Wildlife Ecology and Conservation 2022
Wildlife conservation: An act in which people make conscious efforts to protect the global
biological diversity protection of plants and animal species and their habitats
Week 1
Lecture 1 31/10
Importance biodiversity: at least 40% of the world’s economy and 80% of the needs of the
poor are derived from biological resources. Additionally, the richer the diversity of life, the
greater the opportunity for medical discoveries, economic development, and adaptive
responses to such new challenges as climate change
Types of biodiversity:
Genetic diversity
Species diversity
Ecosystem diversity
Diversity = stability
Diversity gives resilience to an ecosystem (e.g. one species goes extinct, not a big effect)
Main threats to biodiversity:
-Habitat loss
Agriculture
Logging
Development
-Direct mortality
Hunting
Invasive species
More than 27% of all assessed species are threatened with extinction
Anthropogenic threats determined largely by:
Income
Human population density
Development activities
Assignment: read through answer sheet
,Lecture 2 1/11: Overexploitation
Overexploitation one of the five big threats to biodiversity
Threats to bisons:
Tanning of bissons hides
for leather belts to connect machines and make leather boots
Building of railways made priaries very accessible to hunt bissons
National park system developed in response to the revulsion to the Slaughter on the Plains
Tragedy of the commons: characteristics (case Bison)
Incompletely defined and enforced property rights, the bisons were owned by nobody
Users don’t consider or internalize social benefits and costs
Benefits for individual, negative effects for all
Harmful effects on third parties: e.g. depletion of wildlife
Benefit is for the doer (uitvoerder) but disadvantages for everyone
1. Habitat change
2. Overexploitation
3. Invasives
4. Climate change
5. Pollution
Types of Overexploitations:
Oceans: fishing
Wildlife: hunting and poaching (meat, ornaments, medicine)
o Relationship with overfishing, if one goes down other goes up
Forest (degradation)
o Timber extraction and logging
o Fuelwood collection and charcoal production
Forest loss (forest itself not exploited)
o Agriculture
o Road building and urbanization
,Timber biggest driver than fuelwood, differences per continent
Causes global forest loss 2000-2012:
Tropical forests: agriculture and urban expansion
Boreal forests: fires
Debate casue megafauna extinctions: Huntig vs climate change
Hunting and fire approx both started 50,000 years ago
megafauna extinction once humans entered the continents
However, that time was also the end of the last ice-age so maybe climate change could
be the main cause of the megafauna extinction, supported by evidence form ancient
DNA due to disappearance of genetic line-ages
Megafauna extinction probably caused by both
Decline already started before H. Sapiens existed (+1million years ago)
Bushmeat hunting: hunting threat is proportional to body size
Food
Medical products
Ornamental uses
Pet trade
occurs: Asia, Africa and South-America
All threatened species in developing countries (8 also found in developed countries)
yet extinction already took place in Europe and North America in the past dus dat moet je
in je achterhoofd houden, als in daar lopen nu minder dieren rond dus valt we minder te jagen
Which animalls most threatened by bushmeat hunting?:
Large-sized mammals: ungulates
Medium-sized mammals: primates
Small-sized mammals: bats
, Absolute numbers medium sized animals hunted the most
biggest mass animals hunted most
Which animals hunted the most (bushmeat)
Medium primates
Human density Indo-Mallayan tropics approx. same as Netherlands, extremely low intact
megafauna poor people have to hunt for their own meat, no supermarket
Due to hunting forests in East-Asia almost empty
Causes increased Hunting pressure in Tropical forests:
Loss of forest
Increase human population size
Urbanization
Increased access to and through forest by roads and fragmentation
Mobility hunters
Modern hunting technologies
Loss of traditional hunting controls
Commercialization of hunting
Extractive industries (logging)
African savannahs: Hunting for body parts
Elephants: tusk = ivory
Hippo: teeth = ivory
Rhino: horns
Bovids: horns and skullls
Giraffe and zebra: hides
Drivers:
Even in protected areas there is a 59% decline of large mammals populations
Historical extinction rates since 1500: relatively high extinction rates on islands
Continental: only 6 birds and 3 mammals
hunting
Islands: 123 birds and 58 mammals
hunting and predation by exotic species
Parrots are most threathened bird order
Effects of hunting on tropical wildlife:
Access point makes it easier to hunt and so you see declines around these points
Dia 39: Further you go from city chicken becomes more expensive but bushmeat (porcupine)
cheaper and vice versa
