From pandas to polar bears, animals have served as icons for wildlife conservation. Now a new documentary called The End of the Line has helped the bluefin tuna, an endangered species, swim into the limelight by highlighting the overfishing common in fisheries today. Based on a book by journalist Charles Clover, the film has spurred some retailers to remove bluefin from their menus and stores and even moved some celebrities to pose naked with the fish to advocate conserving them.
A growing demand for bluefin tuna, commonly found in sushi and now as endangered as the giant panda, has not only decreased the fish’s population, but also increased the number of undersized fish that are harvested, preventing the fish from reaching maturity. “Bluefin tuna has become the poster boy for the overfishing campaign. It’s on the buffers – it’s really on the slide down now,” Clover says. “There are no large tuna anymore. There were bluefins of 250lb in Japanese fish markets when I went there four years ago – there are none now. A third of the catch is undersize” [BBC News].
The solution, experts say, doesn’t necessarily have to entail eschewing tuna altogether. Instead, consumers should stick to skipjack tuna, a more common variety, that has been caught using a method called pole-and-line, which avoids accidentally netting bluefish tuna and other sea life. Most commercial fishing operations that target skipjack use nets, Clover says, but “the skipjack run with all these other tuna species, like bigeye and bluefin. The skipjack are close to the surface and the bluefins swim further down, so there is often bluefin bycatch” [BBC News].
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The mighty tortoises that roam the Galapagos Islands may not have many predators, but a new study suggests that the giant reptiles could run into serious problems due to the diminutive black salt marsh mosquito. Researchers genetically analyzed the mosquito, and found that it was not introduced recently by humans but instead arrived about 200,000 years ago. Since then the insect has evolved so much it is practically a distinct species from the mainland variety. For one thing, the insect has adapted to be able to feast on the blood of lizards, tortoises and other reptiles and not solely on mammals, as it does on the mainland [The New York Times].
That diversity of diet is what has researchers worried. If the black salt marsh mosquito picks up a disease like avian malaria or West Nile fever, it could quickly spread the disease to the Galapagos’s rare tortoises and marine iguanas. Says study coauthor Andrew Cunningham: “With tourism growing so rapidly the chance of a disease-carrying mosquito hitching a ride from the mainland on a plane is also increasing, since the number of flights grows in line with visitor numbers…. If a new disease arrives via this route, the fear is that Galapagos’ own mosquitoes would pick it up and spread it throughout the archipelago” [Telegraph].
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China’s recent economic boom has come at the cost of polluted landscapes and newly endangered species, and now a new study explains how another species has been left teetering on the brink of extinction. The endangered Chinese sturgeon live in the East China and Yellow seas and return to China’s Yangtze River to spawn. Construction of dams on the river is thought to have contributed to a decline in the species, and an artificial propagation effort has not resulted in recovery of the fish [AP]. But the new study shows that a chemical called triphenyltin (TPT), which is commonly used in paint, may be the true culprit behind the sturgeon’s decline.
The tin-containing organic compound TPT is extensively used in paints to prevent the fouling of ship hulls and fishing nets. It is also used in fungicide to treat crops in China. A derivative of TPT is also used to eliminate snails in paddy fields [Reuters]. In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that river water polluted with the chemical is producing sturgeon with misshapen skeletons and deformed eyes.
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The blue whale, the biggest animal that has ever inhabited the planet, seems to be on the move in the Pacific Ocean in ways that could reflect the revival of old migratory patterns disrupted by decades of intensive whaling in the 20th century [The New York Times blog]. Although blue whale hunting was banned in 1965, the whales didn’t return to the northern Pacific waters off the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska, where they were once plentiful.
Whalers formerly caught hundreds of blue whales in the northern zones, landing 1300 between 1908 and 1965. Yet despite the ban, they seemed not to recover there [New Scientist]. Now a new study, published in the journal Marine Mammal Science, reports that 15 blue whales have been sighted in the northern waters over the last decade, and some of them were confirmed to be the same individuals previously spotted farther south, off the shores of California. Researchers can’t yet say what led to the renewed migration: It could be a sign of a booming population, or a response to global warming.
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The Obama administration announced on Friday that it will keep a Bush-era rule that limits the steps that the government can take to protect polar bears. The rule prevents the Endangered Species Act from being used to curb greenhouse gas emissions, even though those emissions contribute to the shrinking of polar bear habitat by causing global warming and melting Arctic sea ice. The decision comes despite recent moves to undo former president Bush’s environmental legacy. It was announced on Friday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who rejected special authority given to him by Congress and the pleas of Democratic lawmakers, environmentalists and scientists to overturn the regulation [Greenwire].
According to federal officials, the Endangered Species Act was written for a different kind of threat. In cases where an animal is threatened by logging, trapping or land development, it is used to identify—and punish—individual actions that harm them. That framework cannot be applied to climate change, they said, because the sources of that problem are global [San Francisco Chronicle]. Salazar said that the polar bear will still be listed as “threatened,” but instead of protecting it through the Endangered Species Act, the administration would push for legislation to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. A “comprehensive global change strategy” is needed, he said.
