Healthy Reef Systems May Be a Thing of The Past(Photo courtesy of Mikael Häggström)
Some scientists think we might be headed for a mass extinction event
in the oceans. When carbon dioxide gets released into the atmosphere,
a lot of that CO2 soaks into the oceans. That makes the water more
acidic. When the pH gets too low, it dissolves the skeletons of
animals like coral and mussels. Ann Dornfeld reports:
Transcript
** The story as originally broadcast incorrectly referred to the publication as “Natural Geoscience.” It should be “Nature Geoscience.”
Some scientists think we might be headed for a mass extinction event
in the oceans. When carbon dioxide gets released into the atmosphere,
a lot of that CO2 soaks into the oceans. That makes the water more
acidic. It can dissolve the skeletons of
animals like coral and mussels. Ann Dornfeld reports:
Fifty-five million years ago, a mass extinction happened when the
oceans became too acidic.
Richard Feely is a chemical oceanographer for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. He says that today’s ocean acidification
is happening too quickly for many species to adjust.
“Over the last 200 years we’ve seen a 30-percent increase in acidity
of the oceans, and about six percent of that increase of acidity of
the oceans has been in the last 15 years.”
Researchers at the University of Bristol in England ran simulations of
the acidification processes 55 million years ago and today. They found
that acidification is happening ten times faster these days than it
did before the prehistoric mass extinction.
That could mean that if we don’t slow our release of CO2 into the
atmosphere, life in our oceans could crash within a century or two.
The study is published in the journal of Nature Geoscience.
Environmental scientist Rachael Pierce and her team travel on airboats into the marshes around Lake Okeechobee. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Rachael Pierce has to shuffle her feet when she checks her snail traps... just to be sure she doesn’t surprise any alligators. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Pierce measuring an apple snail. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
We’ve spent billions of dollars
just trying to partially restore
the Everglades in Florida. Now,
there’s a struggle to save a bird
there that’s close to extinction.
It’s a raptor called the snail kite.
It’s becoming one of the symbols
for saving the Everglades. Rebecca
Williams has more:
Transcript
We’ve spent billions of dollars
just trying to partially restore
the Everglades in Florida. Now,
there’s a struggle to save a bird
there that’s close to extinction.
It’s a raptor called the snail kite.
It’s becoming one of the symbols
for saving the Everglades. Rebecca
Williams has more:
The snail kite eats pretty much only one thing – a snail called the apple snail.
The apple snail’s been disappearing – partly because of people messing with water levels in the Everglades for farming and cities.
Scientist Rachael Pierce and her team have raised apple snails in the lab and let them go in a marsh at the edge of Lake Okeechobee. Now they need them to stick around and have babies.
“It’s unlikely the snail kites will come back here to this marsh because we haven’t released that many snails. But in the future when we scale this up we do hope to start seeing snail kites.”
The survival of the snail kite depends on this working. And, some people say, if the snail kite goes extinct, things won’t look good for the restoration of the Everglades.
The Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur, threat category: Critically Endangered (Photo by Jean-Christophe Vié, courtesy of the IUCN)
There’s a new report out on the
state of the world’s creatures.
It’s called the Red List of Threatened
Species. And, as you can imagine,
the Red List is not a good list to
be on. Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
There’s a new report out on the state of the world’s creatures. It’s called the Red List of Threatened Species. And, as you can imagine, the Red List is not a good list to be on. Mark Brush has more:
This report is put out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They cataloged about 45,000 species worldwide. They say about 38% of those are threatened with extinction.
Species sometimes naturally go extinct. But, the researchers say, today’s extinction rates are happening a lot faster – mostly because people are destroying habitat.
Jean-Christophe Vié is the senior editor of the report.
“If you think of nature as a company, it’s the largest in the world. So now we are in this economic crisis, if there was one company to save, it’s not the car industry, or saving a bank – it’s saving nature, because it’s for the benefit of all of us.”
Vié says they were only able to report on about 3% of all the known species around the world.
But, they still feel they have a pretty good idea of the overall trend. And it’s not a good trend.
The National Geographic Channel is airing a documentary called “Waking the Baby Mammoth” this Sunday. The discovery of an intact baby mammoth carcass is also the cover story of the May edition of the National Geographic Magazine. Lester Graham has more on that:
Transcript
The National Geographic Channel is airing a documentary called “Waking the Baby Mammoth” this Sunday. The discovery of an intact baby mammoth carcass is also the cover story of the May edition of the National Geographic Magazine. Lester Graham has more on that:
(National Geographic) “This is the story of a nomadic reindeer herder, an extinct baby wooly mammoth, and a team of scientists on a quest to learn her secrets…”
One of the scientists on that quest is Dan Fisher. He’s a paleontologist at the University of Michigan.
