Bush Throws Polar Bears Under the Bus

This page has moved. You will be redirected in 5 seconds.

Polar bear reacts to today's news.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announces revisions to Endangered Species Act.

'To finally admit that the science compels the listing of the polar bear as threatened due to global warming, but then deny it the protections the Endangered Species Act should provide is nothing other than irresponsible and shameful.' -- Defenders of Wildlife's Jamie Rappaport Clark.

By Erin McCallum / December 11, 2008

See 'Bush revises protections for endangered species' by Dina Cappeillo, Below.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced today that it will deny the polar bear the appropriate and necessary protections of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“This rule makes a mockery of the Endangered Species Act, our nation’s most important wildlife protection law,” said Defenders of Wildlife executive vice president, Jamie Rappaport Clark. “The polar bear doesn’t have time for political maneuvers. Its habitat is melting away, its food is becoming scarce and the science is clear that the cause is global warming - yet the rule this administration released today affirms that little will be done to save the species from sure extinction.”

Defenders of Wildlife has already filed suit in federal court contesting the legality of a previous, “interim final” version of this rule, and will challenge this new final rule as well to ensure that the polar bear, which was listed as “threatened” under the ESA on May 14, 2008 receives the full protections that other species receive under the ESA.

“We are forced to challenge this rule because it denies vital protections to the polar bear that it needs to survive,” said Clark.

Listing polar bears as threatened should help protect polar bear habitat from threats such as oil and gas development, which the Bush administration is aggressively pursuing in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska and has even proposed in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which provides the primary land denning habitat for the species. Instead, the administration has made it clear with its 4(d) rule that the ESA will not provide any additional protections from these and other harmful activities than those that already exist under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), and will provide no protection whatsoever against emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing the rise in global temperatures that directly threaten the polar bear.

Specifically, the 4(d) rule eliminates some of the necessary protections for the polar bear and its habitat under the ESA, based on the incorrect assertion that the polar bear is already adequately protected under other laws, such as the MMPA. Furthermore, the rule states that the ESA’s protections against “incidental take” – death or harm to polar bears caused by human activities such as oil and gas development – do not apply at all if those activities occur outside of Alaska.

“It’s really not surprising that the Bush administration, with its longstanding resistance to taking any responsible action against global warming, would think of a stunt like this in its waning days in office” said Clark. “To finally admit that the science compels the listing of the polar bear as threatened due to global warming, but then deny it the protections the Endangered Species Act should provide is nothing other than irresponsible and shameful."

History:

The polar bear is the largest of the world’s bear species and is distributed among nineteen Arctic subpopulations – two of which, the Chukchi and the Southern Beaufort Sea populations, are located within the United States.

Polar bears are threatened with extinction from global warming, which is melting the Arctic sea ice where polar bears hunt for ringed and bearded seals, their primary food source.

The U.S. Geological Survey published a series of reports predicting that loss of summer sea ice—crucial habitat for polar bears—could lead to the demise of two-thirds of the world’s polar bears by mid-century, including all of Alaska’s polar bears.

[Defenders of Wildlife is dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities. With more than 1 million members and activists, Defenders of Wildlife is a leading advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard our wildlife heritage for generations to come.]

Source / Defenders of Wildlife

Bush revises protections for endangered species
By Dina Cappeillo / December 11, 2008

WASHINGTON -— Just six weeks before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, the Bush administration issued revised endangered species regulations Thursday to reduce the input of federal scientists and to block the law from being used to fight global warming.

The changes, which will go into effect in about 30 days, were completed in just four months. But they could take Obama much longer to reverse.

They will eliminate some of the mandatory, independent reviews that government scientists have performed for 35 years on dams, power plants, timber sales and other projects, a step that developers and other federal agencies have blamed for delays and cost increases.

The rules also prohibit federal agencies from evaluating the effect on endangered species and the places they live from a project's contribution to increased global warming.

Interior Department officials described the changes as "narrow", but environmentalists saw them as eroding the protections for endangered species.

Interior officials said federal agencies could still seek the expertise of federal wildlife biologists on a voluntary basis, and that other parts of the law will ensure that species are protected.

"Nothing in this regulation relieves a federal agency of its responsibilities to ensure that species are not harmed," said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in a conference call with reporters.

Current rules require biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to sign off on projects even when it is determined that they are not likely to harm species. The rule finalized Wednesday would do away with that requirement, reducing the number of consultations so that the government's experts can focus on cases that pose the greatest harm to wildlife, officials said.

But environmentalists said that the rule changes would put decisions about endangered species into the hands of agencies with a vested interest in advancing a project and with little expertise about wildlife. Several groups planned to file lawsuits immediately.

"This new rule is essentially a changing of the guard for determining how government projects will affect endangered species," said Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Instead of expert biologists taking the first look at potential consequences, any federal agency, regardless of its expertise, will now be able to make decisions that should be determined by the best available science."

Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.

The reviews have helped safeguard protected species such as bald eagles, Florida panthers and whooping cranes. A federal government handbook from 1998 described the consultations as "some of the most valuable and powerful tools to conserve listed species."

Obama has said he would work to reverse the changes. But because the rule takes effect before he is sworn in, he would have to restart the lengthy rulemaking process. Congressional lawmakers have also vowed to take action, perhaps through a rarely used law that allows review of new federal regulations.

In a related development, the Bush administration also finalized on Wednesday a special rule for the polar bear, a species that was listed as threatened in May because of global warming. The rule would allow oil and gas exploration in areas where the bears live, as long as the companies comply with the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Source / AP

View final 4(d) rule here.

Also see Interior Publishes Final Narrow Changes to ESA Regulations, Clarifies Role of Global Processes in Consultation / US Dept of the Interior / Dec. 11, 2008

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Bush's Exit Strategy : A Deregulation Frenzy

Dubya: The legacy.
The Legacy Grows: 'Every rule in every agency is under attack.'
By Thomas Cleaver / The Rag Blog / October 31, 2008

See 'A Last Push To Deregulate: White House to Ease Many Rules' by R. Jeffrey Smith, Below.

In the past three months, the Bush Administration has begun announcing significant rule changes, and they will all be in place before they leave office.

