Best of our wild blogs: 16 Dec 10

Mugimaki Flycatcher takes a caterpillar
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Chronicle of Mr & Mrs King - a surprise visit (Dec 16, 2010)
from Life's Indulgences

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HDB's shining success

Liang Kaixin Channel NewsAsia 14 Dec 10;

SINGAPORE : HDB flats throughout Singapore could be completely powered by sunlight in future.

With the first phase of HDB's largest solar power project finally complete, three neighbourhoods can now rely on the sun for 80 per cent of their electricity. And HDB hopes to improve that figure to 100 per cent.

Some HDB blocks in Bukit Panjang have each been installed with 30 to 35 kilowatt peak solar panels.

From September to November, similar panels were installed at Tampines and Marine Parade.

The effectiveness of these panels will be monitored over a year, where they power various common services like corridor lights and lifts.

Currently, most solar energy devices are used in colder regions like Germany and Japan.

Ng Bingrong, a senior executive engineer at HDB, said: "Unlike most overseas installations, Singapore's weather conditions are a bit different. We are hotter, wetter, and we have higher humidity. So these various climatic conditions can affect solar power generations. So these are some of the things we want to study, how we can acclimatise the system to perform better in our context."

The solar panels can last some 20 years.

Two years ago, the HDB successfully carried out smaller-scale experiments in Serangoon North and Sembawang - achieving some 40 per cent energy savings.

HDB said that by 2015, 30 precincts will have such solar panels installed under a S$31 million programme.

With more than 80 per cent of Singaporeans living in HDB estates, residents hope these solar panels can eventually reduce their electricity bill.

- CNA/ms

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New Sarawak marine national park proposal submitted

The Star 16 Dec 10;

KUALA LAWAS in Limbang is expected to be the next national park covering aquatic and marine areas in Sarawak.

Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) general manager Wilfred Landong said the area had been identified and the proposal to gazette it as a Totally Protected Area (TPA) had been submitted to the Controller’s Office for further action.

“We have proposed it to be gazetted as a TPA because of the diversity in marine life and it is a very important habitat for endangered species like dugongs, dolphins and turtles,” he told The Star during a break for the 10th Hornbill Workshop in Miri yesterday.

Other national parks covering aquatic and marine areas are Similajau (Bintulu), Miri-Sibuti, Loagan Bunut (Miri), Tanjung Datu, Talang Satang, Kuching Wetland (Kuching), Maludam (Sri Aman) and Rajang Mangroves (Sibu).

Landong said SFC and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) had also planned a long-term collaboration to monitor and conduct research on the marine biodiversity and habitats, particularly on seagrass, dugongs, turtles and fishery resources in the area.

Earlier, UMS marine mammal research unit head Dr Saifullah A Jaaman said Lawas, located in the southwest section of the Brunei Bay, had a unique and special marine ecosystem which consisted of mangrove forests, seagrass beds, coral reefs, estuaries, sandy mbeaches, mud flats and continental slopes.

He said the waters were known to support eight seagrass species from two families and a total of 60 species of marine fishes from 35 families.

“The green and hawksbill turtles and Irrawaddy dolphins are large marine species commonly seen in the area.

“Three aerial (2001, 2007, 2008) sighting surveys conducted for marine mammals found that a viable population of the vulnerable dugongs inhabited these waters,” he said during his presentation on Ecology and Conservation of Marine Biodiversity and Seagrass Habitat in the Waters of Lawas yesterday.

Saifullah said the survival of dugongs in Kuala Lawas depended on seagrass meadows, its main food.

He added that ground study conducted recently (2008-2009) confirmed the occurence of six species of seagrass in the inter-tidal and sub-tidal regions of the coastline, stretching from 30km between Kuala Bangkulit near the Sarawak-Sabah border and Awat-Awat, close to the Brunei border.

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Sarawak opens up two new sanctuaries for orang utan

New Straits Times 16 Dec 10;

MIRI: Another two locations in the state are now officially homes for the orang utan.

These are the Sebuyau and Sedilu peat swamp areas which were recently gazetted as sanctuaries for them. Studies show there are about 2,400 orang utans in the two areas.

Sarawak Forest Director Datuk Len Talif Salleh said the studies by forestry agencies spanned 20 years.

Sebuyau was gazetted a sanctuary in July and Sedilu earlier this month. Sebuyau covers a land mass of more than 20,000ha, while Sedilu has more than 5,000ha.

The two areas are an extension of the Sebuyau virgin forests.

With the two new additions, they are now six orang utan sanctuaries in the state.


Speaking after launching a hornbill workshop themed "Managing Ecosystems for Sustainability" here yesterday, he said the target was to make 1.2 million hectares of land and water totally protected areas (TPAs).

Sarawak now has 750,000ha of TPAs, of which 550,000ha are land-based.

"We are heading there and there are places that we have identified. We are now mediating with the local population on the gazettement proposals as some of the locals may not understand the concept.


"They must be educated on maintaining the sustainability of the forests.

