Circus animals saved, oceanic ones not so lucky

I was please to see the results of the commons vote on circus animals this week. They are not banned yet but this is a significant show of support for a ban which I welcome. Good coverage in the Independent. We should not exploit animals for pleasure, whether that is hunting with dogs or getting lions to roll on their backs in front of a crowd, it is wrong.

Staying with animals, this is from the Independent: 

The world's oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.


The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a catastrophe "unprecedented in human history", according to the report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 

The journal Nature has been talking about the 6th Mass Extinction for some time. This is their latest piece.