Wildlife and Habitat Conservation News - ENN

Bald Eagles in Catskills Show Increasing Mercury

NY Times — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:54:00 EST

Less than two years after the bald eagle was removed from the federal government’s endangered species list, an environmental organization in Maine has found an alarming accumulation of mercury in the blood and feathers of bald eagle chicks in the Catskill Park region of New York.

Climate change wiped out cave bears 13 millennia earlier than thought

Wiley-Blackwell — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:40:00 EST

Enormous cave bears, Ursus spelaeus, that once inhabited a large swathe of Europe, from Spain to the Urals, died out 27,800 years ago, around 13 millennia earlier than was previously believed, scientists have reported. The new date coincides with a period of significant climate change, known as the Last Glacial Maximum, when a marked cooling in temperature resulted in the reduction or loss of vegetation forming the main component of the cave bears' diet.

Honey bee crisis threatens English fruit farmers

Reuters — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:18:00 EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Where in the United States, fruit farmers pay to have bees trucked thousands of miles to pollinate their crops and in parts of China, humans with feather dusters have taken on the task, in Britain most bees go nature's way. Britons have a deep nostalgia for home-grown honey and its associations with an ordered rural lifestyle. But here, too, the honey bee population is dwindling, and with winter under way faces a tough fight for survival.

Mobile phones eavesdrop on Aussie koalas

Reuters — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:47:00 EST

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian scientists are using mobile telephones to eavesdrop on koalas to understand what they are saying when they bellow and how this can help conserve the marsupial which is threatened by habitat destruction.

Animal rights group slams Cambodia monkey trade

Reuters — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 09:17:00 EST

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - An animal rights group says Cambodia is flouting international conventions by allowing the cruel capture of monkeys for research in the United States and China. A report to be released on Monday by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) says thousands of long-tailed macaque monkeys are taken from the wild each year and kept in cruel conditions before being exported.

Rangers return to Congo gorilla park after a year

Reuters — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:40:00 EST

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - Park rangers returned to a reserve that is home to nearly a third of the world's remaining mountain gorillas Friday, more than a year after fighting forced them to abandon the area, a park chief said. Armed Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda occupied the gorilla sector of Virunga National Park in September 2007, forcing rangers to leave.

Canadian hunters killing narwhals trapped in ice

Reuters — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:38:00 EST

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian hunters in a remote Arctic community have started killing a large number of narwhals -- small, white whales best known for their long tusks -- that are trapped by ice, a federal official said on Friday.