tagged w/ Endangered Species Videos & Endangered Species News
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Needs no description. Just watch.. how they learn to live on 'branches.'
http://youtu.be/XQmvkTHYqbcNeeds no description. Just watch.. how they learn to live on 'branches.'... more
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LOrion
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The Center for Biological Diversity is distributing more than 100,000 condoms in packages with pictures of endangered species through the month of October all over the United States. The Endangered Species Condoms project connects the impact of population growth on plant and animal species extinction. More information at www7BillionAndCounting.org.
http://vimeo.com/29737237The Center for Biological Diversity is distributing more than 100,000 condoms in... more
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Adam Yamaguchi, a ravenous sushi consumer since childhood, examines the cost of the world's insatiable appetite for raw fish, namely the Bluefin tuna.
"Sushi to the Slaughter" premieres on Tuesday, July 12 at 9/8c on Current TV.
"Vanguard" is Current TV's no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.
For more, go to http://current.com/vanguard.
Current Media, the Peabody-and Emmy Award-winning television and online network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, engages viewers with smart, provocative and timely programming -- stories that no one else is telling in ways that no one else is telling them. Current's programming shines a light where others won't dare and boldly explores important subjects -- opening minds, sparking conversations and forming deep connections with its viewers. The channel's audience is comprised of affluent, curious, social and connected adults who crave the kind of entertaining, enlightening, witty and informative programming found on Current's TV and online properties. Current is now available via cable and satellite TV in 75 million households worldwide -- 60 million households in the US -- through distribution partners Comcast (Channel 107); Time Warner ; DirecTV (Channel 358 nationwide); Dish Network (Channel 196 nationwide); Verizon and AT&T. In the UK and Ireland, Current is available on BSkyB (Channel 183) and Virgin Media (Channel 155), and in Italy, Current is available on Sky Italia (Channel 130). Viewers can also find Current online at http://www.current.com.Adam Yamaguchi, a ravenous sushi consumer since childhood, examines the cost of the... more
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The statistics speak for themselves. The Bluefin tuna population is in steady and dramatic decline, caused mostly by over-fishing around the world. According to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICAAT), “the eastern Atlantic’s stocks of fish old enough to reproduce declined by 80 percent between 1970 and 1992 and have since fluctuated between 21 percent and 29 percent of the 1970 level.” Then why did the US just decline to grant endangered species status to the Bluefin when the species is in such spectacular decline?
After working on “Sushi to the Slaughter” (premiering July 12th), I came to realize how complex this issue is and that, amongst other factors, there are huge market forces keeping the Bluefin’s fate hanging in the balance. Had the tuna been classified as an endangered species, it would have made fishing for them in US waters illegal – a devastating blow tantamount to a nail in the coffin for inshore fisherman. Many believe that the administration’s decision was influenced by pressure from the US fishing industry.
This pressure only pales in comparison to the aggressive Japanese lobby that kept the UN from implementing an export ban on tuna last year. My trip to Japan's Tsukiji fish market really drove home how important tuna is to the Japanese. In my opinion, this is an example ofwhen allowing normal market forces to fix a problem just won't work. The Japanese will continue to pay ever-increasing prices for this fish until they are extinct. Just this past January, a new record was set – a 752-lbs tuna fetched a winning bid of $396,000! Beyond the economics, there are also cultural and sociological reasons that keep tuna consumption so high in Japan. Currently, Japan consumes 80 percent of the Bluefin catch.
However, this isn’t a Japanese nor an American issue, mostly because of the migratory nature of tuna. This majestic fish can accelerate faster than a Porsche and travels the world’s oceans at 55 mph. And until there are multilateral and international efforts to enforce fishing quotas etc., conservation is going to have begin at the consumer level – starting with me, a self-professed, tuna-obsessed, sushi lover.
Watch the trailer:
Tune in for the premiere of "Sushi to the Slaughter" on Tuesday, July 18 at 9/8c on Current TV.
For more information, visit http://current.com/vanguardThe statistics speak for themselves. The Bluefin tuna population is in steady and... more
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Cute polar bear cub apparently fell asleep while gnawing on a giant bone.