Cascading effects of huntig:
Wildlife conservation: An act in which people make conscious efforts to protect the global
biological diversity protection of plants and animal species and their habitats
Week 1
Lecture 1 31/10
Importance biodiversity: at least 40% of the world’s economy and 80% of the needs of the
poor are derived from biological resources. Additionally, the richer the diversity of life, the
greater the opportunity for medical discoveries, economic development, and adaptive
responses to such new challenges as climate change
Types of biodiversity:
Genetic diversity
Species diversity
Ecosystem diversity
Diversity = stability
Diversity gives resilience to an ecosystem (e.g. one species goes extinct, not a big effect)
Main threats to biodiversity:
-Habitat loss
Agriculture
Logging
Development
-Direct mortality
Hunting
Invasive species
More than 27% of all assessed species are threatened with extinction
Anthropogenic threats determined largely by:
Income
Human population density
Development activities
Assignment: read through answer sheet
,Lecture 2 1/11: Overexploitation
Overexploitation one of the five big threats to biodiversity
Threats to bisons:
Tanning of bissons hides
for leather belts to connect machines and make leather boots
Building of railways made priaries very accessible to hunt bissons
National park system developed in response to the revulsion to the Slaughter on the Plains
Tragedy of the commons: characteristics (case Bison)
Incompletely defined and enforced property rights, the bisons were owned by nobody
Users don’t consider or internalize social benefits and costs
Benefits for individual, negative effects for all
Harmful effects on third parties: e.g. depletion of wildlife
Benefit is for the doer (uitvoerder) but disadvantages for everyone
1. Habitat change
2. Overexploitation
3. Invasives
4. Climate change
5. Pollution
Types of Overexploitations:
Oceans: fishing
Wildlife: hunting and poaching (meat, ornaments, medicine)
o Relationship with overfishing, if one goes down other goes up
Forest (degradation)
o Timber extraction and logging
o Fuelwood collection and charcoal production
Forest loss (forest itself not exploited)
o Agriculture
o Road building and urbanization
,Timber biggest driver than fuelwood, differences per continent
Causes global forest loss 2000-2012:
Tropical forests: agriculture and urban expansion
Boreal forests: fires
Debate casue megafauna extinctions: Huntig vs climate change
Hunting and fire approx both started 50,000 years ago
megafauna extinction once humans entered the continents
However, that time was also the end of the last ice-age so maybe climate change could
be the main cause of the megafauna extinction, supported by evidence form ancient
DNA due to disappearance of genetic line-ages
Megafauna extinction probably caused by both
Decline already started before H. Sapiens existed (+1million years ago)
Bushmeat hunting: hunting threat is proportional to body size
Food
Medical products
Ornamental uses
Pet trade
occurs: Asia, Africa and South-America
All threatened species in developing countries (8 also found in developed countries)
yet extinction already took place in Europe and North America in the past dus dat moet je
in je achterhoofd houden, als in daar lopen nu minder dieren rond dus valt we minder te jagen
Which animalls most threatened by bushmeat hunting?:
Large-sized mammals: ungulates
Medium-sized mammals: primates
Small-sized mammals: bats
, Absolute numbers medium sized animals hunted the most
biggest mass animals hunted most
Which animals hunted the most (bushmeat)
Medium primates
Human density Indo-Mallayan tropics approx. same as Netherlands, extremely low intact
megafauna poor people have to hunt for their own meat, no supermarket
Due to hunting forests in East-Asia almost empty
Causes increased Hunting pressure in Tropical forests:
Loss of forest
Increase human population size
Urbanization
Increased access to and through forest by roads and fragmentation
Mobility hunters
Modern hunting technologies
Loss of traditional hunting controls
Commercialization of hunting
Extractive industries (logging)
African savannahs: Hunting for body parts
Elephants: tusk = ivory
Hippo: teeth = ivory
Rhino: horns
Bovids: horns and skullls
Giraffe and zebra: hides
Drivers:
Even in protected areas there is a 59% decline of large mammals populations
Historical extinction rates since 1500: relatively high extinction rates on islands
Continental: only 6 birds and 3 mammals
hunting
Islands: 123 birds and 58 mammals
hunting and predation by exotic species
Parrots are most threathened bird order
Effects of hunting on tropical wildlife:
Access point makes it easier to hunt and so you see declines around these points
Dia 39: Further you go from city chicken becomes more expensive but bushmeat (porcupine)
cheaper and vice versa
Cascading effects of huntig:
