Category Archives: Wildlife

‘The fight goes on’: the struggle to save Europe’s songbirds

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Campaigners help close the loophole allowing glue-trapping in France, but the battle to save endangered bird species goes on

“Chasse à la glu has ended, but the fight to save other birds is not over,” says campaigner Yves Verilhac. “We are now battling to stop other cruel hunting methods that lead to the killing of skylarks, lapwings, golden plovers, thrushes and blackbirds.”

Two years ago, Verilhac, of France’s Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO), was fighting to stop the French tradition of chasse à la glu – hunting songbirds with twigs and branches covered in adhesive.

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‘Boofhead’ the crocodile eats shark on fisher’s line in north Queensland

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Dan Johnson was surprised to see he had hooked a shark while fishing from the Proserpine riverbank, then the region’s resident croc made his move

When Dan Johnson first heard the commotion coming from the Proserpine riverbank in north Queensland, he thought he had just snagged a really good fish.

It wasn’t until he took a closer look that he realised he had hooked a shark, and local celebrity “Boofhead” – a four-metre crocodile – was coming for his catch.

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Contact with nature in cities reduces loneliness, study shows

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Loneliness is significant mental health concern and can raise risk of death by 45%, say scientists

Contact with nature in cities significantly reduces feelings of loneliness, according to a team of scientists.

Loneliness is a major public health concern, their research shows, and can raise a person’s risk of death by 45% – more than air pollution, obesity or alcohol abuse.

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Running around Waimapihi Reserve in the dark my headtorch revealed hidden treasures | Ashleigh Young

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At first I was full of dread but as I pressed on I noticed things I had never seen in daylight

  • Guardian writers and readers describe their favourite place in New Zealand’s wilderness and why it’s special to them

I’m scared of getting lost in the bush. This is unusual for an essayist. Most of us like to go for a walk in disorienting landscapes and get completely lost so that we can write about it.

Rebecca Solnit wrote that getting lost is “a voluptuous surrender” but this sounds to me like walking in increasingly frantic circles, getting cold and hungry as night closes in, until you have no option but to dig yourself a little hole and cover yourself in leaves.

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‘All I can think about is the children’s future’: drought devastates Kenya

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Nomads’ herds are dying along with rare wildlife as the longest dry spell in memory edges pastoralists ever nearer starvation

Dahabley smells of rotting flesh. Bodies of starved cows lie in various stages of decomposition, after being dragged to the outskirts of the village in Wajir county, north-east Kenya. They are added to on a near-daily basis and fester in the heat amid multiplying flies.

North-east Kenya is well used to spells of drought, but it is experiencing the worst in living memory. As the region’s short rainy season, which starts in October, draws to an end, parts of Wajir have only seen small showers and other areas have had no rain at all for more than a year.

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First evidence that leopard seals feed on sharks, researchers say

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The unusual discovery in New Zealand waters is based on the remains of scat and scars on seal’s bodies

In a world first, New Zealand leopard seals have been found to feed on sharks, making them part of a tiny and exclusive club of marine predators that do so.

The study, led by Krista van der Linde of leopardseals.org, found shark remains in the scat of leopard seals, and visible signs of struggle with sharks on seals’ bodies, indicating the marine mammals predate on sharks, rather than scavenge their remains.

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‘I could be a bee in a hive’: the real-life Beekeeper of Aleppo on life in Yorkshire

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Ryad Alsous, whose story helped inspire the bestselling book, says life is sweet caring for his hives in Huddersfield

In 2013, Syrian beekeeper Ryad Alsous drank his last cup of mint tea on the balcony of his flat in Damascus. He was about to leave the city where he had spent his whole life and move to Britain. Eight years later, he is again drinking mint tea made in the same flask but this time in Huddersfield. The flask is the only item he still has from his home in Syria. He is talking about the moment he left. “It was very difficult. And also full of hope,” he says.

His block of flats had been bombed twice, and explosions in the eastern part of the city were happening daily. On the day he left, a loud bang nearby caused the doves perched on his balcony to briefly flutter into the air. He had been feeding the birds for years and realised they would have no one to look after them once he left.

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Conservation documents for half of all critically endangered species don’t mention climate change

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Australian Conservation Foundation report found that climate change was not mentioned for 178 out of 334 critically endangered species and habitats

Conservation documents for more than half of Australia’s critically endangered species and habitats fail to mention climate change according to new analysis that argues there is a significant “climate gap” in the management of Australia’s threatened wildlife.

The report was commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and prepared by the Australian National University’s GreenLaw project, which is led by students in the ANU’s law faculty.

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Scientists use ostrich cells to make glowing Covid detection masks

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Japanese researchers use bird antibodies to detect virus under ultraviolet light

Japanese researchers have developed masks that use ostrich antibodies to detect Covid-19 by glowing under ultraviolet light.

The discovery, by Yasuhiro Tsukamoto and his team at Kyoto Prefectural University in western Japan, could provide for low-cost testing of the virus at home.

