticia en nuestra página, pues temíamos que hacer pública la existencia de estos individuos los pusiera en riesgo. Sin embargo, creemos que estos pumas ya se encuentran en peligro al estar en la zona más habitada del departamento y con bosques cada vez más fragmentados y limitados. Por lo tanto, consideramos que es más benéfico para esta especie compartir una nota que, además de divulgar las primeras imágenes del Puma habitando nuestras montañas, explique brevemente las implicaciones de la existencia de este felino en el valle; comparta algunas sugerencias para evitar entrar en conflicto con él; y sugiera ideas a los habitantes y entidades gubernamentales para facilitar la coexistencia con esta especie en inmediaciones del área metropolitana. 

Cada año más ciudades se crean en el mundo y los centros urbanos ya establecidos se hacen más grandes y complejos, lo que implica que las urbes están teniendo más contacto (e impacto) con las zonas naturales, las cuales terminan transformándose, aislándose unas de otras y/o fusionándose al tejido urbano, lo que podría ocasionar que casos particulares como el de estos pumas se den con mayor frecuencia en ésta y otras ciudades. Esto imprime gran importancia al papel de los centros urbanos en la conservación y la salud de la diversidad biológica. Nuestra tarea entonces como ciudadanos no sólo es promover el entendimiento de los organismos y ecosistemas urbanos y periurbanos, sino contribuir día a día en la concepción, planeación, dirección y cumplimiento de políticas y normas involucradas en la construcción de una región biodiversa. 

En la tarea de divulgar sobre biodiversidad local através de aburranatural.org, nos hemos dado cuenta que Medellín y los municipios aledaños aún tiene elementos importantísimos de fauna como para llegar a ser una región que refleje y a su vez contribuya a la conservación de la gran riqueza biológica de la cordillera en la que se encuentra. La presencia del Puma de alguna manera indica, que a pesar del deterioro actual de nuestros bosques, éstos aún pueden tener ciertas condiciones mínimas de hábitat y conectividad (aunque podrían estar en los límites de su tolerancia) como para permitir la existencia de carnívoros que requieran grandes áreas y una buena calidad y cantidad de presas silvestres. Por consiguiente, es necesario que estas condiciones y recursos sean evaluados científicamente. 

Tener grandes carnívoros tan cerca de una ciudad como Medellín puede ser un caso especial en el contexto nacional, pero no es una excepción a nivel continental o mundial, con leopardos habitando zonas periurbanas en India, hienas viviendo alrededor de algunas ciudades en África y pumas estableciéndose en centros urbanos y poblados de Estados Unidos y Brasil. Nosotros al igual que estas otras urbes, debemos entender la existencia de estos animales como un gran reto a nuestra capacidad de habitar, conservar y manejar apropiadamente unas montañas biodiversas. 

Conviviendo armónicamente con grandes felinos 

Si bien ha habido casos de conflicto entre humanos y pumas en varias regiones por depredación de animales domésticos, éstos son muy escasos y pueden eludirse siguiendo algunas precauciones básicas. En el caso particular del Valle de Aburrá, por ejemplo, se debería evitar que los perros de las casas/fincas de las zonas periurbanas y rurales vaguen sin control y las autoridades deberían fortalecer las medidas para evitar la cacería de las presas naturales de estos felinos. Resaltamos que estos individuos llevan casi un año silenciosos en los fragmentos de bosque y no se ha reportado conflicto alguno en este período de tiempo. Una inspección en campo de algunos excrementos corrobora esta apreciación, pues sólo contienen restos de mamíferos silvestres cazados en las mismas áreas boscosas y no hay muestras de ningún tipo de animal doméstico. 

Las ciudades del Valle de Aburrá también están extendiéndose y ejerciendo un impacto sobre las áreas naturales. Algunos de los factores que podrían afectar las poblaciones de pumas en la región son la urbanización no planeada y ciertas prácticas agropecuarias que fragmentan el paisaje. Por lo tanto, es necesario un buen plan de ordenamiento territorial que tenga en cuenta la increíble riqueza biológica aún existente, donde una coexistencia sana entre humanos y animales silvestres sea posible y donde los ecosistemas locales, aunque estén dominados por humanos, puedan constituirse en zonas que complementen de manera significativa el papel de las áreas protegidas en la conservación de los felinos tropicales. 

Otro factor que reclama atención es el frecuente atropellamiento de animales silvestres en las carreteras en las inmediaciones de la ciudad, entre las cuales se encuentran felinos como el Tigrillo lanudo y el Yaguarundi. Enfatizamos por tanto que las velocidades de nuestras vías deberían disminuir, la precaución de los conductores extremarse y regularse el flujo automotor en ciertos sectores, pues de hecho, un puma ya fue observado cruzando una carretera de alto flujo vehicular. 

Aunque muchas personas y entidades podrían pensar que la mejor solución es reubicar a estos pumas para evitar algún tipo de conflicto con ellos, ésta no es una opción pertinente. La reubicación de fauna es un procedimiento delicado y existen varios riesgos asociados que afectan y atentan directa e indirectamente a los individuos y a los ecosistemas donde posteriormente éstos son liberados. Además, en el caso de grandes felinos la mayoría de los intentos de reubicación han sido infructuosos a nivel mundial. Por otro lado, es un procedimiento costoso, por lo que sería más apropiado destinar tales fondos a un programa que estudie áreas de movimiento, dieta, amenazas locales y promueva la educación y sensibilización de la comunidad, para así facilitar la coexistencia con el Puma y lograr que se de una recolonización exitosa de éste, lo cual parece estar presentándose en otras áreas periurbanas de Suramérica. 

Valle de Aburrá, territorio felino: reto y oportunidad para su conservación 

¿Cúanto tiempo estarán con nosotros estos individuos? ¿Habrá más? Al igual que para muchos grupos de fauna, es vital el establecimiento de un programa de censos a largo plazo, que ayude a proveer pistas acerca de cómo varían las poblaciones, si las especies registradas se establecen en un área y si su persistencia en el ambiente periurbano es a largo término o sólo un evento aislado producto de una perturbación reciente en áreas aledañas. Este tipo de programas puede llevarse a cabo de forma "no invasiva", es decir sin perturbar a los individuos, a través del uso de cámaras automáticas, y seguimiento de rastros como huellas, pelos y excrementos. 

El estudio de carnívoros urbanos es un tema desconocido en zonas tropicales, especialmente en Suramérica. La presencia actual en las inmediaciones de Medellín de por lo menos cuatro de las seis especies de felinos salvajes colombianos, representa una oportunidad única de obtener información valiosa de sus hábitos en un territorio donde los ambientes urbanos, rurales y naturales se mezclan con características sociales, culturales, económicas y educativas contrastantes. De este modo, estudios interdisciplinarios locales enfocados en estas especies ofrecerían valiosas aplicaciones y enseñanzas para la planeación sostenible y el manejo de la diversidad biológica y sus servicios ecosistémicos en las ciudades del Valle de Aburrá y en otras ciudades en expansión. 

Tal vez estos pumas se queden, o tal vez las "motivaciones" para venir a estos bosques, sean las mismas que se los "vuelvan a llevar". Sean ellos residentes temporales o permanentes, la responsabilidad de todos es permitirles habitar naturalmente este territorio. Nos gusta imaginar que el Puma formará parte de esa Medellín biodiversa del futuro y que su presencia aquí no sólo será relatada en unos cuantos documentos históricos.