Graph of the Day: Population Change of Athabasca River Caribou, 1993-2004

Woodland caribou is one of the species likely to be extirpated from regions subjected to Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) development. Caribou declines across Alberta have been correlated with the level of industrial development within their ranges.43 In the past ten years, the East Side Athabasca River caribou herd, whose range overlaps much of the […]

BBC zoologist: Let the panda die out 'with dignity'

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 […]

Graph of the Day: Forest Cover and Palm oil Production in Indonesia, 1964-2008

Forest cover (green curve) versus palm oil production (white curve) in Indonesia. In 2007 Indonesia overtook Malaysia as the world’s largest producer of palm oil. Together the two countries account for more than 85 percent of global production. A study published in May showed that 55-59 percent of oil palm expansion in Malaysia and at […]

Oceans face climate-change crisis: 'Life as we know it is going to end'

World’s nations must drastically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, author says By MONIQUE BEAUDIN, The Gazette, Published: Thursday, September 17, 2009 For more than two years, Canadian writer Alanna Mitchell travelled the world’s oceans, meeting scientists whose research was uncovering a crisis in the planet’s large bodies of water. Overfishing, coastal dead zones and rising water temperatures […]

New Orleans wetlands ‘fastest-disappearing land mass on earth’

By Kim Chipman Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) — Carlton Dufrechou can fly 10 minutes from New Orleans and be over the open waters of the Mississippi Sound. Two decades earlier, before erosion took its toll, he would have looked down on lush wetlands. The destruction accelerated four years ago last month, when Hurricane Katrina struck. The […]

One in six Mediterranean mammals face extinction

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, […]

Graph of the Day: Frequency of Coral Reef Organisms over Human History

These are results for the 12 reef systems around the world (Caribbean, Red Sea, Indo-west Pacific).  The colors show ecological condition (amount of degradation) for 7 “guilds” of coral reef organisms:  large herbivores (> 1 meter long) like sea cows and green turtles, large carnivores like sharks and goliath groupers, small herbivores like parrotfish, small […]

‘The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past’

(Penn State) “The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past,” says Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University. Post leads a large, international team that carried out ecosystem-wide studies of the biological response to Arctic warming during the fourth International Polar Year, which ended in 2008. […]

Trawling damage to Northeast Atlantic ancient coral reefs

Untrawled L. pertusa interspersed with Mycale sponges standing erect to form a prominent reef at 200 m, Nordleksa, West Norway, May 1999. Lower edge of photograph ca. 2.5 m. Trawled L. pertusa grounds at a depth of 200 m in the Iverryggen area, West Norway, May 1999. Smashed coral fragments litter the sediment around a […]

Indian villagers flee elephants

Hundreds of villagers have been forced to take shelter in camps in the Indian state of Orissa after repeated attacks by a herd of elephants. Seven people have been killed and several others injured in attacks by a herd of 12-13 elephants over the past few weeks in Kandhamal district. Over 2,500 people living in […]

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