Labels: animal rights, environment, veganism

As CNN's Anderson Cooper reports, it's gotten so bad for many of the remaining gorillas that conservationists genuinely fear the entire species might become extinct. They live in east Africa, in a forest that straddles Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a family of gorillas was massacred last summer.

So last month 60 Minutes went to Congo, a desperately poor country, to see why those gorillas were slaughtered, why the surviving gorillas are in jeopardy, and what can be done to save them.

Labels: endangered species, environment, habitat encroachment, primates, wildlife

Provides Federal leadership and expertise to resolve wildlife conflicts and create a balance that allows people and wildlife to coexist peacefully.

Labels: animal agriculture, environment, habitat encroachment, livestock predation, primates, USDA, wildlife, Wildlife Services

"The damage is so huge it can hardly be evaluated. It can be compared to an ecological catastrophe," Interfax news agency quoted Alexander Tkachyov, governor of Russia's Black Sea region of Krasnodar, as saying.

"Thirty thousand birds have died, and it's just impossible to count the loss of fish," he told regional officials.

Labels: environment, wildlife

The lawsuit said the timber sale violated federal law by distorting science that shows spotted owls still use forests after they burn and by keeping the public out of the decision making.

The lawsuit also said the project would violate the Northwest Forest Plan by logging in an old growth forest reserve primarily to make money from the trees, and not to improve the forest.

Labels: animal agriculture, animal rights, animal welfare, endangered species, environment, fish, habitat encroachment, health, humane meat, omega-3

According to the Endangered Species and Wetlands Report, a high-level Bush administration appointee has resigned in the aftermath of a devastating Inspector General investigation, just days before a House congressional oversight committee will hold a public hearing on her violations of the Endangered Species Act, censorship of science, and brutalizing of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff.

Julie MacDonald tendered her resignation on April 30, 2007. She was the Department of Interior's Assistant Secretary of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, a position that oversees the entire U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species program. As revealed in numerous media exposés and a recent Department of Interior Inspector General investigation, MacDonald used her position to aggressively squelch protection of endangered species. She rewrote scientific reports, browbeat U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees, and colluded with industry lawyers to generate lawsuits against the Fish and Wildlife Service.

MacDonald's specialty was blocking agency efforts to place imperiled species on the endangered species list, stripping tens of millions of acres from agency proposals to designated "critical habitat" areas and working with industry groups to remove species from the endangered list and thus from federal protection.

MacDonald's recently hired counterpart, Todd Willens, is equally dedicated to undermining endangered species conservation. Willens spearheaded Richard Pombo's (R-CA) anti-endangered species agenda as lead staffer of the House Resources Committee, then was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks on October 19, 2006. He has since been directly involved in developing sweeping anti-endangered species regulations and efforts to remove the Florida manatee and West Virginia northern flying squirrel from the endangered species list.

Labels: endangered species, environment, wildlife

In terms of its impact on both ecology and animal welfare, shark fishing could be the planet’s most brutal industry. While some sharks are taken whole, around 70 million are caught every year for their fins. In many cases the fins are cut off and the shark is dumped, alive, back into the sea. It can take several weeks to die.

If these animals lived on land there would be a global outcry. But the great beasts roaming the savannahs of the open seas summon no such support. Big sharks, giant tuna, marlin and swordfish should have the conservation status of the giant panda or the snow leopard. Yet still we believe it is acceptable for fishmongers to sell them and celebrity chefs to teach us how to cook them.

Why do we find it so hard to stand up to fishermen? This tiny industrial lobby seems to have governments in the palm of its hand. Every year, the European Union sets catch limits for all species way above the levels its scientists recommend. Governments know that they are allowing the fishing industry to destroy itself and to destroy the ecosystem on which it depends. But nothing is sacred, as long as it is underwater. In November the United Nations failed even to produce a resolution urging a halt to trawling on the sea mounts at the bottom of the ocean. These ecosystems, which are only just beginning to be explored, harbour great forests of deepwater corals and sponges, in which thousands of unearthly species hide. But we can’t summon the will to stop the handful of boats that are ripping them to shreds.