"For example, fish bombing is the easiest way to harvest fish, but it is not sustainable for the ecosystem."

There are 34 TPAs in Sarawak, which are equivalent to 2,400km stretch of road and there are six million permanent forest estates for logging, oil palm and agriculture crops.

"We are making sure that the state's development is in tandem with the conservation efforts of the ecosystems."

The Sarawak Forestry Corporation is currently undertaking studies on the marine and aquatic wildlife in the state and more estuaries will be proposed as protected areas in the near future.

Virgin forests in Sri Aman gazetted
Rintos Mail The Star 15 Dec 10;

THE Sebuyau and Sedilu virgin forests in Sri Aman are the latest to be gazetted as a Natural Wildlife Sanctuary, making them a Totally Protected Area (TPA) in Sarawak.

The former was gazetted as TPA in July while the latter, this month.

Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) managing director Datuk Len Talif Salleh said the two were gazetted following recommendations during the Orang Utan International Con-vention in Kuching last year.

Some 20 recommendations were put forward by experts for the conservation of the orang utans’ natural habitats during the conference.

Len said the Sebuyau Wildlife Sanctuary covered an area of about 20 hectares while the Sedilu Wildlife Sanctuary, which is contiguous to the former, covered an area of 5,230 hectares.

“Works at the two sites as well as sightings of orang utans will be done after this,” he reporters after the launching of the 10th Hornbill Workshop in Miri yesterday.

Other gazetted Natural Wildlife Sanctuaries in Sarawak are Lanjak-Entimau and Batang Ai, both in Sri Aman.

Len said the estimated number of orang utans in Sarawak, including those at the Matang Rehabilitation Centre and Semenggok Wildlife Centre, was 2,500.

He said the state government was targeting to gazette one milion hectares of forest reserve and land as TPAs.

He said currently 750,000 hectares had been gazetted.

“Actually we have identified 450,000 hectares of land and forest to be gazetted as TPAs.

“If everything goes smoothly, we can even exceed our target of one million hectares hopefully in three years’ time,” he added.

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Belgium to help fund Indonesian elephant conservation center

Antara 15 Dec 10;

Pekanbaru (ANTARA News) - The Belgian government will provide 200,000 euros in assistance for the construction of a Sumatran elephant conservation center in the Tesso Nilo National Park (TNTN), Riau Province, a local official has said.

"Belgium will provide 200 thousand euros for the elephant conservation center in TNTN," director of the Forest Investigation and Protection of the Forestry Ministry, Rafles Panjaitan, said here Wednesday.

He said the foreign funding program was expected to be started in January 2011 and the funds would be channeled to Indonesia through a Belgian donor agency.
The funds would be disbursed in stages. As much as 50,000 euros would be disbursed next year.

The elephant conservation center in TNTN would replace one located in Minas, Siak district, because the location in Minas was considered no longer suitable as forest areas there had been changed into oil palm plantations and oil mining sites.

"The location in Minas is no longer suitable for the elephant conservation center because there are oil pipelines and oil palm plantations around the area," Rafles said.
He said that dozens of tame elephants in Minas will be moved to TNTN in anticipation of unexpected things between the elephants and the people around TNTN.

Tesso Nilo National Park is the largest habitat of the Sumatran elephant (Elephant maximus sumatranus) remaining in Riau and inhabited by about 100 wild elephants.

Elephant Sanctuary Set For Riau National Park
Jakarta Globe 19 Dec 10;

Pekanbaru. Officials at the Tesso Nilo National Park in Riau announced on Sunday they would set up a 40-hectare conservation area within the park for Sumatran elephants.

Hayani Suprahman, head of the park, said work on the conservation area would begin before the end of the year, centered in Lubuk Kembang Bungo village in Pelalawan district.

He said the site was chosen because it was close to an existing elephant training center run by the environmental group WWF and several private organizations.

Elephants from that center are used to drive off marauding herds of wild elephants that encroach into farms and villages.

Hayani said the conservation project would be funded through a 200,000 euro ($260,000) grant from Belgium’s Paradiso Park.

Raffles Panjaitan, director of forest protection at the Ministry of Forestry, said on Friday that Taman Safari wildlife park near Bogor would also benefit from the tie-up with Paradiso Park.

He said the grant was part of a deal to loan two elephants to the Belgian park in 2009.

“In addition to the 200,000 euro grant for the elephant conservation area in Tesso Nilo, Paradiso Park officials have also agreed to lend three giraffes to Taman Safari,” he said.

There are an estimated 80 Sumatran elephants in Tesso Nilo, which at almost 40,000 square kilometers is one of the largest national parks in Sumatra.

According to the WWF, 3,350 Sumatran elephants remain in the wild, most under threat from habitat loss, which forces them to encroach on farmlands and often leads to them being killed.


