Endangered Species

Staggering Global Warming Statistics Emerge As UN Meeting Looms

Red Orbit (Free subscription) | 11 hours ago

Since the 1997 international agreement to address global warming, climate change has seen its ups and downs, including extremely bleak warnings.So far, the world’s oceans have raised an inch and a half, serious droughts have plagued parts of the world, temperatures everywhere are warmer, and several endangered species continue to be threatened."The latest science is telling us we are in...

Is That Sushi Hazardous To Your Health?

Ask Slashdot (Free subscription) | yesterday

pdclarry writes "A recent study by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University found that a piece of tuna sushi may not be tuna at all: 'A piece of tuna sushi has the potential to be an endangered species, a fraud or a health hazard,' wrote the authors. 'All three of these cases were uncovered in this study.' The study, published in PLoS ONE examined 68 samples...

Trout may be killed to save California yellow-legged frogs

Desdemona Despair (Free subscription) | 11/21/2009

SAN FRANCISCO, California, November 19, 2009 (ENS) - National Park Service officials in California are about to decide how to kill non-native trout to save critically endangered native yellow-legged frogs. How to eradicate the trout has generated a controversy among environmental groups. The nonprofit organization Save The Frogs, based in Virginia, is urging the National Park Service to quickly remove...

Unknowlingly consuming endangered tuna

Physorg (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009

While most of us would never willingly consume a highly endangered species, doing so might be as easy as plucking sushi from a bento box. New genetic detective work from the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History shows that bluefin tuna is routinely plated in sushi bars sampled in New York and Colorado. A quarter of what was labeled as tuna on sushi menus...

• Unknowlingly consuming endangered tuna - Eurekalert

Japan Hoarded Tuna To Keep Sushi Price Down?

Kurashi - News From Japan (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009

Astonishing - the Japanese government admits to having hoarded some 25,000 tonnes of tuna, thus "there is no reason to fear tuna prices will spike or that the inventories of tuna will run out," the minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries said at a news conference, according to Kyodo News . Hirotaka Akamatsu inherited this problem - and the inventory - from the LDP government, but...

Will the Coptic Language Rise Again? Portion...

Anthro-Ling (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009

Will the Coptic Language Rise Again? Portion of an article appearing in Egyptology News and RantRave . Some people agonise over endangered species. My pet cause is endangered languages. When I hear that a dialect is dying out or that young people aren’t passing on an obscure language, it saddens me. It is one thing to examine shards of pottery or fragments of a manuscript found insulating a wall....

"100 Heartbeats:" Endangered Species Timebomb

Treehugger (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009

100 Heartbeats book by Jeff Corwin. Image courtesy of Rodale Books Every year, we lose 20,000 unique animals, insects or plants. That breaks down to every 20 minutes. That equation from " "100 Heartbeats" ," the MSNBC documentary from naturalist/TV host Jeff Corwin, addresses the issue of the world's endangered wildlife on the brink of extinction. Not only are 25% of Z... Read...

So long and thanks for all the fish

Gristmill (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009

by Tom Laskawy There was some hope recently that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the organization charged with managing the Atlantic tuna fishery, would listen to its own scientists and ban commercial Atlantic bluefin tuna fishing so that the species might survive. Nope : Environmentalists on Sunday warned bluefin tuna was on its way to extinction after a international...

UN Climate Plans Could Do As Much Harm As Good

Red Orbit (Free subscription) | 11/17/2009

According to a team of the world’s leading scientists, some of the plans slated for discussion and potential enactment into international law at the much-anticipated UN Copenhagen climate conference this winter could eventually damage the environment as much as they help save it.Coming under particular scrutiny are preliminary plans to help stop deforestation projects in a number of third world...

Graph of the Day: Trend in Illicit Trade in Ivory, 1992-2009

Desdemona Despair (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009

Cambridge, UK, 10 November 2009 —The illicit trade in ivory, which has been increasing in volume since 2004, moved sharply upward in 2009, according to the latest analysis of seizure data in the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS). ETIS, one of the two monitoring systems for elephants under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) but managed...

ICCAT fails to protect critically endangered tuna — again

Desdemona Despair (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com , November 15, 2009 The International Commissions for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) ignored the advice of its scientists to end fishing of the Atlantic bluefin tuna. Instead ICAAT set a quota of 13,500 tons of fish, which is only a ten percent reduction from last year's quota of 15,000 tons. This is not the first time ICCAT has flouted its own researchers'...

Koalas could be extinct in 30 years: conservationists

The Independent (Free subscription) | 11/15/2009

Australia's koalas could be extinct in 30 years, conservationists warned Tuesday, calling for the iconic creatures to be declared an endangered species.

Meet the Five Almost-Endangered Species of 2009

Treehugger (Free subscription) | 11/14/2009

This is a list you don't want to be on. Unless, maybe, you're hoping for some government help. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is out with its annual list of proposed candidate species, or " candidate notice of review. " That is, plants and animals that the agency says may be designated as endangered unless conservation measures are taken to protect them.... Read the full story on TreeHugger...

Lawsuit Filed to Stop Condor-Killing Development, Save Tejon Ranch

Green Options (Free subscription) | 11/13/2009

A lawsuit to overturn the approval of Tejon Mountain Village - a luxury development which will destroy fragile California condor habitat - has been filed by a coalition of environmental justice advocates, Native Americans, endangered species advocates, and local residents. The Center for Biological Diversity, Wishtoyo Foundation, TriCounty Watchdogs, and the Center on Race, Poverty & The Environment...

Africa's rarest monkey had an intriguing sexual past, DNA study confirms

Genetic Archaeology News (Free subscription) | 11/13/2009

The most extensive DNA study to-date of Africa's rarest monkey reveals that the species had an intriguing sexual past. Of the last two remaining populations of the recently discovered kipunji, one population shows evidence of past mating with baboons while the other does not, says a new study in Biology Letters. The results may help to set conservation priorities for this critically endangered species,...