Gabon flamingos

The Greater flamingo, Phoenicopterus roseus, a migratory species that had not been reported in Gabon for many decades, has been observed in Gabon's Akanda National Park.

The flamingos were spotted on the Gabonese coast during the tour organized as part of the commemoration of the World Migratory Bird Day.

The birds were seen on the mudflats of Moka Island; A total of 77 individuals, adults and immature birds, were observed. Apart from the flamingos, dozens of other species were spotted, including pelicans, black skimmers, Curlew sandpiper, yellow-billed stork, herons, storks, various terns, and more.

Unlike lesser flamingo, which is occasionally observed in Gabon, the Greater flamingo had completely disappeared from Gabon. Their return to the mudflats of Moka, in March 2013, is a testament to the remarkable richness of the environment, as well as the tranquillity found in the park, now that the Nigerian fishermen who had taken up residence have departed.

New Orleans was struck by tens of thousands of swarming Formosan termites on Wednesday night causing hundreds of thousands of people's skin to crawl.Resembling something out of a creepy disaster movie, the termites made for any car headlights, streetlights or lit homes they could find in residential or commercial areas.

Usually the termites swarm like clockwork at the beginning of May, but with cooler temperatures in the New Orleans area combined with drier air the termite outbreak was delayed until last night's warmer conditions.Formosan termites are not native to the United States and were introduced from the Far East in packing crates and other wood products during World War Two.Massive infestations in and around New Orleans have become endemic along Lake Pontchartrain and at the naval shipyard in Algiers.

Frogs, toads and other amphibians are vanishing so fast nationwide that if the decline continues at the same rate, they'll be gone from half their current habitats in 20 years, a federal study has found.

U.S. Geological Survey officials on Wednesday unveiled the study, done over a decade, on 48 species at 34 sites from California to Colorado high-country to Florida swamps.

Federal scientists found that the declines are more widespread and severe than previously thought and that amphibian populations are disappearing at an overall rate of 3.7 percent each year.

Even species inside federally-protected areas, including Rocky Mountain National Park, are disappearing.

"Even in what we consider pristine areas, we are seeing amphibian decline," said Fort Collins-based USGS biologist Erin Muths, who helped conduct the study. "If anything is doing poorly in an area we think is protected, that says something about our level of protection and about what may be happening outside those areas."

Boreal toads, chorus frogs, wood frogs and salamanders were among the amphibians studied in Colorado.

Thousands of young muttonbirds have starved to death on Stewart Island and the Titi Islands this season because parental birds have abandoned their chicks in search of food.

Experts say warmer ocean temperatures have pushed small fish that the birds eat such as krill, squid and sardines into deeper and colder waters where they thrive. The muttonbirds have followed them to those colder waters.

Invercargill naturalist Lloyd Esler did an annual count of muttonbirds on Mason Bay, Stewart Island, at the weekend, which revealed the most dead muttonbirds he had seen in about 15 years.

Almost 2000 dead birds were found washed up on the shore compared with about 100 in previous years, he said.

There was a "glitch" in the food supply and it could be because warm currents moved small fish into water too deep for the birds to catch, Mr Esler said.

Kaumatua of Waihopai Runaka Michael Skerrett said muttonbirds were in terrible condition this season and the number of chicks were down.

It could be because of El Nino climatic conditions, he said.

Regular muttonbirder Jane Davis said the situation was probably as bad as it could be.

While there were good hatching numbers at the Titi Islands most ended up dying at the mouth of their nest because they were not being fed, she said.

Cicadas have begun to surface across the East Coast of the U.S.

So far the majority of sightings have been in Virginia and other southern states

Further north the weather has been too cool but the emergence of Brood II emergence isn't expected to be too far away

The cicadas invasion of the East Coast has begun, with the insects spotted everywhere from Virginia to Massachusetts.

The infestation, named Brood II by scientists, has not been seen since 1996. Before that it last appeared in 1979.

So far the majority of sightings have been in Virginia and other southern states, where some people have found hundreds in their backyards accompanied by the insects' loud chorus call.
Further north the weather has been too cool in the likes of New England and New York for a full-blown Brood II emergence, but it isn't expected to be too far away.

Cicadas are expected to emerge from the ground in the billions in the next couple of weeks as soil temperature reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's a shocking decline. In the past 20 years, caribou numbers have dropped by about 95% in the southern region of the island

A survey by the territory of Nunavut in northeastern Canada conducted in 2012 and released last Thursday, confirms what elders and hunters have been saying, that it's getting much harder to find caribou there.

Estimates from the early 1990's put the herd number between 60-thousand to 180 thousand.

This recent survey, announced by Nunavut's environment minister, James Arreak, is the first comprehensive count of the animals. Elders, hunters and communities have expressed The survey report is called "Estimating the Abundance of South Baffin Caribou.

