City lights turn peregrines into night hawks

Michael McCarthy, The Independent 19 Mar 08;

They carry out targeted killings on vulnerable victims and go on nocturnal rampages of violence and aggression. A new group of deadly predators has descended on Britain's towns and cities – but fear not, these urban clashes are taking place not on the streets but high in the air.

Peregrine falcons, the world's fastest birds, have moved into urban areas nationwide in the past 20 years, and have now learned to hunt other birds in cities at night – by street light.

The predators, which in the countryside and on the coast generally use cliffs as nesting sites, are using tall buildings including blocks of flats, power stations and medieval cathedrals to breed on and roost.

It is thought that more than 60 towns and cities, from Truro to Manchester, now hold a pair of peregrines, or single birds. London holds several pairs.

Increasingly, besides targeting feral pigeons, their principal prey, and other birds commonly found in urban areas in daylight, such as gulls and blackbirds, these super-efficient killers are chasing birds that migrate at night, using the glow from street lighting. They even catch bats. Their nocturnal hunting expeditions, largely invisible to human observers, are revealed by the remains of discarded prey under their nests and roosts, according to a new study in the April issue of BBC Wildlife magazine.

Ed Drewitt, a peregrine enthusiast, has spent 10 years collecting more than 5,000 food items from urban peregrine sites in Bristol, Bath, Exeter and Derby. Most of his finds are the remains of urban birds, with feral pigeons making up between 40 to 60 per cent of the total.

However, Mr Drewitt has also found the remains of non-urban birds such as water rails, moorhens, corncrakes, jack snipe, quails, and little and black-necked grebes. He writes: "Some of these are very shy species, usually staying close to vegetation and diving for cover at the first sign of danger.

"It is highly unlikely that peregrines could catch such elusive birds in their habitual lakes, ditches and pools. They must be taking them at night, when the smaller birds' journeys to and from suitable habitats take them over our towns and cities, where they are vulnerable to aerial attack."

Explaining how the falcons probably do it, Mr Drewitt writes: "Imagine a typical overcast and cold October evening. An urban peregrine takes up its hunting position on a high perch and waits, usually until a few hours after sunset.

"Once darkness falls, thousands of birds – grebes, gallinules (moorhens and coots) waders and passerines – will fly overhead on migration. The lights attract them closer to the city.

"Staying in the shadows, the peregrine watches as its targets pass overhead. Dashing out at high speed, the hunter flies up until it draws level with its prey. If the target fails to react quickly, the peregrine will swiftly overtake and seize it in its talons.

"After a successful hunt, the peregrine takes its prey to a favourite ledge to pluck and eat."

A zoologist who is a museum learning officer at Bristol's Museum & Art Gallery, Mr Drewitt, 28, says the peregrine's owl-like behaviour is not just a British phenomenon. Night-hunting peregrines have been recorded in other European cities from Berlin to Brussels, and cities further afield, such as New York and Hong Kong.

In the 1960s, peregrine populations fell in Britain because of the use of organochlorine pesticides, which built up inside the bodies of the birds they hunted, and made their eggs infertile. The pesticides were subsequently banned and the falcon's population has come back strongly. There are thought to be about 1,400 breeding pairs in Britain.

The speed of the peregrine's dive was measured by Swiss scientists 10 years ago and was shown to reach 115mph. This is much lower than the figure of 250mph given in many wildlife books. This, and the speeds estimated for other fast-flying birds, are now regarded as wildly exaggerated. But it still puts the peregrine ahead of its competitors.

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Easter egg makers fail to cut packaging

Martin Hickman and Emily Dugan, The Independent 20 Mar 08;

There has been almost no change in the amount of packaging on Easter eggs despite manufacturers' pledges to reduce the amount of card, plastic and foil they use, a survey has revealed.

Some of the eggs on offer are so over-packaged that the chocolate makes up less than 10 per cent of the volume of their wrapping, with names such as Nestlé, Cadbury and Green & Black's among the chief offenders.

The findings, which came despite last year's Courtauld Commitment in which almost all UK brands pledged a 5 per cent reduction in the amount of packaging that reached people's homes by 2010, sparked outrage from campaigners.

"Despite packaging being much more in the spotlight, Easter egg manufacturers are not taking the steps needed," said the Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson, who conducted the research by comparing this year's packaging with that of 2007. "Producers have talked in earnest terms about the need to cut packaging, but have so far failed to translate words into action. There have been very few discernible steps taken to reduce the size of Easter egg boxes and cut down on the different materials used."

