A group of ornithologists led by Dr Manuel Schweizer from the Natural History Museum of Bern in Switzerland has described a new cryptic species of owl that inhabits the desert areas of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Yemen. The newly-discovered species, named the Desert Tawny Owl, belongs to the earless owl genus, Strix. […]
Author: Supertrooper
Poll: Should the Nicaraguan interoceanic canal go ahead?
A Chinese company has launched work on a $50bn canal across Nicaragua, an ambitious rival to the Panama canal that sceptics dismiss as a pipe dream and environmentalists say will wreck the country’s ecosystem. The Chinese telecoms magnate behind the canal, Wang Jing, inaugurated the project at a ceremony in the southern town of Rivas […]
New photos offer rare glimpse of the mysterious Saharan Cheetah
The Saharan cheetah is one of the world’s rarest big cats. At face value, that isn’t all that surprising. Deserts are harsh environments that support few large herbivores, which means there are even fewer carnivores around. But if we’ve learned anything about ecology, it’s that healthy ecosystems require the survival of apex predators; they keep […]
Video: Extraordinary journey to photograph the rarest rhino on Earth
Wildlife photographer Stephen Belcher embarks on a precarious journey through the vast, almost impenetrable jungles of Indonesia to capture the first high-definition images of the critically endangered Javan rhino. With only around 35 of the iconic animals left in the world, his photographs could be our last glimpse of these elusive creatures. This video was […]
Mother and cub: researchers photograph rare cat with cub in Sumatra
Researchers working in Kerinci Seblat National Park have captured a remarkable image of a mother Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) carrying her young in her mouth. The image was taken in mid-2014 as reported by Mongabay Indonesia by the Sumatran Tiger Research Team. Asian golden cats are just one of five wild cat species found […]
How to eradicate grey squirrels without firing a shot
Is there anything more stupid than the government’s plan to kill grey squirrels? I ask not because I believe – as Animal Aid does – that grey squirrels are harmless. Far from it: they have eliminated red squirrels from most of Britain since their introduction by Victorian landowners, and are now doing the same thing […]
Video: Feeding seabirds on Ile aux Aigrettes
The seabird translocation project on Ile aux Aigrettes, Mauritius. The aim is to re-establish a community of seabirds on the off shore islet to rebuild lost ecological interactions. Once on the islet, they have to be fed daily until they fledge. On this video, we feed a Red-tailed tropicbird chick. This video was […]
Road building spree hurts Amazon birds
A city-dwelling crow in Japan strategically drops a nut near a crosswalk into moving traffic. The bird then waits patiently for the light to turn before dropping down to the road and collecting the cracked nut in safety. While this type of animal behavior is fascinating, such adaptation to the human world is not possible […]