Food safety agency’s decision could put mealworms, locusts and baby crickets on menus
It is being billed as the long-awaited breakthrough moment in European gastronomy for mealworm burgers, locust aperitifs and cricket granola.
In the next few weeks the EU’s European Food Safety Authority is expected by the insect industry to endorse mealworms, lesser mealworms, locusts, baby crickets and adult crickets as being safe for human consumption.
Continue reading...Analysis of underwater photographs has demonstrated what marine biologists have long suspected – seasonal fish migrations
New research has finally demonstrated what many marine biologists suspected but had never before seen: fish migrating through the deep sea.
The study, published this month in the Journal of Animal Ecology, used analysis of deep-sea photographs to show a regular increase in the number of fish in particular months, suggesting seasonal migrations.
Continue reading...Haddiscoe Island, Norfolk: Wally Mason may well be the last person in Britain to cut thatching reed the traditional way
It’s easy to lose your bearings among the vast horizons of Haddiscoe Island. This triangular grazing marsh on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, enclosed by the rivers Waveney and Yare, feels far bigger than its 2,000 acres, and more remote than its position just off the A413 to Great Yarmouth should allow.
Continue reading...Coronavirus keeps crowds that usually greet hatching of hawksbill turtles away
Nearly 100 critically endangered sea turtles have hatched on a deserted beach in Brazil, their first steps going almost unnoticed because of coronavirus restrictions that prohibit people from gathering on the region’s sands.
The 97 hawksbill sea turtles, or tartarugas-de-pente as they are known in Brazil, were born last Sunday in Paulista, a town in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco.
Continue reading...Shortages in funds, medicines and masks threaten charity work around the world
Last Thursday morning Louisa Baillie drove down the five-kilometre dirt track that connects her jungle home in the Amazon rainforest to the main road. At the junction, she parked, hiking the rest of the way into Mera, a town of about 8,000 people.
After filling her backpack with fruit and vegetables from local sellers, she grabbed some leaves and set about plucking termites off trees along the roadside, stuffing them into a bucket containing small fragments of the insects’ nests. Baillie works as a veterinarian at Merazonia, a wildlife rescue centre in Ecuador. The termites were dinner for Andy the anteater, a baby recently confiscated at a police checkpoint.
Continue reading...Severity of damage has increased, with areas spared in previous years experiencing moderate or severe bleaching
The government agency responsible for the Great Barrier Reef has confirmed the natural landmark has suffered a third mass coral bleaching episode in five years, describing the damage as “very widespread”.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said the assessment was based on information from in-water and aerial observations, and built on the best available science and technology to understand current conditions.
Continue reading...Renowned scientist Terry Hughes says huge swathes of reef have been affected in a ‘severe’ situation
The Great Barrier Reef has experienced a third mass coral bleaching event in five years, according to the scientist carrying out aerial surveys over hundreds of individual reefs.
With three days of a nine-day survey to go, Prof Terry Hughes told Guardian Australia: “We know this is a mass bleaching event and it’s a severe one.”
Continue reading...Many of our closest living relatives are already at risk of extinction and susceptible to human disease, warn scientists
The coronavirus pandemic could wipe out populations of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, leading scientists have warned.
Our closest living relatives, which share about 98% of human DNA, are known to be susceptible to catching respiratory diseases from people.
Continue reading...Planes will this week cover areas in the southern half of the reef that escaped earlier bleaching but may have undergone high levels of heat stress
The full impact of coral bleaching across the Great Barrier Reef will become clearer this week as aerial surveys of hundreds of reefs are completed in the bottom two thirds of the world’s biggest reef system.
An aerial survey carried out last week over almost 500 individual reefs between the Torres Strait and Cairns revealed some severe bleaching of corals closer to shore, but almost none on outer reefs.
Continue reading...With the cruise ships gone and the souvenir stalls closed, the coronavirus lockdown has transformed La Serenissima’s waterways
Look down into the waters of the Venice canals today and there is a surprising sight – not just a clear view of the sandy bed, but shoals of tiny fish, scuttling crabs and multicoloured plant-life.
“The water is blue and clear,” said Gloria Beggiato, who owns the celebrated Metropole Hotel a few steps from St Mark’s square and has a view over the Venice lagoon. “It is calm like a pond, because there are no more waves caused by motorised boats transporting day-tripper tourists. And of course, the giant cruise ships have disappeared.”
Continue reading...Slow recovery due to relocating groups and stronger protection through law enforcement
Numbers of African black rhinos in the wild have risen by several hundred, a rare boost in the conservation of a species driven to near extinction by poaching.
