HD Net’s Dan Rather Reports Tuesday night will feature never-before-seen footage from the island of Madagascar, where an ecological horror show is taking place. Madagascar’s national parks are, according to scientists, being raped by loggers who are illegally chopping down rare and extremely valuable rosewood trees. The recently obtained video shows loggers hauling the trees out of the forests by hand.

On Madagascar, loggers are illegally chopping down rare and extremely valuable trees. (Photo: HD Net)

Each of these trees is worth thousands of dollars on the international market, but the desperate residents of Madagascar are cutting them down for only a few dollars a day.

The images presented in this story were taped as a part of an undercover investigation by two international conservation groups, looking to make the case for prosecutions in the trade of these trees and prosecution of foreign businesses who use this illegal wood for their products.

The illegal logging also threatens the habitat for the rare silky sifaka lemurs, which live exclusively on the island. Originally thought to be extinct, scientists have found a few groups on the island, but their habitat is now threatened by the logging.

“Things are not pretty in Madagascar right now,” Andrea Johnson, a representative for the Environmental Investigation Agency, or EIA, one of the conservation groups that backed this undercover investigation, said in a statement. “It’s not as though there was never illegal logging before 2009. But the situation since the coup in February of ‘09 has made everything a whole lot worse.”

That’s when dozens of people died as the military opened fire into a crowd, unleashing panic across the country. The military went on to oust the country’s president — chaos reigned and the economy dissolved. The impoverished people streamed into the forests looking to make a quick buck in the illegal rosewood trade. Ebony trees are also taken from Madagascar’s forests and the precious lumber is in high demand.

The majority of rosewood and ebony is used for high-end furniture products and musical instruments, especially guitars.

Dan Rather Reports: Treasure Island airs Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. ET on HD Net with a re-air at 11 p.m. ET to accommodate West Coast Prime Time.

While the world scrambles to find clean energy solutions, somewhere, every minute of every day, saws buzz through a forest, cutting down one of nature’s antidotes to carbon pollution.

Saving forests in the Congo will help save endangered gorillas (Photo: John Martin)

Each year the world loses about 50,000 square miles of wooded lands, enough to fill an area the size of Pennsylvania. The rapid clearing of tropical forests accounts for nearly 20 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions (partly due to trees being burned) — more than all transportation vehicles combined.

Increasingly, though, companies and non-profits are trying to stem the loss of woodlands to curb global warming and save habitat and native economies.

On Tuesday, The Walt Disney Company announced it will invest $7 million to save and restore forests in the Amazon, the Congo and the United States.

The projects aim to fight climate change, improve the quality of life in local communities and save jeopardized wildlife from gorillas in Africa to songbirds in North America.

“Disney has always been a conservation leader,” said Disney President and CEO Robert A. Iger, in a statement. “Now, more than ever, it’s essential to take swift action to preserve our most vulnerable natural environments for future generations and to be innovative in achieving that goal.”

Rainforest Management in the Congo and the Amazon

Disney is giving $4 million to increase protection of forests in the Tayna and Kisimba-Ikobo Community Reserves in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Alto Mayo conservation project in Peru, two vital tropical forest regions.

The programs, managed by Conservation International, will help secure watersheds and save habitat for plants and animals, many of them threatened or endangered, including the gorilla and okapi in the Congo and the Andean spectacled bear and yellow-tailed woolly monkey in Peru.

The majority of Disney’s contribution will finance community management of these forests, help expand sustainable livelihood practices among local villages and provide for an analysis of the carbon-saving aspect of the project.

Both of these tropical forest efforts are expected to decrease carbon emissions by stopping slash and burn agriculture and to benefit local communities economically. CI estimates that Disney’s expenditure will prevent 900,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere over the next five years.

“This commitment by Disney represents the largest single corporate contribution ever made to reduce emissions from deforestation and will help build confidence in these activities that generate such compelling climate, local community and biodiversity benefits,” said Peter Seligmann, CEO and Chairman of Conservation International.

Reforestation in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Disney also is partnering with The Nature Conservancy to provide more than $2 million to support a pilot reforestation project in the Lower Mississippi Valley.

Restoring forests in the Mississippi Valley will help preserve habitat and mitigate carbon air pollution (Photo: Emily Whitted)

Working with private landowners in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas, The Nature Conservancy expects to restore up to 2,000 acres of former forest land, planting trees in permanent easements to assure their longevity.

The reforestation will help alleviate carbon pollution and also expand the North American habitat of migrating songbirds and the black bear.

“Protecting forests is one of our most powerful tools in the fight against climate change,” said Mark Tercek, President and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, in a news release. “This innovative project will give private landowners the support they need to join the global fight against climate change and restore local habitats for the betterment of both people and nature. We are proud to partner with Disney to protect critical habitat and ensure these incredible forests will be around for generations to come.”

