Giant Leap Towards Extinction

Cheetah Numbers Crash Globally

• Researchers confirm only 7,100 cheetahs remain.
• Zimbabwe’s cheetah population has plummeted from 1,200 to a maximum of 170 animals in just 16 years – that’s a whopping loss of 85% of the country’s cheetahs.
• Causes of crash: “Human-wildlife conflict, prey and habitat loss, wildlife trafficking, and pet trade have all contributed to crash.”

Details are available from the following sources:

• http://cheetahandwilddog.org/
• http://www.zsl.org
• https://newsroom.wcs.org/

Global Disasters/ Significant Events – December 5, 2013

Ten beached whales die in Florida Everglades, dozens stranded

At least ten beached whales have died as rescuers tried to save dozens more that were stranded in shallow waters  in Florida’s Everglades National Park, said wildlife officials.

The whales, believed to be short-finned pilot whales, were first spotted on Tuesday pm near the Gulf of Mexico, according to the park officials.

Adult short-finned pilot whales weigh 1,000 to 3,000kg with females and males averaging 12 and 18 feet long receptively. They typically travel in pods of about 30 animals.

Wildlife officials said the rescue efforts to save the whales by pushing them into deeper waters would resume Thursday morning.

Video footage showed at least one carcass reduced to a bare skeleton and large chunks of flesh missing from others, possibly bitten by sharks.

NSA collects and anal-yzes 5 billion cellphone records each day

The US National Security Agency collects and analyzes about 5 billion cellphone records each day indicating location data around the world, according to a new report by Washington Post based on the records leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

FOUR Canadian soldiers commit suicide in one week

At least four Canadian soldiers have committed suicide in just one week, probably overcome by pangs of conscience.

At least three of the soldiers had “served” in Afghanistan, according to Canadian Defense officials.

In the latest incident, a married 46-year-old soldier apparently committed suicide on Monday. His body was found near his base in Quebec. Sylvain Lelievre had served in Bosnia and Afghanistan, according to reports.

Last week, the bodies of three other soldiers were discovered. They were Michael McNeil, William Elliott and Travis Halmrast. They were based in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta respectively.

30,000 Eritreans “abducted to Sinai desert for ransom”

Up to 30,000 Eritreans have been abducted since 2007 and taken to Egypt’s Sinai desert to suffer torture and ransom demands, according to a new research.

Victims are kidnapped in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan and taken to Sinai where they are held captive in the mostly lawless desert.

The abductors have extorted at least $600m  from families in ransom payments, says the study.

“The study, presented to the European parliament, says Eritrean and Sudanese security officers are colluding with the kidnap gangs,” according to a report.

Ferocious storm cuts power to 25,000 homes in Scotland, shuts rail network

>Winds of up to 116 mph  (187 km/h) battered parts of Scottish highlands cutting power to at least 25,000 customers and forcing the authorities to shut down the entire rail network due to debris on the tracks.

Scottish Environment Protection Agency has warned of flooding risks in coastal areas and Traffic Scotland advised drivers to avoid traveling in multiple areas due to “extremely dangerous” conditions, reports said.

Fast-food workers in 100 US cities will walk off the job

The strike is part of a nationwide movement, which began a year ago to increase federal minimum wage, unchanged since 2009, from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. The workers also want the right to unionize.

“We have people going to work every day and coming home to no utilities or having to make tough decisions on whether to eat or pay rent. But they go to work and work hard every day and they’re good at their jobs and these companies should take care of their employees and do better. We know that they have the profit,” said a worker.

“Dramatic increases in a starting wage such as those called for in these rallies will challenge that job growth history, increase prices for restaurant meals, especially in the value segments and lead to fewer jobs created,” said the National Restaurant Association.

This post will be updated throughout the day…

Fracking Fluid Likely Killed Threatened Kentucky Fish: USGS

Hydraulic fracturing fluids probably caused widespread death of aquatic species in Acorn Fork, KY

Hydraulic fracturing fluids were probably responsible for the “widespread death or distress of aquatic species” in Kentucky’s Acorn Fork creek. The spilling occurred in the nearby natural gas well sites, according to a joint study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Acorn Fork, a small Appalachian creek, is habitat for the federally threatened Blackside dace, a small colorful minnow. The Acorn Fork is designated by Kentucky as an Outstanding State Resource Waters.

“Our study is a precautionary tale of how entire populations could be put at risk even with small-scale fluid spills,” said USGS scientist Diana Papoulias, the study’s lead author. “This is especially the case if the species is threatened or is only found in limited areas, like the Blackside dace is in the Cumberland.”

The Blackside dace typically lives in small, semi-isolated groups, so harmful events run the risk of completely eliminating a local population. The species is primarily threatened with loss of habitat.

After the spill of hydraulic fracturing fluid, state and federal scientists observed a significant die-off of aquatic life in Acorn Fork including the Blackside dace as well as several more common species like the Creek chub and Green sunfish. They had been alerted by a local resident who witnessed the fish die-off. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commonwealth of Kentucky are currently working towards restoration of the natural resources that were injured by the release.

Water and fish samples collected immediately following the chemical spill in 2007 clearly showed that the hydraulic fracturing fluids significantly degraded water quality in Acorn Fork causing the fish to grow gill lesions, and suffer liver and spleen damage.

“This is an example of how the smallest creatures can act as a canary in a coal mine,” said Tony Velasco, Ecologist for the Fish and Wildlife office in Kentucky, who coauthored the study, and initiated a multi-agency response when it occurred in 2007. “These species use the same water as we do, so it is just as important to keep our waters clean for people and for wildlife.”

The gill lesions were consistent with exposure to acidic water and toxic concentrations of heavy metals. These results matched water quality samples from Acorn Fork that were taken after the spill.

After the fracturing fluids entered Acorn Fork Creek, the water’s pH dropped from 7.5 to 5.6, and stream conductivity increased from 200 to 35,000 microsiemens per centimeter. A low pH number indicates that the creek had become more acidic, and the stream conductivity indicated that there were higher levels of dissolved elements including iron and aluminum.

Blackside dace are found only in the Cumberland River basin of Kentucky and Tennessee and the Powell River basin of Virginia, and are listed as a federally-threatened species since 1987.

Hydraulic fracturing is the most common method for extracting natural gas in Kentucky.

The report is entitled “Histopathological Analysis of Fish from Acorn Fork Creek, Kentucky Exposed to Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Releases,” and is published in the scientific journal Southeastern Naturalist, in a special edition devoted to the Blackside dace.

Massive wildlife die-offs occur in Northern Rockies

Big-game animals record die-offs in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming

Harsh winter,  heavy snows and sustained freeze [dividends of climate change] in the Northern Rockies caused the record die-offs

“Elk, deer and moose—those animals are having a pretty tough time,” said a Wyoming Game and Fish biologist.

Rocky Mountain Bull Elk. Image credit: Mongo

“Wildlife managers estimate die-offs in the tens of thousands across thousands of square miles that span prairie in northeastern Montana, the upper Snake River basin in Idaho near Yellowstone National Park and the high country of northwestern Wyoming near the exclusive resort of Jackson.” Said a report.

The estimated mortality rate among mule deer fawns in a wildlife management reserve near McCall in central Idaho jumped to 90 percent this winter, 4 and a half times the average annual rate, the report added.

Die-offs are occurring in the tens of thousands across a vast area measuring several thousand square miles from prairie in northeastern Montana, to the upper Snake River basin in Idaho near Yellowstone National Park and the high country of northwestern Wyoming.  More …

Related Links

• EDRO Models: Mass Die-Offs Looming
•  The 6th Great Extinction: Sooner Than Expected

Mountaintop Removal: Satellite Images

Dreaming of a Flat Earth!

Mountaintop removal is a major violation of nature with deadly consequences—Fire-Earth

“There has been a global, 30-year increase in surface mining, which is now the dominant driver of land-use change in the central Appalachian ecoregion of the United States. One major form of such mining, mountaintop mining with valley fills, is widespread throughout eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, and southwestern Virginia. Upper elevation forests are cleared and stripped of topsoil, and explosives are used to break up rocks to access buried coal. Excess rock (mine ‘spoil’) is pushed into adjacent valleys, where it buries existing streams.” Mountaintop Mining Consequences, M. A. Palmer et al.

Growth of Mountaintop Removal, West Virginia, 1984-2009

Click images to enlarge

large image (0.73 MB, JPEG)             acquired September 17, 1984


large image (683 KB, JPEG)                            acquired June 2, 2009

Closeup: Mountaintop removal. Photo by Vivian Stockman; source: OVEC; flyover courtesy SouthWings. [Original caption: What does it say about human nature that we allow this kind of destruction to go on?]

The following is a recent feature article by NASA Earth Observatory :

Mountaintop Mining, West Virginia

Below the densely forested slopes of southern West Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains is a layer cake of thin coal seams. To uncover this coal profitably, mining companies engineer large—sometimes very large—surface mines. This time-series of images of a surface mine in Boone County, West Virginia, illustrates why this controversial mining method is also called “mountaintop removal.”

Based on data from NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite, these natural-color (photo-like) images document the growth of the Hobet mine as it moves from ridge to ridge between 1984 to 2009. The natural landscape of the area is dark green, forested mountains, creased by streams and indented by hollows. The active mining areas appear off-white, while areas being reclaimed with vegetation appear light green. A pipeline roughly bisects the images from north to south. The town of Madison, lower right, lies along the banks of the Coal River.

In 1984, the mining operation is limited to a relatively small area west of the Coal River. The mine first expands along mountaintops to the southwest, tracing an oak-leaf-shaped outline around the hollows of Big Horse Creek and continuing in an unbroken line across the ridges to the southwest. Between 1991 and 1992, the mine moves north, and the impact of one of the most controversial aspects of mountaintop mining—rock and earth dams called valley fills—becomes evident.

