“Wolves regain federal protection-wolves win!”

August 7, 2010 at 2:12 am (endangered animals and plants, mammals, Saving endangered animals + plants, working together)
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In a complete reversal, the federal court on Thursday August 5, 2010
ruled in wolf lovers favor and restored endangered species protection to wolves in Montana and Idaho! Judge Donald Molloy ruled that Northern Rockies wolves must be returned to the endangered species list. Judge Molloy’s opinion clearly states that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service acted illegally when it removed wolves from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana but left them on the list in Wyoming, splitting the population along political, rather than biological, lines. Judge Molloy wrote, “The Endangered Species Act does not allow the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to list only part of a ‘species’ as endangered.”

Now all wolves in the Northern Rockies are listed on the endangered species list. Finally this halts the legal slaughter of wolves that was to begin again next month.

The states’ miss management of wolves has decreased the wolf population significantly over the past year and a half. Since the Obama Administration stripped these wolves of federal protection, more than 500 of them have been gunned down by hunters or government agents.

In response, NRDC in partnership with Earthjustice and 13 other conservation groups sued the government in federal court and demanded endangered species protection for all 1,700 wolves across the Northern Rockies until their population is able to fully recover.

A federal judge agreed, saying that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted illegally when it removed wolves from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana but left them on the list in Wyoming, splitting the population along political, rather than biological, lines.

The public hunting of wolves will not resume this fall. Hundreds of wolves that would have been killed will instead be spared. Wolves to their rightful place in Greater Yellowstone and across the Northern Rockies.

“Thanks everyone for your help. You sustained us through this long legal battle with your donations, your online activism and your absolute commitment to restoring wolves to their rightful place in Greater Yellowstone and across the Northern Rockies. -NRDC

We can only hope that the Obama Administration will now go back to the drawing board and come up with a solid plan that ensures the sustainable recovery of wolves over the long term.

“Deepest thanks to all groups including Nature’s Crusaders for helping to make this great victory possible.” – Mother Nature

Resources
Excerpts courtesy of   http://www.nrdc.org

Image courtesy of  Nature’s Crusaders library

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“Selflessly rescuers toil to save oiled critters”

August 6, 2010 at 5:01 pm (ancient animals, endangered animals and plants, Environmental crisis, reptiles, Saving endangered animals + plants, turtles, working together)
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It is a lonely, dangerous and potentially health threatening job.

Rescuers are working tirelessly to save the wildlife impacted by the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. They are faced with the overwhelming task of finding and saving thousands of oiled birds and hundreds of injured sea turtles and marine mammals.

We’d like to let them know that we appreciate the incredible work that they are doing. Please join us in sending a thank you letter to the wildlife rescuers on the Gulf Coast.

Take a moment to

Thank the rescuers for saving wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hundreds of government and non-profit staff are working in the toxic environment and the hot oppressive weather to find and rescue injured wildlife.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service alone, has over 500 personnel actively engaged in the response, working to protect wildlife and their habitats, including 36 national wildlife refuges. They have saved 1,643 oiled birds. They have rescued and relocated over 2,000 sea turtle hatchlings. They are also assessing the damage from the oil spill in preparation for the work that will be needed to restore the Gulf of Mexico.

Of course, more staff and resources are needed to help with the wildlife rescue efforts. But, we shouldn’t ignore the great work that is currently going on.

Let them know that you support their work to save wildlife and that you appreciate their dedication. We will compile the thank you letters and send them to the wildlife rescuers.

To send a thank you letter to the wildlife rescuers, click here.

Thank you for your help to save endangered species and their habitat.
The Endangered Species Coalition is a national network of hundreds of conservation, scientific, sporting, religious, humane, business and community groups across the country working to protect our nation’s wildlife and wild places.

www.StopExtinction.org

“Thank you to all of you for all your dedicated hard work. Our admiration and hearts go out to all of you for your tireless efforts.”

-Mother Nature and  Nature’s Crew

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“He who sniffs the best communicates the best”

August 5, 2010 at 6:18 am (good news, working together)
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Severely disabled people may soon be able to use their noses to write, drive a wheelchair or surf the Internet, thanks to a device developed and tested by doctors in Israel.
The device harnesses sniffing — or breathing in and out through the nose — which involves the soft palate on the roof of the mouth, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.

Noam Sobel, a professor of neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, and the Sackler faculty of medicine at Tel Aviv University worked together to develop a mechanical way to convert sniffs into electrical signals. The device they developed registers the nasal pressure of the sniff and then converts the pressure into electrical signals.
The device was tested on able-bodied individuals. As seen the the image the sniffer consists of a small cannula, like the tubes used in hospitals to deliver oxygen to patients, that sits at the opening of the nostrils and is connected to a small pressure sensor. People quickly learned to play computer games and write sentences by sniffing.

Encouraged by the success of first trials, researchers then began testing quadriplegics and “locked-in” individuals people who are paralyzed but whose mental faculties remain intact..

