Researcher Dennis VanEngelsdorp says the rates of honeybee die-offs threaten the beekeeping business. (Photo courtesy of the NBII)
Beekeepers expect about fifteen percent of their bees to die every winter. But for the past few winters they’ve seen die-offs of thirty percent or more. Mark Brush reports on a new survey that’s keeping track of honeybee losses:
Transcript
Beekeepers expect about fifteen percent of their bees to die every winter. But for the past few winters they’ve seen die-offs of thirty percent or more. Mark Brush reports on a new survey that’s keeping track of honeybee losses:
This is the fourth year in a row that beekeepers have see die-offs this high. The survey was done by the USDA and the Apiary Inspectors of America.
Dennis VanEngelsdorp was one of the researchers who conducted the survey. He says the rates of honeybee die-offs threaten the beekeeping business – and that’s important because honeybees pollinate about a third of the foods we eat:
“If we want to produce fruits and vegetables in this country, we need to have honeybees and we need a pollination force. And without those, we won’t be able to produce those in this country. So we’re not going to starve, but certainly the variety in our diet will change.”
Most of the beekeepers blamed the latest deaths on bad weather in the fall and winter. VanEngelsdorp says you can add to that habitat destruction that hurts the bees’ food supplies; invasive mites that spread disease – and the still unexplained problem of Colony Collapse Disorder.
The recovery of the European Bison is one of the recent successes in the fight against biodiversity loss. Despite some improvements, the UNEP report suggests efforts to address the loss of biodiversity need to be substantially strengthened.(Photo courtesy of Gil Wojciech, Polish Forest Research Institute, Poland)
Transcript
A new report finds an agreement among the world’s governments to protect nature is failing. Lester Graham reports on the assessment which finds more animals, forests and other habitats are being lost.
World governments signed the 2002 Convention of Biological Diversity, agreeing to protect more habitat and species that are at risk. An assessment of the progress has been published in the journal Science and it finds biodiversity is at greater risk than it was when the agreement was signed eight years ago. Matt Foster is with the environmental group Conservation International. He says despite some government efforts to protect habitat, there have been more pressures destroying habitat and biodiversity.
“And it’s a scary prospect, not just from a biodiversity side, but considering that there are so many vulnerable people around the world for whom the services provided by nature and biodiversity are essential such as for water, for food and all of us depend on nature and forests especially to try to mitigate climate change.”
Foster says much more needs to be done by governments and the private sector to preserve natural areas and protect species.
In caves where 200 to 300 thousand bats used to hibernate, scientists like Scott Darling have found that this year there are only hundreds. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
Scientists are racing to find a way to fight-off a fungus that’s killing bats. More than a million bats have died so far. Scientists believe entire hibernating bat species could be wiped out within two decades. Laura Iiyama reports the cause might have come from overseas:
Transcript
Scientists are racing to find a way to fight-off a fungus that’s killing bats. More than a million bats have died so far. Scientists believe entire hibernating bat species could be wiped out within two decades. Laura Iiyama reports the cause might have come from overseas:
Biologist Scott Darling knew something was wrong in a recent winter when he got several calls at his Fish and Wildlife office in Vermont. People told him about hundreds of bats flying in the air and dying in the snow. During winter, the furry mammals should be hibernating.
He went to Aeolus cave. It’s where the bats in the area should be crowded together on the walls and ceiling.
“Aeolus cave became a morgue. Bats freezing to death in clusters just outside the cave entrance. Most of the bats flew out of the cave onto the landscape to certain death.”
Where 200 to 300 thousand bats had hibernated just four years ago, this year there are just a couple hundred.
The dead bats had white nose syndrome.
The white powdery fungus was first noticed on bats in New York State in 2006. It’s spread into Ontario, Canada and as far south as Tennessee.
The fungus is not directly killing the bats.
Thomas Kunz is a professor at Boston University. He suspects the fungus keeps waking-up the hibernating bats.
