The cave revealed remains of galloping kangaroos, primitive bandicoots and wombat-like marsupials.

Read the whole story on Livescience.com – Animals

Polar bears, walruses, sea otters, and other endangered species are all set to benefit from a Russian decision to boost its national protected areas to nearly 3 percent of its territory by 2020, a move which helps the country to meet its international obligations to protect biodiversity. The Russian government’s decision establishes 9 new nature reserves and 13 national parks covering a total area of over 3.8 million ha by 2020. Russia is also introducing marine buffer zones of over 1 million ha.

Read the whole story on ENN: Wildlife

The primate lived alongside husky cats and large-fanged dogs in what was then a lush forest.

Read the whole story on Livescience.com – Animals

Africa’s large mammals are dying off within the borders of protected areas. Parks need funding if the species are to be saved.

Read the whole story on Livescience.com – Animals

Over 10,000 years ago in the Americas, there were many more large mammals than today epitomized by the mammoth. The extinction of woolly mammoths and other large mammals more than 10,000 years ago may be explained by the same type of cascade of ecosystem disruption that is being caused today by the global decline of predators such as wolves, cougars and sharks, life scientists report July 1 in the cover article of the journal Bioscience.

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Despite no scientific evidence that bovine TB is transmitted by badgers, the farming lobby is hellbent on slaughtering them

“Causing unnecessary suffering.” In this second judicial review, in courtroom number 5 in Cardiff, this phrase leaps out at me. There is a whole mass of human behaviour which clearly, to anybody with a shred of integrity, falls into the category of “causing unnecessary suffering” – to other sentient creatures, human or otherwise. It ought to be clear, and people who know right from wrong should be putting up their hands to stop it. Yet the people who are causing this suffering, time and time again, find reasons to wriggle out of admitting their crime, and use any power or influence to enable themselves to go on causing the suffering. And this could apply to a government that orders the killing thousands of badgers under the pretext of fixing a disease problem in farmed animals.

The modern, intensive farming of cows, with hundreds (and soon thousands) bred and corralled in a small area, fed the same feed, attracts parasites and diseases. They have to be pumped with antibiotics and hormones to keep the diseases in check. This is why bovine TB became a problem in the UK.

The disease reached epidemic proportions by 1950, when cattle were still often bred in urban environments – and then following the introduction of compulsory skin testing, and the imposition of strict movement controls on cattle, which were also allowed more room to graze in the countryside, the problem was vastly reduced. By 1970, the incidence of bovine TB has dwindled almost to nothing. It was at this time that it was discovered that the cattle had infected Britain’s ancient badger population with the disease.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the incidence of the disease in cattle began to increase again. There was disruption to the testing programme caused by BSE and the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Yet the increase in prevalence of the disease was blamed on badgers.

To this day, nobody has been able to prove a mechanism for the transfer of bTB from badger to cow (though the transference from cow to badger is well-documented). The sudden outbreaks of bTB in areas of Britain hundreds of miles apart cannot possibly be blamed on badgers, which never travel more than 3 or 4 miles from their homes in their lifetimes.

Nevertheless, the legend spread among farmers that the badger was the villain – and sections of the farming community (not all, by any means) began screaming for their blood. Until recently, the government of both England and Wales resisted pressure to cull badgers, putting a high value on the lives of these ancient and innocent creatures. But, with the recent resurgence of Conservative-minded politicians, backed by organisations linked with the Countryside Alliance, the farming lobby has become more powerful.

In Wales, Elin Jones has already ordered the slaughter of badgers, and in England the same intention has been announced by the new heads of Defra, notably Jim Paice. In Wales, the only reason the killing has stalled for a moment is because the Badger Trust has mounted a judicial review (JR), challenging the right of the Welsh assembly to make such a decision. The first JR failed. This is the second, brought as an appeal against the first’s decision that the Welsh government had acted properly.

One fact that emerges during proceedings is that the skin test is not at all accurate, so very often an animal is pronounced suspect, and is killed; then a postmortem is done and it is discovered that the cow was not sick at all. This is a “false positive” test result. One of the judges asked if there are also false negatives – the answer is “yes”. So there are many animals infected with bTB whose flesh and milk do go into our food supplies, right now. Luckily for us, it’s hard to get TB from eating meat, and the fact that all milk is now pasteurised means that there is pretty much zero chance of getting the disease from milk either.

So, why is it so crucial that bovine TB is eradicated? You might well ask. The true answer is that, health-wise for humans, it is not important at all. It’s all about money. The farming laws of Europe dictate that if any herd has had an infected cow in it, the herd cannot be sold in Europe. So farmers are up in arms because the value of their herd is at a stroke slashed as soon as there is a confirmed “breakdown”.

But there is more. Farming is one of the most heavily subsidised industries in Britain. Even if the whole herd has to be slaughtered (which is rare), the farmer is compensated for all loss of income. So, again, why the fuss? As far as I can see, it’s about the government being able to show a profit from farming: it looks bad if it’s subsidising losses all the time. This is a key bit of emotive propaganda that is used to justify culling the poor old badgers. “The government is spending all this money – it can’t be allowed to go on …”

Outside the courtroom, in my mind’s eye, I see this little drama in perspective – small and puny in context with the glaring monstrous crime about to be committed, by these few people, with piles of paper in front of them, all hinging around small issues of law. They talk about the gain in monetary terms, and they talk about “balance” of the deed of killing against the value gained. What price can you put on the life of just one innocent badger?

The badgers are a protected species – until the government decides they are a pariah.

