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Recent News:
from Associated Press: Endangered listing eyed for US loggerhead turtles The federal government on Wednesday recommended an endangered-species listing for the loggerhead turtles in U.S. waters, a decision that could lead to tighter restrictions on fishing and other maritime trades. The massive, nomadic sea turtles have been listed since 1978 as threatened, a step below endangered, but federal scientists proposed ratcheting up the designation after reviewing the state of the species. Researchers said primary threats to the loggerheads include injury and death from fishing gear and damage to their nesting areas.
from Guardian: Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the "sixth great extinction" of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change. However until recently it has been hoped that the rate at which new species were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity of life.... "Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there's no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it's inevitable," said Stuart.... Stuart said it was possible that the dramatic predictions of experts like the renowned Harvard biologist E O Wilson, that the rate of loss could reach 10,000 times the background rate in two decades, could be correct. "All the evidence is he's right," said Stuart. "Some people claim it already is that ... things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, all getting worse. But we haven't measured extinction rates again since 2004 and because our current estimates contain a tenfold range there has to be a very big deterioration or improvement to pick up a change."
from Orlando Sentinal: Orcas have 2nd-biggest brains of all marine mammals Neuroscientist Lori Marino and a team of researchers explored the brain of a dead killer whale with an MRI and found an astounding potential for intelligence.... It's not clear whether they are as well-endowed with memory cells as humans, but scientists have found they are amazingly well-wired for sensing and analyzing their watery, three-dimensional environment. Scientists are trying to better understand how killer whales are able to learn local dialects, teach one another specialized methods of hunting and pass on behaviors that can persist for generations -- longer possibly than seen with any other species except humans.... These researchers have yet to find evidence that an orca in the wild has ever killed a person.... They swim the world's oceans -- they are more widely distributed than any whale, dolphin or porpoise -- in at least three distinct populations. There are fish-eating orcas that stay in one area, flesh-eaters that wander more widely along coasts, and a third group that roams the deep-blue waters. The three groups have starkly different diets, languages, hunting techniques and manners of behaving around other marine life, and they don't seem to interact much with one another.... Hal Whitehead, a biology professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, awakened the world of cetacean research in 2001 when he co-authored a controversial paper that suggested no species other than humans are as "cultural" as orcas. "Culture is about learning from others," Whitehead said. "A cultural species starts behaving differently than a species where everything is determined genetically."
from Boston Post-Gazette: Can bats be saved? The bats appear to die of starvation during hibernation, but scientists still cannot confirm that the fungus is the primary cause of death. What they know: White-nose Syndrome is spreading fast, but not uniformly. It leapfrogs from affected areas to popular recreational caving sites, leading researchers to suspect that microscopic fungal spores get onto clothing worn by cavers, who unintentionally carry it to new sites. Some researchers speculate that European cavers may have innocently brought the spores to America, where native bats have no natural resistance. Others suspect spread of the fungus is more likely a naturally occurring anomaly. In three years since the onset of the outbreak, more than a million bats have died in the Northeast. They would have eaten 694 tons of insects, and scientists are worried about the impact of the sudden break in the food chain. "Our work here may save them farther west, but we are not going to be able to save the bats in Pennsylvania. What that means to us we don't know, but it can't be good." "You try not to over-interpret, but at the same time I won't sugarcoat it," Dr. Reeder said. "We're seeing 80, 90, 95 percent mortality in some of these caves. We come back the next year -- another 90 percent mortality. I mean, how long can that go on?"
from CBC: Alberta grizzly bears number less than 700 An Alberta grizzly bear count by an independent scientist pegs the population at 691, but the province has not stated if that's enough to list the species as threatened. Dr. Marco Festa-Bianchet, an expert on large mammals, noted in a report released Wednesday that some local grizzly bear populations may be declining. Cutting down on "human-caused mortality" such as vehicle collisions with bears and "motorized access to habitat" would help stabilize the number of grizzlies, according to the report. Environmental groups have been lobbying the Alberta government to declare the grizzly -- currently considered "may be at risk" -- as threatened, so that a current hunting ban becomes permanent and steps can be taken to protect their habitat. There were 841 bears in Alberta in 2000, according to a count done that year by the provincial government.
from West Virginia Public Broadcasting: More bats infected with deadly disease found in WV cave An expedition into Hellhole cave in Pendleton County last month revealed that bats in one of the largest and most important bat hibernation caves in the state are infected with white-nose syndrome.... "We've had a constant stream of bats just flying out of the cave during the day, during snow, so they’re obviously very distressed and fleeing the site," he added.... Seth Perlman, who lives in New York, accompanied Youngbaer into Hellhole Cave. He hopes white-nose syndrome does not have the same effect in West Virginia that it's had in the North East. "We've seen up to 90 percent mortality in some of the bats and it's manifested in caves where there are just piles of dead bats," Perlman said.
from Stony Brook, via EurekAlert: New research shows fishery management practices for beluga sturgeon must change A first-of-its-kind study of a Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon (Huso huso) fishery demonstrates current harvest rates are four to five times higher than those that would sustain population abundance. The study's results, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Conservation Biology, suggest that conservation strategies for beluga sturgeon should focus on reducing the overfishing of adults rather than heavily relying upon hatchery supplementation.... Populations of beluga sturgeon have declined by nearly 90 percent in the past several decades due to the high demand for black caviar, inadequate management, and habitat degradation. Black caviar, the unfertilized roe (eggs) of the beluga sturgeon, is the most valuable of all caviar, and can be sold for as much as $8,000 for one kilogram (2.2 pounds). There has been grave concern about increasingly dwindling numbers of this already depleted species, which has gone extinct in the Adriatic Sea and is on the brink of extinction in the Azov Sea.
from University of Liverpool, via EurekAlert: Scientists reveal driving force behind evolution The team observed viruses as they evolved over hundreds of generations to infect bacteria. They found that when the bacteria could evolve defences, the viruses evolved at a quicker rate and generated greater diversity, compared to situations where the bacteria were unable to adapt to the viral infection. The study shows, for the first time, that the American evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen was correct in his 'Red Queen Hypothesis'. The theory, first put forward in the 1970s, was named after a passage in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass in which the Red Queen tells Alice, 'It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place'. This suggested that species were in a constant race for survival and have to continue to evolve new ways of defending themselves throughout time.... "These experiments showed us that co-evolutionary interactions between species result in more genetically diverse populations, compared to instances where the host was not able to adapt to the parasite. The virus was also able to evolve twice as quickly when the bacteria were allowed to evolve alongside it."
