World’s largest soaring bird flaps wings only 1% of time in flight, study shows
A study sheds light on just how efficiently the world’s largest soaring bird rides air currents to stay aloft for hours without flapping its wings.
The Andean condor has a 3-metre (10ft) wingspan and weighs up to 15kg (33lbs), making it the world’s heaviest soaring bird.
Continue reading...The coronavirus pandemic has brought Spanish bullfighting, long reviled by animal rights campaigners, to a standstill. Dozens of events, including Pamplona’s running of the bulls, have been cancelled. Photographer Jon Nazca explores the evocative locale of the San Fermín festival
Continue reading...Conservationists hope first known camera-trap images of species are sign of resurgence
Rare images of a group belonging to one of the most endangered gorilla subspecies in the world suggest their numbers could be recovering after decades of persecution, conservationists in Nigeria have said.
Seven Cross River gorillas including infants of varying ages can be seen in the first known camera-trap images of the species, taken in the Mbe mountains in south-east Nigeria by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
Continue reading...Single classification system could end centuries of disagreement and improve global efforts to tackle biodiversity loss
A plan to create the first universally recognised list of species on Earth has prompted hopes of an end to centuries of disagreement and confusion over how to classify the world’s library of life.
The 10-point plan aims to finally bring order with an authoritative list of the world’s species and a governance mechanism responsible for its quality. Researchers hope a single recognised list would improve global efforts to tackle biodiversity loss, the trade in endangered wildlife, biosecurity and conservation.
Continue reading...Why did dolphins get Flipper while sharks got Jaws? These majestic, diverse animals bring balance to the ocean ecosystem – and they’re in grave danger
Each day, as the sun sets over the coral-fringed Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia, an underwater predator stirs. As predators go, it’s not especially big or ferocious – an arm’s length from head to tail, with a snuffling, moustachioed snout.
What’s unique is that it doesn’t so much swim along the seabed as walk. Using its four fins as legs, and twisting its spine like a lizard, it can emerge from the water and hold its breath for an hour, strutting across the exposed reef and clambering between tide pools to find prey.
Continue reading...Theo and Gloria Ferguson have created a garden specially designed to attract hummingbirds – and hundreds visit daily
At the foot of Theo and Gloria Ferguson’s property stands a giant silk cotton tree. Reminiscent of those enchanted species in children’s fables, this ancient sentinel’s huge varicose limbs yawn upwards and outwards, towards a canopy of leaves that scratch the sky. Eight adults linking arms would struggle to encircle its vast girth, proof of the aeons it has stood guarding the edge of Trinidad’s Maracas valley.
Continue reading...A family were fishing on a lake in Wisconsin when they spotted a bear with a plastic jar stuck on its head. After several attempts at moving their boat next to the bear and removing the jar, they were finally able to free the animal. 'Never dreamt we would ever do this in our life time,' Tricia Hurt wrote on Facebook. 'Out on Marshmiller Lake yesterday with Brian Hurt and Brady Hurt when we spotted this poor bear. He made it to shore after all that'
Continue reading...State parliamentary investigation finds biggest threat to the species’ survival is habitat loss – but logging and clearing has continued
Koalas will become extinct before 2050 in NSW unless there is urgent government intervention to prevent habitat loss, a year-long inquiry has found.
The NSW parliamentary inquiry also finds that a government estimate that there are 36,000 koalas in the state is outdated and unreliable.
Continue reading...Sharks found in nearly every part of the cape, and are gathering there in summer in increasing numbers
Cape Cod’s beaches and towns may be quieter because of the coronavirus pandemic, but officials are reminding visitors ahead of the 4 July holiday that the famous Massachusetts destination remains a popular getaway for other summertime travellers: great white sharks.
Great whites have been coming to the Cape in greater numbers each summer to prey on the region’s large seal colonies. Most tend to favour the Atlantic ocean-facing beaches where seals tend to congregate, but researchers have found them off nearly every part of the Cape.
