Ecology Articles -1999


People Underestimate Their Damage to Oceans

Nov. 30, 1999 - Reuters - Ca.

Most Americans believe healthy oceans are key to human survival, but far fewer realize that individuals, not industry, pose the biggest environmental threat to the seas, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

The poll, commissioned by a consortium of museums, aquariums and zoos that together form The Ocean Project, asked 1,500 U.S. adults about how the Earth's oceans function and what environmental risks they face.

While 92 percent of the poll respondents said oceans were critical to maintaining a habitable planet, a full 66 percent mistakenly thought industrial waste was the main threat to the ocean environment.

Instead, small-scale runoff from yards, roads and farms is the primary cause of ocean pollution today -- a fact known by only 14 percent of the poll respondents.

``An estimated 15 times more oil than the Exxon Valdez spill finds its way into the sea annually from street runoff and individual dumping into municipal storm drains,'' the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of the Ocean Project's sponsors, said in a news release. The Exxon Valdez spilled about 35,000 tons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989.

The Ocean Project said it would use the poll results to help design a series of major programs and exhibits designed to boost public awareness of the threats to the oceans' health.

``We now have a good understanding of where we need to go,'' said Bill Mott, the project's director. ``People have a fundamental sense that oceans are important and they play an integral role in the balance of nature. The next steps will be to show people how oceans relate to human survival and what each of us can do to protect them for the future.''

The poll was conducted July 24-Aug. 8 and had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.


More than half world's rivers in trouble, conference learns

December 2, 1999

More than half the world's major rivers are going dry or are polluted, a panel studying global water problems reported Monday.

The fouling of the waterways and surrounding river basins contributed to the total of 25 million environmental refugees last year, for the first time exceeding the world's 21 million war-related refugees, said the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century.

The findings are part of a report the commission expects to complete at a two-day meeting beginning Monday at The Hague, Netherlands. The panel - backed by the World Bank and United Nations agencies on children, development, the environment and other issues - has been charged with finding a way to ensure there is enough water for the world's growing population in the next century.

"We have to pay attention to how the world manages its water," said Arienne Naber, a geologist who is a commission consultant.

"Production has to be increased, quality improved ... to guarantee that we can meet the water needs of all the people on earth and protect the environment," she said in an interview.

The commission gathered information on the river portion of the study from specialists around the world and an analysis of existing material.

It concluded that of the 500 major rivers in the world, the Amazon in South America and the Congo in sub-Saharan Africa are the healthiest. Both have few industrial centers near their banks, the report noted.

By contrast, overuse and misuse of land and water resources in river basins elsewhere has "seriously depleted and polluted" them, the commission said. That, it said, is "degrading and poisoning" the rivers' surrounding ecosystems, "threatening the health and livelihoods of people who depend upon them for irrigation, drinking and industrial water."

The main reason is lack of coordinated management of watersheds, which often cross national boundaries or - as in the case of the Colorado River in the United States - several state boundaries.

"All the success stories show that cooperation leads you everywhere," Naber said. The commission will recommend comprehensive regional planning among a long list of other remedies aimed at increasing water production while saving the environment, she said.

The final commission report and an action plan is to be presented for consideration to a world forum of government ministers and others, in March in The Hague.

Among other findings in the report:

  • The Yellow River in China's most important agricultural region is severely polluted and ran dry in its lower reaches 226 days out of the year in 1997. Health problems are growing because of poor water quality.

  • Amu Darya's and Syr Darya's flow into the Aral Sea in Asia has been reduced by three-quarters and has caused a catastrophic regression in sea levels - 53 feet between 1962 and 1994. The region suffers the highest rate of infant mortality of all regions of the former Soviet Union because poor water flow and fertilizer runoff have fouled the seabed.

  • The Colorado River in the United States, irrigating more than 3.7 million acres of farmland, is so exploited and polluted by agriculture that little is left to protect the ecosystem downstream, which has turned from lush green to salty and desolate marshes.

