Aster and Aspen are still following mum June. - Planet Earth Live

(Source: facebook.com)

Bear Update: June still wont let go! Here’s a picture from cameraman Max, showing Aster and Aspen still very close by. - Planet Earth Live

The Bears of Minnesota, Planet Earth Live.

(Source: facebook.com)

This tiny bird outwitted a massive bear when they went head to head in a battle for food. The nippy wagtail was able to feast on a carcass and whizz away before it could be grabbed by a hungry brown bear. Picture: Arnfinn Johansen/Solent News & Photo

A grizzly bear catches his dinner as it leaps through the air. Picture: GLEB TARRO / CATERS NEWS

This bear cub seems to be wondering where a certain pong is coming from. Having a great sense of smell has its drawbacks as shown by this curious bear cub who seems to be checking himself for a strange smells. Picture: Daniel J. Cox / Barcroft Media

Grizzly bears Grinder, left, and Coola, play after emerging from their den after five months hibernation at a wildlife refuge in north Vancouver, Canada. The two young grizzlies were found orphaned in different areas of British Columbia in 2001

Photograph: Canadian Press / Rex Features/Canadian Press / Rex Features

(Source: Guardian)

It’s hard to believe that, only half an hour earlier, these two polar bears had been up on their hind legs, wrestling furiously with each other. Now they’re apparently the best of friends.

By Doug Allan

Tigers — one third of subspecies extinct

Three of the original nine subspecies of tiger have become extinct over the past 60 years. Poaching, destruction of forests, and climate change are all believed to play a role in this. The last Bali tiger died in the 1930s; the Caspian tiger became extinct in the 1970s; the Javan tiger followed in the 1980s. Today, all remaining tiger subspecies are either endangered or critically endangered; in the Asian range states, wild tiger numbers are thought to be as low as 3,200. Most recent estimates of wild tigers in Burma indicate that as few as 150 roam there.

Black rhinos – trade in horns is dramatically reducing numbers

Rhinoceros horns are prized for their purported medicinal properties, and numbers have declined sharply over the past 40 years. According to WWF, 96 per cent of black rhinos were killed between 1970 and 1992. Today, the combined population of black and white rhinos in Africa is thought to be just over 18,000. Poaching killed 333 rhinos in South Africa in 2010, twice the number slaughtered a year earlier. In 2008, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna established a rhinoceros enforcement task force, to try to counter rising levels of rhino poaching in Asia and Africa.

Leopards – killed for skins

Like all the animals cited in this investigation, leopards are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (Cites), which prohibits all international commercial trade. With their skins and body parts commanding high prices, their numbers have been declining. The clouded leopard is classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and the snow leopard is endangered. In December 2008, two snow leopard skins were observed in the Burmese border village of Tachilek being offered for £500 each, according to international wildlife monitoring NGO Traffic.

Bears – killed for their bile or used in bear baiting

Bears are captured for use in bear baiting and to harvest their bile for use in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In rural Pakistan, up to 2,000 spectators will assemble to watch a tethered bear set upon by trained dogs, according to the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), in spite of the practice being banned. Within China bile is widely extracted from the gallbladder of bears in a process that is excruciating for the animals. There are more than 50 herbal alternatives to bear bile.

Tibetan antelope – prized fur makes them endangered

There are between 75,000 and 100,000 Tibetan antelope left on the planet, making this species officially endangered. High demand for shahtoosh – the hair found on the creatures – has resulted in poachers slaughtering them to sell fur on the illicit market. It takes about four animals to make a single shawl and prices can vary from $1,000 to $5,000, according to the WWF.

Falcons – used for sport

Peregrine falcons are classified as endangered, and the most up-to-date reports put the bird’s breeding population at just over 1,400 pairs. Because they can travel at extremely high speeds they are in demand from buyers who want to use them in the sport of falconry. The majority do not migrate, staying within 100km of their birthplace.

Lear’s macaw – was on the brink of extinction

This exotic parrot found in the Amazon basin is believed to be among the most expensive wildlife species trafficked on the black market. It was brought back from the brink of extinction in 1989, when fewer than 100 of the birds existed, but remains listed as an endangered species. Conservation groups have worked hard to protect the bird’s natural habitat to enable numbers to grow.

Elephant – ivory trade destroying population

Elephants form the top level of the food chain in much of sub-Saharan Africa, trampling down dense flora in the savannahs, enabling smaller animals to forage for food. Demand for ivory, which is sold at a premium on the black market, puts elephants at grave threat from hunters and poachers. Between 1989 and February 2010, 18,771kg of ivory was seized in Nigeria, 17,681kg in Cameroon, 28,848kg in Kenya and 33,207kg in Namibia. This is just a fraction of the overall total across Africa’s 37 range states.

(Source: independent.co.uk)

Polar bears scavenging, by Howie Garber, USA. 

A grizzly bear feasts on a sockeye salmon in Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, AlaskaPicture: Ami Vitale / Barcroft Media

Two polar bear cubs crawl over their dozing mum shortly after emerging from their winter den. This picture was captured last week soon after this polar bear family crawled from their snowy hideaway for the first time in Churchill, on the shore of Canada’s Hudson Bay.Picture: Christine Haines/Rex Features

Moonstruck – an art exhibition in aid of Animals Asia’s moon bear rescue

Polar Bear Plunge

Photograph by Mathieu Belanger, Reuters

Bear - Sleep, eat, sleep, sleep, eat. The QI Book of Animals, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson.