Snowy owl, giant otter, hammerhead shark considered for greater protection at UN conference

Some of the world’s most recognized species are part of global talks taking place in Brazil over whether to give them more protection.

Sharks, giant otters, hyenas and even snowy owls are among the species proposed to be included. Appendices to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), a United Nations environmental treaty.

What unites them all is that they do not call one place home, meaning that any threats – such as deforestation, climate change and industrial fishing – require multi-country cooperation to help promote survival.

“They remind us all that (the) natural world is deeply interconnected,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, deputy executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said at the inaugural news conference in Campo Grande, Brazil.

“Their journeys connect continents, connect oceans, connect ecosystems and cultures – and ultimately, all of us.”

CBC News spoke to some experts about some of these species to find out where they live, what threatens them and possible solutions that could help them survive.

snowy owls are in decline

“This is a bird that doesn’t need much introduction,” says Jean-François Therrien, senior scientist at Pennsylvania’s Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, about the “charismatic” snowy owl.

With its piercing yellow eyes, camouflaged white feathers and dark brown spots (for females), it presents an attractive appearance even among owls. An apex predator, its main range is around the Canadian Arctic and the northern United States, but extends to Greenland, Scandinavia, and Russia.

“We’re lucky here and in Canada, we still have snowy owl populations that are reproducing well,” Therrien said. “But countries that are at the edge of the species’ range are no longer seeing the species there or are barely seeing it there.”

Niklas Aronsson, editor of the popular ornithology magazine Vair Fagelworld, was recently part of declaring the snowy owl regionally extinct in Sweden.

“Suddenly they were gone, disappeared,” Aronsson told CBC News from Gothenburg, adding that after 2015, the owls lost their main source of food: lemmings.

“So when we evaluated red ListWe found that we should list it as extinct at the national level,” he said.

This species is in decline but is by no means on the verge of extinction. Canada is not party to the CMS, and the government does not currently recognize the snowy owl as being in need of protection under it. Migratory Bird Protection Act Or Species at Risk Act. However, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) has recently considered it endangered and consultation is ongoing.

At the current CMS meeting, Norway is proposing to place the snowy owl on Appendix II, which would encourage collaboration to help animals that are not yet facing threatened levels.

Both Therrien and Aronson agree that raising awareness of the threats to this species – including how climate change could affect its prey, lemmings – is important.

“Obviously, it’s not a good sign because if we’re (at this point) right now, it’s because snowy owls are declining,” Therrien said. “But the fact that we’re talking about it is a good step forward.”

hunted hammerheads

According to Dr. Pelayo Salinas de Leon, a marine ecologist at the Charles Darwin Foundation, hammerhead sharks are “like the white blood cells of the ocean”.

“They specialize in feeding on the slow, the weak and the sick. So they improve the genetic fitness of their prey populations,” he said of their role.

Their precise head shape allows for 360-degree vision and better detection of electromagnetic fields from their prey. But they also have another unique trait among sharks: simultaneous schooling, known as swarming.

“Unfortunately, this type of gregarious behavior makes it extremely vulnerable to overfishing,” Salinas de Leon told CBC News from Guayaquil, Ecuador. Their feathers and cartilage are in high demand in food and beauty markets around the world, he said.

Since hammerheads can migrate thousands of kilometers to breed, the Ecuadorian government is proposing two critically endangered The species must be listed on strict CMS Appendix I, which encourages full protection measures by member countries.

Salinas de Leon says it will provide a legal basis for countries to tackle the problem in their own waters – through approaches such as marine protected areas with sustainable seawater management – ​​which will help shark populations recover.

Giant otters are losing their homes

Biologist Caroline Leuchtenberger said of the aptly named giant otter, “This species… is a sentinel of aquatic quality.”

From a thick tail to a mustached nose, this apex predator could grow up to 1.8 meters long as it roamed the rivers of South America. At the top of its food chain, the health of giant otters indicates the well-being of everything below, including toxins in the water.

Unlike snowy owls or hammerhead sharks, their migration is more continental – as the wet season expands the rivers, they migrate between countries that share the Amazon. But drought, deforestation and linking of rivers with hydroelectric projects are major threats.

“In Brazil we have what we call viable populations, mainly in the Pantanal,” said Leuchtenberger, who is also the founder of the Giant Otter Project. “(But) in some countries, such as Argentina and Uruguay, this species is already considered extinct.”

They estimate that giant otters have lost 40 percent of their original range. At the convention, the proposal is to include it in both appendices, to really highlight the threats they pose.

“We need countries to work together to maintain the rivers connection … to collaborate, to think together about policies to maintain viable aquatic habitats for this species,” Leuchtenberger told CBC News from Santa Maria, Brazil.

The conference will continue till March 29 42 new migratory species proposed being discussed. Parties vote throughout the week on whether to approve the addition of these species to the appendices.