Amazon rainforest gold mining is poisoning scores of threatened species

By Gloria Dickie and Jake Spring LOS AMIGOS BIOLOGICAL STATION, Peru (Reuters) - In a camping tent in the Peruvian jungle, four scientists crowded around a tiny patient: An Amazonian rodent that could fit in the palm of a human hand. The researchers placed the small-eared pygmy rice rat into a plastic chamber and piped in anesthetic gas until it rolled over, asleep. Removing the creature from the chamber, they fitted it with a miniature anesthetic mask and measured its body parts with a ruler before gently pulling hairs from its back with tweezers. The hairs, bundled into a tiny plastic bag, w...