JAKARTA — Conservationists in Indonesia have reported the presence of two newborn Javan rhinoceros calves in the only place on Earth where the critically endangered species is still found, bringing its total population to 74. The calves — a female and a male that conservation officials have named Helen and Luther — were spotted with […]
Tag: trapping
Spots of hope: Some good news for South Africa’s cheetahs
DURBAN, South Africa — South Africa is home to around 1,300 of the world’s roughly 7,100 remaining cheetahs. It’s also the only country in the world with significant cheetah population growth, thanks largely to a nongovernmental conservation project that depends on careful and intensive human management of small, fenced-in cheetah populations. Because most of the […]
Massacre on Cyprus. Researchers call for a crack down on poachers who lure millions of birds to their deaths on the Mediterranean island with recordings of their own songs.
Millions of birds like the Sardinian warbler (above) and the Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) have been migrating through the region for a long time. And, each year for many years, poachers on Cyprus have been trapping and killing them illegally. The slaughter is now said to have reached “industrial levels.” A study just published by The […]
Badger cull extended in England with more than 60,000 in line of fire
The government’s badger cull is being expanded to 11 new areas of England including parts of Oxfordshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire so that more than 60,000 badgers can be killed. Conservation groups said the expansion was a betrayal of trust after the government this year pledged to phase out the badger cull, intended to reduce […]
Glue bird traps: Macron suspends use amid EU row
French President Emmanuel Macron has ordered hunters in southern France to stop the controversial practice of trapping birds on glue-covered twigs. The suspension follows a warning to France from the European Commission that it could face legal action at EU level if the practice continued. France is unusual in Europe for still tolerating the glue […]
Furry engineers: sea otters in California’s estuaries surprise scientists
When Brent Hughes started studying the seagrass beds of Elkhorn Slough, an estuary in Monterey Bay on California’s central coast, he was surprised by what he found. In this highly polluted estuary, excessive nutrients from agricultural runoff spur the growth of algae on seagrass leaves, which kills the plants. Yet in 2010, Hughes noticed that […]
Most polar bears to disappear by 2100, study predicts
Scientists have predicted for the first time when, where and how polar bears are likely to disappear, warning that if greenhouse gas emissions stay on their current trajectory all but a few polar bear populations in the Arctic will probably be gone by 2100. By as early as 2040, it is very likely that many […]
New research shows, two closely-related species of wild cats in Ontario, Canada, may face starkly different futures. Is this “survival of the fittest?”
To the untrained eye, the two species might pass as overgrown house cats. They’re actually “felids” or mammals belonging to felidae, a family of wild cats. Both live side by side in the wilds of Ontario, north of Lake Huron. Researchers at the University of Trent in Peterborough, Ontario, looked at bobcat and lynx numbers, […]