Rewilding & Conservation News and Discussions

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weatheriscool
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Wild species relied on by billions at risk, report warns
Source: AP

By FABIANO MAISONNAVE
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Every day billions of people depend on wild flora and fauna to obtain food, medicine and energy. But a new United Nations-backed report says that overexploitation, climate change, pollution and deforestation are pushing one million species towards extinction.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - or IPBES - report said Friday that unless humankind improves the sustainable use of nature, the Earth is on its way to losing 12% of its wild tree species, over a thousand wild mammal species and almost 450 species of sharks and rays, among other irreparable harm.

Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 7.9 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said. 1 in 3 people rely on fuel wood for cooking, the number even higher in Africa.

“It’s essential that those uses be sustainable because you need them to be there for your children and grandchildren. So when uses of wild species become unsustainable, it’s bad for the species, it’s bad for the ecosystem and it’s bad for the people,” report co-chair Marla R. Emery of the United States told The Associated Press.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/climate-unit ... 4c6d8764a5
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Weak protection for vanishing whale violates law, judge says
Source: AP

By PATRICK WHITTLE

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government hasn’t done enough to protect a rare species of whale from lethal entanglement in lobster fishing gear, and new rules are needed to protect the species from extinction, a judge has ruled.

The government has violated both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act by failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled on Friday. The whales number less than 340 in the world and have been declining rapidly in population in recent years.

Boasberg’s ruling was a victory for conservation groups that have long sought to save the whale and a new challenge for lobster fishermen who have fought back against tightening restrictions on where and how they can fish. Boasberg ruled that the court’s findings “do not dictate that it must immediately shutter the American lobster fishery,” but instead said the parties must propose potential remedies to the threat faced by whales.

The ruling “may seem a severe result for the lobster industry” and the government, but no one “operates free from the strict requirements imposed by the MMPA and ESA,” Boasberg wrote.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/maine-whales ... 7bee3486cb
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Preservation of Kelp Forests - A Prickly Situation
July 12, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Purple sea urchins are munching their way through California’s kelp forests at a speed and scale that have stunned scientists, fishermen and divers alike. But the kelp forests have long been home to red and purple urchins, so it’s clear the three species can get along. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara sought to determine what factors disrupt this harmony.

“Why is it that in some places urchins cause the demise of a kelp forest, and in other places urchins and kelp can coexist?” asked Associate Professor Adrian Stier. “Our analysis shows what’s going on under the hood. It offers a lot more resolution in explaining when and where you might expect urchins to devour kelp.”

That analysis, led by doctoral students Mae Rennick and Bart DiFiore, appears in the journal Ecology. The authors combined laboratory experiments with 20 years of field data to uncover what prompts urchins to begin eating their way out of a home. The results suggest that the supply of kelp scraps, or detritus, may be the deciding factor.

Co-author Dan Reed, a research biologist at UCSB’s Marine Science Institute, formulated the hypothesis behind this study several decades ago. “Back in the 1980's, we noticed one of our sites at San Nicolas Island transitioned back and forth between kelp forests and sea urchin barrens without any change in urchin density,” he recalled. “This led us to believe that the availability of kelp detritus altered the foraging behavior of urchins from passive feeding, when detritus was abundant, to active grazing on living kelp, when detritus was scarce.”

Rennick and DiFiore set out to test this hypothesis. They collected purple and red urchins from the field and brought them back to their lab. After acclimating the urchins to the tanks, the researchers withheld food from them for about a week. Then they added kelp into the different tanks, weighing it before feeding and 48 hours after feeding for purple urchins, and 96 hours for red urchins, to determine how kelp consumption changes with urchin density.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/958589
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*Edit: Accidental post in wrong thread.*
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How cover crops can protect the Chesapeake Bay
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-crops-chesapeake-bay.html
by Eric Hamilton, American Society of Agronomy

The Chesapeake Bay once produced tens of millions of bushels of oysters a year. Today, the oyster harvest is below one percent of these historic highs. What happened?

"With modern farming and urban development in the watershed around the Bay during the mid-20th century, water quality declined rapidly," says Ray Weil, a professor of soil science at the University of Maryland. "Soon the oysters disappeared, many of the fish nearly went extinct, and the crabs were threatened."

Weil studies ways to help the Chesapeake Bay recover. His research focuses on one of the key culprits in the bay's decline: nutrients. Key plant nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous are good for crops, Weil says. "However, in waterways, nitrogen also stimulates the production of plants. In this case it's aquatic weeds and algae," he says. All that extra biomass dies and rots, removing oxygen from the water. Lack of oxygen in the waters is a major threat to life in the Chesapeake Bay. In addition, some algae can be toxic to people and fish.
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Wild bison return to UK for first time in thousands of years

Mon 18 Jul 2022 06.45 BST

Early on Monday morning, three gentle giants wandered out of a corral in the Kent countryside to become the first wild bison to roam in Britain for thousands of years.

The aim is for the animals’ natural behaviour to transform a dense commercial pine forest into a vibrant natural woodland. Their taste for bark will kill some trees and their bulk will open up trails, letting light spill on to the forest floor, while their love of rolling around in dust baths will create more open ground. All this should allow new plants, insects, lizards, birds and bats to thrive.

The Wilder Blean project, near Canterbury, is an experiment to see how well the bison can act as natural “ecosystem engineers” and restore wildlife. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

A more natural woodland should also absorb more carbon, helping to tackle the climate crisis. Global heating was evident as the bison were released, with England in the grip of a heatwave, and the early timing was to allow the bison to reach the shade of the woods before temperatures started to climb.

European bison are the continent’s largest land animal – bulls can weigh a tonne – and were extinct in the wild a century ago, but are recovering through reintroduction projects across Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... s-of-years


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Malaysia seizes African tusks, pangolin scales worth $18M
Source: AP
PORT KLANG, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian authorities said Monday they seized a container of African elephant tusks, pangolin scales and other animal skulls and bones estimated to be worth 80 million ringgit ($18 million).

The Customs Department said in a statement it discovered the contraband hidden behind sawn timber following checks on July 10 on a ship coming from Africa. This included 6,000 kilograms (13,227 pounds) of elephant tusks, 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of pangolin scales, 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of rhino horns and 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of animal skulls, bones and horns, it said.

Investigations are ongoing on the importer and shipping agent, the department said without providing further details. It was unclear if the container was meant to be shipped to other parts of Asia. Ivory tusks, rhino horns and pangolin scales are believed to have medicinal properties and are in high demand in the region.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/asia-malaysi ... 4f565f0cf2
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Cheetahs to prowl India for first time in 70 years

BBC News
16 hours ago

For the first time in 70 years, India's forests will be home to cheetahs.

Eight of them are set to arrive in August from Namibia, home to one of the world's largest populations of the wild cat.

Their return comes decades after India's indigenous population was declared officially extinct in 1952.

The world's fastest land animal, the cheetah can reach speeds of 70 miles (113km) an hour.

Classified as a vulnerable species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, only around 7,000 are left in the wild worldwide.

Officials announced the agreement after spending the past two years working on how to transport the animals after India's supreme court decided in 2020 that they could be reintroduced in a "carefully chosen location".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-62239811
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Beavers to be given legal protection in England
Thu 21 Jul 2022 14.03 BST

Beavers are to be given legal protection in England, meaning it will be illegal to kill or harm them as they are formally recognised as native wildlife.

This is a step forward for the charismatic rodents, which were hunted to extinction in this country 400 years ago but have reappeared due to illegal releases around the country.

The government has also been licensing beaver releases inside enclosures, and some environmentalists hope that later this year in the upcoming beaver strategy there will be permissions for the rodents to be released to roam wild.

It is thought there are hundreds of beavers already living wild along England’s waterways, with some experts believing there could be as many as 800.

New legislation, due to come into force on 1 October, will make it an offence to deliberately capture, kill, disturb, or injure beavers, or damage their breeding sites or resting places – without holding the appropriate licence.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... in-england
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The planetary role of seagrass conservation
by
August 4, 2022

Abstract:
(Science) Seagrasses are remarkable plants that have adapted to live in a marine environment. They form extensive meadows found globally that bioengineer their local environments and preserve the coastal seascape. With the increasing realization of the planetary emergency that we face, there is growing interest in using seagrasses as a nature-based solution for greenhouse gas mitigation. However, seagrass sensitivity to stressors is acute, and in many places, the risk of loss and degradation persists. If the ecological state of seagrasses remains compromised, then their ability to contribute to nature-based solutions for the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis remains in doubt. We examine the major ecological role that seagrasses play and how rethinking their conservation is critical to understanding their part in fighting our planetary emergency.
For information to gain full access to article: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq6923

Conclusion in a summary discussion of the article as presented in EurekAlert:
Dr Unsworth (who leads the University’s team and is a founding director of marine conservation charity Project Seagrass) said: “Seagrasses are of fundamental importance to the planet but compared with terrestrial grasses, and even seaweeds, the body of research within seagrass is magnitudes smaller.

“However, there are substantial ecological, social, and regulatory barriers and bottlenecks to seagrass restoration and conservation because of the scale of the interventions required.

“Now advances in marine robotics, molecular ecology, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence all offer new opportunities to solve conservation problems in difficult environments at unprecedented global scales.

“It is only by looking beyond carbon and recognising the true value of seagrass meadows can we place it on a pathway to net zero loss and ultimately net gain.”
Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/961068



Link to Project Seagrass: https://www.projectseagrass.org/
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