English

The yellow-breasted bunting (Emberiza aureola), a once common migratory bird, has been driven to the brink of extinction in recent years. The species was reclassified as“critically endangered” on the red list of threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on Tuesday. The status is one step from the highest level of“extinct in the wild”. Back in 2000, the species was listed under“least concern”, the lowest level on the six-grade alert system.

Several species of bumblebees have recently experienced range contractions and possible extinctions. While threats to bees are numerous, few analyses have attempted to understand the relative importance of multiple stressors. Such analyses are critical for prioritizing conservation strategies. Here, we describe a landscape analysis of factors predicted to cause bumblebee declines in the USA.

New research has found that Algerian Nuthatch has declined markedly in one of its strongholds over the past 25 years. Algerian Nuthatch (Sitta ledanti) is, as its name suggests, endemic to Algeria. It is found only in the ancient, humid oak forests in the north of the country, occurring at just four known sites: Djebel Babor, Guerrouch Forest in Taza National Park, Tamentout Forest and Djimla Forest. The four sites are relatively close to each other and are all located in the Babor Mountains.

The fifth UK and Isle of Man hen harrier (Circus cyaneus) survey was conducted in 2016, with the number of territorial pairs estimated at 575: a 13% decline since the previous survey in 2010. Comparison with the estimate from the 2004 survey, demonstrates a significant decline of 27% over the past 12 years. In Scotland, the population was estimated at 460 territorial pairs, this being 80% of all UK and Isle of Man pairs in 2016.

The red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio), once widespread over much of England and Wales, declined steadily from the middle of the 19th century onwards until the last regularly-breeding pair disappeared from Santon Downham, Norfolk, in 1989. Since that time breeding has been sporadic. It appeared that colonisation of the Scottish Highlands might be ongoing, but this faltered as with the wryneck (Jynx torquilla) , now extinct as a breeding species in the UK .

A recent assessment of higher tier studies on the toxicity and risks of neonics in honeybees by Solomon and Stephenson reported a colony-level NOAEC of 25 μg/kg (ppb) for imidacloprid and clothianidin. The toxicity of these insecticides to honeybees is however known to be reinforced with chronic exposure, and extrapolation of time-to lethal-effect toxicity plots compiled from published studies indicate that an imidacloprid level of 0.25 ppb, i.e. one-hundredth of the reported colony NOAEC, would kill a large proportion of bees nearing the end of their life.

The black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor) has the most restricted distribution of all spoonbills, and it is the only one regarded as endangered. There remain only about 3,300 spoonbills, and the species spends the mating season on small islands along the west coast of the Korean Peninsula and in China’s Liaoning province, the WWF says. “With such a small global population, the black-faced spoonbill is inherently vulnerable to extinction,” it says.

Bird numbers in Ely and Cambridgeshire have declined around British farmland by almost a tenth, according to new figures released by Defra. The latest figures released on Thursday (23rd November) by the government's environmental department reveal that wild bird numbers have dropped 9% from the years between 2010 and 2015, and by almost 70% by 1970. The figures have led the RSPB to call for a shift in how the UK operates its farming policies after it leaves the EU, to a more environmentally and sustainable friendly system.

Risk assessment of chemicals and other agents must be accurate to protect health. We analyse the determinants of a sensitive chronic toxicity study, risk assessment's most important test. Manufacturers originally generate data on the properties of a molecule, and if government approval is needed to market it, laws globally require toxicity data to be generated using Test Guidelines (TG), i.e. test methods of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), or their equivalent.

The population of blue-footed boobies (Sula nebouxii) - the seabirds with characteristically colorful feet - has been declining in the Galápagos islands. The birds' numbers have dropped more than 50 percent in less than 20 years, according to a study published Monday (April 21) in the journal Avian Conservation and Ecology. The researchers speculated that a lack of sardines, a source of food for the boobies, might be to blame for the decline.