The administrative rules they are revising are an obscure body of law known as the Federal Administrative Regulations. These are the rules drawn up by every federal agency to detail the administration of the laws they are responsible for enforcing. The original reason was to insure justice, that there would be similar decisions in similar circumstances, so the law was clear to all. What they are doing now is the reverse of that.

These rules have the force of law with federal agencies, and it is very time-consuming the revise them. The Bushies have been working on these for at least the past two years. Even if the Democrats win a 60-seat Senate and a veto-proof House, with Obama in the White House, and they set to work on January 21, 2009, to change all these back, it would take a minimum of two years to accomplish.

Allow me to give an example of how bad this is: in August, the Interior Department announced they were revising the FARs for the Endangered Species Act. Specifically, they were revising the Independent Review Rule to allow the relevant agency to have the power to make the review independently themselves. What this rule is (it has been responsible for saving the majority of endangered species for the past 34 years) is that when a federal agency is making any decision that could impact an endangered species, they have to get an independent review from the Fish and Wildlife Service. It if is reasonably foreseeable that they will harm a species, they have to stop and revise the decision, revise the plan, so it does no harm.

Their change would allow the agency making the decision to review itself, to determine if it is reasonably certain they would harm a species, and determine what level of harm was acceptable, and make its own determination of what should be done. With no right of appeal or judicial review of that decision. As Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said when he announced it, "this will keep the environmentalists from stopping our projects." The proposed rule change was given a 30-day public comment period (these have heretofore traditionally been 120-day reviews, with revisions as a result of comments), which was up on Sept. 15. They will be announcing the rule implementation probably any Monday after the election.

How would this rule wreck things? Here's an example: last March, the Interior Department announced they were de-listing the Yellowstone Wolves from the Endangered Species List on the grounds there were now 1500 wolves, and would turn over administration of the wolves to the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho -- which had already announced their decision that there only needed to be 300 wolves in the area. When Interior was sued to have the independent review process, they went ahead and de-listed the wolves. During the 60 days the wolves were de-listed, 60 were killed. When the NWF and Environmental Defense Fund got into court, they got an immediate injunction that stopped the killing, and then proved in court that Interior had disregarded its own rules, with the court putting the wolves back under protection in September. Were the new rule in effect then, we'd be burying 1200 wolves.

What has to be done is to go into court, get an injunction against implementation of the rule, and then to prove in court that the agency violated the law in revising the rule. This can be done. The EPA was successfully sued over an attempt to do this to the Clean Water Act, with the Second Court of Appeal telling them in August that they couldn't implement their revision. IT TOOK FOUR YEARS TO DO THIS.

Regardless of who gets into office next week, these fights will have to be made. They are revising the mining rules to get rid of the requirement that a coal company clean up the mess after blowing the top off a mountain for strip-mining, to get rid of the rules requiring maintenance of water and access for salmon runs, etc., etc. EVERY RULE IN EVERY AGENCY IS UNDER ATTACK.

We are all going to need to support those organizations, like Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, NRDC, EDF, etc., that will be making these fights. Whatever interest you have, it is under attack.

All that money you were giving every month to Obama? Figure out what organization making these fights you support and make a monthly sustainer to them, so they can make the fight.

This is the Bush Administration's real legacy.

So, while we've all been distracted by the campaign...

A Last Push To Deregulate:
White House to Ease Many Rules
By R. Jeffrey Smith / October 31, 2008

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo.

Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.

"They want these rules to continue to have an impact long after they leave office," said Matthew Madia, a regulatory expert at OMB Watch, a nonprofit group critical of what it calls the Bush administration's penchant for deregulating in areas where industry wants more freedom. He called the coming deluge "a last-minute assault on the public . . . happening on multiple fronts."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "This administration has taken extraordinary measures to avoid rushing regulations at the end of the term. And yes, we'd prefer our regulations stand for a very long time -- they're well reasoned and are being considered with the best interests of the nation in mind."

As many as 90 new regulations are in the works, and at least nine of them are considered "economically significant" because they impose costs or promote societal benefits that exceed $100 million annually. They include new rules governing employees who take family- and medical-related leaves, new standards for preventing or containing oil spills, and a simplified process for settling real estate transactions.

While it remains unclear how much the administration will be able to accomplish in the coming weeks, the last-minute rush appears to involve fewer regulations than Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, approved at the end of his tenure.

In some cases, Bush's regulations reflect new interpretations of language in federal laws. In other cases, such as several new counterterrorism initiatives, they reflect new executive branch decisions in areas where Congress -- now out of session and focused on the elections -- left the president considerable discretion.

The burst of activity has made this a busy period for lobbyists who fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the New Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making.

According to the Office of Management and Budget's regulatory calendar, the commercial scallop-fishing industry came in two weeks ago to urge that proposed catch limits be eased, nearly bumping into National Mining Association officials making the case for easing rules meant to keep coal slurry waste out of Appalachian streams. A few days earlier, lawyers for kidney dialysis and biotechnology companies registered their complaints at the OMB about new Medicare reimbursement rules. Lobbyists for customs brokers complained about proposed counterterrorism rules that require the advance reporting of shipping data.

Bush's aides are acutely aware of the political risks of completing their regulatory work too late. On the afternoon of Bush's inauguration, Jan. 20, 2001, his chief of staff issued a government-wide memo that blocked the completion or implementation of regulations drafted in the waning days of the Clinton administration that had not yet taken legal effect.

"Through the end of the Clinton administration, we were working like crazy to get as many regulations out as possible," said Donald R. Arbuckle, who retired in 2006 after 25 years as an OMB official. "Then on Sunday, the day after the inauguration, OMB Director Mitch Daniels called me in and said, 'Let's pull back as many of these as we can.' "

Clinton's appointees wound up paying a heavy price for procrastination. Bush's team was able to withdraw 254 regulations that covered such matters as drug and airline safety, immigration and indoor air pollutants. After further review, many of the proposals were modified to reflect Republican policy ideals or scrapped altogether.

Seeking to avoid falling victim to such partisan tactics, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten in May imposed a Nov. 1 government-wide deadline to finish major new regulations, "except in extraordinary circumstances."

That gives officials just a few more weeks to meet an effective Nov. 20 deadline for the publication of economically significant rules, which take legal effect only after a 60-day congressional comment period. Less important rules take effect after a 30-day period, creating a second deadline of Dec. 20.

