One of the world’s biggest fisheries is on the verge of collapse – ‘It’s just chance, whether or not we can feed our families now’

By Rachael Bale29 August 2016 PUERTO PRINCESA, Philippines (National Geographic) – Years ago Christopher Tubo caught a 660-pound blue marlin in the South China Sea. The fishing was good there, he says. Tuna fishermen would come home from a trip with dozens of the high-value fish as well as a good haul of other species. […]

Calling local coders to join inaugural Zoohackathon to ‘further our efforts to reduce the demand for wildlife trafficking and preserve these iconic species’

By Alissa Wolken8 September 2016 (Woodland Park Zoo) – Coders and technology experts from the Seattle area—along with their counterparts in five other major cities—will join the battle against international wildlife trafficking in the first ever Zoohackathon, 6-9 October 2016. Registration is now open for interested coders, designers and project managers. Organized by the U.S. […]

Can a new vaccination stem the frog apocalypse? – ‘We’re staring at what could be the extinction of a significant fraction of the world’s amphibians’

By Lauren Sommer6 September 2016 (KQED) – A deadly fungus that’s been devastating frog populations is still spreading across the globe. In California, the chytrid fungus has moved inexorably across the Sierra Nevada from west to east, leaving thousands of frogs dead. But Bay Area scientists are trying to turn the tide against the fungus […]

Study finds ‘catastrophic declines’ of wilderness worldwide – ‘The amount of wilderness loss in just two decades is staggering and very saddening’

9 September 2016 (UQ News) – A University of Queensland-led international study released today reports catastrophic declines in wilderness areas around the world over the past 20 years. UQ School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management and Wildlife Conservation Society in New York researcher Associate Professor James Watson said findings demonstrated alarming losses comprising a […]

Research shows decline of New Zealand southern right whales – Current numbers less than 12 percent of pre-whaling population

16 March 2016 (British Antarctic Survey) – The first population assessment since the end of the whaling era reveals that New Zealand southern right whales have some way to go before numbers return to pre-industrial levels. Reporting this week in Royal Society Open Science, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the University of Auckland, Oregon […]

Four out of six great ape species one step away from extinction – Updated IUCN list shows ‘just how quickly the global extinction crisis is escalating’

Honolulu, Hawai’i, 4 September 2016 (IUCN) – The Eastern Gorilla – the largest living primate – has been listed as Critically Endangered due to illegal hunting, according to the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ released today at the IUCN World Conservation Congress taking place in Hawai’i. Four out of six […]

Poachers are wiping out giraffes in central Africa just for their tails

By Jani Actman10 August 2016 (National Geographic) – Documentary filmmaker David Hamlin recalls the adrenalin rush when he was flying over the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Garamba National Park in late June and spotted three giraffes standing in a small clearing. “Seeing these giraffes from the air was really exciting,” says Hamlin, who was […]

Catastrophic decline of Africa elephant population revealed by most comprehensive survey ever

By David McKenzie and Ingrid Formanek 31 August 2016 Linyanti Swamp, Botswana (CNN) – Scanning Botswana’s remote Linyanti swamp from the low flying chopper, elephant ecologist Mike Chase can’t hide the anxiety and dread as he sees what he has seen too many times before. “I don’t think anybody in the world has seen the number […]

Climate change pledges not nearly enough to save tropical ecosystems

By Jeremy Hance16 August 2016 (mongabay.com) – The Paris Agreement marked the biggest political milestone to combat climate change since scientists first introduced us in the late 1980s to perhaps humanity’s greatest existential crisis. Last December, 178 nations pledged to do their part to keep global average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius […]

Balkan wildlife faces extinction threat from border fence to control migrants

By Arthur Neslen 11 August 2016 Ljubljana, the Upper Kolpa valley, and Zagreb (Guardian) – The death toll of animals killed by a razor wire fence designed to stop migrants crossing into Europe is mounting, amid warnings that bears, lynx, and wolves could become locally extinct if the barrier is completed and consolidated. The rising […]

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