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Rotten | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix

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The Raven: Stealing, Spying and Bluffing | Extraordinary Animals | BBC Earth

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Pangolins: The Most Trafficked Mammal You've Never Heard Of | National Geographic

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Chickens: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

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Service Dogs and Invisible Disabilities | Sarah Meikle | TEDxDeerfield

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How dogs love us | Dr. Gregory Berns | TEDxAtlanta

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A Netflix Original, The Ivory Game exposes the dark world of ivory trafficking. A team of front-line rangers and undercover operatives embark on dangerous missions to disrupt the treacherous pipeline of ivory. From fighting poachers in Africa to exposing illegal ivory shops in China, the team risks their lives to save our elephants.

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To appreciate why birders consider an obscure wildlife refuge on the Texas border to be the premier birding destination in America, you must walk its trails in solitude, either at dusk or at dawn, as the birds emerge from the forest looking for food.

Earlier this year, in March, I was alone on a path, deep in thought, when a plain chachalaca appeared suddenly in the moss-covered tree beside me. I froze as he dropped down into the scrub and the gray morning light revealed his handsome cascade of brown plumage. After a few tentative steps, I joined him in a slow procession, as he plucked insects from the soil and I considered the feast just 10 feet away.

Tiffany Kersten, an environmental activist who settled here in South Texas after working as a biologist in the refuge, lives for these surprise moments. "You go out and you never know what you're going to see," she told me as we watched ducks play in a lake. "Here in South Texas, every day you have the possibility that you'll go out birding and you'll see a bird that has never been seen in the United States before, that belongs in Mexico and got lost."

In an unusual concession to the environment, Congress earlier in March exempted the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, a 2,088-acre patch of extraordinary biodiversity on the Rio Grande river, from the new sections of border wall it funded in the spending bill passed last week.

But it's a slim victory for conservation because Congress also allocated $1.6 billion to build 33 miles of new barriers around the refuge in the Rio Grande Valley. These wall sections - a compromise to assuage President Donald Trump, who wants a wall across the entire border - are expected to disrupt several other protected parcels of land home to rare animals, plants, and birds, including the National Butterfly Center, a state park, and several other tracts in the federal wildlife refuge system.

The wall won't just fragment the dwindling wildlife habitat on the border - they'll also create around 6,500 acres of "no man's land," cutting off human access to nature and trapping wildlife the next time the Rio Grande floods.

"Pretty much all of the same species in the Santa Ana refuge will be affected in these other tracts of land where the wall will go," said Kersten.

On Thursday, the administration announced it will waive 28 federal laws to begin construction on 17 miles of new wall segments in the region as soon as February. So what do we know about the wall and how bad it will be for the environment? Let's break it down.

The spending bill saved a prized national wildlife refuge

When you trace the 2,000-mile border from west to east (as this Story Map project by Krista Schlyer did), you find shrinking pockets of remarkable biological abundance. At the far west is the Tijuana Estuary, a key salt marsh habitat for some 400 species of migrating birds. At the far east, birds and butterflies stop through the Rio Grande Valley, which is also a permanent home for mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, including the endangered ocelot, that depend on the specific subtropical ecosystem to survive.

As Norma Fowler, a biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-authors write in the April issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, much of the remaining natural habitat in the border region of Texas happens to be on federal lands, which means that the Department of Homeland Security can commandeer it in the name of national security if it chooses. And thanks to the Real ID Act of 2005, DHS also has the power the power to waive most environmental reviews when it wants to build border walls.

Over the years, as DHS has built 654 miles of barriers and wall on the border, it has sliced and diced land set aside for shrinking populations of wildlife.

In the Rio Grande Valley, the 70 miles of existing wall go through the Nature Conservancy's Southmost Preserve, several state Wildlife Management Areas, sections of the Lower Rio Grande Valley and Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuges, and Audubon's Sabal Palm Sanctuary, Audubon magazine has reported. And natural areas continue to be at risk of border walls being built across them.

So it's no surprise that when DHS signaled in 2017 it was eyeing the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Alamo, Texas, for 3 miles of new wall, environmental groups went on defense. Over the past several months, the Sierra Club and Friends of the Wildlife Corridor lobbied and held protests over the significant harm this wall would bring to the wildlife and overall ecology in the refuge.