OMB spokeswoman Jane Lee said that Bolten's memo was meant to emphasize the importance of "due diligence" in ensuring that late-term regulations are sound. "We will continue to embrace the thorough and high standards of the regulatory review process," she said.

As the deadlines near, the administration has begun to issue regulations of great interest to industry, including, in recent days, a rule that allows natural gas pipelines to operate at higher pressures and new Homeland Security rules that shift passenger security screening responsibilities from airlines to the federal government.

The OMB also approved a new limit on airborne emissions of lead this month, acting under a court-imposed deadline.

Many of the rules that could be issued over the next few weeks would ease environmental regulations, according to sources familiar with administration deliberations.

A rule put forward by the National Marine Fisheries Service and now under final review by the OMB would lift a requirement that environmental impact statements be prepared for certain fisheries-management decisions and would give review authority to regional councils dominated by commercial and recreational fishing interests.
An Alaska commercial fishing source, granted anonymity so he could speak candidly about private conversations, said that senior administration officials promised to "get the rule done by the end of this month" and that the outcome would be a big improvement.

Lee Crockett of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Environment Group said the administration has received 194,000 public comments on the rule and protests from 80 members of Congress as well as 160 conservation groups. "This thing is fatally flawed" as well as "wildly unpopular," Crockett said.

Two other rules nearing completion would ease limits on pollution from power plants, a major energy industry goal for the past eight years that is strenuously opposed by Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups.

One rule, being pursued over some opposition within the Environmental Protection Agency, would allow current emissions at a power plant to match the highest levels produced by that plant, overturning a rule that more strictly limits such emission increases. According to the EPA's estimate, it would allow millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, worsening global warming.

A related regulation would ease limits on emissions from coal-fired power plants near national parks.

A third rule would allow increased emissions from oil refineries, chemical factories and other industrial plants with complex manufacturing operations.

These rules "will force Americans to choke on dirtier air for years to come, unless Congress or the new administration reverses these eleventh-hour abuses," said lawyer John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But Scott H. Segal, a Washington lawyer and chief spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said that "bringing common sense to the Clean Air Act is the best way to enhance energy efficiency and pollution control." He said he is optimistic that the new rule will help keep citizens' lawsuits from obstructing new technologies.

Jonathan Shradar, an EPA spokesman, said that he could not discuss specifics but added that "we strive to protect human health and the environment." Any rule the agency completes, he said, "is more stringent than the previous one.”

Source / Wahington Post (Subscription)

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Worst Offender : eBay Bans Ivory Sales

'eBay auctions account for nearly two-thirds of the global trade in endangered species.'
By Casey Miner / October 24, 2008

eBay announced this week that it would ban all sales of elephant ivory on its site after the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) reported (.pdf) that eBay auctions account for nearly two-thirds of the global trade in endangered species.

The animal-rights group tracked 7,000 online listings in 11 countries, cross-referencing the names of animals on endangered species lists with product keywords like trophy, oil, claw, and rug. The amount of trade in the US, they said, was ten times higher than the next-highest countries, China and the UK. Nearly 75 percent of trades were in elephant ivory; another 20 percent were exotic birds. Primates, cats, and other animals made up the difference.

Part of what's so insidious about online trading is how difficult it is to police. The sheer volume of auctions on big sites like eBay, where close to $2,000 worth of goods changes hands every second, makes it hard to verify every seller's claims. So, for example, a seller who claims his ivory earrings are "pre-ban"—made from ivory obtained before the US banned such imports in 1989—covers his back legally, but may not have documentation to back up his claims.

In light of these difficulties, it make sense to institute a global ban, which eBay has now said it will do for ivory sales by the beginning of 2009. But as IFAW points out in its report, the scope of internet trading far exceeds the ability of any one group to track, and the online black market is likely much bigger than we know.

Source / Blue Marble / Mother Jones

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

1 in 4 Mammals Now Thought to Face Extinction

A fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), one of the world's mammals that is declining in population. More than a third are probably threatened with extinction. Photo by Mathieu Ourioux / AFP / Getty Image.
'What we are facing is a very rapid, accelerating rate of extinction happening right now that is very unnatural.'
By Dan Vergano / October 6, 2008

Many animals worldwide, from toads to tigers, face extinction, a "terrifying possibility" underlined by the release Monday of a report on mammals.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) predicted earlier that one in eight bird, one in three amphibian and one in three coral-reef species are endangered.

"Extinction is normal and natural, but what we are facing is a very rapid, accelerating rate of extinction happening right now that is very unnatural," says IUCN biologist Michael Hoffmann. The mammal report comes as the IUCN — the world's largest organization of environmental groups, with 11,000 scientist members from 160 nations — opened its yearly meeting in Barcelona. "Our results paint a bleak picture," he says.

Land mammals face their greatest risk of extinction in South and Southeast Asia, where 79% of monkey and ape species are threatened, the report finds. Forest-cutting and expanded farms are destroying the homes of species such as the fishing cat. Habitats from India to Java are threatened by marsh-clearing.

Sea mammals are under particular threat in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Southeast Asia, where dolphin species suffer from fishing and pollution because of factory and farm runoff.

"Overall, about 30% of animal species face declines," says World Wildlife Fund biologist Sybille Klenzendorf, an expert on tiger conservation. Steep declines in the population of marine mammals, such as the Gulf of California's vaquita porpoise, began a decade ago, she says, while land mammals steadily lost numbers over the century.

"It's not all doom and gloom," Hoffmann says. Some species, such as African elephants and black-footed ferrets in North America, have rebounded. With habitat preserves, captive breeding and laws against hunting, many more species could be saved, he says. But the IUCN report notes it lacked data for 836 of the world's mammal species, possibly because those creatures have become extinct.

Source / USA Today

Thanks to S. M. Wilhelm / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

BushCo and Sarah Palin : Polar Bears, Schmolar Bears....

'The Bush Administration had not wanted to designate the polar bear as threatened in the first place; now Palin's lawsuit provided cover to backtrack on the decision'
By Mark Hertsgaard / September 10, 2008

It wasn't much noticed at the time, but three weeks before she was chosen as John McCain's vice presidential running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin played a key supporting role in the latest episode of the Bush Administration's eight-year war on the Endangered Species Act, one of the cornerstones of American environmental law. On August 4 Alaska sued the government for listing the polar bear as a "threatened" species, an action, the lawsuit asserted, that would harm "oil and gas...development" in the state. In an accompanying statement, Palin complained that the listing "was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available" and should be rescinded.