A study in this week’s edition of Science reveals the disastrous collapse of the ocean’s megafauna. The great sharks are now wobbling on the edge of extinction. Since 1972 the number of blacktip sharks has fallen by 93%, tiger sharks by 97% and bull sharks, dusky sharks and smooth hammerheads by 99%. Just about every population of major predators is now in freefall. Another paper, published in Nature four years ago, shows that over 90% of large predatory fishes throughout the global oceans have gone.

Off the coast of Namibia, where the fishery has crashed as a result of over-harvesting, we have a glimpse of the future. A paper in Current Biology reports that the ecosystem is approaching a “trophic dead-end”. As the fish have been mopped up they have been replaced by jellyfish, which now outweigh them by three to one. The jellyfish eat the eggs and larvae of the fish, so the switch is probably irreversible. We have entered, the paper tells us, the “era of jellyfish ascendancy”.

It’s a good symbol. The jellyfish represents the collapse of the ecosystem and the spinelessness of the people charged with protecting it.

Labels: environment, fish, overfishing, wildlife

Labels: environment, vegan food

Sixteen buffalo, relocated from the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana, were released Saturday morning in an enclosed 1,400-acre section of the former Rocky Mountain Arsenal, near where nerve gas and other chemical weapons were once manufactured.

Later in the day, residents of Lakewood, a suburb west of Denver, literally had that opportunity. A pet buffalo escaped. Police had it corralled for awhile but it escaped and it had to be put down, said Lakewood police animal control officer Michael Brogran. He said the young animal had done minor damage to a couple of cars but no one was hurt.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall, contacted in Washington, D.C., said the new policy would allow them to focus on protecting species in areas where they are in trouble, rather than having to list a species over its entire range.

Kieran Suckling, policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, said the new policy was a sophisticated effort by the Bush administration to gut the Endangered species Act by ignoring the loss of species from their historical range, making it easier to deny endangered species listings.

If upheld by the courts, Suckling estimated the new policy would remove 80 percent of the roughly 1,300 species from threatened and endangered lists — because most species have at least one stronghold where they are doing well.

"It's just so clearly illogical and anti-wildlife that I can't wait to get this before a federal judge," Suckling said. "They are rewarding industry for driving populations extinct. Because as soon as you drive a population extinct (in a certain area) it is no longer on the table. It no longer counts toward whether a species is endangered."

The Tasmanian Devil, a rare carnivorous marsupial found only on Australia's southern island state of Tasmania, faces extinction in 10 to 20 years without a cure for the facial cancer now decimating the population.

With half the population of this fierce, black furry animal now wiped out, leaving less than 75,000 devils, Professor Hamish McCallum at the University of Tasmania is battling to establish offshore colonies of healthy devils.

Labels: endangered species, environment, wildlife

Without urgent action, 98 percent of remaining forests on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo could be gone by 2022, with serious consequences for local people and wildlife including rhinos, tigers and elephants, the U.N. report said

He said illegal logging was ravaging 37 of his country's 41 national parks, and now accounted for more than 73 percent of all logging in Indonesia.

"It is not being done by individual impoverished people, but by well-organized elusive commercial networks," said Achim Steiner, head of the UNEP.

The U.N. report, which was compiled using new satellite images and Indonesian government data, said orangutan habitat was being lost 30 percent quicker than was previously feared.

It was estimated in 2002 that there were about 60,000 of the shaggy ginger primates left in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra. Some ecologists say the number has now been halved and others say the species could be extinct in 20 years.

Labels: environment, orangutans, primates, wildlife

In Idaho, the governor is ready to have hunters reduce the wolf population in the state from 650 to 100, the minimum that will keep the animal off the endangered species list. “I’m prepared to bid for that first ticket to shoot a wolf myself,” Gov. C. L. Otter said, according to The Associated Press.