Antara

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GM mosquito release only in 'safe' areas

New Straits Times 16 Dec 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: Genetically modified or "sterile" mosquitoes will be released only in uninhabited areas to ascertain their effectiveness in eradicating the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

In giving this assurance, Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said researchers were still in the experimental stage and would use the sterile mosquitoes in the laboratory and uninhabited areas.

"We will not release the sterile mosquitoes in inhabited areas until we have completed our trials and informed the public of the findings," he said at a press conference yesterday, adding that similar experiments were also being conducted in Brazil, Vietnam and India.


"We will closely monitor the situation in these countries and the outcome of their experiments."

Liow said dengue was a major concern in Malaysia with the alarming rise in the death toll.

In 2007, there were 98 deaths followed by 112 deaths in 2008, 88 deaths last year and 132 between January and Dec 4 this year.


"We are burdened with having to fight this menace continuously. We hope to reduce the number of cases with the strategic action plan put in place.

"But to seriously fight the problem, we need public cooperation."

He said this was because the breeding of Aedes was most prevalent in urban areas and, in most cases, the people were responsible for this.

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'Mile-a-minute' weed threatens Nepal's jungles

Claire Cozens Yahoo News 15 Dec 10;

CHITWAN, Nepal (AFP) – The lush jungles of the Chitwan national park in southern Nepal are among the last remaining refuges of the endangered royal Bengal tiger and the rare one-horned rhino.

But conservationists say the huge wildlife reserve is under threat from a foreign invader that is destroying its delicate eco-system, with potentially catastrophic implications for the animals that live there.

Over the past decade and a half, a non-native creeper dubbed "mile-a-minute" for its rampant growth has covered large swathes of the 932-square-kilometre (579-square-mile) park, a major tourist attraction and UNESCO world heritage site.

Biologist Naresh Subedi says the plant, Micania micrantha, has already engulfed more than a third of prime rhino habitat in the national park, and believes the impact on wildlife could be devastating.

"Micania is ranked as one of the most invasive plants in the world," said Subedi, who works for the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) in Chitwan.

"It can smother, choke and pull over other plants, it causes soil erosion, and no single technique has yet proved effective for its long-term control.

"More than a third of the rhino habitat in Chitwan has now been covered to a greater or lesser degree, posing a serious threat to the population."

Although micania is edible, it is nutritionally deficient compared to the native grasses of Chitwan which can sustain "mega-herbivores" like rhinos which require a large, daily intake of nutrient-rich vegetation.

Native to South America, micania grows over the plants that make up the diet of the rhinos, blocking the sunlight they need to survive.

A single plant can produce between 20,000 and 40,000 seeds, which are dispersed by wind, and its shoots are reported to grow by up to 2.7 centimetres (about one inch) a day.

Micania is thought to have been introduced to South Asia during the second world war as a form of camouflage for military bunkers in India.

It was later used on Indian tea plantations to cover exposed strips of soil in an effort to prevent erosion, and was first reported in the east of neighbouring Nepal in 1966.

The threat to the rhino population comes as numbers are beginning to recover after a 10-year Maoist insurgency in Nepal, during which poachers were given free rein as soldiers protecting the park left to battle the rebels.

The last count, in 2008, found 408 rhinos living in Chitwan, the second largest population in the world and up from 372 in 2005, a year before the conflict ended.

The NTNC recently fitted eight of the rhinos with radio collars and staff now conduct regular patrols to monitor their movements, sometimes spending all night in the park.

They want to establish whether the spread of micania is forcing the rhinos to move to new areas of the park, or worse, leave altogether to seek new sources of food.

Perched precariously atop a giant elephant -- the favoured mode of transport in the jungle -- chief wildlife technician Bishnu Bahadur Lama holds a metal aerial aloft as he listens out for a radio signal on his receiver.

From the top of the elephant, the devastating impact of micania is clear to see. Huge trees have been completely covered by the weed and now lie dead beneath it.

"Sometimes we see the rhinos eat the micania," said Lama, who has worked in the national park for 36 years.

"We don't yet know what the long-term effect on them will be, but we are concerned that their droppings will spread the weed even further."

Conservationists say the park's tigers, already hunted to the brink of extinction, will also suffer if the deer and other herbivores they prey on are hit by the diminished availability of food.

Bengal tigers were once found throughout Nepal's southern lowlands, which border India, but poaching and the destruction of their natural habitat have drastically reduced numbers.

A World Wildlife Fund (WWF) survey carried out two years ago found just 121 tigers of breeding age living in Nepal, most of them in the Chitwan national park.

WWF conservationist Rinjan Shrestha is working on a national strategy to control the spread of the weed, which he says is critical to the survival of rhinos and elephants in the park.

But he acknowledges it will be difficult. No reliable method of killing the weed without harming the vegetation around it has yet been found, although experiments with a fungus that poisons it are being conducted in India.

"We are drafting a plan of action in consultation with the government and seeking funds from donor agencies," Shrestha told AFP.

"We are consulting with the government and looking for donor funding, and we expect to be in a position to undertake control measures next year. But we will need continuous engagement and it will be highly costly."