Nestlé, signatories to the 2007 agreement, increased its packaging this year, with one egg taking up just 9 per cent of the packaging volume. Most brands, such as Cadbury, Green & Black's and Thorntons, have made no changes to their excessive wrapping, despite a vocal commitment to waste reduction. Ms Swinson said: "One year on from my original study into excess packaging on Easter eggs, little has changed."

Easter eggs generate about 3,000 tons of waste each year. Failure to act on excess packaging contrasts with the rhetoric of chocolate brands, many of whom are stressing their green credentials. Nestlé, who along with Lindt was this year's worst offender, has been boasting that its eggs were greener than ever, because some had recycled cardboard boxes.

The only retailer that reduced its packaging this year was Marks & Spencer, which reduced its egg wrapping by 57 per cent using a triangular card box instead of a cube. Sainsbury's was praised in the report for its efficiency of packaging, but it still increased the overall amount of plastic wrapping used compared to last year. Cadbury's "eco-egg", which is sold wrapped only in foil, also got a mention. The new egg reduces the amount of plastic packaging by more than 75 per cent but the report pointed out that it was still not as widely available as its leading eggs.

Ms Swinson said: "On plastic bags, Gordon Brown has already stated the need to go beyond the timid measures in Labour's lukewarm Waste Strategy. He should also use a stronger hand to deal with excess packaging, by introducing binding targets instead of the current voluntary ones."

The eight days around Easter are estimated to bring in £8bn to retailers, nearly £280m of which will be spent on chocolate eggs. A spokeswoman for the Food and Drink Federation said: "Easter eggs are usually fragile constructions with a thin shell of chocolate which needs to be protected throughout the distribution chain to ensure that the egg arrives in a state which meets consumers' expectations."

A spokesperson for the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) said: "Easter egg packaging is clearly a work in progress still for brands and retailers. However, the work that Recycle Now is undertaking with [Easter egg manufacturers] does indicate that there is positive progress being made, from the incorporation of recycled material in the packaging, to providing ideas of how to use the packaging to make new fun items."

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How the blurring of the seasons is a harbinger of climate calamity

Michael McCarthy, The Independent 20 Mar 08;

Spring, which officially starts today, is starting to dissolve as a distinct season as climate change takes hold.

According to documented observations throughout 2007 and 2008, events in the natural world that used to be key spring indicators, from the blooming of flowers to the appearance of insects, are now increasingly happening in what used to be thought of as mid-winter, as Britain's temperatures steadily rise.

Although many people may see the changes as quaint or charming – butterflies certainly brighten up a January day – they are actually among the first concrete signs that the world is indeed set on a global warming course which is likely to prove disastrous if not checked.

In fact, the blurring of the seasons in Britain is now as serious a piece of evidence of climate change as the rapidly increasing melting of ice across the globe, in glaciers and in the land-based and marine ice sheets of the Arctic and the Antarctic.

The phenomenon shows that a whole range of organisms is already responding actively to the greatest environmental change in human history, in a way that people – and especially politicians – are not.

Last month, that shift produced its most remarkable image yet – a photograph, taken in Dorset, of a red admiral, an archetypal British summer butterfly, feeding on a snowdrop, an archetypal British winter flower.

Although that is not an event likely to cause alarm among the public, it was quite inconceivable until very recently. It is undeniable confirmation that a profound alteration in the environment, the consequences of which are likely to prove catastrophic, is already under way.

It is happening so quickly, and without people realising its true significance, because, in Britain, the major effects of climate change are initially being felt as less cold winters, rather than as hotter summers.

That has produced a startling rise in winter temperatures in recent years, clearly visible when current monthly means are compared to the average for 1961 to 1990.

To take the figures for last winter from the Central England Temperature Record, the world's oldest, which dates back to 1659: January 2007 was 3.2C warmer than the 1961-90 average, February was 2.0C warmer, March was 1.5C warmer, and April was 3.3C warmer. So far this year, January has been 2.8C above the 1961-90 average for the month, and February, 1.6C

Those are substantial rises. Although there is always natural variation in temperatures, recent winters taken together show a remarkable warming trend.

It has meant that many of what used to be thought of as the traditional signs of spring are happening very much earlier, causing primroses, for example, spring flowers par excellence, to bloom in some parts of the country as early as November. Other traditional spring plants, such as dog's mercury and the lesser celandine (a favourite of Wordsworth's) can be seen in January rather than March.

And in what is perhaps an even more vivid change, dandelions and daisies, which used to come into flower in spring on lawns (where they were permitted), now flower in many places all winter long.

Insects are responding similarly. A number of butterflies that overwinter as hibernating adults can now be seen in January rather than March or April, including the peacock and the comma, and especially the red admiral.

This last species used to be a spring migrant from the Continent but, in the recent warmer winters, it has begun to overwinter here.