Labels: endangered species, environment, wildlife, wolves

In January, fishermen found the dead body of a juvenile female in fixed fishing nets in Yoshihama Bay, northeastern Japan. It was the fourth such whale to be found trapped, entangled and drowned off the Pacific coast since 2005; all of them have been female.

Toshio Kasuya, a retired researcher in Tokyo who specialized in marine mammals, says the government should take more initiative. They should call for a greater effort to get whales out of traps alive, he says, and develop technologies to prevent whales from getting trapped in the first place. Kasuya says nets that produce warning beeps may be one way of doing this.

"So far, we don't have technologies that could work effectively," Kasuya says. "And the government's efforts are far from enough."

Labels: endangered species, environment, whales, wildlife

If constructed, the mine would destroy this unspoiled wilderness by degrading water quality, killing migratory trout species and jeopardizing threatened grizzly bear populations.

The Flathead Valley is a key migratory corridor for Rocky Mountain wildlife. This region supports the highest density of grizzly bears in the Rockies and is therefore crucial to ensuring the long-term recovery of the grizzly bear in the lower 48 states. The Flathead also lies at a geographic crossroads, creating a rich diversity of plant species from the Canadian Arctic and boreal region, the prairies, the Pacific and the U.S. Rockies.

Labels: endangered species, environment, wildlife

While I welcomed the opportunity to respond to the Heifer International publicist's comments at this blog, it is disappointingly clear that Seventh Generation is committed to their ongoing partnership with Heifer International (note the link under "Inspiring Actions" in the sidebar), and that any official Inspired Protagonist posts will continue to promote and support that organization rather than carefully examining how a socially and environmentally responsible corporation can help people and the environment without using animals as a means to an end.

It is also clear that I will need to stop buying Seventh Generation products until such time as I can be reassured that the company is no longer actively supporting and promoting the slave-like treatment of animals as commodities instead of the sentient beings that they are.

Labels: animal agriculture, animal ethics, environment, hunger relief

Locally, the Yangtze River is in serious trouble; the canary in the coal mine is dead. In addition to baiji, the Yangtze paddlefish is (was) probably the largest freshwater fish in the world (at least 21 feet), and it hasn’t been seen since 2003; the huge Yangtze sturgeon breeds only in tanks now because it has no natural habitat (a very large dam stands between it and its breeding grounds). The whole river ecosystem is going down the tubes in the name of rampant economic development. There is a huge environmental debt accruing on the Yangtze, and baiji was perhaps just the first installment.

...Nobody eats baiji and no tourists pay to see it — there were no reasons to take it deliberately, but there was no economic reason to save it, either. It is gone because too many people got too efficient at catching fish in the river and it was incidental bycatch. And it is perhaps a view of the future for much of the rest of the world and an indication that the predicted mass extinction is arriving on schedule.

For the Chinese, I think that losing a half-blind river dolphin and a couple of oversize fish was a fair trade for all the money that is being made there now. China is an economic model envied by most of the rest of the world, and I think that many other (especially third world) countries will be confronted with similar decisions of economic development versus conservation of habitats and animals, and the response will be the same. From now on we will have to choose which animals will be allowed to live on the planet with us, and baiji got cut in the first round. It is a sad day. I know it is their country, but the planet belongs to all of us.

Labels: endangered species, environment, wildlife

Labels: animal agriculture, animal rights, environment, hunger relief

• Gases from manure and flatulence, deforestation to make grazing land and the energy used in farming meant livestock produced 18 percent of the greenhouse gases that trapped heat in the atmosphere


• Livestock produced 9 percent of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2)


• Livestock produced 35-40 percent of methane emissions


• Livestock produced 65 percent of nitrous oxide, which has almost 300 times the global warming potential of CO2


• About 70 percent of Amazonian forests have been turned into grazing land

agriculture needed to develop ways of reducing its emissions, including recycling manure into "biogas" fuel, adapting animals' diets and improving land use policies.

