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by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — When an endangered female North Atlantic right whale spends months, even years, disentangling itself from cast-off fishing nets, there’s not much energy left over for mating and nursing calves. Coping with such debris, along with ship collisions and other forms of human encroachment, have severely stymied recovery of the majestic sea mammals long after explosive harpoons and factory ships nearly wiped them out, according to a […]
BARDIA, Nepal (AFP) — Thousands of camera traps help conservationists track Nepal’s wild tiger population, which has nearly doubled in recent years as the big cats claw back from the verge of extinction. On the front-line of the painstaking survey are trained locals in western Nepal’s Bardia National Park where tiger numbers have grown nearly five-fold.
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The last polar bear kept in South Korea has died of old age only weeks before his planned departure to better living conditions in Britain, zoo officials said Thursday. Tongki — a 23-year-old male named after a Japanese cartoon character of the 1980s — lived in a 330-square-metre (3,500-square-foot) concrete enclosure at the Everland theme park outside Seoul. The zoo had planned to move him to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park […]
MEXICO CITY (AFP) — The near-extinct vaquita marina, the world’s smallest porpoise, has not yet disappeared from its habitat off the coast of Mexico, a research team said Wednesday after spotting six of them. The vaquita has been nearly wiped out by illegal fishing in its native habitat, the Gulf of California, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned in May that it could go extinct this year. But “all hope is not lost” for […]
KUNMING, Yunnan, China (AFP) — Three playful white Bengal tiger cubs are charming visitors as they clamber around their enclosure at a zoo in China. The rare, blue-eyed triplets were born nearly three months ago at the Yunnan Wildlife Zoo in Kunming, and made their public debut in early October. “The oldest one — the largest — is very naughty and has a real appetite. He’s the naughtiest. The youngest is like a baby, she’s […]
GOLD COAST, Australia (AFP) — A humpback whale calf is rescued after getting entangled in a shark net off the Gold Coast for some two hours. https://youtu.be/ov_f_3Ta6kc
by Hazel WARD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The bonnethead shark, a small member of the hammerhead family, was long thought to be a strict carnivore that would occasionally ingest greens purely by accident. Not so, scientists said Wednesday. The bonnethead follows an omnivorous diet in which seagrass plays a key, nutritional role. Although researchers have long known that Sphyrna tiburo eats copious quantities of seagrass, it was not believed to absorb any nutrients from […]
BEIJING, China (AFP)–More than 38,000 pigs have been culled across China, state media said Sunday, as the world’s largest pork producer scrambles to contain an outbreak of African swine fever. The disease has been discovered in five Chinese provinces, the official Xinhua news service reported, quoting statistics from the country’s ministry of agriculture. China reported its first case of the disease in August in northeast Liaoning province. Since then the disease has moved south, with […]
by Sandra Ferrer BREST, France (AFP) — The sight of a basking shark’s brooding silhouette gliding through the waters off western France is more than just a rare treat for sailors — it is a boon for scientists trying to trace its secretive migrations across the globe. It may be the world’s second largest fish, growing to more than 10 metres (35 feet), but the basking shark, or Cetorhinus maximus, is an enigma for scientists […]
OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Puppies discovered on an uninhabited island in the Canadian wilds are looking for a new home. The litter — four males and three females — has been dubbed the “Gilligan’s Island crew” after the 1960s American television sitcom about castaways on an uncharted tropical island. Two boaters recently heard their cries in the night, Deb Vandekerkhove, director of the rescue, told AFP. “The fellas could see some dark figures on the […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — A whale has died in southern Thailand after swallowing more than 80 plastic bags, officials said, ending an attempted rescue that failed to nurse the mammal back to health. Thailand is one of the world’s largest consumers of plastic bags, which kill hundreds of marine creatures living near the country’s popular beaches each year. The small male pilot whale became the latest victim after it was found barely alive in a […]
NYMFAIO, Greece (AFP) — Orphaned as an infant, three-year-old Patrick takes a wary view of visitors. He crouches low, licks his claws and starts humming — a bear’s equivalent of thumb-sucking. “It soothes him when he’s stressed,” says Melina Avgerinou, a caretaker at the Arcturos bear sanctuary in northern Greece. Patrick’s tale is typical of many bears that have found refuge in the Arcturos sanctuary at Nymfaio on the slopes of Mount Vitsi, some 600 kilometres […]
