The sad case of the Norfolk Island morepork shows we need a way to control or eradicate invasive rodents without killing native species. When pest rats and mice decimate populations of native species, pest control is a no-brainer. But what if baiting rats protects threatened songbirds, while poisoning critically endangered owls?...
Scientists tracked a young #whale's journey before he vanished. What they learned could help save his species.
#Bishop’s story, from birth to presumed death, shows the extreme danger facing right #whales, which could be extinct in 3 decades if they continue to disappear at the present rate. Bishop’s species is not doomed to #extinction …but time is running out.
In most ways #Bishop was a normal #RightWhale. For the first year of his life, his mother nursed & protected him, & he learned to feed by swimming, mouth agape, through patches of plankton floating near the surface.
But on Jan 20, 2015, Bishop became something more: a precious source of data that would help scientists better understand the dangers afflicting his species.
The delay has frustrated #whale advocates, who say more urgency is required. “As we watch this species go extinct one by one, the solution sits idle in the hands of the administration,” said Kathleen Collins, a snr marine campaign manager at the Intl Fund for #AnimalWelfare.
As a 1-yr-old, #Bishop managed to weave through #vessel-filled waters unscathed. Other #RightWhales aren’t as lucky.
So far this year, a dead female turned up off Virginia w/ a dislocated spine, a calf was discovered in Georgia w/head lacerations, & a young female was found — again in Georgia — w/ a fractured skull. All the injuries are consistent with #vessel strikes.
Many cats despise mud and water, but not so the fishing cat. This enigmatic medium-sized cat species roams South and Southeast Asia and is uniquely adapted to life in wetlands.
Little known and underresearched, it faces an uphill battle against multiple threats, including loss of its wetland habitat to humanity’s incursions, and escalating climate change, as extreme drought and rising coastal waters disrupt aquatic ecosystems.
Indonesia’s largest deforesting company has continued to clear peatland despite an order by the government for the firm to stop clearing rainforests.
The company in question is pulpwood producer PT Mayawana Persada.
Since 2016, the company has cleared more than 35,000 hectares (86,500 acres) of forests to establish monoculture pulpwood plantations in its concession in West Kalimantan province.
'We invited biologists but they didn’t want to go because they said there’s nothing going on there. We constantly remind them they weren’t there when we made this historic biological discovery; we have to rub it in.’
Hopes for a worldwide plastics treaty gained some momentum at the fourth of five scheduled summits to hash out an agreement. But while the week-long session of the UN International Negotiating Committee made some headway, it didn’t leave environmentalists feeling overly optimistic.
In Nepal’s sacred Tsum Valley, Buddhist community members are conflicted about the ongoing construction of a road that will pass through the region.
The Tsum Valley is one of the few, if not last, remaining beyul, or sacred valleys, governed by customary and Buddhist laws, where humans and wildlife have lived together in harmony for more than a millennium.
In the wake of the plastics treaty talks in Ottawa, a new report highlights the severe impacts of plastics and petrochemicals on Arctic Indigenous communities.
Indigenous delegates were left with bittersweet feelings that negotiations did not lead to commitments to cut plastic production, while oil companies and producing countries say more recycling is the answer.
Is my small raised bed meadow a 'habitat'? Absolutely.
Ignoring the multitude of tiny flies, aphids and mites and looking just at the medium to large more ornate insects and spiders, the species count grows by at least five a week during the warmer months.
That despite my inattentiveness and their propensity to hide. Many are authentically meadow creatures, common there but not ordinarily in gardens.
The ability of insects to home in on a tiny patch is extraordinary. Though from their perspective it is a vast jungle with many different microclimates.
It acts as a hotel between larger wild patches and as home in its own right. Anyone with a garden can and should do this.
A ‘conservation conundrum’ – when rat control to conserve one species threatens another (theconversation.com)
The sad case of the Norfolk Island morepork shows we need a way to control or eradicate invasive rodents without killing native species. When pest rats and mice decimate populations of native species, pest control is a no-brainer. But what if baiting rats protects threatened songbirds, while poisoning critically endangered owls?...