A study finds that 25% of all mammals are threatened with extinction (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
A new survey shows that at least
one fourth of the world’s wild mammal
species are at risk of extinction. Julie
Grant reports that scientists find human
activities are largely to blame:
Transcript
A new survey shows that at least
one fourth of the world’s wild mammal
species are at risk of extinction. Julie
Grant reports that scientists find human
activities are largely to blame:
The mammal survey took five years, and 1,700 experts in
130 countries to complete. Their results are just being
published in the journal Science.
Jan Schipper of Conservation International is a lead author.
He says the assessment paints a bleak picture.
“It was in fact surprising to find out that 25% of all mammals,
to which we currently have sufficient information, are
threatened with extinction, meaning they are either critically
endangered, endangered, or vulnerable.”
Schipper says hotbeds for extinctions are in Southeast Asia,
Africa and Central and South America – and it is largely
driven by consumers.
For example, if we demand bananas in the middle of winter,
it drives growers to cut down native forests for banana
plantations – but without those native forests, many
mammals are left without a place to live.
Kuhina, the largest male of the group, sat for hours at Honey Girl's memorial (Photo by Patrick Doyle, Malama na Honu volunteer)
Private citizens in Hawaii and as far away as Canada have reportedly raised $5000 for a reward fund for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible for Honey Girl’s death (Photo by Patrick Doyle, Malama na Honu volunteer)
Officials are investigating the
mutilation and death of a green sea turtle
protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Heidi Chang reports, the death of this
particular turtle is causing uproar in Hawaii:
Transcript
Officials are investigating the
mutilation and death of a green sea turtle
protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Heidi Chang reports, the death of this
particular turtle is causing uproar in Hawaii:
The North Shore of Oahu is a popular gathering place for about 24 Hawaiian
green sea turtles. Residents and visitors from around the world go there
to watch the turtles bask in the sun.
One of the favorites was a 275 pound turtle called ‘Honey Girl’, because
of her honey colored shell.
Joanne Pettigrew is with Malama na Honu. It’s a group of volunteers
that protects the turtles. Pettigrew says the community is outraged over
the killing of Honey Girl earlier this month.
“I was in shock and disbelief, that anyone could remove the breastplate,
cut off the flipper, dismember this beautiful creature, our largest female,
Honey Girl, with a beautiful shell.”
State and federal authorities say they don’t know yet why the turtle was
killed.
Researchers have created a genetically
modified mosquito. Rebecca Williams reports the
scientists hope the mosquito will help save lives:
Transcript
Researchers have created a genetically
modified mosquito. Rebecca Williams reports the
scientists hope the mosquito will help save lives:
Malaria kills more than one million people every year. The disease is
spread by mosquitoes.
Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena is a researcher at Johns Hopkins Malaria
Research Institute. He’s part of a team that has bred a genetically
modified mosquito. It can’t get infected by the malaria parasite.
“If we go to a region where malaria is prevalent and we are able to
substitute the local mosquito population by the modified mosquito that
cannot carry the parasite, then the net effect will be interruption of
transmission.”
Jacobs-Lorena says they’re confident the super mosquito is safe to
release into the wild.
But he says they’ll have to convince a lot of people that it’s okay to let it
out of the lab.
Signs of VHS, from the Michigan DNR (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
Despite efforts to stop it, there’s a new
indication a nasty fish virus is spreading. Christina
Shockley has the latest:
Transcript
Despite efforts to stop it, there’s a new
indication a nasty fish virus is spreading. Christina
Shockley has the latest:
The name even sounds scary: viral hemorrhagic septicemia. It causes fish to bleed to
death.
VHS has been in the Great Lakes for at least three years. Officials have been trying
to confine it to the Great Lakes basin, but now it’s spread into central Ohio.
Elmer Heyob is with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
He says the worst-case scenario is that VHS could get into a hatchery that stocks fish
for lakes and streams, and that cloud hurt the region’s economy.
“First the hatcheries, then the fishery, then the people that support the fishery, the
boating industry, it just goes on and on.”
Heyob says to stop VHS from spreading, you shouldn’t move fish from one lake to
another, and you should clean boating and fishing equipment before you move to a
different lake.