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The Obama administration is once again working to reverse the path of former president Bush in another series of environmental policy changes, with two moves in particular looking to some like a crackdown on the coal industry. The Justice Department announced this week that it will challenge Bush’s mountaintop coal mining rules, the EPA has withdrawn a permit for a coal power plant scheduled to be built on Navajo land, and the Interior Department has strengthened endangered species rules.
On Monday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asked a federal court to abandon a rule approved during the final days of the Bush administration that allows coal mining companies to dump their waste near waterways. Prior to the change, regulations in place since 1983 have barred mining companies from dumping waste within 100 feet of streams if the disposal would diminish water quality or quantity [AP]. However, the Interior Department’s move didn’t go far enough for some environmentalists, who oppose this method of coal mining in general, regardless of the proximity of waste dumping to streams. In mountaintop removal operations, miners blast away large areas of a mountain in order to expose the buried coal seams. A spokeswoman for environmental law firm Earthjustice notes that Salazar’s move won’t halt the practice of mining itself, and says that reverting to the status quo is not enough because it won’t prevent coal companies from filling valleys with mine waste. “That’s not helping the communities concerned with mountaintop removal” [AP].
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In the remote limestone mountains on the eastern edge of the island of Borneo, a large population of orangutans has been living quite happily, far from human settlements and untouched by the trouble that we humans can bring. Based on a rumor of the primate outpost researchers traveled for days through the mountains, and eventually discovered 219 orangutan nests in the forest, which they say could indicate that as many as 2,000 orangutans live there.
With only about 50,000 orangutans remaining in the wild, conservationists say it’s a rare piece of good news for the endangered species. “We rarely have something positive to report in the conservation world. Most of the stories are about declining population or animals dying. It’s all pretty negative,” said Erik Meijaard, a senior ecologist with the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy. “So to find a substantial population of potentially several hundred to several thousand animals is very exciting” [CNN].
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The American pika, a short-legged, hamster-sized fur ball that huddles in high mountain slopes [AP] and inhabits 10 Western states, may become the first species in the lower 48 states to be listed as endangered due to global warming. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide by May 1 whether or not the pika, whose populations are dwindling, should be studied in depth and included on the endangered species list.
Studies have shown that the little animals have already been forced to higher altitudes because of rising temperatures; one study in particular, from 2005, showed that pikas lived at 5,700 feet above sea level at one point, but now average higher than 8,000 feet. They are now running out of mountain and face possible extinction if average temperatures continue to push higher [The Guardian]. The pika is “feeling an exaggerated brunt of global warming. Unlike others, it can’t move north. It’s stuck” [AP], said Greg Loarie, an environmental lawyer.
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A criminal investigation has been launched into the capture and death of Macho B, the last known wild jaguar in the United States. He was at least 15 years old, making him the oldest wild jaguar ever reported. He was first captured in a leg-hold snare outside Tucson, Arizona, on February 18. Described as healthy, he was tranquilized and fitted with a radio-collar by which he could be tracked by satellite, and released. On March 2, when wildlife officials decided he was in poor health, they recaptured him with tranquilizing darts and flew him to the Phoenix Zoo. He was euthanized at the zoo the very same day because a veterinarian said Macho B had irreversible kidney failure.
Questions were soon raised about the circumstances of the incident. Macho B had been observed by remote cameras, but conservationists had argued that no attempt should be made to snare the animal, especially considering his age. The Arizona Game and Fish Department “did not authorize or condone intentional initial capture of this jaguar,” it said in a statement [The New York Times]. However, a biologist who was working as a consultant to the department, Emil McCain, may have instructed an employee to snare the jaguar. A field technician claims that McCain gave her female jaguar scat in February, and told her to place it at the snare trap site. The scat had been used several times to attract Macho B to come within camera range [The New York Times]. McCain has denied the allegation.
Wildlife officials are also investigating whether stress from his capture had caused or exacerbated Macho B’s condition. A necropsy was performed, and [on March 4] Phoenix Zoo Executive Vice President Dr. Dean Rice [said] the capture probably played a key role in the jaguar’s death [Los Angeles Times].
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In a small step forward in the scientific effort to save the Tasmanian devil from the infectious disease that threatens the species with extinction, researchers have developed the first blood test for the ailment known as devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). Previously it has not been possible to determine whether a Tasmanian devil had DFTD until symptoms, such as facial lesions, appeared. However by early detection the diseased animals could be separated (and possibly culled) from healthy animals in the wild [Times Online]. The captive populations that are being kept as insurance against possible extinction could also be tested routinely.
Says researcher Robert Shellie: “We think it is quite a significant breakthrough. In a nutshell, what we have done is develop a blood test for DFTD. It’s a simple test and requires … only a drop of blood from an ear-prick. To be able to determine whether the disease is there, before you can see tumours on the faces of the devils, means that we can detect the disease at a much earlier stage” [The Australian].
