WASHINGTON — The United States is leading an effort by a handful of antiwhaling nations to broker an agreement that would limit and ultimately end whale hunting by Japan, Norway and Iceland, according to people involved with the negotiations.
The compromise deal, which has generated intense controversy within the 88-nation International Whaling Commission and among antiwhaling activists, would allow the three whaling countries to continue hunting whales for the next 10 years, although in reduced numbers.
In exchange, the whaling nations — which have long exploited loopholes in an international treaty that aims to preserve the marine mammals — would agree to stricter monitoring of their operations, including the placing of tracking devices and international monitors on all whaling ships and participation in a whale DNA registry to track global trade in whale products.
Officials involved in the negotiations expressed tentative hope that they could reach an agreement in coming weeks. But ratification by the overall group remains uncertain.
“This is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve been involved in in 38 years,” said Cristián Maquieira, the veteran Chilean diplomat who is the chairman of the commission. “If this initiative fails now, it means going back to years of acrimony.”
Some pro-whale activists say the deal would grant international approval for the continued slaughter of thousands of minke, sei and Bryde’s whales. They also say that the agreement does not prevent Japan and the other nations from resuming unlimited whaling once the 10-year period is up.
“From our point of view, it’s a whaler’s wish list,” said Patrick R. Ramage, global whale program director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “It would overturn the ’86 moratorium, eviscerate the South Ocean Whale Sanctuary, subordinate science and I.W.C. precedent to reward countries that have refused to comply by allocating quotas to those three countries.”
“Rather than negotiate a treaty that brings commercial whaling to an end,” he concluded, “they have created a system under which it will continue.”
But Monica Medina, the No. 2 official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American delegate to the whaling body, said that Mr. Ramage and other critics were demanding a complete halt to whaling, an impossible goal, at least today.
“We can’t stop it; we can only try to control it,” Ms. Medina said in an interview.
“If we can prevent thousands of whales from being hunted and killed, that’s a real conservation benefit. This proposal would not only help whales, we hope, but also introduce rigorous oversight, halt the illegal trade in whale meat and bring respect for international law back to the I.W.C.,” she added. “Are we there yet? We’re not, and we have hard negotiations to go yet.”
Despite a 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling, the numbers of whales killed annually has been rising steadily, to nearly 1,700 last year from 300 in 1990, as the three whaling nations have either opted out of the treaty or claimed to be taking whales only for legitimate scientific study. Most of the meat from the slaughtered whales is consumed in those three countries, although there appears to be a growing international black market in whale products.
Some officials warn that if this effort at compromise fails, the commission’s efforts to police whale hunting, long crippled by irreconcilable political divisions, will collapse.
“The I.W.C. is a mess. It’s a dysfunctional international organization,” said Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a former prime minister of New Zealand and chairman of the I.W.C. group trying to negotiate a deal. “I think this is probably the last chance the I.W.C. has to cure itself.”
Representatives to the whaling commission from more than a dozen nations — including the three whaling countries and New Zealand, Australia, Chile and other nations backing the compromise proposal — are in Washington this week to negotiate terms of the agreement, which would protect as many as 5,000 whales from hunting over the next decade, officials said. They said they hoped that the reduced hunt would give whale stocks time to recover and give negotiators time to write a new treaty that would bring an effective international ban on all commercial whaling.
The group plans to release a new draft of the compromise proposal next week, but it still must win the approval of three-quarters of the members of the whaling commission at its annual meeting in Agadir, Morocco, in late June.
The Japanese, who killed 1,001 whales last year, are the linchpin of any deal. Although the Japanese taste for whale meat is steadily declining, the Japanese see their ability to continue to hunt whales, not only in their coastal waters but in the open ocean around Antarctica, as a question of sovereignty. Critics say that the practice survives only with heavy government subsidies. But a single whale can bring as much as $100,000 in Japanese fish markets. Japan is driving a hard bargain to demonstrate strength at home and perhaps to use as leverage in other international negotiations, officials involved in the talks said.
Joji Morishita, a senior official of the Japan Fisheries Agency and Tokyo’s representative to the whaling talks, said in a brief telephone interview that he was not authorized to discuss his country’s negotiating position. But he confirmed that Japan was at least willing to talk about a new whaling program that may result in a substantial reduction in its whale harvest over the next decade.
“We are fully engaged in this process,” he said.
Populations of some whale species have been growing since the moratorium ended decades of uncontrolled hunting, but whales around the world remain under threat, not only from hunting but also from ship strikes, pollution, habitat loss, climate change and entanglement in fishing nets.
Under terms of the compromise deal, which is being negotiated behind closed doors and remains subject to major changes, the three whaling nations agree to cut roughly in half their annual whale harvest. That would result in the saving of more than 5,000 whales over the next 10 years, compared with continued whaling at current levels.
The deal also proposes that no new countries be permitted to take whales, whale-watching ships would be monitored by the whaling commission and all international trade in whale products be banned.
In addition, whalers would have to report the time of death and means of killing of all whales and provide DNA samples to a central registry to help track the end use of the dead animals.
Limited subsistence whaling by indigenous peoples in the United States, Greenland, Russia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines would be allowed to continue.
“Our goal is a significant reduction in the number of whales killed, but some limited whaling will be authorized as a price for that,” said Mr. Maquieira, the whaling commission chairman. “This is highly controversial and very difficult. I would prefer something different, but there is nothing out there.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/science/earth/15whale.html?ref=science
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Embracing a Life of Solitude
FOR the last 16 years, Nick Fahey has been living on an island in the San Juan archipelago north of Puget Sound, in Washington state, where his only full-time companion is a 26-year-old quarter horse called Ig. Mr. Fahey, 67, lives in a cabin on 100 wooded acres that has been in his family since 1930; it has no refrigerator, but there is electricity generated by solar panels, so he has light and can charge his cellphone.
There are few amenities of the material kind, but his days are his own. Time, he said, is “one of the real luxuries of living out here.” With the exception of cutting wood for fuel and to support himself — occasionally he makes a trek to neighboring islands or the mainland, to sell the wood or buy groceries — he is free to do as he pleases. Most days are spent rambling around the rocky island and drinking coffee, his favorite French Market brand with chicory.
“I don’t worry about whether I am clothed or not,” Mr. Fahey said. “But the weather is such that it’s a good idea to wear some clothes.”
Getting away from it all: it’s a common fantasy. But for some people, fantasizing isn’t enough. For whatever reason — the desire for peace and quiet in an increasingly frenetic world, an attempt to escape the intrusiveness of technology or the need for an isolated place to recover from heartbreak — they feel compelled to act out the fantasy, seeking the kind of solitude found only in the remotest locations.
The compulsion to live in isolation can be attributed to any number of factors, said Elaine N. Aron, a psychologist and the author of “The Undervalued Self” and “The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You.”
Some people might “really need their downtime,” Dr. Aron said, and seek out “isolation that avoids all social intercourse.” Others may have developed an “avoidant attachment style” in childhood, resulting in “a need to prove to themselves that they don’t need anybody,” she said.
For many people, though, the desire for extreme solitude may have simpler roots, she noted: “It could be because they want a mystical experience. You can’t pathologize that.”
When it comes to striking out alone in the wilderness, however, men may be more inclined to do that than women, said John T. Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. “In our culture, there is this mythic individualism that we cherish,” said Dr. Cacioppo, who studies the biological and cognitive effects of isolation. “That’s particularly true for men — they are supposed to be an island unto themselves. They take that myth more seriously and try to pursue it.”
For some, he added, a divorce later in life or another equally jarring event may trigger that impulse. “Losing connections during that period of your life becomes very traumatizing,” he said. “One way to deal with that is to prove that you don’t need anyone.”
In Mr. Fahey’s case, he moved to the island full time in 1994, several years after he divorced, not because he was traumatized, he said, but because he liked the “feeling of freedom when you’re by yourself. You don’t have to answer to anybody.”
His daughter, Anna, 36, now visits about once a month, and his son, Joe, 39, who lives in France, comes once a year. There are a handful of other residents on the other side of the island, but Mr. Fahey prefers not to socialize with them.
“I’m not a misanthropic recluse sort of guy,” he said. “I just know that I’d rather be here by myself.”
Once a week, though, he does venture to Anacortes, a town on the mainland, 10 miles away by boat, to visit his 99-year-old father in an assisted-living home and to see his girlfriend, Deborah Martin, whom he has been dating for 15 years.
Ms. Martin, 56, explained: “We are both pretty independent, and I imagine that’s partly why it works. We don’t have the same expectations that other couples might, like, ‘I need you to be here every night.’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/garden/15alone.html?hp&hp
There are few amenities of the material kind, but his days are his own. Time, he said, is “one of the real luxuries of living out here.” With the exception of cutting wood for fuel and to support himself — occasionally he makes a trek to neighboring islands or the mainland, to sell the wood or buy groceries — he is free to do as he pleases. Most days are spent rambling around the rocky island and drinking coffee, his favorite French Market brand with chicory.
“I don’t worry about whether I am clothed or not,” Mr. Fahey said. “But the weather is such that it’s a good idea to wear some clothes.”
Getting away from it all: it’s a common fantasy. But for some people, fantasizing isn’t enough. For whatever reason — the desire for peace and quiet in an increasingly frenetic world, an attempt to escape the intrusiveness of technology or the need for an isolated place to recover from heartbreak — they feel compelled to act out the fantasy, seeking the kind of solitude found only in the remotest locations.
The compulsion to live in isolation can be attributed to any number of factors, said Elaine N. Aron, a psychologist and the author of “The Undervalued Self” and “The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You.”
Some people might “really need their downtime,” Dr. Aron said, and seek out “isolation that avoids all social intercourse.” Others may have developed an “avoidant attachment style” in childhood, resulting in “a need to prove to themselves that they don’t need anybody,” she said.
For many people, though, the desire for extreme solitude may have simpler roots, she noted: “It could be because they want a mystical experience. You can’t pathologize that.”
When it comes to striking out alone in the wilderness, however, men may be more inclined to do that than women, said John T. Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. “In our culture, there is this mythic individualism that we cherish,” said Dr. Cacioppo, who studies the biological and cognitive effects of isolation. “That’s particularly true for men — they are supposed to be an island unto themselves. They take that myth more seriously and try to pursue it.”
For some, he added, a divorce later in life or another equally jarring event may trigger that impulse. “Losing connections during that period of your life becomes very traumatizing,” he said. “One way to deal with that is to prove that you don’t need anyone.”
In Mr. Fahey’s case, he moved to the island full time in 1994, several years after he divorced, not because he was traumatized, he said, but because he liked the “feeling of freedom when you’re by yourself. You don’t have to answer to anybody.”
His daughter, Anna, 36, now visits about once a month, and his son, Joe, 39, who lives in France, comes once a year. There are a handful of other residents on the other side of the island, but Mr. Fahey prefers not to socialize with them.
“I’m not a misanthropic recluse sort of guy,” he said. “I just know that I’d rather be here by myself.”
Once a week, though, he does venture to Anacortes, a town on the mainland, 10 miles away by boat, to visit his 99-year-old father in an assisted-living home and to see his girlfriend, Deborah Martin, whom he has been dating for 15 years.
Ms. Martin, 56, explained: “We are both pretty independent, and I imagine that’s partly why it works. We don’t have the same expectations that other couples might, like, ‘I need you to be here every night.’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/garden/15alone.html?hp&hp
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Freighter on Great Barrier Reef Has Punctured Fuel Tank
HONG KONG —
A Chinese coal freighter aground on the Great Barrier Reef has at least one punctured fuel tank, prompting a delicate effort to transfer oil within the ship to tanks that are still intact, Australian officials announced on Wednesday.
Very little oil has leaked yet because sea water has surged through the underwater puncture and the oil has floated up on the water inside at least one tank, officials said. Two tugboats are trying to stabilize the vessel, the Shen Neng 1, as it grinds up and down on a shoal in ocean swells and as salvage experts transfer the fuel between tanks.
“This is actually a delicate operation, and we won’t be rushing it,” said Patrick Quirk, the general manager for maritime safety for Queensland, the Australian state where the vessel ran aground. He added that a specialized salvage vessel would start trying to unload fuel from the vessel on Thursday or Friday.
The vessel went aground with 1,075 tons of thick engine fuel. Officials declined to estimate how much was in danger of leaking.
Anger about the grounding of the vessel is still rising in Australia, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offering some blunt language. On Tuesday, he flew over the stricken vessel, which had strayed more than seven miles outside the authorized shipping channel, and promised a full investigation to identify and punish those responsible.
Mr. Rudd noted that the captain could be subject to up to three years in prison if found negligent and that the vessel’s owners could be liable for a fine exceeding $5 million.
“From where I sit, it is outrageous that any vessel could find itself 12 kilometers off course, it seems, in the Great Barrier Reef,” he told Australian news organizations after the flyover. Mr. Rudd also said that Australia would review the adequacy of its marine safety regulations.
The vessel ran aground late Saturday at full speed near the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.
Bob Brown, a senator who is also the leader of Australia’s Greens Party, has used the incident to accuse the country’s main political parties of failing to protect the environment or defend Australia. He beat Mr. Rudd to the wreck, flying over it on Monday.
Mr. Brown said in a statement afterward that the vessel was “an environmental time bomb.” He compared it to a threat of terrorism, saying that from the air, “It’s like looking down on an unclaimed bag in a subway.”
The Chinese government and the ship’s owner, Cosco, a Chinese state-controlled giant, have been silent in response to the grounding of the Shen Neng 1, which occurred in a section of the reef designated as a marine park and subject to extra environmental protection.
