Gland, Switzerland – The planet is being pushed to its limits as indicated by the increasing number of threatened species across the globe, according to the latest trends in the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN’s) Red List.
The Red List of Threatened Species acts as a barometer that shows the effects habitat loss and degradation, over-exploitation, pollutants and climate change are having on our planet.
Ahead of Wednesday's publication of the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species, Dr Richard Leakey argues that conservation alone cannot save threatened species such as the mountain gorilla. In this week's Green Room, he calls for action on humans' needs as well.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Conservation alone 'is not enough'
You see many trends in climate change, whether we are talking about grain production which is affected by droughts and flooding. Or meat production as livestock production makes up about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions," he told Reuters in a telephone interview before the report's release.
Assadourian said the key message of the report was that unsustainable consumption patterns were responsible for climate change linked to carbon emissions and other ecological woes.
He said of the 44 trends tracked by the report, 28 were "pronouncedly bad" and only six were positive.
The trends range from the spread of avian flu to the rise of carbon emissions to the number of violent conflicts. The growing use of wind power is among the few trends seen as positive.
Some of the points highlighted in the report include:
- Meat production hit a record 276 million metric tons (43 kilograms or 95 pounds per person) in 2006.
- Meat consumption is one of several factors driving rising soybean demand. Rapid expansion of soybean plantations in South America could displace 22 million hectares (54 million acres) of tropical forest and savanna in the next 20 years.
- The rise in global seafood consumption comes as many fish species become scarcer. In 2004, people ate 156 million metric tons of seafood, the equivalent of three times as much seafood per person than in 1950.
- While U.S. carbon emissions continue to grow, the fastest rise is occurring in Asia, particularly China and India.
Other analysts and think tanks have focused on different trends they say mean less cause for alarm. For example, they point out that while wood is being removed from forests on a global scale, many parts of Europe and North America have experienced reforestation in recent decades.
Print Story: Earth's "vital signs" in bad shape: report on Yahoo! News
NAIROBI (AFP) — Kenyan scientists said Wednesday they had rescued endangered Grevy's zebras from possible extinction after an outbreak of deadly anthrax last year and were working to increase their population.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said "quick intervention" had saved the animals, known for their narrow and finer stripes and large ears, from being wiped out by the disease, which was exacerbated by a recent drought in the scrub-peppered northern Kenya plains.
"After we got reports that the Grevy's zebras were dying, we mobilised our teams and carried out mass vaccinations against anthrax and treated other diseases," Patrick Omondi, KWS head of species management, told AFP.
"We contained the threat and ensured that their population, which is extremely low, does not reduce further. We are now working on a five-year programme to increase their population."
Omondi said the programme, in which Ethiopia is involved, includes creating protected breeding sanctuaries.
Fewer than 2,000 Grevy's zebras are believed to live in the wild
AFP: Kenyan scientists save Grevy's zebras from possible extinction
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – An outbreak of an acute, infectious virus that kills white-tailed deer has been detected in Illinois, the state Departments of Agriculture and Natural Resources reported today.
Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD), an often-fatal virus that causes high fever and severe internal bleeding, has been confirmed in captive deer herds in Franklin and Randolph counties. It also is the suspected cause of death in wild deer in at least 28 counties throughout central and southern Illinois.
NAIVASHA, Kenya, August 28, 2007 (ENS) - Some 2,000 wild animals are being relocated to Kenya's Meru National Park from areas of the country with larger populations as part of a drive by the government to revive and rebrand the park as "complete wilderness." Species such as the endangered Grevy's zebra, common zebra, impala, hartebeest and Beisa oryx are being moved in what the Kenya Wildlife Service is calling, "the greatest African ungulate translocation."
Early this month, Kenya Wildlife Service Director Julius Kipng'etich formally started the last phase of an historic process to restore the park's biodiversity that started in 2000.
Since the end of July when this relocation started, 396 zebras and 492 impalas out of the targeted 2,000 have been moved to the park. The animals are being taken from overstocked wildlife areas in Naivasha, Nakuru and Laikipia.
They are driven into funnel-shaped capture sites and loaded into crates. The system can only be used for smaller animals and is commonly used in South Africa.
This relocation will cost Sh8.8 million (US$135,000), says Paul Udoto, corporate communications manager with the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Meru National Park in northern Kenya, 348 kilometres (216 miles) from the capital Nairobi, lost its position as a premier destination for visitors seeking untamed wilderness when it suffered a downturn in the 1970s and early 80s due to rampant banditry and poaching.
Animals By the Thousand Arrive at Kenya's Meru National Park
Cattle graze on the TK Ranch, northeast of Hanna. Such grassland could be taken over
by greenhouse gas-boosted woody plants cattle don’t eat, a new study says.
Greenhouse gases threat to prairie pastures
Rising carbon dioxide levels boost growth of woody shrubs cattle won’t eat, study finds
TOM S P EARS
The gases that cause global warming threaten to turn the Prairies from grasslands into an area covered by woody shrubs that cattle can’t eat, a new study says.
But it’s not the warmer temperatures that are to blame.
The main greenhouse gas causing global warming is carbon dioxide, and rising carbon dioxide levels favour the growth of woody plants — but not grasses.
