Avian flu has wiped out 50.54 million birds in the United States this year, making it the country’s deadliest outbreak in history, U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed on Thursday.  The deaths of chickens, turkeys and other birds represent the worst U.S. animal-health disaster to date, topping the previous record of 50.5 million birds that died in an avian flu outbreak in 2015.  Birds often die after becoming infected. Entire flocks, which can top a million birds at egg-laying chicken farms, are also culled to control the spread of the …

Delegates at a global summit on trade in endangered species were scheduled to decide Thursday whether to approve a proposal to protect sharks, a move that could drastically reduce the lucrative and often cruel shark fin trade. The proposal would place dozens of species of the requiem shark and the hammerhead shark families on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The appendix lists species that may not yet be threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade in them is closely controlled. If …

Canadian-American eco-warrior Paul Watson, ousted from the Sea Shepherd conservationist organization he founded, says he is back in business with a new ship and crew and is ready to resume tormenting the world’s whalers and others he sees as despoilers of the world’s oceans.  “After being knocked down, we have fully recovered and we’re ready to return to battle on the high seas,” Watson declared in a digital announcement earlier this month. “The new Captain Paul Watson Foundation is here and it’s ready to aggressively take on all enemies that …

Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don’t come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead. The dry earth is cracked beneath his feet and thick layers of salt coat shriveled reeds in the Chibayish wetlands amid this year’s dire shortages in fresh water flows from the Tigris River. Hashem already lost five buffaloes from his …

Every few minutes, 14-month-old Awa coughs, the phlegm rising from deep within her chest. Her mother, Meta Ba, says Awa’s been coughing that way for as long as she can remember. Ba, who suffers from chronic migraines, works as an artisanal gold miner in Senegal’s far eastern region of Kedougou, near the borders of Mali and Guinea. Gold mining in Senegal plays a key role in the country’s economy, but the use of mercury during the treatment process is harming the environment and the health of the miners. In Kedougou, …

China’s daily COVID cases have climbed to the highest since the pandemic began, official data showed Thursday, despite the government persisting with a zero-tolerance approach involving grueling lockdowns and travel restrictions. The numbers are relatively small when compared with China’s vast population of 1.4 billion and the caseloads seen in Western countries at the height of the pandemic. But under Beijing’s strict zero-COVID policy, even small outbreaks can shut down entire cities and place contacts of infected patients into strict quarantine. The country recorded 31,454 domestic cases — 27,517 without …