Links from the Brink (March 23, 2013)

Last year I wrote somewhere around 150 articles about endangered species. I could have easily written closer to 1,000. One blog simply can't cover all of threatened species around the world, as hard as I try. But I hate letting news items (not to mention species) fall through the cracks. And so, here is the first installment of a new weekly feature I'm calling "Links from the Brink," where I will present to you some of the previous week's stories and other worthwhile items that didn't make it into Extinction Countdown: Whale of a Tale: There has been a bit of a baby boom for endangered North Atlantic right whales ( Eubalaena glacialis ) this year, with at least 20 mother whales calving in the waters off of Georgia and Florida. This follows last year's troubling results, in which only six calves were born. The annual average number of cows and calves counted since 2000 is 21, so this year's number isn't exceptional, but it is good news. [More]