September 1995, pgs. 70-71

Environment and Ecology

By R. Clemente Holder

Giant Squirrel Thought Extinct Discovered in Kashmir

A rare living specimen of the largest member of the squirrel family, the woolly flying squirrel, first scientifically described in 1888 and not seen again by scientists since 1924, has been found in the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir by two Americans from Watertown, NY.

The animal, which has a two-foot-long body in addition to a two-foot-long bushy tail, was considered extinct by most scientists until writer Peter Zahler and teacher Chantal Djetemann found a paw of one of the squirrels, apparently discarded by a predator, and then were presented with a live specimen by two Kashmiris to whom they had offered a $150 bounty. After photographing and describing the animal, they released it where it had been captured.

"It's a spectacular animal," Dr. Lawrence Heaney, head of the mammal division of the Field Museum in Chicago told Carol Kaesuk Yoon of the New York Times. "It's an enormous squirrel, the largest living member of the family. Just the idea of a gigantic squirrel gliding along from boulder to boulder above the point in the mountains where trees no longer grow—the discovery is a pretty neat thing."

"I was flabbergasted when I heard," said mammalogist Dr. Charles A. Woods of the University of Florida in Gainesville, who is writing a book on the mammals of Pakistan. I've worked all through there, in all sorts of high valleys in the mountains. We've really scoured the areas and never seen it."

Dr. George Schaller, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society who has been trying to get Pakistani reserves set up for endangered species, which also include the snow leopard, said he hoped the find would focus attention on the area's mountains, which are being deforested. "Many creatures are disappearing with nobody even knowing. So when you rediscover one, that's good news indeed."

Zahler spent $7,000 of his own money in a fruitless search for the squirrel, whose scientific name is Eupetaurus cinereus, in 1992. The discovery took place in the summer of 1994 toward the end of a second visit to the area partially funded by the World Wildlife Fund of Pakistan. Zahler is seeking endangered listing for the woolly flying squirrel from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Captive-Bred Arabian Oryx Returned to Saudi Empty Quarter

A herd of 23 Arabian oryx bred in captivity has been released in the Rub al-Khali, the Empty Quarter, their former habitat in Saudi Arabia. The animals are descendants of four oryx presented by the Saudi royal family to the World Wildlife Fund in 1963, when overhunting threatened to drive the oryx to extinction.

Under WWF supervision the animals were bred with other oryx already in private hands or in zoos. "By 1969 the animal was considered extinct" in the wild, the Swiss-based WWF explained in announcing the release. "That it didn't die out completely is a tribute to the Saudi royal family. Now, perhaps, the tide is turning...The successful oryx project is fine proof of Saudi Arabia's determination to restore and maintain its biological diversity."

The WWF said Saudi legislation will prevent hunting for the next five years in the empty quarter. Hunting of the oryx also is banned in neighboring Oman. Presiding over the ceremony marking release of the oryx were Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz, second deputy prime minister of Saudi Arabia, and World Wildlife Federation director Claude Martin.

Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians Cooperating on Environment

Peace negotiations have made possible a new era of transnational cooperation between Egyptian, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian environmentalists, according to spokesmen for EcoPeace, a non-governmental organization (NGO) whose members are drawn from all four nationalities. Officers of the group, organized last December, described some of their concerns at a Brookings Institution forum held June 22 in Washington, DC.

"Our shared home has been subject to vast environmental degradation that today threatens to reach crisis proportions," said EcoPeace's Israeli secretary-general, Eidion Bromberg. He said that 70 percent of the coral reef has been destroyed in some parts of the Gulf of Aqaba, upon which tourism industries in Jordan, Israel and Egypt all are heavily dependent.

The reef offers a natural underwater tourist attraction, but at present it is threatened by the discharge of raw sewage into the Gulf of Aqaba, along with sedimentation from construction and phosphate dust from Jordan's Aqaba and Israel's Eilat ports. The biggest threat, however, is use of Eilat for the importation of oil by Israel, the only country that imports oil through the environmentally fragile Gulf of Aqaba.

