[lotuseclat79]

Nearly 200 Rhinos Killed in Zimbabwe Over Three Years.

About 200 rhino have reportedly been killed by poachers in Zimbabwe over the last three years, and wildlife officials warn that international and regional poaching syndicates are benefiting from local cooperation.

Save the rhinos!

-- Tom

[poochee]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

Nearly 200 Rhinos Killed in Zimbabwe Over Three Years.

About 200 rhino have reportedly been killed by poachers in Zimbabwe over the last three years, and wildlife officials warn that international and regional poaching syndicates are benefiting from local cooperation.

Save the rhinos!

-- Tom

[Gabriel]

Giraffes on the rebound

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33753490?Gt1=43001

[poochee]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

Giraffes on the rebound

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33753490?Gt1=43001

They are so beautiful.

[ekim68]

Very cool Gabriel... Interesting note:

There are nine subspecies of giraffes in Africa, each distinguished by geographic location and the color, pattern and shape of their spotted coats.

[ekim68]

Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash

ABOARD THE ALGUITA, 1,000 miles northeast of Hawaii — In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.

Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line andnets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.

Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.

But once it does split into pieces, the fragments look like confetti in the water. Millions, billions, trillions and more of these particles are floating in the world’s trash-filled gyres.

PCBs, DDT and other toxic chemicals cannot dissolve in water, but the plastic absorbs them like a sponge. Fish that feed on plankton ingest the tiny plastic particles. Scientists from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation say that fish tissues contain some of the same chemicals as the plastic. The scientists speculate that toxic chemicals are leaching into fish tissue from the plastic they eat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/sc...0patch.html?hp

[poochee]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash

ABOARD THE ALGUITA, 1,000 miles northeast of Hawaii — In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/sc...0patch.html?hp

[poochee]

Russia launches program to save tigers worldwide
GARY PEACH | November 11, 2009 01:10 PM EST | AP

MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin has made headlines by championing the endangered Siberian tiger – posing with a cuddly cub and placing a tracking collar on a full-grown female in the wilds of his country's Far East. Now Russia is helping plan an ambitious program it hopes can double the global tiger population by 2022.

Russia hopes to hold a "tiger summit" in the Far East city of Vladivostok in September to coordinate multinational efforts to protect the Amur tiger, its habitats and increasingly scarce food sources, representatives of Russia's Natural Resources Ministry, the World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund said Wednesday.

"We decided that this time we should do something serious in order to preserve tigers on our planet," said Igor Chestin, director of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The situation is catastrophic."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...angered-tiger/

[ekim68]

Originally Posted by poochee

"We decided that this time we should do something serious in order to preserve tigers on our planet," said Igor Chestin, director of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The situation is catastrophic."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...angered-tiger/

[Gabriel]

Pelicans no longer on endangered species list

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unle...officials.html

[poochee]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

Pelicans no longer on endangered species list

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unle...officials.html

[steppenwolf]

http://scienceblogs.com/intersection...e_not_pets.php

people on endangered list

Category: Conservation • Culture • Education • Media and Science
Posted on: February 18, 2009 2:02 PM, by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum

You've likely already seen this story all over the news:

Chimp's owner calls vicious mauling 'freak thing'

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The owner of a 200-pound chimpanzee that viciously mauled a Stamford woman calls the incident "a freak thing," but says her pet was not a "horrible" animal.

Sandra Herold told NBC's "Today Show" in an interview aired Wednesday that Travis, her 14-year-old chimpanzee, was like a son to her.

Herold tried to save her friend by stabbing the chimp with a butcher knife and bludgeoning it with a shovel.

I have extremely strong emotions concerning this particular issue... in part because of my conservation biology background, but more recently, from my friendship with science writer Vanessa Woods and her husband, evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Brian Hare. The very reason they study sanctuary orphans is because often mothers have been killed so the babies can be sold to people who want them as pets. Vanessa explained the problems with this last year at her terrific blog Bonobo Handshake, reposted here:

#1 Chimpanzees are wild animals. Animals that make good PETS like dogs and cats, have been domesticated for [thousands] of years. There has been selection on them against agression, which is why a dog, unlike a wolf, will not automatically tear you to pieces. Anyone who has a pet chimpanzee for long enough will eventually no longer be able to control them and will either get a body part bitten off or will have to use extreme force to control them. Chimps live to be 50 years old and grow almost as big as a human male. They have extremely powerful muscles and are 5-10 stronger than a heavy weight boxer.

[poochee]

Originally Posted by steppenwolf

http://scienceblogs.com/intersection...e_not_pets.php

people on endangered list

Category: Conservation • Culture • Education • Media and Science
Posted on: February 18, 2009 2:02 PM, by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum

You've likely already seen this story all over the news:

Chimp's owner calls vicious mauling 'freak thing'

She is a very foolish woman! I saw the victums interview on the Oprah show. Veeeeeeery sad.

[ekim68]

Turtles Are Casualties of Warming in Costa Rica

PLAYA GRANDE, Costa Rica — This resort town was long known for Leatherback Sea Turtle National Park, nightly turtle beach tours and even a sea turtle museum. So Kaja Michelson, a Swedish tourist, arrived with high expectations. “Of course we’re hoping to see turtles — that is part of the appeal,” she said.

But haphazard development, in tandem with warmer temperatures and rising seas that many scientists link to global warming, have vastly diminished the Pacific turtle population.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/sc...s.html?_r=1&hp

[lotuseclat79]

After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape.

Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers -- began their precipitous slide to extinction.


Mastodons graze on black ash trees in a pleistocene swamp. A new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that the disappearance of North America’s large herbivores not long after the retreat of the ice sheets that covered much of the continent triggered a dramatic reshaping of the landscape. Illustration: Barry Roal Carlsen

-- Tom