Giant Chinese salamander speeding toward extinction: study Zimbabwe applies to rejoin Commonwealth

Giant Chinese salamander speeding toward extinction: study

AFP/File / GOH Chai Hin A woman admires a giant Chinese salamander during the China International Conservation festival in Zhangjiajie, central China's Hunan province, on December 10, 2005

The world's largest amphibians, giant Chinese salamanders, were once thought to be widespread but now face imminent extinction due to illegal poaching and hunting as a luxury food, researchers said Monday.
"The overexploitation of these incredible animals for human consumption has had a catastrophic effect on their numbers in the wild over an amazingly short time span," said co-author Samuel Turvey, a researcher at the Zoological Society of London.

"Unless coordinated conservation measures are put in place as a matter of urgency, the future of the world's largest amphibian is in serious jeopardy."
Vast surveys were conducted in 2013 and 2016 at river sites where the critically endangered salamanders -- the size of small alligators and weighing some 140 pounds (64 kilograms) -- are known to live.
"We cannot confirm survival of wild Chinese giant salamander populations at any survey sites, and consider the species to be extremely depleted or functionally extinct across the huge surveyed area," said the report in the journal Current Biology.
China has a program in place to breed and release giant salamanders back into the wild.
At the few sites where salamanders were seen, researchers could not confirm whether they were wild or farmed.
"Our field surveys and interviews indicate the species has experienced catastrophic range-wide decline apparently driven by overexploitation," said the report.
"The status of wild populations may be even worse than our data suggest. Releases had occurred shortly before surveys at two sites where we detected individuals."
Researchers also reported that what was once thought of as a single species actually represents at least five distinct species -- all speeding toward extinction and some may already be gone.
Furthermore, China's breed and release approach is ill-advised because it does not account for genetic differences in the salamanders, the study said.
Releasing hybrids may mean they are poorly adapted for their individual environments, and unlikely to survive.
"Conservation strategies for the Chinese giant salamander require urgent updating," said Jing Che from the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Zimbabwe applies to rejoin Commonwealth

POOL/AFP / Yui Mok The Commonwealth meets in a summit every two years -- the last time was in April, where leaders gathered at Buckingham Palace for a 'family portrait' alongside Queen Elizabeth II

Zimbabwe has applied to rejoin the Commonwealth, the group said Monday, marking a major step in the country's international re-engagement after Robert Mugabe was ousted last year.
Mugabe angrily pulled Zimbabwe out of the bloc of former British colonies in 2003 after its membership was suspended over violent and graft-ridden elections the previous year.

The Commonwealth said it had received a letter dated May 15 from Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa applying to re-join.
Member countries "very much look forward to Zimbabwe’s return when the conditions are right," said Secretary-General Patricia Scotland in a statement from London.
"Zimbabwe's eventual return to the Commonwealth, following a successful membership application, would be a momentous occasion."
Scotland confirmed that the Commonwealth would send observers to elections due in July or August, the first polls since Mugabe was ousted in November after a brief military takeover.
Mugabe was replaced by his former deputy Mnangagwa, a veteran ruling ZANU-PF party loyalist who was backed by senior military officers.
Mnangagwa has vowed to hold fair and free elections, and has pledged to revive the moribund economy by repairing international ties and attracting foreign investment.
Scotland called for "a credible, peaceful and inclusive (election) that restores citizens' confidence, trust and hope in the development and democratic trajectory of their country."
Britain said last month that it would strongly support Zimbabwe returning to the Commonwealth.
Zimbabwe had fractured relations with the West under Mugabe, who had held power since independence from Britain in 1980.
The government in Harare was not immediately available to comment.
If readmitted, Zimbabwe will become the fifth country to re-join the voluntary association of mostly former territories of the British empire, after Gambia, South Africa, Pakistan and Fiji.
The Gambia re-joined the Commonwealth in February this year after the impoverished west African nation was in 2013 suddently pulled out of the bloc by ex-president Yahya Jammeh.
The other countries to have quit the organisation are Ireland, which left in 1949 and the Maldives which exited in 2016.
The Commonwealth brings together 53 countries representing 2.4 billion people, under a charter pledging commitment to democracy, human rights and rule of law.
The last country to join was Rwanda, in 2009.
The organisation also holds an Olympics-style multi-sport event every four years, most recently in Australia's Gold Coast in April.
Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth at the height of violent land seizures, when white farmers were evicted in favour of landless black people in a policy that wrecked the agriculture sector and triggered national economic collapse.

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