Bumblebees have similarly become visible in mid-winter, and frogspawn, usually laid about March, can be seen in December in the South-west and south Wales.

The changes and many others have been monitored in detail because in Britain there has been a renewal of the old discipline of phenology, or the study of the timings of natural events, which was favoured by the Victorians but largely abandoned by the 1950s.

It has been revived by an environmental statistician, Dr Tim Sparks from the Monks Wood wildlife research centre near Huntingdon, part of the Government's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH).

Dr Sparks set up the UK Phenology Network, which has been taken over by the Woodland Trust, a charity which runs it in partnership with CEH as Nature's Calendar, with 40,000 people from all over Britain contributing records.

"We do have problems now recording some of what used to be signs of spring," Dr Sparks said last night. "For example, we used to record the first grass cutting of the year. But in many places now grass grows all year round and so it has to be cut all year round."

Until 1947, said Dr Sparks, the Royal Meteorological Society used to produce an annual Phenological Report, the front-page logo of which was a song thrush singing against a background of hazel catkins.

"A major sign of spring used to be the first time a song thrush was heard singing," he said. "But now song thrushes can be heard all through the winter, and hazel catkins can be found in December to January, rather than in January to February."

The shift was largely a phenomenon of southern Britain, he said, and traditional spring signs were still likely to be seen in Scotland. In southern England, oak leaves are sprouting 26 days before they did in 1950, while swallows, house sparrows, great tits and robins are laying their eggs a week earlier on average.

Poppies are a fortnight ahead of where they used to be, and stinging nettles 10 days ahead. Last April, the earliest-ever emergence dates were recorded for 11 species of butterfly: the speckled wood, for instance, was seen in January, seven weeks earlier than ever before.

The irony of course, is that the first days of spring 2008 are likely to be startlingly cold. But not withstanding the predicted Easter snap, there can be no doubt that spring has already sprung.

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Global warming rushes timing of spring

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 19 Mar 08;

The capital's famous cherry trees are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom till around April 5.

In central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May.

And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn't be measured until late April.

Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

"The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year's authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

What's happening is so noticeable that scientists can track it from space. Satellites measuring when land turns green found that spring "green-up" is arriving eight hours earlier every year on average since 1982 north of the Mason-Dixon line. In much of Florida and southern Texas and Louisiana, the satellites show spring coming a tad later, and bizarrely, in a complicated way, global warming can explain that too, the scientists said.

Biological timing is called phenology. Biological spring, which this year begins at 1:48 a.m. EDT Thursday, is based on the tilt of the Earth as it circles the sun. The federal government and some university scientists are so alarmed by the changes that last fall they created a National Phenology Network at the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor these changes.

The idea, said biologist and network director Jake Weltzin, is "to better understand the changes, and more important what do they mean? How does it affect humankind?"

There are winners, losers and lots of unknowns when global warming messes with natural timing. People may appreciate the smaller heating bills from shorter winters, the longer growing season and maybe even better tasting wines from some early grape harvests. But biologists also foresee big problems.

The changes could push some species to extinction. That's because certain plants and animals are dependent on each other for food and shelter. If the plants bloom or bear fruit before animals return or surface from hibernation, the critters could starve. Also, plants that bud too early can still be whacked by a late freeze.

The young of tree swallows — which in upstate New York are laying eggs nine days earlier than in the 1960s — often starve in those last gasp cold snaps because insects stop flying in the cold, ornithologists said. University of Maryland biology professor David Inouye noticed an unusually early February robin in his neighborhood this year and noted, "Sometimes the early bird is the one that's killed by the winter storm."

The checkerspot butterfly disappeared from Stanford's Jasper Ridge preserve because shifts in rainfall patterns changed the timing of plants on which it develops. When the plant dries out too early, the caterpillars die, said Notre Dame biology professor Jessica Hellmann.

"It's an early warning sign in that it's an additional onslaught that a lot of our threatened species can't handle," Hellmann said.

It's not easy on some people either. A controlled federal field study shows that warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide cause earlier, longer and stronger allergy seasons.

"For wind-pollinated plants, it's probably the strongest signal we have yet of climate change," said University of Massachusetts professor of aerobiology Christine Rogers. "It's a huge health impact. Seventeen percent of the American population is allergic to pollen."

While some plants and animals use the amount of sunlight to figure out when it is spring, others base it on heat building in their tissues, much like a roasting turkey with a pop-up thermometer. Around the world, those internal thermometers are going to "pop" earlier than they once did.

This past winter's weather could send a mixed message. Globally, it was the coolest December through February since 2001 and a year of heavy snowfall. Despite that, it was still warmer than average for the 20th century.