The Fish and Wildlife Service calls Santa Ana the "crown jewel" of its 560 refuges in the US.

What a visit to the refuge revealed about how sensitive wildlife is to construction

In March, my colleague Christophe Haubursin and I went down to see for ourselves. Our arrival coincided with the very end of winter, which meant we got to see many birds on the move. Santa Ana is located at an east-west and north-south confluence of two major migratory routes of birds flying from as far north as Canada to as far south as Central America. It's also the northernmost point for birds whose range extends all the way into South America, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson told me.

The abundant berries, insects, and wetlands in the refuge attract around 400 regular bird residents. And more than 500 of the 1,000 bird species known to inhabit the United States have been sighted there. "Its unique geography means birders who go there get the best of all worlds," Steve Holmer, vice president of policy at the American Bird Conservancy, told me. "It's a special, special place."

And it's not just the birds that make it special - rare plants and reptiles like the endangered indigo snake can find safe harbor in the refuge too. (The Rio Grande Valley region is native habitat for the endangered ocelot cat, and there are about 50 left in the entire US. Most are in the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge; the last official sighting of one in the Santa Ana refuge was in 1992.)

Though most birds could theoretically fly over a wall, the big concern is that the wall would destroy some of their habitat and put other species at risk of drowning the next time the Rio Grande floods. (Right now the reptiles and mammals that can't fly can crawl over the levee that runs through the refuge when the river floods.)

But to many activists' surprise, the pushback against building the wall in the refuge paid off: Congress included special language in the spending bill to exempt it.

"It was something that I fought for," Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) said in an interview. "Thanks to the Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, this has been a priority to protect the environmentally sensitive areas."

Except Congress allocated $1.6 billion for more border wall - $445 million for 25 miles in Hidalgo County and $196 million for 8 miles in Starr County - which are slated to impact several other critical protected areas for wildlife. (An additional $251 million was allocated to replace 14 miles of existingsecondary wall in the San Diego sector and $445 million was included to replace an unspecified amount of other wall.)

"I was worried about this: that Santa Ana would be saved and everyone else gets wall," said Jim Chapman, a Texas environmentalist who helped organize against the Santa Ana wall. "We never wanted to just save Santa Ana. It's kind of bittersweet."

The spending bill authorizes money for a wall that would go through other protected areas

The picture that has emerged from plans shared with the local press is that the new 33 miles of wall will connect existing sections in Hidalgo and Starr counties. And it turns out a lot of it will go through land that's already been protected for wildlife in one form or another.

Kersten, the local activist, has been looking at all the Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge tracts, state properties, county parks, and private nonprofit nature sites that would be affected by the proposed, funded border walls for Hidalgo County. And she's compiled an astonishing list that include, among other sites:

La Parida Banco Refuge Tract (447 acres)

Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park (797 acres)

El Morillo Banco Refuge Tract (654 acres)

National Butterfly Center (100 acres)

Cottam Refuge Tract (1,037 acres)

Pharr Settling Basin (720 acres)

Milagro Refuge Tract (846 acres)

Marinoff Refuge Tract (432 acres)

That means the total nature space affected by the proposed, funded walls would be more than 6,500 acres in Hidalgo County, according to Kersten's calculations. (The location of the 8 miles of wall in Starr County is still undetermined.)

Among the most visited natural areas in Hidalgo County is the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. It's a 100-acre wildlife center and botanical garden run by the North American Butterfly Association.

Plans suggest the proposed wall would go right through it, though Jeffrey Glassberg, the president of the center, says he hasn't heard a word from the government about its intention to build through the center.

"This is complicated - it is not clear to me what this legislation authorizes or requires," he said. "But they would have to exercise eminent domain to build a wall through it."

A wall would certainly destroy the little remaining butterfly habitat at the center, he said. And it would further erode the region's ecotourism. Look no further than what happened at Audubon's Sabal Palm Sanctuary once a border wall was built through it: Visits fell by half because the wall made it a much less pleasant place to be, according to Glassberg.

