Last Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on China to shut down wet markets where illegal wildlife are sold. Pompeo’s call was echoed by the Australian government, which on the same day urged G20 countries to take action on wildlife markets in order to reduce the risk of new diseases like COVID-19 spilling […]
Author: Supertrooper
Founder and Executive Editor
Iceland won’t be killing any whales this year
Icelandic whaling company IP-Utgerd announced April 24 that it is stopping whaling completely, while the country’s largest whaling firm, Hvalur hf., says it won’t be hunting any whales for the second year in a row. IP-Utgerd, which mainly targeted minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), cited financial difficulties after no-fishing zones were extended off the Icelandic coast, […]
For world’s rarest great ape, COVID-19 is latest in a litany of threats
JAKARTA — The COVID-19 pandemic has become the latest threat to the Tapanuli orangutan in Indonesia, the rarest great ape species of all and one already under severe pressure from a range of human threats. The critically endangered species, Pongo tapanuliensis, found in a single patch of rainforest in northern Sumatra, shares 97% of its […]
Petition: Beijing Bans Consumption of Wild Animals Due to Coronavirus
Beijing has passed a law that punishes people for hunting, trading or eating wildlife, according to the Daily Mail. Government officials passed the law April 24 in wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The wildlife trade and animal markets are thought to be the cause of the coronavirus pandemic. Two other Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, passed […]
Investigating the mystery behind Guinea-Bissau’s mass vulture deaths
In late February, a local worker in a rice field on the outskirts of Bafatá, Guinea-Bissau, discovered a group of around 200 recently-deceased vultures. This shocking scene was the first of many to emerge across the West African nation over the next few days. Soon, more incidents of mass vulture deaths were reported, both on […]
China outrage: How pangolins are ‘force-fed rice to increase price’ on black market
Pangolins, which are often mistaken as reptiles, are actually the only wholly-scaled mammals in the world, with four known species found in Asia and two living in Sub-Saharan Africa. These small, soft animals have been under threat for decades from poachers, as their scales are used in Chinese traditional medicines, leading to some species in […]
Birds in Amazon forest fragments: New study summarizes 40 years of research
For the past 40 years, researchers have studied Amazonian bird communities in the world’s longest-running experiment on tropical forest fragments. This research, summarized in a newly published paper in The Condor: Ornithological Applications, sheds light on the way Neotropical birds respond to and recover from deforestation in a dynamic tropical landscape. The Biological Dynamics of […]
Petition: Mink on Fur Farms Tested Positive For Coronavirus
According to an email from Humane Society International United Kingdom (HSI), mink on two fur farms tested positive for coronavirus. The mink, located in the Netherlands, were tested after they were noted to have difficulty breathing, per HSI. Fur farms are notoriously dangerous and inhumane operations. Each fur farm where the mink was found had […]