NewsRack: 'Species Loss' news in 'NewsTrust Environment' topic for user newstrust

Most UK species in decline, wildlife stocktake shows	22.5.2013	The Guardian -- World Latest
The unprecedented analysis shows that many animals, birds, insects, fish and plants are in trouble An unprecedented stocktake of UK wildlife has revealed that most species are struggling and that one in three have halved in number in the past half century. The unique report, based on scientific analysis of tens of millions of observations from volunteers, shows that from woodland to farmland and from freshwater streams to the sea, many animals, birds, insects, fish and plants are in trouble. The causes include the intensification of farming, with the consequent loss of meadows, hedgerows and ponds and increased pesticide use, as well as building development, overfishing and climate change. Three in every five of the 3,148 species analysed for the report have declined in the last 50 years and one in 10 are at risk of extinction. But the report also reveals a few bright spots, such as the reduced water pollution that has allowed otters to return to every county in the UK, and the numerous ...
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Scientists: Don't drop federal wolf protections	22.5.2013	Boston Globe: Latest
Scientists: Don't drop federal wolf protections
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Scientists: Don't drop federal wolf protections	22.5.2013	Twincities.com: Nation
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.—Groups of scientists are urging federal officials not to remove protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48 states.
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Cat wars break out in New Zealand	21.5.2013	Guardian: Environment
Plan to prevent felines from killing much-prized native birds causes consternation Call it the Kiwi cat wars. In the island nation said to harbour more cat owners per capita than any other country, a furore has broken out over a crusade to eradicate man's second-best friend. The charge is being led by Gareth Morgan , a nationally renowned economist turned environmental activist, who has dubbed cats "natural born killers" that are menacing the native bird population and bringing some to the verge of extinction. In late January, the philanthropist launched a website outlining his plan that would eventually lead to a cat-free country. Some scientists said he was, in fact, understating the threat posed by little Fluffy, while others argued that the ecosystem was far more complex than he was allowing for. The mere suggestion of a feline-free nation is raising the dander of cat lovers of every stripe, with everyone from the prime minister to animal-welfare activists calling Morgan a kitty hater ...
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Rare crane egg given 24-hour guard	20.5.2013	Guardian: Environment
The first common crane egg laid in western Britain for more than 400 years has been given a round-the-clock guard The first common crane egg laid in western Britain for more than 400 years has been given a round-the-clock guard, conservationists said. The nesting pair that produced the egg are part of the Great Crane Project , which has been rearing cranes in captivity since 2010 and reintroducing them to the Somerset Levels and Moors where they would have been found centuries ago. The egg laid at a nest at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's (WWT) Slimbridge Wetland Centre is the first known to be laid by the project's cranes, which were hand-reared at the centre and the oldest of which only reached maturity this year. Once widespread in Britain, the species was driven to extinction as a breeding bird by hunting and habitat loss by 1600, although a small population has been established in the Norfolk Broads since 1979. The public can watch the nesting pair from hides, and a long lens ...
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Invasive frogs carry amphibian-killing fungus	20.5.2013	LA Times: Science
A study links African clawed frogs, which were brought to California decades ago for use in pregnancy tests, with a deadly pathogen. African clawed frogs were first brought to California decades ago to help doctors figure out whether their patients were pregnant. After new technology made those pregnancy tests obsolete, the creatures were let loose, and thrived for decades in the state's drainage ditches and ponds.
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Life back in the canopy	20.5.2013	NewsTrust Yahoo Pipes Feed
"Room with a View," copyright by climber-photographer Greg Epperson. Used here with his permission. Click image for more breathtaking climbing shots at Greg's homepage. If you hang out up high with rock climbers, or anything involving naked exposure to dizzying altitude, sooner rather than later most novices will experience complete, total paralyzing fear. Climbers call it being gripped . And soon after being gripped, maybe while sheepishly checking your clothes for stains on the ground, a kindly veteran climber may comfort you with "the apes that were afraid of heights learned how to walk." After a few climbs, fear turns into exhilaration. Pretty soon, you're up high looking down, and instead of nervous you feel safe up there, downright privileged in fact. Like "neener neener neener, you can't get me!" I often wondered if that wasn't an even more ancient evolutionary hangover, an echo from an earlier life, before we learned to walk, a life high in the canopy. Thanks to present day habits, ...
Climate change isn't AN issue, it's THE issue	19.5.2013	Daily Kos
Home In 2005, the British government asked Stern to lead a team of economists in preparing a review of the economic impacts of climate change. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is the seminal work on the issue, and it is an overwhelming read. But he now says it is dated. He now says it underestimated the dangers and the damages. Last week, he succinctly summarized his new understanding of the depth and intensity of the climate crisis: It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming. "When temperatures rise to that level, we will have disrupted weather patterns and spreading deserts," he said. "Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to leave their homelands because their crops and animals will have died. The trouble will come when they try to migrate into new lands, however. That will bring them into armed conflict with people already living there. Nor will it be ...
