Idaho Fish and Game sold 1,825 wolf tags in the first hour. By mid-afternoon the first day, about 4,000 tags had been sold. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:
Transcript
It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:
This is the first time a state has allowed an open hunting season on the wolf since it was protected by federal law.
Jon Rachael is state game manager for Idaho’s Fish and Game. He says there are about 1,000 wolves – far more than the original plan when the wolves were reintroduced.
So, hunters can kill as many as 220 of them.
“The intent of that is to reduce the population slightly. But that would leave us in the neighborhood of about 800 wolves at the end of the year.”
A Montana hunting season would allow another 75 wolves to be killed.
Environmentalists say it’s outrageous to kill so many wolves in the northern Rockies so soon after they were taken off the endangered species list.
The Environmental group Defenders of Wildlife sued to stop the wolf hunting season. A federal judge has not yet ruled on whether to stop the hunt.
Oliver Pergams used a tiny caliper to measure the mice, tracking changes in size over the years. (Photo by Gabriel Spitzer)
The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago has a hundred years of dead mouse specimens stored in
white metal cabinets. (Photo by Gabriel Spitzer)
Evolution takes place over long stretches of time: millennia and epochs. But some new research shows that animals might be changing much
faster than nearly anyone thought. Gabriel Spitzer has more on those
changes, and how they seem to be linked to humans:
Transcript
Evolution takes place over long stretches of time: millennia and epochs. But some new research shows that animals might be changing much
faster than nearly anyone thought. Gabriel Spitzer has more on those
changes, and how they seem to be linked to humans:
Tall Trees Park is a little patch of green in Glenview, Illinois – a
northern suburb of Chicago. About a hundred years ago, a lot of this area
looked a lot like this. It was mostly farms and pasture and forest. And now
of course it’s a lot of strip malls and subdivisions and stuff. And the
population has grown seventyfold. The climate has changed, too. It’s
gotten a little warmer, a little wetter.
And all this has made life a lot different for the northern white-footed
mice who live here. It’s actually not just made life different for the
mice, it’s changed the mice themselves.
That gets back to a guy named Oliver Pergams. He’s an ecologist, and in
the mid-90s, he was looking at deer mice who live on the Channel Islands
off the coast of California. And he was taking these mice and comparing
them to museum samples of the same kind of mice from the same place, but
decades earlier.
“And I found something kind of strange – that the older specimens were
larger than the newer specimens, so they shrunk in size over a period of
about 30 or 40 years.”
That got him wondering if those relatively quick changes are happening in
other places. So years later, now on the faculty at the University of
Illinois at Chicago, he gathered up some of those White Footed Mice from
the Chicago suburbs. And he went to the Field Museum of Natural History…
(sound of a cabinet opening)
… where they have a hundred years of dead mouse specimens stored in
white metal cabinets.
“Here we have trays and trays of the northern white-footed mouse.”
With a tiny caliper, he’d measure their skulls, their feet, the distance
from their eyes to their noses.
“So this one here was collected by Aikley in 1903.”
And he compared mice from before and after 1950.
“Here are some skulls, this one was collected in 1989.”
Lo and behold, these mice had grown: by more than 10% on some measures.
This phenomenon goes way beyond Chicago. Pergams measured more than 1,300
rodents from four different continents – Alaskan lemmings, Mexican
gophers, Filipino rats. Some of them got bigger, some smaller. But across
the world, most of the animals have changed over time spans thought to be
mere evolutionary eyeblinks.
The next step is to figure out why.
“You can’t get in a time machine and go back and look to see what
actually happened. So the next best thing is to see if there’s
associations or correlations with big factors.”
He found the variations correlate with changes in climate and human
population density. The exact reasons aren’t clear – more people might
mean more yummy trash for the mice to eat, for example. That’s going to
take more research to figure out, and these critters might be overdue for
some extra attention.
“One of the questions is, well, why didn’t anybody notice this before?
