Birds are hugely popular pets in Indonesia. A 2011 study found, for instance, that more than one-third of households in the six biggest cities of Java and Bali kept birds as pets. Most of these pet birds are caught from the wild. Conservationists say that the popularity of bird-keeping in Indonesia has been driving the […]
Tag: extinction
One-third of North America’s birds at risk of extinction
More than one-third of North America’s native bird species are at immediate risk of extinction, a new report has found. The 2016 State of North America’s Birds report — compiled by scientists, government and non-governmental organizations and citizen scientists from Canada, the continental U.S. and Mexico, and publishedby the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) […]
POLL: Should Southeast Asian newts be protected under CITES?
A little-known group of amphibians — the Southeast Asian newts — are in high demand as pets, a new study has found. Large numbers of these semi-aquatic salamanders are being collected from the wild and sold in the United States and the European Union, researchers say. To understand the scale of trade in these animals, […]
POLL: Can there be too many eagles?
There can never be too many eagles, right? The comeback of northern Europe’s largest bird of prey could challenge that notion. Some scientists are worried that the white-tailed, or sea, eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), which has recovered from near-extinction in the 1980s, poses a new threat to other at-risk birds. There are now as many as […]
Down to the last three: can science save northern white rhino from extinction?
Under the watchful eyes of a group of heavily armed guards, three rhinos graze on the grassland of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Most of the world knows that the rhinoceros is threatened, but the status of these animals is in another league. They are the planet’s last three northern white rhinos. None is […]
Arctic Warming Is Shrinking This Adorable Shorebird
The red knot shorebird is a tough, long-distance flier that migrates yearly from the Arctic into the Southern Hemisphere and back. For decades, the bird has been at risk because its food sources, such as crab eggs, have declined in the feeding grounds along its migratory route. Now an alarming discovery by an international team […]
The audacious plan to airlift 80 rhinos to Australia
A South African expatriate’s desire to protect rhinoceroses from poachers is driving an unusual plan to breed the giant animals down under. It’s sometimes said that people look like their pets. But that’s not the case with Ray Dearlove. He’s a a statuesque slab of fellow, built like a prop forward with the weathered features […]
Rare Seal Pups Stranded on Shrinking Arctic Ice
Mikhail Verevkin points his spyglass toward the Gulf of Finland and squints into the distance. “One, two, three.” He counts 19 animals lounging on rocks before looking up. They are all gray seals. The Baltic ringed seal is nowhere to be found. It’s April 20, the time of year when seal scientists like Verevkin, who […]