Tag Archives: Endangered Species

Status and trends.

How Austrailia’s Great Barrier Reef got polluted – from farms and fossil fuels to filthy propaganda | Graham Readfearn | Environment | The Guardian

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GR:  This is the best discussion of the cause of coral death in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef I’ve seen–it’s people.

Coral bleaching at Loomis Reef, off Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Photograph: Essential Median

Graham Readfearn:  In late November 2015, as corals across the northern section of the Great Barrier Reef started to bleach white, the game was finally up.

For years, Australians had been told the country’s jewel in the ocean’s crown was on the mend. Only months earlier the Coalition government had won a two-year fight to keep the reef off a United Nations list of world heritage sites in danger.

The stakes were high. International reputations and tourist dollars were at stake. The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, and the trade minister, Andrew Robb, had even attacked Barack Obama, who feared for the reef’s future.

The reef was not in danger, Bishop insisted. The president was misinformed, claimed Robb.

Conservative commentators hanging around News Corp media have said the dangers to the reef were overblown.

The mining industry cast the views of environmentalists as green propaganda, ignoring how for the most part, conservationists were echoing the findings of the government’s own scientists.

Now, about half the corals bleached in the once pristine northern section are dead or dying.  More– How the Great Barrier Reef got polluted – from farms and fossil fuels to filthy propaganda | Graham Readfearn | Environment | The Guardian

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To save the Great Barrier Reef ‘we need to start now, right now’ – video | Environment | The Guardian

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GR:  The video leaves us with a grim outlook.  Human wastes running into the oceans coupled with global warming will soon destroy all the reefs.  Do enough people care to force our governments to act?  Probably not.  Do you see any answers?

and , theguardian.com:  Jon Brodie from James Cook University says to give the Great Barrier Reef even a fighting chance to survive, Australia needs to spend $1bn a year for the next 10 years to improve water quality. If we don’t do that now, he says, we might need to just give up on the reef. ‘Climate change is happening much more quickly and much more severely than most scientists predicted’•

The Great Barrier Reef: a catastrophe laid bare – special report.    Source: To save the Great Barrier Reef ‘we need to start now, right now’ – video | Environment | The Guardian

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Predator Control in Alaska Wildlife Refuges

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Pat Lavin:  The state of Alaska is pursuing aggressive predator control measures on our national wildlife refuges, targeting bears, wolves and other wildlife on land that was meant for their conservation.

Alaska is a state unlike any other, home to diverse landscapes from the tundra of the high arctic to temperate rainforests in the south. Polar bears, wolves, and brown bears live here. In many parts of the state, these carnivores live in pristine habitat as they have for thousands of years, hunting their natural prey, including moose, caribou, deer, salmon and more.  More:  Predator Control in Alaska Wildlife Refuges

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In Bangladesh, Around 1 Million Unwanted Births Per Year

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Joe Bish, Population Media Center:  The following article was published in the Daily Star newspaper of Bangladesh, and reports out on a new analysis of the 2014 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) for that country. The analysis was performed by the Bangladesh Health Ministry. If you would like to directly access the 2014 DHS, simply click here (PDF).

The headline is that the Ministry has calculated nearly 1 million of the roughly 3 million births that take place every year in Bangladesh can be accurately described as unwanted. “Here unwanted birth means either the parents didn’t want the child in that time or never,” said Karar Zunaid Ahsan, senior monitoring and evaluation adviser at the Ministry.

This troubling statistic is followed by several more: the country’s fertility decline has been stalled since 2011 at 2.3; the countrywide unwanted fertility rate is 0.7 children per woman, with regional variations; and, only 25% of Bangladesh’s public facilities purportedly offering family planning services are ready to actually provide them. It is worth noting that the fertility rate of 2.3 coincides with the U.N.’s high variant population projection for the country. That would mean, if these trends continue, that Bangladesh will cross the 200 million population mark by 2033 — not in 2050, as indicated in the article. Setting aside for a moment social and economic ramifications, what will happen to the remaining 100 Sundarbans’ forest tigers in this human population growth scenario? Country sees 10 lakh unwanted births a year.

Source: In Bangladesh, Around 1 Million Unwanted Births Per Year

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Rescued whale sharks released back into the ocean – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian

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Two whale sharks destined for an ocean theme park in China were rescued after an 18-month investigation by Wildlife Conservation Society, covered by investigative photojournalist Paul Hilton. The operation, supported by Indonesia’s marine police, revealed where the protected species were being illegally caught and kept in sea pens by a major supplier of large marine megafauna to the international wildlife tradePaul HiltonMonday 6 June 2016 06.29 EDT.  More:   Rescued whale sharks released back into the ocean – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian

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Experts Prepare to Welcome Black-footed Ferrets Back to Wyoming

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Not terribly long ago, the black-footed ferret vanished from the wild. Today, experts are making plans to return this endangered species to the same site where humans once thought we had seen the very last of this iconic prairie creature.

On the early morning of November 2, 1985 I watched a pickup truck crest the ridge of a dusty Wyoming two-track ranch road and disappear over the horizon. Inside it was what I thought at the time might be the last black-footed ferret ever to live in the wild. I was dead tired, having been up for the past week trying to catch that ferret, spending nights of driving laps around prairie dog colonies – the habitat and food source of black-footed ferrets – peering out to the end of the beam of a strong spotlight to find her. It was the end of a tumultuous fall, one that had been filled with bitter accusations and petty politics, and I was really too worn down to be much more than philosophical about her departure. There was no fanfare, no media presence—nothing that would have marked the day as remarkable. Even though it might have been the day that a species went extinct in the wild.  More:  Experts Prepare to Welcome Black-footed Ferrets Back to Wyoming

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Help Stop the Wildlife-Killer Bill in Congress 060616 – Defenders of Wildlife

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It’s supposedly an energy bill, but the “North American Energy Infrastructure Act of 2016” contains a lethal dose of anti-wildlife amendments that will lead to dead wolves, dead bears and the destruction of many important wildlife protections.

And while pro-oil, pro-coal, climate change denying provisions are despicable, the anti-wildlife measures are equally catastrophic.

Tell your senators to protect wildlife and oppose this deadly bill!

More: Help Stop the Wildlife-Killer Bill in Congress 060616 – Defenders of Wildlife

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Wildlife Weekly Wrap-up – Defenders of Wildlife Blog

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Weekly Wildlife Wrap-up Stories

Cracking Down on Ivory

This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized new regulations to help protect elephants from the demands of the ivory trade. Previous rules had loopholes that allowed those selling illegal ivory attempt to pass it off as legal. But with the new regulations comes a near-total ban on the commercial trade of ivory in the U.S., putting an end to the trade of products that had served as a cover for illegal ivory. More than 300,000 African elephants are killed for their ivory tusks each year, pushing the species closer to the brink of extinction.

Learn about the new ivory regulations

Back in the Wild Again . . . .

A Bear Doesn’t Care . . . .

Protect the Pallid! . . . .

Source: Wildlife Weekly Wrap-up – Defenders of Wildlife Blog

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Australian state MP admits eating elephant he shot in Zimbabwe | Australia news | The Guardian

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A member of the New South Wales parliament belonging to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party has revealed he once shot and ate an elephant while hunting in Zimbabwe.Robert Borsak has previously admitted shooting an elephant during an African hunting tour, with a picture of the state senator kneeling beside the kill sparking controversy.

According to the Zambezi Society, a conservation group, elephant populations in Zimbabwe have fallen dramatically in the past 15 years, particularly in the Middle Zambezi Valley, where last January there were around 11,500 elephants, down from 18,000 in 2001.

Source: Australian state MP admits eating elephant he shot in Zimbabwe | Australia news | The Guardian

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