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Think the Secretary of the Interior wouldn't sell out our wolves and the Endangered Species Act? Think again.
We now know that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been negotiating directly with the governors of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and we now have strong reason to believe that he is going to propose and promote legislative language to eliminate life-saving protections for wolves in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and portions of Washington, Oregon, and Utah.
Hundreds of wolves — maybe more than a thousand — could die.
Don't let Secretary Salazar sell out our wolves and the Endangered Species Act. Write your senators and urge them to oppose this awful plan.
Under Salazar's proposal, wolves would be delisted and lose federal protection. They would also no longer be subject to the Endangered Species Act at any time and under any circumstances except at the sole discretion of the Secretary of the Interior.
And it would no longer be possible for the American public to propose protections for wolves no matter how critically imperiled they become. And once the Endangered Species Act is weakened in such a way, it would invite further outrages... dealing a serious blow to the very foundation of the Endangered Species Act, the bedrock conservation law in this country.Think the Secretary of the Interior wouldn't sell out our wolves and the... more
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PHOTO: Orangutan populations in Indonesia's Borneo and Sumatera island are facing severe threats from habitat loss, illegal logging, fires and poaching. Conservationists predicted that without immediate action, orangutans are likely to be the first great ape to become extinct in the wild, 17 Aug 2010. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/The-Malaysian-Government-See-Red-on-Borneo-Over-Fresh-Dam-Plans-105667523.html
Borneo island is home to some of the world's rarest animals and plants. But conservationists are alarmed by new plans to dam some of the rivers on Borneo, which is divided among Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Luke Hunt reports from Kota Kinabalu, on Malaysian Borneo.
The Malaysian government has approved construction of dams in the Kaiduan Valley and near Kota Belud in the state of Sabah. Another dam on the Tutoh River is planned for the neighboring state of Sarawak.
Conflict brews
The government says the dams and perhaps more will be needed to ensure East Malaysian water and electricity needs.
However, environmentalists, villagers and a growing number of people in the broader electorate disagree. They want the dams stopped.
S.M. Muthu is a spokesman for the Malaysia Nature Society and says energy supplies - such as biomass fuel, gas and solar - are plentiful in Sabah and Sarawak and should be developed.
He says engineers have examined East Malaysia's infrastructure needs and determined dams are not required to produce electricity given the abundance of fast flowing rivers and natural catchments that are capable of producing electricity.
"The problem is we are destroying the water catchment areas. Then we have a lack of water. Then we want to build dams which is actually trying to find a solution to a problem we keep repeating," Muthu says, "Whereas if you go to the root cause of the problem and we maintain our water catchment areas then you don't even need a dam.
Residents and environmentalists opposition against dam
Residents in the Kaiduan valley have built a blockade to stop preliminary work on the dam. They raised a 1.8-meter Christian cross and the dam location and have also voiced opposition to the dam planned for Kota Belud.
Activists in Sarawak state on the island warn a hydropower dam on the Tutoh River also risks changing the boundary of a national park. That could see its World Heritage status revoked under the regulations of the United Nations cultural body UNESCO.
In addition, Bakun Dam - also in Sarawak - has raised eyebrows. The federal government decided to sell the project, which covers an area the size of Singapore, back to the state government despite intense criticism over environmental damage caused by its construction.
Malaysian Borneo's wildlife threatened
Borneo is home to scores of rare species, including the orangutan, the pygmy elephant and the Borneo rhinoceros. Its wildlife, however, is threatened by development, logging and the expansion of palm oil plantations.
The environmental movement in Malaysian Borneo has grown significantly in recent years. It has managed to block construction of a coal-fired power plant along a pristine stretch of coastline. Environmentalists say the plant threatened the globally recognized Coral Triangle off east Borneo.
Cynthia Ong is the executive director for LEAP Conservancy, an environmental advocacy group that has been at the heart of a coalition of organizations challenging the authorities over their environmental practices. "You know about the coal fired power plant issue. That single issue has mobilized the environment movement in a way I haven't seen before. We hung in there with each other and then made breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough and each time when we had successes on our campaign it really empowered us," Ong said.
As momentum within the environmental movement in Sabah spreads among the villagers and urban middle class, environmentalists and government officials in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and beyond are closely monitoring developments here.
