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As world leaders convene in Copenhagen for the global climate conference, Former Vice President Al Gore has been making the interview rounds pushing back on " ClimateGate" hysteria on the right and promoting his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.In a wide-ranging interview with Slate, Gore talks about environmental policy, why the Copenhagen meeting matters, and the hacked climate science emails. The emails, Gore stresses, were "taken wildly out of context" and the uproar surrounding them is "sound and fury signifying nothing." His frustration with the hacked-email fallout is palpable: "The basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto! - physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn't trap heat anymore? And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it?" Good questions, Al. America's lunatic right wing: Shitting and pissing in their own food dish, insisting it tastes just fine - and begging for more... Imbeciles. P.S. Gore also appeared on CNN Tuesday night, in a lengthy interview covering similar ground. Watch it here. Tags: al gore, climate change, dumb americans, environment, global warming deniers, global warmng, pollution
From: Chicago
Mood:  Nature Bats Last
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Excerpted from a great piece by Johann Hari: Imagine you are about to get on a plane with your family. A huge group of qualified airline mechanics approach you on the tarmac and explain they've studied the engine for many years and they're sure it will crash if you get on board. They show you their previous predictions of plane crashes, which have overwhelmingly been proven right.
Then a group of flight attendants, journalists and plumbers tell they have looked at the diagrams and it's perfectly obvious to them the plane is safe and that airplane mechanics – all of them, everywhere – are scamming you. Would you get on the plane? That is our choice at Copenhagen. You can read more of Hari's intelligent, insightful articles on the environment here. Oh, and the next time you run into an "OMG CLIMATE-GATE!" pinhead like this or this, there's plenty of good, real-world information to dismantle their "arguments" both here and here... ...not that you'll ever get anywhere, mind you. These are, after all, flat-earthers we're talking about. They're not only as dumb as a bag of rocks, they plain-old don't give a shit. Tags: climate change, dumb americans, environment, global warming, global warming deniers, pollution
From: Chicago
Mood:  TGIF
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Fascinating article by Steven Stoll for Harper's (November 2009), which just may change the way you think about the entire climate debate. A really good read if you've got a few minutes... "It’s not whether or not we’re going through a global warming period. We were. We’re not now. You know God’s still up there. We’re now going through a cooling spell. And the whole issue there was, Is it man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane. I don’t think so."
— Senator James Inhofe (R.-OK), October 7, 2008Rather than continue to reject four centuries of scientific thought as an atheist conspiracy, skeptics of climate change now concede the effect and attribute the cause to a remote but still vaguely engaged Creator. For the nearly incoherent senator from Oklahoma—the ranking Republican on the Committee on Environment and Public Works—a March snowstorm in Tulsa proves that the Almighty has recently changed plans. Others of this cohort consult the Gospels on the future extent of flooding and call any suggestion of a human factor in global warming “arrogance.” Senator Inhofe’s humility would be philosophical if it weren’t a charade meant to protect the economic system that is his real religion. Moreover, his tirades would be irrelevant but for the many citizens who agree with him. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center, 38% of those polled and 49% of white evangelicals believe either that climate change is a hoax or that humans are not responsible for it. Inhofe might do well to ponder the recent discovery of one scientist at the University of Virginia whose findings amount to a natural experiment: What would happen to carbon dioxide and methane if humans disappeared? The answer is a tale not of drought but of rain, not of warming but of cooling. Its relevant technology consisted not of internal combustion and the steam engine but of horse collars and the moldboard plow. Excavate the Middle Ages, and one unearths a geological event with enormous implications for how we think about and respond to climate... ( Read the rest... )Tags: climate change, disease, ecology, environment, global warming, overpopulation
From: Chicago
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From rhinos to redwoods, this decade has spelled the end for myriad species of plants and animals. Many have not been sighted in their natural habitat for some time, while others, quite sadly, have been declared officially extinct... 
Once one of the most common large mammals of northern Africa, the Scimitar-horned oryx
(Oryx dammah) was overhunted for its meat, hide and magnificent horns. Combined with
habitat loss and other factors, the species simply crashed, and by the end of
the 20th century, none were known to remain in the wild.
And so it goes...P.S. The backbone of all life on Earth, including our own, is biodiversity – the intricate network of animals, plants and the places where they live. To learn more about what you can do to help conserve and protect this most basic element of life itself, please visit the IUCN web site, and help spread the word. Tags: animals, ecological disaster, environment, extinction, overpopulation, poaching, pollution, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood:  Ashamed
Now Playing: 'Am I Losing You' - Jim Reeves
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Black-tailed prairie dogs are currently being considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act because they have declined by more than 95% from their historic numbers. So why would the EPA even consider approving two deadly new poisons to help speed their decline? Because EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is either an incompetent technocrat, or she's got a special nod/wink relationship with the cattle ranching lobby (à la Ken Salazar at Interior). Or both.  Rozol and Kaput-D, the two anti-coagulant poisons that the EPA just approved to kill prairie dogs in ten states across America, cause the animals to slowly bleed to death. These poisons also set off a chain reaction of secondary poisoning that kill other imperiled animals tied directly to prairie dogs on the food chain, including black-footed ferrets, swift foxes, badgers, golden and bald eagles, burrowing owls and ferruginous hawks (among others). Please join me in urging Jackson and the EPA to ban these poisons once and for all: http://action.defenders.org/saveprairiedogsP.S. Please pass this forward in your LJ, Facebook, MySpace and/or Twitter. A copy of your petition letter may also be sent directly to Jackson at jackson.lisa@epa.gov. TIA. Tags: animals, environment, epa, friends, greed, thank you, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood: Disappointed. Again.
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The wholesale slaughter of the gray wolf is now back in full swing, thanks to Obama's decision to continue Bush's irresponsible environmental policies... 
(Hat-tip Chris in Paris)What a disappointment and waste of years of recovery efforts by the federal government. After being on the endangered species list for years (and with wolf populations slowly coming back), it's all gone, quicker than you can say "special interest." At least Obama can wrap up those critical rancher votes which he covets so much, eh? Melanie Stein, a Sierra Club spokeswoman, said that the wolf populations "are just on the cusp of recovery and that we are almost there." But she says the hunts represent "a step backward and away from recovery" of the wolf populations.
Defenders of Wildlife, one of several groups urging the court to stop the hunt, detailed the ecological role of the wolves on its web site.
