Category Archives: Wildlife

Italian governor steps up his battle against bears in Trentino region

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Maurizio Fugatti is awaiting a court decision on his latest request to kill a bear accused of fatally attacking a man

For several weeks, Italians have been following with bated breath the escalation of Maurizio Fugatti’s battle against the bears that populate the mountains of the northern Trentino region of which he is governor.

Captures, imprisonments, deportations and death sentences have followed one another to the chagrin of national public opinion and government inertia. In Trentino, there have been demonstrations for and against the bears.

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Cheetah deaths raise questions over India’s reintroduction scheme

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Three of the 20 big cats brought from Africa have died as critics of the plan say their new habitat is unsuitable

A programme to reintroduce cheetahs in India after 75 years has been called into question after three of the animals died in recent weeks and concerns were raised that their new habitat was unsuitable.

Since October, 20 cheetahs – which became extinct in the country in 1952 – have been brought over from South Africa and Namibia as part of a much-lauded government programme to house them in Kuno national park, Madhya Pradesh state.

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Young humpbacks ‘full of beans’ as whale-watching season takes off in Sydney

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Up to 50,000 whales expected to pass Australia’s east coast during annual migration from Antartica to Great Barrier Reef

Carrie Davis describes seeing her first adult humpback whale of the season launching out of the water off the coast of Sydney last week as magical.

“It’s just this feeling of awe to see this fat whale of that size get all that body out of the water,” said Davis of Go Whale Watching in Sydney. “No matter how many times you see it, it always takes your breath away.”

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Baby dead and 23 people missing after hippo collides with boat in Malawi

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Police in Nsanje say canoe was carrying 37 people across the Shire River when incident took place

A baby has died and 23 people are missing after a hippopotamus hit a boat travelling on the Shire River in Malawi, authorities have said.

Police in the African country’s southern district of Nsanje said the canoe was carrying 37 people across the waterway when the incident took place on Monday morning.

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Intensive farming is biggest cause of bird decline in Europe, study says

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Use of pesticides and fertilisers identified as most significant factor behind loss of 550 million birds from skies

The use of pesticides and fertilisers in intensive agriculture is the biggest cause of the dwindling number of birds in the UK and the rest of Europe, scientists have said.

Compared with a generation ago, 550 million fewer birds fly over the continent, with their decline well documented. But until now the relative importance of various pressures on bird populations was not known.

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Failure to protect nature is a bigger threat to humanity than inflation, Australian scientists warn

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‘For just 10% of the stage-three tax cuts, we could recover every one of Australia’s almost 2,000 threatened species,’ says ecologist

Leading Australian scientists have accused the Albanese government of offering “grossly inadequate” funding to stop environmental decline, and warned that failing to protect nature would lead to “an existential threat greater than inflation”.

The Biodiversity Council, an independent research hub, said the limited funding for environment programs announced this week suggested that environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s promised target of ending species extinctions in the country was “still hollow”.

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Locust outbreak in Afghanistan’s ‘breadbasket’ threatens wheat harvest

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With 20m people at the highest risk of famine for 25 years, farmers are desperately trying to kill the pests before vast swarms form

The northern “breadbasket” of Afghanistan is battling a potentially devastating outbreak of locusts that threaten to eat their way through up to a quarter of the country’s annual wheat harvest, the UN has warned.

After three years of disappointing, drought-afflicted harvests, Afghan farmers were expecting better this year – a much-needed boost for a country where nearly 20 million people are thought to be at the highest risk of famine in 25 years.

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‘Unique’ frogs in NSW rainforests feared locally extinct after black summer bushfires

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Pugh’s mountain frog, which has been ‘evolving since Australia was connected to Antarctica’ was worst affected of nine threatened species, researchers say

Several frog species are feared to be locally extinct in parts of New South Wales after the black summer bushfires, a survey of amphibian populations has found.

Scientists conducted a survey of 411 sites in north-east and south-east NSW, monitoring 35 frog species for 18 months after the 2019-2020 bushfire season.

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Feral horses an ‘imminent threat’ that could cause extinction of several endangered Australian species, inquiry warned

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Scientific committee calls for ‘urgent action’ from the Albanese government to address damage caused to sensitive alpine ecosystems

Feral horses in the Australian alps pose an imminent threat to the Albanese government’s zero extinctions target, a scientific committee that advises the government on endangered species has told a parliamentary inquiry.

The threatened species scientific committee (TSSC) says feral horses “may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction” of six critically endangered animals and at least two critically endangered plants.

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Calls grow for Pakistan’s zoos to close after death of 17-year-old elephant

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Case of Noor Jehan in Karachi draws criticism of conditions and renewed accusations of neglect at country’s facilities

Pakistan’s zoos have faced criticism and calls for their closure after the death of a 17-year-old elephant in Karachi.

Noor Jehan, an African elephant, which have an average lifespan of 60 to 70 years, was already in poor health when she fell into a pond last month and was unable to get up. She later died.

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Gardeners urged to ‘keep it local’ when creating a wildflower meadow

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Experts say neighbourhood varieties will suit an area’s pollinators, and that caution is needed when buying generic seed mixes

Gardeners hoping to establish a wildflower patch in their gardens should be wary of generic seed mixes and stick to local blooms to best serve wild pollinators, experts have said.