"Whether it's coal or whether it's logging it doesn't stop at our borders. It's a line on a map, right. As we work locally there's always this alignment with what's happening in Borneo and what's happening in the region, what's happening globally even," Ong says, "It's not grandiose for us to think that Sabah's a leader and has the potential to be a leader in the region of Southeast Asia."
The Malaysian government says the dams are needed - not only to ensure water supplies - but to guarantee electricity to power the economic growth this country must generate if it is to meet its target of becoming an industrialized nation by 2020.
Managing those economic targets within the constraints of a burgeoning environmental movement could prove difficult, if Borneo's rare and endangered species are to be protected.PHOTO: Orangutan populations in Indonesia's Borneo and Sumatera island are facing... more
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Buried in an Indonesian newspaper's website, and certainly underreported by the international news media, was the story of the endangered Javan leopard that was shot by police on Saturday. It is estimated that there are less than 250 Javan leopards left in the world, and possibly as few as one hundred.
According to the article, the leopard ... (read more)
http://talkingskull.com/article/endangered-javan-leopard-killed-by-policeBuried in an Indonesian newspaper's website, and certainly underreported by the... more
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Loulan Pitre Sr. was born on the Gulf Coast in 1921, the son of an oysterman. Nearly all his life, he worked on the water, abiding by the widely shared faith that the resources of the Gulf of Mexico were limitless.
As a young Marine staff sergeant, back home after fighting in the South Pacific, he stood on barges in the gulf and watched as surplus mines, bombs and ammunition were pushed over the side.
He helped build the gulf’s very first offshore oil drilling platforms in the late 1940s, installing bolts on perilously high perches over the water. He worked on a shrimp boat, and later as the captain of a service boat for drilling platforms.
The gulf has changed, Mr. Pitre said: “I think it’s too far gone to salvage.”
The BP oil spill has sent millions of barrels gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, focusing international attention on America’s third coast and prompting questions about whether it will ever fully recover from the spill.
Now that the oil on the surface appears to be dissipating, the notion of a recovery from the spill, repeated by politicians, strikes some here as short-sighted. The gulf had been suffering for decades before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.
“There’s a tremendous amount of outrage with the oil spill, and rightfully so,” said Felicia Coleman, director of Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory. “But where’s the outrage at the thousands and millions of little cuts we’ve made on a daily basis?”
The gulf is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the hemisphere, a stopping point for migratory birds from South America to the Arctic, home to abundant wildlife and natural resources.
But like no other American body of water, the gulf bears the environmental consequences of the country’s economic pursuits and appetites, including oil and corn.
There are around 4,000 offshore oil and gas platforms and tens of thousands of miles of pipeline in the central and western Gulf of Mexico, where 90 percent of the country’s offshore drilling takes place.
At least half a million barrels of oil and drilling fluids had been spilled offshore before the gusher that began after the April 20 explosion, according to government records.
Much more than that has been spilled from pipelines, vessel traffic and wells in state waters — including hundreds of spills in Louisiana alone — records show, some of it since April 20.
Runoff and waste from cornfields, sewage plants, golf courses and oil-stained parking lots drain into the Mississippi River from vast swaths of the United States, and then flow down to the gulf, creating a zone of lifeless water the size of Lake Ontario just off the coast of Louisiana.
The gulf’s floor is littered with bombs, chemical weapons and other ordnance dumped in the middle of last century, even in areas busy with drilling, and miles outside of designated dumping zones, according to experts who work on deepwater hazard surveys.
The likelihood of an accident is low, experts said, but they added that federal hazard mitigation requirements are not strong enough to guarantee the safety of drillers working in the gulf.
Even the coast itself — overdeveloped, strip-mined and battered by storms — is falling apart. The wildlife-rich coastal wetlands of Louisiana, sliced up and drastically engineered for oil and gas exploration, shipping and flood control, have lost an area larger than Delaware since 1930.
“This has been the nation’s sacrifice zone, and has been for 50-plus years,” said Aaron Viles, campaign director for the Gulf Restoration Network, a nonprofit group. “What we’re seeing right now with BP’s crude is just a very photogenic representation of that.”
History of Neglect
All along the coast, people speak of a lack of regulatory commitment and investment in scientific research on the gulf by state and federal lawmakers.
They note, for example, that over the last decade, the Environmental Protection Agency’s financing for the Chesapeake Bay Program, a regional and federal partnership, was nearly five times the amount for a similar Gulf of Mexico program, and a Great Lakes program was given more than four times as much.
“The funding had never been equivalent to other great water bodies,” said Lisa Jackson, the administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. “That’s absolutely true. But it’s also absolutely true that this administration changed that long before the spill.”
While the Gulf of Mexico program financing remains at roughly the same levels, Ms. Jackson pointed to other programs to address gulf health that have been created and received tens of millions of dollars in the last two years.
On July 19, the Obama administration announced the recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, a committee created in 2009 to coordinate governance over the country’s major bodies of water.
The White House also announced the creation of a gulf restoration road map before the spill to address the long-term problems on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts.
Multiple Interactive Gulf of Mexico maps - http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/28/us/20100428-spill-map.html?ref=us
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/us/30gulf.html?_r=1Loulan Pitre Sr. was born on the Gulf Coast in 1921, the son of an oysterman. Nearly... more
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PHOTO: The last rhinoceros cow in Krugersdorp park, South Africa, bled to death on Wednesday after poachers hacked off her horn. Photograph: Reuters
Poachers kill last female rhino in South African park for prized horn - Record levels of poaching are endangering survival of rhinoceros in South Africa
South African wildlife experts are calling for urgent action against poachers after the last female rhinoceros in a popular game reserve near Johannesburg bled to death after having its horn hacked off.
Wildlife officials say poaching for the prized horns has now reached an all-time high. "Last year, 129 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa. This year, we have already had 136 deaths," said Japie Mostert, chief game ranger at the 1,500-hectare Krugersdorp game reserve.
The gang used tranquilliser guns and a helicopter to bring down the nine-year-old rhino cow. Her distraught calf was moved to a nearby estate where it was introduced to two other orphaned white rhinos.
Wanda Mkutshulwa, a spokeswoman for South African National Parks, said investigations into the growing number of incidents had been shifted to the country's organised crime unit. "We are dealing with very focused criminals. Police need to help game reserves because they are not at all equipped to handle crime on such an organised level,'' she said.
Rhino horn consists of compressed keratin fibre – similar to hair – and in many Asian cultures it is a fundamental ingredient in traditional medicines.
Mkutshulwa said poaching was also rife in the Kruger Park. Five men were arrested there in the past week alone – four of whom were caught with two bloodied rhino horns, AK-47 assault rifles, bolt-action rifles and an axe.
Krugersdorp game reserve attracts at least 200,000 visitors every year. It is also close to a private airport, which may have been used by the poachers.
"The exercise takes them very little time," Mostert said. "They first fly over the park in the late afternoon to locate where the rhino is grazing. Then they return at night and dart the animal from the air. The tranquilliser takes less than seven minutes to act.
"They saw off the horns with a chainsaw. They do not even need to switch off the rotors of the helicopter. We do not hear anything because our houses are too far away. The animal dies either from an overdose of tranquilliser or bleeds to death."
The committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) warned last year that rhino poaching had reached an all-time high. The Cites conference in Geneva in July 2009 heard that Asia's economic expansion had fuelled the market in rhino horns.
The horns are also used in the Middle East to make handles for ornamental daggers. Cites said demand for them had begun to soar in recent years. In the five years up to 2005, an average of only 36 rhinos had been killed each year.
Conservationists estimate that there are only 18,000 black and white rhinos in Africa, down from 65,000 in the 1970s. Mostert, who has been a ranger for 20 years, said the animals fetch up to 1m rand (£85,000) at game auctions and cannot be insured.
Cites has praised South Africa for its action against poachers. Two weeks ago, a Vietnamese man was jailed for 10 years for trying to smuggle horns out of the country.
Krugersdorp game reserve attracts at least 200,000 visitors every year. It is also close to a private airport, which may have been used by the poachers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/poachers-kill-last-female-rhinoPHOTO: The last rhinoceros cow in Krugersdorp park, South Africa, bled to death on... more
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We need some good news lately.
