Category Archives: Wildlife

Success story: Brown pelicans removed from endangered species list

Posted on by
Reply

I took a break from blogging over the holidays, but now it’s time to continue bringing you the latest in green.  I’ll kick the year off with some good news:  The brown pelicans are back!  Well, actually, they’ve been back for a while, but now they’re officially back.

The January-February issue of Audubon reported that brown pelicans have been removed from the endangered species list.  In the 1930s, brown pelican populations began to rapidly decline throughout the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts.  In fact, by 1963, pelicans were no longer found in Louisiana, long known as the “pelican state.”  The main culprits, biologists found, were pesticides like DDT.  The poisons moved up through the food chain and affected pelicans and other birds by thinning their eggshells, impairing their ability to reproduce.  Brown pelicans were declared endangered in 1970; two years later, DDT was banned in the United States.

After the DDT ban, pelican populations grew steadily, with the help of numerous restoration projects.  In 1985, the Fish and Wildlife Service delisted populations along the Atlantic Coast and in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.  In November 2009, the FWS delisted the remaining Pacific and Gulf Coast populations.  There are now more than 650,000 brown pelicans found across Florida and the Gulf and Pacific Coasts, as well as in the Caribbean and Latin America.

“At a time when so many species of wildlife are threatened, we once in a while have an opportunity to celebrate an amazing success story,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. “Today is such a day. The brown pelican is back!”

Although they are no longer covered by the Endangered Species Act, they are protected by laws such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.  That’s a good thing, since pelicans still face the same threats as other seabirds: pollution, oil spills, and habitat loss, to name a few.

Nevertheless, the brown pelican’s future looks good.  And its past could be a model for future wildlife success stories.  Scientific research revealed the problem, and government action got the ball rolling.  But without the efforts of concerned individuals, the brown pelican might never have recovered so successfully.  Remember that the next time you walk along a beach and see a flock of pelicans gliding over the waves.

Read more about brown pelicans:

Grizzly census brings good news, despite being called “pork barreling”

Posted on by
Reply

800px-Grizzly_Bear_Yellowstone

Remember last year, during the presidential debates, when John McCain was speaking out against pork barreling?  As an example, he liked to bring up a government-funded study of grizzly bear DNA:  “I don’t know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue, but it was $3 million of our taxpayers’ money.”  That always got him some laughs, and it seemed like a reasonable point at the time.

As it turned out, that study (headed by U.S. Geological Survey biologist Kate Kendall) produced the first reliable census of the largest grizzly population in the lower forty-eight states.  And the results are great news for conservationists.

According to the National Wildlife article, “The grizzly population in northwestern Montana now stands at 765—two and a half times the previous government estimates.”  The numbers were obtained by setting up 2,500 “traps.”  Barrels of rotting fish attracted the bears and strands of barbed wire picked up fur samples when they walked by.  This enabled the biologists to get an accurate census without disturbing the grizzlies.

“The results show that we can turn species toward recovery when we put money, attention and habitat protections in place,” says John Kostyack, NWF executive director of wildlife conservation and global warming.  ”It’s an endangered species success story.”

I can’t help but wonder how much $3 million could have accomplished in actual conservation, but at least we’re seeing some evidence that protection efforts are working.

Since John McCain has a relatively good record on conservation (He’s one of the few Republicans that opposes ANWR drilling.), I won’t attack him for making fun of the study.  The point is that funding for science can often accomplish something worthwhile.

The Cost of Doing Nothing, Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

Last time we looked at the national cost of doing nothing about climate change.  The figures are impressive, but they only go so far.  Often it helps to have a concrete example.

So today, let’s zoom in on one particular area: Chesapeake Bay, North America’s largest and most biologically diverse estuary.  According to an article in the current issue of National Wildlife, sea levels in this region are rising nearly twice as fast as the rest of the world.  This, the article says, is due to two phenomena:

First, the mid-Atlantic is shrinking.  It is an echo of the last Ice Age, when huge glaciers pushed down on the Earth’s crust to the north.  The land here was lifted like the other end of a seesaw, and now it’s slowly dropping.  Second, research presented recently shows that climate change will alter the dynamics of the oean, weakening the system of currents that pulls water away from the shore here.  At the same time, the world’s oceans are inching up — fed by melting polar ice and swelled as warmer water expands in volume.

Many people dismiss rising sea levels as sensational alarmism, imagining The Day After Tomorrow – style catastrophes.  But rising oceans are already affecting coastal communities in a very real way.

The Calvert County, Maryland, shore resort of North Beach spends $25,000 dollars a year in an effort to preserve its three-block-long beach.

“It’s a money pit,” Mayor Michael Bojokles says, but crucial to the town’s tourist economy.  “That has to be said: It’s absolutely necessary.”

Even larger resorts are affected.  State, federal, and local authorities spent $7 million to deposit 100,000 dump truckloads of sand on Ocean City’s beach.  They expect that more sand will be needed next year.

