It's all of the above, and more. It's increasingly clear that
biodiversity is rapidly declining, worldwide. Species are going extinct
before they can be catalogued, and those whose numbers were
significant a decade ago have become rare.
If it was just the cute critters -- the koalas, the polar bears, the
tigers, the mountain gorillas -- it would still be sad. But it's the
species upon which other populations of species depend (which is nearly
every species), the workhorse species, the fundamental species, that
are also in decline. That's the scariest part, for the species homo
sapiens.
Without wild and domestic bees, for example, a large proportion of
food crops (apples, soybeans, almonds, peaches, cherries,
strawberries, and more) would not bear fruit. Without a robust bird
population, many beetle and locust populations might explode. Without
amphibians like frogs, mosquito and other insect populations may
swarm, imbalancing yet other ecosystem interrelationships.
And, without critters we hardly pay attention to -- say, a particular
kind of plankton -- then the tiny plankton-eaters, which feed the
small fish, which feed the bigger fish, which feed the sharks, all
crash. The web of life becomes tattered.
There is evidence that even the fairly slight effects of climate
warming that we've been experiencing the last decade may be turning dependencies out
of whack:
... Nesting wood warblers are important predators of the eastern spruce
budworm, which defoliates millions of acres of timberland every year.
Without the birds, those losses would likely be far greater. Under
normal conditions, warblers consume up to 84 percent of the budworm's
larvae and pupae.... Similar problems could occur in the West, where
savannah sparrows, sage thrashers and other species that help control
rangeland grasshopper populations are expected to move north. "A
single pair of savannah sparrows raising their young consumes an
estimated 149,000 grasshoppers over the breeding season," says [an
expert]. "Unless all of the components of this ecosystem --- grasslands, insects
and birds -- change at the same time, an unlikely prospect, we're looking
at more grasshopper outbreaks in the future."
Silent Spring: A Sequel?, National Wildlife, 2003
It is very difficult to disaggregate the Climate Change Scenario
from the Species Collapse Scenario, as seen above, but unlike the
Confluentialists at
The
Center for PostApocalypse Studies, we at the Institute strive to
focus on one catastrophe at a time, to better understand and analyze
them.
To that end, we are hypothesizing a decade in which a
number of key species go into
catastrophic decline, for reasons we will only dimly understand. In
some areas it will be dramatic, in other areas less so.
Northerly climates, and more biodiverse
ecosystems, may fare better than U.S. midwestern industrial
agricultural lands.
Food, especially certain basics (like
soybeans, even corn) may become significantly more expensive.
Standard shipping methods will continue
to operate, even though it gets somewhat more expensive (based on
current trends, not even considering Peak Oil)
Biotechnology and biological sciences go
into practical research mode, trying to compensate and ameliorate
Various "plagues of insects" -- because
insects generally evolved to multiply so very fast -- will cause
localized devastation: grasshoppers in one state, beetles in another
-- and strenuous but functionally ineffective quarantines will be
implemented at great cost.
Fish populations -- a source of the
majority of the raw protein available in the world -- will continue to
decline. The increasing prices will encourage even more invasive
fishing techniques (beyond even the miles-long
drift nets and
deep-sea trawling
currently hoovering up indiscriminately), including even more rogue, unregulated
pirate trawlers. This effectively destroys the
ocean's ability to recover in most traditional fisheries. See the collapse of the Northern Cod as an example.
Financial devastation within many
important sectors,
and the increasing costs and unavailability of many foods, will create
economic turmoil.
Al-Qaeda and the "war on terrorism" in
general are recognized as functionally meaningless, compared to the
real crisis
Certain areas will experience wild
fluctuations in property values, with consequent community
devastation. A permanent infestation of unchecked species -- because
their primary predators have died off or gone north -- will leave towns and
regions essentially untenable. This will cause great economic
turmoil, and possibly millions of economic refugees even within
developed nations.
Greenhouses, gardens, and humanly-tended
heritage crops becomes more important, as well as profitable.
Microagriculture becomes vital to community health, and even survival.
Canning and storing food when it's
plentiful will become routine in homes.
Internet and other forms of
telecommunication and entertainment continue to grow in importance, as
an affordable respite, and a way to follow this month's species event
like we once followed the weather.
Recent Species Collapse News
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Fri, Mar 6, 2009: from
BBC: 'No proof' of bee killer theory Scientists say there is no proof that a mysterious disease blamed for the deaths of billions of bees actually exists.
For five years, increasing numbers of unexplained bee deaths have been reported worldwide, with US commercial beekeepers suffering the most.
The term Colony Collapse Disorder was coined to describe the illness.
But many experts now believe that the term is misleading and there is no single, new ailment killing the bees.
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Wed, Mar 4, 2009: from
Environmental Health News: Migrating vultures succumb to lead An increasingly rare species of vulture that migrates from Mongolia to overwintering grounds in South Korea can pick up enough lead along the way to poison and kill them.
Lead poisoning may be the reason a globally threatened species of vulture is frequently found dead in the wild. The vulture is native to Europe and Asia. One large population overwinters in South Korea near the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Researchers examined 20 dead birds found in the area. They analyzed the animals' kidneys, liver and bones for lead and other metals.
They found very high levels of lead in these birds. Fourteen individuals had potentially toxic levels in their liver and kidneys.... The results also highlight that wildlife can transport toxic chemicals to new locations where it can then enter different food webs.
The authors suggest that the birds may pick up the poisonous lead during their migration by feeding on other animals that are contaminated with the heavy metal. The lead might come from ammunition used for hunting.
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Wed, Mar 4, 2009: from
New Scientist: Inbreeding sabotages rare species' sperm It's a triple whammy for male animals on the brink of extinction: not only are there fewer mates around to have sex with, but, to make things worse, their sperm are more likely to carry genetic abnormalities and less likely to be good swimmers, research shows.... The team found that, on average, 48 percent of the sperm of endangered species was abnormal, compared with 30 percent in non-endangered species. In addition, the percentage of the sperm that was motile -- or capable of movement -- was around 10 percent lower in endangered species. Earlier research has shown that both characteristics make a male less likely to produce viable offspring.
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Tue, Mar 3, 2009: from
KSU, via EurekAlert: Birds in Flint Hills of Kansas, Oklahoma face population decline despite large habitat "Because of its size, the Flint Hills is assumed to be a population stronghold for grassland birds," said Kimberly With, a K-State associate professor of biology who led the study. "Mostly this has been based on bird counts, but they can be misleading because they don't show what the region is capable of producing. Birds are very mobile and thus birds could come from elsewhere to give the appearance of a stable population year after year. This is especially true if the region attracts birds because of its size, but birds do not breed successfully once they settle here."... They conducted a two-year study of regional viability of three grassland birds: the dickcissel, grasshopper sparrow and eastern meadowlark. With and her colleagues found that none of these bird species is viable in the 4 million-acre Flint Hills region. They estimated population declines of as much as 29 percent per year during the years studied.
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Mon, Mar 2, 2009: from
Mongabay: Time to give up on Tasmanian tiger, says DNA expert The Tasmanian tiger, or Thylacine, has captured the imagination of cryptozoologists ever since the last known individual died in the 1936 in the Hobart Zoo, which closed the next year.... Austin's lab has examined numerous dropping believed to be from the Tasmanian tiger only to find that most belong to the Tasmanian devil. This continued lack of success for Austin means there is little to no hope of discovering a living Tasmanian tiger.... According to a Tasmanian newspaper, The Mercury, Austin is also doubtful of efforts to clone a Tasmanian tiger. He believes that DNA fragments of the animal are too broken to create a complete genome, and even if a Tasmanian tiger could be cloned, it would only provide the world with a single individual which couldn't reproduce. The millions of dollars it would take to clone a Tasmanian tiger would be better spent on conservation efforts for the hundreds of threatened species including several in Tasmania, according to Austin.
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Fri, Feb 27, 2009: from
Edmonton Journal: Athabasca 'mostly untouched': report Biodiversity institute finds only 7 percent of region affected by oilsands projects.... When the institute examined the region north and east of Edmonton, home to most of Alberta's oilsands development, only seven per cent of the 93,000 square kilometres had been altered by human development.... The report found that: 29 of the 52 bird species were below the normal level; 62 of the 97 plant species were below normal. However, most of the species were close enough to their normal levels that when averaged out, the intactness of biodiversity ended up at 94 per cent.
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Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from
USFS, via EurekAlert: Study finds hemlock trees dying rapidly, affecting forest carbon cycle Otto, NC -- New research by U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists and partners suggests the hemlock woolly adelgid is killing hemlock trees faster than expected in the southern Appalachians and rapidly altering the carbon cycle of these forests.... Eastern hemlock, a keystone species in the streamside forests of the southern Appalachian region, is already experiencing widespread decline and mortality because of hemlock woolly adelgid (a tiny nonnative insect) infestation. The pest has the potential to kill most of the region's hemlock trees within the next decade. As a native evergreen capable of maintaining year-round transpiration rates, hemlock plays an important role in the ecology and hydrology of mountain ecosystems.... The authors suggest that infrequent frigid winter temperatures in the southern Appalachians may not be enough to suppress adelgid populations.
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Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from
Charleston Gazette: White-nose disease confirmed in Pendleton bats CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Bats in Pendleton County have white-nose syndrome, a condition associated with the death of more than 100,000 hibernating bats in the Northeast, a laboratory has confirmed.... West Virginia caves provide some of the nation's most important hibernation sites for endangered Virginia big-eared bats and Indiana bats, as well as for a variety of more abundant bat species.
A cold-loving fungus not previously scientifically described has been linked to white nose syndrome, which was first observed in bat hibernation sites near Albany, N.Y., in 2006. Since then, the syndrome has spread to caves and abandoned mines in Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and West Virginia, and is suspected to be present in New Hampshire.... "The void in the night skies created by the absence of thousands of bats could affect all West Virginians, because bats prey on a variety of insect pests."
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Wed, Feb 25, 2009: from
Courier-Mail (Australia): Human activity seen as a threat to marine echinoderms CREATURES are falling victim to human activities, and scientists say it could interfere with the evolutionary process and lead to extinctions.
Known as echinoderms, the species are essential for keeping ecosystems healthy and if their populations either crash or multiply, degraded seascapes may result.... "Each of these 28 cases was experiencing difficulties because of human activity, including over-fishing, nutrient run-off from the land, species introductions and climate change," Dr Uthicke said.
"We suggest that human-induced disturbance, through its influence on changes to echinoderm population densities, may go beyond present ecosystems impacts and alter future evolutionary trends."
In the Caribbean, sea urchins have died off and on the Great Barrier Reef an over-fished sea cucumber area closed six years ago has not recovered.
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Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from
New Scientist: Lizards will roast in a warming world GLOBAL warming is set to make life distinctly uncomfortable for reptiles and other cold-blooded animals. Unable to produce heat, they rely on strategies such as moving from colder to warmer areas to function. Soon that might not be an option for tropical species.
Many species will need to adapt to climate change to survive, so Michael Kearney of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and his team designed a model to get an idea of how cold-blooded species, or ectotherms, would fare. They make up the majority of the world's species.
The researchers first assessed how an ectotherm's body temperature would change with body shape and colour, and surrounding environment. They then used satellite data to model wind speed, shade and air temperature in a warmer world.
For most ectotherms, a body temperature of 30 to 35 degrees C is ideal, with performance declining at higher and lower temperatures. Above 40 degrees C can be lethal.
Kearney's model showed that on a summer's day in the shade, a 3 degrees C rise in average temperature - the mid-range estimate for the end of this century - would send the body temperature of ectotherms in Australia's tropical deserts over 40 degrees C for at least an hour...
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Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from
Rutland Herald: VT Residents Warned about Bats and White Nose Syndrome WATERBURY -- The Vermont Agency of Natural Resource's Fish & Wildlife Department recently issued a reminder to residents who live near caves and mines to expect unusual levels of bat activity as a result of the White Nose Syndrome that is afflicting hibernating bats.
Reports of sick bats have been coming in most recently from Norwich, Thetford and Strafford, near the Elizabeth Mine, where thousands of bats hibernate each winter.
Some people are finding dead bats on their porches or screen windows, some have bats entering their homes and some are seeing bats flying during the day.
"One of the symptoms of White Nose Syndrome is that bats are extremely emaciated, and many are awakening early and flying out of the cave in search of food," said State Wildlife Biologist Scott Darling.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from
Indianapolis Star: Study: Birds wintering farther north could signal climate change A recently released report by the National Audubon Society has tied changes in migratory bird habits to global warming. According to data from the group's annual Christmas bird count gathered over the past 40 years, nearly 60 percent of the 305 bird species sampled in North America now winter farther north than they did previously.... "The birds are an indicator of what's happening," said Greg Butcher, the lead scientist on the study and the National Audubon Society's director of bird conservation. "They are showing us that global warming has been going on for years, and it's having strong biological effects in Indiana and elsewhere."
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Sat, Feb 14, 2009: from
Contra Costa Times: Newest Delta victims: Killer whales California's thirst is helping drive an endangered population of West Coast killer whales toward extinction, federal biologists have concluded.
The southern resident killer whale population, which numbers 83, spends much of its time in Puget Sound but since 2000 many of them have been spotted off the California coast as far south as Monterey Bay.
In a draft scientific report, biologists conclude the damage that water operations are doing to California's salmon populations is enough to threaten the orcas' existence because the water mammals depend on salmon for food. Federal officials confirmed the conclusions of the report to MediaNews on Friday; the data have not been released....
The findings, contained in a draft report by the agency's scientists, could elevate public support for environmental protection in the Delta, where the conflict between environmental advocates and water users has centered on Delta smelt, a nondescript fish that grows a couple of inches long and smells like cucumbers.
"People have a hard time looking at the Delta smelt for its own sake," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "If it's Shamu, that's a different thing."
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Sat, Feb 14, 2009: from
Portland Oregonian: Climate change threatens 'rock rabbits,' environmentalists say The tiny American pika, the "boulder bunny" that chirps at hikers high in the Western mountain ranges, may join the polar bear as a victim of climate change.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide by May whether to protect the pika under the federal Endangered Species Act in a court settlement reached today in San Francisco. Environmentalists say the animal is threatened by habitat loss due to global warming.
More than one-third of the pika population has vanished in Oregon, where it lives high in the Cascades and Eastern Oregon mountains.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Earthjustice sued the government in August, saying it was dragging its heels in providing protection for the pika. The polar bear was placed last year on the endangered species list because its habitat is under assault by warming temperatures.
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Fri, Feb 13, 2009: from
London Times: Penguins in peril as food search turns into marathon Penguins from the largest colony on mainland South America are being forced to swim the equivalent of two marathons farther to find food because of the effects of climate change.
The survival of the Magellanic penguin colony at Punta Tombo, on the Atlantic coast of Argentina, is being threatened by the increasing distances the birds must travel to feed themselves and their chicks, research has shown.
Dee Boersma, of the University of Washington in Seattle, said that Punta Tombo penguins were now routinely swimming 25 miles farther on their foraging expeditions than they did a decade ago... The longer foraging trips have contributed to the colony's decline: penguin numbers have fallen by more than 20 per cent in the past 22 years, leaving only 200,000 breeding pairs today.
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Fri, Feb 13, 2009: from
BBC: Bleak forecast on fishery stocks The world's fish stocks will soon suffer major upheaval due to climate change, scientists have warned.
Changing ocean temperatures and currents will force thousands of species to migrate polewards, including cod, herring, plaice and prawns.
By 2050, US fishermen may see a 50 percent reduction in Atlantic cod populations.... "The impact of climate change on marine biodiversity and fisheries is going to be huge," said lead author Dr William Cheung, of the University of East Anglia in the UK.
"We must act now to adapt our fisheries management and conservation policies to minimise harm to marine life and to our society."
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Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from
Stanford University, via EurekAlert: No joy in discoveries of new mammal species -- only a warning for humanity In the era of global warming, when many scientists say we are experiencing a human-caused mass extinction to rival the one that killed off the dinosaurs, one might think that the discovery of a host of new species would be cause for joy. Not entirely so, says Paul Ehrlich, co-author of an analysis of the 408 new mammalian species discovered since 1993.
"What this paper really talks about is how little we actually know about our natural capital and how little we know about the services that flow from it," said Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford.
"I think what most people miss is that the human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the economy of nature, which supplies us from our natural capital a steady flow of income that we can't do without," Ehrlich said. "And that income is in the form of what are called 'ecosystem services' -- keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, supplying fresh water, preventing floods, protecting our crops from pests and pollinating many of them, recycling the nutrients that are essential to agriculture and forestry, and on and on."
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Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from
UC Berkeley, via EurekAlert: Scientists document salamander decline in Central America The decline of amphibian populations worldwide has been documented primarily in frogs, but salamander populations also appear to have plummeted, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.
By comparing tropical salamander populations in Central America today with results of surveys conducted between 1969 and 1978, UC Berkeley researchers have found that populations of many of the commonest salamanders have steeply declined.
On the flanks of the Tajumulco volcano on the west coast of Guatemala, for example, two of the three commonest species 40 years ago have disappeared, while the third was nearly impossible to find.... Frog declines have been attributed to a variety of causes, ranging from habitat destruction, pesticide use and introduced fish predators to the Chytrid fungus, which causes an often fatal disease, chytridiomycosis.
These do not appear to be responsible for the decline of Central American salamanders, Wake said. Instead, because the missing salamanders tend to be those living in narrow altitude bands, Wake believes that global warming is pushing these salamanders to higher and less hospitable elevations.
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Mon, Feb 9, 2009: from
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader: As bat deaths rise, mosquito invasion looms Here's a prediction: We will see more mosquitoes this summer. Why?
Because something is killing bats. Wiping out entire populations of the insect-eating mammals, and nobody knows why or how to stop it.
Considering a single little brown bat can eat more than 2,000 mosquitoes in a night, and factoring in that bats in our area are starting to perish just like bats in New York and New England did, one of our top insect predators might be absent from the evening sky this summer.
Last week the Pennsylvania Game Commission discovered dead bats in two mine sites in Lackawanna County.... Something is causing the thousands of bats to use up their winter energy reserves early.
As a result, the bats are emerging from hibernation six weeks early and flying out of the mines in search of insects. The problem is there aren't any bugs in February, and the bats are literally starving to death in mid-air.
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Thu, Feb 5, 2009: from
WV Public Radio: White nose syndrome suspected in WV bats "On the way to the caves we found five dead bats along the trail, which is unusual," West said. "In the one cave, New Trout, we saw no evidence whatsoever of White Nose Syndrome. In Trout Cave we found two bats that had some fungal growth."... "As the counters proceeded to the rear of the cave, they observed that roughly a quarter of the bats they were counting, and they counted over 400 that day, roughly a quarter that they could examine were displaying a fungal growth that resembled White Nose," West said.
When the group left the cave at twilight, a number of bats were leaving the cave presumably in search of food, which they normally don't do in the cold months when there are no bugs to eat.
Bats with White Nose Syndrome eventually starve to death.
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Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from
Associated Press: States fail in latest prairie dog report card ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Whether he sees his shadow or not this Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil has it easy. But in the West, his cousins are in dire straits, according to a report to be released Monday by WildEarth Guardians. The environmental group says North America's five species of prairie dog have lost more than 90 percent of their historical range due to habitat loss, shooting and poisoning. WildEarth Guardians' report grades three federal land management agencies and a dozen states on their actions over the past year to protect prairie dogs and their habitat. Not one received an A.
New Mexico, home to the Gunnison's prairie dog and black-tailed prairie dog, earned a D -- the same as last year -- because the group said state wildlife officials weren't actively conserving prairie dogs. The group says oil and gas activity threatens habitat in rural areas, while urbanization in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos is pushing the animals out.
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Sun, Feb 1, 2009: from
London Times: Plight of the humble bee Native British bees are dying out -- and with them will go flora, fauna and one-third of our diet. We may have less than a decade to save them and avert catastrophe. So why is nothing being done?...Most people do now get the point about honeybees. Following the multiple crises that continue to empty the hives -- foulbrood, varroa mites, viral diseases, dysfunctional immune systems, and now the mysterious but globally devastating colony-collapse disorder (CCD) -- it is understood that the true value of Apis mellifera lies not so much in the sticky stuff that gives our favourite insect its name as in the service it provides as a pollinator of farms and gardens. If you add retailers’ profit to farm gate prices, their value to the UK economy is in the region of 1 billion a year, and 35 percent of our diet is directly dependent on them. It is an equation of stark simplicity. No pollination: no crops. There is nothing theoretical about it. The reality is in (or, more accurately, not in) the hives. The US has lost 70 percent of its honeybee colonies over the past two winters. Losses in the UK currently are running at 30 percent a year -- up from just 6 percent in 2003.
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Thu, Jan 29, 2009: from
Daily Record (NJ): Bat plague fallout: More bugs, fewer crops? The potential environmental impact of White Nose Syndrome, recently diagnosed for the first time in New Jersey in the Rockaway Township area, likely would be significant according to bat experts and advocates.
"It's one of those experiments you never want to find the results of," said Merlin Tuttle, an internationally-known bat expert and founder of Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas.
Since bats feed on insects, fewer bats would mean more mosquitoes. That could result in additional cases of West Nile Virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, in humans.... He said that Texas, for example, has a cave with 20 million bats credited with devouring 200 tons of insects per night.
"You could only imagine what the impact could be on crops," Tuttle said.
"Just like birds by day, bats have a huge impact in keeping the insect population in balance -- including some of the worst crop and back-yard pests," Tuttle said.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Thu, Jan 29, 2009: from
Guardian (UK): Absence of wolves causes imbalance in US ecosystem, say scientists Settlers and trappers killed them all in little more than three decades.
But the loss of the stealthy predators in the early 1900s left a hole in the landscape that scientists say they are just beginning to grasp. The ripples extend throughout what is now Olympic National Park, leading to a boom in elk populations, overbrowsing of shrubs and trees, and erosion so severe it has altered the very nature of the rivers, says a team of Oregon State University biologists.
The result, they argue, is an environment that is less rich, less resilient and - perhaps - in peril.
"We think this ecosystem is unravelling in the absence of wolves," said OSU ecologist William Ripple.
Everything from salmon to songbirds could feel the fallout from the missing predators, the scientists say.
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Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from
BBC (UK): Emperor penguins face extinction Based on predictions of sea ice extent from climate change models, the penguins are likely to see their numbers plummet by 95 percent by 2100.
That corresponds to a decline to just 600 breeding pairs in the world.... What is more, the extent of sea ice cover influences the abundance of krill and the fish species that eat them -- both food sources for the penguins.... "Unlike some other Antarctic bird species that have altered their life cycles, penguins don't catch on so quickly," she said.
"They are long-lived organisms, so they adapt slowly. This is a problem because the climate is changing very fast."
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Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from
WKRG (Alabama): Smuggler Caught With Heads of 353 Parrots A new trade in parrot heads and tail feathers is adding to the pressure on the world’s wild population of African Grey Parrots, which is confined to the tropical forest area of West and Central Africa.
This is highlighted by a recent post by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) from Cameroon, which reports on a suspect arrested by game rangers who was found to be carrying 353 parrot heads and 2000 tail feathers. The suspect stated that he had collected the material for a witch doctor who was treating his mentally ill brother.... Unfortunately this kind of trade is likely to flourish as the financial difficulties of the world bite deeper and the unemployed poor in Africa become more and more desperate.
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Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from
Mongabay: Palm oil may be single most immediate threat to the greatest number of species Efforts to slow the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of natural forests across Southeast Asia are being hindered by industry-sponsored disinformation campaigns, argue scientists writing in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The authors, Lian Pin Koh and David S. Wilcove, say that palm oil may constitute the "single most immediate threat to the greatest number of species" by driving the conversion of biologically rich ecosystems -- including lowland rainforests and peatlands.... Despite substantial scientific evidence to the contrary, the industry claims that expansion has not occurred in natural forest areas and that oil palm plantations sequester more carbon than rainforests.... "To effectively mitigate the threats of oil palm to biodiversity, conservationists need to persuade consumers to continue to demand both greater transparency in land-use decisions by governments and greater environmental accountability from oil palm producers."
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Sun, Jan 25, 2009: from
Associated Press: Tasmanian devils threatened by contagious cancer CANBERRA, Australia-- Tasmania is trying to save the devil.
The Tasmanian devil, a ferocious, snarling fox-sized marsupial, is in danger of going extinct because of a contagious facial cancer. In the meantime, its biggest rival -- the European fox -- is thriving, and may become so dominant that the devil never comes back.
Scientists now want to build a double fence standing more than three feet tall to stop the cancer's relentless spread toward the rugged northwest of the island, home to disease-free devils and World Heritage-listed rain forest. Devils spread the cancer when they bite each other during mating or squabble over food.
But for any chance of success, the fences would have to be completed within two years, said Hamish McCallum, the senior scientist in the devil rescue program. He predicts the devil will go extinct in the wild within 20 years.
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Sat, Jan 24, 2009: from
Sunbury Daily Item (PA): Disease shows up in area bat colony LEWISBURG, PA -- A week before Christmas, DeeAnn Reeder and her colleague Greg Turner made a discovery in a cave in Mifflin County. A handful of bats hibernating for winter had the tell-tale sign of white-nose syndrome, a mysterious condition killing off colonies in the northeast.
The discovery of the white fungus confirmed what state, federal and academic researchers have suspected would happen: White-nose syndrome has arrived in Pennsylvania after being detected in New York and Vermont.... About 600 bats in Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Vermont, Kentucky and possibly New Hampshire and West Virginia were tagged with transmitters that collect body temperature readings during hibernation. Data collection is ongoing, with results due in several months.
Preliminary results show the bats are warming up, or temporarily coming out of hibernation, more frequently than normal. "It looks like before they die, they are warming up even more frequently, and some are dying as they warm up," she said.
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Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from
New York Times (US): Environmental Issues Slide in Poll of Public's Concerns A new poll suggests that Americans, preoccupied with the economy, are less worried about rising global temperatures than they were a year ago but remain concerned with solving the nation's energy problems.... In the poll, released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, global warming came in last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. Only 30 percent of the voters deemed global warming to be "a top priority," compared with 35 percent in 2008.
"Protecting the environment," which had surged in the rankings from 2006 to 2008, dropped even more precipitously in the poll: only 41 percent of voters called it a top priority, compared with 56 percent last year.
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Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from
New Scientist: Mountain gorillas in dire straits, DNA reveals Mountain gorillas are in more trouble than we thought. Fewer of them are living in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) than previous estimates suggest. This is one of only two places worldwide where the gorillas survive in the wild.... It might also mean that the gorilla population in the park is not growing after all -- a census in 1997 found 300 gorillas, while one in 2003 found 320 individuals, but these figures may also be inaccurate. "Now we don't really know what is happening with this population," says Guschanski. "Probably the safest thing is to assume that the population is stable, but we will need to wait for another four to five years to assess how it is changing."
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Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from
New Scientist: Appetite for frogs' legs harming wild populations ... [C]onservationists are warning that frogs could be going the same way as the cod. Gastronomic demand, they report, is depleting regional populations to the point of no return.... Bickford estimates that between 180 million to over a billion frogs are harvested each year. "That is based on both sound data and an estimate of local consumption for just Indonesia and China," he says. "The actual number I suspect is quite a bit larger and my 180 million bare minimum is almost laughably conservative."
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Tue, Jan 20, 2009: from
Sydney Morning Herald: Endangered list grows as slow and steady lose race AFTER surviving for more than 100 million years, the world's largest sea turtle has been placed on the national threatened species.
Leatherback turtles, which are found in waters off NSW as well as south Queensland and Western Australia, can grow up to 1.6 metres in length and 700 kilograms.
The Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, said yesterday that the turtles, which had previously been classified as vulnerable, were now considered an endangered species.
"The uplisting is mainly due to the ongoing threat the turtle faces from unsustainable harvesting of egg and meat, and pressures from commercial fishing outside Australian waters," he said.
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Mon, Jan 19, 2009: from
Associated Press: Palm oil frenzy threatens to wipe out orangutans ...the red apes ... in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations... The demand for palm oil is rising in the U.S. and Europe because it is touted as a "clean" alternative to fuel. Indonesia is the world’s top producer of palm oil, and prices have jumped by almost 70 percent in the last year.
But palm oil plantations devastate the forest and create a monoculture on the land, in which orangutans cannot survive.... There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Most live in small, scattered populations that cannot take the onslaught on the forests much longer.
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Sun, Jan 18, 2009: from
Kingston Daily Freeman: MERCURY RISING: Bald eagles in region face new threat AFTER BEING pushed by humans to the brink of extinction and then re-establishing habitats in the Hudson River Valley and Catskill Mountains, bald eagles are again facing a manmade threat to their existence.
A Maine-based environmental organization has found an alarming accumulation of mercury in the blood and feathers of both juvenile and adult bald eagles in the Catskills.
While environmentalists say there is not yet conclusive scientific data to indicate the eagles are being harmed by the mercury levels in their systems, the study has found mercury levels in Catskills eagles to be close to those associated with neurological and reproductive problems in the common loon in the Adirondack Mountains and in Maine. The study also seems to support the belief that the Catskill Mountains region is a likely “hot spot” for methylmercury.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Thu, Jan 15, 2009: from
Seattle Times: Scientists find contaminated orca food The food supply of Puget Sound's endangered orcas is contaminated, a team of Canadian and Washington scientists has found.
The scientists measured persistent organic pollution concentrations in chinook salmon in order to understand the orcas' exposure to contamination in their food supply. Orcas, or killer whales, are actually a type of dolphin, are among the most contaminated marine mammals in the world, and are at risk of extinction in Puget Sound.
The so-called southern resident population of orcas that frequents Puget Sound was listed as an endangered species by the federal government in November 2005.
Southern resident orca whales seem to prefer chinook salmon for their diet — fish that the scientists found were contaminated with PCBs, flame retardants and other persistent chemicals that are retained in body fat.
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Wed, Jan 14, 2009: from
Glouster Daily Times: NOAA: Six nations illegally caught bluefin The federal government yesterday identified six foreign countries it said engaged in illegal fishing during the last two years, including the illicit harvesting of valuable and endangered stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna.
The six nations named in a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- France, Italy, Libya, Panama, China and Tunisia -- were the first the United States has ever specifically identified as violators of international fishing regulations.
The six nations now face potential trade sanctions from the United States, including a possible ban on the sale of their seafood in this country.... The majority of violations identified in the NOAA report involved illegal or unregulated catches of bluefin tuna, a fish prized for its use as sushi and which has been severely depleted because of its popularity.
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Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from
The Olympian: Mysterious pelican deaths worry California biologists In a troubling wildlife mystery, sick and injured California brown pelicans are landing in suburban ponds, driveways and backyards -- far from their ocean home.... "Now they are appearing in really unusual places." ... Die-offs of young birds aren't uncommon along the coast this time of year. But bird rescuers knew something was amiss when many of the sick pelicans were adults, found far inland, bruised and starving.
A social animal, it is rarely found alone.... "We are seeing a number of conditions that are not typical of domoic acid toxicity or a domoic acid event. Therefore, we are continuing to collect and test samples, keeping an open mind and considering all possibilities."
Other theories have surfaced. Perhaps the birds are ingesting toxic fire retardants that washed to sea after recent fires. Maybe they're sick with a viral infection. Or perhaps the cold weather that hit the Pacific Northwest in December boosted their susceptibility to some yet-identified disease. Or there could be a confluence of factors.
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Mon, Jan 12, 2009: from
The Desert Sun (CA): Protected species moves from valley Warmer, drier weather linked to global climate change has caused at least one native species to disappear from the Coachella Valley -- and ecologists warn more could be lost if the conditions persist. The Jerusalem cricket, an inch-long insect protected under the Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, used to live in the Thousand Palms area and near the Palm Springs International Airport.
But after more than a decade of drought, the moisture-needing cricket has shifted completely to more humid areas west of the valley, past Windy Point near Cabazon, according to local ecologists.
Its "dramatic" disappearance is "the canary in the coal mine telling us what's going on" regarding local effects of climate change, said Dr. Cameron Barrows, a research ecologist who's studied the Coachella Valley the past 23 years.
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Sat, Jan 10, 2009: from
New Scientist: Medicinal plants on verge of extinction THE health of millions could be at risk because medicinal plants used to make traditional remedies, including drugs to combat cancer and malaria, are being overexploited. "The loss of medicinal plant diversity is a quiet disaster," says Sara Oldfield, secretary general of the NGO Botanic Gardens Conservation International.
Most people worldwide, including 80 per cent of all Africans, rely on herbal medicines obtained mostly from wild plants. But some 15,000 of 50,000 medicinal species are under threat of extinction, according to a report this week from international conservation group Plantlife. Shortages have been reported in China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda.
Commercial over-harvesting does the most harm, though pollution, competition from invasive species and habitat destruction all contribute. "Commercial collectors generally harvest medicinal plants with little care for sustainability," the Plantlife report says. "This can be partly through ignorance, but [happens] mainly because such collection is unorganised and competitive."
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Sat, Jan 10, 2009: from
Telegraph.co.uk: Destructive alien species being transported around the world by sea [T]he cargo ships are unwittingly transporting larvae and tiny organisms that could cause damage to other species. This is because cargo ships take up water for ballast once they have discharged their load. When they arrive at the new destination the water is dumped -- along with any living stowaways on board.
Over the years ships have transported comb jellyfish from the US to the Black Sea, where they have decimated fish stocks. The European green crab has caused problems in the US and Australia and Asian kelp has caused havoc in New Zealand, Europe and Argentina.
In the UK the Chinese mitten crab and European zebra mussel are just some of the invasive maritime species transported by sea threatening native species.
It is estimated that up to 10 billion tonnes of ballast water is transferred globally each year.
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Cheboygan News: Biologist on the case of dipping smelt population For years now, the spring smelt runs have been shadows of their former selves. Gone are the days when rivers and streams would run black, teaming with billions of migrating smelt. With only a few dips of the net, garbage cans could be filled with the tasty, bite-sized fish.
Runs like those haven't been experienced in years.... From predatory demand to the introduction of zebra and quagga muscles to climate change, each theory has merit but needs some explaining.... "Based on my field observations, I can say this situation will not change any time soon," said Schaeffer. "We recorded very few smelt and the ones we did get were very small, too small for anglers to keep."
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News10.net: What's killing California pelicans? The calls started coming in to the International Bird Rescue Research Center just after Christmas. Something strange was going on with pelicans up and down the coast of California.
"We started getting calls of pelicans acting a little weird," said IBRRC Director Jay Holcomb. "They were landing in weird spots, on highways on runways, in people's yards."
Holcomb said they have received more than 150 calls and 75 of the sick birds have been brought in to the centers in Cordelia and San Pedro. "As we looked at them they seemed to be disoriented like they didn't know where they were. They were confused," Holcomb said. The aquatic bird specialists at the IBRRC are baffled by the sick pelicans. "We don't know what's going on," said Holcomb. "It could be some kind of viral thing, some kind of toxin in the environment that they're eating." ... "We've had calls from people in Baja (Mexico) that have seen the same thing and have actually literally seen hundreds of pelicans dying on the beaches," said Holcomb.
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Bennington Banner: Bats with White Nose Syndrome appearing in area Dorset and Strafford area residents have reported bat sightings in recent weeks, when the nocturnal flyers are supposed to be hibernating. The unusual behavior is being caused by White Nose Syndrome, a mysterious affliction that is devastating bat populations in the Northeast, according to Scott Darling, a bat biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.... Darling said this year could be worst than last. "It's pretty discouraging," he said. "The bats came into winter in pretty bad shape."
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The Peninsula Gateway: Keeping an eye on feathered friends "The information gathered is public domain for scientists," Hands said. "One of the most important things is to look for trends. If something is unusual, they would have wondered what’s going on in the water. The birds are the canary in the coal mine. There is a certain standard number of birds we expect to see. If there's an increase or decrease, there could be something important going on, and this is our first notification.
"The last two years, we have been having a problem in declines with water birds.".... "They are a great indicator for the whole ecosystem," bird counter Charlie Wright said. "It's a really good way to monitor the health of the water."
Wright said sea birds are important indicators because they follow the fish populations.
"They follow the herring and other small fish," he said. "We don't know how they do it, they just do."
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Thu, Jan 1, 2009: from
Guardian (UK): Slowdown of coral growth extremely worrying, say scientists Coral growth across the Great Barrier Reef has suffered a "severe and sudden" slowdown since 1990 that is unprecedented in the last four centuries, according to scientists.
The researchers analysed the growth rates of 328 coral colonies on 69 individual reefs that make up the 1,250 mile-long Great Barrier Reef, off north-east Australia. They found that the rate at which the corals were laying down calcium in their skeletons dropped by 14.2 percent between 1990 and 2005.... the most probable explanation for the drop in the growth rate of the corals' calcium carbonate skeletons is acidification of the water due to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. More acid water makes it more difficult for the coral polyps to grab the minerals they need to build their skeletons from the sea water.
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Science Daily (US): Killer Mice Bring Albatross Population Closer To Extinction The critically endangered Tristan albatross (Diomedea dabbenena) has suffered its worst breeding season ever, according to research by the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK). The number of chicks making it through to fledging has decreased rapidly, and it is now five times lower than it should be because introduced predatory mice are eating the chicks alive on Gough island -- the bird's only home and a South Atlantic territory of the United Kingdom.... "Unsustainable numbers are being killed on land and at sea. Without major conservation efforts, the Tristan Albatross will become extinct".
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Tue, Dec 30, 2008: from
via ScienceDaily: Climate Change Effects On Imperiled Sierra Frog Examined Climate change can have significant impacts on high-elevation lakes and imperiled Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged frogs that depend upon them, according to U.S. Forest Service and University of California, Berkeley, scientists. Their findings show how a combination of the shallow lakes drying up in summer and predation by introduced trout in larger lakes severely limits the amphibian's breeding habitat, and can cause its extinction... Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged frogs need two to four years of permanent water to complete their development so repeated tadpole mortality from lakes drying up in summer leads to population decline. The scientists found the effect to be a distinct mortality mechanism that could become more important in a warmer, drier climate.
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Sat, Dec 27, 2008: from
Chicago Tribune: Minnesota's iconic moose are dying off It wasn't long ago that thousands of moose roamed the gentle terrain of northwestern Minnesota, affirming the iconic status of the antlered, bony-kneed beast from the North Woods. In just two decades, though, their numbers have plummeted, from 4,000 to fewer than a hundred.
They didn't move away. They just died.
The primary culprit in what is known as the moose mystery, scientists say, is climate change, which has systematically reduced the Midwest's already dwindling moose population and provoked alarm in Minnesota, where wildlife specialists gathered for a "moose summit" this month in Duluth.
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Los Angeles Times: Asia appetite for turtles seen as a threat to Florida species ... the critters will help feed a huge and growing appetite for freshwater turtles as food and medicine.
The demand pits ancient culture against modern conservation and increasingly threatens turtle populations worldwide. As Asian economies boomed, more and more people began buying turtle, once a delicacy beyond their budgets. Driven in particular by Chinese demand, Asian consumption has all but wiped out wild turtle populations not just in China, but in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and elsewhere in the region. Now conservationists fear that the U.S. turtle population could be eaten into extinction.
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Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Report: Politics corroded Bush decisions on endangered species Politics corroded Bush administration decisions on protecting endangered species in regions nationwide, federal investigators have concluded in a sweeping new report.
Former interior department official Julie MacDonald frequently bullied career scientists to reduce species protections, the interior department investigators found.
"The results of this investigation paint a picture of something akin to a secret society residing within the interior department that was colluding to undermine the protection of endangered wildlife and covering for one another's misdeeds," Congressman Nick Rahall, a Democrat from West Virginia, said late Monday afternoon.
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Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from
New Scientist: Jumbo squids in acid: What future oceans hold in store Swimming through warmer, more acidic oceans will feel like swimming through molasses for jumbo squid.... Jumbo squid blood carries very little oxygen -- with each cycle through its body, the oxygen can be used up entirely. This means they must "recharge" constantly, and makes the animals very dependent on what oxygen is available in the water around them. Yet, the warmer water is, the smaller the amount of oxygen it can hold.... To make matters worse, the squid's blood cells are able to carry even less oxygen in acidic water.... Last year, the first study to simultaneously track a predator and its prey suggested that sperm whales may take advantage of moments when jumbo squid slow down to catch them.
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Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from
Telegraph.co.uk: Jellyfish on the menu as edible fish stocks become extinct Fish stocks around Britain have been reduced to 10 per cent of what they were 100 years ago due to overfishing. Common skate and angel fish are already extinct while favourites like cod are in danger of being wiped out.... However scientists have said that unless the system is completely overhauled fish stocks will continue to deplete to the point of extinction by 2048, leaving consumers little option but to eat jellyfish or the small bony species left behind at the bottom of the ocean.
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Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from
Innovations Report (Germany): Climate change: a dark future for migratory fish In Europe, most migratory fish species completing their cycle between the sea and the river are currently in danger.... This study has shown that for most species the situation will deteriorate. For example, the smelt and the Arctic char will lose approximately 90 percent of the watersheds that are favourable for reduced or null gains. Only two species, the thinlipped mullet and the twaite shad, will be able to expand their territory towards the north, beyond their initial distribution area. Finally, in accordance with the predictions, the southern watersheds risk losing most of their species.
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Sat, Dec 13, 2008: from
NSF, via EurekAlert: New online report on massive jellyfish swarms released Massive swarms of stinging jellyfish and jellyfish-like animals are transforming many world-class fisheries and tourist destinations into veritable jellytoriums that are intermittently jammed with pulsating, gelatinous creatures. Areas that are currently particularly hard-hit by these squishy animals include Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, the east coast of the U.S., the Bering Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, Australia, the Black Sea and other European seas, the Sea of Japan, the North Sea and Namibia.... From large swarms of potentially deadly, peanut-sized jellyfish in Australia to swarms of hundreds of millions of refrigerator-sized jellyfish in the Sea of Japan, suspicion is growing that population explosions of jellyfish are being generated by human activities.
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Fri, Dec 12, 2008: from
New York Times: Interior Department Rule Eases a Mandate Under a Law on Wildlife The Interior Department on Thursday announced a rule that has largely freed federal agencies from their obligation to consult independent wildlife biologists before they build dams or highways or permit construction of transmission towers, housing developments or other projects that might harm federally protected wildlife.... In announcing the rule, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said his main intention was to ensure that the 1972 law was not used as a "back door" means of regulating the emission of the gases that accelerate climate change.... Pat Parenteau, a professor at the Vermont Law School, disagreed, saying, "For all federal agencies, if this isn't a carte blanche, it's certainly a broad license to decide for yourself that you don't need to consult."
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Wildlife Conservation Society, via EurekAlert: Missing: 2,000 elephants Elephants in Zakouma National Park, the last stronghold for the savanna elephants of Central Africa's Sahel region, now hover at about 1,000 animals, down from an estimated 3,000 in 2006. Ivory poachers using automatic weapons have decimated elephant populations -- particularly when herds venture seasonally outside of the park.
Civil unrest in has made conservation exceedingly difficult in Chad. Several park guards have been shot and killed in recent years. However, safety conditions have recently improved somewhat and WCS is optimistic that it can increase on-the-ground elephant conservation work in and around Zakouma to protect the remaining population.... "Zakouma is a last stand for elephants in the Sahel," said Fay. "It's incredibly heartbreaking to stand before a dead elephant missing only its tusks. How can we stand idly by and watch this population continue to get slaughtered because of simple human greed?"
