Defenders Magazine

Wild Life: Panthers Blindsided by Science

Panthers Blindsided by Science

The endangered Florida panther has been shortchanged by science. So says a new report, which shows that the previously considered "best available science" for panthers was anything but.

The report’s authors analyzed more than 20 years and 3,000 pages of Florida panther research and found serious flaws. A major mistake was how past researchers collected only daytime activity data for the panthers, and failed to account for the nocturnal cat’s wide-ranging prowling after dark.

Mike Vaughan, a professor at Virginia Tech and one of the report authors, says "in general there was some bad science out there" that was "taken as gospel once it was published."

The report, published in the January issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management, shows that the panther’s habitat needs are wider than previously believed—a prospect that may contrast with Florida’s out-of-control development. "I suspect that some previous development wouldn’t have gone through with the proper science," Vaughan says.

Modern science hasn’t totally failed the rare cats, however. Efforts to interbreed western cougars with their Florida panther cousins have proven successful, according to a paper that appears in the January issue of Animal Conservation.

Before interbreeding, panther numbers dropped to about 30, and the remaining population was becoming dangerously inbred. But in a controversial move in 1995, biologists brought in eight cougars from Texas to increase the panthers’ genetic diversity. Now, Florida has more than 80 of the large cats. And the hybrid kittens are more than three times as likely to reach adulthood as their purebred brethren.

The expanding population is moving into areas not formerly considered panther habitat, the authors found—reinforcing the conclusions reached by Vaughan and his colleagues.

Some scientists have erroneously tended to "look at a map and say, ‘because this species isn’t here, then it can’t be here,’" says Stuart Pimm, a Duke University professor and lead author of the Animal Conservation paper. But these results show "you certainly don’t want to give up areas to developers by assuming panthers cannot occupy them."

Tool Time for Gorillas

Cross "don’t use tools" off the list of characteristics that distinguish gorillas from their fellow great apes.

For the first time ever, researchers have observed and photographed tool-wielding gorillas in the wild, catching two savvy females in action in the northern rainforests of the Republic of Congo. One waded waist-deep into a pool of water, turned back, found a long branch and used it to test the depth as she waded back in. The other one pulled up the stump of a dead bush and used it as a support while she dug for herbs, and then as a bridge to cross swampy patches.

While gorillas in captivity are known to throw objects and use sticks to get food, this is the first time they have been observed using tools in the wild in more than 40 years of field observation. All the other great apes—including chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans—use tools, but mostly for food-related tasks such as cracking nuts with rocks or eating termites with twigs. The new finding shows that habitat and other factors can inspire tool use.

"The most fascinating thing about this observation is the similarity [to humans] with which the gorillas solve the problems in this particular habitat," says Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society, who led the study. "If you or I want to cross a swamp, we use the same solutions as gorillas."

This suggests that the gorilla is capable of some mental calculation and abstract reasoning. Often thought of as the big lugs of the ape world, gorillas could turn out to be among the sharpest tools in the toolbox.

Small Mouse Saves Houses

Some Gulf Coast dwellers may have a one-ounce animal to thank for saving their homes and condos from recent hurricanes Katrina and Ivan. The diminutive guardian? A wild Alabama beach mouse that could fit in your palm.

Though the little mouse wasn’t able to stop the goliath storms, provisions of the Endangered Species Act required protection of the creature’s beach dune habitat. This in turn required new homes and resorts in parts of Alabama to be built farther back from the coastline—setbacks that saved many of the dwellings from storm surges.

"Thank God for the beach mouse," says Scott Douglass, a University of South Alabama professor, and an expert on coastal protection issues. "We’ve known for 30 years or more that we should have [larger setbacks] but we’ve lost the fight with exception of places with the beach mouse."

The beach mouse may have saved many coastal developments, but the animals suffered greatly through the storms, says Larry Goldman of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Goldman says they are unable to get exact counts of the critters, but at least 50 percent of beach mouse habitat was affected by Ivan and Katrina, meaning many of the mice perished in the storms.

The service is distributing seeds to get the mice through the tough period, and Goldman thinks many will survive. But whether the tiny rodents will be thanked for their sacrifice remains to be seen. Already more homeowners and developers are applying for permits to build in beach mouse habitat.

But Bob Greene, a law professor at the University of Alabama, and a lawyer for one of the area’s builders, says that there are ways to "make some money and provide protections for the mouse at the same time. The trick is to find the balance."

Squid Pro Quo

Like something out of a Hollywood horror movie, the enormous, lidless eyes stare blankly from the slimy, torpedo-shaped body topped by a frightful ring of eight writhing arms. Two sinisterly sinuous feeding tentacles envelop a hapless victim.

But this is no computer-generated behemoth. It’s the real thing: the first giant squid ever captured live on camera in the wild.

Using a fishing line rigged with a depth recorder and a digital camera aimed at a baited jig below, a team of Japanese scientists photographed the animal—all 26 feet of it—3,950 feet below the surface of the North Pacific, 600 miles south of Tokyo. The area is a feeding ground for the sperm whale, the giant squid’s only known predator.

The images snapped by researchers Tsunemi Kubodera of the National Science Museum and Kyoichi Mori of the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association show the squid zeroing in on the baited line, attacking it and struggling mightily to free itself.

These action shots offer a new perspective on giant squid, a legendary animal previously known only from specimens washed ashore or hauled up by commercial fishing boats. The pictures show a much more active predator than some squid specialists thought, using its feeding tentacles to strike and entangle prey, rather than just drifting along with its tentacles dangling below to snag whatever comes along.

The team captured more than 500 images of the massive mollusk before it finally broke free by severing a tentacle more than four hours after snagging itself on the hook.

The researchers recovered the severed tentacle, which they used to estimate the creature’s total length. After it was hauled aboard the research vessel, the 18-foot sucker-studded tentacle had a life of its own, according to Kubodera and Mori, "repeatedly gripping the boat deck"—just like something out of a movie.