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As anthropogenic disturbance and habitat degradation
are the main threats to this camellia, one of the most urgent
conservation actions is to protect the three populations from
collection and habitat destruction. In addition, further ex situ
conservation, population reinforcement and population
restoration programmes are needed.
WENYUAN YANG
1,2
,LEI CAI
1
,ZHILING DAO
1
and
WEIBANG SUN
1
(wbsun@mail.kib.ac.cn)
1
Yunnan Key Laboratory for Integrative Conservation of
Plant Species with Extremely Small Populations, Kunming
Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yunnan,
China.
2
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,
China
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution licence CC BY 4.0.
First recorded bloom of the Critically Endangered
ironwood
Ostrya rehderiana
in Kunming Botanical
Garden
In March , the Critically Endangered ironwood tree
Ostrya rehderiana (family Betulaceae) blossomed for the
first time in Kunming Botanical Garden, China. This tree
was originally transplanted from the Hangzhou Botanical
Garden in . Its natural habitat is Tianmu Mountain,
Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Since its description in
, only a single remaining wild population of five mature
individuals is known, a consequence of extensive and long-
term anthropogenic disturbance. It is designated as a Class I
Protected Wild Plant Species in China and is included in the
national conservation initiative for Plant Species with
Extremely Small Populations.
Comparative research of O. rehderiana and its more
widely distributed relative, Ostrya chinensis, indicates that
the effective population size of O. rehderiana has declined
over the past , years, with an accumulation of deleteri-
ous mutations. On the brink of extinction, the remaining
wild population is safeguarded within a nature reserve.
Conservation efforts, including pollination management,
seed collection, germination, ex situ conservation and in
vitro cultivation, have been implemented for over decades.
More than , seedlings have been propagated, and eight
ex situ conservation sites have been established across
China.
In Kunming Botanical Garden, O. rehderiana, influenced
by Kunming’s cold climate and high altitude, has a slow
growth rate. The tree is . m tall and has a diameter at
breast height of .cm. Its crown measures .×
.m. Despite the tree taking approximately years to
bloom—a significantly delayed development—the event is
unprecedented and is significant for botanical records.
LIAN TAO
1,2
,WEIBANG SUN
1,3
and JING YANG
1,3
(yangjing@
mail.kib.ac.cn)
1
Kunming Botanical Garden, Kunming Institute of Botany,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China
2
College Forestry, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming,
Yunnan, China.
3
Yunnan Key Laboratory for Integrative
Conservation of Plant Species with Extremely Small
Populations, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution licence CC BY 4.0.
Potential evidence of the Critically Endangered
Arabian leopard in southern Saudi Arabia
The Critically Endangered Arabian leopard subspecies
Panthera pardus nimr is endemic to the Arabian
Peninsula. Until the early th century, leopards were
widespread across the north-western and south-western
mountains of Saudi Arabia. However, in the last
years the subspecies has been driven to the verge of
The Critically Endangered ironwood tree Ostrya rehderiana
blossoming for the first time in Kunming Botanical Garden,
China, in March . Photo: Lian Tao.
Conservation news 421
Oryx
, 2024, 58(4), 417–426 ©The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000589
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605324000589 Published online by Cambridge University Press
extinction in the country as a result of persecution, habi-
tat fragmentation and loss of prey species.
The national action plan for the Arabian leopard consid-
ered the population to number individuals, in the Sarawat
and Hijaz mountains (Islam et al., ,Cat News, ,
–), but a – camera trap study across most of
the leopard’s historical range in Saudi Arabia found no
evidence of its occurrence (Dunford et al., ,Oryx,,
–). However, this study did not include the mountain-
ous areas along the Saudi–Yemen border. In October ,
we installed camera traps in km
of the mountainous
border area. The camera traps did not detect the leopard, but
we found four potential leopard scrape markings –km
from the border. Three of the scrapes were along a wadi
trail in soft soil at , m elevation and the fourth was in a
cave at , m. Leopards are known to scrape the ground
with their hind paws to mark their territories. In Oman,
leopards commonly leave their signs in soft substrates, includ-
ing in caves and overhangs. The length and width of the four
scrapes were – and – cm, respectively, similar to re-
cords of leopard scrapes in Iran and Oman (Ghoddousi et al.,
,Zoology in the Middle East,,–).
These scrapes are potential evidence of current Arabian
leopard occurrence in southern Saudi Arabia. There are re-
cent unconfirmed reports of leopards along the border
area, and the mountains where we found the scrapes ex-
tend into the mountains of Yemen. Thus, it is likely that
the scrapes were from dispersing leopards. We recommend
extensive camera-trap surveys along the border area to as-
certain whether the leopard is extant in the region, and
thus help conservation authorities in Saudi Arabia plan
for the protection of any remaining leopards in the
country.
HADI ALHIKMANI (h.alhakmani@rcu.gov.sa),
KHALID ALHIKMANI,ABDULLAH ALSHEHRI and
LOURENS VAN ESSEN
Royal Commission for AlUla, Taif, Saudi Arabia
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution licence CC BY 4.0.
23rd Sharjah International Conservation Forum for
Arabia’s biodiversity
The rd Annual Sharjah International Conservation
Forum for Arabia’s Biodiversity was held at Sharjah Safari,
United Arab Emirates (UAE), during –February .
This Forum brought together over participants region-
ally from Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman,
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen and internationally from
Australia, France, Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Russia,
South Africa, the UK and the USA. The Sharjah workshops
are hosted by the Environment and Protected Areas
Authority, Government of Sharjah, under the patronage of
H.H. Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammed al Qasimi, Member
of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah. The rd
meeting had multiple themes: species prioritization for con-
servation, rewilding and multi-species translocations, con-
servation genetics and marine strandings.
In the prioritization theme, using general overview
presentations and international and regional case studies,
participants were introduced to approaches to species
prioritization through scoring species against selected
criteria, including classification of extinction risk by applying
Red List assessments derived in previous forum meetings.
Working groups applied criteria to a subset of Arabian species
to rank their importance for conservation action.
The rewilding theme focused on trophic rewilding and
the use of conservation translocations to restore trophic in-
teractions to promote self-regulating biodiverse ecosystems,
and looked at case studies involving seagrasses, marine and
freshwater fishes, and terrestrial Arabian fauna, including
the restoration of predator–prey systems.
The conservation genetics theme was led by the Royal
Zoological Society of Scotland’s WildGenes laboratory,
extending the meeting’s theme by introducing the
application of genetic scorecards to assess risk to wildlife gen-
etic diversity. Genetic scorecards are an assessment tool re-
commended by the Global Species Action Plan to support
monitoring of genetic diversity under Target of the
Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Working groups used Regional Red Listing outputs from pre-
vious Forum workshops, and conservation genetics literature,
to make draft assessments of key threatened species.
The marine stranding theme focused on marine turtles and
sea snakes and worked towards the formation of a marine
stranding response network. The first session was devoted to
organizations already active in marine animal strandings.
Speakers shared research on risks and pollutants affecting
marine animals, including oil spills, boat strikes, micro/macro-
plastics and pesticide toxins. Lectures on the anatomy and
pathology of sea snakes and turtles complimented autopsies
performed on several species. Standardized sample and data
collecting protocols were developed.
Possible Arabian leopard scrape mark found on October
in southern Saudi Arabia. Photo: Hadi Al Hikmani.
422 Conservation news
Oryx
, 2024, 58(4), 417–426 ©The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000577
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605324000589 Published online by Cambridge University Press