June 28, 2010 -- Wildlife officials in Malaysian Borneo are pushing to have its saltwater crocodiles removed from a list of endangered animals, saying the reptile's numbers have strongly recovered in recent years.
Deputy director of the Sabah Wildlife Department Augustin Tuuga told AFP that a survey of the Crocodylus porosus population showed there were about 11,000 to 15,000 in the state compared to 1,000 to 5,000 two decades ago.
Tuuga said there was big demand for legal crocodile leather from handbag and clothing accessory manufacturers as well as for crocodile meat in kitchens throughout Asia.
"Under CITES, these crocodiles can only come from breeding farms but once the crocodile is downgraded, manufacturers will be able to get the crocodiles from the wild," he added. "However, before this can happen we must have an effective monitoring mechanism to keep track of the crocodile population to ensure its numbers do not fall below acceptable levels."
Saltwater crocodiles have the most commercially valuable skin of its species and are found from Sri Lanka all the way to the Caroline Islands in the Western Pacific.
Tuuga said the increase in the crocodile population has also seen 38 attacks on humans in the last 10 years with 23 deaths and 15 injuries.
The latest was reported this month when the remains of a man who was eaten while looking for shellfish were found in the south of the state, he said.
However, Tuuga said the increasing population was not the only factor that led to the attacks.
"A lot of the crocodile's habitat has been destroyed by development and much of its food sources have also been depleted so this and the frequent human use of the rivers mean that such attacks will occur," he added.
With some growing up to seven meters (23 feet) in length, the saltwater crocodile has a large head with ridges that run from the eye along the center of the snout, with bands on its lower flanks and a yellow underside.We need some good news lately.
June 28, 2010 -- Wildlife officials in Malaysian... more
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In this stunning video from the folks at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a daring effort is made to transport the 375-pound silverback gorilla Mukunda back to the wildlife reserve after he strayed over three miles away.
Once wandering, Mukunda began destroying the crops of local villagers over the span of two months, threatening their livelihood and endangering his own life as a result.
After locating Mukunda and successfully anesthetizing him, he was driven back to his home in the forest, making the last stretch of steep hills on a bamboo stretcher, a process that took most of the day.
Virunga is the second oldest national park in the world (after Yellowstone), and is home to 200 critically endangered mountain gorillas, of which only 720 total remain.
Their daring attempt to relocate Mukunda back to the park shows their commitment to preserving him and his species
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/25/silverback-gorilla-reloca_n_625638.htmlIn this stunning video from the folks at Virunga National Park in the Democratic... more
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If you’ve ever wondered about the historical background of whale hunting in Japan, contemporary Japanese attitudes towards whaling or wanted an overview of this controversial issue, check out the following two part video report from Al Jazeera English.
Part one of the report gives a basic summary of the economic, cultural, societal and historical aspects of whaling in Japan. In part two (in COMMENTS section below), 101 East reporter Fauziah Ibrahim discusses issues of sustainability, culture, sovereignty, legality and allegations of corruption surrounding the whale hunt with Japan’s former whaling commissioner and a representative of Greenpeace Japan.
http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/06/12/video-report-whale-hunting-in-japan/If you’ve ever wondered about the historical background of whale hunting in... more
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The world's snakes may be in trouble. New research shows that snake numbers have plummeted in a number of populations worldwide.
"Of 17 populations of snakes covering 11 species, 11 populations had declined. That covered eight species," said study lead author Christopher Reading of the Center for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, U.K. "They hadn't just declined, they had declined drastically and in exactly the same time and in the same way."
Reading and nine other researchers pooled their data tracking snake numbers as far back as the late 1980s in the U.K., France, Italy, Nigeria and Australia. Over the period from the late 1990s until about 2005, eleven of the populations dropped steeply.
The team published their findings in Biology Letters.
"We don't know what the reason for those declines is," Reading said. "The idea of this paper is to flag it up to other herpetologists and snake ecologists around the world and say, 'We've got this. Have you got something similar? If so, let's talk about it.'"
"For them all to be synchronous does suggest that there is something at a higher level that has affected everything," Reading added. "It's just too much of a coincidence that this would have happened at the same time for different reasons."
