Green Options

The researchers further warn that increasing temperatures in this vital, globally-extended ecosystem could “reduce the transfer of primary produced organic matter to higher trophic levels” (e.g., such as those that sustain corals and the many species that use them as habitat), interfere with the global carbon pump, and possibly set up a positive feedback mechanism, further increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Bats may be considered a spooky Halloween mascot, but they are actually one of the most beneficial animals on the planet: 70% of the world’s bat species feed on insects - and one bat can consume up to 1,000 insect pests in an hour. Bats also play a critical role in pollination and seed dispersal.

Despite the fact that bats occur nearly everywhere on earth (except for arctic and desert extremes), 60 species of bats are listed as endangered. And in the U.S., an estimated million or more hibernating bats of six species have been killed by White-nose Syndrome (WNS) in nine states since 2006.

To help raise awareness for bats, here is a compilation of 10 facts about bats - and a diverse photo gallery of bat species celebrating the surprising cuteness of these creatures. Enjoy!

The Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre in Pinjore has reason to celebrate: The Centre’s first slender-billed nestling is now 140 days old and ready to fledge.

With fewer than 1,000 slender-billed vultures left, this event marks a triumphant milestone in VCBC’s captive breeding program. And there’s more good news: A slender-billed nestling hatched at Rajabhatkhawa Centre in West Bengal has recently fledged.

In a recent release from vulturerescue.org, the director of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Dr. Asad R. Rahmani said

The hatching of this endangered species has given us more confidence in the husbandry and care of vultures practiced at our centres.

Recognized as one of the US’s 100 best gold courses (Golf Digest), the ‘Sanctuary’ will once again host the 5th annual Water For People Golf Classic on August 19, 2009. Situated in Sedalia, Colorado, and adjacent to over 12, 000 acres of protected open space, the Sanctuary was carefully designed and “placed” within one of the most fragile and beautiful ecosystems in the State, if not the entire country.

India’s ecosystem has been dramatically disrupted by the plummeting population of its critically endangered vultures: Stray dogs have now become one of the top scavengers, and they are reportedly spreading rabies to humans at an alarming rate.

The new availability of extra food left behind by the dwindling number of vultures (from 40 million to just 60,000 vultures, due to poisoning) is a having a catastrophic effect on India’s ecosystem. It has led to a population explosion in stray dogs, who are reportedly “hunting in packs, thus posing a threat to humans as well as wildlife.”

Other scavengers have moved in and taken advantage of the newly available food. But these interlopers – stray dogs and rats, among others – aren’t as effective as the vultures. What’s more, they bring with them disease … As the number of vultures declines, the number of feral dogs in India has risen dramatically, thanks to the extra food available … Diseases such as rabies are on the increase: India now has the highest rate of human rabies in the world, partly due to the increase in feral dogs.

In fact, the rabies problem is so widespread that India has launched a plan to sterilize over 8 million dogs over the next ten years.

More human health issues related to the lack of vultures

Unlike vultures, who pick the carcass of a dead cow clean in an hour and leave nothing but a pile of bones drying in the sun, dogs are much less efficient at carcass disposal.

Twenty years ago last month, the supertanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Prince William Sound and ran aground, releasing 40 million liters {approximately 10 million gallons) into the surrounding sea and onto the beaches. It remains the worst oil spill in US maritime history. In the days that followed, impact inventories revealed the lethal outcome: a quarter of a million sea birds had been killed, along with 22 Orca whales, nearly 3000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, and unknown millions of fish eggs.

In 1991, the Alaskan and US Governments reached an agreement with Exxon Mobil in a 900 million dollar settlement, almost 200 million of which was set aside for scientific study of the disaster and its impact on the PWS ecosystem. Exxon Mobile also funded its own studies (generating 400 papers and reports) which were frequently in disagreement with the government scientists’ reports and findings.

Twenty years after, the Exxon Valdez spill has become the most studied maritime, industrial disaster ever. A news report in Science Magazine (March 26, 2009) by Lila Guterman (with Jacopo Pasotti reporting) presented some of the scientific findings from the post-spill research.

In Lake Huron, one of North America’s Great Lakes, sinkholes formed by water erosion host exotic organisms in what looks like an alien world.

Instead of the large fish common to the rest of the lake, the bizarre life forms that thrive in the lake’s sinkholes include purple cyanobacteria, ghostly floating pony-tails, and other organisms similar to those found in Antarctic sinkholes and deep-sea, hydrothermal vents.

“You have this pristine fresh water lake that has what amounts to materials from 400 million years ago … being pushed out into the lake,” says team co-leader Steven A. Ruberg of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In terms of promoting and supporting the greatest variety of life, reef corals are the “rain forests” of the oceans.

The corals themselves also have commercial value (for jewelry, aquarium decoration, etc.).  Corals–symbiotic colonies of plant-like and animal-like creatures–have existed on this planet for tens of millions of years. However, some 45% of all coral species went extinct around the same time as the dinosaurs did. Hardest hit were a group of photosynthesizing, algae-harboring corals known as zooxanthellates. The symbiotic , red-brown algae that co-exist with these corals (and provide their energy source) are known as zooxanthellae.

Marine scientists have noted for several years now the spread of a coral disease known as Yellow Band Disease (YBD)–so named for the yellowish bands that spread across coral polyps–but had attributed its spread to thermal stress caused by global warming. Thermal stress is known to weaken much marine life, including corals, shellfish, and some species of zooplankton. But in November of 2008, researchers at Woodshole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, isolated the bacteria that caused YBD–actually four species of Vibrio bacteria that combine with the indigenous Vibrio bacteria to attack zooxanthellae (see the paper in the Journal of Applied Microbiology).

World Species Survey details gloomy outlook for many animal species.In early October of 2008, the results of a global species  survey, conducted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, were released.  The numbers are startling:

• At least a quarter of mammal species are headed toward extinction in the near future.
• Nearly 80 percent of the primate species in southern and southeastern Asia are immediately threatened.
• At least 22 percent of reptile species are at risk of extinction.
• Perhaps 40 percent of North American freshwater fish are threatened.
• In Europe, 45 percent of the most common bird species are rapidly declining, and so are the most common bird species in North America.

But perhaps these figures are a bit too abstract. Here’s a more precise way to look at the present state of bio-diversity on Earth.

British conservationists are ecstatic over what they hope is the return of the Large Tortoiseshell butterfly, thought to be extinct in Britain. The butterfly, once common, dwindled in numbers in the early twentieth century to the point where it disappeared entirely.

Some experts fear that sightings of the Large Tortoiseshell may in fact be of migrants from mainland Europe (where the butterfly is still common), or of escaped specimens from breeders. Conservationists, however, are hopeful that the butterfly is breeding again in England.

Gazing into the future of a carbon market, two things seem certain: a fundamental change to the economy and sweeping land reforms.

There are two well known and highly charged sayings about land:

—–agriculture is the foundation of economic growth
—–all land use is inherently political

The fast approaching world of a carbon market could see how we use land becoming the most important issue in stopping climate change becoming a disaster for mankind.