The official Xinhua news agency has reported the grounding of the vessel and that it is Chinese. But Xinhua has focused on possible legal penalties for the incident while avoiding mention of stronger criticisms leveled by Australian politicians and environmentalists.
Australian news organizations and environmentalists have accused the ship’s crew of taking a shortcut between reefs after taking on 72,000 tons of coal in Gladstone, a town near the center of Australia’s eastern coast, instead of staying farther out to sea.
Australia is a leading coal and iron ore exporter and a major supplier to Asian economies, particularly China’s. Australia’s environmental movement has long been uncomfortable with the country’s prominent role in supplying the mineral and energy needs of other countries.
Environmentalists have seized on the Shen Neng 1 — battered and perched on a shoal in shallow, azure water with a small, inky stain of leaking oil undulating into the water — as a symbol of what they portray as the exploitation of Australia by foreign powers.
The grounding of the Shen Neng 1 also coincides with unhappiness in Australia over the long prison sentences imposed last week by a Chinese court on four managers from Rio Tinto, an Australian mining giant, on bribery charges.
The Australian authorities have said that the vessel would be difficult to refloat and that it is vulnerable to any storms. But weather forecasts are for mostly clear skies through Friday and scattered thunderstorms next week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/asia/08reef.html?ref=science
A Chinese coal freighter aground on the Great Barrier Reef has at least one punctured fuel tank, prompting a delicate effort to transfer oil within the ship to tanks that are still intact, Australian officials announced on Wednesday.
Very little oil has leaked yet because sea water has surged through the underwater puncture and the oil has floated up on the water inside at least one tank, officials said. Two tugboats are trying to stabilize the vessel, the Shen Neng 1, as it grinds up and down on a shoal in ocean swells and as salvage experts transfer the fuel between tanks.
“This is actually a delicate operation, and we won’t be rushing it,” said Patrick Quirk, the general manager for maritime safety for Queensland, the Australian state where the vessel ran aground. He added that a specialized salvage vessel would start trying to unload fuel from the vessel on Thursday or Friday.
The vessel went aground with 1,075 tons of thick engine fuel. Officials declined to estimate how much was in danger of leaking.
Anger about the grounding of the vessel is still rising in Australia, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offering some blunt language. On Tuesday, he flew over the stricken vessel, which had strayed more than seven miles outside the authorized shipping channel, and promised a full investigation to identify and punish those responsible.
Mr. Rudd noted that the captain could be subject to up to three years in prison if found negligent and that the vessel’s owners could be liable for a fine exceeding $5 million.
“From where I sit, it is outrageous that any vessel could find itself 12 kilometers off course, it seems, in the Great Barrier Reef,” he told Australian news organizations after the flyover. Mr. Rudd also said that Australia would review the adequacy of its marine safety regulations.
The vessel ran aground late Saturday at full speed near the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.
Bob Brown, a senator who is also the leader of Australia’s Greens Party, has used the incident to accuse the country’s main political parties of failing to protect the environment or defend Australia. He beat Mr. Rudd to the wreck, flying over it on Monday.
Mr. Brown said in a statement afterward that the vessel was “an environmental time bomb.” He compared it to a threat of terrorism, saying that from the air, “It’s like looking down on an unclaimed bag in a subway.”
The Chinese government and the ship’s owner, Cosco, a Chinese state-controlled giant, have been silent in response to the grounding of the Shen Neng 1, which occurred in a section of the reef designated as a marine park and subject to extra environmental protection.
The official Xinhua news agency has reported the grounding of the vessel and that it is Chinese. But Xinhua has focused on possible legal penalties for the incident while avoiding mention of stronger criticisms leveled by Australian politicians and environmentalists.
Australian news organizations and environmentalists have accused the ship’s crew of taking a shortcut between reefs after taking on 72,000 tons of coal in Gladstone, a town near the center of Australia’s eastern coast, instead of staying farther out to sea.
Australia is a leading coal and iron ore exporter and a major supplier to Asian economies, particularly China’s. Australia’s environmental movement has long been uncomfortable with the country’s prominent role in supplying the mineral and energy needs of other countries.
Environmentalists have seized on the Shen Neng 1 — battered and perched on a shoal in shallow, azure water with a small, inky stain of leaking oil undulating into the water — as a symbol of what they portray as the exploitation of Australia by foreign powers.
The grounding of the Shen Neng 1 also coincides with unhappiness in Australia over the long prison sentences imposed last week by a Chinese court on four managers from Rio Tinto, an Australian mining giant, on bribery charges.
The Australian authorities have said that the vessel would be difficult to refloat and that it is vulnerable to any storms. But weather forecasts are for mostly clear skies through Friday and scattered thunderstorms next week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/asia/08reef.html?ref=science
Adirondack Extreme
Adirondack Extreme: http://www.adirondackextreme.com/home
Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-32CAfHcpFM
Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-32CAfHcpFM
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
U.N. Group Rejects Shark Protections
By DAVID JOLLY
Published: March 23, 2010
PARIS — Delegates to a United Nations conference on endangered species voted down three of four proposals to protect sharks on Tuesday, handing another victory to Japan, China and countries opposed to the involvement of the international authorities in regulation of ocean fish.
Dot Earth: More on Shark ConservationThe nations gathered in Doha, Qatar, for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, rejected proposals that would have required countries to strictly regulate — but not ban — trade in several species of scalloped hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and spiny dogfish sharks.
The hammerhead and whitetip proposals, introduced by the United States and the tiny Micronesian island of Palau, received majority backing. But the treaty behind the conference, abbreviated as Cites, requires that measures be approved by two-thirds of the delegates who are voting.
A proposal from the European Union and Palau to protect porbeagle sharks squeaked by with a vote of 86 to 42, with 8 abstentions — a winning margin of a single vote. All of the votes were by secret ballot.
“We will continue to pursue our efforts to protect sharks from eradication by the decadent and cruel process of shark-finning,” Stuart Beck, Palau’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement. “I am sure that, properly prepared, bald eagle is delicious. But, as civilized people, we simply do not eat it.”
China, by far the world’s largest consumer of the cartilaginous fish, for sharkfin soup, and Japan, which has battled to keep the convention from being extended to any marine species, led the opposition.
“This is not about trade issues, but fisheries enforcement,” Masanori Miyahara, Japan’s top fisheries negotiator, was quoted by The Associated Press as telling delegates. “Poaching is a big problem.”
Juan Carlos Vásquez, a spokesman for the United Nations convention, said that the votes on the hammerhead and the porbeagle — a close relative of the great white shark that is prized for its meat — could be reopened on Thursday and possibly overturned at the final session of the conference because the margin of passage was so narrow.
Most of the other conference votes would be likely to stand without challenge, he said.
Tom Strickland, the head of the United States delegation, said in a statement that Tuesday’s votes were “a major loss for marine conservation.”
