By Philippe Naughton, From Times Online, September 22, 2009 The BBC wildlife expert Chris Packham has questioned the millions spent trying to save the giant panda from extinction and suggested that the bamboo-eating bear should be allowed to die out “with a degree of dignity”. The zoologist, who has replaced Bill Oddie as a presenter […]
By Lewis Smith Attempts to save the bluefin tuna from extinction suffered a serious setback yesterday when the European Union dropped its demand for commercial fishing of the species to be banned. A rearguard action by Mediterranean fishing nations, including Spain, Italy and France, blocked moves to get the European Union to support a worldwide […]
By Jeremy Hance In a decline on par with that suffered by the American bison in the Nineteenth Century, in the 1990s the saiga antelope of the Central Asian steppe plummeted from over one million individuals to 50,000, dropping a staggering 95 percent in a decade and a half. Since then new legislation and conservation […]
ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2009) — In the late 1920s, people intentionally introduced birds known as Japanese white-eyes into Hawaiian agricultural lands and gardens for purposes of bug control. Now, that decision has come back to bite us. A recent increase in the numbers of white-eyes that live in old-growth forests is leaving native bird species […]
By MARIAN WILKINSON ENVIRONMENT EDITOR ENVIRONMENT groups are calling for a permanent ban on ”deadly” artificial fishing devices used to attract huge tuna catches in the Pacific after scientific reports found that stocks of bigeye tuna are collapsing. Greenpeace activists aboard the Esperanza confiscated several of the devices known as FADs (fish aggregation devices) in […]
By Shanta Barley You can almost hear Sarah Palin cocking her rifle. As climate change causes sea ice to shrink, the number of “problem” polar bears appears to be increasing. “Hungry bears don’t just lie down – they go looking for an alternate food source,” says zoologist Ian Stirling at the University of Alberta in […]
Confidential papers show how fishing boats in the region routinely fail to follow regulations put in place to protect tuna stocks By David Adam, Environment correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 September 2009 Measures to protect dwindling stocks of bluefin tuna fish in the Mediterranean have failed to curb illegal fishing practices, leaked papers show. The Guardian […]
An undercover investigation by a conservation organisation reveals the extent of gorilla poaching in the Republic of Congo. By Jody Bourton, Earth News reporter An undercover investigation has found that up to two gorillas are killed and sold as bushmeat each week in Kouilou, a region of the Republic of Congo. The apes’ body […]
MADRID (AFP) – One in six Mediterranean mammals is threatened with extinction at the regional level, mainly due to the destruction of their habitat from urbanization, agriculture and climate change, nature body IUCN said Tuesday in a new study. Of the 320 mammal species assessed by the Geneva-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature, […]
In July, national parks in South Africa lost 26 white rhinos and one black rhino to poachers, bringing the total rhinos lost to in South Africa to 84 this year alone. The situation has led Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica to call for an integrative approach to the crisis. “The minister and the […]
