Cobbers

Mates on a mission

Polar bears listed as Threatened Species in US

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It’s a bit too late for this one. Now a floormat worth $US7995.00 at Bear Skin World. Surprisingly, Canada, home to two-thirds of the total polar bear population of up to 25,000, has not listed the species as threatened.

The US Government has listed polar bears as a threatened species, warning that melting of Arctic sea ice is risking their habitat.

“Today I am listing the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act,” said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, after satellite imagery found ice coverage had fallen to its lowest level yet recorded.

The Government was acting on advice from scientists and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Mr Kempthorne detailed greater steps to monitor polar bear populations in Alaska and outlying islands in the Beaufort Sea, and more co-operation with foreign governments to protect the species.

[From US lists polar bears as threatened species | The Australian]

 

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‘Rotten butter’ versus ‘stinging acid’

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butter.jpgActivists on board anti-whaling ship The Steve Irwin pelting the Nisshin Maru with rotten butter

The environmental group Sea Shepherd says it doubts its attack on a Japanese whaling ship off Antarctica yesterday injured anyone.

The group threw 24 litres of rotten butter onto the Nisshin Maru whaling ship.

Meanwhile, the Taipei Times reports:

“Militant environmentalists hurled stinging acid for more than an hour onto a Japanese whaling ship off Antarctica yesterday, hurting three crew members, Japanese government officials said.”

But the Sea Shepherd’s founder, Paul Watson, does not believe the claims.

‘We certainly didn’t injure anybody because we saw where every container hit — it was fully videotaped,’ he said.

‘The Japanese videotaped it and I’m sure that if we had have hit somebody they’d have it on their website, which they do not have.

‘My understanding is that the three injuries were three guys who got sick from the smell and just threw up.

‘So three guys chundering on the deck, really that’s the extent of it.’

A trashy tale

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A picture worth a thousand sad words from Sierra Magazine.

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Ocean-borne trash plagues the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The stomach of this dead albatross held more than a half pound of plastic.

They captioned it with this damning quote from Art Buchwald — written in 1970:

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate and the disposable bottle, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy his food all in one place and he could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use.

And pretty soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles, and there was nowhere left to sit down or to walk.

And Man shook his head and cried, ‘Look at all this God-awful litter’.

(Via Sierra Magazine)

Squid of steel

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Shelley Powers of Burningbird shares our fascination of giant squid finds and we could not resist sharing our latest find.

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We’d love to give someone credit for this fine effort. Let us know if you can source it.

LATER: And we can [thanks to Shelley, see comments].

It is called “Squid” [Steel, 2001] and was created by Florida sculptor Sculptor James Racchi. At about 2.1m, however, it has a long way to go to qualify as a true ‘giant’ squid.

Have a safe, fascinating and creative new year everybody.

Laying Waste to the Deep Sea

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Far out on the high seas, on any given day, hundreds of fishing vessels drag huge nets, big enough to snag a 747 jumbo jet, across the ocean bottom, vacuuming up 150-year-old fish, flattening ancient reefs and destroying everything else in their paths.

TIME Magazine’s Ken Stiers writes:

Only the biodiversity of tropical rainforests rivals that of the deep sea — our planet’s largest wilderness — an aquatic wonderland that is now being systematically razed by what is likely the world’s most environmentally destructive business.

The fishing occurs mostly around the ocean’s most unique topographical formations — submarine canyons, mid-oceanic ridges and tens of thousands of seamounts (most are extinct volcanoes) — which support a stunning profusion of endemic species, many of which are yet to be discovered.

[Read more…]

Fear for humpbacks as Japan whaling fleet sets sail

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A humpback whale breaches in Jervis Bay, NSW. Photo: Ken Robertson

A Japanese whaling fleet left today for an expedition activists say will for the first time target humpbacks, a perennial favourite among whale-watchers.

The Nisshin Maru, the 8000-tonne flagship of Japan’s whaling fleet, left Shimonoseki port for the Antarctic along with catcher boats around midday, environmental group Greenpeace said, adding that others in the fleet were expected to follow soon.

Japan, which says whaling is a cherished cultural tradition, abandoned commercial whaling in accordance with an international moratorium in 1986, but began the next year to conduct what it calls scientific research whaling.

Greenpeace said its Esperanza campaign ship was in waters off Japan, waiting to intersect the fleet in the coming days to demand that the expedition return home.”

Elephant seals a victim of global warming

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Elephant seal routes

Until recently scientists had almost no idea where southern elephant seals went when they left their island homes to spend winter feeding at sea each year.

So Australian, British, US and French researchers glued satellite transmitters to the heads of 85 of the seals and tracked them for months as they swam and dived in search of food.

However, the answer has scientists concerned, because it raises the possibility that the marine food chain close to Antarctica is in decline – and the cause may be climate change.

Seals that lived on South Georgia, in the South Atlantic, stayed close to home, feasting on fish and squid from nearby open ocean waters.

But those from Pacific and Indian Ocean islands, including Australia’s Macquarie Island and France’s Kerguelen Island, which preferred to feed near pack ice close to the Antarctic continent, swam up to 2000 kilometres to find a meal. Seals were also observed diving as deep as 1200 metres.

Japanese killed pregnant whales

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More than half the whales killed by Japanese whalers in the Antarctic last summer were pregnant females, the Humane Society International said today.

The group said that of the 505 Antarctic minke whales killed, 262 of them were pregnant females, while one of the three giant fin whales killed was also pregnant.

The findings came from a review of Japanese reports from their most recent 2006-07 whale hunt in Antarctic waters and were released ahead of the resumption of a Federal Court case the HSI is taking against Japanese whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd.

“These are gruesome statistics that the Japanese government dresses up as science”, HSI spokeswoman Nicola Beynon said in a statement.

Australia plans climate ‘spine’ for wildlife

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Australia will create a wildlife corridor spanning the continent to allow animals and plants to flee the effects of global warming.

The 2,800-kilometer (1,740 mile) climate “spine,” approved by state and national governments, will link the country’s entire east coast, from the snow-capped Australian alps in the south to the tropical north — the distance from London to Romania.

“A lot of that forest and vegetation spine is already there. But there are still blockages,” David Lindenmayer, a professor of conservation biology, told Reuters of the plan.

“The effects of climate change will likely to be less severe in systems that have some resilience and that we haven’t gone in and buggered-up.”

The creation of the corridor was agreed by state and federal governments this year amid international warnings that the country — already the world’s driest inhabited continent
— is suffering from an accelerated Greenhouse effect.