California Gold Mining Hobbyists Get Out Your Shovels and Pans, Says New Law

Photo Source: The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft Volume 23, History of California; Volume 6: 1848-1859. Published 1888. Information courtesy of SusquehannaTurnpike.org.

Anyone believe in time travel? Well for the next two year, recreational river gold miners in California are going to feel like they have gone back to the early 1850s.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has just signed a bill making them temporarily have to say goodbye to their dredging equipment and hello to shovels and pans.

The new law, formerly Senate bill 670, goes into effect immediately. It initiates a “a temporary ban on motorized suction dredge mining in California until the California Department of Fish and Game finishes its court ordered overhaul of regulations governing this practice,” said Sen. Pat Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa, Calif.), who sponsored the bill.

The moratorium will not affect instream suction dredging operations performed for regular maintenance of energy or water supply management infrastructure, flood control, or navigational purposes.

Click to read more ...

Exclusively Breastfeeding Babies Until 6 Mos. Sharply Improves Their Immune Systems, Agree Experts

Photo courtesy of the Pennsylvania Depart. of Health.

There is always a lot of uproar about whether there should be breastfeeding in public or not, but what there’s no doubt about is that it’s the best way to insure optimal health in infancy and later in life, according to global health agencies now in the midst of celebrating World Breastfeeding Week.

“This year’s theme stresses the importance of breastfeeding as a life-saving intervention, especially during emergencies,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization.

“In all situations, the best way of preventing malnutrition and mortality among infants and young children is to ensure that they start breastfeeding within one hour of birth, and breastfeed exclusively, with no food or liquid other than breast milk (not even water) until six months of age,” said Chan, adding that mothers should “continue breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods up to two years or beyond.”

Click to read more ...

Looming Extinction of Asian Toothless Ant Eaters Could Spell Disaster for Regional Ecosystems

The ecosystems of our planet are very carefully balanced schemes, and sometimes the role of a single species is so important that its extinction can bring widespread destruction to that system.

This is the fear currently gripping governments and ecological groups in Asia as the four pangolin toothless anteater species of the continent move near extinction because of rampant pouching due to insufficient multi-national legislation.

“Pangolins and their ecological role have been overlooked despite their potential ability to control termites and ants, which may save us millions of dollar per year in pest destruction.

“A pangolin of three kilograms can consume up to 300-400 grams of termites per feeding,” said Azrina Abdullah, regional director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, a wildlife trade monitoring network, which is a joint program of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Click to read more ...

Oregon Loggers Outraged Over Secretary’s Decision to Cut the WOPR

Odell lake sits along the crest of the Oregon Cascades, near Wilamette Pass. Courtesy of Flickr.com.

Not everyone is cheering Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision to “withdraw” the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, which rezoned 2.6 million acres of federal public forests in Oregon as part of conserving the habitat of the northern spotted owl. The rezoning- now gone- was also a boom for the region’s logging industry.

Jim Geisinger, executive vice president of Associated Oregon Loggers, said, “We really believe what the secretary did was a breach of public trust. That Bureau of Land Management plan was five years in the making and complied with all of the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act as well as the National Environmental Policy Act.

“There was extensive public input and for the secretary to just withdraw the record of decision arbitrarily really is unprecedented. It is unfortunate that the secretary wouldn’t even allow the plan to be presented to a court for a decision.”

Click to read more ...

America’s Kids Getting Healthier, Despite Ailing Economy

Data regarding students binge drinking (five or more drinks in a row) from 1980 to 2008. Source: The National Institute on Drug Abuse‘s Monitoring the Future Survey.

In spite of the difficult financial times we currently find ourselves in, there is something to celebrate- Americans and their kids are developing better health habits, especially in the areas of drinking and smoking.

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics just released its annual report, America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well Being (2009). It found that “heavy drinking declined from the most recent peak of 13 percent in 1996 to eight percent in 2008 for eight-grade students.”

There was an even greater improvement among 10th-grade students, whose drinking fell from 24 percent in 2000 to 16 percent in 2008.

“We also saw a decline in the percentage of 10th-graders who engage in heavy alcohol consumption- binge drinking,” said Dr. Duane M. Alexander, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which participated in the compilation of data for the report.

Click to read more ...