Posts
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| American Robin / my photo |
- There is a petition drive to continue New Jersey's moratorium on harvesting horseshoe crabs, which is essential for the conservation of migratory Red Knots. Please sign it and spread it around.
- A scientist is warning that a plan to release guinea hens in Turkey to eat ticks may cause more problems than it solves.
- Darwin used the breeding of Rock Pigeon varieties as a model for his theory of evolution by natural selection. New genetic data confirms his conclusion that most domestic and feral pigeon varieties come from the same species and explains how some varieties developed crests.
- The RSPB thinks that more seabirds are affected by the wax-like substance in the English Channel since winds have blown most birds away from shore.
- Since the banning of diclofenac, the status of vultures in the Indian subcontinent has improved somewhat, though several species are still in serious danger of extinction.
- A 62-year-old Laysan Albatross has just hatched a chick at Midway Atoll NWR, her sixth in the last six years and probably her 35th overall.
- A new study lays out some of the challenges Asian birds will face because of climate change.
- PBS Nature put together an appropriate graphic for Superb Owl Sunday.
- Extinction Countdown: 3 British Moths Extinct; Most Other Species in Decline
- Tetrapod Zoology: Great tits: still murderous, rapacious, flesh-rending predators!
- TheGreenMiles: Cod Fishermen Are Even More Screwed Than You Thought
- The Smaller Majority: African Tuesday: Being bark
- The Thoughtful Animal: Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Ravens, Superbowl Edition
- Outside My Window: Slots Help Me Fly
- Earbirding: What’s Weird About Rusty Blackbirds
- Not Exactly Rocket Science: Meet the Ancestor of Every Human, Bat, Cat, Whale and Mouse
- 10,000 Birds: We Got the Wrong Starling
- Myrmecos: Friday Beetle Blogging: The Prettiest Darkling Beetle
- The Skeptical Moth: When Taxonomy Makes a Species Less Critically Endangered
- Ars Technica: Birds infer their partner's desires during bonding ritual
- Obama has nominated Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, as the new Secretary of the Interior. Major environmental groups such as Audubon have praised the appointment. However, she also has experience working for the oil industry. What this pick means in terms of wildlife conservation and environmental policy is so far unclear. The nomination came shortly after former secretary Bruce Babbitt criticized the president's public lands policies.
- If the Keystone XL pipeline fails to win approval, the leader of Canada's Northwest Territories wants to build a pipeline north to a new port on the Arctic. However, such a scheme is likely to be foolhardy.
- Last year was the 10th warmest year on record globally and the hottest year on record in the United States.
- New Jersey's bobcat population appears to be increasing and is starting to spread south of I-80.
- While Chris Christie won credit for his handling of the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, he's since settled into a more familiar pattern, refusing to acknowledge the role of climate change in this and future disasters and not coming up with a plausible funding source for purchasing flood-prone properties.
- The US Fish and Wildlife Service recaptured a Mexican Gray Wolf that it released into the wild just three weeks ago for fear that it might be shot.
- Poachers have killed over 11,000 elephants in Gabon since 2004. While ivory is restricted in some countries, demand for ivory in Asia has increased and fueling the new poaching boom.
- The US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed protecting the wolverine under the Endangered Species Act. The main threat against it is climate change. Its population had previously been reduced to near extinction by trapping, and some wolverines continue to be caught in traps laid by USDA Wildlife Services.
- Plans to clean up oil spills in the Arctic are still too vague.