Redwood Forest Management in Northern California

Disney also will invest $1 million in The Conservation Fund’s forestry work along California’s North Coast, where the group owns and sustainably manages two redwood forests in Mendocino County.
The project was set up to demonstrate that improved forest management, with selective harvests and verified carbon offset sales, can benefit the environment and the economy. Indeed, here in an area rich in natural resources, the well-being of humans, plants and animals are closely entwined: Healthy forests, watersheds and streams are needed to support Coho salmon, steelhead trout, spotted owl and other wildlife — and the people

Northern California Forest (Photo: Matthew Gerhart, Conservation Fund)

that depend on them.

Lawrence Selzer, president and CEO of The Conservation Fund, joined the other environmental leaders in issuing a statement of gratitude for the Disney gift:

“Across America, forests are shrinking; 35 acres here, 500 there,” Selzer said. “The decline is so incremental, it masks a crisis. In partnership with leading companies such as Disney, we are pioneering new approaches to forest conservation and climate change. We’re proud to collaborate with Disney on this critical effort.”

Disney’s forest preservation investment is part of the company’s plan, announced last March, to meet aggressive 3 to 5 year goals to reduce emissions, waste, electricity and water use, and to limit its impact on ecosystems.

In addition to the investment announced today, Disney has recently committed to planting close to 3 million trees in Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest and in the fire-ravaged areas in the mountains surrounding greater Los Angeles through contributions from the  Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund and local donations.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

(KGO) — One wildlife expert in Britain says it may be time to let the pandas die out.

Florida’s housing bust may be disheartening for developers and damaging to the state’s economy, but it’s a blessing – short-lived, most likely – for one of the world’s most endangered big cats.

The Florida panther once roamed most of southeastern America, from the Carolinas to Louisiana and all over Florida. It was hunted, and then squeezed into an increasingly shrinking range as Florida’s human population boomed. Many other native species in the state have been pushed to the brink of extinction (and a couple are considered extinct).

Eventually, the Florida panther population was living in South Florida, in a tiny fraction of its original range. Their numbers fell. For a period, the panther was believed to be extinct; then investigators found an estimated 30 adults in the 1970s. All this, despite the fact that the panther had been placed on the endangered species list in 1967.

Now, three environmental groups have joined together to petition Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reserve more than 3 million acres of South and Central Florida which they say is essential to the panther’s survival.

The Center for Biological Diversity helped author a 30-plus page petition calling for more habitat for the panther, saying that previous conservation efforts – well-intentioned as they were — had not set aside enough land. Also, faulty science had led to incorrect assumptions about the panther’s behavior, range and habitat, they say

The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Council of Civic Associations were also authors of the petition, filed Sept. 17. The government has 90 days to respond.

Previous efforts have brought the panther population up:  Today, there are an estimated 80 to nearly 200 in south Florida. That increase in numbers was partially achieved by introducing some Texas cougars, a close relative, to cross-breed.  A captive breeding program was launched in the early 1990s to bring more cats into the wild. Several times over the last few decades, large swaths of land in Florida have been cordoned off from development, or limited development, to provide the panthers room to roam. Many of the cats wear radio collars so their movements can be tracked.

Why so much land? These cats, sub-species of the mountain lion, need a lot of space. The males require as much as 200 square miles to establish territory; females need less, but still as much as 80 square miles, according to Big Cat Rescue. The Florida panther is the only large feline still living in the southeast U.S.

With less space, and fewer panthers, in-breeding has led to genetic abnormalities that threaten the population. Feline leukemia has taken a toll. The crowded habitat has led to deaths: male panthers kill other males to maintain their small piece of territory.

Even though one of the state’s popular vanity license plates says “Save The Panther,” about 10 percent of the panther population has been killed by cars and trucks.

In the past, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration was faulted for not protecting the big cat’s habitat, according to the Defenders of Wildlife group. In 2004, they say, the courts revoked a Corps of Engineers permit for a rock mine. That, conservationists say, would have destroyed more than 5,000 acres of habitat. Even now, the proposed panther habitat expansion could be at odds with plans for new cities and housing development in Collier County, one report said.

Panthers are solitary creatures, and their primary food is deer, along with wild hogs and smaller animals if necessary. They are mostly nocturnal. In previous research, according to the petition to the federal government, researchers miscalculated the breadth and variety of environments the panthers require.

They have adapted to hot and humid Florida over the decades. Males can be up to 8 feet from nose to tail and weigh up to 160 pounds. They can, under the right conditions, live up to 15 years.

The proposed enlarged habitat would establish three zones, a primary zone to keep panthers alive and reproducing, a secondary zone that expands beyond the first to give the big cats more natural terrain, and a third “dispersal zone” that would allow panthers to extend their numbers north into central Florida.