Although the researchers can't say why the snakes are declining, there may be some clues. "We looked at the snakes that had declined and we realized that many of them had common traits," Reading said.
"They tended to be snakes that didn't move around very much. They tended to be sit-and-wait sort of predators. That suggests that we are dealing with something about the carrying capacity of the habitat. We don't know whether it's something affecting the prey or something affecting the habitat."
More mobile snakes would be better able to seek out new habitat, if their usual spot developed problems.
Among the declining species are several types of vipers.
"The vipers are slow growing, long living. Those are exactly the things that are in trouble when people come along and either kill snakes or degrade habitats in way that degrades the prey that is available," said Rick Shine of the University of Sydney in Australia, who was not part of the study.
"I don't think anybody would have guessed that we would have seen this hugely synchronous decline in the species that are being studied," he added. "I think it's frightening."
Climate change is the kind of global force that could cause change across continents, as the researchers observe, perhaps changing habitat or availability of prey. But Thomas Madsen of the University of Wollongong, in Australia, does not think that's the problem in this case.
"Most reptile populations are driven by either increased predation or more or less food," he said. "Climate change is probably not at the moment a major concern. There are so many good and definite stories out there that show the effect of climate change on animal populations. This one isn't one of them."
"I'm very dubious about this report," he added.
He suspects the reported declines are just coincidence. "It's most likely true that these snakes are declining" he added. However, he noted that one of the populations he studied crashed but after watching for a few more years it came back.
If the decline is widespread, the snakes may be following their amphibian cousins. Amphibian populations have declined globally, with at least 42 percent of species declining as of 2008, and many threatened with extinction. Habitat loss and a widespread fungal disease are two major causes, but in many cases, the cause remains mysterious.
"I think we do need to be worried," said Shine. "Exactly how worried -- I think the jury is still out."The world's snakes may be in trouble. New research shows that snake numbers have... more
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Click the link for beautiful photos.
London, England (CNN) -- The Alaotra Grebe, a small diving bird native to Madagascar has been officially classified extinct, according to a leading bird conservation organization.
BirdLife International reported that the species, once found on Lake Alaotra, the largest lake in Madagascar, declined rapidly due to carnivorous fish being introduced to the lake and the use of nylon gill nets by local fishermen.
"No hope now remains for this species. It is another example of how human actions can have unforeseen consequences," Dr Leon Bennun, BirdLife International's director of science, policy and information said in a statement.
Invasive alien species are causing extinctions around the globe, Bennun says, and are one of the major threats not just to birds but to other wildlife.
BirdLife International's report is the latest update to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds and highlights additional cases of the negative impact of invasive species on bird life.
The status of Zapata Rail -- a blue/brown bird native to Southwest Cuba -- was upgraded to "critically endangered" due to the introduction of mongoose and exotic catfish to its marshland habitat.
In Asia and Australia, pollution of coastal wetlands is contributing to the falling populations of wading birds like the Great Knot and the Far Eastern Curlew.
The destruction of inter-tidal mudflats in Saemangeum, South Korea, an important migratory stop-over site, has seen numbers of the Great Knot fall by 20 percent, according to BirdLife.
But the news isn't all bad. Conservation projects are having a positive impact on the survival of bird species.
In particular, the Azores Bullfinch has been downgraded from "critically endangered" to "endangered" thanks to conservation work to restore its natural vegetation on its Atlantic island home.
And in Colombia, the numbers of Yellow-eared Parrot have been rising as its nesting sites are preserved and local communities take part in educational programs to learn about conservation.
Martin Fowlie, communications officer at BirdLife International told CNN: "The overall state of the world's birds is getting worse year on year. But these are two very good examples in the list this year that show conservation works.
"We have the skill and the expertise, so these things can be prevented. But we need commitments from governments to provide money to help birds and animals to survive."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/26/bird.extinction.red.list/index.html?hpt=T2Click the link for beautiful photos.
London, England (CNN) -- The Alaotra Grebe, a... more
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By Nikolas Kozloff:
To the degree that Americans are paying attention to the environmental plight of marine wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, they may focus most upon dolphins and whales.
