This blog was created because I'm very much concerned about our Planet and the many environmental issues which deserve being known by everybody. Some are real catastrophes while others are achievements of great importance for the survival of numerous endangered species or the health of the only planet we've got: E A R T H !
To my dear visitors and commenters
Hi, everybody!
I've noticed with lots of joy and happiness, that thousands of comments have been written in my posts. It's wonderful that so may people around the world appreciate my work. Therefore, I want to thank you for that and ,at the same time I want to ask you to be this blog's followers. It's fast and easy!
Make it be even more visited and spread all over the world! I'm a woman, a teacher of English in Portugal, and I've been away for quite a long time because of my father's health.
Unfortunately he died from Covid19 a few months ago. Now I felt it was time to restart my activity in this and other blogs I owe. I've recently created a new one in a partnership with a street photographer, Mr. Daniel Antunes. He's fabulous!
https://pandpbydandd.blogspot.com
I'd like you to visit it and, who knows, become our followers. The poems, chronicles and thoughts are all mine.
Thank you so much!
Kisses :-)
Europe's rarest seabird will be extinct within 60 years, according to a new analysis.
The bird breeds in caves off Mallorca
Urgent action is needed to stop the Balearic sheerwater being drowned in fishing lines and nets, say scientists.
The bird breeds in the Balearic Islands, sometimes stopping off in British waters as it migrates north.
Research shows the global population is not sustainable in the long term. There are about 3,000 breeding pairs left.
The main threat to the bird is becoming entangled in fishing gear, according to findings published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Other risks include hunting by the likes of cats and other small mammals.
Prof Tim Guilford of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford is co-researcher on the study.
He told BBC News: "The survival of adults from one year to the next and especially of young adults is much lower than we thought.
"The species is unsustainable - it is on the road to extinction."
Night fishing
Estimates suggest about half of deaths in adult birds are due to accidental capture in fishing lines and nets.
Fishing on the seabed is a particular risk as birds can become entangled and drown when lines are immersed, say researchers in the UK and Spain.
Changes such as setting fishing gear at night when the bird does not dive "could make a massive difference", said Prof Guilford.
"The science shows just how serious the problem is, but also that there is a technically simple solution - the setting of demersal long-lines at night," he added.
The Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) is one of the rarest seabirds in the world.
The seabird is classified as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of species.
It breeds on cliffs and small islets and lays only one egg.
A wildlife photographer discovered, by chance, the European snow vole (Chionomys nivalis) in the summer of 2014, in Montesinho, North of Portugal. This is the first record for this species in the country and was published in Italian Journal of Zoology on 2 November.
Gonçalo didn’t know what he was looking at. Two little “strange” mice passing by, on a summer night in 2014, in a gorse and heather meadow in Montesinho mountain region, at 1300 m. The infrared images recorded by a camera that he placed under a big rock confronted him with a different kind of mouse. “It was a species that I didn’t recognise. I couldn’t tell what it was. It was a very peculiar animal”, he told Wilder.
This wildlife photographer was in Montesinho looking for mammals for an awareness conservation project. But it turned out that his images helped science discover a new species to Portugal. “Everything happened by chance”, he said.
Gonçalo sent his images to a team of biologists in UTAD University (Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro), in Bragança district. Soon enough they realized it was a new species of mammal no one had ever seen in the country. Could it be a snow vole? There were no historic records of it in Portugal. There was still a lot of work to do.
That same team of biologists travelled to Montesinho in October 2014, to a place called Lama Grande, to look for the mouse and to be sure. They set 27 traps, baited with fresh apples and carrots, and with hydrophobous cotton as bedding material.
“We were able to capture two snow voles, an adult male and a juvenile female”, said Hélia Vale-Gonçalves, a biologist working with small mammals at UTAD, and one of the paper authors. “The animals were weighed and sexed, and the reproductive status and standard biometric measurements were recorded. Also, tissue samples were collected”. Then, the mice were released at the trapping location.
Next to the traps “we found many traces of snow voles’ presence, such as little tunnels on the vegetation and lots of galleries”, she told Wilder.
There are many wild and interesting places to visit in the Algarve, but this is my favourite nature reserve in the region.
Although Parque Natural da Ria Formosa Centre is not signed from any direction and is difficult and frustrating to find, this important wildlife site (it is designated under the RAMSAR convention as a wetlands reserve of worldwide signficance) is very well worth a visit. It took us four attempts on separate visits to the Algarve to finally find it, and as we were travelling from the mid-Algarve by car, our wandering cannot be described as an environmentally-friendly activity, but it was worth the effort.
The Ria Formosa lagoon, located in the Algarve, in southern Portugal, is a system of barrier islands that communicates with the sea through six inlets. Five of these inlets are natural and have mobility characteristics. The sixth is an artificial inlet that was opened with the purpose of allowing easier access to the port of Faro, the capital of the Algarve.
Presently the main inlet of the system is the Faro-Olhão inlet, which was artificially opened. The process started in 1927 but only in 1952 were the engineering works completed and it assumed the present configuration.
Within the Ria Formosa system, different and sometimes antagonistic uses may be found. Part of the system is a Natural Park but Ria Formosa also plays an important role in the region's economy. Beyond the tourist use the system also supports other economic activities like seafood farms (including grooved carpet shell harvesting) and the port of Faro.
The Ria Formosa is also a designated Natural Park of over 170 km² and a stopping place for hundreds of different birds during the spring and autumn migratory periods.
It is also a reserve for various animal and plant species which can be watched in birdwatching programmes
The most important cities near the Ria Formosa are Tavira, Faro and Olhão.
There are also some towns in this area, whose names are: Fuzeta (which belongs to the municipality of Olhão), Santa Luzia, Cabanas de Tavira (these last two belonging to Tavira) and Cacela Velha (which belongs to Vila Real de Santo António).
Several buses run from Tavira to Cabanas and back each weekday, but there are no buses on Saturday afternoons nor all day Sundays and Holidays, even in summer. The nearest train station is in nearby Conceição which is on the Tavira to Vila Real line. That's about 1 mile /1.6km and an easy walk.
Classified as a Natural Park in 1987, the Ria Formosa encompasses an area of about 18 000 hectares, and is protected from the sea by 5 barrier-islands and 2 peninsulas: the Peninsula of Ancão that the locals call island of Faro, the Barreta Island also known as Ilha Deserta, the Culatra Island (where the lighthouse of Santa Maria is located), the Island of Armona, the Island of Tavira, Cabanas Island and, finally, the Peninsula of Cacela. This awesome area extends along the leeward coast of the Algarve through the municipalities of Loulé, Faro, Olhão, Tavira and Vila Real de Santo António.
Commercial activities like salt extraction and shellfish farming are quite important for the local populations. For instance the Ria Formosa is responsible for approximately 60% of the total of shellfish produced in the country.
Shellfish of every kind are found in Ria Formosa and a festival is held in Faro every year in summer
An intense conservation campaign has brought the Iberian lynx back to the south of Spain from the verge of extinction barely 10 years ago, Guy Hedgecoe reports from Spain.
On it they watch an Iberian lynx cub learn to hunt by playing with a domestic rabbit in one of the centre's compounds. The lynx, the size of a small cat, is only a few weeks old but already has the sharply pointed ears and mottled fur that make the species so recognisable.
It swipes playfully at the rabbit with its paws, but still has a long way to go before it graduates to killing its own prey.
When it does, it will probably be released into the wild, following in the tracks of many other animals born in captivity here.
Just over a decade ago, the Iberian lynx, also known as Lynx pardinus, was on the verge of extinction, with only 90 animals registered, in the Andujar and Donana areas of southern Spain.
'Saving the species'
But an intense campaign over recent years has brought it back from the brink, with 327 lynxes believed to be roaming southern, central and western Spain, as well as parts of Portugal, last year.
It is feared that rabbit haemorrhagic disease, a highly contagious virus, may harm the comeback of lynxes
The La Olivilla lynx breeding centre in Santa Elena is at the forefront of the conservation programme
"We're on the way to saving the species," says Miguel Simon, director of the Iberlince lynx conservation programme.
"Losing this unique natural treasure would have been as bad for us as losing the Great Mosque in Cordoba or the Alhambra in Granada."
In June, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) improved the status of the Iberian lynx from "critically endangered" to "endangered". In its appraisal, the organisation saw the mammal's recovery as "excellent proof that conservation really works".
Around 140 specimens have been released into the wild, with the Iberian wildcat programme borrowing reintroduction techniques used by German conservationists.
Not all good news
But this success has not been cheap. Between 2002 and 2018, the programme will have received €69m (£49m; $76m) in funding, mainly from the European Union.
Much of that money has gone into three breeding centres in Spain, including in Santa Elena and one in Portugal.
Last year 22 lynxes were killed by vehicles on Spanish roads
Miguel Simon (right) - seen here with veterinarian Maria Jose Perez at La Olivilla breeding centre - says forecasts of the imminent demise of lynxes are "alarmist"
Some wonder whether the IUCN was right to take the lynx off the "critically endangered" list
Teresa del Rey Wamba, a veterinarian who works on the conservation programme in southern Spain, says that prior to the animal's recent comeback, a lack of appropriate prey was a major problem, as was illegal hunting.
Clamping down on poaching and encouraging the growth of rabbit populations - the lynx's favoured food - were therefore key, with private landowners, local governments and hunting federations all supporting the programme.
But it is not all good news. Last year, 22 lynxes were killed by vehicles on Spanish roads.
Miguel Simon says that while this is a problem, it also reflects how the lynxes' movement has increased as their numbers have risen.
His team has overseen the installation of underground tunnels, custom-built for the animals to cross busy roads, and more are planned.
Of greater concern however is a recent outbreak across southern Europe of rabbit haemorrhagic disease, a highly contagious virus that has been killing off the lynxes' staple diet since 2011 and reducing their reproductive rate.
In light of this threat, the IUCN decision to take the lynx off the "critically endangered" list was incorrect, according to Emilio Virgos, a lynx expert at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid.
"If all the data we have so far about how lynxes live and survive and reproduce are correct, and we have no reason to think otherwise, the number of lynxes… will drop drastically," he says of the outlook for the next few years.
He warns that extinction is still a possibility within decades.
What is a lynx?
A medium-sized cat which lives in the wild
There are four different species - Eurasian, Iberian, Canada and Bobcat
The Eurasian lynx is the biggest - about 60cm tall - roughly the same size as a Labrador
The Iberian lynx is one of the rarest smaller wildcats in the world - mainly found in parts of Spain and Portugal
The Bobcat is found in North America while the Canada lynx lives in Canada and Alaska
Most lynxes are listed as threatened or endangered and are prized by poachers for their fur
Lynxes are usually only active at night and hunt deer, rabbits and hares for food
While Mr Simon is worried about the rabbit virus, he describes such forecasts as "alarmist" and points to an emergency plan to boost rabbit numbers. Its success, he says, will depend in great part on continued funding.
"The battle for conservation of the lynx is never-ending," he says.
Being able to guarantee seeing a red squirrel in the Lake District would be "wonderful", Bob Cartwright from the Westmoreland Red Squirrel charity has said.
He added that he would "defy anyone not to love red squirrels" as they have been spotted in Windermere after a sixteen year absence.
Their rapid decline has been blamed on the success of the imported grey squirrel, which spreads a "pox virus" which kills the red squirrels.
This clip is originally from 5 live Breakfast on April 6 2015.
A record number of rhinos were slaughtered for their horns in South Africa last year, and fears are growing for the survival of the species in the wild.
Rhino horn is falsely believed to have medicinal benefits, and is more expensive per gram than gold or diamonds. In South Africa, most of the animals are killed by poachers from neighbouring Mozambique.
Leana Hosea reports on the drive to stamp out the trade.
The critically endangered Iberian lynx has returned to the Madrid region of
Spain for the first time in decades, it's reported.
Conservation efforts have successfully raised the Iberian lynx population to
more than 300, but many have been killed on Spanish roads
It's more than 40 years since the species has set foot in the region, but now
one has been tracked near a town just 50km (31 miles) south of the Spanish
capital, El
Pais reports. The male lynx, called Kentaro, was born in captivity and
released along with seven others in Toledo in late 2014. Since then he's been
quite the adventurer, travelling about 100km and crossing several motorways,
according to conservationists. "Not all lynxes are this adventurous. They tend
to stay close to where they were born," says Ramon Perez de Ayala from the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF). But Kentaro has "packed his bags and set off on his
travels," he says. "We've been lucky because the roads he has crossed are well
fenced and he hasn't been run over. He will have followed the fences until he
found a bridge, and then crossed over there." Kentaro wears a GPS collar which
allows conservationists to track his whereabouts.
The Iberian Lynx is the world's
most endangered feline, and the only breeding populations are both in
southern Spain. Traffic is one of the the biggest dangers for the species -
according to El Pais, at least 21 lynxes were hit and killed on Spanish roads in
2014, and 14 died the year before. The WWF wants Spain's regional governments to
put in place special measures which would help protect lynxes, including fencing
off roads and motorways.
India says it now has almost a third more tigers than it did four years ago.
India said it was willing to donate tiger cubs to the international community to help conservation efforts
Presenting the findings of the latest tiger census, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the tiger population had risen from 1,706 in 2011 to 2,226 in 2014.
He said a number of government initiatives to streamline tiger conservation were behind the increase.
India is estimated to be home to around 70% of the world's tigers.
Mr Javadekar described the results of the census as a "huge success story".
'Great news'
"Never before has such an exercise been taken on such a massive scale where we have unique photographs of 80% of India's tigers," he told journalists in New Delhi.
"While the tiger population is falling in the world, it is rising in India. This is great news," he added.
Tiger conservation practices that had proved successful in India could be adopted elsewhere, he suggested.
He also said India was willing to donate tiger cubs to the international community and play a key role in global tiger conservation.
Wildlife campaigners had been expressing concerns over dwindling numbers of tigers for some time.
The Times of India says that as recently as 2008, census figures showed a tiger population of just 1,411.
Villagers in Bangladesh, South-East Asia, have used pots, pans and sponges to help clear thousands of litres of oil, three days after it spilled into a nature reserve.
The oil is threatening the Bangladeshi part of the world's largest mangrove forest
The oil spilled after a tanker carrying 350,000 litres collided with another vessel, spreading the oil across nearly 40 miles of waterways.Footage shows villagers scooping oil from rivers and birds covered in black liquid in the Sundarbans area.
Villagers have been asked to help the government clear the spill
The Sunderbans is a Unesco heritage site, which means it is an area of great importance.Its mangrove forest and rivers are home to a huge number of plant and animal life, much of it unique to the area.The oil leaked into the river at a sanctuary for rare dolphins.
A thick, black sheen spread in the days after the tanker crash, covering nearly 40 miles of waterways
Experts say the impact on wildlife could be devastating.But government officials say they still cannot give a prediction of how much damage has been caused.
The tropical forests of Congo help create downpours many miles away. What’s a key element in this forest flourishing? The elephant!
The tropical rainforests of Africa and Asia play a crucial role in keeping our planet healthy. They moderate our climate, absorb the carbon we produce, and act as a major source of atmospheric moisture – which can fall as rain many miles away.