A portion of the conservationists’ petition waxes eloquent about their efforts:  “Nothing enhances civilization more than to reserve open lands for human contact with wild nature, and the greater the forbearance displayed the more the people in those communities may discover opportunities to enhance their own individual humanity.”

Read more about their work to preserve the panther at the Biological Diversity Web site. Interested in more about the Florida panther? PantherNet keeps tabs on them. Big Cat Rescue offers a video complete with growls, hisses and snarls from many of the world’s big cats. And if wildlife is your passion, Rare Earth Tones has ring tones featuring the sounds of endangered animals for your cell phone, including the Florida panther.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Here’s a little cautionary tale about how bigger is not always better — and about the inter-connectedness of our energy and food systems, specifically how coal-fired power plants affect your diet.

Say you were camping with friends and caught a really BIG fish. This monster would give you bragging rights for a year. Now say you caught a smaller fish, suitable for pan frying but not Kodak-worthy.

What do you do? If you’re Daniel Boone, you toss the little guy back. It’s a no brainer. But if you’re a post-industrial age sportsperson, you must consider this: That big fish fillet could be disproportionately loaded with mercury; keeping the little fishy could be safer.

According to recent sampling studies by our federal government, ALL of our freshwater fish are contaminated, to some extent, with mercury. And the way mercury works its way through the food chain is that it builds momentum, so that those higher on the food chain are more contaminated — a process called “biomagnification”. And some of those big fish contain a mercury that’s become more toxic, too, after the mercury has been acted on by bacteria found in wetlands and swamps and converted to the more dangerous methylmercury.

The science is complicated, but you don’t need a biology degree to get the gist of things, that our fish are coming to us in less than pristine condition.

Fishy Findings

The US Geological Survey study tested fish from 291 streams across the country and found that all tested positive for traces of mercury, demonstrating how widespread mercury pollution has become. But scientists also reported that only about one-quarter had mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s safe guidelines for people eating “average amounts of fish.”

Still. ALL of the fish tested in the US showed some levels of mercury contamination. (The levels of mercury ranged from .008 to 1.95 parts per million – or micrograms per gram of wet tissue.)

This left us to wonder: Are we supposed to be alarmed? What can we now safely eat? Must we forfeit fresh fish along with all those ocean varieties that are endangered?

The answers: Yes and no. Some fish. No, but sometimes yes – can be confusing.

The government’s FAQs on this topic only left us feeling more uneasy about our future meals and also more than a little helpless about the air pollution at the root of it all. They explain that mercury is a “potent neurotoxin” in fish, wildlife and humans, yet they note that fish are “important part of a healthy diet.” We did know that: Fish are high in protein and healthy oils.

So officials are advising us to continue to eat fish, but with caution. The public should:

• Make “informed decisions” based on EPA and FDA guidelines.
• Check our state advisoriesUSDA guidelines to find out which freshwater fish are most affected and where.
• Kids and women of child-bearing age need to take special care because mercury can be harmful to developing bodies, and especially minds. They should eat no more than two meals a week that contain fish that are “lower in mercury,” according to the

“We don’t want to scare people away from eating fish, because they’re a healthy source of protein, but they should pay attention to state fish consumption advisories and also the EPA and FDA guidance for consumption of commercial fish,” says Mark E. Brigham, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, a leader on the study and an expert in mercury in biological systems.

Isn’t that a lot to ask of consumers who are already busy reading food labels, trying to shop “the outside aisles” of the grocery store, searching for information on how livestock was fed and trying to find the hormone-free milk?

Pause…. “We want informed consumers,” says Brigham.

In case you think freshwater fish present a minor culinary concern, you should know that the federal government estimates about 34 million people fish for sport and food. No doubt many more fancy catfish at the neighborhood fish fry and patronize lakeside restaurants looking for walleye and perch.

To be fair, though, Brigham isn’t on the food side of this issue, but the fact-finding science side. He understands that his team’s discovery -  that every last fish tested had some traces of mercury – is not a comfort to the fish-eating public. But it was not surprising.

Mercury, he points out, “is a pervasive contaminant in the environment.” It is the second leading cause of “impaired” water systems – the first is pathogenic contamination, such as bacterial infections – and has been tracked for many years. Forty-eight of the 50 states issue advisories on mercury in fish.

In addition, “there’s always been a natural component to the mercury cycle. It does get emitted from volcanoes and is “degassed from the earth” and rained back down into waterways.
That’s the good news within the bad news.

A human-made problem

The really bad news, though, is that historical sampling of lake beds shows that mercury contamination from natural sources was slight compared with the rapid accumulation from post-industrial activities.

