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Zoos Victoria is training sniffer dogs to detect live platypus in their burrows as part of a research project to determine how the monotremes look after their young.

“One of the challenges with studying the platypus and why we still know very little about them is we as humans are not well designed to see them in their natural environment,” says Healesville Sanctuary platypus keeper Dr Jessica Thomas. “They are a little brown animal and they live in a brown habitat and they spend most of their time either swimming underwater or asleep underground in a burrow. And they’re nocturnal. Quite often they either may be there or they may not be there but you can’t see them."

The training methods are similar to those used on drug detection dogs, with two important differences: wildlife detection dogs need to be able to work in challenging and distracting environments, like a mountain stream, and they need to be safe and non-threatening toward any wildlife they encounter

Hen was found running loose near the US Department of Defense headquarters on the outskirts of Washington DC

Why did the chicken cross the road? To break into the Pentagon, apparently. Or is it now the Hentagon – and is America about to have a new peck-retary of defense?

A wandering chicken was caught sneaking around a security area at the Pentagon this week, a local animal welfare organization said.

Environment minister tells world heritage centre that government investments are ‘strengthening the resilience of the reef’

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A Morrison government report to the United Nations on the status of the Great Barrier Reef claims its approach to tackling climate change is among the best in the world and its management of the reef was “second to none”.

But conservationists and scientists immediately hit back at the claim, saying the reef needed more protection and the government’s record in cutting emissions and cutting pollution over it was inadequate.

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Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee sees lack of direction on how to end reliance on gas

The government is failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions from heating the UK’s homes, an influential committee of MPs has warned, with little sign of a clear plan for ending reliance on increasingly expensive gas.

Home heating is responsible for about 14% of the UK’s carbon emissions, and must be tackled urgently if the government is to meet its carbon reduction targets. Last year, ministers announced a heat and buildings strategy, with the intention of weaning the UK away from gas – which makes up about 80% of domestic heating – and on to lower carbon alternatives, such as heat pumps.

As cricketers with resources to hand, we have the opportunity to support our sport in making a tangible difference

On Saturday 4 January 2020, my local cricket club was smack bang in the middle of the hottest place on earth, with Penrith in Sydney reaching a scorching high of 48.9C. The devastating bushfires of that summer saw kids’ matches and Big Bash League games alike postponed or even cancelled due to the smoke haze, as players played through toxic air.

I turned up to watch a Sheffield Shield game at the SCG and was unable to see the ball because the smoke was so thick. There was even a concern it could delay the start of Australia’s third Test against New Zealand.

Energy analysts say their Hunter Valley plan is just ‘an expensive way to avoid a small amount of emissions’ when there are cheaper, greener alternatives

Labor said this week it will back a gas-fired power plant in the Hunter Valley, but only if the gas is mixed with hydrogen.

The rationale for this move, according to Labor, was the Morrison government’s $600m support for the project was “risking taxpayers’ money on a gas plant that experts say will become stranded in an increasingly renewable energy system”.

Government white paper criticised for overlooking opportunities along road to net zero

The need to reach net zero carbon emissions, and the green jobs that could be created in doing so, received scant attention in the government’s levelling-up strategy, an omission slammed by green campaigners and businesses.

The mention of “the green industrial revolution and transition to net zero” came second bottom of the list of 16 priorities in the levelling-up paper published on Wednesday, promising £26bn of capital investment, though green analysts said it was not clear if any of this was new money or how it would be spent.

Court imposes custodial sentences of between 24 and 32 days and hands 11 others suspended sentences

An activist from Insulate Britain hung a banner proclaiming “insulate or die” at the high court in London on Wednesday as five members of the group were sentenced to jail.

El Litten, 35, Theresa Norton, 63, Steve Pritchard, 62, and Dr Diana Warner, 62, were given custodial sentences of between 24 and 32 days. Ben Taylor, 27, who was due to be released this month from a six-month jail sentence imposed in November, was sentenced to another 32 days. Eleven more protesters received suspended sentences.

Commission’s move widely criticised as undermining efforts to keep global heating below 1.5C

The European Commission has been accused of undermining its climate goals after it defied critics by pushing ahead with plans to include gas and nuclear in an EU guidebook for “green” investments.