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Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from
AFP: Fifth of world's corals already dead, say experts Almost a fifth of the planet's coral reefs have died and carbon emissions are largely to blame, according to an NGO study released Wednesday.
The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, warned that on current trends, growing levels of greenhouse gases will destroy many of the remaining reefs over the next 20 to 40 years.
"If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson, the organisation's coordinator.
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Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from
New Scientist: Canadian tar plan threatens millions of birds A new report saying that millions of migratory birds are at risk adds to a mass of criticism of the damage caused by exploiting the oil sands.
The thick tarry deposit in northern Alberta is the world's second-largest oil reserve after Saudi Arabia, but separating the useable oil from the gunk takes three times as much energy as pumping conventional oil. This alone makes it some of the "dirtiest" oil on the planet.
This week, a report by the US Natural Resources Defense Council says that continued development of the area could kill 100 million migratory birds over the next 50 years, mainly by destroying their habitat.
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Sat, Dec 6, 2008: from
Science News: Honeybee CSI: Why dead bodies can't be found ...Beehives across North America continue to lose their workers for reasons not yet understood, a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. But new tests suggest how a virus nicknamed IAPV might be to blame for one of the more puzzling aspects of the disorder—the impression that substantial numbers of bees vanish into thin air.
In tests on hives in a greenhouse, bees infected with IAPV (short for Israeli acute paralytic virus) rarely died in the hive. Sick bees expired throughout the greenhouse, including near the greenhouse wall...Outdoors, the bees could scatter across the landscape where the occasional dead insect wouldn’t be easily noticed before scavengers found it.
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Sat, Dec 6, 2008: from
Telegraph.co.uk: 21 new species in danger of extinction, UN convention hears Twenty-one animal species, including the cheetah, three dolphin families and an Egyptian vulture, were added to the list of those in danger of extinction by a UN conference in Rome. Six other bird species as well as manatees have also been placed on the list of animals benefiting from increased protections, called list I.
In addition, next year has been proclaimed the "Year of the Gorilla" to help the survival of threatened species.... Several species of sharks have been placed on the list of threatened species, including two families of Mako sharks in the Mediterranean whose population have fallen off by 96 per cent in recent years due to overfishing.
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Thu, Dec 4, 2008: from
Associated Press: Conservation group sues to protect walrus ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A conservation group went to court Wednesday to force the federal government to consider adding Pacific walrus to the list of threatened species.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for failing to act on a petition seeking protection for walrus under the Endangered Species Act. Walrus are threatened by global warming that melts Arctic sea ice, according to the group, which was one of the parties that successfully petitioned to list polar bears as threatened. The group also has filed petitions to protect Arctic seals.
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Telegraph.co.uk: Farmland birds in Europe fall by half Farmland birds suffered the most, with numbers falling by half. Western Europe saw the most dramatic decline with a fall of more than 50 per cent because of intensive agriculture. However in Eastern Europe, where agriculture has retained more traditional practices, farmland birds fell by just over a third.
In the UK, the population of farmland birds reached its lowest point in more than 30 years last year, according to the RSPB. Of the dozen most rapidly declining farmland birds in Europe, eight including the grey partridge, turtle dove, corn bunting, tree sparrow and starling have also declined rapidly in the UK.... EU leaders have pledged to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010, but Mr Madge said the decline in farmland birds showed that plants and animals are declining at such a rate that the target is unlikely to be met.
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Brisbane Courier-Mail: White possum said to be first victim of global warming The white lemuroid possum, a rare creature found only above 1000m in the mountain forests of far north Queensland, has not been seen for three years.
Experts fear climate change is to blame for the disappearance of the highly vulnerable species thanks to a temperature rise of up to 0.8C.
Researchers will mount a last-ditch expedition early next year deep into the untouched "cloud forests" of the Carbine range near Mt Lewis, three hours north of Cairns, in search of the tiny tree-dweller, dubbed the "Dodo of the Daintree"....Scientists believe some frog, bug and insects species have also been killed off by climate change. But this would be the first known loss of a mammal and the most significant since the extinction of the Dodo and the Tasmanian Tiger.
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CBC News (Canada): 500 narwhals trapped by Pond Inlet ice: fisheries officials When the trapped narwhals were first discovered on Nov. 15, residents had counted at least 200 of the Arctic whales, trapped in shrinking areas of open water, also known as breathing holes or savssats.
But since the first discovery, fisheries officials say more breathing holes have been spotted. The department now estimates a total of 500 narwhals were trapped in as many as 20 breathing holes.... Hunters in Pond Inlet, a mostly Inuit community of about 1,300, told CBC News that the task of culling hundreds of entrapped whales has been daunting.
They added that they are trying to harvest as many whales as they can with the limited amount of daylight they have at this time of year.
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Sun, Nov 30, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Africa's vanishing herds As the rain begins to fall on Tanzania's Tarangire National Park, thousands of zebra, wildebeest and giraffe will begin one of the world's greatest migrations. But many of the herds trampling across the grass at the foot of the Rift Valley highlands are falling in number - and scientists do not know why.... Numbers of wildebeest have fallen from 50,000 to 6,000 in the past 20 years, and numbers of antelope species, such as hartebeest and oryx, have declined by 90 and 95 per cent respectively. Confusingly some species -- zebra, giraffe, gazelle and buffalo - have remained relatively stable. To understand such contrasting fortunes, scientists from America's Dartmouth and Utah universities are working to determine whether habitat loss, changed food sources, or hunting -- or a combination of all -- is responsible.
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Sat, Nov 29, 2008: from
NPR: Bluefin Tuna On Edge Of Collapse, Scientists Say Many of the world's fish are heading toward commercial extinction. The next one to go could be the majestic Atlantic bluefin tuna.
This week, an international committee meant to protect the species approved fishing levels that far exceed what scientists say is sustainable.
Conservationists fear that in just a few years, the remaining stocks of bluefin tuna in the Western Atlantic and Mediterranean could collapse completely.
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Thu, Nov 27, 2008: from
Scientific American: Troubled waters: striped bass moms pass on harmful pollutants to babies ...Striped bass and other fish have been dying in droves off the coast of San Francisco for decades; pollution from industry and agricultural runoff has long been blamed.
Now a team of scientists from the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Diego, have fingered the killer contaminants. They found that wild female fish from the Sacramento River produced eggs containing a host of pollutants at levels high enough to cause biological harm. The list includes chemicals called PBDEs (flame retardants), PCBs (a known carcinogen banned in the 1979), and a slew of pesticides. They even found DDT, the infamous pesticide linked to cancer that was banned in 1972 after being indicted in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring).
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Telegraph.co.uk: Waterway wildlife sightings down by 25 percent The 2008 figures show 3,000 sightings compared to 4,000 in 2007 -- despite a 17 per cent rise in visitor numbers across the waterways network.
Officials are baffled by the drop but suspect it is a statistical 'blip' rather than a dramatic fall in the number of animals.
Many more people now use waterway tow paths as a route to work – walking, running or cycling – as well as for spotting wildlife.
"If there is a similar fall-off in numbers next year then there will be a cause for concern but at the moment I am not too worried," said Dr Mark Robinson, national ecology manager for British Waterways.
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Tue, Nov 25, 2008: from
Kalamazoo Gazette: War on ash borer moves outside of Lower Peninsula The native ash trees in Michigan's Lower Peninsula are doomed.
Even $70 million in tax dollars has not been enough to defeat the shiny, green emerald ash borer, a beetle that hitchhiked to Michigan from Asia in 2002 and has since feasted on the state's ash-tree population.
Michigan agriculture officials admit it's futile to enforce a Lower Peninsula quarantine designed to contain the beetle to identified "hot spots." The reason: Everywhere is a hot spot now in the Lower Peninsula.
"If you look in Southeast Michigan, or the Kalamazoo area, you are hard-pressed to find any ash trees that are alive," said Kenneth Rauscher, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture's pesticide and plant-pest management division. "The future of ash is very, very dim."
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Sat, Nov 22, 2008: from
New Scientist: Experts plan 'doomsday vault' for frog sperm The freezer could be the future for frogs and other amphibians. Efforts announced today are currently underway around the world to boost amphibian numbers with cryopreservation and assisted reproduction.
Breeding frogs and their cousins to increase numbers could help vulnerable species survive looming extinctions. But getting amphibians to mate is not always straightforward, so researchers are developing other techniques to give them a helping hand.
One proposal resembles the doomsday seed vault which opened this year in Norway. Only instead of plant seed, the amphibian vault would store sperm, guaranteeing amphibian genetic diversity for times of dwindling populations.
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Fri, Nov 21, 2008: from
Washington Post: New Rule Would Discount Warming as Risk Factor for Species The Bush administration is finalizing changes to the Endangered Species Act that would ensure that federal agencies would not have to take global warming into account when assessing risks to imperiled plants and animals.... The main purpose of the new regulations, which were first unveiled in August, is to eliminate a long-standing provision of the Endangered Species Act that requires an independent scientific review by either the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of any federal project that could affect a protected species. Under the administration's proposal, individual agencies could decide on their own whether a project would harm an imperiled species.
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New York Times: Congo Violence Reaches Endangered Mountain Gorillas Congo's gorillas happen to live in one of the most contested, blood-soaked pieces of turf in one of the most contested, blood-soaked corners of Africa. Their home, Virunga National Park, is high ground -- with mist-shrouded mountains and pointy volcanoes -- along the porous Congo-Rwanda border, where rebels are suspected of smuggling in weapons from Rwanda. Last year in Virunga, 10 gorillas were killed, some shot in the back of the head, execution style, park officials said.
The park used to be a naturalist's paradise, home to more than 2,000 species of plants, 706 types of birds and 218 varieties of mammals, including three great apes: the mountain gorilla, the lowland gorilla and chimpanzees.
Now Virunga is a war zone.
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Telegraph.co.uk: Japan's whaling mother ship sets sail A fleet of catcher ships was expected to join the Nisshin Maru as part of its foray into the waters of the Antarctic where it is this year due to hunt up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales as part of its controversial scientific research programme.... Reports of the departure of the fleet coincided with the Australian government unveiling a major scientific whaling study to prove to Japan that it was not necessary to kill whales for science.
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Telegraph.co.uk: The animals and plants we cannot live without -- five experts Nearly 17,000 species are now considered to be threatened with extinction and 869 species are classed as extinct or extinct in the wild on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List. In the last year alone 183 species became more endangered.
Now, in the face of the growing threat posed by environmental changes around the globe, five leading scientists are to argue whether there is a single type of plant or animal which the planet really cannot afford to lose.
The debate, titled Irreplaceable -- The World's Most Invaluable Species, will see five experts present the case for the world's most important animals and plants from a shortlist of five: primates, bats, bees, fungi and plankton.
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Sun, Nov 16, 2008: from
WJZ (Baltimore): Scientists Fear Bat-Killing Disease May Spread Something is killing bats by the thousands. Whole colonies have been wiped out in the northeast, and there is worry it could spread to Maryland.... "High numbers of deaths. They're moving in the day time, they're roosting in unusual locations. It's all very unusual behavior for bats," said Aimee Haskem, UM Center for Environmental Science.... So far, there's no sign of white nose syndrome in Maryland.
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Fri, Nov 14, 2008: from
Mongabay: Caspian seal numbers plummet 90 percent A team from the University of Leeds performed a series of surveys in 2007 and 2008 which revealed that the birth rate has decreased from around 17,000 pups born per year to only between 6,000 and 7,000 -- a drop of 60 percent. The team's census further showed that the current number of breeding females was only 17,000, a number barely large enough to maintain the genetic viability of the species.
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Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from
The Economist: The population of bluefin tuna is crashing Yet Raul Romeva, a green MEP from Spain, says this summary is a "sanitised" version. He believes the full report has been suppressed by the commission at the request of national governments because its contents are so embarrassing. The full report is said to contain details about the scale of infringements, including which countries are responsible. One-third of inspections, says Mr Romeva, led to an apparent infringement, such as inadequate catch documentation. The commission, he says, is covering this up.
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Mon, Nov 10, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): European fishing fleets may have catches cut by one-quarter European fishing fleets could see their catches cut by up to a quarter next year if EU ministers sign up to recommendations aiming to protect overfished species such as cod and haddock.
The European Commission today proposed deep cuts in 2009 catches for almost 30 species and a ban on fishing for several others across the northeastern Atlantic.... "I know this will be hard on the fleets affected," he said. "But there is no other choice if we want to restore the ecological basis for a truly viable European fishing industry," he added.
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Mon, Nov 10, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Quarter of Atlantic sharks and rays face extinction More than a quarter of sharks and rays in the north-east Atlantic face extinction from overfishing, conservationists warned today.
A "red list" report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 26 percent of all sharks, rays and related species in the regional waters are threatened with extinction. Seven per cent are classed as critically endangered, while a fifth are regarded as "near-threatened".
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Sun, Nov 9, 2008: from
London Daily Telegraph: Lemmings hit by climate change Lemming populations have been ravaged by climate change as their breeding habits are disrupted by the wrong type of snow.
The rodents, who contrary to popular belief do not commit suicide, breed best when thick, fluffy snow forms a blanket under which they can shelter, reproduce and feed on moss.
Now researchers at the University of Oslo have reported that a general warming of the earth has given rise to a cycle of freezing and thawing which has meant that snow melts and freezes at ground level depriving the creatures of food.
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Sat, Nov 8, 2008: from
Census of Marine Life via ScienceDaily: Overfishing Threatens European Bluefin Tuna Bluefin tuna disappeared from Danish waters in the 1960s. Now the species could become depleted throughout the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, according to analyses by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Aqua) and University of New Hampshire. The species is highly valued as sushi.
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Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from
Telegraph.co.uk: Lemmings hit by climate change Lemming populations have been ravaged by climate change as their breeding habits are disrupted by the wrong type of snow.
The rodents, who contrary to popular belief do not commit suicide, breed best when thick, fluffy snow forms a blanket under which they can shelter, reproduce and feed on moss.
Now researchers at the University of Oslo have reported that a general warming of the earth has given rise to a cycle of freezing and thawing which has meant that snow melts and freezes at ground level depriving the creatures of food.... This has meant that the regular explosions in lemming numbers have ceased over the past 15 years.
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Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from
Christian Science Monitor: Why frogs are croaking In the quest to find out why frog species have been declining so dramatically, various researchers have blamed climate change, disease, pollution, and increases in ultraviolet light from the sun reaching the surface. If two new studies are any indication, the answer increasingly appears to be: all of the above.
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Mon, Nov 3, 2008: from
Associated Press: Mexico City's 'water monster' nears extinction MEXICO CITY-- Beneath the tourist gondolas in the remains of a great Aztec lake lives a creature that resembles a monster - and a Muppet - with its slimy tail, plumage-like gills and mouth that curls into an odd smile.
The axolotl, also known as the "water monster" and the "Mexican walking fish," was a key part of Aztec legend and diet. Against all odds, it survived until now amid Mexico City's urban sprawl in the polluted canals of Lake Xochimilco, now a Venice-style destination for revelers poled along by Mexican gondoliers, or trajineros, in brightly painted party boats.
But scientists are racing to save the foot-long salamander from extinction, a victim of the draining of its lake habitat and deteriorating water quality. In what may be the final blow, nonnative fish introduced into the canals are eating its lunch - and its babies.
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Sun, Nov 2, 2008: from
Conservation International, via EurekAlert: Eastern Pacific tuna hang in the balance Whether this 16-nation Commission will act to protect declining tuna stocks, or once again demonstrate their impotence to do so, remains to be seen. The fate of Pacific tuna stocks hangs in the balance.
Tuna populations are showing signs of trouble in the eastern tropical Pacific. Bigeye tuna populations are falling to low levels, the average size of captured yellowfin tuna is in decline and high levels of very small juvenile tuna are being caught accidentally. The Commission's own scientific staff have issued repeated warnings about these signs and urged nations to collectively adopt measures that include establishment of closure periods for overall stock recoveries, special closure areas where fish are most reproductively active and limits on annual catches. Despite five attempts in two years, the Commission has yet to agree on a single measure to address overfishing.
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Fri, Oct 31, 2008: from
Los Angeles Times: Die-off of bats is linked to new fungus Researchers have found a clue in the mysterious die-off of bats that has struck the Northeast -- a new fungus that so far seems to be present only in bats and in caves where the die-off has occurred. "The fungus is in some way involved in causing the bats to starve to death," said biologist Thomas Tomasi of Missouri State University in Springfield. "They are burning up too many calories, at a rate faster than they can sustain."
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Wed, Oct 29, 2008: from
Toronto Globe and Mail: Killer whales disappearing off southern B.C. There were early signs of starvation and then declining birth rates - now a growing number of adults and calves have vanished from a population of orcas found in the waters of southern British Columbia and northern Washington.
Although no bodies have been found, it's thought that the whales, which rarely stray from the group, have died, perhaps tipping a key population toward extinction.
And scientists say the worst is yet to come for the southern resident orcas and a second, separate population known as the northern residents, which are both heading into winter undernourished because there are so few salmon to feed on.
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Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from
Boston Globe: Troubling toll in Thoreau's backyard In the 1850s, a few years after he had gone to "live deliberately" in a cabin in the woods at Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau began to compile detailed records on hundreds of species of plants in his beloved Concord. Those same data now are being used to measure the effect of climate change, and the news is not good, researchers said yesterday. Scientists from Boston University and Harvard reported that 27 percent of the species documented by Thoreau have disappeared, and another 36 percent are in such low numbers that their disappearance is imminent.
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Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from
The Argosy: Biosphere barely balancing The environment appears to be swiftly falling to pieces around us. Though television commercials about carbon emissions, and reusable shopping bags signal greater awareness of the issues, our environment is in crisis, particularly our biodiversity. In the Americas alone, bats, bees and bananas appear to be in serious danger, which in turn threatens human life.... In a world where every ecosystem is connected and every species has an impact, losing biodiversity means a lot more for the human race than just having to shorten the 'B' section of the Children's encyclopedia.
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Sat, Oct 25, 2008: from
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Are the orcas starving? Showing signs of starvation as salmon runs faltered up and down the West Coast, Puget Sound's orca population lost seven of its number over the past year, bringing the population to just 83, anxious scientists reported Friday.
The development marks the biggest reduction in the orca population since a series of bad chinook salmon seasons in the 1990s battered the killer whales' numbers.
Revealing the degree to which the orcas are interrelated to a far-flung marine ecosystem, the collapse of California's Sacramento Valley chinook run seems likely to be partly to blame for declining killer whale numbers...
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Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from
Sofia Echo (Bulgaria): Massive ivory auctions to lead to new killing of elephants, conservationists warn Ivory auctions that will take place in Namibia on October 28, Botswana on October 31, Zimbabwe on November 3, and South Africa on November 6 2008 have raised the concerns of international conservationists ... who said that the ivory auction was approved by members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), despite an international outcry from scientists and conservationists.... "For some inexplicable reason, some people think that all elephant populations are adequately protected and thriving. Nothing could be further from the truth. For many of the most vulnerable elephant populations across Africa, any increased poaching pressure will almost certainly result in localised extinction in the near future," he said.
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Thu, Oct 23, 2008: from
University of Georgia via ScienceDaily: Ecosystem-level Consequences Of Frog Extinctions Streams that once sang with the croaks, chirps and ribbits of dozens of frog species have gone silent. They're victims of a fungus that's decimating amphibian populations worldwide. Such catastrophic declines have been documented for more than a decade, but until recently scientists knew little about how the loss of frogs alters the larger ecosystem. A University of Georgia study that is the first to comprehensively examine an ecosystem before and after an amphibian population decline has found that tadpoles play a key role keeping the algae at the base of the food chain productive.
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Thu, Oct 23, 2008: from
findingDulcinea: Dead Humboldt Squid Wash Up on Oregon, Washington Beaches The Oregonian reports that beaches along Oregon's northern coast have seen an influx of dead Humboldt squid washing ashore over the past few days. The squid are typically about 3 1/2 feet long, and thrive in the warmer waters of Southern California and Mexico. However, these squid swam north in search of food.... "The fact this is happening in both hemispheres could be a sign it is tied in with global warming," but noted that pieces of the puzzle were still missing.
There are possible explanations other than global warming. Some biologists suggest that overfishing of the squid's "natural predators, including tuna, sharks and swordfish" has allowed Humboldt squid to swim further.
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Wed, Oct 22, 2008: from
Saskatoon Star Phoenix: Ecological stocks plummet around the world In fully 52 per cent of the mammals for which population trends are known, numbers are dwindling. Some 188 species are in the highest threat category of critically endangered. An additional 29 species have been flagged as critically endangered possibly extinct, and nearly 450 mammals have been listed as endangered.
The greatest threats mammals face are deforestation and other habitat loss, as well as overhunting. Habitat loss and degradation affect 40 per cent of the world's mammals and climate change is increasingly a factor affecting habitat.
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Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Redband trout's decline under study The redband index - like the Dow Jones - is headed south. On one stretch of the upper Spokane, redband counts dropped 75 percent between 1980 and last year. Though downstream counts are higher, redband populations aren't healthy in any part of the river, Donley said. The declines have occurred despite two decades of catch-and-release regulations for anglers.... But hydropower dams altered the river's flows, while withdrawals sucked water out of the river. Gravel spawning beds, where redbands lay their eggs, dry out too soon, killing the young fry.
Pollutants also hurt the trout. More than other fish in the Spokane system, redbands need cold, clean water for survival.
"They're the canary in the coal mine," Donley said. "We use them as an environmental indicator."
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Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from
London Daily Telegraph: Bumblebee decline threatens British countryside The continuing decline in bees will destroy the British countryside as important iconic plants die without pollination, experts have warned. They are also key to a number of rare flowers including fox gloves, honey suckle and a range of wild orchids that cannot be pollinated by other insects. However bumblebees are in sharp decline. Of the 25 species found in the UK, three are nationally extinct and many more are seriously threatened.
