By Ada Carr12 October 2016 (Weather Channel) – A NOAA employee was recently treated to the rare sighting of a ribbon seal on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington. The ribbon seal was reportedly in good health and was spotted making its way safely back into the water when it was seen in August, Mother […]
[Although this obituary is cleverly written, the GBR’s situation is bad enough, and overstating it isn’t helpful. Nevertheless, this was possibly the GBR’s worst year in its 600,000 year history, with 22 percent of the reef totally bleached. The inexorable trends in acidification and ocean warming suggest that we may still witness the death of […]
30 September 2016 (Stanford University) – The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was one of the largest environmental disasters in history, releasing roughly 4 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. For Atlantic bluefin tuna, it occurred at the worst time of year, during peak spawning season, when eggs and larval fish that […]
HONOLULU, 30 September 2016 (AP) – Federal authorities added seven yellow-faced bee species, Hawaii’s only native bees, for protection under the Endangered Species Act Friday, a first for any bees in the United States. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the listing after years of study by the conservation group Xerces Society. The group […]
By Craig Welch10 August 2016 (National Geographic) – The first fin whale appeared in Marmot Bay, where the sea curls a crooked finger around Alaska’s Kodiak Island. A biologist spied the calf drifting on its side, as if at play. Seawater flushed in and out of its open jaws. Spray washed over its slack pink […]
16 August 2016 (CEH) – Exposure to neonicotinoid seed treated oilseed rape crops has been linked to long-term population decline of wild bee species across the English countryside, according to research published today in Nature Communications. The research, led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology using data provided by Fera Science Ltd and the […]
By Derrick O’Keefe27 September 2016 (Ricochet) – On Tuesday evening in Richmond, B.C., three members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet announced the approval of a $36-billion liquefied natural gas development by the Malaysian-based multinational corporation Petronas, which would see natural gas moved by pipeline from the province’s northeast to a terminal on the coast, […]
By Gail Zawacki25 September 2016 (Wit’s End) – My last post here at Wit’s End received some thoughtful queries which deserved an answer in kind, a response I have assiduously procrastinated making – an avoidance which was made easier by a ten day trip with minimal access to the internet. Most of the photos in […]
By Laura Zuckerman and Steve Gorman; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Sandra Maler22 September 2016 (Reuters) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday proposed listing the rusty patched bumble bee, a prized but vanishing pollinator once widely found in the upper Midwest and Northeastern United States, for federal protection as an endangered species. […]
By Sandra Leander5 September 2016 (ASU) – Current models used to predict the survival of species in a warming world might be off target, according to new research that enlisted the help of dozens of spiny lizards in the New Mexico desert. Nearly 40 percent of the world’s populations of lizards are expected to become […]
