By John Platt Well folks, it looks like this is it for the Christmas Island pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus murrayi). This critically endangered species of microbat now appears to be doomed to impending extinction as last-gasp efforts to capture the few remaining bats and place them in a captive breeding program have failed. Eight scientists, along […]
Europe’s largest slaughter of fin whales for decades was carried out this summer with 93 of the endangered species killed by Iceland according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. The conservation group said at least 93 endangered fin whales were killed this summer, more than at any time since an international ban on commercial […]
Fin whales have not returned to the Bay of Biscay in their usual high numbers this year raising fears over the state of the fish stocks they feed on. Conservationists monitoring the animals’ annual migration into Biscay said the second largest whale on the planet had not appeared in large numbers this summer. While small […]
By Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York Starting tomorrow, the gray wolf is about to be hunted for the first time in decades. The Obama administration removed the wolves from the endangered species list last March. And unless a federal judge decides to halt the hunt and reopen the question of whether the species is threatened, […]
A peak wildlife body has blamed stormwater pollution for the deaths of three bottlenose dolphins in three days in southeast Queensland’s Moreton Bay. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week, an adult carcass washed up at Victoria Point, a small adult was found at Ormiston and a calf at the Port of Brisbane. The cause […]
RICHMOND, Vt.- Mounting evidence that several species of bats have been all but eliminated from the Northeast due to a new disease known as white-nose syndrome prompted a conservation group to send a letter today to Sam Hamilton, the new director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, urging that action on the bat […]
By Crystal Gammon and Environmental Health News Thirty years ago, a Canadian marine biologist noticed something mysterious was happening to beluga whales in the St. Lawrence Estuary. Decades of over-hunting had decimated the population, but several years after the government put a stop to the practice, the belugas still hadn’t recovered. Two decades and hundreds […]
By Jeremy Hance Under the current legal hunting rate scientists predict that the world’s largest bat, the aptly-named large flying fox or Pteropus vampyrus, faces extinction in six to 81 years. Increasing the urgency to save the large flying fox is the vital role it plays as an ecosystem engineer (a species whose behavior can […]
Images have been released showing a female whale fighting for her life after becoming entangled in a fishing net in the South Pacific. These heart-breaking images show the desperate plight of a whale trapped by equipment used in a controversial form of commercial fishing. The southern-hemisphere humpback became entangled in a long line and was […]
Politicians cared little about the burning of East Africa’s largest forest – until the lights in Nairobi started going out. By Daniel Howden Under a slate-grey sky Francis Maina is hunched over a tree stump. He secures a rusted chain around it and signals for the tractor to start hauling. The blackened base of the […]