Knowingly and inadvertently, humans have spewed significant mercury into the earth’s biological systems, waterways and atmosphere as we’ve developed cement plants, mercury and gold mines, metal smelting and coal-burning power plants.

Some of that pollution has been cleaned up as we’ve realized that dumping industrial waste directly into streams and lakes, no matter how giant (think: Lake Erie) is not a good idea.

But the main contributor to the global “mercury cycle’” is coal power plants of which there are 491 in the US and hundreds more around the world, such as in China, which is building coal plants faster than anyone.

Coal-fired power plants account for 40 percent of all mercury emissions in the US, according to the EPA.

The top 50 most-polluting US coal-burning power plants emitted 20 tons of toxic mercury into the air in 2007, according to a study by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project.

All US coal plants collectively emit some 48 tons of mercury annually, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, preliminarily released in July.

That mercury gets emitted as oxidized, elemental or particulate-bonded forms. The oxidized or particulate-bonded mercury falls to the earth relatively quickly, contaminating the local region and watersheds — but it can also be captured more easily. The elemental mercury, though, can ride in the atmosphere, joining mercury emissions from around the world, Brigham said, which explains why his study group found mercury in fish in areas distant from known sources of mercury.

Furthermore, certain natural conditions, present in wetland environments and forests, enhance a process that converts mercury into methylmercury, which is easily taken up by aquatic life. This leads to the seeming paradox of some fish in relatively undeveloped watersheds and pristine areas having some of the highest elevated levels of mercury (in the rural South and wild wetlands of the Pacific Northwest and Midwest); and complicates the matter of knowing what is safe to eat.

The best way to help save our freshwater fish, and their ocean cousins, from further injury, Brigham, among others, have concluded, would be to reduce those mercury emissions at their source.

(Though remember, some fish is safe to eat all the time, and other fish is safe to eat some of the time, like once a week, if it’s the right type…Check your advisories.)

Dialing back mercury emissions

The EPA first tried to reduce mercury emissions from coal plants with a 2005 regulation called the Clean Air Mercury Rule. But it was thrown out by the courts, which advised the agency to employ the Clean Air Act to set mercury emission guidelines.

The EPA is in the midst of trying to make this change, but a new rule must meet certain tests. The Clean Air Act requires, for instance, that standards for other pollutants in the same category, known as “Hazardous Air Pollutants” (lead, toxic gases and dioxin) be set simultaneously.

Once a rule is written and approved, coal-fired plants will be required to use the latest technological advances to cleanse mercury from their admissions. It can be done: Some coal plants in the US have already added scrubbing technology, required by more stringent state guidelines, proving that removing the mercury is possible.

Furthermore, according to the July GAO report technology to remove mercury is effective and affordable.

Coal plants with the technology already in place are removing 80 to 90 percent of the mercury in air emissions.

Coal’s CO2 emissions, blamed for rising carbon in the atmosphere, will not be affected by this new rule

Resources:

• GAO Testimony to the US Senate committees and subcommittees concerned with food and environmental health.
• EPA list of State Fish Advisories
• Effects of Mercury on People on the EPA

(Photos of: Fish in a Pan by ZKruger/dreamstime.com; brook trout by Eric Engbretson, US FWS; boy fishing by Ronald Laubenstein, US FWS.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Most of us grew up watching Yogi Bear, who was “smarter than the average bear” and his sidekick Boo Boo, devour “pic-a-nic baskets”. They seemed friendly. However, real bears are not like the cartoon. In parks, if you leave food out, the bears will not only eat it, they will begin to frequent the campsites expecting more food.

Even worse, bears that grow accustomed to human food can become aggressive toward humans, according to Yellowstone biologists. This is obviously a danger to Yellowstone visitors, but it is also a danger to the bears. A bear that acts aggressively  is usually a bear that has to be removed from the population and euthanized.

So, the safe storage of food is important to the preservation of Yellowstone’s ecosystem.

If you are a Boy Scout, you already know about these hazards and how to use what is called a bear bag.

“A bear bag is a sack that campers put food and anything else that has a strong scent that might attract animals off of the ground and out of the reach of animals, mainly bears.  Tie the sack to one end of the rope and pull the bag up and tie off the other end to the tree so the bag stays suspended.  The bear bags are put up a safe distance away from the campsite so that if any animals are attracted they do not bother the campers,” said Andrew Phillips, a Texas Eagle Scout.

There’s another solution, a standing bear-proof storage container or “Bear Box”, for those of us who are not agile Scouts and might not be so good at hoisting garbage into trees.

Less than 25% of Yellowstone campsites currently have Bear Boxes, and so the Yellowstone Park Foundation has begun a Bear Box Initiative.

