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Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The meeting
will include a field visit to Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve
within the Yangtze River floodplain.
Barwolt S. Ebbinge
Chair, Goose Specialist Group
Grasshopper Specialist Group
The mission of our group is to foster the conservation of
Orthopteroid insects (grasshoppers, katydids, crickets,
mantids, stick insects) and their habitats around the world. The
group currently consists of 71 members from 31 countries.
Our website can be accessed here.
The first Red List workshop took place from 11 to 14 April
2013 in Leiden (The Netherlands). In 2013, 60 new
assessments were published. Most of these were for European
Orthoptera and some Tanzanian endemics. Currently, our
IUCN Red List assessments focus on European Orthoptera
(we aim to complete these by 2016), South African bushcrickets
(aiming for completion in 2015), and East African
endemic grasshoppers.
The Crau Plain Grasshopper was recently assessed as
Critically Endangered on The IUCN Red List. A conservation
project (coordinated by Laurent Tatin and Antoine Foucart)
conducted a mapping programme in 2012 and 2013, which
indicated that only four subpopulations of this species remain
in the wild. In 2013, three students from Trier University
(Andreas Schuld, Tobias Seibel, Jens Schmitt) studied the
population ecology and habitat preferences of this species.
The plans of the French Army to construct new weapon
storage buildings on the site of the most important
subpopulation has been prevented by an intervention of our
Specialist Group and the IUCN French Committee, but it is
possible that another part of this amazing landscape will be
affected. A Strategic Planning Workshop is planned for June
2014, in cooperation with the IUCN SSC Species Conservation
Planning Sub-Committee. The status report is currently being
written and a population monitoring programme will be
developed.
Two students from Trier University (Svenja Krone, Sabrina
Legner) have studied the habitat preferences of threatened
Orthoptera on Mahé (Seychelles), to provide information for
their conservation in cooperation with the Island Conservation
Society of the Seychelles and supported by the Mohamed bin
Zayed Species Conservation Fund. Two other students (Hagen
Seeboth, Laura Darimont) started an inventory of the
grasshoppers in the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge, in cooperation
with the Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural
Assets in the Republic of Armenia. A student from Bangor
University (Arthur Miller) performed a comprehensive mapping
of the Endangered Calliphona alluaudi on Gran Canaria, and
its response to recent wildfires.
The Bozdagh Grasshopper (Chorthippus bozdaghi) was
profiled as an Amazing Species on The IUCN Red List website.
The Lord Howe Island Stick Insect (Dryococelus australis) has
been chosen as one of ten species on the road to recovery by
ARKive. Our newsletter (Newshopper) will now be edited by
Mark Bushell (Bristol Zoo).
Axel Hochkirch
Chair, Grasshopper Specialist Group
Grouper and Wrasse Specialist Group (GWSG)
With more than 40 members from 20 countries, the GWSG
seeks to promote the conservation, management and wise
use of groupers and their relatives (Serranidae and
Epinephelidae) and wrasses (Labridae). Our goal is to enhance
awareness of the vulnerability of this group of 1,000 or so
fishes, and to use good science to enable decisions and
actions to sustain their populations.
2013 was a busy year for us. A key event was the
publication of the outcomes and implications of our global
IUCN Red List assessment of groupers. This publication
received good press coverage. In October, we chaired a joint
FAO/Caribbean Fishery Management Council workshop on
spawning aggregations, paying special attention to the
Endangered Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus). We also
contributed to the US government consultation on this species
in relation to its consideration under the Endangered Species
Act. As part of this work, we produced an undated review on
the species’ global status. In January we conducted a study in
the Bahamas, which sadly confirmed the extirpation of the
first-ever scientific record of a spawning aggregation for the
species.
On other groupers, a long study on the reproductive
biology of the goliath grouper (E. itajara) showed among other
novel findings, movements to aggregation sites of up to 500
km and patterns of new moon spawning in relation to nighttime
noise production, or ‘booming’. Work continues by
members on the brown grouper (Epinephelus marginatus),
along the French Mediterranean coast, with further moratoria
sought for this and other groupers, while a study on a small
Seselphisis visenda. © Axel Hochkirch
Epinepheus coioides (Grouper). © Luiz Rocha
Specialist Groups, Task Forces and Red List Authorities
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