Poachers target rare bird's 'ivory' beak in Southeast Asia

CORRECTS PHOTOGRAPHER'S NAME IN CAPTION In this undated photo supplied by the Wildlife Conservation Society, a helmeted hornbill is perched on a nest in Thailand. Part of the bill of the critically endangered bird in Southeast Asia is sought by poachers as an ivory substitute and carved into ornaments, mainly for sale in China. (Morten Strange/Wildlife Conservation Society via AP) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Some call it "ivory on wings," part of the bill of a critically endangered bird in Southeast Asia that is sought by poachers and carved into ornaments for illegal sale to Chinese buyers.

The helmeted hornbill isn't getting as much attention as the beleaguered African elephant at a global wildlife conference this week in South Africa. But the killing of elephants by the tens of thousands for their tusks is intertwined with a surge in the slaughter of the rare bird whose beak part is a coveted substitute for ivory.

"It's all part of the rising demand for ivory," said Richard Thomas, spokesman for TRAFFIC, a conservation group based in Britain.

Poaching of the helmeted hornbill has soared since around 2010, particularly in Indonesia. The timing roughly coincides with an increase in elephant poaching that has caused a sharp drop in elephant populations. Last year, the helmeted hornbill was designated as critically endangered on an international "red list" of threatened species.

Delegates are discussing protections for elephants, helmeted hornbills and other vulnerable wildlife at a meeting in Johannesburg of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES . The 12-day meeting of the U.N. group, which regulates wildlife trade, ends Oct. 5.

The helmeted hornbill is a bird of lore, featuring in an ancient belief that it sits by a river between life and death. Its feathers have been used in traditional ceremonies. During breeding, the female is sealed into a nest, relying on the male to provide food.

The call of the helmeted hornbill is an intermittent, honking sound that slowly builds in tempo until it ends in what resembles, for some listeners, shrieks of laughter. Loud and long, the call helps poachers locate their prey.

In a CITES document , Indonesia asked for more collaboration among law enforcement agencies from countries where helmeted hornbills live, as well as "end market" nations — a reference primarily to China.

China, the world's main ivory consumer, has already said it plans to close its domestic ivory market.

A large lump on top of the beak of the helmeted hornbill is made of keratin, a protein also found in rhino horn and other animal and human parts. It has a red tinge is softer than elephant ivory, making it an attractive material for carvers who have fashioned belt buckles, snuff boxes, pendants and images of Chinese deities from it over many centuries.

The upper part of the bill, also known as a casque, is solid, unlike the hollow casques of other hornbill species. Its price on the illegal market is higher than that of elephant ivory. A casque weighs up to 350 grams (0.7 pounds); the average weight of an elephant tusk is five kilograms (11 pounds), though a big male's tusk can weigh 10 times as much.

At least 2,170 heads and bill parts of helmeted hornbills were confiscated from the illegal trade in Indonesia and China between 2012 and 2014, TRAFFIC said.

Investigators found helmeted hornbill products being sold openly in Laos, a major transit point for wildlife traffickers that borders China, according to a TRAFFIC report released this month. Sale locations included a luxury hotel and convention center in central Vientiane, the capital, it said.

Indonesia said it has arrested more than 20 people in the helmeted hornbill trade and sentenced most of them. Penalties include up to five years in jail and a heavy fine.

On Saturday, rangers in Indonesia's Gunung Leuser National Park arrested a suspected helmeted hornbill poacher with a rifle and silencer, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, or WCS, a group based in New York. The suspect had just entered the forest and did not have any bird parts.

"This species needs to be on people's radars," said Elizabeth Bennett, vice president of species conservation at WCS.

Illegal logging in Indonesia is shrinking the habitat of the helmeted hornbill. Conservationists fear poachers will focus on the Malaysian population once supply dries up in Indonesia.

Birds choose spring neighbors based on winter ‘friendships’

Great tits pick their spring breeding sites to be near their winter flockmates, according to new research into the social networks of birds from the University of Oxford.