And I think the answer is, they haven’t looked.”
Larry Heaney curates the Field Museum’s mammal collection. He says
Pergams’s research opens up new questions about how animals respond to
changes driven by humans.
“The implication is, these animals are changing very, very rapidly. So in
a sense, it’s good: they can change. But the other side of the coin is,
they’re having to change.”
Now, the question is, is this happening in other species, too? What about
birds or bugs or plants?
“There’s been this default attitude that if you go to one place and you
capture or you observe animals or plants, that essentially there’s going
to be the same animals or plants 50 years or 100 years later. I don’t
think that’s possible to assume at all. We have to include the fact of
this change in all of our decisions, from ecology to evolutionary biology
to conservation.”
Pergams’s findings show that even the most common creatures have more to
teach us – when we ask the right kinds of questions.
Some zoos have stopped keeping elephants, because they feel they can’t provide the best care for them any more.
(Photo by Lauren Humphries, courtesy of the National Biological Information Infrastructure)
News of a zoo being investigated and fined has reignited the debate over keeping elephants in captivity. Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
News of a zoo being investigated and fined has reignited the debate over keeping elephants in captivity. Rebecca Williams reports:
It’s just been revealed that the Los Angeles Zoo was fined for the death of an elephant back in 2006. The zoo does not admit any wrongdoing.
But some people believe keeping elephants in zoos is wrong.
Suzanne Roy is with the group In Defense of Animals. She says elephants in captivity often have foot problems from standing on hard surfaces.
“It’s just incredible the level of suffering these elephants are put through before they eventually literally can’t stand on their own feet or legs anymore.”
But the Association of Zoos and Aquariums says its zoos have to meet high standards of care for elephants.
Paul Boyle is the group’s senior vice president for conservation.
“There are no people more committed to keeping elephants in good health and humor than those professionals at zoos across the country.”
Some zoos have stopped keeping elephants. Some, because they feel they can’t provide the best care for elephants any more.
The treatment of laying hens is one part of the issue getting a lot of attention in Ohio.
(Photo source: LEAPTOUY at Wikimedia Commons)
Recently, six states have changed their laws to require
better conditions for farm animals. But there’s a battle
brewing in one state that’s putting a new spin on the debate.
Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Recently, six states have changed their laws to require
better conditions for farm animals. But there’s a battle
brewing in one state that’s putting a new spin on the debate.
Julie Grant reports:
The Humane Society of the United States says it’s shameful
the way animals are treated on many American farms. Paul
Shapiro says veal calves, pregnant pigs, and egg-laying
hens are all kept in cages so small – it’s cruel.
“Hundreds of millions of egg-laying hens in the nation are
confined in tiny battery cages that are so restrictive the birds
are unable even to spread their wings.”
Shapiro says some farms house millions of hens, all
squished into tiny cages, and none of them get the chance to
nest, or act in any way like natural chickens. The Humane
Society has spent millions of dollars pushing for change in
California and other states.
But when the Humane Society hit Ohio with its campaign,
the state Farm Bureau Federation pushed back.
Keith Stimpert is spokesman for the Ohio Farm Bureau. He
says there’s a reason cages are a certain size for hens,
calves, and pigs: the animals’ safety.
“You can expand space, but you’re going to increase
aspects of fighting or cannibalistic behavior, or the chance
for that sow to fall down while she’s pregnant.”
Stimpert says the Humane Society doesn’t understand
livestock.
So instead of negotiating with the Humane Society, the Ohio
Farm Bureau is proposing something new: a state board to
oversee the care of livestock.
“I think we, in this case, can get to a better resolution on
animal care by organizing this board.”
The board would include family farmers, veterinarians, a
food safety expert, and a member of a local chapter of the
Humane Society, among others.
Voters will probably be asked in November to decide
whether to change the state constitution to create this board.
But the Humane Society’s Paul Shapiro says the board will
be stacked by the Farm Bureau. He calls it a power grab by
big agriculture.
