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.

SHANGHAI, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - There could be new hope for China's white dolphin, which scientists recently said was probably extinct, after one was filmed this month in the Yangtze river, state media reported Wednesday.

A resident of eastern Anhui province said he filmed the rare mammal, easily identifiable by its long, tooth-filled snout and low dorsal, along the banks of China's longest river on August 19, Xinhua news agency reported.

The creature in the footage has been confirmed by an expert as one of the dolphins, known as the 'baiji' in China, it said.

PHNOM PENH, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - Cambodia's Bengal Florican, one of the world's rarest birds, will be the first to benefit from a global effort to save critically endangered birds from extinction, a conservation group said Friday.

Britain-based BirdLife International said it had launched a campaign to raise millions of dollars for conservation over the next five years as it fights to keep the world's 189 most endangered bird species alive.

PHNOM PENH, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) - Uncontrolled development around Cambodia's Angkor temples poses a serious threat to one of the region's great wonders, said the archaeologists who this week revealed the full extent of the site.

Angkor was a 'vast and populous network ... stretching far beyond the well known temples of the central archaeological park,' said the Greater Angkor Project (GAP) at the University of Sydney on its website.

SHANGHAI, Aug 8, 2007 (AFP) - China's rapid industrialisation has likely made extinct a species of fresh water dolphin that had been on Earth for over 20 million years, Chinese and British biologists said Wednesday.

Scientists from China, Japan, Britain and the United States failed to find the white dolphin, known as the baiji, during a six-week search of its natural habitat in the Yangtze river last year.

'This result means the baiji is likely extinct,' Wang Ding, who led the survey and is one of the world's leading experts on the species, told AFP.

SHANGHAI, Aug 8, 2007 (AFP) - China's rapid industrialisation has likely made extinct a species of fresh water dolphin that had been on Earth for over 20 million years, a marine biologist said Wednesday.

A team of scientists from China, Japan and the United States failed to find the white dolphin, known as the baiji, during a six-week search of its natural habitat in the Yangtze river late last year.

'This result means the baiji is likely extinct,' Wang Ding, who led the survey and is one of the world's leading experts on the species, told AFP.

GATESHEAD, England, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - Its broad wings outstretched, the red kite glides down to bring food to its nesting chicks, hidden behind a thick green curtain of foliage.

In this corner of northeastern England, it is a sight some thought they might never see.

Thanks to one of Britain's most successful conservation projects, the russet-bodied bird of prey is once more sweeping over the town of Gateshead, where kites are also breeding for the first time in more than 170 years.

KINSHASA, July 25, 2007 (AFP) - Four mountain gorillas were shot dead and two went missing in the Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo`s eastern North Kivu region, conservationists said Wednesday.

The four dead animals were found on Sunday by park rangers 75 kilometres (47 miles) north of the regional capital, Goma, the Congolese institute for nature conservation (ICCN) told AFP. Two others went missing the same day.

The shooting takes the number of gorillas killed in the Mikeno sector of the Virunga park to seven since the start of the year.