Researchers believe eventually fish build up immunity to the disease.
VHS does not pose a threat to people.
For The Environment Report, I’m Christina Shockley.
A tern chick at Mille Lacs Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats:
Transcript
There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats.
Every year, millions of people cross the mighty Niagara River on the Peace Bridge that connects Buffalo, New York to Canada. And many of them sit for hours in a traffic jam. The border crossing and passport checks slow things down. But there are just not enough lanes for all the traffic.
Ice delivery man Tim Holliday is one of those who is fed up with hours and hours of bridge delays.
“Like, I gotta go to the duty-free here, and when I’m coming out of here I have to go through customs and they always ask, what were you doing in Canada?” said Holliday. “I’m just sick of the hassles, you know?”
Transportation officials say a new bridge is needed. The traffic problems will only get worse. Because of increased trade, about eleven million additional travelers are expected to be using the Peace Bridge over the next decade.
And that’s a headache for Ron Rienas. He manages the busy international bridge crossing. He says building a new bridge would help with the traffic delays and help with national security.
“This is a border improvement project designed to address redundancy issues, security issues, traffic flow, all of those things, maintenance issues…all of those are impacted by not being able to proceed with the project,” said Rienas.
A second bridge has been designed. It’s a cable-stayed bridge with towers as high as the Washington monument.
Brian Higgins is Congressman for the area. He’s pushing for federal approval of the impressive cable design. He says the region needs an iconic symbol of progress.
“We are in the eleventh hour of a project that’s been going on for fifteen years. We need additional capacity at the Peace Bridge to promote the efficient, predictable flow of commerce between the United States and Canada – we need an iconic bridge, a signature bridge,” said Higgins.
But that signature bridge is exactly the kind of design that is dangerous to many birds.
And the Niagara River is a virtual highway for nearly three hundred kinds of birds. The cables can be invisible to the birds and they can fly into them and die.
Among those birds is the Common Tern. It’s an endgangered species.
Terry Yonker knows these and other birds better than most.
“We probably documented somewhere in the range of half a million birds, and there’s a common tern right there.”
Yonker is a scientist and a former Ornithological Society president. He wrote an environmental study that recommended against the bridge’s cable design because it could kill hundreds of different kinds of birds, including the endangered tern.
Yonker says even if it avoided hitting the cables by flying over the bridge, the tern would be stressed by such a tall bridge design. That’s because it has to make eight trips over the bridge each day to feed its young. But he says it probably wouldn’t make that many trips if the new bridge is any higher than the Peace Bridge.
“You raise that structure and they’ll have to spend a lot of energy doing that. They’ll maybe make five or six trips a day and that means one or two chicks are going to get less food out there,” said Yonker.
The other concern is a food source for the tern.
Fishery experts say the enormous piers would change water currents, eventually killing off the Emerald Shiner. That’s the tiny fish the endangered bird feeds on.
So a new design is being recommended: A lower bridge with smaller piers to protect the tern and the emerald shiner.
Federal and state agencies are working to find a way to mitigate the threat to the birds and fish by altering the plans for the new bridge. But environmental experts say you can’t mitigate extinction.
Environmentalists and some biologists say the common tern is more than an endangered bird. They say it’s a warning, about what happens when sound science is ignored for the sake of progress.
But, try explaining that to the people stuck in traffic for hours because a second bridge is being blocked to save a small bird and a little fish.
A solution may have been discovered to save frogs from the chytrid fungus (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
Frogs are in trouble. A nasty disease caused by a fungus is wiping out frogs around the world. But researchers might have found a solution. Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
Frogs are in trouble. A nasty disease caused by a fungus is wiping out frogs around the world. But researchers might have found a solution. Rebecca Williams has more:
A disease caused by something called chytrid fungus is sweeping through frogs. When the disease moves through a frog population it can wipe out 80% of the entire population. Scientists have been rushing to find something that might help.
Reid Harris is a biologist at James Madison University. He says he’s discovered there are friendly bacteria that live on some types of frogs. And they can kill the fungus.
“It does seem like the pathogen moves in this predictable wave, so you might be able to get out in front of that wave sort of like a fire line.”
