Link to this Site – Easy instructions to place a link on your site or blog.

Animal Sanctuary Info – Information and resources regarding animal rights and animal santuaries.

Biodiversity Conservation Source – designed to inform and educate people everywhere, to whom fall the crucial task of the stewardship of the Earth.

Biodiversity, Food Security and GMOs – making sense of the agricultural needs of humans combined with the importance of preserving critical biodiversity.

Dancing Star: Animal Rights – about guarding the rights of the millions of different families of animals with whom we share the earth.

Dancing Star: Books & Films – that help raise awareness about the importance of environmental stewardship, ecological ethics and conservation biology

Dancing Star: Earth Preservation – programs designed to preserve the critical biodiversity of life on the planet.

Dancing Star: Endangered Species – preserving the incredible range of flora and fauna on the earth is critical to our survival.

Dancing Star: Nonviolence – The commitment to nonviolence including a reverence for all life — human, animal, and flora. It encompasses total vegetarianism, as well as a drive to maintain biodiversity.

Dancing Star: Sanctuaries – Information about farm animal and wildlife sanctuaries around the world.

Hotspots, the Movie – a sobering, yet up-beat view from the frontlines of conservation biology: the trench warfare, the subtle policy decisions, the slippery slopes, the unknown dimensions, and the very real creatures whose lives hang in the balance of human behavior and choices. Shot with multiple teams on numerous continents, HOTSPOTS reveals species never seen before, or filmed for the first time; and many of the most endangered mammals, birds, and invertebrates in the world. Three years in the making, HOTSPOTS is an uplifting, emotional experience. The film provides reasonable, grounded solutions, hope, and inspiration at a time when the planet is in turmoil, and the politics, rancor and uncertainty embedding environmental debates never more acutely felt.

Sanctuary, the Book – Paying tribute to those safe havens where life can flourish in peace, this handsome volume introduces us to 24 nature and wildlife sanctuaries in 20 countries around the world. The sanctuary movement combines the principles of conservation biology with an interest in protecting individual members of each species, whether plant, animal, or human. The authors traveled from deserts to rain forests, from mountains to seashores, and from farmlands to urban centers, and they devote a chapter to each location, revealing that particular sanctuary’s unique focus. The photography is superb, but the overall result is much more than a collection of pretty pictures. The accompanying essays provide a bit of history and a glimpse into the personalities involved in each sanctuary’s creation. The book also serves as a valuable cultural resource, as it takes a look at the cultures that host each of the locations discussed.

Vegetarianism and Veganism – examines critical ecological trends across the planet during the first decade of the 21st century, and focuses particularly upon New Zealand as a profound example of a nation with a remarkable record of conservation commitment.

In the United States, where DSF is based, much of the Foundation’s energy is focused upon two sanctuaries for domestic and wild species in California. These encompass approximately 1,000 acres. DSF is also engaged in a number of exciting educational and research initiatives and partnerships throughout the country.

The underlying thrust of this work concerns animal protection, the saving of lives, the compassion and sound conservation strategies required to help restore healthy, free populations of rare and endangered species and safeguard precious habitat for all creatures.

At the core of these endeavors and diverse approaches to conservation is the belief that Americans are blessed with a remarkable biological heritage and it is this generation’s challenge as good stewards and informed ecological citizens to do everything in our power to help preserve this remarkable gift that is biodiversity and the joyous fellowship of other animals.

Recent efforts and collaborations toward this end include research and documentation at:

For more information:

> Camp Pendleton
> Sequoia National Park
> DSF Sanctuaries
> Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge
> Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
> Central Park, New York City
> Farm Sanctuary, upstate New York

An article by Dr. Michael Tobias

In May of 2006, The European Environment Agency embraced a concept whose time is long overdue: that of “halting the loss of (global) biodiversity by 2010.”¹ In so doing, the EEA announcement echoed the avalanche of data and widespread alarm throughout the world’s scientific communities by firmly acknowledging that we are now in the midst of the Earth’s sixth massive extinction spasm in the known 4.5 billion history of life on Earth, with an acceleration in species extinctions occurring 1000 times more rapidly than the presumed ‘natural rate’ of extinctions (which is estimated to be 1 out of every million species, or, between 10 and 100 extinctions annually). The rate of loss varies from location to location. In some areas we could be looking at literally hundreds-of-thousands of species wiped out forever in a day.²

