[Many more to follow. –Des] 14 June 2016 (University of Queensland) – University of Queensland and Queensland Government researchers have confirmed that the Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola) – the only mammal species endemic to the Great Barrier Reef – is the first mammal to go extinct due to human-induced climate change. In a newly […]
By Susmita Mukherjee7 May 2016 (India Times) – Thank the Gods for the rains; it has helped in putting out one of the worst forest fires we have known in the Himalayas. But do all eyes now turn away from the truth behind such a tragedy? What happens to what remains, charred and vulnerable? Forest […]
4 May 2016 (ABC News) – Piles of dead whales, salmon, sardines, and clams blamed on the El Niño freak weather phenomenon have been clogging Chile’s pacific beaches in recent months. Last year, scientists were shocked when more than 300 whales turned up dead on remote bays of the southern coast — it was the […]
5 May 2016 (Discovery News) – Worldwide, leopards have lost about 75 percent of their historic range, according to a new survey – the first to attempt to get a glimpse of the big cat’s remaining global paw print. The analysis was produced by a group of partner organizations, including the National Geographic Society’s Big […]
By Dale Nimmo, David Lindenmayer, John Woinarski, Ralph Mac Nally, Shaun Cunningham2 May 2016 (The Conversation) – Media reports around the world have brought the mass coral bleaching of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef into people’s offices and homes. With 93% of individual reefs showing bleaching, the devastation among researchers, celebrities and the public is palpable. […]
[cf. Graph of the Day: Simulated catastrophic decline of plankton in warming oceans] By Chris Mooney28 April 2016 (Washington Post) – In the long list of troubling climate change scenarios, there’s one that gets relatively little attention, but definitely has enormous potential consequences. It goes like this: The oceans are getting warmer — they are, […]
By Brady Dennis 26 April 2016 (Washington Post) – Six years on, scientists are continuing to tally the ecological harms caused by the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The latest glimpse at the ongoing environmental effects of the disaster came in a new report [pdf] by the conservation and […]
By Sara Malm25 April 2016 (Daily Mail) – A Swedish park manager was among five rangers shot by elephant poachers during a fatal firefight which claimed three lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Garamba wildlife park. Poachers entered the UNESCO world heritage site on Saturday, killing one ranger at the scene and injuring four, […]
By Nikolaj Skydsgaard16 April 2016 COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A sculpture of an impaled polar bear went on display on Friday in front of the Danish parliament to highlight the impact of global warming. The seven-meter high metal sculpture named Unbearable depicts a graph of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere sky-rocketing into the belly of […]
By Mike Gaworecki 13 April 2016 (mongabay.com) – China’s demand for swim bladders from a giant Mexican fish called the totoaba is putting the species at risk. It’s also pushing a small porpoise known as the vaquita, one of the most endangered mammals in the world, to the brink of extinction. Vaquita or vaquita marina […]