This nearly 40,000 year carcass is the most complete baby mammoth ever discovered. The scientists named it Lyuba.
Fisher flew to Russia two years ago to get his first look at the mammoth, an animal that’s been extinct for thousands of years.
“It’s overwhelming really to feel the privilege of getting to be that close to something that does hold so many answers to questions many people have.”
Graham: “This was a fascinating find, but I wonder how much has it added to our knowledge of that period.”
“What it tells us about the period is that it was really a wonderful time to be a mammoth – to be a large mammal – on the open steppes of the high north.”
(National Geographic) “For paleontologists this is a time capsule from the Ice Age. When Lyuba lived, the mammoth steppe was at its peak. It was rich with vegetation that sustained millions of woolly mammoths for hundreds of thousands of years.”
An autopsy of the baby mammoth revealed a lot about where she died – 40,000 years ago a dry grassland. Today it’s a frozen tundra in Siberia.
Dan Fisher says the well-preserved carcass still had traces of what Lyuba ate.
“It’s remarkable that we can take evidence that’s with us today, that’s at our fingertips and generate from that new understanding that can give us perspective on big questions like extinction and climate change, issues that we certainly will have to continue to face as we deal with other endangered species and with the future of our own civilization and planet.”
Fisher says the mammoth remains help add to our understanding of a related animal still around today, the elephant. And they help us better understand our impacts on other endangered species.
And Fisher says learning more about the climate 40,000 years ago can help us understand one other thing.
“We want to, of course, understand the Earth’s climate system better and one of the ways we can test the computer models that help us to project patterns of climate change into the future is to essentially try them out on the past. The past is essentially the training wheels for learning to refine these models. So, information from Lyuba and other mammoths can help us to develop a better understanding of how the Earth’s climate system works.”
(National Geographic) “Dan Fisher and his colleagues will continue to unravel Lyuba’s secrets and to search for reasons why mammals went extinct at the end of the Ice Age.”
The National Geographic program indicates research continues to reveal a lot about Lyuba’s life, and her death, which the scientists begin to piece together in the documentary.
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.
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.
A Wyoming toadlet at the Detroit Zoo. (Photo by Danna Schock, National Amphibian Conservation Center)
A golden mantella at the Detroit Zoo. (Photo by Danna Schock, National Amphibian Conservation Center)
A surinam toad at the Detroit Zoo. (Photo by Danna Schock, National Amphibian Conservation Center)
The National Amphibian Conservation Center. (Photo by Danna Schock, National Amphibian Conservation Center)
There are thousands of kinds of frogs and toads that could go extinct
in our lifetime. Rebecca Williams reports zoos are trying to save the
most endangered frogs by playing matchmaker:
Transcript
There are thousands of kinds of frogs and toads that could go extinct
in our lifetime. Rebecca Williams reports zoos are trying to save the
most endangered frogs by playing matchmaker:
“Okay, so we’re in our Panamanian golden frog room.”
This is the frog bachelor pad.
(slow music)
The lights are low. One of the girls
is sitting naked under the waterfall. And in a dark corner of an
aquarium, there’s some action.
“Well, the male has clasped onto the female around the back…”
Danna Schock is like Dr. Ruth for frogs. She’s the curator of frogs
and toads at the Detroit Zoo. Right now she’s trying to get these
little yellow and black frogs in the mood.
“They were just put together a couple days ago, we’re not sure
they’re feeling it yet. I don’t know if we need Barry White music in
here or what.”
(Barry White song)
Getting the mood right matters because frogs are sensitive. The
temperature has to be just right. Sometimes what the male wants is
just not what the female wants.
Danna Schock wants these guys to have lots of babies. That’s because
frogs are in big trouble in the wild. They’re disappearing really,
really fast.
“The extinction going on is really of the scale that happened
at the end of the Cretaceous when the dinosaurs went. But that
extinction happened over a million years. We’re seeing some of this go
down in my lifetime. This is unprecedented.”
As much as half of all amphibian species on Earth could go extinct in
our lifetime. Here’s why. Frogs and toads breathe and drink through
their skin. Those thin skins make them very sensitive to pollution
from farms and industry and whatever we put down the drain. Also, the
places frogs live are being paved over for parking lots and
subdivisions.
Then there’s another really big problem. There’s a disease
sweeping through frogs around the world. It’s called chytrid fungus.
It can kill frogs in just a few weeks.
Kevin Zippel is the program director for Amphibian Ark. It’s kind of
like Noah’s Ark for frogs. It’s a group working with zoos to save the
frogs and toads that are most at risk. Especially the ones dying from
chytrid fungus.
“The only solution for those species that are susceptible is to bring
them into captivity as a stop-gap measure until the day when we do have
a cure for it.”
