Wildlife

 

Bees Vanish and Scientists Race for Reasons
Alexie Barrionuevo, The New York Times, feature — April 2007
There are so many of our crops that require pollinators. We need an urgent call to arms to try to ascertain what is really going on here with the bees, and bring as much science as we possibly can to bear on the problem...

Life is Hanging By a Thread
Jane Goodall, The Miami Herald, commentary — April 2007
As a primatologist, I am particularly concerned by the prediction that 20 percent to 30 percent of species will face increased risk of extinction...

Drought Will Halt Wildebeest Trek
Robin McKie, The Guardian Online, feature — January 2007
One of the planet's greatest wildlife shows — the annual migration of more than a million wildebeest across east Africa's plains — is facing obliteration...

"That sort of Self-Delusion is What it Takes to Be a Real Aussie Larrikin"
Germaine Greer, Guardian Unlimited, editorial — September 2006
What Steve Irwin never seemed to understand was that animals need space. The one lesson any conservationist must labour to drive home is that habitat loss is the principal cause of species loss...

Amid Extinctions, Parrots, Panthers Get Costly Aid
Alister Doyle & David Fogarty, Reuters, article — May 2006
Rare species are getting costly protection even as the world faces what may be the worst wave of extinctions since the dinosaurs...

Oh, Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam
Coral Rose, essay — April 2006
This year 947 Bison have been killed, the highest number in the last 8 years. That represents almost 30% of the herd. Since 1985 State and Federal agencies have slaughtered over 4,000 Yellowstone Buffalo. Why?...

Ethical Considerations Regarding Aerial Gunning
AGRO: A Coalition to End Aerial Gunning of Wildlife, essay — February 2006
Not only arbitrary, aerial gunning can result in the harassment of animals not targeted for killing. Aircraft noise and disturbance disrupts feeding behavior and reproductive success. In short, slow flying, noisy aircraft keep animals from foraging and disrupts breeding and parenting...

Save the Tiger
Shanghai Daily, feature‚ January 2006
Though footprints and other evidence of the Amur Tiger's continued existence have been found, no single wild individual of the sub-species has been seen in recent years. And the captive South China Tigers in zoos face severe inbreeding and genetic problems...

Overfishing is Emptying the World's Rivers, Lakes, 'A Neglected Crisis'
James Owen, National Geographic, feature ‚ November 2005
"Overfishing of inland waters is a neglected crisis.... Most of the focus is on oceans, with inland waters rarely mentioned," he added. "Yet fish from inland waters are more threatened than those in oceans"...

Federal Government Kills More than 2.7 Million Wildlife in 2005
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, feature — September 2005
Even as some federal agencies spend millions to protect wildlife, another federal agency spends millions to kill wildlife in record numbers...Record “take” of wildlife comes mainly rfom chemical agents...

Agency Targets Animal Damage
Brodie Farquhar, Star-Tribune, feature — Sepember 2005
"Wildlife Services killed more than five animals per minute in 2004,"said Wendy Keefover-Ring of Sinapu, a wolf advocacy group. "The toll on ecosystems wrought by this one agency is jaw-dropping"...

The Shark Killers: 'Organized Shark-Killing Melees' Must End
John Grandy, The Boston Globe, commentary — August 2005
Global shark populations are in steep decline. Like many other fish species, they are overfished and undermanaged. The shark may be a fierce and magnificent predator, but it is no match for humans' high-tech fishing gear...

Endangered Species Goods Selling on Net
The Age, feature — August 2005
A three month investigation by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) revealed that more than 9,000 live species or animal products, including a live gorilla, were available for sale on the internet in one week alone...

Animal Disguises
Maggie Manning, Dallas Morning News, feature — August 2005
The eyespot can also misdirect predators into attacking the wings instead of the butterfly's delicate body... A zebra's stripes are as individual as a human's fingerprints. No two are alike...

Just What is a 'Nuisance' Animal?
Share Bond, Protect R Wildlife, feature — August 2005
All of these animals would prefer to live as far away from humans as possible. Even though people are encroaching on the homes of these animals, many learn to adapt...