"In what is known as the cascade effect, wolves are exerting influence over a multitude of species within the park's ecosystem. Elk, wary of the reintroduced top predator, have altered their grazing behavior... With less grazing pressure from elk, streambed vegetation such as willow and aspen is regenerating after decades of overbrowsing. As the trees are restored, they create better habitat for native birds and fish, beaver and other species..." More good reading on the topic — from a former Montana hunting guide, no less — right here. Tags: animals, barack obama, disgrace, dumb americans, endangered species, environment, greed, hunting, wildlife, wolves
From: Chicago
Mood:  Pyew
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Sure, a couple ingredients clean your hair, but the rest are a veritable toxic dump on your head (and in the environment)...  There are two types of ingredients in shampoo. One type cleans your hair. The other type strokes your emotions. I'm holding a bottle of Pantene Pro V, one of the world's most popular shampoos. Of the 22 ingredients in this bottle of shampoo, three clean hair. The rest are in the bottle not for the hair, but for the psychology of the person using the shampoo. At least two-thirds of this bottle, by volume, was put there just to make me feel good. The world spends around $230 billion on beauty products every year. Of this figure, $40 billion go to shampoo purchases. North Americans blow almost $11 billion on shampoo and conditioner each year. So most soap manufacturers aren't willing to rely on a product that merely works. The bigger job is convincing the consumer that their soap is adding value to the consumer's life. So shampoo bottles include an extra concoctions aimed at convincing the man or woman in the shower that the soap is more "luxurious" or "effective." Because beautiful hair doesn't just happen... ( Lather, rinse... )Tags: dumb americans, environment, greed, pollution, toxic waste
From: Chicago
Mood:  WTF?
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It seems like not a week goes by without industrial animal food production somehow making headlines — the H1N1 flu pandemic, astounding meat recalls, high levels of arsenic in chicken feed, or any of a dozen other concerns. One recent story that should have generated some rather large waves, however, has made only a minor splash...  Chile's salmon farming industry, second only to Norway's, is on the verge of collapse.Salmon are not indigenous to Chile, but grown in crowded cages installed in the bays and estuaries of the country's otherwise beautiful southern fjord region. These "farmed" Atlantic salmon are fed a steady diet of wild fish — perfectly edible for humans, but more profitable when converted into "value-added" finfish. The approximately three pounds of wild fish needed to produce each pound of farmed salmon has caused some people to refer to finfish aquaculture operations as "reverse protein factories." Equally alarming, salmon farms have become excessively dependent upon toxic pesticides to combat sea lice and antibiotic medicines to thwart viruses that can run rampant among the high concentrations of rapidly growing, penned fish — not unlike industrial-scale hog, poultry, and cattle CAFOs on land. But the drugs are no longer working... ( Read more )Tags: environment, factory farming, fish populations crash, food, marine life, meat, overfishing
From: Chicago
Mood: Damned, Dirty Apes
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Tip o' the hat to Mark Morford...  Oh, how easy it is to laugh and mock and sigh with savage delight. How easy it is to point at extremist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as they come out and admit, in public, to an actual reporter, that they wish President Obama had not killed that fly, that tiny little hunk of bacteria and regurgitated food bits and death, but had instead taken a moment to capture it gently between his loving presidential palms like it was universal health care reform and then set it free outside, so it could go spread germs and fecal matter and disease to various flowers and small children and Republicans. How delightful it is to point out how this group is, once again, so laughably insane and out of touch, how they have jumped the shark once again, which they seem to do with delightful, if obnoxious, frequency. But hang on a sec. Maybe there was something in that hilarious little story that gave you pause. Maybe you decided to drill down into the idea for just a moment, just to see, and then perhaps realized, well, yes, OK fine, there is an actual point to be made in there, somewhere, just behind the roaring ludicrousness of it all... ( Good stuff )Tags: animals, environment, peta
From: Chicago
Mood:  Contemplative
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Alaska's infamous Rat Island is finally rat-free, 229 years after a shipwreck spilled the hungry rodents onto the remote Aleutian island, decimating the local bird population...  After dropping tiny poison pellets onto the island from helicopter-hoisted buckets for a week and a half last autumn, there are no signs of living rats and some birds have returned, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Rats have ruled the island since 1780, when they jumped off a sinking Japanese ship and terrorized all but the largest birds on the island. The incident introduced the non-native Norway rat — also known as the brown rat — to Alaska. The $2.5 million Rat Island eradication project, a joint effort between the U.S. federal government, the Nature Conservancy and Island Conservation, is one of the world's most ambitious attempts to remove destructive alien species from an island. Now there are signs that several species of birds, including Aleutian cackling geese, ptarmigan, peregrine falcons and black oystercatchers, are starting to nest again on the 10-square-mile island. It is too soon to say that Rat Island is definitively rat-free, however. That can only be established after at least two years of monitoring, said Bruce Woods, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage. "We don't know that there's not a couple of happy rats hiding away that are going to spring out and repopulate the island," he said. Sadly, there was some collateral damage caused by the operation. Last week, a seven-member survey team collected 186 glaucous-winged gull and 41 bald eagle carcasses on the island. Most were juveniles, many in advanced stages of decomposition. "Certainly, the numbers are far higher than we would have anticipated," said Woods. "It's not clear why. We'll have to wait for the lab results." Woods said it's unlikely carnivorous eagles ate the rodenticide pellets themselves, but may have devoured some dead rats that had consumed them. The nature Conservency's Randy Hagenstein estimates there are at least a dozen more other islands in Alaska, mostly in the Aleutians, where such a program would be useful, although some islands are too big to ever get a grip on, including Unalaska and Adak. "With this program we are looking at stepping up to progressively larger islands with an eye to eventually get to Kiska," which got rats when used as part of the military theater, in World War II, he said. Tags: alaska, animals, ecology, environment, invasive species, science
From: Chicago