Zippel says chytrid fungus was first found in the 1930s in the African
clawed frog. That frog was exported around the world for medical
research. And scientists think the disease was spread with it.
Kevin Zippel says they’re scrambling to bring frogs into zoos before
they’re wiped out. He says it’s always much better for frogs to live
in the wild. But he says, for hundreds of frog species, taking them
into zoos is the only way to keep them alive.
The Wyoming toad is one species that’s been saved by zoos. For all
practical purposes, it’s considered extinct in the wild. Zoos around
the country have taken in the toads and gotten them to mate.
(Sound of tanks bubbling)
At the Detroit Zoo there’s a special quarantine room. It’s under lock
and key. We have to disinfect our shoes so we don’t track in bacteria
or other diseases.
Then Danna Schock lets us peek in on her
babies. These Wyoming toadlets are about the size of gumballs.
“These guys are fabulous little creatures. These are not divas.
They’re just such a pleasure to work with, they’re fun, they eat well.
There are just little Buddha bellies on ’em.”
These little Wyoming toads have big lives ahead of them. A lot of sex.
And their babies might get released back to the same place where they
got their name – Wyoming.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has been releasing toad eggs and
tadpoles in a few protected areas there.
Brian Kelly is with the Service. Last summer, for the first time in 10
years, his team found new Wyoming toad eggs in the wild.
“It’s incredibly encouraging because that’s why we’re doing this, we
want to establish populations that maintain themselves and remain
viable over time.”
Kelly says the toads are still in trouble. Their habitat has to be
protected. And the fatal chytrid fungus is still a major threat. So
zoos will have to fill the gap for a while.
It’s not ideal. It costs a lot to keep frogs at the zoo. There isn’t
enough room in zoos to save every type of frog. And, as Danna Schock at
the Detroit Zoo will tell you, it’s tough to figure out exactly what
the frogs want. But she says she’s not going to give up.
“I’d rather go down flailing in flames. At least we can say we tried.
And there are reasons to be optimistic. We have had successes – and
they’re scattered, and they’re patchy, and we learn from our mistakes all
the time.”
Schock says it would be much better to solve the frogs’ problems in the
first place. She says that means not paving over all the wetlands. It
means not polluting ponds and creeks. And hopefully, finding a cure
for chytrid fungus.
Todd Forrest at the New York Botanical Garden's Ladies Border Garden. (Photo by Brad Linder)
The Ladies Border Garden at the New York Botanical Garden. (Photo by Brad Linder)
Marielle Anzelone instructs a crew working on a native plant garden in New York's Union Square. (Photo by Brad Linder)
Marielle Anzelone works on a native plant garden in New York's Union Square. (Photo by Brad Linder)
When you think about global warming, you probably think about polar ice caps
melting and rising sea levels. But climate change is also having a more immediate
effect — on gardeners. As average temperatures rise, many gardeners are finding
they can grow non-native plants in their back yards. Brad Linder visited one public
garden that’s been nicknamed “the global warming garden”:
Transcript
When you think about global warming, you probably think about polar ice caps
melting and rising sea levels. But climate change is also having a more immediate
effect — on gardeners. As average temperatures rise, many gardeners are finding
they can grow non-native plants in their back yards. Brad Linder visited one public
garden that’s been nicknamed “the global warming garden”:
Most gardeners know there are some plants they’ll never be able to grow, because
of the climate where they live. But the Earth’s climate is changing, and that means
plants that normally grow in the southern United States are thriving as far north as
New York City:
“This Japanese Flowering Apricot, prunus mume. This is a plant that’s widely
grown further south. It’s actually native originally to China, but it’s beloved in Japan.”
Todd Forrest is vice president for horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden:
“And so what we’ve found with climate change is that this plant survives, because
the winter temperatures are on average warmer. But because there’s variability in
our local climate, it will often have its flowers burned by frost.”
Forrest is walking through the Ladies Border Garden, an experimental section of the
Botanical Garden designed to demonstrate the impact of climate change on plants.
Forrest sometimes calls the Ladies Border “the global warming garden,” because
most of the plants are species that couldn’t have grown in this area a few decades
ago.
Climate change probably has been affecting plants and gardeners for years. But
Forrest says it’s only recently that people have put two and two together and realized
that unpredictable weather patterns are affecting their herb gardens:
“Gardeners at times suffer the sort of head in the sand syndrome. They’re so
obsessed with and attuned to their individual garden and climate. And we’re all used
to being frustrated by the weather. I think for a long time we all just sort of ascribed
whatever change there was or variability to that darn weather again. Acting up.
Raining when it should be dry. Dry when it should be raining. Cold when it should be
warm.”
