'We're sounding the alarm': half of Canada's chinook salmon endangered

Prospects for species look dire as federal science body finds that only one of the country’s 16 populations is believed to be stable

Leyland Cecco in Toronto

Wed 5 Dec 2018 09.00 GMTLast modified on Wed 5 Dec 2018 09.02 GMT

Half of Canada’s chinook salmon are endangered, with nearly all other populations in precarious decline, according to a new report, confirming fears that prospects for the species remain dire.

The report by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada concluded that eight of the country’s 16 populations are considered endangered, four are threatened, one is of special concern and the health of two remain unknown.

Only one population, which spawns on the Thompson river in British Columbia, is believed to be stable.

“For those of us who have been working on recovering chinook salmon runs in British Columbia, we knew they were in terrible, terrible shape for quite a while now,” said Aaron Hill of Watershed Watch, an organisation that monitors ecosystem health. “It was actually good to see it finally recognised by this federally mandated science body, because this hopefully initiates more serious protection efforts from the government.”

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Visually impaired sea lions join group at New Orleans zoo

December 1, 2018

A pair of visually impaired 2-year-old sea lions has joined the four sea lions already at the zoo in New Orleans.

Audubon Zoo officials say in a news release that Ayah and Jolee were both malnourished when rescued along different parts of the California coast in June 2017.

Jolee has cataracts in both eyes, and had an injury in her left eye when she was found on an El Segundo jetty. She gets around by following Ayah, who lost her left eye to a small-caliber bullet found in her brain after she came to Audubon.

Ayah was found off the Malibu coast.

Both youngsters were nursed back to health at the Marine Mammal Care Center Los Angeles. Its staff veterinarian, Lauren Palmer, says Audubon saved their lives by accepting them.

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Mammal-like milk provisioning and parental care discovered in jumping spider

November 30, 2018, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Lactation is the production and secretion of milk for the young and is a mammalian attribute. However, there have been several examples of milk provisioning in non-mammals. In a study published in the journal Science on November 30, researchers at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences report milk provisioning in Toxeus magnus (Araneae: Salticidae), a jumping spider that mimics ants.

In a field study, the researchers observed a jumping spider species whose breeding nest is composed of either several large individuals, with two or more adults, or one adult female and several juveniles. "It's a puzzling observation for a species assumed to be noncolonial. It's possible that the jumping spider might provide either prolonged maternal care or delayed dispersal. We decided to test it," said Dr. Chen Zhanqi, the first author of the study.

The researchers assessed how offspring developed and behaved under maternal care both in laboratory conditions and in the field. No spiderlings were observed leaving the nest for foraging until they were 20 days old. Closer observation revealed that the mother provided a seemingly nutritive fluid, hereafter called milk, to the offspring.

Milk provisioning in T. magnus involves a specialized organ over an extended period, similar to mammalian lactation. Observations under the microscope showed droplets leaking from the mother's epigastric furrow where the spiderlings sucked milk.

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New Zealand whales: Why are so many getting stranded?

By Gareth EvansBBC News

30 November 2018

The pictures are striking: dozens of whales lie stranded on an idyllic beach in a remote part of New Zealand.

The group were found by a walker on Stewart Island earlier this week. And just a few days later, a further 51 pilot whales died after becoming stranded on a beach on the Chatham Islands.

While whale strandings are not uncommon, they usually involve just a single animal rather than a whole group. The recent flurry of mass strandings has brought a renewed focus on the mysterious, and rare, phenomenon.

So why does it happen? While the exact reasons remain unclear, experts say many different factors could play a part.

Sickness and injury

"Quite often animals that turn up on a beach are getting exhausted, they're malnourished, or they haven't eaten because they're ill," says Dr Simon Ingram, a Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Plymouth.

"They can be in the final stages of being ill or die at sea and end up getting washed up on a beach," he adds.

But Dr Ingram says that sickness or injury mainly plays a part when a single animal is found stranded.

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TEDWomen: Vibrations offer new way to track elephants

1 December 2018

Researchers have come up with a new way of tracking elephants, via the vibrations that the animals make.

Scientists Dr Beth Mortimer and Prof Tarje Nissen-Meyer discovered that elephants generate vibrations through their normal movements and through vocalisations, known as "rumbles".

These can be measured by techniques usually used for studying earthquakes.

The Oxford academics spoke about their research at the TEDWomen conference currently under way in California.

They explained how they measured the seismic waves that could travel nearly four miles through the ground.

They recorded the vibrations generated by wild elephants in Kenya while walking and calling, using instruments known as geophones.

Seismological modelling software that incorporates the local geological information was combined with computer algorithms to produce accurate estimates of the seismic waves produced by elephants.

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