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A mysterious and deadly fungus attacking America's bats could spread nationwide within years and represents the most serious threat to wildlife in a century, experts warned Congress last week...  Displaying pictures of bats speckled with the white fungus that gave the disease its name — white-nose syndrome — experts described to two House subcommittees Thursday the horror of discovering caves where bats had been decimated by the disease. As a state wildlife biologist from Vermont put it, one cave there was turned into a "morgue," with bats freezing to death outside and so many carcasses littering the cave's floor the stench was too strong for researchers to enter. They also warned that if nothing more is done to stop its spread, the fungus could strike caves and mines with some of the largest and most endangered populations of hibernating bats in the United States. At stake is the loss of an insect-eating machine. The six species of bats that have so far been stricken by the fungus can eat up to their body weight in insects a night, reducing insects that destroy crops, forests and carry disease such as West Nile Virus. "We are witnessing one of the most precipitous declines of wildlife in North America," said Thomas Kunz, director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology at Boston University, who said that between $10 million and $17 million is needed to launch a national research program into the fungus. Merlin Tuttle, a world-renowned bat expert and president of Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas, said that white-nose syndrome was probably the most serious threat to wildlife in the past century. He also called for more research to determine its cause and how it was being spread. "Never in my wildest imagination had I dreamed of anything that could pose this serious a threat to America's bats," Tuttle told the panel. "This is the most alarming event in the lifetime of a person who has devoted his life to recovering these populations." ( Read more )Tags: animals, disaster, disease, ecology, environment, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood:  Damn
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Those standing on Delaware Avenue outside the Capitol last week probably have no idea how close they came to witnessing a tragedy...  Senator Orrin Hatch was test-driving a prototype hybrid Hummer H3, and the 75-year-old Utah Republican was having some technical difficulties. "How do you start this baby?" Hatch asked of the executives who built the 100-mile-per-gallon SUV. "It's started," an official told Hatch. "It's already on?" Hatch asked, surprised. "Heh, heh." "Put your foot on the brake, then put it in drive," the official said. Nothing happened. "Is your foot on the brake? You have to have your foot on the brake." "I think I've got it on," the senator replied. "Nope," the executive said, pointing out the brake pedal. "There we go." "No wonder," Hatch said. "I had it on the gas." Then, with a whine and a lurch, the Hummer began to accelerate, and for a few terrifying moments, Hatch was in control of the bright-red 5,000-pound truck. Well, not entirely in control... "All I've got to do is smash that car, I'll tellya," he said of a vehicle in his path. The questions he asked were, shall we say, a little unsettling: "Squeeze that button?... Do I park it this way?... I'm going to miss the curb?... Is there a reverse?" Spotting a Capitol Police car, he speculated, "They're probably looking at me." Eyeing some photographers near the car, Hatch allowed that he was "a little bit concerned" for their safety. When one got too close, Hatch muttered: "That guy's really got some guts to stand there." ( That being said... )Tags: alternative energy, comedy, environment
From: Chicago
Mood:  Amused
Now Playing: Birds
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 Banning flimsy plastic bags has been dismissed as a drop in the ocean when it comes to dealing with the world's environment problems, but multiplied on a China scale, it appears to have made a big difference. A new report suggests restrictions on bag usage in the world's most populous nation have saved the equivalent of 1.6 million tons of oil, in the year since it was introduced. Just ahead of the first anniversary of the ban, the China Chain Store and Franchise Association estimated it had saved the country 40 billion plastic bags. According to their survey, plastic bag use has fallen by two thirds as consumers grow accustomed to bringing their own reusable bags. The ban was introduced last June to reduce "white pollution" (the popular term for plastic bags and styrofoam packaging). Under the new rules, the state forbade production of ultra-thin bags under 0.025mm thick and ordered supermarkets to stop giving away free carriers. That surprise move – which went further than anything done by the US, the UK and many other developed nations – was hailed by Greenpeace, Earthwatch and other green groups as a sign of growing environmental awareness in China. It also lead to the closure of the state's biggest plastic bag manufacturer. Although the ban is often flouted, particularly at street stalls and small shops, it is widely praised for helping to change attitudes. "It has made an impression," said recent graduate Xuyang Jingjing. "I see more people carrying 'green bags' to supermarkets these days. But I think if the government really wants people to stop using plastic bags, it should have the shops giving out green bags for free." Which brings me to my questions, dear reader... Poll #1405562 Paper, Plastic or Cloth?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 100 When I shop, I use: I would support/abide by a nationwide ban on plastic grocery bags Tags: china, environment, pollution, reader poll
From: Chicago
Mood: Curious
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Fans of the critically endangered right whale had plenty to celebrate this Mother's Day, as the sea-moms gave birth to a record 39 calves over the Spring...  The New England Aquarium reports that the birth surge breaks the old record of 31, and shows much improvement from 2000, when only one calf was born. Each birthing season is critically important because right whales number fewer than 400, and are among the most endangered species of marine life in the world. Having a calf is no easy task for the 50-foot-long whales, who give birth off the Florida and Georgia coasts. The moms travel nearly 1,000 miles down the East Coast to warmer waters for their babies, who weigh roughly 2,400 pounds at birth. And the moms can lose up to 30,000 pounds in the first year they are nursing. And because females do not become sexually mature until ten years of age (and give birth to a single calf after a yearlong pregnancy), populations grow slowly. Right whales were named by whalers who identified them as the "right" whale to kill on a hunt, highly valued for their plentiful oil and baleen, which were used for corsets, buggy whips, and other contrivances. Because of their thick blubber, right whales also float accommodatingly after they have been killed. Populations of these whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The species was finally granted full, international protection in 1949, but despite almost 60 years of protection, recovery has been questionable. Only in the past 15 years is there evidence of a population recovery in the Southern Hemisphere, and it is still not known if the species will survive at all in the Northern Hemisphere. Although not presently hunted, current conservation problems include collisions with ships, conflicts with fishing activities, pollution, habitat destruction and oil drilling. Tags: ecology, environment, extinction, greed, hunting, marine life, whales, whaling
From: Chicago
Mood:  Uncertain
