Watching a giant eagle streak out of the sky to capture a rogue drone is undeniably cool. A story has been sweeping the Internet about how the Dutch National Police are training eagles to be a new avian air force that will protect us from evil flying robots. The idea that eagles could be turned […]
Category: News
Peru issues its first sentence against species traffickers, setting a precedent
On January 6, two men happened to be near San José church in the Lima district of Jesús María, when they were stopped by various agents from the Office Against Illegal Logging and Protection of Natural Resources (Dirección Contra la Tala Ilegal y Protección de los Recursos Naturales, or DIRCTIPRN – PNP), in coordination with […]
Icelanders Don’t Like Whale Meat – So Why the Hunts?
When it comes to commercial whaling, Japan is in the limelight. The country has been widely accused of using a scientific research program as a guise for hunting hundreds of whales a year and selling their meat. Last year, an international court agreed that the program isn’t scientific and ordered Japan to shut it down—to […]
Over 40 years, half of China’s land vertebrates disappear
From 1970 to 2010, the world’s populations of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish shrunk by about 52 percent. China is right in the middle of the global pack with a nearly 50-percent loss of its land-based vertebrates, according to a recent report by the international NGO World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The situation […]
Himalayan Forest Thrush: Scientists Discover New Species of Bird
A group of scientists led by Dr. Per Alström of Uppsala University has described a new species of bird from the northeastern India and adjacent parts of China. Dr. Alström and his Chinese and European colleagues named the new species Zoothera salimalii. “The scientific name honors the great Indian ornithologist Sálim Ali, in recognition of […]
Alarming proof of underreported bushmeat crisis in heart of Amazonia
When satellite imagery of the Brazilian rainforest shows lush, dense forests, most of us likely expect that those trees are packed with wildlife. But what if what we are actually seeing is an empty forest? According to a recent study published in Conservation Letters, this possibility is already becoming a reality in the pre-frontier areas […]
Long-awaited plan to save England’s hen harrier gets green light
Landowners, shooters, gamekeepers and conservationists have backed a long-delayed government plan to resolve a deep-rooted conflict over England’s most threatened bird of prey. The fate of the hen harrier in the English uplands has been of serious concern following years of illegal persecution by gamekeepers who have used poisoned bait to protect the grouse-shooting interests […]
UK’s last resident killer whales ‘doomed to extinction’
The UK’s last pod of killer whales is doomed to extinction, with new research revealing western European waters as a global hotspot for the lingering legacy of toxic PCB pollution. The persistent chemicals, used in electrical equipment but banned in the 1980s, are still leaking into the oceans and were also found in extremely high […]