This Mondays Endangered Species Column focuses on a species of animal youd never think would ever be threatened with extinction. Unfortunately the Bubalus arnee and many other Indian Water Buffalo species are listed as near threatened. Bubalus arnee was identified back in 1792 by Dr Robert Kerr (1755 – 11 October 1813). Kerr was a scientific writer and translator from Scotland. Kerr was born in Roxburghshire as the son of a jeweller. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and practised at the Edinburgh Foundling Hospital as a surgeon. He translated several scientific works into English, such as Antoine Lavoisiers work of 1789, Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, published under the title Elements of Chemistry in a New Systematic Order containing All the Modern Discoveries, in 1790. In 1792, he published The Animal Kingdom, the first two volumes of a four-tome translation of Linnaeus Systema Naturae, which is often cited as the taxonomic authority for a great many species. (He never did the remaining two volumes.) B. arnee is commonly known as Asian Buffalo, Asiatic Buffalo, Indian Buffalo, Indian Water Buffalo, Water Buffalo, Wild Asian Buffalo and the Wild Water Buffalo. From 1986 to 1996 the species B. arnee has remained endangered. Reassessments back in 2008 saw a further population decline of which is still listed as (endangered). Its a sad fact that the remaining worlds population of Wild Water Buffalo total a mere 4,000 individuals if that. The population now to date could well be much lower since last assessments took place back in 2008. During the Pleistocene epoch which is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the worlds recent period of repeated glaciations B. arnee was known to inhabit much of Asia and Europe. However has declined rapidly since this time. The Indian Water Buffalo is now known to span southern Nepal, southern Bhutan, western Thailand, eastern Cambodia, and northern Myanmar, and at several sites in India: in the Bastar region of Madhya Pradesh, in Assam, in Arunachal Pradesh, and possibly in Meghalaya, Orissa and Maharashtra. Extinctions of wild Water Buffalo have occurred here in Bangladesh, Peninsular Malaysia, and on the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo. The origin and current genetic status of the herds of apparently wild Buffaloes in Sri Lanka is uncertain but it is thought unlikely that any true wild Buffaloes remain there today. The fact that no buffaloes occur south of the Godavari river in India has also been taken to suggest that Sri Lanka possesses only feral buffaloes descended from introduced animals. B. arnee is now restricted and native too Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand. However had domestic herds not encroached onto the wild species habitats, climate change and habitat fragmentation not occurred its quite possible the species would still be inhabiting much of south east Asia and related islands - possibly Europe too. B. arnee is thought to be extinct within Vietnam and regionally extinct within Bangladesh, Indonesia, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic and Sri Lanka. The total world population of Wild Water Buffalo is almost certainly less than 4,000 animals and may well be less than 200, occupying an area of less than 20,000 km². Indeed it is possible that no pure-bred Wild Water Buffaloes remain. However, these figures are little more than informed guesses, since any assessment of Buffalo numbers is hampered by the difficulty of distinguishing between free-ranging domestic buffaloes, feral buffaloes, truly wild buffaloes, and hybrids between wild and other buffaloes. Individuals of Wild Water Buffalo and Domestic Water Buffalo are difficult to distinguish in some areas, and some domestic populations may be very closely related to (perhaps identical to) Wild Water Buffalo, as in Cambodia, where traditional forms of buffalo husbandry allow herds to range freely in forest areas. There have been few detailed analyses of the purity of the presumed remaining Wild Water Buffalo populations, nor in many cases is it obvious how such an assessment would be made. The Domestic Water Buffalo occurs as feral and domesticated populations worldwide, including in sympatry with most remaining populations of Wild Water Buffalo. Some feral and domestic populations may well have conservation significance, retaining some of the genetic stock of the wild populations for that particular region, this may be especially true in Indochina due to traditional methods of Water Buffalo husbandry An unknown number of Wild Water Buffaloes, believed to include truly wild individuals, occurs in and around Bhutans Royal Manas National Park. This is the only subpopulation in Bhutan and is contiguous with that in Manas Tiger Reserve in India. There are no population estimates for Myanmar, reflecting a paucity of recent surveys. The extent of suitable habitat means the species could be still extant, and a few wild-living animals independent of human husbandry live in the Hukaung Valley of Kachin state. Pending further information, these should be seen as likely to be genuinely wild stock or at least if feral, of archaic origin, and