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Batman loach returns: fish feared extinct found in Turkey

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Scientists working on the Search For The Lost Fishes project have spotted the freshwater Batman River loach, which has not been seen since 1974

A freshwater fish that scientists thought was extinct has been found in south-east Turkey, after an absence of nearly 50 years.

“I’ve been researching this area for 12 years and this fish was always on my wishlist,” said Dr Cüneyt Kaya, associate professor at Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University. “It’s taken a long time. When I saw the distinctive bands on the fish, I felt so happy. It was a perfect moment.”

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Rajan the last ocean-swimming elephant: Jody MacDonald’s best photograph

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‘He had been used for logging on the Andaman Islands. When I found him, he was 60, living in retirement – and loving his swims’

I lived at sea for 10 years. I co-owned and ran a global kiteboarding expedition business. We’d sail around the world on a 60-foot catamaran, following the trade winds, kiteboarding, surfing and paragliding in remote locations. One night, I watched a Hollywood movie called The Fall, which had a section where an elephant was swimming in tropical blue water. I didn’t know if it was real or a fake Hollywood thing. But I thought: “Man, if that does exist, I’d love to photograph it.”

I searched the internet and found the elephant from the film was living in the Andaman Islands, an Indian territory in the Bay of Bengal. When we sailed into the capital, Port Blair, a few months later in 2010, I decided to hop off and try to find this elephant. I found Rajan on Havelock (now Swaraj) Island and spent two weeks with him, learning about his incredible story.

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Whoops and grunts: ‘bizarre’ fish songs raise hopes for coral reef recovery

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Vibrant soundscape shows Indonesian reef devastated by blast fishing is returning to health

From whoops to purrs, snaps to grunts, and foghorns to laughs, a cacophony of bizarre fish songs have shown that a coral reef in Indonesia has returned rapidly to health.

Many of the noises had never been recorded before and the fish making these calls remain mysterious, despite the use of underwater speakers to try to “talk” to some.

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Two hippos test positive for Covid at Antwerp zoo

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Staff at zoo in Belgium investigating cause of infections, which could be first reported cases in species

Two hippos at Antwerp zoo in Belgium have tested positive for Covid-19 in what could be the first reported cases in the species, staff said.

Imani, aged 14, and Hermien, 41, have no symptoms apart from runny noses, but the zoo said they had been put in quarantine as a precaution.

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A gray wolf’s epic journey ends in death on a California highway

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OR-93 traveled further south than any wolf had in a hundred years. Even after death, he continues to inspire

The young gray wolf who took experts and enthusiasts on a thousand-mile journey across California died last month, ending a trek that brought hope and inspiration to many during a time of ecological collapse.

The travels of the young male through the state were a rare occurrence: he was the first wolf from Oregon’s White River pack to come to California and possibly the first gray wolf in nearly a century to be spotted so far south.

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Filming wild beasts: Cherry Kearton interviewed – archive, 11 May 1914

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11 May 1914: The British wildlife photographer tells the Guardian about filming animals ‘unmolested and unharassed in their native wilds’

I found Mr Cherry Kearton, who has just returned from crossing Africa with a kinema camera for the third time, in the private room of his London office (writes a representative of the Manchester Guardian).

He was endeavouring to conduct a business conversation on the telephone. Round him stood half a dozen merry friends, whose joy at welcoming him home was so ebullient that they refused to be serious. The author of several standard books was giving lifelike imitations of a roaring lion, while the others were laughing loudly at his performance.

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‘Mesmerising’: a massive murmuration of budgies is turning central Australia green and gold

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After a bumper wet season, huge flocks of budgerigars are on the move in the deserts of the Northern Territory

The humble budgerigar has transformed the red centre into a sea of green and gold.

A massive murmuration – the phenomenon of thousands of birds flocking together – has swarmed the Northern Territory.

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Shell to go ahead with seismic tests in whale breeding grounds after court win

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Judgment rules company can blast sound waves in search for oil along South Africa’s eastern coastline

Royal Dutch Shell will move ahead with seismic tests to explore for oil in vital whale breeding grounds along South Africa’s eastern coastline after a court dismissed an 11th-hour legal challenge by environmental groups.

The judgment, by a South African high court, allows Shell to begin firing within days extremely loud sound waves through the relatively untouched marine environment of the Wild Coast, which is home to whales, dolphins and seals.

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Proximity to green space may help with PMS, study finds

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Research adds to growing evidence of the health benefits associated with natural environments

Living near green space could reduce the physical and psychological symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), researchers have found.

A first-of-its-kind study of more than 1,000 women aged 18 to 49 living in cities in Norway and Sweden found that women who across their lifetime live in neighbourhoods with more green space are less likely to experience PMS symptoms than those living in less green neighbourhoods.

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In Australia’s wet weather ‘tis the season for spiders, mozzies, mice and mould

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La Niña brings more than just rain to eastern states, as some unwanted visitors begin venturing into people’s homes

A surge in mosquitoes, spiders, termites, rodents – and mould – has hit eastern Australia, in what appears to be a fitting end to 2021.

The wet weather caused by the latest La Niña event has helped flush out creatures that may typically burrow or live underground into the open and inside people’s homes.

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