In today’s round-up: Olympic divers have nothing on Imperial Cormorants, environmentalists and loggers fight over Marbled Murrelet habitat, and California Brown Pelicans get a second chance in the Bay Area.
—More than one quarter of all native New Zealand bird species have gone extinct in the 700 years since humans began inhabiting the islands. Flightless species, such as moa, have been particularly hard-hit. [Science Daily]
—In Oregon, a fight over logging and habitat protection looms. Only this time, it’s the Marbled Murrelet, not the Spotted Owl, that lies at the center of the debate. [OPB News]
—Environmental advocates in Tanzania formulate Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) maps to prepare for potential oil spills. [All Africa]
—Here in California, International Bird Rescue’s Fairfield center releases several juvenile Brown Pelicans back into the wild. Read more here on the latest wave of starving juveniles that have inundated rehab centers throughout the state. [Marin Independent Journal] (Release photo courtesy Marin Independent Journal)
—Firefighters in Long Island save an Osprey caught in a television antenna. [Northport Patch]
—Impressed this week by the acrobatics and grace of Olympic divers? Consider this: Researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the National Research Council of Argentina recently fitted an Imperial Cormorant with a small mounted camera, and discovered that the South American seabird can dive 150 feet in 40 seconds to hunt for fish on the ocean floor. [Science Daily]
I love and want to protect all wildlife. It is so important to me.