Border fences have been terrible for wildlife and plants in other areas of the border

The 654 miles of existing barriers and walls - builtwith materials ranging from barbed wire to steel, bollard to wire mesh, and chain link - have already been a disaster for the unique and sensitive ecosystems and wildlife on the border.

Not many scientists have measured the full impact of fences on biodiversity on the border. One of the few studies to tackle these questions was written by Jesse Lasky, a biologist at Penn State who has studied the impact of border fences on border species, with his co-authors in 2011. They estimated that 134 mammal, 178 reptile, and 57 amphibian species live within about 30 miles of the line. Of those, 50 species and three subspecies are globally or federally threatened in Mexico or the United States. And they survive only because people on both sides have worked hard to conserve them.

With Thursday's announcement of the waivers in the Federal Register - a move environmental groups like Defenders of Wildlife and Sierra Club plan to challenge in court - DHS is signaling is plans to move quickly to begin construction on the first 17 miles of new wall in Texas.

For humans who enjoy the protected areas and the local plant and animal species dependent on this ecosystem, it's bad news. "[They] would lose some of their last remaining US habitat," as the Texas biologists wrote in Frontiers in Ecology and Environment.

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Trump will bulldoze a butterfly refuge and state park to build the border wall

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The Department of Homeland Security is moving forward to build 17 miles of border barriers through protected areas in Texas.

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Adam Ruins Everything - Why Going Outside is Bad for Cats

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Steven Wise: Chimps have feelings and thoughts. They should also have rights

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Chimpanzees are people too, you know. Ok, not exactly. But lawyer Steven Wise has spent the last 30 years working to change these animals' status from "things" to "persons." It's not a matter of legal semantics; as he describes in this fascinating talk, recognizing that animals like chimps have extraordinary cognitive capabilities and rethinking the way we treat them -- legally -- is no less than a moral duty.

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For many, Tanzania's Serengeti National Park is the essence of Africa, a wide, sweeping savannah ruled by lions, buffalo and zebra, barely interrupted by human presence.

Except of course for the herds of camera-toting tourists in jeeps, huddled around viewing points, with their zoom lenses protruding in perfect alignment.

Not to mention the light aircraft that swoop in to land at the local airport, conveniently located at the heart of Tanzania's most famous wildlife reserve.

In fact the Serengeti is a miracle of cohabitation, where nature tolerates man's presence.

But increasingly, the pressures of the modern world are threatening its delicate natural balance and the Tanzanian government wants to improve the roads around the park.

'The road is very rough'

For villagers living in the communities surrounding the Serengeti, there is no issue more pressing than the state of the roads.

Upendo Orgenes Kiula makes a living selling drinks and snacks to bus passengers on the road to Loliondo, on the eastern side of the Serengeti.

The trouble is the bus does not run up and down the road as often as she would like.

You can see why - it is a sloping path of rocks and dusty gullies.

"The road is very rough," says Upendo.

If Upendo wants to visit her mother in the village a couple of hundred kilometres north of here, it takes all day to drive there.

And if it rains she has to pull over and sleep in her car overnight until the mud subsides.

"If you plan to travel somewhere, you just can't get there and back on time," she says.

For the most isolated communities, the poor roads mean that trips to the hospital, to secondary school or to transport goods are expensive, arduous and sometimes impossible.

Roads and wildebeest

Tanzania's government has now finally started work on upgrading the roads here.

Five years ago the government announced a programme of road improvement.

Over three-quarters of the money we make goes on repairing vehicles
Elias Shayo, Tour guide

Above all it wanted to provide a highway running from Lake Victoria to Tanzania's coast. Currently lakeside communities travel north through Kenya to reach the coast.

But environmentalists objected.

The route cuts across the Serengeti, bisecting the path that the huge wildebeest herds take in their annual migration between Kenya and Tanzania, from northern watering holes to their southern grazing pastures.

And if the wildebeest are cut off from the Serengeti, environmentalists fear the park's delicate ecosystem would collapse.

"If we remove the wildebeest migration as it is from the system, the Serengeti will never be the same again," says Markus Borner, founder of the campaign against the planned highway.