As species disappear, their link to other populations is shattered, thus triggering larger and larger collapse of habitat, migratory viability, and the critical genetic robustness of interdependent communities, all of whose breakup can happen as rapidly as in a forest fire, or the calving of an ice shelf in Antarctica, where the root causes are deep within the texture, often beneath the radar screen of detection. “Whether it’s forests, marine systems, grasslands, you name it, they are in disrepair. For the sake of the planet, the biodiversity science community has to create a way to get organized, to coordinate its work across disciplines, and together with one clear voice advise governments on steps to halt the potentially catastrophic loss of species already occurring,” said Dr. Watson, former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).³

Along with the EEA, China, too, has begun to embrace this environmental calling. On numerous fronts the nation is engaged in significant ecological restoration. From its recent National Strategy for Plant Conservation⁴ aimed at safeguarding the future of nearly 5,000 threatened plants within the country, to its efforts to expand its network of protected areas. China’s massive 10-year reforestation project is aimed at covering 97% of the country, the largest initiative of its type in any country in history. Initially, an area twice the size of Colorado was planted.⁵ By 1998 commercial logging in China’s one designated biological hotspot –the Hengduan Shan, or Mountains of the Southwest- had been halted.⁶ But, to date, many continue to ignore the government ban and data suggests that as little as 5% of the overall forests in Hengduan Shan remain.⁷ Similarly, in spite of major botanical restoration work with endemics and floristic medicinals, it is likely that Chinese wild rice could disappear in little over a decade from now.⁸

The crisis of disappearing biodiversity cannot be understated: it is the core loss that a nation and her people must fear the most, lest they end up like the extinct culture of Easter Island. As with every economy, China’s spectacular growth is altogether dependent on the vast treasure troves of her natural heritage, no matter how hard she, or any other country, tries to cover-up in situ depletion by trying to import natural resources from outside her political borders, a syndrome ecologists call “the Netherlands Fallacy”: an equation that correlates sustainability with carrying capacity. Should China see her natural heritage go bankrupt, which is possible, she would be bereft of more than her soul: China herself would be lost. History has not been kind to the twenty-two great civilizations of the past that ignored the ecological warning signs, as outlined all too clearly by such notable historians as Arnold Toynbee and Jared Diamond.⁹ In Collapse, Diamond points to three developmental leviathans in China that together emblemize “the world’s largest development projects, all expected to cause severe environmental problems.” They are the Three Gorges Dam in Hubei Province, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, and the runaway development of Western China.¹⁰

The People’s Republic has as much or more to lose in terms of biodiversity than any country in history. Consider some of the nation’s “basal ecological metabolism”: nearly 18% of the country remains clad in forest, or 175 million hectares (420 million acres or nearly 700,000 square miles). Within that vast and scattered canopy exists at least 6347 vertebrate species including 581 mammals, 1244 bird species, 284 species of amphibian, 376 species of reptile and at least 20,000 marine species.¹¹ In addition, nearly 8% of the Earth’s plant species are represented in China, or some 30,000, a third of which are endemic (found nowhere else). From the summit of Everest to the Turfan Depression 154m below sea level, China’s altitudinal variations are the largest in the world, ensuring an astonishing turnover rate of species diversity across the vast arrays of China’s numerous mountain ranges, deserts, tropical, temperate and marine biota.

Among the country’s most critically endangered iconic species are not only the highly threatened Giant Panda, but lesser known creatures, not least of which, the “greatest concentrations of endangered primate species,” including the sub-nosed monkeys of the genus Rhinopithecus, and the Hainan gibbon.¹² Other astonishing “Chinese citizens” include Yangtze river dolphins and Père David’s deer, snow leopards, Chinese alligator, and the world’s largest number of endemic pheasants, not to mention a quarter of the world’s unique Rhododendron species, plus some of the most diverse lichens, ferns and other Bryophytes on Earth.

Like the countries of the European Union, the People’s Republic has committed to halting biodiversity loss by 2010, but to do so, she will have to seize the opportunity of collaborations to ensure that her runaway economic gains do not leave the country barren. Write the authors of Hotspots in their assessment of China, “…time is short…pressures on fragmented natural habitats from grazing, clearance, hunting, and collection of forest produce remain, and new threats, such as dam building on all main rivers in the hotspot, mining, and unplanned mass tourism development accompanied by road expansion and wildlife consumption are emerging. This means that the extinction of many of the restricted-range species of plants and animals is a realistic and immediate possibility.”¹³

