European snow vole discovered in Portugal

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.

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The artist who 'paints' with recycled plastic

The materials needed to make art can be expensive, too expensive for some.

But one artist in South Africa has found a way to combine his artistic passion and his love for recycling.

Mbongeni Buthelezi collects plastic bags from the streets around his Johannesburg studio and melts them to create a unique kind of art - he calls it "plastic fantastic".

Video journalist: Christian Parkinson

From BBC News- Magazine

Greenpeace loses Indian registration

Greenpeace says its charitable registration to operate in India has been revoked.

The environmental campaign group says that the decision effectively shuts it down in India.

The government of Narendra Modi has previously accused Greenpeace of flouting tax laws and having an anti-development agenda.

The pressure group has been working in India for 14 years and employs more than 300 people.

The BBC's correspondent in Delhi, Justin Rowlatt, says Mr Modi's government has been accused of a major crackdown on NGOs and charitable groups ever since he came to power in 2014.

Greenpeace says it plans to challenge this latest decision. It follows a ruling that the organisation could not raise money abroad - which was itself successfully challenged.

Interim Executive Director Vinuta Gopal said in a statement:

"We are confident that we are on strong legal ground. We have faith in the legal process and are confident of overcoming this order."

From BBC Scirnce/Environment

Four UK bird species including puffins 'face extinction'

Puffins are among four UK bird species now at risk of extinction, according to the latest revision of a global conservation database.

The Atlantic puffin population is still in the millions, but fewer young birds are surviving to breed

Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves, Slavonian grebes and pochards are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds.

This means the number of UK species on the critical list has doubled to eight. Puffins are vulnerable to pollution and declining food sources, ecologists say. Another 14 UK species are considered to be "near threatened".

'Erosion of wildlife'

Martin Harper, conservation director with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said the "global wave of extinction is now lapping at our shores".

"The erosion of the UK's wildlife is staggering and this is reinforced when you talk about puffin and turtle dove now facing the same level of extinction threat as African elephant and lion, and being more endangered than the humpback whale," he said.

Turtle dove numbers are in decline

Curlew sandpipers have been added to the near-threatened list

Although the Atlantic puffin population is still in the millions, fewer young birds are surviving to breed.

Reasons include a recent decline in the population of puffins' prey, such as the sand eel, and vulnerability to pollution such as oil spills, according to advisory body the Joint Nature Conservation Committee.

They have been listed as vulnerable to extinction, the lowest of three categories behind critically endangered and endangered.

Shetland has been listed as the best destination for watching puffins, according to a National Geographic list of the top 10 places to see wildlife.

Unexplained decline

A decline in turtle dove numbers across Europe of more than 30% in the past 16 years has also made it vulnerable to extinction.

The decline in the UK has been particularly high, with more than nine out of every ten birds being lost since the 1970s, according to conservation group Birdlife.

This is partly due to an as yet unexplained decline in the number of breeding pairs, the RSPB believes.

The Slavonian Grebe migrates to breed in a handful of Scottish lochs

Pochards are mostly seen in the UK in the autumn and winter when they migrate from Russia and eastern Europe

The migratory species also flies over the Mediterranean where, especially in Malta, there is a tradition of spring shooting birds. The country recently rejected a ban on hunting birds in a referendum.

The decline in Slavonian grebes in the UK is in part down to a reduction in successful breeding pairs, although conservationists say specific reasons for this are unclear.

Hunting and habitat destruction are thought to be to blame for the reduction in pochard populations.

Other UK birds that have been added to the near-threatened list include oystercatchers, lapwings, the curlew sandpiper and bar-tailed godwit.

They join species already listed such as the black-tailed godwit and curlew.

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Critically endangered UK bird species

• European turtle-dove
• Slavonian grebe
• Pochard
• Atlantic puffin
• Balearic shearwater
• Aquatic warbler
• Long-tailed duck
• Velvet scoter

Near-threatened UK bird species

• Razorbill

• Meadow pipit

• Sooty shearwater
• Red knot

• Curlew sandpiper

• Eurasian oystercatcher

• Bar-tailed godwit

• Black-tailed godwit
• Red kiteEurasian curlew
• Common eider
• Dartford warbler
• Redwing
• Northern lapwing

From BBC News. Science/ Environment

UN: Climate plans must go further to prevent dangerous warming

The UN has released its assessment of national plans to limit climate change, submitted by 146 countries.

Carbon emissions will be "significantly dented" according to the UN, if all the plans are put into action

Officials say the submissions, in their current form, won't keep global temperatures from rising by more than the 2C danger threshold.

The global total of carbon emissions will continue to grow, although more slowly than over the past two decades.

However the UN report says the plans are a major step forward and the 2C goal is still "within reach".

The UN believes that these national climate plans, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) will form the cornerstone of a binding, global treaty on climate change that will be agreed at a conference in Paris in December.

According to the UN, the submissions now cover around 86% of global emissions: about four times the amount covered by the Kyoto Protocol, the world's first carbon cutting treaty.

Their assessment is decidedly upbeat about the plans, despite acknowledging that taken together they point to rises in global temperatures of 2.7C above the pre-industrial level.

Scientists have determined that if temperature rises exceed 2C, this will lead to significant and dangerous climate impacts, which will especially hit the world's poor.

UN climate chief, Christiana Figueres, said the plans were an excellent first step: "The INDCs have the capability of limiting the forecast temperature rise to around 2.7C by 2100, by no means enough but a lot lower than the estimated four, five, or more degrees of warming projected by many prior to the INDCs."

Observers say the 2.7C figure is a substantial improvement on 3.1C, which was the estimate when the plans were assessed last December.

UN climate conference 30 Nov - 11 Dec 2015

COP 21 - the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties - will see more than 190 nations gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the threat of dangerous warming due to human activities.

Explained: What is climate change?

In video: Why does the Paris conference matter?

From BBC News