By Alexander Holmgren 20 August 2013 (mongabay.com) – As sea ice levels continue to decline in the northern hemisphere, scientists are observing an unsettling trend in harp seal young mortalities regardless of juvenile fitness. While a recent study found that in harp seal breeding regions ice cover decreased by up to 6% a decade from […]
14 August 2013 (WDC) – Latest figures (August 12th) from the Iceland Fisheries Directorate give a shameful total of 89 fin whales killed by Kristjan Loftsson’s fleet so far this season. Loftsson could slaughter as many as 184 fin whales under a self-allocated quota, but the rationale behind the hunt is looking increasingly shaky. There […]
By Max Fisher13 August 2013 (Washington Post) – The United Nations Children’s Fund released this short video from Namibia, a country in southwestern Africa that’s twice the size of California, documenting the effects of the country’s most severe drought in decades. It’s a national emergency, and the United Nations is getting involved. Here are a […]
13 August 2013 (SSCS) – Faroe Islands update: After not killing any cetaceans during the first 6 months of this year, the last 23 days have seen the Faroese massacre 1106 small cetaceans: 125 pilot whales killed on 21st July at Viðvík 267 pilot whales killed on 30th July at Fuglafjørður 107 pilot whales killed […]
By Jeremy Hance8 August 2013 (mongabay.com) – A biological survey of forests slated for destruction for a palm oil project in Cameroon has uncovered 23 species of large mammals, including the world’s most endangered chimpanzee subspecies, the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti). The project in question, operated by U.S.-based company Herakles Farms, has come under […]
By MICHAEL WINES 7 August 2013 MELBOURNE, Florida (The New York Times) – The first hint that something was amiss here, in the shallow lagoons and brackish streams that buffer inland Florida from the Atlantic’s salt water, came last summer in the Banana River, just south of Kennedy Space Center. Three manatees — the languid, […]
By JULIE CART6 August 2013 RIO GRANDE VALLEY, N.M. (Los Angeles Times) – Scientists in the West have a particular way of walking a landscape and divining its secrets: They kick a toe into loamy soil or drag a boot heel across the desert’s crust, leaning down to squint at the tiny excavation. Try that […]
By Damian Carrington 6 August 2013 (The Guardian) – A starved polar bear found found dead in Svalbard as “little more than skin and bones” perished due to a lack of sea ice on which to hunt seals, according to a renowned polar bear expert. Climate change has reduced sea ice in the Arctic to […]
Watchlist Indicator showing the average population trend for 77 moths, 19 butterflies, 8 mammals and 51 birds listed as UK BAP priorities, 1968-2010. Species are weighted equally. The indicator starts at 100; a rise to 200 would show that, on average, the populations of indicator species have doubled, whereas if it dropped to 50 they […]
By ANNMARIE TIMMINS 28 July 2013 (Concord Monitor) — In 1950, New Hampshire was home to just 50 moose. Today, the count is near 5,000, but state biologists fear that climate change – by way of winter ticks and other parasites – is threatening the herd. “Shorter winters are a problem for moose because they […]