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Climate Change Affects Toads, Salamanders: Study

Maggie Fox PlanetArk 16 Dec 10;

Climate change is affecting the breeding cycles of toads and salamanders, researchers reported on Tuesday, in the first published evidence of such changes on amphibians.

They documented that two species were breeding later in the autumn than in years past, and two others were breeding earlier in the winter.

Their study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, adds to a growing body of evidence that climate change is affecting animals.

Other studies have shown some birds in North America and Europe are moving northwards as temperatures rise.

Brian Todd of the University of California, Davis and colleagues set up a net around a wetland in South Carolina starting 30 years ago, and trapped the animals that came and went.

"We analyzed 30 years of data on the reproductive timing of 10 amphibian species ... and found the first evidence of delayed breeding associated with climate change," they wrote in their report.

"We also found earlier breeding in two species. The rates of change in reproductive timing in our study are among the fastest reported for any ecological events," they added.

The changes coincided with a 1.2 degree C (2.16 degrees F) warming in average overnight temperatures at the site.

"Our results highlight the sensitivity of amphibians to environmental change and provide cause for concern in the face of continued climate warming," Todd and colleagues concluded.

The dwarf salamander Eurycea quadridigitata and marbled salamander Ambystoma opacum, both autumn-breeding species, arrived significantly later in recent years than at the beginning of the study, they found.

The tiger salamander Ambystoma tigrinum and the Pseudacris ornata or ornate chorus frog, both winter-breeding species, were showing up earlier to breed.

Six other species of frogs and toads did not change the timing of their breeding, the researchers said.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

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Scientists: It's not too late yet for polar bears

Yahoo News 15 Dec 10;

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Two groups of scientists are suggesting a sliver of hope for the future of polar bears in a warming world.

A study published online Wednesday rejects the often used concept of a "tipping point," or point of no return, when it comes to sea ice and the big bear that has become the symbol of climate change woes. The study optimistically suggests that if the world dramatically changed its steadily increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, a total loss of critical summer sea ice for the bears could be averted.

Another research group projects that even if global warming doesn't slow — a more likely near-future scenario — a thin, icy refuge for the bears would still remain between Greenland and Canada.

A grim future for polar bears is one of the most tangible and poignant outcomes of global warming. Four years ago, federal researchers reported that two-thirds of the world's polar bear habitat could vanish by mid-century. Other experts foresee an irreversible ice-free Arctic in the next few years as more likely.

The new study, which challenges the idea of a tipping point, says rapid ice loss could still happen, but there's a chance that the threatened bears aren't quite doomed.

"There is something that can be done to save polar bears," said lead author Steven Amstrup, the former senior polar bear scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska. "The problem is not irreversible."

His research, published in Nature, shows there's a steady relationship between greenhouse gas emissions, sea ice and polar bear habitat. As emissions rise, sea ice and polar bear habitat decline. But unlike previous research, there's no drop-off tipping point in Amstrup's models.

Essentially until all sea ice is gone permanently in the summer there is still a chance to prevent the worst-case, if global warming is stopped in time, Amstrup's research shows.

"Such a tipping point would mean that future reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would do little to save the polar bear," said Amstrup, who is now chief scientist for the conservation group Polar Bears International. "It seems clear that if people and leaders think that there's nothing they can do, they will do nothing."

Some experts called Amstrup too optimistic, but said his computer models made sense.

"I wouldn't say that we can rule out a tipping point, but it does show that a tipping point isn't inevitable," said Walt Meier, a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.

But that all hinges on reducing greenhouse gas emissions — carbon dioxide and other pollution from the burning of fossil fuels, said Mark Serreze, director of the center. "Time is running out. Humankind needs to make a choice," he said.

Time has already run out, said Henry Jacoby, a management professor at MIT and founder of its MIT Global Change Joint Program.

Jacoby examined the computer models Amstrup used in his paper and said it is based on a "world that's already long gone." The two scenarios of emission reductions are points that the world has already passed or will pass in the next few years, Jacoby said.

After the global recession led to a one-year dip in carbon dioxide emissions, they are soaring again, according to a recent study. And vague international agreements made in Cancun last week and in Copenhagen last year don't do enough, Jacoby said.

"Even given the pledges on the table, we don't come close to what these guys use in their hopeful scenario," he said.

Study co-author Eric DeWeaver of the National Science Foundation called the scenarios he used "plausible."

But DeWeaver and Amstrup agree the polar bear is in deep trouble if emissions continue to rise as they are now.

A second study was to be presented Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. That research considers a future in which global warming continues at the same pace.

And it shows that a belt from the northern archipelago of Canada to the northern tip of Greenland will likely still have ice because of various winds and currents.

The sea ice forms off Siberia in an area that's called "the ice factory" and is blown to this belt, which is like an "ice cube tray," said Robert Newton of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

That "sea ice refuge" will be good for polar bears and should continue for decades to come, maybe even into the next century, he said.