Continue reading...The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including a perky grasshopper and a sleepy turtle
Continue reading...Kenya has lost 70% of its wildlife in 30 years, but conservancy schemes could halt the decline – and benefit local communities
Parsaloi Kupai’s home, situated on the edge of Ol Kinyei conservancy near the Maasai Mara game reserve, is no different from any other Maasai homestead – oval-shaped huts with an almost flat roof and walls plastered with a mixture of water, mud and cow dung. At the centre of the homestead is a cattle boma, an enclosure where his livestock spends the night, safe from the many predators that roam the area.
Kupai, 47, and his two wives chose to live here after they surrendered 69 hectares (170 acres) of land to the 7,500-hectare conservancy. He is among 240 landowners who gave up their highly valued grazing land for the project.
Continue reading...Bodies of French bulldogs were among about 500 dogs discovered on flight from Ukraine at Toronto airport
Canada has launched an investigation after some 500 puppies – 38 of them dead – were found on board a Ukraine International Airlines plane at the Toronto airport, officials said Saturday.
The surviving French bulldogs, a popular breed in Canada, were suffering from symptoms including dehydration, weakness and vomiting when they were found on the flight from Ukraine that landed at Toronto Pearson airport on 13 June, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a statement.
Continue reading...Experts call for legislation and trade deals worldwide to encourage green recovery
Pandemics such as coronavirus are the result of humanity’s destruction of nature, according to leaders at the UN, WHO and WWF International, and the world has been ignoring this stark reality for decades.
The illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade as well as the devastation of forests and other wild places were still the driving forces behind the increasing number of diseases leaping from wildlife to humans, the leaders told the Guardian.
Continue reading...James Bowen, who met Bob during his battle with drug addiction, says pet ‘saved his life’
The pet that inspired the book series and film A Street Cat Named Bob has died aged 14.
James Bowen met Bob in 2007 during his battle with drug addiction when he found the cat abandoned and injured and decided to look after him.
Continue reading...Giant tortoise, whose reproductive efforts almost single-handedly saved his species, has been moved to an uninhabited island
Diego, the giant Galápagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, has been put out to pasture on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said.
Diego was shipped out from the Galápagos national park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to the remote and uninhabited Española.
Continue reading...Andy Cowell runs the Fenn Bell Conservation Project in Medway, Kent. After 12 weeks of closure, as running costs mounted, zoos were suddenly told with less than a week’s notice that they could reopen on Monday to reduced visitors. But smaller zoos such as Fenn Bell have had to spend funds they barely had just to create space for visitors to visit safely, and Cowell is still a couple of weeks away from being ready. He tells Richard Sprenger why he is so angry at how the situation has been handled and fears the possibility of having to euthanise his animals
Continue reading...From protecting fishing communities to regrowing coral reefs, Guardian readers and environmentalists share how they’re working to defend the ocean
World Oceans Day, which took place on Monday, is marked by hundreds of beach cleans and events globally. Despite Covid-19 restrictions, environmentalists and readers from around the world shared how they are continuing to work to protect the ocean, and told us about the local marine issues that matter to them.
Continue reading...Other surfers fought off the 10-foot fish but the victim died from his injuries soon after
A 60-year-old surfer was attacked and killed by a 3-metre (10-foot) great white shark off the coast of northern New South Wales state on Sunday, officials said.
The man received a bite to the back of his thigh and was brought to the shore by other surfers who had fought off the shark, a surf rescue group, Surf Life Saving NSW, said in a statement. The victim, from Tugun, over the state border in Queensland, received first aid on the shore, but died on the beach.
Continue reading...A 50-year-old man has died after being bitten by a shark while surfing at Casuarina Beach near Kingscliff in the NSW northern rivers region
A 50-year-old man has died after being bitten by a shark while surfing near Kingscliff in northern NSW.
A Surf Life Saving NSW spokesman told Guardian Australia the man died while surfing at Salt Beach at about 10.40am on Sunday morning.
Continue reading...Downing Street has been accused of reopening the door to imports of chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef, after a leaked memo instructed ministers to have “no specific policy” on animal welfare in US trade talks.
The letter from No 10 states that the ministerial mandate for the US negotiations was “being updated to reflect” the fact that the UK was to have no policy position on animal welfare. The revelation will raise more concerns about the government’s commitment to upholding “high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards”.
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