Just before dawn on the third Saturday in March, the first shots will be fired, and the 2013 Victorian duck hunting session will commence. But 2013 will be unlike previous years. You are probably unaware…
Automated cameras and microphones will help better connect the public with life in the wild.
Scott_Calleja
For 60 years Sir David Attenborough has brought the “extraordinary” of far off lands closer to home. In some aspects, Sir Dave has brought it so close that the only experiences you miss from not travelling…
The Kihansi Spray Toad has returned home.
Tim Herman
A rare toad from Tanzania declared “extinct in the wild” three years ago has been restored to its original habitat. This is the first time an amphibian species has been returned home after being classified…
Saving the Tasmanian Devil is one of many pressing preservation goals.
Mandy Kennedy/AAP
You may have heard of Australia’s “Frozen Zoo” – the only facility of its kind on the continent – and that it’s facing funding difficulties. Why should you care about this? Let me explain. An increasing…
Fisheries around the world are depleted, but they can be saved.
Isaac Pearlman
Dan Ovando, University of California, Santa Barbara
Many fisheries around the world are in bad shape and getting worse. Solving this problem will require innovative monitoring and management tools, but we can provide tremendous benefits if we act now to…
Flying-foxes are taking refuge in populated areas, and people are deciding they don’t like them.
James Reed
Animosity towards the grey-headed flying-fox has intensified as their contact with humans has increased. Last month, the Queensland government announced that it would issue an annual quota of 1280 permits…
Public attitudes are shifting against government shark culling programs.
Athel D'Ombrain Collection, University of Newcastle
The great shark debate continues in Australia as summer approaches. Shark bites on bathers and surfers are a particularly sensitive reality. These are personal and community-wide tragedies that implore…
In some parts of Queensland, half the plant species may be displaced.
Laura Thorn
Climate change will place increasing pressure on Australia’s natural environments in the future. Queensland is no exception. CSIRO and the Queensland Government recently conducted an in-depth review and…
An average of three million kangaroos are killed per year for pet meat, meat for human consumption and hides.
DarthShrine/Flickr
Australia’s commercial kangaroo industry is the world’s largest consumptive mammalian wildlife industry. Calculated on a ten-year period, an average of three million adult kangaroos are killed each year…
The proposed logging bill would tighten exportation from Indonesia in particular.
CIFOR
The Australian Senate is about to take on the task of stopping illegal logging, with legislation banning the importation and sale of timber products containing illegally logged timber being considered…
Healthy animals, perhaps, but is it ethical to confine large wild mammals to a tank for the purposes of profit and education?
Greg Lilly
Animals are a mainstay of global tourism development. They’re consumed in fishing and hunting, and used as part of “experiences” - horses in trail rides, marine mammals in theme parks, whale sharks for…
The environment is more than a passive background to human dramas.
George Lenard
Over the past couple of decades, India’s vultures have been all but wiped out. They have been poisoned by a veterinary drug given to cattle whose carcasses they then eat. While medicinal for cattle, the…
Exporting elephants from Laos to Japan could be the end of this Asian elephant population.
ElefantAsia
The 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan was undeniably a tragedy on many scales. Thousands killed, tainted agriculture, disappearing tourism and overall economic gloom. It’s little wonder the Japanese government…
The US Endangered Species Act controversially lets ordinary citizens propose endangered species: would it work in Australia?
Doug Beckers
The US Endangered Species Act, which became law in 1973, was one of the first major pieces of national legislation for the protection of biodiversity. It is still one of the most stringent. It has also…
We are really just beginning to learn what’s gone wrong for native species like the Murray Cod.
Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s Native Fish Strategy (NFS) is at serious risk of winding up, after NSW announced it is cutting its financial contributions. This is a serious blow to the conservation…
Illegal hunting is a severe threat to wildlife in many protected areas. Shown is the skull of a young forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) killed in southern Gabon.
Ralph Buij
You couldn’t have witnessed the recent massacre of elephants at Bouba N’Djida National Park and not be worried about the future of biodiversity. The park, in northern Cameroon, is supposed to be a refuge…
Super trawlers aren’t the only boats that take bycatch: 200 black browed albatross could be caught every year in the Commonwealth’s South East Trawl Fishery.
Geoff Edwards
Tony Burke and Joe Ludwig have just announced a review of the Fisheries Management Act and the EPBC Act, thanks to public opposition to the super trawler. But the Commonwealth should take a good hard look…
Welcome to The Conversation’s series on megatrends, exploring the compelling economic, social, environmental, political and technological issues facing Australia, as part of the CSIRO’s new report, Our…
Bumping into a jaguar in Mexico’s cloud forest could soon be a thing of the past.
Kjersti Holmang/Wikimedia Commons
The chances of being roared at by a jaguar in a Mexican cloud forest are already low, but that is precisely what happened to me during a recent fieldwork expedition. I was very lucky to see a jaguar close…
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University