  • More than 90 percent of the natural flow of the Nile River in Africa, the longest waterway in the world, is used for irrigation or is lost through evaporation, primarily from reservoirs. What reaches the Mediterranean Sea is heavily polluted with irrigation drainage and industrial and municipal waste.


    Leaking Earth could run dry

    Water flows into and out of the mantle

    September 9, 1999 - BBC Online

    Japanese scientists say the Earth could be dry and barren within a billion years because the oceans are draining into the planet's interior.

    Researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology have calculated that about 1.12 billion tonnes of water leaks into the Earth each year. Although a lot of water also moves in the other direction, not enough comes to the surface to balance what is lost.

    Eventually, lead researcher Shigenori Maruyama and his colleagues believe, all of it will disappear.

    Could Earth go the same way as Mars?

    "Earth's surface will look very much like the surface of Mars, where a similar process seems to have taken place," Maruyama tells the latest edition of New Scientist magazine.

    The water drains away at subduction zones, where the rock of the sea floor dives under the crustal rock that forms the continents. It is bound up in minerals in the transition zone, a layer of rock in the mantle that extends 400 to 650 kilometres below the surface of the Earth.

    Geoscientists believe the water can return through volcanic hot spots and mid-ocean ridges, where molten rock from the upper mantle is pushed up through the Earth's crust. But the Tokyo calculations suggest only 0.23 billion tonnes makes it back each year - substantially less than is required to equalise the flows.

    Maruyama bases his calculations on estimates of the volumes of rock being moved up and down, together with experiments showing how much water is absorbed and released by the minerals and under what conditions.

    His figures, which he describes as conservative, suggest the leakage has caused sea levels to drop by around 600 metres in the last 750 million years. This trend has been largely obscured in the geological record by shorter-term variations in sea levels.

    Water seeps into the Earth's interior at subduction zones

    Maruyama will present his findings at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December.

    "The general idea appears quite plausible," says Raymond Jeanloz of the University of California at Berkeley. The difficulty, he says, is being sure you have accounted for all the mantle's inputs and outputs.


    August 10, 1999

    STORY 1 - 'Domesticated elephants return to the wild in Thai experiment'

    Doi Pha Muang Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand

    Elephants have always been closely identified with the three bulwark institutions of Thailand -- the monarchy, Buddhism and the nation. Thailand's elephants have served their human masters in war and peace for centuries.

    The diminishing numbers and decline in quality of life for the animals, which once graced the national flag, have inspired a campaign to release dozens of pachyderms which were domesticated -- but now are jobless or abandoned -- into the wild.

    Last month, 23 elephants were released into a section of a wildlife sanctuary in northern Thailand. Another 24 were sent out in March and 25 more are due to go in November. The sanctuary will serve as a halfway house until scientists are sure the animals are ready to roam wherever they like. The total -- 72 -- is meant to honor Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who in December celebrates his 72nd birthday, a particularly auspicious occasion according to traditional beliefs.


    STORY 2 - 'Drought jeopardizes Chesapeake Bay oysters while helping other species thrive'

    The drought has been a mixed blessing for the oyster population of the Chesapeake Bay. It is reducing fresh water flow into the bay, increasing salinity. That hurts the oysters because increased salinity encourages growth of oyster diseases such as dermo and MSX. However, saltier water also helps oysters reproduce.

    Researchers won't know the net effect until October, when biologists begin their annual sampling of oyster bars, said Chris Judy, director of the Department of Natural Resources shellfish division.


    STORY 3- 'Saving the tiger' - by Mitze Perdue

    According tothe Chinese calendar, we've just finished the Year of the Tiger, and we're now in the Year of the Rabbit. The World Wildlife Fund wants to make sure that by the time of the next Year of the Tiger, 2010, there will still be tigers in the wild.

    Scientists estimate that 95 percent of the world's tiger population has disappeared since 1900. There were once 100,000 of these mighty and beautiful creatures, but today, the World Wildlife Fund believe that only 5000 to 7000 survive in the wild.

