The Guardian

A family enjoying a new year’s trip has freed a humpback whale it found entangled in fishing nets off the coast of Antofagasta, Chile. Juan Menares said two of his children dived in to free the distressed 10-metre animal on Monday. Menares said: ‘That feeling after doing something good ... fills me with joy, fills me with pride and to be able to do something that I really had never done before.’

Known as Granny and believed to be 105, the matriarch of a small population of struggling Puget Sound orcas was first identified by researchers in the 1970s

The world’s oldest known orca – a century-old matriarch of a small population of endangered Puget Sound orcas – has been missing for months and is presumed dead by researchers in what is being described as a tremendous blow to an already struggling population.

Known as Granny and believed to be 105 years old, the orca has not been seen by researchers since mid-October, according to the Centre for Whale Research in North America’s Pacific Northwest.

Thomas Karl and colleagues were harassed by Republicans for publishing inconvenient science. A new study proves them right.

A new study has shown that a 2015 NOAA paper finding that the Earth is warming more rapidly than previously thought was correct.

Analysis reveals extent of decline because of subsidy cuts and raises concerns about Britain meeting emissions targets

Investment in windfarms will fall off a “cliff edge” over the next three years and put the UK’s greenhouse gas reduction targets at risk, according to a new analysis.

More than £1bn of future investment in renewable energy projects disappeared over the course of 2016, the Green Alliance thinktank found when it looked at the government’s latest pipeline of planned major infrastructure projects.

London at night, snow in the Sahara and Hawaii’s volcanoes are among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last month

A night-time view of western Europe captured by crew members aboard the International Space Station. London is visible in the centre of the image, photographed from more than 250 miles above.

Feral population of up to 6.3 million, at a density of one cat for every 4 sq km ‘underlines how potent they are for wildlife’

Feral cats cover 99.8% of Australia at a density of one cat for every four square kilometres, according to new research.

The research was published in the journal of Biological Conservation and brings together data from almost 100 surveys completed by 40 environmental scientists from different institutions.

Ad watchdog informally resolves Cuadrilla complaints over leaflet stating chemicals used in fracking can cause cancer and contaminate water

Friends of the Earth has agreed not to reproduce an anti-fracking leaflet after the advertising watchdog upheld complaints made by the energy firm Cuadrilla.

Cuadrilla, which in October was given government permission for plans to frack after appealing two rejections by Lancashire council, made a string of complaints about the leaflet which made claims that chemicals involved in fracking can cause cancer.

Cross-party committee of MPs also say farmers face a “triple jeopardy” of lost subsidies, export tariffs and increased competition

Brexit could harm the UK’s wildlife and farming, according to a cross-party committee of MPs, with key protections left as ineffective “zombie legislation” and farmers facing a “triple jeopardy” of lost subsidies, export tariffs and increased competition.

A new report from the environmental audit select committee warns that many of the rules governing food production and the environment in the UK come from EU law and that weakening of these rules would damage the countryside and reduce the viability of farms, food security and safety.

Shrewsbury We walked to the grave of Mary Webb and found the fungi growing around her neighbours’ headstones

The toadstools opened from the graveyard like fleshy satellite dishes – ears of the necropolis listening to the living. We were in Shrewsbury cemetery to pay our respects at the turning year to those we knew there. The newer part had serried ranks of black or white marble headstones between drives, their funerary decorations modest symbols of grief and remembrance in a utilitarian order to keep the public face of death tidy.

The older part of the cemetery belonged to a much more Gothic sensibility: the graves mostly Victorian to the 1930s, their mossy stones listing on undulating ground and scattered randomly under trees, separated by meadow grasses.

Conservation plan involves sending dolphins into Gulf of California to find vaquita and then surface to raise the alarm

US Navy-trained dolphins and their handlers will participate in a last-ditch effort to catch the last few dozen of Mexico’s vaquita porpoises to save them from extinction.

The trained animals will use their sonar to locate the extremely elusive vaquitas, then surface and advise their handlers.

It takes a brave man to take a shot at a national treasure, and they don’t come any more treasured than David Attenborough, so hats off to Martin Hughes-Games for bravery (Why Planet Earth II should have been taxed, 2 January). But I fear he’s wrong. He says programmes like Planet Earth II lull us “into a false sense of security” as wildlife species are decimated across the globe. That is almost certainly correct, but one thing we’ve learned from last year’s EU referendum is that ordinary people just don’t listen to “experts” lecturing them about unfolding, manmade disasters. Planet Earth II, with its beauty and grandeur, and, yes, entertainment value, takes a subtle approach worthy of the most sophisticated advertising campaign: it says, look at this marvellous planet, do you really want to allow its destruction?
Peter Lyth
Hockerton, Nottinghamshire

