habitat

As It Happens6:08This rare loon brought the Bellagio Hotel's famous Vegas fountain show to a haltWhile it's common to see crowds of people gathered outside the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, they're not usually there for birdwatching. But recently, a rare juvenile yellow-billed loon took up residence in the hotel's artificial lake, putting the Bellagio's famous fountain show on temporary hiatus. "He's been big news for the last week," Kurt Buzard, senior recreation assistant at the Henderson Bird Viewing…

Federal authorities have closed Canada's only known live coral reef in the Pacific Ocean to all commercial and recreational bottom-contact fishing.Fisheries and Oceans Canada says the indefinite closure came into effect on Feb. 14 for the Lophelia Reef, located in the Finlayson Channel of British Columbia's Central Coast, about 500 kilometres northwest of Vancouver and 200 kilometres directly east of Haida Gwaii.The department says the reef was first discovered in 2021 and is the "first and only" known live coral reef in…

As It Happens6:13More than 100 possible new marine species discovered in a single deepsea expeditionDuring a research expedition off the coast of Chile, Erin Easton says her colleagues were constantly showing her some amazing new sea creature they'd just discovered."It would just be, like, 'Erin, Erin, Erin, look!'" Easton, a marine scientist at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal."It is beyond my wildest dreams of what we could have expected. It felt like every time we went…

A red panda named Paprika was introduced to her potential mate at the Greater Vancouver Zoo recently, as part of a conservation program for the endangered species. After being in quarantine since she arrived from the Toronto Zoo in December, the six-year-old red panda finally met her match, Arun, on Saturday. "I won't say that they are in love, but they are definitely enjoying being together," said Menita Prasad, director of animal care at the zoo. The hope is that the two will produce cubs as part of a species survival…

During its nesting season, the marbled murrelet, known affectionately among bird watchers as a "strange, mysterious little seabird," lays a single egg in the thick mosses that grow on the branches of British Columbia's old-growth forest canopy.With some of those forests under threat from logging, the small black-and-brown mottled seabird is considered threatened, too.The marbled murrelet is among a growing number of migratory species animals facing a perilous future, a new UN report found.  "The solution for the marbled …

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This weekly newsletter is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change. Keep up with the latest news on our Climate and Environment page.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.This week: From fashion to burials: How fungi can help fight climate change 2024 has barely started and is already threatening to set temperature records World's globetrotting animals at risk due to habitat…

The 27th annual Great Backyard Bird Count started Friday morning, and throughout the weekend, bird enthusiasts across Canada will be looking to help biologists track bird movements this winter.While the effort put in by any individual can be minimal, as little as 15 minutes, the overall contribution of the event to science is huge, says Samantha Knight, Atlantic stewardship manager with Nature Conservancy of Canada."It takes a big community effort to gather the data needed to understand those population trends," said…

As It Happens6:24Great apes get a kick out of 'playfully teasing' each other, study findsWhat do you call it when a chimpanzee offers his buddy a delicious piece of fruit only to pull his hand away at the last second? Or when a bonobo repeatedly pokes, prods and pulls on the hair of an older relative not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to be annoying?It's not quite play, argues anthropologist Erica Cartmill, but it's not quite aggression either. It's "playful teasing." And, according to a new study, it's a very…

A new report by the U.S. branch of the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency says that investment interest and government tax incentives are fuelling intense mining exploration in remote northern B.C. — raising concerns about the environmental impacts of the work and its financial implications.The report focuses on the transboundary region, which falls along the border between the Alaska panhandle and the province of B.C. Much of this exploration is focused on the so-called Golden Triangle, which in many areas is…

Sierra Space has completed a key test of its inflatable space habitat, as the company progresses toward launching and operating a private space station with Blue Origin before the end of the decade. The “ultimate burst pressure” test of the inflatable module was conducted at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. As the name suggests, the purpose of the test is to inflate the unit until it bursts. In this instance, engineers inflated the module to 77 psi before it burst, proving that it exceeded NASA’s recommended…