The study shows that as mated pairs of great tits settle down to breed in the spring, they establish their homes in locations close to their winter flockmates. They also arrange their territory boundaries so that their most-preferred winter 'friends' are their neighbours.

The findings give new insights into the social behaviour of birds and demonstrate how social interactions can shape other aspects of wild animals' lives, such as the environmental conditions they will experience based on their choice of home location.

The research is published in the journal Ecology Letters.

Lead author Dr Josh Firth, of the University of Oxford's Department of Zoology, said: 'The great tits we study are a good general model for many other bird species. They form large flocks in the winter, when they're searching for food, and then each pair chooses a single set breeding site where they will be located throughout the spring as they build a nest and raise their chicks.

'We show that they appear to choose their spring breeding sites to stay close to their winter flockmates. Not only do they nest closest to the birds they held the strongest winter social bonds with, they also appear to arrange their territories so that they share home boundaries with those birds.'

Dr Firth added: 'As well as telling us about the birds' social behaviour, this also has interesting implications for other aspects of biology. For instance, where an animal's "home" is determines the environmental factors they experience, such as weather conditions. Therefore, as they appear to base their location choices around their social bonds, this indicates that their previous social associations can underpin the environment and conditions they will be subjected to in future.'

The study focused on the radio-frequency identification (RFID)-tagged wild great tit population in Wytham Woods, the University of Oxford's research woodland near the city. Using data gathered from equipping thousands of birds with these tags to record their winter social interactions and spring nesting box choices over a three-year period, the researchers were able to determine which birds were flockmates during the winter and, subsequently, where they settled in relation to each other in the spring.

Dr Firth added: 'There may be benefits of choosing breeding locations based on previous social associations. For instance, we know that familiar birds are more likely to cooperate in fending off predators, and it may also reduce the amount of energy expended on competitive interactions, if individuals display less aggressive behaviour towards familiar neighbours.'

Quality, not quantity, of diet is key to health of baby birds

In a new study that upends the way ornithologists think about a young bird's diet -- but won't shock parents used to scanning the nutritional profile of their children's food -- Cornell researchers have found that when it comes to what chicks eat, quality trumps quantity.

In recent decades, many aerial insectivores, such as tree swallows, have undergone steep population declines. Cornell researchers have demonstrated for the first time that the fatty acid composition in the tree swallow diet plays a key role in chick health and survival rates, potentially pointing to new ways to protect fragile bird species.

"This study really reforms the way ecologists see the food of wild animals," said senior author David Winkler, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. "From a preoccupation with how much food is available, we need to turn our eyes to what kind of food is available."

For the study, researchers manipulated the ratio of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids [the good fat present in fish oil] to short-chain omega-3 fatty acids [the good fat in flax seeds] as well as the amount of food. Chicks given diets rich in long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFA) grew faster, were in better condition, had more efficient metabolisms and had a stronger immune response compared with chicks on a low LCPUFA diet.

The researchers found that chicks had higher growth rates and better body condition when they were fed a small amount of high-quality food than if they were fed a large amount of low-quality food.

In addition, chicks fed a small amount of high-quality food had similar immune responses and metabolic rates as those fed a large amount of low-quality food.

In the wild, tree swallows and other aerial insectivores typically forage on a mixture of aquatic and terrestrial insects. Aquatic insects are much richer in LCPUFA than insects that live on land.

"We found that aquatic insects are likely a far more important food source than previously thought due to their high-quality fats," said lead author Lily Twining, a doctoral student in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology. "The destruction and degradation of aquatic habitats that produce insects with long-chain omega-3 fatty acids may be having important negative impacts on tree swallows and other declining aerial insectivores.

"This study provides new clues into how nutrition and food webs impact the decline of prominent species, and provides further incentive to protect freshwater habitats not only for aquatic animals like fish, but also for terrestrial animals like the songbirds in our study," she added.

Tree swallow populations have declined 36 percent in the past three decades, a circumstance explained at times by reduced insect populations, ecological fragmentation and the effects of climate change. Other North American aerial insectivores -- like nighthawks and chimney swifts -- have also undergone similar major disruptions in populations.