“It may be simply the irritation from the fungus that is causing, if you have athlete’s feet, it itches.”
Instead of hibernating, surviving on their fat reserves, the bats keep waking-up. They burn off the fat. They get too thin. And they die.
Word spread about the fungus.
Thomas Kunz says some scientists recalled seeing a white fungus on bats elsewhere:
“Bat biologists in Europe have observed and reported that there are bats that do have the fungus although it doesn’t seem to be killing them.”
Scientists think someone visited a cave in Europe. Spores from the fungus got on clothing or shoes. Then that person wore the same shoes or clothing in a cave in the U.S. The spores were picked-up by the bats.
The bats huddle together in hibernation, easily spreading the fungus.
Often 90 percent of the bats are killed-off after the first appearance of the fungus. And Kunz says that may have been what happened to bats in Europe because we don’t find as many bats in European caves as there have been in North American caves:
“Now it’s very possible that in historic times there were large numbers of hibernating bats in Europe and these are the leftovers, these were the survivors that may be resistant to the fungus.”
So the arrival of the fungus may mean US bat species will permanently drop in numbers, like the bats in Europe.
David Blehert (blee-hurt) of the US Geological Survey says if that’s the case, it will be a dramatic change in life in caves in America and Canada.
“Whereas we have hibernation caves with 100 thousand, 300 thousand and even commonly lower ten thousand but those are rather common sites where we’ve seen the fungus decimate up to 95 percent and greater to the animals in the cave. Many of the European hibernation sites have between one and thirty animals.”
There’s no treatment for white nose syndrome. And even if a cure is found, it will be a very long time –centuries– before the bats recover. Bats reproduce slowly. The females have only one pup, one baby bat, per year. And there are over a million bats dead so far.
Jeffrey Pettis says while honeybees are a concern because they pollinate crops, the wild plants that rely on native pollinators can be in trouble as well. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
Honeybees have been dying by the millions because of colony collapse disorder. But government officials say it’s not just the bees that are in trouble. Lester Graham reports.
Transcript
Honeybees have been dying by the millions because of colony collapse disorder. But government officials say it’s not just the bees that are in trouble. Lester Graham reports.
Jeffrey Pettis heads up the USDA’s bee lab in Beltsville, Maryland. He says there’s a lot of concern about honey bees because they pollinate crops. But he’s also really concerned about wild native bees, butterflies, bats that pollinate plants in the wild.
“The wild plants that rely on native pollinators can be in trouble as well. So, there’s certainly should be concern for all pollinators in addition to honeybees, which I like to think of as a major agricultural pollinator.”
Pettis says habitat destruction is hitting nature’s wild pollinators hard, but bats are also dying because of white-nose syndrome, a fungus that’s spreading, killing bats by the millions.
Oceanographer Richard Feely says the shellfish industry is suffering in part because the more acidic seawater encourages the growth of a type of bacterium that kills oyster larvae.(Photo courtesy of the NOAA)
When carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, about a third of it absorbs into the ocean. That creates carbonic acid—the stuff in soda pop that gives it that zing.
That means seawater is becoming more acidic.
Scientists say this ocean acidification is starting to cause big problems for marine life. And Ann Dornfeld reports that could affect your dinner plans.
Transcript
When carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, about a third of it absorbs into the ocean. That creates carbonic acid—the stuff in soda pop that gives it that zing.
That means seawater is becoming more acidic.
Scientists say this ocean acidification is starting to cause big problems for marine life. And Ann Dornfeld reports that could affect your dinner plans.
Taylor Shellfish Farms has been growing oysters for more than a
century. And shucking them, one by one, by hand.
“An old profession. Y’know, they’ve tried for years to
find a way to mechanize it. There’s no way around it. Every oyster is
so unique in its size and shape.”
Bill Dewey is a spokesman for Taylor. The company is based in
Washington state. It’s one of the nation’s main producers of farmed
shellfish. Dewey says if you order oyster shooters in Chicago, or just
about anywhere else, there’s a good chance they came from Taylor.
But in the past couple of years, the company has had a hard time
producing juvenile oysters – called “seed.”
“Last year our oyster larvae production was off about 60
percent. This year it was off almost 80 percent. It’s a huge impact to
our company and to all the people that we sell seed to.”
Shellfish growers throughout the Pacific Northwest are having similar
problems with other kinds of oysters, and mussels, too. They suspect a
lot of it has to do with ocean acidification.
Richard Feely is a chemical oceanographer with the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration. He says when the pH of seawater drops
too low, it can hurt marine life.
“What we know for sure is that those organisms that
produce calcium carbonate shells such as lobsters, and clams and
oysters, and coral skeletons, they generally tend to decrease their
rate of formation of their skeletons.”
Feely says it looks like acidified waters are affecting oysters
because their larvae build shells with a type of calcium carbonate,
called aragonite, which dissolves more easily in corrosive water.
The more acidic seawater also encourages the growth of a type of
bacterium that kills oyster larvae.
Feely says the changes in the ocean’s pH are becoming serious. He
recently co-published a study on the results of a 2006 research cruise
between Hawaii and Alaska. It was identical to a trip the researchers
took in 1991. They found that in just 15 years, the ocean had become
five to six percent more acidic as a result of man-made CO2.
“If you think about it, a change of 5% in 15 years is a
fairly dramatic change. and it’s certainly humbling to see that in my
lifetime I can actually measure these changes on a global scale. These
are very significant changes.”
A couple years ago, Feely gave a talk at a conference of shellfish
growers. He explained the impact ocean acidification could have on
their industry. Bill Dewey with Taylor Shellfish Farms was there.
“All these growers were walking around with all these
really long faces, just very depressed. I mean it was a very eye-opening presentation and something that’s definitely had growers
paying attention since, that this could be a very fundamental problem
that we’re going to be facing for a long time to come.”
Dewey calls shellfish growers the “canary in the coalmine” for ocean
acidification.
Scientists say if humans don’t slow our release of CO2 into the
atmosphere, shellfish may move from restaurant menus into history
books.
A little girl holds a minnow in her hands. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
For decades now, we’ve been pushing
the limits on how much fish we can
catch. Mark Brush has been looking
at the recent trends:
Transcript
For decades now, we’ve been pushing
the limits on how much fish we can
catch. Mark Brush has been looking
at the recent trends:
If you look at the news, you get the picture. Declining salmon runs in British Columbia. Herring season cancelled along the West Coast. And tuna populations nearing collapse.
Over-fishing and damage to the environment are big problems in the world’s oceans, but you see declining fish stocks in the nation’s freshwater bodies as well.
Bill Carlson’s family has been fishing the Great Lakes since the 1870s. They catch fish called chub. But the chub are in serious decline.
“The chub population has just taken a real plunge, but we’re not sure what we’re experiencing is just a change in their habitat.”
These fish go through boom and bust periods. But since the chub’s main food source has disappeared, some biologists think the chub will have a tough time making a comeback.
So between over-fishing and environmental damage, the only good news seems to come from areas where there are strict rules in place – giving these fish stocks a chance to bounce back.
A close view of salmon eggs and developing salmon fry. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
A federal judge says the Obama
Administration soon has to come
up with a plan to restore endangered
salmon runs to the Pacific Northwest’s
biggest rivers. Ann Dornfeld went
gill net fishing on the Columbia
River to find out what’s at stake:
Transcript
A federal judge says the Obama
Administration soon has to come
up with a plan to restore endangered
salmon runs to the Pacific Northwest’s
biggest rivers. Ann Dornfeld went
gill net fishing on the Columbia
River to find out what’s at stake:
(sound of a boat moving through water)
Gary Soderstrom is a fourth-generation Columbia River salmon fisherman. Even though it’s his work, on a sunny summer day there are few places he’d rather be than casting a gill net on this tranquil bay near the mouth of the Columbia.
