A New Beginning for a Legendary Bird: Welcoming the First Kākāpō Chick of 2026
Tīwhiri-A1-2026 pictured on its hatch day (above) and at one day old (below) being weighed by Ranger Maddy. Photos |DOC
The kākāpō—Aotearoa New Zealand’s charismatic, moss‑green, nocturnal parrot—has just welcomed a precious new arrival. After four long years without a single hatch, the first chick of the 2026 breeding season has made its debut, marking a moment of hope for one of the world’s…
Do you have any favourite Greek charities? Maybe for people effected by wildfires? I tried to find some myself but I don't know Greek :(
First of all, thank you for your interest! I don't think there is an active charity for people affected by the wildfires right now, because those usually occur in the summer and they occasionally open temporary charity phone / sms lines or sites.
Below are a couple of Greek charities with internationally accessible donation services and a site with an interface intuitive enough for a foreign person or a non-Greek speaker
A big charity organisation in Greece is Το Χαμόγελο του Παιδιού (To Hamóyelo tou Paedioú - The Smile of the Child), for the protection of children against domestic violence and poverty. Below is their website in english, through which you can donate. The organisation is legit and receives minimal support from our great /s state. It survives through donations. The charity organisation also has an e-shop, which you can check out in case they ship to your place.
Support Us - The Smile of the Child ®
MOm / The Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk seal is a Greek non–governmental environmental organization with the legal status of a Non–profit association. MOm is active in the protection and promotion of the coastal and marine environment of Greece, through the protection of the Mediterranean monk seal, which is the only seal species in the Mediterranean Sea and the most endangered seal on earth.
MOm further protects the dolphins and marine mammal biodiversity in the country. It is totally legit, the people there truly work hard for the conservation of the endangered species. You can donate, or buy from their e-shop (dunno if they ship everywhere but you can try) conscript / volunteer or adopt a monk seal :)
Find out the many ways you can help save the Mediterranean monk seal, the rarest seal in the world!
These are two legit charity organisations with foreign user friendly interfaces. If, in the future, God forbid, new lines or websites open for wildfire victims, I will make a relevant post. Let's hope we won't need more of that. If however anyone knows of more Greek charities or fire victim charities that have an international reach and are legit / safe, please help us out.
The lead author expressed hope that the research "will be of use to both conservation organizations and government agencies" amid a legal b
As U.S. conservationists continue to fight for federal protections that would cover gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains, research released Wednesday highlights just how important the apex predators are to the western United States.
The study was published in the journal BioScience and led by William Ripple, a scientist at Oregon State University (OSU) and the Conservation Biology Institute known for his work on trophic cascades and carnivores as well as his demands for climate action.
The paper uses gray wolves to show the trouble with "shifting baselines," which, "in ecology encapsulate the gradual and often unnoticed alterations in ecosystems over time, leading to a redefinition of what is considered normal or baseline conditions."
As the study details:
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) in North America have experienced a substantial contraction of their historical range, at one point almost disappearing from the contiguous 48 United States. However, their conservation is important in part because of the potential cascading effects wolves can have on lower trophic levels. Namely, the proliferation and changes to behavior and density of large herbivores following the extirpation or displacement of wolves can have major effects on various aspects of vegetation structure, succession, productivity, species composition, and diversity, which, in turn, can have implications for overall biodiversity and the quality of habitat for other wildlife.
"By the 1930s, wolves were largely absent from the American West, including its national parks," Ripple said in a statement. "Most published ecological research from this region occurred after the extirpation of wolves."
"This situation underscores the potential impact of shifting baselines on our understanding of plant community succession, animal community dynamics, and ecosystem functions," he continued.
The researchers examined journal articles, master's theses, and Ph.D. dissertations from 1955 to 2021 that involved field work in national parks in the northwestern United States for whether they included information on the removal of gray wolves.
They found that "in total, approximately 41% (39 of 96) of the publications mentioned or discussed the historical presence of wolves or large carnivores, but most (approximately 59%) did not. The results for the theses and journal articles were similar."
While the researchers focused on wolves, Robert Beschta, co-author and emeritus professor at OSU, noted that "in addition to the loss or displacement of large predators, there may be other potential anthropogenic legacies within national parks that should be considered, including fire suppression, invasion by exotic plants and animals, and overgrazing by livestock."
Ripple stressed that "studying altered ecosystems without recognizing how or why the system has changed over time since the absence of a large predator could have serious implications for wildlife management, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem restoration."
"We hope our study will be of use to both conservation organizations and government agencies in identifying ecosystem management goals," he added.
Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), welcomed the study, tellingInside Climate News that "I think this is a really important paper, because sometimes science advances at a certain rate without a self-introspection."
"Nature is a really complex tapestry," she said. "It's woven together by threads that hold it together and keep it strong. When you start to pull threads out like you remove apex predators, the whole thing begins to unravel."
The paper comes amid a wolf conservation battle that involves Weiss' group. In February, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) determined that Endangered Species Act protections for the wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains were "not warranted."
Two coalitions of conservation organizations, including CBD, swiftly filed notices of their intent to sue over the decision if FWS didn't change course. After the legally required 60-day notice period passed, they filed the lawsuits in April.
Earlier this week, "the cases were voluntarily dismissed and immediately refiled to avoid any potential arguments from the defendants that the plaintiffs failed to give the secretary of the interior proper 60-days' notice under the Endangered Species Act," Collette Adkins, an attorney who leads CBD's Carnivore Conservation program, told Common Dreams in an email Thursday.
"Plaintiffs believe that their case was properly noticed," she said, "but we refiled to avoid any further disruption of the proceedings."
1,300 Kenyan Farmers Graduate After Four Years of First-of-its-Kind Sustainable Agroforestry and Climate Action Training Program
Discover how over 1,300 farmers in Homa Bay, Kenya, are transforming their livelihoods and restoring the environment through Trees for the Future’s Forest Garden Program, a sustainable agroforestry initiative.
Learn how agroforestry techniques like composting, crop rotation, and tree planting are empowering farmers in Kenya to combat climate change, increase food security, and boost…
Chile launched a program on Monday to protect the huemul, an endangered southern deer, by creating a biological corridor that includes an area recently donated by the family of the late philanthropist and founder of the North Face, Douglas Tompkins.
(source: reuters | 7 mar 2023)
"Huemul National Corridor"
The huemul is one of two species of native deer found only in the Patagonian forests of Argentina and Chile. But habitat degradation has reduced the huemul to less than 1% of its original population, according to ministry data.
