Category Archives: Wildlife

Last wolves in Africa: the fragile wildlife of Ethiopia’s ravaged parks | Tom Gardner

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Wildfires and an encroaching population are threatening grasslands that host some of the world’s rarest species

Conservationist Getachew Assefa points across the valley. “It started close to the mist over there, by the most spectacular viewpoint,” he says. “Almost all the grassland was burnt. All of that plateau and the steep cliff over there.”

Six months after wildfires torched this part of Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains, the scars are healing: heather and grass have returned to carpet the hilltop, brightened by the yellow daisies which bloom after the long rains. On the near side of the valley lie barley fields, rippling in the wind.

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Two-thirds of bird species in North America could vanish in climate crisis

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Continent could lose 389 of 604 species studied to threats from rising temperatures, higher seas, heavy rains and urbanization

Two-thirds of bird species in North America are at risk of extinction because of the climate crisis, according to a new report from researchers at the Audubon Society, a leading US conservation group.

Related: Record numbers of Australia's wildlife species face 'imminent extinction'

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Humpback whale found dead in Thames was hit by a ship

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Investigators say it is unclear whether wound happened before or after its death

A humpback whale that died after swimming into the Thames was hit by a ship, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has said.

However, it is not clear whether the wound on the juvenile female was inflicted before or after its death.

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Eleven elephants die after falling into waterfall in Thailand – video

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Wildlife officials in Thailand have discovered the carcasses of five more wild elephants downstream from a waterfall where the bodies of six other elephants were found on Saturday. 

The animals were originally thought to have died while trying to save each other after falling into a waterfall at Khao Yai national park, but a drone being used to investigate the deaths later identified five further carcasses, including that of a three-year-old calf.

Only two elephants in the herd are known to have survived the fall at the 200-metre-high Haew Narok waterfall in Thailand's mountainous north-east

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Six wild elephants die trying to save each other in Thai waterfall

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Incident reportedly happened after baby elephant slipped over falls

Six wild elephants have died while trying to save each other after falling into a waterfall at the Khao Yai National Park in Thailand.

Two others were saved during the incident on Saturday at the Haew Narok waterfall in the north-eastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima, officials said.

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Environment groups offer €30k reward to identify wolf’s killer

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Naya, the first wolf sighted in Belgium for a century, believed to have been killed by hunters

Environmental groups are offering a €30,000 (£27,000) reward for information that helps identify who killed Naya, the first wolf sighted in Belgium for a century when she entered the country last year.

The wolf’s arrival completed the return of the predator to every mainland country in Europe, turning back decades of persecution.

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Belgium’s first sighted wolf in a century feared killed by hunters

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There has been no sign of Naya or the pups she was carrying since May

The first wolf to have been sighted in Belgium for more than 100 years has not been seen since May, and environmentalists believe she is likely to have been killed.

The wolf, given the name Naya, was first sighted in Belgium in the north-east province of Limbourg in January 2018. She was fitted with a collar containing a transponder to track her movements.

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Indonesia cancels Komodo island closure, saying tourists are no threat to dragons

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U-turn announced after environment minister said populations of the ancient lizard remained stable despite influx of visitors

Indonesian authorities have cancelled plans to close Komodo island to tourists, with the country’s environment ministry saying that Komodo dragons living there are not under threat from over-tourism.

In July, authorities in East Nusa Tenggara province said that the island would be closed for one year from January 2020 to stop tourists interfering with the natural behaviour of the largest species of lizard on earth. On Monday Siti Nurbaya Bakar, Indonesia’s environment and forestry minister, said the move was off.

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‘A very special place’: Lundy’s future secure for another 50 years

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Lease extended on island off Devon – a haven for wildlife and seekers of the quiet life

The future of an island off the Devon coast that has been transformed from the haunt of pirates and chancers into a haven for wildlife and seekers of the quiet life has been secured for another half century.

A fresh 50-year agreement between the charities that own and run Lundy is being signed that will offer protection for the flora and fauna (and the hardy humans) who live on the weather-battered hunk of granite in the Bristol Channel.

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US and Canada have lost three billion birds since 1970

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More than one in four birds have been lost across diverse groups and habitats, in what researchers describe as a ‘wake-up call’

The US and Canada have lost more than one in four birds – a total of three billion – since 1970, culminating in what scientists who published a new study are calling a “widespread ecological crisis”.

Researchers observed a 29% decline in bird populations across diverse groups and habitats – from songbirds such as meadowlarks to long-distance migratory birds such as swallows and backyard birds like sparrows.

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Outrage in China as giant panda on loan to Thailand zoo dies

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Chuang Chuang reportedly collapsed after eating bamboo in Chiang Mai Zoo

The sudden death of a giant panda on loan to a zoo in Thailand has sparked outrage in China and calls for no more of the bears to be lent to the country.

Chuang Chuang, a 19-year-old male, reportedly collapsed on Monday afternoon after eating bamboo in Chiang Mai zoo in northern Thailand, according to Thai media.

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Half of tigers rescued from Thai temple have died, officials say

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Inbreeding blamed as only 61 of 147 big cats survive after removal from tourist attraction

More than half of the 147 tigers confiscated from a Thai temple have died, park officials have said, blaming genetic problems linked to inbreeding at the once money-spinning tourist attraction.

For years, the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua temple in the western province of Kanchanaburi attracted hordes of tourists who could be photographed – for a fee – next to scores of tigers.

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Cyclist dies after crashing while under attack by swooping magpie

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Seventy-six-year-old suffered head injuries when he veered off a bike path and hit a fence post in Wollongong

A man has died of head injuries after he was startled by a magpie and crashed his bicycle in Wollongong.

The 76-year-old was riding a pushbike on an off-road path alongside Nicholson Park at Woonona on Sunday morning when he veered off to avoid a swooping magpie, witnesses reported.

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US says man can bring back ‘skin, skull, teeth and claws’ of hunted Tanzania lion

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Environmental organizations say ‘very concerning’ move could open floodgates for importing other endangered species

The Trump administration has authorized a Florida man to bring back the “skin, skull, teeth and claws” of a lion he hunted in Tanzania, granting the first permit to import a lion from that country since the species gained protection under the US Endangered Species Act.

Environmental organizations say the move could open the floodgates for importing other endangered species like lions and rhinos. A freedom of information request made public by the US Fish and Wildlife Services also revealed that the hunter, Carl Atkinson, was represented by lawyer John Jackson III, who is also a member of the Trump administration’s International Wildlife Conservation Council, a controversial advisory board that promotes trophy hunting.

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Trump opens protected Alaskan Arctic refuge to oil drillers

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The Bureau of Land Management will offer leases to the 1.6m-acre coastal plain which is home to threatened polar bears

The Trump administration is finalizing plans to allow oil and gas drilling in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that has been protected for decades.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will offer leases on essentially the entire 1.6m-acre coastal plain, which includes places where threatened polar bears have dens and porcupine caribou visit for calving. Drilling operations are expected to be problematic for Indigenous populations, many of which rely on subsistence hunting and fishing.

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Dolphins in Channel carry ‘toxic cocktail’ of chemicals

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High levels of mercury and banned industrial fluids, found in blubber and skin, can impact reproduction

Bottlenose dolphins in the Channel have been found to carry a “toxic cocktail” of chemicals in their bodies, some of which have been banned for decades and which may be harming the marine mammals’ health, scientists have said.

Belgian and French scientists said they detected high accumulations of industrial fluids and mercury in the blubber and skin of dolphins in the waters off the north-west coast of France.

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Shocking news: world’s most powerful electric eel found in Amazon

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Electrophorus voltai can deliver a jolt of 860 volts, much more than existing record of 650 volts

DNA research has revealed two entirely new species of electric eel in the Amazon basin, including one capable of delivering a record-breaking jolt.

The findings are evidence, researchers say, of the incredible diversity in the Amazon rainforest – much of it still unknown to science – and illustrate why it is so important to protect a habitat at risk from deforestation, logging and fires.

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Australia launches emergency relocation of fish as largest river system faces collapse

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There are doubts the Noah’s Ark plan for the Lower Darling will be enough to prevent more mass fish kills

Faced with a looming ferocious summer with little rain forecast, the New South Wales government has embarked on a Noah’s Ark type operation to move native fish from the Lower Darling – part of Australia’s most significant river system – to safe havens before high temperatures return to the already stressed river basin.

Researchers have warned of other alarming ecological signs that the Lower Darling River – part of the giant Murray-Darling Basin – is in a dire state, following last summer’s mass fish kills.

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How snakebites became an invisible health crisis in Congo

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Daily life is fraught with danger for people living in remote areas of a country where health funding is as scarce as specialist medicine

All photographs by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

In the vast jungles that cover the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the world’s most invisible health crises burns on. The country’s extensive equatorial forests are home to numerous species of venomous snakes, but their habitat is shared by secluded communities that are being forced to look further and further afield for their resources due to poverty and the pressures of conflict and climate change.

It puts DRC at the centre of an issue Médecins Sans Frontières has called a “neglected crisis”: death by snake bite.

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