His organisation, the Frankfurt Zoological Society, has its headquarters in the centre of the Serengeti.

So the government has promised the section across the national park will remain a slower, gravel road.

Alternative routes

But Markus and other environmentalists are still worried.

"The problem is the roads will be tarmacked very close to the park boundary in the east and very close to the park boundary in the west.

"If two good roads come so close together, the pressure to build a highway will come again," he says.

Several solutions have been proposed, including building a bridge over the Rift Valley, so that the wildebeest can migrate safely underneath.

Another suggestion is to close the road when the wildebeest are on the move, although that is hard to predict.

Dr Borner's solution is that an alternative, longer route be constructed to take traffic around the south of the park.

The government is now considering this option.

But it will require money. And haste.

Work has already started upgrading roads around the park.

But Dr Borner says it is crucial that the southern route is established first, before drivers get into the habit of taking the more direct route across the park.

Risks and rewards

As for the tourist industry, there are mixed feelings.

Some fear the unspoilt wildness of the Serengeti will be undermined as better roads, even just to the borders of the park, are likely to attract more independent tourists.

But others see only positives.

"If the road were paved the rich tourists would drive," says tour guide Elias Shayo, rather than fly.

"Then the locals would have a wider chance to benefit because they would buy art and craft and food."

His costs would be lower too.

'The economy will be boosted'

"In this business over three-quarters of the money we make goes on repairing vehicles," says Elias.

"By paving the main road the economy will be boosted and the money generated will go back to the community, rather than going back to Japan to buy spare parts."

Currently, the Serengeti remains largely the preserve of wealthy foreign tourists.

Paving some of the roads could open up the park, not just to more fee-paying foreigners, but to Tanzanians who want to visit their country's most-prized natural asset.

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Worries over new roads in Tanzania's Serengeti

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For many, Tanzania's Serengeti National Park is the essence of Africa, a wide, sweeping savannah ruled by lions, buffalo and zebra, barely interrupted by human presence. Except of course for the herds of camera-toting tourists in jeeps, huddled around viewing points, with their zoom lenses protruding in perfect alignment.

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Virunga Official Trailer 1 (2014) - Netflix Documentary HD

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In the mid-1990s, Gus, a polar bear in the Central Park Zoo, alarmed visitors by compulsively swimming figure eights in his pool, sometimes for 12 hours a day. He stalked children from his underwater window, prompting zoo staff to put up barriers to keep the frightened children away from his predatory gaze.* Gus's neuroticism earned him the nickname "the bipolar bear," a dose of Prozac, and $25,000 worth of behavioral therapy.

Gus is one of the many mentally unstable animals featured in Laurel Braitman's new book, Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves. The book features a dog that jumps out of a fourth floor apartment, a shin-biting miniature donkey, gorillas that sob, and compulsively masturbating walruses.* Much of the animal madness Braitman describes is caused by humans forcing animals to live in unnatural habitats, and the suffering that ensues is on display most starkly in zoos. "Zoos as institutions are deeply problematic," Braitman told me. Gus, for example, was forced to live in an enclosure that is 0.00009 percent of the size his range would have been in his natural habitat. "It's impossible to replicate even a slim fraction of the kind of life polar bears have in the wild," Braitman writes.

Many animals cope with unstimulating or small environments through stereotypic behavior, which, in zoological parlance, is a repetitive behavior that serves no obvious purpose, such as pacing, bar biting, and Gus' figure-eight swimming. Trichotillomania (repetitive hair plucking) and regurgitation and reingestation (the practice of repetitively vomiting and eating the vomit) are also common in captivity. According to Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, authors of Animals Make Us Human, these behaviors, "almost never occur in the wild." In captivity, these behaviors are so common that they have a name: "zoochosis," or psychosis caused by confinement.