from Mongabay: Extinct animals are quickly forgotten: the baiji and shifting baselines Lead author of the study, Dr. Samuel Turvey, was a member of the original expedition in 2006. He returned to the Yangtze in 2008 to interview locals about their knowledge of the baiji and other vanishing megafauna in the river, including the Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest freshwater fish. In these interviews Turvey and his team found clear evidence of 'shifting baselines': where humans lose track of even large changes to their environment, such as the loss of a top predator like the baiji. "'Shifting baseline syndrome' is a social phenomenon whereby communities can forget about changes to the state of the environment during the recent past, if older community members don't talk to younger people about different species or ecological conditions that used to occur in their local region," Turvey explains. "These shifts in community perception typically mean that the true level of human impact on the environment is underestimated, or even not appreciated at all, since the original environmental 'baseline' has been forgotten." In other words, a community today may see an ecosystem as 'pristine' or 'complete', which their grandparents would view as hopelessly degraded. In turn what the current generation sees as a degraded environment, the next generation will see as 'natural'. The shifting baseline theory is relatively new—first appearing in 1995—and so it has not been widely examined in the field.
from Scientific American (per DesdemonaDespair): Bad news for bats: white-nose syndrome reaches Tennessee The bat-killing fungal infection known as white-nose syndrome (WNS) has spread into Tennessee for the first time. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) has confirmed that infected bats were found in Worley's cave in Sullivan County, where they had been hibernating....WNS has killed hundreds of thousands of bats in the U.S. since it was discovered in New York State just three years ago, including large numbers of endangered Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis). Vermont has lost at least 95 percent of its bats since WNS was first observed within its borders.... Unfortunately, funding to help study WNS has been cut from the Obama administration's most recent budget. Congress approved $1.9 million for WNS research last year. Any continuing WNS research will now need to be funded by private and state sources.
from The ApocaDocs: Excerpt from Converging Emergencies: Species What got us here -- the amazing capacity for abstract thought -- is also what may kill us, because we don't think much beyond the pleasure of shooting buffalo and eating their tongues. Realizing that we may end up with no buffalo pretty damn quick, if we're killing them by the hundreds of thousands, is just one step too many. So again -- the problem is, we're an evolved species, too. We 'Docs realize that every species wants to take over the world, whether virus or bacterium or rodent or amphibian, and that they are kept from doing so by the checks and balances of predator/prey relationships, ecosystem carrying capacity and environmental barriers. Humans are just a lot more efficient at it than other mindful critters, and have reached thresholds never before seen in the history of the world. We're changing the chemistry of the oceans and the atmosphere and the biosphere. In so doing, we are disrupting or wiping out entire ecosystems, and the species that are intrinsic to them. To the bats and the vultures -- see ya! we hardly knew ya! To the amphibians and the coral -- thanks for everything! Damn we're good at this shit.
from Telegraph.co.uk: Penguins in Antarctica to be replaced by jellyfish due to global warming The results of the largest ever survey of Antarctic marine life reveal melting sea ice is decimating krill populations, which form an integral part of penguins' diets. The six-inch-long invertebrates, also eaten by other higher Southern Ocean predators such as whales and seals, are being replaced by smaller crustaceans known as copepods. These miniscule copepods, measuring just half a millimetre long, are too small for penguins but ideal for jellyfish and other similarly tentacled predators.... Any decrease in sea ice will inevitably affect the delicate balance of the Antarctic marine food chain. For creatures such as penguins who lives on the melting sea ice, a rise in temperatures will also shrink the size of their breeding grounds.
from Guardian: Almost half of all primates face 'imminent' extinction Almost half of the world's primate species – which include apes, monkeys and lemurs - are threatened with extinction due to the destruction of tropical forests and illegal hunting and trade. In a report highlighting the 25 most endangered primate species, conservationists have outlined the desperate plight of primates from Madagascar, Africa, Asia and Central and South America, with some populations down to just a few dozen in number.... "All over the world, it's mainly habitat destruction that affects primates the most," said Christoph Schwitzer, head of reseaarch at the Bristol Conservation and Science Foundation and one of the authors of the report. "Illegal logging, fragmentation of forests through fires, hunting is a big issue in several African countries and also now in Madagascar. In Asia one of the main problems is trade in hearts for traditional medicine, mainly into China."
from Chicago Tribune, via DesdemonaDespair: Carp invasion 'catastrophic' for Illinois river towns While Midwest lawmakers and the White House ratchet up efforts to keep Asian carp out of Lake Michigan, boating and fishing communities up and down the Illinois River are under siege. In Peoria and farther downstate, invasive bighead and silver carp are so abundant that they're out-competing native fish for food, disrupting spawning habits and injuring boaters and water skiers. In Spring Valley, an old coal-mining town 100 miles southwest of Chicago, signs proclaim the city the sauger fishing capital of the world. The Illinois River is so critical to the local economy and tourism that area residents say the town might cease to exist without it. "Losing the river would be catastrophic, at least," said Bill Guerrini, a longtime Spring Valley resident and founder of the town's Walleye Fishing Club. "That's what we're talking about here, the loss of the river. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who won't realize it until it's gone."
from BBC: Fog decline threatens US redwoods Scientists in California say a drop in coastal fog could threaten the state's famed giant redwood trees. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says such fog has decreased markedly over the past 100 years.... "Fog prevents water loss from redwoods in summer and is really important for the tree and the forest," said research co-author Professor Todd Dawson.... Dr Johnstone thinks drought stress could affect the growth of new trees and the plants and animals that depend on the redwoods. But he notes that the negative impact on the tree population is, as yet, unproven. "We're concerned for certain, we expect some impact on the ecology but we don't have clear evidence that the redwoods are about to go extinct in the near term."
from San Jose Mercury News: Brown pelicans washing up dead and dying on California beaches In an ocean mystery that is baffling marine biologists, at least 1,000 brown pelicans have turned up dead or in distress along California beaches during the past month, with hundreds overwhelming wildlife rescue centers from the Bay Area to San Diego. The popular birds, whose wing spans can reach 8 feet and who dramatically dive into ocean waters to scoop up fish, are widely reported to be hungry and disoriented. They also appear to have some kind of substance -- possibly a naturally occurring material from a red tide or other ocean conditions -- that is causing their feathers to lose insulation properties, exposing the birds' skin to cold water and hypothermia.
from Mongabay: Expedition to save world's rarest cetacean threatened by lack of funding Little known beyond the waters of the Gulf of California, the world's smallest cetacean (a group including whales, dolphins, and porpoises) is hanging on by a thread. The vaquita—which in Spanish means 'little cow'—has recently gained the dubious distinction of not only being the world's smallest cetacean, but the also the world's rarest. In 2006 it was announced that the Yangtze river dolphin, or baiji, was likely extinct, and conservationists fear the Critically Endangered 'little cow' is next. An expedition for this year is set to identify vaquita individuals, but even this is threatened by lack of funding. Tobias Nowlan, a member of the proposed expedition, told mongabay.com that the situation was dire with only 100 individual vaquitas left in the world. The vaquita lives in what Nowlan calls "the most restricted range of any marine mammal", inhabiting about 2,500 square kilometers of the Gulf of California. As far as researchers know the vaquita is threatened by one thing and one thing only: gillnets used to catch the local fish totoaba (which is also considered Critically Endangered). "The vaquita has declined dramatically as a result of bycatch in gillnets. A gillnet ban is now in place in the 'Vaquita Conservation Zone', though their use continues illegally.
