(by supratikC)
I’m not an expert when it comes to birds, but here is something I’ve learned: This time of year, fledglings aka baby birds who are learning how to fly, are out and about. Please leave them alone. If you touch them, your scent will be on them and their parents will more than likely abandon them, in which case they will die. So please, leave fledglings alone! When they are learning how to fly, the parent birds are nearby. Even if you may not see them, they are watching their baby and coaching it. (This bird in the photo looks younger than most fledglings I’ve seen and it probably fell out of the nest; it isn’t uncommon for babies to fall out of their nests. In this case, please take precaution when rescuing. Keep a close watch over the baby bird and call a local wildlife authority for help and suggestions about what action to take.)
WWF says overconsumption threatens planet
The demand on natural resources has become unsustainable and is putting ‘tremendous’ pressure on the planet’s biodiversity, the conservation group said.
Ocean acidification may be fastest in 300 million years
The world’s oceans are turning acidic even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago.
Rivaling the price of gold on the black market, rhino horn is at the center of a bloody poaching battle…
Ugh, humans… so intelligent yet so very stupid at the same time. It is sad to see such an incredible animal poached for such a pointless reason (or any reason, for that matter). You would think that with all the intelligence and capabilities that humans possess, we would be smarter about how we live on a rock with finite resources and delicate ecological systems. It is the only home we have the ability to live on and our current approach to stewardship is a joke. This is why I will never stop fighting for environmental causes.
Shah is the best. <3
The number one way to fight this type of poaching is with education by combating the myth that the rhino horn possess some medicinal function. This is why correcting pseudo-science is so critically important because we’re at risk of losing a number of species to poaching, hunting, and overfishing because we think some part of their bodies aids human-beings in some bizarre fashion. We’ll never get those animals back and we’ll never be able to correct the ecosystems that we’ve destroyed with our ignorance. Simply going after the poachers will not suffice. We must correct the culture that demands for such.
We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.
nrdc:
These shrimp without eyes were caught off the Gulf Coast in late 2011.
BP Hauls in $7.7 Billion in Profits, Gulf Fishermen Haul in Shrimp with No Eyes
Oil giant BP, the company behind the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, reported profits of $7.7 billion for the last quarter of 2011. Company executives and industry analysts sounded bullish about the company’s future in a recent New York Times article, saying they had set aside enough money to compensate victims of the Gulf spill and had plans to expand drilling operations in the Gulf.
BP seems to be recovering nicely after the disaster, which killed 11 people and pumped 170 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But stories from the Gulf suggest that the region is anything but healed.
The Gulf has been plagued with a suite of unexplained afflictions. Gulf fishermen say this is the worst season they can remember, with catches down 80 percent or more. Shrimp boats come home nearly empty, hauling in deformed, discolored shrimp, even shrimp without eyes. Tar balls and dead dolphins still wash up on beaches. Scientists report huge tar mats below the sand, “like vanilla swirl ice cream.” Read more in NRDC’s Switchboard blog.
Jenny E Ross of the US has won the first prize in the Nature Singles category of the World Press photo contest 2011 with this picture. It shows a male polar bear climbing precariously on the face of a cliff above the ocean at Ostrova Oranskie in northern Novaya Zemlya, Russia, attempting to feed on seabird eggs. This bear was marooned on land and unable to feed on seals - its normal prey - because sea ice had melted throughout the region and receded far to the north as a result of climate change. Photograph: Jenny E. Ross/Handout/2011 WPPC
Florida tea party fighting against … manatees?
A tea party group is fired up over proposed restrictions on boating in Kings Bay, Fla., that would help protect the manatee population. The restrictions would designate all of Kings Bay as a refuge and eliminate the summer water sports zone, slashing the speed at which boaters could travel through the bay.I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Florida tea party fighting against … manatees?
A tea party group is fired up over proposed restrictions on boating in Kings Bay, Fla., that would help protect the manatee population. The restrictions would designate all of Kings Bay as a refuge and eliminate the summer water sports zone, slashing the speed at which boaters could travel through the bay.I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
18 critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins spotted by WWF
Conservation group WWF said it spotted 18 critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins in Indonesian waters off Borneo island Tuesday and called for greater protection of the species’ habitat.
There is little data on the Irrawaddy dolphin — which resembles the common bottlenose dolphin but has no beak and a snub dorsal fin — and no comprehensive survey has been conducted to measure its global population.
“In the past, locals and fishermen reported seeing the dolphins, but we have never recorded them until now,” WWF conservation biologist Albertus Tjiu told AFP. (Photo: David Dove/WWF Greater Mekong/AFP/Getty Images)
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