THE HAGUE, 12 April 2013 (AFP) – Australia is to fire the opening salvoes in a legal battle before the United Nations’ highest court in June aimed at stopping Japan’s whaling research programme in Antarctica. “The International Court of Justice … will hold public hearings in the case concerning whaling in the Antarctic, Australia versus […]
By Jeremy Hance9 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – In the remote Russian far east, amid pine forests and long winters, a great cat may be beginning to make a recovery. A new survey estimates that the Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) population has risen to as many as 50 individuals. While this may not sound like […]
By Jeremy Hance8 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – Less than 100 Sumatran rhinos survive in the world today, according to a bleak new population estimate by experts. The last survey in 2008 estimated that around 250 Sumatran rhinos survived, but that estimate now appears optimistic and has been slashed by 60 percent. However conservationists are responding […]
5 April 2013 (Reuters) – Rising foreign demand for beef and soybeans will tempt Brazil to clear more of the Amazon rainforest, in a reversal of recent success in slowing forest losses, a study said on Thursday. About 30 per cent of deforestation in Brazil in the decade to 2010 was due to farmers and […]
By Faith Karimi, CNN 31 March 2013 (CNN) – Five South African soldiers died in a helicopter crash while patrolling for rhino poachers in the sprawling Kruger National Park. All aboard the flight were killed in the crash Saturday night, according to a government spokesman. The soldiers were conducting Operation Rhino, which aims to […]
By Gary Stokes, Coordinator, Sea Shepherd Hong Kong18 March 2013 BANGKOK (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) – The room erupts in cheers and applause as the result of the vote is announced, the Oceanic white tip shark is now safely listed on the CITES Appendix II. Shortly followed by the three Hammerheads, the Porbeagle Shark and […]
By Mark Stevenson13 March 2013 MEXICO CITY (AP) – The amount of Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped 59 percent this year, falling to the lowest level since comparable record-keeping began 20 years ago, scientists reported Wednesday. It was the third straight year of declines for the orange-and-black butterflies that migrate from the United States […]
ABSTRACT: Adequate conservation and management of shark populations is becoming increasingly important on a global scale, especially because many species are exceptionally vulnerable to overfishing. Yet, reported catch statistics for sharks are incomplete, and mortality estimates have not been available for sharks as a group. Here, the global catch and mortality of sharks from reported […]
By Brad Lendon8 March 2013 (CNN) – A U.S. plan to give new protection to polar bears was voted down Thursday at an international conference on endangered species. The American delegation at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, had sought a ban on […]
6 March 2013 (AFP) – Conservationists have urged Google to remove thousands of advertisements promoting products made from endangered whales and elephants. Campaign group the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said it had written to Google chief executive Larry Page last month appealing for the removal of more than 1400 ads promoting whale products and 10,000 […]