On Monday, delegates voted to uphold a 21-year ban on international trade in ivory, rejecting efforts by Tanzania and Zambia to sell part of their stocks. Last week, the conference opposed an outright ban on international trade in bluefin tuna. A proposal to extend trade controls to red and pink corals was also voted down.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/science/earth/24shark.html?ref=science
Published: March 23, 2010
PARIS — Delegates to a United Nations conference on endangered species voted down three of four proposals to protect sharks on Tuesday, handing another victory to Japan, China and countries opposed to the involvement of the international authorities in regulation of ocean fish.
Dot Earth: More on Shark ConservationThe nations gathered in Doha, Qatar, for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, rejected proposals that would have required countries to strictly regulate — but not ban — trade in several species of scalloped hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and spiny dogfish sharks.
The hammerhead and whitetip proposals, introduced by the United States and the tiny Micronesian island of Palau, received majority backing. But the treaty behind the conference, abbreviated as Cites, requires that measures be approved by two-thirds of the delegates who are voting.
A proposal from the European Union and Palau to protect porbeagle sharks squeaked by with a vote of 86 to 42, with 8 abstentions — a winning margin of a single vote. All of the votes were by secret ballot.
“We will continue to pursue our efforts to protect sharks from eradication by the decadent and cruel process of shark-finning,” Stuart Beck, Palau’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement. “I am sure that, properly prepared, bald eagle is delicious. But, as civilized people, we simply do not eat it.”
China, by far the world’s largest consumer of the cartilaginous fish, for sharkfin soup, and Japan, which has battled to keep the convention from being extended to any marine species, led the opposition.
“This is not about trade issues, but fisheries enforcement,” Masanori Miyahara, Japan’s top fisheries negotiator, was quoted by The Associated Press as telling delegates. “Poaching is a big problem.”
Juan Carlos Vásquez, a spokesman for the United Nations convention, said that the votes on the hammerhead and the porbeagle — a close relative of the great white shark that is prized for its meat — could be reopened on Thursday and possibly overturned at the final session of the conference because the margin of passage was so narrow.
Most of the other conference votes would be likely to stand without challenge, he said.
Tom Strickland, the head of the United States delegation, said in a statement that Tuesday’s votes were “a major loss for marine conservation.”
On Monday, delegates voted to uphold a 21-year ban on international trade in ivory, rejecting efforts by Tanzania and Zambia to sell part of their stocks. Last week, the conference opposed an outright ban on international trade in bluefin tuna. A proposal to extend trade controls to red and pink corals was also voted down.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/science/earth/24shark.html?ref=science
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Largest Solar Powered
February 26, 2010
PlanetSolar, a 31 meter long catamaran, was unveiled yesterday in Kiel, Germany, and its deck just so happens to be completely covered with photovoltaic panels, making it the world’s largest solar powered boat. While not quite ready to launch yet, the PV-bedazzled boat will debut at Hamburg port’s 821st anniversary celebrations in May, and then undergo testing during the summer before starting on a world-wide voyage to promote solar energy. The makers of the boat say, “PlanetSolar wants to show that we can change, that solutions exist and that it isn’t too late. Future generations are looking to us; our choices will mark the future of humanity.”
Built at the Knierim Yacht Club in Kiel in northern Germany, the PlanetSolar is a 31 by 15 meter catamaran that can expand to 35 by 23 meters when the flaps at the stern and the sides are extended. The deck is completely covered in 500 sq. meters of solar panels with the cockpit sticking out from the top, meaning that there won’t be any bathing beauties lounging on top when they sail into port, but they will be rolling in sans emissions. Manned by two crew members, the catamaran can accommodate up to 50 people on their world voyage. The makers are expecting the boat to get a top speed of 15 knots and an average of 8 knots.
The 40,000 km world voyage will start April 2011 and take an estimated 140 days based on the average speed of 8 knots. To maximize the solar power generated, the crew will stick to a more equatorial route in order to get the most sun. They plan on crossing the Atlantic from Europe through the Panama Canal, crossing the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, and then through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Ocean. Along the way they will stop in New York, San Francisco, Darwin in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Marseille in southern France. Now that the boat is built, they trip should be cheap since they don’t have to pay for fuel along the way.
Search: ArchitectureInteriorsProductsTechnologyEnergyTransportationFashionArtKidsContestsInhabitat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
World’s Largest Solar Powered Boat Unveiled
by Bridgette Meinhold, 02/26/10
PlanetSolar, a 31 meter long catamaran, was unveiled yesterday in Kiel, Germany, and its deck just so happens to be completely covered with photovoltaic panels, making it the world’s largest solar powered boat. While not quite ready to launch yet, the PV-bedazzled boat will debut at Hamburg port’s 821st anniversary celebrations in May, and then undergo testing during the summer before starting on a world-wide voyage to promote solar energy. The makers of the boat say, “PlanetSolar wants to show that we can change, that solutions exist and that it isn’t too late. Future generations are looking to us; our choices will mark the future of humanity.”
http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/02/26/worlds-largest-solar-powered-boat-unveiled/
PlanetSolar, a 31 meter long catamaran, was unveiled yesterday in Kiel, Germany, and its deck just so happens to be completely covered with photovoltaic panels, making it the world’s largest solar powered boat. While not quite ready to launch yet, the PV-bedazzled boat will debut at Hamburg port’s 821st anniversary celebrations in May, and then undergo testing during the summer before starting on a world-wide voyage to promote solar energy. The makers of the boat say, “PlanetSolar wants to show that we can change, that solutions exist and that it isn’t too late. Future generations are looking to us; our choices will mark the future of humanity.”
Built at the Knierim Yacht Club in Kiel in northern Germany, the PlanetSolar is a 31 by 15 meter catamaran that can expand to 35 by 23 meters when the flaps at the stern and the sides are extended. The deck is completely covered in 500 sq. meters of solar panels with the cockpit sticking out from the top, meaning that there won’t be any bathing beauties lounging on top when they sail into port, but they will be rolling in sans emissions. Manned by two crew members, the catamaran can accommodate up to 50 people on their world voyage. The makers are expecting the boat to get a top speed of 15 knots and an average of 8 knots.
The 40,000 km world voyage will start April 2011 and take an estimated 140 days based on the average speed of 8 knots. To maximize the solar power generated, the crew will stick to a more equatorial route in order to get the most sun. They plan on crossing the Atlantic from Europe through the Panama Canal, crossing the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, and then through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Ocean. Along the way they will stop in New York, San Francisco, Darwin in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Marseille in southern France. Now that the boat is built, they trip should be cheap since they don’t have to pay for fuel along the way.