The Elin Jones’s proposed culling operation is a “trial”. In other words, this is some kind of scientific experiment. If this weren’t so serious, that would be a big laugh. First, the experiment has already been done, by the Independent Scientific Group, reporting to Defra: 11,000 badgers died in order that scientists could come to a clear conclusion that culling cannot work as a control for bTB. Second, there is no way this can be an experiment. The Welsh assembly’s package is a mixture of methods – culling, testing, and mostly voluntary controls on the movement of cattle – and there is no control group to show what would have happened if the “experiment” had not been done.

In fact, there is no evidence that this proposed cull will produce any benefit at all.

I also hear from farmers at the other end of the spectrum who, privately, say they will not stand for the eradication of wildlife – who, like us, want to see for their grandchildren a countryside filled with healthy wild animals. The whole world will be watching to see if this government will be able to pull off this sledgehammer move in the face of public opinion. Perhaps this will be what people will look back on as the moment when the tide of cruelty turned – perhaps it will begin in Wales, right here. The JR judges have now declared that they will allow just one week for Welsh assembly ministers to rebuild their case, with session to be resumed on Wednesday 14 July.

I am praying the Welsh will not stand for this carnage. And that the world will listen.

• See, for further details, Save Me, a campaign founded by Brian May to promote decent treatment for animals. Brian has posted a longer account of the proceedings of the judicial review on the Welsh cull on the campaign’s Facebook page

Read the whole story on Environment: Wildlife | guardian.co.uk

After a 90-year wait, this butterfly gets to show off its fine moustache

Among the 3 million butterfly specimens in the Natural History Museum, London, a new species sat unrecognised for 90 years until curator Blanca Huertas matched it with specimens she had collected in Colombia.

Among the distinctive features of the new species, Splendeuptychia ackeryi, is a “moustache” of long hairs on the mouthparts. South America is home to about 40% of the world’s 20,000 butterfly species.

Quentin Wheeler is director of the International Institute for Species Exploration, Arizona State University

Read the whole story on Environment: Wildlife | guardian.co.uk

A six-week voyage into the deep seas of the Atlantic Ocean has yielded 10 possible new species which have revolutionised thinking about deep-sea life

Read the whole story on Environment: Wildlife | guardian.co.uk

Today marks ‘fish dependence day’ – where our appetite for seafood means we have to deplete other countries’ resources

• Datablog: Fish capture by country

Europeans are eating more fish while stocks in their own seas continue to deplete, according to a new analysis that highlights the unsustainable nature of the industry. A report from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) names today as the point at which Europe has nominally consumed all its own fish, and needs to bring in stocks from elsewhere. The thinktank says this “fish dependence day” comes earlier than in previous years, which it says shows that policy changes are needed.

The report, Fish Dependence: The Increasing Reliance of the EU on Fish From Elsewhere, maps marine resources onto a calendar year, and finds the day when the EU effectively starts to live off the rest of the world. This point now arrives a month earlier than when the group performed a similar analysis in 2000.

Aniol Esteban, head of environmental economics at NEF, said: “Safeguarding the marine environment is vital if we want to make use of EU resources and protect livelihoods and economies.”

Esteban added: “The EU has some of the largest and richest fishing grounds in the world but at the moment we’re not managing them properly. The upcoming reform of the EU’s common fisheries policy presents a unique opportunity to ensure that these ecosystems are protected for future generations.”

The group is calling for reduced fishing capacity and stronger conservation controls. It also wants wider campaigns to promote responsible consumption of fish, as well as greater government investment in ways to enforce quotas and sustainable practices.

The report says: “In a context of finite resources and growing populations, the current EU model is unsustainable. The EU’s increasing fish dependence has implications for the fish stocks in other countries, which are also overfished, and for the communities that depend upon them.”

It adds: “The main message of this report is that rising fish consumption in a context of declining stocks is a model that is environmentally unviable and socially unfair. The EU has highly productive waters that have the potential to sustain a long-term and stable supply of fish, jobs and related social and economic benefits, but only if its fish resources are managed responsibly.”

Read the whole story on Environment: Wildlife | guardian.co.uk

Northumberland

We have enjoyed long, warm, sunny days for several weeks and I have been out walking on our moorland in the north of this county. Much of the uplands are covered with heather, and they can be steep in places, so a friend and I keep talking to a minimum to save energy, and not disturb wildlife. This week a man walking his dog on the moors told me that he considered our uplands to be “God’s own country” and thought there was nowhere else that could recharge the human battery like a day in our hill country.

Some areas are divided by dry-stone walls, or dykes, as they are called here. Many of these are built from limestone or sandstone, traditional building materials in the north-east, varying in colour from a warm, golden brown to dark grey. We still have a high level of wildlife: I saw two roe deer browsing in one of the valleys, several coveys of grouse, and a rare snipe. The isolation of farmers in the upland country led to the importance of markets (known here as marts), agricultural shows and fairs, hunt balls, shepherds’ suppers, terrier shows and darts matches. These gatherings create a bond with our upland communities, and are well supported.

The recent hot weather, which we have all enjoyed for weeks, has been very good for bees. I have watched them droning on flowers in my garden, and on honeysuckle in the countryside. Tall, white cow parsley is now in our field and bright skies and long evenings have encouraged more bracken and bluebells. I have been spending too much time in the garden and countryside, and went on a very enjoyable trip through our lovely border counties with the Women’s Institute. We went in a private bus, and it was a pleasure being able to enjoy the countryside, without having to drive and concentrate firmly on the road.

Read the whole story on Environment: Wildlife | guardian.co.uk