Have you ever looked at a mouse, raccoon, or seagull and thought of them as nothing more than pests? If so, you’re not alone. However, Bethany Brookshire’s new book, “Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains,” offers a refreshing and enlightening perspective on these creatures that might just change your mind. As Brookshire writes, these animals […]
Rats often have a bad reputation for being dirty and carrying loads of diseases. However, according to a new study, these preconceptions may be unfair as they were found to carry no more pathogens than other mammals. In a study by Georgetown University, they examined 3,000 mammal species and looked for how many diseases they […]
The few remaining rainforests on Mauritius whisper with the memory of former residents, now ghosts. This once-lush Indian Ocean island remained mostly uninhabited by humans until 1598, when it became a Dutch port of call. By the time the French government took over some 150 years later and imported slaves to start sugar plantations, the […]
According to the first study to evaluate these implications across Europe, poisoning caused by preying on or scavenging animals shot by hunters using lead ammunition has left many raptors—or birds of prey—far smaller than they should be. When birds such as eagles and Red Kites scavenge carcasses or consume injured animals with toxic lead pieces […]
Wildlife in New York City has never been thriving, much to the surprise of those who live there and take care of the gardens. Adrian Benepe, who is now the president of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said, “I grew up in the parks. There were never red-tailed hawks or Peregrine falcons or bald eagles. You didn’t […]
Feeding birds is hard-wired into our national psyche. The apocryphal Victorian “tuppence a bag” for seed for the Trafalgar Square pigeons has morphed into a national pastime, with an estimated 17m households spending £250m a year on more than 150,000 tonnes of bird feed – enough to feed the entire breeding population of the 10 […]
The Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands, supporting an extraordinary number of species that occur nowhere else on the planet. Eighty-six new endemic bird species have been described in the Philippines in just the last decade — more than all avian endemics ever recorded in either China or India. Nevertheless, the country’s […]
The poaching of wild songbirds has become so lucrative that criminals are monitoring nests in a bid to circumvent the law, according to a senior garda. A sealed ring on a songbird traditionally suggested it was born in captivity and could legally be sold. But according to Supt Martin Walker, poachers have started stalking birds […]