A man who had been locked-in for 18 years and was only able to communicate by blinking one eye was able to write his name by sniffing within 20 minutes of being fitted with the device.

For more information click here.

Resources

Excerpts courtesy of  http://bit.ly/aAL94o

Image courtesy of    http://bit.ly/dDuC7j

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“Blue holes in the Bahamas – keys to origins of life?”

August 4, 2010 at 8:04 am (sea life, water/ice, working together)
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A sense of danger and intrigue fill the divers as they descend into the unusual waters of  the blue hole.

“Fifty feet from the surface looms a pale haze, less smoky than fibrous, like a silvery net of faint, swirling cobwebs hovering motion­less in the darkness. It’s a layer of hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas created by bacterial colonies and decaying organic matter. Divers entering the gas may experience itching skin, tingling, or dizziness; some smell rotten eggs as it penetrates their skin and metabolizes through their lungs. is a submarine cave or underwater sinkhole. They are also called vertical caves.”

There are many different blue holes located around the world, from Belize and the Bahamas to the Red Sea.Blue holes are roughly circular, steep-walled depressions formed during the last ice age. The center of the hole is deep filled with dark blue waters and surrounded by the lighter blue of the shallows. Their water circulation is poor, so oxygen supply is low so most sea life is low, but large numbers of bacteria can easily thrive in this environment.

The deepest blue hole in the world at 202 meters (663 ft) is Dean’s Blue Hole, located in a bay west of Clarence Town on Long Island, Bahamas.

Scientists now think these blue holes may hold

Check out the beautiful blue hole images  at National Geographic Magazine online.

Reference

Excerpts courtesy of   http://bit.ly/aFLAU3

Excerpts courtesy of   http://bit.ly/9fhlZA

Image courtesy of     http://bit.ly/cmaY0A

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“China will help expand Giant Pandas protected territory”

August 2, 2010 at 8:41 pm (animals, endangered animals and plants, Environmental crisis, good news, Saving endangered animals + plants, working together)
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It’s time to expand the protected areas that the critically endangered Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleucathe),  the rarest member of the bear family, calls home. Once roaming throughout most of China, northern Vietnam and northern Myanmar today fewer than 1,600 giant pandas live in the wild in three Chinese provinces: Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan.

The research team developed habitat models using geographical/environmental information gathered by satellites overlaid with information on panda occurrence. After analyzing the six mountain regions in the three provinces where pandas are known to inhabit. It showed that 40 percent of the suitable habitat for pandas is inside the nature reserves. The Chinese government plans to add approximately 69,500 square miles of land to the country’s nature reserve system between 2010 and 2020.

Logging, residential development and the expansion of farming  have destroyed the giant panda’s natural habitat.

The research is published in the journal Biological Conservation.

“Thanks China and researchers for helping expand  the pandas chances at survival.” – Mother Nature

Resources

Excerpts courtesy of   http://bit.ly/cBKazH

Image courtesy of   http://bit.ly/aDDtNF

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“Polar bears win one -now after big oil”

August 1, 2010 at 9:11 pm (endangered animals and plants, Environmental crisis, good news, mammals, Saving endangered animals + plants, saving native fish, sea life, water/ice, working together)
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The ruling is a huge victory for polar bears, bowhead whales, other Arctic wildlife and tens of thousands of NRDC supporters like you who enabled us to go to court and fight off Big Oil’s planned invasion of this sensitive habitat.
A federal court has just halted oil and gas companies from moving ahead with drilling operations in

We win a big one!

millions of acres spanning Alaska’s Chukchi Sea  one of our nation’s two “Polar Bear Seas.

Beginning with the Bush administration a massive sell of drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea was initiated, opening the door for a oil rush into the heart of the bear’s melting sea ice habitat.

 NRDC, The Center for Biological Diversity, EarthJustice and Alaska Native groups and other conservationists sued.
A federal judge has agreed  has put a hold on the sale of rights and told the Obama administration to get a more science-based approach to protecting America’s endangered Arctic. Don’t let the Gulf spill happen again in Alaska.

It could be catastrophic for polar bears and other wildlife.

The oil industry has no technology for cleaning up oil in broken sea ice — one of the main places where polar bears search for food. And oil-covered polar bears have almost no chance of

First and foremost, we are still waging our legal fight to stop the Shell oil company from drilling off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the Beaufort Sea — the second of the two Polar Bear Seas.
We will continue fighting Shell and any other company that targets the polar bear’s home for P.S. If you want to help build on the momentum of this victory, please make a special donation today that will enable us to carry the fight to Shell and other oil companies that threaten the polar bear’s home.

“Thank you” from the wildlife in Alaska, Mother Nature, NC and all the environmental groups and individuals involved.
Resources

Excerpts courtesy of   NRDC.com

Image courtesy of  http://bit.ly/dosAyR

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