Strange, fanged deer persists in Afghanistan

WCS study confirms that endangered musk deer still live in Nuristan Province -- some 60 years after last sighting

2014-10-31

(Press-News.org) WCS study confirms that endangered musk deer still live in Nuristan Province – some 60 years after last sighting Species targeted by poachers: Musk deer scent glands are more valuable than gold Study appears in the October issue of the journal Oryx NEW YORK (October 31, 2014) – More than 60 years after its last confirmed sighting, a strange deer with vampire-like fangs still persists in the rugged forested slopes of northeast Afghanistan according to a research team led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which confirmed the species presence during recent surveys.

Known as the Kashmir musk deer – one of seven similar species found in Asia – the last scientific sighting in Afghanistan was believed to have been made by a Danish survey team traversing the region in 1948.

The study was published in the Oct. 22nd edition of the journal Oryx. Authors include: Stephane Ostrowski and Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Haqiq Rahmani of the University of Leeds, and Jan Mohammad Ali and Rita Ali of Waygal, Nuristan, Afghanistan.

The species is categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List due to habitat loss and poaching. Its scent glands are coveted by wildlife traffickers and are considered more valuable by weight than gold, fetching as much as $45,000/kilo on the black market. The male's distinct saber-like tusks are used during the rutting season to compete with other males.

The survey team recorded five sightings, including a solitary male in the same area on three occasions, one female with a juvenile, and one solitary female, which may have been the same individual without her young. All sightings were in steep rocky outcrops interspersed with alpine meadows and scattered, dense high bushes of juniper and rhododendron. According to the team, the musk deer were discrete, cryptic, difficult to spot, and could not be photographed.

The authors say that targeted conservation of the species and its habitat are needed for it to survive in Afghanistan.

Although the deteriorating security conditions in Nuristan did not allow NGOs to remain in Nuristan after 2010, the Wildlife Conservation Society maintains contact with the local people it has trained and will pursue funding to continue ecosystem research and protection in Nuristan when the situation improves.

"Musk deer are one of Afghanistan's living treasures," said co-author Peter Zahler, WCS Deputy Director of Asia Programs. "This rare species, along with better known wildlife such as snow leopards, are the natural heritage of this struggling nation. We hope that conditions will stabilize soon to allow WCS and local partners to better evaluate conservation needs of this species."

INFORMATION: This study was made possible by the generous support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). With USAID support, WCS has been helping to build Afghanistan's capacity for sustainably managing their natural resources at both the government and community levels, including the recent creation of the country's first (2009) and second (2014) official protected areas – Band-e-Amir and Wakhan National Parks.

Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) MISSION: WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. VISION: WCS envisions a world where wildlife thrives in healthy lands and seas, valued by societies that embrace and benefit from the diversity and integrity of life on earth. To achieve our mission, WCS, based at the Bronx Zoo, harnesses the power of its Global Conservation Program in more than 60 nations and in all the world's oceans and its five wildlife parks in New York City, visited by 4 million people annually. WCS combines its expertise in the field, zoos, and aquarium to achieve its conservation mission. Visit: http://www.wcs.org; http://www.facebook.com/TheWCS; http://www.youtube.com/user/WCSMedia Follow: @thewcs.

CONTACT: STEPHEN SAUTNER: (1-718-220-3682; ssautner@wcs.org JOHN DELANEY: (1-718-220-3275; jdelaney@wcs.org)

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

A matter of life and death: Cell death proteins key to fighting disease

2014-10-31

Melbourne researchers have uncovered key steps involved in programmed cell death, offering new targets for the treatment of diseases including lupus, cancers and neurodegenerative diseases. The research teams from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute worked together to discover the three-dimensional structure of a key cell death protein called Bak and reveal the first steps in how it causes cell death. Their studies were published in Molecular Cell and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Programmed cell death, known as apoptosis, occurs naturally when ...

New step towards eradication of H5N1 bird flu

2014-10-31

A University of Adelaide-led project has developed a new test that can distinguish between birds that have been vaccinated against the H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus or "bird flu" with those that have been naturally infected. This is a significant step in the fight against this often fatal strain of avian influenza which is widespread in the poultry populations of South East Asia, particularly Indonesia and Vietnam. It causes global concern because of its possible transmission to humans and the threat of a pandemic if it mutates to a form that can be easily passed ...

