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Afghan northwest hit by plague of locusts
Some 300 tons of locusts have been killed by people in the
northwestern province of Badghis alone in recent weeks, Abdul
Ghafar Ahmadi, a senior official from the agriculture ministry,
said on Saturday, citing provincial officials.
Koalas Under Threat From Climate Change
New research shows increased temperatures and carbon dioxide levels are a threat to the Australian national icon, the koala.
Professor Ian Hume, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and his students from the University of Sydney have been researching the effects of CO2 increases and temperature rises on eucalypts.
Dying bats in the Northeast remain a mystery
Investigations continue into the cause of a mysterious illness that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of bats since March 2008. At more than 25 caves and mines in the northeastern U.S, bats exhibiting a condition now referred to as “white-nosed syndrome”� have been dying.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently issued a Wildlife Health Bulletin, advising wildlife and conservation officials throughout the U.S. to be on the lookout for the condition known as “white-nose syndrome”� and to report suspected cases of the disease.
Australian platypus genome a link to evolution
Australia's unique duck-billed platypus -- an egg-laying, furry animal with web feet that spends most of its time underwater -- is in fact part bird, part reptile and part mammal according to its gene map.
A team of international scientists released the platypus genome on Thursday, saying its complex sequence would aid the study of human evolution -- particularly the development of the immune, nervous and reproductive systems.
Arctic ice melt could see rise of "Grolar bear"
LONDON: Scientists have suggested that due to the adverse effects of Arctic ice melting, the hybrid of a polar bear and grizzly bear - dubbed the 'grolar bear', might rise in numbers.
According to a report in The Sun , the effects of climate change means that the hybrid bears could become more common as their habitats increasingly overlap due to global warming.
Seed dispersal in mauritius: dead as a dodo?
Walking through the last rainforests on the volcanic island of Mauritius, located some 800 km east of Madagascar, one is surrounded by ghosts. Since human colonisation in the 17th century, the island has lost most of its unique animals. The litany includes the famous flightless dodo, giant tortoises, parrots, pigeons, fruitbats, and giant lizards. It is comparatively easy to notice the loss of a species, but much more difficult to realise how many interactions have been lost as a result.
India tightens security to fight rhino poachers
uthorities in India's remote northeast said they were increasing security in the world's biggest reserve for the endangered great one-horned rhinoceros to save them from poachers.
Poachers have killed at least 10 rhinos in two national parks in Assam state since January, eight of them at the Kaziranga National Park.
Cubs a ray of hope in India's fight to save tigers
Fourteen tiger cubs have been spotted in a leading Indian sanctuary, a rare piece of good news in the country's fight to protect its dwindling population of big cats from poachers and habitat destruction.
The cubs have been sighted regularly over the past few weeks in Ranthambore National Park in western Rajasthan, R.N. Mehrotra, the state's chief wildlife warden, told Reuters on Tuesday.
New Reason For Bee Hive Collapse: Ecologists Tease Out Private Lives Of Plants And Their Pollinators
The quality of pollen a plant produces is closely tied to its sexual habits, ecologists have discovered. As well as helping explain the evolution of such intimate relationships between plants and pollinators, the study -- one of the first of its kind and published online in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology -- also helps explain the recent dramatic decline in certain bumblebee species found in the shrinking areas of species-rich chalk grasslands and hay meadows across Northern Europe.
Climate change could hit tropical wildlife hardest
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Polar bears may have it relatively easy. It's the tropical creatures that could really struggle if the climate warms even a few degrees in places that are already hot, scientists reported on Monday.
That doesn't mean polar bears and other wildlife in the polar regions won't feel the impact of climate change. They probably will, because that is where the warming is expected to be most extreme, as much as 18 degrees F (10 degrees C) by the end of this century.
Beavers Offer Solution to Climate Change
In the Southwest U.S., biologists are talking about returning beavers to rivers they once inhabited in order to fight droughts — which are expected to get worse as the globe warms. Beaver dams create great sponges that store lots of water.
Poaching is jeopardizing conservation efforts in Greece
An adult lesser white-fronted goose named Mánnu was found dead at Lake Kerkini, south of the Greek-Bulgarian border, in an area where hunting is prohibited. An autopsy confirmed a poacher killed the bird with a shotgun.
The death represents some 5 per cent of the Fennoscandian (Northern Europe) breeding males, according to Scandinavian partners in a project to protect the birds which breed in northernmost Norway. “This is dramatic, because loss of adult reproductive birds has significant negative impact on the recruitment of the small population”�, said Dr. Ingar Jostein Oien from BirdLife Norway.
U.S. closes most of West Coast to salmon fishing
The U.S. government on Thursday closed almost all of the ocean off the West Coast to salmon fishing, clearing the way for governors of states hard hit by years of declining catches to seek federal relief aid for losses estimated at $290 million.
West Coast salmon populations have declined sharply in the last few years, with experts citing a variety of reasons including climate change and hungry sea lions.
