Jellyfish Taking Over Oceans?

  • A jellyfish under the Ross Sea ice, on October 14, 2005 (Photo by Henry Kaiser, courtesy of the National Science Foundation)

Some scientists are warning
that as overfishing and climate
change affect the world’s oceans,
jellyfish will take over the
ecosystem. That could mean that
eventually, if you cast a net
into the ocean all you’d haul
in would be jelly blobs. But
as Ann Dornfeld reports, such
warnings may be premature:

Transcript

Some scientists are warning
that as overfishing and climate
change affect the world’s oceans,
jellyfish will take over the
ecosystem. That could mean that
eventually, if you cast a net
into the ocean all you’d haul
in would be jelly blobs. But
as Ann Dornfeld reports, such
warnings may be premature:

The theory goes like this. Overfishing is removing the main jellyfish predators from the oceans. And warming oceans could be more hospitable to jellies.

A new report published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution says jellyfish are already taking over. Its authors point to recent big jellyfish blooms as evidence.

But not everyone’s convinced.

“I think there’s a set of people that are sensationalizing the jellyfish bloom issue.”

University of Washington researcher Claudia Mills has been studying jellies for 30 years.

“I do think that probably jellyfish blooms are on the increase. But the problem is, we have so little baseline data that it’s almost impossible to really, honestly know that.”

Mills says there’s hardly any historical data on jellyfish populations, and not even much recent data.

She says it could be that the future of the world’s oceans is gelatinous and tentacled… or the blooms could just be cyclical.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links

Usda Kills Wildlife

  • USDA Wildlife Services Killed 90,000 Coyotes in 2007 (Photo courtesy of Michigan Department of Natural Resources)

More than a hundred environmental
organizations want the incoming head of
the US Department of Agriculture to stop
killing wildlife. The agency has an office
that kills wild animals to save livestock.
Jennifer Szweda Jordan has more:

Transcript

More than a hundred environmental
organizations want the incoming head of
the US Department of Agriculture to stop
killing wildlife. The agency has an office
that kills wild animals to save livestock.
Jennifer Szweda Jordan has more:

The Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and dozens of other groups signed on to a letter to Tom Vilsack. Vilsack is President-elect Obama’s pick for Agriculture Secretary. The environmental coalition is upset about the department’s Wildlife Services Agency. That agency removes or kills animals that threaten crops, farm animals, or cause other nuisances. Wildlife Services agents reported in 2007 that they killed more than two million animals, including 90-thousand coyotes, sometimes through poisoning.

Tom Vilsack did not return a call seeking comment about the letter.

The environmental groups say the poisonings and killings disrupt the balance of nature, and can leave persistent chemicals behind.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Szweda Jordan.

Related Links

Wolves Make Mark on Yellowstone

  • The wolves in Kinna Ohman's report as seen through a spotting scope. Wolves have helped strengthen several species of plants and animals in Yellowstone National Park. (Photo by Marlene Foard)

Scientists are surprised by the changes one animal can make in America’s first national park.
Since the wolf returned to Yellowstone, the predator’s had wide-ranging and unexpected effects
on the ecosystem of the park. As Kinna Ohman reports, top predators such as wolves might be
more necessary than previously realized:

Transcript

Scientists are surprised by the changes one animal can make in America’s first national park.
Since the wolf returned to Yellowstone, the predator’s had wide-ranging and unexpected effects
on the ecosystem of the park. As Kinna Ohman reports, top predators such as wolves might be
more necessary than previously realized:


Yellowstone National Park holds many wonders, but few things capture a visitor’s imagination
like the wolf:


“Whoa, I can see their eyes.”


Marlene Foard lets me peek through her scope and see members of the Slough Creek wolf pack
tearing into a recent kill. As we watch, we hear another group of wolves howling in the distance:


“Did you hear ’em? Yeah, did you hear that? Oh my God…”


(Sound of wolves howling)


Visitors are not the only ones fascinated by the wolves. Lately, scientists have been caught up in
the excitement too. Not just by the wolves, but how the wolves are changing Yellowstone.


(Sound of creek)


It’s a cold yet sunny day in the park. I’ve met up with Doug Smith, the project leader of
the park’s wolf recovery program. But we’re not going to look for wolves today. We’re about to
see how wolves are changing the landscape:


(Sound of footsteps)


“This is Blacktail Deer Creek that we’re walking up on. And it’s surrounded by willows.
And these willows about ten years ago were not growing as luxuriantly as they are right
now.”