Search: ArchitectureInteriorsProductsTechnologyEnergyTransportationFashionArtKidsContestsInhabitat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
World’s Largest Solar Powered Boat Unveiled
by Bridgette Meinhold, 02/26/10
PlanetSolar, a 31 meter long catamaran, was unveiled yesterday in Kiel, Germany, and its deck just so happens to be completely covered with photovoltaic panels, making it the world’s largest solar powered boat. While not quite ready to launch yet, the PV-bedazzled boat will debut at Hamburg port’s 821st anniversary celebrations in May, and then undergo testing during the summer before starting on a world-wide voyage to promote solar energy. The makers of the boat say, “PlanetSolar wants to show that we can change, that solutions exist and that it isn’t too late. Future generations are looking to us; our choices will mark the future of humanity.”
http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/02/26/worlds-largest-solar-powered-boat-unveiled/
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Whale Meat on the Menu, in California?
March 9, 2010, 11:06 am
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
One definition of chutzpah: The day after a team of activist filmmakers garner an Academy Award for “ The Cove,” the documentary showing in wrenching detail the slaughter of hundreds of dolphins in a Japanese town, they disclose a sting operation they conducted with law enforcement officials at one of the hottest sushi bars in Santa Monica, Calif. — in which they say they confirmed that Sei whale meat was on the menu. Read the details in Jennifer Steinhauer’s Times story. Here’s a snippet:
Their work, undertaken in large part here last week as the filmmakers gathered for the Academy Awards ceremony, was coordinated with law enforcement officials, who said Monday that they were likely to bring charges against the restaurant, the Hump, for violating federal laws against selling marine mammals.
“We’re moving forward rapidly,” said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney for the Central District of California. Mr. Mrozek declined to say what charges could be brought against the restaurant, but said they could come as early as this week.
In the clash of two Southern California cultures — sushi aficionados and hard-core animal lovers — the animal lovers have thrown a hard punch.
Elsewhere in the world, the appetites and indulgences of wealthy consumers are sustaining the flow of gorilla hands and other bush meat from African forests to swelling cities and the flow of exotic, endangered species to medicinal products companies and restaurants in Asia. Is it jarring, or not, to see such activity here?
The disclosure in California comes as the International Whaling Commission considers a compromise that would end the longstanding moratorium on commercial whaling in return for Japan and other whaling countries reducing* their independent whale hunts. On his Facebook page, Carl Safina, the author and ocean campaigner, put up a link to the Times article on the sushi find and said: “This is why whale hunting must be crushed once and for all — not expanded.”
[1:15 p.m. | Updated: *The marine biologist Sidney Holt wrote in to correct my original description of this proposal (that Japan Iceland and Norway would stop their independent whaling). As he explains: "They would at most agree to reduce their catches somewhat, below present levels. The proposal is an absolute disaster for 50 years of effort to bring whaling under control, if not to end it, mostly led by the U.S.A. And a huge disgrace to this Administration for supporting the dreadful 'deal'."]
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/whale-meat-on-the-menu-in-california/
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
One definition of chutzpah: The day after a team of activist filmmakers garner an Academy Award for “ The Cove,” the documentary showing in wrenching detail the slaughter of hundreds of dolphins in a Japanese town, they disclose a sting operation they conducted with law enforcement officials at one of the hottest sushi bars in Santa Monica, Calif. — in which they say they confirmed that Sei whale meat was on the menu. Read the details in Jennifer Steinhauer’s Times story. Here’s a snippet:
Their work, undertaken in large part here last week as the filmmakers gathered for the Academy Awards ceremony, was coordinated with law enforcement officials, who said Monday that they were likely to bring charges against the restaurant, the Hump, for violating federal laws against selling marine mammals.
“We’re moving forward rapidly,” said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney for the Central District of California. Mr. Mrozek declined to say what charges could be brought against the restaurant, but said they could come as early as this week.
In the clash of two Southern California cultures — sushi aficionados and hard-core animal lovers — the animal lovers have thrown a hard punch.
Elsewhere in the world, the appetites and indulgences of wealthy consumers are sustaining the flow of gorilla hands and other bush meat from African forests to swelling cities and the flow of exotic, endangered species to medicinal products companies and restaurants in Asia. Is it jarring, or not, to see such activity here?
The disclosure in California comes as the International Whaling Commission considers a compromise that would end the longstanding moratorium on commercial whaling in return for Japan and other whaling countries reducing* their independent whale hunts. On his Facebook page, Carl Safina, the author and ocean campaigner, put up a link to the Times article on the sushi find and said: “This is why whale hunting must be crushed once and for all — not expanded.”
[1:15 p.m. | Updated: *The marine biologist Sidney Holt wrote in to correct my original description of this proposal (that Japan Iceland and Norway would stop their independent whaling). As he explains: "They would at most agree to reduce their catches somewhat, below present levels. The proposal is an absolute disaster for 50 years of effort to bring whaling under control, if not to end it, mostly led by the U.S.A. And a huge disgrace to this Administration for supporting the dreadful 'deal'."]
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/whale-meat-on-the-menu-in-california/
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Saving Tiny Toads Without a Home
This is a story about a waterfall, the World Bank and 4,000 homeless toads.
Alyssa Borek/Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo
HOME A dam reduced the flow of the Kihansi River and the falls' mist zone.
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
Read All Comments (41) »
Maybe the story will have a happy ending, and the bright-golden spray toads, each so small it could easily sit on a dime, will return to the African gorge where they once lived, in the spray of a waterfall on the Kihansi River in Tanzania.
The river is dammed now, courtesy of the bank. The waterfall is 10 percent of what it was. And the toads are now extinct in the wild.
But 4,000 of them live in the Bronx and Toledo, Ohio, where scientists at the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Toledo Zoo are keeping them alive in hopes, somehow, of returning them to the wild. This month, the Bronx Zoo will formally open a small exhibit displaying the toads in its Reptile House.
Meanwhile, though, the toads embody the larger conflicts between conservation and economic development and the complexity of trying to preserve and restore endangered species to the wild. Their story also raises questions about how much effort should go to save any one species.
These issues are particularly pressing for frogs, toads and other amphibians, whose populations are plunging worldwide in the face of factors like habitat loss, climate change and disease. Jennifer B. Pramuk, the curator of herpetology at the Bronx Zoo. said at least 120 species vanished in recent years.
“It’s probably much higher than that,” said Dr. Pramuk, a leader in the toad effort. “There are areas of South America where all the amphibious fauna are wiped out.”
The spray toads, Nectophrynoides asperginis, were unknown to science until 1998, when they were found living on less than five acres, perhaps the smallest known range of any vertebrate. They are unusual in that they do not lay eggs. The baby toads emerge fully formed, each one small enough to fit on the head of a pin.
When the toads were first described, as many as 20,000 lived in the misty waterfall tract on the Kihansi, climbing mossy plants and feeding on small insects. But the government of Tanzania, with a loan from the World Bank, was already planning a dam upstream.
When the dam opened in 2000, the flow of water to the dam fell by 90 percent, and mist-dependent native plants gave way to invasive species. Within months, the toad population plummeted. When the survivors contracted a fungal disease called chytrid, the toad population fell again.
