Fat innkeeper worms typically burrow under the sand but recent storms have swept away layers, leaving them exposed
I’m not sure this is what the Weather Girls meant when they sang, “It’s raining men.”
Related: 'Truly astounding': inside the Farallon Islands' battle against a plague of mice
Continue reading...Intensively managed estates have created treeless landscapes with few animals and plants
Conservation groups have called for Scotland’s grouse moors to be closed down and replaced by woodland to protect the country from the impacts of the climate emergency.
A report for Revive, a coalition of environmental and animal rights groups, has found grouse moors cause significant ecological damage by burning heather, allowing heavy grazing by deer and sheep, and using intensive predator control.
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...Miniature schnauzer was killed and its owner suffered a minor cut in attack in Simi Valley
A southern California woman punched a mountain lion and tried to pry its jaws open to save her dog from an attack in her backyard, but the pet was killed, officials said.
The woman suffered a minor cut after the mountain lion attacked her miniature schnauzer on Thursday in the city of Simi Valley, the police Sgt Keith Eisenhour told KNBC-TV.
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.
Continue reading...Environmentalists fear animal filmed in Russia now lacks camouflage to properly hunt
A video showing a polar bear spray-painted with graffiti has sparked outrage among environmentalists amid fears that the creature was targeted by locals in an area where the animals increasingly forage.
Scientists were concerned that the bear filmed in Russia – daubed with the letters “T-34”, the name of a second world war-era Soviet tank – would have trouble hunting and maintaining camouflage with the black lettering clearly visible on its side.
Continue reading...The minke whale was discovered on Friday by a patrol boat under Battersea Bridge
An eight-foot whale washed up on the shore of the Thames yesterday, where it was found by a patrol boat under Battersea Bridge.
The minke whale was found on Friday evening at about 10pm by a Port of London Authority boat, but it is not yet known how it got there or why it died.
Continue reading...With global heating damaging corals worldwide, experts find potential tool in ‘acoustic enrichment’ to recolonise reefs
Playing sounds of a healthy coral reef can attract fish back to reefs that have become degraded and abandoned, researchers have found.
Global heating together with factors such as pollution are causing widespread damage to coral and harming delicate reef ecosystems.
Continue reading...Plan aims to allow tuna population to recover from overfishing, but conservationists say endangered mako shark has been overlooked
Conservationists welcomed “long overdue” catch limits set this week for bigeye tuna and other Atlantic species, but criticised weak measures to rebuild endangered mako shark populations.
The International Commission for the Conservations of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) – responsible for the management of tuna and tuna-like species and bycatch including sharks and rays – set new catch limits for bigeye tuna at a meeting in Palma, Mallorca, this week. It also agreed to reduce juvenile fish mortality by limiting certain fishing practices.
Continue reading...Shooting poachers, circling polar bears, flailing four-tonne seals, singing rhinos and the world’s worst sea … the team behind Attenborough’s latest extravaganza relive their thrills and spills
Chadden Hunter, producer, North America and South America
Continue reading...Last of the species in country, a female rhino named Iman, ‘died sooner than expected’
The Sumatran rhinoceros has become extinct in Malaysia, zoologists have announced.
The last of the species in the country succumbed to cancer in the state of Sabah on the island of Borneo, it was revealed.
Continue reading...Exclusive: scientists say bug deaths can be cut by switching off unnecessary lights
Light pollution is a significant but overlooked driver of the rapid decline of insect populations, according to the most comprehensive review of the scientific evidence to date.
Artificial light at night can affect every aspect of insects’ lives, the researchers said, from luring moths to their deaths around bulbs, to spotlighting insect prey for rats and toads, to obscuring the mating signals of fireflies.
Continue reading...Hunters and government biologists searching for explanations after unusual sounds recorded in forests of north-western Ontario
A series of howls and shrieks recorded in the Canadian wilderness have left a hunter and government biologists searching for explanations.
Gino Meekis was out hunting grouse with his wife and grandson in the forests of north-western Ontario – more than 50km from the closest town – when they heard a series of eerie noises in the distance.
Continue reading...Cows missing for two months were located on North Carolina’s Outer Banks after ‘mini tsunami’ carried wildlife away
Three cows swept off an island during the raging storm of Hurricane Dorian have been located on North Carolina’s Outer Banks after apparently swimming four miles during the storm.
Related: ‘Insect apocalypse’ poses risk to all life on Earth, conservationists warn
Continue reading...Parks agency plans to move hundreds of animals in ‘biggest translocation of wildlife in Zimbabwe’s history’
Hundreds of elephants and tens of lions in Zimbabwe will be moved by the country’s wildlife agency as part of a major operation to save the animals from a devastating drought.
More than 200 elephants have died over the last two months due to a lack of water at the country’s main conservation zones in Mana Pools and Hwange National Park.
Continue reading...A distinctly two-tone mouse deer that was feared lost to science has been captured on film foraging for food by camera traps set up in a Vietnamese forest.
The pictures of the rabbit-sized animal, also known as the silver-backed chevrotain, are the first to be taken in the wild and come nearly 30 years after the last confirmed sighting of the creature
Continue reading...Silver-backed chevrotain caught on camera after it was feared lost to science
A distinctly two-tone mouse deer that was feared lost to science has been captured on film foraging for food by camera traps set up in a Vietnamese forest.
The pictures of the rabbit-sized animal, also known as the silver-backed chevrotain, are the first to be taken in the wild and come nearly 30 years after the last confirmed sighting.
Continue reading...Operator faces choice of weakening 14km barrier or potentially devastating a biodiversity hotspot
The biggest hydroelectric project in the Amazon rainforest has a design flaw that poses a “very serious” threat to human life and globally important ecosystems, according to documents and expert testimony received by the Guardian.
The studies suggest engineers failed to anticipate the impact of water shortages on the Pimental dam at Belo Monte, which has been closed and turned into a barrier. This is forcing the operators to choose between a structural weakening of the 14km-wide compacted-earth barrier and a reallocation of water in the reservoir or on the Xingu river, which is home to indigenous communities, fishing villages and some of the world’s most endangered species.
Continue reading...Pollution stretches across 2,400km of coastline, with scientists fearing contamination of food chain
Hundreds of kilometres of mangroves and coral reefs, as well as humpback whale breeding grounds, are under threat from an oil spill that has polluted more than 2,400km of Brazil’s north-eastern coast in the last two months.
The Brazilian Navy, which has deployed 8,500 personnel, 30 ships and 17 aircraft in the cleanup operation, said this week that 4,200 tonnes of oil have been removed from beaches, amid fears by scientists that some has already entered the food chain.
Continue reading...Ultra-endurance athlete, aerodynamic wonder … and facing extinction. Why the bird who flies 30,000km a year needs Australia’s mudflats
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The ascent is vertical. Up, up and into the jet stream. If the conditions are not right up there it will come back down and wait. But if there is a good tailwind in the right direction it will begin an epic journey that will take it around the curvature of the Earth; from the Arctic Circle to the southern hemisphere.
Using the sun and stars as a compass, and navigating by the Earth’s magnetic field, recognising landmarks, the far eastern curlew will fly nonstop to the Yellow Sea, where it fuels up on the mudflats of north-east China.
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