All indicators regarding China’s sustainability provide little confidence, at present, that the country has fully realized the vulnerability, or spectacular global scope and importance of her indigenous flora and fauna. (No one even has a clue as to invertebrate diversity but preliminary indications suggest an even more astonishing array of creatures yet to be discovered). The 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) ranked China 133 out of 146 (with North Korea being 146).¹⁴ By 2008, the Environmental Performance Index showed some improvement: China had risen to a ranking of 105 out of 149 nations listed. China fell behind Myanmar and was just barely ahead of Uzbekistan.¹⁵

The approximated cost/benefits accompanying ecological damage in a country the size of China is unambiguous. With net annual losses far exceeding the nation’s US$10 billion monthly trade surplus average¹⁶ and a general demographic reversal in terms of increasing preferred family size (2 rather than 1), consumerism in China is taking a terrible toll, in spite of the country’s trillion dollar + “cash hoard.”¹⁷ Metropolitan statistical areas, with their tally of low sulfur coal-fired power plants, spring up virtually overnight, and the fast-growing number of automobiles is outstripping even the human population explosion. Increasingly, more and more landscapes are being converted to sacrifice areas.

There is discussion of targeting China’s growing surplus at a pension fund for the country. But an environmental safety net is no less critical. While Xinhua, the official press agency, has cited the Chinese deputy prime minister, Zeng Peiyan, as declaring “coal, iron and oil” to be the purchases of choice with all that money¹⁸ two other looming realities must sound a wake-up call for the country: 1.45 billion Chinese by 2050, a large percentage of whom will be elderly; and vastly truncated natural capital.¹⁹ These represent a potentially lethal combination for biodiversity.

Conversely, all of this could pose the greatest opportunity in Chinese history to conserve biological heritage so as to guarantee all the basics for a huge population: clean water, clean air, healthy soils, ample storehouses of grain, home grown fruits and vegetables, not to mention a legacy of ecological nonviolence and enthrallment for future generations. With such opportunities come the most exciting and noteworthy prospects for ecological entrepreneurs ever, within any country.

For this to happen, Chinese conservation and business need to work hand-in-hand, while the Government must continue to adopt nation-wide strategies for identifying biodiversity rarity; setting priorities for large scale ecosystem protections to mitigate corresponding economic progress; allocating significant ecological resources; distributing the “green benefits” of virtuous engagement with the natural world; implementing national “polluter pays” protocols and precautionary principles; and exacting much stricter monitoring and enforcement of current environmental and animal rights legislation.

The challenges are exacerbated by the time-frame, which is short. China’s position vis à vis other countries is one of significant loss: among those nations with the largest number of threatened and endangered plant and animal species, China is one of the worst, ranking 14th and 7th from the bottom, respectively.²⁰ And while the country has focused considerable attention on the prospects of ecotourism, it has done so without any overall sustainability plan.²¹

Conversely, with her increasing economic success, and vast opportunities for international carbon credits by mitigation within China, the economics of environmental remediation suggest an industry that will transcend all others in the country, thus providing a win-win for one of the last standing aggregates of critical biodiversity on Earth. In this spirit, China’s National Environment Protection Agency has long avowed that “the survival of mankind cannot be separated from that of other species.”²²

Endnotes:

*1 See http://epaedia.eea.europa.eu/pag.php?pid=584
*2 This draconian assertion is born of three empirically driven sets of data. First, the astonishing revelations of Terry L. Erwin. In a study of one hectare (2.4 acres) of Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park tropics, Erwin and colleagues extrapolated a reliable index of invertebrate abundance, and determined as many as 60,000 different species per hectare, many of them endemic within those very few acres of rainforest., “The Tropical Forest Canopy: The Heart of Biotic Diversity,” in E.O.Wilson, ed., Biodiversity, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988, pp.123-129; See also, Terry Erwin, “Biodiversity at Its utmost: Tropical Forest Beetles, In Biodiversity II, ed. by M.L.Reaka-Kudla, D.E. Wilson, and E.O.Wilson, Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, pp.27-40. Add to Erwin’s findings the inevitability of biological co-dependents. Navjot Sodhi and Lian Pin Koh of the National University of Singapore, in a study focusing on some 12,200 plants and animals that are threatened or endangered, discovered that for every endangered species (often an invertebrate) two other known species appear to be equally imperiled. See http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27082/story.htm September 13, 2004, Reuters News Service. Place this remarkable combination of species vulnerabilities beside the fires and bulldozers of development now accounting globally for as much as 200,000 acres of rainforest lost every day, and the loss in this generation becomes incalculably large. See “Rainforest Facts,” www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm; See also, “Rainforests and Mass Extinction,” by Tim Keating, Sayta Journal, Nov/Dec.,2000, www.satyamag.com/novdec00/keating.html
*3 See “Earth facing `catastrophic’ loss of species,” China Daily, 07/21/2006. http://english.biodiv.gov.cn/zyxw/200609/t20060904_92241.htm; See also: “Mass Extinction Underway, Majority of Biologists Say,” by Joby Warrick, Washington Post, April 21, 1998: “A majority of the nation’s biologists are convinced that a ‘mass extinction’ of plants and animals is underway that poses a major threat to humans in the next century, yet most Americans are only dimly aware of the problem, a poll says, quotes Warrick. See http://www.well.com/~davidu/extinction.htm
*4 See “China Launches `Mammoth’ Plan to Halt Biodiversity Crisis,” www.bgci.org/china_en/news/0376/
*5 See Major Reforestation Project Announced,” www.china.org.cn/english/2002/May/32599.htm; see also “Paulownia, the Tree of Choice in China,” www.fadr.msu.ru/rodale/agsieve/txt/vo14/issue1/1.html; See also, “UTC and CI partner to support reforestation in China,” www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-09/ci-uac091406.php
*6 A “hotspot” so defined refers to a region that has at least 1500 endemic vascular plants (indicator species) in terrain of which at least 70 percent has been lost from its original extent.
*7 See Hotspots Revisited –Earth’s Biologically Richest And Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions, by Russell A. Mittermeier, Patricio Robles Gil, Michael Hoffmann, John Pilgrim, Thomas Brooks, Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier, John Lamoreux and Gustavo A. B. Da Fonseca, Cemex, 2004, p.160.
*8 “Chinese wild rice will become extinct in fifteen years,” says Peking University Professor Dr. Lu, in a new report detailing the country’s fast disappearing natural heritage and just some of what is at stake. See “China’s Turtles, Emblems of a Crisis,” by Jim Yardley, The New York Times, December 5, 2007: www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/world/asia/05turtle.html
*9 A.Toynbee, Mankind and Mother Earth, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, and J. Diamond, Collapse –How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed, New York: Viking Press, 2005.
*10 ibid., Diamond, p.367.
*11 See China’s Third National report On Implementation Of The Convention On Biological Diversity, State Environmental Protection Administration Of China, Sept., 15, 2005, p.7.
*12 See Megadiversity: Earth’s Biologically Wealthiest Nations, by Russell A. Mittermeier, Patricio Robles Gil and Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier, Foreword by Edward O. Wilson, Agrupacion Sierra Madres, S.C., Mexico, Cemex, 1997, p.263 and 267.
*13 See Hotspots Revisited, ibid., p.164.
*14 See www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0930889.html
*15 “2008 Environmental Performance Index Summary for Policymakers,” Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy; Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University, In Collaboration with the World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, and Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Ispra, Italy; http://epi.yale.edu.
*16 See “Parsing China’s Trade Surplus, by Nicholas Lardy, Business Week, January 13, 2008, www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnlash/jan2006/nf20060113_8659_db053.htm; See also “Imports cut China’s trade surplus,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7341962.stm
*17 See “Spending China’s cash hoard,” by Andy Mukherjee, International Herald Tribune, www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/09/bloomberg/sxmuk.php
*18 ibid.
*19 See “China’s reverse population bomb,” by Scott Zhou, who writes, “China is getting older faster than it’s getting richer.” See Asia Times, November 1, 2006, www.atimes.com/atimes/china/HK01Ad01.html
*20 See Population Reference Bureau Data Comparisons: http://ww.prb.org/Datafinder/Topic/Bar.aspx?sort=v&order=d&variable=92, and 93
*21 See “Ecotourism in China’s Nature Reserves: Opportunities and Challenges, by Han Nianyong and Ren Zhuge, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol.9, No.3, pp.228-242, Channel View Publications, 2001.
*22 See China’s Biodiversity: A Country Study, Beijing: National Environment Protection Agency of China, 1998: http://bpsp-neca.brim.ac.cn/books/cntrysdy_cn/index.html

There was a time when people gave no thought to wilderness; when our connection to the natural world was a guaranteed issue of food, shelter and avoidance of pain. Given the 120,000 odd years of our position in the global coordination of species and the toll of our behavior, we have come a long ways, to be sure, from that innocent past, as we approach the staggering 7 billion number of individuals. Typically, such numeric prodigiousness would be construed as a biological success, but we know it is not. As Marilyn Hempel, editor of the Population Press recently pointed out, “if fertility remains constant at the levels of 2005-2010, the population of the less developed regions will increase to 9.8 billion in 2050 instead of the 7.9 billion projected by assuming that fertility declines [those projected by the most recent United Nations Population Prospects publication].”

