The elusive night parrot, a species thought to be extinct for about 100 years, has finally been captured and tagged by scientists as part of a pioneering project to safeguard the remaining ground-dwelling birds. Aside from two dead parrots found over the past 25 years, the night parrot had not been captured since the 1890s […]
Tag: parrot
Police probe ship’s crew after nabbing smuggler with 24 rare birds in plastic bottles
Police at a major port in Indonesia’s second city of Surabaya, where 24 rare birds of paradise were found stuffed in plastic water bottles aboard a passenger vessel yesterday, are coordinating with the authorities at the creatures’ place of origin to tighten security. Police apprehended the man, named Mulyono, after spotting two bottles with birds […]
Bird News!
There is big news in the bird world this week. For the last four years, hundreds of scientists in an international group called the Avian Phylogenomics Consortium have been sequencing bird genomes. They sequenced the DNA of 45 extant birds and a few crocodilians, and combined that with three previously sequenced bird genomes and then […]
87 new bird species considered threatened with extinction
Scientists have added 361 new bird species to the IUCN Red List following a major taxonomic review of non-passerine birds, i.e. non-perching or non-songbirds. Worryingly, 87 of these new birds are threatened with extinction, a percentage nearly double the overall threatened percentage for all birds, which currently sits at 13 percent. Many of these new […]
Critically endangered species in Sumatra on the road to extinction
Critically endangered wildlife, including some of the last Sumatran tigers as well as rhinos, bears and eagles, could be wiped out if plans go ahead to construct a major road through an Indonesian tropical forest reserve currently being restored by British conservationists. The 51km-road, which would enable 850 truckloads of coal a day to be […]
Madrid declares war on plague of raccoon and parrot invaders
Madrid has declared war on invaders that threaten the peace of mind of the Spanish capital’s human residents and the survival of native species of birds and animals. The city is to begin a cull of the American raccoons and Argentinian green parrots whose populations are reaching plague proportions. Both creatures were introduced to Europe […]
Guyana, is that in Africa?
So little is known about Guyana that when I mention we are doing conservation work there we are generally met with, “wow, I have always wanted to go to Africa” or “Don’t drink the coolaid”. Within this small country (80,000 square miles or the size of all of New England) lies one of the largest, […]