Prescott Az News and Events ~ Read It Here Magazine - Wildlife feeding leads to personal problem for cow elk

 

Wildlife feeding leads to personal problem for cow elk 

by AZG&F press release

Note: click photo to enlarge.

The negative impacts of people feeding wildlife came to light recently recently in a Hualapai Mountain community when the Arizona Game and Fish Department responded to an unusual report of a necklace-clad cow elk roaming behind a residential area.

The "necklace" in this instance was a Mohave County Parks trashcan lid. The elk had put its head into the trashcan and, upon withdrawing, the lid remained stuck around its neck.

Prescott Az News and Events ~ Read It Here Magazine - Wildlife feeding leads to personal problem for cow elk

U.S. prof says Canada should forget renewable energy

 

An American scientist contends in a new paper in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology that renewable energy is anything but green.

Jesse Ausubel of New York's Rockefeller University argues that mass construction of "boutique fuels" such as wind and solar farms will harm the environment more than it will help it.

He says instead that nuclear energy measured in watts per square metre of land used is greener than other forms of renewables, including for dams and biomass production. His findings have implications for Canada, where governments like P.E.I. are concentrating on green energy.

U.S. prof says Canada should forget renewable energy

New Global Partnership Tracks Plant and Animal Survival

 

PARIS, France, July 12, 2007 (ENS) - A new partnership to track the survival of Earth's diverse animals and plants was launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme with US$3.6 million in funding from the Global Environment Facility.

Monique Barbut is CEO of the Global Environment Facility. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin, ENB)

"The biodiversity challenge is no less urgent a public issue than the climate change crisis," said Monique Barbut, CEO of the funding organization the Global Environment Facility, GEF. "This effort helps move biodiversity to the front burner to help ignite policy makers to take informed action."

UNEP and the GEF officially introduced the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership project today during a working group meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

New Global Partnership Tracks Plant and Animal Survival

Pressure to Kill Wolves Mounting Across the Western USA

 

Twelve years after reintroducing gray wolves to the Northern Rockies, the federal government has announced a plan that allows many of these same wolves and their offspring to be killed.

Farther south, New Mexico Governor and presidential candidate Bill Richardson Friday called for revision of state and federal wolf operating procedures after an endangered Mexican gray wolf was killed last week by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The government wants to remove the wolves from the endangered species list in late 2007 or early 2008, a move that conservation groups oppose. The new proposal allows wolves in the Northern Rockies to be killed before they are formally delisted.

Pressure to Kill Wolves Mounting Across the Western USA

Baby mammoth find promises breakthrough

 

The discovery of a baby mammoth preserved in the Russian permafrost gives researchers their best chance yet to build a genetic map of a species extinct since the Ice Age, a Russian scientist said on Wednesday.

"It's a lovely little baby mammoth indeed, found in perfect condition," said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Science's Zoological Institute, which has been taking care of the mammoth since it was uncovered in May.

"This specimen may provide unique material allowing us to ultimately decipher the genetic makeup of the mammoth,"

Baby mammoth find promises breakthrough | Science | Reuters

Edmonton Journal Digital

Huge tract of grasslands preserved

HANNEKE BROOYMANS

An anonymous Edmontonian has donated 412 hectares of rare native grasslands and shrublands, an area about the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park, to the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Only a third of the country’s original grasslands remain, sheltering increasingly rare plants and animals, such as sharp-tailed grouse and piping plovers.

The donated property is located near the Alberta/Saskatchewan border southeast of Wainwright. Aside from its rich biodiversity, the site also holds historical significance, including remnants of the original buildings of the hamlet of Cairns and traces of the historic Hardisty Trail.

“The grasslands is one of the most threatened ecosystems in North America,” said Larry Simpson, regional vice-president of the conservancy’s Alberta region.

“If you measure their health by virtue of grassland bird species, for whatever reason grassland bird species is a group that is falling more rapidly than any other bird group in North America. So every step you take, every little bit you can do, is a step in the right direction.”

Once a property is donated, the conservancy develops detailed land stewardship plans to ensure the site’s natural integrity is maintained and protected for the long term.

The Cairns land was donated under the federal ecological gifts program. This program provides tax incentives for owners of certified ecologically sensitive land wishing to donate their land for conservation purposes.

These tax benefits were strengthened recently with the elimination of the capital gains tax in the 2006 federal budget.

The Cairns property announcement is part of the conservancy’s ongoing efforts to leave a lasting natural legacy for Canadians.

The conservancy also announced nine other “Gifts to Canadians” across the country, one from each province, totalling approximately 16 square kilometres (1,593 hectares).

 

Edmonton Journal Digital