“Just being this far from the dock, it’s just a whole different world! All the nights and the days I’ve put out here, I still feel good when I get out here.” (laughs)
Soderstrom – or Suds, as he’s better known – says gillnetters today catch salmon pretty much the same way his great-great-grandfather caught them. The main difference today is motors help fishers lay out and reel in their nets.
(sound of reel squeaking as net is laid)
“See how he’s layin’ up the bank here, and then he’s gonna go across. That’ll create a trap for the fish if he leads ’em over to the beach, and they might get confused.”
The technique might not have changed much. But this river has. These days, a dozen species of salmon and steelhead on the Columbia are listed as endangered. One of the biggest factors is the hydroelectric dam system that provides most of the power to the Pacific Northwest. Those dams keep young salmon from making it to the ocean. Suds says that’s why his son won’t be a fifth generation fisherman.
“There used to be several thousand fishermen on the Columbia at one time. Now there’s a couple hundred of us that are still active. Most guys like my son and them have went and got other jobs to try and raise families on.”
Federal law requires the government to restore the endangered salmon runs. For years, fishers and environmental groups have been calling for the removal of four dams on the Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia.
But the Clinton and Bush Administrations backed other plans to restore salmon runs. Those plans ranged from spilling a small portion of water through the dams to trucking baby salmon around the dams. Federal courts rejected those plans as insufficient. Now a federal judge has told the Obama Administration it has until mid-September to come up with a plan that goes far beyond the scheme President Bush proposed last year.
Ann Dornfeld: “What do you think is the chance that they’re gonna take out the dams?”
Gary Soderstrom: “Well, about like me winnin’ the Powerball! (laughs) I mean, don’t think it’s ever gonna happen, but realistically, it’d work.”
Suds says he’d also like to see tougher restrictions put on farmers who irrigate their crops with water from the Columbia.
“Irrigation systems, a lot of them are still water hogs. I think they should be forced into using the least amount of water they can get by with.”
It’s been about 15 minutes, and it’s time to reel in the nets.
(sound of reeling in nets)
We’ve brought in one 17-pound coho.
(sound of salmon hitting the floor)
But like most of the other fish caught on the Columbia these days, it was raised in a hatchery upstream.
Suds says for years he’s been volunteering his time on advisory councils and boards throughout the state to try to restore the habitat that once brought millions of salmon down the river the natural way. But what he’d really like to do is meet with President Obama and explain the river’s history to him firsthand.
“But in my situation, being a peon fisherman, you’ll never get to talk to a guy like him. Y’know, if you could bring him out here and show him what I’ve shown you today, maybe he’d have a clearer understanding of what’s going on out here.”
Suds Soderstrom says he wants the president to make good on his promise to let science dictate his policies, rather than politics – which always seem to favor development.
“Sooner or later you’re either gonna have fish or people. And the people seem to be winning.”
The new Administration has until September 15th to propose its plan to save endangered salmon. The federal judge who’s been overseeing the process for years has made one requirement: this time, the plan has to work.
A false killer whale, which is actually a type of tropical dolphin, with calf (Photo by Deron Verbeck, courtesy of iamaquatic.com)
(Photo by Robin Baird, courtesy of cascadiaresearch.org)
Commercial fishing in the oceans of the US has done a lot to reduce
accidentally catching marine mammals such as dolphins. But there are
still problems. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports on concerns about one kind
of tropical dolphin called the false killer whale:
Transcript
Commercial fishing in the oceans of the US has done a lot to reduce
accidentally catching marine mammals such as dolphins. But there are
still problems. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports on concerns about one kind
of tropical dolphin called the false killer whale:
Jim Cook has been a fisherman in Hawaii for 18 years.
“You know, it used to be real simple: catch a fish, sell it, and go
back out and try and catch another one.”
Now he owns a company that operates six fishing vessels. Cook’s
ships catch deep swimming sashimi-grade tuna that ends up in sushi
restaurants across the US. They use a technique called longline fishing.
“We have around 45 miles of mainline to which we attach floaters
and 2200 to 2500 baited hooks.”
“The regulations imposed on the Hawaii longline fishery are
probably the most restrictive regulations on any longline fishery in the
world.”
That’s Bill Robinson. He’s an administrator with the National
Marine Fisheries Service. And these regulations he’s talking about are
meant to reduce bycatch. That means catching marine animals other than
the tuna. As a result of these policies, sea turtle bycatch has dropped
by more than 90-percent and seabird bycatch by 95-percent.
Things are looking up, but now there’s another problem. The numbers of
another kind of animal – the false killer whale – are declining. No one
knows why they’re disappearing. It might be related to longline
fishing, but it’s just not clear.
Robin Baird’s a biologist with Cascadia Research.
“There’s a whole variety of lines of evidence that imply the false
killer whale population around the main Hawaiian islands has declined
dramatically over the last 20 years. And I think it’s clearly the most
serious conservation or management issue for whales and dolphins in
Hawaiian waters today.”
Baird thinks the decline is partly related to fewer numbers of tuna
and other species false killer whales eat. He also suspects that the
false killer whales might be moving farther offshore, where they could
get hooked when trying to eat the tuna caught by the longline fishery.
So the question is: should the National Marine Fisheries Service come up
with even more regulations for the longline fishery in case more false
killer whales move offshore looking for tuna.
Bill Robinson with the Fisheries Service isn’t so sure that they
actually go that far offshore.
“That’s speculation, and it may or may not be true. What we
don’t really know is what the range of each population is.”
So, really, at this point, it’s anyone’s guess why the false killer whale numbers are declining.
The biologist, Robin Baird, is concerned that nothing’s being done.
“Unless something is done to change the factors that are
influencing the population, it probably will continue to decline.”
The environmental group Earthjustice and a coalition of
conservation groups have sued the National Marine Fisheries Service over
failing to develop a plan to protect the false killer whales.
The agency has not responded officially to the lawsuit yet. But Bill
Robinson says an action plan is in the works.
“Hopefully by the fall, we’ll be able to not only appoint the
team, but have the team begin work on a take recovery plan that will
make recommendations to the agency to reduce the incidental take of
false killer whales in the fishery.”
Such a plan might end up costing the commercial fishers money. But
Jim Cook says he’s willing to pay. That’s because false killer whales
pick fish off his lines. They eat the caught tuna before the fishers
can haul them in. That can mean a lot of lost income.
“We would very much welcome any methodology almost
irrespective of cost because we’re suffering quite a bit economically as
it is.”
But the National Marine Fisheries Service first has to find that
methodology.
For The Environment Report, I’m Ari Daniel Shapiro.
Scientists have created a species index that tracks populations much like the Dow Jones (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
Biologists have created a way to
track endangered species that they say is
similar to the way we track financial markets.
Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
Biologists have created a way to
track endangered species that they say is
similar to the way we track financial markets.
Rebecca Williams has more:
The new system is nicknamed the Dow Jones Index of Biodiversity.
It’s put together by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the
London Zoo.
Jonathan Baillie is with the zoo. He says the system helps keep track of which
species are doing well and which ones are close to extinction.
“So if you thought of a group of species like a company you can track what’s
happening to birds through time, what’s happening to mammals through time
what’s happening to amphibians through time – and we’re seeing amphibians
are crashing quite quickly, birds are going down but not as rapidly.”
Of course species can’t be tracked exactly like financial markets. The species
index gets updated every few years instead of every day.
Soon they’re hoping to track things like beetles, mushrooms, and lichens on the
index.
Chet Meyers surveys the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve for Red-headed Woodpeckers. He's heading up a study to identify the bird's preferred habitat, and to encourage landowners to let dead and dying trees stand, as woodpecker homes. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
This red-headed woodpecker has just stored an acorn for use in the coming winter. The word for
this is cache. (Photo by Jim Williams)
Red-headed woodpeckers used to
be just about everywhere east of the Rocky
Mountains. But these days the number of
red-headed woodpeckers is about half of
what it was fifty years ago. Stephanie
Hemphill reports volunteers
are working on a new project to get people
to help red-headed woodpeckers. They’re
encouraging landowners to let dead or dying
trees stand rather than cut them down:
Transcript
Red-headed woodpeckers used to
be just about everywhere east of the Rocky
Mountains. But these days the number of
red-headed woodpeckers is about half of
what it was fifty years ago. Stephanie
Hemphill reports volunteers
are working on a new project to get people
to help red-headed woodpeckers. They’re
encouraging landowners to let dead or dying
trees stand rather than cut them down:
You can’t miss Red-headed Woodpeckers. They have long beaks,
bright red heads and snowy white breasts. And if you go to the right
place, you can find a lot of them.
“Somebody told me that there was Red-headed Woodpeckers up
here, so I walked five minutes, and there was a Red-headed
Woodpecker, and it flew into a hole in a tree, and I says, ‘wow, this is
easy.’”
Lance Nelson first visited the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science
Reserve about a year ago.
“And then I came up this year and found 8 nests. But the young
make a lot of chattering, so you can usually tell where the nest is.”
Today they’re not hammering on trees – the sound most of us
associate with woodpeckers – but they’re doing plenty of chattering.
This reserve in southern Minnesota looks a lot like how much of the
Midwest used to look.
There are clumps of big oak trees here, separated by open areas of
native grasses, shrubs and wildflowers. The biologists call it an oak
savannah.
And there are Red-headed Woodpeckers everywhere – about fifty of
them on this 500-acre patch of ground.
“There’s a red-headed, and he’s got a baby with him. God, they’re
beautiful. They are so beautiful.”
That’s Chet Meyers. After a career as a college professor, he’s now
in charge of an effort to make more places where Red-headed
Woodpeckers can build their nests and raise their young.
If they can figure out exactly what the woodpeckers like so much
about this place, maybe they can come close to reproducing the
same conditions other places.
Chet Meyers is marking every tree where the woodpeckers have
nested.
“See these two trees to the left, go to the right-most one, it forks, and
there’s a broken-off snag up there, looks like a ‘Y’. That’s where the
babies were sticking their head out a couple weeks ago. It was really
cute.”
Once the trees are marked, the group will catalog exact descriptions
of each tree. They’re hoping to come up with a profile of the perfect
home for Red-headed Woodpeckers.
“And we’re going to measure the diameter of the tree, how high the
nest cavity is, the species of the tree, is it alive or is it dead, so we
can get some data on what seems to be the preferred habitat.”
Once they’re pretty sure they know what the woodpeckers like, they’ll
reach out to land owners. They’ll to try to get them to leave dead and
dying trees standing.
That could work on old abandoned farms, where there are trees and
open spaces. Or in cemeteries. Or around golf courses.
“If our theory – see, this is all theory – if our theory is correct, the golf
course replicates an oak savannah and there should be birds there.
So, that’s what we’re hoping.”
And Meyers says helping woodpeckers means helping other wildlife
too.
“The woodpecker is called a primary nester, it digs the cavity. But
flying squirrels, mice, snakes, bluebirds, tree swallows – there are lots
of other animals that are secondary nesters. They can’t drill the hole.
But they live there. So what we’re trying to do is preserve the habitat
so the woodpeckers drill the hole and when they leave, something
else will come in and live in it.”
The researchers think if you have dead or dying tree, that could be a
home for a Red-headed Woodpecker. But usually homeowners are
worried the tree could fall and damage something, Meyers says you
can cut off the top and some of the bigger branches and leave the
rest of the tree standing. They think the red-headed woodpecker will
be just as happy.
For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
Researcher Dennis VanEngelsdorp says the rates of honeybee die-offs threaten the beekeeping business. (Photo courtesy of the NBII)