The species was in imminent danger of disappearing. So the conservation society responded by sending in Jason Serle, a wild-animal keeper at the time, and Tim Davenport, a field programs director in Tanzania. Along with Tanzanian scientists and conservation officials, they spent a day at the gorge, collecting 499 toads and putting them in plastic bags with damp moss. The bags were placed into coolers for the flight back to the Bronx.
“It was get on the plane, collect them, get back,” said Jim Breheny, the director of the Bronx Zoo.
The problem then was how to keep them alive. The Bronx Zoo sent toads to five other zoos in the United States, but only one of them, the Toledo Zoo, managed to keep them alive, as did the Bronx Zoo.
“No one had kept anything in that genus in captivity,” Dr. Pramuk said. “It was very difficult for us to figure out what they needed.”
The crucial factors, not surprisingly, turned out to be water, light and food — very carefully prepared water, light and food.
Jason Wagner, a life-support specialist at the Bronx Zoo, assembled a system of tanks, pipes, filters, aerating vats and other equipment in the warm damp behind the scenes in the reptile house. The system produces 1,500 gallons a day of pure mist to be sprayed into the toad tanks. The system is necessary because the treatments that help make city water safe for people would be lethal for the toads.
Halogen bulbs provided the best light; the Toledo Zoo figured that out. And Alyssa Borek, a zookeeper in the Bronx, produced a safe food supply by breeding tiny bugs like fruit flies, wood lice and weevils in plastic shoeboxes and other containers filled with cocoa matting, beans and alder leaves that she gathers on the zoo grounds.
Ms. Borek raises the insects for several generations to make sure they are disease-free before she feeds them to the toads, who, except for the 60 or so on exhibit, live in 26 aquarium tanks in two clean rooms at the zoo. Even so, she said, an outbreak of chytrid in one of her tanks killed half of that population within days. The rest died in less than a week, she said, “even with aggressive treatment by our veterinary staff.” She still does not know how the disease erupted.
Ms. Borek also called in zoo vets to perform a “C-section” when a pregnant toad died. The babies, delivered from their dead mother’s eggs, were born as tadpoles. Ms. Borek kept them in petri dishes, but after a few weeks they too had died.
The overall effort, however, was a success. By trial and error, the zoos kept the spray toads alive.
Ms. Borek learned so much that she wrote a husbandry guide for the species; Dr. Pramuk said it would be useful for anyone raising frogs or toads. In fact, working with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the Bronx and Toledo Zoos will offer their third course on toad husbandry at the Toledo Zoo in April.
As the effort of raising the toads in the zoos progressed, their numbers in Tanzania declined until last November, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which maintains listings of endangered species worldwide, declared the toad extinct in the wild.
That finding presented the next hurdle: reintroducing the toads to the wild.
There is “at least the potential for a viable restoration program,” Mr. Breheny, the Bronx Zoo director, said, but a lot depends on conditions and the operation of the dam. The World Bank has established an artificial mist system there, and workers have dug out invasive plants, but it is unknown whether these efforts will be enough.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/earth/02toads.html?pagewanted=1&ref=science
Alyssa Borek/Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo
HOME A dam reduced the flow of the Kihansi River and the falls' mist zone.
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
Read All Comments (41) »
Maybe the story will have a happy ending, and the bright-golden spray toads, each so small it could easily sit on a dime, will return to the African gorge where they once lived, in the spray of a waterfall on the Kihansi River in Tanzania.
The river is dammed now, courtesy of the bank. The waterfall is 10 percent of what it was. And the toads are now extinct in the wild.
But 4,000 of them live in the Bronx and Toledo, Ohio, where scientists at the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Toledo Zoo are keeping them alive in hopes, somehow, of returning them to the wild. This month, the Bronx Zoo will formally open a small exhibit displaying the toads in its Reptile House.
Meanwhile, though, the toads embody the larger conflicts between conservation and economic development and the complexity of trying to preserve and restore endangered species to the wild. Their story also raises questions about how much effort should go to save any one species.
These issues are particularly pressing for frogs, toads and other amphibians, whose populations are plunging worldwide in the face of factors like habitat loss, climate change and disease. Jennifer B. Pramuk, the curator of herpetology at the Bronx Zoo. said at least 120 species vanished in recent years.
“It’s probably much higher than that,” said Dr. Pramuk, a leader in the toad effort. “There are areas of South America where all the amphibious fauna are wiped out.”
The spray toads, Nectophrynoides asperginis, were unknown to science until 1998, when they were found living on less than five acres, perhaps the smallest known range of any vertebrate. They are unusual in that they do not lay eggs. The baby toads emerge fully formed, each one small enough to fit on the head of a pin.
When the toads were first described, as many as 20,000 lived in the misty waterfall tract on the Kihansi, climbing mossy plants and feeding on small insects. But the government of Tanzania, with a loan from the World Bank, was already planning a dam upstream.
When the dam opened in 2000, the flow of water to the dam fell by 90 percent, and mist-dependent native plants gave way to invasive species. Within months, the toad population plummeted. When the survivors contracted a fungal disease called chytrid, the toad population fell again.
The species was in imminent danger of disappearing. So the conservation society responded by sending in Jason Serle, a wild-animal keeper at the time, and Tim Davenport, a field programs director in Tanzania. Along with Tanzanian scientists and conservation officials, they spent a day at the gorge, collecting 499 toads and putting them in plastic bags with damp moss. The bags were placed into coolers for the flight back to the Bronx.
“It was get on the plane, collect them, get back,” said Jim Breheny, the director of the Bronx Zoo.
The problem then was how to keep them alive. The Bronx Zoo sent toads to five other zoos in the United States, but only one of them, the Toledo Zoo, managed to keep them alive, as did the Bronx Zoo.
“No one had kept anything in that genus in captivity,” Dr. Pramuk said. “It was very difficult for us to figure out what they needed.”
The crucial factors, not surprisingly, turned out to be water, light and food — very carefully prepared water, light and food.
Jason Wagner, a life-support specialist at the Bronx Zoo, assembled a system of tanks, pipes, filters, aerating vats and other equipment in the warm damp behind the scenes in the reptile house. The system produces 1,500 gallons a day of pure mist to be sprayed into the toad tanks. The system is necessary because the treatments that help make city water safe for people would be lethal for the toads.
Halogen bulbs provided the best light; the Toledo Zoo figured that out. And Alyssa Borek, a zookeeper in the Bronx, produced a safe food supply by breeding tiny bugs like fruit flies, wood lice and weevils in plastic shoeboxes and other containers filled with cocoa matting, beans and alder leaves that she gathers on the zoo grounds.
Ms. Borek raises the insects for several generations to make sure they are disease-free before she feeds them to the toads, who, except for the 60 or so on exhibit, live in 26 aquarium tanks in two clean rooms at the zoo. Even so, she said, an outbreak of chytrid in one of her tanks killed half of that population within days. The rest died in less than a week, she said, “even with aggressive treatment by our veterinary staff.” She still does not know how the disease erupted.
