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Cambodia's Royal Turtle (Batagur affinis), also known as the Southern River Terrapin, is one of the world's most endangered turtles and is now facing threats to its very survival. For several years the small remaining population of Royal Turtles—perhaps numbering fewer than 10—have been successfully protected from extinct by the Fisheries Administration (FiA) in partnership with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS ) and local communities.

The spoon-billed sandpiper Calidris pygmaea is one of the most threatened birds on the planet. It breeds on the Chukotsk and Kamchatka peninsulas in the Russian Far East, migrates through Russia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and the Jiangsu coast of China to winter in southern China, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand, 8,000km from its breeding grounds. Its IUCN threat status was upgraded from Vulnerable to Endangered in 2004 and to Critically Endangered in 2008.

The mosquito-borne disease avian malaria (Plasmodium spp.) has impacted both captive populations and wild individuals of native New Zealand bird species. However, whether or not it is a cause of concern to their wild populations is still unclear. In Hawaii, the disease has been a major factor in the population declines of some native forest bird species, often limiting their elevational distribution due to an inverse relationship between force of infection and elevation. While studies have investigated latitudinal patterns of infection in New Zealand, elevational patterns are unexplored.

Drs Henk Tennekes and Francisco Sanchez Bayo published this key study back in 2011 but it is vital that anyone involved in the bee deaths and neonics issue understands the KEY finding of this study. Since 1945, all pesticides were subjected to the LD50 Risk Assessment, by which scientists gradually increased the test dose fed to bees, until 50% of the bees died within 48 hours. Alternatively, they reduced the amount fed to bees until 50% survived after 48 hours. This established the LD50 dose (Lethal death 50%).

A NATURE reserve has found the evidence from its own research shows a number of common birds are in serious decline. The Foxglove Covert Nature Reserve in Catterick Garrison has completed its 24th bird ringing scheme, and said three quarters of the species surveyed are markedly decreasing. This year, more than 1,000 individual captures in their nets indicate it was the poorest for 10 years. This follows a progressive line of decline which Major Tony Crease, Foxglove’s founder, said is very depressing.

Exeter University biologist Fiona Mathews is leading a national drive to count the hedgehog to try to find out how many survive and why their numbers have dropped so dramatically. Dr Mathews, Associate Professor in Mammalian Biology, who rescued a blind hedgehog she has named Prickole Kidman, urged members of the public to take part in a country-wide count of hedgehogs they have spotted this year, both dead and alive. Matthews, Chairman of the Mammals Society, is appealing for help with a new survey to shed light on where they are most scarce, and where they could be thriving.

In my last piece I covered the ‘State of Nature’ report, including its findings that much of our wildlife is declining at an alarming rate. To illustrate this here is a closer look at a once familiar animal – the hedgehog. I often used to see hedgehogs, both here in West Bromwich, and elsewhere, but now I can’t remember when I last saw one. In 2011 the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) estimated that the population had reduced by a quarter since the year 2000.

HS2 – the proposed high speed rail link between London and the north of England – want to use the Zoo’s car park as a lorry park for heavy goods vehicles and construction trucks for up to 20 years, despite conservation surveys identifying the land as a key habitat for the declining British species.

These were the results from the first global map to be modelled on insecticide runoff to surface waters, which has just been published in the journal Environmental Pollution by researchers from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Koblenz-Landau together with the University of Milan, Aarhus University and Aachen University . According to the publication, particularly streams in the Mediterranean, the USA, Central America and Southeast Asia are at risk.

The proposed permit to use imidacloprid on shellfish beds recently came to my attention. The fact that imidacloprid is being sought as an alternative to carbaryl particularly caught my interest because I have been studying the toxic profile of the various insecticide classes as they relate to ecotoxicity for pollinators. As it turns out, carbaryl and imidacloprid are on the opposite ends of time-dependent toxicity scaling spectrum. I would urge regulators to look closely at the time-dependent nature of the toxicity of residual concentrations for these two chemicals.