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stakeholders, including Plantlife International and the SSC Cat
Specialist Group, working with the IUCN Office South-eastern
Europe, have been tracking the implementation of
Recommendation 150 – Protecting Mavrovo National Park
Macedonia (FYR). This site is still threatened by planned large
dams, and there have been meetings with the European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development, a potential investor in
these dams, on the reasons why it is important to safeguard
this remarkable site. The SSC/Wetlands International Crane
Specialist Group is continuing to track the implementation of
Recommendation 154 – Conservation of Poyang Lake,
People’s Republic of China.
Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus) Vulnerable. © Michelle Bender
long term monitoring of Chinese black bear populations and
poaching impacts on them. It was also agreed that achieving
the above goal would require distinguishing between the three
possible relationships between the legal and illegal trade:
positive, neutral and negative. For each of these, there is one
or more hypotheses regarding the way the legal trade affects
the illegal trade (and thereby wild bear poaching and
conservation) as follows:
• Bear farming is positive for wild bears
– Availability of legal bile removes a proportion of potential
customers from the pool that would buy wild bile at current
prices
• Bear farming is neutral for wild bears
– Consumers of farmed and wild bile are separate market
sectors and if farmed sources were not available those
consumers would no longer buy bear bile
• Bear farming is negative for wild bears
– Legal bile increase risk of laundering wild bile
– Availability of legal bile makes it easier for sellers of illegal
bile to find buyers
– Availability of legal bile makes buying wild bile more
acceptable
– Availability of legal bile means that legal users, after using
legal product, are more likely to be interested in trying wild
bile
– Availability of legal bile enables marketing of legal product,
which increases demand for both legal and illegal.
Work is now progressing to establish two Working Groups to
implement the situation analysis: 1) Bear Breeding and Bile
Product Trade; and 2) Evaluation of the trend of Wild Bear
Populations. Each Working Group will be composed of
participants nominated by SFA and IUCN. Dave Garshelis is
the overall lead for IUCN. In addition to agreeing the
composition of the Working Groups, there now needs to be a
major push on fund-raising to initiate work on the situation
analysis.
Follow-up has taken place on many other Resolutions from the
Jeju Congress. For example, the SSC Horseshoe Crab
Specialist Group is working with government agencies to
prevent the importation of Asian horseshoe crabs as bait to
the United States, thus partially addressing Resolution 030 –
The Conservation of Asian Horseshoe Crabs. A number of
Work has continued on developing SSC policies and
guidelines. The SSC Wildlife Health Specialist Group (WHSG)
has led on the development of new IUCN Guidelines for
Disease Risk Analysis, working with the Conservation
Breeding, Invasive Species and Reintroduction Specialist
Groups. The Guidelines were reviewed by the wider SSC, and
after the incorporation of changes, the final version was
adopted by the SSC Steering Committee in early June 2013.
Richard Jakob-Hoff from Auckland Zoo, New Zealand, led the
process to develop these Guidelines. Accompanying these
Guidelines is a Disease Risk Manual on which the WHSG is
also leading. Both the Guidelines and the Manual are being
published in collaboration with the World Organisation for
Animal Health (OIE), which is generously covering the
production costs.
At the same time, the SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist
Group is close to completing its work on the new revised
Guidelines on Ex-Situ Management. These have now been
reviewed by the SSC membership, and the Steering
Committee will review and adopt the final version soon. For
some time it has been recognized that the IUCN Guidelines for
the Placement of Confiscated Animals, which were approved
in 2000, need to be updated but until now no-one has come
forward to head up this process. However, Neil Madison from
Bristol Zoo, UK, has agreed to lead the process to revise the
2000 Guidelines, and work will start on this shortly. A new
process has been launched to develop IUCN Guidelines for
Minimizing Negative Impacts of Guano Harvesting. This
process is being led by Ryan Richards. There are also plans to
develop a Policy on Intentional Genetic Manipulations of Wild
Species, but these are still at an early stage.
As usual, interventions have been made on pressing
conservation issues as they arise, including the following:
• On 28 May, at the request of the SSC Iguana Specialist
Group, the Director General wrote to the Minister of Water,
Land, Environment and Climate Change in Jamaica to
express concern and offer assistance with regard to the
illegal collecting of wood for charcoal within the range of the
Critically Endangered Jamaican Iguana. Unfortunately this
letter does not appear to have had the desired effect, and
threats to the site of the Jamaican Iguana are growing, and
so consideration is being given to making a high-level
intervention on this topic.
• On 25 June, at the request of the SSC Antelope Specialist
Group, the Director General wrote to H.E. José Eduardo dos
Santos, president of the Republic of Angola, concerning
urgent measures to save the Giant Sable (which is the
national animal of Angola) from extinction.
Addressing Critical Conservation Issues
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