Extinction // Current

Mountain Gorillas Under Attack

Guerillas threaten gorillas in African park - The new conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has forced dozens of rangers to... more

julesrs007
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Overfishing threatens European bluefin tuna

"Bluefin tuna disappeared from Danish waters in the 1960s. Now the species could become depleted throughout the northeast... more

jefftego
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Help Close L.A. Zoo Elephant Exhibit And Send Lone Elephant Billy To Sanctuary

SPEAK UP FOR THE VOICELESS! Thirteen elephants have died at the L.A. Zoo since 1975. More than half never lived to age 20.... more

julesrs007
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What an Obama win means for the environment

Among the many pressing issues that President-elect Barack Obama will face when he takes office in January is climate change, which he has called an “immediate threat” and warned has made Earth a “planet in peril.” In an effort to prevent and reverse the problem, he supports a so-called cap-and-trade scheme similar to one now in effect in the U.S. Northeast and the European Union.

...

Obama has made clear, though, that he's not entirely opposed to the old way of doing things. He supports offshore oil exploration in areas where it is already allowed but that oil companies have yet to drill. He opposes exploration in pristine areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Obama has also indicated that he wants to help out coal producing regions in West Virginia, Wyoming and other states by speeding the development of carbon-capture-and-storage technology. Such “clean coal” technology works by first capturing the CO2 from the coal and then storing it deep underground. The initial U.S. effort, dubbed FutureGen and planned to be built in Mattoon, Ill., the president-elect’s home state, was cancelled in February due to high cost.

Obama’s Illinois roots may also prompt his continued support for corn-based ethanol, something he has called a good “transition technology” away from fossil fuels. Critics note, however, that it takes almost as much fossil fuel (in the form of fertilizers and tractors) to grow the corn for ethanol as the fuel yields—and threatens to pit gas tanks of the haves against the stomachs of the have nots. Some of his campaign indicate that he's also likely to raise federal fuel efficiency requirements and to push American automakers to re-tool to make plug-in electric-gas hybrids and other alternative fuel vehicles.

Of course, climate change and renewable energy aren’t the only environmental issues the new administration must tackle. There’s also the matter of dwindling numbers of mammals, amphibians and a whole host of other animals worldwide. There’s global deforestation. And there’s the matter of environmental justice: placing toxic waste dumps and other hazardous operations in areas where people are too economically disadvantaged to resist or don't because they hold the promise of much-needed jobs. Poorer communities pay a disproportionate price for environmental catastrophes, whether the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or the burden of living atop polluted land from the Alaskan Arctic to Alabama. How an Obama administration will address such issues remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration still has a few months to push through its own environmental agenda, including weakening the Endangered Species Act and allowing more pollution from power plants. And Obama can count on opposition as he tries to move forward with any energy or climate regulations from conservative Republicans, including the likes of Sen. James Inhofe, who won re-election in Oklahoma and has called climate change the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

Obama has pledged to make energy transformation a top priority and will likely re-engage the U.S. in international negotiations to combat climate change. He’ll be starting out in the climate change hole (thanks to all the CO2 spewed as part of his campaigning) but even engaging the issue would be a big change from the past eight years.
[Full article at link]
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I didn't know he supported off-shore drilling :-/
Anything's better than Bush at least. Let's hope Obama stops compromising with the "old way of doing things".Among the many pressing issues that President-elect Barack Obama will face when he takes office in January is climate change,... more

animalia_libero
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7 days ago

Life at the poles: Eight polar animals that face the promise and peril of climate change

Polar bears and penguins get all the attention but there's more than large, fuzzy and feathered animals thriving at the... more

animalia_libero
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1 response

7 days ago

Maldives seek to buy a new homeland, climate change

The Maldives will begin to divert a portion of the country's billion-dollar annual tourist revenue into buying a new homeland... more

bansheewail
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21 responses

8 days ago

Quarter of Atlantic sharks and rays face extinction says IUCN

More than a quarter of sharks and rays in the north-east Atlantic face extinction from overfishing, conservationists warned today.... more

bansheewail
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10 responses

8 days ago

Scottish seal populations plummet

October 2008 - New figures reinforce importance of Advocates for Animals' campaign to end needless seal killing.

Advocates for Animals has renewed its call on the Scottish Government to end the killing of seals in Scottish waters as new research shows a frightening fall in the numbers of common (harbour) seals around the coast.

Scotland has internationally-important populations of harbour and grey seals in its waters and is guardian to 90% of UK seal populations. Advocates for Animals is calling on the Scottish Government to use its upcoming new Marine Bill to introduce full legal protection for seals.

SHOOTING SEALS - Although a number of different factors are thought to be responsible for the decline in seal numbers, the unnecessary shooting of seals is clearly an important issue. Many people are unaware that every year thousands of seals are needlessly shot in Scotland.

The existing Conservation of Seals Act 1970 is widely agreed to be ineffective and unenforceable, allowing seals to be shot even when they are pregnant or with dependent pups. The Act does not require any standard of marksmanship, meaning that seals can suffer and die at sea after being shot and wounded. Unbelievably, no records are required to be kept of the numbers of animals shot.

