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Fire engulfs Bosnia’s largest nature reserve, arson suspected

Peter — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:27:27 +0000

The blaze broke out early Friday in an inaccessible section of the park and was fanned by strong winds across 80 percent of Bosnia’s largest reserve before being extinguished on Saturday afternoon.
“The fire killed many birds, as well as mammals and reptiles. The vegetation was destroyed totally and the feeding chain is completely disturbed,” said Nikola Zovko, manager of the park that attracts thousands of tourists every year.
“The damage is enormous,” he said, adding the fire may have been started deliberately.
Hutovo Blato, on the list of Bird Life International’s Important Bird Areas, is a unique natural reserve composed mainly of sub-Mediterranean marshland near the Adriatic coast created by an underground system of the Krupa river.

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Fire engulfs Bosnia’s largest nature reserve, arson suspected

In the News: Fishing boats kill up to 320,000 seabirds a year

Peter — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:24:37 +0000

The most frequently caught species are albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters, with the total number of seabird deaths estimated at 160,000 to 320,000 a year. Of particular concern are the Spanish longline fleet in the Gran Sol fishing grounds off southwest Ireland, which may kill over 50,000 birds a year, as well as the Japanese tuna fleet, which may kill 20,000 birds a year.

The study only looked at longline fisheries and did not take into account seabird deaths associated with trawl and gillnet fisheries. These may also be making a significant contribution to seabird mortality.

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In the News: Fishing boats kill up to 320,000 seabirds a year

Sage Grouse hunting in decline for similar reasons as elk declines

Peter — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:46:30 +0000

The sage grouse population of Idaho has been in steep decline for years. It is now getting to the point where hunting has declined to a one-week season where hunters are limited to one bird a day. It seems a bit odd to me that there isn’t more outrage by the hunting community over this while there is an absolute furor over the very same issue with elk. This, like the elk declines in some areas, is due to a decline in habitat quality. With sage grouse the habitat has been impacted by livestock grazing to the point where the birds and their nests have become easy prey to raptors, ravens and crows who can easily spot them now that there is little to no understory between what little sage brush remains. With elk, livestock compete for forage in many places but in other places, like the Lolo, habitat quality and forage quantity has made them more vulnerable to predation by bears, cougars, and wolves.

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Sage Grouse hunting in decline for similar reasons as elk declines

Coyotes kill and devour 400 pound bison calf, yeh right! says Massachusetts biologist

Peter — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:06:08 +0000

Livestock owners’ wild imagination about predators not limited to the West-

Here is a little time out from the yarns and tales they spin in the Western United States about the vicious predators’ amazing feats of carnage. Supposedly a 10-member coyote pack came into a bison enclosure where there were 14 bison and somehow drove one out to a swamp to kill and devour it.

State wildlife biologists are not buying the story, and here’s the story in the Boston Globe. Scientists cast doubt on story of buffalo killing

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Coyotes kill and devour 400 pound bison calf, yeh right! says Massachusetts biologist

TAKE ACTION to save the red squirrel

Peter — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:59:29 +0000

An estimated 60 per cent of grey squirrels, which since 1920 have replaced red squirrels in much of England and Wales, carry the squirrel parapoxvirus, Patriot America insurance referred to as squirrel pox. Greys very rarely die from this disease as their population has developed immunity over many years. However, they are still carriers of the infection and can spread the disease to red squirrels.

No red squirrels are known to have developed immunity to the disease, and the mortality rate for untreated infected squirrels in the wild appears to be total, most dying within two weeks of being infected. Whole populations can be rapidly wiped out.

Painful lesions develop and spread over the red squirrel, particularly around the eyes and nose. As the disease progresses, reds, crippled and unable to see to feed themselves, starve to death. Some also die from secondary infections contracted through the raw skin.

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TAKE ACTION to save the red squirrel

Coral Reefs likely to disappear by the end of the century

Peter — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 04:32:47 +0000

The use of fossil fuels and the resulting carbon emissions, which contribute to climate change, are thought to be the biggest cause of the rapid decline in coral reefs. Climate change has led to increased ocean surface temperatures, putting reef species under enormous stress and leading to coral bleaching. Ocean acidification — caused by the oceans absorbing increased amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — is also an increasing threat, making it harder for reef organisms to retrieve the minerals needed to build their skeletons.

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Coral Reefs likely to disappear by the end of the century

Whales Mingle Across the Arctic

Peter — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:13 +0000

The loss of Arctic sea ice is predicted to open up the Northwest Passage (the vast northern sea lanes above Canada presently choked off by ice), shortening shipping routes and facilitating the exchange of marine organisms between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Skeletons, DNA samples and harpoon heads have all suggested that bowhead populations living on each side of the continent did meet and mingle in the past. Previous satellite tracking has demonstrated that bowhead whales from West Greenland and Alaska enter the ice-infested channels of the Canadian High Arctic during summer. In August 2010, two bowhead whales from West Greenland and Alaska entered the Northwest Passage from opposite directions and spent approximately 10 days in the same area, documenting overlap between the two populations.

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Whales Mingle Across the Arctic

Passers-by rescue women from mule deer attack near Preston, Idaho

Peter — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:01:38 +0000

A resident of Whitney, Idaho, which is just southeast of Preston and near the Utah border, was directly approached and attacked between corn fields on a rural road. Luckily, passers-by (strangers) in a vehicle ended the attack, but not easily, nor without injury to one of the rescuers.
Although most wild animal attack accounts seem to involve bears, autumn is a time when the behavior of male deer, elk and moose can become problematic.

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Passers-by rescue women from mule deer attack near Preston, Idaho

Beetles chew down the forests of the west

Peter — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:28:49 +0000

This article is about Pine forests,especially lodgepole pine and whitebark pine. They are being killed by bark beetles at an incredible rate from the Yukon to Mexico. Among scientists,there is controversy why the beetles don’t die after a while as they have always done in the past ,die before chewing down the pine forests of western North Americabut as with the wolf, there is an opinion out there that the govmint is somehow responsible for it by not “harvesting” the infested trees.

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Beetles chew down the forests of the west

Mysterious Virus Killing Siberian Amur Tigers

Peter — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:01:46 +0000

Huge conservation efforts to stabilise the dwindling Siberian Amur Tigers is under threat with a new disease which effects the animals white blood count. A collaboration of Russian and US Veternarians is taking place at the WCS Bronx Zoo in order to develop new health safety measures to protect the endangered animals. Buy a Visitors Health Insurance

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Mysterious Virus Killing Siberian Amur Tigers