Anyone can sponsor a Bear Box. Donation levels begin at $250, but it takes a $1,000 to purchase a Bear Box. Yellowstone will install one Bear Box for each $1,000 given.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

At least three of Idaho’s wolves have been killed as hunting commenced this week under the first authorized sport wolf hunt in the lower 48 states.

But while the hunt has attracted sportspeople, it has repelled others.  A Lewiston-area man who killed the first wolf on opening day told the local media that he has received numerous calls of protest.

Robert Millage, a real estate agent, says he’s been called a “wolf murderer, a fat redneck and other names” in some 50 phone calls and hundreds of e-mails, according to the Lewiston Tribune. (To see a picture of the young wolf Millage killed view the story on Lewiston’s KLEW-TV.)

Idaho’s wolf season began on Tuesday, putting up to 220 (the maximum allowed kill) of the state’s estimated 1,000 wolves in jeopardy.

This hunting season follow nearly two decades of wolf restoration in the region.  The Rocky Mountain Wolf population was restored in the US in the mid-1990s with the introduction of gray wolves from Canada to try to replace US wolves, which were annihilated over decades of hunting and defensive shooting by ranchers. The restoration seeded the predators in the Yellowstone National Park area and allowed them to grow while under the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

When their numbers reached what the US government said was a sustainable level — there are about 1,500 to 1,600 wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming — the wolves were “delisted” from the ESA, allowing the states to take over their management.

But many environmentalists say that the Idaho wolves — as well as a smaller population of several hundred in Montana, where the hunt begins Sept. 15 — have not reached levels that can be maintained.

“The heavy-handed wolf hunt beginning today in Idaho, together with the hunt planned to begin September 15th in Montana, puts the recovery of the Northern Rockies population of wolves at risk and demonstrates precisely the kind of irresponsible state management that should have precluded taking the wolf off the endangered species list at this point in time,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife in a statement issued on Tuesday.

Added Suzanne Stone, a wolf expert for Defenders: “Today’s hunt undermines decades of tremendous support, time and investment from the American public, federal, tribal and state wildlife agencies, and threatens one of the most successful wildlife restorations in history.”

Defenders, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and other groups have petitioned a federal court in Montana to stop the state hunts and reinstate federal protection for the wolves.

Friends of Animals, meanwhile, has urged those opposed to the wolf hunts to fight back — with a boycott of Idaho potatoes.

“As long as Idaho is in the business of killing wolves, the nature-respecting public should stop buying potatoes there,” said FOA president Priscilla Feral, explaining that consumers could look for potatoes grown in Maine, Colorado, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington and other states.

This federal government has been taking steps for the past several years to remove the wolves from protection and has been stopped at least twice by court injunctions when environmentalists intervened. Those groups have argued that the wolf population should be at least 2,000, if not more, to be sustainable.

Wyoming, the only other US state where the wolves live in the wild, has not been allowed to institute a federal hunt. The US Fish and Wildlife Service was worried that Wyoming’s preliminary hunting plan was malicious.

As state hunting agencies add sport hunting to their menu of wolf control measures, it is worth noting that wolves already are subject to legal lethal measures when they interfere with livestock.

In 2008, 153 wolves were confirmed to have died in Idaho. Agency control and “legal landowner take in response to wolf-livestock depredation” accounted for 108 deaths, according to a detailed report by the Idaho Fish and Game Department. Other human causes (including illegal take) accounted for 23 deaths; 18 wolves died of unknown causes, and 4 wolves died of natural causes.

Also during 2008 calendar year, 96 cattle, 218 sheep, 12 dogs, and 1 horse foal were classified by
Idaho game officials as confirmed wolf kills; 32 cattle, 46 sheep, and 1 dog were considered probable kills by wolves.

The report contains numerous maps and charts, suggesting that the Idaho wolves, are well tracked. It also shows that the number of breeding wolf pairs declined slightly in 2008, before the hunts were authorized.

(Photos: Gray wolf, Idaho Fish and Game Department; Game official with wolf pup, USFWS.)

They started out as pets, perhaps living in little boys’ bedrooms, being shown off to friends and wrapping around arms. But then the Burmese pythons grew, and grew, and grew (about 7 feet in a year), and they weren’t so cute or easy to deal with any more.

So, trying to do the right thing, their owners gently released them into the wild, near the large, shallow “river of grass” that flows through much of south Florida, known as the Everglades.

Problem solved.

Not quite. Those pet pythons grew — up to 20 feet long and 250 pounds –and they eat anything from deer to bobcats to wood storks to endangered species. Less than a decade ago, there were only a few in the Everglades. Today, more than 100,000 of them are slithering around south Florida, crushing what was an already delicate ecosystem.

