Animals
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Wolf

Despicable Cruelty! BP "Burning Sea Turtles Alive"

Danile Tencer
Raw Story
Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:16 UTC
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© AP PhotoA sea turtle caught up in the oil spill waits for treatment.
A rare and endangered species of sea turtle is being burned alive in BP's controlled burns of the oil swirling around the Gulf of Mexico, and a boat captain tasked with saving them says the company has blocked rescue efforts.

Mike Ellis, a boat captain involved in a three-week effort to rescue as many sea turtles from unfolding disaster as possible, says BP effectively shut down the operation by preventing boats from coming out to rescue the turtles.

"They ran us out of there and then they shut us down, they would not let us get back in there," Ellis said in an interview with conservation biologist Catherine Craig.

Part of BP's efforts to contain the oil spill are controlled burns. Fire-resistant booms are used to corral an area of oil, then the area within the boom is lit on fire, burning off the oil and whatever marine life may have been inside.

"Once the turtles get in there they can't get out," Ellis said.
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Radar

Egypt oil spill threatens Red Sea marine life


Agence France-Presse
Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:54 UTC
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© Agence France-Presse/file A sea turtle swims with scuba divers in the Ras Mohammed protection area near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. …
Cairo - An oil spill off the Egyptian Red Sea coast of Hurghada threatening to damage marine life in the area has prompted environmental agencies to demand tighter regulation of offshore oil platforms.

Large quantities of oil have appeared in recent days around the resorts of Hurghada which draw millions of tourists who come to dive or snorkle, according to the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Agency.

"It started four or five days ago and the companies responsible didn't notify anyone. It is catastrophic," HEPCA Managing Director Amr Ali told AFP.

The spill was caused by leakage from an offshore oil platform north of Hurghada and has polluted protected areas and showed up on tourist beach resorts.
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Bizarro Earth

Sea creatures flee oil spill, gather near shore

John Flesher And Tamara Lush
Associated Press
Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:39 UTC
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© APA blue heron stands has a snack in the surf as oil cleanup crews make their morning patrol.

Gulf Sores Alabama - Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange - and troubling - phenomena.

Fish and other wildlife are fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast. But that is not the hopeful sign it might appear to be, researchers say.
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Newspaper

US: Foxes Attack Residents in North Carolina

Ken Smith
WRAL 5
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:23 UTC
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© WRAL 5Talon Thomas
An 11-year-old boy and a 22-year-old man say they were attacked this week by foxes in southern Moore County.

The attacks happened near the intersection of Sycamore Street and Midway Road in Aberdeen.

Talon Thomas, 11, said he was bitten and scratched by the fox while walking home from school Tuesday.

"He bit me on my leg, and then I just picked him up, and I just hit his head against the road and he started kicking me in my head," he said.

Talon said he kept the fox pinned down and tried to keep him quiet so he wouldn't alert other foxes.
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Binoculars

US: Dead Baby Whale Washes Up on New York Beach

Kathy Carvajal and Luke Funk
myFox: New York
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:14 UTC
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© myFoxNYWhale Washes Ashore On Long Island
Long Island Humpback Whale

A necropsy- or an autopsy performed on an animal- will be done on a massive whale that washed ashore in Jones Beach. Results from the necropsy should help biologists determine what caused the whale's death.

The young, humpback whale was likely dead for a week when it came ashore on Thursday morning at Jones Beach State Park, east of field six.

SkyFoxHD was overhead at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday as the whale lay motionless and partially buried in the sand.

Animal rescue crews could be seen surrounding the 2-5 year old, dead whale which was approximately 30 feeet long. The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation was on the scene.
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Newspaper

US: Man Dies After Being Strangled by Pet Snake in Nebraska

Margery A Beck
The Associated Press
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:00 UTC
A suburban Omaha man has died after being strangled by his 9-foot, 25-pound pet boa constrictor, authorities said Thursday. Cory Byrne, 34, of Papillion died Wednesday night at a local hospital, just hours after police and paramedics pried the snake from around his neck, police said.

