Death rate spikes among migrating whooping cranes

By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER (AP)  KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The world’s only naturally migrating whooping cranes, and the species’ best chance for survival, died at about twice their normal rate last year and will likely see an overall drop in their numbers, a worrying sign for the once near-extinct bird that has been making a […]

Washington state hawk population lowest in a decade

By JOHN TRUMBO, TRI-CITY HERALD JUNIPER DUNES, Wash. — Sneaking up on the nest of a ferruginous hawk begins about a half-mile away. Alert and sharp-eyed, the largest raptor in the hawk family is wary of intruders and will flush without warning. So Jason Lowe, a biologist with the Bureau of Land Management’s Eastern Washington […]

Kenya lions to be extinct within 10 years

By Shanta Barley Kenya has been losing 100 lions a year for the past seven years, leaving the country with just 2000 of its famous big cats, says the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) – which concludes the country could have no wild lions at all in 20 years. Conservationists have blamed habitat destruction, disease and […]

Kenya lions to be extinct within 20 years

NAIROBI, Kenya, August 17, 2009 (ENS) – Kenya could lose all its lions in the next 20 years if the current rate of decline continues unless urgent and decisive measures are taken, the Kenya Wildlife Service warned today. World famous for its wildlife, Kenya now has 2,000 lions in seven national parks and conservation areas, […]

Plan urged to save national parks from global warming effects

Climate change could result in the catastrophic loss of wildlife, a report says. The National Park Service is called on to create a system to manage animals and plants. By Margot Roosevelt  The federal government must take decisive action to avoid “a potentially catastrophic loss of animal and plant life” in national parks, according to […]

Florida Bay ecology on the brink of collapse

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer ISLAMORADA, Fla. – Boat captain Tad Burke looks out over Florida Bay and sees an ecosystem that’s dying as politicians, land owners and environmentalists bicker. He’s been plying these waters for nearly 25 years, and has seen the declines in shrimp and lobster that use the bay as a […]

Graph of the Day: Sequential Collapse of Marine Mammals in the North Pacific Ocean and southern Bering Sea

By Gloria MaenderOctober 2003 The rapid removal of at least half a million great whales from the North Pacific Ocean by intensive industrial whaling more than 50 years ago may have unleashed a complex ecological chain reaction that has since rippled resoundingly from ocean to coastal ecosystems, according to a team of eight scientists, including […]

Australia and the Pacific 'becoming extinction hotspots'

The Earth is in the throes of its “sixth great extinction event” and Australia and the Pacific are becoming the worst regions for the destruction of animals and plants, a study has found. By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney Land clearing and overlogging of forests have been highlighted as the greatest threats to land-based flora and […]

Graph of the Day: Mean Dissolved Oxygen Concentrations in the World's Oceans

Scientists confirm computer model predictions that oxygen-depleted zones in tropical oceans are expanding, possibly because of climate change Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San DiegoMAY 1, 2008 An international team of physical oceanographers including a researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical […]

Up to two-thirds of all freshwater crab species face extinction

By Matt Walker, Editor, Earth News Two thirds of all species of freshwater crab maybe at risk of going extinct, with one in six species particularly vulnerable, according to a new survey. That makes freshwater crabs among the most threatened of all groups of animals assessed so far. The study is the first global assessment […]

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