A pilot whale (Globicephala sp.) surfaces along the Atlantic coast. Pilot whales are prone to mass strandings because they form close-knit pods that won’t leave a sick whale behind. (Credit: Barney Moss)
25 Whales Found Dead Near Florida’s Marco Island
(The Associated Press via Herald-Tribune)
Wildlife officials say the death toll is mounting for pilot whales along the southwest Florida coastline. On Thursday, 25 dead whales were spotted near Kice Island south of Naples, near Marco Island. The News-Press of Fort Myers reports at least 33 pilot whales have been found dead in the area since Sunday. Boaters spotted the whales on Thursday and alerted the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. More
NEWS FROM NORTH AMERICA
Bee Deaths May Stem from Virus, Study Says
(The New York Times)
The mysterious mass die-offs of honeybees that have wiped out roughly a third of commercial colonies each year since 2006 may be linked to a rapidly mutating virus that jumped from tobacco plants to soy plants to bees, according to a new study. The research, reported in the online version of the academic journal mBio, found that the increase in honeybee deaths that generally starts in autumn and peaks in winter was correlated with increasing infections by a variant of the tobacco ringspot virus. More
Endangered Sage Grouse Target of Calgary Zoo Breeding Program
(Calgary Herald)
The greater sage grouse — a critically endangered bird whose population is on the verge of extinction on the Prairies — is part of a new breeding program at the Calgary Zoo. Both Ottawa and the Alberta government are donating a combined $4.2 million to support a 10-year conservation project aimed at rebuilding the iconic bird’s dwindling numbers, which have plunged by 98 percent since 1988. More
Climate Change: 2013 Ranked 4th Warmest Year
(CBC News)
Last year was one of the warmest ever recorded on Earth since scientists began keeping global average temperature stats 134 years ago, climate experts from two U.S. agencies revealed. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranked 2013 as being the fourth-warmest year ever, tied with 2003. NASA, which conducted its own report and processed the data sets differently, declared 2013 to be the seventh warmest year since 1880. More
Third Endangered Florida Panther Death of 2014 Reported
(CBS Miami/The Associated Press)
A young panther was found dead, apparently struck and killed by a vehicle, in a rural Florida county. The one-and-a-half-year-old male endangered panther was found dead Wednesday, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. This is the third panther death of the year, and the second panther death involving a vehicle. A necropsy is planned at FWC’s laboratory in Gainesville, Fla. More
National Park Service, Montana Professor, Others Look to Protect Migrating Wildlife
(Missoulian)
The National Park Service and the country’s leading wildlife experts are developing a plan to conserve migrating wildlife as it moves through protected areas, sometimes crossing vast regions of the globe to reach birthing and feeding grounds. Unveiled in a paper published last week in Conservation Biology, the plan details the need for more collaboration between the NPS, local governments and public landowners. More
Northern Mystery: Why Are Birds of the Arctic in Decline?
(Yale Environment 360)
On Coats Island, in northern Hudson Bay, thick-billed murres — members of the auk family — have been under assault on several fronts in recent years. Polar bears, faced with a sharp decline in the sea ice from which they hunt ringed seals, have retreated to the island and are eating the murres’ eggs. As the sea ice disappears, the murres now have to fly farther and work harder to get food that they normally find along the ice edges. More
WILDLIFE HEALTH AND DISEASE NEWS
Bat-Killing Fungus Lurks in the Kansas City Area
(The Kansas City Star)
A deadly fungus that has wiped out hibernating bats by the millions in its eight-year march west from a New York cave has crept into the Kansas City area. The discovery of “white-nose syndrome” in three tri-colored (or Eastern pipistrelle) bats in a limestone mine marks the nation’s westernmost spread, federal officials said. Afflicted mammals were found last winter in east-central Missouri; before that it was seen in the cave colonies of Pike County near the Mississippi River. More
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Brazil Dolphin is First New River Species Since 1918
(BBC News)
Scientists in Brazil have discovered the first new river dolphin species since the end of World War I. Named after the Araguaia river where it was found, the species is only the fifth known of its kind in the world. Writing in the journal Plos One, the researchers say it separated from other South American river species more than two million years ago. There are believed to be about 1,000 of the creatures living in the Araguaia river basin. More
Sharks and Rays in Danger
(The Scientist)
In the first global analysis of its kind, an international team of researchers found that of the 1,041 species of cartilaginous fishes (chondrichthyans) investigated, 25 species are critically endangered, 43 are endangered, 113 are vulnerable, and 132 species are “near threatened.” That’s a total of 30 percent of the species analyzed; for 487 of the remaining species, there was insufficient data to classify the threat. More
Botswana: Hunting Ban Takes Effect
(All Africa)
The Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism’s ban on wildlife hunting in Botswana commenced at the beginning of the year, says ministry spokesperson Caroline Bogale-Jaiyoba. Bogale-Jaiyeoba said the ban was on all controlled hunting areas or hunting management units throughout the country. Hunting of allocated quotas had been taking place in many of these designated areas, but no quotas would be issued in the areas anymore, she said. More
Indonesia Makes Arrest in Case of Smuggling Protected Wildlife
(Big News Network)
Indonesian officials say they arrested an international wildlife trader who specialized in smuggling baby primates, Komodo dragons and other protected wildlife. The arrest was made in Bali by forest rangers from the Ministry of Forestry who confiscated four endangered Javan gibbons, four baby siamangs — a type of gibbon — and two palm cockatoos, officials said. The alleged trader is connected to illegal wildlife trafficking rings in Russia, Singapore, Thailand, and Cyprus. More
