By Allison Jackson22 January 2015 (Global Post) – The human tragedy caused by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been well documented. […] But humans are not the only victims of this horrible disease, which is spread through contact with the blood, sweat and other bodily fluids of an infected person. Since the 1990s, […]
SEATTLE, 24 January 2015 (AP) — A 32-foot gray whale that turned up dead under the Washington state ferry terminal in downtown Seattle died earlier this week because it was struck by the propeller of a large vessel, according to the initial results of a necropsy completed Saturday. The necropsy found large, deep gashes on […]
7 December 2014 (YouTube) – Either we come together now to make these the last days of ivory-funded terrorism or we witness the last days of elephants in the wild. Created by Director Kathryn Bigelow, Writer Scott Z. Burns, and Annapurna Pictures, in collaboration with WildAid. Visit http://lastdaysofivory.com to get informed and take action. Last […]
By Carl Zimmer15 January 2015 (The New York Times) – A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them. “We may be sitting on a precipice of a major […]
By Jane J. Lee13 January 2015 (National Geographic) – We’re not talking about a few dead fish littering your local beach. Mass die-offs are individual events that kill at least a billion animals, wipe out over 90 percent of a population, or destroy 700 million tons—the equivalent weight of roughly 1,900 Empire State Buildings—worth of […]
By Isabelle Groc 7 January 2015 (National Geographic) – In August of 2014, biologists from the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center Stranding Response Team were notified of an unusual sighting in the Elizabeth River, a busy, industrial tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. A 45-foot-long young female sei whale was spotted swimming up the river, […]
By Hyacinth Mascaren1 January 2015 (Global Post) – British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough once asked: “Are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?” This year marked the 100th anniversary of the death of the last passenger pigeon, Martha, who managed […]
By Louise Dewast3 December 2014 LONDON (ABC News) — Giraffe numbers are dwindling across Africa because of poaching and habitat loss caused by human population growth, according to wildlife experts, and it’s happening largely unnoticed. “It’s a silent extinction,” Dr. Julian Fennessy, Executive Director of the Namibian-based Giraffe Conservation Research group and a leading wildlife […]
By Jeremy Hance24 November 2014 (mongabay.com) – South Africa has surpassed last year’s grisly record for slaughtered rhinos—1,004—more than a month before the year ends. In an announcement on November 20th, the South African Department of Environmental Affairs said that 1,020 rhinos had been killed to date. Rhinos are butchered for their horns, which are […]
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer17 November 2014 WASHINGTON (Associated Press) – A key polar bear population fell nearly by half in the past decade, a new U.S.-Canada study [pdf] found, with scientists seeing a dramatic increase in young cubs starving and dying. Researchers chiefly blame shrinking sea ice from global warming. Scientists from the […]
