Scientists warn that we’re in the middle of a mass extinction. Frogs,
toads and other amphibians are dying off at an alarming rate. Rebecca
Williams reports a group of scientists wants to build an ark to stop
the extinctions:
Transcript
Scientists warn that we’re in the middle of a mass extinction. Frogs,
toads and other amphibians are dying off at an alarming rate. Rebecca
Williams reports a group of scientists wants to build an ark to stop
the extinctions:
In the last few decades, hundreds of amphibian species have gone
extinct. And several thousand more are on the verge of extinction.
One major threat is a killer fungus that’s wiping them out. Other
threats are habitat destruction and pollution.
A group called Amphibian Ark has announced a 40 million dollar plan.
They want to build special facilities at zoos and aquariums around the
world to take in endangered amphibians and keep them alive.
Kevin Zippel is the group’s amphibian program officer:
“The amphibian extinction crisis is probably the greatest species
conservation challenge in the history of humanity in terms of the
number of species in one group that’s being impacted.”
Zippel says putting frogs and toads into zoos is not a solution. But
he says he hopes it will buy time for more research… and eventually
get the animals re-established in the wild.
A baby slender loris, native to Sri Lanka. It has excellent night vision. (Photo courtesy of Zoological Society of London)
The pygmy hippopotamus is native to West Africa. (Photo courtesy of Zoological Society of London)
The Bactrian camel. Only a few fragmented populations in northwest China and southwest Mongolia remain. (Photo courtesy of Zoological Society of London)
The aye-aye, the world's largest nocturnal primate. It's found only in Madagascar. (Photo courtesy of Zoological Society of London)
Scientists at the London Zoo have launched an effort to save some of the oddest animals on Earth. Rebecca
Williams reports most of them aren’t well-protected:
Transcript
Scientists at the London Zoo have launched an effort to save some of the oddest animals on Earth. Rebecca
Williams reports most of them aren’t well-protected:
We all know about rhinos and pandas, But there’s also the hairy-nosed wombat, the golden-rumped
elephant shrew and the pygmy hippo. Most of them have faces as strange as their names.
Jonathan Baillie is the project’s lead researcher. He says the animals that made the list are both one of a
kind and on the verge of going extinct.
“The solenodon is a creature that’s like a giant shrew that injects venom into its prey, the long-eared
jerboa’s like a miniature kangaroo that lives in the Gobi Desert, and it has enormous ears. The reason
they’re so different is they represent entire lineages so they have few close relatives and that’s why it’s so
important we conserve them because if they’re gone there’s just nothing like them.”
Baillie says many of the animals are small, and have flown under the radar of other conservation efforts.
More than a thousand breeds of farm animals are at risk of going extinct.
That’s according to a new report from the United Nations. Rebecca Williams
reports the UN says globalization is the main reason for the extinctions:
Transcript
More than a thousand breeds of farm animals are at risk of going
extinct. That’s according to a new report from the United Nations.
Rebecca Williams reports the UN says globalization is the main
reason for the extinctions:
Some livestock breeds aren’t being raised as much anymore. That’s
because most farmers only want the breeds that can produce a lot of
meat in a short period of time. Fewer breeds means a smaller genetic
pool. So the whole population of livestock isn’t as robust.
Irene Hoffman is with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
She says a larger gene pool protects livestock from things such as new
diseases.
Hoffman says consumers have a large role in keeping breeds alive.
“The first strategy is always to keep animals in production to keep
them economically competitive.”
But it can be hard for consumers to find these rare breeds. It takes
extra effort.
The report says in just the past 15 years, 190 livestock breeds have
gone extinct.
Milking Devon cattle are rare domestic breeds from an earlier day, some dating back to the 18th century. The animals hold genetic information that some people think is too valuable to lose. (Photo by Lester Graham)
The Garfield Farm Museum is preserving antiquated domestic breeds of farm animals, such as these Black Java chickens. (Photo by Lester Graham)
The Garfield Farm Museum, between Geneva and Elburn, Illinois, brings together farming experiences of the past 150 years with an appreciation of the natural environment, according to its website. (Photo by Lester Graham)
When you think of endangered species, farm animals might not top the list. But some types of farm animals are in danger of going extinct.
