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Saint Helena Plover
The Saint Helena plover (''Anarhynchus sanctaehelenae''), locally known as the wirebird due to its thin legs, is a small wader endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the mid-Atlantic. The bird is similar in appearance to Kittlitz's plover and the Madagascar plover, but a little larger and an absence of chamois coloring. It is the national bird of St Helena and has been depicted on the country's coins. Populations in general have been declining. Threats include predation by cats, the introduction of the common myna, deforestation, off-road vehicle use, the Saint Helena Airport and a projected windfarm. In 2016, the population had recovered to about 560 mature individuals, from a previous minimum of less than 200 in 2006; consequently, the species was downlisted to Vulnerable from its previous assessment of Critically Endangered. Description Kittlitz's plover is the Saint Helena bird's closest relative. The Saint Helena plover is generally larger (around 15 cm (6 in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Edmund Harting
James Edmund Harting (29 April 1841 – 16 January 1928) was an English ornithologist and naturalist who wrote numerous books and articles in journals, as well as serving as an editor of several British natural history periodicals. Biography Harting was the eldest son of Roman Catholic solicitor James Vincent Harting and Alexine Milne Fotheringham. He was educated at Downside School (1854–60) and the University of London and spent much of his youth travelling on the Continent, spending time at the museums in Paris and Leiden. Passing all the exams to become a solicitor, except for criminal law, he worked at his profession from 1868 to 1878, before turning to natural history and writing. He published his first article for '' The Field'' on 13 March 1869 and remained on the staff for fifty years, becoming editor of the Naturalist Department in 1871 and later editor of the Shooting Department. By 1920 he had contributed 2,326 articles as well as 124 obituary notices, as wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, with half of that loss occurring in the last century. Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute. Estimates vary widely as to the extent of deforestation in the tropics. In 2019, nearly a third of the overall tree cover loss, or 3.8 million hectares, occurred within humid tropical primary forests. These are areas of mature rainforest that are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage. The direct cause of most deforestation is agriculture by far. More than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Described In 1873
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have furt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anarhynchus
''Anarhynchus'' is a genus of plovers consisting of 24 species. Many ''Anarhynchus'' species are characterised by partial collars, rather than full breast bands or collars which are characteristic of ''Charadrius''. Taxonomy French naturalists Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard described this genus to accommodate the Wrybill. The name is from Ancient Greek ana- (, means "backward") and rhunkhos (, means "bill"). ''Anarhynchus'' was previously considered monotypic, consisting only of the wrybill. Studies in 2015 and 2022 confirmed that ''Charadrius'' is polyphyletic, with some species more closely related to the wrybill rather than the common ringed plover. In IOC 14.1, 23 species were transferred to this genus. ''Anarhynchus'' now contains the following species: * Caspian plover, ''Anarhynchus asiaticus'' (Pallas, 1773) * Oriental plover, ''Anarhynchus veredus'' (Gould, 1848) * Tibetan sand plover, ''Anarhynchus atrifrons'' (Wagler, 1829) * Siberian sand pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RSPB
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a Charitable_organization#United_Kingdom, charitable organisation registered in Charity Commission for England and Wales, England and Wales and in Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Scotland. It was founded in 1889. It works to promote bird conservation, conservation and protection of birds and the wider Natural environment, environment through public awareness campaigns, petitions and through the operation of Nature Reserve, nature reserves throughout the United Kingdom. In 2021/22 the RSPB had revenue of £157 million, 2,200 employees, 10,500 volunteers and 1.1 million members (including 195,000 youth members), making it one of the world's largest wildlife conservation organisations. The RSPB has many local groups and maintains 222 nature reserves. History The origins of the RSPB lie with two groups of women, both formed in 1889: * The Plumage League was founded by Emily Williamson at her house in Didsbury, Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reforestation
Reforestation is the practice of restoring previously existing forests and woodlands that have been destroyed or damaged. The prior forest destruction might have happened through deforestation, clearcutting or wildfires. Three important purposes of reforestation programs are for harvesting of wood, for climate change mitigation, and for ecosystem and habitat restoration purposes. One method of reforestation is to establish tree plantations, also called plantation forests. They cover about 131 million ha worldwide, which is 3% of the global forest area and 45% of the total area of planted forests. Globally, planted forests increased from 4.1% to 7.0% of the total forest area between 1990 and 2015. Plantation forests made up 280 million ha (hectare) in 2015, an increase of about 40 million ha in the previous ten years. Of the planted forests worldwide, 18% of that area consists of exotic or introduced species while the rest consist of species native to the country where they are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosperous Bay Plain
Prosperous Bay Plain is an area on the eastern coast of Saint Helena, a United Kingdom, British island territory in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean. It is the site of the Saint Helena Airport, and is notable for its high invertebrate biodiversity. Geography Prosperous Bay Plain forms part of the eastern arid area of Saint Helena, and covers about 2.25 km2, comprising one of the largest areas of relatively level ground on the island. It was formed 8.5 million years ago by lava flows from Saint Helena's Southwest Volcano. The surface of the plain is covered by rocks, grit and dust, with what little soil there is containing high concentrations of mineral salts. Within the plain there is a 60 hectare (0.6 km2) depression known as the Central Basin, with a level dusty base. This forms a miniature mature desert ecosystem.Ashmole, Philip; & Ashmole, Myrtle. (2004). ''The invertebrates of Prosperous Bay Plain, St Helena''. Commissioned by the St Helena Government and fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subpopulation
In statistics, a population is a set of similar items or events which is of interest for some question or experiment. A statistical population can be a group of existing objects (e.g. the set of all stars within the Milky Way galaxy) or a hypothetical and potentially infinite group of objects conceived as a generalization from experience (e.g. the set of all possible hands in a game of poker). A population with finitely many values N in the support of the population distribution is a finite population with population size N. A population with infinitely many values in the support is called infinite population. A common aim of statistical analysis is to produce information about some chosen population. In statistical inference, a subset of the population (a statistical '' sample'') is chosen to represent the population in a statistical analysis. Moreover, the statistical sample must be unbiased and accurately model the population. The ratio of the size of this statistical sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological species. A series of Regional Red Lists, which assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit, are also produced by countries and organizations. The goals of the Red List are to provide scientifically based information on the status of species and subspecies at a global level, to draw attention to the magnitude and importance of threatened biodiversity, to influence national and international policy and decision-making, and to provide information to guide actions to conserve biological diversity. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology (the research division of the Zoological Society of London), the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and many Specialist Groups w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feral Cat
A feral cat or a stray cat is an unowned domestic cat (''Felis catus'') that lives outdoors and avoids human contact; it does not allow itself to be handled or touched, and usually remains hidden from humans. Feral cats may breed over dozens of generations and become a local apex predator in urban, savannah and bushland environments, and especially on islands where native animals did not evolve alongside predators. Some feral cats may become more comfortable with people who regularly feed them, but even with long-term attempts at socialization of animals, socialization, they usually remain aloof and reject human touch. Of the 700 million cats in the world, an estimated 480 million are feral. Feral cats are devastating to wildlife, and conservation biologists consider them to be one of the worst invasive species on Earth. They are included in the list of 100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species, the world's 100 worst invasive alien species. Attempts to control feral cat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forest
A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as, "Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a Canopy (biology), canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds ''in situ''. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use." Using this definition, ''Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA), Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020'' found that forests covered , or approximately 31 percent of the world's land area in 2020. Forests are the largest Terrestrial ecosystem, terrestrial ecosystems of Earth by area, and are found around the globe. 45 percent of forest land is in the Tropical forest, trop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