Just how many polar bears could live there still has to be figured out, according to the research by Newton and Stephanie Pfirman of Barnard College.

Amstrup's study doesn't downplay the nature of global warming and its effect on polar bears, especially if emissions increase.

"The changes that are occurring in the Arctic are going on at a much more rapid rate than elsewhere in the world," Amstrup said. "So the changes that are occurring and affecting polar bears really foreshadow much more significant changes that are likely to occur worldwide."

Polar Bears Not Doomed if Swift and Serious Action is Taken
livescience.com Yahoo News 15 Dec 10;

Polar bears, considered doomed if the Arctic sea ice continues to melt, have a fighting chance at survival if humans cut back on their emission of greenhouse gases, according to a new study.

"Our research offers a very promising, hopeful message, but it's also an incentive for mitigating greenhouse emissions," Cecilia Bitz, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a statement.

Polar bears were marked as a threatened species in 2008, the year after a study projected that two-thirds of the world's polar bears would be dead within decades if the warming climate kept melting their icy habitat. That study was based on current emissions, according to Steven Armstrup, emeritus researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey, who is also a Polar Bear International senior scientist.

"That was a pretty dire outlook, but it didn't consider the possibility of greenhouse gas mitigation," Armstrup, who led the new study, said in a statement.

Earlier models found that large areas of Arctic ice could disappear in less than a decade. If greenhouse emissions continued as they are now, those studies found, the ice would not recover and could disappear entirely.

Arctic sea ice is crucial to polar bears, providing them access to their favorite food, seals. Without food, polar bears would lose two pounds per day on their way toward starving.

However, the new study, reported Dec. 16 in the journal Nature, finds that if greenhouse gases drop significantly in the near future, bears may not lose their icy hunting grounds. The remaining ice would stay intact through the remainder of the century, and some of the lost ice would re-form, according to the researchers' new model. That would be enough to ensure the survival of the polar bear species, they wrote.

The 2007 study identified two Arctic regions where polar bears were at particular risk.

"There's still a fairly high probability in both of those regions that polar bears could disappear," Armstrup said. "But with mitigation and aggressive management of hunting and other direct bear/human interactions, the probability of extinction would now be lower than the probability that polar bear numbers will simply be reduced."

Arctic icecap safe from runaway melting: study
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 15 Dec 10;

PARIS (AFP) – There is no "tipping point" beyond which climate change will inevitably push the Arctic ice cap into terminal melt off, according to a study released Wednesday.

The northern polar cap has shrunk between 15 and 20 percent over the last 30 years, unleashing concern that on current trends -- with regional temperature increases twice or triple the global average -- it could disappear entirely during the summer months by century's end.

One of the factors in this calculation is a so-called positive feedback, in which a reduced area of floating ice helps to stoke global warming.

As ice cover recedes decade by decade, more of the Sun's radiative force is absorbed by dark-blue sea rather than bounced back into space by reflective ice and snow.

But a new study published in the British science journal Nature shows that there is nothing inevitable about this process, and that it can be halted or even reversed.

"There is no 'tipping point' that would result in unstoppable loss of summer sea ice when greenhouse gas-driven warming rose above a certain threshold," said Steven Amstrup, a professor at the University of Washington and lead author of the study.

Up to now, many scientists worried that there was an as yet unidentified temperature threshold which, once passed, would doom the ice cap.

But the study, based on computer models, indicates that if annual emissions of greenhouse gases are substantially reduced over the next two decades, an initial phase of rapid ice loss would be followed by a period of stability and, eventually, partial recovery.

If so, that could mean a reprieve for polar bears, which use floating ice shelves as a staging areas for stalking ringed and bearded seals, their preferred food.

Already today, many of the majestic predators are teetering on the edge of starvation because the ice melts sooner in spring and forms later in autumn, shortening their hunting season.

The new research "offers a very promising, hopeful message," said co-author and University of Washington professor Cecilia Blitz.

"But it's also an incentive for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions," she said in a statement.

In earlier research, Amstrup and colleagues had calculated that only a third of the world's estimated 22,000 polar bears would still be around by 2050, and that even these survivors could eventually disappear.

In 2008, Washington listed polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.

Earlier this week, more than 150 biologists and climate scientists called in an open letter on US President Barack Obama to step up action to save the Arctic's top predator.

The US Department of the Interior faces a court-imposed deadline next week on whether polar bears should continue to be classified merely as "threatened" or given maximum protection under US law as "endangered."

And a separate study also published in Nature Wednesday warned that melting ice was pushing Arctic mammals to breed with cousin species, in a trend that could be pushing the polar bear and other iconic animals towards extinction.

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Mating Mystery: Hybrid Animals Hint at Desperation in Arctic

Janelle Weaver livescience.com Yahoo News 15 Dec 10;

An odd-looking white bear with patches of brown fur was shot by hunters in 2006 and found to be a cross between a polar bear and a grizzly bear. Apparently, grizzlies were moving north into polar bear territory. Since then, several hybrid animals have appeared in and around the Arctic, including narwhal-beluga whales and mixed porpoises.