One of the biggest tropical forests in the world is in Congo. Its huge size and incredible biodiversity is partly thanks to an unlikely ally – the elephant.
In this film, The Nature Conservancy’s lead scientist Dr M Sanjayan, Dr Valerie Kapos of the UN Environment Programme, and tropical field biologist and conservationist Dr Ian Redmond reveal the crucial role that elephants play in keeping these forests strong and resilient, and how elephants are the most important player when it comes to the diversity of tree species in the rainforest.
Park ranger Andre Bauma has been taking care of orphaned mountain gorillas at Virunga, Africa's oldest national park, for the past seven years, and he says he loves them as if they were his own children.
One gorilla, Ndakasi, is particularly close to Bauma. She sees him as her mother, and despite being a man - and a human to boot - he has taken on that role. "We shared the same bed, I played with her, I fed her… I can say I am her mother," he says.
They met in terrible circumstances. Ndakasi was a two-month-old infant when her mother was shot at close range through the back of the head - the park describes it as an "execution". Ndakasi was still clinging to her dead mother when they found her. "She was tiny, she only weighed a couple of kilos," says Bauma. Ever since he picked her up from the forest floor, he has dedicated his life to saving hers.
Kalonge another orphan gorilla rescued by the Virunda Park rangers
"Every single individual gorilla is crucial because it's an endangered species - so we had to take care of it, we took her in," he says.
Ndakasi was born into a renowned group of mountain gorillas called the Rugendo family, seven of whose members were slaughtered in the attack in 2007 that orphaned Ndakasi.
Illegal charcoal traders, engaged in a constant struggle with park rangers, are thought to have been behind the shootings.
The law says no human activity of any kind is allowed inside the park - located in the Democratic Republic of Congo - and the rangers are there to prevent it. It's a dangerous job - since 1996, more than 130 rangers have been killed. "We are constantly threatened, not only by the militias inside the park but also in general by the population," says Bauma. "There is a lot of poverty, so people try to survive. They will try to use the natural resources of the park, whether it be wood to make charcoal, fields for agriculture or illegal fishing."
Bauma now heads the gorilla orphanage, located at the park headquarters in Rumangabo. Ndakasi was the first to be housed there, but she was soon joined by Ndeze, another member of the Rugendo family. In 2010 the two females were joined by Maisha, another female, and Kaboko, a male - both had been seized by poachers, and Kaboko had lost his hand in a snare. Kaboko died in 2012, but since then another orphan has joined the gang - Matabishi, a young male found abandoned outside the park.
No-one believed Ndakasi would survive, but she has grown to be a healthy 65kg. She still behaves like a baby, though. "Whenever she sees me she climbs on my back like she would with her mother," says Bauma. "But she's a big and strong girl and I'm not capable of playing with her like I used to. When she climbs on my back, every time I'm worried that I'm going to hurt myself - in fact at the end of the day I have real backache." READ MORE
Five hundred rhinos are to be moved from Kruger National Park in South Africa in an attempt to keep them safe.
Officials said the animals could be relocated to nearby countries Botswana and Zambia.
South Africa is trying to tackle a severe poaching problem. More than 630 rhinos have been killed so far this year, and over 400 in Kruger alone.
Markus Hofmeyr, head vet of the national park, said: "We have to take rhinos to where they are safe."
It's thought moving the animals to countries like Botswana - with huge areas of wilderness that are really difficult to get to - could help protect them.
Rhinos are targeted by poachers because their horn is very valuable in parts of Asia. People think it shows you're rich and important.
Rhinos in Kenya could soon be protected by remote controlled helicopters kitted out with the latest gadgets.
A team of US engineers from Airware travelled to Kenya to test their drones in East Africa's largest black rhino sanctuary, Ol Pejeta.
Their remote controlled drones can fly anywhere in the park, sending live video back to base.
The drones also have a heat detecting camera which makes animals and poachers easy to spot.
