New species of native succulent plants appear to have been discovered at the site of a planned uranium mine in Western Australia, the state's independent environment watchdog says.

Environmental Protection Authority chairman Paul Vogel said it appeared new species of tecticornia were present at Toro Energy's Wiluna uranium project in the Mid-West region.

From being a much sought-after delicacy found in abundance in the Godavari and Krishna rivers, to figuring in the global IUCN Red List of threatened species, the fringed-lipped carp (Labeo fimbriatus) has been hunted almost to extinction, thanks to unscientific overharvesting.

A serious effort is hence being made by the Andhra Pradesh Biodiversity Board to revive the once-popular fish species by introducing fingerlings this monsoon, to start with, in the Godavari river system in Adilabad district.

Six years after the Yangtze river dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer), or baiji, was declared "functionally extinct" by scientists, another marine mammal appears on the edge of extinction in China's hugely degraded Yangtze River. In less than two months, 32 Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis), a subspecies of the finless porpoise, have been dead found in Dongting and Poyang Lakes in the Yangtze, reports the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

WASHINGTON: Half of the 24 new lizard species known as skinks, all discovered on the Caribbean islands, may be close to extinction and the other half are also under threat. Researchers led by Blair Hedges, professor of biology at Penn State University, attributed their loss to the mongoose, a predatory mammal introduced by farmers to control rats in sugarcane fields during the late 19th century.

Almost two rhinos are being killed every day in South Africa to meet surging Asian demand for the animal's horn which has become more valuable than gold, platinum and cocaine.

Investigators in a remote corner of South Africa's Kruger National Park examined one of the latest victims of this crime wave on Tuesday, a white rhino felled by a heavy calibre .375 rifle shot.

Killed only days before, the corpse had been stripped almost bare by vultures and other scavengers, its ribs exposed and rotting under the hot African sky.

The ‘Sholay Rocks’ of Ramanagaram will now have the first vulture sanctuary in the country.

About 22 sqkm area in and around the Ramadevarabetta Reserve Forests (RRF) in Ramanagaram has now been notified as the Ramadevarabetta Vulture Sanctuary. About 15 of the last surviving vultures of this species in South India live in the cliffs of ‘Sholay’ in Ramanagaram situated about 50 km from here on the Bengaluru-Mysore Road.

Status of the bird may be changed from ‘least concern' to ‘near-threatened or vulnerable'

The conversation status of river tern, a bird species found mostly in inland waterbodies, is being reviewed by BirdLife International (BI), which assesses the conservation status of birds for the Red List of the Globally Threatened Birds for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

BARNADI (UDALGURI), Dec 26 – Has the elusive pigmy hog that catapulted Barnadi wildlife sanctuary into global prominence following the rediscovery of the pigmy hog and hispid hare in 1971 (after both were thought to be extinct) done the disappearing act again? Conservationists and foresters alike are groping in the dark to find an answer, with no sighting of the highly-endangered animal at Barnadi for over two decades. As things continue to worsen at Barnadi, conservationists are highly skeptical about the presence of the world’s smallest suid in what used to be its last refuge.

A wildly-colored gecko, a fish that looks like a gherkin, and a monkey with an Elvis-like hairstyle are among the more than 200 new species discovered in the Greater Mekong region last year, environmental group WWF said on Monday.

The area's diversity is so astonishing that a new species is found every two days, but regional cooperation and decision-making must take centre stage to preserve its richness, the group added.

The dangers posed to local wildlife were highlighted earlier this year, when WWF said that Vietnam's Javan rhinos have been poached into extinction.