from WWF: Tigers in serious trouble around the world, including here in the US As many Asian countries prepare to celebrate Year of the Tiger beginning February 14, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports that tigers are in crisis around the world, including here in the United States, where more tigers are kept in captivity than are alive in the wild throughout Asia. As few as 3,200 tigers exist in the wild in Asia where they are threatened by poaching, habitat loss, illegal trafficking and the conversion of forests for infrastructure and plantations.... Three tiger sub-species have gone extinct since the 1940s and a fourth one, the South China tiger, has not been seen in the wild in 25 years. Tigers occupy just seven percent of their historic range. But they can thrive if they have strong protection from poaching and habitat loss and enough prey to eat. "Tigers are being persecuted across their range – poisoned, trapped, snared, shot and squeezed out of their homes," said Mike Baltzer, Leader of WWF's Tiger Initiative. "But there is hope for them in this Year of the Tiger. There has never been such a committed, ambitious, high-level commitment from governments to double wild tiger numbers. They have set the bar high and we hope for the sake of tigers and people that they reach it."
from New Scientist: Lost leviathans: Hunting the world's missing whales They are enigmatic sea monsters -- rare, magnificent beasts patrolling the ocean depths. Yet old chronicles tell of populations of whales hundreds of times greater than today. Such tales have long been dismissed as exaggerations, but could they be true? Have humans killed such a staggering number of whales? New genetic techniques for analysing whale populations, alongside a growing archive of fresh historical analysis, suggest so. Taken together, they indicate that we have got our ideas about marine ecology completely upside down: whales may once have been the dominant species in the world's oceans. This is not simply an academic question. It matters now more than ever before. Whale numbers have been recovering slowly since the end of large-scale hunting in 1986, but this global moratorium is only temporary. The International Whaling Commission, the club of mostly former whaling nations which maintains the ban, has rules that say it can reconsider hunting a given whale species if its population climbs back to more than 54 per cent of its pre-hunting levels. Right now, according to IWC estimates, Atlantic humpbacks and Pacific minkes may have recovered sufficiently to put them back in whalers' sights. But, crucially, such decisions rest on the veracity of the IWC's estimates of historical whale populations -- 54 per cent of what, exactly? If the old salts' tales of whale abundance are true, it is way too early to be dusting off those harpoons.
from Bloomberg News: Thirdhand Smoke Forms Cancer-Causing Residue Indoors That Lasts Tobacco smoke contamination lingering on furniture, clothes and other surfaces, dubbed thirdhand smoke, may react with indoor air chemicals to form potential cancer-causing substances, a study found. After exposing a piece of paper to smoke, researchers found the sheet had levels of newly formed carcinogens that were 10 times higher after three hours in the presence of an indoor air chemical called nitrous acid commonly emitted by household appliances or cigarette smoke. That means people may face a risk from indoor tobacco smoke in a way that’s never been recognized before...
from Dallas Morning News: Climate change, pollution are suspects in rusty blackbirds' plummeting numbers From North Texas to Florida, a high-pitched voice is strangely missing from the chatter of wintering birds. The rusty blackbird, a winter visitor to Dallas-Fort Worth, has suffered one of North America's steepest and least understood declines. Since 1970, scientists say, its numbers have plunged 85 percent to 99 percent. Experts have a lineup of suspects, including habitat changes, disease, climate change and mercury pollution. But they have no proof of what has pushed Euphagus carolinus toward an ecological brink here and across the continent.
from BBC: Climate change causes wolverine decline across Canada The wolverine, a predator renowned for its strength and tenacious character, may be slowly melting away along with the snowpack upon which it lives. Research shows wolverine numbers are falling across North America. Their decline has been linked to less snow settling as a result of climate change. The study is the first to show a decline in the abundance of any land species due to vanishing snowpack.... In all bar the Yukon, he found that snowpack depth declined significantly between 1968 and 2004.... "It occurred to me that a good first place to look for ecological impacts of that snowpack decline would be with a snow-adapted species like the wolverine," Dr Brodie told the BBC. They found a striking correlation between declining snowpack and falling numbers of the predator. "In provinces where winter snowpack levels are declining fastest, wolverine populations tend to be declining most rapidly," the researchers wrote in the journal article.
from Telegraph.co.uk: Giant squid invade California Giant squid weighing up to 60 pounds (27 kilograms) have swum into waters off Newport Beach and are being caught by sport fishermen by the hundreds. The squid were noticed last week and fishermen started booking twilight fishing trips to catch them the huge creatures.... The Humboldt squid is also called the jumbo squid or jumbo flying squid and squirts ink to protect itself. They can grow up to 100 pounds in weight and six feet long and follow food sources.... But the giant squid is not unknown off the coast of America. In September a record-breaking 19ft-long squid, weighing 103 pounds, was caught off the Gulf of Mexico.
from Washington Post: Tough choices follow in wake of invasive species Which is worse? Closing two locks on a waterway that's used to ship millions of dollars' worth of goods from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi basin? Or allowing a voracious Asian carp to deplete the food supply of native fish sustaining a Midwestern fishing industry that nets $7 billion a year? And how do you put a price tag on the damage caused by the Burmese python and other constrictor snakes that are strangling the precious ecology of the Everglades? Invasive species, long the cause of environmental hand-wringing, have been raising more unwelcome questions recently, as the expense of eliminating them is weighed against the mounting liability of leaving them be.
from Telegraph.com: Row threatens plan to save bees The British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA), the country's largest beekeeping body, believes that money put aside for a £2.8 million Whitehall initiative to protect the health of honeybees is being misspent. The organisation has now walked out of the management board set up to run the Healthy Bees strategy, which is aimed at reversing the decline in honeybees in Britain.... The report says that without them, many crops would need to be pollinated by hand, an exercise that could cost 1.5 billion pounds a year. If such action was not taken, farm income could slump by 13 per cent, costing the economy more than 440 million pounds. The latest research has revealed that managed honeybee populations in England have declined by 54 per cent in the past 20 years while numbers of wild bees such as bumblebees have also plummeted.
