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The Audubon Society blog describes the bad news from the South Atlantic Ocean. A ship ran aground, endangering thousands of penguins that live in the area:

Wildlife rescuers are in a “race against time” to save up to 20,000 endangered rockhopper penguins doused in oil after a shipwreck off a South Atlantic archipelago last week. A cargo ship, the MV Oliva, ran aground on March 16. Its crew was rescued, but the accident left thousands of the distinctive birds, with their punk-rocker hairdos, coated in crude.

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From Science Daily:

Decimated by illegal hunting for both food and the pet trade along with habitat loss, many turtle species will go extinct in the next decade unless drastic conservation measures are taken, according to the report, which was released at a regional workshop hosted by Wildlife Reserves Singapore and WCS. Seventeen of the 25 species are found in Asia, three are from South America, three from Africa, one from Australia, and one from Central America and Mexico

....

"Turtles are being unsustainably hunted throughout Asia," said co-author Brian D. Horne of the Wildlife Conservation Society. "Every tortoise and turtle species in Asia is being impacted in some manner by the international trade in turtles and turtle products. In just one market in Dhaka, Bangladesh we saw close to 100,000 turtles being butchered for consumption during a religious holiday, and we know of at least three other such markets within the city."
Liz Bennett, Vice President of WCS Species Program, said: "Turtles are wonderfully adapted to defend themselves against predators by hiding in their shells, but this defense mechanism doesn't work against organized, large-scale human hunting efforts. The fact is that turtles are being vacuumed up from every nook and cranny in Asia and beyond."

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Scientists have found a new bird in Madagascar. Audubon Magazine’s blog emphasizes the importance of this discovery:

In western Madagascar, scientists surveying the area’s flora and fauna found a new bird: a forest-dwelling rail. Its size, plumage, and genetics differentiate it from its eastern cousin, making it unique to the Beanka Forest, an isolated and largely intact part of the country’s remaining western dry forests.

“This bird they’ve known about for decades, but no one has been able to go find it and get a specimen of it. It’s not a common thing at all, and it’s really hard to find,” said researcher Nick Block, a graduate student at the University of Chicago who is based at the city’s Field Museum.

It's a holiday made for the dogs. Wednesday, February 23, is International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day, and let me tell you, each "cookie" mine get, they do appreciate!

Here is an easy recipe from the Pit Bull Rescue Central blog today:

Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat flour (you can use another type of flour if your dog is sensitive to wheat)
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup peanut butter, chunky or smooth
1 1/4 cups hot water
Additional flour for rolling

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350° F
Mix dry ingredients together.
Mix in the peanut butter and hot water. You may need to add more flour if the dough is too sticky.
Knead the dough well.
Roll out the dough into 1/4" thickness and cut into shapes with dog cookie cutters.
Bake on a lightly greased cookie sheet for 40 minutes. Turn off the oven and let them cool overnight.
After cooling, the cookies get very hard, just the way dogs like them!

In the hope of restoring the wild population of whooping cranes, wildlife officials plan to release young cranes in Louisiana. The Baltimore Sun tells their story:

Ten young whooping cranes raised in Maryland are taking to the air today, as federal wildlife biologists and technicians who've tended them since they were chicks release them in Louisiana to join the annual winged migration of their fragile species.

The gangly birds were reared at the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, as seen in the photo above. Their "parents" were human caretakers wearing white crane-like costumes, who exercised them, took them for walks and swims and fed them as chicks using a bird puppet.