Conservation - DocMartin

Highly pathogenic bird flu variants mostly evolve in intensive poultry farming

Highly pathogenic bird flu variants evolve from regular, low pathogenic, bird flus, within intensive poultry farming.

World’s Birds Akin to Canaries in Coalmine as Human Impacts Continue Apace

Birds are wonderful, but also face an array of threats, mostly resulting from human activities - hunting, habitat loss, climate change...

A Tale of Two Spoon Bills and East Asia Wetland Threats

Two star Hong Kong bird species are Black-faced Spoonbill and Spoon-billed Sandpiper, with stories reflecting changes to east Asian wetlands.

Confessions of a crazy conservationist

I’m not quite so sure now, but I also think you appreciate living in a world where there are places of outstanding natural beauty, and where tigers prowl jungles, polar bears hunt on Arctic ice floes, pandas roam bamboo forests, and sharks patrol reefs, helping keep ecosystems in balance. If you have children, you hope they and their children can grow and live in a similar world.

No use captive breeding rare species if there is no habitat left for them

This past summer, a team of biologists scoured Siberian tundra in search of nests and eggs of one of the world's most threatened species, spoon-billed sandpiper. Aim was for captive breeding; yet this is far from ideal way of saving species.

Wonders of Bird Migration – and Threatened Asian Wetlands

Birds may undertake marathon flights using astonishing navigation skills – yet are threatened by careless habitat destruction

Wind farms and migratory birds

On wind farms and actual or possible threats to migratory birds, including in China.

Traditional Chinese Medicine and Conservation

Traditional Chinese Medicine and conservation Bone of Tiger, Bile of Bear In the Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, there is a museum devoted to “Chinese Materia Medica”. Were I to take you in there, I might ask you to close your eyes. No, I wouldn’t tell you…

Taman Negara rainforest, Malaysia

Taman Negara – rainforest national park in Malaysia Breakfast with hornbills Early morning at Taman Negara Resort. I stand with a group of birdwatchers gathered by a cluster of chalets, and peer into a tree. Unperturbed by the resort staff and other early risers strolling below, various birds…

Pan Wenshi: Scientist Who Fights for the Pandas

When Pan learned how close giant pandas were to extinction, he knew he had to help these engaging creatures.

Keeper of the Kings: Captive breeding Philippine Eagles

Domingo Tadena: Captive breeding Philippine eagles

Basic info on wild birds and H5N1 avian influenza

Notions that migratory birds are responsible for spreading the New n Nasty H5N1 Bird Flu Variant around Asia are quackers (chiefly looking at 2003/2004 outbreaks)

Bird Flu inc H5N1 Info

Info and links re bird flu, especially the nasty H5N1 variant in Asia

Forest Conservation in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo

People working to save the remaining forests of Borneo, described by Charles Darwin as, "One great untidy luxuriant hothouse made by nature."

Philippine Eagle conservation on Mindanao: bringing back Ol’ Blue Eyes

With a 6.5-foot wingspan, the Philippine eagle is the only bird of prey with blue-grey eyes. Efforts are underway to save it from extinction.

Xi Zhinong: Saving Yunnan snub-nosed monkey

Local officials figured they’d have no problems switching logging operations to another tract of forest. Enter Xi Zhinong.

Gurney’s Pitta in Thailand

Gurney's Pitta back from oblivion

South China tiger rescue efforts too little, too late

Hunting and habitat destruction have brought these magnificent cats perilously close to extinction. Can the most threatened of the sub-species claw its way back? The scratch marks on the tree high in the mountains of Hunan province, south central China, are barely discernible today: four thin vertical lines…