The four were members of a group known as the Hirwa family that had crossed into Mgahinga national park from Rwanda
Four endangered mountain gorillas, including three adult females, have been killed by an apparent lightning strike in a Ugandan national park, a conservation group has said.
A post-mortem examination has been performed on the four, including a male infant, who died on 3 February in Mgahinga National Park in south-west Uganda.
Continue reading...Officials claim there are no tigers in Goa. But the poisoning of a mother and three cubs has forced the issue into the open
As a child living in the Vagheri hills at the foot of the Western Ghats, Rajendra Kerkar would often hear the majestic roar of tigers echo across the mountains. It was never greeted with fear by the villagers in this remote corner of northern Goa; the name Vagheri translates as “home of the tigers” and coexistence with India’s national animal was part of their way of life.
Yet according to state authorities, these tigers do not exist; or if they do, they are just passing through. Unlike other states in India, where the presence of tigers has been celebrated, embraced and in many cases exploited for tourism, Goa’s tigers have instead been subjected to a strange charade, whereby their existence has repeatedly been denied or covered up by those in government.
Continue reading...Victorian environment minister ‘appalled’ by allegations and her department is investigating
Investigators at the scene of a “koala massacre” at a cleared gum tree plantation in Victoria say the number of animals killed is likely to rise above 40 as they make their way through 10 kilometres of felled timber.
A major incident response has been set up at the site, on private land near Cape Bridgewater, with koalas being treated by vets for starvation and broken bones.
Continue reading...The Baftas awards frontrunner joins protestors on Tower Bridge in London to campaign for a meat-free world
Oscar and Bafta nominee Joaquin Phoenix has made a plea for people to “go vegan” as he led an animal equality protest in central London.
The actor gathered activists for a protest where he dropped a 390-square-foot banner from Tower Bridge that declared: “Factory farming destroys our planet. Go vegan.”
Continue reading...The influence exerted on the prime minister by his partner, Carrie Symonds, will be explored in court after permission was granted last week for a judicial review into how the government came to pull a cull on badgers in Derbyshire.
The case could embarrass Boris Johnson and raise questions about the government’s willingness to listen to its advisers when formulating policy.
Continue reading...Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades
Continue reading...The weather forecast warned it would be raining reptiles and Floridians recorded encounters with lizards feeling the chill
It truly was the night (and day) of the iguana.
After the National Weather Service (NWS) sent an unusual alert to south Florida residents on Tuesday night warning them of possible “falling iguanas” in light of unseasonably low temperatures, residents were indeed treated to a show of rigid reptiles out of the sky (or, actually, the trees).
Continue reading...Whether it is local ‘cat-seducers’, out-and-out thievery or marauding toms, our feline friends are prompting furious rows and rivalries between neighbours
Forget teenagers with asbos or improperly demarcated boundary fences. Cats are the great neighbourhood menace of our age, as likely to rip apart once-harmonious communities as Japanese knotweed. They pad between homes, destroying civic feeling, pitting us against each other in our search for their devotion. Think politics creates division? Cats are worse.
Last week, it was reported that a Hammersmith couple, John and Jackie Hall, had waged a legal battle to prevent a nearby resident, Nicola Lesbirel, from stealing their maine coon, Ozzy. The Halls accused Lesbirel of repeatedly feeding Ozzy, taking him into her house and replacing Ozzy’s collar with one that had Lesbirel’s phone number and the words “My home” on it.
Continue reading...Images of burned koalas and native animals fleeing the fire front have been beamed around the world. There are estimates that 1 billion animals have been impacted and experts fear that some plants and animals have been pushed to extinction. So how bad is the damage? And will Australia’s wildlife bounce back?
You can read Graham Readfearn’s articles on the impact of the fires on Kangaroo island wildlife, plus the mass fish kills in the wake of the fires.
Environment editor Adam Morton has written about the latest figures from the government on threatened species, and environment reporter Lisa Cox has written about the world heritage areas burned, plus a guide to the animals most at risk.
Continue reading...The lions, which live on the edge of the national park, will be moved to avoid conflicts with people and livestock
Tanzania will find a new home for 36 lions following a slew of attacks by the big cats on people and cattle.