Conservationists are urging people to source not just native wildflowers but to find out what grows naturally in their neighbourhood by getting out in their area and looking for inspiration in existing meadows, verges and nature reserves. They should then use this as a guide to ensure they are collecting or buying the most suitable wildflowers for their gardens.

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Filipino activists appeal to British banks over region devastated by oil spill

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Environmentalists from the Philippines urge investors to avoid LNG projects which they say threaten the Verde Island Passage

Campaigners from the Philippines have urged British banks not to fund the expansion of fossil fuel use in their country. It follows a huge oil spill that threatened a globally important marine biodiversity hotspot.

Filipino environmentalists have travelled to the UK to meet representatives from Barclays, Standard Chartered and HSBC as part of efforts to stop the expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plants and terminals in and around the Verde Island Passage, a global marine biodiversity hotspot known for its whale sharks, corals, turtles and rich fisheries, which was badly affected by the oil spill this year.

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Australia’s coronation gift to King Charles is $10,000 donation for WA endangered parrot

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PM says he is pleased to contribute to Friends of the Western Ground Parrot as the king ‘has long championed conservation’

Australia is gifting King Charles III a donation to Friends of the Western Ground Parrot to mark his coronation.

The government has pledged $10,000 to help conserve the critically endangered “shy and rarely seen” species in honour of the monarch, on behalf of the people of Australia.

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Australia poorly prepared for deadly avian flu that kills millions of wild birds, experts warn

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Conservationists call for national response plan for possible arrival of HPAI H5, which so far has affected 300 species worldwide

Conservationists have warned Australia is poorly prepared for the potential arrival of a deadly form of avian influenza that has killed millions of birds and thousands of mammals overseas.

When HPAI H5 (high pathogenicity avian influenza of subtype H5) arrived in South America late last year it killed more than 60,000 seabirds and 3,500 sea lions within weeks in Peru alone.

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Sculpture of euthanised walrus Freya unveiled in Oslo

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Campaigners commemorate mammal who drew large crowds in Norwegian capital last summer before being put down

A bronze sculpture has been unveiled in Norway of the walrus nicknamed Freya, who gained global attention last summer after basking in the Oslo fjord until officials euthanised her.

The lifesize sculpture depicts Freya lying on her side on the rocky shore of Oslo’s Kongen marina, not far from where the real 600kg mammal last summer drew large crowds as she chased ducks and swans, and rested on boats that struggled to support her bulk.

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Ivory displayed at Prince William’s palace despite his criticism of trade

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Artwork exhibited at Kensington Palace among nearly 2,000 artefacts in royal collection

For more than a decade, Prince William has spoken out vehemently against the use of ivory, calling it “a symbol of destruction, not of luxury”. The royal patron of the anti-ivory charity Tusk has lobbied leaders in China, the US and countries across Africa.

He has even said that he wants to destroy all the ivory owned by the royals. In 2019, a spokesperson for William clarified that while destroying all the ivory in the royal collection was beyond the prince’s control, he had “ensured there is no ivory from the collection at Kensington Palace”, his place of residence.

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Revealed: most of EU delegation to crucial fishing talks made up of fishery lobbyists

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Europe accused of ‘neocolonialism’ for using vassal small island states to sway policy and continue ‘disgraceful plundering’ of distant waters

More than half of the EU’s delegation to a crucial body of tuna stock regulators is made up of fishing industry lobbyists, the Guardian’s Seascape project can reveal, as Europe is accused of “neocolonial” overfishing in the Indian Ocean.

The numbers could shed some light on why the EU recently objected to an agreement by African and Asian coastal nations to restrict harmful fish aggregating devices (FADs) that disproportionately harvest juvenile tuna. Stocks of yellowfin tuna are overfished in the Indian Ocean.

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Farne Islands to remain closed after three new cases of bird flu detected

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National Trust rangers brace for second year of mass deaths on islands off Northumberland coast

A group of islands that make up one of the UK’s most important bird sanctuaries are to remain closed after new cases of avian flu were detected.

The disease devastated the seabird population of the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, last year and National Trust rangers expect thousands more deaths this year.

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Scientists discover why sea urchins are dying off from US to the Caribbean

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A research team has discovered a parasite that’s been killing off sea urchins, but there’s no method to eliminate it yet

Marine biologists at a Florida university say they have solved the mystery of a mass die-off of long-spined sea urchins from the US to the Caribbean.

The scientists blame a microscopic, single-cell parasite for the die-off, which took hold early last year. Affected Diadema antillarum urchins lose their spines and suction, then succumb to disease.

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Avian flu outbreak in the Gambia threatens birds on East Atlantic Flyway

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Hundreds of dead birds found in past three weeks as conservationists call for international funding to help stop the disease spreading on migration routes

An outbreak of avian influenza in seabirds in the Gambia could affect vast numbers of birds migrating along the East Atlantic Flyway, unless international funding is secured, warn conservationists.

Teams from the West African Bird Study Association (Wabsa), the Gambia’s Department of Parks and Wildlife Management, and UK-based NGO Conservation Without Borders have buried hundreds of dead birds over the past three weeks, including some ringed birds from Europe.

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