Gas and nuclear were deemed bridge technologies to meet the EU’s target of net zero emissions by 2050, in long-awaited proposals on the EU’s “taxonomy for environmentally sustainable economic activities”, which were published on Wednesday.

Plastics Rebellion complains to advertising watchdog about claims made in British TV advert

Innocent drinks have been accused of “greenwashing” by plastic pollution campaigners after releasing an advert that claims buying their smoothies can help save the environment.

Activists, who recently occupied the company’s headquarters, have lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about claims made in an advert entitled Little Drinks, Big Dreams. The ASA is currently reviewing the evidence submitted by the activists and Innocent, and is expected to make a ruling imminently.

Concerns government guidance will not bring an end to the ‘scandal of untreated sewage pollution’

Ofwat must do more to make the water industry in England and Wales protect the environment, the government has said.

Setting out the priorities for the regulator for the next five years the environment minister Rebecca Pow said water companies should significantly reduce the frequency and volume of sewage discharges from storm overflows.

River Dee initiative comes as rising water temperature from climate heating threatens species’ survival

Millions of trees are being planted beside Scotland’s remotest rivers and streams to protect wild salmon from the worst effects of climate heating.

Fisheries scientists have found rivers and burns in the Highlands and uplands are already too warm in summer for wild Atlantic salmon as they head upstream to spawn, increasing the threat to the species’ survival.

And so here we are doomed by another thing!

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Plants now bloom in mid-April on average, with scientists warning of mismatches with insects and birds

Plants are flowering a month earlier in the UK as the climate heats up, a study has found.

The researchers examined 420,000 recorded dates of first flowering for more than 400 species, dating to 1793. The average date for the first blooms was about 12 May up to 1986, but since then the date has been pushed forward to 16 April.

Efforts to restore major supply routes in South Australia have been hampered by huge rainfalls but the weather system is expected to ease

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Fires, flooding and humidity may have made life hard for many Australians in the last week but it looks like there may be a reprieve as the monsoon system causing havoc across the continent is expected to break apart before the weekend.

A monsoonal weather system swept across the continent dragging with it tropical moisture from the equator that caused massive rainfalls from the far north-west of the country, right into central Australia.

Monsoonal weather systems swept in across central Australia this past week, bringing massive rainfalls and floods in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Vital roads and rail lines were cut off, with trucks forced to take a 3,000km detour from Adelaide distribution centres to get supplies up to the NT.

The Australian defence force was forced to deliver 20 tonnes of food and supplies to Coober Pedy in South Australia where grocery shipment routes have been affected by flood waters.

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• Remote Northern Territory town hit by food shortages amid flood and Covid crises
• Flooding cuts off key railway supply routes in central Australia

But one coral reef expert says even reefs that bleach every five years could have corals that survive

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Almost no corals on the planet will escape severe bleaching once global heating reaches 1.5C, according to a new study of the world’s reefs.

Reefs in areas currently regarded as cooler refuges will be overwhelmed at 1.5C of heating, and just 0.2% of reefs will escape at least one bleaching outbreak every decade, according to the research.

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Formerly rare high temperatures now covering half of seas and devastating wildlife, study shows

Extreme heat in the world’s oceans passed the “point of no return” in 2014 and has become the new normal, according to research.

Scientists analysed sea surface temperatures over the last 150 years, which have risen because of global heating. They found that extreme temperatures occurring just 2% of the time a century ago have occurred at least 50% of the time across the global ocean since 2014.

State treasurer Matt Kean says $171m infrastructure spend over four years is essential because ‘EVs will play a critical role in halving our emissions by 2030’

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New South Wales is promising to build more than 1,000 charging stations for electric vehicles under a four-year plan that would create the most extensive EV network in the country.

Wednesday’s announcement comes after data was released showing sales of new EVs in Australia tripled in the past 12 months with more than 20,000 drivers in the country choosing the low emissions option in 2021.

The birds are being recruited to pick up discarded butts from the streets of a city in Sweden as part of a cost-cutting drive. The wild birds receive a little food for every butt they deposit in a machine designed by a startup in Södertälje. The startup's founder says the crows' health is also being studied, and that the project could lead to savings of 75% of cleaning costs