Order of the Supreme Court in the matter of M K Ranjitsinh & Others Vs Union of India & Others dated 21/03/2024. The matter related to protection of Great Indian Bustard (GIB) and Lesser Florican. The SC order of April 19, 2021 imposed restrictions on the setting up of overhead …
The forests and the environment minister of Bangladesh Sajeda Chowdhury, has urged the country's Jahangirnagar University authorities not to lease out its water bodies as it will disturb the habitat of migratory birds. Every year thousands of birds from Siberia and other parts of the world throng the varsity sanctuaries. …
BIRDS can sleep with one eye open and half of their brains awake. It is called Unithemispheric Slowave Sleep (usws). It allows birds to detect approaching predators while still getting a bit of sleep. "They are able to make behavioural decisions about whether to keep one half of the brain …
Chilka lake in Orissa has become a poacher's delight. The railway station in the sleepy town of Bhusandpur, the gateway to the lake, has become a thriving market for birds caught in and around the lake. Rafi, one of the traders who has been in business for several years, says, …
A verstile digital scarecrow promises to put a virtual cat among the pigeons. Birds soon get used to conventional scarecrows, and though simulated gunshots are effective, they are too loud. Now Bramley and Wellesley, a company based in Gloucester, UK, and Phoenix Agritech of Canada are all set to patent …
This time, there are no excuses. It was not climate change, not a meteor and not global warming. Humans, and not any other agent, may have pushed Genyornis , an ostrich-sized Australian bird, into extinction some 50,000 years ago, recent research has revealed. More than 40 of Australia's animals disappeared …
DUTCH elm disease (DED), a dreaded fungal disease that afflicts elm trees, has had a ghastly record. Spread by bark beetles, DED has wiped out tens of millions of trees around the world. It first appeared in the Netherlands in 1917, from where DED reached the UK through infected elm …
Environmentalists in Japan have found high levels of hormone-disrupting chemicals, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and Dichloro dimethyl-trichloro ethane (DDT), in dead Golden Eagle chicks and unhatched eggs around the country. Experts say that further tests are needed to find out if these chemicals are responsible for the plummeting breeding rates …
T he pesticide threat first emerged in the West, the us in particular. In the early 1930s, the Dutch elm disease spread across the us. A fungus disease spread by beetles, it proved fatal to trees, blocking their water-conducting vessels. In 1954, us farmers began spraying ddt to kill the …
More studies are required to confirm the number of vulture/bird death reports in India. However, it has been known that urbanisation and deforestation have been responsible for a gradual decrease in several species of birds of prey. Scientists and ornithologists say that in southern India, where domestic livestock carcasses are …
When noted British author Aldous Huxley finished reading Silent Spring , he was distraught. "We are losing half the subject matter of poetry,' he remarked. He was not quite right. The chemicals have found their way up the food chain and after the birds, humans could be next. Huxley might …
A survey conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, in December 1998 confirms the presence of high levels of pesticides such as HCH and DDT in cattle and pig carcasses collected from areas surrounding the Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur : Vulture cuisine). Eight samples were collected, …
Flight into obllivion The vulture is disappearing in India. Nobody knows why. Some experts blame pesticides O n october 3, 1998, the Centre For Science and Environment ( cse ), New Delhi, received a letter from Asad R Rahmani, director, Bombay Natural History Society ( bnhs ), Mumbai, mentioning a …
THE US Army is not all about Stinger missiles and guerrilla warfare. Its Corps of Engineers are about to embark on what has been labelled as the 'the largest environmental restoration project ever' - to spend some us $7.8 billion to restore the Florida Everglades to their lost glory. Their …
MEMORIES. Mysteries of the human mind. Though the intricacies of our mind still remain confusing to researchers, they have some idea about how we 'remember'. What and where are some of the basic parameters that help us remember incidents. Controlled experiments, coupled with the experience of pet lovers, tell us …
A NEW look at a fossil discovered over a decade ago has strengthened the theory that bats evolved from flightless creatures that hung from tree branches by all four legs. Most paleontologists now believe that birds evolved from small ground-dwelling dinosaurs that had developed feathers for another purpose. The origins …
King penguin chicks are remarkably adept at hearing their parents' voices over the din of the colony, researchers have found. This ability, which is shared by humans, is known as the "cocktail party effect" - the human brain's capacity to filter out irrelevant background noise. King penguins breed in colonies …
THANKS to global warming, the Arctic is slowly melting. And this climate change is affecting wildlife, according to a US biologist. Rising temperatures, which allowed the black guillemots to gain a foothold here some two-and-a-half decades back, are now pushing these birds out.Black guillemots live right across the higher latitudes …
SHORE birds usually find prey by probing until they strike a clam or a crab. Some can even feel vibrations from buried animals with their bills. But now, researchers in the Netherlands have found one specie which takes advantage of the properties of wet sand to find deeply buried, motionless …
THE Rajasthan government has been asked by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Rajasthan, to find alternative sites to the Keoladeo Ghana National Park near Bharatpur so that the pressure of the visitors to the 2,900-hectare sanctuary can be reduced. According to the secretary of WWF, Harsh Vardhan, Kalakh …