This study suggests that the mismatch between the fatty acid composition of insects and the nutritional needs of aerial insectivores could be a crucial driver of fitness and reproductive potential for these birds.

Furthermore, the researchers said tree swallows may be timing breeding to coincide with the peak abundance of high-LCPUFA aquatic insects.

Tropical crow species is highly skilled tool user

A captive Hawaiian crow ('Alal?) using a stick tool to extract food from a wooden log. 'Alal? have relatively straight bills and highly mobile eyes -- morphological features that may aid their handling of bill-held tools.

An international team of scientists and conservation experts has discovered that the critically-endangered Hawaiian crow, or 'Alalā, is a highly proficient tool user, according to a paper published today in the scientific journal Nature.

For decades, another species -- the famed New Caledonian crow -- had baffled researchers with its remarkable tool-using skills. These birds, which only live on the remote South Pacific island of New Caledonia, use tools to winkle insects and other prey from deadwood and vegetation, exhibiting an astonishing degree of dexterity. The big question was why they, but apparently no other members of the crow family ('corvids'), had evolved such technological prowess. But without other tool-using crow species for comparison, the New Caledonian crow remained a puzzling oddity.

There are over 40 species of crows and ravens in the world, and many of them -- especially those living in remote tropical locations -- remain poorly studied. "This raises the intriguing possibility that there are some undiscovered tool users out there," explains the study's lead scientist, Dr Christian Rutz, from the University of St Andrews, UK.

"We had previously noticed that New Caledonian crows have unusually straight bills, and wondered whether this may be an adaptation for holding tools, similar to humans' opposable thumb," Rutz elaborates. By searching for this tell-tale sign amongst some of the lesser-known corvid species, he quickly homed in on a particularly promising candidate for further investigation -- the 'Alalā.

Following a population crash in the late 20th century, the 'Alalā is now sadly extinct in the wild. In a last-ditch effort to preserve the species, the remaining wild birds were brought into captivity, to launch a breeding programme. "Later this year, in collaboration with our partners, we will be releasing captive-reared 'Alalā on Hawai'i Island, to re-establish a wild population," says Bryce Masuda, co-leader of the study and Conservation Program Manager of San Diego Zoo Global's Hawai'i Endangered Bird Conservation Program.

Masuda was excited when the St Andrews scientists got in touch with his team: "We had occasionally seen birds using stick tools at our two breeding facilities, but hadn't thought much of it." The St Andrews and San Diego teams quickly agreed to conduct a collaborative project, to examine the tool-using skills of 'Alalā under controlled conditions.

"We tested 104 of the 109 'Alalā alive at the time, and found that the vast majority of them spontaneously used tools," says Masuda. Current evidence strongly suggests that tool use is part of the species' natural behavioural repertoire, rather than being a quirk that arose in captivity, according to Rutz: "Using tools comes naturally to 'Alalā. These birds had no specific training prior to our study, yet most of them were incredibly skilled at handling stick tools, and even swiftly extracted bait from demanding tasks. In many regards, the 'Alalā is very similar to the New Caledonian crow, which my team has been studying for over 10 years."

Experts have applauded the 'tour de force' of controlled experiments. "Most studies in our field investigate just a handful of subjects, so it is truly mindboggling to see an entire species tested," comments Professor Thomas Bugnyar, a corvid expert at the University of Vienna, Austria, who was not involved in the study.

Dr Sabine Tebbich, an expert on animal tool use, also based at the University of Vienna, is similarly impressed by the scope of the study: "It was important that the authors took on the extra challenge of investigating how the behaviour develops in juvenile 'Alalā. Their results show that the species has predispositions that allow chicks to 'discover' the behaviour independently, without ever observing tool-proficient adults." Interestingly, study co-author Dr Richard James, Director of the Centre for Networks and Collective Behaviour at the University of Bath, UK, could demonstrate through extensive computer simulations that it is unlikely that a single bird once had a smart idea, which subsequently spread across the captive population through social learning.

