The Endangered Fossa

The Fossa

The fossa is a small mammal endemic to the island of Madagascar, just off the southeast coast of Africa. For many years this animal was thought to be a cat, but recently has been confirmed to be a member of the mongoose family. Living in heavily wooded, hilly areas in the center of the island, the fossa is the largest carnivore on Madagascar, whose hunting traits and felinity have drawn comparisons to a small cougar. It is considered a top predator in its habitat, and can grow up to six feet long. The fossa is a terror to lemurs, who make up over half of its diet, as anyone who’s seen the movie Madagascar can attest!

Ha. But seriously these creatures are lethal hunters, active night and day. Unfortunately like most of the other animals on the world's endangered list, the fossa are losing their habitat in great swathes across the enormous island, losing almost 90% of the range they once used to enjoy. Logging companies, who make a killing off the many rare woods that grow in Madagascar as well as clearing huge tracts of land for farming, have deforested so effectively that in a relatively short time they’ve achieved near devastation of the island's once vast forests. Additionally, human fear has led to poaching of these animals, mostly due to worries about livestock. Unfounded fears of attacks on humans by fossa have also contributed to this continued decimation of the fossa population.

If the fossa are to disappear, the dwindling habitat they call home will experience what many such ecosystems suffer when they lose a top predator; primarily the explosion of populations of smaller animals that had been the predators’ prey; in this case lemurs and many other small rodents. These populations can in turn decimate populations of smaller creatures since there are so many of them, as well as destroying larger and larger amounts of flora in the former range of the top predator. In any ecosystem the delicate balance of predator and prey, or the food chain as it were, has taken millennia to evolve, and the sudden major changes that human destruction can have often cause extended devastation to an ecosystem that is so lasting and far-reaching it can be difficult to fully perceive.

What can be done to save the fossa? Most of these efforts must be made in place, in Madagascar itself: farmers must use the land they already have more efficiently instead of constantly destroying more forest for more acres of arable land. Additionally, the people in the regions bordering the fossa’s habitat must be better educated about the fossa’s almost non-existant threat to humans, as well as strengthening laws already in place against the hunting/poaching of this animal. What can be done internationally, most importantly, is the decrease our import of the rare, expensive woods from Madagascar (especially ebony) and be sure you are buying sustainably grown lumber.  Below are some links with more information about efficient farming and sustainable lumber.

 http://veganorganic.net/2012/06/what-is-efficient-agriculture/

http://www.therenewableplanet.com/green-building/green-building-materials/sustainable-lumber.aspx