Indeed, says Hempel, “without further reductions of fertility world population could increase by nearly twice as much as currently expected!”

Given that slightly less than 13% of the terrestrial planet and 1% of the world’s marine areas are so far protected under any of the more than thirty standard protection indicators, particularly those designated by the IUCN, this consumptive species of ours faces a daunting dilemma that every working conservationist is more than familiar with. The corridors and parks set aside for the sole benefit of the Other-Nature; or those areas explicitly recognized as protected for habitat, sustainability and development — often driven by the needs of indigenous human habitants, as well as the integrity of the ecosystems they are dependent upon — leaves much doubt as to our willingness or ability to concede something beyond ourselves, those of us who comprise the majority of human denizens, living in urban environments across the planet.

Factoring in the increasing levels of animal consumption by humans and the equation becomes yet more murky, in a world of dramatic climate shifts.

Back in November, 1979 author/naturalist John Fowles wrote a cover story for Harper’s Magazine entitled “Seeing Nature Whole” which began with a kind of heresy, as Fowles thought of it, namely, the realization that Carl von Linné, best remembered as Linnaeus, had exploded the unity of humanity and nature by forging ahead with a binomial nomenclature that would ensure a complete dissociation of feelings and needs, deep urgings and instincts from that which could be defined, and set in concrete: the natural world, and our place within it. Instead of a deep immersion in nature that could be described as metaphysical, Linnaeus had set about to define everything by a Latin, mechanistic hierarchy, as Darwin and scientific method would continue to do. The Victorian work ethic, and its immense hegemony, abetted by iron and steel, coke ovens and steam engines, as well as the obsession with collecting specimens and stuffing them for museums, could not be more at odds with today’s realities. Fowles wrote, “I do not dispute the value of the tool he gave to natural science (speaking of Linneaus) — which was in itself no more than a shrewd extension of the Aristotelian system.but I have doubts about the lasting change it has effected in ordinary human consciousness.”

The question of consciousness begs an even deeper issue, namely, human conscience. For all of the practical antidotes that conservation biology and sustainability thinking have come up with to protect remaining habitat and species, the matrix of “pain” as a primary qualifier seems to have been lost in the scientific, political and economic shuffle. The pain to individuals meted out by ecologists and non-ecologists alike. By that I refer to the long-overdue recognition that an enormous gulf exists between animal rights considerations and those of large-scale habitat protection. Humans are somewhere caught out in the middle of this debate; a seasoned, churning cauldron that — for many — poses no interest or discussion whatsoever, but is self-evident.

Whereas the majority of humans carry on as if they are the only species dwelling on the Earth, the others — perhaps 100 million species of more — being merely scientific white noise that occasionally delight our children seated in movie theatres or in front of their computers where a digitized lion, or shark or penguin can satisfy their thirst for entertainment, temporarily.

This is more than mere dilemma: it is core to the ethical basis of conservation that continues to elude us: how to minimize pain amongst individuals of all species whilst optimizing every hope of securing those safeguards necessary to ensure a free and future lineage of biodiversity.

As a metaphor for the larger world of species at risk, Dancing Star Foundation’s animal sanctuaries in California are — like so many sanctuaries around the world — focused upon the very serious realities of marginalized “domesticated” and “wild” individuals whose lives have been haunted by the ways of the world. All these animals were rescued from circumstances that would otherwise have spelled their doom.

Cows and steers, for example, have typical life spans in human captivity of less than two years. These are the ones destined to end up in some consumer product, or on a dinner plate. In the wild, however, a bovine may live twenty-five years; burros between forty and sixty years.

The distinctions between “wild” and “domestic” are increasingly blurred as new research reveals the common sense logic that when any animal is given its freedom, he/she is likely to respond with primordial joy; a physiological response that can never be blunted. Human practices worldwide currently amount to the slaughter of well over fifty billion animals per year for human consumption. If you multiply all those species times the millions of individuals found, on average, within each species category, we begin to grasp some sense of the multitudes of lives that are lost beneath the oblivious runaway train that is human destruction. In the wake of this trespass by Homo sapiens in the name of expediency, development, taste buds, consumer habits, indifference or outright cruelty, the sanctuary movement has converged thousands of years of human love and compassion, spiritual tradition, ethical practices, tolerance and rationality into a pragmatic idealism that seeks to shelter, nurture and give back to the world, not merely exploit it.

Beginning during the Paleolithic era, twenty to thirty thousand years ago, when artisans rendered certain cave habitats as “off limits” or “sacred space” — cave walls upon which were painted with great acuity and tenderness the lives of other animals observed by our ancestors — and continuing to the 12th century with the creation of one of the first wildlife sanctuaries in Europe at Epping Forest in today’s London, the sanctuary movement has gathered great steam. In 1832 dozens of hot springs in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas were protected, as were subsequent regions in Prussia, and then at the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias on June 30th, 1864. Eight years later, in 1872, Yellowstone was enshrined as the world’s first National Park. At that time, President Ulysses S. Grant stated that Yellowstone was to be “dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” Soon after, Australia, Canada and New Zealand followed America’s lead and the idea of national parks took hold worldwide with over 100 nations today containing national parks, including two in as poor a country as Haiti — Pic Macaya and La Visite.¹

A year prior to the enshrining of Yellowstone, the U.S. Congress had created a U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries because of the fact that already there had been a noticeable decline in fish numbers, particularly salmon. In the following decades invasive species harmful to agricultural crops were studied and the U.S. Department of Agriculture sector focused on this problem would become known as the Bureau of Biological Survey. One of the most important laws in U.S. legal history — The Lacey Act of 1900 — became an important hallmark of the Biological Survey, with an intention of inhibiting the illegal “taking” of protected wildlife species. Three years later, President Theodore Roosevelt placed Pelican Island, Florida under the aegis of the Biological Survey, making it the first of what was to become (as of 2010) 551 national wildlife refuges, in addition to 37 wetland management districts, a system comprising over 150 million acres of protected area.² Meanwhile, America’s National Park system comprises an additional 83.6 million acres.

Worldwide today there are some 115,000 protected areas. Each is a sanctuary protecting nearly 5 billion acres terrestrially, or approximately 12% of the planet. On the marine front, there is as yet much work to be done, with less than 1% of the oceans under protective umbrellas, and nearly all of the major global fisheries being hammered, notwithstanding the realization that fish feces may well be one of the important mechanisms the oceans have to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and thus help inhibit rapid global warming.³

With possibly as many as 100 million known species co-habiting the earth with us — each species consisting of possibly millions of individuals — and the stark likelihood that the human species could drive to extinction as much as 60% of all that life during this century according to a growing consensus of scientists, the sanctuary movement and every backyard haven, city, region, state and national park given to native species which, in turn, can help other native species, or migratory species, collectively represent a colossal challenge to individuals, communities, lawmakers and political officials.

We stand, all of us, at the threshold of a singular determination: either we shall succeed or fail as a species. That will be determined by the resolve with which we engage life, rather than willy-nilly destroying it; we foster and nurture, taking every available opportunity to extend a loving hand, making hard choices, embracing the challenge of the sanctuary movement with the realization that we can’t save all life, nor is that a feasible ideal, or one in sync with evolution. What we can do, if we are willing to try, is to behave decently, to love unstintingly, to make the hard choices, the tenuous delineations, and come through this recent mayhem of human-induced extinctions with dignity, not dishonor.

In the end, life depends on our species to get it right and this is the defining moment. Life and death depend on the choices each of us make today.

—

1. See Sanctuary: Global Oases of Innocence by Michael Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison, With a Foreword by Her Majesty Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, Queen of His Majesty the Fourth King of Bhutan, Tulsa and San Francisco: Council Oak Books, A Dancing Star Foundation Book, 2008, pp. xii-xiii.

2. See “U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge System,”

3. See R. W. Wilson, F. J. Millero, J. R. Taylor, P. J. Walsh, V. Christensen, S. Jennings, M. Grosell (2009). “Contribution of Fish to the Marine Inorganic Carbon Cycle,” Science, 323 (5912), 3592 DOI: 10.1126/science. 1157972

In mid-August 2008, the first two bird translocations were made onto the DSF Ecological Preserve, with the help of some 20 volunteers, the Stewart Island Rakiura Community and Environment Trust and the Department of Conservation (DOC). A beautiful Maori prayer was offered as part of the ceremony of the release of birds by Mr. Michael Skerrett. Present were members of local iwi, the local community, Adrian Gutsell (our contractor) and DOC representatives, including Southern Regional Operations Manager John Cumberpatch, Southland Conservator Barry Hanson and DOC Southern Islands Area Manager Andy Roberts, in addition to Kari Beaven of SIRCET and Brent Beaven, Biodiversity Manager for Rakiura National Park. The two species successfully transferred from Ulva Island were South Island Rifleman (Acanthisitta chloris chloris, Titi pounamu) — New Zealand’s smallest bird, and Brown Creeper (Mohua novaeseelandiae, Pipipi): 34 Brown Creepers of both sexes, and 4 male Rifleman. This was the first time New Zealand Brown Creepers had ever been translocated, and the third time for Rifleman. At least half of the transferred birds have been seen in follow-up monitoring, distinguished by color band combinations and metal number codes on each band. Flocks of Brown Creepers have been observed, and at least one flock was displaying pre-nesting behavior as of September 2008. While neither species is considered Threatened, their numbers have been in decline. Like many bird species below the normal radar screen (i.e., considered “Fairly Common”), these two species may need special help in the future, and the pro-active approach to increasing their numbers, particularly on mainland Stewart Island, can only go towards helping sustain their healthy gene pools in the future.