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Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Not so common: scientists raise alarm as Britain's seals disappear Marine biologists have warned of significant and serious changes in the seas around Britain after detecting a steep and "frightening" fall in the numbers of common seals around the coast.... "This is very abnormal. To give you an idea of the level of abnormality, the rates of decline are equivalent to these populations producing no offspring for five or six years."
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Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from
The Scotsman: For every 100 of these birds that graced our skies, just five remain THE number of Arctic terns in Scotland has dropped by a shocking 95 per cent in the past two decades. The graceful seabirds, well known in Shetland and Orkney for zealously guarding their nests and letting out rasping cries, are suffering severe declines. The dramatic decline, outlined in the Scottish Government's consultation into the Scottish Marine Bill, has been described as a "wake-up call".
Other seabirds, including the Arctic skua and the black-legged kittiwake, have also suffered large drops in numbers.
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Sat, Oct 18, 2008: from
University of Chicago Press Journals via ScienceDaily: Global Warming Threatens Australia's Iconic Kangaroos As concerns about the effects of global warming continue to mount, a new study published in the December issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology finds that an increase in average temperature of only two degrees Celsius could have a devastating effect on populations of Australia's iconic kangaroos.... The most significant effects of climate change are not necessarily on the animals themselves, but on their habitats -- specifically, in amounts of available water.
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Fri, Oct 17, 2008: from
Associated Press: Government declares beluga whale endangered The federal government on Friday placed the beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, concluding that a decade-long recovery program has failed to ensure their survival... The findings by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service conflict with claims by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has questioned scientific evidence that the beluga whale population in the waters near Anchorage continues to decline.
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Thu, Oct 16, 2008: from
University of Georgia: UGA study reveals ecosystem-level consequences of frog extinctions A University of Georgia study that is the first to comprehensively examine an ecosystem before and after an amphibian population decline has found that tadpoles play a key role keeping the algae at the base of the food chain productive.... Without tadpoles swimming along the streambed and stirring up the bottom, the amount of sediment in the stream increased by nearly 150 percent, blocking out sunlight that algae need to grow... The UGA research team is continuing to monitor the health of the streams to get valuable, long-term data. So far the stream has not rebounded. "It's still sad going back," Connelly said, to which Pringle added: "Once the frogs die, it's like an incredible silence descends over the whole area. It's eerie."
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Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from
McClatchy Newspapers: Memos tell wildlife officials to ignore global-warming impact New legal memos by top Bush administration officials say that the Endangered Species Act can't be used to protect animals and their habitats from climate change by regulating specific sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of global warming.
The assessment, outlined in memos sent earlier this month and leaked Tuesday, provides the official legal justification for limiting protections under the Endangered Species Act.
One of the memos, from the Interior Department's top lawyer, concluded that emissions of greenhouse gases from any proposed project can't be proved to have an impact on species or habitat, so it isn't necessary for federal agencies to consult with government wildlife experts about the impact of such gases on species as stipulated under the Endangered Species Act.
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Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from
Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, via EurekAlert: Global warming threatens Australia's iconic kangaroos As concerns about the effects of global warming continue to mount, a new study published in the December issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology finds that an increase in average temperature of only two degrees Celsius could have a devastating effect on populations of Australia's iconic kangaroos.
"Our study provides evidence that climate change has the capacity to cause large-scale range contractions, and the possible extinction of one macropodid (kangaroo) species in northern Australia," write study authors Euan G. Ritchie and Elizabeth E. Bolitho of James Cook University in Australia.
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Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from
Telegraph.co.uk: Wild cat parts trade is growing in Burma There is an organised and growing trade in wild cat parts in Burma, wildlife investigators have found. Skins and body parts from almost 1,200 animals were found openly on sale in markets. They included parts of at least 107 Tigers and all the eight species of wild cats found in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar.
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Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from
World Wildlife Fund via ScienceDaily: Climate Change To Devastate Or Destroy Many Penguin Colonies Half to three-quarters of major Antarctic penguin colonies face decline or disappearance if global temperatures are allowed to climb by more than 2 degrees C. A new WWF report -- 2 degrees C is Too Much -- shows that the colonies of 50 percent of the iconic emperor penguins and 75 per cent of the Adelie penguins are under threat.
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Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from
Current Biology, via EurekAlert: In a last 'stronghold' for endangered chimpanzees, survey finds drastic decline In a population survey of West African chimpanzees living in Cote d'Ivoire, researchers estimate that this endangered subspecies has dropped in numbers by a whopping 90 percent since the last survey was conducted 18 years ago. The few remaining chimpanzees are now highly fragmented, with only one viable population living in Taii National Park, according to a report in the October 14th issue of Current Biology....
This alarming decline in a country that had been considered one of the final strongholds for West African chimps suggests that their status should be raised to critically endangered, said Genevieve Campbell of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
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Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from
Daily Mail (UK): Rick Stein vows to continue using endangered fish in his restaurants Rick Stein, Britain's top seafood chef, has vowed to go on using endangered species of fish in his acclaimed restaurants despite warnings of over-fishing.
The 61-year-old claimed following government and fishery guidelines would lose him 80 per cent of his menus and he would not be able to keep his four restaurants in Padstow going.
And, controversially, he questioned whether the fish stocks situation is really as bad as the government and marine conservationists are saying.
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Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from
Mongabay: Armageddon for amphibians? Frog-killing disease jumps Panama Canal Chytridiomycosis -- a fungal disease that is wiping out amphibians around the world -- has jumped across the Panama Canal, report scientists writing in the journal EcoHealth. The news is a worrying development for Panama's rich biodiversity of amphibians east of the canal.... While scientists don't yet know the origin of the fungus, they suspect it might be the African clawed frog, a species that has been shipped around the world for research purposes. The fungus is highly transmissible and has spread to at least four continents, in some cases probably introduced unintentionally by humans in the treads of their shoes. As it spreads, the disease lays waste to more than 80 percent of amphibians across a wide range of habitats, including those that are undisturbed by humans. Some researchers have suggested that climate change could be creating conditions that exacerbate the impact of the pathogen -- which predominantly affects highland species -- although the theory is still controversial.
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Fri, Oct 10, 2008: from
National Geographic: Birds in "Big Trouble" Due to Drugs, Fishing, More Bird species are in "big trouble" worldwide, a sign that the planet's health is also faltering, according to a new report released today at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Not only are rare birds getting rarer, but migratory songbirds, seabirds, and even common backyard birds are also plummeting, according to the State of the World's Birds, a report by the U.K. nonprofit BirdLife International.
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Mon, Oct 6, 2008: from
Associated Press: 1 in 4 mammals at risk of extinction, scientists say Conservationists have taken the first detailed look at the world's mammals in more than a decade, and the news isn't good... "We estimate that one in four species is threatened with extinction and that the population of one in two is declining," the researchers said in a report to be published Friday in the journal Science... "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report.
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Sat, Oct 4, 2008: from
Washington Post (US): Shrinking Oyster Population Focus of River Summit "When I got out of the Army in 1970, . . . you could make a good living," Smith said.
But the number of oyster boats has dwindled, as have the shucking operations throughout the Chesapeake Bay area. Although state and federal oyster restoration efforts have cost nearly $60 million since 1994, the number of oysters has declined, according to a recent Environmental Protection Agency estimate. Experts say the oyster population in the bay is at 1 percent of historic highs in the 1880s.
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Fri, Oct 3, 2008: from
Ecology Society of America, via EurekAlert: Decline in Alaskan sea otters affects bald eagles' diet Sea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse.... [S]ea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior of another top predator: the bald eagle.
In nearshore marine communities, towering kelp can reach heights of 250 feet and function much like trees in a forest, providing food, homes and protection for fish and invertebrates. The most important enemies of these giant algae are tiny sea urchins, only inches in diameter, which live on the kelp's holdfasts and eat its tissue. When urchin populations become too large, they can defoliate entire kelp forests, leaving only barren remains....
Otters can eat the spiky urchins whole, making them the major urchin predator. The otters' presence keeps urchin populations in check and maintains the balance of the ecosystem.... The results are the first to show that the presence or absence of otters influences a terrestrial animal, and that the complex food web linkages can reach as far as five different food chain levels: from sea otters to sea urchins, kelp, marine fish and finally bald eagles.
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Wed, Oct 1, 2008: from
Associated Press: Feds propose listing 48 Hawaiian species at once HONOLULU - The federal government took a new, ecosystem-based approach to the endangered species list on Tuesday, proposing an all-at-once addition of 48 species, including plants, two birds and a fly, that live only on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The action by the Interior Department would designate about 43 square miles as critical habitat for all the species rather than considering each species' habitat separately, which has been the practice for three decades. Officials said considering the species all at once should save time and resources and would help the whole ecosystem.
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Wed, Oct 1, 2008: from
Associated Press: Experts warn species in peril from climate change ORLANDO, Fla. - Climate change threatens to kill off up to a third of the planet's species by the end of the century if urgent action isn't taken to restore fragile ecosystems, protect endangered animals and manage growth, scientists warned Wednesday as a wildlife summit opened. "Much of the predictions are gloom and doom. The ray of hope, however, is that we have not lost our opportunity. We still have time if we act now," said Jean Brennan, a senior scientist...
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Fri, Sep 26, 2008: from
SeaCoastOnline (Maine): Where have all the bats gone? Sitting outside as the sun set and the yard sank into shadow, I saw the swallows replaced by bats. There were usually at least 10 or 20 bats living in the old carriage house next to my driveway. I could hear their clicking squeaks both during the day as they rested under the shingles and at night while darting overhead after mosquitoes. This summer, the evening sky in my neighborhood has had a marked absence of bats. ... Growing evidence indicates that the fungus isn't the cause of death, but a symptom of something bigger: climate change, an unknown pathogen, or perhaps the increased pesticide use in the Northeast following the upswing in West Nile disease.
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Fri, Sep 26, 2008: from
Times Online (UK): Amphibians facing a wipeout by 2050 Half of Europe's amphibian species could be wiped out in the next 40 years. Scientists from the Zoological Society of London say that the combined force of climate change, pollution, disease and habitat loss and degradation has left many with "nowhere to run".
After assessing the amphibians' prospects, they predicted that more than 50 per cent of the 81 species native to Europe faced extinction by 2050.
Even surviving species, they said, were likely to suffer a decline in numbers and distribution, including the common toad in Britain, which is already being affected by climate change.
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Thu, Sep 25, 2008: from
AFP: Greenland economy shudders as shrimp stocks shrink Dwindling shrimp stocks off Greenland's coast have local fishermen and authorities fretting that one of the island's main sources of income, known here as "pink gold", could soon vanish....
"We really don't know why the shrimps are becoming rarer," Siegstad said, venturing however to speculate that "it could be due to a combination of global warming and the fact that predators like ... cod are moving back into Greenland waters.... There is not enough cod to [explain] the possible losses from shrimp, and there will not be for five to 10 years," she said.
"And if we aren't careful, if we do not give it time to build up its stocks, we will make the cod disappear," she said, blasting a government decision to set an annual catch quota of 15,000 tonnes of cod instead of banning all fishing of the species.
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Mon, Sep 22, 2008: from
London Independent: Catastrophic fall in numbers reveals bird populations in crisis throughout the world The birds of the world are in serious trouble, and common species are in now decline all over the globe, a comprehensive new review suggests today... Their falling populations are compelling evidence of a rapid deterioration in the global environment that is affecting all life on earth -- including human life...
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Sun, Sep 21, 2008: from
Mongabay: Monoculture tree plantations are "green deserts" not forests, say activists Simone Lovera of the Global Forest Coalition says that "plantations form part of an industrial model for the production of abundant and cheap raw material that serves as an input for the economic growth of the industrialized countries. What the producer countries get are environmental degradation and rising poverty, which are the 'externalized costs' of this cheap raw material." Since 1980 tropical forest plantations have expanded by almost fivefold.
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Sat, Sep 20, 2008: from
Dutch Harbor Fishermen: 'Fish, baby, fish' isn’t responsible management As it had happened with perch, the catch of pollock rose gradually through 1980 when a large spawning aggregation was discovered in the waters off of Kodiak Island. Over the next five years the spawning aggregation was heavily exploited and the fishery peaked and collapsed.
Trites states that the same picture can be painted for fisheries in the Bering Sea. Yellowfin sole catches rose from 1954 to 1961 until the stock declined due to overfishing. As the yellowfin sole declined, the fishery moved to pollock.
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Recovery Scenario!
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Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from
Birdlife.org: Birds indicate biodiversity crisis -- and the way forward The report highlights worldwide losses among widespread and once-familiar birds. A staggering 45 percent of common European birds are declining: the familiar European Turtle-dove, for example, has lost 62 percent of its population in the last 25 years. On the other side of the globe, resident Australian wading birds have seen population losses of 81 percent in just quarter of a century.
Twenty North American common birds have more than halved in number in the last four decades. Northern Bobwhite fell most dramatically, by 82 percent. In Latin America, the Yellow Cardinal -- once common in Argentina -- is now classified as globally Endangered.
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Recovery Scenario!
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Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from
Daily Express (Malaysia): The clams are nearly gone Giant clams in Sabah waters have been severely depleted due to overfishing, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Borneo Marine Research Institute Director Professor Dr Saleem Mustafa said. He said these unique clams were being harvested for their adductor muscle considered a delicacy and massive shells which are used for making handicrafts.... "Giant clams are essentially coral reef animals, and since corals are bleaching as a result of destructive fishing practices and climate change, the effect is evidently brought to bear on the giant clams."
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Recovery Scenario!
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Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Starving guillemots push rival chicks off cliffs Guillemots have begun killing their neighbours' chicks by pecking them to death and pushing them off cliff edges in a desperate reaction to collapsing fish stocks in the North Sea.
The sudden rise of infanticide in a colony in the Firth of Forth marks an unprecedented breakdown in the social behaviour of the birds, described by experts as a "catastrophe" that could eventually see the whole colony die out.... It is extremely rare for guillemots to leave a chick unattended, but Ashbrook said 60 percent of those in the Isle of May colony were left alone last year. Of 99 chicks born between late May and early August, 60 percent died -- almost 70 percent of them in direct attacks by neighbours.
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Recovery Scenario!
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Wed, Sep 17, 2008: from
National Geographic: Bush-Meat Ban Would Devastate Africa's Animals, Poor? If current hunting levels persist in Central Africa, endangered mammals such as forest elephants and gorillas will become extinct, the study suggests.
Researchers estimated the region's current wild-meat harvest at more than a million tons annually—the equivalent of almost four million cattle. Instead of banning the practice, the report recommends that hunting for non-threatened species be legalized and regulated to protect the food supply and livelihoods of forest people.
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Recovery Scenario!
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Mon, Sep 15, 2008: from
New York Times: On an Infested River, Battling Invaders Eye to Eye Though awesome and even unnerving to behold, the fishy fusillade is all too common on the Illinois River -- and it is not good. These are Asian carp, a ravenous, rapidly multiplying invasive species that in the last decade has threatened the well-being of native fish, affected commercial fishing and transformed the typical workday for these researchers into a scene from "Apocalypse Now."
The Illinois, a working river that supports both churning coal barges and great blue herons, is one link in a chain of waterways connecting Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico. And the thought of Asian carp invading the Great Lakes haunts the dreams of environmentalists, business owners and government officials. That fishy downturned mouth; those unblinking, low-set eyes.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Sat, Sep 13, 2008: from
Dallas News: Researcher says numbers of bumblebees declining, too Ms. Colla took field surveys of bumblebees between 2004 and 2006 in southern Ontario, comparing the results with data gathered in the early 1970s. She could find only 11 species, down from 14, and of those 11, four were in decline.... The Xerces Society is assembling the data of approximately 30 scientists in North America to document the state of the bumblebee, which is also an important pollinator.... "You look at all their data, and what we see is really discouraging," says Scott Hoffman Black, the society's executive director. "It's a picture of a really drastic decline toward extinction."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from
Associated Press: Freshwater fish in N. America in peril, study says About four out of 10 freshwater fish species in North America are in peril, according to a major study by U.S., Canadian and Mexican scientists. And the number of subspecies of fish populations in trouble has nearly doubled since 1989, the new report says. One biologist called it "silent extinctions" because few people notice the dramatic dwindling of certain populations deep in American lakes, rivers and streams.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from
Telegraph.co.uk: Over-fishing, not climate change, is greatest danger to world's oceans He said: "Across the 21 different ecosystems we have looked at, direct human actions have long been exceeding -- and will long continue to exceed -- the effects of climate change in almost every case.
"That is not to say that climate change isn't happening or is unimportant. "Coral reefs are threatened by oceanic warming and the release of carbon frozen and buried in wetlands has major implications for the Earth.
"But the demise of fish stocks through fishing and decline of rivers through excessive off-take are just two dramatic examples of how people are directly changing aquatic ecosystems and threatening the natural services that they deliver."
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Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from
US Geologic Survey: Silent Streams? Escalating Endangerment for North American Freshwater Fish Nearly 40 percent of fish species in North American streams, rivers and lakes are now in jeopardy, according to the most detailed evaluation of the conservation status of freshwater fishes in the last 20 years.
The 700 fishes now listed represent a staggering 92 percent increase over the 364 listed as "imperiled" in the previous 1989 study published by the American Fisheries Society. Researchers classified each of the 700 fishes listed as either vulnerable (230), threatened (190), or endangered (280). In addition, 61 fishes are presumed extinct.
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Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from
Center for Biological Diversity: Penguins Marching Toward Endangered Species Act Protection A federal judge today approved a settlement between the Center for Biological Diversity and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the fate of 10 penguin species imperiled by global warming. Under the settlement, the Service must by December 19th complete its overdue finding on whether the penguins should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The finding is due on the emperor, southern rockhopper, northern rockhopper, Fiordland crested, erect-crested, macaroni, white-flippered, yellow-eyed, African, and Humboldt penguins.
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Mon, Sep 8, 2008: from
The Independent (UK): Red kite reintroduced after 200 years and killed within weeks An endangered bird of prey reintroduced to Northern Ireland after a 200-year absence has been found shot dead, it emerged yesterday.... "These magnificent birds were neither a threat to humans nor livestock, so we can only assume that whoever did this was either ignorant or gets a perverse sense of enjoyment from killing birds of prey."
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Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from
TCPalm (Florida): Dolphin die-off in northern Indian River Lagoon is raising red flags "Indian River dolphins are excellent sentinels of ecosystem health and, beyond that, human health," said Dr. Gregory Bossart... "We need to address the problems they have not just for their sake but out of concern for the health of the ecosystem and even our own health."... Since May 1, 47 dolphins have died in a stretch of the Indian River Lagoon from the southern end of the Mosquito Lagoon near Titusville south to Palm Bay,
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Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from
Baltimore Sun: Bighorn sheep may lose habitat The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on the final details of a map that would cut by nearly half the habitat previously considered critical to the species' survival. The plan could be approved by the end of this month.
Scientists and environmental advocates say the downsized habitat could deal a permanent setback to a species that has had 10 years of federal protection. They accuse the Department of the Interior, which governs Fish and Wildlife, of mixing politics with science, caving in to mining and tribal interests. One mining operation already has applied to expand its operation into land once listed as critical to the sheep's recovery, documents show.
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Sat, Sep 6, 2008: from
Kansas City Star: An end run around expert advice The proposed change would put the fox in charge of the chicken coop. Federal agencies that want to build dams or roads or pursue any other project could decide on their own whether they would harm a protected species.
The bureaucrats -- not the scientists -- would be in charge. Federal agencies would be far more likely to to protect their own projects than to protect threatened wildlife. Currently agencies must consult biologists and other scientific experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before they are allowed to proceed on proposed projects that could adversely affect species.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from
University of Michigan: Recovery efforts not enough for critically endangered Asian vulture Captive breeding colonies of a critically endangered vulture, whose numbers in the wild have dwindled from tens of millions to a few thousand, are too small to protect the species from extinction, a University of Michigan analysis shows. Adding wild birds to the captive colonies, located in Pakistan and India, is crucial, but political and logistical barriers are hampering efforts, says lead author Jeff A. Johnson.
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Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from
Reuters via PlanetArk: Gull Sets Arctic Pollution Record for Birds A small Arctic gull has set a record as the bird most contaminated by two banned industrial pollutants, scientists said on Thursday.
Eggs of the ivory gull, which has a population of about 14,000 from Siberia to Canada, were found to have the highest known concentrations of PCBs, long used in products such as paints or plastics, and the pesticide DDT.
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Thu, Sep 4, 2008: from
Detroit News: Stung by mysterious die-offs, Michigan beekeepers worry about impact As beekeepers harvest honey this month, they face an uncertain future that could bring higher food prices as bees mysteriously continue to vanish from hives... Experts calculate a quarter of the estimated 2.4 million colonies across the U.S. have been lost in the last two years to colony collapse disorder. The reason -- or reasons -- remains unknown. The use of pesticides, a fungus, parasitic mites and even stress and the bees' diet are all theories.
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Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from
NaturalNews.com: Citrus Crops in U.S Under Siege From Unknown Bacterium Citrus greening is blazing through the Florida citrus groves like wildfire. Scientists don't know how long it will take to find a treatment or cure for this contagious bacterial disease. One scenario projects that within nine to ten years, all the citrus trees currently in the ground will be dead.
Citrus greening, caused by a bacterium yet unnamed, is one of the most serious citrus diseases in the world, destroying the economic value of the fruit while compromising the tree. The disease has significantly reduced citrus output in Asia, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Brazil. Now trees grown in the U.S. are in jeopardy.
