Federal wildlife officials in Florida are seeking information about attack on a manatee, which is said to have had the word 'Trump' carved into its back.
The diver Hailey Warrington said she filmed the animal on Sunday during a manatee swim tour in shallow water in Homosassa Springs.
Large, gray and docile, manatees are popular attractions in Florida, though their numbers are at risk due to habitat loss and the danger of boat strikes
Continue reading...Weaker sharks are less effective hunters, which can upset the balance of the ecosystem, say authors of study into impacts of hotter oceans
Baby sharks will emerge from their egg cases earlier and weaker as water temperatures rise, according to a new study that examined the impact of warming oceans on embryos.
About 40% of all shark species lay eggs, and the researchers found that one species unique to the Great Barrier Reef spent up to 25 days less in their egg cases under temperatures expected by the end of the century.
Continue reading...Federal wildlife officials in Florida are reportedly seeking information on the perpetrators of an attack on a manatee, which apparently had the word “Trump” scraped into its back.
Related: Florida manatee deaths up 20% as Covid-19 threatens recovery
Continue reading...At 17, they were meant to be taking their A-levels this year. But Harvey Tweats and Tom Whitehurst have a big ambition: to replace the toads, frogs and lizards we have lost
The new enterprise taking shape on a strip of derelict land beside a garden centre in Leek, Staffordshire, would be extraordinary at any time. But the large pond, greenhouses, cabins and homemade enclosures that will comprise this particular startup are positively miraculous given that it is driven by two 17-year-olds, both studying for their A-levels in the middle of a pandemic.
Childhood friends Harvey Tweats and Tom Whitehurst are on a mission – to rewild Britain by restoring reptile and amphibian species that are either virtually extinct or have been extinct for centuries in this country. Their company, Celtic Reptile & Amphibian, will soon open what the pair believe will be the country’s largest outdoor breeding facility for reptiles and amphibians. They hope it will be the first step in restoring lost species so that British ponds, lakes and wetlands once more resound to the croak of pool frogs and agile frogs as well as other once-common lizards and frogs. In the long term, Tweats and Whitehurst hope that the European pond turtle (which they source from Moldova) and the Aesculapian snake, already unofficially released in a couple of UK sites, may be embraced as new native species after being absent from the country for thousands of years.
Continue reading...Farmers ‘relieved’ as chemical sanctioned for emergency use, despite EU-wide ban backed by UK
A pesticide believed to kill bees has been authorised for use in England despite an EU-wide ban two years ago and an explicit government pledge to keep the restrictions.
Following lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and British Sugar, a product containing the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam was sanctioned for emergency use on sugar beet seeds this year because of the threat posed by a virus.
Continue reading...Luke Voskresensky was rescued on the weekend by two fishermen but was re-arrested when they reached Darwin
A naked alleged fugitive found by two fishermen sitting on a tree branch in Australian crocodile-infested waters has been slapped with additional charges of breaching bail and aggravated assault.
Cam Faust said on Wednesday that he and fellow recreational fisher Kev Joiner heard Luke Voskresensky, 40, yell for help as they set crab traps from their dinghy in mangroves on the outskirts of the northern city of Darwin.
Continue reading...Up to 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats descend on Zambia’s Kasanka national park every year, dispersing millions of seeds as they go
David Mubiana will always remember the day he was shot. It happened in 2002, when his unit was ambushed by poachers with AK-47 rifles and a shotgun. He was wounded in the arm and stomach; one bullet rupturing his spleen. As a wildlife police officer in Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife, his job is inherently risky.
“Even if you fall down, you have to stand up and continue fighting. If we finish our wildlife, [our children] are not going to see what we are seeing today,” he says.
Continue reading...Tourist lodges run out of cash to feed and care for the animals on their land and thousands of villagers lose their jobs
Impala run through the thorn bush, ibis fly above the lake and lightning forks over the horizon as a storm rolls in from the Drakensberg mountains.
The visitors driven across the 10,000 or more hectares of the Nambiti game reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province see what they think is an unchanged, and unchanging natural landscape.
Continue reading...The primatologist and ecological activist on why population isn’t the cause of climate change, and why she’s encouraging optimism
Jane Goodall is a primatologist who is regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on chimpanzees. She has spent 60 years studying the chimps that live in the Gombe Stream national park and she is a prominent advocate, via several foundations, of protecting the great apes and their habitats. She has been presented with awards by the UN and various governments for her conservation and environmental work. She appears in the Netflix documentary The Beginning of Life 2.
You warned last June that humanity will be finished if we don’t make drastic changes in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis. Have you seen any indication of that drastic change?
The window is closing. Business as usual – using up natural resources faster and faster – can’t carry on. In some cases, we are already using resources faster than they can be replenished. And we can see the consequences. Look at climate change. It is not something that might happen in the future; we are already seeing terrible hurricanes and floods and fires. It is building up into an inferno. When you think globally like that, it is very, very depressing.
Find is chance for species’ survival say scientists as DNA results confirm turtle found in Hanoi district is a Swinhoe’s softshell
The last known male giant Swinhoe’s softshell turtle is no longer alone on the planet after the discovery of a female of his species in Vietnam.