Ms. Borek also called in zoo vets to perform a “C-section” when a pregnant toad died. The babies, delivered from their dead mother’s eggs, were born as tadpoles. Ms. Borek kept them in petri dishes, but after a few weeks they too had died.
The overall effort, however, was a success. By trial and error, the zoos kept the spray toads alive.
Ms. Borek learned so much that she wrote a husbandry guide for the species; Dr. Pramuk said it would be useful for anyone raising frogs or toads. In fact, working with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the Bronx and Toledo Zoos will offer their third course on toad husbandry at the Toledo Zoo in April.
As the effort of raising the toads in the zoos progressed, their numbers in Tanzania declined until last November, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which maintains listings of endangered species worldwide, declared the toad extinct in the wild.
That finding presented the next hurdle: reintroducing the toads to the wild.
There is “at least the potential for a viable restoration program,” Mr. Breheny, the Bronx Zoo director, said, but a lot depends on conditions and the operation of the dam. The World Bank has established an artificial mist system there, and workers have dug out invasive plants, but it is unknown whether these efforts will be enough.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/earth/02toads.html?pagewanted=1&ref=science
Doctor casts new light on cat that can predict death
By Belinda Goldsmith – Tue Feb 2, 12:00 pm ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) – When doctors and staff realized that a cat living in a U.S. nursing home could sense when someone was going to die, the feline, Oscar, was portrayed as a furry grim reaper or four-legged angel of death.
But Dr. David Dosa, who broke the news of Oscar's abilities in a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, said he never intended to make Oscar sound creepy or his arrival at a bedside to be viewed negatively.
Dosa said he hopes his newly released book, "Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat" will put the cat in a more favorable light as well as providing a book to help people whose loved ones are terminally ill.
"After the New England Journal article you got the feeling that if Oscar is in your bed then you are dead, but you did not really see what is going on for these family members," said Dosa, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.
"I wanted to write a book that would go beyond Oscar's peculiarities, to tell why he is important to family members and caregivers who have been with him at the end of a life."
Dosa said Oscar's story is fascinating on many levels.
Oscar was adopted as a kitten from an animal shelter to be raised as a therapy cat at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, which cares for people with severe dementia and in the final stages of various illnesses.
SIXTH SENSE?
When Oscar was about six months old the staff noticed that he would curl up to sleep with patients who were about to die.
So far he has accurately predicted about 50 deaths.
Dosa recounts one instance when staff were convinced of the imminent death of one patient but Oscar refused to sit with that person, choosing instead to be on the bed of another patient down the hallway. Oscar proved to be right. The person he sat with died first, taking staff on the ward by surprise.
Dosa said there is no scientific evidence to explain Oscar's abilities, but he thinks the cat might be responding to a pheromone or smell that humans simply don't recognize.
Dosa said his main interest was not to delve further into Oscar's abilities but to use Oscar as a vehicle to tell about terminal illness, which is his main area of work.
"There is a lot to tell about what Oscar does, but there is a lot to tell on the human level of what family members go through at the end of life when they are dealing with a loved one in a nursing home or with advanced dementia," he said.
"Perhaps the book is a little more approachable because there is a cat in it. We really know so little about nursing homes, and this tries to get rid of this myth that they are horrid factories where people go to die."
Dosa said the story of Oscar, who is now nearly five years old, initially had sparked a bit more interest in families wanting to send their loved ones to Steere House.
Oscar has even been thanked by families in obituaries for providing some comfort in the final hours of life.
But he said Oscar remains unchanged by the attention, spending most of his days staring out of a window, although he has become a bit friendlier.
"The first time I met Oscar he bit me. We have warmed over the years. We have moved into a better place," said Dosa.
"I don't think Oscar is that unique, but he is in a unique environment. Animals are remarkable in their ability to see things we don't, be it the dog that sniffs out cancer or the fish that predicts earthquakes. Animals know when they are needed."
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)
SYDNEY (Reuters) – When doctors and staff realized that a cat living in a U.S. nursing home could sense when someone was going to die, the feline, Oscar, was portrayed as a furry grim reaper or four-legged angel of death.
But Dr. David Dosa, who broke the news of Oscar's abilities in a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, said he never intended to make Oscar sound creepy or his arrival at a bedside to be viewed negatively.
Dosa said he hopes his newly released book, "Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat" will put the cat in a more favorable light as well as providing a book to help people whose loved ones are terminally ill.
"After the New England Journal article you got the feeling that if Oscar is in your bed then you are dead, but you did not really see what is going on for these family members," said Dosa, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.
"I wanted to write a book that would go beyond Oscar's peculiarities, to tell why he is important to family members and caregivers who have been with him at the end of a life."
Dosa said Oscar's story is fascinating on many levels.
Oscar was adopted as a kitten from an animal shelter to be raised as a therapy cat at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, which cares for people with severe dementia and in the final stages of various illnesses.
SIXTH SENSE?
When Oscar was about six months old the staff noticed that he would curl up to sleep with patients who were about to die.
So far he has accurately predicted about 50 deaths.
Dosa recounts one instance when staff were convinced of the imminent death of one patient but Oscar refused to sit with that person, choosing instead to be on the bed of another patient down the hallway. Oscar proved to be right. The person he sat with died first, taking staff on the ward by surprise.
Dosa said there is no scientific evidence to explain Oscar's abilities, but he thinks the cat might be responding to a pheromone or smell that humans simply don't recognize.
Dosa said his main interest was not to delve further into Oscar's abilities but to use Oscar as a vehicle to tell about terminal illness, which is his main area of work.
"There is a lot to tell about what Oscar does, but there is a lot to tell on the human level of what family members go through at the end of life when they are dealing with a loved one in a nursing home or with advanced dementia," he said.
"Perhaps the book is a little more approachable because there is a cat in it. We really know so little about nursing homes, and this tries to get rid of this myth that they are horrid factories where people go to die."
Dosa said the story of Oscar, who is now nearly five years old, initially had sparked a bit more interest in families wanting to send their loved ones to Steere House.
Oscar has even been thanked by families in obituaries for providing some comfort in the final hours of life.
But he said Oscar remains unchanged by the attention, spending most of his days staring out of a window, although he has become a bit friendlier.
"The first time I met Oscar he bit me. We have warmed over the years. We have moved into a better place," said Dosa.
"I don't think Oscar is that unique, but he is in a unique environment. Animals are remarkable in their ability to see things we don't, be it the dog that sniffs out cancer or the fish that predicts earthquakes. Animals know when they are needed."
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
In Reversal, Jaguar Habitat Will Be Protected
January 13, 2010
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
After more than a decade of resistance, the Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that it would reverse previous decisions and protect the habitat of the jaguar.
The sleek, ferocious cats have been listed since 1997 as endangered, the highest level of peril for a wild species. Still, the government has never designated critical habitat for the jaguar or come up with a formal recovery plan, steps that are commonly taken under the Endangered Species Act.