The Interior Department had issued the listing only after environmental groups filed two lawsuits, and the courts ordered compliance. While the polar bear population was currently stable, the plaintiffs argued, greenhouse gas emissions were melting the Arctic ice that polar bears rely on to hunt seals, their main food source. A study by the US Geological Survey supported this argument, concluding that two-thirds of all polar bears could be gone by 2050 if Arctic ice continues to melt as scientists project. The listing was the first time global warming had been cited as the sole premise in an Endangered Species Act case, and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne clearly wanted it to be the last. When Kempthorne announced the polar bear listing on May 14, he emphasized that it would not affect federal policy on global warming or block development of "our natural resources in the Arctic."

A week after Palin's lawsuit, Kempthorne delivered on that pledge. On August 11 he proposed new rules that could allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether their actions will imperil a threatened or endangered species. The rule reverses precedent: since passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, scientists from the Fish and Wildlife Service have made such determinations independent of the agency involved. Under the new rule, if the Army Corps of Engineers is building a dam, the corps can decide whether it is putting species at risk. To make sure no one missed the point, Kempthorne told reporters that the new rule, which he termed "a narrow regulatory change," would keep the Endangered Species Act from becoming "a back door" to making climate change policy.

Hated by the right wing as an infringement on property rights, the Endangered Species Act has been on Bush's hit list since the beginning of his presidency, when he chose Gale Norton as his first Interior Secretary. A Republican woman of the West like Palin, Norton assailed the act and did all she could to undermine it. "The Bush Administration has listed only sixty species as threatened or endangered, compared with 522 under Clinton and 231 under the first President Bush," says Noah Greenwald, science director of the Center for Biological Diversity, the lead plaintiff in the polar bear case. "And it took a court order to make each of those sixty listings happen."

Kempthorne's proposal nevertheless seems likely to go forward. An obligatory thirty-day period for public comment expires September 15, after which Interior can begin to implement the rule. Congress could block funding, but few expect that to happen. Lawsuits are certain to follow, but critics say the quickest solution would be for the next administration to withdraw the rule. Barack Obama seems likely to do that; he immediately condemned Kempthorne's proposal. John McCain was silent. But his choice of Palin--who does not believe global warming is caused by humans but does think it's acceptable for humans to gun down wolves from airplanes--suggests that Arctic creatures have much to fear from a McCain administration.

And not just Arctic creatures. What's missing from most discussions about endangered species is that preserving other species is not an act of charity; it is essential to our own survival. "Endangered species issues are usually seen as humans versus nature--we act in favor of one or the other--and that's just not the case," says Aaron Bernstein, a fellow at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard and an editor (with Eric Chivian) of Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. "Polar bears hold tremendous value to medicine, for example," explains Bernstein. "There is something about the metabolism of female polar bears that allows them to put on tremendous amounts of fat before winter but not become Type 2 diabetic. We don't understand how they do it yet, but this research is hugely important for the tens of millions of people who suffer from Type 2 diabetes."

But human dependence on other species is even broader. "We need [ants] to survive, but they don't need us at all," notes naturalist E.O. Wilson in a quote Bernstein and Chivian include in Sustaining Life. Without ants (and countless other underground species that will never be the subject of impassioned environmental appeals) to ventilate the soil, the earth would rot, halting food production. Without trees and other elements of a healthy forest, water supplies would shrink. Take away coral reefs and you destroy the bottom of the marine food chain. Global warming is on track to make as much as one-quarter of all plant and animal species on earth extinct by 2040, threatening general ecosystem collapse. To study the natural world is to realize, in the words of the environmental axiom, that everything is connected. What we do to the polar bears, we do to ourselves.

[Mark Hertsgaard is The Nation's environment correspondent. He is a fellow of The Nation Institute and the author of five books that have been translated into sixteen languages, including Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future. His next book is Living Through the Storm: Our Future Under Global Warming. more...]

Source / The Nation

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Endangered Species : Angered Scientists, Green Groups Confront Administration

Interior secretary Dirk Kempthorne, winner of the 2007 Rubber Dodo Award, is drawing the wrath of scientists and green groups.
Environmental groups plea for public comment on endangered species law changes
By Elana Schor / August 22, 2008

A coalition of scientists and advocates from 105 environmental groups across the US is pressing the Bush administration to allow more public input before it restructures the country's endangered species law.

Environmentalists got a shock to the system 10 days ago when the Bush administration revealed it would end the 35-year-old requirement that government agencies consult with independent scientists before building roads, dams or mines that could harm threatened species.

The interior secretary who proposed the rule, Dirk Kempthorne, defended the move as necessary to make sure climate change is not used to justify more endangered species protections. Activists cried foul, accusing the Bush administration of launching a "sneak attack" on wildlife during its last days in office.

But what made the Bush administration's plans even more alarming to environmentalists was the limited outreach that Kempthorne's department plans to do before changing the endangered species law.

Every US government agency must seek public comment on a rules change before making it. Comments are generally accepted for several months -- but the species protections are scheduled to pass after only 30 days of discussion.

"It appears as if the [Bush] administration is doing whatever it can to discourage participation in the democratic process," National Wildlife Federation executive director John Kostyack said.

"I think we can expect more sneaky assaults like this on our public land and wildlife laws as this administration heads for the exits."

In addition, public comments will only be accepted by mail or through a government website that automatically shares one's personal information. The limited comments could prevent green groups from generating mass opposition to the new rule via fax and email.

While they battle to prevent the species law from being changed, environmental groups are also pushing for Kempthorne to open up the process and allow the public greater say over wildlife protections.

"The abbreviated timeline and restrictive commenting options raise serious concerns that the department of the interior is attempting to rewrite a bedrock environmental statute without allowing for adequate public involvement," 105 environmental groups wrote in a letter to Kempthorne yesterday.

The groups also urged Kempthorne to hold public hearings on the new rule where advocates from both sides of the endangered species debate could exchange views.

Signers of the letter hail from nearly every state in America and a cornucopia of scientific institutions, from the Gulf Restoration Network to the Missouri Botanical Garden to California Trout Incorporated.