Labels: environment, factory farming

Willie Smits, founder of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, said if intentional burning of forest was not prevented, Indonesia would face a terrible haze season next year.

"If we are looking at an El Nino which has a cooling in the Indian Ocean and a warming up in the Pacific Ocean, these are exactly the conditions that occurred in 1982-83 and 1997-98. Those were the two worst El Nino disasters. Next year we could look at a new world record," he said.

"Having a rainy season is not going to solve it. We could look at new problems as early as April next year," he said. "If these orangutans are to survive, we better deal with the fire situation in the coming years."

The annual fires are often deliberately lit by timber and palm oil plantation firms or farmers in Borneo and Indonesia's Sumatra island to clear land for cultivation, many of them in the same forests where the orangutans live.

Labels: emergency rescue, environment, orangutans, wildlife

In 2002, it was estimated there were 56,000 orangutans in the wild but the population has dwindled at a rate of 6,000 a year, conservationists say. Ed Wray / APA rescued orangutan peers out of a temporary holding cage Monday in Mantangai, Indonesia.

Nearly 90 percent of their habitat has been destroyed by illegal logging and slash-and-burn farming practices. If the rate of deforestation continues, orangutans will disappear from the wild in around a decade, experts say.

Most of the annual dry season fires are deliberately lit by farmers or at the behest of timber and oil palm plantation companies.

• Day 1: 50 Hours to Indonesia


• Day 2: Fire in Every Direction


• Day 3: A Heartwrenching Scene


• Day 4: Releasing Pet Orangutans From Bondage


• Day 4: Dramatic Tree Rescue

Labels: emergency rescue, endangered species, environment, orangutans, wildlife

To whom it may concern:

I was just about to buy an airline ticket at Expedia to fly from Los Angeles to Portland, and was excited that I could add a TerraPass option to help offset the carbon impact of my travel. I was sold on buying my ticket through Expedia because of this one defining feature, as I consider myself strongly pro-environment.

However, upon looking at what companies would be supported by this purchase, I was crestfallen. I had to forgo the TerraPass because I'm vegan (in large part for environmental reasons), and so are the 16 other people I'm meeting up in Portland for the weekend. To clarify, as a person who abstains from supporting the use of all animal products, I can't possibly support a dairy farm with my purchase.

Thoughtful people who care deeply about our environment generally stop consuming products that are a big part of the problem when there are superior alternatives available. Though there may not be realistic alternatives to air travel in this day and age, no one needs cow's milk, which is meant for calves, not people.

I implore you to find more humane alternatives for reducing the carbon footprint of compassionate travelers, and to read this recent E! Magazine story to see why capturing methane from dairy cows doesn't begin to solve a fundamental environmental problem -- http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/40639/.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Sincerely,

Eric Prescott

Labels: dairy, environment, methane, travel

A federal court has issued a preliminary injunction barring Wisconsin from killing gray wolves, siding with animal welfare and environmental groups that argue the killing violates the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had issued a permit to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for the killing of up to 43 gray wolves. The state argued the permit was necessary to maintain social tolerance for the wolves, which are listed as endangered.

But in a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly mocked that rationale.

''Simply put,'' she wrote in her decision, ''the recovery of the gray wolf is not supported by killing 43 gray wolves.''

Labels: endangered species, environment, hunting, livestock predation, wildlife, wolves

Labels: endangered species, environment, global warming, wildlife

“Chances are, our whole marine ecosystem facing the Lebanese shoreline is already dead,” [environment minister, Yaacoub] Sarraf said. “What is at stake today is all marine life in the eastern Mediterranean.”

[snip]

Optimistic assessments suggest it will take at least six months for the shore cleanup and up to 10 years for “the reestablishment of the ecosystem of the eastern Mediterranean as it was two weeks ago,” he said.