The culprit may be melting Arctic sea ice, which is causing barriers that once separated marine mammals to disappear, while the warming planet is making habitats once too cold for some animals just right. The resulting hybrid creatures are threatening the survival of rare polar animals, according to a comment published today (Dec. 15) in the journal Nature. [Real of Fake? 8 Bizarre Hybrid Animals]

A team led by ecologist Brendan Kelly of the National Marine Mammal Laboratory counted 34 possible hybridizations between distinct populations or species of Arctic marine mammals, many of which are endangered or threatened.

"The greatest concern is species that are already imperiled," said Kelly, first author of the Nature comment. "Interbreeding might be the final straw."

Pizzlies and Narlugas

When hunters encountered a hybrid of a polar bear and a grizzly in 2006, Kelly's colleagues remarked that the incident was just a fluke. But as Kelly delved into the issue, he found more evidence of similar anomalies. In 2009, a cross between a bowhead and a right whale was spotted in the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Russia. And a museum specimen in Alaska attests to breeding between spotted seals (Phoca largha) and ribbon seals (Histriophoca fasciata), which belong to different genera, a scientific classification of organisms that is broader than the species level.

Evidence suggests at least five other types of hybrids that may arise from animals of distinct genera, Kelly's team reported. These include:

* Narwhal (Monodon monoceros) and beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas)
* Ringed seal (Phoca hispida) and ribbon seal (Histriophoca fasciata)
* Bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) and right whale (Eubalaena spp.)
* Harp seal (Phoca groenandica) and hooded seal (Cystophora cristata)
* Harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) and Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli)

Breedings between these marine mammals near the North Pole are likely to result in fertile offspring, because many of these animals have the same number of chromosomes, said comment co-author Andrew Whiteley, a conservation geneticist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Chromosomes that are unmatched in number cannot pair during meiosis, a special type of cell division necessary for sexual reproduction. During meiosis, chromosomes duplicate and the cell divides to form daughter cells, which split apart to form gametes, or mature sexual reproductive cells. But with unmatched chromosomes, the split into gametes would be uneven, creating sterility.

Over the short term the hybrid offspring from these Arctic animal matings will likely be strong and healthy, because unlike inbreeding, which magnifies deleterious genes, so-called outbreeding can mask these genes. Most of these genes are recessive, meaning the offspring need a pair to actually show the trait. Different species or different genera generally don't have the same bad recessive alleles, and so there's not a high chance of a pair turning up. (Alleles are different versions of the same gene.)

But over time, as the hybrids mate randomly, those harmful genes will come out of hiding and make the offspring less fit and less capable of surviving, Whiteley warned.

Kelly said that breeding between species usually isn't beneficial when it's caused by accelerated environmental change, because the hybrid animals don't have time to evolve survival traits. "This change is happening so rapidly that it doesn't bode well for adaptive responses."

For instance, a cross between a narwhal and a beluga whale spotted in Greenland lacked the narwhal's spiral tusk, which contributes to breeding success. The polar-grizzly hybrid bears in a German zoo showed behaviors associated with seal hunting, but not the strong swimming abilities of polar bears.

Animals already threatened with extinction could take a hit from hybridization. The breedings between the North Pacific right whale, whose numbers have fallen below 200, and the more numerous bowhead whale, could push the former to extinction. (Over time, the hybrids would begin to outnumber the sparse right whales.)

Climate Crisis

"This is one of the consequences of the rapid changes we're inducing in that environment and one more reason to consider whether we really want to continue warming the climate as rapidly as we are," Kelly told LiveScience.

The Arctic Ocean may lack summer ice by the end of the century, "removing a continent-sized barrier to interbreeding," the researchers wrote. As such, Kelly and his collaborators urge scientists to model the prevalence and outcomes of hybridization, genetically monitor at-risk populations, and generate a priority list.

And they're pushing policy-makers to incorporate hybrids into their management and protection plans. Currently, the Endangered Species Act doesn't protect hybrid animals, Kelly said. "It's just not something that has been on people's radar screen, and we think it should be."

Inter-species mating could doom polar bear: experts
Yahoo News 15 Dec 10;

PARIS (AFP) – Climate change is pushing Arctic mammals to mate with cousin species, in a trend that could be pushing the polar bear and other iconic animals towards extinction, biologists said on Wednesday.

"Rapidly melting Arctic sea ice imperils species through interbreeding as well as through habitat loss," they said in a commentary appearing in the British science journal Nature.

"As more isolated populations and species come into contact, they will mate, hybrids will form, and rare species are likely to go extinct."

In 2006, they said, scientists were startled to discover a "pizzly," or a hybrid of a grizzly bear and a polar bear, and in 2010, another bear shot dead by a hunter also was found to have mixed DNA.

Global warming has hit the Arctic region two or three times harder than other parts of the planet, redesigning the environment in which dozens of terrestrial and marine mammals live.