This new willow growth happened after the wolves’ reintroduction to Yellowstone, and many
scientists are making a connection. Willow can be a food for elk especially in the winter, but
since the wolves have returned, elk would rather be on hillsides and open areas where they can
see wolves coming. And once they leave the river valleys behind, plants like the willow are
recovering.


The willow’s recovery is important because it helps other wildlife. Beaver eat willow and use it
for building dams. And ponds created by beavers are great habitat for endangered birds, like the
warbler. Doug Smith says the fact this could be caused by wolves caught everyone by surprise:


“Nobody thought of this. I was around at the beginning. There were many studies done
looking at what the impacts of wolves would be. And I can’t remember reading about this
at all.”


And it goes beyond the willow. Bill Ripple is a professor of Ecology at Oregon State University.
He came to Yellowstone in 1997 to study why aspen trees were declining. Ripple wasn’t thinking
wolves, but one day, when studying tree ring data, he saw the aspens’ problems began just when
the last wolves were killed off in Yellowstone. He was equally surprised:


“I didn’t see anything in the record. It wasn’t on my radar to see how wolves may be
affecting aspen trees. That was not even considered at all. And all of a sudden, it appears
that this one animal can have this profound effect on the entire ecosystem.”


And this got Ripple thinking about the top predators a little differently. He says these effects
might even extend to other animals:


“I think that this effect of predators would probably go well beyond just cougars or wolves.
You know everything from black bears to grizzly bears to lynx to wolverines. They may all
play important roles that we don’t even know about at this point.”


Not everyone thinks predators are needed for ecosystems to thrive. There are hunters who
consider wolves unnecessary and even competition for animals such as deer and elk, but Doug
Smith says it’s important to realize the contribution of wolves goes beyond what hunters can do.
Willow and aspen re-growth depends on wolves changing elk behavior. And this has to happen
year round:


“Human hunters, well known this fact, and I’m a hunter and I know this, prey behavior
changes during the hunting season, and before and after they go back to doing what they
want. Having a carnivore on the landscape changes prey behavior year round. A totally
different presence than human hunting.”


But there’s a caveat. Smith says there has to be a certain number of wolves on the landscape for
these changes to occur. And the number might be more than humans are willing to tolerate:


“You know, just having wolves on the landscape does not do it. And that’s a very, very
important point because some people are using wolves to argue that we’re going to get this
ecosystem restoration, this ecosystem recovery. But they need to be at a certain minimum
density. And that might be in some places at densities that are too high for humans to
socially tolerate.”


So, ultimately, ecological recovery could depend on humans, not the wolves. Human tolerance
needs to be high enough to allow top predators like the wolf to return to ecosystems, otherwise,
full recovery might never happen.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

Related Links

Hatchery Fish Unprepared for Wild World

A new study finds if fish raised in captivity breed with fish in the
wild that might hurt the wild fish populations. Rebecca Williams
reports that’s because the captive fish are genetically weaker:

Transcript

A new study finds if fish raised in captivity breed with fish in the
wild that might hurt the wild fish populations. Rebecca Williams
reports that’s because the captive fish are genetically weaker:


Billions of fish are raised in hatcheries and released into lakes and
rivers.


But a new study in the journal Science says there could be
problems with that. The researchers found a type of salmon bred in
captivity quickly adapted to their less stressful life in the hatchery.
So they weren’t prepared for a cutthroat life in the wild.


Michael Blouin is an author of the study. He says the babies of
captive-bred fish have trouble finding food and aren’t very good at
escaping predators.


“If you have large numbers of hatchery fish mixing with wild
populations, the fear is they’ll be passing those genes to the wild
population and thereby dragging down the fitness of the wild
population.”


Blouin says this has not been proven outside of the laboratory yet, but he says the lab results raise some concerns about the widespread
use of captive fish to boost wild fish populations.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Eagles to Fly Off Endangered List?

  • Since bald eagles have reached their highest numbers since World War II, they might be removed from the endangered species list. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

Bald eagles could be taken off the endangered species list soon.
Rebecca Williams reports bald eagles have reached their highest numbers
since World War II:

Transcript

Bald eagles could be taken off the endangered species list soon.
Rebecca Williams reports bald eagles have reached their highest numbers
since World War II:


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says there are just under 10,000
breeding pairs of eagles in the lower 48 states. That’s up from a
record low of just 400 breeding pairs in the 1960s.


For many years, eagles were seen as predators and shot. After World
War II, the pesticide DDT weakened the birds’ eggshells… so they
couldn’t reproduce.


Valerie Fellows is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She says
they’ll decide whether to take the eagles off the endangered species
list by the end of June:


“We can determine at any point if populations start to plummet,
that we can re-list them and add them
to the Endangered Species Act.”


Fellows says bald eagles also have other safety nets. They’re
protected by several federal laws that make it illegal to kill or harm
the birds.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Predators to Be Prey for Livestock Owners?

The U.S. Forest Service is loosening rules to deal with
predators. The new rules would allow livestock owners and others to hunt down wolves, bears, coyotes and mountain lions using trucks, helicopters and cyanide-laced traps. The GLRC’s Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

The U.S. Forest service is loosening rules to deal with predators. The new rules would
allow livestock owners and others to hunt down wolves, bears, coyotes and mountain
lions using trucks, helicopters and cyanide-laced traps. The GLRC’s Lester Graham
reports:


The Forest Service says the proposed new rules simply clear up a program that’s
designed to get rid of nuisance animals that prey on livestock. Erik Ryberg is with the
Center for Biological Diversity. He says the new rules permit killing any local predator
instead of just the animal that’s killing livestock. They would also allow off-road
vehicles and even helicopters to chase down the animals on federal land, and they would
allow baited traps that explode with poison gas:


“These are buried cyanide bombs that when triggered release an explosive cloud of
sodium cyanide crystals and kill whatever has triggered it. They’re very dangerous both
to domestic pets, to children and to people. They certainly don’t belong in federally-
protected wilderness areas.”


The current rules state that the agency is to “consider the benefits of predator species in
the ecosystem” before it starts killing any predators.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

First Wild Whooper Hatch in Midwest

For the first time in 100 years in the Midwest, whooping
crane chicks have hatched in the wild. But wildlife agencies say the
young birds may be especially vulnerable to predators. The GLRC’S
Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

For the first time in 100 years in the Midwest, whooping crane chicks have hatched in the
wild. But wildlife agencies say the young birds may be especially vulnerable to predators.
The GLRC’S Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Government and private wildlife agencies have been working for several years to re-
establish a migrating flock of whooping cranes in the Eastern U.S. This spring, two
crane eggs taken from the wild birds hatched in captivity, and now two more eggs have
hatched in the wild, at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin. But Rachel
Levin of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says being in the wild means potential
predators:


“These crane chicks will be with their parents and will be vulnerable to raccoons and
other types of predators that might be on the refuge.”


Levin says it’s possible the managers at Necedah will trap some raccoons. By the end of
the summer, the crane chicks will get their flight feathers and should be able to more
easily get away from dangers on the ground.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

Related Links

Protecting a Rare Songbird

Researchers have studied where a very rare bird spends the summer, but now they’re learning they might need to pay more attention to where it spends the winter. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

Researchers have studied where a very rare bird spends the summer, but
now they’re learning they might need to pay more attention to where it
spends the winter. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:


The Kirtland’s warbler is one of the rarest songbirds in North America.
It spends the summer near the Great Lakes, mostly in Michigan, and the
winter in the Bahamas. The bird’s been on the endangered species list
since 1966. Efforts to control predators and manage habitat in
Michigan have helped the warbler recover, but scientists haven’t known
much about what the warbler needs in winter.


Dave Ewert is the director of conservation science for the Nature
Conservancy’s Great Lakes program. He says his team’s research
indicates that warblers are fattening up on fruit right before they
leave the Bahamas in the spring.


“So if we can identify these sites that produce a lot of food just
before migration, we think that may be a really important key for
conservation implementation in the Bahamas in the future.”


Ewert says the team will need a few more years of research before
recommending specific sites to preserve in the Bahamas.

For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Wily Coyotes in the City

  • Coyotes have started to lose their wildlife habitat, and now they are adapting to cities and suburbs. (Photo courtesy of Michigan Department of Natural Resources)

As wildlife habitat is displaced by subdivisions, some animals are adapting to their new surroundings. That’s created new food for some kinds of predators, such as coyotes. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports on how their range is expanding:

Transcript

As wildlife habitat is displaced by subdivisions, some animals are
adapting to their new surroundings. That’s created new food for some
kinds of predators, such as coyotes. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports
on how their range is expanding:


Wile E. Coyote hasn’t always had the greatest life out in the wild.


(Sound of Roadrunner)


So… some coyotes are moving into the city, and why not? There’s a
smorgasbord for coyotes in the city.


(Sounds of ducks and geese)


We’re in Lincoln Park in downtown Chicago. Coyotes are occasionally
sighted around here. Rob Curtis has seen one in his neighborhood a few
miles north of here, but the wildlife photographer had a close encounter
with a coyote here in Lincoln Park.


“Well, I knew that it was living there because people had seen it before,
but I hadn’t seen it. And then, I was trying to photograph a rare bird that
was in front of the fence there and I was camouflaged and it came up
right in front on the other side of the fence without it noticing me, and
then it just walked on.”


The coyotes eat just about anything they can get a hold of: rats, young
geese, squirrels… and… sometimes pets. In the Chicago suburb,
Arlington Heights, coyotes have been a problem.


Police Sergeant Nick Pecora says sometimes coyotes are pretty brazen.


“In the last 18 months Arlington Heights has lost one Yorkshire Terrier,
taken off the patio in the owners presence, and in one case the dog had an
electronic collar on and when the coyote took it, it received a shock and
dropped the animal and ran away.”


Pecora says some Arlington Heights residents haven’t been too keen on
what some see as an intruding predator.


“Coyotes are indigenous to the area and – maybe it’s the perception that
this is a large animal and the bunnies, the skunks, the squirrels, that’s
what Arlington Heights is used to, and a 35-pound animal walking
through your yard, I think they’re perceived as the big, bad wolf, if you
will.”


And… although there hasn’t been a documented case of a coyote
attacking a human… some worry that they might.


Not too far away researchers are putting radio collars on coyotes to see
where they’re going and what they’re doing.


(Sound of tires on gravel)


Justin Brown is with a research project out of Ohio State University.
He’s just located the spot where a coyote is hiding. We can’t see him,
but we know he’s there because of the signal his collar is emitting.


“We very rarely see them, especially during the day. At the night —
during the night, occasionally we’ll get good visuals, but for the most
part during the day times you never see them.”


Brown and his colleagues are trying to figure out why there are more
coyotes in the suburbs and cities. One of the reasons is car and deer
accidents. Coyotes feed on the carcasses. The huge increase in Canada
geese is another reason.


“Food ranges from deer to geese to even just dog food people leave out.
There’s definitely a high variety of foods available to them. For habitat,
it can be anything, any little wood lot, anywhere that they can find a little
hiding spot for the daytime and then during the evenings they run (in) a
lot of areas you wouldn’t expect such as residential areas and
commercial parking lots. They pretty much run it all, anywhere that they
might come across a meal.”


You’d think there wouldn’t be that many places for a coyote to hide in
the city and suburbs. But, Brown says they hide in parks, golf courses, in
wood lots, graveyards… anyplace with a little cover. Brown’s research team
leader, Stan Gehrt, estimates there are something like two-thousand coyotes
in the Chicago metro area.Justin Brown says the truly amazing thing is that
coyotes have learned to adapt so well… and even survive a lot of automobile
traffic.


“We’ve actually seen animals where they’re actually figuring out traffic
patterns. They know which roads are going which ways. We’ll see them
cross roads where they’ll actually look only the direction traffic should
be coming and then go and then stop in the middle and look in the other
direction for traffic and then go. So, they’ve definitely figured out how
the road systems work. It’s just amazing to see how they survive in this
environment.”


And, the experts say, the coyotes are probably here to stay. Most
residents don’t want the police to shoot the animals. So some
municipalities tried to trap and relocate the animals to a more rural area,
but coyotes are very territorial, and they immediately head back to the
place where they were trapped. Often they’re hit by cars on the journey
back, but sometimes they make it home, and the predator in the suburbs
is back and hungry.


For the GLRC, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Experts Hopeful for Whooper Eggs

Dozens of whooping cranes are heading north this spring, as an experiment continues to develop a migrating flock of the birds in the Eastern U.S. Wildlife experts hope this’ll be the year the effort will produce its first successful hatch of a crane egg. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Dozens of whooping cranes are heading north this spring, as an
experiment continues to develop a migrating flock of the birds in the
Eastern U.S. Wildlife experts hope this’ll be the year the effort will
produce its first successful hatch of a crane egg. The GLRC’s Chuck
Quirmbach reports:

About sixty of the endangered whooping cranes migrate between the
southeastern U.S. and northern states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
Last summer, for the first time, a few cranes paired off and produced
eggs, but the cranes didn’t stay near their nests and predators destroyed
the eggs.


Rachel Levin of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says this year she’s
more optimistic the cranes will reproduce.


“We have cranes this year that are going to be five years old. Whooping
cranes reach sexual maturity between three and five years old. So, we
are hoping this year that we have cranes that will produce eggs and that are
maybe mature enough this year to stay with those eggs and do their
parental duty.”


One goal of the crane reintroduction project has been to have 25 adult
breeding pairs. For now the project will continue to add to the flock by
bringing in crane chicks from Maryland.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links