from Houston Chronicle: Officials fear another whooping crane die-off The world's last remaining natural flock of endangered whooping cranes, which suffered a record number of deaths last year, will probably see another die-off because of scarce food supplies at its Texas nesting grounds this winter, wildlife managers said. The flock lost 23 birds in the 2008-2009 winter season, in part because its main source of sustenance, the blue crab, all but vanished from drought-parched southern Texas. The rains eventually came, but they were too late to produce healthy amounts of blue crabs for this winter. "We're looking at a pretty slender year, prey-wise, and it's going to make the cranes work harder to get food," said Allan Strand, field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in South Texas. "I feel that we're probably going to have a die-off. It's conceivable that we could have a significant die-off."... According to the most recent aerial survey, there are an estimated 263 birds in the Texas flock. The survey, conducted last week, found that one chick has already died and another was missing.
from Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, via EurekAlert: Fewer honey bee colonies and beekeepers throughout Europe The number of bee colonies in Central Europe has decreased over recent decades. In fact, the number of beekeepers has been declining in the whole of Europe since 1985. This is the result of a study that has now been published by the International Bee Research Association, which for the first time has provided an overview of the problem of bee colony decline at the European level. Until now there had only been the reports from individual countries available. As other pollinators such as wild bees and hoverflies are also in decline, this could be a potential danger for pollinator services, on which many arable crops depend.... Through the investigation, the mystery of bee losses has by no means been solved, emphasize the scientists, who were however able to add another piece to the puzzle. Furthermore, the data would have to be interpreted very carefully because of the very different evaluation methods in individual countries. "With the limited evidence available it is neither possible to identify the actual driver of honey bee losses in Europe nor to give a complete answer on the trends for colonies and beekeepers...."
from Sydney Morning Herald, via DesdemonaDespair: Koala forest to be logged for wood chips LOGGING is set to start within weeks in a forest that supports the last known koala colony on the NSW far south coast. The NSW Government is yet to release data from a comprehensive survey of koala habitat and population in Mumbulla and Murrah state forests, near Tathra, even though some trees have been marked for removal.... One source described a map of the area that had been drawn and redrawn in search of a compromise between felling trees and maintaining enough forest to allow the koalas to survive.... The logging operation, due to begin in early March, would involve taking some high-quality timber and some timber for woodchips. Most of the timber from felled trees in the region goes to a mill in Eden, which exports woodchips to Japan.
from BBC (UK): Governments 'must tackle' roots of nature crisis Governments must tackle the underlying causes of biodiversity loss if they are to stem the rate at which ecosystems and species are disappearing. That was one of the conclusions of an inter-governmental workshop in London held in preparation for October's UN biodiversity summit in Nagoya, Japan. Delegates agreed that protecting nature would bring economic benefits to nations and their citizens.... "We have a chance of a much tougher target for 2020 than we had for 2010, which would be about having no net biodiversity loss," he said. "I think the key thing is whether we'll see over the next few years concerted action on the drivers of biodiversity loss -- if we don't see that in the next few years, then we certainly won't see good results by 2020."
from Chambersburg PublicOpinion: Bats dying from white nose syndrome; means trouble for farmers Biologist Jim Hart said a devastated bat population will cost farmers and impact water quality. Bats sometimes eat their own weight in insects in a single day. That's about 2,000 mosquito-sized bugs. "They are worth their weight in gold," said Hart, a mammalogist with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. "They take an enormous toll on agricultural pests. If they all disappear, that's going to be a pretty bad scenario." Birds won't immediately eat all of the extra bugs, according to Hart. Populations of farm pests will increase quickly and farmers will respond by applying more pesticides, some of which will find their way to streams.... Wildlife biologists estimate that the disorder has killed 750,000 bats in the Northeast since it was first discovered in 2006 in New York. An estimated one million bats overwinter in hundreds of hibernacula across Pennsylvania. Science is ill-prepared for the crisis. "In general, we don't know enough about normal bats to know what's different in sick bats," Reeder said.... "The loss of one species is a big deal," Hart said. "The loss of a whole suite of species is a catastrophe. It scares biologists." They joke about taking up a career that has a future, like computer science.
from Telegraph.co.uk: Bee numbers in England fell by more than half over the last 20 years The University of Reading research found there was a 54 per cent decline in managed honey bee populations in England between 1985 and 2005 compared to an average of 20 per cent across Europe. It comes as separate research in France suggested the reason bee numbers are falling is because of intensive agriculture that has led to a fall in the number of wild flowers and plants.... Dr Potts, who will be speaking on the subject in front of MPs this week, blamed the increased use of pesticides, bee disease such as the varroa mite and intensive agriculture. Meanwhile, in a separate study, the National Institute of Agronomic Research in Avignon proved for the first time that a more diverse diet of different kinds of pollen can boost bee immunity. This suggests that the monoculture used in today's intensive farming techniques may be contributing to the decline of the honey bee.
from Detroit Free Press: Court won't close shipping locks to stop Asian carp The U.S. Supreme Court issued a one-sentence denial today of Michigan's request for a preliminary injunction to close Chicago-area locks to keep out Asian carp.... The court hasn't decided whether to take that case, which sought to reopen a 1922 case arguing against the diversion of the Chicago River to create a shipping canal linking the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes. Asian carp DNA has been found within a mile of Lake Michigan at a pumping station north of Chicago. The carp are considered dangerous because of their size and voracious eating habits. Gov. Jennifer Granholm called the court ruling "extremely disappointing."... "We cannot allow carp into the Great Lakes," Granholm said. "It will destroy our Great Lakes fisheries, our fisheries, the economy. It has to be stopped and it is urgent."
from BBC (UK): Biodiversity nears 'point of no return' Much greater concerted effort is needed to stop the plunder of our ecosystems.... Overfishing has reduced blue fin tuna numbers to 18 percent of what they were in the mid-1970s. The burning of Indonesia's peat lands and forests for palm oil plantations generates 1.8bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, and demand is predicted to double by 2020 compared to 2000. More than seven million hectares are lost worldwide to deforestation every single year. The restoration of our ecosystems must be seen as a sensible and cost-effective investment in this planet's economic survival and growth.
from UCSD, via EurekAlert: Wilder weather exerts a stronger influence on biodiversity than steadily changing conditions Climate scientists predict more frequent storms, droughts, floods and heat waves as the Earth warms. Although extreme weather would seem to challenge ecosystems, the effect of fluctuating conditions on biodiversity actually could go either way. Species able to tolerate only a narrow range of temperatures, for example, may be eliminated, but instability in the environment can also prevent dominant species from squeezing out competitors.... "It may depend on the predictability of the environment. If you have a lot of violent changes through time, species may not be able to program their life cycles to be active when conditions are right. They need the ability to read the cues, to hatch out at the right time," Shurin said. "If the environment is very unpredictable, that may be bad for diversity, because many species just won't be able to match their lifecycles to that."
