Defenders of Wildlife and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has created some special ads and acts to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Year after year, Big Oil’s high-priced lobbyists push legislation to industrialize this national treasure. Isn’t it time that this special place got the lasting protection it deserves?
Go here to support legislation that would protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — and the special creatures that live there — from Big Oil’s harmful drilling plans.
—Victoria Jaggard, National Geographic
It endured a rocky ride—literally—but this ancient “sea monster” from Asia has found a place in the United States to call home.
The fossil remains of a crocodile-like reptile called Thalattosuchia have been discovered in rocks in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon—about 5,000 miles (8,050 kilometers) from where it most likely died, researchers announced on Monday. So far about 50 percent of the animal, including the upper leg bone and rib fragments seen here (bottom), have been unearthed.
“This creature lived in Jurassic times, so it’s 150 to 180 million years old,” retired University of Oregon geologist William Orr said in a press release. Orr provided expert advice to the excavation team.
“It probably lived in an area from Japan to East Timor, somewhere in the western Pacific in a tropical estuarine environment.”
The reptile, the oldest ever found in Oregon, is a rare discovery in North America. But similar fossils have been found throughout Southeast Asia, so experts believe that the remains were carried to the U.S. by plate tectonics. As the section of Earth’s crust containing the fossils moved eastward, the Pacific plate collided with the North American plate, pushing the bones into the mountains.
The 6- to 8-foot-long (1.8- to 2.4-meter-long) creature, shown in an artist’s conception (top), is part of a group that scientists think represents an evolutionary transition for this line of crocodilians. Features from related fossils suggest that the animals were evolving from being semiaquatic to entirely ocean dwelling.
The newfound fossils will go to the University of Iowa for further study before going on display at an Oregon museum.
Some 200 000 blue whales once swam the oceans of the world. Its enormous size was its downfall; the blue whale was sought out by whalers for the tremendous quantities of oil and meat that it provided. The blue whales of the Northwest Atlantic appear to be having difficulty recovering from the intensive hunting of the first half of the XX Century. Even though it is no longer hunted, other threats still weigh heavily against the recovery of this species. Less than 250 mature blue whales remain in the Northwest Atlantic. In 2002, considering the reduced numbers of blue whales in the Northwest Atlantic and low calving and recruitment rates, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) granted this population the highest status level: that of “endangered”. The blue whale is also on the United States’ endangered species list by virtue of its own Endangered Species Act.
An estimated 4,900 to 6,000 blue whales inhabited the northern Pacific Ocean prior to whaling. Between 1910 and 1966, approximately 8,200 were killed in the North Pacific, severely reducing the population. The North Pacific population is now estimated at 1,200 to 1,700 animals; the worldwide population is estimated at 8,000 to 12,000.
Scientists do not know whether the number of blue whales is increasing or decreasing, but whale sightings have increased since the end of whaling. No human activities in the North Pacific, other than whaling, are known to have affected the species. Therefore, other management actions are unlikely to contribute substantially to recovery.
Dr. Laurie Marker’s Field Notes
March 2007
Dear Cheetah Friend,
As I begin to travel once again in the U.S., UK and Europe this spring, I want to share with you just a few things that have happened since the beginning of the year. Our efforts to help save the wild cheetah continue unabated. Our staff in Namibia, Kenya and the US is working more than full time to make a difference for the future of this most special cat. In Namibia, several more cheetahs have come in from farmers over the last couple of months. Most of them were released back into the wild, while some were orphans and are now living at CCF; you will soon be able to meet them at our Cheetah Sponsorship web page as they, too, will need your support.
Incidentally, the 2006 CCF’s Annual Report is now available online. Visit our Progress Reports web page to review it.
Canada’s annual seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on Earth. Last year, the world looked on in horror as the Canadian government permitted the slaughter of more than 330,000 harp seals. During the hunt, baby seals are shot or repeatedly clubbed. Sealers bludgeon the animals with clubs and “hakapiks” (clubs with metal hooks on their ends) and drag the seals—who are still conscious—across the ice floes with boat hooks. An estimated 42 percent of the animals are skinned alive. Hunters toss dead and dying seals into heaps and leave their carcasses to rot on the ice floes because there is no market for seal meat. Veterinarians who have investigated the hunt have found that hunters routinely fail to comply with Canada’s animal welfare standards.
It is legal in Canada to kill seal pups when they are about 12 days old. During last year’s hunt, almost all the seals killed were 3 months old or younger. Many had not yet learned how to swim or eaten their first solid meals. Baby seals are helpless and have no way to escape from the sealers’ clubs.
At least 20 new species of sharks and rays have been discovered in the waters off Indonesia, scientists announced this week. The finds are the result of a five-year survey—mostly done at local fish markets—to catalog what types of sea creatures are living, and being caught, in a region known for its rich aquatic diversity.
This sleek, spade-shaped Hortle’s whipray, for example, is the newest of 17 whipray species known to live in the muddy shallows along Indonesia’s shores.
The announcement also comes just six months after another expedition discovered more than 50 colorful and often strange new species among Indonesia’s coral reefs.
(See related story and photo gallery: “‘Walking’ Sharks Among 50 New Species Found in Indonesia Reefs” [September 18, 2006].)
“Indonesia has the most diverse shark and ray fauna and the largest shark and ray fishery in the world,” said biologist William White in a statement from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), which led the new survey.
“Before this survey, however, there were vast gaps in our knowledge of sharks and rays in this region.”
More on National Geographic
Trophy hunting can play an essential role in the conservation of African wildlife, according to a growing number of biologists. Now some experts are calling for a program to regulate Africa’s sport-hunting industry to ensure its conservation benefits.
According to a recent study, in the 23 African countries that allow sport hunting, 18,500 tourists pay over $200 million (U.S.) a year to hunt lions, leopards, elephants, warthogs, water buffalo, impala and rhinos.
Private hunting operations in these countries control more than 540,000 square miles (1.4 million square kilometers) of land, the study also found. That’s 22 percent more land than is protected by national parks.
As demand for land increases with swelling human populations, some conservationists are arguing that they can garner more effective results by working with hunters and taking a hand in regulating the industry.
Sport hunting can be sustainable if carefully managed, said Peter Lindsey, a conservation biologist with the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, who led the recent study.
“Trophy hunting is of key importance to conservation in Africa by creating [financial] incentives to promote and retain wildlife as a land use over vast areas,” he said.
In an upcoming edition of the journal Conservation Biology Lindsey and an international team of colleagues call for a plan to increase the conservation benefits of sport hunting, including a certification program to more tightly regulate the industry.
“To justify the continued existence of [protected] areas in the context of increasing demand for land, wildlife has to pay for itself and contribute to the economy, and hunting provides an important means of achieving this,” Lindsey said.
In order to be certified under Lindsey’s proposed plan, hunting operations would have to prove their commitment to animal welfare, careful management of hunting quotas, wide-ranging conservation objectives, and the development of local communities.
“The time has come for greater scrutiny from scientists to promote maximum conservation benefits from hunting,” Lindsey said.
John Pickrell, National Geographic News