Labels: environment, wildlife

Labels: environment, wildlife

The whales' feeding ground lies directly above huge reserves of gas and oil, which some of the biggest companies in the world are determined to exploit.

This small stretch of water off Sakhalin island, in the far east of Russia, has become the battleground for a struggle between environmentalists determined to save these whales from extinction and oilmen equally determined to push ahead with what one of them calls "the mother of all projects".

In the mid-1800s, the Sea of Okhotsk was the region of choice for the whaling fleets of Japan, Korea and the United States. Intensive whaling had its inevitable effect - numbers dropped off steadily towards the end of the century, and by beginning of the First World War, the whale was thought to be extinct.

Scientists have observed apparent behavioural changes in the whales in relation to the operation of seismic survey ships working up to 30km away. They also reported 14 "skinny" whales in 2005, a considerably larger number than in any year since 2001. The cause of their emaciation is unknown, and it cannot be scientifically linked to the oil projects, but the environmentalists are deeply concerned.

He refuses to say whether the loan will go ahead, but it is probable, given the EBRD's views on the value of its involvement. "It's a bad thing for the environment and people if public institutions don't have involvement, because we bring transparency to the process," Clark says.

Labels: endangered species, environment, whales, wildlife

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - In the 1970s, there used to be about 1,300 beluga whales in Cook Inlet, delighting locals and tourists alike in the body of water around Anchorage. Last year, the number was estimated at just 278.

Why their numbers are dwindling has scientists puzzled — and scared. The National Marine Fisheries Service is embarking on a status review to determine if the belugas need the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act.

[snip]

One cataclysmic event — a large stranding in the inlet’s 20-foot tides, perhaps, or an oil spill or tsunami — could push the remaining whale population over the edge, said [Lloyd Lowry, a professor of marine mammals with the University of Alaska Fairbanks].

“Having a small population for a long time is very risky,” he said. “If the decline continues we are going to get to very critically low numbers soon.”

In contrast to the isolated belugas whales of Cook Inlet, belugas overall are thriving in Alaska, with at least 35,000 to 40,000 animals in four Arctic stocks.

[Brad Smith, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service] said the status review will be expanded this time. It will include a prediction at what point the inlet whales — considered a genetically distinct population — could go extinct. The last review was done about a decade ago and the data shows the decline.

“It certainly does not look encouraging,” Smith said.

Labels: endangered species, environment, whales, wildlife

OSLO - Polar bears and walrus could be wiped out in Greenland because of excess hunts and a thawing of Arctic habitats spurred by global warming, the WWF conservation group said on Thursday.

Labels: environment, wildlife

LIMA, Peru - Peruvian officials saved some 4,000 endangered frogs from being whizzed into popular drinks after they were found hidden in an abattoir.

'We were checking the fridges when out jumped a frog. It had escaped, they were in big crates,' a spokesman for Lima city hall said on Thursday.

Frog cocktails are popular in the Andes because of their supposed aphrodisiac qualities. Shops in central Lima selling the drinks have tanks where customers can choose their frogs.

He said the Telmatobius frogs -- which had apparently been brought from the southern lakes in the high Andes -- were found on Wednesday stored in the abattoir.

They were taken to a colonial fountain in central Lima to splash around before being returned to their native lakes by ecological police.

'There were about 5,000 of them but 1,000 died because of the conditions and in transit,' the spokesman said.

Labels: environment, wildlife

AHMEDABAD, India - The number of Asiatic lions in India's Gir forest, the animal's only natural habitat, has risen to 359 from 327 four years ago after a crackdown on poaching, a new government census showed.

Labels: environment, wildlife

WASHINGTON -- April 28 -- Carter Roberts, president and CEO-elect of World Wildlife Fund, issued the following statement following reports that the ivory-billed woodpecker has been found in Arkansas, 60 years after it was believed to have gone extinct:

"Nature gives very few second chances, but this may be one of them. Just imagine: North America's largest woodpecker -- a bird with a three-foot wingspan -- hiding in the Arkansas woods for 60 years without being seen by people.

