The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/28/2025 - 03:00
02/28/2025 - 03:00
Chris Bowen accuses Coalition of creating ‘sovereign risk’ by opposing offshore projects as as Nationals celebrate ‘major win’
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An offshore windfarm developer has asked the Albanese government to pause its application to progress its project off the Illawarra until after the coming federal election, after the Coalition campaigned against it.
BlueFloat Energy was the only applicant asking for a seven-year feasibility licence to further develop its project in the deep waters of the Illawarra offshore wind zone.
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02/28/2025 - 02:00
Exclusive: Government to grant nature groups a licence for release of rodent species after earlier setbacks
The release of beavers into English waterways is to be allowed for the first time in centuries, the Guardian can reveal.
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, is to announce that nature groups will be able to get a licence for the release. The first releases could happen this autumn.
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02/28/2025 - 00:00
For decades, the Swiss city has been transforming its skyline, and now boasts some of the greenest rooftops in Europe
Susanne Hablützel breaks up her work day by staring out the window at a rooftop garden. The view is not spectacular: a pile of dead wood sits atop an untidy plot that houses chicory, toadflax, thistle and moss.
But Hablützel, a biologist in charge of nature projects in Basel, is enthralled by the plants and creatures the roof has brought in. “Tree fungi have settled in the trunks, and they are great to see – I love mushrooms. You can also see birds now – that wasn’t the case before.”
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02/27/2025 - 20:09
Delegates hammer out compromise on delivering billions of dollars to protect species and their habitats
Delegates from across the world have cheered a last-gasp deal to map out funding to protect nature, breaking a deadlock at UN talks seen as a test for international cooperation in the face of geopolitical tensions.
Rich and developing countries on Thursday hammered out a delicate compromise on raising and delivering the billions of dollars needed to protect species, overcoming stark divisions that had scuttled their previous Cop16 meeting in Cali, Colombia last year.
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02/27/2025 - 17:47
Employees informed by email that their jobs would be cut off at end of day in move a worker called ‘wrong all around’
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The Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency housed within the Department of Commerce, the Guardian has learned.
On Thursday afternoon, the commerce department sent emails to employees saying their jobs would be cut off at the end of the day. Other government agencies have also seen huge staffing cuts in recent days.
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02/27/2025 - 17:06
The 1890 National Scholars program gives full rides to HBCU students in fields like botany, forestry and food safety
Dr Marcus Bernard was shocked to learn last week that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had suspended the 1890 National Scholars program that funds undergraduate students’ education in agriculture or related fields at about 20 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Bernard is dean of the college of agriculture, health and natural resources at one of those institutions, Kentucky State University. At Kentucky State, close to 40 of the scholars have enrolled since the project’s inception in 1992. Nationwide, the program has supported more than 800 students, according to the USDA.
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02/27/2025 - 16:08
Couple unwittingly revealed to state wildlife agents that they were transporting the remains of a protected sea turtle
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A California couple learned the hard way that discussing their travel plans with strangers can have dire consequences, especially when those plans involve transporting the remains of a protected sea turtle in their carry-on luggage.
More than a year ago, two officers from the California department of fish and wildlife (CDFW) were flying back to northern California from San Diego, dressed in plain clothes, and struck up a conversation with a couple seated nearby who were discussing hunting.
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02/27/2025 - 12:58
New research highlights the unique dilemma faced by Sydney's koala population. Populations in south-western Sydney are among the very few in New South Wales still free of chlamydia, a highly contagious disease causing infertility that has severely diminished populations elsewhere in the continent's eastern states. However, analysis of these koalas shows how vulnerable they are to environmental threats and outbreaks of disease. Highly inbred and with low genetic diversity, they are less likely to adapt to the disease should it arrive on their doorstep.
02/27/2025 - 12:07
Trial announced as Keir Starmer arrives in Washington to meet Donald Trump, a longtime critic of windfarms
Offshore windfarms are to be painted black in an effort to reduce the number of birds that die after flying into them.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a four-year trial to paint the wind turbines after officials raised concerns that the government’s plan to increase turbine numbers in the North Sea could spell danger for seabirds. Limited research has been conducted on the number of birds killed this way, but estimates range from four to 18 per turbine per year.
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