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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(8)
Plague/Virus:(2)
Climate Chaos:(4)
Resource Depletion: (6)
Biology Breach:(6)
Recovery:(10)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
ecosystem interrelationships  ~ food crisis  ~ contamination  ~ alternative energy  ~ pandemic  ~ bird collapse  ~ GMOs  ~ soil issues  ~ toxic buildup  ~ unintended consequences  ~ bad policy  



ApocaDocuments (8) for the "Species Collapse" scenario from this week
[see full week] ~ [see full Species Collapse scenario and stories]
Sat, Apr 26, 2008
from Brattleboro Reformer:
Baitfish limit irks fishermen
An emergency baitfish regulation put into effect last October has been supplanted with a permanent regulation to help prevent Vermont waters from a fatal fish virus called viral hemorrhagic septicemia. The disease, which may be the worst anglers will have to deal with in generations, can infect numerous species and spreads at an alarmingly fast rate. Experts believe a form of the strain arrived in the Great Lakes about eight years ago, however it was not detected until 2005 when thousands of fish died in Lake Ontario. Since that time, it rapidly spread through many lakes and streams in the Midwest and continued to kill large portions of fish. ...


Don't see what's so "irksome" about keeping a viral hemmorhagic septicemia out of the general population of fish for as long as possible. They'd rather see floating, dead fish?

ApocaDoc
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Sat, Apr 26, 2008
from Globe and Mail (Canada):
U.S. hunters targeting polar bears while they can
The rules of engagement are simple: The trophy must be male and at least 2.4 metres tall. And since March, big-game hunters, mainly Americans, clad head to toe in caribou-skin outfits and riding dogsleds, have been on the hunt in Canada's Arctic for one of the most controversial animals on the planet: polar bears. In this male-dominated, high-priced world, where Inuit-guided hunts can run more than $40,000 (U.S.), bigger is better, right down to the animal's baculum, or penis bone. ...


Trophies! Git yer trophies here!
Git 'em before it's hot!

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Apr 25, 2008
from The Examiner:
Loss of prairie chickens worries scientists
WICHITA, Kan. - The Flint Hills are no longer the "Prairie Chicken Capital of the World," because a combination of ranching practices, invasive trees and encroaching civilization is causing the birds' population to plummet, scientists say. Studies from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks show the number of prairie chickens in the Flint Hills' eastern edge has fallen 90 percent in the past 30 years and 50 percent throughout the rest of area. "Prairie chickens are right at the top of our list of species we're concerned about," said Ron Manes of the Nature Conservancy of Kansas. "They are an excellent indicator of the health of the prairie." ... Biologists fear that a decline in the prairie chicken could start a chain reaction that would also endanger the eastern meadowlark, Henslow's sparrows, grasshopper sparrows and others. ...


Even at half strength, where else could the Prairie Chicken Capital be?

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Apr 24, 2008
from Wildlife Conservation Society, via Science Daily:
Rare Musk Ox May Be Threatened By Climate Change
"Musk ox are a throwback to our Pleistocene heritage and once shared the landscape with mammoths, wild horses, and sabered cats," said the study's leader Dr. Joel Berger, a Wildlife Conservation Society scientist and professor at the University of Montana. "They may also help scientists understand how arctic species can or cannot adapt to climate change." Once found in Europe and Northern Asia, today musk ox are restricted to Arctic regions in North America and Greenland although they have been introduced into Russia and northern Europe. They have been reintroduced in Alaska after being wiped out in the late 19th century. Currently they found in two national parks: Alaska's Bering Land Bridge National Park and Cape Krusenstem National Monument. ...


I'm surprised "Musk Ox Bill" didn't wipe them out for their tongues, long ago.
Too cold, I guess.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Apr 23, 2008
from BBC (UK):
Biodiversity loss "bad for our health"
A new generation of medical treatments could be lost forever unless the current rate of biodiversity loss is reversed, conservationists have warned.... Further research [on the southern gastric brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus)] could have lead to new ways of preventing and treating stomach ulcers in humans, but the amphibian was last recorded in the wild in 1981. "These studies could not be continued because both species of Rheobactrachus became extinct... The valuable medical secrets they held are now gone forever." ...


At least now we have a reason to stop the species-cide: stomach ulcers.

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Apr 22, 2008
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Migrating bird numbers plummet in UK
The number of birds which migrate to the UK every Spring to breed is plummeting, a new study reveals. The fall in birds completing the annual journey from Africa has been so dramatic that scientists fear it is part of a seismic environmental change. The spotted flycatcher, turtle dove and tree pipit numbers have declined by more than 80 per cent while once familiar small songbirds such as the willow, marsh and garden warblers have declined by as much as 75 per cent. ...


"Bare ruin'd choirs
where late the sweet birds sang...
"

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Apr 22, 2008
from The London Independent:
Global warming threat to native dragonfly species
"Britain's dragonflies, which date back to the dinosaurs but are increasingly threatened by habitat destruction, pollution and climate change, are to be the subject of a major national survey. The five-year project, to be launched on Thursday, will result in a new atlas of the 39 species of dragonfly and damselfly that breed in Britain – which are soon likely to be joined by several others." ...


Clearly, we need a knightinshiningarmorfly to save the damselfly from the dragonfly.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Apr 21, 2008
from Science Daily (US):
Fishing Throws Targeted Species Off Balance, Study Shows
Research led at Scripps with a distinguished team of government and international experts (including two chief scientific advisors to the United Kingdom) demonstrates that fishing can throw targeted fish populations off kilter. Fishing can alter the "age pyramid" by lopping off the few large, older fish that make up the top of the pyramid, leaving a broad base of faster-growing small younglings. The team found that this rapidly growing and transitory base is dynamically unstable-a finding having profound implications for the ecosystem and the fishing industries built upon it.... Fishing typically extracts the older, larger members of a targeted species and fishing regulations often impose minimum size limits to protect the smaller, younger fishes. "That type of regulation, which we see in many sport fisheries, is exactly wrong," said Sugihara. "It's not the young ones that should be thrown back, but the larger, older fish that should be spared. Not only do the older fish provide stability and capacitance to the population, they provide more and better quality offspring." ...


One fish, two fish. Big fish, small fish.
Big fish: more big fish.
Small fish: more small fish.

ApocaDoc
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