Biodiversity

A rash of rhino horn thefts, "as many as 30 so far this year, have been reported in museums, galleries, antiques dealerships, auction houses and homes across Europe as criminals try to feed a growing demand in China and other Asian countries, where medicine made from ground rhino horns is believed to act as an aphrodisiac and to cure cancer and other diseases."

"In the American Corn Belt this year, the weather has already felt apocalyptic at times. In the last six months, the Midwest has seen record-breaking floods, devastating twisters, unseasonable cold snaps and late heat waves. Now, add insect swarms to these forces of nature."

"Plants and animals are responding up to three times faster to climate change than previously estimated, as wildlife shifts to cooler altitudes and latitudes, researchers said on Thursday."

"A giant South American rodent weighing at least 100 pounds (45 kgs) was spotted at a waste-water treatment facility in California recently before disappearing in the brush, according to a wildlife official."

"Fewer than 200 mountain yellow-legged frogs are believed to exist. The Station fire destroyed habitat; now 104 have died mysteriously in a zoo's breeding tanks."

Louis Sahagun reports for the Los Angeles Times August 17, 2011.

"BILOXI -- NOAA Fisheries has data that shows Gulf shrimpers are now using their turtle-protection devices. Partly because of this, the agency has decided not to impose emergency measures on the shrimping industry in order to stop the unusually high number of sea-turtle deaths in the northern Gulf since the BP oil spill in 2010."

"Releasing genetically modified, spermless male mosquitoes into the wild could in future help to prevent malaria transmission and reduce the chances of large outbreaks of the killer disease, British scientists said on Monday."

"Conservation groups asked an appeals court on Monday to strike down a move by Congress to strip more than 1,500 wolves in Idaho and Montana of federal endangered species protections."