Animals

5 Big Threats to Rivers

5 Big Threats to Rivers

By Tara Lohan If we needed any more motivation to help save our ailing rivers, it should have come with the findings of a recent study, which revealed that “Nowhere is the biodiversity crisis more acute than in freshwater ecosystems.” Rivers, lakes and inland wetlands cover 1% of the Earth but provide homes for 10% of […]

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    Grasslands Build Biodiversity and Resilience Over Centuries

    Grasslands Build Biodiversity and Resilience Over Centuries

    The perhaps underappreciated champions of underground carbon storage and resilience, grasslands can often be found at most latitudes in open, continuous areas. Their grasses grow to between eight inches and seven feet in height with roots that go deep underground, according to NASA Earth Observatory. The height of the grass depends on soil depth and […]

    Pet Trade in Colorful Songbirds Could Drive Species to Extinction

    Pet Trade in Colorful Songbirds Could Drive Species to Extinction

    Sometimes, beauty can be a death sentence. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the demand for decorative feathers devastated the populations of birds like great egrets and birds of paradise. Today, it is the exotic pet trade that threatens bright birds with extinction.  A new study published in Current Biology September 15 found that […]

    What History Can Teach Us About Endangered Species Conservation

    What History Can Teach Us About Endangered Species Conservation

    By David Shiffman One of the most fascinating challenges of endangered species management is the concept of shifting baselines — the idea that how much worse a problem has gotten, and what your recovery goal should be, depends on when you start measuring the problem. In many cases we need scientific data on the population […]

    Whales Use Vocalizations to Mark Their Vocal Clan

    Whales Use Vocalizations to Mark Their Vocal Clan

    There are two types of whale: baleen — who have plates of a keratinous substance that sieve their prey from the sea; and toothed — who have teeth and hunt squid, fish and other sea creatures. The sperm whale is the largest species of toothed whale and can be found in all of Earth’s oceans, […]