Populations disappearing in areas where temperatures are getting hotter, scientists say
Bumblebees are in drastic decline across Europe and North America owing to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, scientists say.
A study suggests the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in any given place has declined by 30% in the course of a single human generation. The researchers say the rates of decline appear to be “consistent with a mass extinction”.
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...Thirty tortoises partially descended from extinct species found, including one of same species as famed individual
Conservationists working around the largest volcano on the Galápagos Islands say they have found 30 giant tortoises partially descended from two extinct species, including that of the famed Lonesome George.
The Galápagos national park and Galápagos Conservancy said one young female had a direct line of descent from the Chelonoidis abingdonii species of Pinta island. The last of those tortoises was Lonesome George, who died in June 2012 and was believed to be more than 100 years old.
Continue reading...Our nation has been in a biodiversity crisis for more than 100 years, but the climate crisis could push our at-risk animals to the brink
As world leaders debate how to curb emissions to shape a better tomorrow, for New Zealand’s iconic wildlife the reality is clear – the environment they once thrived in has rapidly changed and species must adapt to survive.
New Zealand is home to species found nowhere else in the world – a flightless parrot, a reptile as old as the dinosaurs, a bat that uses folded wings as “limbs” to scramble around on the forest floor. The unique wildlife thrived on a landmass that was essentially a life-raft separated from predators such as rats and stoats for 80m years.
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...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...Murchison Falls is a magnet for tourism but energy projects, not least a possible dam, threaten the wildlife haven
Along the road that takes you into Murchison Falls national park, animals once roamed freely. Narrow roads provided the perfect environment for them, so “they [didn’t] feel like they are in a foreign land”, says tour operator Everest Kayondo.
But not any more. The park’s lush forest is being uprooted and red trucks and yellow diggers stand ready to pave the road – and the way for new energy projects.
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...Phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilisers and aggressive emission reductions among series of solutions outlined by scientists
The world must eradicate pesticide use, prioritise nature-based farming methods and urgently reduce water, light and noise pollution to save plummeting insect populations, according to a new “roadmap to insect recovery” compiled by experts.
The call to action by more than 70 scientists from across the planet advocates immediate action on human stress factors to insects which include habitat loss and fragmentation, the climate crisis, pollution, over-harvesting and invasive species.
Continue reading...Project part-funded by Global Greengrants Fund UK provides economic incentive to protect forest
From space, the Amazon rainforest resembles a giant dark-green lung veined with blue rivers that is steadily succumbing to the disease-like spread of grey fires, orange roads and square-cut farms. What the satellite images cannot show is how most of the remaining bands of verdant, healthy foliage are defended on the ground by forest dwellers who act as antibodies to drive out malignant invaders.
Among the most impressive of these is the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve in the state of Para in northern Brazil, where residents are trying to bolster their economic resistance with a series of new agro-forestry and solar power projects.
Continue reading...It is famous for smelling like “a thousand dead elephants rotting in the sun”, its petals resemble decaying flesh, and it is so rare that outside its natural habitat in Papua New Guinea, few botanists in the world have ever seen it in flower.
Now this highly pungent orchid – Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis – is in bloom for the first time in a glasshouse at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
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...Other species identified by Kew experts include a snowdrop and cancer-fighting fungus
A snowdrop discovered on Facebook, a miracle berry that tricks your tastebuds and a rubbery shrub that oozes its own superglue are among new plant species that were discovered in 2019.
Others identified by experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, include a ylang-ylang tree of which just seven individuals are known to exist, a new candy-striped violet and a fungus with pink fruiting bodies that can fight cancer and viruses.
Continue reading...Experts horrified at large-scale forest removal to meet wood pellet demand
Plans to shift Europe’s coal plants, including the giant Drax complex in North Yorkshire, to burn wood pellets instead could accelerate rather than combat climate crisis and lay waste to forests equal to half the size of Germany’s Black Forest per year, according to campaigners.
Climate thinktank Sandbag said the heavily subsidised plans to cut carbon emissions will result in a “staggering” amount of tree cutting, potentially destroying forests faster than they can regrow.
Continue reading...Destruction of the world’s largest tropical rainforest in November more than doubled the same period last year
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon jumped to the highest level for the month of November since record-keeping began in 2015, according to preliminary government data published.
Destruction of the world’s largest tropical rainforest totalled 563 square kms in November, which is more than double the area in the same month last year, according to the country’s space research agency INPE on Friday.
Continue reading...Erisvan Soares Guajajara’s body was found with knife wounds in Maranhão region
A 15-year-old indigenous boy has been murdered in Brazil on the edge of a heavily-deforested indigenous reserve in the state of Maranhão, on the fringes of the Amazon.
The murder, the fourth from the Guajajara tribe in recent weeks, came as a wave of racist abuse against indigenous people swept social media in the state.
Continue reading...Popular broadcaster and scientist hailed as man who ‘inspired a whole generation’
The naturalist and broadcaster David Bellamy has died aged 86, the Conservation Foundation has said.
Bellamy died on Wednesday, according to the foundation, of which he was president and co-founder. In a statement, David Shreeve, its director, said: “Sadly, I have to report that David Bellamy died this morning. David and I worked together on a variety of projects in various places since launching the Conservation Foundation in 1982.
Continue reading...Dozens of species are now at risk but a conference this week will showcase new technology that could help stop the illegal trade
The two young women who arrived at Heathrow in February 2014 en route to Düsseldorf were carrying nondescript luggage. Customs officers were suspicious nevertheless and looked inside – to find 13 iguanas stuffed into socks inside the cases. Astonishingly, 12 of the highly endangered San Salvador rock iguanas had survived their transatlantic journey.
“There only about 600 of these animals left in the wild, in the Bahamas, and these animals were being taken to a private collector somewhere in Germany. Incredibly, we were able to return 12 of them, alive, to their homeland – on San Salvador island,” said Grant Miller, who was then working for the Border Force’s endangered species team.
Continue reading...Stingless insects also improve livelihoods of rainforest’s people, say environmentalists
Under an Amazonian canopy of guava and Xylopia trees, Neida Pereira lifts the lid of a beehive, gently lowers an unprotected hand into the swarm, and smiles as she lifts it out unscathed but covered in pollinators and honey.
For the 49-year-old educator and environmentalist, the stingless Amazonian insects are the greatest ally she has found in a decades-long campaign to halt the destruction of the rainforest and improve the livelihoods of its people.
Continue reading...Experts fear species decline after huge number of deaths on Henderson and Cocos
More than half a million hermit crabs have been killed after becoming trapped in plastic debris on two remote island groups, prompting concern that the deaths could be part of a global species decline.
The pioneering study found that 508,000 crabs died on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean, along with 61,000 on Henderson Island in the South Pacific. Previous studies have found high levels of plastic pollution at both sites.
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