The world’s rarest birds through caught on camera

The winners of The World's Rarest Birds international photo competition have just been announced. The competition, launched in 2010, aimed to secure images of the 566 most threatened birds on Earth for a new book highlighting their plight. Thousands of images were entered into the competition and hundreds will be featured in The World's Rarest Birds to be published in 2012 by the ethical publishing company WILDGuides. Profits from sales will go to BirdLife International's Preventing Extinctions Programme to help support conservation projects worldwide. The winner in the "Endangered (372) or Data Deficient (62) species" is Quan MinLi: a beautiful photo of a flying Asian Crested Ibis from China. Asian Crested Ibis (ENDANGERED) A medium-sized water bird that once bred in Russia, Japan and China but underwent a major population crash. It is now restricted to Shaanxi province in central mainland China, where just 250 individuals survive. PHOTO: Quan MinLi Source

Australia's koalas at risk from inbreeding

The two largest populations of koalas in Australia are so heavily inbred that they could be wiped out "in an instant" by a single disease, scientists have warned. A recent study of the tree-dwelling marsupials on Kangaroo Island, which lies off the coast of South Australia, and French Island, off the south-east state of Victoria, revealed that the genetic make up of the koalas was dangerously similar. More than 20,000 koalas inhabit Kangaroo Island and somewhere between 2000 to 3000 on French Island, but the animals could be quickly wiped out if they were exposed to a disease, the study found. The inbreeding was the result of a relocation program that began more than a century ago. Source

Deer or condors - you pick

Chinese conservationists are in a fix over endangered condors eating large numbers of a protected species of deer in a reserve in the north of the country. More than 100 young spotted deer have been eaten by the condors so far this spring at the Luanhe River National Nature Reserve in Hebei province, near Beijing,becoming an "unanticipated" part of the food chain. Nationally, the condor is considered far more endangered than the deer. "The raptors are growing in number and threatening to catch larger animals, like elk, in the reserve," it quoted wildlife official Zhou Changhong as saying. The reserve only has 600 or so deer and just 10 elk, the report added. "An adult condor has a wingspan of more than two metres, and not even wardens can frighten it," Zhou said. Source

Many bird populations in trouble, report says

Just as they were when Rachel Carson published 'Silent Spring' nearly 50 years ago, birds today are a bellwether of the health of land, water and ecosystems. From shorebirds in New England to warblers in Michigan to songbirds in Hawaii, we are seeing disturbing downward population trends that should set off environmental alarm bells. The declines can be traced to a variety of factors, depending on a bird's particular habitat. But the causes most frequently cited in the report are agriculture, climate change, development and energy, and invasive species. Source

Polar Bears on the Thames

Eden TV, a new UK-based natural history TV channel has recently begun broadcasting. To celebrate their launch, the network built a 16-foot-high sculpture of a mother polar bear and her cub stranded on an iceberg. Also meant to increase awareness about the plight of the polar bear and their dwindling habitat as a result of climate change, the sculpture was sent to float down the Thames river. Read more ... (via Inhabitat)

13 Dangerously Endangered Species

A collection of 13 species seriously in danger of becoming extinct in the wild, all with babies born in captivity in the past few years. (via Look at This)

Video: Borneo Apes - Malaysia

By some estimates, Borneo's vast forests are being cleared faster than the Amazon. Unless something is done now, Orangutans could be extinct in 20 years. The practice of bulldozing everything to make way for palm oil plantations has left Orang-utans without their customary habitat. Lone Droescher-Nieslen from the Orangutan Survival Foundation hopes she can rehabilitate the Orangutans back into the wild. But if the rate of deforestation continues, there may soon be no forests to release them into... Watch the video

Saving the planet

Animal Planet has created a great website, The Animals Save the Planet. It has animated shorts, fun downloads, and suggestions on saving the Earth. My favorite is the farting cow, Stanley, who teaches that livestock is responsible for 18% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Stanley suggests saving the planet by eating less meat. Well, of course he would say that, duh! If you like Stanley too, you can download a Farting Cow widget.