It's zhoped devices like this will help park rangers keep a close eye on their animals, and deter poachers from hunting in the park.
Airware boss Jonathan Downey said: "We still have more development to do but we're extremely encouraged and quite proud to be pioneering drones that can preserve some of our planet's most threatened species."
CBBC newsround
Over the two-week test, Airware used three different drones: two fixed-wing aircraft and one flexible wing. "They were designed to operate completely autonomously, well out of the line of sight of the pilot," says Airware founder and CEO Jonathan Downey. Before the drones, park rangers had been using jeeps and small aircraft to patrol for poachers and check up on the animals. "Using drones allows them to spend a lot more time in the air, seeing a lot more detail, and for far cheaper than using traditional aircraft or jeeps," says the founder.
The number of rhinos which have been killed in South Africa has more than doubled in the last four years!
What a shame!
Official figures show that 100 have been killed in the past month. Since January this year, 790 animals have been killed, compared to 333 in 2010.
The government declared rhino poaching a national security risk, and a national priority in 2011.
It says it is now working on an agreement with other African nations to help protect rhinos from poaching.
South Africa is home to around 80% of the world's rhino population, estimated at more than 25,000.
People kill rhinos for their horns which are worth a lot of money.
The horns are used in medicine or for decoration in some parts of the world - particularly south east Asia. But scientists say there's no evidence the horn has any medicinal benefits.
Conservationists have warned the increase in rhino poaching in South Africa is becoming critical.
From CBBC newsround
They say that now, with more rhinos being killed than born, there is a risk the species will start to decline.
BBC programme, Inside Out, looks at efforts to save one of the country's rarest and most threatened butterflies, the high brown fritillary.
Since the 1970s national numbers of the butterfly have declined by 90% with the destruction of its traditional moor and woodland edge habitat.
In Devon, one of the high brown fritillary's few remaining strongholds, there are now thought to be only a handful of breeding sites left.
Devon Wildlife Trust is making huge efforts to save the butterfly through habitat management and conservation work.
The BBC's Nick Baker travels to the River Dart in Devon in search of the elusive high brown fritillary and talks to a conservation expert about its long term chances of survival.
The full programme is on BBC One South West at 19:30 on Monday, 16 September (tomorrow)
Dr Simon Lewis, from the University of Leeds and University College London, said: "Most of the focus has been on the Amazon and on South East Asian tropical rainforests, and a big bit of the missing picture is what is going on the Congo Basin in Central Africa.
"We really wanted to pull together information about this amazing region that we know very little about."
Bigger trees
Sprawling across the heart of Africa, the Congo Basin rainforest is second only to the Amazon in size. It covers nearly 2 million sq km (800,000 sq miles).
This latest study reveals that it is in far better health than expected.
Images taken from space allowed researchers to track how the dense foliage was changing over time.
They found that during the 1990s nearly 3,000 sq km (1,000 sq miles) of forest were being felled each year.
But from 2000 to 2010, the rate of deforestation had slowed. Fewer than 2,000 sq km (700 sq miles) of rainforest were lost every year.
"The results were surprising," Dr Lewis told BBC News.
"This is partly because there is a network of protected areas. But it is also because of a lack of expansion from agriculture, and the way these [central African] countries have organised their economies.
"They are very dependent on oil sales and also minerals from mining, and they are investing in that and not investing so much in agricultural expansion."
Measurements of 130,000 trees show that African species were on average much larger in stature than those in the Amazon. As a result, scientists believe that the Congo Basin stores more carbon, acting as a carbon sink.
Losing parts of the rainforest would have an impact on climate change, biodiversity and the communities that depend on the environment, said Dr Lewis.
He said that Africa's rainforest was at a pivotal point.
"But on the other side, the big increase in human population and the rise in living standards globally means we may need more agricultural commodities... It could go the other way and go much more like South East Asia or the Amazon and see the expansion of commercial agriculture," explained Dr Lewis.
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