In the heart of central Jakarta, about 20 minutes from Joko Widodo’s Presidential Palace, the Pramuka Bird Market is open for business: Today, Vonis, a local trader who uses just the one name, is holding forth about the origins of the coronavirus that has infected nearly 6 million people … “It’s hoax. It is not true that bats caused COVID-19. I’ve been selling this [bats] for many years, nobody gets sick here. No one. Also, many Indonesians eat bat meat and nobody is sick. I myself healed my asthma after consuming bat. It happened when I was around 25 years old. I’m a bit over 40, I am healthy now,” he says.
Scientific research that heralds the discovery of new species can have an unintended but potentially devastating consequence: providing a roadmap for wildlife traffickers.
By Louise Boyle, Independent, UK. 31 May 2020
We have a very special announcement… Our very first koala of the season has popped out of Mums pouch to say hello! [VIDEO]
By Australian Reptile Park, YouTube. 27 May 2020
[Israel] Nature and Parks Authority on Tuesday banned the entry of visitors to a host of caves across the country that serve as a natural habitat for bats, due to fear humans might transmit coronavirus and harm the flying mammals.
By Ynet News, 26 May 2020
Residents say South Coast site saved from bushfires by volunteer firefighters should be preserved for threatened species.
By Anne Davies, The Guardian. 25 May 2020
Wildlife rescuers say they have been left traumatised by the carnage as hundreds of birds dropped dead from the sky in Adelaide’s north.
By Emily Ollie, 7 News. 20 May 2020
A Melbourne duck shooter has had his guns seized and gun license suspended after being caught with illegal drugs on the opening weekend of duck season.
The man was filmed by an animal welfare campaigner’s drone, who contacted police after seeing what they believed to be a duck shooter snorting drugs off a camping table before hunting.
By Ben Knight, ABC News, 20 May 2020
An Australian Koolie dog who was abandoned by his family has been rescued and retrained to detect koalas. [Watch video via link on headline.]
Bear has been following the aftermath of Australia’s bushfires since January, finding sick, injured or starving koalas that otherwise would have perished. He has now found more than 100.
By Isabelle Rodd, BBC News. 15 May 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated Africa’s national parks and local communities. With most of Southern and East Africa on lockdown, tourism and local revenue is plummeting. During this time of financial hardship, national parks across Africa are seeing a rise in poaching events and wildlife crime.
IFAW-supported rangers in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia are on the frontlines, protecting wildlife during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are the first line of defense against poachers, ensuring that Africa’s beautiful national parks remain safeguarded and rich with biodiversity.
By James Isiche, ifaw. 13 May 2020
Housing development on the fringes of Australia’s cities is destroying hectares of habitats needed for endangered animals, experts warn.
Analysis of satellite images of urbanisation in Harrington Grove in NSW, Craigieburn in Victoria and Springfield in Queensland show hectares of natural habitats eliminated by spread of the cities’ urban footprint.
By Jim Malo, Domain. 10 May 2020
They’ve faced drought, extreme heat and bushfires, and now they have to deal with a new paranoia courtesy of the pandemic.
By Graham Readfearn, The Guardian. 9 May 2020
SARS, swine flu and COVID-19 all have something in common: these viruses crossed to humans from animals. “Wet markets”, factory farms and slaughter practices are pieces of the puzzle — globally. So how can we reduce the risk of future pandemics, to help people and animals?
By Animals Australia. 15 May 2020
We now know that one of the main triggers in regards to the increasing outbreaks of Zoonotic Diseases such as #Coronavirises like #Covid_19 are Wildlife Slaughter Industries, so not only is #RayBorda & his #MacroGroupAustralia Kangaroo Killing Empire showing no care in the eradication of Kangaroos via introduced mass slaughter but they are showing no care for the impacts on human health given the increasing outbreaks in #Zoonotic Diseases.
By Ngaya Palawa, Wugongga Kangaroo, Public Facebook Group. 30 April 2020
Populations declined by more than a third on average over the 20-year period — but the data also revealed that targeted conservation efforts are working.