Even though the state is aggressively trying to find them and restrict the sale of them as pets, the python hunters will never catch up. And the giant reptiles are spreading, south into the Florida Keys and north into Central Florida. One estimate predicts they will eventually inhabit about one-third of the United States.

And that’s not taking global warming into account.

If there’s any wisp of a silver lining to this mess, it’s that the python problem has turned the nation’s attention toward the depth and scope of invasive exotic animals, fish, reptiles and plants.

The U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year to try and staunch the flow of invasive species. But the damage the invaders cause brings that total to about $35 billion annually, according to National Invasive Species Council. Worldwide, the economic toll from invasives tops $1.4 trillion, according to the Nature Conservancy, which publishes a list of ways people can help reduce that number.

The invaders tend to spread rapidly, eating or killing the food and habitats of native species. They can clog streams and rivers, alter entire ecosystems and potentially wipe out endangered species. They can cause major forest fires, destroy rangeland and even decrease tourism.

It’s hard to put a number on them in the US: The Fish and Wildlife Department estimates as many as 50,000 non-natives are here now, but of those, about 4,300 are trouble-making invasives.

“I can tell you that for the Nature Conservancy, wherever we work, globally and nationally, invasive species have been identified as one of the greatest threats to biodiversity,” said Doria Gordon, the Director of Conservation Science for Florida’s chapter of the Nature Conservancy.

Though relatively few imports become invasive, when they do, they can become a monumental problem, she said. Florida is a state where climate, population and ports create an ideal environment for voracious invasives. Reptiles such as monitor lizards, Cuban tree frogs and iguanas are growing quickly and gobbling up native species. “The Cuban frogs are capable of eating most of our native tree frogs,” she said.

The animals and reptiles may be more interesting, but it is the plants that really wreak havoc on the environment. They take over because, as exotics, they lack natural pests in their new territory. (Just as invading wildlife is able to run amok because their natural predators live on another continent.)

“Hydrilla and water hyacinth have been problems for years,” she said. “They constrain navigation and water flow, create hazards to navigation and power generation,” she said.

But Gordon reserves special scorn for a plant that poses perhaps the biggest threat to Florida’s native areas: Old World climbing fern.

Calling it a fern is misleading – it’s more like ivy on steroids. Native to Africa and Asia, Old World found its way into a nursery decades ago. Now, it covers large swaths of Florida’s uninhabited land, rapidly moving north thanks to wind-blown spores. Old World blankets the ground, bushes and even the top of forests, smothering everything it covers – like a leafy version of The Blob.

How can such a pervasive plant be controlled? “We try to contain them. At the edges, where densities are low, we can keep knocking them backwards,” Gordon said. Right now the northern boundary of Old World climbing fern’s range is near Orlando. “We’re now starting to look for spores in the air there,” she added.

“The real effort is to find a biological agent that can control the vine,” Gordon said, rather than using huge quantities of pesticides. Finding a living thing to battle back another living thing has only worked for a few species. “It’s difficult to find one that will only attack that specific species and not anything else.”

Hawaii is a perfect example of such well-intentioned plans gone wrong.

First Polynesians, then Europeans, arrived to the islands with their dogs, pigs, lizards, plants, cattle and sheep. The Westerners, unfortunately, brought along rats, too. The rats ate sugar cane and the unique flightless birds of the islands. To kill the rats, the mongoose was brought in. Unfortunately, the mongoose ate the birds, not the rats. Rats are nocturnal and the mongoose is not. Thus, dozens of the dwindling species of rare birds in Hawaii were wiped out.

Today, Hawaii’s struggle with non-native plants, animals and reptiles is worse than any other state, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Unleashing one exotic to battle another has happened on the mainland as well, according to Richard Mack, professor in the school of biological sciences at Washington State University. “Ironically, most of our problems we brought upon ourselves. Two-thirds of the plant invaders were deliberately introduced (via horticulture), and it backfired,” he said.

“The problem is that we don’t have a good handle on this. The funds, resources, they haven’t been allocated.”

There’s a cycle to it all, Mack said. “One of these invaders arises and causes havoc. There’s a call to deal with it and it takes a sustained effort and incredible persistence to get rid of one of these species.

“There may be initial success – the population numbers go down. That’s mistakenly taken as a sign that public funds can be pulled back. But these are living organisms, so they go back and build up their populations and it gets as bad as it was before,” he said.

Thus, money to combat the invasives dries up, and often the task of trying to control the pests falls on area communities.

One of the bad actors in the U.S. now, Mack said, is cheatgrass. It came from Eurasia about 200 years ago. “It’s had a devastating effect in the far west,” he said. Despite its size, it is a strong competitor with native plant species and is a factor in major forest fires in California or Nevada. “It also causes downstream siltation and erosion in the river systems in the west,” Mack said.

And who can forget what has come to be known as the “Vietnam of entomology,” the fire ant fiasco in the Southwest?