In some ways, the Ladies Border Garden shows how exciting global warming can
be for gardeners. You can grow all sorts of exotic plants in your backyard if you don’t
have to deal with the long cold winters you’re used to.
Forrest has been able to get dozens of unusual plants to grow in New York, including
Choysia and even a Himalayan Fan Palm. That’s right, a palm tree growing in New
York City.
But just because you can grow non-native plants doesn’t mean you should. Because
foreign plants can easily become invasive species, killing off local plants.
Marielle Anzelone is a botanist and garden designer. Her specialty is working with
local plants. Today she’s planting a native-species garden in a public park:
“All the plants are going to have little signs in front of them that say what they are,
because it’s meant to be educational. People should see a plant, say oh, it’s
gorgeous. Want it. Oh, it’s vibernum nutem. And then run out to their nursery
and get it.”
Anzelone says many people don’t realize how beautiful local plants are. For
example, she says people often buy wreaths made of Asiatic Bittersweet vines —
even though it’s an invasive species that’s been killing off American Bittersweet:
“And people maybe then who hang the wreath outside on their door. A bird comes
and eats the berries and poops it out in Prospect Park or Central Park. I mean, that
is how these things get around. So it’s not just your world in a vacuum and nothing
comes to your garden. I mean, birds travel, insects travel.”
That’s why, under normal circumstances, gardeners have to be careful what they
plant in their backyards. Because non-native plants have a way of spreading and
competing with local plants, and climate change complicates things by making it
easier for invasive species to spread:
“The thing that keeps me up at night is not global warming. It’s extinction crisis. And I
think people think a lot about extinction as being this big dramatic thing. It’s a fire, it’s
an oil spill. But actually it doesn’t work that way. Extinction happens on a small scale
all the time.”
As the climate changes, Anzelone says she understands that gardeners will want to
try new things. But she says they shouldn’t forget about native plants, which feed
native insects and animals.
The New York Botanical Garden’s Todd Forrest admits that the Ladies Border
Garden is both exciting and disturbing. While he can demonstrate that new plants
will grow in New York, he knows that global warming is also killing off plants that
have lived here for thousands of years.
A tiny shorebird, the Piping Plover, is a species of concern. It is protected by the Endangered Species Act, but it needs constant vigilance to make sure its beach nesting habitat is protected. (Photo by Gene Nieminen,
USFWS)
The Kirtland's Warbler needs jack pine habitat in northern Michigan to survive. It is protected by the Endangered Species Act, but it's still listed on the WatchList 2007 as one of the species at greatest risk of disappearing. (Photo by Lou George, USFWS)
The Reddish Egret lives along the Gulf Coast. It needs high quality coastal habitat for its food, and it's vulnerable to human disturbances. It's not currently listed under the Endangered Species Act. (Photo by James Leupold,
FWS)
A new report says more than one quarter of America’s bird species are
at risk of serious declines. Rebecca Williams reports most of the
species are not protected under the Endangered Species Act:
Transcript
A new report says more than one quarter of America’s bird species are
at risk of serious declines. Rebecca Williams reports most of the
species are not protected under the Endangered Species Act:
The National Audubon Society and American Bird Conservancy put together
a list of the birds at the greatest risk.
More than 175 species in the continental U.S. and 39 bird species in
Hawaii made the list.
Greg Butcher directs bird conservation for Audubon. He says many bird
species are threatened by habitat loss. He says some coastal birds are
losing nesting habitat to rising sea levels caused by global warming.
He says most of the bird species are not on the Endangered Species
List:
“And most of them don’t belong on the Endangered Species Act at this
point. And one of the things we want to do is start active
conservation for these species before they need to be listed.”
Butcher says it’s not just up to conservation groups. He says
homeowners can also help by making backyard habitats better for birds.
A new study finds that as plant species go extinct around the world,
ecosystems could become a lot less productive. Rebecca Williams
reports, this could be bad news for the services people depend on from
nature:
Transcript
A new study finds that as plant species go extinct around the world,
ecosystems could become a lot less productive. Rebecca Williams
reports, this could be bad news for the services people depend on from
nature:
Plants work overtime for us. They produce oxygen and food, among a lot
of other things. But many plant species are going extinct.
A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says as
we lose plant species, ecosystems could become half as productive as
they are now.
Brad Cardinale is the study’s lead author. He says preserving habitats
could slow the loss of species:
“For every place we build, every place we put a house, every place we
put a mall, we set aside another tract of equal size for the other 10 million
species on the planet to persist.”
Cardinale says we should start setting aside more land soon. Some
estimates suggest as much as half of all known species on Earth could
be extinct by the end of this century.
Healthy Reef Systems May Be a Thing of The Past(Photo courtesy of Mikael Häggström)