Source / Guardian, U.K.

Also see Bush officials sneak-attack nation's wildlife / salon.com

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Berkeley Scientists : World In 'Mass Extinction Spasm'

Amphibians are dying even in remote Sierra Nevada.
Scientists: Humans To Blame

'Behind all this lies the heavy hand of Homo sapiens'
By John Boitnott / August 12, 2008

"There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now," said David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. "Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn't. The fact that they're cutting out now should be a lesson for us."

New species arise and old species die off all the time, but sometimes the extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new species, scientists said.

Extreme cases of this are called mass extinction events. There have been only five in our planet's history, until now, scientists said.

"There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now."

David Wake, UC Berkeley

The sixth mass extinction event, which Wake and others argue is happening currently, is different from the past events.

"My feeling is that behind all this lies the heavy hand of Homo sapiens," Wake said.

The study was co-authored by Wake and Vance Vredenburg, research associate at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley and assistant professor of biology at San Francisco State University.

There is no consensus among the scientific community about when the current mass extinction started, Wake said.

It may have been 10,000 years ago, when humans first came from Asia to the Americas and hunted many of the large mammals to extinction.

It may have started after the Industrial Revolution, when the human population exploded. Or, we might be seeing the start of it right now, Wake said.

No matter what the start date, data show that extinction rates have dramatically increased over the last few decades, Wake said.

The global amphibian extinction is a particularly bleak example of this drastic decline, he said. In 2004, researchers found that nearly one-third of amphibian species are threatened, and many of the non-threatened species are on in decline.

Amphibians dying even in remote Sierra Nevada

The Bay Area's back yard provides a striking example, Wake said. He and his colleagues study amphibians in the Sierra Nevada, and the picture is grim there, as well.

"We have these great national parks here that are about as close as you can get to absolute preserves, and there have been really startling drops in amphibian populations there, too," Wake said.

Of the seven amphibian species that inhabit the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, five are threatened.

Wake and his colleagues observed that, for two of these species, the Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged Frog and the Southern Yellow-legged Frog, populations over the last few years declined by 95 to 98 percent, even in highly protected areas such as Yosemite National Park.

This means that each local frog population has dwindled to 2 to 5 percent of its former size.

Originally, frogs living atop the highest, most remote peaks seemed to thrive, but recently, they also declined.

There are several frog killers in the Sierra Nevada, Wake said.

The first hint of frog decline in this area came in the 1990s, and researchers originally thought that rainbow trout introduced to this area were the culprits - they like to snack on tadpoles and frog eggs.

The UC Berkeley team did experiments in which it physically removed trout from some areas, and the result was that frog populations started to recover.

"But then they disappeared again, and this time there were carcasses," Wake said.

The culprit is a nasty pathogenic fungus that causes the disease chytridiomycosis.

Researchers discovered the fungus in Sierra Nevada frogs in 2001.

Scientists have documented over the last five years mass die-offs and population collapses due to the fungus in the mountain range.

But the fungus is not unique to California. It has been wiping out amphibians around the world, including in the tropics, where amphibian biodiversity is particularly high, Wake said.

"It's been called the most devastating wildlife disease ever recorded," Wake said.

Global warming and habitat constriction are two other major killers of frogs around the world, Wake said. The Sierra Nevada amphibians are also susceptible to poisonous winds carrying pesticides from Central Valley croplands.

"The frogs have really been hit by a one-two punch," Wake said, "Although it's more like a one-two-three-four punch."

The frogs are not the only victims in this mass extinction, Wake said.

Scientists studying other organisms have seen similarly dramatic effects.

"Our work needs to be seen in the context of all this other work, and the news is very, very grim," Wake said.

The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health helped support the study.

Source / NBC11.com

Thanks to Roger Baker / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Nearly Half of all the World's Primates at Risk of Extinction

The endangered golden lion tamarin. Photo by Anup Shah/Getty Images.
Study paints bleak picture for hundreds of species: Loss of habitat and boom in bushmeat trade blamed
By James Randerson / August 5, 2008

Nearly half of all primate species are now threatened with extinction, according to an evaluation by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The study, which drew on the work of hundreds of scientists and is the most comprehensive analysis for more than a decade, found that the conservation outlook for monkeys, apes and other primates has dramatically worsened.

In some regions, the thriving bushmeat trade means the animals are being "eaten to extinction".

The 2007 IUCN "red list" has 39% of primate species and sub-species in the three highest threat categories - vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered. In today's revised list, 303 of the 634 species and sub-species - 48% - are in these most threatened categories.

The two biggest threats faced by primates are habitat destruction through logging and hunting for bushmeat and the illegal wildlife trade.

"We've raised concerns for years about primates being in peril, but now we have solid data to show the situation is far more severe than we imagined," said Dr Russell Mittermeier, the chairman of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's primate specialist group and the president of Conservation International.

"Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact. In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction."

The picture in south-east Asia is particularly bleak, where 71% of all Asia primates are now listed as threatened, and in Vietnam and Cambodia, 90% are considered at risk. Populations of gibbons, leaf monkeys and langurs have dropped due to rapid habitat loss and hunting to satisfy the Chinese medicine and pet trade.

"What is happening in south-east Asia is terrifying," said Dr Jean-Christophe Vié, the deputy head of the IUCN species programme. "To have a group of animals under such a high level of threat is, quite frankly, unlike anything we have recorded among any other group of species to date."

In Africa, 11 of 13 kinds of red colobus monkey have been listed as critically endangered or endangered. Two - Bouvier's red colobus and Miss Waldron's red colobus - may already be extinct.

Overall, 69 species and sub-species (11% of the total) are considered critically endangered, including the mountain gorilla in central Africa, Tonkin snub-nosed monkey in Vietnam and grey-shanked douc langur from Asia.

In the endangered category are another 137 species and sub-species (22%) including the Javan gibbon from Indonesia, golden lion tamarin from Brazil and Berthe's mouse lemur from Madagascar. Species are judged to be in these categories if they have a small population size, are suffering rapid population declines and have a limited geographic range.

The apparent jump in the numbers of threatened primates from 39% to 48% has not in reality happened in the course of one year. The major new analysis has filled in missing data that was not available previously, according to Michael Hoffman at Conservation International. The last major assessment was carried out in 1996.

