By Will Dunham; Editing by Mohammad Zargham9 April 2015 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It is one of science’s enduring mysteries: what caused the worst mass extinction in Earth’s history. And, no, it is not the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. Scientists said on Thursday that huge amounts of carbon dioxide spewed from colossal volcanic eruptions […]
By Christina M. Russo8 April 2015 (The Dodo) – The recent death of one of the remaining six Irrawaddy river dolphins in the Mekong River in Laos highlights the desperate situation for the already critically endangered animal. Villagers in Cambodia discovered the female dolphin carcass on April 1, according to news reports in Phnom Penh. […]
By Paula Kahumbu7 April 2015 (CNN) – Elephants could be extinct in the wild within a few decades, leading experts warned late last month in Botswana at the Kasane Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, which gathered 150 delegates from countries that are sourcing, transiting and demanding ivory. The participants signed onto 15 new commitments […]
2013: Formosan Clouded Leopard, Neofelis nebulosa brachyura By Mitchell Friedman16 September 2014 (Pixable) – The number of extinct animals is difficult to calculate and always higher than the estimate. In some cases, a species is presumed extinct — none have been seen in years — but it’s yet to receive official extinction status by the […]
10 February 2015 (Conservation Letters) – Drivers of declines in status for pollinator birds (1988-2012) and mammals (1996-2008). ABSTRACT: Biodiversity is declining, with direct and indirect effects on ecosystem functions and services that are poorly quantified. Here we develop the first global assessment of trends in pollinators, focusing on pollinating birds and mammals. A Red […]
By Kylie Knott 28 March 2015 (SCMP) – Michael Dyer looks a little awkward in a suit and tie. And no wonder. His usual garb is a safari suit, and his natural environment is the African bush where he runs Borana, an eco-resort and wildlife sanctuary located 200km north of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. But Dyer, […]
By Tisha Wardlow 18 March 2015 (The Dodo) – Plan A was to make conditions as perfect as possible to breed the last remaining northern white rhinos. Ol Pejeta did everything they could to make that a possibility. Plan B was to cross-breed the northern whites with the southern whites to at least perpetuate this […]
10 February 2015 (Conservation Letters) – Red List Indices for (a) pollinating and non-pollinating bird species; (b) pollinating and non-pollinating mammal species; and (c) aggregated pollinating and non-pollinating birds and mammals. An RLI value of 1 equates to all species being Least Concern; an RLI value of 0 equates to all species being Extinct. Improvements […]
(The Misanthropocene) – […] We know more and more in deeper and deeper ways just how screwed we are ecologically. And yet we continue on, dig our heels in and argue that at least some human comfort is reasonable while we watch the world burn. Right? But we’re killing ourselves off in other ways, too. […]
By Matt Walker4 March 2015 (BBC News) – Around the world, animals that pollinate flowering plants are in decline. An increasing number of pollinating mammal and bird species are moving towards extinction, according to the first study of its kind. Other, so far unpublished studies, also suggest that pollinating insect species are also heading towards […]