"It's no accident that the ivory-billed woodpecker has been reported in Arkansas's Big Woods. The Nature Conservancy, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and local communities have worked tirelessly for years to keep these magnificent landscapes intact. Without this place, the ivory-billed woodpecker would have had nowhere to go.

Labels: environment, wildlife

OSLO - Norwegian fishermen harpooned 25 whales in the first week of the country's much condemned whaling season that this year allows the biggest hunting quota for more than 10 years, a whalers' spokesman said on Monday.

Norway is the only nation to permit commercial whaling after breaking with a 1986 International Whaling Commission moratorium in 1993. Environmental groups condemn the increasing quotas and shrinking monitoring of whalers.
"Norway should be condemned for sanctioning the cruelty that whaling represents," said Kitty Block, a spokeswoman for Whalewatch, which says it represents 140 anti-whaling groups in 55 nations.

She added Norway's whalers were under less surveillance this season because many were no longer obliged to have a government inspector aboard. Instead, they have an electronic "blue box" meant to monitor activities on ship.

Critics say the "blue box" is unable to record how long it takes from the moment the harpoon hits to the moment of death, but the Norwegian government maintains almost all whales die instantly when struck by a harpoon tipped with a grenade.

Labels: environment, wildlife

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Once on the verge of extinction, black rhinos in South Africa's national parks have made a spectacular comeback. Under the country's aggressive conservation programs, the mammal's population has grown by more than 50 percent in the past decade. But that success has brought a new challenge: how to control a population in limited conservation space.

Now South Africa is weighing a controversial measure that would allow hunters to kill five old male black rhinos a year, which could raise $200,000 per kill. Allowing hunting, some experts say, has helped resurrect the white rhino population, which now stands at 11,000 worldwide, from a low of 200 at the turn of the 20th century.

Labels: environment, wildlife

Fast-Disappearing 'Heart of Borneo' is Likely Home to Thousands of Species Still Undiscovered; Urgent Action Needed to Protect Island Where 361 Species Were Recently Discovered

WASHINGTON -- In the past decade, at least 361 new species have been discovered on Borneo, one of the most important centers of biodiversity in the world. And a new report by World Wildlife Fund finds that there are likely to be thousands of plant and animal species left to discover on the world's third-largest island.

Released today, "Borneo's Lost World: Newly Discovered Species on Borneo" shows at least 361 new species have been identified and described on the Asian island between 1994 and 2004: 260 insects, 50 plants, 30 freshwater fish, 7 frogs, 6 lizards, 5 crabs, 2 snakes and a toad.

The report suggests that thousands more have not yet been studied, particularly in the island's 54 million-acre inner region, which is relatively inaccessible and home to some of the most pristine forests left on the island. Borneo is split between the countries of Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

Much of the island's wildlife species -- even the largest mammals -- have yet to be closely studied by scientists. WWF and other scientists just discovered in 2003 that Borneo's pygmy elephants are genetically distinct from other Asian elephants and are likely a new subspecies. And it wasn't until 2000 that scientists found that Borneo's orangutan population is a separate species from other orangutans.

Large areas of Borneo's forest are being rapidly cleared and replaced with tree plantations for rubber, palm oil and timber production. According to the report, the illegal trade in exotic animals is also on the rise, as logging trails and cleared forest open access to more remote areas.

"U.S. and international consumer demand for wood, rubber and palm oil, used in lots of food and cosmetics, fuels much of the destruction of the Borneo jungle," said Tom Dillon, director of species conservation at WWF. "All of these useful products can be sustainably produced, and consumers and companies need to tell companies they don't want products created at the expense of wildlife in some of the last pristine rain forests left on Earth."

