Elephants, Visitors, Snow Leopards and Shirts

Last Week

Rob Morley of SFM came to talk to us about elephants.  It wasn't so much a talk about conservation but more the elephants natural characteristics and behaviour.  I was tempted to say 'lifestyle'!  That made his talk particularly interesting because there is a tendency for conservationists to regale us with the horrors of poaching and the nasty photographs that accompany them without telling us very much about the animals themselves.  Despite the huge decline in the elephant population in Africa as a whole we have the problem of over population and the ecological issues of habitat destruction it creates.  It was interesting to hear how difficult and expensive relocation is because that is so often proposed as a solution and is seldom practical.

We had two visiting Rotarians,  David Craik from the Rotary Club of Sevenoaks, UK and Whitney Ray-Dawson of the Rotary Club of Knoxville, USA.
By one of those weird coincidences David Craik's son and our speaker, Rob Morley were friends at school.  At our table we had 2 Kentish Men and 1 Man of Kent so it was well representative of the Little Kingdom.
 A piece of useless information;  feudalism never existed in Kent.  When William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in 1066 the men of Kent...and the Kentish men.... said that they would not fight against him if he maintained their ancient privileges and he agreed to.

Last week also saw the hand-over of 10 wheelchairs to the Renal Unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.  I have added a separate page to accommodate all the photographs and the article that James Croswell and his committee supplied.

The Palliative Care Project has been an entree into a realisation of the many gaps that Rotary can assist with at Baragwanath and maybe other clubs will be encouraged to help our health care system above and beyond Rotary Family Health Days.

This Week

We seem to be continuing with a wildlife/conservation theme with a talk by Dr Rodney Jackson of the Snow Leopard Conservancy,

Dr. Rodney Jackson is the leading expert on wild snow leopards and their high-mountain habitat. SLC has grown out of Rodney’s thirty years’ experience gained in working closely with rural herders and farmers whose lives are directly impacted when snow leopards prey upon their livestock.Upon receiving a 1981 Rolex Award for Enterprise, Rodney launched a pioneering radio-tracking study of snow leopards in the remote mountains of the Nepalese Himalaya.

Farming and livestock herding are the main land uses and sources of human livelihoods in the high mountains of Central Asia. Communities depend on their sheep and goats for meat, dairy products and wool. Seven range countries have over 25% of their land area under permanent pasture, more than 50% of their human population involved in agro-pastoralism, more than 40% living below national poverty levels, and average per capita annual incomes of US$250-400. Although relatively few people live in snow leopard habitat, their use of the land is pervasive, resulting in ever-increasing human-wildlife conflict even within protected areas.

Livestock depredation is thus a significant problem. When a snow leopard enters a corral full of panicked sheep and goats, its kill instinct is triggered, and it will keep attacking until all movement stops. Herders will retaliate if possible by killing the snow leopard. Ironically, such loss of livestock can be avoided by making the corral predator-proof, improving animal husbandry techniques and educating herders on the importance of wildlife as a resource for generating sustained income.

Habitat loss and fragmentation, and poaching of the natural prey base also threaten the snow leopard’s survival. Prey densities are usually lower outside national parks and reserves. These areas also support higher numbers of people and their livestock – which snow leopards quickly learn are not as wary as their wild cousins. They may then become habitual depredators. Breeding females trying to feed hungry cubs are especially vulnerable, and herders will also take cubs from the maternal den.

Livestock losses can exceed 10% of the herd in depredation “hotspots,” a significant economic impact where the annual household income is so low. Like their counterparts in the U.S., herders in the Himalaya tend to blame predators without adequately accounting for other mortality such as disease and accidents. Many herders have abandoned proven traditional shepherding practices, and where more children are in school, sheep and goats roam freely during the daytime. Indeed, it has been argued that pastoralists are supporting snow leopards by providing them with a ready supply of food! Yet Central Asia’s alpine pastures have long been used by resident and nomadic herders, so eliminating livestock is not an option in most areas.

Our task is to help local communities keep depredation at a manageable level while increasing incomes and strengthening stewardship of alpine ecosystems. We will know we have done our job when Central Asia’s herders recognize and act upon the greater worth of having a live snow leopard rather than a pelt of one that took their livestock.

Shirts & Blouses

A

B

As you know the material for our Rosebank shirts and blouses is no longer available.  We will keep the same style, ladies blouses and long-sleeved shirts but we need to decide on the material.

Which one do you like?  So far we have had 1 vote for c & 1 vote for f.

C

D

F

E