Dispute over use of invasive species could hit production at seafood farms
You can see them on the specials boards of new restaurants and on chalkboards propped outside bars and pubs. Foodie TikTokers are eating them by the dozen. Healthy, available for £1 and even good for the environment, oysters are experiencing a boom in popularity.
But the UK industry is being hampered by a row over the farming of different species, with producers saying they are struggling to expand to meet demand. Brexit has also affected the UK shellfish industry by restricting imports and exports.
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10/14/2024 - 00:00
10/13/2024 - 20:44
Invasive Species Council says 5 million native mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs are killed by feral and roaming pet cats a day in Australia
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A five-person team of expert shooters will soon target feral cats in New South Wales national parks as the state steps up efforts to control the pest animals.
The intensive ground operation is being deployed in response to increased cat numbers, according to National Parks and Wildlife Service deputy secretary, Atticus Fleming.
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10/13/2024 - 18:00
Information ‘blueprint’ of the spotted handfish could aid monitoring, captive breeding and protection efforts, scientists say
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They’re Australia’s own underwater punks in leopard print.
Spotted handfish are an endangered species of fish that prefer to “walk” instead of swim, thanks to their unusual pectoral and pelvic fins; have a fluffy dorsal fin on their head that looks almost like a mohawk; and live in the waters off south-east Tasmania.
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‘I felt like a bird god’: why comedian Geraldine Hickey is excited for this year’s Aussie Bird Count
10/13/2024 - 09:00
The keen birdwatcher encourages others to take 20 minutes out of their day, describing the experience as ‘meditative’
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In early October the comedian Geraldine Hickey went looking for tawny frogmouths, a charismatic bird with a frog-like beak and mottled feathers.
“They’re a good-looking bird,” Hickey says, though it hasn’t yet appeared in her annual bird calendar, a project she started as a “lockdown thing” that has gained its own dedicated audience.
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10/13/2024 - 05:00
Claimants seeking damages from Anglo-Australian mining company over 2015 environmental disaster in Brazil
The mother of a seven-year-old boy who was torn from the arms of his grandmother and drowned in one of Brazil’s worst environmental disasters is among more than 620,000 claimants who will have their case heard this month in the largest group claim in English legal history.
Gelvana Aparecida Rodrigues da Silva, 37, lost her son Thiago on 5 November 2015 when the Fundão dam, near Mariana in eastern Brazil, collapsed, releasing about 50m cubic metres of toxic waste.
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10/13/2024 - 05:00
Former administration officials say Trump deliberately denied funds to states he deemed politically hostile
Donald Trump deliberately withheld disaster aid to states he deemed politically hostile to him as US president and will do so again unimpeded if he returns to the White House, several former Trump administration officials have warned.
As Hurricane Helene and then Hurricane Milton have ravaged much of the south-eastern US in the past two weeks, Trump has sought to pin blame upon Joe Biden’s administration for a ponderous response to the disasters, even suggesting that this was deliberate due to the number of Republican voters affected by the storms.
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10/13/2024 - 03:00
Exclusive: United Utilities and Severn Trent had four-star environment ranking but discharges breached permits, campaign group says
• ‘Ankle deep in sewage’: English spring water village suffers supected unlawful spills
Two of England’s biggest water firms dumped raw sewage into rivers across the country in suspected illegal breaches of their permits, despite being given the highest possible rating by the regulator for their environmental performance, the Observer can reveal.
Severn Trent Water and United Utilities were responsible for 1,374 raw sewage spills from sewage treatment works in apparent breaches of permits over a two-year period in more than 80 watercourses, according to an analysis of previously unpublished operational data. It is alleged the suspected illegal discharges were during dry weather or at times when the plants were not at operating capacity.
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10/13/2024 - 03:00
Excavation of famous site solves 200-year mystery and sheds light on history of the growing city
For more than 200 years, the creation of Edinburgh’s famous Mound has remained something of a mystery.
Built on the boggy bed of a drained loch in the late 18th and early 19th century, the artificial mound connected the city’s medieval Old Town with the burgeoning prosperity of the New Town, transforming the Scottish capital.
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10/13/2024 - 00:00
Water firm Severn Trent accused of being in breach of environmental permits over pollution near Malvern Hills
• Top-rated UK water firms ‘dumped 1,374 illegal spills into rivers’
Colwall, a village of less than 3,000 people on the border between Herefordshire and Worcestershire, is renowned for its spring water, which comes from the nearby Malvern Hills. An area of outstanding natural beauty, it has been favoured by the royal family for centuries, including Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.
But the water at Colwall is now in the spotlight for very different reasons. The most recent data from Severn Trent Water, the company that covers the area, reveals that a sewage treatment works on Cradley Brook, near the village, spilled sewage for 1,756 hours in 2021 and 1,361 hours in 2022.
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10/13/2024 - 00:00
We are losing in the fight against global warming, it is time to put effort into controlling what we pump into the atmosphere
The havoc unleashed by Hurricane Milton provided unambiguous evidence that we are entering a critical and alarming new phase in the planet’s climate crisis. Rising fossil fuel emissions have triggered increases in ocean temperatures and sea levels to such an extent they are generating some of the most destructive storms ever experienced in Florida. Together with Hurricane Helene earlier, the lives of about 250 people have been claimed and thousands of homes destroyed. Florida has been left reeling and forecasters have warned there is more to come – a lot more.
It is a grim prognosis that should be galvanising Florida’s political leaders into taking urgent action to protect the state. Extraordinarily, this has not been the case. Despite the intensification of hurricanes and worsening flooding over the past decade, governor Ron DeSantis has consistently rejected the idea that global warming poses a threat to Florida or that the phenomenon exists at all. A few weeks ago, he signed a law erasing the words “climate change” from state statutes and effectively pledged the state’s future to burning fossil fuels. Such behaviour is disturbing.
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