Posts
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| Wisdom, the 62-year-old Laysan Albatross, and her mate / Photo by Pete Leary/USFWS |
- British conservationists are still trying to figure out why 50,000 Red-breasted Geese disappeared about a decade ago. A tracking project is underway with the hope of finding additional wintering sites.
- The songs of Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens, an Australian species, are correlated with body size. Lower-pitched songs indicate a larger body.
- Seabirds found off the southwestern coast of England were coated in polyisobutene, a chemical used in adhesives, but so far the source is still unknown. About 70 birds are ready for release after being cleaned and fed, and more are in the rehabilitation process.
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology has created a website devoted to birds-of-paradise, with 35 videos of their courtship rituals.
- A new paper finds that free-roaming dogs, like cats, can cause substantial harm to wildlife. In one example, a single feral German shepherd in New Zealand killed 500 kiwis.
- The Nature Conservancy has a new sanctuary in California that it hopes to use as a model for bird-friendly farming practices.
- A Royal Penguin washed up disoriented in New Zealand.
- The American Bird Conservancy is asking the next Secretary of the Interior to review the rule weakening protections for eagles killed on wind farms.
- Here is an article on the Stonechat.
- The Birdist: Interview with Todd Forsgren, Photographer
- Culturing Science: Why Sociable Weavers Nest Together
- Extinction Countdown: 4 Extinct Species That People Still Hope to Rediscover
- Bug Eric: OrThoptera Thursday: Greater Angle-wing Katydid
- 10,000 Birds: Waxwings and their kin: Meet the bombycillids
- National parks are set to take a big hit if the federal budget sequester happens. Among other things, some visitor centers and campgrounds will close, many parks will not hire seasonal staff, and invasive species management will be curtailed.
- According to a study done by Oceana (pdf), mislabeling is widespread in the seafood industry. In particular, seafood labeled as "snapper" or "white tuna" is likely to come from another fish species. Mislabeling has health effects since some fish, such as escolar, have high mercury levels, and many times endangered fish are sold under the names of other fish. Mislabeling is especially high in California; in southern California, a majority of fish tested were a species other than what the label indicated.
- The production of biofuels is wiping out natural grasslands in the Midwest. Farmers are planting biofuel crops on marginal land that in the past would have been left as natural habitat. This has conservation implications for grassland specialists (especially birds) and also means that the soil will not retain carbon as well.
- Arctic sea ice continues to disappear, with potential climate feedback effects.
- Death Valley National Park was named one of the world's best dark sky sites.
- A "super-mega-pod" of Common Dolphins, with up to 100,000 individuals, was seen off the coast of California.
- A study of specimens found 138 new species of beetles in the genus Operclipygus in the family Histeridae (also known as clown beetles).
- Killing apex predators can intensify climate change since fewer predators means more herbivores, which eat plants and release the carbon they would otherwise store.