    Why the decline? Loss of forest habitat is one reason. Another is that we humans like to eat the same wild game that the tigers do. With our modern guns, we usually win when there's a competition for the same prey. In addition to habitat loss and not enough food, tigers face an additional threat. Tiger bones and other body parts play an important role in traditional Chinese medicine.

    According to the World Wildlife Fund, poaching tigers for the ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine is one of the most significant threat to tigers in the wild today. In the past, traditional Chinese medicine has recommended tiger bone as a medicine for joint and bone pains.

    To document the extent of the problem, the World Wildlife Fund hired a man of Chinese descent to conduct a survey in seven North American cities. The investigator was an expert in conducting surveys and in addition, he spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese and was familiar with traditional Chinese medicine.

    Acting like a customer, he visited 110 pharmacies and shops where traditional Chinese medicine was practiced. Half of all the shops that he visited offered medicines with one or more protected species in the list of ingredients. In New York, 83 percent of the stores sold medicines said to contain tiger bones.

    Disturbing as this information was, it had an invaluable result. Several leading Chinese-American traditional medicine associations learned about the problem and agreed to join the World Wildlife Fund in creating a major consumer awareness campaign.

    The goal was to discourage the use of parts from endangered species in their medicines. Today, the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and six other Chinese American associations are working with the World Wildlife Fund to educate both consumers and practitioners about the links between their medicine and the illegal trade in endangered species.

    More than 50 Chinese herb stores in San Francisco are distributing a list of alternatives to tiger bone medicines. A survey conducted in both China and the U.S. found that once people became aware of the link between endangered species and medicines, they were willing to look for substitute medications.

    The American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine president, Lixin Huang, says, "Traditional Chinese Medicine has always emphasized that humans and nature must survive in a balanced and harmonious environment and there is a very close relationship between the two."


    STORY 4 - 'Barge crash results in Ohio River gasoline spill'

    A barge collision spilled gasoline into the Ohio River on Monday, closing the waterway to traffic and leaving downstream communities unable to water from the river. Between 40,000 and 80,000 gallons of gasoline leaked after four barges carrying gasoline and a fifth barge carrying cumene, a chemical, collided.

    No injuries were reported, and authorities believed there was no spillage of the cumene, a chemical used to make plastics that can irritate eyes and skin and cause respiratory problems. Fleming said foam would be brought in Tuesday to soak up gasoline, and officials hoped the river and water intake valves downstream could be reopened by Tuesday evening.

    Downriver communities that rely on the river for water supplies were quickly notified of the collision.


    STORY 5 - '71-year-old Andean condor dies in Rome '

    An Andean condor given to the Rome zoo by Benito Mussolini in 1932 has died at the ripe old age of 71, the ANSA news agency reported Monday. It said the condor, named Italo, was believed to be the oldest in captivity and perhaps one of the oldest in the world. The huge bird was a gift to then-dictator Mussolini from the government of Chile. Its mate died last year at age 72.


    STORY 6 - 'Drought conditions hit nuclear plants "

    High temperatures and low water levels in Lake Erie have nearly caused two nuclear plants to shut down their reactors. The northern Ohio plants rely on Lake Erie's chilly water to cool down the facilities. But the lake has been warm this summer and came close to the 85-degree limit that requires the plants to stop generating electricity.

    FirstEnergy Corp., which operates the two plants, has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to raise the temperature cutoff to 90 degrees at Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, spokesman Todd Schneider said Monday. The Akron-based company also may request that Perry's limit be raised to 88 degrees, he said. The NRC will decide in the next few weeks whether the Davis-Besse plant's cooling systems could function properly with the warmer water, said spokesman Jan Strasma.

    The Lake's temperature near the Perry plant peaked at 84.7 degrees on July 31, Schneider said. It was 83.7 degrees at Davis-Besse that same day, he said.