The law requires coal operators to try to restore the land to its approximate original shape, but the rock debris generally can’t be securely piled as high or graded as steeply as the original mountaintop. There is always too much rock left over, and coal companies dispose of it by building valley fills in hollows, gullies, and streams. Between 1991 and 1992, this leveling and filling in of the topography becomes noticeable as the mine expands northward across a stream valley called Stanley Fork.

The most dramatic valley fill that appears in the series, however, is what appears to be the near-complete filling of Connelly Branch from its source to its mouth at the Mud River between 1996 and 2000. Since 2004, the mine has expanded from the Connelly Branch area to the mountaintops north of the Mud River. Significant changes are apparent to the ridges and valleys feeding into Berry Branch by 2009. Over the 25-year period, the disturbed area grew to more than 10,000 acres (15.6 square miles).

According to a report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, nearly 40 percent of the year-round and seasonal streams in the Mud River watershed upstream of and including Connelly Branch had been filled or approved for filling through 1998. In 2009, the EPA intervened in the approval of a permit to further expand the Hobet mine into the Berry Branch area and worked with mine operators to minimize the disturbance and to reduce the number and size of valley fills.

Still, some scientists argue that current regulations and mitigation strategies are inadequate. After doing a survey of research on mountaintop mining and valley fills, the scientists concluded that the impacts on stream and groundwater quality, biodiversity, and forest productivity were “pervasive and irreversible” and that current strategies for mitigation and restoration were not compensating for the degradation.

Links related to article and references

• More mine images on the Earth Observatory
• Coal Controversy in Appalachia
• EPA Releases Preliminary Results for Surface Coal Mining Permit Reviews

Related Links:

• Circuit Judge OKs Mountain Rape
• TVA Spill Update
• Dreaming of a Flat Earth
• Remove mountaintops; fill valleys; kill streams!
• Amazing Images of the Day: Mountain Top Removal
• New Stars Are Born

Bering Sea Drilling

Government seeks comment on possible Bering Sea drilling

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service on Tuesday announced it is launching an environmental review of possible offshore oil and gas drilling in the salmon-rich area of Bristol Bay, where energy exploration was temporarily banned following the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989.

The area is also home to the world’s biggest sockeye salmon runs and a plethora of marine life, including some of the last known eastern Pacific right whales, a critically endangered species. Full report

Satellite image of the Yukon Delta and Bering Sea. This is how the Big Oil and media would like you to see the area: Alien, Icy, lifeless!

The Yukon Delta (Center) and Bering Sea (Left) image taken by NASA’s Aqua satellite March 8, 2004. (REUTERS/MODIS Rapid Responce Team/NASA-GSFC RCS)

Teeming with Life: Closeups of Yukon Delta and Bering Sea

“Rock Sandpipers drop from the air and into a roost along the shores of the Bering Sea, Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska. Shorebirds form roosts as the tide rises. Once the tide drops and foraging sites are once again exposed, the roost disperses.” (Photo Credit: USGS, Alaska Science Center)

They can gain protection from aerial predators by forming large flocks, but they don’t stand a chance against the Big Oil!

“A flock of Dunlin wheels past at Egegik Bay, Alaska. These small shorebirds gain protection from aerial predators by forming large flocks.” (Photo Credit: USGS, Alaska Science Center)

“Recently hatched Rock Sandpiper chicks, St. Matthew Island, Alaska. Most shorebird chicks exit the nest quickly after hatch and begin to feed themselves, relying on parents for frequent brooding. Their coloration allows them to blend into their tundra surroundings, escaping the detection of predators.” (Photo Credit: USGS, Alaska Science Center)

The Pribilof Islands provide breeding grounds for more than two-thirds of the world’s northern fur seals. (Image and caption courtesy of USGS).

The Pribilof Islands are in the Bering Sea, approximately 770 mi west-southwest of Anchorage and 250 mi north of the Aleutian Islands. Approximately 3 million seabirds nest on the islands, and nearly 1 million northern fur seals—about 70 percent of the world’s northern-fur-seal population—migrate there each year to breed. Other animals on the islands include arctic foxes and herds of reindeer. (Photo courtsey of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration; caption courtesy of USGS.)

Common Murres at breeding sites on Bogoslof Island in 1999. Murres (including Thick-billed Murres) are excellent subjects for studies of food stress: They are numerous, relatively easy to capture and breed widely throughout the Bering Sea. Both species have declined markedly at some colonies in the Bering Sea since the 1970’s. (Photos and captions courtesy of ABSC USGS).

Black-legged and Red-legged Kittiwake breeding colony on Bogoslof Island. The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is monitoring breeding success and chick growth rates at nest sites on Bogoslof and the Pribilof islands. (Photo and caption courtesy of ABSC USGS).

The sea otter is the keystone species for the nearshore marine environment. Sea otter populations are in decline both in California and Alaska, and the California population is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. (Photo and caption courtesy of USGS, Santa Cruz Field Station).