from PhillyBurbs.com: Scientist: Bucks County's bats will be dead by the spring White-Nose Syndrome, a mysterious disease that is killing off bat populations up and down the Northeast, has finally hit the Durham bat mine. Although state scientists are trying a new, experimental treatment for the disease, commission biologist Greg Turner says it's most likely too late and too little to save the 8,000 to 10,000 little brown bats and other species of bats, which hibernate deep inside an abandoned iron mine tucked into a hillside in Durham. Reports that bats across the Delaware River, in New Jersey, were being affected, brought game commission officials last week to the Durham mine, the second-largest hibernaculum in Pennsylvania. "Right now, the Durham mine is affected," said Turner, an endangered mammal specialist. "About two-thirds of the bats we had handled all had the fungus on them already." He estimates that 80 to 90 percent of Durham's bats will be dead by April, the month when healthy bats emerge from hibernation and begin mating season.
from Wildlife Conservation Society, via EurekAlert: Tilapia feed on Fiji's native fish The poster child for sustainable fish farming -- the tilapia -- is actually a problematic invasive species for the native fish of the islands of Fiji, according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups. Scientists suspect that tilapia introduced to the waterways of the Fiji Islands may be gobbling up the larvae and juvenile fish of several native species of goby, fish that live in both fresh and salt water and begin their lives in island streams.... The team found that streams with tilapia contained 11 fewer species of native fishes than those without; species most sensitive to introduced tilapia included the throat-spine gudgeon, the olive flathead-gudgeon, and other gobies. In general, sites where tilapia were absent had more species of native fish.
from UC Davis, via EurekAlert: Butterflies reeling from impacts of climate and development "Butterflies are not only charismatic to the public, but also widely used as indicators of the health of the environment worldwide," said Shapiro, a professor of evolution and ecology. "We found many lowland species are being hit hard by the combination of warmer temperatures and habitat loss." The results are drawn from Shapiro's 35-year database of butterfly observations made twice monthly at 10 sites in north-central California from sea level to tree line.... "... it came as a shock to discover that they were being hit even harder than the species that conservationists are used to thinking about. ... Some of the 'weedy' species have been touted as great success stories, in which native butterflies had successfully adapted to the changed conditions created by European colonization of California. That was the case for many decades, but habitat loss has apparently caught up with them now."
from BBC: World's biodiversity 'crisis' needs action, says UN Eight years ago, governments pledged to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, but the pledge will not be met. The expansion of human cities, farming and infrastructure is the main reason... "The urgency of the situation demands that as a global community we not only reverse the rate of loss, but that we stop the loss altogether and begin restoring the ecological infrastructure that has been damaged and degraded over the previous century or so," [Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)] said. The UN says that as natural systems such as forests and wetlands disappear, humanity loses the services they currently provide for free.
from Edmonton Journal: 'It's like a death watch' ...Scientists who have been studying polar bears in the region, however, believe that this event, and seven other acts of cannibalism recorded in the area this fall, are more signs that climate change is taking its toll on the bears of western Hudson Bay. "I've been studying polar bears in this region for 35 years, and prior to this fall, I personally knew of only one cub, and two other adults that were victims of cannibalism in that time," says Ian Stirling, retired from the Canadian Wildlife Service and now an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta. "To get eight in one year is really dramatic, especially when the bears came off the ice this year in fairly good shape. Breakup was later this year than it has been for a few years, so they had the extra time to hunt seals and put on weight before the ice went out. But it apparently wasn't enough to sustain all of them until freeze-up, which was particularly late this year."
from Highland News (UK): Seabird decline is a disturbing trend In many cases it seems there were so many birds that nothing could possibly adversely affect their numbers or breeding success. The drastic declines have been put down to a number of reasons, each with their supporters. The latest is the global warning issue which is in vogue these days. Amongst the many spin-offs, it has been blamed for the absence of sand eels in any numbers. The catastrophe this has caused with puffin chicks, amongst others, starving to death has been one of the more dramatic turn of events. However, there have been, and are, others with whole colonies of kittiwakes unable to produce any young to the flying stage and in many cases not even laying any eggs at all. The role of the piratical great skuas that have actually increased in numbers for several years also came to a head. These large, strong seabirds used to force other birds to give up their food but in recent years they have started eating the young of other birds, the adults and even the young of their own species. The increase in grey seals has also been highlighted by many, as has the invasion of rats to many colonies. Of course, nobody would dream of blaming us for over-fishing, despite it being the scandal of all time.
from Yale 360: Behind Mass Die-Offs, Pesticides Lurk as Culprit Today, drips and puffs of pesticides surround us everywhere, contaminating 90 percent of the nation's major rivers and streams, more than 80 percent of sampled fish, and one-third of the nation's aquifers. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, fish and birds that unsuspectingly expose themselves to this chemical soup die by the millions every year. But as regulators grapple with the lethal dangers of pesticides, scientists are discovering that even seemingly benign, low-level exposures to pesticides can affect wild creatures in subtle, unexpected ways -- and could even be contributing to a rash of new epidemics pushing species to the brink of extinction. In the past dozen years, no fewer than three never-before-seen diseases have decimated populations of amphibians, bees, and -- most recently -- bats. A growing body of evidence indicates that pesticide exposure may be playing an important role in the decline of the first two species, and scientists are investigating whether such exposures may be involved in the deaths of more than 1 million bats in the northeastern United States over the past several years.
from San Francisco Chronicle: Vast protected area proposed for leatherbacks The battle to save Pacific leatherback turtles from extinction prompted federal biologists Tuesday to propose designating 70,000 square miles of ocean along the West Coast as critical habitat for the giant reptiles. The designation by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration would mark the first time critical habitat has ever been established in the open ocean for the endangered leatherbacks, which swim 6,000 miles every year to eat jellyfish outside the Golden Gate. If approved, the regulations would restrict projects that harm the turtles or their food. The government would be required to review and, if necessary, regulate agricultural waste, pollution, oil spills, power plants, oil drilling, storm water runoff and liquid natural gas projects along the California coast between Long Beach and Mendocino County and off the Oregon and Washington coasts.
from BBC (UK): Kenya arrests 'rhino poaching gang' Kenyan authorities have arrested a gang suspected of killing a white rhino and cutting off and selling its horns. Julius Kipng'etich of the Kenya Wildlife Service said the suspects were caught with two rhino horns and 647,000 shillings ($8,500) in cash. It is thought some of the 12 suspects were buyers of the horns and had used the money to pay the poachers. Kenya had many thousands of rhinos in the 1970s but only hundreds remain after decades of poaching. The hunters supply an illegal trade in rhino horns, which are widely used in traditional medicines in Asia.
from London Daily Telegraph: Battle to save tigers intensifies with only 3,200 left on Earth Conservationists say there are just 3,200 tigers left in the world as the future of the species is threatened by poachers, destruction of their habitat and climate change. The world population of tigers has fallen by 95 per cent in the past century. The WWF said it intends to intensify pressure to save the Panthera tigris by classifying it as the most at risk on its roster of 10 critically endangered animals.