"The situation could well have been as bad as this, say, five years ago, we just didn't know. But now we have a much better indication of the state of the world's primates - and the news is not good," he said.

The review, which is funded by Conservation International, the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation, Disney's Animal Kingdom and the IUCN is part of an unprecedented examination of the state of the world's mammals to be released at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in October.

However there was some good news for primates. In Brazil, the black lion tamarin has been brought back from the brink of extinction and shifted from the critically endangered to endangered category. This is the result of a concerted conservation effort which has also benefited the golden lion tamarin - it was downlisted to endangered in 2003.

"The work with lion tamarins shows that conserving forest fragments and reforesting to create corridors that connect them is not only vital for primates, but offers the multiple benefits of maintaining healthy ecosystems and water supplies, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change," said Dr Anthony Rylands, the deputy chair of the IUCN primate specialist group.

The scientists also came close to downlisting the mountain gorilla to endangered following population increases in their forest habitat that spans the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. However, political turmoil in the region and an incident in which eight animals were killed in 2007 led to the decision to delay the planned reclassification.

Primates under threat

There are 634 species and sub-species of primate including apes, monkeys, tarsiers and prosimians. Of these, 69 are now categorised as critically endangered, 137 as endangered, 97 as vulnerable and 36 as near threatened.

In Africa, 63 species or subspecies are in the top three categories (37% of African primates). The new assessment moved L'Hoest's monkey (Cercopithecus l'hoesti), which is found in Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda, from vulnerable to endangered, for example.

In Asia, 120 species or sub-species are threatened (71%). The grey-shanked douc langur (Pygathrix cinerea) in Vietnam has been moved from endangered to critically endangered.

In Madagascar, 41 species and sub-species are threatened (43%). The black-and-white ruffed lemur, (Varecia variegata) for example, was endangered and is now considered critically endangered.

In Mexico, south and central America 79 species and sub-species are listed as threatened (40%). The cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus) is now critically endangered, but was endangered.

Source / The Guardian, U.K.

Thanks to CommonDreams / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Robert Silverberg : Sci Fi Writer Takes On Peak Metal

Robert Silverberg at Worldcon 2005 in Glasgow, August 2005. Photo by Szymon Sokół.
Reflections: The Death of Gallium
by Robert Silverberg

Robert Silverberg is an American author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He is a multiple winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

I mourn for the dodo, poor fat flightless bird, extinct since the eighteenth century. I grieve for the great auk, virtually wiped out by zealous Viking huntsmen a thousand years ago and finished off by hungry Greenlanders around 1760. I think the world would be more interesting if such extinct creatures as the moa, the giant ground sloth, the passenger pigeon, and the quagga still moved among us. It surely would be a lively place if we had a few tyrannosaurs or brontosaurs on hand. (Though not in my neighborhood, please.) And I’d find it great fun to watch one of those PBS nature documentaries showing the migratory habits of the woolly mammoth. They’re all gone, though, along with the speckled cormorant, Steller’s sea cow, the Hispaniola hutia, the aurochs, the Irish elk, and all too many other species.

But now comes word that it isn’t just wildlife that can go extinct. The element gallium is in very short supply and the world may well run out of it in just a few years. Indium is threatened too, says Armin Reller, a materials chemist at Germany’s University of Augsburg. He estimates that our planet’s stock of indium will last no more than another decade. All the hafnium will be gone by 2017 also, and another twenty years will see the extinction of zinc. Even copper is an endangered item, since worldwide demand for it is likely to exceed available supplies by the end of the present century.

Running out of oil, yes. We’ve all been concerned about that for many years and everyone anticipates a time when the world’s underground petroleum reserves will have been pumped dry. But oil is just an organic substance that was created by natural biological processes; we know that we have a lot of it, but we’re using it up very rapidly, no more is being created, and someday it’ll be gone. The disappearance of elements, though—that’s a different matter. I was taught long ago that the ninety-two elements found in nature are the essential building blocks of the universe. Take one away—or three, or six—and won’t the essential structure of things suffer a potent blow? Somehow I feel that there’s a powerful difference between running out of oil, or killing off all the dodos, and having elements go extinct.

I’ve understood the idea of extinction since I was a small boy, staring goggle-eyed at the dinosaur skeletons in New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. Bad things happen—a climate change, perhaps, or the appearance on the scene of very efficient new predators—and whole species of animals and plants vanish, never to return. But elements? The extinction of entire elements, the disappearance of actual chunks of the periodic table, is not something I’ve ever given a moment’s thought to. Except now, thanks to Armin Reller of the University of Augsburg.

The concept has occasionally turned up in science fiction. I remember reading, long ago, S.S. Held’s novel The Death of Iron, which was serialized in Hugo Gernsback’s Wonder Stories starting in September, 1932. (No, I’m not that old—but a short-lived SF magazine called Wonder Story Annual reprinted the Held novel in 1952, when I was in college, and that’s when I first encountered it.)


Because I was an assiduous collector of old science fiction magazines long ago, I also have that 1932 Gernsback magazine on my desk right now. Gernsback frequently bought translation rights to European science fiction books for his magazine, and The Death of Iron was one of them. The invaluable Donald Tuck Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy tells me that Held was French, and La Mort du Fer was originally published in Paris in 1931. Indeed, the sketch of Held in Wonder Stories—Gernsback illustrated every story he published with a sketch of its author—shows a man of about forty, quintessentially French in physiognomy, with a lean, tapering face, intensely penetrating eyes, a conspicuous nose, an elegant dark goatee. Not even a Google search turns up any scrap of biographical information about him, but at least, thanks to Hugo Gernsback, I know what he looked like.

The Death of Iron is, as its name implies, a disaster novel. A mysterious disease attacks the structural integrity of the machinery used by a French steel company. “The modifications of the texture of the metal itself,” we are told—the translation is by Fletcher Pratt, himself a great writer of fantasy and science fiction in an earlier era—“these dry, dusty knots encysted in the mass, some of them imperceptible to the naked eye and others as big as walnuts; these cinder-like stains, sometimes black and sometimes blue, running through the steel, seemed to have been produced by a process unknown to modern science.” Which is indeed the case: a disease, quickly named siderosis, is found to have attacked everything iron at the steel plant, and the disease proves to be contagious, propagating itself from one piece of metal to another. Everything made of iron turns porous and crumbles.

