Wildlife Politics
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Book Descrip.-Quests.
    • Chapter Descriptions & Table of Contents
    • Ch. 2 Questions: The Role of Science in Protecting Wildlife
    • Ch. 3 Discussion Questions: Implementation and Enforcement Issues in Preserving Wildlife
    • Ch.4 Discussion Questions: The Development of U.S. Wildlife Policies and Legislation
    • Ch. 5 Questions: Charismatic Wildlife, Carnivores, & Politics of Wildlife
    • Cjh. 6 Discussion Questions ESA Evaluation and Politics
    • Ch. 7 Discussion Questions: Comparative Wildlife Politics
    • Ch. 8 Discussion Questions International Wildlife Politics
    • Ch. 9 Discussion Questions Wildlife Politics, Values, and Ethics
    • Ch. 10 Discussion Questions Hunting and Wildlife Politics
    • Ch. 11 Discussion Questions Tourism Good or Bad for Conservation of Wildlife?
    • Ch. 12 Discussion Questions Conclusion of Wildlife Politics
  • Wildlife Links
  • About
  • Contact
  • Papers on Wildlife Conservation

Flying Foxes Threatened: Illustrates “vermin theme,” weak implementation, and limited power of CITES: 

3/31/2017

1 Comment

 
Vincenot, Christian E., Florens, F.B. Vincent, & Kingston, Tigga. Can we protect island flying foxes? Science, 1368 31 MARCH 2017 • VOL 355 ISSUE 6332 1368-1370
 
Flying foxes play key ecological roles on tropical islands, yet face rising threats
Flying Foxes Threatened: Illustrates “vermin theme,” weak implementation, and limited power of CITES:

​Flying foxes (fruit bats) illustrate three major problems I discuss in  my Wildlife Politics book: (1) Wildlife that harm the economic interests of humans are viewed as vermin; (2) The difficulty of protecting species through international bodies such as CITES, (3) the weakness of implementation due to the failure to enforce wildlife conservation laws. A science article by the following authors is the basis of this blog post: Vincenot, Christian E., Florens, F.B. Vincent, & Kingston, Tigga. Can we protect island flying foxes? Science, 1368 31 MARCH 2017 • VOL 355 ISSUE 6332 1368-1370.

Vincenot et al. state that 31 species of the bat are threatened with most of them residing on islands where it is especially difficult for them to hide from human threats. Because they feed on fruits, they are viewed as a nuisance and actually labeled as vermin in nations such as India but they also perform valuable ecoservices of pollination and seed dispersal but these positive functions are, of course, not valued by the humans whose fruit is preyed upon by them. Actually, their major threat is hunting—they are used for hunting both for consumption and their supposed medicinal benefits. Habitat loss is another major cause of threats to them. The country of the island nation, Mauritius, conducted a major cull of flying foxes. Even where they are protected, laws are not enforced by nations such as Japan and the Phillipines according to Vincenot et al. There are potential solutions such as nets over fruits and “green labeling of flying-fox friendly fruits” to compensate humans for economic losses. The authors also advocate educational efforts—they predict that unless action is taken, the threats will inevitably increase because “land-use change reduces native food resources and tropical fruit markets expand, human-bat conflicts over fruit crops are likely to increase.” The authors do cite 2 fruit bats that have been the subject of successful, prolonged conservation measures as evidence that conservation efforts can succeed.  The increasing threat to the flying foxes again shows the limited power of CITES enforcement—the species “have been listed in Appendix I or II of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), restricting legal international trade in hunted bats” since 1989.
1 Comment
assignment help service link
10/27/2019 03:45:30 pm

There are still countries which do not have strong laws agains wildlife violators. Most of these countries are in Asia, and I am hoping that they could strengthen the protection they give to animals and wildlife in general. If animals could talk, I am sure that they will cry for help. They want to be saved and yet people are out to care only for themselves. If there are people who genuine care for them, not all could give them the attention that they deserve. I guess, government has to step up and make laws protecting wildlife.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    ​​During my research for the book, I noticed that there was no blog available for sharing informaton on wildlife conservation and thus I set up this blog to accomplish this purpose.  Please share any informaticoncerning issues related to wildife policy and politics. I welcome feedback from users concerning this blog and website. 

    Bruce Rocheleau

    Archives

    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Book Descrip.-Quests.
    • Chapter Descriptions & Table of Contents
    • Ch. 2 Questions: The Role of Science in Protecting Wildlife
    • Ch. 3 Discussion Questions: Implementation and Enforcement Issues in Preserving Wildlife
    • Ch.4 Discussion Questions: The Development of U.S. Wildlife Policies and Legislation
    • Ch. 5 Questions: Charismatic Wildlife, Carnivores, & Politics of Wildlife
    • Cjh. 6 Discussion Questions ESA Evaluation and Politics
    • Ch. 7 Discussion Questions: Comparative Wildlife Politics
    • Ch. 8 Discussion Questions International Wildlife Politics
    • Ch. 9 Discussion Questions Wildlife Politics, Values, and Ethics
    • Ch. 10 Discussion Questions Hunting and Wildlife Politics
    • Ch. 11 Discussion Questions Tourism Good or Bad for Conservation of Wildlife?
    • Ch. 12 Discussion Questions Conclusion of Wildlife Politics
  • Wildlife Links
  • About
  • Contact
  • Papers on Wildlife Conservation