'Divide and rule' -- raven politics

2014-10-31

Thomas Bugnyar and his team have been studying the behavior of approximately 300 wild ravens in the Northern Austrian Alps for years. They observed that ravens slowly build alliances through affiliative interactions such as grooming and playing. However, they also observed that these affiliative interactions were regularly interrupted by a third individual. Although in about 50 % of the cases these interventions were successful and broke up the two affiliating ravens, intervening can be potentially risky when the two affiliating ravens team up and chase away the intervening ...

Efficient genetic editing

2014-10-31

As potential next-generation therapeutics and research tools, few life sciences technologies hold more promise than genome-editing proteins – molecules that can be programmed to alter specific genes in order to treat or even cure genetic diseases. There's at least one catch though – getting genome-editing proteins into cells, where they need to be to access the genome, is a major challenge, especially in live animals or human patients. Conventionally, researchers have delivered the DNA encoding these genome-editing proteins into cells and then relied on ...

Countries can learn from Cyprus' 2013 economic crash, according to Imperial report

2014-10-31

In March 2013, Cyprus agreed to a €17 billion (£13.42 billion) international bailout by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission (EC). The magnitude of the bailout was 100 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and also involved a bank bail in. This is when the borrower's creditors are forced to bear some of the burden by having a portion of their debt written off in order for the bank to have sustainable level of debt. The package of measures was aimed at preventing the country from facing the ...

Tweet much to gain popularity is an inefficient strategy

2014-10-31

The imbalanced structure of Twitter, where some users have many followers and the large majority barely has several dozen followers, means that messages from the more influential have much more impact. Less popular users can compensate for this by increasing their activity and their tweets, but the outcome is costly and inefficient. This was confirmed by an analysis of the social network performed by researchers from the Technical University of Madrid. What can Twitter users do to increase their influence? To answer this question, a team of researchers at the Technical ...

Tropical Storm Vance's center looks like a pumpkin to NASA's Terra satellite

2014-10-31

Tropical Depression 21E strengthened overnight on Oct. 30 and by Halloween morning, Tropical Storm Vance was haunting the waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. In a false-colored infrared image from NASA's Terra satellite on Oct. 31, the strong thunderstorms around the center resemble a pumpkin. Tropical Depression 21E formed on Oct. 30 after struggling for days as a low pressure area. Just a day later it strengthened into a tropical storm and was renamed Vance. NASA's Terra satellite passed over Vance on October 31 at 4:55 UTC (12:55 a.m. EDT) – the witching hour ...

Raising cryptography's standards

2014-10-31

Most modern cryptographic schemes rely on computational complexity for their security. In principle, they can be cracked, but that would take a prohibitively long time, even with enormous computational resources. There is, however, another notion of security — information-theoretic security — which means that even an adversary with unbounded computational power could extract no useful information from an encrypted message. Cryptographic schemes that promise information-theoretical security have been devised, but they're far too complicated to be practical. In ...

The digital therapist

2014-10-31

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 31, 2014 -- Imagine this scenario: You've been feeling persistently blue lately, so you pull out your phone. Instead of asking Siri to tell you a joke, though, you open an app that records you simply talking about your day. A few hours later, your therapist sends you a message asking if you'd like to meet. A program like this one that analyzes your speech and uses it to gain information about your mental health could soon be feasible, thanks in part to research from the University of Maryland showing that certain vocal features change as patients' ...

Report examines health care challenges for pregnant women enrolled in covered California

2014-10-31

WASHINGTON, DC (October 31, 2014) — A new report by Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) at the George Washington University examines the challenge of maintaining enriched health care for pregnant women who are enrolled in Covered California and who are also eligible for Medi-Cal, which includes the Comprehensive Perinatal Services Program (CPSP). The CPSP, whose roots are in one of the nation's most successful programs ever developed for low-income pregnant women, makes enriched maternity care available to pregnant women facing elevated ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

On-demand upgraded recycling of polyethylene and construction of sustainable multifunctional materials based on the "LEGO" strategy

January 2026 issues of APA journals feature new research on autism, pediatric anxiety, psychedelic therapy, suicide prevention and more

Private equity acquired more than 500 autism centers over the past decade, new study shows

New cervical cancer screening guidelines from the US Department of Health and Human Services

Estimated burden of COVID-19 illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in the US from October 2022 to September 2024

A CRISPR screen reveals many previously unrecognized genes required for brain development and a new neurodevelopmental disorder

Hot flush treatment has anti-breast cancer activity, study finds

Securing AI systems against growing cybersecurity threats

[Press-News.org] Strange, fanged deer persists in Afghanistan
WCS study confirms that endangered musk deer still live in Nuristan Province -- some 60 years after last sighting