Four ducklings add to safety-net population of African species that is estimated to be down to 5,000 in the wild
Chester zoo has successfully hatched one of Africa’s rarest species of duck for the first time.
It said the successful breeding of four maccoa ducklings formed part of growing efforts to safeguard Africa’s most threatened species.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/20/2025 - 05:44
Hundreds are being released across the country to reverse 98% decline in mating pairs since the 1970s
Hundreds of turtle doves are being released this summer as conservationists race against the clock to save the species from extinction in England.
The cooing doves, which mate for life, are the fastest-declining bird species in the country. Just 2,000 pairs are left, a decline of 98% since the 1970s. This is because their habitats in scrubby areas have been destroyed and thousands are shot on their migratory route across Europe.
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06/20/2025 - 05:42
Heatwave and an invitation to name storms created record-breaking opportunities to indulge nation’s favourite pastime
The best descriptions of summer heat, in my view, come from Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding, a novel in which, “the world seemed to die each afternoon and nothing moved any longer … like a silent crazy jungle under glass.” Or Muriel Spark, in her short story The Seraph and the Zambezi, set in southern Africa in 1946, where “the heat distorted every word” and sound, writes Spark, “reached my ears a fraction behind time”. Of a bunch of white settlers enjoying pink gins on the terrace, she writes, “the glasses made a tinkle that was not of the substance of glass, but of bottles wrapped in tissue paper. Sometimes, for a moment, a shriek or a cackle would hang torpidly in space, but these were unreal sounds as if projected from a distant country.”
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06/20/2025 - 01:56
Let the echidna discourse begin!
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06/20/2025 - 01:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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06/20/2025 - 00:00
High temperatures likely to cause deaths and will worsen in future as global heating intensifies, scientists warn
The dangerous 32C heat that will be endured by people in the south-east of England on Saturday will have been made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis, scientists have calculated.
Global heating, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is making every heatwave more likely and more intense. The 32C (89.6F) day forecast on Saturday would have been expected only once every 2,500 years without the climate crisis, the researchers said, and June heatwaves are now about 2-4C (3.6-7.2F) hotter than in the past.
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06/19/2025 - 13:26
School leaders call for action on adaptation measures as DfE research warns of potential impact of climate crisis
Children in England face prolonged “lost learning” caused by extreme heat and flooding at school, according to research on the potential impact of the climate crisis on education.
School leaders and teachers said the scenarios published by the Department for Education made for grim reading and urged ministers to move quickly to improve school resilience.
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06/19/2025 - 09:44
‘People will see that we’re making progress on it,’ treasurer Daniel Mookhey tells Guardian Australia
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The long-promised “great koala national park” is not expected to get any additional funding in next week’s New South Wales 2025-26 budget despite being a centrepiece of the state government’s environment policy.
“When it comes to the great koala national park, people will see that we’re making progress on it,” the state treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, told Guardian Australia.
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06/19/2025 - 08:08
During Earth's ancient Snowball periods, when the entire planet was wrapped in ice, life may have endured in tiny meltwater ponds on the surface of equatorial glaciers. MIT researchers discovered that these watery refuges could have supported complex eukaryotic life, serving as sanctuaries for survival amid extreme conditions. Their investigation into Antarctic melt ponds revealed not only evidence of eukaryotes but a striking diversity shaped by factors like salinity. These findings reshape our understanding of how life weathered one of the harshest climate events in Earth s history and ultimately set the stage for the evolution of complex life forms.
06/19/2025 - 07:15
UKHSA warns of risk to people aged 65 and over as temperatures of up to 33C expected until Monday
Amber heat alerts have been issued in England as the UK experiences its hottest day of the year so far, with a temperature of 32.2C recorded at Kew in west London.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued the warningd on Thursday, and stated there could be “a rise in deaths” across all nine English regions, with “those aged 65 and over or people with health conditions” particularly at risk as the temperature is expected to rise sharply.
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