A majority of krill fishing companies have announced their commitment to voluntarily stop harvesting the tiny crustaceans from vast areas of the Antarctic Peninsula, including around important breeding penguin colonies.The announcement on July 9 follows years of campaigns and negotiations led by environmental groups such as Greenpeace. “This is a bold and progressive move from […]
Tag: Shreya Dasgupta
Death by hippo poop: Scientists solve a fish massacre in the Mara River
In the Mara River in Kenya, fish die in the thousands every now and then. And the hippopotamus is to blame, a new study has found. Hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) spend a considerable amount of time in rivers to cool off their bodies. They also spend a lot of time defecating in the water, their tails […]
Bushmeat hunting threatens hornbills and raptors in Cameroon’s forests, study finds
Hornbills, vultures and eagles are being hunted for bushmeat in Cameroon in much greater numbers than previously thought, a new study has found. Previous research has shown that relatively few birds are sold in Cameroon’s markets compared to mammals and reptiles. However, market surveys can be biased toward commercially valuable wildlife, missing animals that are […]
Cambodia’s banteng-eating leopards edge closer to extinction, new study finds
For Cambodia’s last remaining Indochinese leopards (Panthera pardus delacouri), extinction could be just around the corner, a new study has found. The only breeding population of this leopard subspeciesin Cambodia is believed to occur within a large protected area complex in a part of the country called the Eastern Plains Landscape (EPL). But in just […]
Video: Power lines killing the last remaining Great Indian Bustards in India
On Dec. 9, researchers discovered the remains of an extremely rare bird in India’s Thar Desert, in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. All that remained was a pile of bones, and large, brown feathers, fluttering beneath a power line. The dead bird, one of the last remaining wild individuals of the critically endangered great Indian […]
Land reclamation threatens extremely rare spoon-billed sandpipers in China
One of the world’s rarest birds — the tiny spoon-billed sandpiper— could soon lose a critical habitat to land reclamation projects, warns a new report by Greenpeace. Every year, the reddish-brown spoon-billed sandpiper (Eurynorhynchus pygmeus) makes a 5,000-mile long journey, flying from its breeding grounds in Arctic Russia to its wintering sites in places like […]
Rhino poacher sentenced to 18 years in prison
A court in Malawi has convicted and sentenced a rhino poacher to 18 years in prison for killing an adult female black rhinoceros. Two of his accomplices were also handed sentences of ten and eight years each. The recent 18-year sentence might serve as a deterrent to would-be poachers, some experts say. In July this […]
Giant tree-dwelling rat discovered in the Solomon Islands
For a long time, people living on the Vangunu Island in the Solomons spoke about the “vika”, a giant rat on the island that lives in trees and cracks open coconuts with its teeth. But the rat remained elusive to the scientific community. Now, researchers have finally discovered an individual of the mysterious rat, making […]
POLL: Should the wild bird trade in Vietnam be stopped?
Thousands of birds, suspected to have been caught from the wild, are being sold openly in Vietnam, according to a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. Many of the species on sale are threatened with extinction, warns the report. In April 2016, researchers from TRAFFIC surveyed bird vendors — both shops and […]
POLL: Should Japan be sanctioned for allowing the ivory trade to continue?
Thousands of jewelry, seals, scrolls and other items made of elephant ivory continue to be sold online in Japan each week, concludes a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. In just four weeks in May and June, 2017, nearly 10,000 ivory items were sold on Yahoo Auction, one of Japan’s largest e-commerce […]