"One collision with one oil tanker and that's the end of the reef," Bromberg said. "If the coral reef is destroyed, there will be no tourism."

Asked by the Washington Jewish Week to comment on the subject, an official of the Israeli Environmental Ministry noted that "This is a very sensitive question...The ministry's position is to minimize the potential for damage to the area as much as possible. In my opinion, from the standpoint of the environment, it would be much better if there were no oil whatsoever in the gulf."

Dr. Adnan Enshassi, EcoPeace's Palestinian technical representative, who is on the board of Gaza's Environmental Protection and Research Institute, described training farmers to destroy insect pests without harming the environment. "We have to show people that there is a practical application for environmentalism, that this isn't just theory," he said.

"As much as it's a cliché, the environment knows no boundaries," Jordanian environmentalist Munqueth Mehyar pointed out. The delegation conferred in Washington with representatives of USAID and in New York with United Nations officials.

Kuwaitis Closely Monitored for Aftereffects of Oil Fires

Because nowhere in the world has a population received such enormous exposure to burning oil as did Kuwaitis after retreating Iraqi troops left 700 of their oil wells ablaze in 1991, the government of Kuwait plans to monitor the health of Kuwaitis closely for the next 25 to 30 years. So far, however, tests of 1,600 randomly selected non-smoking Kuwaitis indicate relatively low exposure to pollution.

Meanwhile environmental cleanup work continues in Kuwait, according to Kuwait in Brief, the monthly publication of the Kuwait Information Office in Washington, DC. The Kuwait Oil Company has extracted 20 million barrels of liquid oil from approximately 300 oil lakes, formed when oil gushed to the surface after the Iraqis blasted wellheads off most of Kuwait's producing oil wells.

Treatment of some 26 million cubic yards of remaining oil sludge, some of it difficult to reach because of the presence of unexploded live ammunition, will take years to complete. Meanwhile, however, the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) will monitor all fresh water aquifers in Kuwait in order to give priority to areas where oil sludge could seep through the soil and contaminate the water.

Kuwaiti scientists, along with one American and three Japanese teams, also are monitoring the presence of contaminants elsewhere from the settling of oil on the beaches and on the bottom of the Arabian Gulf, and the settling of smoke from the burning oil on the plants and surface of the fragile desert environment surrounding Kuwait. To date air quality has improved since the last of the fires were extinguished, water purity remains good, and locally produced food remains free of contaminants, according to Kuwait in Brief.

Abu Dhabi Distributes Seedlings

The municipality of Abu Dhabi distributed 55,000 shrub and tree seedlings to mark its 15th annual tree week beginning April 15. Of these, 40,000 were distributed to municipalities in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and 15,000 were distributed to residents for their home gardens.

Khalefa Al Qubaisi, head of the municipality's agricultural section, said that a total of 1,535 hectares of parks and other public areas were planted in the previous 12 months, while another 18,000 hectares also were covered with trees. He noted that 50,000 date palms also were planted along main roads and other areas of the city of Abu Dhabi and the Western Region of Abu Dhabi Emirate.

Fujairah Wildlife Survey Reveals Rare Species

Dr. Marijcke Jongbloed, coordinator of the Arabian Leopard Trust, said that South African wildlife specialists carrying out a survey for the Trust have discovered the existence in the Emirate of Fujairah, a component of the United Arab Emirates, of two rare mammals. Three Blandford's fox specimens were trapped and released early this year. The species, which also exists in Afghanistan, Iran and Sinai, has been previously recorded in the Arabian peninsula only in Salalah, capital of the Dhofar province of Oman, and once each in northern and southwestern Saudi Arabia.

Also recorded for the first time in Fujairah was a rare spiny mouse, a small rodent recorded only once before in the United Arab Emirates. The Arabian Leopard Trust survey is being carried out with the support of Fujairah's ruler, His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammed Al Sharqi.

R. Clemente Holder writes on human rights and environmental concerns from Washington, DC.