Wind farms a threat to whooping cranes

Whooping cranes have waged a valiant fight against extinction, but federal officials warn of a new potential threat to the endangered birds: wind farms. Down to about 15 in 1941, the gargantuan birds that migrate each fall from Canada to Texas now number 266, thanks to conservation efforts. But because wind energy has gained such traction, whooping cranes could again be at risk - either from crashing into the towering wind turbines and transmission lines or because of habitat lost to the wind farms. "Companies want to put their farms where the best wind is, and that overlaps with the migration corridor of the whooping crane," Tom Stehn, the whooping crane coordinator of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Source: AZ Central Photo: Texas Parks and Wildlife

Deaths of Rare Crocodile in India Stir Alarm

Three decades after it was brought back from the brink of extinction, the rare Indian crocodile known as the gharial is turning up dead by the dozens on the banks of a river called the Chambal. Forest officials are at a loss to explain why. Since mid-December, the National Chambal Wildlife Sanctuary has confirmed 76 deaths along the river, which begins in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and runs through Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Other species that inhabit the Chambal River ecosystem, including dozens of fish species on which the gharials feed, appear to be healthy. Sourge: NY Times Photo: Tim Dwight(Wildldife Web)

Chicago fish are a threat in Japan

In 1960, the mayor of Chicago, Richard J Daley, presented Emperor Akihito (then Crown Prince) with a fish. It was hoped that the Japanese would learn to love bluegill for dinner as much as Chicagoans do. But, as the Guardian Unlimited reports, the bluegill fish is possibly the most reviled creature in Japan. The fish brought back by the emperor were donated to research centers, but many escaped to wipe out the royal bitterling and bring other native species to the brink of extinction. They have infested waterways across Japan, including the moat of the imperial palace in Tokyo. Though considered a delicacy in Illinois and other parts of the US, the bluegill has struggled to find favor among Japanese diners. A multimillion-yen campaign to turn them into fertilizer and chicken feed has had limited success. Photo credit

Bleating back the weeds

Across the dry grasslands of California's valleys and foothills, goats are gaining recognition as an effective weapon to cut the risk of rampaging wildfires and to check the spread of nonnative weeds such as star thistle. Goats don't have the drawbacks of chemical sprays, and they have a sweet tooth for weeds and other noxious plants that other grazing animals shun, say boosters of the practice. Between bouts of jumping into the air and butting heads, the young goats swarm through the weeds, grazing on dry grass, chewing the bark of manzanita trees and reaching high on two legs to munch on the leaves of taller trees. The 49 adult goats and 30 youngsters belong to Dave Cheney, who has operated Pine Ridge Goats since 2001. Cheney trucks the animals into an area to be cleared, sets up a temporary electric fence, arms it with a truck battery and puts the goats to work on the weeds. His goats are Kikos, a hardy breed developed in New Zealand. Beyond what they eat on their own, they get a dessert of farm-grown hay at the end of the day, when he uses it to entice the goats into their pens.

Siberian Tiger Pounces Back From Brink

After decades of chilling population declines, the Siberian tiger may be treading toward a slightly sunnier future. Hunted down to 40 animals, the Siberian tiger barely survived the 1940s. Since then it has slowly clawed its way back, with help from a Russian hunting ban and the efforts of conservation groups. In 2005 the Wildlife Conservation Society estimated the subspecies at 431 to 529 animals worldwide. But the world's largest wild cat—such as this mother and cubs photographed in Russia in the mid-1990s—has now grown in number to about 600, the highest such count in over a hundred years, according to a new Russian census heralded by the international conservation organization WWF.

Jumbo Squid Invading Eastern Pacific

Flotillas of jumbo squid are invading the length of the eastern Pacific Ocean, and the voracious predators may be upsetting ocean ecosystems and threatening fisheries, scientists warn. At their largest, jumbo, or Humboldt, squid (Dosidicus gigas) can extend to six feet (two meters) in length and weigh more than 100 pounds (45 kilograms) each. The squid have earned the nickname "red devils" for their powerful arms and tentacles, razor-sharp beaks, and insatiable appetites.

Twenty Of World's 162 Grouper Species Threatened With Extinction

The first comprehensive assessment of the world’s 162 species of grouper, a culinary favorite and important commercial fish, found that 20 are threatened with extinction unless proper management or conservation measures are introduced. Eight species previously were listed by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) as under extinction threat, and the new assessment proposes adding 12 more. A panel of 20 experts from 10 nations determined the extinction threat facing groupers, which are the basis of the multimillion-dollar live reef food fish trade based in Hong Kong and comprise one of the most valuable groups of commercial fishes in chilled fish markets of the tropics and sub-tropics. Around the world, consumers pay up to $50 per kilogram for grouper. “This shows that over-fishing could decimate another major food and economic resource for humans, similar to the loss of the cod stocks off New England and Canada that has put thousands of people out of work,” said Roger McManus, a senior director of Conservation International’s Marine Program.