It would almost be easier to spot a Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf than to follow the legal wrangling around these once-endangered, recently delisted and soon-to-be-hunted predators.

A quick recap: After a few years of back and forth with environmentalists who argued that the wolves needed continued federal protection, the Bush Administration delisted the animals – took them off the Endangered Species List – in 2008. Enviros sued and a federal court agreed that delisting was premature and that the 1,500 or so wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming were not at sustainable levels. The wolves were restored to endangered status.

But…the Bush Administration continued to refine its case, and again de-listed the wolves. This came as a parting shot in January 2009.

Enter the Obama Administration. Enviro groups anticipated that the new liberal leadership in Washington would restore the Rocky Mountain wolves to protected status (put them back on the Endangered Species list). Instead, the case of the wolves became an apparent sacrificial lamb to ranchers and conservatives who have a checkered history with the predators, blaming them for cattle and lamb losses.

And so, the Rocky Mountain Gray Wolves, having gone extinct in the U.S. during the mid-20^th Century because of over-hunting (they were reintroduced in Yellowstone in the 1990s) remained delisted — and eligible as big game.

The hunting begins next week in Idaho and Sept. 15 in Montana and conservationists are back in court trying to stop the blood-letting.

Environmental groups asked a federal judge to stop the planned hunts in Idaho and Montana, arguing that the wolf populations will be irretrievably damaged by the hunting, jeopardizing their ability to breed, connect between packs and sustain their numbers.

“At a point when we are so close to having a truly restored wolf population, the state of Idaho is going to issue an unlimited number of wolf tags to eliminate 30 percent of the state’s wolf population,” said Louisa Willcox, a senior wildlife advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in  a statement.

“As a top predator, these creatures are vital to the health of the northern Rockies ecosystem, but many of the ecological improvements that we’ve seen as a result of their reintroduction to the region will be imperiled by the Idaho and Montana hunts. While we are not against hunting, we are against conducting them prematurely, and in such a reckless and counterproductive manner.”

Idaho has authorized the killing of 220 wolves in a wolf hunt opening Sept. 1. State officials say the hunt will help them manage the state’s estimated 1,000 wolves and “learn how public hunting fits into managing wolves”.

But environmentalists say the sport shootings will wipe out one-third of the states wolf population, which they estimate at about 875 wolves (as of December 2008).

Montana will be allowing hunters to take 75 wolves, starting Sept. 15, or about 15 percent of the state’s population.

The groups opposed to the wolf hunting include Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, the NRDC and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Humane Society of the United States also has registered a complaint, with this statement from Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president and chief counsel for animal protection litigation:

“The recent announcements by the states of Idaho and Montana to institute hunts to significantly reduce the population of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies makes clear that the federal government’s decision to turn management of wolves over to these states is premature, and unlikely to ensure their survival. The federal government’s efforts to strip wolves of all federal protection have been repeatedly struck down by the courts, and this latest rule is no more likely to succeed than the previous failed attempts.”

The federal government has argued that its restoration plan always called for the eventual return to state management of the predators. Environmentalists, however, say that the feds have set target wolf population levels too low. They point out that traffic accidents and legal shootings by ranchers will add to the toll of wolf deaths, threatening the species’ survival in the US. (Canada’s populations are much larger.)

Idaho has argued that it will try to manage the wolves to remain at a population of around 500, which enviros still say is too low.

The environmental groups also believe that the hunting is ill-timed, coming after a hard winter that claimed many wolves in the Yellowstone National Park where there was a 27 percent decline in the wolf population, the largest since they were reintroduced to the area.

They fear that the low maintenance numbers mandated by the US Fish & Wildlife Service will impede the wolves’ ability to inter-breed across packs and remain genetically vigorous.

Ironically, the state deemed most inhospitable to the wolves, Wyoming, will not be arranging a gray wolf hunt this fall. The wolves are still under federal protection in Wyoming because a federal court has ruled that Wyoming’s hostile wolf-management scheme leaves wolves in “serious jeopardy.”

The USFWS has said that a state-by-state approach to delisting wolves was not permitted under the Endangered Species Act, but the federal government reversed its position.

(Photo credit: USFWS, Gary Kramer.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

It’s not all about lions and tigers and bears, you know.

They are the familiar furry faces threatened with extinction, so they get a lot of time in the spotlight.

But where are the little-known endangered creatures, the ones that don’t get a lot of press? How about those at-risk species that aren’t so striking or noble, the ones that are downright odd – or ugly?

