In California’s time of drought, turning to Native traditions to plead for rain – ‘Everyone in this town has got to come together and pray and dance for rain, and we’ve got to do it now’

By Diana Marcum6 March 2014 SAN JUAN BAUTISTA, California (Los Angeles Times) – The woman in line at the bank said she had already sold all her cattle and was now selling her land. It was one too many tales of drought hardship for Laynee Reyna, also known as She Who Makes Things Happen — […]

Global warming may ‘flatten’ rainforests – ‘The initial downward shift in arboreal species will inflate ground densities by 80 percent thus compromising normal ecosystem functions’

12 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Climate change may push canopy-dwelling plants and animals out of the tree-tops due to rising temperatures and drier conditions, argues a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The development may be akin to “flattening” the tiered vegetation structure that characterizes the rainforest ecosystem. The conclusion is […]

Photo gallery: Mutated plants from farms near Fukushima

Mutated tomato (left) from Mata-Hyun, compared with normal tomato (right). 15 July 2013 (MSN) – It might be wise to steer clear of vegetables from Japan’s Fukushima area for, oh, say a few hundred years. A Korean website assembled this image collection of produce from towns and villages surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. […]

Study finds alarming declines in U.S. amphibians, even in protected areas – Many species will disappear from half of habitats in 20 years

By Timothy B. Wheeler22 May 2013 (The Baltimore Sun) – Some of springtime’s more notable heralds appear to be fading away, as a new study finds frogs, toads and salamanders disappearing at an alarming rate across the United States. In what they say is the first analysis of its kind, scientists with the U.S. Geological […]

Decline in snow cover spells trouble for many plants, animals – ‘Snow cover is becoming shorter, thinner, and less predictable. We’re seeing a trend. The subnivium is in retreat.’

By Terry Devitt 6 May 2013 (UW–Madison) – For plants and animals forced to tough out harsh winter weather, the coverlet of snow that blankets the north country is a refuge, a stable beneath-the-snow habitat that gives essential respite from biting winds and subzero temperatures. But in a warming world, winter and spring snow cover […]

Frog species across Caribbean teeter on edge of extinction in a sign of ecological peril – ‘Everywhere we are seeing declines and it’s severe’

PATILLAS, Puerto Rico, 10 April 2013 (Associated Press) – A curtain of sound envelops the two researchers as they make their way along the side of a mountain in darkness, occasionally hacking their way with a machete to reach the mouth of a small cave. Peeps, tweets and staccato whistles fill the air, a pulsing […]

The sound of a damaged habitat

By BERNIE KRAUSE28 July 2012 Glen Ellen, California. YEARS ago, when selective logging was first introduced, a community near an old-growth forest in the Sierra Nevada was assured that the removal of a few trees here and there would have no impact on the area’s wildlife. Based on the logging company’s guarantees, the local residents […]

Despite deadly fungus, frog imports continue, accelerating mass extinction of amphibians

By JOHN UPTON7 April 2012 A clerk serving Cantonese-speaking customers at a cluttered market in San Francisco’s Chinatown reached into a tub of American bullfrogs. She drew a one-pound frog from the top of the pile. She whacked its head, sliced its neck and placed its body in a plastic grocery bag. The frog cost […]

Worst drought in 124 years leaves half of Britain in water crisis – ‘No doubt that a wildlife tragedy is unfolding’

By Nathan Rao28 March 2012 Almost half of Britain now faces devastating water shortages with supplies at critically low levels. Weeks of virtually no rainfall have decimated river and underground sources leaving the country in the worst drought for 124 years. The Environment Agency will today announce that parts of Yorkshire, the largest county, are […]

California protects vanishing frogs under state Endangered Species Act

Contact: Jeff Miller, (415) 669-73572 February 2012 SACRAMENTO, California – The California Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously today to designate two species of native frogs inhabiting high-elevation lakes in the Sierra Nevada and Southern California mountain ranges as threatened and endangered species under the state’s Endangered Species Act. More than 75 percent of the […]

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