Logging for timber by definition reduces tree cover. But what happens when logging stops? Anew study has found that in concessions where timber firms have stopped operating, deforestation actually appears to increase, thanks to illegal clearing for agriculture and industrial plantations. An inactive logging concession therefore creates a conservation risk, but also a conservation opportunity, […]
There may be a glimmer of hope for the extremely rare vaquita porpoise, the world’s smallest cetacean, a group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. The vaquita is also the most threatened marine mammal in the world, nearly extinct because of entanglement in fishing nets. The latest expeditions to survey the mammal in the northern […]
The last of the nearly 100 whales held captive in what’s been termed a “whale jail” in Russia’s Far East have finally been freed back into the ocean — although the releases have been far from ideal, conservationists say. Late last year, drone footage revealed 87 beluga whales and 11 orcas packed in cramped, icy […]
The fires ravaging the Amazon forest in Brazil and Bolivia this year have burned key habitats of at least 500 adult, resident jaguars as of Sept. 17, rendering them dead or homeless, say experts at Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization. “The number of homeless or dead jaguars has undoubtedly increased since Panthera’s estimate […]
From an area of southern Amazonia, where forests are rapidly being cut for gold mining, agriculture, cattle pastures, and construction of dams, researchers have described a species of marmoset that’s new to science. “The spread of deforestation is pretty visible,” said Rodrigo Costa Araújo of the National Institute of Amazonian Research, Brazil. Araújo and his […]
From rays to deep-sea snails, primates to rosewood trees, the latest IUCN Red List update paints a gloomy picture for our world’s species. The update, which includes assessments of 105,732 animal and plant species to date, lists more than 28,000 species as threatened with extinction, attributing much of the declines to human overexploitation. The red-capped […]
There’s more grim news for the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most endangered whale species in the world. In June this year, six individuals were spotted dead in Canadian waters. Among them was a breeding female named Punctuation who had given birth to eight known calves and had been a grandmother to at […]
Canada has made it illegal to catch and hold whales, dolphins and porpoises in captivity. On June 10, Canada’s House of Commons passed Bill S-203, or the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act, banning the practice of keeping cetaceans in captivity in the country. The new legislation also prohibits the trade, breeding and […]