OSLO (Reuters) - Almost half the world’s monkeys and apes are facing a worsening threat of extinction because of deforestation and hunting for meat, an international report showed on Tuesday.

“We have solid data to show that the situation is far more severe than we imagined,” said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International and head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) primate specialist group.

An assessment for an IUCN “Red List” of endangered species found that 48 percent of the 634 known species and sub-species of primates, humankind’s closest relatives such as chimpanzees, orangutans, gibbons and lemurs, were at risk of extinction. (more…)

Whether they hibernate, have thick fur coats or take shelter, animals are masters of surviving the cold weather. Here are a number of interesting animals and the fascinating things they do to survive harsh conditions.

1. Japan’s macaques monkeys keep warm by taking hot baths in volcanic springs.

2. Polar bears (or "solar bears") soak up the sun with their black skin, which is covered by a coat of  clear hair that conducts the sun’s heat. Not to mention they also have a handy 4 inches of fat to insulate them.

3. Animals will also flock to warmth created by humans, such as pigeons in Chicago that huddle around the Eternal Flame and manatees that seek out warm water discharge from power plants.

4. Aside from having blubber, penguins avoid losing energy and heat when they exhale by using special nasal passages to reclaim the warm air.

5. Some honey bees huddle together to make a winter cluster in order to keep warm.

6. Bees aren’t the only ones that huddle together, even bats and ladybugs will huddle for warmth in a safe place.

7. Various plants depend on snow to trap heat and insulate them from cold winds.

8. Seals have a special set of blood vessels that function to conserve heat.

9. Occasionally some fish will use a natural anti-freeze to keep from freezing in low temperatures.

10. When water is scarce, wild bactrian camels will eat snow.

source: blogs.nwf.org

NEW DELHI — The Indian government plans to spend more than $13 million establishing a special ranger force to protect the country’s endangered tigers, following pressure from international conservationists to save the wild cats.

The funding proposed Friday by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram follows the announcement just weeks ago of a $153 million program to create new tiger reserves, underscoring renewed efforts by India’s government to protect the big cats.

New estimates suggest India’s wild tiger population has dropped from nearly 3,600 five years ago to about 1,411, the government-run Tiger Project said last month. (more…)

Sirajul Hossain

A leading daily newspaper published news about the death of two Bengal tigers (panthera tigris tigris) in Sunderban mangrove during research by anesthesia and radio-collaring (Prothom Alo, January 31, 2008). According to the news the first tigress was captured around end April 2005 and died six months later having the collar on. The second tigress captured in March 2006 and second time tranquilized in December 2006 to remove the collar. The BBC film crew captured this second tranquilizing sequence of near dead tigress and added it to the film “Ganges” and now showing worldwide the last scenes of that pathetic tigress. The tigress assumed dead immediately afterwards.

The research project was initiated about four years back by Bangladesh Forest Department. James. L. D. Smith, Professor, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology of The University of Minnesota appointed as a consultant and Adam Barlow, a Ph.D. candidate in the Conservation Biology Program is engaged in the field research. The project effectively started its field activities in February 2005. They claimed that the idea for creating such a project was first developed during a field survey in 2001 conducted by Md. Osman Gani, Ishtiaq U. Ahmad, James L. D. Smith and K. Ullas Karanth1. (more…)

OSLO (Reuters) - Deforestation in a single Indonesian province is releasing more greenhouse gases than the Netherlands, and the loss of habitats is threatening rare tigers and elephants, the WWF conservation group said on Wednesday.

It said that Riau province, covering one fifth of Indonesia’s Sumatra island, had lost 65 percent of its forests in the past 25 years as companies used the land for pulpwood and palm oil plantations. Big peat swamps had also been cleared.

The changes meant Riau was “generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands,” according to the report by WWF and partners RSS GmbH — a German forest monitoring group — and Japan’s Hokkaido University.

At the same time, the number of Sumatran elephants and tigers in the province plunged as the forests vanished, it said. (more…)