BY TINA LAM As the sun begins to sink along the Little Manistee River in northern Michigan, researcher Nick Johnson is excited and a little nervous. There’s a lot riding on what he’s about to do. It’s spawning season for the sea lamprey, a prehistoric creature that invaded the Great Lakes 80 years ago, and […]
Poor regulation of the international wildlife trade has increased the vulnerability of the U.S. to outbreaks of disease and alien invasive species, report researchers writing in Science. Analyzing Law Enforcement Management Information System (LEMIS) data gathered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 2000 through 2006, Katherine Smith of Brown University and colleagues found […]
Having lived in the northeastern U.S. for some time before moving to Quebec, certainly some of the best things in these parts include colourful fall foliage and tons of locally-harvested maple syrup. Sadly, thanks to increasingly ‘weird’ and warming weather, the long-standing tradition and $65 million business of “maple sugaring” in the northeastern U.S. is […]
By AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press Writer ETHONOLULU – Hawaii’s native avian population is in peril, with nearly all the state’s birds in danger of becoming extinct, a federal report says. One-third of the nation’s endangered birds are in Hawaii, said the report issued Thursday by the Interior Department. Thirty-one Hawaiian bird species are listed as […]
by Iain Marlow Toronto’s ash trees could be gone in as little as 10 years, killed by an unstoppable beetle that is spreading rapidly across the province, the city’s forestry czar says. "It’s the elimination of a genus from this part of the continent, which is absolutely staggering," said Richard Ubbens, the city’s director of […]
Liberia has been hit by a second invasion of crop-destroying caterpillars which have wreaked havoc in the west African nation, agriculture ministry officials said Thursday. "We have two weeks maximum to react. We have our teams out on the field preparing to contain the situation," Moses Subah, head of the agriculture ministry’s technical team, said. […]
Scientists involved in the most comprehensive study of life in the oceans ever conducted have documented changes in species distribution in the polar regions as warmer oceans spur migration by Jessica Aldred Global warming is changing the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine life in the polar seas with "profound" implications for creatures further up […]
By LYDIA POLGREEN DAKAR, Senegal — A bizarre swarm of caterpillars is munching its way through the forests, cocoa and coffee fields of Liberia, threatening crops and forcing thousands to leave their homes because the bugs have contaminated the drinking water from rivers and lakes. Entomologists have identified the pests as a moth usually found […]
Native British bees are dying out — and with them will go flora, fauna and one-third of our diet. We may have less than a decade to save them and avert catastrophe. So why is nothing being done? Richard Girling Midwinter. In a garden not far from the sea in Plymouth, there is a splash […]
Richard Van Noorden Liberia prepares for second plague of caterpillar pests. A plague of crop-eating caterpillars has struck Liberia and a second wave could spread across West Africa in the next few weeks, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia’s president, has declared a state of emergency […]