Phenology data go back to the 14th century for harvest of wine grapes in France. There is a change in the timing of fall, but the change is biggest in spring. In the 1980s there was a sudden, big leap forward in spring blooming, scientists noticed. And spring keeps coming earlier at an accelerating rate.

Unlike sea ice in the Arctic, the way climate change is tinkering with the natural timing of day-to-day life is concrete and local. People can experience it with all five senses:

• You can see the trees and bushes blooming earlier. A photo of Lowell Cemetery, in Lowell, Mass., taken May 30, 1868, shows bare limbs. But the same scene photographed May 30, 2005, by Boston University biology professor Richard Primack shows them in full spring greenery.

• You can smell the lilacs and honeysuckle. In the West they are coming out two to four days earlier each decade over more than half a century, according to a 2001 study.

• You can hear it in the birds. Scientists in Gothic, Colo., have watched the first robin of spring arrive earlier each year in that mountain ghost town, marching forward from April 9 in 1981 to March 14 last year. This year, heavy snows may keep the birds away until April.

• You can feel it in your nose from increased allergies. Spring airborne pollen is being released about 20 hours earlier every year, according to a Swiss study that looked at common allergies since 1979.

• You can even taste it in the honey. Bees, which sample many plants, are producing their peak amount of honey weeks earlier. The nectar is coming from different plants now, which means noticeably different honey — at least in Highland, Md., where Wayne Esaias has been monitoring honey production since 1992. Instead of the rich, red, earthy tulip poplar honey that used to be prevalent, bees are producing lighter, fruitier black locust honey. Esaias, a NASA oceanographer as well as beekeeper, says global warming is a factor.

In Washington, seven of the last 20 Cherry Blossom Festivals have started after peak bloom. This year will be close, the National Park Service predicts. Last year, Knoxville's dogwood blooms came and went before the city's dogwood festival started. Boston's Arnold Arboretum permanently rescheduled Lilac Sunday to a May date eight days earlier than it once was.

Even western wildfires have a timing connection to global warming and are coming earlier. An early spring generally means the plants that fuel fires are drier, producing nastier fire seasons, said University of Arizona geology professor Steve Yool. It's such a good correlation that Weltzin, the phenology network director, is talking about using real-time lilac data to predict upcoming fire seasons. Lilacs, which are found in most parts of the country, offer some of the broadest climate overview data going back to the 1950s.

This year, though, it's the early red maple that's creating buzz, as well as sniffles. A New Jersey conservationist posted an urgent message on a biology listserv on Feb. 1 about the early blooming. A 2001 study found that since 1970, that tree is blossoming on average at least 19 days earlier in Washington, D.C.

Such changes have "implications for the animals that are dependent on this plant," Weltzin said, as he stood beneath a blooming red maple in late February. By the time the animals arrive, "the flowers may already be done for the year." The animals may have to find a new food source.

"It's all a part of life," Weltzin said. "Timing is everything."

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Icy Start, But 2008 May Be In Top 10 Warmest Years

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 21 Mar 08

OSLO - After the coldest start to a year in more than a decade, spring will bring relief to the northern hemisphere from Thursday.

Bucking the trend of global warming, the start of 2008 saw icy weather around the world from China to Greece. But despite its chilly start, 2008 is expected to end up among the top 10 warmest years since records began in the 1860s.

This winter, ski resorts from the United States to Scandinavia have deep snow. Last year, after a string of mild winters, some feared climate change might put them out of business.

In many countries crops and plants are back on a more "normal" schedule. Cherry trees in Washington are on target to blossom during a March 29-April 13 festival that has sometimes mistimed the peak blooms.

"So far 2008, for the globe, has been quite cold, only just above the 1961-90 average," said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia which supplies global temperature data to the United Nations.

"This is just January and February, so two coolish months comparable to what happened in 1994 and 1996," he told Reuters.

The northern spring formally begins on March 20 this year.

And an underlying warming trend, blamed by the UN Climate Panel on human use of fossil fuels, is likely to reassert itself after the end of a La Nina cooling of the Pacific in the coming months. There were similar conditions in 1998 and 2005, the hottest so far, Jones said.


SNOW AND SANDSTORMS

China suffered its worst snowstorms in a century in January and February. At least 80 people died and the government estimated costs at more than 150 billion yuan ($21 billion), including animal deaths and crop losses.

Sandstorms hit Beijing on Tuesday and residents rushed to hide from the dust mixed with petals from the city's magnolia trees.

During the northern winter, snows also fell in unusual places such as Greece, Iraq and Florida. Experts say climate change will bring more swings as part of a warming that will bring more droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.

US ski resorts reported above average snowfall.

