Bornean and Sumatran orangutans face a lethal cocktail of threats that could drive them to extinction: Habitat loss caused by forest-clearing paper and palm companies; potential kidnapping by poachers in the exotic pet trade; and isolation. But you can help.
Tags: · Borneo, endangered species, habitat threat, Nature in Danger, orangutans, palm oil, palm plantations, palm trade, paper plantation, Sumatra
Red wolves, commonly mistaken as coyotes, have stunning copper and gray coats. They live in packs composed of one alpha male and one female, along with their litter. When their pups are age 2, the males begin the search for another female to start their own packs, and their parents continue having litters once a year.
Tags: · critically endangered species, Defenders of Wildlife, endangered species, Nature in Danger, North Carolina, Red Wolves, USFWS
Wildlife does not respect property boundaries. Therefore, protecting endangered species cannot be accomplished on government-owned lands alone. The cooperation and assistance of private landowners is essential. However, some landowners see government biodiversity programs, such as the Endangered Species Act, as a threat to independent management of their property.
Tags: · cost-share programs, endangered species, greenrightnow.com, private lands, ranch attitudes, ranch management, Rangelands, working lands
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released a rare photograph of a Snow Leopard and cub, taken in Afghanistan this fall.
Tags: · Afghanistan, endangered species, Snow leopard, Wildlife Conservation Society
The Center for Biological Diversity has stepped up its condom giveaway campaign in anticipation of the world passing the 7 billion benchmark.
The campaign, which wraps free condoms inside a package featuring an endangered animal is both edgy and cute at the same time. You could even say it’s over the top, but we’re trying to keep the puns to a minimum.
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, Center for Biological Diversity, condoms, endangered species, greenrightnow.com, overpopulation
When a species recovers enough to be removed from the federal endangered species list, the public trust doctrine – the principle that government must conserve natural resources for the public good – should guide state management of wildlife, scientists say.
Tags: · endangered species, Endangered Species Act, Gray Wolf, greenrightnow.com, Public Trust Doctrine, Wildlife Trust Doctrine
The discovery of a pair of federally-protected northern spotted owls in the Willamette National Forest may derail plans to harvest 157 acres of mature and old-growth forest above the McKenzie River.
A legal challenge by two conservation organizations – Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild – is based on new research showing that the owls have taken up residence in the neighborhood of the planned timber sale. The groups claim that the U.S. Forest Service has ignored new information about the owls that has surfaced since the agency agreed to log the area in 2003.
Tags: · Cascadia Wildlands, endangered species, Eugene, Eugene watershed, McKenzie River, northern spotted owls, Oregon Wild, owls, red tree vole, U.S. Forest Service, Willamette National Forest
The Inyo chipmunk lives in the alpine regions of the Sierra Nevada mountains. (Photo: Center for Biological Diversity).
“We have not been able to find it anywhere,” James Patton, a retired UC Berkeley professor of zoology who has spent the last two years in search of the species, told the Sacramento Bee.
Tags: · Climate Change, endangered species, Inyo chipmunk, National Park Service, Sierra Nevada, White Mountains
From Green Right Now Reports
What to do if a species seems doomed to extinction in the face of climate change? How about an assisted change of scenery?
In the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Ecological Applications, Arizona State environmental ethicist Ben Minteer and ecologist James P. Collins take a look at Managed Relocation, otherwise known as Assisted Colonization, Assisted Migration and Assisted Translocation.
Whatever you call it, the process involves the physical relocation of endangered or threatened species of plants and animals, by humans, to new geographical locations.
“New approaches to conservation, such as MR mean the need for a new ‘ecological ethics’ geared toward problem-solving in ecological research and policy,” says Minteer. “Beyond asking ‘should’ we do it, there’s the more pragmatic ethical question: what separates a ‘good’ from a ‘bad’ MR activity?”
Tags: · Ben Minteer, Ecological Applications, endangered species, James P. Collins, Managed Relocation
Lemurs, a threatened species (Photo: Orsoman/Dreamstime)
They are slipping through our fingers. Our tenuous hold on the Earth’s threatened animals, plants and fish, rivers and oceans, forests and ice caps is not strong enough. It’s not for lack of trying — environmental and eco-conscious groups are in a constant scramble to slow the lengthening list of losses.
Every year, more than 2 million acres of Amazon rainforest – called “the lungs of our planet” for its massive daily recycling of carbon dioxide into oxygen – is lost to logging, agriculture, roads and more.
At last count, out of 44,837 known species of living creatures on Earth, nearly 40 percent are threatened and 804 are extinct.
Tags: · Amazon rainforest, Arbor day, attracting bees, attracting butterflies, backyard wildlife habitat, biodiversity, Climate Change, conservation, Earth Day, eco-tourism, ecosystem, endangered species, extinct species, Fair Trade goods, invasive species, Madagascar, sustainable seafood
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Every so often I pause and wonder about the Rocky Mountain wolves, which were de-listed from protections under the Endangered Species Act in 2009 and hunted for sport for the first time in decades.
I have thought about the wolves periodically all this winter, as they’ve been hunted in Idaho. As of today, 172 wolves have been killed there, just shy of the 220 kill limit set by the state, where the wolf season ends March 31. Last fall, in Montana, 72 wolves were killed, just short of the 75 wolf limit.
I’m not sure why their plight touched me so much. I think it’s their intelligence and curiosity that tugs at my emotions. Sensing humans nearby, they will peek out from their cover to see, only to get shot. And there’s the fact that they’re pack animals, dependent on an enduring family structure and very much like us in that regard.
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, ecosystems, endangered species, gray wolves, habitat decline, Rocky Mountain wolves, Western habitat
From Green Right Now Reports
As mascots go, the U.S. Bald Eagle has been much beloved, but not always well tended. Once prolific in the U.S., the population wavered and fell dramatically in the 20th Century — until biologists discovered that DDT and other pollution was impairing the bird’s ability to reproduce.
That was one big canary in a coal mine.
With DDT now banned, the Bald Eagle has rebounded, and was removed from the Endangered Species list in 2007. There are now an estimated 9,000 or more Bald Eagles living in the wild in the U.S., according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Tags: · bald eagle, bird watching, endangered species, list of Bald Eagle winter sites, National Federation of Wildlife, where to see Bald Eagle, wildlife appreciation
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift