Coverup Charged in DC Salmon Hearing

West Coast lawmakers blast federal fishery officials over salmon losses
By David Whitney

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats on Thursday angrily accused federal fishery officials of using scientific reports to cover up the depth of the risks to salmon populations from the diversion of river water to farming on the West Coast.

The result, they said during a hostile hearing, was that salmon stocks collapsed, forcing state and federal authorities to ban salmon fishing earlier this year.

"We're devastated, and our communities are devastated," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif. "They haven't been using good science. It's sophomoric. People are losing their livelihoods."

Capps' comments came during a break in a House Natural Resources fisheries subcommittee hearing at which a dozen or so West Coast Democrats showed up to grill Rodney McInnis, administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service's regional office in Long Beach, Calif.

The hearing came a day after the House approved a huge farm bill containing $170 million in economic disaster funding for commercial fishermen and fishing communities as a result of the recent closure of the salmon season because of perilously low numbers of fish returning to the Sacramento River to spawn.

The closure followed a sharp reduction in the season two years ago because of low returns to the Klamath River and continuing problems with Columbia River salmon.

Common to all three river systems are NMFS biological opinions some of which federal courts later rejected as failing to use the best available science or otherwise failing to look broadly at the health of the fish in deciding the impacts of diverting river water for farming.

One such report supported a Bureau of Reclamation plan to divert water to farming interests from the Klamath River on the California-Oregon border. But the plan allowed the river's level to drop so low and its water to become so warm that more than 30,000 salmon died in 2002, the largest fish die-off in U.S. history. The full result of that die-off wasn't felt for years, however, when fisheries had to be closed because the fish that had died had not laid eggs and reproduced.

Democrats charged that the failure to predict the impact of such water diversions was part of a pattern of abuse of science by the Bush administration.

"Along with a fishing failure, this is the failure of an agency," declared Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.

"I worry that science is used to justify a decision," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.

"I assure you, this is not the situation," said McInnis.

Idaho Rep. Bill Sali, one of the few Republicans attending, charged that Democrats were "using the closure of the Pacific fishery to further a (political) agenda."

But McInnis acknowledged that there had been problems with his agency's work and insisted that steps are being taken to correct them.

Outside, independent scientists are now reviewing the agency's opinions, he said. The agency also is looking more deeply at what it takes to recover endangered stocks.

McInnis said the first results of this broader consultation should appear in September, when the agency releases its draft opinion on California's Central Valley Project and the vast irrigation system's impact on salmon.

"How will they know we've fixed the problems?" McInnis said during a brief interview. "An intermediate step is what the courts will say about us doing our job. But ultimately we've got to get the fish to come back."

The cause of the Sacramento River salmon collapse is still a matter of dispute, with some thinking it relates to water quality and agriculture diversions from the San Francisco Bay Delta. McInnis said his scientists believe the cause is related to poor ocean conditions for the fish.

Source: LInk

UK OKs human-animal embryo research

British authorities have given the go ahead for scientists to use animal embryos in their efforts to make Human Stem Cells. For moi, it isn't a question of whether this will work or whether this will be helpful to people. It is a question of where does it lead? Man, over an over again, proves that he is not capable of acting responsibly with the technology he already possesses, let alone any new technology. As if we are not destroying our ability to endure upon the planet already, what happens when the building blocks of life are f*ck'd with?

We already have genetically modified fruits and vegetables. Many that are overtaking natural species, and many that are designed to die off and not self propagate. We read that cloned meat, from cloned animals who have higher rates of disease and mutations, is in the US food system. Mmm, serve up that steak.

Where is it all leading to?

British authorities on Thursday approved scientists' use of animal eggs to create human stem cells, a ruling that will boost the supply of stem cells for research.

The decision means that researchers will be able to refine their techniques for producing human stem cells by practicing first on animal eggs, of which there is a steady supply. Similar work involving human-animal stem cells is also under way in China and the United States.

"This is good news for research, but most importantly, it is good news for patients," said Sophie Petit-Zeman of the Association of Medical Research Charities.

Scientists have been exploring the use of stem cells to cure many degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, since the cells have the ability to develop into any cell in the human body.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority said it had granted conditional one-year licenses to two institutions to conduct research using mixed human-animal embryos. In Britain, all research involving human eggs and embryos must be approved by the authority.

Scientists from King's College and Newcastle University submitted applications last year to create human stem cells using animal eggs.

Link to Full Article

Legal Battle Over Sonar: Update

A navy ship tests mid-frequency sonar in Washington's Haro Strait, close to a pod of orca whales.


In an email message sent out by the National Resources Defense Council:

Last night, a federal judge struck down a waiver issued by the
White House that would have exempted the U.S. Navy from obeying
a key environmental law during sonar training exercises that
endanger whales.

In doing so, the court affirmed the bedrock principle that we do
NOT live under an imperial presidency. Both the White House and
the military must obey and uphold our environmental laws.

President Bush's waiver was a last-ditch attempt to let the Navy
unleash an onslaught of military sonar off the coast of southern
California -- home to five endangered species of whales --
without taking precautions to protect marine mammals from a
lethal bombardment of sound.

Last month, the same judge -- U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie
Cooper -- ordered the Navy to put safeguards in place during the
sonar maneuvers in order to protect marine mammals from needless
injury and death. Shortly after that ruling, President Bush
issued his "emergency" waiver, attempting to override the
court's order.

In last night's ruling, Judge Cooper called the Navy's so-called
emergency "a creature of its own making," and reaffirmed that
the military can train effectively without needlessly harming
whales.

The Navy's maneuvers would take place near the Channel Islands
-- one of the world's most sensitive marine environments. The
Navy itself estimates that the booming sonar would harass or
harm marine mammals some 170,000 times -- and cause permanent
injury in more than 400 cases.

The far-reaching precautions imposed on the Navy by Judge Cooper
include a ban on mid-frequency sonar within 12 miles of the
California coast -- a zone that is heavily used by migrating
whales and dolphins -- and between the Channel Islands.

This decision will no doubt be appealed by the Navy and/or White House. If you support protections being in place for marine wildlife (hello chain of life that leads back to us), I urge you to check out the National Resources Defense Council's website and get involved and donate to the legal battle.
NRDC Website

Here's a great segment about our victory from today's "Morning
Edition" on National Public Radio: LINK
Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

Respite for Environment and Wildlife

Respite for environment and wildlife came today with this news:

The Bush administration has dropped its appeal of a 2007 court decision that had overturned new management rules for 191 million acres of national forests. Opponents to the rules had argued they weakened protection for wildlife and the environment to the benefit of the timber industry.

The Justice Department notified the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week that it was withdrawing its appeal, saying that the other parties, including the timber industry, would do likewise.

"We are glad the Bush administration has thrown in the towel," said Trent Orr, an attorney for Earthjustice, one of the environmental advocacy groups that had challenged the new forest management rules in court.

Link to full article

Score for Earthjustice :)

The Final Wake-Up Call: Planet Earth

A United Nations panel of scientists and experts is releasing a report that they are labeling the 'Final Wake-up Call' to the international community on population, resource consumption, climate change, and the extinction of life on the planet.

The human population is living far beyond its means and inflicting damage on the environment that could pass points of no return, according to a major report issued Thursday by the United Nations.

Climate change, the rate of extinction of species and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the threats putting humanity at risk, the UN Environment Program said in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.

"The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns," Achim Steiner, the executive director of the program, said in a telephone interview. Efficient use of resources and reducing waste now are "among the greatest challenges at the beginning of 21st century," he said.

The program described its report, which is prepared by 388 experts and scientists, as the broadest and deepest of those that the UN issues on the environment and called it "the final wake-up call to the international community."

LINK TO ARTICLE

Pollution, predicted fresh water shortfalls (drinking water shortages), threatened species including some that are critical to the food chain (in our oceans)...consumption of resources on a scale that is unsustainable...do we really need to change the way we live, consume, and interact with our environment? the air, the water, the oceans, the forests?

Accountability for our part in the current state of the world is not something that it seems large sections of the population care to consider. It is what is right in front of them that matters, and perhaps that is part of our human nature. Denial is, however, becoming a luxury that we can all ill afford.

Extinction rates currently are 100x as fast as previous periods of mass extinction found in the fossil record. Those mass extinction periods came as results of major shock to the planet such as massive volcanic activity. What is our major shock? certainly many believe it is CO2 levels, along with our other pollutants that kill off biodiversity, over fishing the oceans to unsustainable levels, over killing of mammal species for food medicine and trade, and the wiping out of entire habitats.

The planet is one massive system and everything is interlocked. We cannot change one thing without affecting the whole, without ultimately affecting ourselves. It is in our best and own interests to find, cultivate, or return to better ways of living that take into account the cycles and systems that we influence and are dependent upon. It is in our interests to use resources in better ways, to expect industry to share these values, to find ways to live cleanly without pollution. It is in our best interest to be, and act, as stewards of the earth and of the multitude of life forms upon it. We are the species on this earth that has the ability to effect change on massive scales. And we have. Now it is time for us to cultivate the responsibility and stewardship that comes with that ability.

Migrations of Animals Confused...

Scientists are now saying that Global Warming is the cause of the internal biological clocks of animals all the way from migratory birds to whales that are either mistiming their migrations or not bothering to even make them anymore as the seasonal changes around them become less distinct.

The bottom line for these species is that it leaves them vulnerable to being decimated by cold snaps and dramatic changes in their environment because they haven't moved on to their normal safer migratory grounds. Many need these various breeding, wintering, and stop over places to survive.

Full Article from Reuters

The Phenomena of Deserted Bee Hives

There is a lot of these stories lately, including news from Europe, Asia, and Hawaii that bees are up and leaving their hives their young their honey and their queens. Also, parasites that normally attack hives or take over when bees abandon them are staying clear of these deserted hives far longer than they normally do.

Something is amiss, in a big way, and there are reports of losses of hives from 30% to 90%. This is not a good sign for Any of us.

Full Article

Snippetts....

"The bees were gone," David Hackenberg says. "The honey was still there. There's young brood (eggs) still in the hive. Bees just don't do that."

On that November night last year in the Florida field where he wintered his bees, Hackenberg found 400 hives empty. Another 30 hives were "disappearing, dwindling or whatever you want to call it," and their bees were "full of a fungus nobody's ever seen before."

The discovery by Hackenberg, 58, a beekeeper from Lewisburg, Pa., was the first buzz about a plague that now afflicts 27 states, from the East Coast to the West. Beekeepers report losses of 30% to 90% of their honeybee hives, according to a Congressional Research Service study in March. Some report total losses.

...snip....

Busy bees

The $15-billion-a-year honeybee industry is about more than honey: The nimble insects pollinate 90% to 100% of at least 19 kinds of fruits, vegetables and nuts nationwide, from almonds and apples to onions and broccoli.

"Basically, everything fun and nutritious on your table - fruits, nuts, berries, everything but the grains - require bee pollinators," Hackett says.

Beekeepers, who travel nationwide supplying pollinators to farmers, have been losing honeybees for a long time, mostly a result of suburbs snapping up habitat and the invasion in the 1980s of two foreign parasitic mite species. As a result, bee colonies have declined 60% since 1947, from an estimated 5.9 million to 2.4 million, says entomologist May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois.

Each year, in fact, the bee industry supplies at least 1 million queens and packages of bees to replace lost hives, according to a 2006 National Research Council report. And sudden losses of hives have been reported since the 1800s.

But colony collapse disorder differs from past outbreaks:

•Instead of dying in place, the bees abandon the hives, leaving behind the queen and young bees.

•Remaining bees eat sparsely and suffer the symptoms - high levels of bacteria, viruses and fungi in the guts - seen by Hackenberg.

•Collapses can occur within two days, Hackett says.

•Parasites wait unusually long to invade abandoned hives.

Daniel Weaver, head of the 1,500-member American Beekeeping Federation, estimates that about 600,000 of 2 million hives (a more conservative number than other estimates) nationwide have been lost.

...snip...

A colony collapse disorder working group based at Pennsylvania State University has become a central clearinghouse for all the suspected causes, which include:

•An overload of parasites, such as bloodsucking varroa mites, that have ravaged bees. The parasites reportedly spread to Hawaii only last week.

•Pesticide contamination. Hotly debated suspicion centers on whether "neonicotinoid" insecticides interfere with the foraging behavior of bees, leading them to abandon their hives.

•Fungal diseases such as Nosema ceranae, which is blamed for big bee losses in Spain. It was spotted by University of California-San Francisco researchers who were examining sample dead bees last week.

•The rigors of traveling in trucks from crop to crop.

Read the whole thing

Bees Vs. Mobile Phones?

An eery quote by Einstein is in this article...in which he states that the disappearance of bees marks only 4 more years of life for us all...

Link to Article

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees

Some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

The case against handsets

Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.

Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.

Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.

Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.

Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.

Bumble Bees Dissappearing from Britain

Just as recently reported in the US, where honey bees are dissappearing from 22 States and threatening a breakdown in the ancient cycle of nature's pollination of fruits and vegetables, so too is this danger being realized in other parts of the world.

Full Article

Britain's bumblebee population is under threat in a crisis that could wipe out entire species and have a devastating knock-on effect on agriculture, scientists say.

The furry yellow-and-black creatures, essential for pollination, are being killed off by pesticides and agricultural intensification, which have cut back on hedgerows and removed their source of food.

"There just aren't enough flowers around," Professor Dave Goulson, the director of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust at the University of Stirling in Scotland, said on Monday.

"If we knock out an important group like bumblebees, it can have a huge knock-on impact on other things, such as the pollination of important crops and flowers."

Britain once had around 25 native species of bumblebee, but three of those have been wiped out in the past 50 years and 10 more are now "severely threatened," Goulson said.

"There are two that are teetering on the edge of extinction and could be gone in five to 10 years quite easily," he said.

The loss of species could lead to sweeping changes in Britain's countryside, with many rare plants disappearing and the production of crops such as raspberries, oil-seed rape, runner beans and broad beans sharply curtailed.

The Bear Whisperer...

...or, how one man has used food training to cross boundaries with the wild bears of Alaska. Another Treadwell? It must be an exhilarating experience, being with animals and particularly wild animals, is and can be a magical experience. The hard questions are when and how can it become a dangerous thing for the animals? we take for granted it is already dangerous for the man and that he excepts that danger as part of it. But when is it a true disservice to the wild?

Full Article

Fifty miles northwest of Anchorage, the roadless hills and swamps of the Yentna River Valley have for years hidden the secret of bear man Charlie Vandergaw.

Far from the bear-viewing spectacle of Katmai National Park — and farther still from the hype that made a celebrity of the late Timothy Treadwell, an environmentalist who lived among the park's grizzly bears for more than a dozen seasons before he and his girlfriend were killed and partially eaten by a bear in 2003 — Vandergaw has quietly transformed himself into what Treadwell only dreamed of being: a true bear whisperer.

What goes on each summer at the retired Anchorage science teacher's remote homestead is so far from the ordinary as to be almost unbelievable. Visitors tell of him petting black and brown bears, playing with grizzly cubs while sows stand by, sitting on bears and teaching them tricks.

His own photographs show even more. They capture him easing to within feet of breeding grizzlies and nursing an injured brown bear.

Dolphins in Texas

Mysterious deaths of Dolphins washing up on Texas shores...

Article Source

The stranding deaths of about 60 bottlenose dolphins on Texas beaches over the past three weeks has puzzled researchers and is a cause for concern during the calving season, a senior scientist said on Monday.

"This is the calving season so we often have strandings at this time of the year. It's tough to be an air-breather born in the water," said Dr. Daniel F. Cowan, professor of pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and director of the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

"But over the last few weeks we have had about 3 to 4 times the usual mortality," he told Reuters.

Most of the carcasses were in an advanced state of decomposition, suggesting that they were carried to Texas beaches from areas further off or up the shore.

Suspected causes include parasites, an outbreak of infectious diseases or red tide, an algal bloom prompted by fertilizers or other excess nutrients.

Most of the dolphins have been too decomposed for a necropsy -- the animal version of an autopsy -- and so volunteers have been burying them on the beaches.

Several of the dolphins which have washed up on shore have been young with umbilical cords still attached.

Rivers Lifesblood Threatened for People All Around The World

Many of the major rivers in the world are in danger of drying up and/or ceasing to be the critical supply of fresh water and food for people all over the globe.

Full Article

Climate change, pollution, over extraction of water and development are killing some of the world's most famous rivers including China's Yangtze, India's Ganges and Africa's Nile, conservation group WWF said on Tuesday.

At the global launch of its report "World's Top 10 Rivers at Risk," the Geneva-based group said many rivers could dry out, affecting hundreds of millions of people and killing unique aquatic life.

"If these rivers die, millions will lose their livelihoods, biodiversity will be destroyed on a massive scale, there will be less fresh water and agriculture, resulting in less food security," said Ravi Singh, secretary-general of WWF-India.

The report, launched ahead of 'World Water Day' on Thursday, also cited the Rio Grande in the United States, the Mekong and Indus in Asia, Europe's Danube, La Plata in South America and Australia's Murray-Darling as in need of greater protection.

Rivers are the world's main source of fresh water and WWF says about half of the available supply is already being used up.

Dams have destroyed habitats and cut rivers off from their flood plains, while climate change could affect the seasonal water flows that feed them, the report said.

Fish populations, the top source of protein and overall life support for hundreds of thousands of communities worldwide, are also being threatened, it found.

The Yangtze basin is one of the most polluted rivers in the world because of decades of heavy industrialization, damming and huge influxes of sediment from land conversion.

Climate change, including higher temperatures, also means devastating consequences for fishery productivity, water supply and political security in Africa's arid Nile basin.

The Ganges basin makes up almost a third of India's land area and one in twelve people in the world depend on this river for activities such as fishing and farming, the WWF said.

National Wildlife Refuges Suffer Setbacks

Full Article

Faced with a $2.5 billion budget shortfall, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is eliminating hundreds of jobs, cutting back programs and leaving more than 200 national wildlife refuges unstaffed.

In all, the agency is planning to cut 565 jobs from wildlife refuges by 2009 — a 20 percent reduction.

The national refuge system encompasses 547 wildlife refuges and more than 96 million acres in all 50 states, attracting more than 40 million visitors a year.

Environmentalists say the staffing cuts — which follow two years of reductions — will leave an already lean work force depleted and result in a decrease in habitat management, restoration projects and education projects. More than 200 wildlife refuges across the country will be unstaffed.

"Our national wildlife refuges are literally crumbling before our eyes. Across the country we're seeing how the culmination of years of negligent funding devastates these special places," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

William Reffalt, director of the National Wildlife Refuge System in the 1980s, lamented the deterioration in the refuge system, which celebrated its 104th anniversary this week.

"Our nation had the foresight to establish these sanctuaries to conserve fish and wildlife, but we are failing to provide the ongoing stewardship that is required," he said. "We need leadership in the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt," who established the first wildlife refuge in Florida in 1903.

..snip...

"If the Service does not act decisively now, it will become unable to effectively operate most national wildlife refuges within a few years, even if budgets remain level," said David Eisenhauer, an agency spokesman.

The job cuts should increase efficiency and free up funding for refuge management and operations, Eisenhauer said.

But critics said leaving refuges unstaffed could lead to problems with invasive species — and increased crime or vandalism on the rustic sites, many of which are within an hour's drive of a major city

"In this day and age, no land can really be left alone," said Noah Matson, director of federal lands programs for Defenders of Wildlife. About 8 million refuge acres nationwide are infested with invasive species such as beetles and carp, Matson said.

The cuts also mean fewer law enforcement officers. In the Pacific region, only six officers will patrol a four-state area. In Oregon, just one full-time officer patrols the entire coastline, with a half-dozen wildlife refuges.

"That's just pathetic," Matson said.

..snip...

About 221 refuges will be unstaffed after the staffing reductions are finished, Eisenhauer said. All refuges will continue to be managed, he said, although some will become unstaffed "satellite units" of larger refuge complexes with no day-to-day management.

The Borneo Cloud Leopard

...now genetically proven to be its own species. Let's hope this is a boost to conservation efforts in the heart of Borneo where the WWF have found more than 52 new species.

Gag on Polar Bears, Arctic Ice, and Global Warming..

Some call it SCIENTIFIC CENSORSHIP. Others just call it SOUND POLICY. Whatever you call it, however, government officials and scientists are asked not to speak in any Public Forum on these particular topics.

Heaven forbid that the Public should hear what Scientists and our Government actually think and know on the topics.......we only pay the paychecks!


Full Article Here

Polar bears, sea ice and global warming are taboo subjects, at least in public, for some U.S. scientists attending meetings abroad, environmental groups and a top federal wildlife official said on Thursday.

Environmental activists called this scientific censorship, which they said was in line with the Bush administration's history of muzzling dissent over global climate change.

But H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said this policy was a long-standing one, meant to honor international protocols for meetings where the topics of discussion are negotiated in advance.

The matter came to light in e-mails from the Fish and Wildlife Service that were distributed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity, both environmental groups.

Listed as a "new requirement" for foreign travelers on U.S. government business, the memo says that requests for foreign travel "involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice, and/or polar bears" require special handling, including notice of who will be the official spokesman for the trip.

The Fish and Wildlife Service top officials need assurance that the spokesman, "the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears" understands the administration's position on these topics.

Two accompanying memos were offered as examples of these kinds of assurance. Both included the line that the traveler "understands the administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."

ARE POLAR BEARS 'THREATENED'?

Polar bears are a hot topic for the Bush administration, which decided in December to consider whether to list the white-furred behemoths as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, because of scientific reports that the bears' icy habitat is melting due to global warming.

Hall said a decision is expected in January 2008. A "threatened" listing would bar the government from taking any action that jeopardizes the animal's existence, and might spur debate about tougher measures to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that spur global warming.

Hall defended the policy laid out in the memos, saying it was meant to keep scientists from straying from a set agenda at meetings in countries like Russia, Norway and Canada.

For example, he said, one meeting was about "human and polar bear interface." Receding Arctic sea ice where polar bears live and the global climate change that likely played a role in the melting were not proper discussion topics, he said.

"That's not a climate change discussion," Hall said at a telephone briefing. "That's a management, on-the-ground type discussion."

The prohibition on talking about these subjects only applies to public, formal situations, Hall said. Private scientific discussions outside the meeting and away from media are permitted and encouraged, he said.

"This administration has a long history of censoring speech and science on global warming," Eben Burnham-Snyder of the Natural Resources Defense Council said by telephone.

"Whenever we see an instance of the Bush administration restricting speech on global warming, it sends up a huge red flag that their commitment to the issue does not reflect their rhetoric," Burnham-Snyder said.

Whale Songs Researched

Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is that the Blue Whale population has dwindled from 200,000 to 300,000 to the now estimated 1,000 that exist worldwide.

How incredibly sad, and alarming, and indicative of how much trouble our planet is in.


Full Article Here

Deep below the ocean's surface, blue whales are singingóand for the first time, scientists think they know why. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography recorded the sounds and say they offer new insight into the behavior of the passenger jet-sized animals.

• Video: Starving Whales
• Audio: Hear Whales Sing

Using tags suctioned to the whales' bodies, researchers tracked the whales and found that as they feed, they send out calls to let each other know where they are, each group employing a different sound.

The noises play a similarly important role during mating season when males sing long, low-pitched songs to indicate their reproductive fitness to females. Females select mates based on size and estimate that by evaluating males' songs: Larger males can take in more air and hold notes longer.

The research appears in the January 25 issue of the Marine Ecology Progress Series journal.

A related study, also by Scripps researchers, found that there are distinct "dialects" of whale-speak in different regions of the ocean. The finding could have implications for preservation efforts.

The scientists used acoustic recordings to delineate nine population regions worldwide. They found the whales weren't evenly distributed, though: Populations using a "Type 1" call, for example, live within a narrow band of ocean hugging the North American coast, while whales that use a "Type 4" call are spread over a large swath of the Northern Pacific Ocean.

The second study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Cetacean Research Management.

The scientists say the dialect findings could help guide conservation efforts for blue whales, whose numbers dwindled to dangerously low levels before whaling moratoria were enacted: There were once an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 in the Southern Hemisphere, but today that number is closer to 1,000, Scripps scientist John Hildebrand told LiveScience.

"By listening to the animals," he said, "you can tell something about the areas in which they are interacting to breed and that's important to know for managing and conserving the animals."

• The World's Biggest Beasts
• Image Gallery: Small Sea Monsters
• Whales Set Deep-Sea Diving Record
• Grammar Revealed in the Love Songs of Whales
• All About Whales

Over 5200 Square Miles of Ice Shelf Gone in Recent Years

Full Article Here

Spindly orange sea stars, fan-finned ice fish and herds of roving sea cucumbers are among the exotic creatures spied off the Antarctic coast in an area formerly covered by ice, scientists reported on Sunday.

This is the first time explorers have been able to catalog wildlife where two mammoth ice shelves used to extend for some 3,900 square miles over the Weddell Sea.

At least 5,000 years old, the ice shelves collapsed in two stages over the last dozen years. One crumbled 12 years ago and the other followed in 2002.

Global warming is seen as the culprit behind the ice shelves' demise, said Gauthier Chapelle of the Polar Foundation in Brussels.

"These kind of collapses are expected to happen more," he said. "What we're observing here is probably going to happen elsewhere around Antarctica."

Melting ice shelves are not expected to directly contribute much to global sea level rise, but glaciologists believe these vast swaths of ice act like dams to slow down glaciers as they move over the Antarctic land mass toward the coast. Without the ice shelves, glaciers may move over the water more quickly, and this would substantially add to rising seas.

Since 1974, 5,213 square miles of ice shelves have disintegrated in the Antarctic Peninsula.