from London Daily Telegraph: We're losing the riches of the world Species are now going extinct at between 1,000 and 10,000 times the natural rate. The consequences will be disastrous... Another year, another Year. After the official 2009 International Year of Natural Fibres – following my favourite, the International Year of the Potato in 2008 – we are now two days into the UN-designated International Year of Biodiversity. And though the celebrations of spuds and sisal may have happily passed you by, this one, I would suggest, is worth noticing. For a start, it marks one of the most spectacularly broken, but least-known, of all environmental promises. In 2001, EU heads of governments said they would aim to "halt" human destruction of the world's wildlife and wild places by 2010, and the next year world leaders, meeting at the Johannesburg Earth Summit, committed themselves to "a significant reduction" in the rate of loss by the same date.
from University of California - Berkeley via ScienceDaily: Mammals May Be Nearly Half Way Toward Mass Extinction If the planet is headed for another mass extinction like the previous five, each of which wiped out more than 75 percent of all species on the planet, then North American mammals are one-fifth to one-half the way there, according to a University of California, Berkeley, and Pennsylvania State University analysis. Many scientists warn that the perfect storm of global warming and environmental degradation -- both the result of human activity is leading to a sixth mass extinction equal to the "Big Five" that have occurred over the past 450 million years, the last of which killed off the dinosaurs 68 million years ago. Yet estimates of how dire the current loss of species is have been hampered by the inability to compare species diversity today with the past.
from Burlington Free Press: Northeast bat toll hits 90 percent Only 10 percent of the Northeast's cave-dwelling bats have survived the massive die-offs associated with a powdery white fungal infection... On Oct. 26, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced six grants totaling $800,000 to support white-nose-syndrome prevention, eradication and decontamination projects. More than 40 research proposals, with a cumulative price tag of $4.8 million, were submitted, the service reported. Three days later, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced a $1.9 million appropriation to fund research into causes of and treatments for white-nose syndrome... A rise in mosquitoes and mosquito-borne illnesses might raise the alert level, he said; as would increased insect damage to fruits and vegetables.
from COP15: New study: Substantial irreversible damage to ocean ecosystems According to the study, seas and oceans absorb approximately one quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities. As more and more carbon dioxide has been emitted into the atmosphere, the oceans have absorbed greater amounts at increasingly rapid rates. Without this level of absorption by the oceans, atmospheric CO2 levels would be significantly higher than at present and the effects of global climate change would be more marked. However, the absorption of atmospheric CO2 has resulted in changes to the chemical balance of the oceans, causing them to become more acidic.... This dramatic increase is 100 times faster than any change in acidity experienced in the marine environment over the last 20 million years, giving little time for evolutionary adaptation within biological systems.
from Agence France-Presse: Koalas, penguins at risk of extinction: study Climate change threatens the survival of dozens of animal species from the emperor penguin to Australian koalas, according to a report released Monday at the UN climate summit. Rising sea levels, ocean acidification and shrinking polar ice are taking a heavy toll on species already struggling to cope with pollution and shrinking habitats, said the study from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an intergovernmental group. "Humans are not the only ones whose fate is at stake here in Copenhagen -- some of our favourite species are also taking the fall for our CO2 emissions," said Wendy Foden, an IUCN researcher and co-author of the study.
from Desdemona Despair: Brazil's river of death The once free-flowing Manaquiri River, which runs through the state of Amazonas in northwest Brazil, is in the fight of its life against a spell of dry weather - and it appears to be losing the battle. Thousands of dead fish are rotting on the river banks and hundreds more float on its surface, turning the area into a toxic cesspool. Vultures circle overhead, picking away at the rotting carcasses. Even an alligator - one of the fiercest reptiles of the Amazon - floats belly up in the river. Local fishermen say it has not rained in more than 25 days, leaving the large surrounding rivers in recession. This has in turn choked off the tributaries that provide fresh water to the Manaquiri.
from Canadian Press, via DesdemonaDespair: Climate change played key role in B.C. sockeye stocks collapse, say scientists Food-poor, predator-rich ocean waters caused by climate change likely played a significant role in decimating millions of sockeye salmon in British Columbia's Fraser River ahead of what was supposed to be a bumper year, says a scientific think tank. A group of more than 20 ocean and ecology experts gathered in Vancouver this week to discuss possible explanations for this year's salmon collapse and announced their assessment on Wednesday, saying they want to keep the issue afloat with a judicial inquiry approaching.... The federal Fisheries Department had estimated more than 10 million sockeye would return to the Fraser River this year, but only about one tenth of that figure showed up.
from EcoWorldly: Only 8 Northern White Rhinos Still Survive As Controversy Brews Among Rhino Experts Now believed extinct in the wild, the world's only surviving northern white rhinos are currently in captivity in just two locations: ZOO Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic and San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park.... Most rhino experts understand that the window for achieving a "pure" population of the northern white rhino (NWR) subspecies (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) is now tragically closed. And while it is generally acknowledged that the best chances of preserving any genetic material is via hybrid offspring of NWR and the southern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum simum), rhino experts are currently divided on how to successfully preserve the NWR genes. At the heart of the controversy is a plan to move four of the eight surviving NWR from the Czech Republic to Africa.
from Telegraph.co.uk: Starving polar bears turn to cannibalism The images, taken in Hudson Bay, Canada, around 200 miles north of the town of Churchill, Manitoba, show a male polar bear carrying the bloodied head of a polar bear cub it has killed for food. Polar bears usually subsist on seals, which they hunt from a platform of sea ice. But the melting of sea ice as a result of rising global temperatures has made it more difficult for polar bears to hunt seals at sea, confining the bears to land. This has led to malnourishment and starvation as polar bears are unable to build sufficient fat reserves for winter.... Manitoba Conservation normally receive one to two reports of bear cannibalisation annually, but scientists say they are aware of eight cases so far this year.
from Center for Biological Diversity: Polar Bears Poisoned by Pesticide Pollution: Lawsuit Filed Pesticides approved by EPA for use in the United States are known to be transported long-distance via various atmospheric, oceanic, and biotic pathways to the Arctic. Such pesticides are biomagnified with each step higher in the food web, reaching some of their greatest concentrations in polar bears, the apex predators of the Arctic. Pesticides and related contaminants have been linked to suppressed immune function, endocrine disruption, shrinkage of reproductive organs, hermaphroditism, and increased cub mortality in polar bears. Human subsistence hunters in the Arctic, who share the top spot on the food web with the polar bear, also face increased risks from exposure to these contaminants. "The pesticide crisis is a silent killer that threatens not only the polar bear but the entire Arctic ecosystem and its communities," said Rebecca Noblin, a staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity in Anchorage. "The benefits of protecting the polar bear from pesticide poisoning will reverberate throughout the entire Arctic ecosystem, with positive impacts for Arctic people, who share the top of the food pyramid with polar bears."