Sacre bleu! Quel catastrophe! No more airplanes, no more trains or buses, no bridges, no weapons, no scissors, no shovels, no can-openers, no high-rise buildings. Subtract one vital element and in short order society collapses into Neolithic anarchy, and then into a nomadic post-technological society founded on mysticism and magic. This forgotten book has an exciting tale to tell, and tells it very well.

It’s just a fantasy, of course. In the real world iron is in no danger of extinction from strange diseases, nor is our supply of it running low. And, though I said a couple of paragraphs ago that the ninety-two natural elements are essential building blocks of the universe, the truth is that we’ve been getting along without two of them—numbers 85 and 87 in the periodic table—for quite some time. The periodic table indicates that they ought to be there, but they’re nowhere to be found in nature. Element 85, astatine, finally was synthesized at the University of California in 1940. It’s a radioactive element with the very short half-life of 8.3 hours, and whatever supply of it was present at the creation of the world vanished billions of years ago. The other blank place in the periodic table, the one that should have been occupied by element 87, was filled in 1939 by a French scientist, who named it, naturally, francium. It is created by the radioactive decay of actinium, which itself is a decay product of uranium-235, and has a half-life of just 21 minutes. So for all intents and purposes the world must do without element 87, and we are none the worse for that.

Gallium, though—

Gallium’s atomic number is 31. It’s a blue-white metal first discovered in 1831, and has certain unusual properties, like a very low melting point and an unwillingness to oxidize, that make it useful as a coating for optical mirrors, a liquid seal in strongly heated apparatus, and a substitute for mercury in ultraviolet lamps. It’s also quite important in making the liquid-crystal displays used in flat-screen television sets and computer monitors.

As it happens, we are building a lot of flat-screen TV sets and computer monitors these days. Gallium is thought to make up 0.0015 percent of the Earth’s crust and there are no concentrated supplies of it. We get it by extracting it from zinc or aluminum ore or by smelting the dust of furnace flues. Dr. Reller says that by 2017 or so there’ll be none left to use. Indium, another endangered element—number 49 in the periodic table—is similar to gallium in many ways, has many of the same uses (plus some others—it’s a gasoline additive, for example, and a component of the control rods used in nuclear reactors) and is being consumed much faster than we are finding it. Dr. Reller gives it about another decade. Hafnium, element 72, is in only slightly better shape. There aren’t any hafnium mines around; it lurks hidden in minute quantities in minerals that contain zirconium, from which it is extracted by a complicated process that would take me three or four pages to explain. We use a lot of it in computer chips and, like indium, in the control rods of nuclear reactors, but the problem is that we don’t have a lot of it. Dr. Reller thinks it’ll be gone somewhere around 2017. Even zinc, commonplace old zinc that is alloyed with copper to make brass, and which the United States used for ordinary one-cent coins when copper was in short supply in World War II, has a Reller extinction date of 2037. (How does a novel called The Death of Brass grab you?)

Zinc was never rare. We mine millions of tons a year of it. But the supply is finite and the demand is infinite, and that’s bad news. Even copper, as I noted above, is deemed to be at risk. We humans move to and fro upon the earth, gobbling up everything in sight, and some things aren’t replaceable.

Solutions will be needed, if we want to go on having things like television screens and solar panels and computer chips. Synthesizing the necessary elements, or finding workable substitutes for them, is one obvious idea. Recycling these vanishing elements from discarded equipment is another. We can always try to make our high-tech devices more efficient, at least so far as their need for these substances goes. And discovering better ways of separating the rare elements from the matrices in which they exist as bare traces would help—the furnace-flue solution. (Platinum, for example, always in short supply, constitutes 1.5 parts per million of urban dust and grime, which is ever-abundant.)

But the sobering truth is that we still have millions of years to go before our own extinction date, or so we hope, and at our present rate of consumption we are likely to deplete most of the natural resources this planet has handed us. We have set up breeding and conservation programs to guard the few remaining whooping cranes, Indian rhinoceroses, and Siberian tigers. But we can’t exactly set up a reservation somewhere where the supply of gallium and hafnium can quietly replenish itself. And once the scientists have started talking about our chances of running out of copper, we know that the future is rapidly moving in on us and big changes lie ahead.

Source. / Asimov's Science Fiction

Thanks to devilstower / Daily Kos / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Another Species Is Biting the Dust

Orangutan Populations Declining Sharply
By Michael Casey / July 5, 2008

BANGKOK, Thailand - - Orangutan numbers have declined sharply on the only two islands where they still live in the wild and they could become the first great ape species to go extinct if urgent action isn't taken, a new study says.

The declines in Indonesia and Malaysia since 2004 are mostly because of illegal logging and the expansion of palm oil plantations, Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa, said on Saturday.

The survey found the orangutan population on Indonesia's Sumatra island dropped almost 14 percent since 2004, Wich said. It also concluded that the populations on Borneo island, which is shared by Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, have fallen by 10 percent. Researchers only surveyed areas of Borneo that are in Indonesia and Malaysia.

In their study, Wich and his 15 colleagues said the declines in Borneo were occurring at an "alarming rate" but that they were most concerned about Sumatra, where the numbers show the population is in "rapid decline."

"Unless extraordinary efforts are made soon, it could become the first great ape species to go extinct," researchers wrote.

The number of orangutans on Sumatra has fallen from 7,500 to 6,600 while the number on Borneo has fallen from 54,000 to around 49,600, according to the survey on the endangered apes, which appears in this month's science journal Oryx.

"It's disappointing that there are still declines even though there have been quite a lot of conservation efforts over the past 30 years," Wich said.

Indonesia and Malaysia, the world's top two palm oil producers, have aggressively pushed to expand plantations amid a rising demand for biofuels which are considered cleaner burning and cheaper than petrol.

Wich and his colleagues said there was room for "cautious optimism" that the orangutan could be saved, noting recent initiatives by Indonesian leaders.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a major initiative to save the nation's orangutans at a U.N. climate conference last year, and the Aceh governor declared a moratorium on logging.

Coupled with that are expectations that Indonesia will protect millions of acres of forest as part of any U.N. climate pact that will go into effect in 2012. The deal is expected to include measures that will reward tropical countries like Indonesia that halt deforestation.