so, in either case, of conservation significance. In Thailand Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary is said to be home to no fewer than forty individuals. While in Cambodia it is possible that a small population of no fewer than two dozen remain wild. Listed on Cites Appendix III the B. arnee has many threats; The most important threats to Wild Water Buffalo are interbreeding with feral and domestic buffalo, hunting, and habitat loss/degradation. Diseases and parasites (transmitted by domestic livestock) and interspecific competition for food and water between wild Buffalo and domestic stock are also serious threats. The scale of the threat posed to Wild Water Buffalo by the trade in wildlife products is difficult to quantify, not least because it is unclear how many of the trophies from reportedly wild Buffalo are in fact from wild buffalo rather than from feral or hybrid animals Most of the species former lowland habitat has been lost to agriculture, and what remains is highly fragmented. However, especially in countries such as Cambodia and Lao PDR, vast tracts of suitable lowland forest remain from which the species has long since been hunted out, and certainly there are several viable tracts of habitat in which the species could be re-introduced The Cambodian population is under severe threat from hunting for trophy horns both by Cambodians and Viet Namese hunters crossing the border. This threat is currently somewhat alleviated through to an active protected area management project, but hunting is still rife in much of the surrounding area, as is forest fragmentation due to human population in migration, infrastructural developments (especially roads), commercial agricultural expansion, economic land speculation and mineral extraction. However, the most significant threat to the area is the long-term uncertainty of continuation of effective conservation management of the Srepok Wilderness Area. This area faces an uncertain future. with part already degazetted from conservation status and the possibility that more would be excised in the future, the lack of long-term security of external funding adequate to maintain high standards of management, the uncertainty of long-term political support to uphold high protection standards and the uncertainties of maintaining a motivated and well-trained staff. In Myanmar, the population of wild-ranging buffaloes either truly wild or at least living outside human custody for a long time in and around the proposed Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve faces a very uncertain future. The seasonally-flooded plains, a matrix of grass and scrub, lies largely outside the already-established Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuary and the areas of highest conservation significance lie south of the boundary even for a vast proposed extension to form the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve. All level areas in this region are under very high threat for conversion to agriculture, both rice and industrial-scale plantations of cash-crops. There is also an active hunting system for wild meat to feed hundreds of thousands of itinerant labourers in this area. The invasive Mikania sp. also potentially threatens wetlands in the South Asian range of wild Water Buffaloes. Hydropower development and resulting changes in water flow and level conditions downstream also threaten the ecological maintenance of floodplain areas. Disease epidemics spreading from domestic livestock presumably pose a threat, especially given the close overlap of Wild Water Buffalo populations and domestic livestock in South Asia, the high densities especially of the latter, and the small and localised nature of Wild Water Buffalo populations. It is believed that climate change has played quite a significant role in reducing species populations of which the B. arnee wis not suited to such dry climates, B. arnee was then later restricted to the Indian continent, main land south east Asia and some southern eastern islands. B. arnee was known to span Mesopotamia to Indochina. Synonym; A synonym (also metonym and poecilonym) is a word with the same or similar meaning of another word Bos arni Hamilton Smith, 1827 Bos bubalus variety fulvus Blanford, 1891 Bubalis bubalis subspecies migona Deraniyagala, 1953 Bubalus arna Hodgson, 1841 Bubalus arna variety macrocerus Hodgson, 1842 Bubalus bubalus subspecies septentrionalis Matschie, 1912 The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (2003) ruled that the name for this wild species is not invalid by virtue of its being antedated by a name based on a domestic form. Therefore, IUCN considers the wild forms of Water Buffalo under Bubalus arnee, while the domestic forms are considered under B. bubalis (see Gentry et al. 2004). Despite this, Grubb (2005) listed arnee as a subspecies of bubalis, contrary to most authors. Three subspecies were recognized, all still apparently extant, by Groves (1996): B. a. arnee (much of India and Nepal); B. a. fulvus (Assam and neighbouring areas); and B. a. theerapati (southeast Asia).
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 01:22:44 +0000
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