DDT use nearly wiped out the raptor by the 1970s. Now peregrine numbers are collapsing again in many countries and no one is quite sure why
For the past six years, Gordon Propp, who builds sets for British Columbia’s film industry, has kept a close watch over 13 peregrine falcon nests in and around Vancouver, including 10 on the city’s bridges.
A self-described wildlife enthusiast and citizen scientist, Propp has had a lifelong fascination with these raptors. “To see a creature that high up the food chain adapting to an urban environment, to me, that’s quite remarkable,” says Propp.
Continue reading...
03/13/2025 - 07:00
03/13/2025 - 06:00
Exclusive: Research shows drop in produce prices as households consume more imported and ultra-processed food
Farmers’ incomes have remained stagnant since the 1970s despite improvements in productivity and a fall in the workforce, research has found.
This has been driven by falling prices for farm produce; as the UK has become more reliant on imports, supermarkets have taken over grocery shopping, and households are eating more ultra-processed food, according to the report by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission.
Continue reading...
03/13/2025 - 05:00
Put up pictures of lemurs, penguins and wolves, and introduce tomorrow’s environmentalists to the amazing nature in our world
Has it ever struck you as interesting the amount of dinosaur products that are marketed to boys and unicorn products to girls?
I recently visited the wonderful Horniman Museum in south London, only to discover that it had been taken over by something called Dinosaur rEvolution. Hertfordshire zoo offers a World of Dinosaurs, there is the “roarsome” theatre show Dinosaur World: Live, a dinosaur-themed park in Norfolk called ROARR!, Dinosaur World in Torquay, Dinosaur Park near Swansea, Dino Park in Dumfries – the list is as long as the neck of a brontosaurus.
Continue reading...
03/13/2025 - 05:00
From a high chair to the ocean floor, Can the Seas Survive Us? in Norfolk’s Sainsbury Centre explores our watery world and the climate crisis
One of the most striking things that will be on display at an exhibition in Norfolk this weekend is an oak chair. Ordinary enough, except that it is elevated high in the air. Why? Because this is where it will need to be in 2100, given rising sea levels in the Netherlands, where it was made by the artist Boris Maas.
Entitled The Urge to Sit Dry (2018), there is another like it in the office of the Dutch environment minister in The Hague, a constant reminder of the real and immediate threat posed to the country by rising sea levels.
The Dutch artist Boris Maas with his 2018 work The Urge to Sit Dry, which uses wooden blocks to lift the chair to the height it needs to be to sit above predicted sea levels
Continue reading...
03/13/2025 - 02:22
Company says new solar agreements will now mean 80% of Boyne smelter’s energy needs are covered by renewable sources
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Mining company Rio Tinto will buy solar power and battery storage capacity for its Gladstone aluminium operations in a deal environmentalists have hailed as a “major step” forward.
The company has signed 20-year agreements with Edify Energy to buy 90% of the power and battery storage capacity generated by the Smoky Creek and Guthrie’s Gap solar stations, located in central Queensland, Rio Tinto said.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...
03/13/2025 - 00:11
Video footage, described as ‘callous’ and ‘pretty dreadful’, shows Sam Jones grabbing the joey from its mother at night
A US hunting influencer who shared video of herself snatching a baby wombat away from its mother is being investigated for a potential breach of her Australian visa.
The footage, with scenes described as “callous” by the RSPCA and “pretty dreadful” by the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, showed the Montana-based influencer Sam Jones grabbing the wombat joey at night as it was walking with its mother.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...
03/12/2025 - 19:13
Thunderstorms and high winds forecast for San Francisco Bay while southern California under flood watch
A powerful atmospheric river storm was set to wallop California on Wednesday evening, drenching large swaths of the state with rain and bringing several feet of snow to the mountains – the latest in a wave of intense storms that new research shows are getting worse.
Much of northern California was under a winter storm warning because of the gusty winds and heavy snow in the forecast that the National Weather Service (NWS) said would lead to “difficult to impossible travel conditions”. Severe thunderstorms and high winds were predicted across the San Francisco Bay area, according to reports.
Continue reading...
03/12/2025 - 18:00
South Australia’s EPA did not open a formal investigation into the source of the lead poisoning, despite referral from the Department of Primary Industries
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
South Australia’s Environment Protection Authority did not open a formal investigation into what may have killed dozens of birds in Port Pirie, despite tests showing some of the animals had been exposed to 3,000 times the acceptable level of lead.
In July 2024, residents of the industrial town raised the alarm when they found dead and dying native birds and flying foxes in local parks and green spaces.
Continue reading...
03/12/2025 - 15:55
EPA takes aim at almost every major pollution rule in what environmentalists call act of ‘malice toward the planet’
Donald Trump’s administration is to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, a move that threatens to rip apart the foundation of the US’s climate laws, amid a stunning barrage of actions to weaken or repeal a host of pollution limits upon power plants, cars and waterways.
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an extraordinary cavalcade of pollution rule rollbacks on Wednesday, led by the announcement it would potentially scrap a landmark 2009 finding by the US government that planet-heating gases, such carbon dioxide, pose a threat to human health.
Continue reading...
03/12/2025 - 13:00
Blood tests on migratory chicks fed plastics by their parents show neurodegeneration, as well as cell rupture and stomach lining decay
Ingesting plastic is leaving seabird chicks with brain damage “akin to Alzheimer’s disease”, according to a new study – adding to growing evidence of the devastating impact of plastic pollution on marine wildlife.
Analysis of young sable shearwaters, a migratory bird that travels between Australia’s Lord Howe Island and Japan, has found that plastic waste is causing damage to seabird chicks not apparent to the naked eye, including decay of the stomach lining, cell rupture and neurodegeneration.
Continue reading...