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Why I ate a roadkill squirrel
If grey squirrels killed every year in the UK were sold for meat, it would be no bad thing. Factory farming is more harmful to the environment
The first hour of the day, before the sun is over the horizon: this is the time to see wildlife. In the spring and summer, when no one else is walking, when there is no traffic and the air is dense, so that the sounds of the natural world reverberate, when nocturnal and diurnal beasts are roaming, you will see animals that melt away like snow as the sun rises.
Whenever I stay in an unfamiliar part of the countryside, I try to wake before dawn and walk until the heat begins to rise. Many of my richest experiences with wildlife have occurred at such times. In this magical hour, I too seem to come to life. I hear more, smell more, I am more alert. I feel that at other times my perceptions are muted, my senses dulled by the white noise of the day.
Queensland Schulz Fisheries Pty Ltd
SENG National Newsletter - August 2015
Here’s what happens when you try to replicate climate contrarian papers | Dana Nuccitelli
A new paper finds common errors among the 3% of climate papers that reject the global warming consensus
Those who reject the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming often invoke Galileo as an example of when the scientific minority overturned the majority view. In reality, climate contrarians have almost nothing in common with Galileo, whose conclusions were based on empirical scientific evidence, supported by many scientific contemporaries, and persecuted by the religious-political establishment. Nevertheless, there’s a slim chance that the 2–3% minority is correct and the 97% climate consensus is wrong.
To evaluate that possibility, a new paper published in the journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology examines a selection of contrarian climate science research and attempts to replicate their results. The idea is that accurate scientific research should be replicable, and through replication we can also identify any methodological flaws in that research. The study also seeks to answer the question, why do these contrarian papers come to a different conclusion than 97% of the climate science literature?
SENG Newsletter No.53 - Earth overshoot day and much more
Sea Shepherd anti-whaling ship Bob Barker refused entry to Faroe Islands
Territory says it banned activist group’s entry after it had ‘deliberately attempted to disrupt the legal and regulated activity of driving and killing pilot whales’
Denmark’s autonomous Faroe Islands announced on Monday that they had refused entry to a ship carrying 21 activists from the militant conservation group Sea Shepherd who were trying to disrupt traditional whale hunts.
The territory’s government said in a statement that it had barred the ship, the Bob Barker, “with a basis in immigration legislation and in the interests of maintaining law and order”.
Continue reading...Specieswatch: Wild boar
Wild boar (Sus scrofa) have been quietly re-establishing themselves in the woodlands of Britain for a couple of decades, although that statement might be challenged by those who have had their gardens dug up or crops eaten.
Related: Here comes trouble: the return of the wild boar to Britain
Continue reading...Indigenous tribe opposes hydropower projects in Tawang | Janaki Lenin
An indigenous tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, the Monpa, fears its religious and cultural sites will be affected by 15 hydroelectric projects
On 24 and 25 August, the Expert Appraisal Committee on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects of the Ministry of Environment and Forests is scheduled to discuss the impact of 15 hydroelectric projects planned for the Tawang river basin in western Arunachal Pradesh. In an area wedged between China and Bhutan, these dams, with a combined capacity of about 2800MW of power, will submerge 249 hectares (615 acres) of forest. Other construction work such as roads will affect an even larger area of forest.
The Buddhist Monpa tribe, which lives in Tawang, fears its sacred sites, monasteries, and springs will be affected by the various components of these hydel projects. Villagers organised a huge rally from Tawang monastery to protest the construction of hydroelectric projects, defying a ban on public gathering in December 2012.
Continue reading...Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: March 2015
Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: March 2015
New Zealand hunters apologise over accidental shooting of takahē
An inquiry is under way into how a cull of somewhat similar-looking pukeko birds has led to the slaughter of 5% of the wild population of takahē
The head of New Zealand’s national deerstalkers’ association has apologised “to the country at large” after four critically endangered takahē were mistakenly shot by hunters carrying out a cull of a somewhat similar-looking bird.
Deerstalkers were contracted by the Department of Conservation to carry out a cull of pukeko, a non-endangered, very common relative of the takahē, on an island sanctuary in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf.
Continue reading...Ants hold protest calling for protection of Amazon rainforest - video
Around half a million ants hold a protest in Cologne, Germany, calling for Angela Merkel, the country’s chancellor, to continue supporting the protection of the Amazon rainforest. As Merkel makes a visit to Brazil, conservation organisation the World Wildlife Fund lazered messages onto leaves, which read, ‘Stand up’ and ‘Save the Amazon’. Ants then carried the messages on their backs as they crawled across their ant farm
Continue reading...Climate philanthropist George Soros invests millions in coal
Billionaire has previously funded renewable energy and low-carbon initiatives and has called coal a ‘lethal bullet’ for climate change
Billionaire climate philanthropist George Soros invested more than $2m (£1.3m) in struggling coal giants Peabody Energy and Arch Coal in recent months, despite having once called the fuel “lethal” to the climate.
Filings with the Securities and Exchange commission show that between April and June this year Soros Fund Management (SFM) bought more than 1m shares in Peabody ($2.25m), the world’s largest private coal company, and 500,000 shares in Arch ($188,000).
Continue reading...South Australian Marine Scalefish Fishery
Great white shark and seal in mid-air clash above the ocean – video
Researchers with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy capture the moment a great white shark jumps out of the water as it chases a seal off the Massachusetts coast. The seal can be seen leaping out of the water and hitting the shark with its tail
Coalition to restrict green groups' right to challenge after Carmichael setback
Decision to place restrictions on environment groups that can bring legal action comes after federal court overturned approval for the Queensland coalmine
The government will remove the right of most environmental organisations to challenge developments under federal laws unless they can show they are “directly affected” – a direct response to the federal court decision this month on Adani’s Carmichael coalmine.
Related: George Brandis: vigilante green groups destroying thousands of mining jobs
Continue reading...Invitation to comment on listing assessment for Pterostylis psammophila
Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery
A place where monsters hide
Ohio zoo takes cubs of bear euthanized after Yellowstone hiker killed and eaten
Cubs’ mother was killed because she ate part of hiker Lance Crosby and hid the rest of the body, say park officials
A zoo in the state of Ohio will take two cubs of a grizzly bear that was euthanized after it killed a hiker in Yellowstone national park.
Park spokeswoman Amy Bartlett said the cubs’ mother was killed in Montana because she ate part of hiker Lance Crosby, 63, and hid the rest of the body — an abnormal behavior for a female bear defending its young.
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