The female 86kg (13 stone) turtle was found in Dong Mo lake, in Hanoi’s Son Tay district, and captured for genetic testing in October.
Continue reading...British Columbia resigned to a ‘long fight’ after 2020’s efforts to track and kill the invasive insects ended in frustration
The year 2020 is not one that beekeepers in Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia are likely to forget in a hurry. Since the spring, experts in both states have been gripped by fears of Vespa mandarinia, a hulking insect whose voracious appetite for honeybees and stealthy spread could pose a threat to the region’s vulnerable ecosystem.
I squeezed [the queen] on her thorax ... and this huge stinger came out. And the giant mandibles moved, trying to bite me. It was really quite beautiful
Continue reading...Photographer Rachel Mounsey has documented the year after the blazes tore through her home region
Standing in my backyard under a searing midday sun, the bricklayer’s sinewy arms are splayed out, rollie in one hand, trowel in the other. Bart the brickie reenacts the moment he thought might have been his last.
He is reliving putting out embers with his flannelette shirt and driving over flames in his old Holden Commodore. He throws the trowel down and with his finger draws a fire map in the wet cement. His fingers dash and dot to signify embers falling from the sky, and a looming fire front creeping down from the ridge.
Continue reading...Fifty years ago, a hit album proved whales “sing” – and led to one of the great environmental success stories. But soon it could all be for nothing
In June 1975, a small group of activists set off from the coast of California in an 85ft boat. They were headed for the Dalniy Vostok factory ship, which was at sea conducting business as usual: harpooning sperm whales.
The activists were members of Greenpeace, an organisation that had only recently been founded, in Vancouver in 1971, and they were setting out to meet the Russian whaling ship under the banner of what would become one of the most famous slogans of the environmental movement, Save the Whales.
Continue reading...Multibillion-dollar project is unnecessary and damaging to wildlife, say scientists
Australia is planning to build Antarctica’s biggest infrastructure project: a new airport and runway that would increase the human footprint in the world’s greatest wilderness by an estimated 40%.
The mega-scheme is likely to involve blasting petrel rookeries, disturbing penguin colonies and encasing a stretch of the wilderness in more than 115,000 tonnes of concrete.
Continue reading...At least 20 trains cancelled after swan stopped at site of another’s death near Fuldatal
Police and firefighters in Germany were forced to intervene to move an apparently “mourning” swan that was blocking a high-speed railway line, according to a statement released by the rescuers on Monday.
The swan was pictured blocking the line near Fuldatal, causing at least 20 trains to be cancelled, after a second swan was killed when it flew into the overhead line above the tracks.
Continue reading...Excitement as DNA barcoding technique leads to unmasking of new species tempered with fear that some are already at risk of extinction
A growing number of “cryptic species” hiding in plain sight have been unmasked in the past year, driven in part by the rise of DNA barcoding, a technique that can identify and differentiate between animal and plant species using their genetic divergence.
The discovery of new species of aloe, African leaf-nosed bats and chameleons that appear similar to the human eye but are in fact many and separate have thrilled and worried conservationists. Scientists say our planet might be more biologically diverse than previously thought, and estimates for the total number of species could be far higher than the current best guess of 8.7 million. But cryptic discoveries often mean that species once considered common and widespread are actually several, some of which may be endangered and require immediate protection.
Continue reading...From digging ponds to planting pollinators, Guardian readers have been bringing out the best in nature
Inspired by the story of the hedgehog highways in an English village and impressed by the contributions to our urban wildlife gallery, we asked Guardian readers to tell us what they have been doing to help wildlife in their gardens in 2020. Gardens are important habitats for small mammals, songbirds and insects and gardening in a wildlife-friendly way can make a massive difference in counteracting biodiversity loss. As always, the response was amazing, with readers from the UK, Australia, the US and Mexico sharing their innovations. Here are the best of them.
Continue reading...Canadian government’s speed restrictions are not enough to prevent deaths of endangered animals, researchers say
For North Atlantic right whales, collisions with large cargo vessels are one of the deadliest threats to an endangered population. But new research from Canada has found even under the government’s current maritime speed restrictions, strikes are likely to be fatal.
In a new paper published in Marine Mammal Science, biologists found that collisions between large vessels and whales at a speed of just 10 knots had an 80% chance of producing a fatality.
Continue reading...Our 20 favourite pieces of the year
What links an eccentric Oxford classics don, billionaire US evangelicals and a tiny, missing fragment of an ancient manuscript?
Continue reading...Off-duty rescue worker Mana Srivate was on a road trip in the Thai province of Chanthaburi when he was called into action to save the life of an unlikely road accident victim – a baby elephant. The calf had been struck by a motorbike as it attempted to cross a road with its herd. Srivate performed two-handed compressions until it was able to get back on its feet 10 minutes later. 'When the baby elephant started to move, I almost cried,' Srivate said. Neither elephant nor rider suffered serious injuries and the calf was later reunited with its mother.
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