Habitat

• OTTAWA, Jan. 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF) is hopeful that more Canadians will join Monarch Butterfly conservation efforts now that the species is formally listed as Endangered.
• The government will also develop a strategy that will outline the steps required to recover the species.
• Monarch caterpillars feed only on milkweed, so the Monarch breeding range is restricted to where the 14 species of milkweed grow.
• CWF is expanding its Monarch conservation efforts in southern Quebec and is reaching out to partners.

• The inaugural James Hardie™ Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational will be hosted March 31 – April 6, 2025, at the Old Course at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, Fla.
• "We are thrilled about the possibilities created through our new partnerships with James Hardie and the Pro Football Hall of Fame," said PGA TOUR Champions President Miller Brady.
• The James Hardie™ Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational will be managed by Pro Links Sports, a nationally recognized sports marketing and event management firm that assists in running several PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions tournaments.
• You can also learn more about the PGA TOUR Champions at PGATOUR.com, the Pro Football Hall of Fame at ProFootballHallofFame.com and James Hardie at JamesHardie.com.

• Our research, published today in the journal Global Change Biology, attempts to pin down why certain tetrapod species are rediscovered but others not.
• It also reveals that the number of lost tetrapod species is increasing decade-on-decade.
• This means that despite many searches, we are losing tetrapod species at a faster rate than we are rediscovering them.

Rediscoveries lead to conservation action

• Thus, rediscoveries are important: they provide evidence of the continued existence of highly threatened species, prompting funding for conservation action.
• The results or our study may help to prioritise searches for lost species.
• In the image below, we mapped their global distribution, identifying regions with many lost and few rediscovered species.

What factors influence rediscovery?

• Are there specific factors that influence rediscovery?
• We then proposed three broad hypotheses about factors that might influence rediscovery: characteristics of (i) tetrapod species, and (ii) the environment influence rediscovery, and (iii) human activities influence rediscovery.
• For example, body mass (a species characteristic) may positively influence rediscovery, as larger lost species should be easier to find.
• Based on these hypotheses, we collected data on a series of variables associated with each lost and rediscovered species (for example, their body mass), which we then analysed for their influence on rediscovery.

Hard to find + neglected = rediscovered

• In fact, since the completion of our study, De Winton’s Golden Mole (Cryptochloris wintoni) has been rediscovered in South Africa.
• Our results also suggest some species are neglected by conservation scientists, particularly those that are not considered to be charismatic, such as reptiles, small species and rodents.
• Voeltzkow’s chameleon (Furcifer voeltzkowi), a small reptile species, was rediscovered in Madagascar in 2018.

Lost or extinct?

• For example, remaining lost mammal species are, on average, three times larger than rediscovered mammal species.
• Furthermore, one third of remaining lost mammal species are endemic to islands, where tetrapod species are particularly vulnerable to extinction.
• Perhaps the limited resources available for biodiversity conservation would be better used to search for lost species likely to still exist.

Thomas Evans received funding from The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

• A collaboration between the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) and the Saudi Falcons Club (SFC), the AlUla Falcon Cup is an exciting new edition to AlUla's year-round calendar of events and heritage sports competition.
• The AlUla Falcon Cup welcomed six breeds of falcon, with young and mature birds invited to compete.
• The success of the AlUla Falcon Cup strengthens AlUla's position as the global home of heritage sports.
• Ziad Al Suhaibani, RCU Chief of Sport, said: "The first-ever edition of the AlUla Falcon Cup was a huge success.