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Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from
London Daily Telegraph: English honey harvest halved after catastrophic drop in bee numbers The annual English honey harvest has dropped to half of its normal level this year, with the appalling summer weather compounding the effects of the sudden and unexplained collapse in the number of bees.
Keepers, farmers and industry have held their first crisis talks over fears that the British honey bee population could be facing near extinction within five years.
There are now fears that English honey could disappear altogether unless the dramatic decline in bee colonies is arrested.
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Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Population decline causing inbreeding among spotted owls, study says Declines in populations of the endangered northern spotted owl are leading to inbreeding and a resulting lack of genetic diversity needed for survival, making the birds more prone to disease and other problems, a report by an Oregon State University scientist concludes.
The problem, a "population bottleneck," likely will make recovery even harder, said Susan Haig, a wildlife ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center at OSU.
"Previous recovery plans were reporting the birds were doing OK. They're not," Haig said. She conducted the largest genetic study ever on endangered birds by taking blood samples from owls throughout the West.
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Mon, Sep 1, 2008: from
CNN International: Lights out? Experts fear fireflies are dwindling Yet another much-loved species imperiled by humankind? The evidence is entirely anecdotal, but there are anecdotes galore.
From backyards in Tennessee to riverbanks in Southeast Asia, researchers said they have seen fireflies -- also called glowworms or lightning bugs -- dwindling in number.... "It is quite clear they are declining," said Stefan Ineichen, a researcher who studies fireflies in Switzerland and runs a Web site to gather information on firefly sightings.
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Sun, Aug 31, 2008: from
Public Library of Science via ScienceDaily: Protection Zones In The Wrong Place To Prevent Coral Reef Collapse "Conservation zones are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global warming, an international team of scientists warn... Current protection zones – or 'No-take areas' (NTAs) – were set up to protect fish in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before climate change was a major issue."
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Sat, Aug 30, 2008: from
The Olympian (WA): Alaska seeks to show polar bears aren't threatened Alaska's state legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon -- researchers just have to fill in the science part.... A $2 million program funded with little debate by the legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival.
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Fri, Aug 29, 2008: from
Murray Valley Standard (Australia): Fish 'n' chips that last forever The society's "Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide" ... divides species into three categories: "Say no", "Think twice" and "Better choice".
Species to avoid include those that have been over-fished, such as shark and orange roughy (or deep sea perch). Deep sea species are vulnerable to over-fishing because they tend to be slow-growing and long-living.
The method by which a fish is caught is also important. Catching by handline is better for the environment than bottom trawling, the equivalent of using a nuclear bomb to catch rabbits. There are several methods in between.
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Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from
Innovations Report (Germany): Overfishing Pushes Baltic Cod to Brink of Economic Extinction "It's such an overfished system," Limburg said. "The big concern is that overexploitation is causing the fish to evolve. The finding that humans can actually cause evolution of fish populations, which in turn can drive their degradation, is relatively new and is drawing a lot of attention.
"Some fisheries, including that for cod, are now known to cause 'juvenescence,' or the evolution of younger, smaller adult fish. The ecological and economic consequences both appear to be negative," she said.
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Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from
World Wildlife Fund, via ScienceDaily: Polar Bears Found Swimming Miles From Alaskan Coast An aerial survey by government scientists in Alaska's Chukchi Sea has recently found at least nine polar bears swimming in open water -- with one at least 60 miles from shore -- raising concern among wildlife experts about their survival....
"As climate change continues to dramatically disrupt the Arctic, polar bears and their cubs are being forced to swim longer distances to find food and habitat."...
Satellite images indicate that ice was absent in most of the region where the bears were found on August 16, 2008, and some experts predict this year's sea ice loss could meet or exceed the record set last year.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from
Birdlife International: Drugs firms told to do more to prevent vulture extinctions The Indian government has ordered a crackdown on companies selling the drug [Diclofenac] responsible for the near-extinction of vultures.... [A study] showed that the population of White-rumped Vultures Gyps bengalensis in India was dropping by more than 40 percent every year. The species's numbers have dropped by 99.9 percent since 1992 to about 11,000, from tens of millions. Populations of Indian Gyps indicus and Slender-billed Gyps tenuirostris vultures have fallen by almost 97 per cent in the same period, to 45,000 and just 1,000 respectively.... Now vets are dodging the ban by using the human form of diclofenac for livestock, despite an effective and safe alternative drug being available.
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Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from
Ecological Society of America: Ecological Society of America Criticizes Bush Administration's Overhaul of the Endangered Species Act "The concept of independent scientific review has been in practice since the 18th century and is crucial to ensuring that ideas and proposed work are scientifically sound," said Alison Power, president of the Society and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. "This overhaul of the Endangered Species Act would place the fate of rare species in the hands of government stakeholders who are not qualified to assess the environmental impacts of their activities."
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Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from
KDRV: Bush administration cuts spotted owl habitat 23 percent The Bush administration has decided that the Northern Spotted Owl can get by with less old growth forest habitat as it struggles to get off the threatened species list.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it would cut by 23 percent the federal forest land designated as critical habitat for the owl in Washington, Oregon and Northern California. Designating critical habitat for protection is a requirement of the Endangered Species Act. Meanwhile, owl numbers are dropping by 4 percent a year.
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Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from
The Scotsman: Prize-winning author warns humans could be headed for extinction Margaret Atwood, the novelist, has warned that the planet is at a "crisis moment" and the human race could be headed towards extinction.... The Canadian said although the "cockroaches will always be fine", humans may not.... Atwood said she thinks the crisis involves climate change, deforestation, overfishing, declines in bird populations and production of energy.
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Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from
Utne Reader Online: Fish or Foul The world's oceans are being transformed, and not for the better.... Scientists now know that the eating habits of a single species, Homo sapiens, are driving these changes. By knocking out the chain's upper levels (which include predatory fish like tuna, swordfish, and shark) through violent overfishing, and skimming off the middle and bottom for industrial use, we are changing, perhaps permanently, the structure of an environment that nourishes us.
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Mon, Aug 25, 2008: from
Cell Press, via EurekAlert: Why wind turbines can mean death for bats Ninety percent of the bats they examined after death showed signs of internal hemorrhaging consistent with trauma from the sudden drop in air pressure (a condition known as barotrauma) at turbine blades. Only about half of the bats showed any evidence of direct contact with the blades.... All three species of migratory bats killed by wind turbines fly at night, eating thousands of insects—including many crop pests—per day as they go. Therefore, bat losses in one area could have very real effects on ecosystems miles away, along the bats' migration routes.
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Sat, Aug 23, 2008: from
KUOW Radio: Oyster Larvae Dying Off at Alarming Rates The oyster industry in the Pacific Northwest could be facing serious trouble. In recent years, hatcheries have seen oyster larvae die off at unusually high rates. No one knows what's killing the young oysters, but scientists have two theories....
ONE THEORY IS THAT THE BACTERIA THRIVE IN THE SO-CALLED DEAD ZONE. THAT'S AN AREA OF LOW OXYGEN WATER THAT HAS RECENTLY APPEARED OFF THE OREGON COAST....
DAVIS SUSPECTS THE WATER IS MORE ACIDIC THAN NORMAL, BUT IT'S HARD TO SAY, SINCE SCIENTISTS HAVEN'T KEPT RECORDS OF PH LEVELS IN THE SOUND.
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Fri, Aug 22, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Whaling under fire as Norway catches only half of its quota Norway will not catch enough whales to meet its quota this year, in what environmentalists are claiming is proof that the nation should abandon the activity completely.
Since the whaling season started on April 1, fishermen have caught around half the number of animals allowed by the authorities – 533 common minke whales out of a quota of 1,052.... Norway hunts only one type of whale, the common minke whale, which is considered as "threatened with extinction" according to Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which bans its international trade.
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Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from
Divemaster (UK): Shark numbers worry over fin export The WWF says 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from Australia in the past 13 months....
Conservationists say they have major concerns about Australia's contribution to the shark fin industry.
WWF's Dr Gilly Llewellyn says the appetite for shark fin overseas which Australia appears to be feeding, is insatiable, and in the past 13 months 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from our shores, mainly to Asian markets.
"Using a really conservative estimate using the largest possible size of shark, using a low fin to weight ratio, that's still 10,000 sharks that would have needed to be killed for that amount of fin," she says.
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Tue, Aug 19, 2008: from
San Francisco Chronicle: Lawsuit seeks EPA pesticide data "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to disclose records about a new class of pesticides that could be playing a role in the disappearance of millions of honeybees in the United States, a lawsuit filed Monday charges. The Natural Resources Defense Council wants to see the studies that the EPA required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience five years ago.
The environmental group filed the suit as part of an effort to find out how diligently the EPA is protecting honeybees from dangerous pesticides..."
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Sun, Aug 17, 2008: from
University of California - Berkeley via ScienceDaily: Dying Frogs Sign Of A Biodiversity Crisis "Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley... researchers argue that substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet."
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Sat, Aug 16, 2008: from
Reuters: Acid ocean imperils more than shells SYDNEY -- Rising ocean acidity could reduce fertilization of marine invertebrates and might eventually wipe out colonies of sea urchins, lobsters, mussels and oysters, according to a study.
Scientists knew that ocean acidification was eating away at the shells of marine animals, but the new study has found that rising acidity hindered marine sperm from swimming to and fertilizing eggs in the ocean.
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Thu, Aug 14, 2008: from
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal (WI): State studies hunt of formerly endangered wolves Wisconsin officials are laying the groundwork for the first public hunting of wolves in more than 50 years.... Last winter's population estimate was 537 to 564 wolves, more than the recovery goal of 350, according to Adrian Wydeven of the DNR. The population was about the same during the winter of 2007, he said.
By comparison, wolves totaled less than 250 in 2000.... A wolf season would require approval from the Natural Resources Board, which sets policy for the DNR, and from the Legislature. But the measure would likely prompt a lawsuit from wolf advocates.
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Wed, Aug 13, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): UK Honeybee deaths reaching crisis point Britain's honeybees have suffered catastrophic losses this year, according to a survey of the nation's beekeepers, contributing to a shortage of honey and putting at risk the pollination of fruits and vegetables.
The survey by the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA) revealed that nearly one in three of the UK's 240,000 honeybee hives did not survive this winter and spring.
The losses are higher than the one in five colonies reported dead earlier this year by the government after 10 percent of hives had been inspected.
The BBKA president, Tim Lovett, said he was very concerned about the findings: "Average winter bee losses due to poor weather and disease vary from between 5 percent and 10 percent, so a 30 percent loss is deeply worrying. This spells serious trouble for pollination services and honey producers."
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Wed, Aug 13, 2008: from
The Daily Mirror (UK): Tuna company John West blamed for death of sharks in nets Britain's best-selling brand of tinned tuna is responsible for killing thousands of rare sharks and turtles every year, a new report claims.... Tuna stocks have dwindled so much due to over-fishing in recent years that the industry is already on the brink of collapse.
A John West spokesman said last night: "We take our responsibility to the marine environment extremely seriously. Our selection procedure in appointing suppliers is very rigorous."
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Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from
Washington Post: Endangered Species Act Changes Give Agencies More Say "The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades."
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Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from
PNAS, via ScienceDaily: New Report Details Historic Mass Extinction Of Amphibians; Humans Worsen Spread Of Deadly Emerging Infectious Disease Amphibians, reigning survivors of past mass extinctions, are sending a clear, unequivocal signal that something is wrong, as their extinction rates rise to unprecedented levels, according to a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Humans are exacerbating two key natural threats -- climate change and a deadly disease that is jumping from one species to another.... "An ancient organism, which has survived past extinctions, is telling us that something is wrong right now" Vredenburg said. "We -- humans -- may be doing fine right now, but they are doing poorly. The question, really, is whether we'll listen before it's too late."
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Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from
PNAS, via ScienceDaily: Humans Implicated In Prehistoric Animal Extinctions With New Evidence The new study provides the first evidence that Tasmania's giant kangaroos and marsupial 'rhinos' and 'leopards' were still roaming the island when humans first arrived [43,000 years ago]. The findings suggest that the mass extinction of Tasmania's large prehistoric animals was the result of human hunting, and not climate change as previously believed.
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Mon, Aug 11, 2008: from
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: It's time to declare mussel extinct, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says The turgid-blossom pearly mussel -- a shiny yellow-green mollusk less than 1. 6 inches in length -- has been on the endangered species list since 1976....
"One of the things that we say as biologists is that these are kind of like canaries in a coal mine," Christian said. "They are an indicator that environmental conditions aren't good, and that may be an indicator of water quality."
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Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from
New York Times: As Bat Population Falls, the Questions Multiply No one knows the extent of the syndrome yet. "We've received an increasing number of calls from people in northwestern Connecticut saying bats have not returned to their summer homes," Ms. Dickson said.... A nursing little brown bat can consume about 1,200 insects a night, more than half its body weight.... Bats play a critical role in the welfare of the conservancy's exotic waterfowl species by reducing the number of insects carrying potentially harmful viruses.
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Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from
Der Spiegel: Globalization Is Destroying the World's Oceans "...About one-fourth of all known fish populations are already overfished to the brink of extinction, including once-abundant species cod and tuna. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), another 50 percent are considered completely exploited. No one can, or is even willing, to predict the consequences for the complex ecosystem, and yet it is clear that the oceans are gradually being ravaged."
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Thu, Aug 7, 2008: from
The Register-Guard: Agency: Chemicals a danger to salmon "Three insecticides in common use around Oregon homes and farms pose a serious threat to endangered salmon and have been found extensively in Oregon watersheds.
The insecticides chlorpyrifos, malathion and diazinon — as they have been commonly used — are likely to lead to the extinction of more than two dozen salmon or steelhead runs in California, Oregon and Washington, according to a draft biological opinion by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency that functions as a watchdog for ocean-going species."
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Tue, Aug 5, 2008: from
Nature: Almost half of primate species face extinction "The first comprehensive review in twelve years on the conservation status of primates is revealing that our closest relatives are in serious danger. The review, presented today at the 22nd International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, UK, shows that of the 634 known primate species and subspecies, nearly 50 percent are threatened with extinction in the next decade. That soars to more than 70 percent in Asia, with individual countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia seeing at least 80 percent of their primate species threatened. Cambodia was at the top of the list, with 90 percent of its primate species in imminent danger."
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Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from
Scientific American: Camels Plagued by Parasites Nearly 84 percent of male camels in eastern Iran may be infected with helminths (parasitic worms) that can cripple reproduction and afflict other organs, the scientists report in the journal Parasitology Research.... "The high prevalence rate of this infection surprised me," says Ahmad Oryan, professor of veterinary pathology at Shiraz University in Iran, who led the research. "Due to the effects of this nematode [a type of roundworm] on breeding of the male camels, this infection, if not treated or controlled, could have adverse outcomes and will affect the calving rate of this animal."
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Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from
San Jose Mercury News (California): Porpoise deaths raising questions "It's the tip of the iceberg," said Mary Jane Schramm, spokeswoman for the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. "These are open ocean animals. For every one we find dead there are probably many others that are out there."... Harbor porpoises are not commonly tracked by the state and so little is known about where they feed or mate. Over time, state records show the mammals have a tendency to die during the summertime calving season, but researchers don't know why. "It could be that the acid bio-accumulated in the fetus," Schramm said. "If it's something that the mother ingested and passed through the placental barrier, it could be something that she passed on to her fetus."
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Sat, Aug 2, 2008: from
University of Washington via ScienceDaily: Ivory Poaching At Critical Levels: Elephants On Path To Extinction By 2020? African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989. But the public outcry that resulted in that ban is absent today, and a University of Washington conservation biologist contends it is because the public seems to be unaware of the giant mammals' plight.
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Thu, Jul 31, 2008: from
The Seattle Times: Group to sue over protection for polar bears "A conservative legal-advocacy group said Wednesday it plans to sue the federal government over its recent decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species. The group, the Pacific Legal Foundation, contends the listing paves the way for lawsuits against any industry responsible for large-scale carbon emissions that could be connected to the steady warming of the bear's Arctic habitat."
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Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from
WLUC (MI): Cute, cuddly and endangered And it's because of low survival rates and poaching that Siberian tigers are nearly extinct in the wild.
"All tigers, no matter what subspecies it is, will be extinct by 2015," said Cramer.
"The Siberian tiger is the most endangered of any of the large carnivores in the world," DeYoung said. "They claim over in Russia, there's only 200 left on the Russia-China border."
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Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from
PLOS, via ScienceDaily: Is It Too Late To Save The Great Migrations? Martin Wikelski describe the threats facing "one of nature's most visible and widespread phenomena," a behavior found in animals as diverse as whales and warblers, dragonflies and salamanders. Many of the most spectacular migrations have disappeared or experienced steep declines due to human behavior, the authors lament.
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Mon, Jul 28, 2008: from
Boston Globe: Wing damage: bats in peril Researchers now think that a fuzzy white fungus found on thousands of dead and dying bats in New England and New York last winter might be the primary cause of the illness. Scientists have learned that the unidentified fungus seems to thrive in the cold temperatures found in caves and mines in winter -- when bats are hibernating and most vulnerable. As worrisome is that many bats continued to die this spring, dashing hopes that they would recuperate when they emerged from hibernation and resumed feeding. Hundreds of animals with scarred wings, both dead and alive, were discovered in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire through June.
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Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from
Time Magazine: Coral Reefs Face Extinction "You don't have to be a marine biologist to understand the importance of corals — just ask any diver. The tiny underwater creatures are the architects of the beautiful, electric-colored coral reefs that lie in shallow tropical waters around the world. Divers swarm to them not merely for their intrinsic beauty, but because the reefs play host to a wealth of biodiversity unlike anywhere else in the underwater world. Coral reefs are home to more than 25 percent of total marine species. Take out the corals, and there are no reefs — remove the reefs, and entire ecosystems collapse."
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Fri, Jul 25, 2008: from
Surfbirds.com: Hundreds of dead penguins wash ashore Biologists are puzzled by the hundreds of young penguins that have been washing up along the Brazilian coastline since late June. The Magellanic Penguins have been found dead or barely alive, along beaches all over south-eastern Brazil. The mainly young birds will have come from colonies about 2,500 miles south in Argentina. Penguins regularly move north into the waters off southern Brazil in search of food.... "The penguin population is intimately linked to their supplies of food, so this suggests something is happening to the population of fish they eat."
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Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from
NaturalNews.com: Colony Collapse Disorder Debunked: Pesticides Cause Bee Deaths "The great mystery of bee deaths has been solved. Colony Collapse Disorder is poisoning with a known insect neurotoxin. Clothianidin, a pesticide manufactured by Bayer, has been clearly linked to die offs in Germany and France.
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Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from
Times Online (UK): Mystery as dead birds fall from the sky over Western Australia Post-mortem examinations have failed to determine the cause of the birds' deaths. Last December 5,000 birds died in the coastal town of Esperance, 500 km south of Perth, after being poisoned by lead carbonate blowing through the town as it was being exported through Esperance Port.... "The birds, when they are showing signs of having been poisoned become a bit wobbly on their feet, they sit down and within 10 to 15 minutes they're dead." ... He said it was particularly puzzling that the deaths were confined to seagulls. In Esperance, wattle birds, yellow throated miners and honey-eaters died.
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Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from
TIME: When Jellyfish Attack Beaches from Marseille to Monaco have been plagued this summer by millions of the gelatinous invaders, whose burning stings have sent scores of holiday-makers fleeing the surf with yelps of pain since large numbers of jellyfish were first sighted along France's coast in June. And those menacing the shorelines are simply the outriders of giant shoals that marine biologists have identified hovering between Corsica and France's southern shores.... Overfishing and other destructive human activity have prompted the prolific multiplication of jellyfish by decimating their natural predators: tuna, sharks and turtles.
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Mon, Jul 21, 2008: from
Oregon State University, via EurekAlert: Lionfish decimating tropical fish populations, threaten coral reefs [T]his invasive species, which is native to the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean and has few natural enemies to help control it in the Atlantic Ocean. It is believed that the first lionfish -- a beautiful fish with dramatic coloring and large, spiny fins -- were introduced into marine waters off Florida in the early 1990s from local aquariums or fish hobbyists. They have since spread across much of the Caribbean Sea and north along the United States coast as far as Rhode Island.... "These fish eat many other species and they seem to eat constantly."
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Fri, Jul 18, 2008: from
Associated Press: Should we move species to save them? "With climate change increasingly threatening the survival of plants and animals, scientists say it may become necessary to move some species to save them. Dubbed assisted colonization or assisted migration, the idea is to decide how severe the threat is to various species, and if they need help to deal with it."
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Wed, Jul 16, 2008: from
Associated Press: Chesapeake watermen fear blue crab not coming back "Chesapeake Bay crabber Paul Kellam has advice for the teenage boys who help tend his traps every summer: You better have a backup plan. It's an anxious summer for watermen harvesting the Chesapeake's best-loved seafood, the blue crab. The way some see it, the crabbing business here isn't just dying. It's already dead."
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Tue, Jul 15, 2008: from
Scranton Times-Tribune (PA): Biologists driven batty Tens of thousands of bats in New York and New England died of a mysterious disease over the winter and experts are now keeping a close eye on Pennsylvania's winged mammals.... "Bats have been here for 60 million years, so they obviously perform some important function in the ecosystem," [Dr. Kwiecinski ] said, as he sat in his office, surrounded by real bats, toy bats and pictures of bats. "Never seen anything like this in bats," he said.
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Sun, Jul 13, 2008: from
The Independent (UK): Return of the ivory trade The world trade in ivory, banned 19 years ago to save the African elephant from extinction, is about to take off again, with the emergence of China as a major ivory buyer.
Alarmed conservationists are warning of a new wave of elephant killing across both Africa and Asia if China is allowed to become a legal importer, as looks likely at a meeting in Geneva next week. ... "This is going to mean a return to the bad old days where elephants are being shot into extinction," said Allan Thornton, of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), the group which provided much of the evidence on which the original ivory ban was based in 1989.
