Twenty dolphins were slaughtered on Friday in the southwestern Japanese town of Taiji, marking the beginning of the cove’s infamous annual dolphin hunt, according to local media, Agence France-Presse reports. The hunt has attracted global condemnation since 2009, when it was featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove, which depicted how fishermen round up […]
POLL: Should anti-Zika toxin be sprayed over public areas?
Huddled around their hives, beekeepers around the south-eastern US fear a new threat to their livelihood: a fine mist beaded with neurotoxin, sprayed from the sky by officials at war with mosquitos that carry the Zika virus. Earlier this week, South Carolina beekeepers found millions of dead honey bees carpeting their apiaries, killed by an […]
Nasa: Earth is warming at a pace ‘unprecedented in 1,000 years’
The planet is warming at a pace not experienced within the past 1,000 years, at least, making it “very unlikely” that the world will stay within a crucial temperature limit agreed by nations just last year, according to Nasa’s top climate scientist. This year has already seen scorching heat around the world, with the average […]
Another big predator in Southeast Asia faces extinction
Conservationists have long known that it’s hard – and in some cases – nearly impossible to survive as a tiger in Southeast Asia. Burning forests, high human populations and unflagging demand for tiger blood, tiger skin and crushed tiger bone means the big cats have to tread a daily gauntlet of snares, guns and desperate […]
Only two female Asiatic cheetahs remain in wild in Iran
Conservationists say only two female Asiatic cheetahs are known to be alive in the wild in Iran, which hosts the last surviving population. Asiatic cheetahs, also known as Iranian cheetahs, are a subspecies of the fastest animal on earth and classified as critically endangered, with fewer than 40 believed to remain in Iran. As part […]
More than 300 reindeer killed by lightning in Norway
A lightning strike killed more than 300 reindeer in Norway’s Hardangervidda region last Friday. At their last count, officials of the Norwegian Environment Agency reported the death of a herd of 323 reindeer of both sexes, including 70 calves. Five reindeer were severely injured in the storm and had to be euthanized. Lightning strikes have killed […]
The Earth stands on the brink of its sixth mass extinction and the fault is ours
Life on Earth is in trouble. That much we know. But how bad have things become – and how fast are events moving? How soon, indeed, before the Earth’s biological treasures are trashed, in what will be the sixth great mass extinction event? This is what Gerardo Caballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico […]
POLL: Should there be a worldwide ban on the ivory trade?
The UK is putting elephants at risk of extinction through its broken promises on the ivory trade, according to campaigners. Before the last election, the Conservative party pledged to shut down the UK’s domestic ivory market: at the time 30,000 elephants a year were being slaughtered for their tusks. But no action has been taken. […]