The Madagascan Fish Ferret

From the BBC's Earth News (Reporting life on Earth), funny I thought that's what ordinary, everyday news did, hey, you live and learn.

"A new species of carnivorous mammal has been discovered in Madagascar."

Excellent, so tell me all about it.

"The mongoose-like creature has been called Durrell's vontsira (Salanoia durrelli) in honour of conservationist Gerald Durrell."

Very nice, I'd have called it the Madagascan fish ferret but each to his own.

"Its marsh habitat is under pressure from invasive species and pollution, and the team thinks it could be one of the world's most threatened mammals."

No details on which invasive species, probably Poles going over there, eating their fish. Oh and of course pollution, just pollution, no specifics. The team "THINKS it COULD be ONE OF the worlds most threatened mammals." Ah well if the team thinks this is the case I'm sure they will want more money to investigate just how threatened it is.

"During the same expedition, the scientists sent one dead specimen to the Natural History Museum in London."

I presume the dead one was the one the lad in the picture is strangling. I mean these things are really rare what are the chances of finding a dead one lying about which hasn't been scoffed bu one of those nasty invasive species.

"We know of only two animals in the wild. It has only been found in the wetlands of [Lake] Alaotra in Madagascar, so it lives in a very small area and is consequently vulnerable to the pressures on this threatened habitat."

Sounds like supposition to me, just because they have only seen two doesn't mean there aren't any more. Maybe they are looking in the wrong place. Maybe the Madagascan fish ferret has the Roual Moat gene and is just very good at hiding. If I was one of these creatures I'd sure as hell hide every time I saw a knobhead researchers who looking to take blood and tissue samples and perhaps strangle me so I could be sent back to London for dissection. Oh, go on then sling in another mention of the "threatened habitat".

"It is classified as Endangered on The IUCN Red List."

Oh no not the IUCN RED LIST!!!! I don't know anything about the IUCN but a couple of their featured stories tell me all I ned to know about these idiots.
"New study shows over one fifth of the world’s plants are under threat of extinction"

I have no idea how they worked this out. Nobody really knows how many plants are on the planet so how can they know that one fifth are in danger.

Why is biodiversity in crisis? The escalating extinction crisis shows that........

What extinction crisis, oh of course, that's just a universal phrase which precedes a demand for more funding, pretty much interchangeable with global warming. Again nobody knows how many species are on the planet so this is just more alarmist speculation.

What could have been an interesting story about the discovery of the Madagascan Fish Ferret is used to promote the enviroloon agenda. It's trash, full of waffle, eco-wheenie buzz words and alarmism, some opinion but zero science.

BBC on top form.

Updated coz I forgot the pic