It’s already too late for a few places.  The chief of shoreline conservation and management for Maryland counted at least five “beaches” whose names are now a lie.

While the nation debates whether global warming is a problem or whether it is even happening, residents of the Chesapeake area are experiencing climate change firsthand.  How could they deny something that’s happening in their own backyards?  Yet many people are doing just that, because the areas impacted by climate change are in all of our ecological “backyards.”

And the impacts we’re seeing now are relatively small.  Melting of the current Greenland ice sheet would result in a sea level rise of about 6.5 meters.  The West Antarctic ice sheet — which is especially vulnerable, due to its position below sea level — would cause sea levels to 8 meters if it melted.

tbl1If a sea level rise of less than an inch per year is hurting coastal economies, imagine how much trouble a more dramatic rise would cause.  If you include the impact on wildlife, the cost is even greater.  The habitat of diamondback terrapins and brown pelicans, for instance, could be inundated.

It’s not too late to save the Chesapeake, or any other area from the effects of climate change.  But we have to act now; the time for a policy of delaying and denying has passed.

U.S.-Mexico border fence may harm endangered wildlife

Posted on by
Reply

According to Defenders of Wildlife, a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border would be devastating for jaguars and other endangered species.  Jaguars require an extensive range and the ability to travel through remote areas between the U.S. and mexico.  This would be made nearly impossible by new border wall construction.

Barriers have already been built across 600 miles of the border, at  a cost of $2.4 billion.  The House version of the Homeland Security appropriations bill actually includes $40 million to offset the damage caused by those roads and walls.  Amendment #1399 in the Senate version of the Homeland Security appropriations bill mandates 300 miles of additional walls, which could cost another billion dollars and disrupt more wildlife habitat.

Defenders of Wildlife offers several other reasons for opposing the border wall:

  • New walls, rushed to completion without careful study or design, alter natural water flows and worsen flooding, causing millions of dollars in property damage on both sides of the border.
  • New roads and disturbed areas now provide avenues for invasive species to spread.
  • These roads also give vehicles access to previously inaccessible places, resulting in increased illegal traffic, erosion and disturbance.
  • To the dismay of local American Indian tribes and the public at large, many historic and cultural sites have been irreparably damaged.

Whether or not additional border walls would decrease illegal immigration is outside the scope of this blog.  But to disturb vital habitat is an ecological mistake, especially if the disturbance is unnecessary.  What would future generations think if we destroyed jaguar habitat to build a fence?

Here’s an easier question:  What would the jaguars think?

If you sympathize with the wildlife on this issue, you might consider sending this letter to your elected officials.  The body of the letter also includes more information about the border wall.

Bees: Their importance, their problems, and how you can help

Posted on by
1

Think about the animals that we try to protect.  Polar bears, seals, whales, elephants, and wolves are some of the creatures that conservation groups promote.  They are all integral members of the ecosystem, and their lives are intrinsically important.  And we can’t help but appreciate their aesthetic value.

But is there a lower-profile, less charismatic creature that is equally important?

Every third bite of food that you eat is made possible by bees.  In fact, Einstein predicted that, if bees went extinct,bee(3).jpghumans would follow suit four years later.  It would be hard to name many flora or fauna that are not connected to bees at some point in the food web.

Considering this, it would be reasonable to argue that, on an ecological scale, bees are one of the most important of all the animals we protect — including Homo sapiens.

And bees are in trouble.

Part of the problem is industrial agriculture, which is harmful to native bees.  Chemical herbicides kill the plants that bees rely on for nectar and pollen when crop plants are not in bloom.  In addition, the consolidation of small farms into massive spreads means plowing under nesting areas.  Bees are not magical fairies that appear seasonally when needed; they must also survive on their own throughout the entire year.

The irony here is that agribusiness is trying to increase production by eliminating “pests.”  But in the process, it is eliminating natural pollinators, thereby severely damaging production.

What is the solution?  Hives of honeybees (which are not native to North America) must be placed in fields so that the crops will produce enough to be commercially viable.  So, honeybees are now migrant workers.

At the same time, beekeeping as a profession has declined, due to competition from cheap imported honey, so the remaining bees must work harder.  They are artificially roused from dormancy and trucked across the country.

The stress of transportation, along with fungi, malnutrition, and overuse of pesticides and antibiotics, is a possible cause of colony collapse disorder (CCD).  CCD is a phenomenon in which entire hives of bees simply disappear, and its cause is not yet known.

While Big Ag is causing trouble for bees, individuals also have an impact. In our efforts to turn a wilderness into a suburban paradise, we inadvertently kill the pollinators that make our very existence possible.

Here are some easy ways to make your yard bee-friendly:

  • Avoid using pesticides, and when you must use them, spray at night, when bees are less active.
  • Tolerate “weeds” such as dandelions and clover.
  • Choose bee-friendly plants.
  • Think before cutting dead wood; it can provide homes for bees.

Climate change also effects bees;  if there is not enough rain, flowers that bees depend on will not bloom.  Therefore, reducing your carbon footprint is another way to indirectly help bees.