The disruption of family or pack units for the sake of breeding is another stressor in zoos, especially in species that form close-knit groups, such as gorillas and elephants. Zoo breeding programs, which are overseen by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Animal Exchange Database, move animals around the country when they identify a genetically suitable mate. Tom, a gorilla featured in Animal Madness, was moved hundreds of miles away because he was a good genetic match for another zoo's gorilla. At the new zoo, he was abused by the other gorillas and lost a third of his body weight. Eventually, he was sent back home, only to be sent to another zoo again once he was nursed back to health. When his zookeepers visited him at his new zoo, he ran toward them sobbing and crying, following them until visitors complained that the zookeepers were "hogging the gorilla." While a strong argument can be made for the practice of moving animals for breeding purposes in the case of endangered species, animals are also moved because a zoo has too many of one species. The Milwaukee Zoo writes on its website that exchanging animals with other zoos "helps to keep their collection fresh and exciting."

To combat zoochosis, many zoos have enrichment programs in which animals are given distracting toys or puzzles to play with, food that takes longer to eat, or more complex additions to their enclosures. While acknowledging that enrichment is better than nothing, Braitman says it is "a band aid ... when you have a lemur in an enclosure, even if it's a great enclosure, it's still an enclosure." Enrichment has been found to reduce stereotypic behavior 53 percent of the time.

Drugs are another common treatment for stereotypic behavior. "At every zoo where I spoke to someone, a psychopharmaceutical had been tried," Braitman told me. She explained that pharmaceuticals are attractive to zoos because "they are a hell of a lot less expensive than re-doing your $2 million exhibit or getting rid of that problem creature." But good luck getting some hard numbers on the practice. The AZA and the Smithsonian National Zoo declined to be interviewed for this article, and many zookeepers sign non-disclosure agreements. Braitman also found the industry hushed on this issue, likely because "finding out that the gorillas, badgers, giraffes, belugas, or wallabies on the other side of the glass are taking Valium, Prozac, or antipsychotics to deal with their lives as display animals is not exactly heartwarming news." We do know, however, that the animal pharmaceutical industry is booming. In 2010, it did almost $6 billion in sales in the United States.

After reading Animal Madness, I visited the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C. I encountered a pair of burrowing owls in a small glass enclosure whose informational placard unironically stated that their natural habitat is "open spaces." I also encountered a meerkat pacing for nearly all of the four minutes I stood at his enclosure. In the Great Ape House, I watched Mandara, a 34-year-old female gorilla, as she sat with her back against the glass, facing away from the children gathered behind her. The children touched the glass to get her attention before losing interest. In Animals and Society, author Margo Demello explains that zoos often disappoint visitors: "People do not just want to see animals; they also want to connect with them, a condition impossible given the structural limitations of the zoo."

The central conundrum of the zoo is that people love animals and remain curious about them, and yet the very animals that attract crowds pay dearly for our affection. Lowland gorillas in the wild have a range of roughly one to 16 miles, and Mandara's enclosure, though full of tires, hay, and artificial tree trunks, is the tiniest fraction of that. While taking notes in the Great Ape House, a zoo volunteer inquired about what I was doing. I explained that I was a journalist writing a piece about animal well-being. My response seemed to concern her and she told me that the gorillas "are very happy here." She encouraged me to touch a sample of gorilla hair she carried in a pouch. It was rough, but surprisingly human-like.

Zoos are, first and foremost, for people-not animals.

Zoos are, first and foremost, for people-not animals. Zoos exist to serve the human gaze. Braitman explains that this is a problem because "most animals don't want to be stared at-that's stressful. And an animal that you can't see, that's a pretty crappy zoo exhibit." At the San Francisco zoo, the gorilla exhibit is recessed, so visitors look down on gorillas from above.* This is in some respects an inventive way to keep the gorillas enclosed without bars, glass, or electrical wires, but being seen from above puts the gorillas in a vulnerable position and makes them uncomfortable.

Zoos portray themselves as the arks of the animal kingdom, safeguarding the future of biodiversity. And it's true that many zoos do have conservation, research, breeding, and reintroduction programs, which are certainly noble projects. But what about the rest of the animals that are not endangered? At the National Zoo, only one fifth of the animals are endangered or threatened.