The lions, an increasingly endangered species, live on the edge of the safari mecca of the Serengeti national park, but have been affected by encroaching human activity.
Continue reading...Staff charged with manslaughter after newborn attacked inside operating theatre
Indian police have sealed a private hospital and charged staff with manslaughter after a newborn baby was mauled to death by dogs inside an operating theatre.
The three-hour-old baby was attacked by the pack of dogs, who got into the hospital through a window, before relatives heard growling inside the room early on Monday in Farrukhabad district, 110 miles (180km) from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.
Continue reading...Only 15 giant Española tortoises were left in the wild before one male sired 800 offspring in a wildly successful breeding program
The Galápagos National Park has announced it is ending a captive breeding program for giant Española tortoises, after one tortoise produced more than 800 offspring, helping save the species.
Related: Giant tortoise believed extinct for 100 years found in Galápagos
Continue reading...Greatest concerns for endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart and glossy black-cockatoo after third of island burned
Ecologists have grave concerns for the future of unique and endangered wildlife on Kangaroo Island where bushfires have killed thousands of koalas.
Fires on the island, in South Australia, have so far burned through 155,000 hectares – about one third of the island’s entire area – with blazes concentrated in the biodiversity-rich western areas.
Continue reading...Police received dozens of calls about two rheas wandering among tourists
Two ostrich-like birds have provoked the ire of Venetian authorities after they brazenly roamed around the lagoon city’s narrow streets.
The rheas, which are native to South America, arrived in the city by train on Thursday with their Slovenian owners from nearby San Donà del Piave, where a circus is in town.
Continue reading...Three women have handed themselves in to police in Germany over a blaze at a zoo on New Year's Eve that killed dozens of animals.
The women are being investigated for setting off flying lanterns, which are banned, and which may have been the cause of the fire at Krefeld zoo in North Rhine-Westphalia, which killed over 30 primates.
Continue reading...Sussan Ley’s estimate suggests up to 8,400 koalas may have perished in the bushfires
Australia’s environment minister has said up to 30% of koalas on the New South Wales mid-north coast may have been killed in the country’s ongoing bushfire crisis.
Nationally, more than 5m hectares have been burned in an unprecedented bushfire season that has also killed nine people. Some 3.4m hectares have been burnt in NSW alone.
Continue reading...Chimpanzees seen clapping, tapping and swaying along to piano rhythms in a music booth
Akira stands up and sways about. Pal is big on clapping. Ai is into tapping her foot, while Gon bangs and slaps the walls.
Not the latest teen band sensation, but a spectacle far more impressive: the moves of a group of chimpanzees that scientists believe shed light on the prehistoric origins of human dancing.
Continue reading...Dog undergoes two lifesaving operations in Dorset after gorging on gingerbread tree ornaments
A seven-year-old labrador has undergone two lifesaving operations after gorging on more than 30 homemade gingerbread Christmas tree decorations.
The dog’s owner, Rachael Bulmer, from Bournemouth, rushed her pet Marley to the PDSA Pet Hospital in the Dorset town after it became seriously ill. Vets performed emergency surgery on Marley to remove ribbons attached to the biscuits.
Continue reading...The big cats’ resourceful new behaviour was recorded by a WWF study on a remote island off the coast of Brazil
A thriving population of jaguars living on a small, unspoilt island off the coast of the Brazilian Amazon has learned to catch fish in the sea to survive, conservationists have found.
The Maracá-Jipioca Ecological Station island reserve, three miles off the northern state of Amapá, acts as a nursery for jaguars, according to WWF researchers who have collared three cats and set up 70 camera traps on the remote jungle island.
Continue reading...Andrew Taylor came up with the idea because of a lack of ‘good’ sticks at the local park
A New Zealand man has created a “stick library” for his local dog park as a way to recycle branches from tree pruning.
Andrew Taylor, of north Canterbury in the South Island, cut a dozen tree branches down to “stick” size for the community’s four-legged friends, and smoothed away the rough edges using tools he had around the house.
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