By Dave Harcourt •
May 25, 2009
species from the animalia kingdom
The Top Ten List of New Species
The Top 10 New Species List is chosen by a twelve person panel of international taxon experts chaired by Dr. Janine Caira of the University of Connecticut. The species in the list is selected from the thousands of species that were fully described in the calendar year. Nominations from the public, IISE staff and committee members are judged by the committee which has complete freedom in making its choices and developing its own criteria. The object though is to cover a breadth of species attributes and importance.
By Eva Pratesi •
May 16, 2009
The Italian heaven for climbers, hikers and skiers from around the world is moving closer to join earth’s cultural and natural wonders on the United Nations World Heritage List.
By Andrew Williams •
March 10, 2009
Portuguese environmentalists have condemned the killing of the country’s last remaining nesting male Iberian Imperial Eagle.
The bird, also known as the Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti), is one of the three rarest birds of prey on the planet, with only around 400 surviving, and is classified as ‘vulnerable to extinction’ in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
By Bryan Nelson •
March 3, 2009
187,800 acres of some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world have been set aside as the first national conservation area in Papua New Guinea’s history. The newly protected region is home to a swath of endangered species, most notably the IUCN-listed tree kangaroo.
Dubbed the YUS Conservation Area, named after the Yopno, Uruwa and Som river systems which flow through its heart, the Singapore-sized region spans from the country’s northern coastal reefs as far inland as its interior mountains– the 13,000 ft. peaks of the Saruwaged Range. This also marks the first time the region’s 35 culturally-distinct villages have come together for the purpose of protecting their collective homeland.
By Jake Richardson •
February 26, 2009
A species of bird so rare it was thought perhaps to be extinct was captured on video and still images in the Phillipines province of Nueva Vizcaya… right before it was cooked and eaten.
The Worcester’s buttonquail (Turnix worcesteri) lives only in the Phillipines, but had not been seen in many years, and was previously only known through illustration based on dead specimens collected centuries ago. One wild live buttonquail was inadvertently filmed in a mountainous area during the making of a documentary on the traditional methods of bird-trapping in northern Luzon. But neither the local crew nor the bird-trappers at the time of the filming understood how rare the bird was, so it was sold at a poultry market, then cooked and eaten.
By Meg Hamill •
October 27, 2008
Geared towards raising awareness of endangered ocean habitats, a new online tool allows viewers an in-depth peek at underwater reefs around the world.
Google Earth has taken us up and out into the universe, and now they are taking us down and under the surface of the sea. The new Google Earth ‘layer’ will allow people to experience a ‘virtual dive’ under the water at sensitive ocean areas all around the world.
With a click of the mouse, viewers will be able to access video streams, photo galleries, conservation strategies and local stories specific to that spot. Conservationists working in partnership with Google Inc. unveiled the new technology at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) world congress in Barcelona.
It seems as though right now the underwater Google plugin is only available for Windows, but I imagine a Mac version won’t be far behind.
By Meg Hamill •
October 10, 2008
The world’s economy is suffering more from the loss of forests than from the current crisis on Wall Street, according to a new EU-commissioned study.
The study says that the cost of deforestation annually is between $2 and $5 trillion dollars. These numbers were arrived at after researchers put value on, and then added together, the many ways in which forests “work” for us, including absorbing CO2 from the air, and providing potable water.
The idea behind the study is that as forests disappear, the natural world no longer provides services which it used to provide for free.
So, the human economic system must step in and find a way to provide these same services, for example through building reservoirs or building infrastructure to catch carbon dioxide.
“Whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today’s rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year,” Pavan Sukhdev, who led the study, told the BBC.
The review is called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), and was initiated by Germany, although the European Commission provided the funding.
By Meg Hamill •
October 7, 2008
Climate change could make it easier for some “deadly” diseases to be transmitted from animals to humans.
Global Warming is not just about melting ice caps and rising temperatures. Scientists continue to discover new ways in which the “butterfly effect” of global warming could transform life on Earth as we know it. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) released a report on October 7th, naming 12 deadly human-wildlife diseases that could spread into new regions as a result of climate change.
The report, entitled The Deadly Dozen: Wildlife Diseases in the Age of Climate Change, was released at the IUCN Conservation Congress being held this week in Barcelona, Spain. The report illustrates examples of how certain disease could spread as a result of rising temperatures and precipitation levels.
“We’ve seen Lyme disease work its way up from the US into Canada, and West Nile fever as well,” said William Karesh, director of WCS’s global health programs. “Basically what you have now are fewer frozen nights in this region, and that allows the ticks and mosquitoes that carry these diseases to survive further north.”
By Meg Hamill •
October 6, 2008
A comprehensive, international survey released today, showed that half of all 5,487 mammal populations are declining.
Just today, data from a global survey was revealed at a meeting of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Barcelona, Spain. 1,700 researchers took part in the survey and named habitat loss and hunting as the major causes of the current, mass extinction.
Jan Schipper, who led the team, said: “Mammals are declining faster than we thought — one in four species is threatened with extinction worldwide.”
He said that land animals in Asia have been the hardest hit, where almost 80% of the primates are at risk. Other mammals at risk across the globe include the blue whale, the bumblebee bat, the Caspian seal and the Tasmanian Devil.
Scientists currently have data for 4,651 species of mammals. According to this study, 1,139 of these species face the threat of extinction.
