NOAA lists five Atlantic sturgeon populations under Endangered Species Act

31 January 2012 (NOAA) – NOAA’s Fisheries Service announced today a final decision to list five distinct population segments of Atlantic sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act. The Chesapeake Bay, New York Bight, Carolina, and South Atlantic populations of Atlantic sturgeon will be listed as endangered, while the Gulf of Maine population will be listed […]

Graph of the Day: Water Levels of Anvil Lake in North Central Wisconsin, 1936-2010

Between 2000 and 2010, the worst drought ever recorded since Euro-American settlement hit the Colorado River Basin. Water levels in Lake Mead dropped to record lows. The drought not only threatened the supply of water to cities like Las Vegas, it also harmed the ecosystems and riparian areas that support countless fish, plants, and animals […]

New extinction risk to Thai elephants: eating them

26 January 2012 (AP) – Thailand’s revered national symbol, the elephant, may face a new threat of extinction: being poached not just for their tusks, but for their meat. Two wild elephants were found slaughtered last month in a national park in western Thailand, alerting authorities to the new practice of consuming elephant meat “The […]

Sumatran elephant population plunges – WWF calls for moratorium on deforestation

January 24 (mongabay.com) – The Sumatran elephant subspecies (Elephas maximus sumatranus) was downgraded to critically endangered on IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species on Tuesday, prompting environmental group WWF to call for an immediate moratorium on destruction of its rainforest habitat, which is being rapidly lost to oil palm estates, timber plantations for pulp and […]

Pangolins imperiled by internet trade – Are companies responding quickly enough?

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com24 January 2012 You can buy pretty much anything on the internet: from Rugby team garden gnomes to Mickey Mouse lingerie. In some places, consumers have even been able to purchase illegal wildlife parts, such as ivory and rhino horn. In fact, the internet has opened up the black market wildlife trade […]

Orcas targeting sea lion pups, alarming scientists

[Desdemona suspects this: Sequential Collapse of Marine Mammals in the North Pacific Ocean and southern Bering Sea.] By Remy Melina, LiveScience.com 19 January 2012 Killer whales and other ocean predators are targeting and killing the pups of a threatened northern sea lion species at an increasingly high rate, scientists warned this week. Without a reduction […]

U.S. releases draft strategy for responding to climate change impacts

Contact: David T. Eisenhauer (FWS), 703-358-2284      John Ewald (NOAA), 202-482-3978      Laura MacLean (AFWA), 202-624-7744      19 January 2012 WASHINGTON – In partnership with state, tribal, and federal agency partners, the Obama Administration today released the first draft national strategy to help decision makers and resource managers prepare for and help reduce the impacts of climate change […]

Rare stonefly, found only in Glacier National Park, threatened by melting glaciers

Contacts:  Scott Hoffman Black, Xerces Society, (503) 449-3792Noah Greenwald, Center for Biological Diversity, (503) 484-7495 16 December 2011 GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Montana – In response to a scientific petition from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today determined that the western glacier stonefly, an […]

The dark side of new species discovery: Interview with herpetologist Bryan Stuart

By Laurel Neme, special to www.mongabay.com21 December 2011 Scientists and the public usually rejoice when a new species is discovered. But biologist Bryan Stuart has learned the hard way that the discovery of new species, especially when that species is commercially valuable, has a dark side-one that could potentially wipe out the new species before […]

Eight endangered rhinos killed by poachers in Kruger Park

January 11 (Sapa) – Eight rhino carcasses have been found in the Kruger National Park, SA National Parks says. “Yesterday [Tuesday] on patrol, eight rhino carcasses were found. Three carcasses were found in Lower Sabie and five in the Pretoriuskop section of the park,” said spokesman Reynold Thakhuli. He said all the carcasses were of […]

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