From Green Right Now Reports

HD Net’s Dan Rather Reports Tuesday night will feature never-before-seen footage from the island of Madagascar, where an ecological horror show is taking place. Madagascar’s national parks are, according to scientists, being raped by loggers who are illegally chopping down rare and extremely valuable rosewood trees. The recently obtained video shows loggers hauling the trees out of the forests by hand.

On Madagascar, loggers are illegally chopping down rare and extremely valuable trees. (Photo: HD Net)

Each of these trees is worth thousands of dollars on the international market, but the desperate residents of Madagascar are cutting them down for only a few dollars a day.

[Read more →]

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

While the world scrambles to find clean energy solutions, somewhere, every minute of every day, saws buzz through a forest, cutting down one of nature’s antidotes to carbon pollution.

Saving forests in the Congo will help save endangered gorillas (Photo: John Martin)

[Read more →]

(KGO) — One wildlife expert in Britain says it may be time to let the pandas die out.

[Read more →]

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

Florida’s housing bust may be disheartening for developers and damaging to the state’s economy, but it’s a blessing – short-lived, most likely – for one of the world’s most endangered big cats.

The Florida panther once roamed most of southeastern America, from the Carolinas to Louisiana and all over Florida. It was hunted, and then squeezed into an increasingly shrinking range as Florida’s human population boomed. Many other native species in the state have been pushed to the brink of extinction (and a couple are considered extinct).

[Read more →]

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Here’s a little cautionary tale about how bigger is not always better, and knowing who to blame doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. It’s also about the inter-connectedness of our energy and food systems, and specifically how coal-fired power plants affect your diet.

Say you were camping with friends and caught a really BIG fish. This squirming monster would give you bragging rights for a year. Now say you caught a smaller fish, suitable for pan frying but not Kodak-worthy.

What do you do? If you’re Daniel Boone, you toss the little guy back. But if you’re a post-industrial age sportsman or woman, you will want to consider this: Keep the big hunker and you’ve got more to eat, and disproportionately more mercury contamination.

[Read more →]

By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

Most of us grew up watching Yogi Bear, who was “smarter than the average bear” and his sidekick Boo Boo, devour “pic-a-nic baskets”. They seemed friendly. However, real bears are not like the cartoon. In parks, if you leave food out, the bears will not only eat it, they will begin to frequent the campsites expecting more food.

Even worse, bears that grow accustomed to human food can become aggressive toward humans, according to Yellowstone biologists. This is obviously a danger to Yellowstone visitors, but it is also a danger to the bears. A bear that acts aggressively is usually a bear that has to be removed from the population and euthanized.

[Read more →]

From Green Right Now Reports

At least three of Idaho’s wolves have been killed as hunting commenced this week under the first authorized sport wolf hunt in the lower 48 states.

But while the hunt has attracted sportspeople, it has repelled others. A Lewiston-area man who killed the first wolf on opening day told the local media that he has received numerous calls of protest.

Robert Millage, a real estate agent, says he’s been called a “wolf murderer, a fat redneck and other names” in some 50 phone calls and hundreds of e-mails, according to the Lewiston Tribune. (To see a picture of the young wolf Millage killed view the story on Lewiston’s KLEW-TV.)

[Read more →]

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

They started out as pets, perhaps living in little boys’ bedrooms, being shown off to friends and wrapping around arms. But then the Burmese pythons grew, and grew, and grew (about 7 feet in a year), and they weren’t so cute or easy to deal with any more.

So, trying to do the right thing, their owners gently released them into the wild, near the large, shallow “river of grass” that flows through much of south Florida, known as the Everglades.

Problem solved.

[Read more →]

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

It would almost be easier to spot a Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf than to follow the legal wrangling around these once-endangered, recently delisted and soon-to-be-hunted predators.

A quick recap: After a few years of back and forth with environmentalists who argued that the wolves needed continued federal protection, the Bush Administration delisted the animals – took them off the Endangered Species List – in 2008. Enviros sued and a federal court agreed that delisting was premature and that the 1,500 or so wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming were not at sustainable levels. The wolves were restored to endangered status.

[Read more →]

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

It’s not all about lions and tigers and bears, you know.

They are the familiar furry faces threatened with extinction, so they get a lot of time in the spotlight.

But where are the little-known endangered creatures, the ones that don’t get a lot of press? How about those at-risk species that aren’t so striking or noble, the ones that are downright odd – or ugly?

Thus, we turned to ARKive, a global initiative that gathers film, photos and audio of all the world’s animals, plants and even fungi to create a digital library. With their help, we’ve gathered a photo gallery of 10 slightly strange species that may be living on borrowed time. It’s time for their their 15 minutes of fame:

[Read more →]

From Green Right Now Reports

A compound from honeybees known as propolis, the substance bees use to seal their hives, may protect against heat stress in athletes, according to an article released in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists.

Honeybee propolis, or bee glue, has been widely used as a folk medicine. An active ingredient in propolis known as caffeic acid phenethyl ester (or CAPE) has a broad spectrum of biological activities including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antiviral. Hyperthermia, or heat stress, is considered to be the main factor underlying the early fatigue and dehydration seen during prolonged exercise in the heat.

The discovery is another reminder of the potential ramifications of the loss in recent years of millions of bees around the world to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Scientists believe that CCD is a result of multiple stresses on the bees, such as loss of habitat, drought and possibly chronic exposure to pesticides, that weaken the bees immune systems, subjecting them to untimely deaths from viruses and other infections.

[Read more →]

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission banned the catching and killing of whales for commercial purposes worldwide. Whale populations – such as the North Pacific gray and the North Atlantic right whale – were threatened because of centuries of unrestricted hunting.

That ban is still in effect, with two exceptions: aboriginal peoples whose survival depends on whaling (Alaska, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Denmark and the Russian Federation) and whaling for scientific purposes.

[Read more →]