In a move to conserve endangered Bluefin Tuna the European Commission has banned the fishing of Bluefin Tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean for the rest of the year. The ban is in force in Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain. Italy and France. EU and international rules have provisions to punish the offenders.
The Conservationists around the world are urging the Australian government to protect the Coral Sea, which has abundant shark populations. The area is a "predator diversity hotspot" and one of Australia’s last tropical marine wildernesses area, comprising an area of 780,000sq km. Environmentalists want the government to give the area full-scale protection by giving legal status of protected area. If the proposal is accepted this would be the world's largest marine park. Illegal fishing for sharks for their fin is posing a serious threat to the area and the threat is increasing.
The English county Coventry is contemplating an innovative idea to combat climate change. The idea is to lay grass roofs across Coventry building. Grass roofs can provide insulation, encourage wildlife, and help purify the air by filtering out pollution. This will also make Coventry one of the greenest places in UK.
Crimes against birds have taken a 50% jump in UK. The latest Bird crime report by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) says there were 1,109 incidents in 2006, up from 726 in 2005. Killing of raptors was the most worrying factor. Birds like Red kite, Goshawk and Hen Harrier are struggling to recover from many years of deliberate persecution. Counties Derbyshire, North Yorkshire and Northumberland were the worst offenders.
Many theories have been advanced as to why bears rub trees. One school of thought was: female bears might rub trees as they came into oestrous. Others were of the view that bears might be giving their backs a scratch to get rid of parasites. Dr Owen Nevin of the University of Cumbria has finally solved the riddle. Adult male grizzly bears use so-called “rub trees” as a way to communicate with each other while looking for breeding females. This behaviour also helps to reduce battles between the bears. Big male bears can seriously injure and even kill each other when they get into a fight. Over the past two years, Dr Nevin used four digital cameras with infra-red trips set up opposite rub trees to collect data on which bears used the trees and when. Satellite telemetry equipment were used to track individual bears' movements. The research findings will also help improve bear conservation by affording an insight into the behaviour of secretive male bears.
If you are keen about more information contact Dr Owen Nevin, University of Cumbria, tel: 0176 889 3551, email: Owen.Nevin@Cumbria.ac.uk.
There exists a thriving smuggling racket in Indian Bull Frogs (Hoplobatrachus Tigerinus). Wildlife authorities in Assam have seized an estimated 3,000 frogs near the Kaziranga National Park. According to local authorities the frogs were destined for France via Bangladesh. The frogs are killed in Bangladesh and their legs dismembered and frozen before they are smuggled to France. The seized frogs were later released in to Kaziranga.
The latest issue of the Journal of Fish Biology has some interesting facts about Southeast Asian catfish. A new study by Zeb Hogan, Ian Baird, Richard Radtke and Jake Vander Zanden shows that the Catfish (Pangasius krempfi) travels thousands of kilometers from the South China Sea up the Mekong River to spawn. This is similar to many salmon species that spend the first part of their lives at sea and then migrate thousands of kilometers up coastal rivers to spawn. This turns topsy-turvy the present belief that Catfish does not travel much. The new findings also suggest that related catfish species all over the world may be more migratory than previously thought.
For more information, see the paper: Hogan, Z, IG Baird, R Radtke and MJ Vander Zanden (2007) Long distance migration and marine habitation in the tropical Asian catfish, Pangasius krempfi. Journal of Fish Biology 71, 818–832.
It is hard to believe. But it happened. Vietnamese police have recovered two frozen tigers from an apartment, along with two soup kettles filled with animal bones. A 40-year-old woman has been taken in to custody. The woman confessed that she was making traditional medicines. The conjecture is that the tigers were brought from Myanmar or Laos. While the wildlife enforcement laws in Vietnam are strong Myanmar and Laos pays only lip service.
The Global Environmental Flows Network was officially launched during the 10th International River Symposium Conference currently on in Brisbane, Australia. ‘Environmental Flows’ refers to water provided within a river, wetland or coastal zone to maintain ecosystems, and their benefits where there is competing use and demand. The network was crated by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), Delft Hydraulics, DHI Water and Environment, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Swedish Water House, and the Global Water for Sustainability Program (GLOWS). Water managers, NGOs, local communities, scientists and researchers, as well as governmental and intergovernmental agencies that are interested in sharing knowledge or experiences on environmental flows can utilize the network
For more information log on to www.riversymposium.com
Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo have taken control of large tracts of the Virunga National Park, home of the endangered mountain gorillas. Conservationists the world over are worried about the fate of the animals. Only 700 mountain gorillas remain in the wild. Half of them are in Virunga National Park.
Concerned about plummeting Bluefin tuna population, WWF is advocating immediate establishment of a sanctuary for the bluefin tuna around the Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean . The proposal is based on research by Spanish marine biologists , which has established that the area is of outstanding importance for the breeding of the species. WWF is also working on scientifically based recovery plan , which will be discussed in the next meeting of ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) in Turkey this November.
Pope Benedict on Saturday led the Catholic Church's first eco-friendly youth rally.
The Colombian government has created a new national park, SerranÃa de los Churumbelos Auka Wasi National Park, covering 97,180 ha, which will give a boost to the conservation of Andean and Amazon ecosystems. The area harbours abundant wildlife, including the Andean bear, jaguar, tapir and puma, 30 species of amphibians, 16 species of reptiles, more than 140 species of butterflies, 825 species of plants and 461 species of birds. Sacred areas of several indigenous communities such as the Inga and Yanaconas, will also be protected.
Spain’s environment ministry has issued warning about the outbreak of Morbilli virus threatening dolphins and has sought the help of experts around the Mediterranean and adjoining seas for help in monitoring the infection. The virus had produced a massive epidemic in the 1990s. The newspaper El Mundo on Wednesday reported that several dolphins had been killed. Several dolphin corpses have been recovered from the coast in Murcia and Velancia. Javier Pantoja, head of marine conservation in Spain's environment ministry, says his department has arranged a mid-September meeting in which the affected regions and experts would discuss how best to confront the crisis.
My UK contacts inform me that Environment Minister Mike Russell has promised tough crackdown on wildlife offenders. Bird poisoning is troubling the environmentalists. The killing of a golden eagle in Peeblesshire recently had come in for wide spread condemnation. New measures planned could result in the removal of firearms licences and cutting farm aid payments.
Chinese scientists had recently declared that Yangtze River dolphin(Lipotes vexillifer) or baiji was probably extinct. But baiji has been was spotted and filmed by a local man in Anhui Province, eastern China. Scientists of the Institute of Hydrobiology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have confirmed that the footage was of a baiji. Scientists will now try to capture the dolphins and move them to a reserve where they would try to breed them. The last sighting of a wild baiji was in 2004. The sighting has brought cheer to the environmentalists of China.
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has released its first Environmental Indicators report entitled “Our green accountability” to show its operational environmental impact. The report analyses the environmental sustainability of IUCN’s operations in 2006. The report analyzes trends in the use of paper, electricity, gas, water and carbon emissions from flight travel and looks at staff commuting patterns.
The main recommendations made in the report include
IUCN will use their experiences obtained over the last 18 months to contribute to the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) dialogue.
For further information, please contact GOGG