An ambitious initiative is under way to conserve the "Heart of Borneo." WWF is working to assist Borneo's three nations to conserve the area known as the "Heart of Borneo" -- a total of 137,000 square miles of equatorial rain forest -- through a network of protected areas and sustainably managed forest and through international cooperation led by the governments of Borneo and supported by a global effort.

"Borneo is undoubtedly one of the most important centers of biodiversity in the world," Dillon said. "Losing the heart of Borneo would be an unacceptable tragedy not only for Borneo and its people, but also for the world. It is really now or never."

Borneo is one of only two places -- the other being Indonesia's Sumatra island -- where endangered orangutans, elephants and rhinos co-exist. Other threatened wildlife in Borneo includes clouded leopards, sun bears and Bornean gibbons, the latter found nowhere else in the world. The island is also home to 10 primate species, more than 350 bird species, 150 reptiles and amphibians and 15,000 plants.

The protection of the heart of Borneo would not only benefit wildlife. It would also help alleviate poverty by increasing water and food security and cultural survival for the people of Borneo. In the long term, it will save the island from the ultimate threat of deforestation and increased impacts from droughts and fires.

Known in the United States as World Wildlife Fund and recognized worldwide by its panda logo, WWF leads international efforts to protect endangered species and their habitats and to conserve the diversity of life on Earth. Now in its fifth decade, WWF, the global conservation organization, works in more than 100 countries around the world. For more information on World Wildlife Fund, visit World Wildlife Fund.

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Labels: environment, wildlife

GENEVA - India's commitment to protecting endangered species such as the tiger appeared to be weakening as organised crime networks poach populations near to extinction, wildlife protection group CITES said on Tuesday.

TOKYO - Japan is set to expand its annual whale hunt to take two new species as well as nearly doubling its planned catch of minke whales, media reports said on Tuesday, a move virtually certain to spark global fury if true.

Under a new plan for what Tokyo calls its research whaling programme, Japan would take humpback whales and fin whales in addition to the four whale species it currently hunts, sources close to the situation were quoted as telling Kyodo news agency.

Japan, where whale meat is regarded as a delicacy, abandoned commercial whaling in 1986 in line with an international ban, but began a programme to hunt whales in what it calls scientific research whaling the following year. The meat ends up on store shelves and on the tables of gourmet restaurants.

Japan maintains that eating whale is an important part of its cultural heritage despite the protests of environmentalists determined to prevent the killing of the marine mammals, some species of which are endangered.

The plan is to be submitted to the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) this summer.

It calls for Japan initially to hunt around 10 humpbacks and 10 fin whales per year, Kyodo said, and to sharply increase the number of minkes it takes each year from the 440 it took in the Antarctic in the past whaling season.

Labels: environment, wildlife

ANTANANARIVO - The earth's most successful primates -- humans -- are on the verge of killing off nearly a quarter of the 625 other species of primate on the planet, according to new global report.

...with input from 50 of the world's top specialists from the International Primatological Society, Conservation International and other organisations.

Dwindling patches of rainforest and pressure from hunting have brought some species' numbers down to a few dozen, it said.

"If you took all the remaining individuals from the 25 primate species on this list and gave them a seat in a football stadium, they'd all fit," Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, told Reuters.

The report urges immediate action to curb the destruction by farmers and loggers of forests in which primates dwell and end the trade in bushmeat and exotic medicines from animal parts.

"If we do nothing ... as many as one-quarter of all today's primates will be dead within 20 years," it says.

Primates are "relentlessly hunted for their meat and fur, bodies broken for dubious medicines, shot for stealing crops in fields which were once their home".

Of the four global regions inhabited by primates, their situation is worst in Madagascar, where loss of habitat to traditional slash-and-burn agriculture has left some lemur species, such as Perrier's sifaka, stranded in tiny areas of forest.

"Amazingly, we've managed to get through the 20th century without any primate species going extinct," Mittermeier said. "I'd like to think this is partly because of better conservation efforts."

Labels: environment, primates, wildlife