A five-year-old program protects waterbirds by turning poachers into rangers. Why poachers? Poachers know where to find the birds, and they understand the landscape. Plus, they can earn more money as rangers than they ever did in the bird business – an incentive to keep working.
[Read](http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0316/p16s01-sten.html) (Christian Science Monitor)
A paradise world of undiscovered species and tropical glaciers in the mountains of New Guinea is disappearing faster than it can be explored.
Read (New Scientist)
Federal officials are expected to shut down salmon fishing along a 700-mile stretch of Pacific Coast because of plummeting fish runs in the [Klamath River](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klamath_River “Wikipedia”).
Read (Christian Science Monitor)
A new study identifies 20 regions in the world which may become extinction ‘hot-spots’ in the near future. The regions include Greenland and the Siberian tundra, Caribbean islands and parts of South East Asia.
Read (BBC)
Several months of extreme rain and cold in Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park led to a lack of available food sources for many animals. Many of the affected animals starved to death because of the lack of food and an inability to forage for food during the extreme rain and cold.
Read (New York Times)
Bats in some US regions may be killed in greater numbers than previously thought by wind farms.
Dead bats are just one of a growing list of concerns that threaten to tarnish wind power’s reputation as one of the nation’s most promising renewable energy sources. Concerns over the potential impact on migratory songbirds, aesthetic issues like the “shutter effect” of flickering turbine blade shadows, and “view shed” damage from turbines on scenic skylines are growing, observers say.
Read (Christian Science Monitor)
Hunger for protein and salt is what gets millions of Mormon crickets marching across western North America. If they want to survive, the insects have to keep marching fast enough to stay ahead of other hungry crickets that might eat them for their own protein and salt content.
Read (New Scientist)
Louisiana now faces a potential scourge of mosquitoes as insects hatch in storm-created breeding grounds. The expected surge in the mosquito population this summer around New Orleans raises worries about the risk of an accompanying increase in cases of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus.
Read (Reuters)
A cat parasite is killing off sea otters, a leading reseacher says, and the remedy is to keep cats inside. He’s found that cat poop carrying Toxoplasma parasites washes into rivers and then into the ocean where they can infect otters, causing brain disease.
Willacy County, TX would like to build a ferry access point on South Padre Island, and it is considering using eminent domain to take land from the Nature Conservancy to build the access point.
Read (AP via the Baltimore Sun)
Pointing to “substantial scientific and commercial information” indicating that polar bear habitats are threatened by increasing global temperatures, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it is reviewing the status of the bears and considering listing them as “threatened.”
Read (The NewStandard)
The east African body of water is the world’s second largest freshwater lake, but is being secretly drained to keep the lights on in Uganda.
Read (New Scientist)
The decline of the house sparrow, one of Britain’s best known birds, could be down to a lack of insects and spiders in summer.
Read (BBC)
Rats can home in on smells using a method similar to the stereo processing of sounds, scientists say.
Read (BBC)
Simple “rain gardens” can drastically cuts pollution levels in urban storm water.
Read (BBC)