Endangered Birds Got the Beach



Most of us normal, average people would like to have a beach of our own where we can lie down and savor the sun all day. What will make it better than somebody else buying it for you and allowing you to use the beach for free? Apparently, you have to be an endangered species first before you can get someone to buy you a whole stretch of beach to lay egg on.

Meet the Maleo birds, these endangered birds got their own stretch of Indonesian beach to their name, complete with bodyguards to protect their eggs from human scavengers and hungry poachers. Maleo birds are considered endangered since they are very rare. These endangered species are also a native of Indonesia; unfortunately, their eggs have become a popular delicacy around the Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia. This situation had brought down the number of live Maleo birds threatening to extinct them.

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Tasmanian Devils Threatened by Contagious Facial Cancer



The population of the Tasmanian Devil, one of the most famous tourism icons of Australia, is not only valued for shaping the natural landscape but also for acting as a natural buffer in establishing the fox population in Tasmania. That is why the news of a rare kind of facial cancer spreading across this species is an incessant cause of concern for ecologists, naturalists, tourists, and also the Australian government.

Reported first in 1996, the Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD) spread quite rapidly among the Tasmanian Devils, mainly in the eastern parts of Tasmania. The overall prevalence of the condition was reported from 64 places in the state, in end 2008, over 60% of the state’s total area. In high-density populations of the species, there is more than 90% of mortality rate, with most of the affected animals dying in 6 to 18 months after contracting the disease. For the ecologists and conservationists, this situation is no less than an emergency.

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Endangered Animals



Man has abused nature’s bounty for centuries and we are now only paying for these sins.  Not only is our environment changing but our climate as well.  Man’s destructive behavior has not only affected his existence but the lives of the animals, plants and other species with whom we share this planet with.

Animals which are labeled as endangered are those whose numbers are threatened by extinction.  This means that these species have low reproductive rates and their mortality rates are also dropping.  One of the most common reasons why this is so is because of men who encroach on their habitat.  In a way, our existence in this planet is displacing animals and threatening their natural habitat.

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Frogs Threatened with Extinction!



The wee, jumping, playful creatures in your garden may not be there on the train of life for long, unless active measures are taken to ensure its survival. Environmental scientists have been concerned with the existence of frogs on our planet against the environmental as well as anthropogenic stresses. Research studies conducted over the past few years reveal that dozens of frog species have already reached the brink of extinction while others are close to endangerment.

The first notable study on the demise of frogs was published in early 2006 in the reputed journal Nature. Led by J. Alan Pounds, a team of researchers investigated large kills of frogs as a result of the deadly amphibian, parasitic, chytrid fungus, which grows on the skin and teeth of frogs and also releases a toxin into their bodies. The research concluded the existence of a strong link between temperature rise due to greenhouse effect and the growth of the chytrid fungus. Over 70 species of amphibians, including the golden toad, vanished due to the rise in global temperatures in the 1980s and 90s. The disappearance of more than 65 harlequin frog species was the most pronounced with the highest increase (peaks) in temperature.

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