“Keep in mind that these are people who have opposed,
tooth and nail, any form of agricultural regulation for years,
and now, all of a sudden, in just a few weeks, they’ve gotten
religion and feel grave urgency to enshrine in the state’ s
constitution their own favored system of oversight.”
Shapiro says this board will only protect the status quo. And
that’s not good for the animals.
Egg producer Mark Whipple runs a small farm in Clinton,
Ohio. He’s got about 1,500 hens. We caught up with him
delivering eggs at a local health food store.
He says his hens are free range.
“There ain’t no cages, really. They go in the box, lay their
egg, and go out and run around with the rest of ‘em, go eat,
drink, I don’t know, just be free.”
Whipple says he was never inclined to cage the hens.
You might expect him to side with the Humane Society on
this debate. But he doesn’t trust them to make decisions for
farmers.
“I don’t know that they really know where their food comes
from – other than they go to the grocery store or they go to
the refrigerator. Unfortunately, that’s a lot the mentality of
the world right now, so far removed from the farm at all,
knowing about livestock.”
Whipple says there are good producers and bad producers
out there – just like any business. He would rather see a
board like the one proposed by the farm bureau than a
mandate on cage sizes from a Washington DC-based
lobbying group.
But the Humane Society says the board proposed by the
Farm Bureau won’t make things better. If it’s approved by
voters this November, the Society plans to place its own
initiative on animal treatment on the ballot next year.
Meanwhile, other farm states are considering the Ohio Farm
Bureau’s approach and might soon have their own advisory
boards on how to treat animals.
Beluga Whales along the Canadian Atlantic coast developed tumors after they came in contact with chemicals from aluminum smelters. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
A new report in the journal Nature Reviews
Cancer looks at cancer in wildlife. Mark
Brush reports, the disease in animals is
sometimes caused by pollution:
Transcript
A new report in the journal Nature Reviews
Cancer looks at cancer in wildlife. Mark
Brush reports, the disease in animals is
sometimes caused by pollution:
The authors of this paper looked at a lot of research on cancer in wild animals. Some of these studies linked the cancer cases to pollution.
Beluga Whales along the Canadian Atlantic coast developed tumors after they came in contact with chemicals from aluminum smelters. And some fish and clam species have developed cancers after being exposed to pollution.
Denise McAloose is a veterinarian with the Wildlife Conservation Society. She’s the lead author of the paper.
“People should care about cancer in wildlife because, especially in those cancers that are driven by environmental factors, those environmental factors affect not only the animals, but people as well.”
For example, the people who worked in those aluminum smelters also had higher rates of cancer.
She says more research into the link between pollution and cancer in animals needs to be done. Because looking at how the disease affects wildlife might help us treat or prevent cancer in people.
Now that surrogate moms raise the otters, the goal is for
the pups to never see or hear a human. To get up close to the pup, Ann had to put on a
Darth Vader costume of sorts. (Photo by Angela Hains)
An aquarium exhibit otter bonds with a pup, behind-the-scenes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (Photo courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation)
A sea otter mother and pup pair. Animals that can rejoin the breeding population get top priority in the aquarium stranding program. (Photo by Doc White, courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation)
For animals in most zoos and
aquariums, the door from freedom
to captivity only swings one way.
But at the Monterey Bay Aquarium,
sea otters from its exhibits teach
wild sea otter orphans how to
survive in the ocean. Ann Dornfeld
has the story:
Transcript
For animals in most zoos and aquariums, the door from
freedom to captivity only swings one way. But at the
Monterey Bay Aquarium, sea otters from its exhibits teach
wild sea otter orphans how to survive in the ocean. Ann
Dornfeld has the story:
Rosa has her baby in a headlock. That’s actually how
southern sea otters hold their young.
“The pup is essentially unconscious – it’s very much
asleep, and Rosa is holding it as a female would in the
wild: she’s got it sort of teed off to her side with a paw
around its neck.”