Certain breeds of common barnyard creatures are no longer considered commercially viable, and are being allowed to die off. But as the GLRC’s Chris Lehman reports, there’s an effort to preserve some rare varieties of
livestock:
Transcript
When you think of endangered species, farm animals might not top the list. But some
types of farm animals are in danger of going extinct. Certain breeds of common barnyard
creatures are no longer considered commercially viable, and are being allowed to die off.
But as the GLRC’s Chris Lehman reports, there’s an effort to preserve some rare varieties
of livestock:
When you buy a pound of ground beef or a pack of chicken legs, you probably don’t
think about what kind of cow or chicken the meat came from. And in most stores,
you don’t have a choice. Beef is beef and chicken is chicken.
Of course, there’s many different kinds of cows and chickens, but most farmers stick with
just a handful of types. They prefer animals that are specially bred to produce more meat
in less time.
That’s all well and good if your motive is profit.
But some people think the move towards designer farm animals is risky.
Jerome Johnson is executive director of Garfield Farm Museum.
(Sound of turkeys gobbling)
Johnson says breeds like these Narragansett turkeys carry genetic traits that could be
desirable in the future. They don’t require as much food, for instance. That could be an
attractive feature as costs continue to rise:
“Some of the high-producing, high-yielding animals today, they may require a lot of
input. In other words, a lot of feed, more expense since so many things are derived from
petroleum, from the diesel fuel that powers the tractors to the production of fertilizer
and the like, and chemicals for herbicides and all… that as the cost of that goes up, it may
actually be cheaper to raise a different type of animal, that doesn’t require that much.”
Johnson also says some common poultry breeds get sick more easily. That’s part of the
risk farmers take when they choose meatier birds. Normally that might not be a problem,
but if Avian flu spreads to the US, some of the older breeds might carry genes that could
resist the disease. If those breeds disappear, that genetic information would be lost.
But some farmers choose rare livestock breeds for completely different reasons.
(Sound of baby chicks)
Scott Lehr and his family raise several varieties of pure-bred poultry, sheep, and goats on
their northern Illinois farm. These chicks are just a few weeks old…
(Sound of baby chicks)
“These are all pure-bred birds. These are birds that have been around a long time. Some
of the breeds that are in there, there’s Bantam Brown Leghorns, Bantam White Leghorns.”
Some of the poultry breeds are so rare and exotic they’re practically collector’s items.
Lehr’s son enters them in competitions. But the animals on their farm aren’t just for
showing off. Scott says they use the wool from their herd of Border Cheviot sheep for a
craft studio they opened in a nearby town:
“There’s quite a bit of demand growing for handspun wool and the rising interest in the
hand arts, if you will… knitting and spinning and weaving and those kinds of things… are
really beginning to come into, I guess, the consciousness of the American public in many
ways. It’s evolving beyond a cottage industry.”
And the wool of rare breeds like the Border Cheviot sheep is popular among people who want handspun wool.
(Sound of Johnson calling to giant pig, “Hey, buddy, how ya doin’?”)
Back at the Garfield Farm Museum, Jerome Johnson offers a handful of grass to a 700
pound Berkshire hog. This Berkshire is different from the variety of pig with the same
name that’s relatively common today. Johnson says these old-style Berkshires have a
different nose and more white hair than the modern Berkshire. They also tend to be fatter,
which used to be a more desirable trait.
The museum’s pair of old-style Berkshires are literally a dying breed. Johnson says the
boar isn’t fertile anymore:
“They were the last breeding pair that we knew of. These were once quite common but
now are quite rare. And we maybe have found a boar that is fertile that is up in
Wisconsin that was brought in from England here a couple years ago that we could try
crossing with our sow to see if we can preserve some of these genetics.”
(Sound of pigs)
Advocates of rare livestock breeds say the animals can be healthier and sometimes tastier
than the kinds raised on large commercial farms. And although you won’t find many
farm animals on the endangered species list, they could have important benefits for future
farmers.