Thus, we turned to ARKive, a global initiative that gathers film, photos and audio of all the world’s animals, plants and even fungi to create a digital library. With their help, we’ve gathered a photo gallery of 10 slightly strange species that may be living on borrowed time. It’s time for their 15 minutes of fame:

Aye-aye

The aye-aye’s permanent look of shock is just part of its charm. It is one of the strangest primates, which is why it had been classified as a rodent for a while. Aye-ayes’ looks are complemented by pale faces, bulging yellow eyes and paws that look like creepy little hands. They live mostly in Madagascar and are “near threatened” on the IUCN Red List (considered to be the most comprehensive list of animal species’ status). No surprise that, in Madagascar, the aye-ayes are believed to be evil omens.

Photo: © Lynn M. Stone – naturepl.com

A compound from honeybees known as propolis, the substance bees use to seal their hives, may protect against heat stress in athletes, according to an article released in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists.

Honeybee propolis, or bee glue, has been widely used as a folk medicine. An active ingredient in propolis known as caffeic acid phenethyl ester (or CAPE) has a broad spectrum of biological activities including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antiviral. Hyperthermia, or heat stress, is considered to be the main factor underlying the early fatigue and dehydration seen during prolonged exercise in the heat.

The discovery is another reminder of the potential ramifications of the loss in recent years of millions of bees around the world to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Scientists believe that CCD is a result of multiple stresses on the bees, such as loss of habitat, drought and possibly chronic exposure to pesticides, that weaken the bees immune systems, subjecting them to untimely deaths from viruses and other infections.

In the new study, researchers examined blood from 30 competitive cyclists who engaged in endurance training for two to four years prior to the investigation. None participated in any competitions or intensive training or had any clinical illness or medical or surgical treatments four months prior to the study.

“Since hyperthermia and free radical generation are related to exercise-induced physical damage, it is reasonable to test whether an antioxidant can prevent or reduce hyperthermia-induced free radical generation and damage,” lead researcher Yu-Jen Chen of Chinese Culture University in Taiwan said in a statement. “CAPE rescued mononuclear cells from hyperthermia-induced cell death. This implies that CAPE might not only promote athletic performance but also prevent injury secondary to endurance-exercise-induced hyperthermia.”

The researchers indicated that further human studies need to be conducted to solidify their findings.

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission banned the catching and killing of whales for commercial purposes worldwide. Whale populations — such as the North Pacific gray and the North Atlantic right whale — were threatened because of centuries of unrestricted hunting.

That ban is still in effect, with two exceptions: aboriginal peoples whose survival depends on whaling (Alaska, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Denmark and the Russian Federation) and whaling for scientific purposes.

Citing “scientific” work, in the last year Japan killed about 1,000 whales, and estimates run from 12,000 to more than 23,000 killed since ‘86.

Iceland and Norway have simply refused to comply with the ban, and last year they, too, killed hundreds of whales.

The 61st meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), made up of 85 representatives, took place last week on the Portuguese island of Maderia. To the frustration of many, the commission made no progress on addressing the three countries’ ongoing killing of whales for what conservationists say is strictly commercial purposes.

On the IWC meeting web pages, numerous reports and summaries of the recent gathering are available. One report spelled out the number and species of whales killed globally in the last year. The parsing of much of the data-filled information varies according to who is reading it.

Australia is most outspoken in its opposition to Japan’s whaling, especially in the Southern Pacific whaling sanctuary. Australia’s conservationist-minded representatives have reportedly threatened to take Japan to international court for its killing of whales.

The majority of whales being killed are smaller Minke whales, which are not endangered or threatened. Iceland and Norway have publicly stated that their commercial whaling is an issue of national sovereignty and that they are whaling in a “sustainable” way, catching a species that is plentiful. The IWC lists population estimates of each species of whale.

Japan’s chief representative at the meeting, Akira Nakamae, reportedly defended his nation’s position, saying that whaling can be done in a “sustainable manner.”

But Humane Society International representatives at the IWC meeting called for an end to any legalized killing of whales. Although they lauded the IWC for passing a resolution concerning the effect of climate and environmental changes on the whale and dolphin populations, they decry Japan’s use of the “scientific” loophole to commercially kill whales. Their “Save Whales – Not Whaling” report contains more details.

Greenpeace made an opening statement at the meeting in Madeira, calling for the IWC to become a conservationist group and stop attempting to “manage whales for the benefit of the whaling industry.”

Though they had much criticism for the IWC, Greenpeace did laud a report introduced during the meeting that detailed the booming business of whale watching around the world.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society also called for the IWC to stop the taking of humpback whales in Greenland (by Denmark). The World Wildlife Federation reports that 13 whale species are still endangered or vulnerable, even after the years of IWC protection. The Pew Whale Conservation Project also took the IWC to task for making little progress in protecting whales.

PHOTOS: From top (Japanese whaling ship) Greenpeace.org.uk ; Whale Adoption ; Whale Adoption

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media