• At last, someone has dared to say it. I strongly agree with Martin Hughes-Games with reference to the series Planet Earth I and II. Presenting these programmes was a man who has integrity, presence and an attractive air of authority. People admire him and listen to him. Sir David Attenborough was (and is) in an almost unique position to tell it as it is, not how we would all like it to be. These nature programmes were brilliantly produced with extremely skilful photography and, yes, it was great entertainment. But unfortunately it told a very cosy story with scant allusion to what is really happening. Ignorance, greed, unsupportable population growth of our species and a curious assumption that we can trash the planet without consequences. There is only one point on which I would disagree with Hughes-Games. In 100 years’ time, I don’t believe anyone will be thinking or caring about wildlife. By then, it may well be apparent that the journey towards our own extinction had begun in earnest. Probably far too late to exit la-la land.
Carol Knight
Tisbury, Wiltshire

‘Lucky’ owls are the latest animal to join Japan’s growing list of themed pet cafes but welfare groups are calling for the practice to stop

Several owl species sit tied to a makeshift wooden perch as a TV plays a loud, animated owl-themed film behind them in the dimly lit room.

This is Tokyo’s Akiba Fukurou owl cafe, filled with locals and snap-happy tourists even on a weekday morning, and as the countdown to 2017 begins, its resident owls will be petted and photographed by more Japanese customers than usual as people seek good fortune for the New Year.

Asian elephants have faced less poaching than their African cousins but the latest grisly finds have led conservationists to worry for their survival

Even the planet’s smallest elephants, tucked away on the island of Borneo, are no longer immune to the global poaching crisis for ivory.

On New Year’s Eve, wildlife officials in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, found the bones of a beloved male elephant, nicknamed Sabre for his unusual tusks that slanted downwards like the extinct sabre-toothed tiger’s canines.

What sort of wildlife will you discover in the early days of the new year?

2017 is upon us and wintry conditions will be dominating the northern hemisphere in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile the southern hemisphere will be basking in summer sunshine and the heat that goes with it. So what sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps? We’d love to see your photos of the January wildlife near you.

Share your photos and videos with us and we’ll feature our favourites on the Guardian site.

The UK’s first commercial windfarm in Delabole has produced enough energy to boil 3.4bn kettles since it began in 1991, when people dismissed the idea. Now it’s one of more than 1,000 onshore projects across the country

From Pam the lollipop lady to the repairs for a storm-battered church roof, the fruits of wind power are not hard to find in Delabole. The residents of this Cornish village have lived alongside the UK’s first commercial windfarm since it was built in the year the Gulf war ended and Ryan Giggs rose to fame.

The Delabole windfarm marked its 25th anniversary in December, having produced enough power to boil 3.4bn kettles since the blades began spinning. Peter Edwards, a local farmer, erected the first turbines after going on an anti-nuclear march with his wife, Pip.

Carbonclean is turning planet-heating emissions into profit by converting CO2 into baking powder – and could lock up 60,000 tonnes of CO2 a year

A breakthrough in the race to make useful products out of planet-heating CO2 emissions has been made in southern India.

A plant at the industrial port of Tuticorin is capturing CO2 from its own coal-powered boiler and using it to make soda ash – aka baking powder.

Thursford, Norfolk Occasionally one blackbird would position herself so close to the glass that you felt sure she was looking at you

A friend and fellow wood-owner has built a hide in his patch that’s sunk into the ground so that windows, which are fitted with one-way glass, look out at eye-level over a nearby pond. From its interior you have the most intimate ringside views of the wildlife – which, meanwhile, hasn’t any inkling of human presence.

Related: Here for the dawn

Timelapse video shot from a Beijing bank on Monday shows a thick cloud of yellow smog swallowing buildings as it rolls into the city. The footage was taken by Chas Pope, a British engineering consultant, and was shot over just 20 minutes. Many cities in China have been placed on ‘red alert’ due to soaring air pollution levels in the first days of 2017. Clouds of smog have forced flights to be cancelled and roads to be closed and have effectively left some people trapped in their homes.

Charity reports 196 incidents of waste dumped in its woods and lands, bringing annual bill for dealing with rubbish in woodlands to £354,000

The Woodland Trust has suffered its worst year on record for flytipping, with almost 200 incidents of rubbish dumped in its woods and land.

The charity has spent £42,596 on clearing up 196 incidents of flytipped waste this year, bringing the overall bill for dealing with litter in its woodlands to around £354,000 in 2016. Costs are up substantially on last year, when the trust spent £31,360 on tackling flytipping, as part of an overall waste clearance bill of £192,000.

Ancient ponds on the Greensand Ridge can produce thousands of tiny frogs – so long as the water supply holds up

There are two types of ponds along the Greensand Ridge that runs across from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire into South Cambridgeshire. They are either lined with clay, and fill with rainwater, or they are hollows in the ground that rely on rising groundwater in the winter.

Both provide breeding opportunities for the common frog. The tadpoles have time to mature before some of the ponds dry out in late summer.