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Alice Roberts: on the horns of a mammoth dilemma	19.5.2013	The Guardian -- World Latest
Can the ancient tusks of the extinct species retrieved from Arctic ice tell us exactly why it died out? The first time I met palaeontologist Dan Fisher was in a hotel in the Arctic frontier town of Salekhard, in Siberia. I was there to film an expedition to recover a new mammoth specimen with a crew from the BBC. We were keen to head north into the tundra of the Yamal peninsula, where we'd heard that new mammoth carcasses had been discovered. After sharing a large Mi-8 helicopter with a load of Siberian hunters, we landed at a reindeer herders' camp, consisting of a few tepee-like "chums" on an island surrounded by ice-choked rivers. This was to be our base while the team tried to track down the mammoth remains said to be in the vicinity. But fate was against us. One trail dried up as we got close. We knew a worker on the Gazprom railway had reported finding a mammoth, but it seemed that he had either forgotten the location or been offered a better price. We hoped to investigate other ...
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New to nature No 104: Meenoplus roddenberryi	19.5.2013	Guardian: Environment
The presence of isolated bug Meenoplus Roddenberryi on Gran Canaria suggests important things about the evolution of cave-dwelling species Things are looking up for bugs underground. Among the 132 cave-dwelling invertebrate species of the Canary Islands are about 15 species of Hemiptera or true bugs. Most of these troglobites are from younger, more recently volcanically active, islands where lava tubes are abundant. La Palma and El Hierro, for example, are less than two and one million years old, respectively, and until recently home to most of the documented cave fauna. Most volcanic activity on Gran Canaria ceased 1.6m years ago. As a result, this 14m-year-old island has few lava tubes, leading biospelunkers to assume that the cavernicolous fauna would be sparse. Localised activity to the north and east has produced some volcanic landscapes, but the south-western half of the island has few lava tubes or cinder cones and virtually no troglobites. Before the year 2000, Gran Canaria cave ...
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Green diary rescue: Pedal power, electric cars, OFA on climate change	19.5.2013	Daily Kos
Every week Daily Kos diarists write dozens of environmentally related posts. Many don't get the readership they deserve. Helping improve the odds is the motivation behind the Green Diary Rescue. In the past seven years, there have been 226 of these spotlighting more than 12,645 eco-diaries. Below are categorized links and excerpts to 64 more that appeared in the past seven days. That makes for lots of good reading during the spare moments of your weekend. [ Disclaimer: Inclusion of a diary in the rescue does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.] Mr. President, Arctic Ice Loss Portends a Climate Tsunami: The National Arctic Strategy is Suicidal —by FishOutofWater : "President Obama, your advisers just don't get it. We should be running as fast as we can from fossil fuels, not going out to sea to get more of them. The loss of summer sea ice portends a climate tsunami. The ice is keeping the Arctic cold, even in summer. Retreat of the ice is accelerating the ...
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Ore. timber country ponders future with fewer logs	18.5.2013	Twincities.com: Nation
O'BRIEN, Ore.—Jennifer Phillippi's grandparents started producing lumber in this corner of Oregon timber country in 1922, when a man could set
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Ore. timber country ponders future with fewer logs	18.5.2013	AP National
O'BRIEN, Ore. (AP) -- Jennifer Phillippi's grandparents started producing lumber in this corner of Oregon timber country in 1922, when a man could set up a mill, log the trees within range of a team of horses and move the mill to a new stand when those trees ran out....
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Dinosaur dads may not have looked after the kids	17.5.2013	New Scientist: Being Human
Dinosaur dads may not have looked after the kids
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World Briefing \| Asia: Indonesia: A Logging Ban Is Extended	17.5.2013	NY Times: World
Indonesia has approved a two-year extension to a landmark ban on clearing primary rain forests and peatlands, an official said Thursday.
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Minoans and genes	16.5.2013	The Earth Times Online Newspaper - Health News
On Crete, people seem to stay. The Great Island reeks of really ancient culture and strange myths. So researchers decided to ask the ancients where they came from!
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Frogs imported to California likely transmitted deadly fungal disease	16.5.2013	San Jose Mercury News: Breaking News
Scientists at Stanford and San Francisco State believe they have discovered Typhoid Mary of the frog world: a flat, feral creature thought to have transmitted a deadly fungus from Africa to California's ponds and puddles through global trading.
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Kiwi Conservation Genetics	15.5.2013	The Earth Times Online Newspaper - Environment News
One of he oddest of the exoic birds from that wonderland called New Zealand, this little spotted kiwi has been conserved for over a century.However, because of the lack of diversity within its genes, it may yet face extincton in he future.
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12 Animals We Wish We Could De-Extinct	15.5.2013	Mother Jones
Do you miss the mammoth? Dream of dodos? Long for Lycaena dispar dispar ? After centuries of driving species after species to extinction, we're now tantalizingly close to bringing some of them back. Using advances in genetic sequencing and molecular biology, s cientists across the world are mining extinct animal specimens for ancient DNA to try to resurrect disappeared species. The science is complicated— National Geographic has a great rundown—and so are the ethics involved. But who can resist dreaming up a de-extinction "wish list"? With more species nearing the extinction danger zone every dayâ, there's no shortage of candidates, but some are more scientifically suited for resurrection than others. And even if we could bring a species back, should we? We looked to scientists to explain who they'd like to bring back, and which are best left in the past. T. rex , extinct for 65 million years Designed for "maximum bone-crushing action," Tyrannosaurus ...
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Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction (Cached)	14.5.2013	Boing Boing
Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction

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