Rare Conservation Links

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11 rare and endangered Siberian Tigers starved to death while confined to 'cold, cramped metal cages' at the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in China's North-East. This treatment raises questions about China's conservation efforts, suggesting that "zoos and wildlife parts may be deliberately breeding more animals than they can afford, hoping to sell off the carcasses onto a black market where tiger parts fetch a high price for use in traditional medicines and liquor."

Global climate change poses a significant threat to migratory bird populations, which are already stressed by the loss of habitat and environmental pollution, according to a report released Thursday.

"Rich nations must contribute more to a climate change fund and help fight deforestation, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at a conference Thursday on saving the world's forests - a key defense against global warming."

"The Middlemist's Red exists in only two known locations: a greenhouse in the UK, and a garden in New Zealand. Imported to Britain two hundred years ago from China, back when flowers where a luxury item, it has since been exterminated in its original homeland. The flower is in bloom for the next couple of weeks, and will be the star attraction at the reopening of the Chiswick House, the BBC reports."

"Scientists say that it is possible to produce a new class of plastics that will not degrade as quickly when recycled, according to a paper published in the journal Macromolecules."

EU nations decide to support a ban on international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna until stocks recover.

"Illegal charcoal production in the Congo is threatening mountain gorilla habitat, but an elegant solution in the form of hand-operated biomass briquette presses may help gorilla populations rebound."

A frog species thought to have been extinct for more than three decades has been sighted in farmland in Australia.

They don't know how many new ones they found, however.

"However, with increasing development pressure, market-based incentives are needed to ensure that private forests remain as forests." WRI officials hope the new online resource will illustrate the history of these forests, and help landowners better understand how numerous forces are affecting the region.

Sixty-six percent of those fish had more mecury than EPA limits.

"Delmas, a French shipping company that has been under pressure for facilitating the destruction of Madagascar's rainforest parks, has been cleared to begin picking up contraband rosewood as soon as Monday, report local sources in the Indian Ocean island nation. Leaders behind last year's military coup - which displaced the autocratic, but democratically elected President Marc Ravalomanana - have signed off on the shipment."

"Speed is not a word typically associated with trees; they can take centuries to grow. However, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found evidence that forests in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years. The study offers a rare look at how an ecosystem is responding to climate change."

Gross said that even though the Chilean earthquake is much smaller than the Sumatran quake, it is predicted to have changed the position of the figure axis by a bit more for two reasons. First, unlike the 2004 Sumatran earthquake, which was located near the equator, the 2010 Chilean earthquake was located in Earth's mid-latitudes, which makes it more effective in shifting Earth's figure axis. Second, the fault responsible for the 2010 Chiliean earthquake dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake. This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth's mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth's figure axis.