Captive chimps up for endangered status

A wild adult male chimpanzee, above, at Gombe National Park in Tanzania, where Thomas Gillespie's lab is working with the Jane Goodall Institute to understand the pathogens responsible for declining chimp populations. Mahale, a site near Gombe, is one of the confirmed places where human visitors have accidentally infected chimps with fatal respiratory pathogens. Photo by Matthew Heintz.

Currently, it is legal in the United States to keep a chimpanzee as a pet, and to dress the animal up and use it in movies, or for other entertainment purposes. A group of petitioners is seeking to ban those practices, including the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the Jane Goodall Institute, the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance and the Wildlife Conservation Society. They have asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to extend endangered status protection to captive chimpanzees in this country.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is now reviewing the matter, and is accepting comments from experts and the general public through October 31.

Thomas Gillespie, a primate disease ecologist at Emory, is among the expert petitioners.

Gillespie, left, speaking at a recent symposium on ape health in Kyoto, Japan.

Following is a letter to the Parks and Wildlife Service from Gillespie:

I am writing in regard to the request for information concerning the status of chimpanzees, and to voice my professional opinion that all chimpanzees, captive and wild, should be correctly classified as an endangered species within the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of the United States.

I am an associate professor of global health and biodiversity conservation with faculty appointments in the Department of Environmental Studies, the Rollins School of Public Health and the program in Population Biology, Ecology and Evolution at Emory University.

Currently, wild chimpanzees are listed as endangered under the ESA, yet captive chimpanzees in the United States are only considered “threatened” and are thereby deprived of the protections afforded to endangered species. Chimpanzees are the only species that suffers such “split-listing,” since all other endangered animal species are afforded endangered status whether wild or captive-born. One unfortunate outcome of this policy loophole is that private citizens can buy and sell chimpanzees as pets or use them for entertainment purposes, activities with demonstrated negative effects on ape welfare and public perception of conservation status.

Wild chimpanzee populations are declining, and a global effort is needed to save the species from extinction. It is important to note that wild chimpanzees are more endangered today than they were in 1990 (when wild populations were listed as endangered, and all threats to chimpanzee survival needed to be addressed.) Thus, the United Stats must do everything in its power to promote chimpanzee conservation, including regulating the use of captive chimpanzees. We send a confusing message to citizens and governments of ape range-states when the United States pushes for increased protection abroad while not protecting chimpanzees domestically.

In addition to my concerns raised above, I would like to elaborate on a threat to wild chimpanzees that relates directly to captive chimpanzees not receiving the protections afforded to all other endangered species. There is now overwhelming evidence that even mildly pathogenic human respiratory pathogens are capable of causing high rates of mortality in wild chimpanzee populations. If precautions are not enforced, tourists and researchers can be responsible for introducing such pathogens to wild chimpanzee populations as we have witnessed repeatedly in recent years.

Although guidelines have been implemented at chimpanzee tourism sites to reduce the risk of transmission of such pathogens, enforcement is variable. Tourists arrive at chimpanzee tourism sites after a lifetime of experiencing countless images of chimpanzees in advertising, films and television programs portraying human-chimpanzee contact and proximity. Many tourists are disappointed when they learn that they will not be allowed to touch or hold a wild chimpanzee. Tourists often push their guides to allow them to get closer to chimpanzees or fail to move away from chimps when they approach as mandated. Guides are put in a difficult situation of wanting to enforce guidelines to protect the apes, but not wanting to risk losing a substantial tip if tourists are disappointed by their experience. This is not a hypothetical situation, this is something that I have witnessed countless times over the past 14 years while conducting research at a diversity of sites in Sub-Saharan African that host chimpanzee tourism.

Sincerely,
Thomas Gillespie

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A few things you may not know about water

"Water Study" will lead participants through a "scientific experiment" in campus creeks.

By Carol Clark

Chances are you haven’t thought much about water lately. Unless you are a rancher in drought-stricken Texas, and you just relocated your cattle out of state because nothing is left for them to eat. Or if you are a young girl in rural Kenya, facing a miles-long walk to fetch water for the family, and a return trip bearing the heavy load.

We tend to take water for granted in lush Atlanta. But it’s moving front and center at Emory this year, through a series of events that will draw from science, art, the environment and the imaginations of all those who want to dive into the experience.

You can fall in behind dancers in haz-mat suits, as they lead people through a “scientific experiment” along the creek in Baker Woodlands. The interactive performance, called “Water Study,” takes place every evening from Oct. 15 to 19. And you can join a line of people accumulating across campus at noon on Oct. 18, to pour water from vessel to vessel until the last drop vanishes.



More water-related surprises are on the way in November, and in the spring. To prime the pump, so to speak, here are a few random facts about water.

Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, and all of that water came from space after the planet cooled down. One theory is that the water came from meteorites. The Herschel telescope, however, recently zeroed in on the properties of a comet, and learned it has water with the same deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio as Earth’s oceans.

Texas is experiencing its most severe one-year drought ever. Drier than normal conditions are expected to continue at least for months, and possibly until 2020, according to a state climatologist. The National Weather Service reports that livestock and agriculture losses have topped $5.2 billion. During the past 11 months, more than 6,000 square miles have burned across the state, an area larger than the state of Connecticut.


Comet McNaught shoots over the Pacific Ocean off Chili. Comets are like icy time capsules that may hold clues to our solar system’s evolution, including the source of Earth’s water. Credit: European Southern Observatory.

Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase during the last century, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. By 2025, the FAO projects that two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions of water scarcity.