MARINE BILL - Advocates for Animals' Campaigns Director, Ross Minett, said: "This new research showing continuing declines in seal populations is most concerning and reinforces the need for the Government to use the new Marine Bill to give seals full legal protection. Now more than ever there are overwhelming animal welfare and conservation reasons to end the unnecessary killing of seals by members of the fishing and fish farming industry.

The vast majority of people of Scotland expect our Government to bring this slaughter to an end. Members of the public can quickly and easily support our campaign to protect seals at www.lookoutforseals.org."

Thousands of people have supported Advocates for Animals' LOOK OUT for SEALS campaign and responded to the Scottish Government's recent consultation on a new Marine Bill asking for an end to the killing of any seals on Scottish waters. Such a move would be supported by 75% of people in Scotland
October 2008 - New figures reinforce importance of Advocates for Animals' campaign to end needless seal killing. Advocates... more

julesrs007
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10 days ago

Prince Charles and His Vision for the World’s Rainforests

Prince Charles has an idea: He thinks that rich countries should pay annual “bills” to stop destruction of the... more

julesrs007
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12 days ago

A Ranger Dies in Congo | Gorilla.cd

Gorilla.cd - Protecting the Mountain Gorillas of Virunga 2008 Filed under (Rangers) by Norbert Mushenzi @ 5:33 pm Our... more

julesrs007
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4 responses

12 days ago

Whale Wars: 'When we show up, they stop killing whales'

Whale Wars premieres Sunday Nov. 9 on Animal Planet Canada at 8 ET/9 PT. BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. • In the early 1970s,... more

julesrs007
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12 days ago

TRAFFIC - Awareness Campaigns

'Souvenir' Campaigns Shop Carefully! video produced by the TRAFFIC East Asia office in Taipei to encourage... more

julesrs007
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12 days ago

Mexico City's "Water Monster" nears extinction.

A rare breed of walking fish,the axolotl, living in Mexico Citys Lake Xochimilco is facing exctinction as a result of... more

donnyin3d
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4 responses

13 days ago

Researchers Create Clone From Frozen Mouse

Japanese scientists have cloned mice whose bodies were frozen for as long 16 years and said on Monday it may be possible to use... more

WoodyShrimp
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14 days ago

Global Warming Kills Yellowstone Amphibians

Frogs and salamanders, those amphibious bellwethers of environmental danger, are being killed in Yellowstone National Park. The... more

Bigdog_mike
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19 days ago

World without Frogs: Combined Threats May Croak Amphibians

The northern leopard frogs that inhabit the boreal U.S. have never recovered from some catastrophic population declines in the 1970s. Some blame it on the acidifying lakes and streams caused by coal-burning, others point to the ongoing loss of wetlands to development, and now new evidence shows that the herbicide atrazine—widely sprayed on crop fields throughout the region—is killing the frogs by helping parasitic worms that feast on them.

"Atrazine provides a double whammy to frogs: It increases both amphibian exposure and susceptibility," says biologist Jason Rohr of the University of South Florida in Tampa, who tested the impact by re-creating field conditions in 300-gallon (1,135-liter) tanks in his lab. "Atrazine is one of the more mobile and persistent pesticides being widely applied. In fact, residues have been found in remote, nonagricultural areas, such as the poles."

That may explain why amphibians are on the decline worldwide. As many as one third of the nearly 6,000 known amphibian species—frogs, toads, salamanders, even wormlike caecilians—are threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). And no one knows why.

In the case of the northern leopards, the culprit appears to be the common herbicide acting as a double-edged sword: It suppresses the frogs' immune systems while boosting the population of snails that play host to parasitic worm larvae, the latter of which infect the weakened leopard frogs.

Such herbicides are present in 57 percent of U.S. streams, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and it is that water pollution—not inbreeding—that is the prime suspect in the high rate of deformity in U.S. amphibian populations, according to new research from Purdue University.

But national parks and other areas protected from pollution and development are providing no refuge. The frogs and salamanders of Yellowstone National Park have been declining since the 1980s, according to a Stanford University study, as global warming dries out seasonal ponds, leaving dried salamander corpses in their wake. Since the 1970s, nearly 75 percent of the frogs and other amphibians of La Selva Biological Station in Braulio Carrillo National Park in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica have died, perhaps due to global warming.

Throughout the tropics, amphibians are also falling prey to a devastating disease, believed to be exacerbated by climate change: chytrid fungus. This pathogen is marching though Central America at present, leaving silent streams—those without the chorus of dozens of frog species—behind. Researchers at the University of Georgia in Athens have surveyed such streams before, during and after such extinctions, and documented the impacts in those waters that have lost all of their amphibians, including muddier waters and a less productive food web.

"There are a whole lot of things that aren't being eaten, mostly insects," says biologist Joseph Mendelson of Zoo Atlanta. "And there are a whole lot of other creatures that don't have prey."

But the really bad news is that amphibians may be just the first sign of other species in trouble. Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that amphibians are the first to respond to environmental changes, thanks to their sensitivity to both air and water. What goes for amphibians may soon be true of other classes of animal, including mammals.

Whereas the exact causes of the amphibian decline remain a mystery, it is clear that man-made problems like atrazine pollution and climate change are contributing factors, both of which can be reversed. "The easiest thing to do," Rohr notes, "would be to identify an alternative herbicide that controls the desired pests but is less detrimental to amphibians."The northern leopard frogs that inhabit the boreal U.S. have never recovered from some catastrophic population declines in the... more