The lynx was recently considered extinct in Michigan until a
trapper caught one. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)
For years, federal and state governments have cut funding for wildlife protection. That’s led to complaints from biologists who say they don’t have enough money to adequately do their jobs, but it’s also led to a new movement. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports on how citizens are starting to take over duties once performed by trained scientists:
Transcript
For years, federal and state governments have cut funding for wildlife
protection. That’s led to complaints from biologists who say they don’t
have enough money to adequately do their jobs, but it’s also led to a new
movement. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee
reports on how citizens are starting to take over duties once performed by
trained scientists:
Ray Rustem says wildlife biologists these days are often chained to their
desks.
“Years ago, when I first started with the Department of Natural
Resources, wildlife habitat biologists spent quite a bit of time in the field
actually doing fieldwork. With the types of things that are going on now,
they’ve become much more in getting the planning done and we’ve had
to shift some of that fieldwork done to the technician level. Frankly,
yeah, we could always use additional people out there.”
Rustem is with the Wildlife Division of the Michigan Department of
Natural Resources. He says state funding has fallen steadily for years,
and one way he’s made up the difference is by involving Michigan
citizens. Rustem says the DNR uses dozens of volunteers for its frog and
toad survey in the early part of the summer.
“This is our tenth year and we’ve got at least 120 people who’ve been
doing this all ten years. That’s a tremendous amount of data that’s being
provided for us on information about species and where they’re located.”
Many groups are now using so-called citizen scientists to collect data.
Sally Petrella is a biologist who works with the non-profit organization
the Friends of the Detroit River.
“We’ve cut out so much of the funding for regular science that there’s a
real lack, and citizen scientists can cover far more areas than
professionals can, at a much lower cost.”
Petrella is standing beside the murky, reed-choked waters of the Rouge
River Watershed. It’s home to six species of frogs and toads. Every
summer, Friends of the Detroit River enlists the help of 700 people to
listen for the creatures as they call to each other from the marshy
grasses.
Petrella is standing beside one of her more loyal volunteers… Al Sadler.
Sadler admits that part of the appeal is the walk along the banks of the
river… but he also believes that public participation in wildlife
protection has become an absolute necessity.
“I think that it’s required if we plan on keeping any wildlife areas
around. I think that if citizens don’t get involved, I think that people
won’t know what they’re going to miss, and before we know it, there
won’t be much wild places left.”
Sadler is a fairly typical citizen scientist. He has a day job as an engineer
and volunteers in his spare time, but there are also people with advanced
degrees in biology and wildlife management who are called citizen
scientists simply because they don’t work for the government.
Dennis Fijakowski is one of those people. He’s the executive director of
the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy.
“We can’t count on the government to do everything for us. We have to
be a part of the solution.”
Fijakowski says ordinary people have made important contributions to
wildlife conservation. He says the lynx was considered extinct in
Michigan until a trapper caught one, and a rare Great Gray Owl was
discovered on a national wildlife refuge last spring by a photographer.
“You look back at the conservation history of our state and it was citizen
led. All of the important, the milestone decisions, legislation… it was
citizen led.”
John Kostyack with the National Wildlife Federation says involving
citizen scientists is great, but…
“They’re not really a substitute for having staff in the wildlife agencies…
state and federal and tribal. Because they are the ones who are going to
take this initial data, which is going to be very rough from volunteers,
and then use it to decide upon where to take the research next.”
And there have been cases in which citizen scientists have clashed with
state and federal governments. They are consistently at odds with government
officials over issues related to global warming and the Michigan Wildlife
Conservancy is locked in a bitter battle with state biologists over whether
the state is home to a viable cougar population.
The Conservancy’s Dennis Fijakowski acknowledges that the union
between government biologists and citizen scientists may not always be
an easy one, but he says the involvement of residents in the protection of
their state’s wildlife can only be a good thing.
“Because all anyone of us wants is that we pass on a wild legacy to our
children and grandchildren… and we’re not going to if we don’t get our
acts together.”
Many organizations offer citizens the opportunity to get involved in data
collection, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Extinction is a natural process. But scientists point out that humans have sped that process up. A new study maps out the places on Earth where species are in the greatest danger of going extinct. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
Extinction is a natural process, but scientists point out that humans have
sped that process up. A new study maps out the places on earth where
species are in the greatest danger of going extinct. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:
Conservation biologists are most concerned about endangered animals and
plants that are confined to just one location on earth, such as one
mountaintop, one lake, or one farm.
A new study finds there are close to 800 endangered species worldwide that
are found in single remaining sites.