As of early 2010, there were at least a total of 17 Riflemen as well as 34 Brown Creepers on the Preserve including Brown Creeper fledglings have been seen. Among the Riflemen, breeding behavior has been witnessed.

As of September 2008, there were thirty fenced preserves across New Zealand, like the DSF Ecological Preserve, encompassing a total land area of 7740 hectares, and spanning 114 kilometers of fence. In addition, the Department of Conservation’s Mainland Island Program comprises an additional 11,900 hectares of protected land. Together, converging methodologies being applied by both government, private and non-profit sectors reveal the passionate and shared aim of staving off further declines among all native species in the country. Data from two fenced government preserves in Central Otago, installed for purposes of protecting Giant and Otago Skinks have shown an increase in species population sizes by 66% and 34% respectively, in just two years after the fence installation. (Information provided by Roger MacGibbon of the Xcluder Fence Company, September, 2008). This kind of data has been consistent with the fenced preserves throughout the country. DSF specifically has seen remarkable regeneration of native flora and fauna since its fence installation in 2004/2005.

Avifauna Translocation Update March 2011

Latest Rifleman Transfer a Great Success!

In February, 2011, over a week’s time, 21 riflemen/titipounamou were caught on Ulva Island and trans-located to the DSF preserve on Stewart Island/Rakiura where they all bounced happily out of their boxes into the property. These birds included a relatively even mix of adult males, females and juveniles. Juveniles made up half of the total number, which is an excellent result as they have the longest time ahead of them to contribute their genes to the establishing population. They look to also be an equal mix of males and females, though it can be hard to tell in the early juvenile phase.

A survey for brown creeper/pipipi and riflemen/titipounamu identified several breeding groups of unbanded riflemen, both with banded birds and in completely unbanded family groups. Brown creeper groups were also confirmed still breeding inside the Preserve. Kari Beaven led the effort, aided by volunteers Morag and Simon Fordham and Fraser Crichton. We are deeply grateful to Kari, Morag, Simon and Fraser for their brave yet delicate efforts and a successful translocation. Thank you all!

For more information:

> Bringing Back the Birds Conference
Held on Stewart Island by SERN (Southland Ecological Restoration Network)

Because Dancing Star Foundation is an Operating Foundation, operating its own sanctuaries, it is able to provide very few grants and accepts no unsolicited grant proposals.

In past years, however, the Foundation has on occasion given modest grants and donations as contributions to other non-profit entities that are making extraordinary strides to help habitat and biodiversity. These include two years of assistance and consultation in Russia with one of the few animal sanctuaries in that country, a small oasis in the midst of serious turmoil, where over 500 dogs, cats, and several native owls were being rescued and treated by a dedicated staff; the new Portuguese native donkey sanctuary working to save from extinction a unique breed of equine, the Miranda; a donkey sanctuary in India; and a dog sanctuary in Bhutan, located on nearly three acres of land owned by the National Biodiversity Centre, and operated under the auspices of the Bhutan Trust. The Foundation has also made other small grants in New Zealand, as well as providing modest honoraria for its deeply appreciated DSF Research Fellows.

For more information:

> Royal Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (RSPCA), Bhutan
> Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation

Also, the Foundation’s own in-house research and documentation has been effectively leveraged to help collaborating scientists in the field who work with DSF, such as a small research project to survey an endangered primate species by university scientists in northeastern Brazil, and an expedition to survey a rarely explored region of high biodiversity value in southern India.

DSF has funded international conferences, such as its November 2006 “Translocation Workshop” (See Archives) which it conducted in partnership with the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust of New Zealand. DSF also developed and funded for five consecutive years its “Island Fest” (See Archives) which brought many of the greatest conservationists, nature artists and filmmakers from throughout New Zealand to Stewart Island/Rakiura for free public lectures, films and workshops. The first year’s Festival was six days and nights of presentations, and the last two years’ festivals were done in collaboration with the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, in Invercargill.