Andy Johnson is the director of the Monterey Bay
Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation
program.
By the end of the19th century, sea otters had been hunted
to extinction in some parts of the Pacific.
Lilian Carswell is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She says these days, pollution and disease are sea otters’
biggest threats. And she says a lot of other species
depend on otters’ survival.
“Sea otters are important for a number of reasons. One is
that they’re a top predator in the nearshore marine
ecosystem and they play an important role in structuring
what that ecosystem looks like.”
Hungry sea otters keep sea urchin populations in check.
When urchins overpopulate an area, they can mow down
entire kelp forests that provide food and shelter for
hundreds of species.
So to help conserve the otter population, Andy Johnson
and his team at the Monterey Bay Aquarium pair orphaned
pups from the wild with the female exhibit otters. The goal
is for the surrogate mother to not only care for the pup, but
also to teach it all the skills it will need to be released back
into the wild at about six months old.
A volunteer has just tossed some food into the pool where
Rosa and the orphaned pup are swimming. Rosa grabs
the live crab as the pup watches.
“Rosa’s quite skilled with those, so she’ll pretty much take
that apart in a few minutes. We’ll have to watch the pup
and see if the pup approaches the crab without getting
pinched. I have to admit it’s quite amusing to see these
young animals confronting these crabs ’cause these crabs
are pretty formidable on their own.”
Rosa ends up breaking off a leg for her adopted pup, who
decides the shell is too much work. Before long, though,
the pup will learn some of the same impressive skills that
adult sea otters have – like how to use tools to open clams
and sea urchins.
Before the surrogate program began, workers and
volunteers used to hand-rear these pups. They’d even
take the pups swimming in Monterey Bay to acclimate
them to their future home.
But that made the released otters expect food from
boaters and other people they encountered in the bay.
Now that surrogate moms raise the otters, the goal is for
the pups to never see or hear a human. We’ve been
watching the sea otters interact from a TV monitor near
the pool. To get up close to the pup, I have to put on a
Darth Vader costume of sorts – starting with a huge black
nylon poncho.
(sound of the poncho)
Ann: “This is a welding mask?”
Andy Johnson: “A very cheap welding mask.”
Rosa isn’t fooled. As I approach the pool, she shoots over
to see whether I have food.
(sound of the otter sniffing around)
Rosa was a rescued pup. She was hand-reared before the
surrogate program began. After she was released into
Monterey Bay, she had to be recaptured because she was
jumping on kayaks and divers.
“We found that with the sea otters, putting them with an
adult female in a fairly shallow pool for six months far
outweighs whatever we were doing trying to raise these
pups.”
Sea otter populations are recovering at a slow pace in
California. But this program is contributing to the
population.
Johnson says the apparent survival rate of the re-released
pups is now about as good as that of newly-weaned pups
in the wild. Some have even successfully raised their own
pups, using skills they picked up from an exhibit otter at
the aquarium.
Congress is looking at restricting antibiotic use on livestock farms. The drugs are added to the animals’ feed to help stop diseases. Antibiotics also make the animals grow faster, and that’s good for farmer’s profits. Mark Brush reports… public health officials are concerned:
Transcript
Congress is looking at restricting antibiotic use on livestock farms. The drugs are added to the animals’ feed to help stop diseases. Antibiotics also make the animals grow faster, and that’s good for farmer’s profits. Mark Brush reports… public health officials are concerned:
A lot of researchers say overuse of antibiotics on farms can lead to bacteria that are resistant to the drugs.
A bill in Congress would stop the drugs from being used to promote growth… and just use them to treat sick animals. The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act is sponsored by the only micro-biologist in Congress. Representative Louise Slaughter from New York:
“And we’re watching a whole new classification now of bacteria, which was basically just a cut above harmless, become deadly. Particulary Staphylococcus aureus, which was as common as dirt, but now is MRSA. And can kill you in twenty-four hours.”