"We're 90 percent sure we will extend the season for at least a couple of weeks toward the end of April," said Jeff Hanle, a spokesman for the Aspen Skiing Co. in Colorado. The mountain town has had 400 inches (10 metres) of snow, the normal amount for the whole season, which still has a month to go.

Skiers "have got big smiles on their faces," he said.

"It's been a good season all around," said Tom Horrocks, spokesman of the Killington Ski Resort in Vermont. He said meteorologists said more consistent snows were typical for a La Nina season in the northeast.

But not all places have been chilly -- Jones said western and northern Europe were the warmest parts of the northern hemisphere in the first two months of 2008.

NASA satellite data this week showed the thickest and oldest ice around the North Pole has been disappearing.

Finland had its warmest winter on record. High-speed ferries between Helsinki and Tallinn in Estonia, normally halted for months by winter ice on the Baltic Sea, started earlier than ever in mid-March.

In Norway, many ski resorts have deep snow even though the winter has been the third warmest on record -- scientists say a spinoff of climate change may be more precipitation.

"Turnover is 16 percent over the best season of 2004," said Andreas Roedven, head of Norway's Alpine Ski Area Association.

Electricity prices in the Nordic region halved this month to 27.5 euros ($43.48) per megawatt hour from late 2007 highs because hydropower reservoirs were full and warm temperatures curbed heating demand.

Senior officials from about 190 nations will meet in Bankok from March 31-April 4 to start work on a new long-term treaty to combat climate change to succeed the UN's Kyoto Protocol.

(Additional reporting by Deborah Zabarenko in Washington, Emily Chasan in New York, Jim Bai in Beijing, Tarmo Virki in Helsinki, Jeremy Lovell in London, Wojciech Moskwa in Oslo; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Fish key to reef climate survival

Richard Black, BBC News 20 Mar 08;

A healthy fish population could be the key to ensuring coral reefs survive the impacts of climate change, pollution, overfishing and other threats.

Australian scientists found that some fish act as "lawnmowers", keeping coral free of kelp and unwanted algae.

At a briefing to parliamentarians in Canberra, they said protected areas were rebuilding fish populations in some parts of the Great Barrier Reef.

Warming seas are likely to affect the reef severely within a few decades.

Pollution is also a growing problem, particularly fertilisers that wash from agricultural land into water around the reef, stimulating the growth of plants that stifle the coral.

Protect and survive

The assembled experts told parliamentarians that fish able to graze on invading plants played a vital role in the health of reef ecosystems.

"The Great Barrier Reef is still a resilient system... and herbivorous fish play a critical role in that regenerative capacity, by keeping the dead coral space free of algae, so that new juvenile coral can re-establish themselves," said Professor Terry Hughes from James Cook University in Townsville.

His research group has conducted experiments which involved building cages to keep fish away from sections of reef.

They found that three times as much new coral developed in areas where the fish were present as in the caged portions.

Parrotfish in particular use their serrated jaws to scrape off incipient algae and plants.

More recently, his team has also identified the rabbit fish - a brown, bland-looking species - as a potentially important harvester of seaweed.

"So managing fisheries can help to maintain the reef's resilience to future climate change," he said.

In recent years, Marine Protected Areas have been set up along the Great Barrier Reef in order to provide sanctuaries where fish and other marine creatures can grow and develop.

Dr Peter Doherty from the Australian Institute of Marine Science presented data showing that just two years of protection brought significant increases in populations of important species such as coral trout and tropical snapper.

"More importantly, more eggs are being produced... nearly three times the number of eggs per unit area being produced in the surrounding territory," he said.

The eggs, he showed, travelled well outside the boundaries of the protected zones, potentially increasing fish populations in non-protected areas too.

Burning issue

The scientists emphasised that a comprehensive approach to reef protection would include measures to lower greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce run-off from agricultural land and human settlements along the coast.

"You have got a three- to nine-fold increase in sediment loss," said Professor Iain Gordon from the governmental research organisation CSIRO.

"[There are] increases in nutrients that feed into the system, nitrates and phosphates and also new kinds of chemicals in the water that is around the reef; pesticides and herbicides, they haven't been there before."

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland noted that unusually warm water in 1998 and 2002 had bleached and damaged coral in southern parts of the Barrier Reef.

"The reef literally goes from being brown and healthy to being a stark white, and this happens with very small changes in temperature," he said.

In the past, he said, bleaching events happened only at the warm extremes of natural cycles such as El Nino; but now the overall water temperature is higher, which makes the peaks of the cycles more harmful to coral.

"Because sea temperatures are now a lot higher, they are now reaching the thresholds at which coral get into distress, and of course it is really large scale impacts."

At high temperatures, coral polyps expel the algae which normally live with them in a symbiotic relationship, turning the reef white. The algae typically provide most of the polyp's nutrition; without them, the polyps eventually die.

