Seabirds are in a precarious position as their breeding areas are threatened by climate breakdown and overfishing
Five seabirds have been added to the UK’s conservation red list, meaning they are at dire risk of local extinction.
The government has been urged to act as the arctic tern, Leach’s storm petrel, common gull, great skua and great black-backed gull join other seabird species such as the puffin on the list after severe population declines.
Continue reading...The birds are the first creatures to be granted the honour since conurbation gained city status in 2022
Hamish, a handsome Indian blue peacock, is pecking at a cauliflower head with determination in the late afternoon sunshine in Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline. Angel, a delicate white peahen, sits at the top of the outdoor aviary, calling to her chicks.
The birds appear only mildly perturbed at the bagpipers and local dignitaries assembling for a short ceremony on Wednesday afternoon to award them the freedom of the city. They are the first creatures of any species to be granted this honour since Dunfermline, in Fife, was conferred city status in May 2022.
Continue reading...Extinct in central Europe for 300 years, 36 northern bald ibis are following an ultralight aircraft on their long-forgotten migration route from Austria to Spain
The northern bald ibis was extinct in central Europe for 300 years. Now, it has returned – and scientist “foster parents” aboard a tiny plane are teaching the birds to fly their long-forgotten migration routes.
Thirty-six of these endangered birds are now following an ultralight aircraft 1,740 miles (2,800km ) from Austria to Spain, on a trip that could take up to 50 days to complete.
Continue reading...The cameras that made the falcons a social media phenomenon are rolling again for a new breeding season
For more than three decades, Melbourne’s famed Collins Street peregrine falcons have treated a CBD skyscraper ledge as home.
Now, the cameras that made them a social media phenomenon are again rolling for a new breeding season, with the first egg laid this week.
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Continue reading...Dogs, horses, birds, goats and pet cockroaches were seized from a home in Riverside county and placed in care
Animal services officials in southern California have rescued more than 100 neglected animals including dogs, horses, birds and pet cockroaches from a home in Riverside county.
Riverside county officials served a search warrant on Wednesday at a property that was discovered following the Nixon fire that burned more than 5,200 acres (2,100 hectares) in July, according to a statement released on Thursday.
Continue reading...The wind hovering behaviour of the bird of prey is the ‘closest representation in the avian world to fixed wing aircraft’, says researcher
When researchers were hunting for a way to make drones fly more smoothly as they delivered food and packages, they turned to an unusual source for inspiration: the common kestrel.
RMIT and the University of Bristol researchers began tracking the flight motions of two Australian kestrels. They attached reflective markers to the birds and analysed their motion using a motion tracking system – the same technology used to create CGI effects.
Continue reading...The birds, protected as an endangered species, will remain under zoo care for year and a half before being sent into wild
Nearly 20 new California condors will fly across the western sky after a record-setting hatching of baby birds this summer at the Los Angeles Zoo.
The zoo marked a record of 17 California condor chicks hatched during this year’s breeding season, with staff members preparing to set the birds into the harsh wild as they are currently protected as an endangered species.
Continue reading...Study identifies 16,825 sites around the world where prioritising conservation would prevent extinction of thousands of unique species
Protecting just 1.2% of the Earth’s surface for nature would be enough to prevent the extinction of the world’s most threatened species, according to a new study.
Analysis published in the journal Frontiers in Science has found that the targeted expansion of protected areas on land would be enough to prevent the loss of thousands of the mammals, birds, amphibians and plants that are closest to disappearing.
Continue reading...Cocaine traffickers have put two-thirds of Central America’s key habitats for threatened birds under threat, study finds
Cocaine consumption is threatening rare tropical birds as narco-traffickers move into some of the planet’s most remote forests to evade drug crackdowns, a study has warned.
Two-thirds of key forest habitats for birds in Central America are at risk of being destroyed by “narco-driven” deforestation, according to the paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Continue reading...Supermarket’s restriction applies everywhere except WA as more than 500,000 chickens euthanised due to avian influenza
Egg farmers have rushed to reassure consumers that there is no shortage of eggs after the supermarket chain Coles announced a two-carton limit in response to the avian influenza outbreak in Victoria.
The highly pathogenic H7N3 strain of bird flu has been detected on four farms in western Victoria, and another highly pathogenic strain, H7N9, has been detected at a fifth farm. More than half a million chickens have been euthanised in an effort to stop the spread of the disease.
Continue reading...Up to 90% ‘lost in the blink of an eye’, say scientists studying Cyclone Ilsa’s effect on birds on Western Australian island
Increased tropical cyclones due to global heating could lead to dramatic declines in seabird populations, according to a new study.
Scientists found that after Cyclone Ilsa – a category-5 tropical cyclone – hit Bedout Island in Western Australia in April 2023, several seabird populations experienced a collapse of 80-90% due to the storm at the internationally important breeding site.
Continue reading...Vulnerable birds deviating from migratory routes by up to 155 miles, which could affect breeding
Eagles that have migratory routes through Ukraine have shifted their flight paths to avoid areas affected by the conflict, researchers have found.
GPS data has revealed that greater spotted eagles not only made large detours after the invasion began, but also curtailed pitstops to rest and refuel, or avoided making them altogether.
Continue reading...State’s department of fish and wildlife says the brown pelicans are showing signs of malnutrition, but that the cause is still unclear
Hundreds of starving and stranded brown pelicans have turned up along the California coast in recent weeks in what wildlife advocates have described as a “crisis”.
In Newport Beach in southern California, lifeguards came upon two dozen sick pelicans on a pier last week. The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, the non-profit caring for the animals, said they had treated more than 100 other birds who were anemic, dehydrated and extremely underweight.
Continue reading...The set of folios published by John Gould will be presented at Firsts book fair in London in mid-May
John Gould was one of the most sought-after taxidermists in 19th-century London, commissioned by King George IV to stuff the first giraffe to arrive in England.
But Gould’s lasting legacy is birds. He travelled the world documenting and cataloguing as many avian species as he could find, many of them never seen before, earning him the nickname the Bird Man and the appointment as official “bird stuffer” to the Zoological Society.
Continue reading...Inadvertent poisoning of scavengers across Indian subcontinent is forcing some communities to give up ancient custom
Traditional Zoroastrian burial rites are becoming increasingly impossible to perform because of the precipitous decline of vultures in India, Iran and Pakistan.
For millennia, Parsi communities have traditionally disposed of their dead in structures called dakhma, or “towers of silence”. These circular, elevated edifices are designed to prevent the soil, and the sacred elements of earth, fire and water, from being contaminated by corpses.
Continue reading...Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen are allowed to keep the bird, which had become Instagram famous with their staffy, Peggy, but are forbidden from monetising it
Molly the magpie has been returned to its Gold Coast carers – but they are no longer allowed to make money from its 837,000 Instagram followers.
The department of environment, science and innovation approved a special licence for Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen, who have cared for it since it fell from the nest in 2020.
Continue reading...Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds next most sighted in RSPB survey involving 600,000 participants
A friendly if slightly tuneless chirp is the most ubiquitous birdsong in British gardens with the house sparrow topping the Big Garden Birdwatch charts for the 21st consecutive year, according to the annual RSPB survey.
Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds were the next most-sighted birds by more than 600,000 participants in the world’s largest wildlife garden survey.
Continue reading...Walker Corporation had proposed 3,000 apartments, marina and shops for the site, which is a critical habitat for the endangered eastern curlew
• Toondah Harbour: should a wetland home to endangered birds become $1.3bn worth of shops, high-rises and a marina?
• To the moon and back with the eastern curlew
The environment and water minister, Tanya Plibersek, has announced she will reject an apartment and retail development on an internationally important wetland at Queensland’s Moreton Bay.
Plibersek said on Tuesday she would refuse Walker Corporation’s Toondah Harbour project – first proposed eight years ago and opposed by a long-running community campaign backed by scientists and conservationists – because it would have an unacceptable impact on the Ramsar site.
Continue reading...Steven Miles urges authorities to enable magpie to be reunited with ‘devastated’ Gold Coast carers and its ‘best friend’, their Staffy dog Peggy
Queensland’s premier has thrown his support for a campaign to return an Instagram-famous magpie to its former carers and its dog best friend, after it was seized by the environment department.
Gold Coast couple Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen adopted Molly the magpie in 2020 after it fell from the nest.
Continue reading...Soon it will head back north to the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea where it can breed undisturbed
I opened the windows to the hide and was greeted by a mass of birds. Hundreds of cormorants, gulls, herons, egrets, ducks and waders, all feeding frantically as the rising tide covered up the fertile mud. Overhead, black kites patrolled half-heartedly, occasionally provoking the other birds to take to the wing in short-lived panic, before settling back down to feed or rest.
I witnessed this spectacle at the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Mai Po nature reserve in Hong Kong, justly celebrated as one of the most important wetlands in the world. Either side of high tide, birds gather here in vast numbers against the backdrop of Shenzhen, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, just across the border in mainland China.
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