All Forest & Bird (BirdLife in New Zealand) members, bird enthusiasts and Kiwi kids are being encouraged to get behind the inaugural Kereru Count this month. From February 19-27, volunteers are being asked to keep a look out in their local areas for kereru – the native pigeon also known as kūkupa and kūkū in […]
New Rule To Help Protect Endangered Piping Plovers at Cape Hatteras National Seashore
The National Park Service has published the final rule on the contentious issue of off-road vehicle (ORV) use at North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore following a seven-year process which had prompted a lawsuit from several conservation organizations. Hatteras was designated as the nation’s first National Seashore in 1953. In recent years, it has experienced […]
Reddish Egrets in Florida
Reddish Egrets are the rarest, and arguably the most beautiful, of the Florida herons. Once relatively common along the coastlines of Florida in the 19th century, plume hunters nearly eradicated the species from Florida by the early 20th century. Since the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Reddish Egret has been increasing in numbers in […]
The World’s rarest dolphin faces extinction…
With the recent death in January of another Maui’s dolphin by entanglement in static fishing gear cetacean biologists around the globe are resigning themselves to yet another whale species facing extinction within the next few years; joining the recently extinct Yangtze river dolphin and the ranks of other critically endangered marine mammal species like the […]
PhotoShare: Little Egret in breeding plumage
I have totally been neglecting my blog this last month, since I posted my “Top 20 for 2011” photos. I am swamped with a lot of work and photography and family related issues at the moment, but thought I might as well just pop a PhotoShare on here in lieu of nothing else to post […]
World’s First Five Country Protected Area to Conserve “Europe’s Amazon”
Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia today signed a historic declaration to establish a trans-boundary UNESCO Biosphere Reserve to protect their shared nature and wildlife along the Mura, Drava and Danube rivers, “Europe’s Amazon”. The declaration – signed during the Informal Ministerial Meeting within the Hungarians EU-Presidency – paves the way for creating the world’s […]
Kazakhstan Names Large Inland Delta
Just before the World Wetlands Day Ili River Delta and South Lake Bakhash in Kazakhstan were included in the Wetland of International Importance list. Total area of the new Ramsar site is 976.630 hectares, which is about half of the size of Slovenia. The wetland is located in the southern part of Kazakhstan amid the […]
Mozambican Poachers get 25 years in South Africa Court
Three Mozambicans have been sentenced to 25 years each in a South African court for rhino poaching, according to the South African national parks body. The men were found guilty of illegally hunting rhino in the Kruger National Park in July 2010. The head of SANParks, David Mabunda, said the sentence was harsher than other […]