Endangered Species
grrlscientist | April 22, 2007tags: Atlantic salmon, conservation, fish, Goldman Environmental Prize, Orri Vigfusson
Atlantic Salmon, Salmo salar. [bigger image]
Image: DNR, Cornell, NY.
Orri Vigfusson, 64, an Icelandic businessman, has been fighting to save Atlantic wild salmon from extinction by overfishing for 17 years. Vigfusson's efforts, which led to an increase in salmon numbers in the northern Atlantic Ocean, have been recognized with a top environmental award; the Goldman Environmental Prize. The award is known as "the Nobel Prize for grassroots environmentalism". Vigfusson, along with five other winners, will…
grrlscientist | April 22, 2007tags: Amur leopard, Manchurian leopard, Far East Leopard, conservation, big cats
Amur, or Manchurian, Leopard, Panthera pardus orientalis.
Image: National Geographic.
According to a new census by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Russian Academy of Science, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, it is estimated that only 25 to 34 wild Amur leopards remain alive -- at least 66 fewer than are needed to ensure survival. Also known as the Far Eastern or Manchurian leopard, the Amur leopard has been victimized by habitat fragmentation and hunting, conservationists said recently.
"We've known…
grrlscientist | April 17, 2007
The strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio, is one of the species of amphibians and reptiles declining in the lowland forests of Costa Rica.
Image source: BBC News.
The recent decline in frogs and other amphibians has been blamed on a deadly fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. However, a paper was published this week that proposes another reason for the decline of frogs: there is less leaf litter on the forest floor than in years past.
This study, carried out in a Costa Rican rainforest, found that lizards, which are not susceptible to this fungus, are also decreasing by a similar…
grrlscientist | April 16, 2007
Bumblebee in flight.
Image source: Andreas Tille, 2002.
I don't know about you, but I love bumblebees: they are one of my most favorite animals, in fact. So I find it very sad to know that bumblebee populations are declining around the world. But the British are doing something to help these fuzzy insects recover their populations.
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust is asking the public to help survey bumblebees and report the different species they find. Unfortunately, they will be reporting fewer species now than they would have several years ago because recent studies reveal that three…
grrlscientist | April 12, 2007A group of 20 endangered Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits, Brachylagus idahoensis (pictured), were reintroduced to the wilds of Washington state last month but only four of the rabbits are still alive. The native rabbits, which are small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand, were released at the Sagebrush Flat Wildlife Area, said David Hays, pygmy rabbit coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Hays said two males were removed earlier this month and will be returned at the end of April. The other 14 rabbits are believed to have fallen victim to predators, mainly coyotes, but…
grrlscientist | April 7, 2007Since tomorrow is Easter, I think a story about rabbits is appropriate: I'll bet that none of you knew that there are striped rabbits in the world, and I'll bet that none of you have heard of the Sumatran striped rabbit, Nesolagus netscheri (pictured right). This is because the Sumatran striped rabbit is one of the rarest species of rabbit in the world. It has only been seen three times in the last 35 years.
The Sumatran Striped Rabbit -- also known as the Sumatra Short-eared Rabbit or Sumatran Rabbit -- is found only in forest in the Barisan Mountains in western Sumatra, Indonesia. It is…
grrlscientist | April 3, 2007Customs authorities in Belgrade, Serbia intercepted a package containing 98 rare butterflies that originated in the Solomon Islands. The endangered butterflies are estimated to be worth more than $13,000 on the black market, and are protected under an international convention on endangered species and require special licences for import and export.
Serbia's environmental protection agency said the butterflies were being imported with forged documents.
It is believed they were destined for illegal sale in Serbia and could have fetched as much as $13,000.
They had originated from the Solomon…
grrlscientist | April 3, 2007
This image taken by Mike Wallace and released by the Zoological Society of San Diego, shows a California condor egg produced by 7-year-old female No. 217 and 6-year-old male No. 261, in their cliff side nest inside the Sierra San Pedro de Martir National Park in Baja California, Mexico, in March 2007. This condor egg in Mexico is the first time since at least the 1930s a California condor has produced offspring, biologists at the Zoological Society of San Diego announced Monday April 2, 2007. This is the first egg laid in Baja California since the California Condor Recovery Program…
zooillogix | March 23, 2007One of the world's smallest and rarest owls was seen for the first time in the wild. The American Bird Conservancy announced the discovery Thursday by a group of researchers monitoring Peru's northern jungle. The owl, called an "owlet" due to its emasculatingly small size, is so distinct that it has its own genus, "Xenoglaux," meaning "strange owl." According to one of the team members, the population is estimated to be less than 1,000 birds and possibly as few as 250. The bird has bright reddish-orange eyes and is no bigger than a man's fist.You woke me up for this?!, xenoglaux loweryiMore…
grrlscientist | March 22, 2007tags: Long-whiskered Owlet, Xenoglaux loweryi, birds, birding, ornithology
Long-whiskered Owlet, Xenoglaux loweryi.