Temperatures, just as News 4 reported in March


Buffalo, N.Y. - Canalside is just weeks away from being packed with people attending summer events. But visitors could be met with hundreds of dead fish in the water.

Hundreds of dead fish started washing up from Lake Erie, the Niagara River and their tributaries in March, and News 4 reported after concerned viewers called about the dead fish. And though it's been months, you can still find dozens of them floating in the Commercial Slip.

Donald Zelazny, the DEC's Great Lakes Program Coordinator, said, "This is actually one of the larger die-offs of these fish that we've seen in quite a while."

So it's no surprise that people who see them are worried about disease and pollution. But the DEC now has biological evidence of what it has said all along: these fish, a member of the herring family called "gizzard shad," died of natural causes.

"They're very susceptible to cold temperatures and temperature fluctuations. So we generally see a die-off of this particular type of fish every year," Zelazny explained.

Sandor Horvath, 65, was attacked by donkeys in Hungary

Bitten and trampled on so much looked like he had been attacked by wolves

Postmortem revealed the bites and markings had come from the donkeys

Pair responsible for killing him are now waiting to be put down

Killed: Sandor Horvath, 65, was chased and pulled off the scooter at a farm in Magyarszecsod

A Hungarian pensioner was dragged off his mobility scooter and mauled to death by a pair of killer donkeys.

Sandor Horvath, 65, was bitten and trampled on so much that when his body was found it was believed had been torn apart by wolves.

Mr Horvath, was chased and pulled off the scooter at a farm in Magyarszecsod where he was visiting his farmer friend.

His mutilated remains were found by the farm owner who called the police, believing his friend had been attacked by wild dogs.

But a postmortem revealed the bites and markings had come from the donkeys.

Police who pieced together the evidence said it appeared that the donkeys had chased the man and dragged him off the scooter before killing him.

The farmer's daughter Csikos Darda said: 'I had noticed that the donkeys were becoming increasingly aggressive and I'd asked my father to do something about it, but he'd said they were fine.'

A vet told local media: 'Donkeys aren't usually aggressive towards humans.

'They probably reacted like this as they thought the victim was intruding upon their territory.'

The pair are now waiting to be put down.

A police spokesman said: 'If these were dogs then they would also be put to sleep.

'We can't allow animals to go around killing people. Putting them to sleep is the best thing for everyone.'

Migratory murder on Egypt's coast

May 2013. Disturbing evidence has emerged from the Mediterranean coast of Egypt: Bavarian Broadcasting have documented a total of 700 kilometres of nets set to catch birds. The birds are then offered as a delicacy in markets and restaurants across Egypt.

The nets are very difficult to avoid for many migratory birds as they form a barrier across their flight path either across the Mediterranean or the Sahara when they are looking for a place to rest. The exact number of birds caught in this way can only be estimated, but experts believe that tens of millions are killed each year.

That songbirds are on the menu (and targeted by many hunters) in many countries of southern Europe and North Africa is nothing new. The existence of fishing nets on the coast of Egypt has long been known, but what is new is the scale of netting, which now extends from Libya across almost the entire coastline of the Egypt to the Sinai - interrupted only in a few places by military installations or major cities.

Red tide' and a loss of sea grass account for some manatee deaths, but researchers believe undiscovered factors are also at play.

A record number of endangered manatees are dying in Florida's algae-choked waterways. So far this year, 582 manatees have died, more than any year on record, according to preliminary numbers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

Pat Rose is an aquatic biologist and the executive director of the Save the Manatee Club, an organization devoted to preserving the animal. In his interview with TakePart, Rose reports the estimated minimum population of these gentle beasts is only 3,100 adults. That means their population has decreased by more than 10 percent in just four months.

A total of 247 of these have died in the southwest of the state due to an explosion of a red-hued algae called Karenia brevis, also known as a red tide.

This pesky microorganism produces neurotoxins that can kill manatees by causing them to seize to the point where they can't make it to the surface - or even lift their head out of the water - to breathe.

The large marine mammals are also dying in the eastern part of the state, in Brevard County near Orlando. Rose says a gradual die-out of sea grass, upon which the manatees feed, has combined with blooms of brown algae and likely other unknown factors to kill nearly 150 more manatees. Since 2010, about 30,000 acres of sea grass have been wiped out.

Luckily, it appears that both events are winding down, and the rate of manatee deaths appears to be slowing. But that's cold comfort for Rose, since the number of threats to manatees appears to be growing, and little is being done to address the problem.

Traditionally, boat collisions have been the biggest killer of manatees; they're vulnerable since they're large, slow-moving and often hang out on the surface. Until this year, at least 41 percent of all manatee deaths resulted from these collisions, and likely more, because not all of these deaths are reported or detected.