Harris says it might be possible to give wild frogs extra doses of the bacteria to fight off the fungus. But first they have to make sure there won’t be side effects.
One theory behind the bee loss is pesticides (Photo by Robert Flynn, courtesy of the USDA)
Honeybees are dying at an alarming rate.
Some beekeepers have lost their entire hives.
It’s been tough for food growers too. That’s
because honeybees pollinate up to a third of
the foods we eat. Mark Brush checked in with
a commercial beekeeper to see how pollinating
is going this year:
Transcript
Honeybees are dying at an alarming rate.
Some beekeepers have lost their entire hives.
It’s been tough for food growers too. That’s
because honeybees pollinate up to a third of
the foods we eat. Mark Brush checked in with
a commercial beekeeper to see how pollinating
is going this year:
“Well, there’s twelve months on the calendar and I think we’re busy for thirteen of ’em.”
That’s Dave Hackenburg. He trucks his bees year-round all over the country to pollinate
crops. He says, so far, there have been enough bees to cover most of the crops. But with
bees continuing to die – he’s not sure how much longer beekeepers can keep up.
Hackenburg is convinced that pesticides – known as nicotinoids – are behind the loss in
honeybees.
“I can lay down a road map where bees have been – that have been on these crops where
these products are used – within two to three months afterwards – we start to see the
colonies collapse. Bees that didn’t go to these crops, set out in the woods, away from pesticides, are doing fine.”
Researchers are investigating pesticides as one possible cause. They’re also looking at
viruses, stress, and a lack of genetic diversity as other possibilities.
Honeybees have been dying at a rapid pace for the second year in a row. (Photo by Rob Flynn, courtesy of the USDA)
For the second year in a row, honeybees
are dying at a startling rate. Mark Brush reports
beekeepers are asking the public for help:
Transcript
For the second year in a row, honeybees are dying at a startling rate. Mark Brush reports
beekeepers are asking the public for help:
Farmers rely on honeybees to pollinate a lot of the food we eat – apples, blueberries,
almonds, soybeans – the list goes on and on.
Beekeepers are losing about a third of their hives each year. The sudden die-off is
known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Researchers are still trying to figure out what’s
making the bees sick.
Dennis vanEngelsdorp is the President of the Apiary Inspectors of America. He says
when the bees get sick, they fly away from the hive to die because they’re social
creatures.
“If you belong to a social group, you don’t want to infect your sisters. And so what we
think is happening. Is these bees somehow are aware that they’re ill, and so they’re flying
away from the colony to die away from the colony.”
vanEngelsdorp says you can help the honeybees by growing plants that bees like in your
backyard, by supporting local beekeepers by buying their honey, or by becoming a
beekeeper yourself.
A layer of smog over upstate New York at sunset on October 21, 2000 (Photo courtesy of the Earth Science and Image Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center)
A new report says smog can contribute to
premature death. Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
A new report says smog can contribute to
premature death. Rebecca Williams reports:
Ozone is a main ingredient in smog – it comes from cars and smokestacks and
other sources.
The National Academies of Science report says ozone can send people to the
hospital, and even lead to earlier death. That’s because ozone can damage
your lungs and make it harder to breathe. It can be especially bad for
kids, older people, and people with lung diseases.
Dan Greenbaum is the president of the Health Effects Institute. He worked
on the report.
“It just reinforces the risks of exposure to ozone are there, they’re
significant and people really should be paying attention to alerts when
there are high ozone days.”
Ozone alerts mean even healthy people should avoid working or exercising
outdoors during the day.
The EPA recently tightened the ozone standards. But the agency’s scientific
advisory committee said the standards should be tightened even more.
With its ability to breathe out of water and wriggle its way over land during dry spells, the media has dubbed the northern snakehead "Frankenfish." Its appearance in Lake Michigan is scary to scientists. (Photo courtesy of USGS)
A few weeks ago, a Chicago fisherman caused a stir when he found a northern snakehead fish. The discovery set off a frantic search to find out if yet another invasive species is threatening the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:
Transcript
A few weeks ago, a Chicago fisherman caused a stir when he found a northern snakehead fish. The find set off a frantic search to find out if yet another invasive species is threatening the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:
Just before Halloween, the so-called Frankenfish reared its ugly head… filled with sharp teeth… in Chicago’s Burnham Harbor on Lake Michigan. And it’s still a mystery as to just how it got there.
