The Telegraph report hedgehogs are dying because people are leaving netting out in their gardens, the RSPCA has warned.
The leading animal charity says that dozens of the small, spikey mammals have become entangled in football, badminton and pond nets causing fatal injuries and urged people to pack their equipment away.
The BBC reports up to 9,000 of badgers are likely to have suffered “immense pain” in culls to control cattle TB, according to a former government adviser.
Prof Ranald Munro is the ex-Chair of an independent expert group appointed by the government to assess its trials. He has written to Natural England to say that the policy is causing “huge suffering”. He adds that the culls are not reducing TB in cattle and in one area the incidence of the disease has gone up.
The culls began in 2012 following appeals from cattle farmers whose livelihoods are continuing to be damaged by the spread of TB.
Badger photo by Sally Langstaff under creative commons.
The Guardian reports Swansea University scientists say the proliferation of weirs, dams and culverts is now creating a threat to wildlife.
Near the mouth of the River Afan in Port Talbot, south Wales, a pair of seagulls were to be seen last week pecking in a leisurely way at a dead salmon lying on a gravel bank. It was an unusual sight. Salmon are rarely found in the Afan these days.
The scene may have been unexpected, but it nevertheless illustrates a growing problem, say researchers – one that already affects rivers across Europe and could pose even greater threats to habitats and wildlife in future.
The BBC reports climate change has affected the numbers of about a third of the bird species seen in UK hedgerows and gardens, according to a new study. Research by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has shown an increase in some garden birds like goldcrests as they profit from warmer temperatures.
But it said increased UK temperatures had had an impact on the decline of birds such as cuckoos and turtle doves. Both species have seen population drops of more than 80% in the past 30 years.
The Guardian reports it has been a highway, a sewer and was declared biologically dead in the 1950s but the River Thames is now a nursery for 138 baby seals, according to the first comprehensive count of pups.
Scientists from ZSL analysed photographs taken from a specially-chartered light aircraft to identify and count harbour seal pups, which rest on sandbanks and creeks around the Thames estuary, downstream from London, during the summer, shortly after they are born.