Even if a bleached zone contains live polyps and carries the potential to recover when waters cool, a quick invasion of kelp, or types of algae that do not live symbiotically with coral, can make the die-off permanent - hence the protective role of plant-munchng fish.

The Great Barrier Reef is worth about six billion Australian dollars (US$5.5bn; £2.8bn) to the national economy, primarily through tourism and fishing.

Related article

Scientists: Sea Rabbits May Save The Great Barrier Reef
Underwatertimes.com News Service 18 Mar 08;

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Over 5,000 turtles killed in Orissa since 2007

Economic Times of India 20 Mar 08;

BHUBANESWAR: Despite a ban on fishing along Orissa coast, a large number of rare Olive Ridley Turtles were killed and their carcasses found scattered on the beaches from Chilika lake to Paradip port, official sources said.

While conservation groups claimed that at least 12,000 turtles were killed from November 2007 till date, the state government put the figure at 5,000.

Over two lakh turtles visit Orissa coast every year for annual nesting. They lay eggs at Gahirmatha beach, Devi region and Rusikulya river mouth.

According to international NGO, Greenpeace, over 4,000 carcasses were found in Devi region alone till February.

"This is well above the average mortality figure of 2,470 recorded in the area in the last seven years", Sanjiv Gopal, oceans campaigner of Greenpeace said.

The conservation group apprehends that turtle mortality could be more than the previous years with two months still left for completion of the nesting season of turtles.

While lauding forest department for containing turtle mortality in Rushikulya river mouth, Greenpeace alleged that it had failed in checking movement of trawlers in Devi region.

Gopal alleged that a large number of turtles were killed due to unchecked trawler movement near shore water disrupting turtle congregation leading to their death.

The claims of the conservation group were supported by the Wildlife Society of Orissa which also blamed the state government for the large scale turtle mortality in the state's coast.

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Algae may help corals withstand warmer waters

Reuters 20 Mar 08;

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Certain types of algae can help corals withstand higher sea temperatures and prevent them from bleaching, scientists in Australia have found.

Coral reefs are vulnerable to climate change and without rapid genetic adaptation, they will not survive projected sea temperature increases over the next 50 years, experts say.

But in an article published in latest issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, the researchers said they may have found an answer to why some corals continue to thrive in warmer waters when others die.

The answer appears to lie in a heat-tolerant single-celled algae which lives in coral tissue, said Ray Berkelmans at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

In the study, the researchers tagged and analyzed some 480 coral colonies in the Keppel Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and found that some 94 percent of them contained a heat-sensitive strain of the algae, named C2.

But after a natural bleaching event in 2006, those corals that managed to survive were dominated instead by the heat-tolerant algae strain, called type D.

"The hypothesis is that C2 was dominant in the tissues, but present in background levels that are sometimes hard to detect were the D-type," Berkelmans explained.

"With the dominant algae being expelled (because of warmer temperatures), the more heat-tolerant algae had the chance to reoccupy the space. And as the coral recovers, the previously low-density algae became more dominant."

Some algae produce toxic compounds in warmer waters and corals start expelling them to try to survive. But very often, corals die before they are able to get rid of all the bad algae.

Looking ahead, Berkelmans said his team would continue to study corals that managed to survive bleaching.

"Is it because they have background levels of type D algae? And if so, we have to protect these a little bit more so they can repopulate at great speed," he suggested.

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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X Prize Announces New Challenge: A 'Green' Car

Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Yahoo News 20 Mar 08;

And they're off! A new challenge to build an eco-friendly, efficient car (for a $10 million purse) will begin today with an announcement of the details of the Automotive X Prize at the New York Auto Show.

The latest X Prize Foundation challenge for aspiring innovators is to design a "viable, clean and super-efficient" car that people actually want to buy and that will "help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change," according to the Foundation.

So far, 60 international teams have signed up for the challenge, sponsored by Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. Their rolling inventions will compete for a $10 million purse in the culmination of the challenge: two long-distance stage races to be held in 2009 - the Qualifying Race and the Grand Prize Final.

In the races, the cars will have to hit a minimum speed and achieve a fuel efficiency of at least 100 miles per gallon of gasoline energy equivalent. They must also be ready for production on the market. No flashy concept cars, please.

The mileage requirement would limit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the cars to under 200 grams per mile. Currently, cars account for nearly one-fifth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. And American cars and light trucks are responsible for 45 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted by automobiles globally, the Foundation notes.

The average fuel economy of American cars has declined in recent years, and while hybrids are commercially available, most entirely "green" prototypes from the main auto companies are years away from mass production.