And for those animals that are endangered, is it a requirement that the same kinds of animals being conserved also be kept in zoos? Zoos argue that they are promoting appreciation of wildlife that will translate into environmental conservationism. The AZA released a study in 2007 on the educational impact of zoos, arguing just this point. However, an examination of the study by researchers at Emory University found the results exaggerated, noting that "there is no compelling or even particularly suggestive evidence for the claim that zoos and aquariums promote attitude change, education, and interest in conservation in their visitors." Animals and Society highlights research that found that the average visitor spends 30 seconds to two minutes at an enclosure, and that most visitors do not read the labels at exhibits. Stephen Kellert, a leading social ecologist at Yale, argues that zoos encourage the notion that humans are superior to animals, rather than encouraging kinship with nature.

Many zoos cite the longer life expectancy of zoo animals to show that living conditions are humane. The animals are free from the danger of predators, so how bad can it be? To this, Braitman writes, "A tally of years lived and calorically balanced meals eaten doesn't account for quality of life or the pleasure that can come from making one's own decisions." But longer life expectancies are not found in all captive animals. A study in the journal Science found that zoo elephants' life spans were less than half that found in protected wild populations in Africa and Asia.

When I spoke with Braitman, she went to great lengths to explain that zoos' failures to provide satisfactory habitats are not the fault of the zookeepers, adding that most truly want what is best for their animals. During my visit to the National Zoo, I too was touched by my encounters with zookeepers. I met one gingerly handling a tenrec (a hedgehog-like creature native to Madagascar) who knew the answer to every question I peppered him with about the animals in the exhibit.

But if not zoos, then what? Both Braitman and DeMello agree that our desire to interact with animals is a good impulse. DeMello suggests non-intrusive activities like whale watching. Braitman offers a more drastic prescription: End zoos as we know them and replace them with hands-on petting zoos, teaching farms, urban dairies, and wildlife rehabilitation centers, where people can interact with the kinds of animals "who often thrive in our presence," such as "horses, donkeys, llamas, cows, pigs, goats, rabbits." Braitman chides us for our delusion "that it is our right to see exotic wildlife like gorillas, dolphins, and elephants in every major American city ... especially since it often costs the animals their sanity."

Correction, June 20, 2014: This piece originally stated that the polar bear Gus stalked children in a previous zoo. He did so at the Central Park Zoo. It stated that the book Animal Madness includes stories of gorillas that weep. Although gorillas do sob, do not shed tears. The zoo with a recessed gorilla exhibit is in San Francisco, not Santa Barbara as the story stated originally.

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Zoos Are Fun for People but Awful for Animals

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In the mid-1990s, Gus, a polar bear in the Central Park Zoo, alarmed visitors by compulsively swimming figure eights in his pool, sometimes for 12 hours a day. He stalked children from his underwater window, prompting zoo staff to put up barriers to keep the frightened children away from his predatory gaze.* Gus's neuroticism earned him the nickname "the bipolar bear," a dose of Prozac, and $25,000 worth of behavioral therapy.

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Don't doze off just yet. Maybe they should be called bed blood bugs, an army of these can attack a person 500 times in one night! ➡ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/NatGeoSubscribe About National Geographic: National Geographic is the world's premium destination for science, exploration, and adventure.

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More Than Honey Official Trailer 1 (2013) - Bee Documentary HD

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Over 2.5 million wild hogs are rampaging through Texas. Pigman and Ted Nugent are on a mission to terminate them - by going airborne! The Aporkalypse is Coming! Tune in to Pigman: The Series on Sunday, August 26th at 10 PM E/P for this special episode featuring Ted Nugent and Pigman!

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Waste

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A RIVER OF WASTE: THE HAZARDOUS TRUTH ABOUT FACTORY FARMS exposes the truth behind our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production. From the dangerous use of arsenic, antibiotics, and hormones, to the massive dumping of sewage into fragile waterways, the film documents the vast catastrophic impact on the environment, health, and the individual lives damaged and destroyed.

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America has a nasty secret. All of those cute puppies that are sold in pet stores come from "puppy mills." Their mothers spend their entire lives in a tiny, unsanitary cages, never walked, never petted, never doing anything but making puppies .

