By Sara Novak, Columbia, SC on 04.10.10 One of the fondest memories of my honeymoon was kayaking through the mangrove forests on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. The trees were mystical, something out of a fairy tale. That’s why I was more than a little saddened to learn that forests of this kind […]
April 7, 2010 A leading bat expert with the USDA Forest Service’s Southern Research Station today identified nine bat species in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee that she believes are most threatened by white-nose syndrome (WNS), a fungus that kills bats and appears to be rapidly spreading south from the northeastern United […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comApril 05, 2010 The radiated tortoise, once common throughout Madagascar, faces extinction within the next 20 years due to poaching for its meat and the illegal pet trade, according to biologists with the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Returning from field surveys in southern Madagascar’s spiny forest, […]
By Richard BlackEnvironment correspondent, BBC News Millions of marine turtles have been killed over the past two decades through entrapment in fishing gear, according to a global survey. Described as the first global synthesis of existing data, the study found especially high rates of “bycatch” in the Mediterranean and eastern Pacific. Six of the seven […]
By John Platt Traditional Ayurvedic medicine could face an uncertain future as 93 percent of the wild plants used in the practice are threatened with extinction due to overexploitation, the Times of India reports. The Botanical Survey of India recently prioritized 359 wild medicinal plant species and conducted an assessment throughout the country to determine […]
By JENNIE CURTINMarch 30, 2010 LOGGING has started in a forest containing the only known colony of koalas on the far south coast, despite warnings the work could threaten the marsupials. Forests NSW began harvesting timber for woodchipping and high-quality logs in the Mumbulla State Forest near Bega. Work is expected to continue for six […]
By Jeremy Hsu, LiveScience Contributorposted: 29 March 2010 08:27 am ET Mass death among baby right whales has experts scrambling to figure out the puzzle behind the largest great whale die-off on record. Observers have found 308 dead whales in the waters around Peninsula Valdes along Argentina’s Patagonian Coast since 2005. Almost 90 percent of […]
By Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentPublished: 7:00AM GMT 23 Mar 2010 Research in the Congo Basin in Africa found more than three million tonnes of ‘bush meat’ is being extracted from the area every year, the equivalent of butchering 740,000 bull elephants. Most of the animals are small antelopes like blue duiker or rodents like the […]
By the CNN Wire StaffMarch 25, 2010 4:13 a.m. EDT (CNN) — Gorillas may go extinct in much of central Africa by the mid-2020s — victims of a meat trade, of logging and mining, and even the Ebola virus, a new report says. Unless action is taken to guard the gorillas’ habitat and counter poaching, […]
Disappearance of species points to catastrophic environmental damage, says Sir David. By Michael McCarthyFriday, 26 March 2010 Butterfly numbers are declining rapidly all around the world, Britain’s leading conservationist, Sir David Attenborough, warns today. The celebrated television presenter is sounding the alarm that butterfly loss, a concern in Britain for decades, has become a global […]