The number of snow leopards in Russia's southwestern Siberian Altai Republic has fallen from 40 in the late 1990s to 10-15, the director of the Gorny Altai nature preserve said on Friday.
Russia has an estimated total of 100 large mountain cats, which are in the Red Book of Endangered Species.
Sergei Spitsyn said the main reason is an insufficient number of forest rangers and rampant poaching, adding that local residents often see helicopters that are used for illegal hunting.
Earth Changes
Vietnam has banned the sale and possession of hamsters, whose popularity has been soaring.
The Ministry of Agriculture says anyone caught with a hamster will be fined up to 30m dong ($1,900) - almost double the average annual wage in Vietnam.
The authorities say the creatures are a potential source of disease.
Officials have also expressed concern that the animals are imported from China and Thailand without proper licensing or controls.
The Ministry of Agriculture says anyone caught with a hamster will be fined up to 30m dong ($1,900) - almost double the average annual wage in Vietnam.
The authorities say the creatures are a potential source of disease.
Officials have also expressed concern that the animals are imported from China and Thailand without proper licensing or controls.
Tornadoes cut through Florida and Georgia on Friday, blowing homes off foundations, felling power lines and snapping majestic oak trees as a record series of winter tornadoes continued to pound the United States.
Let's start with some possible news from Heartland Institute's International Climate Change Conference. In the context of man-made global warming, climate sensitivity asks how much temperatures increase if one adds a specified amount of a greenhouse gas. In general, most climatologists accept the proposition, all things being equal, that if one doubles carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the average temperature will go up by +1 degree centigrade. But all things are not equal. In climate models, additional heat from carbon dioxide boosts atmospheric water vapor which in turn acts as a greenhouse gas. All models are dominated by this positive feedback loop. As a consequence, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated in its Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) last year that it "is likely to be in the range 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C." In other words, doubling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely to warm the planet by between 2 degrees and 4.5 degrees centigrade.
Two earthquakes measuring 5.1 Richter each hit the Dodecanese island of Rhodes yesterday. The tremors were felt within minutes of each other. The first was recorded at 6.11 p.m. and the second just three minutes later. No damage or injuries were reported.
Canada's "winter from hell" is nasty, brutish and will not be short, according to a senior climatologist at Environment Canada who said spring weather is still a distant dream for most parts of the country.
From freezing drizzle, to snow and ice pellets, Central and Eastern Canada faced a buffet of bad weather Wednesday as a storm centred over New England worked its way into the Maritimes, prompting Environment Canada to issue a series of winter storm warnings.
From freezing drizzle, to snow and ice pellets, Central and Eastern Canada faced a buffet of bad weather Wednesday as a storm centred over New England worked its way into the Maritimes, prompting Environment Canada to issue a series of winter storm warnings.
PAGE, Ariz. - Four arcs of water unleashed from a dam coursed through the Grand Canyon on Wednesday in a flood meant to mimic the natural ones that used to nourish the ecosystem by spreading sediment.
More than 300,000 gallons of water per second were released from Lake Powell above the dam near the Arizona-Utah border. That's enough water to fill the Empire State Building in 20 minutes, said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
More than 300,000 gallons of water per second were released from Lake Powell above the dam near the Arizona-Utah border. That's enough water to fill the Empire State Building in 20 minutes, said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
As if decimating rainforests isn't bad enough, now it turns out industrial logging is also preventing leatherback turtles from nesting.
There is a timber boom in central Africa, with logging now allowed in two-thirds of Gabon's rainforests. Felled logs are floated down rivers to the coast in their thousands, where they are packaged for shipping abroad. Some are lost in transit, though, and float out to sea, eventually washing up along Gabon's 1000-kilometre coastline. Those beached logs pose a threat to breeding turtles, says William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
There is a timber boom in central Africa, with logging now allowed in two-thirds of Gabon's rainforests. Felled logs are floated down rivers to the coast in their thousands, where they are packaged for shipping abroad. Some are lost in transit, though, and float out to sea, eventually washing up along Gabon's 1000-kilometre coastline. Those beached logs pose a threat to breeding turtles, says William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Maude Barlow is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy organization, and founder of the Blue Planet Project. Barlow is author of the new book Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.
CLAYTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Jim Koan has gone hog-wild in his battle against a beetle that threatens his 120-acre organic apple orchard.
As part of a research experiment believed to be among the first of its kind, Koan is using pigs to help protect his fruit from the plum curculio, a tiny insect that is among the most destructive apple pests.
As part of a research experiment believed to be among the first of its kind, Koan is using pigs to help protect his fruit from the plum curculio, a tiny insect that is among the most destructive apple pests.