Byrne had been showing the snake to a friend when it wrapped around his shoulders and neck and squeezed, Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said.

An officer was called to Byrne's apartment near downtown Papillion around 5:40 p.m. The officer found Byrne on the ground with the snake still around his neck.

Paramedics soon arrived and helped get the snake off Byrne and into a cage.
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Blackbox

12,000 endangered saiga antelope found dead in Kazakhstan

Bryan Nelson
Mother Nature Network
Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:52 UTC
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© Wiki Commons/GNUSAIGA: These unique animals, which have distinct bulbous noses, once roamed over a vast area of the Eurasian steppe zone.
Mysterious deaths are a devastating blow to the unique-looking animal, which has seen its population decline by 95% since 1995.

Nearly 12,000 critically endangered saiga antelope have been found dead within a 17 square-mile area of the Ural region of western Kazakhstan, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The cause of the mysterious mass loss is still unclear, though initial investigators believed the animals may have been poisoned.

"This is a tragic and shocking event. It's particularly unfortunate that the population was just emerging from an unusually harsh winter, and that those struck down are mostly females and this year's calves," said professor E.J. Milner-Gulland, chair of the Saiga Conservation Alliance.
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Binoculars

Crocodiles Body Surf to Hop Between Islands

Rachel Kaufman
National Geographic News
Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Sam Abell/National GeographicA saltwater crocodile sits on shore during low tide on the Cape York Peninsula in Australia.
"Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin helped design tracking study.

Saltwater crocodiles in the South Pacific travel between islands by body surfing, according to new research designed in part by late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin.

The world's largest living reptile, the saltwater crocodile is found in brackish and freshwater habitats extending east-west from East India to Fiji and north-south from southern China to northern Australia.

Despite being found on several islands across this range, different crocodile groups haven't evolved into completely unique species - the way Darwin's finches evolved on the Galápagos Islands.

That suggests the crocodiles are somehow island hopping, keeping the overall gene pool well mixed. But until now, no one was sure just how the crocs were traveling, as they're excellent swimmers for short distances but aren't great at long, endurance swims.
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Magnify

Researchers Uncover Identity of Spider Discovered by Darwin More Than a Century Ago


PhysOrg
Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:00 UTC
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© George Washington UniversityLeucauge argyrobapta
Researchers at The George Washington University recently uncovered the identity of a spider that was originally found by Charles Darwin in Brazil more than a century and a half ago. Using notes taken by Darwin himself, the researchers uncovered the identity of the species, Leucauge argyrobapta, and many aspects of the identity of the genus Leucauge that will now help taxonomists understand this complicated lineage of orb-weaving spiders to which this species belongs.

"This finding greatly facilitates future work in one of the most diverse spider genera," said Dr. Dimitar Dimitov, a postdoctoral researcher at GW. "At the same time it shows us that looking in our backyard can often present us with surprising and significant findings."

The first specimen was found in the Tijuca forest located in the heart of Rio de Janeiro and collected by Darwin when he visited during the voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle in 1832. After making the voyage back to London with Darwin for study, the specimen was somehow lost.
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Frog

New Gecko Species Identified in West African Rain Forests


PhysOrg
Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:00 UTC
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© Charles LinkemThe West African forest gecko, Hemidactylus fasciatus, is secretive but common in the tropical rain forest patches stretching nearly 3,000 miles from the coast of Sierra Leone to the Congo.
The West African forest gecko, a secretive but widely distributed species in forest patches from Ghana to Congo, is actually four distinct species that appear to have evolved over the past 100,000 years due to the fragmentation of a belt of tropical rain forest , according to a report in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The discovery by former University of California, Berkeley, students Adam D. Leaché and Matthew K. Fujita demonstrates the wealth of biodiversity still surviving in the islands of tropical rain forest in West Africa, and the ability of new DNA analysis techniques to distinguish different species, even when they look alike.

"We tended to find this gecko, Hemidactylus fasciatus, throughout our travels in West Africa," said Leaché, a herpetologist with UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. "Despite the fact that it is recognized as one species, using new methods we have established a high probability that it is composed of at least four species."
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