Animals
S


Ladybug

Growing spread of crazy ants in Texas is no laughing matter

Bill Hanna
Star-Telegram
Wed, 09 Sep 2009 03:56 UTC
crazy raspberry ants
© Associated Press / David J. PhillipTom Rasberry displays "rasberry crazy ants", named after him, in Deer Park.
Something crazy is spreading across Texas, and it may be so destructive that one day it will make Texans actually miss the hated fire ant.

Crazy ants, so named because they move in all directions rather than in a straight line, first surfaced in Houston seven years ago and had previously been confirmed in 14 Southeast Texas counties as far north as Huntsville.

But now the ants have been seen beyond the Houston area, with confirmed sightings in San Antonio and in Jim Hogg County in the Rio Grande Valley.

This discovery is viewed as "a significant change" by researchers who have long feared that the ants would move to other parts of the state, said Rob Plowes, a research associate with the University of Texas at Austin Fire Ant Research Center who visited San Antonio last week.
Read More...
Arrow Down

Canada: Grizzlies starve as salmon disappear

Mark Hume
The Globe and Mail
Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:33 UTC
Image
First the salmon vanished, now the bears may be gone too.

Reports from conservationists, salmon-stream walkers and ecotourism guides all along British Columbia's wild central coast indicate a collapse of salmon runs has triggered widespread death from starvation of black and grizzly bears. Those guides are on the front lines of what they say is an unfolding ecological disaster that is so new that it has not been documented by biologists.

"I've never experienced anything like this. There has been a huge drop in the number of bears we see," said Doug Neasloss, a bear-viewing guide with the Kitasoo-Xaixais tribes in Klemtu, about 180 kilometres south of Kitimat.
Read More...
Ladybug

Why Are Native Ladybugs Disappearing?


redOrbit
Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:26 UTC
Image
Researchers in New York are breeding colonies of ladybugs from those found by scientists in Oregon and Colorado during a year-long search.

Last year, entomologist John Losey from Cornell University first introduced the Lost Ladybug Project in an attempt to find out why the once-common native ladybug species had almost completely disappeared across the nation.

The project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, rounds up citizen scientists, or individual volunteers who may have no scientific training, to search for ladybugs and relay photos of them to Losey and his team.

Researchers are particularly interested in the nine-spotted, two-spotted and transverse ladybugs. They are three native species whose populations have drastically dropped over the past ten years, likely due to the introduction of foreign species to control crop pests.
Read More...
Fish

Alarming Invasion Of Round Goby Into Great Lakes Tributaries: Impact On Endangered Fishes 'Serious'


Science Daily
Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:34 UTC
Image
© YavnoThis is a round goby.
A team of scientists from the University of Toronto, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the University of Guelph has identified a drastic invasion of round goby into many Great Lakes tributaries, including several areas of the Thames, Sydenham, Ausable and Grand Rivers. A number of the affected areas are known as "species-at-risk" hot spots.

"This invasion poses many potential threats for native species of fish and mussels," says Mark Poos, a PhD Candidate in U of T's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Poos is lead author of the study published recently in the international journal Biological Invasions. Up to 89 per cent of fish species and 17 per cent of mussel species are either known or suspected to be affected by the goby invasion. Of particular concern is the impact on species that have a conservation designation, including such endangered species as the small eastern sand darter fish and mussels such as the wavy rayed lampmussel.
Read More...
Red Flag

Poison Plants?


Scientific American
Mon, 05 Jul 1999 22:18 UTC
Image
© World Wildlife Fund, Canada Endangered MonarchsScientists say the larvae of these butterflies die when they eat milkweed leaves onto which pollen from genetically modified corn has drifted.
Genetically modified crops, grown over much of the U.S., remain controversial

It looks just like a midwestern corn field is supposed to look this time of year; lush and richly green, stretching to the horizon. Maybe even a little bit better--there seems to be less pest damage to the leaves, and fewer weeds grow between the rows. The same is true for the fields of soybeans and the potatoes growing in Idaho.

Yet appearances can be deceiving. Indeed, there are quite a few people who would like to rip these super-ordinary looking plants out by their roots. These crops, being embraced by big agriculture in the U.S., carry genes that imbue them with resistance to herbicides and lace their tissues with a bacterial toxin harmless to humans but fatal to pests that may try to feed on them. For corporate farmers, the promise of such genetically modified crops seems clear--higher yields, superior quality, better nutrition and less need for spraying highly toxic and expensive pesticides.
Read More...
Radar

Mobile towers threatening honey bees in Kerala, India

N Muraleedharan
Press Trust of India
Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:05 UTC
Image
© Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Thiruvananthapuram-- Mobile towers are posing a threat to honey bees in Kerala with electromagnetic radiation from mobile towers and cell phones having the potential to kill worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers, says a study.
Read More...
Cow

Police baffled as dozens of 'suicidal' cows throw themselves off cliff in the Alps

Mail Foreign Service
dailymail.co.uk
Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:16 UTC
Dozen of dead cows body
© dailymail.co.ukDozens of cows bodies litter the valley floor
In the picturesque Swiss village of Lauterbrunnen, the locals are worried.

Dozens of alpine cows appear to be committing suicide by throwing themselves off a cliff near the small village in the Alps.

In the space of just three days, 28 cows and bulls have mysteriously died after they plunged hundreds of metres to rocks below where they were killed instantly.

In each case, local mountain rescue services using a helicopter had to be called in to remove the bodies because of the danger to the local groundwater of pollution.

A police spokesman said: 'There are no large carnivores living in the Alps anymore who would once have disposed of the bodies so they have to be moved.
Read More...
Fish

Study: No fish can escape mercury pollution

Dina Cappiello
The Alaska Journal of Commerce
Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:32 UTC
No fish can escape mercury pollution.

That's the take-home message from a federal study of mercury contamination released Aug. 26 that tested fish from nearly 300 streams across the country. The toxic substance was found in every fish sampled, a finding that underscores how widespread mercury pollution has become.

But while all fish had traces of contamination, only about a quarter had mercury levels exceeding what the Environmental Protection Agency says is safe for people eating average amounts of fish.

The study by the U.S. Geological Survey is the most comprehensive look to date at mercury in the nation's streams. From 1998 to 2005, scientists collected and tested more than a thousand fish, including bass, trout and catfish, from 291 streams nationwide.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Horse dies, France faces reality of toxic beaches

Elaine Ganley
Associated Press
Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:19 UTC
Beach in Brittany
© APThis Aug. 20, 2009 photo shows people walking on the beach of Hillion, near Saint Michel en Greve, Brittany
Saint-Michel-en-Greve - It should have been a perfect day for Vincent Petit, finishing up an afternoon gallop on a wide expanse of beach along a pastel-colored bay. Instead, he and his mount were sucked into a hole of noxious black sludge.

The horse died within seconds, the rider lost consciousness and a dirty secret on the Brittany coast reverberated across France - decaying green algae was fouling some of its best beaches.

A report ordered by the government after the accident found concentrations of hydrogen sulfide gas emitted by the rotting algae were as high as 1,000 parts per million on the beach where the horse died - an amount that "can be fatal in several minutes."
Read More...
Fish

Death rate spikes among migrating whooping cranes

Maria Sudekum Fisher
Yahoo! News
Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:00 UTC
dying cranes
© APIn this Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006 file photo, a whooping crane eats a crab at the Aransas National …
A federal official says the world's only naturally migrating whooping cranes died at about twice their normal rate last year and will likely see an overall drop in numbers this year.

Tom Stehn, who oversees whooping crane conservation efforts for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says 21 percent of a flock of whooping cranes that migrates between northern Canada and the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas each year died off last year. Typically about 10 percent of the flock dies off.
Read More...