In particular, the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap -- set to disappear in summer by century's end without a deep cut in greenhouse gas emissions -- has pushed polar bears outside their normal hunting grounds.

The fierce predators use the edge of the ice cap as a staging area to stalk seals, their preferred food.

How far Arctic species have intermingled is unclear, although some important examples abound, according to the article, lead-authored by Brendan Kelly of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Last year what appeared to be cross between a bowhead and a right whale was photographed in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia.

There are fewer than 200 North Pacific right whales left, and the far more numerous bowhead could, through interbreeding, quickly push this remnant population to extinction, the researchers warned.

Different species of Arctic porpoises and seals are also known to have produced offspring with a mixed bag of chromosomes.

Hybridization is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, and has been a key driver of evolution, Kelly said.

But when it is caused by human activities, the phenomenon tends to occur over a short period, which leads to a damaging drop in genetic diversity.

When mallard ducks were introduced to New Zealand in the late 19th century, for example, they mated with native grey ducks. Today, there are few, if any, pure grey ducks left.

In the case of "pizzlies," the mixed heritage poses a survival risk: while showing the polar bear's instinct for hunting seals, one such hybrid has the morphology of a grizzly, which is poorly adapted to swimming.

Kelly's team recommended culling hybrid species when possible, as has been done for the offspring of red wolves and coyotes in the United States.

They also pointed out that sharply reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) pumped into the atmosphere will help slow the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap.

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Climate change can strain Southeast Asia's security

Evan A. Laksmana for Straits Times 16 Dec 10;

FOLLOWING the recent 'triple disaster' in Indonesia - the flooding in Papua, the tsunami that hit the Mentawai islands, and the volcanic eruption in Central Java - some are wondering whether climate change will increase the intensity and frequency of similar events in the region.

The Singapore-based Economy and Environment Programme for South-east Asia (a project under the International Development Research Centre of Canada), for instance, has shown that the Philippines, the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam, Cambodia, North and East Laos, the Bangkok region, as well as West and South Sumatra, West and East Java are all highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

A 2008 issue of the journal Disaster Prevention and Management also noted that natural disasters in South-east Asia had claimed the lives of nearly 343,000 people between 1900 and 2007 and cost up to US$46 billion (S$60 billion) in economic damage.

These depictions alone do not provide the entire picture of climate insecurities in South-east Asia. In fact, climate insecurities will likely impact regional defence forces in the long run through two interconnected pathways: in multiplying the burdens already faced in the region, and in multiplying threats to security.

First, climate change as a 'burden multiplier' will strain and complicate existing environmental tensions and pressures of regional and domestic access to reliable and sustainable natural resources. For example, in South-east Asia, freshwater availability will diminish by the 2050s. In Asia overall, as many as half a billion people could be suffering from serious water shortages due to climate change by 2025.

Water scarcity will exacerbate climate-induced prolonged drought and flooding - which will often be followed by depletion in food resources, especially when extreme weather events and changes in regional hydrological cycle comes into the picture. Historically, the combination of temperature fluctuations and reduced agricultural productions has been linked to the frequency of warfare in Europe, China, and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere over the last millennium.

Climate change will further strain energy security at a time when, according to the Asian Development Bank, South-east Asia's primary energy demand will increase from 492.1 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 2005 to 988.2 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 2030, while its net oil import dependency will increase from 29.6 per cent to 71.9 per cent.

Over time, when regional governments are unable to address these pressures, widespread socio-economic grievances and political unrest could ensue. At best, the government's legitimacy will be thrown in doubt. In places where radical extremist groups are still operating, such grievances could provide them with a ready pool of recruits.

Under these conditions, the military will face an altered operating environment: more frequently called to handle domestic security disturbances, while simultaneously being tasked with 'regime maintenance' and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Second, climate change will act as a 'threat multiplier' that exacerbates existing intra- and inter-state conflicts and tensions, or create new ones in the future. The confluence of maritime piracy, illegal fishing, and choke-points vulnerabilities in South-east Asia already complicate historical animosities and unresolved maritime disputes. These fault lines could be exacerbated as climate change further strains regional natural security.

Take the case of the South China Sea. Already a highly contested geostrategic waterway suspected of having large oil and gas reserves and abundant marine resources, climate change will make the conflict more volatile as disputant countries toughen their stance in an effort to secure their energy sources. Rising sea levels could submerge several atolls in the South China Sea - making it even harder to determine the exclusive economic zones of the disputants. Indeed, some of the low-lying atolls are already partially submerged.

As the potential for domestic instability increases, regional defence forces will also be asked to address possible contingencies involving maritime conflicts over energy, border, or marine resources. When naval build-up ensues, regional mistrust could grow.

As a result of the projected impacts of climate change, the operating environment of South-east Asian defence forces will grow more complex, especially as it relates to maritime boundary disputes, domestic instability, transnational threats, and energy security.

