Mountain gorilla population rises above 1,000

New total represents an increase of 25% since 2010 in its central African heartland

Damian CarringtonEnvironment editor

Thu 31 May 2018 15.52 BSTLast modified on Thu 31 May 2018 18.45 BST

It is one of the most recognisable animals in the world and one of the most endangered, but a new census reveals the surviving mountain gorilla population has now risen above 1,000.

This represents a rise of 25% since 2010 in its heartland of the Virunga Massif in central Africa. It also marks success for intensive conservation work in a region riven by armed conflict, and where six park guards were murdered in April.

Sir David Attenborough, whose 1979 encounter with the great apes remains a famous television moment, said: “When I first visited the mountain gorillas, the situation was dire: the number of these remarkable animals was dreadfully small. It is incredibly heartening therefore to see how the efforts of so many different groups – communities, governments, NGOs – have paid off.”

But Attenborough, an ambassador for WWF UK, warned: “The threats to mountain gorillas haven’t disappeared entirely, of course, so now the challenge must be to ensure that these achievements are sustained long into the future.”

The 1979 encounter led him to reflect: “There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know – they are so like us.”

Read on 

'Sleepless slugs' on rise, say experts

The slug invasion that could devastate your garden

Last year's wet summer, followed by one of the warmest winters on record, has helped to create a generation of sleepless slugs, wildlife experts have warned.

The weather has not been cold enough in recent months to send the creatures into hibernation.

Conservation charity BugLife said Britons could start to a see a slug population "explosion".

This could cause "devastation for our gardens", it warned.

'Devastation for gardens'

Slugs stay active when temperatures remain above 5C (41F).

Because of the warm winter, slugs have not gone into hibernation and have been eating and and breeding through the winter months.

Slug snippets:

There are about 30 species in the UK. Most are vegetarian but a few are carnivorous

Slugs have two retractable pairs of tentacles. The upper pair are for vision and smell

The lower pair are are smaller and are used for feeling and tasting

A slug's two eye-stalks can move independently and can be re-grown if lost

Slug pests cause an estimated £8m of damage to vegetable crops each year

But slugs also eat decaying vegetation and so play an important ecosystem role

The average British garden usually has as many as 20,000 slugs - with the gastropods laying as many as 200 eggs per cubic metre - but Buglife predicted that number could increase over this year by 10%.

It said a decline in populations of many of the slugs' predators, such as amphibians and hedgehogs, was also a factor.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36166774

Seal population on the rise in Thames estuary

Numbers returning to natural level after centuries of culling for meat and fur, survey finds

Damian Carrington

theguardian.com, Thursday 4 September 2014 05.30 BST

Seals are prospering in the greater Thames estuary as populations bounce back from centuries of culling, according to a new scientific survey.

The research suggests hundreds of new seals visited the estuary in 2014, with some taking in the sights of central London by swimming all the way up to Teddington lock, the end of the tidal river.

The survey by Zoological Society of London researchers took advantage of the seals’ moulting season in August, when they bask on sunny sand banks whilst growing a new winter coat. Compared to the first survey in 2013, the team found the population of harbour seals had increased slightly to 679 while grey seal sightings more than doubled to 449.

Seals were killed for meat and fur until the practice was outlawed in 1970 and, despite their proximity to the capital, the Thames seals are the least understood population in the UK.

Continued ...

Endangered Beluga Whales See Slight Population Uptick

A rare group of beluga whales in Alaska saw a slight increase in numbers last year, a survey showed. Scientists estimated that the population of Cook Inlet belugas stood at 312 in 2012, compared with a record low 278 in 2011, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced.

This small uptick is not scientifically significant, researchers noted. Long-term trends have shown Cook Inlet beluga whales in decline over the past two decades. According to NOAA estimates, the population may once have been as big as 1,300 but it shrank dramatically during the 1990s and has continued to fall.

The whales' home, Cook Inlet, stretches some 180 miles (290 km) from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage. Scientists conducting the 2012 survey were surprised to see a group of the endangered population swimming just offshore of West Foreland swimming north into upper part of the inlet.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/26001-cook-inlet-beluga-whales.html

News of Jellyfish Takeover Unfounded, Scientists Say

Jellyfish have become the subject of what resembles a modern myth, some say.

The story goes like this: Around the world, more and more massive blooms of the gelatinous creatures are cropping up, nurtured by overfishing, climate change, pollution and other human alterations to the environment.

But so far, the paradigm of jellyfish rising to dominate the world's oceans is little more than a myth, without data or analysis to support it, according to a group of scientists who have set out to see what's really going on with this diverse group of animals on a global scale.

Research they have published in the journal BioScience points out that this paradigm has taken on a life of its own. Within the last two decades, news reports on jellies have increased by more than 500 percent, comfortably outnumbering scientific publications on jellyfish outbreaks and carrying headlines that are often alarmist, they point out.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/18298-jellyfish-blooms-global-ocean-takeover.html

Seal sightings baffle wildlife experts

A sharp increase in the number of seals around the coast has baffled wildlife experts, who say they have no idea where the animals are mating or giving birth.


They want the public to help solve the mystery.


Researchers have no accurate numbers for the country’s seals but have reported a large increase in sightings in recent years, especially in the Kent and Sussex area.

Brett Lewis of the University of Kent is leading the investigation.

He hopes that if coastal walkers record their sightings with the university an accurate picture can be created.

“If a dog walker or someone sees anything they think we might be interested in, I want to know the details and the exact location of the breeding pair,” he said.

“It will help us build up a much bigger picture of where they are colonising.”


A report last year found that Scotland had more grey seals than previously estimated but that common seals were in decline.

It was estimated that there were around 164,000 grey seals north of the border and a minimum of 20,000 common seals.

Around 15 per cent of the world’s grey seal population is thought to breed on Orkney but little is known about the boom in the South.

A similar survey helped map seal populations in Cumbria in 2007.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/8228656/Seal-sightings-baffle-wildlife-experts.html