The strange and extremely rare Long-whiskered Owlet, Xenoglaux loweryi, has been seen in the wild for the first time on a private conservation area in Northern Peru by researchers. The bird, a species that wasn't even discovered until 1976, and until now was only known from a few specimens captured in nets after dark, was seen in the Area de Conservación Privada de Abra Patricia -- Alto Nieva. This sighting is considered a holy grail of South American ornithology and has not…
grrlscientist | March 16, 2007As many of you undoubtedly know, a short video of what might be an ivory-billed woodpecker was captured in 2004 in an Arkansas swamp. However, further analysis casts more doubt as to the identity of the bird in the footage: the videoed bird appears to flap its wings at 8.6 times per second -- the rate of a pileated woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus. Additionally, Martin Collinson from Aberdeen University, UK, has re-analyzed the footage and says the bird in the pictures appears to have black trailing wing edges rather than the unique white features associated with the ivory-billed woodpecker,…
zooillogix | March 15, 2007A new species of clouded leopard was identified today in the jungles of Borneo. In fact, over 400 new species of animals have been discovered in the rain forests of Borneo since 1994.
Most of the species shown below were found through the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) spectacular Heart of Borneo Initiative.
Bornean Clouded Leopard, neofelis diardi
Catfish with suction cups on its belly and protruding teeth
Lizard - new species of skink
(By far our favorite), Unidentified "Mystery Mammel"
zooillogix | March 13, 2007For years, environmentalists have been worried about the overfishing of white marlin. However, studies have shown white marlin populations to be low, but not perilously so. A recent petition to put the white marlin on the endangered species list was even turned down. It turns out that a significant portion of the "population" of white marlin is not white marlin at all, but a newly identified species called a roundscale spearfish, which bears a stunningly close resemblance to their whiter, more marliny brethren.
These elderly gentlemen might not be so smiley if they knew that they were…
grrlscientist | March 7, 2007tags: large-billed reed-warbler, birds
Large-billed Reed-warbler, Acrocephalus orinus: the world's most mysterious bird.
Image: Philip Round/The Wetland Trust.
More elusive than even the Ivory-billed woodpecker, a large-billed reed-warbler has been rediscovered at a wastewater treatment plant outside of Bangkok, Thailand, Birdlife International announced today. The bird has eluded birders and ornithologists for more than 130 years.
Because the bird had not been seen since its discovery in 1867 in the Sutlej Valley of India, little is known about the mysterious large-billed reed-warbler.…
grrlscientist | February 24, 2007Below the fold is video from 1933 of the last Tasmanian tiger, the thylacine. Thylacines, now extinct, were carnivorous marsupials that inhabited Tasmania until they were wiped out by a human campaign of extermination that lasted through the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, although thylacines were never a threat to anyone. You can learn more about them at the Thylacine Museum.
grrlscientist | February 23, 2007Ecosystems along the continental shelf waters of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, from the Labrador Sea south of Greenland all the way to North Carolina, are experiencing large, rapid changes. While some scientists have pointed to the decline of cod from overfishing as the main reason for the shifting ecosystems, a recent paper emphasizes that climate changes are also playing a big role.
"It is becoming increasingly clear that Northwest Atlantic shelf ecosystems are being tested by climate forcing from the bottom up and overfishing from the top down," said Charles Greene, director of the Ocean…
grrlscientist | February 22, 2007tags: Tasmanian Devil, cancer, Devil Facial Tumor Disease, endangered species
A healthy Tasmanian devil, Sarcophilus harrisii, is shown in this photo from Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries. Researchers estimate the wild population has fallen from 140,000 in the 1990s to 80,000 due to Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), an illness that creates grotesque tumors on the animals' snouts that lead to starvation within a year.
A cancer that causes facial tumors on Australia's Tasmanian devil has brought the carnivorous marsupial to the brink of extinction, a leading researcher has said…
grrlscientist | November 29, 2006
California sea lions, Prince William Sound, Alaska, 2000.
Image: Neil Moomey and Dan Beeler.
Tourists love to visit Fisherman's Wharf for the seafood, the view of San Francisco Bay, and also to watch the many dozens of playful sea lions that lounge by the water's edge, eating fish. However, in southern California, sea lions have begun attacking god-fearing American citizens. For example, this past June in Southern California, a sea lion charged several people on Manhattan Beach, eventually biting a man before escaping justice. Last spring in Berkeley, a woman was hospitalized after a sea…
grrlscientist | November 2, 200629% of all fish stocks have collapsed.
32% of all amphibians globally are threatened with extinction, and 43% of all amphibian species are in decline.
14% of all bird species are predicted to be extinct by 2100 (as opposed to 1.3% for the 500 years previous), and total number of birds globally estimated to have dropped by 20-25%.
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tags: extinction, endangered species, fish, amphibian, bird
scientificactivist | October 31, 2006Yesterday's Washington Post reported that several environmental groups have obtained strong evidence that Bush Administration political appointee and deputy assistant secretary of the interior for fish and wildlife and parks Julie MacDonald has actively censored scientific information and given elevated and inappropriate consideration to non-environmental concerns in order to prevent the adding of new species to the Endangered Species list. The Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the original organizations to make the revelation, has detailed information on the actions of MacDonald and…