Death of 500 ducks in oil sands tragic: Imperial CEO
The death of about 500 ducks that landed in a pond of oily, toxic sludge operated by Canada's biggest oil sands producer was tragic, the chief executive of Imperial Oil Ltd said on Thursday.
Imperial has a 25 percent stake in oil sand producer Syncrude Canada Ltd, owner of the tailings pond in northern Alberta, where the ducks died earlier this week because a warning system meant to keep them off wasn't operating.
Tokyo's panda dies; a chance for China diplomacy?
TOKYO (Reuters) - The last giant panda at Tokyo's main zoo has died, raising the question of whether Chinese President Hu Jintao might engage in some panda diplomacy when he visits next week.
Ling Ling, a 22-year-old male giant panda popular among zoo visitors, died overnight at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, an official at the zoo said on Wednesday.
Asian vultures disappearing faster than dodo
LONDON (Reuters) - Wild Asian vultures could become extinct in 10 years unless officials stop the use of a livestock drug that has caused the birds to decline faster than the dodo, British and Indian scientists said on Wednesday.
A new study shows the population of oriental white-backed vultures has plunged 99.9 percent since 1992 while the numbers of two species, the long-billed and slender-billed vultures, together have fallen by nearly 97 percent.
New species discovered in Brazil
Researchers discovered a legless lizard and a tiny woodpecker along with 12 other suspected new species in Brazil’s Cerrado, one of the world’s 34 biodiversity conservation hotspots.
The Cerrado’s wooded grassland once covered an area half the size of Europe, but is now being converted to cropland and ranchland at twice the rate of the neighboring Amazon rainforest, resulting in the loss of native vegetation and unique species.
Insects Use Plants Like A Telephone
Dutch ecologist Roxina Soler and her colleagues have discovered that subterranean and aboveground herbivorous insects can communicate with each other by using plants as telephones. Subterranean insects issue chemical warning signals via the leaves of the plant. This way, aboveground insects are alerted that the plant is already ”�occupied’.
Aboveground, leaf-eating insects prefer plants that have not yet been occupied by subterranean root-eating insects. Subterranean insects emit chemical signals via the leaves of the plant, which warn the aboveground insects about their presence. This messaging enables spatially-separated insects to avoid each other, so that they do not unintentionally compete for the same plant.
California wildfire forces 1,000 to evacuate
A wildfire that began along a popular hiking trail forced 1,000 people to evacuate their homes in the hills northeast of Los Angeles on Sunday, officials said.
The cause of the nearly 400-acre fire, which started Saturday afternoon as Southern California logged near-record temperatures, was still under investigation, said Elisa Weaver, a spokeswoman for the city of Sierra Madre, California.
Polar bear seen in trouble, not endangered
The polar bear, a symbol of Canada's far north as well as the effects of climate change on the sensitive Arctic environment, is in trouble, but it is not endangered or threatened with extinction, a Canadian advisory panel said on Friday.
The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada gave the polar bear its weakest classification, that of "special concern," but the Canadian government would nonetheless have to develop a management plan to protect the animals if it agrees with the new label.
Bangkok market a hub for illegal international trade in freshwater turtles and tortoises
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia—Thailand is a major hub for the international trade in illegal freshwater turtles and tortoises, finds a new report, Pet freshwater turtle and tortoise trade in Chatuchak Market, Bangkok, Thailand, launched today by TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, a joint programme of WWF and IUCN.
Rare leopards captured by camera in east Siberia
A camera trap in Kedrovaya Pad reserve has captured rare footage of one of the world’s most endangered cats.
Eight Far Eastern Leopards were photographed in the reserve, located in the Primorsky Krai, during a census being conducted by WWF-Russia and the Institute for Sustainable Use of Nature Resources.
New Fish Farms Move from Ocean to Warehouse
Earlier this week, on a spring day in April, John Stubblefield walked past the blue tanks of striped bass, Atlantic sea bream, and cobia stored inside a Baltimore, Maryland, laboratory. "In this tank, it's spring in May. This tank it's spring in September," he said.
At the University of Maryland's Center for Marine Biotechnology, Stubblefield and his fellow researchers are not only altering nature, they are creating what may be the next generation of seafood.
Arctic marine mammals on thin ice
The loss of sea ice due to climate change could spell disaster for polar bears and other Arctic marine mammals. The April Special Issue of Ecological Applications examines such potential effects, puts them in historical context, and describes possible conservation measures to mitigate them. The assessment reflects the latest thinking of experts representing multiple scientific disciplines.
Sea ice is the common habitat feature uniting these unique and diverse Arctic inhabitants.
More space for species in Europe
Brown bears, wolves, lynx, owls and black storks have been given vast new areas to roam in as the European Commission accepted new areas corresponding to two-thirds the size of The Netherlands to its Natura 2000 network of protected natural areas.
Many of the new areas are in central and eastern Europe, including a significant part of the Carpathian Mountains. Slovakia has added a wealth of sites, including for example the traditional farming area of Mala Fatra.
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