Things related to the web of life; ecology; wildlife; endangered species
"To protect the declining population of the western Steller sea lion, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will restrict commercial fishing for Atka mackerel and Pacific cod, the animal’s main source of food, off parts of the Alaska’s western Aleutian Islands."
The timing of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to propose listing of the greater sage-grouse as a threatened or endangered species is coinciding with the presidential election and the rapid expansion of the influential oil and gas industry.
This invasive grass that already has a grip on about 2 million acres in the West makes the rangeland it invades virtually worthless for grazing, harms many animals that contact it or try to eat it, increases wildfire risk, and creates monocultures that have very low biodiversity and crowd out numerous native plant and animal species.
The map and report on known greater sage grouse high-density breeding populations is a starting point that can be refined with the input of state fish and wildlife agencies. But you can use it right away as you cover various land use and environmental issues.
"A federal judge [Dec. 2] rejected the request of five Great Lakes states for a preliminary injuction that would force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes."
"At a 2 p.m. news conference streamed live over the Web, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said they found microbes in the mud beneath a California lake that can use arsenic -- usually considered toxic -- rather than phosphorus as one of the building blocks of its DNA. Phosphorus is one of the elements that sustains all other life forms on earth."
"Japan's whaling fleet has been scaled back and today departed late for the Southern Ocean aiming to catch hundreds of minke whales and 50 fin whales." They will be met and harassed by a three-ship flotilla from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which includes a new high-speed trimaran interceptor and video crews from Animal Planet.
Mangroves forests are among the most important ecosystems in the world, and now scientists have used satellite images to compile a comprehensive worldwide map of them.
"A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the destruction of plantings of genetically modified sugar beets developed by Monsanto Co after ruling previously the U.S. Agriculture Department illegally approved the biotech crop."
Opponents of genetically engineered salmon are warning the Food and Drug Administration not to approve it because they fear fish could escape from aquaculture pens and interbreed with wild stocks or out-compete them.
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