Although the snakehead is arare item in some Asian cuisines, there’s a more common suspicion amongst local experts and hobbyists. That snakehead was probably a pet that outgrew its tank, and instead of the traditional farewell down the toilet, it was set free in Lake Michigan. Free to eat through the Lake’s food web.
Local pet store manager Edwin Cerna says that’s why he stopped selling the fish years before they were banned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. He remembers one day, when he was adjusting a tank, he accidentally got in between a snakehead’s lunch and its mouth.
“He bit me in the hand… made me bleed. It hurts. It’s got a nice strong jaw and that’s why it’s so dangerous because it can kill big fish, literally cut them in half. It’s almost like a big old killer whale, like a miniature version of it.”
But why on earth would anybody buy a vicious fish that can grow up to three feet long in the first place? Jim Robinett is with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. He says he’s a fish geek.
“I gotta say, as a little fish, when you first buy them, they’re really attractive; they’re neat little animals, but they eat like crazy. They’re voracious.”
Robinett knows not to be fooled by the little guys because what happens next is the perfect plot for a B-horror movie. He says the snakehead fish grows quickly, eventually eating everything in its tank. If it doesn’t die from overgrowing that tank, its owner might be tempted to dump it into a nearby body of water where it will keep eating its way up the food chain. Robinett says that’s the fear in Lake Michigan.
“They could potentially start picking off small salmon and lake trout, which is native to these waters here, they’re not real discriminating, they’ve been known to take things as large as frogs, some small birds, even small mammals that happen to get in the way there close to shore. They’ll eat anything they get their mouth on.”
Most hobby fish don’t last long in Chicago’s cold water. But the northern snakehead is different. The snakehead is native to northern Asia, and the Lake Michigan Federation’s Cameron Davis says that makes the fish feel right at home around here.
“It’s a lot like us Midwesterners, it just kind of hunkers down and… that’s part of the problem with the snakehead is that it can live under very extreme conditions. Which means it’ll out compete those other fish, and that’s a tremendous problem.”
Snakeheads have another edge on other species. The fish guard their eggs, giving their young a better chance of reaching maturity. But perhaps the most peculiar thing about snakeheads is that they can breathe. In addition to its gills, they have an organ that works like a lung and allows it to breathe air. It’s able to live up to three days as it uses its fins to wriggle across land in search of another body of water.
But looking down into the murky waters at Burnham Harbor, Davis says we shouldn’t run screaming yet. It’s not exactly a horror film scenario.
“I don’t think that the snakehead is going to come and grab our children out of schools and eat them or anything like that. But it is a problem for those of us who like to fish for yellow perch and whitefish and some of the things that make the Great Lakes so fantatstic, could really be threatened by this fish getting into Lake Michigan.”
Other invasive species cause an estimated 137-billion dollars of losses and damages in U.S. waterways each year. Cameron Davis says simply banning the local sale of fish like snakeheads hasn’t been enough to keep the Great Lakes safe.
“We’ve got to stop imports of these kinds of fish into the United States. We can’t protect the Great Lakes unless we’re checking these things at the door when they come into the country. It’s that simple.”
Davis is pushing for the passage of the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act. The bill would allocate a total of 174-million dollars to develop new technology for identifying and eliminating the invaders if and when they arrive.
So far, local authorities ahven’t found another snakehead near the banks of Lake Michigan, but Cameron Davis says the initial find just proves how hard it is to regulate what comes into the country’s largest body of fresh water.
Standing on the dock at Burnham Harbor, Davis looks out over the dark waters and shakes his head.
“It’s just an indicator that we’re in a race against time right now. Let’s hope that if there are more than one out there, that they haven’t hooked up.”
If they have, he says, it could truly be the stuff horror movies are made of… at least, for the other fish in the Great Lakes.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jenny Lawton in Chicago.
A study finds that 25% of all mammals are threatened with extinction (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