The competition will allow for two classes of green cars: a mainstream class (your traditional, four or more passenger, four-wheel deal) and an alternative class for more unusual designs (they must still seat at least two passengers, but can have any number of wheels).

Mainstream cars must also have climate controls, an audio system and at least 10 feet of cargo space. They must be able to go from zero to 60 in 12 seconds and hit a minimum top speed of 100 mph. Alternative vehicles must hit at least 80 mph.

Both houses of Congress have praised the latest X Prize challenge for promoting innovation in the energy arena, passing resolutions congratulating the Foundation.

"This prize promises to help harness the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of America's best minds to one of our greatest problems: our over-reliance on foreign oil," said Senate Resolution sponsor Jeff Bingham (D-NM) in a statement. "It should be an exciting competition and it is certainly a worthy goal. I wish them the best of luck and look forward to seeing the innovations they inspire."

Previous competitions run by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based nonprofit X Prize Foundation have included the $10 million Ansari X Prize to create the world's first private vehicle to space, the $10 million Archon X Prize for rapid human genome sequencing and the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize for sending a robot to the moon.

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Better sanitation has huge economic spin-offs: U.N

Alister Doyle, Reuters 20 Mar 08;

OSLO (Reuters) - Spending $10 billion a year would enable the world to reach a 2015 goal of improved sanitation in developing countries with huge spin-offs such as less poverty and better health, U.N. experts said on Thursday.

Marking the U.N.'s annual World Water Day on March 20, they said every dollar spent on improving sanitation -- ranging from digging latrines or building sewers -- would have $9 in benefits such as higher economic growth or lower hospital bills.

But the world is lagging on a goal set in 2002 of halving the proportion of people, estimated at 2.6 billion or 40 percent of the world population, with no access to sanitation by 2015.

"In many regions we are missing the goal," Zafar Adeel, head of the U.N. University's International Network on Environment and Health, told Reuters. Spending $10 billion a year would be sufficient to help the world reach the goal, U.N. data shows.

"But there can be huge human health, well-being and economic benefits," from investing in sanitation, Adeel added. Diarrhoeal disease is a leading cause of death and illness, killing 1.8 million people a year.

The goal for improved sanitation is part of a wider set of Millennium Development Goals such as halving poverty, improving access to drinking water, improving education and the rights of women by 2015.

"You cannot reach the goals on health and education -- you can't keep children in school -- if you don't have water and sanitation," said Clarissa Brocklehurst, head of water and sanitation at the U.N. children's fund UNICEF.

This year is the International Year of Sanitation.

WOMEN

Women spend far more time than men fetching water or looking after sick children. "Water and sanitation underlie so much of health, empowerment of women, poverty alleviation. They are key to all of the millennium development goals," Brocklehurst told Reuters.

"It's pretty badly off track," she said of the sanitation goal, which is lagging most in Africa. According to U.N. data, reaching the 2015 sanitation goal would add 3.2 billion annual working days worldwide.

About 200 million tons of human waste are discharged untreated into watercourses every year -- exposing people to bacteria, viruses and parasites.

"On a typical day in sub-Saharan Africa...half the hospital beds are occupied by people with fecal-borne diseases," a U.N. statement said.

Girls are more likely to stay at school with better sanitation. "More girls in school means higher rates of female literacy -- for every 10 percent increase in female literacy, a country's economy can grow by 0.3 percent," it said.

The World Conservation Union, grouping governments and conservation organizations, also urged better sanitation, saying that rivers such as the Yangtze in China were "cancerous" with pollution.

"Rivers are the lifeblood of the earth, and maintaining their vitality ensures the flow of water resources to the environment and communities," said Ger Bergkamp, head of the Union's Water Programme.

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: here

(Editing by Richard Williams)

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Best of our wild blogs: 20 Mar 08

World Water Day 2008
2.8 billion people are looking for a toilet on the Asia Is Green blog

Singapore deforestation and conservation
more thoughts following discussion with N. Sivasothi on Ecological/Conservation efforts and Prof Navjot Sodhi on SE Asian extinctions by Dr Stan on his Singapore blog

How to write a scientific paper
some invaluable insights on the singapore attitudes to biological conservation blog

"Expedition to Planet Earth"
Urged to Prevent 6th Mass Species Extinction on the Daily Galaxy blog

Tracking Turtles
So, how do you follow a turtle? on the wildasia website

Jakarta's monsters and mangroves
on the wildasia website

The dirty side of a 'green' industry
toxic pollution by solar panel producers in China on the WorldWatch Institute

Inflight meal
Brahminy Kite eating on the wing on the bird ecology blog

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Nets threaten rare New Zealand dolphins

Ray Lilley, Associated Press Yahoo News 19 Mar 08;

The deaths of 22 dolphins in trawler nets prompted fresh calls Wednesday for the New Zealand government to ban two types of fishing nets from the habitats of two critically endangered species of dolphin.
The World Wildlife Fund said that Maui's dolphins, which are found only along North Island's west coast and are on the brink of extinction, urgently need protection from set nets and trawler nets if they are to survive.

