Baby Beaver Is Boost to Reintroduced Wild Population

A bouncing baby beaver has joined the ranks of the European beavers re-introduced to the wild in Scotland just a few years ago — a positive sign for the species.

The conservation project, called the Scottish Beaver Trial, began in 2009, with the release of beavers back into the wild in the country, where they had been locally extinct for more than 400 years, according to the program's website.

A total of four beaver families were released into Knapdale Forest in Argyll where they have since built lodges and had young.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/24113-baby-beaver-born.html

Freeing Loggerhead Turtles Comes at a Price

ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2012) — A team of scientists from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands has studied loggerhead turtles' re-adaptation to the environment. The results show that after a lengthy recovery in rehabilitation centres these animals display changes in behaviour and may not adapt well to being free.

When loggerhead turtles are accidentally captured by humans, a recovery process follows, the complexity of which varies according to the turtle's injuries. Spanish researchers have analysed the process of reintegrating these animals into the environment and they have discovered that there are changes in the behaviour of the turtles that have a complicated recovery process.

The study, which has been published in Aquatic Conservation-Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, involved placing satellite transmitters on the shell of 12 healthy, wild loggerhead turtles' (Caretta caretta), and on 6 more that had spent a few months in a rehabilitation centre in the Balearic Islands.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120420105334.htm