Animal News
Posted on Jun. 4, 2007 at 1:34 PM in Animal Conservation News
Animals news for May 29th - June 4th : Can you hear my mom chanting in the background 'Save the Purple frog!' Go to her blog----> Passion for Purple ..
1) Conservation International found a new species of frog that is purple.. Yes,I said purple.. Among this purple species of frog, twenty four new species have been discovered in the South American highlands of Suriname. Conservationists are warning that these new species are in danger due to illegal gold mining. "When you go to these places that are so unexplored and so remote, we do tend to find new species ... but most of them are insects," Alonso said by telephone from Suriname's capital, Paramaribo. "What's really exciting here is we found a lot of new species of frogs and fish as well." The two-tone frog -- whose skin is covered with irregular fluorescent lavender loops on a background of aubergine -- was discovered in 2006 as part of a survey of Suriname's Nassau plateau, the conservation group said. These creatures were discovered by 13 scientists who explored a region about 80 miles southeast of Paramaribo, including areas with enough clean fresh water sources to support abundant fish and amphibians. While these places are far from human civilization, they are totally unprotected and may be threatened by illegal gold-mining, Alonso said. (Read the full story here ----> Purple frog )
2) Spain has ceased plans to build a giant highway because it would be a huge threat to one of the world mosts endangered species of animal, the Iberian Lynx. The road linking the capital of Toledo would have run down to the south to Cordoba and would have run straight through several protected areas that the Iberian Lynx have left. Conservationists esitimated only 250-350 Iberian Lynxes remain the world and all of them residing in Spain's Sierra Monrena mountains. Other threatened species such as the imperial eagle, Iberian wolf and black stork would also have suffered if the highway had gone ahead. The new road would have trapped lynxes between two main highways, ecologists said, killing any chance of the animals spreading to new areas and recovering numbers. Lynx numbers have been ravaged in the last 150 years by farming, poaching and road kills and their population has shrunk to few scattered groups in central and southern Spain.
3) The fish and wildlife service wants to replace four decades of federal protections against the American Bald Eagle and new rules against disturbing it. In a push to remove the nation's symbol from the endangered species list, the wildlife agency is writing new regulations under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act to protect the birds and their nesting, breeding and feeding areas from anything likely to cause them harm. The law, which dates to 1940, says only that bald eagles cannot be disturbed. Since 1967, when the bald eagle was listed as an endangered species, it has benefited from much tougher protections. The government's new interpretation of the 1940 law, proposed Friday, would allow the birds to be moved in rare cases if their nests or breeding and feeding grounds were in the way of an airport runway or some other development. Killing or injuring them accidentally would not be punishable. In 1963, there were just 417 known nesting pairs left in the lower 48 states, mainly because of DDT and other pesticides that weakened the eggshells and reduced the birth rate. Outside Alaska and Canada, where tens of thousands of bald eagles live and their existence has not been in doubt, at least 9,789 known nesting pairs now exist in the wild, officials say. (I say WOW!)
-Julia
1 Blossoms
Drop A Blossom!
Permanent Link
Animal News
Posted on May. 29, 2007 at 12:47 PM in Animal Conservation NewsI know I haven't been doing animal facts in this past week.. Have been super busy and haven't had time to look things up.. Today I'm doing something new called 'Animal News' so here is the news for this week.. Oh and I will be doing Animal News every monday k????? I know it's Tuesday but......... I got this brilliant idea this morning:p Live with it.. Here's the news:
Indian Tiger species have significantly declined according to experts. The species number of animals has been declining for decades,due to poaching and enroachment. Experts did a study for the past two years and have come to the conclusion that the population in several areas are at least 65% lower than what they originally thought. Conservationists discovered the last tiger census -which resulted in a count of about 3,500 tigers- was far to optimistic. "The results are depressing," said Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India and one of the foremost big cat conservationists in the country. "But it's a major step forward that a government study has finally come to terms with this disastrous decrease in tiger numbers." The key to protecting the cats now, according to experts who have reviewed the results, is in ensuring tigers are able to hunt, mate and travel between the country's protected reserves, ensuring enough prey for the cats and keeping inbreeding to a minimum. (copied) Over a century ago scientists estimated the population of tigers in the tens of thousands. In Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian state thought to be home to a large percentage of the country's tigers, the new results estimated that anywhere from 210 to 340 tigers currently live in and around the state's wildlife preserves - far lower than the 710 estimated in the previous survey. In 2001, the U.S. National Geographic Society estimated that 5,000 to 7,000 Bengal - or Indian - tigers existed in the wild, about half in India. However scientists believe there is 2,000 or less left.
Japan's compromise to whaling dismissed in talks on Monday. Japan said it would consider shelving plans to hunt Humpback whales in the next Anatartic season under a highly criticized reasearch program if its request for whale hunting by four coastal Japanese towns was allowed. Japan wants to kill 50 humpbacks from stocks that migrate along the Australian and New Zealand coasts into the tropical Pacific, drawing flak from the two countries as well as environmental groups concerned over the mammals' fate. Tokyo is already under fire for allegedly using research as a thinly disguised and subsidized exercise in commercial whaling. (This is a really long story so if you would like to read the rest of it please click here- Whaling ((It's actually not the original story..I can't find the link)) )
International wildlife services founded hundereds of wild Elephants on a treeless island in the south of Sudan. Where they apparently avoided unchecked hunting during more than 20 years of war. "We flew out of a cloud, and there they were. It was like something out of Jurassic Park," said Tom Catterson, working on a U.S.-funded environment program in south Sudan. The islands' location is being kept a secret to protect the Elephants from poachers. Sudan's civil war has displaced massive populations of animals throughout the country and into neighboring countries. The war ended in a civil peace agreement in 2005,but experts say game hunting is still going on despite the five-year ban in order for the wildlife to replenish.It is possible there are other herds of elephants -- mostly unheard of in the contemporary south -- hiding out in the Sudd, an area so flat the Nile River breaks up into hundreds of channels and lakes. "It's not that good a habitat for elephants, but they're free of people shooting at them," said Catterson on Sunday. "You and I wouldn't stand a chance in there between the mosquitoes and crocodiles. And you'd get lost." Although Sudan is banned from exporting Elephant tusks it is still easy to purchase ivory carvings.
Well,that's all the story's I wanted to post.. All stories are important but these one's caught my attention.. There ya go..
-Julia
1 Blossoms
Drop A Blossom!
Permanent Link
Animal News (replacing Fact today :D )
Posted on Apr. 9, 2007 at 11:30 AM in Animal Conservation NewsWell,Im doing something a little bit different today!!! Instead of putting a Animal Fact up today i'm going to post some animal news!! Back in December at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle,WA,an endangered Sumatran tiger gave birth to a healthy girl cub..How exciting!!!! Even endangered species giving birth in captivity is important,even if they never return to the wild,but still how exciting!!!!!! Now the news of the birth was back in December,but the news i'm posting today is about the name.. Woodland Park Zoo likes to involve the public as much as possible for education,so the zoo asked the public to vote on a name.. The new cub's name is................. *drum roll* Hadiah! Which I believe means 'One' in some language 
but here is the link,and please check out how beautiful these tigers are! Woo Hoo!
http://www.zoo.org/spotlight/ss.htm
-Julia
1 Blossoms
Drop A Blossom!
Permanent Link
Page 2 of 2
Last Page | Next Page