Black rhinos are still in grave danger but the small increase – an annual rate of 2.5% over six years, has swollen the population from 4,845 in 2012 to an estimated 5,630 in 2018, giving hope that efforts put into saving the species are paying off.
Continue reading...Researchers believe the calf was born in January and a second may be on its way
Hopes for a recovery of Brazil’s most endangered ecosystem have been given a boost by the first birth of a wild tapir in Rio de Janeiro’s Atlantic Forest for more than a century.
Scientists said video clips of the baby tapir proved the initial success of a re-introduction strategy for the threatened mammal, which is often described as “a forest gardener” because it plays a vital role in the dispersal of seeds.
Continue reading...Environmental groups fear link between huge ships and spikes in dolphin deaths
Brexit offers the perfect opportunity to ban industrial supertrawler fishing boats from UK waters, according to campaigners.
The factory-sized ships can be hundreds of feet long and have been criticised for indiscriminate fishing as they catch hundreds of thousands of fish in relatively short periods. Environmentalists fear their presence correlates with spikes in numbers of dolphins washing up dead.
Continue reading...Sioned Jones convicted of stealing logs after 20 years of felling non-native trees in Cork
Sioned Jones used to adore the landscape and wildlife of her adopted home in Bantry, a bucolic region in west Cork on Ireland’s Atlantic coast. She planted vegetables and herbs, foraged for nuts and berries and observed birds, insects, frogs and lizards.
Then, on land above her house, the state-owned forestry company Coillte planted a forest of Sitka spruce, a non-native species that Jones considered a dark, dank threat to biodiversity.
Continue reading...Teams allowed to take beach route to get to Netherlands’ first F1 grand prix in 35 years
The return of Formula One to the Netherlands after 35 years has become mired in controversy after two racing teams got the green light to drive across a beach nature reserve to ensure their staff avoid traffic on the way to the circuit.
The teams of Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri will be allowed to drive from their hotels along two miles of beach within the Noordvoort reserve, a popular resting spot for seals and breeding birds located between the Zandvoort racetrack and the North Sea.
Continue reading...Officials says move reflects bond between pets and people – ‘the consensus of all human civilisation’ – rather than coronavirus fears
Shenzhen is set to become the first city in mainland China to ban the eating of dogs and cats, if a draft regulation released by the municipal government in a wider push to restrict the consumption of wild animals is approved.
On Monday, China’s National People’s Congress issued an order to ban all consumption of wild animal meat and further restrict the wildlife trade nationwide. The measures are expected to be enshrined in the country’s wildlife protection law later this year.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg-effect behind sales boom in books on everything from plastic waste to endangered wildlife
I’m reading one of a small forest’s-worth of beautiful new picture books about the environment with my eight-year-old twins. The Sea, by Miranda Krestovnikoff and Jill Calder, takes us into mangrove swamps and kelp forests and coral reefs. We learn about goblin sharks and vampire squids and a poisonous creature called a nudibranch. Then we reach the final chapter on ocean plastics. When we learn that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish, Esme bursts into inconsolable tears.
Continue reading...Pacific nation’s protected zone has led to commercial tuna fishing vessels leaving the country
Palau’s much-touted marine sanctuary has backfired, with the fishing ban leading to an increased consumption of the reef fish in the western Pacific country – such as grouper, snapper and parrotfish – that the marine sanctuary promised to protect.
Palau introduced a new 500,000 sq km (193,000 sq mile) marine sanctuary on 1 January to much fanfare.
Continue reading...The army has been called in to eliminate the insects swarming across Africa, but their mission is dangerous and unending
Sitting at a plastic table in the garden of Timisha hotel in Soroti, eastern Uganda, Major General Samuel Kavuma takes a drag of his cigarette and looks down at his phone, which has barely stopped ringing for the past hour.
A military figure for nearly 40 years, Kavuma fought the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgent group. Now, he’s become the “locust commander”, the man leading the fight against the country’s worst locust outbreak in decades.
Continue reading...Peacocks, porcupines and pangolins among species bred on 20,000 farms closed in wake of virus
Nearly 20,000 wildlife farmsraising species including peacocks, civet cats, porcupines, ostriches, wild geese and boar have been shut down across China in the wake of the coronavirus, in a move that has exposed the hitherto unknown size of the industry.
Until a few weeks ago wildlife farming was still being promoted by government agencies as an easy way for rural Chinese people to get rich.
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