AUCKLAND, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Amid rapid declines in fish stocks and fears about the impact of climate change, scientists are nearing the end of the first global attempt to take stock of the astonishing range of life in our oceans.

But alongside the discovery of a hairy 'yeti' crab or revelations about the previously unknown migration patterns of the great white shark is the knowledge that these are just a drop in the ocean of what remains undiscovered.

TOKYO, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A Japanese company is launching fake shark fins in China, hoping to tap a market as prices for real ones rise amid concerns the species is being hunted to extinction.

Shark fin is considered one of the highest-end delicacies in Chinese cuisine and also fetches high prices in select Japanese restaurants.

Nikko Yuba Seizo Co. a Japanese food-processing company, said it had developed artificial shark fins made out of pork gelatin. Its top executives returned Friday from a two-day trip to China to introduce the products.

HONIARA, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - A company in the Solomon Islands exported 28 live dolphins to the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, four years after the government halted the trade when such a shipment caused international outrage.

The dolphins were taken amid tight security to Honiara from their holding pens on an outlying island and then escorted by police to two cargo planes for the 30-hour journey to Dubai.

HANOI, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - When they were smuggled across the Lao-Vietnamese border in tiny cages, three wild bear cubs were destined for a life of painful misery in the illegal but flourishing East Asian bear bile trade.

Today they are the first inhabitants of a bear rescue centre in northern Vietnam, a facility that organisers hope will help change public attitudes toward what they call a cruel and unnecessary trade.

HONIARA, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Up to 30 live dolphins will be exported from the tiny Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands to the Middle East next week, four years after the last such shipment to Mexico caused international outrage.

The Solomon Islands Marine Mammal Education Centre and Exporters Limited said Friday that the dolphins would be collected from the company's pens on the island of Gavutu and flown to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

'They will be flown on two DC-10s that are scheduled to arrive on Tuesday,' said company director Robert Satu.

CHICAGO, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - Fish raised in hatcheries to help restore wild populations can lose much of their ability to produce viable offspring, weakening repopulation programs, according to a study released Thursday.

Scientists have known for decades that domestic breeding can produce fish whose offspring is poorly adapted to a natural habitat compared to the offspring of wild fish.

LEE VINING, California, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - A prehistoric ecological marvel nestling high in the mountains of eastern California, Mono Lake has become an oasis of hope for conservationists battling drought in the state.

Home to an unusually diverse ecosystem, which includes nesting grounds for several species of marine birds, the vast 180 square kilometers (69 mile) prehistoric lake had been on course to disappear entirely until the 1990s.

MOSCOW, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - A treaty inked in 2000 between Russia and the United States to protect polar bears in their respective nations has just come into effect, the Russian foreign affairs ministry said Monday.

This accord 'defines the conditions of cooperation between Russia and the United States to protect the polar bear population' in Chukotka, Russia's extreme northeastern territory, and Alaska, the northernmost US state.

The agreement regulates hunting in a manner 'that guarantees the vital needs of the indigenous peoples,' it added.

GENEVA, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Polar bears face extinction due to persistent inaction by the international community in the face of climate change, conservation group WWF warned on Monday.

Their charge follows a series of reports by the US Geological Survey last Friday which said melting Arctic sea ice due to global warming could cut the polar bear population by two-thirds over the next 50 years.

SHANGHAI, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - A creature believed to be the rare Chinese white dolphin has been sighted in the Yangtze river, an expert said Wednesday, renewing hope for a mammal recently declared as probably extinct.

Video footage by a resident of eastern Anhui province purportedly taken this month appears to show the critically endangered white dolphin, known in China as the 'baiji', frolicking in its native Yangtze habitat, said Wang Ding, one of the world's leading authorities on the species.