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A growing conflict between Indonesian loggers and the critically endangered Sumatran tiger has incurred a death toll on both sides, with little solution in sight. Environmentalists say that Asian Pulp and Paper (APP), one of the largest paper companies in the world, has destroyed much of the island of Sumatra’s rainforest. The activists argue that the tigers, whose wild population is thought to hover at around 400 but could be as low as 250, have been left without a natural habitat and have increasingly regarded humans for food. Eyes on the Forest, a coalition of 25 environmental organizations, has released a report to back up the allegation.
By overlaying the locations of [human-tiger] conflicts with government maps of pulpwood plantation concessions, Eyes on the Forest found a direct correlation between tiger conflict and the unsustainable forest practices of APP, its holding company Sinar Mas Group, and other associated companies that supply pulpwood to APP’s mills [Wildlife Extra], with 60 percent of the total 245 human-tiger encounters having taken place on land associated with those companies.
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Twenty years have passed, and oil from the Exxon Valdez spill still taints Alaska’s shores and waters: roughly 21,000 of the original 11 million gallons remain, and have spread up to 450 miles from the spill site in Prince William Sound.
A report by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council—a state and federal partnership formed to oversee ecosystem recovery efforts—lists nine species, including the bald eagle, as fully recovered, but many of the area’s fish populations remain low. Sea otters and harlequin ducks continue to die because they dig for food in the sand and release buried oil, pockets of which remain buried in small portions of the intertidal zone hard hit by the spill. Seven distinct species, including sea otters, killer whales and clams, still are considered to be “recovering” from the initial effects of the oil [Seattle Times].
The initial death toll was estimated to include 250,000 seabirds, 4,000 sea otters, 250 bald eagles, and more than 20 orca whales [National Geographic News], according to the World Wildlife Fund. The herring population, upon which many of the area’s fishermen depended, has not yet recovered. And mysteriously, the resident killer whale pod in Prince William Sound has shown signs of “unusual social breakdown.” First, several females disappeared, leading to a loss of about half the pod’s newborn calves, and [this was followed by] the highly unusual defection of one matrilineal group to a different pod, never before seen among orcas in the North Pacific. The region’s transient killer whales, meanwhile, “show no signs of recovery and continue to decline” [Los Angeles Times], according to the Trustee Council’s report.
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The birds of America are in trouble, and those living in Hawaiian paradise are the worst off, according to a dire report issued by the U.S. Interior Department. The State of the Birds report spreads the alarming news that one-third of bird species across the nation are endangered, threatened, or in serious decline due to habitat loss, polluted water, invasive species, and disease, says the study. Climate change will make things worse, and work is urgently needed to prevent “a global tragedy” of bird loss, the report added [The New York Times].
Bird species native to Hawaii, an isolated ecosystem, are particularly at risk, with 31 species currently listed as endangered. “That is the epicenter of extinctions and near-extinctions,” said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which helped produce the study. “Hawaii is (a) borderline ecological disaster.” Hawaii’s native birds are threatened by the destruction of their habitats by invasive plant species and feral animals like pigs, goats and sheep. Diseases, especially those borne by mosquitoes, are another killer [AP]. Researchers say that 71 bird species that were found only on Hawaii have gone extinct since humans first settled the islands.
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The Red List, the world’s most frequently consulted resource for information on endangered species, has come under criticism by scientists and conservationists, some of whom themselves contribute to the list, for being flawed and unscientific. The list, put out annually by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is used to raise awareness and funds for conservation, to inform environmental impact studies, and as a tool for lobbyists.
But many are now questioning the list’s accuracy, saying that the volunteer-collected data is unreliable, and the criteria the IUCN uses to interpret that data are haphazard. “The Red List wants to be a high standard, scientifically based, transparent system, but in reality it hasn’t been” [ABC News], says Matthew Godfrey, one of the specialists who helps compile the list. Green turtles, for example, are classified as endangered despite a population that exceeds two million. “Green turtles are not going to disappear”, said Dr Brendan Godley of … the Marine Turtle Specialist Group. Although some populations of green turtle are at serious risk from egg harvesting, “it’s just not the same level of risk as a population of 50 parrots living on a small island that are being deforested” [The Telegraph].
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While concerns over ocean acidification are not new, a recent study provides more concrete evidence than ever before that the process has already begun. Australian scientists found that shells of the microscopic, amoeba-like organisms called foraminifera, which exist by the billions in oceans around the world, have become significantly thinner since the Industrial Revolution.
The study, published in Nature Geoscience, is the first to look specifically at acidification and pin it to greenhouse-gas pollution, which is driven especially by the invisible product of burning oil, gas and coal. “It is the invasion of anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 that is causing this particular source of acidification,” said co-author William Howard [AFP].
The research team compared newer shells of Globigerina bulloides, a species of foraminifera, with shells of the same species that had sunk hundreds of years earlier; the modern shells were found to be 30 to 35 percent lighter than older specimens of about the same size. The older shells predate the industrial age, when CO2 levels started rising and the acidity of the ocean, caused by the absorption of the gas, began to increase…. As ocean acidity increases, the saturation levels of carbonate minerals in the water decreases, making it more difficult for organisms to precipitate out the carbonate for their shells [The New York Times].
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