University of Florida Bat House — Largest Manmade Roost in the Country
Jennifer Peltz, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, feature — July 2005
They have a lake-view high-rise with a brand-new elevator. They keep a celebrated schedule of nighttime excursions. They've been coaxed, catered to and checked on. No, they're not the students at the University of Florida. They're the bats...

The State of Wildlife
Greg Lawson, Animal Rights 2005 Conference, presentation — July 2005
How many meat eating environmentalists know about the government agency known as Wildlife Services? Forty-million tax dollars a year fund this federal program to kill wild animals that compete with livestock on public lands...

Toad Tunnels
Earth Talk, The Ithaca Journal, feature — July 2005
When the students discovered that hundreds of toads, salamanders, newts and turtles were dying on one particular road through the area each spring evening, they hatched a plan...

Wildlife Crime: On the Trail of a Killer
Ruth Padel, The Independent, feature — July 2005
Wildlife crime is the world's third largest criminal activity after arms and drugs. Trade in wild animals and plants is worth $160 billion (£88bn) a year. A lot of that is illegal. This April, the UN Crime Congress put wildlife crime on their agenda for the first time...

Saving Species, Saving Ourselves
Kelpie Wilson, Truthout, interview— June 2005
Brock Evans is the executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition, an alliance of more than 400 groups that stand behind the Endangered Species Act. Evans is a veteran of many environmental battles — from inside the DC beltway to the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest...

The Wolf Had a Hundred Eyes
Ozgun Ozturk, Action for Turkish Animal Rights and Welfare — 2005
Tonight, I have seen torture with my very eyes. With these "human" eyes, I saw the torture the humans and their children did on a god's creature, known to be a "wild" wolf. I saw a living being's eyes filled with fear...

Sacrificial Ram
Daniel Duane, Mother Jones, investigation — March/April 2005
Conservation groups think they’ve found a way to save endangered animals — by selling off the right to kill a few... “A lot of antihunting types make the mistake of looking at the individual animal as most important”...

Tussle Over Mustangs and Desert Habitat
Brad Knickerbocker, Christian Science Monitor, feature — March 2005
"To suggest that an acceptable solution to a federal agency's management shortcomings is commercial slaughter is an irresponsible approach to our public lands and the wildlife that roam them," says Rep. Nick Rahall...

Lost Apes of the Congo
Stephan Fairs, Time Magazine, feature — January 2005
If there's one thing all the scientists can agree on, it's that if this part of Congo goes the way of other African wild lands, the great apes could soon disappear...

Fishing Gear A Death Trap for Sea Turtles
Dr. Robert Ovetz, Sea Turtle Restoration Project, feature — January 2005
Not only has the fishery exceeded its legal take limit but it killed every turtle it caught. This is further evidence that this incredibly destructive fishery is a continuing threat to endangered ocean wildlife...

Return of Wolves Changes Ecosystem
Jeff Barnard, Associated Press, feature — December 2004
Scientists studying the broader effects of wolf reintroduction said a growing body of evidence suggests that killing off predators such as wolves and grizzly bears in the last century started a cascade of effects that threw ecosystems out of balance...

Deep-sea Trawling's "Great Harm"
Richard Black, BBC News, investigation — October 2004
The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition says the technique of dragging heavy nets across the seafloor is doing immense harm to fragile ecosystems.... It has been likened to fishing with a bulldozer...

Sea Turtle Project Update
Visakha SPCA, investigaton — September 2004
Our aims: To bring awareness and education to the coast of Andhra Pradesh up to Orissa of the Olive Ridley sea turtle's plight. To bring an end to the inability of the females being able to nest properly. To guard beach areas so that the eggs are able to hatch undisturbed...

Call of the Not-So-Wild
Tom Masland, Newsweek International, feature — September 2004
Though well into her golden years at 26, she remains an adored local celebrity — so mild-tempered that tourists can walk up and pet her. To her owners, an American executive and a South African wildlife dealer, she’s worth more dead than alive. Early this year a professional guide offered $60,000 to buy the rhino for a “hunt”...