Slaughter says the Food and Drug Administration is not doing enough. So Congress has to step in.
The livestock industry says current regulations are enough.
Louise Engel admits she and her husband were initially a little nervous about setting the lambs lose in their valuable vineyard. (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)
David Johnson, owner of the Featherstone Winery, first heard about the lambs while visiting wineries in New Zealand. (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)
The owners of the winery say that the young, spring lambs are perfectly designed for pruning the vines (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)
Wine makers are shaking things up in their vineyards. Some of them use natural and organic methods to control pests and weeds instead of using pesticides. Now, one winery has discovered a unique, natural way to prune their grape vines. Joyce Kryszak visited the winery to get a first hand look:
Transcript
Wine makers are shaking things up in their vineyards. Some of them use natural and organic methods to control pests and weeds instead of using pesticides. Now, one winery has discovered a unique, natural way to prune their grape vines. Joyce Kryszak visited the winery to get a first hand look:
At the Featherstone Winery in Southern Ontario there are 20 acres of perfectly manicured grape vines. They stretch out in neatly groomed rows across rolling green hills.
But no man or machine maintains this vineyard. There are 40 cute, little, wooly lambs on duty pruning the grape vines into tip-top shape.
David Johnson says he knows the idea of using lambs on his vineyard is a bit odd. Johnson thought so too when he first heard the idea. He found out about it visiting wineries in New Zealand.
“I didn’t believe them at the time. I thought they were having fun with a tourist and that this would be a big joke, some Canadian when he went back home, telling a story. So, yeah, I’ve taken a ribbing on the lamb thing, for sure.”
But Johnson ignored the jokes and decided to try it out.
His wife Louise Engel admits they were a little nervous at first setting the lambs lose in their valuable vineyard.
“We watched these lambs like hawks. I mean, all the staff were sitting out there and following them around – ‘did they eat any grapes, did they eat any grapes?’ But they didn’t. They’ve got very nimble little mouths and little teeths and little lips and they just eat around them.”
You see, pruning grape vines is delicate business. Only a targeted area of leaves is removed from the lower part of the vines to help the fruit grow better.
But Engel and Johnson say the lambs are perfectly designed to handle the job. The young, spring lambs aren’t tall enough and their necks can’t stretch up to reach the grapes. And, since they only weigh about 50 pounds, they don’t trample the soil. And, yes, their droppings do make excellent organic fertilizer.
(sound of lambs bleating)
Three years, and three flocks of sheep later, nobody’s laughing. Area vintners even have copied them; and for good reason. It would cost about $300 an acre to hire seasonal workers to come in for seven weeks in the summer to hand prune the vines. The lambs cost a fraction of that. And, when the pruning is done in August, off they go to the butcher.
Johnson says it turns out that free-range lambs fed a diet of grape leaves end up being pretty tasty.
“We sold them off last year to some caterers and some pretty nice restaurants, and they got back to us and said, ‘wow, these lambs are really special.’ They’re different; they’re almost veal-like in color and flavor and very, very lean. And they’re going to do lamb specials all month and pair it with our wines all month.”
But he admits there are some drawbacks.
They had a tough time finding enough lambs to do the job. There are about fifty million of them in New Zealand. But, it turns out, they’re kind of sparse in Ontario.
Johnson says there are some logistical problems, too. Even some organic pesticides are toxic to lambs. And, there’s all that fence building and moving around to limit the lambs’ access, so they don’t over-prune.
Still, they think it’s worth the hassle. Engel says the lambs fit in beautifully with their philosophy of sustainable farming and diversity in the vineyard.
“They’re lovely, tranquil, placid things, and there’s something almost biblical about having lambs roaming the place and wine here. And, it’s just, I don’t know, there’s just some itch that scratches that’s quite fulfilling.”
People visiting the vineyard enjoy watching the lambs too.
