The Earth has entered a new period of extinction, a study by three US universities has concluded, and humans could be among the first casualties. The report, led by the universities of Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley, said vertebrates were disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normal. The findings echo those in a report […]
Category: News
Amid rhinoceros poaching frenzy, dark days for South African society
Two adult rhinos and a calf lie under a tree 50 meters off the road. It’s a nice sighting for me in the midday heat of Kruger National Park in South Africa — my second of rhinos in two days. On the eastern horizon behind their sleeping forms lies a dark blue line; the Lembobo […]
Polar bears eat dolphins as Arctic warms
Norwegian scientists have seen polar bears eating dolphins in the Arctic for the first time ever and blame global warming for the bears expanding their diet. Polar bears feed mainly on seals but Jon Aars at the Norwegian Polar Institute has photographed dolphins being devoured by a bear and published his findings in the latest […]
How to Photograph Wild Animals (Without Getting Hurt)
Want a shark selfie? Or a snapshot of your kid riding a wild moose? As tourists fan out into the wilderness on summer vacations, the temptation may be there to get up close and personal with wild animals. But such interactions can have lethal consequences for man and beast. Two tourists were gored by bison […]
Yellow-breasted bunting population collapses across Eurasia
In 1914 the world’s last passenger pigeon died. Nicknamed Martha, she was not killed by hunters—like so many others of her species—but simply old age. With her passing, the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was lost forever to extinction. A hundred years before Martha’s death, however, the passenger pigeon may have been the most populous bird […]
Murder Most Foul in the Faroes
Once again, another cruel summer opens to the horror show of evil that the Faroese call the grindadráp, which translated means “the murder of whales.” This year the Faroese not only have the Faroese Coast Guard and the Danish Navy to defend these brutal and pitiless killers, but the whalers also have the services of […]
Vicious murdering bully chosen as Britain’s national bird
So we’ve chosen a vicious murdering bully for our national bird? It’s bad enough that we probably plumped for our self-important red-breasted friend because the Victorians sentimentalised the robin as a symbol of Christmas. Yet I suspect that the main reason it has been chosen is because it’s the one bird most people can actually […]
Iceland sends shipment of 1,700 tonnes of whale meat to Japan
A ship carrying 1,700 tonnes of whale meat left Iceland on Thursday bound for Japan, said a leading animal welfare group that is protesting against the controversial delivery. The website Marinetraffic.com also showed the vessel, known as Winter Bay, leaving the port of Hafnarfjordur in western Iceland just after 10.30 GMT. “Winter Bay has left […]