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Of interest to few... • Am I the only LJer who has Russians mysteriously friend me one day and un-friend me the next? As in all the time? WTF, Ivan? • Time to 'fess up: I have an insane crush on Naomi Klein. There, I've said it. • To John Demjanjuk: I don't give a damn that you're 89 years old and in ill heath. There's no statute of limitations on being a scumbag, and I hope you die a slow, agonizing death. Alone and fucking terrified. Just like your victims. • And speaking of Nazis: Check out the extraordinary anti-Nazi photomontages of John Heartfield. • I wonder what the people who donated to Norm Coleman's unsuccessful Senate campaign think about this. • Y'know, the end product actually looks pretty tasty, but this is one recipe that I won't be trying anytime soon, thanks. • And speaking of food, looks like the Great Cheese War has come to an end. And not a moment too soon, I might add. I do loves me some Roquefort. ☺ • From the '"Dear Santa" file: Hello, Fuckin' Kitty!• Happy to report that Li'l V is — far as I can tell — sticking to the terms of the cease-fire agreement. He hasn't lipped off or done anything stupid/self-destructive in more than a week now, so I've given him back his laptop, Internet, cell phone, iPod and TV. We'll revisit the situation when his report card comes in. Could be a very good summer for him (e.g., a paid science lab internship at NU, theatre group, midnight curfew), or a very bad one (e.g., chained to the water pipes in the basement, eating gruel from a rusty bucket, cleaning the cat boxes by hand). • Wanda Bray is my kinda gal. • Andrew Sullivan explains Cheney's Full Panic. Recommended reading. • Val Kilmer... for governor? Interesting... • I must say, the folks at DataVision Electronics are a pleasure to do business with. I ordered this birthday gift for my daughter on Sunday night, and not only was the price right (and the shipping free), it arrived today in perfect condition. Two thumbs up. • Gay marriage: Is New York the next state to get with the program? • Now here's a bomb worth dropping all over the place. • Something tells me that this probably wouldn't have happened a few years ago. (I'd insert a snarky remark here, but frankly, I like my kneecaps just the way they are, thank you. The family portrait is precious, though. ☺) Tags: cool links, dick cheney, environment, fatherhood, friends, politics, teenagers
From: Chicago
Mood: Cold & Wet
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As reported by Sea Shepherd...  During the evening of April 23rd, members of a group calling themselves "Agenda 21" slipped onboard the whaling ship Skarbakk the Norwegian Lofoten Islands and, using a monkey wrench, disassembled the salt-water intake valve and flooded the engine room. As the ship settled low in the water, local firefighters arrived with pumps just in time to prevent it settling on the bottom. By then, however, the ship had been completely filled with water, destroying the machinery and electrical systems — a costly loss for the ship's Norwegian underwriters and for Japanese investors who were partners with the Skarbakk's owner. The Agenda 21 commandos left a note that read: "We came to Henningsvaer. We saw the Skarbakk. We sank the bastard. - Agenda 21"This brings the number of illegal whaling boats sabotaged in Norway to six over the last 17 years — attacks have kept insurance premiums at exceptionally high rates. (All whaling vessels in Norway are required to carry "war insurance" to operate): • The Nybraena (1992) • The Senet (1994) • The Elin-Toril (1996) • The Morild (1998) • The Willasen Senior (2007) • The Skarbakk (2009) "Agenda 21" is a covert group that takes its name from the 1992 UN Conference on the Environment. Sea Shepherd's Captain Paul Watson said at the conference that if Norway did not comply with international conservation law, that Sea Shepherd would sink their ships. He then supervised the sinking of both the Nybraena in '92 and the Senet in '94. After that, "Agenda 21," based in Norway, took over the responsibility of enforcing international law against illegal Norwegian whaling operations. "We don't know who they are, and we have no forewarning of their plans," said Watson, "but we do applaud their efforts. These laws must be enforced, and Norwegian whalers are in blatant violation of the worldwide ban on commercial whaling. We are happy that Agenda 21 took over this task back in 1996 with the scuttling of the Elin-Toril. If I knew who they were, I'd give them a medal. It's always better when these things are taken care of by citizens in their own country and the Norwegians who are battling the whalers are like the resistance fighters... brave men and women trying to defend lives from war criminals. In today's whale wars, those who slaughter the whales are criminals...no different than elephant poachers in Africa. Except in Africa, they shoot the poachers." So I ask you, dear reader... Poll #1397418 Environmental Heroes or Eco-Terrorists?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 84 Is "Agenda 21" Justified In Scuttling "Illegal" Whaling Vessels? Tags: crime, ecology, environment, justice, marine life, poaching, reader poll, terrorism, whales, whaling
From: Chicago
Mood: Curious
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And the award goes to...  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who took a big step backwards in the history of American wildlife conservation with the stroke of a pen, moving the gray wolf from under the protection of the Endangered Species Act and squarely into the crosshairs of hunters, ranchers and special interest groups across the Northern Rockies. This asshole's decision to allow the Bush's last-minute delisting rule for wolves to take effect risks a tremendous loss for the 30-year legacy of recovering wild wolves in the region. The rule, effective as of May 4th, allows the majority of the region's estimated 1,600 wolves to be killed, once again putting their survival as a species in peril. The rule takes effect even as new pups are being born throughout the region, making them easy targets for those who want them shot, trapped and poisoned. All the reasons why this delisting plan was a bad idea when the Bush administration proposed it in January 2009 still stand today. The rule allows all but 300 of the 1,300 wolves in Idaho and Montana to be killed. It also eliminates protections for wolves in northern Utah and eastern portions of Washington and Oregon. Idaho, which hosts the area's largest wolf population, has already publically announced plans to kill more than half of its wolf population within the year after federal protections are lifted. It is beyond comprehension and without precedent that we find ourselves in this situation; with a wildlife population that has only just been declared "recovered" now facing a possible loss of over half of their numbers. No one would have dreamed of "managing" the bald eagle so aggressively as soon as it came off the Endangered Species Act, yet for purely political reasons, wolves in the Northern Rockies face the possibility of the eradication of the majority of their population soon after losing federal protections. Salazar should not have allowed this rule to take effect without engaging in a clear and transparent public consultation process. Instead, he made the surprise decision to move forward without considering current science, and without ensuring that appropriate state wolf management plans are in place to ensure a sustainable wolf population after delisting. In fact, Salazar rejected offers from groups in the region and around the country to work with him to find the right way to delist wolves in the region. Delisting under these conditions