However, the U.S. public is much less familiar with another marine mammal, the manatee, which could also be placed in jeopardy as a result of the BP oil spill. One of the most outlandish creatures on the planet, the shy and retiring manatee, which gets its name from an American Indian word meaning "Lady of the Water," is one of my favorite animals.
First described as a cross between a seal and hippo, the manatee has a wonderfully round body, mostly black skin the texture of vinyl, a bright pink belly, a diamond-shaped tail and a cleft lip. Manatees belong to the biological order Sirenia which includes dugongs and Steller's Sea Cow, the latter hunted to extinction in the Bering Sea during the 1700s.
"Sluggish, squinty-eyed and bewhiskered," notes the New York Times, the manatee "is more likely to have its rotund bulk compared to a sweet potato." Living life in the slow lane, manatees are fond of doing nothing much at all. When they're not eating, they take frequent naps. An exclusive vegetarian that feeds on water lettuce and hyacinth, the animal eats 10 percent of its body weight in a single day. Not surprisingly manatees are robust -- they can grow up to ten feet long and weigh nearly a ton.
In the wake of BP's disaster, the manatee could be in for a rough patch. Indeed, oil could ultimately result in death or significant injury in the event that manatees are exposed to petroleum.
The docile sea creature, which can be found along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, could ingest oil-damaged sea grass beds and other vegetation. If the marine mammals come into contact with surface oil, this could irritate their eyes and mucous membranes while clogging the animals' nostrils.
The manatee is already endangered and the BP spill poses yet a further problem for the animal. Because manatees need to surface to breathe air, they could become exposed to oil on the water. If they ingest oil, manatees could develop lesions and erosions of the esophagus, liver toxicity and kidney problems. Ingestion could kill the organisms in manatees' stomachs which aid in the digestion of sea grasses consumed by the animals.
Of particular concern is the plight of Bama, the first Alabama manatee to be tagged by scientists. From mid-May to mid-November, Bama and at least a dozen other manatees call Alabama home. Currently, Bama is migrating back home to Alabama from Florida. Though manatees don't tend to travel in pods or herds, it's likely that Bama represents the advance guard of manatees making their way back towards the northern Gulf.
In murky waters, the manatees' acute sense of touch and vibrissae, located on the face but also all over the body, come in handy. These bristly vibrissae serve to transmit information to the brain via nerve fibers. Though other animals such as dogs have vibrissae, they don't have them in such large numbers and typically only on the face.
"For now," notes the Times, "the question of how intertwined the sensory abilities of manatees might be remains unanswered. Yet even what is known reveals a degree of complexity that argues against labeling them as sweet but dumb -- peaceable simpletons."
Long derided as stupid by humans, the manatee will now have to steer clear of man's environmental folly in the Gulf. Though Bama and other manatees have poor vision, perhaps their other extra sensory abilities will alert them to danger. It may be the only tool they have at their disposal as the animals seek to survive the despoliation of their habitat.
http://www.nikolaskozloff.com/blog.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/bp-and-the-perilous-voyag_b_584267.htmlBy Nikolas Kozloff:
To the degree that Americans are paying attention to the... more
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Baby bison are doing everything they can to keep up with mom, no matter how far or how fast; moms trying to shelter their babies from harm, entire family groups trying to escape the yelling predators...
http://www.care2.com/news/member/172225705/1510946Baby bison are doing everything they can to keep up with mom, no matter how far or how... more
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A mobile phone application has been launched to help protect the critically endangered mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The app, called iGorilla, allows users of iPhones and iPads to follow the lives of gorilla families in the remote forests of the Virunga National Park.
Each app costs $4 (£3), with most of the money going to the park.
The mountain gorilla population has been reduced by poaching, civil conflict, deforestation and disease.
But conservation work is helping to secure the remaining 720 animals, with an estimated 211 of the great apes living in the park.
The new app, launched by the Virunga National Park, allows users to choose a gorilla family, find out about individual members and follow their lives through reports, photographs and videos.
The park straddles the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, covering 7,800 sq km (3,000 sq miles).
It was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1979.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8687434.stmA mobile phone application has been launched to help protect the critically endangered... more
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