By Nick Kilvert, ABC Science. 22 April 2020
After a year of battling drought, fire, dust, flood and disease, farmers in far western New South Wales are now facing a plague locust infestation.
Landholders are being asked to report locust activity to Local Land Services to help biosecurity experts stop the destructive insects from spreading.
By Lucy Thackray and Jessie Davies, ABC Rural. 21 April 2020
One of Australia’s leading bat experts says he can see no evidence native flying foxes pose a coronavirus risk, saying calls for Melbourne’s largest bat colony to be relocated or culled are “ridiculous”.
By Bianca Hall, The Age. 21 April 2020
A Snowy-Monaro-based wildlife carer has criticised the slow response to rescue and treat injured animals following the summer bushfires
By Bill Brown, ABC News. 19 April 2020
It turns out our big cities are an important refuge for the owl — especially since the recent fires burned much of its natural home. And researchers want our help in finding its urban haunts.
By Anna Salleh, ABC Science. 17 April 2020
A “massive” funding boost is needed to address the threat of extinction for more than 100 plants and animals that had habitat wiped out in the catastrophic summer bushfires, scientists and conservation groups say.
By Mike Foley, The Sydney Morning Herald. 17 April 2020
Wildlife sanctuaries, zoos and animal hospitals are being crippled by the coronavirus, with the ban on gatherings robbing them of the funds needed to feed the animals and retain staff.
By George Roberts, ABC News. 16 April 2020
The Greens asked officials to calculate the cost of shutting down the native forest timber industry immediately rather than 2030 as planned.
By Adam Morton, Environment editor, The Guardian. 13 April 2020
Renowned conservationist and activist Dr Jane Goodall is hoping the coronavirus pandemic will be a wake-up call, warning the crisis is a result of human disregard for nature and animals.
By Kirsten Diprose and Matt Neal, ABC South West Vic. 11 April 2020
The Australian Registry of Wildlife Health is asking to be contacted if wildlife rescuers and vets are finding “unexplained cases of acute mortality and oedema” in macropods. Please keep eye out for symptoms, and report to the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health (www.arwh.org).
By The Bathurst Kangaroo Project, Facebook. 10 April 2020
China has drawn up new guidelines to reclassify dogs as pets rather than livestock …
Though dog meat remains a delicacy in many regions, the ministry said dogs would no longer be considered livestock.
By ABC News. 10 April 2020
Some of NSW’s top scientists and farmers are at odds when it comes to the importance of dingoes to the state’s landscape.
By Giselle Wakatama, ABC Newcastle. 9 April 2020
The warnings of doctors and scientists were ignored, with fatal results.
By Richard Horton, The Guardian. 9 April 2020
… can be very playful! Thank you Sammy’s Mob and all the carers.
Wombat Awareness Organisation, Facebook. 3 April 2020
“The birds that were released in 1902 apparently didn’t take, they didn’t survive very long,” he told Chris Wisbey on ABC Radio Hobart. “In 1906 there were birds released in places like Epping …
By Carol Rääbus, ABC Radio Hobart. (Archive 25 Jan 2018)
Endangered species have lost up to 82% of their habitat but Environment Protection Authority says logging of unburnt forest is legal
By Lisa Cox, The Guardian. 15 March 2020
By Adrianne Reardon, ABC South East NSW. 11 March 2020
It seems Christmas Island’s notorious robber crabs have truly earned their name after a suspected late-night burglary on the remote territory.
By Rebecca Parish, ABC Pilbara. 11 March 2020
Pre-eminent Australian wildlife photographer Doug Gimesy has dedicated his career to the protection and conservation of some of the country’s most vulnerable species.
The Guardian. 8 March 2020
After a bush fire destroyed Nura Gunyu, an Aboriginal education and cultural teaching property in Milton, NSW, its owners and community members are passionately replanting before rebuilding, ensuring a source of food for native fauna to return to.
By Sarah Moss, ABC Illawarra. 6 March 2020
Starving, parched Australian wildlife on the NSW south coast are receiving bushfire relief of their own, with water stations being laid out and food dropped in burnt bushland.
By Jessica Clifford, ABC News. 2 February 2020
Amid calls for more clearing and burning, what we desperately need is a vision for our environment.