The federal government has given varying reasons for its refusal to act. In 1997, the Fish and Wildlife Service said that to protect the jaguar’s habitat, it would have to make public maps of its range. That would make the animals vulnerable to more poaching, already a primary cause of deaths, it said.
In 2006, the service argued that jaguars were primarily native to South and Central America and that their range in the United States was largely incidental to its survival.
Wildlife advocates sued to protest those findings, pointing out that jaguars were thought to have once ranged from Louisiana to California, although they had rarely been seen in recent decades.
Last March, the Federal District Court in Tucson told the government that it would have to come back with a decision that was soundly based in science.
In theory, the service could have sought again to rule out habitat conservation. But this time the government said it would move to protect critical habitat and would publish a description of the land proposed for the designation.
It also agreed to develop a formal recovery plan, which will envision how the jaguar might make a recovery.
The Fish and Wildlife Service says there are no known jaguars in the United States today. The last jaguar known to exist within the nation’s borders died last March.
However, there are nearly 5,000 in Mexico, and more ranging as far south as Argentina and Paraguay.
The notion behind a critical habitat designation is to enable the jaguar to survive if it ranges north again.
Protecting the jaguar’s habitat will be a complicated challenge. The cats can range over hundreds of square miles to hunt prey, and ranchers have fiercely opposed protection.
Conservationists were exultant on Tuesday, with some predicting that the protection of such a far-ranging species could have a broader impact.
“It will reorient land conservation in the Southwest,” said Michael J. Robinson, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based group that brought the lawsuit.
When the government weighs a plan to allow tree cutting or mining on public lands, for example, he said, it will have to ensure that it will not harm the jaguar’s critical habitat.
“We will see planning to ensure jaguars can reach each other,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/science/earth/13jaguar.html?ref=science
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
After more than a decade of resistance, the Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that it would reverse previous decisions and protect the habitat of the jaguar.
The sleek, ferocious cats have been listed since 1997 as endangered, the highest level of peril for a wild species. Still, the government has never designated critical habitat for the jaguar or come up with a formal recovery plan, steps that are commonly taken under the Endangered Species Act.
The federal government has given varying reasons for its refusal to act. In 1997, the Fish and Wildlife Service said that to protect the jaguar’s habitat, it would have to make public maps of its range. That would make the animals vulnerable to more poaching, already a primary cause of deaths, it said.
In 2006, the service argued that jaguars were primarily native to South and Central America and that their range in the United States was largely incidental to its survival.
Wildlife advocates sued to protest those findings, pointing out that jaguars were thought to have once ranged from Louisiana to California, although they had rarely been seen in recent decades.
Last March, the Federal District Court in Tucson told the government that it would have to come back with a decision that was soundly based in science.
In theory, the service could have sought again to rule out habitat conservation. But this time the government said it would move to protect critical habitat and would publish a description of the land proposed for the designation.
It also agreed to develop a formal recovery plan, which will envision how the jaguar might make a recovery.
The Fish and Wildlife Service says there are no known jaguars in the United States today. The last jaguar known to exist within the nation’s borders died last March.
However, there are nearly 5,000 in Mexico, and more ranging as far south as Argentina and Paraguay.
The notion behind a critical habitat designation is to enable the jaguar to survive if it ranges north again.
Protecting the jaguar’s habitat will be a complicated challenge. The cats can range over hundreds of square miles to hunt prey, and ranchers have fiercely opposed protection.
Conservationists were exultant on Tuesday, with some predicting that the protection of such a far-ranging species could have a broader impact.
“It will reorient land conservation in the Southwest,” said Michael J. Robinson, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based group that brought the lawsuit.
When the government weighs a plan to allow tree cutting or mining on public lands, for example, he said, it will have to ensure that it will not harm the jaguar’s critical habitat.
“We will see planning to ensure jaguars can reach each other,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/science/earth/13jaguar.html?ref=science
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
White Lizards Evolve in New Mexico Dunes
January 5, 2010
Observatory
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
The White Sands of New Mexico are a good place to study evolution in progress. One reason is that the terrain, gypsum dunes white as a sheet of paper, is so different from the surrounding area. Another is that the dunes formed only about 6,000 years ago.
“From an evolutionary perspective, that’s really the blink of an eye,” said Erica Bree Rosenblum, a professor at the University of Idaho who has been studying evolution at White Sands for much of the past decade. Her focus has been on three lizard species that elsewhere are dark skinned but in White Sands have each evolved a white-skinned variety that makes them hard to find. “It’s really obvious what’s happened,” Dr. Rosenblum said. “Everybody got white so that they could better escape from their predators.” It’s a great example of convergent evolution, of species independently acquiring the same traits.
One question about convergent evolution is the mechanism by which it happens. Sure, these three lizards all developed white skin, but did they do it in the same way? Dr. Rosenblum and her colleagues have provided answers to this question in a paper in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“At first blush it seems like the answer is yes,” she said. In at least two of the lizard species, the researchers found that mutations on the same gene, linked to the production of the skin pigment melanin, were responsible.
The second part of the story is more interesting, Dr. Rosenblum said. In the two species, the mutations are different, and the molecular mechanism by which less melanin is produced is different, too.
And, she said, the different mechanisms have had an effect on how the white-skinned trait has spread through the populations. In one, the mutation has made the white-skinned trait dominant; in the other, the mutation has made it recessive. So, according to basic Mendelian genetics, the trait spreads more quickly in the first lizard species than the second.
Observatory
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
The White Sands of New Mexico are a good place to study evolution in progress. One reason is that the terrain, gypsum dunes white as a sheet of paper, is so different from the surrounding area. Another is that the dunes formed only about 6,000 years ago.
“From an evolutionary perspective, that’s really the blink of an eye,” said Erica Bree Rosenblum, a professor at the University of Idaho who has been studying evolution at White Sands for much of the past decade. Her focus has been on three lizard species that elsewhere are dark skinned but in White Sands have each evolved a white-skinned variety that makes them hard to find. “It’s really obvious what’s happened,” Dr. Rosenblum said. “Everybody got white so that they could better escape from their predators.” It’s a great example of convergent evolution, of species independently acquiring the same traits.
One question about convergent evolution is the mechanism by which it happens. Sure, these three lizards all developed white skin, but did they do it in the same way? Dr. Rosenblum and her colleagues have provided answers to this question in a paper in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“At first blush it seems like the answer is yes,” she said. In at least two of the lizard species, the researchers found that mutations on the same gene, linked to the production of the skin pigment melanin, were responsible.
The second part of the story is more interesting, Dr. Rosenblum said. In the two species, the mutations are different, and the molecular mechanism by which less melanin is produced is different, too.
And, she said, the different mechanisms have had an effect on how the white-skinned trait has spread through the populations. In one, the mutation has made the white-skinned trait dominant; in the other, the mutation has made it recessive. So, according to basic Mendelian genetics, the trait spreads more quickly in the first lizard species than the second.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)