SPECIEES Related Articles
December 13, 2009 - The Independent - UK
Will Galapagos become the Pacific's Ibiza?
 A fierce rearguard action is being fought to prevent the Galapagos – the world's most renowned wildlife site – being damaged by development. Hotels, discos, and new townships have sprung up on several of the islands, and the population has doubled in 10 years. Darwin's pristine wilderness is now a permanent home to 30,000 people, plus 173,000 visitors each year.
Although 97 per cent of the islands form a national park in which development is banned, towns outside the park have mushroomed. They have become a Mecca for young Ecuadoreans arriving from the mainland on cheap air tickets. Their demand for discos and beaches could turn parts of the archipelago into the Ibiza of the eastern Pacific. The islands, 600 miles from the mainland, are battling several huge problems at once. There are the hordes of visitors, which have quadrupled since 1990 and more than doubled since 2005. There is environmental pollution and also the introduction of invasive flora and fauna such as goats, rats, dogs and cattle.
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SPECIEES in the News:
May 2, 2009 - New York Daily News
Hope for Hopeless Homeless Animals
by Amy Sacks
Watching Piggy bounce playfully down Third Ave. the other day, it was hard to believe just a month ago the energetic mutt was a stray on the streets in the Dominican Republic.
There, the terrified puppy was found emaciated, covered with ticks and maggots, had a shabby excuse for fur and a large open wound on his hind leg.
But today, the sweet, 7-month-old border collie/Australian shepherd mix is spending his days romping through Central Park and exploring his new digs on the upper East Side.
Despite losing his hind leg, Piggy now has a new shiny coat, lots of new friends, a steady supply of food and a loving home that he shares with three cats.
"The transformation he's gone through is amazing," said Piggy's owner, Tod Emko, who fell in love with the sickly pup while volunteering in the Dominican Republic with the nonprofit group Animal Balance.
With the help of a team of volunteer veterinarians and animal professionals from around the globe, the animal welfare group spays and neuters cats and dogs in underdeveloped countries that have few available animal services or shelters.
Piggy was among the 389 cats and dogs to undergo spay or neuter surgery and receive medical care. The ailing puppy also underwent surgery to amputate his hind leg, which was severed when he was hit by a bus.
Emko believed it was unlikely a dog with three legs could survive on the streets with pack dogs, and arranged to bring the puppy home.
"Piggy is brilliant and heroic, and he didn't deserve any of the horrible things that happened to him," he said.
Another nonprofit, the Society to Prevent Exotic Contamination of Island Eco-Systems and Endangered Species (www.speciees.org) helped facilitate Piggy's move to the U.S.
Before beginning their work in the Dominican Republic, Animal Balance and S.P.E.C.I.E.E.S worked in collaboration with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to spay and neuter stray dogs and cats on the Galapagos Islands, and move them off the island in order to protect the fragile ecosystem.
The three groups work in collaboration to help needy animals around the world.
Emko, a freelance computer programmer, is about to embark on another trip to the Dominican Republic and the Galapagos to help more animals in need.
"There are so many cats and dogs that deserve the same chance as Piggy," he said.
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October 12, 2008 - The Guardian / Observer - UK
Tourism curbed in bid to save Galapagos haven
by Roy Carroll
credit: Tim Graham/Getty |
The volcanic archipelago studded off South America's Pacific coast is famous for unlikely creatures, big and small, which have evolved and thrived for millennia.
Charles Darwin's observations on the Galápagos Islands inspired his theory of natural selection and turned the rocky outcrops into a symbol of adaptation and survival. Flightless cormorants, giant tortoises, blue-footed boobies and marine iguanas all found a niche in the lava-scarred landscape.
And so, for a time, did a new arrival, a sub-set of the human species: the illegal migrant worker. For decades, thousands flocked from the impoverished Ecuadorean mainland and found jobs in the tourist industry as maids, waiters, cleaners and shop assistants.
Now, however, the migrants are vanishing - targeted in an unprecedented Ecuadorean government crackdown intended to rein in a breakneck tourism boom and save the archipelago's unique ecology.
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