Planetary Ruin

Ecologist: Millions have been raised to protect tigers but does this help or hinder the efforts to prevent wider biodiversity loss by tackling habitat loss, climate change and pollution? The star-studded media frenzy that was the International Tiger Forum in St Petersburg this Winter was an unprecedented international effort to save a single species, raising millions of pounds for tiger conservation and receiving pledges of support from top-level government officials -- a rare triumph for conservationists,...

In recent official statements, Washington has indicated it might be looking for a compromise during negotiations in Bali for a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But sources say the White House is discreetly searching for partners in Beijing and Dehli to derail the prospects for any binding agreements to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.

In the run-up to the Bali Climate Conference that opened Monday, the administration of US President George W. Bush established contact with representatives of the Chinese and Indian governments in an attempt to curb progress on climate protection initiatives…

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What concerns me with the US attempts to bring the other 2 largest emission contributors together in an alliance to stop protection initiatives, is that all 3 will be able to blame the other 2. And essentially, nothing will be done.

Big corporations will make more money I suppose.

And some more extinctions will occur.

And the little ball floating in space that we reply on for our survival will get a little dirtier.

The question that remains is, at what point do those extinctions that no one seems to worry about include the human species? Bet we care then.

Servicemen and firefighters were battling to protect the electricity supplies of half a million people last night as the highest flood waters in memory continued to rise.

The Government announced an independent inquiry as water levels in the Thames and the Severn exceeded those of the devastating floods of 1947 and were forecast to rise to 20ft (6m) higher than normal.

More than 10,000 families have been left homeless in the West Country and Thames Valley over the past four days and thousands of others have been told to leave their homes as a mass of water surges down river. Electricity supplies to 50,000 homes have been cut and 150,000 homes have been left without water.

The Times was told last night that the utility companies were warned by the Government seven years ago that they needed to make key facilities flood-proof to protect supplies. The Castlemeads power station near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, was shut down yesterday morning, however, leaving more than 50,000 homes without electricity. Supplies to a further 500,000 homes were under threat as a 250-strong force of military personnel and firefighters attempted to prevent rising waters overwhelming the Walham substation.

There was a glimmer of hope last night when the Environment Agency said that the Severn appeared to have peaked two inches below the level that would have overwhelmed the substation. An agency spokesman warned, however, that it was still a “dangerous situation”.

The level of the Thames in Oxford may not peak until early Wednesday. Eight severe flood warnings and 50 other flood warnings remained in place last night as further rain added to the misery. Emergency planning teams met in Cambridgeshire after a flood warning was placed on the Great Ouse and the police prepared for possible floods around St Neots.

Hundreds more troops have been put on standby to help the police and fire services to rescue trapped families and provide humanitarian aid to villages that have been cut off since Friday night. Defence sources said that regional commanders were working at police headquarters in the worst-affected areas and providing troops and equipment whenever requested.

More than 350,000 people in Gloucester were told that they would be left without water after a treatment plant was overwhelmed by the floods. The police were called to guard supplies of bottled water at supermarkets after fights between customers. Severn Trent Water said last night that the households could be without water for up to two weeks.

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Scientists on the US Pacific coast are increasingly observing emaciated gray whales in what they fear is a sign that global warming is wreaking havoc in the whales’ Bering Sea summer feeding grounds.
The scientists fear that the same phenomenon is cutting back reproduction in the Pacific whale population to the point it could be facing a new crisis, after recovering in the mid-1990s and graduating from the endangered species list.

“The gray whales are migrating later, not going as far north, and are producing fewer calves,” Steven Swartz, head researcher with the National Marine Fisheries Service told AFP.

Swartz, who with his team meticulously photograph and identify the migrating whales, estimates that at least ten percent of the population is seriously skinny.

“Instead of looking plump coming off the summer months, they have noticeable depressions behind the head, with scapulas visible through the skin, and concave sections above the tail,” he added. “This is enough to cause alarm.”

Swartz has studied the pacific whale population since 1977 and last saw a major whale die-off in 1999 when an El Nino warming cycle left traditional northern feeding grounds barren and claimed one third of the population.

He has partnered with scientists at the Autonomous University of Baja Sur, Mexico since 1996, keeping tabs on the whales’ calving and migration, the longest of any mammal.