The discovery of a second tool-using crow species finally provides leverage for addressing long-standing questions about the evolution of animal tool behaviour. "As crow species go, the 'Alalā and the New Caledonian crow are only very distantly related. With their last common ancestor living around 11 million years ago, it seems safe to assume that their tool-using skills arose independently," explains Rutz. "It is striking that both species evolved on remote tropical islands in the Pacific Ocean that lack woodpeckers and ferocious bird predators -- perfect conditions, apparently, for smart crows to become accomplished tool users!"

According to Douglas Myers, President and Chief Executive Officer of San Diego Zoo Global, the study marks an important milestone for the long-running 'Alalā recovery programme: "This is a wonderful example of how scientific research can contribute to conservation efforts. The discovery that 'Alalā naturally use tools is of great significance, especially at this critical stage of our recovery efforts, as it provides completely unexpected insights into the species' ecological needs. After more than 20 years of hard work, we are finally ready to release birds. I am confident we will manage to bring this iconic Hawaiian bird species back from the brink of extinction."

In 1964, world-renowned primatologist, Dr Jane Goodall DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace, provided the first detailed report of tool use in wild chimpanzees. Her landmark paper, published in the journalNature, categorically refuted the long-held idea that only humans are gifted tool users. Two years later, along with Hugo van Lawick, she described in Nature the first recorded observation of the use of rock tools by Egyptian vultures to open ostrich eggs.

Goodall is excited about the 'Alalā study: "I love learning about the discovery of tool use behaviours in other species of animals. This latest finding is especially ​ wonderful. With two tool-using corvids, the well known Galapagos finches, and one vulture in the list of tool using birds, we can now make comparisons with avian and primate tool using. Each of these discoveries shows how much there is still to learn about animal behaviour, and it makes me re-think about the evolution of tool use in our own earliest ancestors."

But Goodall cautions: "Let this discovery serve to emphasise the importance to conserving these and other animal species so that we can continue to learn ever more about the range of their behaviour before they vanish for ever in the 6th great wave of extinction. We owe it to future generations."

Pigeon flock members can 'overrule' incompetent leaders

Flock leaders who attempt to give their fellow pigeons incorrect information about their direction of travel can be overruled by the collective wisdom of the group, according to new research from the University of Oxford.

Recent modelling work has predicted that the mistakes of a misinformed leader will propagate down a hierarchical decision-making system such as a pigeon flock. However, using a method known as 'clock-shifting' that interferes with pigeons' sense of direction, researchers have shown that bad leadership can be overcome, setting the flock back on the correct course.

Research from the same group at Oxford has previously found that the fastest pigeons tend to become flock leaders, rather than the most competent.

The new study is published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Lead author Isobel Watts, a doctoral candidate in the Oxford Navigation Group in the University's Department of Zoology, said: 'Previous research in homing pigeons has identified a navigational leadership hierarchy where an individual's position in the hierarchy reflects its weight of contribution in the decision-making process. In this study, we were interested in how much control the "top" bird actually has over the flock's decisions during homing. Do the top leader's decisions simply cascade down the hierarchy, or are lower-ranked birds also able to influence the direction in which the flock flies? By manipulating the quality of the leader's information, we hoped to discover whether a poorly informed leader was still allowed to lead or whether the flock would "overrule" inaccurate leadership.'

The study, carried out in Oxfordshire, involved eight GPS-tracked flocks of five birds each and made use of the clock-shifting technique to 'jetlag' certain birds. In some experiments, only the leader was clock-shifted, while in others either the whole flock or no birds at all underwent the process.

Isobel Watts said: 'What we found was that when the whole flock was clock-shifted, the flock tended to deviate from its normal homeward flight path, whereas when solely the leader was clock-shifted, the flock was generally able to stay on course. Interestingly, we saw from GPS data on flock positions that misinformed leaders tended to lose their place at the top of the hierarchy, spending less time at the head of the flock and less time being followed in their movements by others.'

She added: 'The exact mechanism by which a flock is able to correct for misinformation coming from its leader is still unclear. However, we can speculate that it may be due to either misinformed flock leaders doubting their own abilities and paying more attention to what their flockmates appear to be doing, or the flock members recognising weakness in the leader and taking more control themselves.'

