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Wildlife and Habitat Conservation News - ENN
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Wildlife and Habitat Conservation News - ENN
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New 'walking' fishes discovered in Gulf oil-spill zone
Two new fish species — with pancake-flat bodies, wiggling lures on their faces, and elbowed fins for "walking" on the seafloor — have been discovered in the path of spewing Gulf of Mexico oil. One of these pancake batfishes lives in the northern Gulf where oil is already spreading from the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
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Big Brains, Small Brains
Why is there a brain and why are some larger and others smaller? What advantage is there to having them has been often argued. Recently published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, new studies reveal that "species which have developed large brains live for longer than those with small brains, as the protective brain theory suggests, and therefore, can reproduce more times".
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Horses and Burros
One does not think often about vast herds of horses or burros. However, there are a few herds here and there and they need to be protected and maintained. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced today that it has issued a new policy handbook relating to the management of wild horses and burros roaming public lands under the BLM's jurisdiction. Among other things, the handbook would ensure that the factors considered in determining appropriate herd population levels are consistent across all of the Bureau's 179 herd management areas in 10 Western states.
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What’s Killing Farmed Salmon? New Virus May Also Pose Risk to Wild Salmon
ScienceDaily (July 12, 2010) — Farmed fish are an increasingly important food source, with a global harvest now at 110 million tons and growing at more than 8 percent a year. But epidemics of infectious disease threaten this vital industry, including one of its most popular products: farmed Atlantic salmon. Perhaps even more worrisome: these infections can spread to wild fish coming in close proximity to marine pens and fish escaping from them.
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For Hudson Bay Polar Bears, The End is Already in Sight
The polar bear has long been a symbol of the damage wrought by global warming, but now biologist Andrew Derocher and his colleagues have calculated how long one southerly population can hold out. Their answer? No more than a few decades, as the bears' decline closely tracks that of the Arctic's disappearing sea ice.
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Russia to create new national parks and reserves nearly size of Switzerland
Polar bears, walruses, sea otters, and other endangered species are all set to benefit from a Russian decision to boost its national protected areas to nearly 3 percent of its territory by 2020, a move which helps the country to meet its international obligations to protect biodiversity. The Russian government’s decision establishes 9 new nature reserves and 13 national parks covering a total area of over 3.8 million ha by 2020. Russia is also introducing marine buffer zones of over 1 million ha.
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Mammoth End
Over 10,000 years ago in the Americas, there were many more large mammals than today epitomized by the mammoth. The extinction of woolly mammoths and other large mammals more than 10,000 years ago may be explained by the same type of cascade of ecosystem disruption that is being caused today by the global decline of predators such as wolves, cougars and sharks, life scientists report July 1 in the cover article of the journal Bioscience.
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