Geopolitical conflicts involving extra-regional powers will also be more likely when it involves a strategic waterway like the South China Sea. These conditions suggest that existing strategic assessments and outlook of many regional defence forces that focus either on external or internal threats alone might need to be revisited.

Institutionally, as climate change shapes a new complex environment, a new kind of defence force is needed - one that is more flexible and capable of executing multiple missions simultaneously, from handling social unrest to providing disaster relief and anti-access operations. This entails an overhaul of their training, education, equipment, and orders of battle.

Operationally, climate change will affect military readiness, especially the navy or maritime services. Climate-induced changes of the oceans - in sea level, temperature, thermocline depth, stratification, currents, acidity, and salinity - and extreme weather events may affect undersea and surface navigation, threaten naval bases, shipbuilding facilities, and other coastal installations like radar systems.

Also, as climate change begins to affect energy security, it will shape the length and duration of military missions. Higher fuel prices combined with fuel -guzzler military machinery, for example, could reduce operational tempo. Taking into account all these possible strategic implications of climate change, a systematic assessment of the subject is no longer merely the purview of environmentalists and scientists.

The writer is a researcher with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta, and an adjunct lecturer at the Indonesian Defence University.

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Manila to explore nuclear energy

Energy chief says it is now 'a real option' as country faces power shortages
Alastair McIndoe, Straits Times 16 Dec 10;

MANILA: The spectre of electricity shortages in the Philippines next year is sharpening the debate on whether nuclear power should become part of the country's mix of energy sources in the future.

In the strongest indication yet that President Benigno Aquino's administration will embark on a nuclear energy programme before its term ends in 2016, energy chief Jose Almendras this week said it has now become a 'real option'.

Also, in a report released on Monday on the country's business outlook, seven foreign chambers of commerce in the Philippines urged Mr Aquino to include nuclear power in his energy policy plan.

The business group, which includes firms from the United States, European Union and Japan, warned that the current situation of 'unreliable, expensive electric power is a major deterrent to foreign investment'.

While other energy-thirsty countries in Southeast Asia are forging ahead with plans to build nuclear power plants, the Philippines is lagging behind. But Mr Almendras said funding is being sought from Congress to begin a comprehensive study on what it would take to start a nuclear power programme.

'We believe it is the cheapest and the most sustainable for a future portion of our electricity baseload,' he told a media briefing on Monday.

The Philippines was once a trailblazer for the region in nuclear power. Back in 1976, the Marcos regime commissioned US firm Westinghouse to build a 620MW pressurised water reactor at Napot Point, a three-hour drive south of the capital Manila.

But safety concerns - the US$2.3 billion (S$3 billion) Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was built near an earthquake fault line - and a financial scandal caused the plug to be pulled on the reactor, which was completed in 1984, before it could generate a single watt of electricity for commercial use.

The plant has been mothballed since. Its seemingly well-preserved equipment is tagged with labels from periodic inspections by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

'The plant is safe and we would like to see it out of mothballs,' Mr Mauro Marcelo, head of the National Power Corporation's asset preservation unit, told The Straits Times on a visit there in August.

But Mr Aquino is known to oppose this option.

Mr Almendras said the reservations were explained to IAEA officials at a meeting in Manila earlier this month. 'The prospects for nuclear power in the Philippines are real, but plants must be placed in locations which are not seismic sensitive,' he said.

While it would take several years to develop a nuclear energy programme, the country's economic hub of Luzon island is bracing itself for power shortages next year, based on official projections of electricity demand during the hottest months between March and June.

This year, daily brown-outs lasting several hours have hit the southern island of Mindanao after hydro plants there were affected by a severe dry season.

Years of under-investment in the energy sector are taking their toll. The Philippines has 15,700MW of installed electricity capacity serving some 90 million people, compared with Thailand's 40,700MW for its population of 67 million. Many of the Philippines' coal-fired power plants - which generate 30 per cent of the country's energy needs - are ageing.

Although renewable energy sources such as geothermal power also account for about a third of generating capacity, experts say the Philippines does not have large unused geothermal fields to develop.

Nobody is expecting a return just yet of the crippling power crisis of the early 1990s during the presidency of Mr Aquino's late mother Corazon Aquino. But as an editorial in The Philippine Star said: 'It is now up to the second Aquino administration to deal with the neglect.'

Asean's nuclear plans
Straits Times 16 Dec 10;

THERE is no operational nuclear power plant in South-east Asia today. Some Asean countries have announced plans to build reactors for nuclear energy; others are still considering this as an option to cope with rising energy demands.

# Malaysia plans to build its first nuclear plant by 2021.

# Thailand is carrying out a feasibility study for a nuclear plant to be built by 2020.

# Vietnam is working with Russia to build its first power plant by 2014 and plans to have eight plants running by 2020.

# Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said last month the Republic could adopt nuclear power 'possibly during my lifetime'.

# Indonesia's National Nuclear Energy Agency in October signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bangka-Belitung provincial government regarding plans to build two nuclear power plants.

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