casts aside the decades of work, expense and stakeholder participation that went towards building a viable wolf population in the region. Hundreds of scientists have formally spoken out against the delisting rule, noting that the rule ignores contemporary scientific research on what constitutes a recovered wolf population, and allows wolf populations to be reduced to the point where they could not achieve the natural genetic connectivity deemed by scientists to be essential to the species' long-term survival in the region. Most recently, scientists with the Society for Conservation Biology wrote a letter to Salazar urging him to reconsider publishing the rule based on unresolved scientific issues regarding the genetic health and connectivity of the regional wolf population. Sadly, none of this was considered by Salazar, whose rushed decision is especially disappointing given President Obama's statements emphasizing the need to restore scientific integrity in the administration of the Endangered Species Act. Just three days before Salazar's announcement that he would delist the Northern Rockies wolf, President Obama pledged in a memorandum to "restore the scientific process to its rightful place at the heart of the Endangered Species Act." This pledge was not upheld by the administration in going forward with delisting the Northern Rockies wolf, a process which should have included in-depth consultation and a full scientific review. And it's a potential tragedy that could have easily been avoided. Click here now to give Obama a kick in the ass for allowing
this idiot Salazar to call open season on the gray wolf.Tags: asshole, barack obama, ecology, endangered species, environment, hunting, wolves
From: Chicago
Mood: Pyew
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Take that, you rotten, blood-soaked bastards.P.S. (Speaking of votes): Thank you to all the terrific people on my FL that are helping Brandy's mom win a much-needed/well-deserved dream trip with your ballots. We've already moved her up four spots in less than one day (with two short days of voting yet to go), and — while it's still an uphill battle — I'm feeling pretty good about her chances right now, thanks to folks like you (who've never let me down when it comes to "passing it forward"). If you haven't yet had a chance to vote (or would like to vote again ☺), please take just a moment to do so. It's fast, free and you won't be put on a mailing list. Best part: You'll be helping a genuinely wonderful lady celebrate a very special Mother's Day. Tags: environment, friends, greed, loathsome people, marine life, seal hunt, seal slaughter, thank you
From: Chicago
Mood:  Torch Their Dens
Now Playing: 'Step By Step' - The Crests
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In just a short time, one of the rarest sharks in the world went from swimming in Philippine waters to simmering in coconut milk...  The 13-foot-long megamouth shark ( Megachasma pelagios), captured by mackerel fishermen off the city of Donsol, was only the 41st such specimen ever found, according to WWF-Philippines. The fisherman brought the creature — which died while struggling in the fishermen's net — to local project manager Elson Aca of WWF, an international conservation nonprofit. Aca immediately identified it as a megamouth shark and encouraged the fishers not to eat it. But the draw of the delicacy was too great: The 1,102-pound shark was butchered for a shark-meat dish called kinuout."It is essential that we continue working with the government and local community on the sustainable management of Donsol's fisheries resources for the benefit of whale sharks, megamouth sharks, and the local community," Lee said. The megamouth shark species, discovered in 1976 off Oahu, Hawaii, was so bizarre that scientists had to create a new family and genus to classify it. With its giant mouth but tiny teeth, megamouth, like the whale shark, is a filter feeder that preys on tiny animals and appears to be no danger to humans. The shark is so rare that the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the megamouth species as "data deficient." Tags: endangered species, environment, extinction, fishing, greed, marine life, sharks
From: Chicago
Mood: Damned, Dirty Apes
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With more than half of the world’s population living in urban areas, cities face myriad problems, not least of which is the issue of sanitation. As Mike Davis argues in his book Planet of Slums, the problem of disposing of human waste is particularly acute in the world’s slums — which are home to one billion of the world’s poorest people... 
(Hat-tip The Globalist)The subject, of course, is indelicate, but it is a fundamental problem of city life from which there is surprisingly little escape. For ten thousand years urban societies have struggled against deadly accumulations of their own waste. Even the richest cities only flush their excrement downstream or dump it into a nearby ocean. Today’s impoverished megacities — Nairobi, Lagos, Bombay, Dhaka, and so on — are stinking mountains of shit that would appall even the most hardened Victorians. (Except, perhaps, Rudyard Kipling, a connoisseur, who in The City of Dreadful Night happily distinguished the “Big Calcutta Stink” from the unique pungencies of Bombay, Peshawar and Benares.) Constant intimacy with other people’s waste, moreover, is one of the most profound of social divides. Like the universal prevalence of parasites in the bodies of the poor, living in shit, as the Victorians knew, truly demarcates two existential humanities. The global sanitation crisis defies hyperbole. Its origins, as with many Third World urban problems, are rooted in colonialism. The European empires generally refused to provide modern sanitation and water infrastructures in native neighborhoods, preferring instead to use racial zoning and cordons sanitaires to segregate garrisons and white suburbs from epidemic disease. Postcolonial regimes from Accra to Hanoi thus inherited huge sanitation deficits that few regimes have been prepared to aggressively remedy. (Latin American cities have serious sanitation problems, but nothing to compare with the magnitude of those in Africa or South Asia.) The megacity of Kinshasa, with a population fast approaching ten million, has no waterborne sewage system at all. Across the continent in Nairobi, the Laini Saba slum in Kibera in 1998 had exactly ten working pit latrines for 40,000 people, while in Mathare there were two public toilets for 28,000 people. As a result, slum residents rely on " flying toilets” or “scud missiles,” as they are also called. In essence, they put the waste in a polythene bag and throw it on to the nearest roof or pathway. The prevalence of excrement, however, does generate some innovative urban livelihoods: In Nairobi, commuters now confront ten-year-olds with plastic solvent bottles wedged between their teeth, brandishing balls of human excrement — ready to thrust them into an open car window — to force the driver to pay up. Sanitation in South and Southeast Asia is only marginally better than in sub-Sabaran Africa. A decade ago, Dhaka had piped water connections serving a mere 67,000 houses and a sewage disposal system with only 8,500 connections. Likewise, less than 10% of homes in metro Manila are connected to the sewer systems. Jakarta, despite its glitzy skyscrapers, still depends on open ditches for disposal of most of its wastewater. In contemporary India — where an estimated 700 million people are forced to defecate in the open — only 17 of 3,700 cities and large towns have any kind of primary sewage treatment before final disposal. Being forced to exercise body functions in public is certainly a humiliation for anyone, but it presents a special problem for poor, urban women, terrorized by the Catch-22 situation of being expected to maintain strict standards of modesty while lacking access to any private means of hygiene. NOTE: Planet of Slums is currently available at half.com for under $10.Tags: books, ecological disaster, environment, jesus fucking christ, overpopulation, pollution, poverty