    STORY 7 - 'Aquarium officials celebrate birth of another baby beluga'

    Marine biologists at the Shedd aquarium have reason to celebrate -- the birth of a second beluga whale to be born within less than a month. Aquarium officials said 13-year-old whale mother Immiayuk gave birth to the 5-foot calf early Aug. 3. The calf, which appears to be female, swam to the surface for its first breath shortly afterward. The calf is the first born to Immiayuk, who was captured in Hudson Bay and brought to the aquarium in 1991.

    "We're optimistically cautious," said Amy Ritter, a spokeswoman for the aquarium. "This calf took the first critical step of several it will have to take over the next year or so before we can say it's out of the woods."

    Another Hudson Bay beluga, Puiji, gave birth to a male calf on July 23.

    The first successful captive beluga birth was at the New York Aquarium in 1991. Since then, about a half dozen beluga calves have survived after being born in captivity.

    STORY 8 - 'Arctic wildlife feels the heat '


    A Greenpeace expedition to the Arctic says it has found new evidence to show that climate change appears to be affecting the region's wildlife. The expedition, which ended on 31 July, says young walruses seem to be especially hard hit.

    Researchers from ten countries sailed along the edge of the ice pack in the Chukchi Sea, between Alaska and Russia. Travelling on the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, they counted and assessed the age of groups of walrus. They also kept an eye out for polar bears and for black guillemots, birds which depend on the ice.

    But some scientists believe what is happening in the Chukchi Sea may be the result of local conditions, not global changes. In 1998, they say, the ice was at a record low north of Alaska. But on the other side of the Pole, north of Russia, it was unusually heavy. Last April, British and US scientists reported unexpectedly large losses of ice in the Antarctic.


    Bears face extinction

    July 26, 1999 - BBC Online

    Bears are retreating almost everywhere

    Bears in many parts of the world are facing increasing threats to their long-term survival, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature-UK.

    In a report called Wanted Alive! Bears in the Wild, the WWF says "almost all bear species have undergone dramatic population declines in recent decades".

    It says the causes include trade in bear body parts (for instance, for traditional medicine), habitat destruction, and conflict between humans and animals. The report says the effects of habitat loss and hunting on Asian bear species are "devastating".

    Knock-on effect

    Their decline has meant increasing inroads into north and south American bear populations, and "a dramatic rise" in the early 1990s in poaching of Russia's brown bears.

    In western Europe, the report says "some of the world's most endangered bear populations struggle for survival".

    Russian bears are targeted by poachers

    West of Turkey and the former Soviet Union, bears are found in 24 European countries. In nine, they are thought to be declining.

    "In western Europe bears have been reduced to just six tiny populations, numbering as few as four individuals.

    "The most vulnerable of these populations are in France, Spain and Italy, where they are likely to vanish unless speedily augmented by bears from other populations."

    Killed in error

    There are thought to be no more than nine bears in the whole of France, where a farmer shot one animal in 1998.

    Spain has between 70 and 90 bears, but they are threatened by the use of poison to kill wolves and snares set for wild boar.

    Italy probably has even fewer bears, though some are crossing into the country from Slovenia, where numbers are thought to be stable.

    Climate changes may affect polar bears

    Other countries where populations appear to be either stable or increasing are Austria, Slovakia, Macedonia, Albania, Norway and Sweden.

    Romania, with nearly 7,000 bears, has more than the rest of Europe combined, apart from Russia.

    They were protected by the dictator Ceausescu, and are now a pest in some populated areas where they often raid rubbish dumps.

    The only species that still lives throughout its original range is the polar bear.

    But a range of chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants is causing sex changes in some animals - in 1997, several hermaphrodite cubs were discovered.

    And the report says global warming in the Arctic may be causing maternity dens to collapse, and thawing of the spring ice on which the bears depend to catch seals.

    Note from Ellie: I have friends who live in upstate NY (mountainous regions) who report that the bears are starving and come down from the mountains. They are trashing garbage cans and sometimes entering people's kitchens.

    
    
    
    
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