A team of nearly 50 researchers has determined that an algae bloom known as red tide was responsible for the earlier deaths of animals off the Florida coast.
The research team found that the mysterious deaths of scores of turtles, bottlenose dolphins and manatees back in 2005 off the southwest coast of Florida was likely caused a neurotoxin that was emitted from the red tide, The Washington Post said.
The Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events study determined that brevetoxin was the likely culprit in the deaths after examining 130 stranded dolphins.
BBCSun, 25 Mar 2007 06:58 UTC
Taiwan is to close one lane of a major highway to protect more than a million butterflies, which cross the road on their seasonal migration.
The purple milkweed butterfly, which winters in the south of the island, passes over some 600m of motorway to reach its breeding ground in the north.
Many of the 11,500 butterflies that attempt the journey each hour do not reach safety, experts say.
Protective nets and ultra-violet lights will also be used to aid the insects.
The Green Drake is a little mayfly that's only about 4.5 centimetres long, but favoured by trout, which love to gorge on it.
The flies spend several years in a riverbed, in a nymph stage.
When they emerge in late May or early June for action-filled lives lasting about a week, they do so in a gossamer blizzard, numbering in the tens of thousands.
Patrick O'Driscoll
USA TODAYTue, 20 Mar 2007 22:07 UTC
More bird species in the USA are ranging farther north and even staying there for the winter in a possible sign of adaptation to global warming, ornithologists and conservation groups say.
The stranding deaths of about 60 bottlenose dolphins on Texas beaches over the past three weeks has puzzled researchers and is a cause for concern during the calving season, a senior scientist said on Monday.
Clouded leopards found on Sumatra and Borneo represent a new species, research by genetic scientists and the conservation group WWF indicates.
A starving Amur tiger, one of the critically endangered species in Russia's taiga, killed a village dog in east Russia hit by a heavy snowstorm.
Snowstorms, the most powerful in more than 100 years, seized the Primorye Region near the Pacific in early March, creating high snow and making it difficult for tigers to hunt.
"A group of rescuers has been sent to the Yakovlevsky district to take the tiger back to taiga," an official of the Russian Natural Resources Ministry said, adding that the thick snow had forced the tiger to risk moving along cleared roads.
A helicopter is not necessarily a match for an angry moose. Instead of lying down after being shot with a tranquilizer dart, a moose charged a hovering helicopter used by a wildlife biologist, damaging the aircraft's tail rotor and forcing it to the ground.
Neither the pilot nor the biologist was injured, but the moose was maimed by the spinning rotor and had to be euthanized, wildlife officials said.
"It just had to be one of those quirky circumstance. Even dealing with bears and goats and moose and wolves, this is pretty unusual and truly a very unique situation," said Doug Larsen, regional supervisor for the Division of Wildlife Conservation.
On THE morning of December 26, 2004, villagers from Bang Koey in Thailand noticed something strange. Buffalo grazing on the beach lifted their heads, pricked their ears and looked out to sea, then stampeded to the top of a nearby hill. For the baffled villagers who chose to follow them, it was a live-saving move. Minutes later, the tsunami struck.
Since then, there have been hundreds of reports of animals seemingly foretelling catastrophe - not just minutes, but sometimes hours and even days before it occurred. These include tales of bizarre behaviour by wild beasts including elephants, antelopes, bats, rats and flamingos, plus stories of dogs refusing to go for their usual morning walk.
Could these creatures have sensed the massive earthquake that triggered the 2004 tsunami? It is an outlandish assertion, given that seismologists have so far failed to come up with any sign that a quake is imminent. Yet, for the same reason, the possibility animals might hold the answer cannot be ignored. After all, an advance warning system could save thousands or even millions of human lives.
