Category Archives: Endangered species

French campaigners go to EU over hunting and trapping of birds

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Official complaint lodged with EU says rules breached on hunting and trapping

Bird protection campaigners are to lodge an official complaint with the European Union accusing France of breaking rules on hunting and trapping and failing to protect endangered species.

The Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO) is using the 40th anniversairy of the EU’s “bird directive”, which outlaws the “massive or non-selective” killing of birds to highlight what it deems cruel and illegal methods.

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Deadly skin-eating fungal disease wipes out 90 amphibian species in 50 years

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Study reveals extent of chytrid fungus and how devastating it has been for frog, toad and salamander species worldwide

A deadly disease that wiped out global populations of amphibians led to the decline of 500 species in the past 50 years, including 90 extinctions, scientists say.

A global research effort, led by the Australian National University, has for the first time quantified the worldwide impact of chytridiomycosis, or chytrid fungus, a fungal disease that eats away at the skin of amphibians.

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Cull invasive mammals to save island species, experts urge

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Move ‘would save 10% of all endangered birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles’

Nearly 10% of the world’s bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile species currently on the brink of extinction could be saved by killing invasive mammals such as cats and rats on 169 islands, according to a new study.

Islands comprise just 5.3% of the Earth’s landmass yet have experienced 75% of known bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile extinctions since 1500. More than a third of species currently classified as “critically endangered” on the IUCN Red List are found on islands, with many particularly vulnerable to just eight species – including feral pigs, dogs, goats and mongooses – introduced by humans.

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Kew’s tree library leads hi-tech war on illegal logging

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New techniques will help customs officers identify and seize wood that came from endangered species

The wooden blinds that lie crumpled in Peter Gasson’s laboratory in Kew Gardens are chipped and forlorn-looking. Their manufacturers had claimed they were made of pine but customs officers were wary. And their suspicions were well-founded. Gasson, Kew’s research leader on wood and timber, found the blinds were not made of pine but ramin.

“All ramin trees, which grow in south-east Asia, are endangered and trade in their wood is illegal,” said Gasson. “On this occasion, we got lucky and stopped people profiting from this trade.”

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World’s largest bee, missing for 38 years, found in Indonesia

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Biologists discover single female Wallace’s giant bee inside a termites’ nest in a tree

As long as an adult thumb, with jaws like a stag beetle and four times larger than a honeybee, Wallace’s giant bee is not exactly inconspicuous.

But after going missing, feared extinct, for 38 years, the world’s largest bee has been rediscovered on the Indonesian islands of the North Moluccas.

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‘Beggars belief’: more endangered parrots exported from Australia

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Warren Entsch demands investigation after German convicted kidnapper boasts about new shipment

A government MP has said it “beggars belief” that more endangered Australian birds have been exported to a German organisation headed by a convicted kidnapper and extortionist, after a Guardian investigation revealed there had been multiple warnings that the birds could be sold to collectors at a huge profit.

Warren Entsch repeated calls for an independent investigation into how the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots was able to receive hundreds of rare and endangered birds from Australia, after its founder, Martin Guth, used a social media post to say more endangered species had arrived at its facilities in January.

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Tiger poachers arrested by Thai police were part of Vietnamese gang

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Police investigating discovery of animal’s remains warn of organised crime threat to Thailand’s tiger population

Thai authorities investigating the discovery of the remains of a wild tiger in a taxi have warned that organised crime gangs are behind the capture and slaughter of Thailand’s endangered tiger population.

Police, acting on a tip-off from a cab driver, arrested two men suspected of being members of a Vietnam-based syndicate involved in the trafficking of animal parts. The tiger was found in their luggage along with mobile phones containing photographs of the animal being killed.

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