Customers enjoy lunch on the veranda as they look out on the pastoral scene. And, of course, they have a little wine. And one of the top selling wines is Black Sheep Reisling.
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.
A few years ago, urchins had mowed this huge kelp forest down to just a few square feet (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
The crew counts the urchins before tossing them into their new home territory (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Most of the world’s forests are on dry land. But in a few special places on earth, forests grow underwater. They’re kelp forests. And they’re home to an astounding array of marine life. Trouble is, these underwater forests are vanishing. Ann Dornfeld reports on efforts to turn the tide:
Transcript
Most of the world’s forests are on dry land. But in a few special places on earth, forests grow underwater. They’re kelp forests. And they’re home to an astounding array of marine life. Trouble is, these underwater forests are vanishing. Ann Dornfeld reports on efforts to turn the tide:
A healthy kelp forest is so thick with fish and invertebrates that you’d swear you were looking at an aquarium exhibit.
They’re biodiversity hotspots – places that feed and protect an extraordinary number of species.
Brian Meux of Santa Monica Baykeeper standing on the deck of a boat in his wetsuit. He’s looking proudly at a thriving kelp forest along a rocky coastline near Los Angeles.
“This is our little jewel on this coast. Not only does the kelp forest have over 800 species dependent on it, but more than a quarter of all California marine species are dependent upon the kelp forest during some part of their life cycle.”
Since the 1960s, Southern California has lost 90% of its kelp forests. The culprit looks like a small purple pin cushion.
It’s a sea urchin!
Urchins love to eat kelp, and their populations have gone out of control. That’s because overfishing has removed most of the large fish and lobsters that eat urchins.
A few years ago, urchins had mowed this kelp forest down to just a few square feet. So Meux and a team of Baykeeper volunteers are trying to restore the balance.
They’re licensed by the state to do “urchin relocation.”
“what we do is go down, collect urchins by hand, get them on the boat and relocate them to areas where they will no longer harm the kelp forest.”
Sounds easy enough.
“Some of them you’ll want to just pull off the reef – they’ll look like they just can come off – I recommend using the tool. Urchin spines in your fingers… just not fun. ”
Or maybe not.
Either way, it’s time for the us to gear up and jump in.
(sound of diving in and scuba breathing)
Twenty-five feet underwater, the ocean surges so violently that the divers cling to rocks so they won’t be swept away.
It’s tricky to find a safe rock to grab because most of them are covered in urchins that have moved in on this young kelp forest.
But urchins aren’t the only migrants.
Huge purple sheephead and fire-orange Garibaldi fish swim by. A small octopus sits curled in a crevice. Pastel sea stars are everywhere.
Four years ago, this site was pretty much just rocks and urchins.
Two dives later, the divers are back on the boat.
Diver 1: “That was a workout!”
Diver 2: “That was a workout. I’m tired.”
After the team hauls up bag after bags of purple and red urchins, we try unsuccessfully to extract a spine from one volunteer’s finger.
Next, we move to deeper water a mile away. This will be the urchins’ new home.
The divers count the prickly balls as they throw them overboard.
Diver: “Purple!”
Each time a diver counts ten urchins of a particular color, they call it out.
Divers: “Purple! Purple.”
Similar kelp restoration efforts have revived kelp forests along other stretches of the California coast. But while those projects involved reseeding of the kelp forest, Meux says Baykeeper focuses on urchin relocation.
“We’ve found that mostly just get rid of the urchins and natural kelp spores will seed the reef and the return of kelp will ensue.”
Diver: “Purple!”
In all today, the team has relocated about 1500 urchins.
Between weekly trips like these and giant kelp’s ability to grow as fast as two feet a day, kelp restoration is a
heartening environmental success story.
In order for Southern California’s kelp forests to make a widespread comeback, Brian Meux says the state will need to limit the fishing that caused this problem in the first place.
Idaho Fish and Game sold 1,825 wolf tags in the first hour. By mid-afternoon the first day, about 4,000 tags had been sold. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