Official estimates are that just 111 Maui's dolphins still live in the wild.

Set nets are used by recreational fishers near the coastline, while large trawl nets are used further out to sea in commercial fishing to catch large schools of fish.

The numbers for another endangered New Zealand species, the Hector's dolphin, have declined from an estimated 29,000 in the 1970s to 7,000 currently.

Photographs of 22 common dolphins killed in trawler nets off North Island's west coast last December — released by the government Tuesday — were proof that current fishing controls are failing to protect endangered dolphins, said Chris Howe, the executive director of the WWF's New Zealand branch.

The deaths showed that the fishing industry cannot be trusted to follow the voluntary code of practice that currently protects the species, he said. The government-imposed code was set up to minimize accidental capture of dolphins during trawl fishing.

"All fishing with set nets and trawl nets should be banned throughout the range of Hector's and Maui's dolphins," Howe told The Associated Press.

"That's the only way to ensure a slow-breeding, rare species can recover," he said.

Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick said she was "not surprised" that conservation groups are calling for nets to be withdrawn.

"We'll have to consider how realistic that is while we also have sustainable fishing and how we will manage protection of those endangered species," she told the AP.

Owen Symmans, chief executive of the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council, said the "accidental capture" of 22 dolphins was regrettable.

"Nobody wants to catch dolphins, common or otherwise, and fishermen ... feel gutted about this sort of thing," he said. "It's the last thing that they want in their nets."

He said trawlers move away "as soon as dolphin are seen," and the industry is committed to trying to avoid such events.

The government is due to release options for ways to further protect Maui's and Hector's dolphins, part of its response to conservation groups' demands.

About 214 international environmental and animal protection bodies urged New Zealand in a letter Wednesday to give "full protection" to the endangered Hector's and Maui's dolphins to prevent their extinction.

"Maui's dolphins, the world's smallest dolphin, are one of the rarest animals on earth and Hector's dolphins are almost as scarce as tigers," Care for the Wild International's Chief Executive Barbara Maas wrote in the letter.

Conservationists already have warned that even the best of the proposals will give the endangered dolphins only a 50-50 chance of recovering to their original numbers by 2050.

While many fishing boats obeyed the voluntary code of practice, it only took one or two who did not to wipe out the fragile species, Howe said.

New Zealand under pressure over rare dolphins
Ian Wood, The Telegraph 19 Mar 08;

New Zealand is being urged by conservationists to do more to protect two highly endangered species of dolphins.

Gill netting and trawling have pushed both the Maui and Hector dolphin populations to the brink of extinction.

Both breeds only occur in New Zealand and their numbers have declined dramatically in recent years.

Hector dolphins have dropped from an estimated population of 26,000 in the 1970s to under 7,000 today and the situation for the Maui dolphin is even worse.

A staggering 90 per cent of these unique animals have died in fishing nets and the latest survey indicated a population of just 111 making them the most endangered dolphin in the world.

A decision on the level of protection for Hector and Maui dolphin populations is currently under review by the New Zealand government and pressure has increased with the release of photographs of 22 common dolphins killed in trawler nets off North Island's west coast last December.

Chris Howe, the executive director of the WWF's New Zealand branch, said they were proof that current fishing controls are failing to protect endangered dolphins.

He said the deaths showed that the fishing industry cannot be trusted to follow the voluntary code of practice that currently protects the species. The government-imposed code was set up to minimise accidental capture of dolphins during trawl fishing.

"All fishing with set nets and trawl nets should be banned throughout the range of Hector's and Maui's dolphins," Howe said. "That's the only way to ensure a slow-breeding, rare species can recover."

Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick said she was "not surprised" that conservation groups are calling for nets to be withdrawn.

"We'll have to consider how realistic that is while we also have sustainable fishing and how we will manage protection of those endangered species," she said.

Owen Symmans, chief executive of the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council, said the "accidental capture" of 22 dolphins was regrettable.

"Nobody wants to catch dolphins, common or otherwise, and fishermen... feel gutted about this sort of thing," he said. "It's the last thing that they want in their nets."

He said trawlers move away "as soon as dolphin are seen," and the industry is committed to trying to avoid such events.

Research funded by the conservation group Care For The Wild International has shown that the remaining Maui dolphins live in areas that are unprotected. Only complete protection against fishing related mortality will save them from extinction.

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