"There are promising signs that there is a lot of political will, especially in Aceh, to protect the forest," Wich said, adding however that much more needs to be done.

Michelle Desilets, founding director of Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK, praised the study for offering the first comprehensive look at the species population.

"What matters is that the rate of decline is increasing, and unless something is done, the wild orangutan is on a quick spiral towards extinction, whether in two years, five years or 10 years," Desilets said in an e-mail.

In their paper, the researchers recommended that law enforcement be boosted to help reduce the hunting of orangutans for food and trade. Environmental awareness at the local level must also be increased.

"It is essential that funding for environmental services reaches the local level and that there is strong law enforcement," the study says. "Developing a mechanism to ensure these occur is the challenge for the conservation of the orangutans."

The study is the latest in a long line of research that has predicted the orangutans demise.

In May, the Center for Orangutan Protection said just 20,000 of the endangered primates remain in the tropical jungle of Central Kalimantan on Borneo island, down from 31,300 in 2004. Based on that estimate, it concluded orangutans there could be extinct by 2011.

Source / America On Line

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

As Go the Penquins, So Goes the Sea

Bellwether Species?
A king penguin at the edge of an ice shelf in Antarctica. Photo from Getty Images.
Penguin Woes Signal Trouble at Sea
By Seth Borenstein / July 1, 2008

The dwindling march of the penguins is signaling that the world's oceans are in trouble, scientists now say.

Penguins may be the tuxedo-clad version of a canary in the coal mine, with generally ailing populations from a combination of global warming, ocean oil pollution, depleted fisheries, and tourism and development, according to a new scientific review paper.

A University of Washington biologist detailed specific problems around the world with remote penguin populations, linking their decline to the overall health of southern oceans.

"Now we're seeing effects (of human caused warming and pollution) in the most faraway places in the world," said conservation biologist P. Dee Boersma, author of the paper published in the July edition of the journal Bioscience. "Many penguins we thought would be safe because they are not that close to people. And that's not true."

Scientists figure there are between 16 to 19 species of penguins. About a dozen are in some form of trouble, Boersma wrote. A few, such as the king penguin found in islands north of Antarctica, are improving in numbers, she said.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists three penguin species as endangered, seven as vulnerable, which means they are "facing a high risk of extinction in the wild," and two more as "near threatened." About 15 years ago only five to seven penguin species were considered vulnerable, experts said.

And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has already listed one penguin species on its endangered list, is studying whether it needs to add 10 more.

The largest Patagonian penguin colony in the world is at Punta Tumbo, Argentina, but the number of breeding pairs there dropped in half from about 400,000 in the late 1960s to about 200,000 in October 2006, Boersma reported. Over a century, African penguins have decreased from 1.5 million breeding pairs to 63,000.

The decline overall isn't caused by one factor, but several.

For the ice-loving Adelie penguins, global warming in the western Antarctica peninsula is a problem, making it harder for them to find food, said Phil Trathan, head of conservation biology at the British Antarctic Survey, a top penguin scientist who had no role in the new report.

For penguins that live on the Galapagos island, El Nino weather patterns are a problem because the warmer water makes penguins travel farther for food, at times abandoning their chicks, Boersma said. At the end of the 1998 record El Nino, female penguins were only 80 percent of their normal body weight. Scientists have tied climate change to stronger El Ninos.

Oil spills regularly taint the water where penguins live off Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil and have contributed to the Punta Tumbo declines, Boersma said.

The problems may be different from place to place, but looking at the numbers for the species overall, "they do give you a clear message," Trathan said.

And this isn't just about the fate of penguins.

"What happens to penguins, a few years down the road can happen to a lot of other species and possibly humans," said longtime penguin expert Susie Ellis, now executive director of the International Rhino Foundation.

Source. / AP / Discovery News

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Someone Call Al Gore...

Kelly / The Onion.
The Rag Blog / June ll, 2008

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Another One Bites the Dust

Caribbean monk seal: just a memory. Photo from U.S. National Museum.
Caribbean Monk Seal Gone for Good
By Jessica Marshall / June 9, 2008

The Caribbean monk seal is officially extinct.

Last seen in 1952 on a small group of reef islands between Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the seal -- covered in brown fur tinged with gray, and with a yellow belly -- was easy prey for European settlers in the 1600s and 1700s, who killed it for meat, oil, and to seal the bottoms of boats.

The crew of Columbus' second voyage was the first to kill the seals. "It's one of the first mammals that Columbus saw when he discovered this region, and it's the first one to go extinct," said Kyle Baker of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association's Fisheries Service in Saint Petersburg, Fla.

"By the mid 1800s, they were very rare," Baker said.

The seal was the only subtropical seal native to the Caribbean.

Several seal sightings were reported in the Caribbean between 1952 and the present, but until the 80s and 90s -- when people began carrying cameras and cell phones -- it was difficult to verify whether those sightings really were Caribbean monk seals.

"Reviewing the data, we've identified most of these as hooded seals, which are Arctic species coming down from the northeast," Baker said. Other sightings have turned out to be bearded seals and harbor seals, but none have been Caribbean monk seals.

With better information, "we decided it was time to do the status review [under the Endangered Species Act] and to come to the conclusion, unfortunately, that the species is now gone," Baker said.

Two other species of monk seal remain: the Hawaiian monk seal and the Mediterranean monk seal, both also endangered with only 1,200 and 500 seals remaining, respectively.

The Hawaiian monk seal suffers from different threats than hunting by humans, according to Bud Antonelis, who heads the Protected Species Division at NOAA Fisheries Service in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Hawaiian seals face threats from habitat loss, food limitation, marine debris and shark predation.

"We expect in the next couple of years, the numbers will be below 1,000," Antonelis said. The population is declining by about 4 percent a year.

Removing marine debris and sharks that threaten unweaned pups is part of the recovery plan, Antonelis said. Some seals have been brought into captivity and fed to treat malnourishment, then released.

In many places, the seal's habitat could be restored, Antonelis said. Erosion has been the major cause of habitat loss. "There's a lot of conservation work that remains to be done," he added.

"While the loss of the Careibbean monk seal is extremely disappointing, it serves as a lesson for us to pay attention to the resources that are still here and to do everything we can so that the same problem doesn't happen to them," Antonelis said. "I don't think it's too late for the Hawaiian monk seal."

Source. / Discovery News

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...