By Rhishja Larson •
September 23, 2009
From the proposed bill to protect the North American black bear to the resurgence of elephant poaching in Kenya - and the skinning of a tiger inside an Indonesian zoo - the issues are not over yet.
Lions and tigers and bears … and elephants, whales, and rhino: Here are a few updates - as of today - on nine of my wildlife conservation posts. Four zoo posts are included, as zoos are (ideally) intended to be facilities for protecting precious wildlife.
By Rhishja Larson •
July 30, 2009
The Port of Anchorage has been given the green light by the National Marine Fisheries Service to continue an expansion project in the habitat of critically endangered Cook Inlet Beluga Whales.
A Port of Anchorage construction project will be using underwater pile drivers and chipping hammers in waters frequented by the critically endangered Cook Inlet Beluga Whales. The National Marine Fisheries Service has determined that the whales would not experience long-term adverse affects form the noise generated by underwater activity.
Regulations require that work must stop if a whale is spotted within a certain distance. Unfortunately, new regulations have reduced the distance required for stopping work to just 200 meters, although when the project started, the distance was 1,300 meters.
According to Marine Issues Field Director for the HSUS, Sharon Young, the NMFS has underestimated the “impact of chronic noise on marine mammals over time.” She points out in the same article that even if behavioral changes have not been shown so far by the whales, it is inconclusive to assume they are not suffering from adverse effects, such as stress.