from BBC (UK): Galapagos Islands are transformed The Galapagos archipelago has already been transformed by global climate changes and human activity, a report has concluded. A series of events, including the 1982 El Nino, overfishing and the appearance of urchins that destroy coral, has altered the islands' marine ecosystems. At least 45 Galapagos species have now disappeared or are facing extinction. That suggests future climate change driven by human activity will have an major impact on the islands' wildlife.... All live on the Galapagos, and most are found nowhere else. These 45 species include five mammals, six birds, five reptiles, six fishes, one echinoderm, seven corals, six brown algae and nine red algae. Among those is the coastal-living Mangrove finch, a species once studied by Charles Darwin.
from WWF, via EurekAlert: Rhino poaching surges in Asia, Africa Rhino poaching worldwide is on the rise, according to a new report by TRAFFIC and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The trade is being driven by Asian demand for horns and is made worse by increasingly sophisticated poachers, who now are using veterinary drugs, poison, cross bows and high caliber weapons to kill rhinos, the report states.... The situation is most serious in Zimbabwe where rhino numbers are now declining and the conviction rate for rhino crimes in Zimbabwe is only three percent. Despite the introduction of a number of new measures, poaching and illicit horn trade in South Africa has also increased.
from The Missoulian: Bitterroot bighorn pneumonia outbreak worsens An outbreak of pneumonia in bighorn sheep from the East Fork Bitterroot herd worsened over the past week. State wildlife biologists collected almost 30 infected bighorn sheep from the area south of Darby. Some of the infected animals were shot in an effort to slow the spread of the disease. Others were found already dead. "Any hope for a moderate infection rate is waning," said Craig Jourdonnais, the Bitterroot-based biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "I think we are in full blown die-off mode." Last week, biologists confirmed that sheep from the herd were infected with the nearly always fatal respiratory disease after two rams were discovered dead along the road. In the past, some bighorn herds infected with pneumonia in Montana have seen dramatic die-offs in the 60 percent to 70 percent range.... "It appears to be pretty extensive at this point," Jourdonnais said. "On Sunday, we headed up into nearby draws. We found a lot of coughing sheep."
from Agence France-Presse: Top French chefs take bluefin tuna off the menu Top French chefs this week pledged to keep bluefin tuna and other threatened fish species off the menu, whatever the cost. With half of the fish eaten in Europe dished up in restaurants, it was high time for the food-loving nation's leading chefs to take a stand, said one of the country's greatest chefs, Olivier Roellinger. Roellinger, celebrated for his fish and seaweed fare in western Brittany, took bluefin tuna -- aka red tuna -- off the menu five years ago. "We have a responsibility towards all those who are in charge of feeding others, cooks but also mothers and even fathers, and must show them the way," he told AFP.
from Horsetalk: Zebra, asiatic ass migrations left in tatters Southern Africa's plains zebras and the asiatic wild ass have been identified among animals whose migratory habits have been left in tatters. A quarter of the world's migrating species are suspected to no longer migrate at all because of human changes to the landscape, and all of the world's large-scale terrestrial migrations have been severely reduced. A recent research paper has presented the first analysis of dwindling mass migrations, and noted the plight of the plains zebra (Equus quagga) and the asiatic wild ass (Equus hemionus), which live in central Asia.... All 24 species in the current study lost migration routes and were reduced in number of individuals. The analysis found drastic curbing for six species in particular -- the plains zebra, asiatic wild ass, the springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis), black wildebeest (Connochaetes gnou), the blesbok (Damaliscus dorcas) and the scimitar horned oryx (Oryx dammah) of northern Africa. These species either no longer migrate or are impossible to evaluate as migratory animals.
from ENS, via DesdemonaDespair: Azeri fishermen lament vanished shrimp "It's been two years since the shrimps vanished from the Apsheron shore of the Caspian. And in these last few days, I have been returning home with almost nothing. Maybe 200-250 grams of small shrimps end up in my nets, but no one buys them. I give them to friends who fish to use as bait." From Pirallahi, which juts into the Caspian Sea from the Apsheron peninsula some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Baku, oil platforms are visible a kilometer offshore, and ecologists blame the pollution caused by the oil industry for the collapse in the shrimp population.... He says shrimps rely on minute water plants and animals for food, but the sea floor has become heavily polluted with oil recently, meaning the micro-organisms have died....
from The Economist: Socked A mysterious decline in the numbers of spawning salmon has become one of the rites of autumn in British Columbia, bringing worries of financial and job losses, threats of extinction and a perplexing lack of answers. This season only 1.7m of the 10.4m sockeye salmon that were forecast to return to the Fraser river in fact made it -- a 50-year low. That prompted Stephen Harper, Canada's prime minister, to ask Bruce Cohen, a justice of British Columbia's Supreme Court, to hold an inquiry into the causes of the sockeye's decline. Applause was muted. Four other federal inquiries held over the past three decades have failed to halt the decline.
from Greenpeace: Final voyage of the Japanese whaling fleet... Following a week of potentially crippling budgetary reviews and a high-profile visit from US President Barack Obama to Japan, the so-called 'scientific' whaling fleet crept out of port. Greenpeace called for the departure to be the program's last.... This year, the fleet's Antarctic hunt will be subsidized by $8.8 million of taxpayer money. However, the program already operates at a loss due to lack of demand for whale meat -- the wholesale price of whale meat has just been lowered for the second time this year in an effort to stimulate the low demand -- and program costs are set to increase.... With well over 9,000 minke whales killed in 22 years and no useful data produced, Japan's so-called 'research' in the Antarctic is an international embarrassment.
from Reuters, via DesdemonaDespair: Feared Asian carp may be near U.S. Great Lakes There are signs Asian carp may have breached barriers designed to keep the prolific fish out of the Great Lakes, which could spell ecological disaster for the vital source of fresh water, authorities said on Friday.... Environmentalists say that if the fish reach the Great Lakes, about 20 miles from the barriers, they would quickly destroy the lakes' $4.5 billion fishery by consuming other fish and their food sources. Only Lake Superior among the five lakes may be too cold for the carp, which can reproduce rapidly and reach 100 pounds (45 kg).
from Foreign Affairs: Where the Wild Things Were Ten percent of the world's terrestrial surface is now at least nominally under some kind of protection. National biodiversity assessments and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment have provided useful information on the "state of nature" in various places. The world knows more and is doing more about conservation than in the past. Nevertheless, the loss of biodiversity -- wildlife, genetic material, ecosystems, and evolutionary processes -- has not abated. The United States has still not ratified the CBD, and the UN system for conservation is still weak, lacking sanctions for states that fail to live up to their commitments. Trade in protected wildlife continues and poaching runs rampant. Funding for conservation remains vanishingly small, and important animal populations and entire species are in grave danger.... Savannah elephants have no exit corridors from East African drought; changes in water availability threaten natural areas and force the rural poor to resettle; migrating birds arrive at the wrong time, finding little food or nesting opportunities; small populations of animals are simply blinking out.
from BBC (UK): Tuna management body fails yet again The body responsible for managing Atlantic bluefin tuna has decided not to suspend the fishery in response to concerns over dwindling stocks. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) instead decided to lower the annual catch quota by about one third. Conservation groups said the decision would encourage illegal fishing. Iccat scientists said recently that bluefin numbers were at about 15 percent of pre-industrial-fishing levels. They also said that drastic limits on fishing now would facilitate the growth of a more profitable industry in years to come, as stocks became more plentiful.
from Boston Globe: Bat soup in bat hell Thomas Kunz emerges from Aeolus cave in East Dorset, Vermont, with a half-dozen metal ID bands -- smaller than SpaghettiOs -- cupped in the palm of his latex-gloved hand. They're tiny emblems of death, having once been affixed to the forearms of little brown bats. The renowned bat biologist from Boston University, who bears a passing resemblance to Harrison Ford, minutes earlier had recovered the bands while trudging, like a real-life Indiana Jones, through a slippery mud-like ooze of rotting bat carcasses, liquefied internal organs, toothpick-sized bones, piles of guano, and a strange white fungus on the cave floor. If bats had come out of hell, it couldn't have been worse than this. "What we saw was bat soup. There were a lot of bones of wings and skulls and emulsified bodies," Kunz says. "There were dead bats -- decomposing bats -- hanging from the walls of the cave.
from Mongabay: Prime Minister of Kenya urged to ban lion-killing pesticide after child dies from ingestion On Monday October 26th a three-year-old girl mistakenly ate the pesticide Furadan (also known as carbofuran) in western Kenya. Her father, a teacher at a primary school, said that he had no knowledge of how dangerous the pesticide was, which he had purchased to kill pests in his vegetable garden. This tragedy comes after the conservation organization WildlifeDirect has campaigned for two years for Furadan to be banned in Kenya. The pesticide, which is a potent neurotoxin, has been used to kill dozens of Kenya's lions and millions of birds both of which are considered pests to farmers and pastoralists. Now WildlifDirect is going directly to Prime Minister Ranila Odinga for support in the ban. Odinga recently adopted a lion under the Kenya Wildlife Service's (KWS) Wildlife Endowment Fund.
from BBC (UK): 'Last chance' for tuna authority The annual meeting of the body charged with conserving Atlantic tuna opens on Monday to warnings that this is its "last chance" to manage things well. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) is criticised for setting high quotas and not tackling illegal fishing. Stocks of bluefin tuna are at about 15 percent of pre-industrial fishing levels.... "We'd like to have science-based management that has a good chance of stopping overfishing and rebuilding the stock, with effective compliance and monitoring."... It is estimated that the illegal take adds about 30 percent to the legal catches.
from PhysOrg.com: 15,000 reasons to worry about invasive species Candy Dailey spent a Fourth of July holiday splashing with grandkids on the sandy shore of Lake Metonga when she felt a nasty sting on her foot.... the culprit was a zebra mussel -- cuts from the razor-sharp shells have become as unremarkable as bee stings since the mussels invaded Dailey's lake eight years ago.... The natives of the Caspian Sea region first turned up in North America in the summer of 1988, thanks to overseas freighters' long-standing -- and ongoing -- practice of dumping their contaminated ballast water in the Great Lakes, which are now home to more than 185 non-native species.... Now, this ecological mess is spreading inland.
from Times Online (UK): One in five mammals threatened with extinction A fifth of the world's known mammals, a third of amphibians and reptiles and more than two thirds of plants are threatened with extinction, according to the latest "Red List" of endangered species. Of the 5,490 mammal species that have been identified by scientists, 79 are extinct or extinct in the wild, 188 are critically endangered, 449 are endangered and 505 are classed as vulnerable, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said. The annual Red List, published yesterday, also shows that 70 per cent of identified plants, 35 per cent of invertebrates, 37 per cent of freshwater fish, 30 per cent of amphibians, 28 per cent of reptiles and 12 per cent of birds are under threat. The survival of a total of 17,921 species is in jeopardy.
from BBC: Species' extinction threat grows More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned. Out of the 47,677 species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 17,291 were deemed to be at serious risk. These included 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of amphibians, 70 percent of plants and 35 percent of invertebrates. Conservationists warned that not enough was being done to tackle the main threats, such as habitat loss. "The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting," warned Jane Smart, director of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Biodiversity Conservation Group. The latest analysis... shows that the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met," she added.
from National Geographic News: Sea Slime Killing U.S. Seabirds Hundreds of birds ... are washing up on the shores of the U.S. Pacific Northwest coated with a foamy sea slime, scientists say. The slime, which comes from algae blooms in the ocean, saps the waterproofing ability of the birds' feathers, experts say.... "Then they have to beach themselves, because they are cold and wet." Research suggests that recently, the blooms are larger, lasting longer, and happening with greater frequency.... "They are finding that the [nutrient] upwelling is happening at different times of the year than it used to," he said, "and that's because currents and weather are changing."
from Michigan Technical University, via EurekAlert: Wolves, moose and biodiversity: An unexpected connection Moose eat plants; wolves kill moose. What difference does this classic predator-prey interaction make to biodiversity? A large and unexpected one, say wildlife biologists from Michigan Technological University. Joseph Bump, Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich report in the November 2009 issue of the journal Ecology that the carcasses of moose killed by wolves at Isle Royale National Park enrich the soil in "hot spots" of forest fertility around the kills, causing rapid microbial and fungal growth that provide increased nutrients for plants in the area. "This study demonstrates an unforeseen link between the hunting behavior of a top predator -- the wolf -- and biochemical hot spots on the landscape," said Bump.... And he adds that on the Arctic tundra, where soil nutrients are limited, others have found that the impact of a muskox carcass on surrounding vegetation is dramatic even after 10 years.
from Washington Post: Eels Slip Away From Europe's Dishes They may be slimy, snakelike and a distinct turn-off for many people, but eels have formed an integral part of European cuisine since the time of the ancient Greeks. Yet without urgent action, scientists fear this mysterious beast could disappear from the continent's waterways and dinner tables for good. European eel stocks have fallen to below 10 percent of 1970s levels, according to the International Council for the Exploitation of the Sea in Copenhagen. In parts of the Baltic and Mediterranean 99 percent of the stocks are believed to have vanished. Well, there's more stories than this -- but that was 75 of them! You may want to try the PANICloud for more specific topics! |
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