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Fri, Jul 11, 2008: from
Science: Warming Spells Trouble for Fish "Global warming of the oceans will likely cause the extinction by 2050 of dozens of fish species that cannot migrate to colder waters, according to a study presented here yesterday at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium. "The loss of biodiversity will be considerable, and replacing them with new species would take millions of years," says co-author Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada."
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Fri, Jul 11, 2008: from
New Scientist: Corals join frogs and toads as world's most endangered "Within one generation, diving on coral reefs could be a very rare holiday opportunity. The first comprehensive review of tropical coral species reveals that over one-quarter reef-building coral species already face extinction.
This means corals join frogs and toads as the most threatened group of animal species on the planet."
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Thu, Jul 10, 2008: from
San Francisco Chronicle: U.S. proposes to put smelt on endangered list "The delta smelt, a tiny but important fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, could officially become "endangered" under a proposal announced Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Smelt are an indicator of the delta's health, and nearly 750,000 acres of farmland and 25 million people from the Bay Area to Central and Southern California rely on water from the delta."
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Mon, Jul 7, 2008: from
USA Today: 'Invasive' humans threaten U.S. coral reefs "Half of all U.S. coral reefs, the center of marine life in the Pacific and Caribbean oceans, are either in poor or fair condition, a federal agency warns today.
The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration places much of the blame on human activities and warns of further oceanwide decline.
Reefs closer to cities were found to suffer poorer health, damaged by trash, overfishing and pollution."
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Mon, Jul 7, 2008: from
University of Exeter, via EurekAlert: Study shows rise in Cornwall's dolphin, whale and porpoise deaths The research team analysed records of cetacean strandings from 1911 to 2006 from around Cornwall's north and south coasts and the Isles of Scilly. They found a marked increase from the early 1980s, with common dolphins and harbour porpoises being the worst-affected species. In total, fewer than 50 cetacean strandings a year occurred in Cornwall in the 1980s but numbers since 2000 have ranged from 100 to 250 per annum.... The researchers analysed records of 2,257 cetaceans, 862 of which were common dolphins. They found that, since 1990, at least 61 percent of incidents in Cornwall are the result of fishing activity, with animals being caught up in nets in a phenomenon known as 'bycatch'. The seas around Cornwall are known to be a major hotspot for large scale fisheries, with many vessels coming from other EU nations.
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Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Wildlife extinction rates 'seriously underestimated' Endangered species may become extinct 100 times faster than previously thought, scientists warned today, in a bleak re-assessment of the threat to global biodiversity.
Writing in the journal Nature, leading ecologists claim that methods used to predict when species will die out are seriously flawed, and dramatically underestimate the speed at which some plants and animals will be wiped out.... "Some species could have months instead of years left, while other species that haven't even been identified as under threat yet should be listed as endangered," said Melbourne.
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Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from
Los Angeles Times: Help find the lost ladybugs Two years ago in Virginia, two children made a discovery near their home in Arlington that still has scientists talking. They found a ladybug.
But it wasn't just any ladybug. It was a nine-spotted ladybug, and its discovery was the first sighting of a nine-spotted ladybug in the eastern U.S. in more than 14 years.... [I]t was common until the mid-1980s.
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Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from
The National (United Arab Emirates): Gazelles: Changing with the winds It was not that long ago that gazelles outnumbered people in the vast deserts of the Arabian peninsula. Now, with the rapid modernisation in the UAE having had a profound effect on local flora and fauna, the Arabian gazelle is estimated to have a global population of less than 20,000 and the sand gazelle has been placed on the list of endangered species.... One of only a handful of mammals whose biological adaptations allow them to survive in the harsh desert climate, gazelles have a similar method of water conservation to that of the camel and both species can live without surface water for significant amounts of time without suffering dehydration.
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Thu, Jul 3, 2008: from
Great Ape Trust: Orangutans 'declining more sharply' than previously estimated Endangered wild orangutan (Pongo spp.) populations are declining more sharply in Sumatra and Borneo than previously estimated, according to new findings published this month by Great Ape Trust of Iowa scientist Dr. Serge Wich and other orangutan conservation experts in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation.
Conservation action essential to survival of orangutans, found only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, must be region-specific to address the different ecological threats to each species, said Wich and his co-authors, a pre-eminent group of scientists, conservationists, and representatives of governmental and non-governmental groups. The experts' revised estimates put the number of Sumatran orangutans (P. abelii) around 6,600 in 2004. This is lower than previous estimates of 7,501 as a result of new findings that indicate that a large area in Aceh that was previously thought to contain orangutans actually does not.
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Wed, Jul 2, 2008: from
Times Online (UK): After 200 million years, all-male future spells doom for tuatara reptiles The only survivors in the wild of an order of reptiles that scampered with dinosaurs could be wiped out because climate change will turn them all into males.
The gender of tuataras, an ancient type of reptile with three eyes, is determined by the temperatures that the embryos are kept at when in the egg. Global warming means that the reptiles, regarded as living fossils, face the threat of dying out in the wild because of a terminal shortage of females.
Only males will be born in nests where the eggs have been kept at temperatures of 22.25C (72.05F) whereas females are guaranteed only at temperatures lower than 22.1C.
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Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from
World Wildlife Fund, via EurekAlert: Traditional medicine in Cambodia and Vietnam endangering rare flora and fauna Two reports from TRAFFIC, the world's largest wildlife trade monitoring network, on traditional medicine systems in Cambodia and Vietnam suggest that illegal wildlife trade, including entire tiger skeletons, and unsustainable harvesting is depleting the region's rich and varied biodiversity and putting the primary healthcare resource of millions at risk.... "In Vietnam, we estimate between 5-10 tiger skeletons are sold annually to be used in traditional medicine. With each skeleton fetching approximately $20,000, there is a strong incentive to poach and trade tigers that we must address from the grassroots up."
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Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from
Xinhua (China): Crustaceans, squid found where once there were fish Researchers are pointing fingers at global warming again, saying it has caused dramatic shifts in some aquatic communities in which fish populations die off and crabs, lobsters and squid take over.
The finding comes from a new analysis of 50 years worth of fish-trawling data collected in Narragansett Bay and adjacent Rhode Island Sound but may apply elsewhere, researchers said.... "We think there has been a shift in the food web resulting in more of the productivity being consumed in the water column," Collie explained. "Phytoplankton are increasingly being grazed by zooplankton, which are then eaten by planktivorous fish, rather than the phytoplankton sinking to the bottom and being consumed by bottom fish. It's a rerouting of that production from the bottom to the top."
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Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from
Afriquenligne (France): Namibian govt to auction eight live black rhino The Namibian government said Monday it would auction eight live black rhinos to foreign buyers and hundreds of other wildlife to raise funds for conservation purposes.... Government also said it would auction 40 disease-free buffalo to foreign buyers... [as well as] 16 sable from the Etosha national park and 21 giraffe from the Waterberg Plateau park.
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Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from
Society for General Virology, via EurekAlert: Bee disease a mystery Deformed wing virus (DWV) is passed between adult bees and to their developing brood by a parasitic mite called Varroa destructor when it feeds. However, research published in the July issue of the Journal of General Virology suggests that the virus does not replicate in Varroa, highlighting the need for further investigation.... "[W]e still don't know exactly how these viruses are passed from the mite to the bee."
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Sat, Jun 28, 2008: from
Globe and Mail (Canada): Bark Hopping: After branching out into Alberta, pine beetles take root There were hopes that low winter temperatures in early 2008 would reduce Alberta's infestation, but in a downbeat assessment released yesterday, the officials said populations of the voracious tree pest remain high in several areas.
"Pine beetles may be here to stay in Alberta," said Ted Morton, Sustainable Resource Development Minister.... "That's more or less the gateway to the boreal forest. If it progresses eastward from where it is now, it can move into Jack pine in northeastern Alberta, and from there, it's all Jack pine to Labrador," said Duncan MacDonnell, spokesman for the ministry.
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Wed, Jun 25, 2008: from
The Monitor, via AllAfrica: East Africa: Saving the 'Fish Basket' From Drying Up While Lake Victoria remains the most productive fishery in Africa, with annual fishery yields fluctuating around 600,000 tonnes, valued at $350 - 400m, catches of Nile perch are steadily declining. In 2001, boats caught an average 160 kilos of Nile perch each trip, today they catch less than 20. At the same time, catches of lower valued species, such as the silver-coloured mukene are steady, if not increasing.
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Tue, Jun 24, 2008: from
Fergus Falls Journal (MN): Meadowlark numbers are dropping One alarming story is the plight of the once-common meadowlark. Meadowlarks are classic birds of grasslands. Meadowlarks are so beloved that numerous states have claimed it as their state bird. Every American farm kid now over the age of 50 grew up with the call of the meadowlark being about as common as that of a robin today. Sadly, that is no longer true.
Meadowlark populations have been in a measurable and alarming decline for the last 40 years. It is not that they are threatened with extinction anytime soon; rather, they went from common to uncommon, from rural icon to rural alarm call, all in a few decades.
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Mon, Jun 23, 2008: from
Queen: Life on the edge: To disperse, or become extinct? "Predicting the speed at which plants are likely to migrate during climate warming could be key to ensuring their survival," says Queen's Biology professor Christopher Eckert.
Populations of plants growing at the outer edges of their natural "geographic range" exist in a precarious balance between extinction of existing populations and founding of new populations, via seed dispersal into vacant but suitable habitat. "Policy makers concerned with preserving plant species should focus not only on conserving land where species are now, but also where they may be found in the future," says Dr. Eckert.
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Sun, Jun 22, 2008: from
Illawara Mercury (Australia): Eight species disappear At least eight species of wildlife have been wiped out of the Illawarra in the past 100 years, according to a report released by the Department of Environment and Climate change.... The species the department listed as "extinct" [from the area] -- animals which could no longer be found in a given area -- were: eastern quoll, ground parrot, wompoo fruit dove, superb fruit dove, rose-crowned fruit dove, bush stone curlew, jabiru, and the magpie goose.
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Sun, Jun 22, 2008: from
Green Bay Press Gazette (WI): Fight against invasives remains fluid: VHS changes definition, views of battle Dozens of dead panfish and bass seen floating on West Alaska Lake in Kewaunee County recently were not the result of viral hemorrhagic septicemia, but rather a common bacterial infection.... Instead, it was columnaris, one of the oldest known fish diseases and one that typically strikes following some type of environmental stress.... Gansberg said there are four aquatic invasives high on the local radar: Eurasian water milfoil, curly leaf pondweed, zebra mussels and VHS.
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Sat, Jun 21, 2008: from
Telegraph.co.uk: Blue whale song is getting deeper The haunting song of the world's biggest animal, the blue whale, is getting deeper, researchers have discovered.
Underwater recordings of the giant endangered mammals have revealed that the tone of their rhythmic pulses and moans has become steadily lower as their population have slowly recovered after nearly being wiped out by whaling. Before large-scale hunting, the global blue whale population was thought to have been around 200,000 animals, but numbers fell to just a few hundred by the 1960s when a hunting ban was introduced.
The population has since recovered to around 4,500 animals.
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Thu, Jun 19, 2008: from
BBC (UK): Fulmars' dramatic decline: seabird in peril A reduction in the size of the Scottish whitefish fleet may be linked to a fall in numbers of a seabird, a conservation charity has said.
The John Muir Trust said a count of fulmars at Cape Wrath found 261 pairs on cliffs that once supported 700. The birds often feed on fish discarded by fishing boats.
However, a decline in the numbers of vessels, following European restrictions on catch sizes, could be contributing to a famine.
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Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from
Contra Costa Times: Last of salmon trucked to San Pablo Bay "The routes to the ocean followed by California salmon for millennia have turned into such a dangerous gauntlet that today millions of fish no longer come down the Feather, the American or the Mokelumne rivers.
They migrate instead in trucks down U.S. Highways 70 and 50, Interstate 80 and State Route 12."
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Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from
Times Online (UK): Poachers kill last four wild northern white rhinos The last four northern white rhinoceros remaining in the wild are feared to have been killed for their horns by poachers and are now believed to be extinct in the wild. Only a few are left in captivity but they are difficult to breed and the number is so low that the species is regarded as biologically unviable.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Tue, Jun 17, 2008: from
CTV (Canada): Supermarkets contribute to failing fisheries by selling 'Red List' North American supermarkets can be blamed for contributing to the looming global fisheries collapse, according to a report authored by Greenpeace.... "As key players in the seafood supply chain, retailers have an important role to play in ensuring their customers only have one seafood choice: fair and sustainable products," says the report.
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Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from
Brownsville Herald (TX): Police investigate sale of tigers in Wal-Mart parking lot Police and federal authorities are investigating the sale of six Bengal tiger cubs in a Wal-Mart parking lot Sunday afternoon.
The animals appear to have been bound for Mexico and neither the buyer nor seller had the permits needed to legally transport the endangered species across national borders, a federal agent said.... There are about 2,000 Bengal tigers living in the wild.
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Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from
ABC News (Australia): 'Cane toads with wings' heading north Authorities say their attempt to raise public awareness about the threat of pest birds is being thwarted by a higher profile and far uglier amphibious pest... "The Indian miner is closely related to the starling. They are both in the same family and the Indian miner is probably an even more aggressive bird and it will actively compete with native species and displace them from their nesting hollows and food sources."
He says cane toads have hogged the headlines for years at the expense of other destructive pests.
"Cane toads are ugly and warty and people generally don't like them. Whereas birds, people have an affinity to them and they see them as charismatic animals.
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Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from
Times Online (UK): 90 per cent of pandas in jeopardy after China earthquake Nearly all of China’s endangered pandas are in jeopardy after the earthquake last month devastated the remote mountain corner that is their last remaining [natural] habitat. Already boxed into these steep and thickly forested hillsides by the advance of [humans], its numbers limited by a slow rate of reproduction and with its food supply threatened by the scarcity of its favourite arrow bamboo, the panda is now facing its most severe crisis in decades. Chinese officials ... have announced that the last 1,590 pandas living in the wild face a very uncertain future after the earthquake.
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Sun, Jun 15, 2008: from
Toronto Globe and Mail: An amphibious assault "Around the world, frogs and toads are falling victim to a loss of habitat, pesticides, pollution and an insidious, quick-acting fungus... Amphibians are disappearing faster than any other animals since the dinosaurs: 32 per cent of all species are threatened with extinction, compared with 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds. Almost half are in decline."
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Sat, Jun 14, 2008: from
Chemical & Engineering News: Pesticide Mixtures Hurt Salmon "Mixtures of pesticides at concentrations found in the environment can wreck a salmon's sense of smell, according to a new study. Salmon use their sense of smell to find food and mates, detect predators, and migrate seasonally from rivers to oceans. The new findings suggest that the effects of pesticides in rivers on olfaction may be at least partially responsible for declining salmon stocks, which led to this year's ban on commercial fishing for wild salmon along the U.S. Pacific Coast."
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Sat, Jun 14, 2008: from
Associated Press: Companies get OK to annoy polar bears "Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas. The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years."
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Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from
Telegraph.co.uk: Sharks 'functionally extinct' in Mediterranean Researchers used fishermens' notes and archives to show that numbers had declined by as much as 99 per cent in the last two centuries.... The scientists who conducted the study said that 47 species of sharks live in the Mediterranean, but that many of them had not been seen for decades.
They added that other predators, such as whales, turtles and large fish such as tuna, "had declined similarly" and that the entire ecosystem of the Mediterranean was at risk. Sharks help control the populations of various fish and keep the food chain balanced.
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Wed, Jun 11, 2008: from
Watertown Daily Times: Wind projects held up by 'white nose syndrome' bat concerns The proposed 62-turbine wind farm in Clayton, as well as the proposed 65-turbine St. Lawrence and 140-turbine Cape Vincent wind farms in Cape Vincent, may be affected by the thousands of Indiana bats that have died because of "white nose syndrome".... [T]he company is waiting on Horse Creek while the impact of white nose syndrome on bats is understood. Indiana bats are on federal and state endangered species lists.
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Mon, Jun 9, 2008: from
The Toronto Star: Freshwater clams in shell shock "Under seige from zebra mussels, habitat loss and pollution, this species is 'the most endangered animal group in North America.'"
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Mon, Jun 9, 2008: from
The Whig Standard (Ontario): Little known about wolverine, study shows Jason Fisher has spent six years studying wolverines in Alberta, and in all that time he's never bumped into one of the elusive, fierce and hellishly hard to count animals without the use of a trap or remote camera.
As Fisher wraps up his multi-year pilot study into the animal -- legendary for its tenacity and strength -- just how many wolverines are still prowling the western Canadian forests remains very much a mystery.
That makes it a poster child for all species of lesser-known critters that are actively hunted in the province without evidence of whether their populations are sustainable.
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Sun, Jun 8, 2008: from
Weekend Post (South Africa): Species being fished into oblivion, researchers warn Anglers in the Eastern and Southern Cape are fishing the region's line fish into oblivion and researchers warn it could spell the end of line fish altogether if authorities don't act decisively to enforce quotas.... "These [line fish] are slow-growing, and what was abundant initially has now been exploited."
Cowley described the trend as "serial exploitation". As one popular line fish reached near-extinction, anglers switched to the next more abundant species, [leading to] 80 per cent of the fish which would occur naturally already fished out.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from
BioScience, via Science Daily (US): Western U.S. Forests At Risk: Complex Dynamics Underlie Bark Beetle Eruptions Biological interactions involving fungi as well as trees and competing insects drive bark beetle outbreaks. The processes are sensitive to a forest's condition and the local climate, but prediction is difficult because the processes turn on multiple critical thresholds.... Forest management that favors single tree species and climate change are just two of the critical factors making forests throughout western North America more susceptible to infestation by bark beetles, according to an article published in the June 2008 BioScience.
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from
The Economist: Bushmeat: Just let them get on with it "Conservationists and animal-welfare types please take note: trade in wildlife products, as long as it is properly managed, is an indispensable boon for the poor. And what is more, it's big business, worth around $300 billion in 2005—chiefly in timber and fisheries.... But the report laments that far too much of the harvesting of, and trade in, wild products is poorly supervised, with the result that habitats are degraded and stocks depleted.... If no public authority is able to offer secure tenure of land or resource rights to a reasonable number of people, there is little incentive to invest in long-term sustainability."
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from
NSF, via ScienceDaily: Human Viruses Appear To Be Making Wild Chimpanzees Sick After studying chimpanzees in the wilds of Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park for the past year as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Virginia Tech researcher Dr. Taranjit Kaur and her team have produced powerful scientific evidence that chimpanzees are becoming sick from viral infectious diseases they have likely contracted from humans.
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Pew Institute for Ocean Science, via ScienceDaily: Quotas Allow More Caviar Export, Further Jeopardize Endangered Sturgeon [M]ore caviar will be exported from Caspian Sea and Amur River states this year as a result of unacceptably permissive new trade quotas... Most sturgeon species are endangered and some, like beluga sturgeon, are threatened with extinction. These quotas will further damage this ancient fish's chance of recovery and survival, since sturgeon must be killed to harvest their prized eggs which are then processed into caviar, the group says.... "Sturgeon have been on earth since the time of the dinosaurs, but are being wiped out because of inadequate international and domestic controls. We urge consumers to protest with their wallets by not purchasing any wild-caught caviar."
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Wed, Jun 4, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Puffin numbers plummet in UK's biggest colony Naturalists working on the Isle of May, a major seabird colony on the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh, disclosed today that puffin numbers on the island have unexpectedly fallen by nearly a third this year after decades of continual increases in population.... Although the bird – which has a relatively long 30-year lifecycle - congregates in large colonies such as the Isle of May to breed in the spring, it spreads across the sea to winter on the water. It also has a wide and varied diet, from zooplankton and worms, to small fish such as sand eels, and squid.
As a result, its decline suggests a profound problem across the North Sea rather than an isolated or one-off event, said Harris. "We're looking for something acting over a substantial part of the North Sea," he said. "Something big is going on at a wide scale."
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from
Polish Radio: Dangerous ladybird species reaches Poland The bug, which is a native of mid-eastern Asia, was introduced in Western Europe in 1997 as a natural method to control greenfly. However, the ladybird, which has a voracious appetite, has proved dangerous not only to greenfly but also to other European insects, its cousin included. It can also damage orchard fruit and vineyards, and its bite may cause an allergic reaction in humans. Polish researchers from the Academy of Sciences are trying to monitor the situation but they say that currently there are no ways of dealing with the insect.
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Mon, Jun 2, 2008: from
The Scientist: Banana: R.I.P. Panama disease - or Fusarium wilt of banana - is back, and the Cavendish does not appear to be safe from this new strain, which appeared two decades ago in Malaysia, spread slowly at first, but is now moving at a geometrically quicker pace. There is no cure, and nearly every banana scientist says that though Panama disease has yet to hit the banana crops of Latin America, which feed our hemisphere, the question is not if this will happen, but when. Even worse, the malady has the potential to spread to dozens of other banana varieties, including African bananas, the primary source of nutrition for millions of people.
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Mon, Jun 2, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Last flight of the honeybee? Close on two million colonies of honeybees across the US have been wiped out. The strange phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD), is also thought to have claimed the lives of billions of honeybees around the world. In Taiwan, 10 million honeybees were reported to have disappeared in just two weeks, and throughout Europe honeybees are in peril.... "It's those new neonicotinoid pesticides that growers are using," he says. "That's what's messing up the bees' navigation system so they can't find their way home." ... With innocuous brand names such as Gaucho, Assail and Merit, these pesticides are used worldwide, from sunflower fields to apple orchards, lawns to golf courses. The chemicals they contain are an artificial type of nicotine that acts as a neurotoxin that attacks insects' nervous systems on contact or ingestion.
