Farmers have been planting fescue grass as an affordable crop for their cattle to graze on for many years, but biologists are finding that the grass is becoming an ecological nightmare. Because the grass grows in dense stands, it’s difficult for birds to move through it, and fescue has also been crowding out native grasses and wildflowers that previously provided good food and shelter.

Missouri currently has 17 million acres of fescue pasture, which feeds many of the 13 million beef cows in the state. While the grass often contains a fungus that’s toxic to livestock, the costs incurred so far haven’t been high enough for farmers to switch to a different grazing grass. Hopefully growing public awareness will bring about change before more birds become endangered.

Link.

Bushmeat, or the poaching of wild animals in Africa for use as food, is threatening many species native to the continent, including the great apes. While it’s been a staple among forest communities for many years, the slaughter has escalated to an industrial scale as migrants from the countryside have settled in cities. In the meantime, the logging industry has been opening up new roads into rainforests, making previously difficult to reach areas more easily accessible by hunters. These two factors have combined to create a system of commercial hunters linked to markets in major urban areas, from which the meat can be exported for large profits - for example, monkey can sell for $150 or more in Equatorial Guinea.

Making matters worse, researchers are increasingly becoming aware of the dangers of animal-based diseases making the jump to humans through the consumption of infected meat, with Ebola in particular being tied to monkey meat.

Other than “stop eating monkeys,” it’s difficult to say what an individual can do to help with this one, but a recent study by Conservation International suggests that job creation and poverty reduction programs might be the best way to counter the problem - despite the large sums commanded for more exotic meats, the hunters are only seeing a small fraction of the money. By making other lines of work more attractive and available, the reasoning goes, the supply of hunters might dry up.

Link

By partnering with Brittany Ferries on their Plymouth to Roscoff route, Marinelife will be better able to monitor activity in an area that’s already quite busy with shipping and fishing boats. Minke Whales, harbour porpoises and bottlenose dolphins have all returned to the waters in recent years, but until now it hasn’t been known if these sightings were anomalies or part of the natural movements of marine life.

The data will help to identify whale and dolphin hotspots, seasonal and annual movements and threats such as marine by-catch.

Link