DSF has provided other presentations, lectures and screenings in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Bhutan (where the very first screening of part of its feature film, “Hotspots” took place.)

Wat Phra Keo, the King’s Grand Palace in Bangkok, with its famed Emerald Buddha sculpture, provides a haunting window on the challenges facing Thai ecologists. Near this epicenter of international and domestic Buddhist pilgrimage is the Chactuchak Market, notorious for being a center of the illegal wildlife trade.

While there are nearly 409 protected areas in Thailand, representing approximately 20% of the country’s terrestrial extent, the number of Threatened species is very high. Of the 302 known species of mammal, for example, at least 37 are in trouble. Rapid development in the country has long been viewed as one of the great international biodiversity emergencies. Along with China, Thailand proffers a vision of stereotypical runaway Asian consumerism, as they rush to catch up with the Western model. As of 1987, no large wild mammal has survived outside a national park in Thailand.

Yet, another vision also hovers about Thai life that can be gleaned from the remarkable spirit and artistic array of Wat Phra Keo. Here are reminders of traditional Thai Buddhist life so steeped in reverence for the natural world. Such cultural and economic conflicts, emblematic of the ambiguities of the 19th through 21st centuries, could provide critical wake-up calls. Wat Phra Keo offers the opportunity for recognition of our ability as a species to focus on wildness and to celebrate the beauty and sacredness of the natural world. This precious place is celebrated in the book Sanctuary.

For more information:

> Wat Phra Kaew: Sacred Destination in Bangkok

> Bangkok for Visitors: travel resource

> Thailand Guide Book

Howard and Devon Buffett inhabit many worlds across Africa, but their Jubatus Cheetah Reserve north of Johannesburg is symbolic of this remarkable couple’s commitment to both conservation and the enormously challenging human component. Howard says, if you don’t solve the poverty, hunger and water crises, you’re never going to solve the problem of disappearing wildlife. The cheetah is one of those iconic African species in trouble. Fewer than 15,000 survive with only 200 living in the wild in South Africa. A species known to have existed throughout much of the world for five-and-a-half million years, the cheetah’s future is likely to be cut short because of human ignorance, the destruction of the animal outright and/or its habitat.

Amid this tumult of habitat fragmentation, Jubatus represents a 12,400-acre microcosm of precious biodiversity and the good will: the informed and tenacious vision the Buffetts’ and their team of dedicated conservationists who work daily with two cheetahs in particular, Peter and Howie, have exemplified. They may help scientists understand what it will take to save cheetahs for future generations. And the methods used to provide an oasis for these two gorgeous creatures: translocations, research into genetic corridors, breeding behavior and ecology — may prove applicable to other big cats in trouble throughout the world.

For more information:

> Howard Graham Buffett biography

Francisco Fonseca is Professor of Biology at the University of Lisbon and the Co-founder of Grupo Lobo, the conservation organization focused on saving the Portuguese wolf (Canus lupus signatus) from extinction. He stands in a forest at the sanctuary he and colleagues have created north of Lisbon, and waits for the 11-year old, sixty-pound Alpha male named Prado to approach. Prado, an Iberian wolf, loves men with the exception of male veterarians. He has a distinct lack of appreciation for all vets. Grupo Lobo’s incredible Iberian Wolf Sanctuary is profiled in DSF’s book Sanctuary.

The Iberian Wolf Sanctuary sits on over 40 acres of native trees, including cork, and adjoins the 2400- acre Tapada de Mafra, the historic summer palace of the Kings of Portugal and today a magnificent preserve with native deer, wild boar and two additional wolves.

As of 2003, there were 2200 Iberian wolves in Spain, but a mere 300 in Portugal, with only 30 of them ranging south of the River Douro in the far North of the country. The other 270 are scattered north of the river in and between three national parks. Their status is dire. The increasing number of fires that periodically sweep the country (often the result of arsen) are having a disastrous effect on wolf habitat, that and lingering superstitions by Portuguese farmers that view wolves as creatures to be exterminated.

Professor Fonseca was instrumental in obtaining legislation from Parliament that safeguarded the wolf in Portugal as of 1988. The legislation exists only on paper, but thanks to the Grupo Lobo Sanctuary and the continuing educational outreach that Francisco and his colleagues are striving to accomplish, there is hope that the gorgeous Iberian wolf will survive. “I just love them,” says Francisco.

For more information:

> Grupo Lobo website
(English translation: The Wolf Group)