Graph of the Day: Global increase in herbicide-resistant weeds, 1957-2015

15 April 2015 (weedscience.org) – The International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds is a collaborative effort between weed scientists in over 80 countries.  Our main aim is to maintain scientific accuracy in the reporting of herbicide resistant weeds globally.  This collaborative effort is supported by government, academic, and industry weed scientists worldwide.  This project is […]

When humans declared war on fish

By Paul Greenberg and Boris Worm8 MAY 2015 (The New York Times) – On Friday we humans observed V-E Day, the end to one part of a global catastrophe that cost the planet at least 60 million lives. But if we were fish, we would have marked the day differently — as the beginning of […]

Biologist: Dead zones in the ocean threaten our most important food fish – Oxygen minimum zone ‘to start in North Africa and go all the way down to the tip of South Africa’

By Lynne Rossetto Kasper9 May 2015 (Splendid Table) – Three years ago, I interviewed Eric Prince, a research fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center. He and his colleagues had found that a huge dead zone, an area of the ocean with very little oxygen, had developed in the […]

Toxic plastic found in the world’s favorite fish

By John R. Platt 7 May 2015  (Takepart) – For the first time, plastic particles have been found in the stomachs of tuna and other fish that are a staple of the human diet. More than 18 percent of sampled bluefin, albacore, and swordfish caught in the Mediterranean Sea and tested in 2012 and 2013 […]

(No) more fish in the sea

By Holly Moeller 22 Aprl 2015 (Stanford Daily) – Last week, a 20-million-dollar industry hit the brakes when the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to close the West Coast sardine fishery, effective immediately. It’s unusual for a fishery to be shuttered so abruptly (the current season would normally have run another two months until the […]

Wild animals in drought-stricken U.S. West are dying for a drink – ‘It’s looking to be a very, very difficult year for wildlife’

By Darryl Fears 6 May 2015 (Washington Post) – For the giant kangaroo rat, death by nature is normally swift and dramatic: a hopeless dash for safety followed by a blood-curdling squeak as their bellies are torn open by eagles, foxes, bobcats and owls. They’re not supposed to die the way they are today — […]

Scientists to analyze ‘the Blob’ at Scripps Oceanography Workshop

30 April 2015 (Scripps Institution) – A workshop on an unusually warm pool of North Pacific Ocean water and associated conditions will take place May 5 and 6 at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Participants in the 2014-2015 Pacific Anomalies Science and Technology Workshop will include federal, non-federal, state and local scientists and […]

Climate change to cause the extinction of one in six species by 2100

By Geena Fowles4  May 2015 (America Herald) – A massive 16 percent of our planet’s species may be facing extinction by 2100 as a result of the havoc that climate change is wreaking, a recent study published in Science states. According to a team of researchers, the ever-increasing temperatures will contribute to the wipe-out of […]

Horribly bleak study sees ‘empty landscape’ as humans slaughter large herbivores at startling rate – ‘Ever-larger swaths of the world will soon lack many of the vital ecological services these animals provide’

By Fred Barbash and Justin Wm. Moyer4 May 2015 (Washington Post) – They never ate anybody — but now, some of planet Earth’s innocent vegetarians face end times. Large herbivores — elephants, hippos, rhinos and gorillas among them — are vanishing from the globe at a startling rate, with some 60 percent threatened with extinction, […]

Pacific sardine industry shutdown as species collapses – ‘The population isn’t replacing itself’

By Kelly House10 April 2015 (The Oregonian) – Updated at 6:55 p.m. on 13 April 2015: The council has canceled the upcoming season. Pacific coast sardines are facing a population collapse so severe that Oregon’s multimillion-dollar sardine industry almost certainly will be shut down this summer. Anticipating fishermen will pursue anchovies instead, ocean conservationists are […]

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