From: Chicago
Mood:  Aghast
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Another step in the right direction — and away from Bush's horrifying environmental legacy...  In a major reversal of Bush policy, mountaintop coal-mining permits are being put on hold until the projects’ impacts on streams and wetlands can be reviewed,” the Environmental Protection Agency announced today: Citing its regulatory role under the Clean Water Act, the EPA said the letters stated that the projects “would likely cause water quality problems in streams below the mines, would cause significant degradation to streams buried by mining activities, and that proposed steps to offset these impacts are inadequate.” A " midnight regulation" by Bush & Co. attempted to make permanent its policy of permitting coal companies to strip the tops off Appalachian mountains and bury watersheds with the highly toxic waste. As J.W. Randolph of Appalachian Voices says: "Today, the people of Appalachia are celebrating." So am I, Mr. Randolph. So am I.P.S. All that glitters still ain't gold, i.e. Salazar is still on my personal shit list. Tags: barack obama, bush cronies, bush legacy, coal, coal mining, environment, mining, pollution, toxic waste
From: Chicago
Mood:  Encouraged
Now Playing: 'Right Round' - Flo Rida
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The Russian government has announced a complete ban on hunting “whitecoat” harp seal pups — the first step in an agreement to end the killing of all baby seals in Russia after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the practice as a "bloody business."  Rules allowing a six-week window for hunters to target pups after their coats start turning from snow white to gray will be amended to protect all harp seals less than a year old, according Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev, adding that Russia's harp seal population has dropped by a third in the past decade as thawing Arctic ice shrinks their breeding grounds and hunting takes its toll. Said Professor Aleksey Yablokov of Russian Academy of Science: "This is a real biological catastrophe. At the current rate, in a few years the seal could become a rarity in the White Sea." "This is a bloody business that should have been banned long ago," Putin told ministers at a meeting last month, the state-run paper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported. In the White Sea breeding grounds, pups are born at the end of February and beginning of March and spend about three weeks on the ice before they take to the water. Hunters traditionally club the pups to death before they're two weeks old to avoid damaging their snow-white coats, which are used in the fur industry. The skinned remains of the pup corpses are usually dumped into the sea or simply left to rot on the ice. Putin acknowledged the importance of the hunting industry in the region and said that he would require the government to compensate incomes of the White Sea people in connection with the ban on hunting. "This is one of their means of existence. Therefore, simply banning is inadequate. A system of support measures must be worked out to secure employment and income of those who live and work there," said Putin. News of the agreement is sure to infuriate Norwegian sealing interests (the same bastards that burn unsold seal pelts to keep market prices in check) who were prepared to subsidize 80% of the Russian hunt in the hope of propping up the industry which is in a worldwide free fall. European opposition to commercial sealing has already resulted in national bans on all seal products in Belgium, Slovenia and The Netherlands, and the European Commission has adopted a proposal to ban the trade in seal products altogether. Note to Canada & Norway: Tick-tock, motherfuckers.P.S. Still lots of work to do, and you can lend a hand. Tags: animal cruelty, animals, environment, greed, hunting, marine life, sea shepherd, seal hunt
From: Chicago
Mood: Never Give Up
Now Playing: 'Closing Time' - Leonard Cohen
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Yet another chicken, coming home to roost (hat-tip ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) papananook)...  You know the fish aren't jumpin' when the very people who make their living reeling in chinook salmon are proposing a ban on ocean fishing for a second straight year. That is exactly what happened Monday at the annual Pacific Fishery Management Council meetings in Seattle, where the gory details of the catastrophic decline of California's salmon has become woefully apparent. Fishing-industry representatives on a council advisory panel looked at the dismal state of the fall run of Sacramento River salmon and proposed closing the 2009 ocean salmon fishing season, except, perhaps, for a bit of recreational fishing near the Oregon border. "It is pretty simple in California," said Peter Dygert, a fishery biologist for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's fisheries service. "Both the recreational and commercial trollers on the advisory panel have proposed no fishing. “This is grim news for the state of California,” Don Hansen, chairman of the council, said in a statement. “We won’t be able to talk about this without using the word ‘disaster.’” ( The rest of the story... )Tags: ecology, environment, extinction, fishing, greed, marine life, overfishing
From: Chicago
Mood:  Damned, Dirty Apes
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For the first time, a newborn blue whale has been captured on camera, according to a National Geographic documentary to air this coming Sunday... The baby is believed to be the first scientific proof that a blue whale "hot spot" in the Pacific is a birthing ground for the endangered species. During a January 2008 expedition to the "Dome" — a warm-water region off Costa Rica that draws blue whales from hundreds of miles away — the researchers had begun to lose hope of finding a calf. Then two telltale spouts began erupting at the sea surface. "Oh, tell me that one of them is a small blow, please," Bruce Mate, of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, says in the documentary. One of the spouts did turn out to be that of a calf, which approached the research boat — surprising the scientists, given blue whale mothers' protective reputations. A photographer and videographer dived in and soon had the visual evidence needed: fetal folds establishing the whale as a newborn blue. Averaging 25 feet long at birth, blue whale babies nurse for about seven months until they double in size. Gaining about 200 pounds a day, they are the biggest babies ever known to have roamed the Earth. The species was heavily hunted until a worldwide ban in 1966. Today, they still face a very high risk of extinction. Tags: animals, ecology, endangered species, environment, marine life, science, whales
From: Chicago
Mood:  Neat-o
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Poachers on the hunt for ivory have stepped up their use of poison arrows and spears to kill elephants in southern Kenya, according to conservationists who say the techniques are harder to trace than gun attacks... 
(Hat-tip National Geographic)The surge is part of a nationwide increase in attacks on the animals, according to a report issued earlier this month by the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. Since the start of 2008, 19 elephants have been killed and another 25 wounded by spears, arrows, and bullets in the Amboseli region near Mount Kilimanjaro, the report says. Of those killed, ten animals had had their tusks removed—the first time in many years that ivory has been taken from Amboseli elephants. In the last six weeks, poachers have also killed five elephants in the nearby Tsavo National Park region. Some were felled by gunfire, others by poisoned arrows. Conservation groups fear that the rise in poaching is a result of a UN decision to allow the first ivory auction in a decade in 2008, an event that yielded more than a million U.S. dollars from Chinese and Japanese bidders. "Since the one-off ivory sales from southern Africa countries late last year, we have noted an unprecedented rise of elephant poaching incidents in Tsavo," Jonathan Kirui, Tsavo National Park's assistant director, said in a statement released Monday. "Our security team is on full alert and is going full force to ensure that the poachers are deterred." Officials with the Amboseli trust think poachers are using a poison made from acocanthera shrubs, which are common in Kenya. The plant's toxin is frighteningly effective and there is no antidote, the report says. "When you shoot an elephant—that loud bang—people will hear it," said Patrick Omondi, head of species conservation at the Kenya Wildlife Service. "You shoot this elephant with a poisoned arrow, then they follow the elephant until it dies, and then they pluck out the ivory," Omondi said. "It's a soft way of killing." In 2008 the Kenya Wildlife Service reported 98 elephants killed for their ivory, double the 2007 figure, Omondi said. Officials link the rise in attacks to demand from Chinese workers constructing a road near Amboseli National Park and to lucrative trade across the border into Tanzania. In a recent interview with a local East African newspaper, Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Bo denied the smuggling allegations. Tags: africa, crime, elephants, environment, extinction, greed, poaching, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood: Disgruntled
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Y'see this cute li'l fella here?  That's a Worcester's Buttonquail ( Turnix worcesteri), native exclusively to the island of Luzon in the Phillipines, and thought to be extinct since about 1902 or so. So scientifically extinct, in fact, that - until this photograph was published - he and his kind were previously identifiable to modern wildlife biologists only by drawings based on (long-gone) museum specimens. Pretty amazing discovery, am I right? So, where do you think this picture was taken, hm? At a Filipino poultry market, just before he was sold and eaten. *headdesk*P.S. Leading environmental scientists say they have concrete evidence that the planet is undergoing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years, due largely in part to human overpopulation, pollution, habitat loss and global warming. One of them, Professor Norman Myers, says the Earth is experiencing its "Sixth Extinction," and predicts that up to five million species will be lost this century. Says Myers: "We are well into the opening phase of a mass extinction of species. There are about 10 million species on earth. If we carry on as we are, we could lose half of all those 10 million species." In 1993, world-renowned Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson estimated that our planet was losing 30,000 species per year... approximately three species per hour. And that was 16 years ago. Tags: animals, ecology, environment, extinction, greed, jesus fucking christ, science
From: Chicago
Mood: Bring Me A Plague
Now Playing: 'God's Gonna Cut You Down' - Johnny Cash
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...and burn their black hearts out —  Humane Society International's Rebecca Aldworth writes: I have just returned from the shores of Hay Island, Nova Scotia, where the annual hunt for grey seals was scheduled to start. There, instead of bearing witness to sealers beating defenseless seal pups to death with wooden bats, I stood amidst a spectacular nursery, alive with protective, nurturing mothers and their babies.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the government of Nova Scotia announced last week that they were authorizing another grey seal kill. But yesterday, seal processing plants told seal hunters that they would not buy the skins of the baby grey seals, and the sealers stayed home [...] buyers are now unwilling to purchase grey seal pelts because global markets are evaporating. With the pending ban on seal product trade in the European Union... this is the beginning of the end of the commercial seal slaughter. [...]
The grey seal pups are likely safe for now, but in just a few weeks, the true target of the world's largest commercial slaughter of marine mammals — the harp seals — will be killed by the hundreds of thousands... Still, just as with the grey seals, there is hope for the harp seals. Not only is the demand for seal products drying up; the boycott of Canadian seafood products is costing the Canadian seafood industry far more than the seal hunt brings in... Sadly, this is just the beginning of the commercial seal hunting season in Canada... The boycott of Canadian seafood is making an impact. To date, over 3,500 restaurants and grocery stores have joined the Humane Society's Protect Seals campaign, including Whole Foods Markets, Ted's Montana Grill, Legal Sea Foods, Publix Supermarkets, Trader Joe's, Oceanaire Seafood Room, Earth Fare, WinCo Foods and Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Cafes. Canadian fur officials are also blaming the European Union's proposed ban on a poor showing for Nunavut seal skins so far this year. None of the 10,000 Nunavut seal pelts that went up for auction this month had sold at the first auction of this year at Fur Harvesters Auction Inc.'s auction house in North Bay, Ontario. "The entire collection remains unsold," said Fur Harvesters Auction CEO Mark Downey, adding that the auction house will have to slash prices on the seal skins. "We're looking at probably a 50% price reduction to get the thing started again," he said. Learn more (and get involved) here and here.Tags: animal cruelty, ecology, environment, greed, hunting, marine life, seal hunt
From: Chicago
Mood: Break Their Backs
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I don't how many of you are OJ fans (we go through about a gallon a week), but I thought this was pretty cool...  Tropicana, in association with CoolEarth, has started a promotional campaign to help preserve rainforests. When you buy specially-marked cartons of their OJ, simply log on to the Tropicana/CoolEarth site and enter the code that's on the carton. Every time you do, you'll be saving 100 sq. feet of forest. Granted, 100 sq. feet on its own doesn't sound like much, but every little helps, and imagine how much good a million (or more) cartons could do. The promotion runs until 12/31/09, and details/registration (takes all of 60 seconds) can be found here: http://www.tropicanarainforest.comP.S. From our experience, Tropicana is one of the most heavily-couponed OJ brands around, so you generally won't have to pay much more (if any) for it than other brands if you keep your eyes open in your local paper's food section. They also have an e-mail coupon program you can sign up for when registering. Tags: ecology, environment, rainforests
Mood:  Spread The Word
Now Playing: 'Little Things Mean A Lot' - Kitty Kallen
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As a high school basketball player, Sarah Palin was dubbed "Sarah Barracuda," a nickname that was revived on the campaign trail last year, when she served as John McCain's (albeit inept) enforcer. Now the "Barracuda" is picking a fight with one of the biggest mammals in the sea... 
