The week in wildlife

A baby Kemp's Ridley sea turtle awaits veterinary care at the Audubon Centre for the research of endangered species in New Orleans. The turtle was rescued from oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP A butterfly feeds on an echinacea plant in Ohio Photograph: Amy Sancetta/AP A golden jackal seen in the Mesopotamian marshes. Nearly two decades after the drainage of the Mesopotamian marshes of Iraq by the dictator Saddam Hussein, the area is buzzing and twittering with life again after local people and a new breed of Iraqi conservationists restored to some of its former glory much of what was once the world's third largest wetland Photograph: Korsh Ararat, Omar Fadil and Mudhafar Salim/Nature Iraq A herd of alpacas graze near the Andean district of Nunoa at the highlands of Puno, 4,000m (13,123ft) above sea level Photograph: Enrique Castro-mendivil/Reuters A young heron rescued from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill takes flight at the Fort Jackson wildlife rehabilitation centre in Buras, Louisiana Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP A lioness leaps into the water. African national parks like Masai Mara and the Serengeti have seen populations of large mammals decline by an average of 59%, according to a study Photograph: NPL/Rex Features A new South African species of iris, which was recently discovered in Worcester, has been named Morea vuvuzela . The flower, that only grows a few centimetres tall, was named as a tribute to the vuvuzela horns that characterised the first football world cup held on the African continent Photograph: John Manning/EPA A five-month-old red necked wallaby joey pokes her head out of her mother's pouch at Taronga zoo, Sydney, Australia Photograph: Lorinda Taylor / Taronga Zoo Handout/EPA A dragonfly in Rakov Skocjan national park, Slovenia Photograph: Srdjan Zivulovic/Reuters Countries with remaining wild tiger populations met in Bali this week and agreed on a rescue declaration to save the big cats from extinction Photograph: Tony Heald/PA A shadow cast on a dried-up field in Petersdorf, Germany. Some regions of Brandenburg have not experienced any rain in a couple of weeks. Last month was the hottest June recorded worldwide, figures show Photograph: Patrick Pleul/EPA Dew forms on blades of grass in Cincinnati Photograph: Al Behrman/AP Dead fish float on the surface of waterways north of Point a la Hache marina in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. It is unclear what killed the fish and Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries are investigating Photograph: P.J. Hahn/AP A pair of rare birds of paradise worth £195,000 (US$300,000) inside a cage in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A police raid on the warehouse found 42 stolen vehicles and hundreds of birds and other protected wildlife Photograph: AP A wetland forest at the Danau Sentarum national park in West Kalimantan island, Indonesia. Efforts to tackle illegal destruction of the world's rainforests have been a success, according to a new report that details a significant fall in unauthorised logging Photograph: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images This week the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) highlighted the sun bear ( Helarctos malayanus ) as its red list species of the day. Sun bears are so named because of the bib-shaped patch on their chests, which legend says represents the rising sun. The reclusive species, the smallest member of the bear family, lives in the dense lowland forests of south-east Asia Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA