Endangered Ecosystems Across The World To Be Restored Through New International Agreement

We are inseparably tied to our planet’s health. Plants and animals - along with their ecosystems - are continuing to decline because of constant pressures.

Stock Graphic.

Some might wonder what this has to do with the lives of average people. The main reasons include:

• The cleanliness of fresh water drinking sources.
• Maintaining food supplies, especially from ocean sources.
• Developing medicines from undiscovered plants for current and coming diseases.
• Decreasing air pollution through the expansion of forests, which purifies the atmosphere.

One of the biggest concerns talked about at the recent United Nations Convention on Biodiversity was the adverse impact of climate change on marine and coastal ecosystems, including rising sea levels, coral bleaching, and ocean acidification.

Coral bleaching happens when the conditions necessary to sustain the coral’s life can be maintained. Live coral reefs provide habitat for at least a quarter of all marine species.

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Idaho Won’t Enforce Newly Reinstated Federal Law Protecting Endangered Gray Wolves

The court has ruled, but that doesn’t mean the war is over when it comes to the issue of protecting the northern gray wolf from illegal hunting in the western states.

Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves. Photo courtesy of Howlingforjustice.com.

Late last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service obeyed an order from the District Court of Montana that repealed a 2009 decision which took the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf off the endangered species list.

To enforce the new court order, the agency published a final rule in the Federal Register reinstating the wolf’s protections in the following areas:

• Oregon.
• North-central Utah.
• The eastern third of Washington.
• The northern half of Montana.
• The northern panhandle of Idaho.

The order also restores special rules identifying the gray wolves as “nonessential experimental populations” in the remaining areas of Montana and Idaho. This means, according to the agency, that “anyone may legally shoot a wolf in the attack of any type of livestock on their private land or grazing allotment, and anyone may shoot a wolf chasing or attacking their dog or stock animals anywhere except national parks.”

This right to kill doesn’t apply to the gray wolves that are considered part of endangered populations. Endangered wolves are subject to additional protections. Livestock owners are prohibited by federal law from killing wolves considered part of endangered populations, even if they are seen actively chasing, attacking, or killing their livestock. Only government officials are allowed to kill chronically predatory wolves that are classified as endangered.

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Threat Realized as Live Capture Shows Asian Carp Have Unimpeded Access To Lake Michigan

Map courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor.

Years of fears that the Asian carp would invade the Great Lakes and start out competing valuable commercial and recreational fish like salmon and perch for food are now beginning to being realized.

Earlier this summer the first live Asian carp - a bighead carp to be exact - was caught between the electric barrier in the Chicago Area Waterway System and Lake Michigan.

This capture proves that live Asian carp have unimpeded access to the lake and validates the accuracy of earlier environmental DNA (from microscopic bits of tissue shed from the fish) that indicated the fish were nearby.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Michigan’s renewed request for a preliminary injunction to close the Chicago-area locks. The renewed motion came in response to the DNA evidence of the carp getting past the O’Brien Lock and into Lake Michigan.

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Experts Reassure Public of Seafood Safety As Gulf of Mexico Partially Reopens to Fishing

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has done monumental damage to the ecosystems of the region, which will likely take years to be fully restored, but in small ways a recovery has already begun.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reopened 26,388 square miles of Gulf waters to commercial and recreational fishing.

This map is a detailed part of a Map of the World published by Planet Poster Editions in Germany.

At its closet point, the area that has been reopened is about 190 miles southeast of the Deepwater/BP wellhead, and the area where the majority of fishing will occur is about 220 miles from the wellhead, along the west Florida shelf.

NOAA said that its data has “shown no oil in the area, and the United States Coast Guard observers flying over the area in the last 30 days have also not observed any oil.”

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Nations Seek to Increase Whale Hunting by Expanding Loopholes in International Ban

Stock photo.

Whaling as a way of life and industry can be traced back to prehistoric times through archeological evidence such as harpoons dating back to 6000 BC, petroglyphs (rock engravings) depicting whale hunts, and whale bones in ancient settlements.

Historically, whales were hunted for uses including: meat, bones for corsets, wax for candles, and oils for industrial lubricants and fuel for lamps and lanterns.

“By the 1920s, whale oil fed increasing demand for animal feed, machine lubricants, glycerin-based explosives, soap, detergents, and margarine; spermaceti from the sperm whale became a staple in cosmetics, and later, even as a lubricant for the (NASA) aerospace programme,” according to Reinventing the Whale, a report published in May 2010 by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society in the United Kingdom.

Right whale. Graphic courtesy of BBC News.

Reaching up to present times, this excessive international hunting has brought many species to the brink of extinction, such as the right whales, gray whales, and blue whales, just to name a few.

What’s being threatened now is the worldwide commercial whaling moratorium (ban) that was put into effect in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission. Countries are allowed quotas - which can change yearly - on catching and killing whales for scientific research purposes. After the research data is obtained from the animals, their meat and other useful parts can be sold to market.

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