Newsletter #98

• TVNZ: Endangered Species Aotearoa: Nicola and Pax’s search for endangered species sees them venturing into the Kaikōura region.
• Freshwater Conference 2025: NZFF & AFFS joint conference. December 1-4; Fresh water in flux: challenges and opportunities in an uncertain world. 
• Newsroom: The shifting sands beneath the Ngāi Tahu water case “What happened outside the courtroom might be as instructive as the battle over freshwater inside it.”
• Newsroom: New Zealand’s estuaries ‘in hot water’ “The health of New Zealand’s estuaries is on the decline, and climate-induced heat waves mean they are quite literally ‘in hot water’”
• Radio NZ: Academics call for urgent action on nitrate pollution “A trio of academics are calling on the Canterbury Regional Council (CRC) to take urgent action on what they deem a water pollution crisis.”
• The Conversation/ University of Canterbury: Giving rivers room to move: how rethinking flood management can benefit people and nature.
• The Conversation: Rivers are increasingly being given legal rights. Now they need people who will defend these rights in court
• EcoNet has set up a new website in ArcGiS Hub for people interested in accessing CAMS Community and beyond. “CAMS Public is in development and will enable free public access to CAMS Public Weed Action maps to edit a limited set of public weed data, as well as dashboards with aggregated statistics, and field maps for finding the weeds in the field.”
• The Conversation: World-first analysis of seabirds who’ve eaten plastic reveals slow, insidious health impacts. “...young sable shearwaters (seabirds, Ardenna carneipes) less than 90 days old and appeared healthy. Despite their young age, the birds with plastic in their stomachs had signs or symptoms of neurodegenerative disease, as well as kidney and liver disease. It was absolutely shocking to see these signals of dementia because these birds are less than 100 days old, and they live up to 37 years.“
• World Meterological Organisation: Glacier melt will unleash avalanche of cascading impacts. This includes changes to how braided rivers behave seasonally as glaciers disappear.
• Mongabay: New [insect eating] bat detection system in India promises more efficient data collection
• Positive News: Soaring high with a flock of birds and their human ‘foster parents’ “The climate crisis has made the species’ [Waldrapps] usual passage south over the Alps and into Tuscany too dangerous in recent years. In response, The Waldrapp team has devised a new – and far longer – migratory route to Andalusia in Spain, a journey of 1615 miles (2600km) taking around 50 days.”
• Quanta Magazine: A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems “Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions among species.”
• Science: This fuzzy hummingbird chick may be in disguise—as a caterpillar
• Washington Post: Trump team cites wolf ‘de-extinction’ as it seeks to cut endangered species list. 

As this misconception has profound implications for all endangered species, the facts are that Colossal DID NOT de-extinct Dire Wolves, which are giant extinct canids, not close relatives of grey wolves. They shared a common ancestor more than 5-million years ago, and are a remarkable example of convergent evolution. As Prof. Phil Seddon from Otago University points out: Colossal instead created genetically modified grey wolves. Prof. Tammy Steeves  from the University of Canterbury has also set the record straight on Radio NZ. The magazine Chemical & Engineering News explains in a more in-depth article.