An Interview with NRDC Grizzly Expert Louisa Willcox
Natural Resource Defense Council, feature — Fall 2004
They're so smart that they never forget where they got a taste of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Often, when they return to the same spot again and again in search of food, they're eventually killed...

Immunocontraception
Priscilla Cohn, Humane USA, investigation  2004
Immunocontraceptives in general, and PZP in particular, seems to be desirable if it is used as an alternative to culling or hunting to control wildlife populations, or if it is used to limit the reproduction of zoo animals so that so-called "surplus" animal are not born...

Wild Neighbors:
Humans, Animals in Increasingly Close Encounters in Suburbs, Even Urban Areas

Dean Schabner, ABC News, report — January 2004
And while the suburban coyote population may not match the hundreds of thousands of whitetail deer that now live in suburban and urban areas, their comeback has been dramatic...

Cutting the Longline to Extinction:
New Sea Turtle Campaign Takes Aim at Industrial Longline Fishing and Mercury Poisoned Seafood

Dr. Robert Ovetz, Sea Turtle Restoration Project, investigation — 2003
Longline fishing in the Pacific kills tens of thousands of sea turtles annually to serve up swordfish, shark and tuna poisoned with high levels of methyl mercury for lucrative seafood markets in Japan, the US and Europe...

Animal Trafficking: A Cruel Billion Dollar Business
Francesca Colombo, Common Dreams, investigation — November 2003
Although legal trade in wildlife is regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an estimated one-third of the global sales of 25 billion dollars a year is illegal — an illicit business surpassed only by arms and drugs trafficking...

Scapegoating the Aliens
Andrew Tyler, Animal Aid, feature — February 2001
A whole range of indigenous species are under threat as a result of the burdens placed upon them by human population growth and by modern manufacturing and waste disposal regimes. Yet certain 'experts' insist on displacing the responsibility and pretending that ecological harmony can be restored through the barrel of a gun or through the use of body-crushing traps, snares and poisons...

Reptiles as Pets:
An Examination of the Trade in Live Reptiles in the United States

Joseph Franke, Teresa Telecky, HSUS, investigaton
Most reptiles that are kept as pets were captured in the wild or were born from wild-caught parents held in so-called ranches or farms. More than 18.3 million live reptiles were imported to the United States from 89-97, in 97 alone more than 1.7 million reptiles were imported to the United States...

The Texas Massacre:
Horse Slaughter in America

Laura Moretti, Animals Voice, feature
There has been no rest for the incredibly, terribly weary. They arrive utterly exhausted, frantically falling over themselves as they dangerously slip on the feces- and urine-slicked floors of the two-tier cattle truck that has brought them here...

Tender Moments
Charlotte Edwards, essay
My friend was on her feet now, with one unbelieving hand against her mouth. As the swans surrounded the frozen goose, she feared what life he still had might be pecked out by those great swan bills...

Mestengo. Mustang. Misfit.
America's Disappearing Wild Horses

Animals Voice, feature — 2001
It is believed that the horse is the only domesticated animal capable of reverting to a wild state after escaping human bondage... Senator McClure, believing the horse to be a useless free-loader on public lands, set out to help get rid of them...

Killer in the Night
Maya Khankhoje, poem
i tried to align / the tip of my gun / with the tip of your nose / as it is done in the movies / and pull the damn trigger / which refused to budge / i had to kill you but could not...

The Kangaroo Crisis
Animals Voice, feature — 2001
Each year, Australian "roo shooters" are given the government's blessing to kill several million kangaroos — the very mammals pictured as the country's national emblem and emblazoned on the tail of every Qantas jet...

The Visitor
Laura Moretti, essay
The new house I bought several years ago came complete with a barren dirt floor for a backyard. Nothing lived there. Nothing could. The ground was hard as rock. So I decided to do something about its forlornness, by opting to give back to the Earth what the house’s construction had taken...

 

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