“Encroachment of shrubs into grasslands is an important problem facing rangeland managers and ranchers,” says the study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“This process replaces grasses, the preferred forage of domestic livestock, with species that are unsuitable for domestic livestock grazing.”
The Department of Agriculture scientists in Colorado got their results by blowing extra CO2 gas into greenhouses in Colorado, simulating the future atmosphere as we keep burning coal, oil and gas.
The scientists knew ranchers have been saying for years tough little shrubs are taking over some grasslands. But they needed proof.
They set up six greenhouses on shortgrass prairie typical of large areas in Canada’s Prairie provinces. Three greenhouses had normal air. The other three had increased carbon dioxide levels.
The greenhouses with extra CO2 produced 40 times more than the normal amount of fringed sage, a woody plant that grows from 10 to 60 centimetres high. The change took place over five years.
“A40-fold increase in biomass (amount of the plant material) is huge,” said lead researcher Jack Morgan of the USDA.
Elk and antelope will eat this plant, but cattle won’t. And other experiments suggest other types of sage and small shrubs may also invade grasslands as the atmosphere changes.
This is more than a North American problem, the scientists say. It’s likely to affect grasslands used for grazing by all kinds of livestock in many parts of the world.
These are mostly lands too dry for most farming, but good for grazing.
Morgan says the slow invasion of woody shrubs has been happening for as much as 100 to 200 years, and has been reported in many parts of the world.
“That’s one of the major points in this paper. Most people, when they hear climate change discussed, think it’s always about the future,” he said.
“CO2 has been going up for the past couple of hundred years, so this relates to changes that are already underway.”
Past analysis has blamed these changes on overgrazing and bad land management, he said. The sage is more common in degraded grasslands.
The new study is published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a science journal.
“We are embarking on a period in which plant community dynamics in many of Earth’s ecosystems may be subject to relatively rapid changes due to increased atmospheric CO2 levels and altered climate,” it says.
“These changes may affect not only the traditional goods and services we have come to expect from these lands, but may alter their biodiversity as well. “Our report has implications for other rangelands around the world,” it adds.
“Rangelands are important not only for the plant and animal products they provide, but also as regions in which distinct pastoral cultures and societies have developed.”
The most definitive condemnation of deer whistles is in the May 12, 1997 article entitled "Deer-Vehicle Collisions are Numerous and Costly. Do Countermeasures Work?, published by "Road Management & Engineering Journal"(RMEJ) . The article begins by identifying the large number of deer-vehicle deaths in the United States in 1991 at 120. Economic costs based on the National Highway Traffic Administrations 1990 figures produce a conservative annual cost in motorist loss of life and injury from deer-vehicle collisions at almost $200 million .
The RMEJ article reviews the deer whistle manufacturers standard claims that the whistles emit ultrasonic sounds as the vehicle travels over 30 miles per hour and that these sounds (not audible to humans) are effective in frightening deer away from the roadway. The RMEJ article goes on to describe the typical deer whistle and sites the New York Times, that various police agencies, including California, Iowa and Kansas were using the whistles on their patrol cars. "While manufacturers contend deer can hear the whistle up to a quarter mile away, no published research verifies the device's effectiveness.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has refuted the effectiveness of deer whistles.
Cherry Creek News - Deer whistles don't work -Motorcycle and car safety
Roger Boyes in Berlin
They are dubbed the “Kings of the Forest” and are regarded by Norwegians as their national symbol.
Now, though, scientists have claimed that because of their burping and farting, the placid moose is an eco killer. During a single year, according to new research, a full-grown moose expels – from both ends – the methane equivalent of 2,100kg of carbon dioxide emissions. That is said to be as destructive for the atmosphere as the emissions released by 13,000km (8,000 miles) of car travel.
“To put it into perspective, the return flight from Oslo to Santiago in Chile leaves a carbon footprint of 880 kilos,” said the biologist Reidar Andersen, a biologist. “Shoot a moose and you have saved the equivalent of two long-haul flights.” The findings, from the technical university in Trondheim, place Scandinavians in a dilemma. Many are dedicated winter season tourists to Asian destinations such as Bali and Thailand. Is shooting moose about to become a fashionable way of easing their troubled envi-ronmental consciences? Researchers in Scotland and Wales have been examining how the feeding of dairy cows could be changed to cut back their gaseous belching. No such work has been possible, however, on the 120,000 wild moose in Norway.
Economist says Europeans, with their insatiable demand for hides, were more to blame than Americans for the decimation of herds
DAWN WALTON
July 31, 2007
CALGARY -- The near-extinction of the plains bison in the United States has long been blamed on the advent of the railways, native overhunting and a government policy of slaughter designed to address the "Indian problem."
But a Canadian researcher has discovered that globalization was the real culprit for the decimation of the U.S. bison herd in the 19th century.
M. Scott Taylor, an economist at the University of Calgary who used international trade records and first-person accounts of the hunt, has found that European development of a cheap and easy tanning method after 1870 fuelled that continent's insatiable appetite for bison hides, which could be turned into shoe soles and machinery belts.
globeandmail.com: Were bison one of globalization's first victims?