The most recent gray whale survey in 2001 showed a decrease of thirty percent in five years. Researchers are now holding their breaths while final tabulations are completed on a current survey, and are bracing for another drop, said Swartz.

“We have yet to find any indications of disease in the population,” said Swartz. “When times are tough and there is less food out there, the whales do not reproduce. It’s possible that they are birthing somewhere else, but we have a lot of people looking, and we have not found them.”

The San Ignacio lagoon, one of four gray whale breeding grounds off the Pacific coast of Mexico, can be used as a litmus test for the reproductive rate of the species, said Swartz.

In the early 1980s, 350 calves were born in these waters every February. This past winter the number was closer to 100.

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Burping cows and sheep are being targeted by UK scientists to help bring down Britain’s soaring levels of greenhouse gas pollution. Experts at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth say the diet of farmed animals can be changed to make them produce less methane, a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide. Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of “man-made” methane emissions worldwide though, contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from their front, not rear, ends.

Mike Abberton, a scientist at the institute, said farmers could help tackle climate change by growing grass varieties bred to have high sugar levels, white clover and birdsfoot trefoil, a leafy legume, for their animals to eat. The altered diet changes the way that bacteria in the stomachs of the animals break down plant material into waste gas, he said. The institute has started a new government research programme, with the universities of Wales and Reading, to investigate how this process could be improved. A similar project in New Zealand suggested that dietary changes could reduce methane emissions from sheep by up to 50%.
Dr Abberton said: “It’s very unlikely that we’ll get that sort of reduction in the UK but it could still make a significant difference. Making the animals’ diet more digestible can lower their methane emissions.” A single cow can produce between 100 and 200 litres of methane every day. Farmers regularly re-sow their fields so Dr Abberton said the switch in diet could be relatively straightforward. Birdsfoot trefoil can be difficult to grow, he said, but part of the new project is to develop more suitable varieties.

As well as helping to reduce methane production, growing legumes such as clover could help replenish soil nitrogen levels because they naturally attract bacteria and fungi that fix it from the air. In a separate project, Giles Oldroyd, a plant scientist at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, is working on ways to genetically modify other plants such as wheat so they can mimic this nitrogen-fixing ability, an advance he called the holy grail of crop research because it would dramatically cut the use of synthetic fertilisers.

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Water temperatures of up to 82 degrees killed hundreds of rainbow and brown trout on the Firehole River this past week as warm, dry weather continues to pummel the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

Officials noticed the kill after they issued a fishing advisory Friday for a number of waterways in the park, asking anglers to avoid fishing low elevation waters between noon and 6:00 p.m. The partial fishing closure is voluntary, but could become mandatory if warm conditions persist. The voluntary closure starts Saturday.

According to Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash, water temperatures in a number of waterways have exceeded 73 degrees, which can be stressful or even fatal for trout.

The fish kill in the Firehole ranged from Midway Geyser Basin downstream to Firehole Cascades. The Firehole River maintains higher temperatures than other rivers in the park because of geothermal features that heat the water.

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With no regard for the consequences, science once again meddles with life.  Who knows what harm the affects of altering animals from their natural order will cause?  Altering an animal to make it more useful to the humans on this planet cannot be a good thing.  What deceases or genetic mistakes introduced by our negligence, which could result in catastrophe are we opening ourselves too…..

SCIENTISTS have bred cows that produce skimmed milk and hope to establish herds of the cattle to meet the demands of health-conscious consumers.

The milk is also high in omega3 oils, claimed to improve brain power, and contains polyunsaturated fat. The saturated fats found in normal milk are linked to increased risk of heart disease. The cows, which have a particular genetic mutation, were bred from a single female discovered by researchers when they screened milk from millions of cattle in New Zealand.

Butter from these cows has the extra advantage of being spreadable straight from the fridge, like margarine.

Scientists at ViaLactia, the biotech firm behind the £55m research, have named the cow Marge. Russell Snell, ViaLactia’s chief scientist, said: “Marge looks like an ordinary Friesian cow but has three key differences. She produces a normal level of protein in her milk but substantially less fat, and the fat she does produce has much more unsaturated fat. She also produces milk with very high levels of omega3 oils.”

Marge was discovered in 2001 when ViaLactia’s researchers bought her from her owner for £120 and moved her to a secret location.

