According to The Guardian, the largest study ever conducted on the extinction risk of reptiles on the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that 21% of all reptile species worldwide are threatened with extinction, which could have a “devastating” effect on the planet’s ecosystems. According to […]
Tag: invasive species
Where is the threshold of environmental change that biodiversity can withstand before it is destabilized and collapses planetwide?
Biodiversity. When you hear this word, what do you picture? Iconic animals like African elephants, gray wolves and humpback whales? Or multicolored coral species that make up a reef system? Or bacteria and microbes that regulate nutrients in the soil, or oxygen-releasing phytoplankton that live in the ocean’s sunlit zones? While biodiversity does embrace all […]
Hawaii is waging war against invasive axis deer which are damaging the native ecosystem
Along with tens of thousands of feral chickens and boars, Hawaii is now waging war against another invasive species: axis deer. Honolulu Civil Beat reported that there are almost 50,000 of these deer roaming between Ulupalakua and Paia on Maui, according to a recent study from KIA Hawaii, a local ungulate management company. An existential […]
Airborne DNA can now be used to detect rare and endangered species
The discovery of environmental DNA has altered the way environmentalists monitor biodiversity. Scientists can examine entire ecosystems or find unusual animals that are too elusive to trace using traditional methods by sequencing the genetic material contained in water and soil samples. Environmental DNA, or eDNA, has been utilized by teams to catalog everything from viruses […]
Halt destruction of nature or risk ‘dead planet’, leading businesses warn
World leaders must do more to prevent the destruction of nature, business leaders have warned before a summit in China that aims to draw up a draft UN agreement for biodiversity. In an open letter, the chief executives of Unilever, H&M and nine other companies have called on governments to take meaningful action on mass […]
US to declare ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more species extinct
The US Fish and Wildlife Service officially proposed taking 23 plants and animals off the endangered species list Wednesday, because they have not been spotted in the wild and are believed to be completely gone from an earth experiencing human population growth and a climate crisis. Only 11 species previously have been removed due to […]
From wild herbs to feral pigs: should Australia manage invasive species by eating them?
For three decades, Phil Mather has harvested olives from feral trees around South Australia. Mather, a landscape gardener, began hand-picking the fruit and pressing it into oil in his early 20s. It’s a seasonal pastime that has turned into a business in the past eight years. “This year I have produced over 1,500 litres, which […]
POLL: Should invasive animal species, which have cost UK economy more than £5bn over past 50 years, be culled?
Alien invaders in the shape of animals and plants have cost the UK more than £5billion over the past 50 years, researchers estimate. The grey squirrel, European rabbit and Japanese knotweed are among the newcomers placing a financial strain on the economy. And they warn that the cost ‑ one of the highest in Europe […]