Just 9,119 were counted in 2024 – down 96% on previous year and second-lowest mark in nearly three decades
The number of monarch butterflies spending the winter in the western United States has dropped to its second-lowest mark in nearly three decades as pesticides, diminishing habitat and climate change take their toll on the beloved pollinator.
The butterflies, known for their distinctive orange-and-black wings, are found across North America. Monarchs in the eastern US spend their winters in Mexico, while monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains typically overwinter along the California coast.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/04/2025 - 09:46
Scientists taking samples from city’s river did not expect to find presence of under-threat molluscs
Traces of rare mussels sensitive to pollution and thought to be on the point of extinction in France have been discovered in the Seine in Paris, raising hopes that efforts to clean up the river that bisects the French capital might be succeeding.
The findings were made after Olympic swimming events were held in the Seine last year – the first time swimming in the river has been deemed safe in a century.
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02/04/2025 - 07:05
Italian politician said a video posted online showed Trump Jr with a ruddy shelduck while on hunting trip
A politician from Italy’s Veneto region says he has reported Donald Trump Jr to the authorities for allegedly killing a protected species of duck while hunting in Venice lagoon.
Andrea Zanoni, the regional counsellor and environmentalist, said an online video from Field Ethos – published by Trump Jr and marketed as a “premier lifestyle publication for the unapologetic man” – showed “some people, including Donald Trump Jr, killing various ducks”.
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02/04/2025 - 05:35
Mountaineers now scaling more peaks for first global study of nanoplastics, which can enter lungs and bloodstream
Particles from vehicle tyre wear are the biggest source of nanoplastic pollution in the high Alps, a pioneering project has revealed.
Expert mountaineers teamed up with scientists to collect contamination-free samples and are now scaling peaks to produce the first global assessment of nanoplastics, which are easily carried around the world by winds.
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02/04/2025 - 01:00
As commercial monocultures increase, ecologists are calling for the remaining splinters of native woodland to be identified, protected - and expanded
Photographs by Rob Stothard
“This could almost be part of Lapland, up here,” says retired researcher John Spence, approaching a clearing in the Correl Glen nature reserve in Fermanagh, near Northern Ireland’s land border with the county of Leitrim. “You could make a Nordic movie here and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
Spence pauses to point out oak, hazel, birch, ash and alder trees, along with a series of rare “filmy” ferns, wild strawberry bushes and honeysuckle. There are well over 100 species of lichen in this small patch of temperate rainforest alone.
A path leads towards a sitka spruce forest in Glenboy, near Manorhamilton, in Leitrim
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02/04/2025 - 00:00
Open-net farms to continue despite numbers of wild fish halving as minister looks for ‘acceptable’ pollution levels
Norway’s environment minister has ruled out a ban on open-net fish farming at sea despite acknowledging that the wild North Atlantic salmon is under “existential threat”.
With yearly exports of 1.2m tonnes, Norway is the largest producer of farmed salmon in the world. But its wild salmon population has fallen from more than a million in the early 1980s to about 500,000 today.
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02/03/2025 - 19:21
Liberty Energy executive, who has called climate change activists alarmist, confirmed in vote of 59-38
The US Senate on Monday confirmed Chris Wright, a fracking executive, to be Donald Trump’s energy secretary.
The vote was 59-38.
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02/03/2025 - 14:58
Chair Jürgen Maier also refused to put a date on when the agency would bring down energy bills
It could take 20 years for GB Energy to meet its pledge to employ 1,000 people, its chair acknowledged on Monday.
Jürgen Maier also refused to put a date on when it would bring down energy bills.
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02/03/2025 - 14:38
Labour MPs describe ‘breaking point’ in relations, calling for Keir Starmer to stand by party’s manifesto commitments
Keir Starmer is facing a growing internal backlash over the potential approval of a giant new oilfield, after Treasury sources indicated Rachel Reeves was likely to give it her backing.
MPs described a “breaking point” in relations and called for Starmer to reiterate his own commitments to no further oil and gas licences. The proposed Rosebank development was given the go-ahead in 2023 but was ruled unlawful by a court last week.
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02/03/2025 - 14:00
This country has a long history of taking its unique wildlife and landscapes for granted – but what has happened in this term of parliament is remarkable
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There is something significant missing from most of the political and media discussion about the Australian government’s promised, and now abandoned, nature protection laws: the environment. Logically, it should be a focus of the debate. In practice, it barely gets a look-in.
This would be an extraordinary state of affairs were it not so familiar. Australia has a long history of taking its unique wildlife and landscapes for granted, stretching back to European colonisation. But what has happened in this term of parliament is a pretty remarkable extension of that.
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