The key issue was whether her calves would inherit her traits. “You have to generate daughters and then they have to carry a calf and deliver milk,” said Snell. “The eureka moment was when we found her daughters produced milk like their mother.”

The Auckland-based company says the first commercial herds for spreadable butter could be expected by 2011.

A brief description of ViaLactia’s research is due to be published this week in Chemistry & Industry, a journal of the Society of Chemical Industry. A formal research paper for a peer-reviewed journal will follow.

Britain produces 24.6 billion pints of milk a year of which 7.7 billion is for drinking. Growing health concerns mean that full-fat milk accounts for only a quarter of sales. The rest is semi-skimmed or skimmed, according to Dairy UK, the industry association.

ViaLactia hopes Marge’s male offspring carry the same genes as her daughters. “To have a bull from Marge’s offspring who passes on her traits would be the holy grail. It would allow us to reproduce hundreds of thousands of cows like Marge,” said Snell.

The scientists are still trying to identify the genes behind Marge’s unique traits. Klaus Lehnert, 43, Snell’s deputy, said: “We do expect to find them. We are good at finding genes. Then we can use DNA tests to find if an animal has the trait, rather than rely on data from experiments.”

Milk was once universally regarded as a health drink, thanks to heavy pro-motion by the government. Generations of children grew up with slogans such as “Drinka pinta milka day”. Free supplies were given to schoolchil-dren and pregnant women. When questions began to be raised about the fat content of milk, the Milk Marketing Board switched to trying to sell milk as sexy, targeting housewives with slogans such as: “Is your man getting enough?”

Government health campaigns now push low-fat diets and sales of whole milk, which contains 3.5% butter fat, account for just 25% of milk sales.

By contrast, sales of semi-skimmed milk, which contains 1.7% fat, and skimmed milk, which has 0.1% fat, account for 75% of sales. The New Zealand animals are understood to have less than 1% fat in their milk.

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The ocean around Japan has warmed up faster than elsewhere in the world over the last hundred years partly because of global warming, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said on Tuesday.

The sea surface temperature around central, western and southern Japan has climbed by 0.7 to 1.6 degrees Celsius in the last century, far higher than the world average of a 0.5 degree Celsius increase, a survey conducted by the agency showed.

The findings were based on data collected by research and commercial vessels that started in the late 19th century.

The agency said global warming was partly to blame for the fast rise in the ocean temperature around Japan.

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It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world’s harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world – the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon – which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe – was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees’ navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive’s inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London’s biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: “There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK.”

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world’s crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, “man would have only four years of life left”.

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees’ behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a “hint” to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: “I am convinced the possibility is real.”

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An extra-cold winter on the Alaska Peninsula has frozen sea otters out of the bay and pushed them onto the tundra near Port Heiden where they’re easy prey for wolves, humans and hunger.

Some of the starving animals — with ribs showing — have waddled or belly-slid several miles inland, residents said. Others have been attacked by dogs near houses, killed by villagers for their hides, or died on sea ice where eagles and foxes pick at their remains.

No one knows how many have come ashore in the unusual exodus, said Mark Kosbruk, village fire chief. Natives have skinned at least 17 to make hats, gloves and blankets from the luxurious pelts.

They’ve clubbed some with 2-by-4s or axe handles, shot others and collected a couple of frozen carcasses, he said. Several rotted before they could be gathered or died on the sea ice where people won’t travel.

“When it first froze over, they were everywhere,” said Kosbruk, 34, who is teaching younger hunters how to skin and salt the hides for tanning.

The sea otters are probably on land looking for water where they might find food, said Douglas Burn, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska sea otter program. They usually scour sea bottoms for clams or sea urchins, but the ice froze them out.

Similar die-offs have been documented before, but biologists are worried and keeping an eye on the situation, he said.

Western Alaska sea otters from the Aleutian Islands to Cook Inlet are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. They number 48,000, a drop of more than 50 percent in the last 20 years, the agency estimates.

Some scientists blame increased predation by killer whales and a bacteria that causes heart lesions.

Burn and other biologists have been monitoring the ice in Port Heiden and other shallow bays on the peninsula, reviewing satellite images and other data, he said.

“We’re concerned about large concentrations of sea otters that might get trapped and not have a way into the water,” he said. “The hard part is, what would we do if we found that? We’d have to ask what are our options.”

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