Animals
|
Jean-Marc Le Dorze is confounded by all the honeybees vanishing from his Mission apiary.
Kevin Statham photo.
|
What's happening to the bees? The fuzzy little honey-making critters are dying off like the dinosaurs, and no one knows why. In the U.S., according to a congressional report updated in June, up to 36 percent of 2.4 million bee colonies were wiped out last winter. Canadian beekeepers reported losses of one-third of this country's bees during the winter, including a 23-percent loss in British Columbia.
A scientist from the University of Aberdeen is leading a team of international researchers whose work will continue our understanding of life in the deepest oceans, and contribute to the global Census of Marine Life.
Exploring life in the North Atlantic Ocean at various depths of 800 to 3,500 metres, a team of 31 scientists are returning from a five-week scientific expedition which has surfaced a wealth of new information and insights, stunning images and marine life specimens, with one species thought to be new to science.
Paul Eccleston
TelegraphThu, 16 Aug 2007 22:16 UTC
Pacific coral reefs are dying at an unprecedented rate, scientists have found. Almost 600 square miles of reef have disappeared every year since the late 1960s - twice the rate of rainforest loss.
Coral loss had become a global phenomenon caused mainly by climate change, rising sea temperatures and man-made nutrient pollution.
|
| ©University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
|
AFPWed, 15 Aug 2007 12:04 UTC
A 19-metre (62-foot) whale was found dead on abeach in northwest France on Wednesday, police said.
"It was a fin whale that died recently," said Jean-Yves Le Clech, a marineexpert from the nearby town of Brest. "When there are storms, the currents caneasily push the bodies onto the coast."
APWed, 15 Aug 2007 03:00 UTC
A monkey that freed himself two weeks ago from a Mississippi zoo has escaped again, zoo officials said. Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo Manager Kirk Nemecheck and other employees noticed the white-faced capuchin's cage open and lock on the ground around 8:30 a.m. Monday.
Oliver and another capuchin named Baby were found wandering nearby. Workers easily captured Baby, but Oliver fled the park headed in the direction of the Tupelo Country Club, Nemecheck said.
Comment: Unlike most Americans, the monkey has become aware that he lives in a prison and is doing his best to escape.
There have been no obvious signs of them washed up on the shore; no evidence that disease or human hand is behind a dramatic reduction in numbers of the sea mammal. But a routine survey has delivered the baffling news that 5,000 common seals have disappeared from the shores of Orkney and Shetland.
The Orang-utans of Borneo are facing an unprecedented threat as their habitat is destroyed to satisfy increasing global demands for bio-fuel.
A plague of field voles in central Spain has led the authorities to resort to controlled burning of fields.
|
| ©n/a
|
| Farmers say they have never seen a vole plague like this one
|
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Satellite tracking of pygmy elephants has found that the endangered animals _ unique to Borneo island _ are under threat due to logging and commercial plantations encroaching on their habitat, conservationists said Thursday.
A Freshwater dolphin species has been declared extinct after desperate efforts to rescue it came too late.
One British zoologist yesterday described the loss of the Yangtze River dolphin as a "shocking tragedy". It is the first extinction of a large vertebrate for more than 50 years.
Comment: Unlike most Americans, the monkey has become aware that he lives in a prison and is doing his best to escape.