Anchorage, Alaska – Scientists working with sophisticated DNA sequencing technology think they may have solved a 20-year-old mystery of what has caused thousands of Alaska’s wild birds to be afflicted with deformed, twisted beaks. The findings suggest that a newly discovered virus – poecivirus – may be the culprit behind the bizarre beak deformities in […]
Tag: endangered species
POLL: Should the sale of elephant ivory be legalized?
World Elephant Day was not necessarily good news for Africa’s elephants: Pressure is mounting in southern Africa to lift the ban on the sale of ivory. In the mid-1980s, during the last great elephant poaching crisis, Africa lost nearly half its elephant population, roughly 600,000 animals, in a decade. But the world responded in 1989 […]
Indochinese leopard has disappeared from 94% of its historical range
The Indochinese leopard is struggling to survive. Once widespread across southeast Asia, the leopard subspecies has been wiped out from much of its habitat, and now occurs only in six percent of its historical range, a new study published in Biological Conservation has found. “Nobody was expecting this,” co-author Jan F. Kamler, Southeast Asia Leopard Program […]
POLL: Should the killing of animals by Wildlife Services be stopped?
The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Wildlife Services (WS) admitted in its annual Program Data Report to having killed at least 3.2 million wild animals in 2015 alone — many of which were large predators. 1,681,283 of that total were animals native to the United States. Environmental groups are already sounding the alarm, pointing […]
Drones to unleash vaccine-laced pellets to save endangered ferrets
The US government is set to unleash drones that fire vaccine-laced pellets in a bid to save the endangered black-footed ferret, a species that is facing a plague epidemic across America’s great plains. The US Fish and Wildlife (FWS) has developed a plan to bombard ferret habitat in Montana with the vaccine, which will be […]
Massive relocation of 500 elephants begins in Malawi
In one of the largest scale translocations ever, some 500 African elephants are currently being moved to what is believed to be a safer habitat in Malawi. Elephants are being shot by tranquilizer darts, then retrieved by cranes and recovery trucks. The elephants are then awoken in special “wake-up crates” and then transported 450 kilometers […]
Endangered Species Act: A Big Success!
One of the most frustrating elements for me of the toxic political climate today is how little facts seem to matter anymore in public discourse. It’s become a common belief that the Endangered Species Act hasn’t worked because, since its passage in 1973, only a handful of species have recovered enough to be de-listed. Just […]
What future is there for Africa’s lions?
In 1716, exactly three hundred years ago, Bostonians were the first Americans to lay eyes upon an African lion. George Washington was yet to be born and the concept of our nation was still 60 years away. According to the Boston News Letter, “All persons having the Curiosity of seeing the noble and Royal Beast […]