Co-author Dr Dora Biro, also of the Oxford Navigation Group in the Department of Zoology, said: 'Although homing pigeon flocks have fairly stable hierarchical decision-making structures, our results show that they also demonstrate flexibility, and, crucially, they do so in a situation where the performance of the whole flock would suffer if they were inflexible. Following a "bad" leader could lead the whole flock astray, and the capacity to reorganise the leadership hierarchy in this case allows them to stay on course. This could be particularly important in migratory bird species, where getting lost during a trip could be a matter of life and death.'

Bird brain? Pigeons have quite a way with words

Pigeons can learn to distinguish real words from non-words by visually processing their letter combinations, surprising new research from the University of Otago in New Zealand and Ruhr University in Germany shows.

The researchers found that pigeons' performance was on a par with that previously reported in baboons for this type of complex task. Their study, which is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is the first to identify a non-primate species as having "orthographic" abilities.

In the experiment, pigeons were trained to peck four-letter English words as they came up on a screen, or to instead peck a symbol when a four-letter non-word, such as "URSP" was displayed. The researchers added words one by one with the four pigeons in the study eventually building vocabularies ranging from 26 to 58 words and over 8000 non-words.

To check whether the pigeons were learning to distinguish words from non-words rather than merely memorising them, the researchers introduced words the birds had never seen before.

The pigeons correctly identified the new words as words at a rate significantly above chance.

According to the study's first author, Dr Damian Scarf of the University of Otago's Department of Psychology, they performed this feat by tracking the statistical likelihood that "bigrams," letter pairs such as "EN" and "AL," were more likely associated with words or non-words.

Professor Onur Güntürkün, one of the co-investigators from of Ruhr University's Department of Biopsychology, says "that pigeons -- separated by 300 million years of evolution from humans and having vastly different brain architectures -- show such a skill as orthographic processing is astonishing."

Another of the study's authors, Professor Michael Colombo of Otago's Department of Psychology, says "we may have to seriously re-think the use of the term 'bird brain' as a put down."

Bird flu poses threat to penguins - scientists

Scientists are warning of new threats to penguins on Antarctica from diseases spread by migratory birds.

A modern strain of bird flu has been found in penguins living on the snowy continent, although it does not seem to be making them ill.

Conservationists say penguins need better protection through monitoring for new diseases and safeguarding their breeding and fishing grounds.

Bird flu is an infectious disease of poultry and wild birds.

Scientists found an unusual strain of bird flu among penguins on Antarctica a few years ago.

A second strain has now been discovered, suggesting viruses are reaching the continent more often than previously thought.

Fragile Earth

"This is a concern because avian influenza viruses that can be deadly in many birds have recently circulated in North America," said Dr Aeron Hurt of the Peter Doherty Institute in Melbourne, who visited the continent to survey penguins and other birds.

He said the virus discovered did not seem to cause any illness in the birds, but the fact that it is down on the Antarctic Peninsula showed there was potential for deadlier viruses to also travel there.

"The impact of a pathogenic influenza virus, one that causes death or severe illness in birds, would have a really devastating impact," he added.

The Antarctic Peninsula is too far south to be part of the main flyways across the world for migratory birds.

However, a few birds do migrate there from North and South America.

Experts say a better understanding is needed of how viruses reach the continent.

Unique birdlife

Rory Crawford, seabird policy officer of the RSPB, said penguins were the second most threatened group of seabirds after albatrosses, so any new potential threats were of concern.

"Every effort needs to be made to prevent future transmission and its potential impacts on the unique birdlife of Antarctica," he said.

"Further, broader penguin conservation needs to be stepped up to help these imperilled birds - including through the protection of breeding habitat, identification and proper protection of marine protected areas and appropriate fisheries management."

Dr Derek Gatherer, of the University of Lancaster, said the findings suggested that the bird flu had originated in the northern hemisphere and entered Antarctica recently.

"Penguins are therefore under threat from highly pathogenic avian flu, despite their isolation," he said.

The research was published in the Journal of Virology.