Planet roundup: Elephants, hurricanes and more

By Lauren Petermeyer | September 2, 2016

Happy Friday, everyone! Here at OutwardOn, we are dedicated to keeping you up to date on everything important happening on our planet, including the health of its resources, animals and more. So, each Friday we are bringing you Planet Roundup—the most important environmental news stories (the good and the bad) that happened during the week to make sure you’re caught up on everything.

This Friday, we have everything in the news from elephants to marine wildlife reserves.

Obama creates largest marine reserve

Last week, Obama announced that he would expand the existing marine wildlife reserve off the coast of Hawaii 528,578 square miles. This makes Papahānaumokuākea the largest marine reserve of it’s kind, and also shows Obama’s care for preserving marine life.

Read more about this here.

Elephants in Africa are dying more rapidly than we thought

A new study done by ecologist Mike Chase shows that just 352,271 elephants were surveyed in various African countries, while in 1979 there were 1.3 million. Over the past 2 years, 90 scientists and 286 crew have flown above 18 different African countries in attempts to record the number of elephants remaining. The scale of murdered elephants (by poachers for their ivory tusks) was astonishing, and very concerning.

Read more about this here.

Lightning kills more than 300 reindeer in Norway

Recently at a Norwegian national park, more than 300 reindeer were killed by lightning in a severe storm. Reindeer tend to huddle together during storms, so it’s likely that their close proximity was to blame. However, details about the storm are not known at this time, and experts say they have never seen this large scale of death due to lightning.

Read more about this here.

New species of frog discovered

Found in the Andes in central Peru is a new species of frog that has a peculiar appearance. Seemingly brown and boring on the top, the frog (scientific name Pristimantis pulchridormientes, or the sleeping beauty rain frog) has a bright red underside close to it’s groin.

Read more about this here.

Hawaii and Florida warned about approaching hurricane

The National Weather Service has been tracking hurricane Madeline, saying it could pass dangerously close to the big islands of Hawaii, in turn causing severe storms in Florida. Mud slides and damaging ocean swells are among the threats to Hawaii soon, and officials sent out a warning earlier this week.

Read more about this here.