Fires take an enormous toll on wildlife, with huge numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles and insects killed
Australia’s continuing bushfire crisis has taken an enormous toll on wildlife, with huge numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and other species killed.
The ecologist Chris Dickman has estimated more than a billion animals have died around the country – a figure that excludes fish, frogs, bats and insects.
Continue reading...Only 15 giant Española tortoises were left in the wild before one male sired 800 offspring in a wildly successful breeding program
The Galápagos National Park has announced it is ending a captive breeding program for giant Española tortoises, after one tortoise produced more than 800 offspring, helping save the species.
Related: Giant tortoise believed extinct for 100 years found in Galápagos
Continue reading...Bees are essential to the functioning of America’s titanic almond industry – and billions are dying in the process
Dennis Arp was feeling optimistic last summer, which is unusual for a beekeeper these days.
Thanks to a record wet spring, his hundreds of hives, scattered across the central Arizona desert, produced a bounty of honey. Arp would have plenty to sell in stores, but more importantly, the bumper harvest would strengthen his bees for their biggest task of the coming year.
Continue reading...Rain falls on some NSW, Victorian and South Australian bushfire-affected areas, but worse fire conditions are forecast to return. Follow all today’s latest news and live updates
Andrew Crisp:
Speaking with the incident controller here at Bairnsdale a short time ago, some of our concern is the fires up in the alpine area, around Omeo, and the potential for them to travel south with the northerly and join the fires down in this part of the world.
We saw, only a few days ago, where there were more than 300 people on the oval at Omeo where some helicopters were there to take people out.
The Victorian emergency commissioner, Andrew Crisp, has an update:
There are three communities we haven’t been able to drive in. When I say ‘drive’ even with those other communities it is basically bushtracks and emergency vehicles to get in, it is where there is no real road access.
We’ve been able to get helicopters and sat phones in to make sure people have supplies.
Greatest concerns for endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart and glossy black-cockatoo after third of island burned
Ecologists have grave concerns for the future of unique and endangered wildlife on Kangaroo Island where bushfires have killed thousands of koalas.
Fires on the island, in South Australia, have so far burned through 155,000 hectares – about one third of the island’s entire area – with blazes concentrated in the biodiversity-rich western areas.
Continue reading...Phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilisers and aggressive emission reductions among series of solutions outlined by scientists
The world must eradicate pesticide use, prioritise nature-based farming methods and urgently reduce water, light and noise pollution to save plummeting insect populations, according to a new “roadmap to insect recovery” compiled by experts.
The call to action by more than 70 scientists from across the planet advocates immediate action on human stress factors to insects which include habitat loss and fragmentation, the climate crisis, pollution, over-harvesting and invasive species.
Continue reading...Communities vanished in 15th century after walrus hunted to near extinction, study finds
The mysterious disappearance of Greenland’s medieval Norse society in the 15th century came after walruses were hunted almost to extinction, researchers have said.
Norse communities thrived for more than 400 years in the Arctic, hunting walruses for their tusks, a valuable medieval commodity.
Continue reading...People in Cobargo, New South Wales, left numb by devastation wrought on their homes by fires
The joey rescued from his mother’s pouch after the bushfires that tore through the village of Cobargo on the south coast of New South Wales last week has no name yet, but Kyle Moser is leaning towards “Ali”. “Like the fighter,” he explained.
In a room at the back of the Cobargo post office, Moser and his partner, David Wilson, are caring for the kangaroo soon to be known as Ali and two wallaby joeys. Next door is the remains of a burnt-out cafe. Across the road are the charred ruins of what used to be a leather shop, a yoga studio and an incense shop.
Continue reading...Farmers blame ‘ecological emergency’ on inadequate treatment of sewage
A gastroenteritis epidemic sweeping France has hit oyster farmers in Brittany after the virus was found in shellfish.
Health authorities have banned the fishing and selling of oysters in the bay around Mont-Saint-Michel and other shellfish farming areas on France’s north-western coast until further notice.
Continue reading...Three women have handed themselves in to police in Germany over a blaze at a zoo on New Year's Eve that killed dozens of animals.
The women are being investigated for setting off flying lanterns, which are banned, and which may have been the cause of the fire at Krefeld zoo in North Rhine-Westphalia, which killed over 30 primates.
Continue reading...Sussan Ley’s estimate suggests up to 8,400 koalas may have perished in the bushfires
Australia’s environment minister has said up to 30% of koalas on the New South Wales mid-north coast may have been killed in the country’s ongoing bushfire crisis.
Nationally, more than 5m hectares have been burned in an unprecedented bushfire season that has also killed nine people. Some 3.4m hectares have been burnt in NSW alone.
Continue reading...It is famous for smelling like “a thousand dead elephants rotting in the sun”, its petals resemble decaying flesh, and it is so rare that outside its natural habitat in Papua New Guinea, few botanists in the world have ever seen it in flower.
Now this highly pungent orchid – Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis – is in bloom for the first time in a glasshouse at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
Continue reading...The big cats’ resourceful new behaviour was recorded by a WWF study on a remote island off the coast of Brazil
A thriving population of jaguars living on a small, unspoilt island off the coast of the Brazilian Amazon has learned to catch fish in the sea to survive, conservationists have found.
The Maracá-Jipioca Ecological Station island reserve, three miles off the northern state of Amapá, acts as a nursery for jaguars, according to WWF researchers who have collared three cats and set up 70 camera traps on the remote jungle island.
Continue reading...There are days in a Canadian winter – when the temperature drops well below freezing and the snow hasn’t yet fallen – that transform any body of freshwater into a glass-like sheet of ice.
But what can bring joy to an adventurous human can prove a nightmare for some wild animals.
Continue reading...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.
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