Biodiversity

"New findings suggest a previously unknown virus may play a role in the sudden death of many freshwater mussels in recent years."

"In the Pacific north-west, local people work the shoreline, creating conditions for useful species to thrive".

"Wildfires in Washington state have burned hundreds of thousands of acres, including an important mating habitat for sage grouse."

"The deaths of hundreds of elephants in Botswana this year which had baffled and alarmed conservationists were caused by toxins produced by cyanobacteria in water, officials said on Monday."

"A decade-long global effort to save Earth’s disappearing species and declining ecosystems has mostly stumbled, with fragile habitats like coral reefs and tropical forests in more trouble than ever, researchers said in a report Tuesday."

"In the past seven years, trafficking of jaguars and their body parts has become a major threat to the species, with China the main destination."

"The discovery was heartbreaking for biologists, who consider the mountain lions of Southern California to be among the most threatened mammals in North America: a young male with the distortions of inbreeding — a tail kinked like the letter “L” and only one descended testicle."

"Gravel mines, airstrips, and ice roads could appear in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Congress never intended when it agreed to allow oil development there, more than a dozen states are claiming in a bid to stop drilling there."

"The world is losing its mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish, and with them, the security of ecosystems that have supported humanity since it first emerged. That’s the conclusion of the Living Planet Report 2020, a biannual assessment by World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, which records the decline in vertebrate life."