What's HOT in Conservation News!
 Click on a headline to get a closer look at today's top stories:
New Video From International Crane Foundation
Watch
"Battle for the Elephants" Online
New Elephant Alarm Collar Being Tested in Samburu
Scientists Discover Nearly Extinct Bird
Indianapolis
Prize Winner Receives International Honor
Great
News for Mountain Gorillas!
New Report on the Top
Ten Ecosystems Impacted by Water Problems
Palm Oil Production Destroying Orangutan Habitat
Range
Not Quantity May Be the Key to Ocean Species Extinctions
Save Orangutans!
Disturbing Trends in Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice
Selecting
the Winner of the 2012 Indianapolis Prize
And the Winner Is...
New Video from International Crane Foundation Highlights
Dangers to Crowned Cranes
Watch this video that focuses on the threats to the beautiful
African Crowned Cranes and what you can do to help save them.
 Watch
"Battle for the Elephants" Online
The PBS/National Geographic documentary, "Battle
for the Elephants," is now available in its
entirety online. This show documents the increasingly terrible
situation with poaching of Africa's elephants to meet the ivory
demands of Asian consumers. This is must-see viewing for anyone
concerned with trying to save these magnificent and endangered
animals. If things continue as they are, elephants in Africa
could completely disappear, not in lifetimes, but in only
decades. for more information, you can also check out
Save the
Elephants. Photo by Mike Crowther
New Elephant Alarm Collar Being Tested in Samburu
This blog posting
on Huffington Post caught our eye - it's by former
Indianapolis Prize
finalist Carl Safina, and it's all about a test for a new alarm
collar for the elephants in Samburu. Carl was observing the
Save the Elephants
crew at work (pictured right in this photo by Carl), and his
report is just fascinating. The hope is to help save elephants
from the increasing threat of poaching.
http://huff.to/VspGAY
Scientists Discover Nearly Extinct Bird
 Hot news from Brazil! According to the American Bird
Conservancy, the first known nest of one of the world's rarest
birds - the Critically Endangered Stresemann's Bristlefront -
has been discovered in Brazil. Of perhaps equal significance is
that strong evidence of active nestlings was also found.
The Stresemann's Bristlefront is one of the world's most
threatened bird species -- unrecorded for 50 years until it was
rediscovered in 1995 near Una, Bahia, in Brazil's Atlantic
Forest region. The world population estimate is fewer than 15
individuals. Its population is declining owing to fires,
logging, and the clearance of humid valley-floor forest for
cattle ranching and agriculture.
Read the details of how this
ground-dwelling bird's nesting tunnel was discovered. Photo
by Ciro Albano, NE Brazil Birding
 Indianapolis
Prize Winner Receives International Honor
Dr. Steve Amstrup of Polar Bears International has received one
of the most prestigious international honors - a Bambi Award -
in recognition of his efforts to save the endangered polar bear
from the effects of global warming.
Get the details!
 Check
the
latest news from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund
International posted on Indianapolis Zoo Talk that
the latest census on mountain gorillas in the Bwindi
Impenetrable Forest National Park shows a marked increase of at
least 100 more individuals. This is great news for this
critically endangered primate. It's also wonderful news for
Associate Veterinarian Dr. Jan Ramer, who spent two years
heading up the team at the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project
and is helping care for the Indianapolis Zoo's orangutans as the
Zoo gets ready for the opening of the
International Orangutan Center in 2014.
 Download
this new report from the Endangered Species
Coalition listing the top ten ecosystems in the United States
that are impacted by changing weather and the pollution of our
nation's waterways. Included are the Everglades, the Colorado
River, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, among others. The title
of the report is "Water Woes: How dams, diversions, dirty water
and droughts put America's wildlife at risk."
As we've said before, the cultivation and production of palm
oil, a product found in at least half the products Americans
typically buy at the grocery store, is destroying the forest
habitats of the last remaining wild orangutans on Borneo and
Sumatra. You can learn more about this vital issue in this
outstanding report
by Ian Williams of NBC News that aired recently on
Rock Center with Brian Williams.
Science Daily has a
fascinating story about how the fossil
records of now extinct ocean creatures may hold the secret on
what factors caused these marine animals to vanish.
Preliminary findings indicate that reductions in range size --
such as when a species' habitat is destroyed or degraded --
could mean a big increase in long-term extinction risk, even if
population sizes in the remaining portions of the species' range
are still relatively large.
Purchase
products from companies that support
sustainable palm oil.
The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) offers these
helpful lists of products that will not contribute to the
de-forestation of the orangutans' habitat in Borneo and
Indonesia:
Candy companies and products
Food items of all kinds
Shopping Guide
Watch a
Today Show exclusive on the man trying to
save the threatened Sumatran Orangutans!
That's the foreboding headline on this recent story
about the problems caused by the cumulative effects of
our changing climate. The sheer numbers involved
in the shrinking ice cover are frightening. Read the
details from
Science Daily.
Obviously, this rapid melting poses a huge threat
to polar bears and makes the work of Dr. Steve Amstrup even more significant.
Learn more in the
Indianapolis Zoo's blog.
Want to know what it's like to
serve on the Indianapolis Prize Jury and help select the winner
of the 2012 Prize? Check out this
interesting article featuring Moses Okello of The School for Field Studies Center for Wildlife Management
in East Africa relating his experience as a member of the Jury.
He gives you a first-hand look of all that goes into determining
who is the winner of the Indianapolis Prize!
Dr.
Steve Amstrup of Polar Bears International has been named the winner of the
2012 Indianapolis Prize, the
 world's
leading award for animal conservation.
The
Indianapolis Zoo has a unique relationship with
Polar Bears International as
one of their Arctic Ambassadors.
Learn more about
climate change and global warming.
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