Biodiversity

Discovery of a fungus associated with "White Nose Syndrome," which is killing millions of bats in the easter US, is just the beginning of an unravelling mystery, a Boston University bat biologist says.
 

"MÉRIDA, Mexico -- Connectivity is a message reverberating in multiple work sessions as the week-long 9th World Wilderness Congress concludes. A new declaration, The Message of Mérida, demands that the UN climate conference next month make the connection between climate and wilderness and 'recognize that it is necessary to address both the climate change and biodiversity extinction crises.'"

"The brown pelican, listed as an endangered species even before the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act existed, is officially back from the brink of extinction, the Interior Department said on Wednesday."

"The Ninth World Wilderness Congress in Mérida, Yucatán, [is] an event that draws together top conservation officials and activists from across the globe to tackle trans-national wilderness issues."

"Australia's koalas could be extinct in 30 years, conservationists warned Tuesday, calling for the iconic creatures to be declared an endangered species."

"Great Whites may be loners, but the ocean's most feared predators also hang out together between Mexico and Hawaii at a deep sea watering hole known as the 'White Shark Cafe,' a study released Wednesday reveals."

"Protection for polar bears' shrinking icy habitat is the subject of a proposed rule sent to the White House by the Interior Department."

"The 2009 edition of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was released today, and the news isn't good: 17,291 species out of 47,677 assessed species, or 36 percent, are threatened with extinction."

"Special genes inserted into crop plants have a way of leaking into the environment. That much scientists know for sure. What they're less certain about is what effect those genes have on plants growing in the wild."

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced six grant awards totaling $800,000 to fund research into the cause and control of white-nose syndrome, a wildlife health crisis that has now killed more than a million bats in the Northeast and remains unchecked."