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The Cove | Film Trailer | Participant Media

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Monsters aren't just figments of our imagination. THEY'RE HERE! Just ask Illinois Governor Pat Quinn who in June called for the total separation of the Mississippi River Basin from the Great Lakes hoping against hope to stop the advance of one very aggressive fish. A fish that's just one part of a far bigger problem. Our Cover Story is reported by Mark Strassmann:
Meet the king of the Illinois River, and a big showoff.

Fast, easy to startle, and voracious eaters, Asian silver carp are a jarring sight here, and a hit on YouTube. but fisheries research scientist Greg Sass...says that in the long history of this waterway, what's also remarkable is when this fish got here...just 20 years ago.

"Very muscular," said Greg Sass. "This thing'll hurt you. They can jump out of the water at high speeds. They can jump a great distance out of the water, and so they're quite dangerous when you're out on the river."

But fisheries research scientist Greg Sass...says that in the long history of this waterway, what's also remarkable is when this fish got here...just 20 years ago.

"By the mid-2000s, it was becoming a crisis," Sass told Strassmann. "Not only with fish jumping everywhere, but just what was showing up in our catches, the amount of Asian carp versus the native fishes."

With no natural predators in this stretch of the river in Central Illinois, up to nine out of ten fish here are now Asian carp.

"We've seen explosive population growth, a population that has almost doubled every year," Sass said. "We're fairly confident we have the highest wild densities of Asian carp anywhere in the world."

Which is quite a feat considering this fish is from China.

The Illinois river has been invaded.

"As a scientist or even a recreational fisherman or a boater, you go, 'Wow, this is a huge, huge problem,'" he said. "These fish are behaving in a way that we're not used to. They're doing things to the ecosystem that we're not completely sure what kind of effect there's going to be yet. And there's just an incredible abundance of them."

It's an invasion from coast to coast, from Africanized killer honey bees in the Southwest to South American nutria in Louisiana, to the spread of the Burmese python in the Florida Everglades ... all part of a scary trend.

"Everywhere we look, we see species that are spreading and damaging our natural ecosystems," said University of Notre Dame biologist David Lodge. "And when scientists look into the future, they see the potential for many more damaging species."

"You make it sound like we're under attack everywhere," said Strassmann.

"We ARE under attack everywhere."

Lodge says our agricultural system depends on plant and animal species imported to America, like wheat and cows and pigs - but that doesn't make them invaders.

"An invasive species is a species that's been transported from one part of the planet to the other by people, and a species that has a harmful impact," Lodge said.

"Typically transported by design, by accident, or little bit of both?" asked Strassmann.

"Both. Lots of invasive species have been transported by accident in the ballast water of ships or as a hidden pest on plants that have been imported. But many have also been imported intentionally."

Like the Shakespeare fan who, back in the 1890s, set out to bring to America every bird mentioned in the Bard's plays ...

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Monsters aren't just figments of our imagination. THEY'RE HERE! Just ask Illinois Governor Pat Quinn who in June called for the total separation of the Mississippi River Basin from the Great Lakes hoping against hope to stop the advance of one very aggressive fish. A fish that's just one part of a far bigger problem.

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In the 1990s, the federal government reintroduced the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park. It was considered a big success. And that's when the real fight began.

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Elephants, Rhinos & Lions to go EXTINCT: iThemba, a call to action!

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Elephant, Rhino and lion populations are being decimated across Africa. Habitat loss, poaching and other means of human-wildlife conflict have these species on the brink of extinction. At the current rate of decline, we could see these species disappear in the next 5-15 years.

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Blackfish - Official Trailer (HD) Documentary, Orca

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The Elephant in the Living Room Trailer (Official)

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See More At: http://www.theELEPHANTintheLIVINGROOM.com Directed by Michael Webber - The Elephant in the Living Room is an award winning documentary film about the controversial American subculture of raising the most dangerous animals in the world as common household pets.

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HBO Documentary Films: An Apology to Elephants Trailer

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Now airing on HBO Family, HBO and HBO GO. For more information on HBO Documentary Films, visit http://itsh.bo/I83ODm. Watch HBO Documentary Films online at HBO GO® http://itsh.bo/kUIs4w. Watch HBO Documentary Films on one screen, connect on another http://connect.hbo.com/documentaries