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Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from
RedOrbit: Species Disappearance Puzzles Scientists U.S. scientists say they are baffled by the disappearance of Diporeia, a shrimplike major food source for fish in the Great Lakes.
The declining populations of the energy-dense creature are threatening lake whitefish and many prey fish upon which salmon, trout and walleye rely... Collaborating researcher Tom Nalepa ... said the Diporeia are already gone from many large areas of lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, with nearly no Diporeia found in Lake Michigan at depths shallower than 90 meters. Just 15 years ago, their density often exceeded 10,000 animals per square meter at such depths.
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Sat, May 31, 2008: from
San Diego Union-Tribune: Wave of Cliff Swallow deaths sparks mystery The recent deaths of nearly 100 cliff swallows near the public dock at Lower Otay Lake ... appear to have started about a week ago, when the reek of decaying birds at the Lower Otay dock and boathouse caught the attention of the city's lake manager. Swallow deaths have continued for several days, prompting reservoir employees to knock down nests that have dead swallows.
"There are a few that are surviving, but most of the birds... and the babies are dying," said Nelson Manville, supervisor of the lakes program for San Diego. "They have had a horrendous smell."
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Fri, May 30, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Ecosystem destruction costing hundreds of billions a year The steeply accelerating decline of the natural world is already costing hundreds of billions of pounds a year, say leading economists, in a review of the costs and benefits of forests, rivers and marine life. The losses will increase dramatically over the next generation unless urgent remedial action is taken, they say.... The economists warn that on current trends, 11 percent of the world's untouched forests and 60 percent of its coral reefs could be lost by 2030. About 60 percent of the Earth's ecosystem, examined by the researchers, has been degraded in the past 50 years. Population growth, changing land use and global climate change will lead to further declines.
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Fri, May 30, 2008: from
Tehelka (India): India's lone DDT manufacturing facility shows no signs of shutting down The nauseating smell of DDT assaults the senses as one nears this industrial belt built around the once small villages of Eloor and Edayar. There are about 200-odd factories in the region but it is the DDT factory of the Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL), manufacturing DDT and Endosulfan since 1956, which has many of the area's 40,000 residents up in arms. There is by now sufficient evidence to show that water in the village’s wells has become unfit for drinking and that large tracts of land are turning uncultivable by the season.... A signatory to the Convention, India has banned the use of DDT in agriculture. HIL's DDT production is thus fully export-oriented: its client list has eight African countries, including Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Mon, May 26, 2008: from
The Australian: Tasmanian devils now on endangered list "The decision to upgrade the Tasmanian devil's status from vulnerable to endangered at the state level follows the failure to stem the spread of the deadly facial tumour disease.
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Sun, May 25, 2008: from
London Guardian: So what's Plan Bee? "In the last few months, the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA), which claims almost 12,000 members, has begun speaking words of doom. 'Nation's honeybees could be wiped out in 10 years' the organisation claimed in December."
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Fri, May 23, 2008: from
Aquatic Conservation, via EurekAlert: Over 50 percent of oceanic shark species threatened with extinction The experts determined that 16 out of the 21 oceanic shark and ray species that are caught in high seas fisheries are at heightened risk of extinction due primarily to targeted fishing for valuable fins and meat as well as indirect take in other fisheries. In most cases, these catches are unregulated and unsustainable. The increasing demand for the delicacy 'shark fin soup', driven by rapidly growing Asian economies, means that often the valuable shark fins are retained and the carcasses discarded. Frequently, discarded sharks and rays are not even recorded.
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Thu, May 22, 2008: from
Associated Press: Governor: Alaska to challenge polar bear listing "The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday. She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts. Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said. Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable, said Palin, a Republican."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Wed, May 21, 2008: from
World Wildlife Fund via ScienceDaily: Biodiversity Loss Puts People At Risk: World Wildlife Fund "Future generations face hunger, thirst, disease and disaster if we carry on losing biodiversity. And as biodiversity plummets our use of resources soars. WWF now estimates that biodiversity has declined by more than a quarter in the last 35 years."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Tue, May 20, 2008: from
BBC: Climate 'accelerating bird loss' Climate change is "significantly amplifying" the threats facing the world's bird populations, a global assessment has concluded.
The 2008 IUCN Bird Red List warns that long-term droughts and extreme weather puts additional stress on key habitats.
The assessment lists 1,226 species as threatened with extinction - one-in-eight of all bird species.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Mon, May 19, 2008: from
Planet Ark via Reuters: UN Experts To Say 2010 Biodiversity Target Elusive "Up to 5,000 delegates and some heads of state, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will try to agree at the Convention of Biological Diversity in the German city of Bonn on ways to save plant and animal species. UN experts say the planet is facing the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago and some say three species vanish every hour as a result largely of human activity causing pollution and loss of habitat."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Sat, May 17, 2008: from
The Scotsman: 'Frightening' future must be avoided to retain the integrity of planet we share Nearly 200 national governments will say next week that they are unlikely to meet a target of slowing the rate of extinctions of living species by 2010, a failure which could threaten future food supplies.... UN experts say that the planet is facing the worst spate of extinction since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago and some say three species vanish every hour as a result, largely, of human activity causing pollution and loss of habitat.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Fri, May 16, 2008: from
USDA Forest Survey, via ScienceDaily: Window Of Opportunity For Restoring Oaks Small, New Study Finds Communities of Oregon white oak were once widespread in the Pacific Northwest's western lowlands, but, today, they are in decline. Fire suppression, conifer and invasive plant encroachment, and land use change have resulted in the loss of as much as 99 percent of the oak communities historically present in some areas of the region.... "In areas where conifers have encroached into oak woodlands and savannas, about two-thirds of the remaining oaks were predicted to die over a 50-year period unless the conifers are removed," said Peter Gould, a research forester and lead author of the report.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Thu, May 15, 2008: from
Metro.co.uk (Great Britain): Alarm over dramatic wildlife decline There are almost a third fewer animal, bird and fish species today than three decades ago, an alarming new report has revealed.
According to the WWF's Living Planet Index, land-based, marine and freshwater species fell overall by 27 per cent between 1970 and 2005. The report comes ahead of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity next week, which will discuss aims to achieve a "significant reduction" in the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Thu, May 15, 2008: from
The Statesman (India): Flora species on verge of extinction in Sikkim Forty-six species of flora are facing extinction in Sikkim, says a recent survey by the Botanical Survey of India.
"The bio-diversity is being threatened in some areas of the state owing to easy accessibility, large scale extraction, collection of medicinal herbs, poaching and encroachment in the natural habitat... The forest is being cleared for various developmental activities like road, building, dams and industrial development which is threatening the species in Sikkim."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Sun, May 11, 2008: from
The Milford Daily News: Honeybee deaths still on the rise "Colony collapse disorder started appearing in hives in the past two years and is marked by massive desertion and die-offs in bee yards. Theories on its cause range from microwaves from cell phone use to a combination of poor nutrition, varroa mites - an external parasite of honeybees - and stress. This week, a national survey of bee health from the Apiary Inspectors of America showed 36.1 percent of beehives were lost since last year. That's up from the previous year's losses of 32 percent."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Sun, May 11, 2008: from
The London Observer: How the world's oceans are running out of fish "...Is anyone not aware that wild fish are in deep trouble? That three-quarters of commercially caught species are over-exploited or exploited to their maximum? Do they not know that industrial fishing is so inefficient that a third of the catch, some 32 million tonnes a year, is thrown away? For every ocean prawn you eat, fish weighing 10-20 times as much have been thrown overboard. These figures all come from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which also claims that, of all the world's natural resources, fish are being depleted the fastest. With even the most abundant commercial species, we eat smaller and smaller fish every year - we eat the babies before they can breed... Once stocks dip below a certain critical level, the scientists believe, they can never recover because the entire eco-system has changed."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Sat, May 10, 2008: from
Public Library of Science via ScienceDaily: Seed Dispersal In Mauritius -- Dead As A Dodo? "...Recent work has highlighted how it is not species diversity per se, which breathes life into ecosystems, but rather the networks of interactions between organisms. Thus, the real ghosts in Mauritius are not as much the extinct animals themselves, but more importantly the extinct networks of interactions between the species."
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Fri, May 9, 2008: from
Salt Lake Tribune: Beleaguered Utah prairie dog needs greater protection, or faces extinction In the third management area, its supposed stronghold in the West Desert, numbers will quickly plummet if plans go through to translocate some of the largest remaining populations, such as at the Cedar Ridge golf course in Cedar City. While FWS rallied for the condor, crane and ferret, the agency has turned its back on the Utah prairie dog. It refers to Utah prairie dogs as a nuisance, characterizes its numbers as exploding in the spring (although scientists report low reproduction rates), and allows hundreds to be moved every year. Fewer than 10 percent of the animals survive translocation. They are simply being thrown away.
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Thu, May 8, 2008: from
Environmental Science and Technology: Metal pollution is toxic for endangered eels "One of the world's most bizarre creatures is vanishing. Freshwater eel populations began crashing worldwide in the 1980s. The decline has been rapid, and scientists think eels are probably succumbing to a variety of ills, including overfishing, habitat loss, pollution, and eel-chewing hydropower turbines."
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Wed, May 7, 2008: from
Newsday: Australia's Koalas at risk from climate change "Koalas are threatened by the rising level of carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere because it saps nutrients from the eucalyptus leaves they feed on, a researcher said Wednesday....An increase in carbon dioxide favors the trees' production of carbon-based anti-nutrients over nutrients, so leaves can become toxic to koalas..."
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Mon, May 5, 2008: from
Science and Spirit: Too few vultures for Zoroastrians to dispose of their dead "There are thousands of bodies rotting on the site," said Baria, agitated and angry. "There are no vultures at all and without the vultures, it doesn't work. The solar collectors don't work. Nothing is working. My mother's body was there for a year and a half, naked and exposed."... In 2000, the Indian scientific community called out to their international colleagues and an all-out effort was launched to determine what had caused vulture numbers to plummet from an estimated 80 million to just a few thousand in less than ten years. It was the most catastrophic decline in an avian population in recent history.... [discovered that] the three species of Gypsvultures were dying from ingesting livestock carcasses treated with diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and antipyretic pharmaceutical drug used on both livestock and humans. It is a mild painkiller akin to aspirin.
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Sun, May 4, 2008: from
Penn State via ScienceDaily: Global Warming Linked To Caribou-calf Mortality "Fewer caribou calves are being born and more of them are dying in West Greenland as a result of a warming climate ... caribou may serve as an indicator species for climate changes including global warming, based ... on data showing that the timing of peak food availability no longer corresponds to the timing of caribou births."
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Sun, May 4, 2008: from
National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration via ScienceDaily: Salmon Fishery 'failure' "Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez has declared a commercial fishery failure for the West Coast salmon fishery due to historically low salmon returns. Hundreds of thousands of fall Chinook salmon typically return to the Sacramento River every year to spawn. This year, scientists estimate that fewer than 60,000 adult Chinook will make it back to the Sacramento River....NOAA's Fisheries Service issued regulations to close or severely limit recreational and commercial salmon fishing in the area."
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Fri, May 2, 2008: from
The London Independent: US plan to protect right whale from shipping blocked by Cheney "Efforts to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale from being killed by ships are being blocked by Vice President Dick Cheney according to leaked documents. A behind the scenes struggle is raging between the White House and US government scientists who want to force ships to slow down near the calving grounds of the almost extinct right whale."
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Wed, Apr 30, 2008: from
Gazette Online, IA: Cedar Rapids preps for ash tree infestation City arborist Matthew Nachtrieb is making it a priority to remove and replace stressed ash trees along city streets in anticipation of what is the certain arrival of a bug that has devastated millions of ash trees in states east of Iowa.
Nachtrieb's notion about the now-notorious bug, the emerald ash borer, is no different from that of Robin Pruisner, state entomologist at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship:
The emerald-colored pest first appeared near Detroit six years ago. Pruisner said the bug has appeared about 80 miles away in East Peru and LaSalle, Ill. It has spread to spots in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Illinois, including the Chicago area.
It hasn't arrived in Iowa yet. But it will.
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Mon, Apr 28, 2008: from
Globe and Mail (Canada): Killer Sea Lice Alarmed, Ms. Morton took out a dip net and pulled up dozens of wild juvenile pink salmon. They were bleeding from the eyeballs and the base of the fins. Most of them were covered with brown flecks -- juvenile sea lice. As they grow, changing their body shape every few days, these parasitic copepods strip mucus, scales and skin from the growing fish. While a full-grown salmon has an armour coating of scales and can survive an infestation, the parasites exhaust the young fish and quickly kill them off.
Using hand seine nets to sample local waters, Ms. Morton established that the salmon farmers were raising millions of adult farmed Atlantic salmon along the migration routes of wild Pacific salmon - in exactly those inlets and estuaries where juvenile wild Pacific fattened up before going to sea. Suddenly, the decline of wild salmon populations did not seem like such a mystery: The 27 farms in the Broughton, had, by crowding normally nomadic fish into tightly packed nets, become ranches for sea lice, concentrating and fatally passing on parasites to wild salmon when they were at their most vulnerable. In 2002, government scientists predicted that 3.6 million pink salmon would return to the Broughton. Fewer than 150,000 did - a 97-per cent-population crash.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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."
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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."
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Sun, Apr 20, 2008: from
Globe and Mail (Canada): Canadian landowners threaten clear-cut as protest Rural landowners are threatening to clear-cut a huge swath of land in Eastern Ontario to protest against the lack of compensation in the province's new endangered species law, an action that could leave an endangered bird homeless, the Ontario Landowners' Association said yesterday.... "We're making a point," said Mr. MacLaren. "This legislation will have the opposite effect from what is intended ... You're forcing good stewards of the land, good stewards of the environment and therefore good stewards of endangered species to do the unthinkable."
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Fri, Apr 18, 2008: from
Science Daily (US): "Sudden Oak Death" Pathogen Is Evolving, Restriction On Movement Of Infected Plants Urged The pathogen responsible for Sudden Oak Death first got its grip in California's forests outside a nursery in Santa Cruz and at Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County before spreading out to eventually kill millions of oaks and tanoaks along the Pacific Coast, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.... "In this paper, we actually reconstruct the Sudden Oak Death epidemic," said Matteo Garbelotto, UC Berkeley... [the] principal investigator of the study. "We point to where the disease was introduced in the wild and where it spread from those introduction points." The study, scheduled to appear later this month in the journal Molecular Ecology, also shows that the pathogen is currently evolving in California, with mutant genotypes appearing as new areas are infested.
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Mon, Apr 14, 2008: from
University of New South Wales: Shorebird Numbers Crash In Australia "One of the world's great wildlife spectacles is under way across Australia: as many as two million migratory shorebirds of 36 species are gathering around Broome before an amazing 10,000-kilometre annual flight to their northern hemisphere breeding grounds. But an alarming new study has revealed that both these migrants and Australia's one million resident shorebirds have suffered a massive collapse in numbers over the past 25 years."
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Thu, Apr 10, 2008: from
Telluride DailyPlanet: Fish kill possible on Fall Creek Pink-bellied and dappled with black-pepper speckles, the Colorado River cutthroat trout once swam through 21,000 miles of rivers and streams across the West. But the fish are dwindling, threatened by invasive species, polluted streams and years of mining, and they now occupy only 3 to 15 percent of their old habitats.
Efforts to replenish cutthroat stocks to Colorado rivers have a spotty record. But now, the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Department of Wildlife are proposing a fish-kill in Fall Creek and Woods Lake to wipe out non-native fish and bring back the endemic trout.
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Mon, Apr 7, 2008: from
Reuters: Hard Times on the Way for Koalas "Australia's unique tree-dwelling koalas may become a victim of climate change, new research reported on Saturday shows. Australian scientists say that eucalyptus leaves, the staple diet of koalas and other animals, could become inedible because of climate change."
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Sun, Apr 6, 2008: from
Defenders of Wildlife: Record number of bison slaughtered around Yellowstone National Park A record number of bison – over 1,100 – have been slaughtered this winter around Yellowstone National Park. The [killing] of nearly one-quarter of the park’s bison population dramatically demonstrates the need to reform the rules governing the last stronghold for America’s wild bison. "Yellowstone’s bison are America's bison, the last pure descendants of the tens of millions of bison that once thundered through the American landscape," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Clinton administration. "Yet as soon as they set foot outside of Yellowstone Park, even onto publicly owned national forests, they are harassed and killed. This is truly one of the worst examples of wildlife management in the country."
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Sat, Apr 5, 2008: from
Corvallis Gazette Times: Salmon decline impacts research A projected shortage of fish is putting salmon research by Oregon State University in jeopardy. Ironically, the study, which enlists commercial fishermen as collaborators, is designed to help protect weak salmon stocks.
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Fri, Apr 4, 2008: from
Science Daily (US): Habitat Destruction May Wipe Out Monarch Butterfly Migration Intense deforestation in Mexico could ruin one of North America’s most celebrated natural wonders — the mysterious 3,000-mile migration of the monarch butterfly. According to a University of Kansas researcher, the astonishing migration may collapse rapidly without urgent action to end devastation of the butterfly’s vital sources of food and shelter.... In spite of its protected status, the isolated reserve is suffering from illegal logging driven by soaring prices for lumber in Mexico. This logging, once sporadic, has increased in recent years and now is threatening the very survival of the butterflies.
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Fri, Apr 4, 2008: from
The Independent: American songbirds are being wiped out by banned pesticides "The number of migratory songbirds returning to North America has gone into sharp decline due to the unregulated use of highly toxic pesticides and other chemicals across Latin America.
Ornithologists blame the demand for out-of-season fruit and vegetables and other crops in North America and Europe for the destruction of tens of millions of passerine birds. By some counts, half of the songbirds that warbled across America's skies only 40 years ago have gone, wiped out by pesticides or loss of habitat."
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Thu, Apr 3, 2008: from
Anchorage Daily News: Interior secretary dodges hearing on polar bear status "Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was a no-show Wednesday in front of a Senate committee seeking an explanation for why his agency has been slow to decide whether to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Kempthorne, summoned in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, refused to testify. Instead, he sent a letter and spoke personally to several of the committee members. He also pledged to testify once he had issued a decision, now three months late."
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Thu, Apr 3, 2008: from
Litchfield County Times (CT): Bat die-off now found in Connecticut Dr. Davis said that there is little data available on bats, which is making it difficult for scientists to determine cause and effect. "They don't normally do bat surveys every year in every cave," he said, "mainly because when you go in, you wake them up and they burn up fat with nothing to eat. This syndrome could have started earlier than two years ago -- we just don't know. The real problem is there are no in-depth studies of bat biology. There are several labs working as hard as they can and they find parasites, they find bacteria on the fur or skin -- but no one knows if this is normal because there is no data on a healthy population. We haven't found any toxins; we haven't found any smoking gun. Everything is so inter-connected. There are so many different elements that could be attributed to something else. No one knows for sure."
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Tue, Apr 1, 2008: from
Associated Press: Maryland crab season opens to anxiety "...The prognosis for the blue crab, the Chesapeake's hallmark seafood product, is bad. Last year's catch was Maryland's second-lowest since 1945, and winter population surveys indicate this year's harvest may not be much better. Fishery regulators in Maryland and Virginia say the crab population is nearing dangerous lows. Regulators are expected to reduce the harvest even further to save crabs...The worry extends to government scientists who manage the crab fisheries in the Chesapeake. Maryland and Virginia scientists say they've got one last shot to protect the crabs or they could face the collapse of one of the region's last viable fisheries."
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Mon, Mar 31, 2008: from
The Toronto Globe and Mail: The end of the road "To most Canadians, migration is a spectacle that marks the seasons. We know spring is here, despite the snowbanks in much of the country, because northbound geese have begun to appear from the south, just as we knew winter was coming when we saw them flying the other way. But many long-distance travellers -- from the whooping crane and the red knot to sea turtles and the rarest of the world's large whales, the North Atlantic right -- are in serious trouble. Over millions of years, they have been hardwired to undertake long journeys to survive. But these feats of strength and endurance are increasingly perilous in a world ever more congested and plagued by a changing climate."
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Mon, Mar 31, 2008: from
Science Daily (US): Migratory Wetland Habitat for Shorebirds Declining Fast "A decline by more than 70 percent of several North American shorebird species since the early 1970s has brought state, federal and international concern about conservation efforts for these birds and their wetland habitat.... Shorebirds stop over in Oklahoma to utilize wetlands and other waterways to rest and feed during both their spring and fall migrations. Davis said little is known about how landscape patterns and land use influence shorebirds migrating through the state.
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Wed, Mar 26, 2008: from
The Vancouver Sun: Pine beetle infestation impacting salmon runs "VANCOUVER - If the heat of climate change weren't enough of a danger to Pacific salmon, scientists are cataloging how the effects of the global-warming-aided mountain pine beetle infestation are adding to salmon's woes.
The grain-of-rice-sized beetles have chewed through interior pine forests covering an area four-times the size of Vancouver Island, a report released Tuesday by the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council notes.
Some 60 per cent of the Fraser River watershed is affected, with loss of forest cover over salmon streams that has led to numerous impacts that "significantly alter the watershed's ecology, threatening already stressed salmon runs." A blog post is available on this story
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Wed, Mar 26, 2008: from
BBC (UK): Plastic and the Midway albatross The Midway Islands are home to some of the world's most valuable and endangered species and they all are at risk from choking, starving or drowning in the plastic drifting in the ocean.
Nearly two million Laysan albatrosses live here and researchers have come to the staggering conclusion that every single one contains some quantity of plastic.
About one-third of all albatross chicks die on Midway, many as the result of being mistakenly fed plastic by their parents. A blog post is available on this story
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Mon, Mar 24, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): US authority failing to list endangered species Conservation groups claim that Bush appointees have been deliberately making it harder to designate animals and plants as endangered, and have launched a series of lawsuits. Administration officials admit that there are about 280 species waiting to be added to the list.... The Washington Post yesterday published internal documents from the interior department showing that officials have frequently overruled recommendations from scientists. The lack of recent designations could be motivated by various interests such as a desire not to see oil exploration or housing development shackled by a need to protect habitats that are home to threatened species.
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Mon, Mar 24, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Krill fishing threatens Antarctic species The Antarctic, one of the planet's last unspoilt ecosystems, is under threat from mankind's insatiable appetite for harvesting the seas.
The population of krill, a tiny crustacean, is in danger from the growing demand for health supplements and food for fish farms. Global warming has already been blamed for a dramatic fall in numbers because the ice that is home to the algae and plankton they feed on is melting. Now 'suction' harvesting which gathers up vast quantities has been introduced to meet the increased demand. It threatens not just krill, but the entire ecosystem that depends on them, say environmental campaigners. Krill are also believed to be important in removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by eating carbon-rich food near the surface and excreting it when they sink to lower, colder water to escape predators.
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Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from
FishUpdate.com: North Sea protected area network would devastate industry, claims trade body According to the WWF UK report, published today, a network of marine reserves, that cover at least 30 per cent of the North Sea, is needed to help rebuild populations of many fish species, and protect the habitats upon which these, and other species depend.
In the report, 'A Return to Abundance: A Case for Marine Reserves in the North Sea', WWF-UK suggests a network of five experimental marine reserves that it says will improve the sustainability of fisheries, protect biodiversity, and help establish a healthy ecosystem....
Describing the proposals as "flawed", Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation said "The sweeping assumption is made that very large fixed marine protected areas would prove beneficial in the North Sea based on evidence gained from elsewhere. Such an assumption cannot safely be made, given the unique nature of the mixed fisheries in the North Sea."
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Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from
US Fish and Wildlife Service: White-Nose Syndrome in Bats (video)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species biologist Susi von Oettingen talks about white-nose syndrome in bats and investigates a hibernaculum in an abandoned mine and the area around it.
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Fri, Mar 21, 2008: from
Science Daily (US): Dissolved Organic Matter May Influence Coral Health The composition of dissolved organic matter surrounding Florida Keys coral reefs has likely changed in recent decades due to growing coastal populations.
Bacterial communities endemic to healthy corals could change depending on the amount and type of natural and man-made dissolved organic matter in seawater, report researchers... "When coastal ecosystems are physically altered, the natural flow of dissolved organic material to nearby coral ecosystems is disrupted with potentially harmful consequences for the corals," said Shank, assistant professor of marine science.
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Wed, Mar 19, 2008: from
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise: Bat die-off is serious Of the nearly 20 caves and mines that state Department of Environmental Conservation biologist Al Hicks is aware of the DEC surveying this winter, all but three had bats with white-nose syndrome in them, he said. That breaks down to about 400,000 bats affected.
"It's almost everything we have," Hicks said. "It's about as bad as we can get."
The mortality rate of bats with white-nose syndrome is 90 to 97 percent, Hicks said.... "a progression that is much faster than expected..." Darling estimated that, if half a million bats died, "that would add up to two billion insects per night that would not get eaten."
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Fri, Mar 14, 2008: from
Sacramento Bee: Officials shut salmon fishing in seven coastal areas of California, Oregon "Wildlife officials moved Wednesday for early closure of seven coastal salmon fishing zones in California and Oregon, a sign of dire conditions facing the Central Valley chinook. The action came in a conference between fisheries managers gathered in Sacramento for a series of meetings by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council. Officials representing California, Oregon and the federal government opted to close the seven zones to protect salmon that remain alive in the ocean.
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Tue, Mar 11, 2008: from
iBerkshires (MA): Bat die-off now found in Western Mass. After receiving reports last month from Vermont and New York about large numbers of bats dying in caves, biologists from the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated caves and mines in the region where colonies of bats are known to spend the winter.
They found bats flying outside of one of the state's largest mines in Chester when they should have been hibernating, and found dead bats near the entrance that were collected for further study.
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Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from
Wildlife Conservation Society: Mercury Threatens Next Generation Of Loons "A long-term study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the BioDiversity Research Institute, and other organizations has found and confirmed that environmental mercury -- much of which comes from human-generated emissions -- is impacting both the health and reproductive success of common loons in the Northeast." A blog post is available on this story
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Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service: Mysterious Eel Fishery Decline Blamed On Changing Ocean Conditions "American eels are fast disappearing from restaurant menus as stocks have declined sharply across the North Atlantic. While the reasons for the eel decline remain as mysterious as its long migrations, a recent study by a NOAA scientist and colleagues in Japan and the United Kingdom says shifts in ocean-atmosphere conditions may be a primary factor in declining reproduction and survival rates."
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Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from
San Francisco Chronicle: Delay in polar bear policy stirs probe "The Interior Department's inspector general has begun a preliminary investigation into why the department has delayed for nearly two months a decision on listing the polar bear as threatened because of the loss of Arctic sea ice. A recommendation to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was to have been made in early January by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on whether to declare the bear threatened. But when the deadline came, the agency said it needed another month, a timetable that also was not met."
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Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from
Globe and Mail (Canada): Tadpoles, sun, and ozone "A number of studies have suggested that higher levels of ultraviolet radiation -- due to ozone depletion -- can damage frog DNA.... [A] team at the University of Ottawa's Centre for Advanced Research in Environmental Genomics has found that even a slight increase in ultraviolet B radiation -- similar to what would hit frog eggs on a spring day in Ottawa -- can be disastrous. Many of the tadpoles exposed to low levels had physical abnormalities that would be deadly in the wild, such as kinked tails that forced them to swim in circles, or bloated abdomens. It appeared as if they could eat, but not defecate, biologist Vance Trudeau says. Unlike those in the control group, very few of the tadpoles exposed to UVB developed into frogs."
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Fri, Mar 7, 2008: from
Windsor Star (Canada): Bird decline shocks experts Birds that eat flying insects are in a shocking and mysterious decline, says the co-editor of the new Atlas of Breeding Birds in Ontario.
"It is an alarm bell," Gregor Beck, a wildlife biologist and the book's co-editor, said this week.... "It's really scary because we're not certain what's going on or why," Beck said. "There's not going to be a simple fix to this one."
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Wed, Mar 5, 2008: from
Star-Ledger (NJ): Bats continue to de-hibernate and starve to death "Last year, when we first found this, we lost up to 18,000 bats. This year we're talking about [losing] 400,000. We've found problems in almost every cave in [NY] state, with one exception in Syracuse," said Hicks, the mammal specialist for the New York Endangered Species Unit.
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Tue, Mar 4, 2008: from
PhysOrg.com: Eastern Hemlock on the ropes from invasive species "Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is an aesthetically and ecologically important species of tree found from eastern Canada to the Great Lakes states and south along the entire Appalachian mountain range. Since the hemlock tends to grow alongside streams, it plays an important role in regulating water temperature, and its loss could affect the many species of fish and insect life that inhabit mountain streams.
The tree is threatened by the prolific spread of an exotic insect known as the hemlock wooly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), which kills the trees in as few as four years. In the past decade, the hemlock wooly adelgid has infested more than 50 percent of the eastern portion of the hemlock's range, and the number is expected to grow because the adelgid, an introduced species from Asia, has no natural predators in North America."
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Tue, Mar 4, 2008: from
BBC (UK): Loch Ken in crisis over crayfish "A warning has been issued of a "looming" crisis on a Scottish loch due to the advance of a major predator.
American signal crayfish, which can eat young fish and destroy their habitat, have been found in increasing numbers at Loch Ken in Dumfries and Galloway.
Bob Williams of the Glenkens Business Association said the problem was having a "major impact" on trade in the area."
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Mon, Mar 3, 2008: from
The Tribune, Chandigarh, India: Toxins, sand mining threatens gharials "Between December 2007 and February 2008, as many as 105 gharials have been reported dead. However, the reason for the decline in their numbers is attributed to possibility of nephro-toxin entering the food chain and loss of habitat due to illegal sand mining."
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Sun, Mar 2, 2008: from
Science Daily (US): Future Battlegrounds for Habitat Conservation Very Different to Those in Past "The researchers found that many of the regions that face the greatest habitat change in relation to the amount of land currently protected -- such as Indonesia and Madagascar -- are in globally threatened and endemic species-rich, developing tropical nations that have the fewest resources for conservation. Conversely, many of the temperate regions of the planet with an already expansive network of reserves are in countries -- such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland—with the greatest financial resources for conservation efforts, but comparatively less biodiversity under threat."
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Thu, Feb 28, 2008: from
Prince George Citizen: Canadian frogs endangered "Quebec aquariums and zoos are leaping to the defence of an animal that is increasingly threatened with extinction in La Belle Province and around the world -- frogs. The Quebec croaker and its amphibious friends are disappearing at a massive rate, with scientists estimating that up to one-half of species worldwide are in danger of disappearing. Some 120 species of amphibians have gone extinct in recent years, scientists say."
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Tue, Feb 26, 2008: from
Guardian (UK): Sea birds choking on migrant fish "The snake pipefish, virtually unknown around the UK in 2002, has undergone a massive, baffling and dangerous expansion since then, scientists have discovered.... Since 2000 sea birds have not been able to find sufficient food either to sustain their chicks or give them the energy to breed, a problem that is blamed on the dwindling populations of small fish and sand eels that sea birds eat, a phenomenon scientists have been unable to explain....
Now parent guillemots, terns and puffins are scooping pipefish from the sea for their chicks as substitutes for their normal fish food. But the pipefish body is rigid and bony and extremely hard for chicks to eat. Biologists have found dozens left uneaten in single nests while chicks have choked to death on their bodies." A blog post is available on this story
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Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from
Concord Monitor (NH): River herring decline has widespread effect "The Taylor River system, which lies largely in Hampton Falls and Hampton, had 400,000 river herring return from the sea annually in the 1980s. That number is now down to less than 1,000, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates.... You wouldn't eat one on a bet, so what's it matter? Oh, but it does. The little fish are food, not just for humans, but for striped bass, cod, haddock, mackerel, salmon, porpoises, seals, dolphins and whales as well as terns, puffins and other seabirds. When their food supply shrinks, fish populations crash, prices rise, fishing restrictions are put in place and the fishing industry suffers."
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Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from
60 Minutes: Honey Bees and Colony Collapse "Normally, if there weren't soldier bees to protect a hive's honey, all the honey would be poached by bees from other hives in short order. But, this beekeeper said, "The hives are like a ghost town. The honey's there. The other bees won't touch it." He showed the honey, just sitting there in the dead hive." A blog post is available on this story
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Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from
Republican-American (CT): Disease killing brown bats across the region... CT? A mysterious disease has killed hibernating bats in New York and Vermont, is spreading into Massachusetts, and may already be in Connecticut.... Biologists have now identified sick bats in Chester, Mass., 40 miles north of Connecticut's Barkhamsted Reservoir, and will be looking for them here in March. A blog post is available on this story
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Thu, Feb 21, 2008: from
The Boston Globe: Bat sickness reaches mines in Western Massachusetts "A mysterious and deadly sickness that has killed off thousands of bats in New York has now been discovered in two Western Massachusetts mines. Researchers say they expect to find more affected wintering bat populations as they lead expeditions into dark caves and mines in the Northeast over coming weeks. They predict that hundreds of thousands of the furry creatures will be wiped out before the end of winter. The illness ... does not appear to pose any risk to people...
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Wed, Feb 20, 2008: from
AP, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Bats in NY, VT dying from mysterious malady In New York, Hicks cautioned in a report that he and his colleagues were "one survey short of saying that every substantial collection of wintering bats in the state is infected."
"If you are not worried, you should be," his report said. "The two sites infected last year that have been surveyed so far this winter have experienced a 90 percent and 97 percent drop in populations since this began, with most of the survivors currently in poor health." Worse, said Hicks, nobody knows the cause. "We don't know what the problem is. All we can do is just sit back and watch them die."
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Tue, Feb 19, 2008: from
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council: Sharks In Peril: Ocean "Sharks are disappearing from the world's oceans. The numbers of many large shark species have declined by more than half due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and swordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year."
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Thu, Feb 14, 2008: from
United Press International: Yellowstone mystery: Where are the rabbits "The U.S. Wildlife Conservation Society is trying to figure out why jack rabbits have vanished from Yellowstone National Park. The report, published in the journal Oryx, said there have been no confirmed jack rabbit sightings in Yellowstone since 1991 and only three in Grand Teton National Park since 1978. Historical records indicate that white-tailed jack rabbits were once abundant in Greater Yellowstone, a 23,166-square-mile ecosystem that contains the Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, the group said Thursday in a release."
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Sat, Feb 9, 2008: from
National Geographic: Warming Creating Extinction Risks for Hibernators "When researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab in Crested Butte, Colorado, started documenting marmot hibernation patterns in the 1970s, the animals rarely awoke before the third week of May...These abbreviated hibernations are part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that hibernating animals are waking up earlier -- or not going to sleep at all -- due to rising temperatures from global warming. From chipmunks and squirrels in the Rocky Mountains to brown bears in Spain, these altered slumber patterns are putting animals at risk both of starvation and increased predation, researchers say -- which could bring many species to the brink of extinction."
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Wed, Jan 23, 2008: from
Marianas Variety (Micronesia): 2008 is International Year of the Coral Reef "DIFFERENT environmental groups and government agencies gathered on Friday at the SandCastle of the Hyatt Regency Hotel Saipan to declare 2008 as the International Year of the Coral Reef.... The symposium also recognized the medicinal value of reef organisms, and the different threats to coral reefs such as improper watershed development, sedimentation, marine debris, over-fishing, global warming, among other problems."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from
Christian Science Monitor: On emptying seas, a vanishing way of life "Cabras, Italy - Seven hours after setting out into the inky 3 a.m. blackness, the Crazy Horse's two-man crew pulls back into port with the fruits of their morning's labor: just a few small buckets of fish, worth maybe $60. "That's the average now," sighs Gianni Pisanu, whose boat is docked nearby, as he helps his neighbors tie up. "The sea is impoverished now." For more than 50 years, the nearly two dozen countries bordering the Mediterranean have struggled to jointly manage the shared bounty of the sea, whose uniqueness makes managing this crisis both unusually difficult and extremely important."
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Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from
Washington Post (US): Scientists Take Complaints About Interference to Hill "Two dozen scientists swarmed over Capitol Hill this week mad as vespinae (hornets) at what they say is Bush administration meddling in environmental science.
Organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Endangered Species Coalition, the rumpled researchers won time in the offices of more than 20 lawmakers. They are protesting what Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, calls "the systematic dismantling of the Endangered Species Act through the manipulation and suppression of science."
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Wed, Jan 16, 2008: from
University of Southern California: Greenhouse Ocean May Downsize Fish, Risking One Of World "The last fish you ate probably came from the Bering Sea. But during this century, the sea's rich food web -- stretching from Alaska to Russia--could fray as algae adapt to greenhouse conditions. "All the fish that ends up in McDonald's, fish sandwiches--that's all Bering Sea fish," said USC marine ecologist Dave Hutchins, whose former student at the University of Delaware, Clinton Hare, led research published Dec. 20 in Marine Ecology Progress Series.
At present, the Bering Sea provides roughly half the fish caught in U.S. waters each year and nearly a third caught worldwide."
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Sun, Jan 13, 2008: from
The Canadian: Catastrophic Bee de-populations "It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees' death is accompanied by a set of symptoms, "which does not seem to match anything in the literature."
In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi -- a sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have collapsed."
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Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from
The New York Times: In Life's Web, Aiding Trees can Kill Them "Their findings, reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that relationships between plant and animal species can be far more complex than had been thought and that even seemingly benign interference can have devastating effects."
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Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from
Washington Post: The Sixth Extinction More than a decade ago, many scientists claimed that humans were demonstrating a capacity to force a major global catastrophe that would lead to a traumatic shift in climate, an intolerable level of destruction of natural habitats, and an extinction event that could eliminate 30 to 50 percent of all living species by the middle of the 21st century. Now those predictions are coming true. The evidence shows that species loss today is accelerating. We find ourselves uncomfortably privileged to be witnessing a mass extinction event as it's taking place, in real time.
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Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from
Sacramento Bee (US): Fish: Delta drop sparks fears of ecological shift "Five Delta fish species continue marching toward extinction, according to new data released Wednesday, a result that some observers warn may signify a major ecological shift in the West Coast's largest estuary.... record-low numbers for three species: longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail and American shad. Two others, Delta smelt and striped bass, posted near-record lows."
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Thu, Jan 10, 2008: from
ScienceDaily: Humans Have Caused Profound Changes In Caribbean Coral Reefs "Coral reefs in the Caribbean have suffered significant changes due to the proximal effects of a growing human population, reports a new study. "It is well acknowledged that coral reefs are declining worldwide but the driving forces remain hotly debated," said author Camilo Mora at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada...The study showed clearly that the number of people living in close proximity to coral reefs is the main driver of the mortality of corals, loss of fish biomass and increases in macroalgae abundance. "The continuing degradation of coral reefs may be soon beyond repair, if threats are not identified and rapidly controlled," Mora said."
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Mon, Jan 7, 2008: from
Times-Picayune (New Orleans): Study suggests big risks with fish farms "The study from Canadian researchers finds that parasites spread from farmed salmon along Canada's Pacific coast could lead to a species collapse for the area's wild salmon within four years. Previous studies have pointed to sea lice from fish farms as a threat to wild salmon populations, but this is the first to suggest effects on the entire species population."
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Thu, Jan 3, 2008: from
Newsday (US): Hundreds of crows killed by virus in NY
Hundreds have died this winter from infection with a strain of avian reovirus that attacks their intestinal systems. The birds have been found in Albany, Dutchess, Jefferson, Montgomery, Orange and Steuben counties. The largest die-off was a group of 100 in Poughkeepsie.
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Sat, Dec 29, 2007: from
Current Biology (Cell Press): Deep-sea species' Loss Could Lead To Oceans' Collapse, Study Suggests "In a global-scale study, the researchers found some of the first evidence that the health of the deep sea, as measured by the rate of critical ecosystem processes, increases exponentially with the diversity of species living there."
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Thu, Dec 27, 2007: from
ScienceDaily: Scientist On Quest For Disappearing Eel "Biology professor Peter Hodson and his team of toxicologists and chemists have received a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to solve the mystery of Lake Ontario's disappearing eel population.
Declared a "species of concern" under Canada's new Species at Risk Act, American eels have until recently supported a multi-million-dollar historic fishery in Ontario and an even larger industry in Quebec. But with rapidly decreasing numbers of eels, the Ontario fishery has been closed and the Quebec fishery is in serious decline."
Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Thu, Dec 27, 2007: from
Associated Press: Loss of sea ice could harm walrus "Federal marine mammal experts in Alaska studying the effects of global warming on walrus, polar bears and ice seals warn there are limit [sic] to the protections they can provide. They can restrict hunters, ship traffic and offshore petroleum activity, but that may not be enough if the animals' basic habitat "sea ice" disappears every summer."
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Fri, Dec 14, 2007: from
Science Daily (US): Carbon Crisis lethal for coral reefs "If world leaders do not immediately engage in a race against time to save the Earth's coral reefs, these vital ecosystems will not survive the global warming and acidification predicted for later this century. That is the conclusion of a group of marine scientists from around the world in a major new study published in the journal Science on Dec. 13.... "This crisis is on our doorstep, not decades away. We have little time in which to respond, but respond, we must!" says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, lead author of the Science paper, The Carbon Crisis: Coral Reefs under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification."
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Tue, Dec 11, 2007: from
The Washington Post (2005, US): Wave of Marine Species Extinctions Feared "Sitting in a small motorboat a few hundred yards offshore on a mid-July afternoon, Samuel H. Gruber -- a University of Miami professor who has devoted more than two decades to studying the lemon sharks that breed here -- plunged into despondency. The mangroves being ripped up to build a new resort provide food and protection that the sharks can't get in the open ocean, and Gruber fears the worst." ... "It's been a slow-motion disaster," said Boris Worm, a professor at Canada's Dalhousie University, whose 2003 study that found that 90 percent of the top predator fish have vanished from the oceans. "It's silent and invisible. People don't imagine this. It hasn't captured our imagination, like the rain forest."
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Tue, Dec 11, 2007: from
Journal of Carbon Balance and Management: Projected climate change impact on oceanic acidification "Future projections of ocean acidification will therefore mainly be dependent on the future level of atmospheric CO2. The consequences of a small but sustained decrease in oceanic pH on marine phytoplankton are virtually unknown. It will be important for marine ecologists in the future to better understand the sensitivities of phytoplankton growth to pH in particular, so as to better quantify the likely future biological changes at the regional and global scale."
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Mon, Dec 10, 2007: from
The Telegraph (UK): One in three bird species faces extinction An increase of 1°C from present temperatures is likely to trigger roughly 100 bird extinctions. But if the global average temperature were to rise 5°C, from that point on an additional degree of warming, to 6°C, would probably cause 300 to 500 more bird extinctions.
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Sun, Dec 9, 2007: from
Xinhua (China): Scientists: More than 20 species alien to China invaded country in last decade "Wan Fanghao, an official with the ministry of agriculture, said some alien species have already caused disasters in the country.
The American White Moth, native to North America and first detected in Northeast China's Liaoning Province in 1979, is threatening forests and crops in 116 counties of six provinces and municipalities in China including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Liaoning, according to the State Forestry Administration (SFA).
The moth denude a tree, and consume vegetables and crops in days. It boasts a strong reproduction ability. A female moth can lay some 2,000 eggs in one go, and can breed 30 million to 200 million descendants a year, according to biologists."
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Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from
BBC: Global Systems may 'face collapse' "Current global consumption levels could result in a large-scale ecosystem collapse by the middle of the century, environmental group WWF has warned."