(Hat-tip Blue Marble)In mid-January, the state of Alaska announced plans to mount a legal challenge to the listing of the Cook Inlet beluga whale under the Endangered Species Act. (Placing the belugas on the endangered list requires a review of federally funded or permitted activities that could affect the health of the whales, the establishment of a recovery plan, and the designation of " critical habitat.") This marks the second time in a year that Palin's administration has squared off with the federal government over an ESA listing. Over the summer, her administration sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne after his agency conferred threatened status on the polar bear. In 1994, there were some 650 belugas living off the coast of Anchorage, but their numbers were nearly halved by 1997. This sharp decline was largely attributed to overharvesting by Native hunters, and by 2005 this already small whale population reached an all-time low of 278, by one government estimate. Presently, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimate the number of Cook Inlet belugas at 375. In 2000, the whales were protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but government scientists eventually concluded that this wasn't enough. "In spite of protections already in place, Cook Inlet beluga whales are not recovering,” James Balsiger, the acting assistant administrator for the NOAA’s Fisheries Service, said in October, announcing that the whales had received endangered species protection. Palin begs to differ. Her administration argues that that the belugas are faring just fine under the protections in place, and the population is even beginning to show signs of recovering. For this reason, the state of Alaska contends that additional regulation is unnecessary. “The State of Alaska has worked cooperatively with the federal government to protect and conserve beluga whales in Cook Inlet,” Palin said last week. “This listing decision didn’t take those efforts into account as required by law.” At the heart of Palin's objections are concerns that additional safeguards will interfere with oil and gas development, among other lucrative projects. “I am especially concerned that an unnecessary federal listing and designation of critical habitat would do serious long-term damage to the vibrant economy of the Cook Inlet area,” Palin said in 2007. Similar fears led Palin's administration to launch a legal challenge in August to the listing of polar bears as a threatened species. (And it was no surprise when a host of business groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, followed her lead. The cases have have been consolidated, and the litigation is ongoing.) Objecting to ESA protections on economic grounds is one thing, but Palin's team has in the past sought to cast doubt on the science underlying the listings. Fighting back against efforts to list the polar bear, for instance, her administration cited the work of global warming skeptics, one of whom acknowledged receiving funding from the American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil for his work. In this latest legal challenge, Palin's administration has attacked the accuracy of beluga population estimates, citing the "questionable use of computer population modeling." And it has challenged "the contention that the belugas in Cook Inlet are a separate and distinct population from other belugas." Meanwhile, the state's claim that Cook Inlet beluga's are recovering is at odds with the judgments of federal scientists, whose "systematic surveys," according to the whale's ESA listing, "indicate this population is not recovering." In September, the Center for Biological Diversity, which waged a decade long fight to win protection for the Cook Inlet beluga and petitioned to secure ESA safeguards for the polar bear, awarded Palin with its " 2008 Rubber Dodo Award" — given annually to those the organization deems a threat to imperiled plants and animals. “Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear,” said the organization's executive director, Kieran Suckling, at the time. “Her position on global warming is so extreme, she makes Dick Cheney look like an Al Gore devotee.” He added: “Palin’s insistence that Arctic melting is ‘uncertain’ is like someone debating the theory of gravity as they plunge off a cliff. It’s hopeless, reckless, and extremely cynical.” Her latest ESA attack has drawn more sharp words from the group, and other conservation organizations, which are watching Palin's next moves closely. Brendan Cummings, the Center for Biological Diversity's oceans program director, says he expects Palin to go forward with her suit in March, once the clock runs out on the 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue filed by her administration. "We will move to intervene in the court case to defend the listing rule," he says. "As a purely legal matter, and as a question of sound science, Palin’s challenges (both beluga and polar bear) have no merit. But we have to treat any lawsuit as a serious threat." Cummings accuses Palin of being "willing to sacrifice endangered whales on the alter of oil company profits.” The Barracuda, he contends, "must be suffering from an Ahab complex." Tags: ecology, environment, extinction, gop lizard queens, greed, marine life, oil, republican scum, whales
From: Chicago
Mood: Cunt
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(Hat-tip Michael Markarian)When it comes to animal protection, more than a dozen federal agencies have a direct impact on the lives of millions of pets, farm animals, laboratory animals and wildlife. In years past, many of these agencies have functioned largely as an annex to industry, and have been inattentive (if not outwardly counteractive) to the wishes of Americans who care about animal welfare, food safety, and environmental protection. Rather than politics as usual, it's time for change. The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society Legislative Fund have developed a change agenda for animals (PDF), with 100 immediate steps the executive branch can take to advance the humane treatment of animals. Here are just a few of the most critical ones... ( Read more )
President Obama has already indicated his support for many of the issues on the HSLF agenda when he filled out the a presidential questionnaire on pending animal welfare bills and funding matters. Now it's time for him - and the agencies he ultimately oversees - to put these ideas into action.Tags: animal cruelty, animals, barack obama, ecology, environment, factory farming, marine life, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood: Hopeful
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At feeding time, it's not just the odd pint of milk that's needed for these hungry mouths - it's gallons...  Every one of these elephant calves lost its parents to the poacher's gun or snare. Rescued from all corners of Kenya and brought to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 30 minutes outside the capital of Nairobi, they're cared for with every intention of returning them to the wild. But this year there are more orphaned elephants than ever, because poaching has increased dramatically. The poachers have been encouraged by the Convention for Trade in Endangered Species' decision to allow China and Japan to buy 108 tons of ivory in African stockpiles. 74-year-old Dame Daphne Sheldrick, who runs the orphanage, believes there is a link between legal ivory sales and the number of newly-orphaned calves. "Every time ivory is auctioned legally, there's a rise in poaching," she says. "We estimate that the number of elephants killed in Africa this year has risen by almost 45% last year" said Daphne, who has worked with her staff to protect Africa's wildlife for over 50 years. "At the beginning of 2008 the total number of infant elephants that had been hand-reared through the Trust's Nairobi Nursery was 75. By the end of 2008, the number of orphans number over 90."  The elephants are fed a special formula milk every three hours day and night and are not weaned until they are three years old. Eventually, they graduate to a 'rehabilitation facility' in Tsavo National Park to enable them to rejoin wild elephant herds. "Gradually the orphans pluck up courage to mingle with wild herds while the keepers maintain a safe distance," says Daphne, "but before they get to that stage, they'll take their jumbo milk breaks every three hours. You can help.Tags: africa, animals, ecology, elephants, endangered species, environment, poaching
From: Chicago
Mood:  Pessimistic
Now Playing: Kitchen Chaos
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Hat-tip papananook...  A crew member of Japan's whale-hunting fleet was missing and presumed dead after he apparently fell overboard in freezing Antarctic waters south of New Zealand. Japan's coast guard requested New Zealand's help after the whaling vessel Kyoshin Maru No. 2 reported that 30-year-old Hajime Shirasaki had fallen overboard. However, authorities decided that no boats or planes could reach the remote waters several thousand kilometers south of New Zealand in time to save the sailor, who had by then been missing for at least six hours. "We were able to establish the missing man was only wearing overalls when he went into the water," said Mike Roberts of New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Centre, who added that the maximum survival time in the Antarctic waters, with temperatures as low as 32°F, was one hour. Shirasaki's death would be the second fatality in Japan's whaling fleet in two years. Japanese vessels are continuing their search, and whale hunting operations have been temporarily suspended. Japan hopes to kill 935 minke and 50 fin whales in this year's hunting season. Tags: environment, extinction, fuck japan, marine life, sea shepherd, whales
From: Chicago
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Contemplative
10 (10.0%)
Cold
Unnerved
Previous