By Jack Pascoe, The Guardian. 21 January 2020
I am a beef cattle farmer from near Inverell in north-western NSW. My farmhouse is near a creek line and I’ve always been lucky enough to have koalas.
… Last week my husband and I found a male koala in the yard, sitting at the base of the tree. He wouldn’t move, not when I walked up and not when I set a pot of water next to him. In the end I had to raise the pot to his head and finally he moved, leaning down to drink.
By Libby Swan (a personal account), The Sydney Morning Herald. 21 January 2020
I just returned from another round of fighting fires. It was devastating to see the outcome of appalling leadership from Canberra.
By Greg Mullins, The Guardian. 20 January 2020
(Greg Mullins is a former commissioner of Fire and Rescue NSW and a climate councillor.)
Ecologists have calculated that at least 6 million hectares of habitat that is home to at least 250 different threatened species has now gone up in smoke.
Twenty-five of these species are listed as critically endangered — in other words, on the brink of extinction in the wild.
By the ABC’s National Regional Reporting Team’s Ben Deacon and Rachel Carbonell. 20 January 2020
It was a scene that broke the hearts of a small animal rescue team on Kangaroo Island — an injured koala sitting nearby a furry friend who did not survive in the aftermath of the bushfires.
The moment was captured by the Humane Society International (HSI), which has been scouring the charred Flinders Chase National Park and timber plantations for survivors of the deadly bushfires.
By Meagan Dillon, ABC News. 17 January 2020
The Italian fashion house Versace has banned the use of kangaroo skin for its luxury leather products collection. The move follows pressure from the animal rights’ group LAV, which said more than 2.3 million kangaroos in Australia were killed each year for commercial purposes.
Versace did not comment but gave LAV permission to make an announcement.
By Angela Giuffrida (in Rome), The Guardian. 16 January 2020
Yesterday, our first RSPCA South Australia team returned from a tough few days on Kangaroo Island treating fire-affected animals.
The team of three — veterinarian Gayle, inspector Cheryl and animal handler Cher — spent four days assessing and caring for wildlife in fire-devastated areas of the island before our second team arrived.
By RSPCA South Australia. 14 January 2020
A simple idea to place containers of water in Canberra neighbourhoods or reserves to aid thirsty wildlife during the drought has received a flood of support.
In just three weeks, Water Our Wildlife, started by Anna Reimondos of Weston and her friends Claire Stewart, Michele Woods and Alexandra Craig, has swollen to more than 4000 members via their Facebook page, with more than 500 watering stations established across the ACT.
By Ian Bushnell, Riot ACT! 12 January 2020
The horror of the Australian fires should spark a movement to help shoe companies rid their supply chains of kangaroo skins
The wildfires sweeping the grasslands and climbing the trees in Australia are not just hurting “the continent.” They are charring the plants and burning up the animals. It’s a frightening and apocalyptic scene, vividly dramatizing that forest fires that are typically regenerative to ecosystems have in this case morphed into a life-denying, runaway infernos.
By Wayne Pacella, Animal Wellness Action (US). 10 January 2020
Thousands of baby animals left orphaned by Australia’s bushfires are in need of constant care.
Volunteers around the world have been helping by knitting and sewing special pouches and wraps. They are collected by animal rescue organisations which then distribute them to carers.
Video by Tessa Wong and Andreas Illmer. Additional footage by Judith Hopper. BBC News. 9 January 2020
Have you ever wondered how our native wildlife manage to stay alive when an inferno is ripping through their homes, and afterwards when there is little to eat and nowhere to hide? The answer is adaptation and old-fashioned ingenuity.
Australia’s bushfire season is far from over, and the cost to wildlife has been epic.
By Dale Nimmo, The Conversation. 8 January 2020
The once pristine environment of Kangaroo Island, including the Flinders Chase national park, is now a barren burned land after the weekend’s fires. Ecologists have grave fears for the future of many species, and for some the island is their only known habitat. (Warning: graphic content of dead animals)
Photographs by David Mariuz/AAP. The Guardian. 8 January 2020
What now after the fires?
By Kevin Markwell, The Conversation. 7 January 2020