Taylor Ricketts is the lead author of the study published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He says historically, most
extinctions have been on islands, but the species at risk now are found more
often on the mainlands.
“And I think that’s because our footprint on the mainlands has just grown,
and our habitat conversion of a lot of these places has intensified so much
that even the not particularly susceptible species are beginning to be
threatened with extinction.”
Ricketts says two thirds of these isolated sites don’t have full legal
protection. He points out it’s hard to protect species that are on land
with competing uses, such as agriculture, timber harvest or houses.
The Blanding's turtle is protected by federal law. It's illegal to buy or sell them. (Photo courtesy of Michigan DNR)
The federal government and several states in the region have used undercover agents and other tactics to crack down on people who violate wildlife protection laws. An Ohio man is the latest person to be caught and convicted by the operation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has more:
Transcript
The federal government and several states in the region
have used undercover agents and other tactics to
crack down on people who violate wildlife protection laws. An Ohio
man is the latest person to be caught and convicted by the operation.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has more:
A Columbus man has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for illegally buying and selling fifty-three Blandings turtles, protected by federal law. Over the past three years, fifty-seven other dealers in the region have been convicted for illegal trading in turtles, snakes, and lizards.
Jim McCormack of the Ohio Natural Resources Department says Ohio’s population of Blandings turtles has been decimated by wetlands destruction along Lake Erie. He says the thousand or so that survive must be protected so they don’t go extinct and prompt a domino effect on other animals and plants.
“We don’t want to see anything, whether it’s as obscure as some rare lichen or moss to something as showy and obvious and noteworthy as that turtle, to disappear.”
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois classify the Blandings turtle as “threatened,” and Indiana classifies it as “endangered.”
Many scientists are finding that much of the Arctic's ice cover could melt by the end of this summer. However, the Bush Administration cites a few reasons why compliance with the Kyoto treaty is still not a favored option. (Photo by Michael Slonecker)
Despite warnings that global warming is causing the
Arctic to warm up at twice the rate of the rest of the world, the Bush administration is not changing its policies on emissions in the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Despite warnings that global warming is causing the Arctic to warm up at twice the
rate of the rest of the world, the Bush administration is not changing its policies
on emissions in the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Earlier this month 300 scientists presented a four-year study that concluded the
Arctic was warming up right now. The report indicated the northern ice cap was already
diminished by 15 to 20 percent, and by the end of this century half of the Arctic’s summer
ice cover would be melted and polar bears could be nearly extinct. The study predicted that
the wildlife in the Arctic and the people who depended on it for food would be in dire straits.
But even with the new evidence that the Arctic is facing worse warming than first predicted,
the Bush adminsitration is not changing its course. The White House has indicated the U.S.
would lose too many jobs and have to restrict its economy more than other nations such as
China and India if it were to adhere to the Kyoto global warming treaty. So far, the Bush
administration has agreed only to fund further research on the issue.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
For many years, state and federal wildlife officials have considered the cougar extinct in the Great Lakes region. However, many people claim to have seen the large predatory cat long after it supposedly disappeared. Conservationists debate whether these sightings are real and if they are, they wonder whether the cougars are wild or merely escaped pets. Investigations are underway in many states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and in Canada. Now, a wildlife biologist in Michigan says he has proof that a breeding population of wild cougars is living in the Upper Peninsula. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gretchen Millich reports:
More than 1,300 U.S. and Canadian scientists are asking the Canadian government to strengthen proposed legislation that would protect endangered species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly explains:
Transcript
More than 13 hundred U.S. and Canadian scientists are asking the Canadian government to strengthen proposed legislation that would protect endangered species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports.
Right now, endangered species in Canada have no federal protection. The new Species at Risk Act would make it illegal for people to kill the 3 hundred 80 plants and animals considered at risk. But unlike the American law, the proposal does not guarantee that the land or waters in which these animals live will be protected from development. University of Ottawa biology professor David Currie says that’s led to a protest among scientists.
“Virtually all of the studies that have been done on the reasons why species become endangered or go extinct have shown that at least some aspect of habitat loss is involved and in many of the most dramatic cases of extinction, species’ habitats have been simply been entirely wiped out.”
The government’s environment committee will consider amendments to the bill in October. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