Globally, diarrhea is the leading cause of illness and death, and 88 percent of these deaths are due to a lack of sanitation facilities and safe water for drinking and hygiene, according to the United Nations. More than one in six people worldwide don’t have access to safe water.

Environmentalist and author Janisse Ray, on the banks of the Altamaha River. Photo by Carol Clark.

Georgia’s Altamaha River flows 135 miles across the bottom third of the state. Its banks are mostly wetland wilderness, and it is one of the few almost entirely undammed rivers in the United States. Environmentalist Janisse Ray describes the river in her new book Drifting into Darien: “The Altamaha’s size and nature have led it to be called Georgia’s Little Amazon, the most powerful river east of the Mississippi. Despite this distinction, most people remain unaware of it, which prompted Reg Murphy in his National Geographic article to call it 'the river almost nobody knows.'"

Now is a great time of year to paddle the Altamaha.

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Lesson No. 1: Learn to relax

Laura Diamond writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

About 75 college students sat on yoga mats, taking deep breaths as they contoured their bodies in different positions.

Last week’s yoga class taught Emory University freshmen how to make their bodies stronger and more flexible. Students also learned how yoga could reduce their stress — a crucial lesson as they embarked on their first college midterms all while adjusting to living on their own.

This balance of physical, emotional and spiritual well-being is a cornerstone of Emory University’s new Health 100 course, a requirement for all freshmen.

Several colleges across the country have added programs and requirements in recent years to address students’ physical health and combat the obesity epidemic. But Emory officials have taken a more holistic approach and created a course based on the research they’ve conducted on predictive health, which stresses maintaining good health and preventing disease as opposed to just curing illnesses people already have.

The course abandoned the “do this, don’t do that” mentality found in most health lectures, said Michelle Lampl, director of the Emory Center for the Study of Human Health. “We are not here to admonish or preach to the students,” she said. “We are teaching them a healthier approach to life. They didn’t come here to fill their heads while destroying their bodies.”

Rather than professors lecturing to students, upperclassmen teach the class through small-group discussions. They help the freshmen come up with health goals and give advice on different aspects of college life.

Read the whole article in the AJC.

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A geologist paints Darwin

By Carol Clark

Emory geologist Woody Hickcox feels a special kinship with Charles Darwin, and it’s not just because of a slight physical resemblance. “Nothing in geology or the natural world makes any sense without his theory of evolution,” Hickcox says. “He’s sort of the kindly grandfather of us all.”

Hickcox, a senior lecturer in the department of environmental studies, has taught at Emory for 27 years. He’s also a talented artist. His murals and paintings of nature, especially birds, can be seen throughout the Math and Science Building.

When Hickcox was invited to create a piece in celebration of the Fernbank Museum’s special Darwin exhibit, he chose to do a larger-than-life, impressionistic portrait of the English naturalist, who established that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor.

“I feel very close to him as a scientist, and painting him brings me closer to him as a person. The melding of the two is greater than the sum of the parts,” Hickcox says. “You can see in his face that he went through a lot, that there were a lot of trials and tribulations in his life, aside from the science that we are all struggling to understand.”

Hickcox says that while painting the portrait, he thought about Darwin as “a normal person,” instead of the myth. “He’s not the devil. He’s not really different from any one else. He’s just a really smart guy who, in a sense, got really lucky to go on the ship he went on. And he was one of those people who were able to bring a tremendous amount of material together.”

The portrait of Darwin is part of the show “Selections,” works of art inspired by evolution, that will be on view at the Fernbank throughout the Darwin exhibit. The eight Georgia artists in the show include other scientists from the department of environmental studies: Anthony Martin and Berry Brosi, and former faculty member Lore Rattan, who left Emory last year to pursue her art full-time.

You can meet all of the artists, and ask them questions about their work, at the official opening party for “Selections,” on Friday, October 14, from 6:30 to 7:30 pm at Fernbank.

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'Contagion' and emerging disease threats

iStockphoto.com

Here's an excerpt from an article by Lynne Peeples on the Huffington Post:

Our proximity to migrating animals, rodents and livestock, combined with environmental upheaval, has created conditions that make animal-borne epidemics more likely –- a theme the new film "Contagion" embraces with enough zeal to throw Gwyneth Paltrow into a fit of lethal convulsions.

Animals carry a number of viruses, usually without consequence to themselves, but those same viruses can prove deadly to another species. Humans have simply yet to cross paths with most of these pathogens.

"In the future, we're going to come across viruses that have been around for millions of years in obscure animals," says Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based organization of scientists dedicated to conserving biodiversity.

While science can typically track down creatures that are hosts to threatening viruses, such human factors as population growth, income inequality, environmental degradation, climate change and even global travel may all play a much more decisive role in unleashing outbreaks of deadly and hard-to-control diseases.

"Microbes are out there and they are paying attention," says James Hughes, a professor of medicine and public health at Emory University, who spent about three decades with the CDC. "They are pretty good probes for weaknesses in the public health system."

Just look around, analysts warn. As deforestation and development shrinks the margins between civilization and the untrammeled regions globally, diseases will have more opportunities for transmission to humans.

Intensifying agricultural production can also facilitate epidemics, which is why the United States made Daszak's watchlist for countries that are likely to be home to emerging infectious diseases. Combined with the overuse of antibiotics, tightly penned livestock such as chickens and cows can also play a role in jumpstarting outbreaks (as happened recently with both salmonella and E. coli threats).

Read the whole article at the Huff Post.

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