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by Amy Lupica, ODP Contributing Writer The Tasmanian Devil, the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial, has set foot on mainland Australia for the first time in 3,000 years. Conservationists led by Liz Gabriel, the director of Aussie Ark, released 11 Tasmanian Devils into Barrington Tops wildlife refuge north of Sydney in the state of New South […]
Continue Reading 700 wordsThe COVID-19 pandemic and a series of devastating reports have made clear that our “debt” to nature must be repaid, and yesterday more than 60 world leaders, including the Secretary-General of the United Nations, pledged to conserve more of the natural world. They signed the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, promising to address the climate crisis, deforestation, […]
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Using inexpensive tracking technology and a large antenna installed on the International Space Station, a consortium of researchers is hoping to gather a wider range of data than they had using previous tracking technologies, including long migration patterns, allowing them to better understand how climate change and habitat loss impact wildlife.
Why This Matters: In addition to better understanding of wildlife migration and threats, the technology could be used for a range of other goals.
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ODP: COVID-19 has caused so much suffering here and around the globe. What is the leading cause of diseases that spread from wildlife to humans? MS: COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease. Like HIV, MERS, SARS, Hanta, and Ebola, it jumped from wildlife to people, likely through contact with an animal outside of its natural habitat. […]
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A federal judge in Boston ruled late Thursday that Massachusetts is violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by granting permits to lobster fishers to use vertical buoy lines, the ropes that connect lobster traps on the seafloor to buoys at the surface, without federal permission because the fishing lines are the leading cause of death of highly endangered right whales over the past decade.
Why This Matters: The Boston court ruling will likely disrupt the lobster industry in the short run.
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Australian youth artist Tiarn Garland, 15, is the winner of the World Wildlife Day 2020 International Youth Art Contest, which was co-sponsored by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Secretariat, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Titled “Here today….but tomorrow?”, Tiarn’s work depicts a […]
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