Drones warning over breeding seals in Pembrokeshire

6 September 2019

Breeding seals are being disturbed by drones flying near them, experts have warned.

The grey seal population in Pembrokeshire breeds from August to November, but a lack of awareness has led to them being scared into the water with the potential not to return.

Research by Swansea University has so far found drones with four propellers are most likely to cause problems.

It has prompted calls for users to learn about flying them near wildlife.

Paul Renfro, who works with the Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum, said a ban would be difficult to enforce but "acting responsibly" would make a difference.

"Plan ahead, know where the sensitive areas are and keep your distance," he said. "If the seals are starting to notice you, then you're too close.

"Their eyes almost bulge and you can see the stress in their face. When they are starting to look at you then that's close enough."

Pembrokeshire has one of the biggest breeding colonies of grey seals in south west Britain.

While numbers have been struggling in other areas, one of the highest ever annual birth rates was recorded for seals pups last year in west Wales.

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Stranded whales: Numbers on the rise around UK shores

By Helen BriggsBBC News

6 September 2019

The number of whales and dolphins washing up around the UK coastline has risen, according to new figures.

In 2017 alone, 1,000 animals were stranded - more than in any year since records began.

A total of 4,896 whales, dolphins and porpoises died on beaches between 2011 and 2017 - up 15% on the previous seven years.

Scientists found a number of causes for the deaths, including infectious diseases, fishing and plastic.

It's difficult to say conclusively what's driven the rise, but it's associated with multiple causes, including rises in some dolphin and whale populations, they say.

"Strandings aren't actually in and of themselves bad news," Rob Deaville of ZSL (Zoological Society of London), who led the report, told BBC News.

"There's a misconception that we're trying to stop strandings - we're not, we're trying to learn more about those that are due to human activities and then try and mitigate those where we can."

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Chasing the tiger with stealth, smarts and science

Decades after the last captive thylacine died, the hunt for the Tasmanian tiger is very much alive.

By James Dunlevie

Updated about 10 hours ago

In its prime, the thylacine was at the top of the food chain on the continent of Australia and its small island to the south, Tasmania.

But, soon after European settlement its numbers sharply declined.

The last known thylacine died at a Hobart zoo in 1936, reportedly after being locked out of its enclosure on a cold night.

The date of its death, September 7, is now commemorated as Threatened Species Day.

But rumours of its continued existence somewhere in Tasmania's vast wilderness persist.

Even today, the state's parks department muses on its website as to whether or not the animal could still be alive.

"Although the species is now considered to be 'probably extinct' … sightings provide some hope that the thylacine may still exist," its official entry on the thylacine reads, before concluding the lack of hard evidence means such hope is likely in vain.

And while some of those spearheading the search believe the animal known colloquially as the Tasmanian tiger is still roaming the wilderness, others are sceptical.

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These albino lizards are the world's first gene-edited reptiles

Date: August 27, 2019

Source: Cell Press

Meet the world's first gene-edited reptiles: albino lizards roughly the size of your index finger. Researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 to make the lizards, providing a technique for gene editing outside of major animal models. In their study, publishing August 27 in the journal Cell Reports, the researchers also show that the lizards can successfully pass gene-edited alleles for albinism to their offspring.

"For quite some time we've been wrestling with how to modify reptile genomes and manipulate genes in reptiles, but we've been stuck in the mode of how gene editing is being done in the major model systems," says corresponding author Doug Menke, an associate professor at the University of Georgia. "We wanted to explore anole lizards to study the evolution of gene regulation, since they've experienced a series of speciation events on Caribbean islands, much like Darwin's finches of the Galapagos."

The way gene editing is performed in most model systems is to inject CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing reagents into freshly fertilized eggs or single-cell zygotes. But this technique cannot be used in reptiles, Menke says, because lizards have internal fertilization and the time of fertilization cannot be predicted. An isolated single-cell embryo from a female lizard also cannot be easily transferred, making it almost impossible to manipulate outside of the lizard

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Squirrels listen in to birds' conversations as signal of safety

Hearing casual chatter of birds after predator call reassures squirrels to come off high alert

Date: September 4, 2019

Source: PLOS

Grey squirrels eavesdrop on the chatter between nearby songbirds as a sign of safety. Birds chatter when they feel safe to communicate the absence of danger or share their location. This "chatter" from multiple bird species could therefore be a useful cue to other creatures that there is no imminent threat.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers observed the behavior of 54 wild Eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in public parks and residential areas in Ohio in response to threat, which they simulated by playing back a recording of the call of a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), a common predator of both squirrels and small birds. They followed the predator's call with a playback of either multi-species songbird bird chatter or ambient sounds lacking bird calls and monitored the behavior of each squirrel for 3 minutes.

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