Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the Uncategorized category.
In today’s world, it is so common for animals to find themselves in places they shouldn’t. This includes places that are now industrialized by humans and are extremely difficult to navigate, or places that are highly polluted. Sometimes there is very little we can do to help these animals. These situations can sometimes end up deadly, which unfortunately does not gain enough attention from the public. Preventing problems like this can be as easy as not littering and cutting the rings from a six-pack of pop.
A situation recently appeared in New York harbor. A young Minke whale was spotted by a helicopter swimming through the harbor, nearly into a waterway well-known for industrial pollution. Surprisingly, the whale seemed to be healthy. Scientists speculated that the whale followed a school of fish into the harbor without realizing its potential danger. The two most recent occurances of whales in the harbor were 1) a whale already dead after a collision with a boat and 2) a very sick whale that had to be nursed back to health for over 8 months. Needless to say it was very surprising that this young, healthy whale had ended up there.
Image hosted by www.wikimedia.org
There was little concern that the whale would suffer any health effects from it’s short-term exposure to possibly polluted waterways. It was monitored overnight to make sure it did not enter the industrial waters, and the National Guard was stationed in case it was necessary to intervene.
If this story says anything, it says we need to respect nature for many reasons, one being the protection of stray animals. The world was theirs before it was ours, now we have restricted their living space. We need to make areas that animals could end up in safe and friendly to their existence.
Article from www.enn.com
Whale hunting in Japan
Through a research project, Japanese scientists have caught 35 minke whales. The research program is supposedly to study whales migratory and eating habits. Many critics say that it is just a way to disguise commerical whaling. Since commercial whaling has been banned, many countries have been trying to lift that law. Whaling has always been a very controversial issue, and for one I think it should always be banned. Whales are such majestic creatures that seem to have enough issues with keeping their populations up. Minke whales alone are having a population drop because of a lack of food, like anchovys, in their area.
Japan has had plans to catch over 1,070 minke whales in total throughout 2006. I think that is an astonishingly large number, especially for a species whose total population is unknown. I can’t even imagine what great results people would get from commercial whaling…I think that whales are one animal that is definitely best left alone. Fortunately, ending the ban to commerical whaling would take a 75% majority vote of the committee, and that seems not likely to happen very soon. But if Japan can sneak around the ban like they are now–what else is there to do?
Picture: www.wikimedia.org
Articles: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling
www.enn.com
African Zoo poisoning its own lions
At The Lion Zoo in Ethiopia, Abyssinian lion cubs are being poisoned in order to sell them to taxidermists. Abyssinian lions are a very rare species, and are highly respected in Ethiopian culture. They are smaller than the average lion, and they have darker manes. The upkeep of the zoo costs $6,000 a year….and even that leaves a very low provisioned home for the animals it has. Despite the zoo being a popular site, it only makes about $5,000 a year from tourism. The only way they see to have enough money to take care of the animals they have is apparently to kill some of them….to me that doesn’t make too much sense. Especially when there are only an estimated 1000 of these lions left! While it is easy for me to sit here and criticize what the zookeepers are doing, it is hard to imagine what it would be like in that situation. The Lion Zoo is attempting to create awareness for these beautiful creatures so that people will respect them and keep them in the wild…but they don’t have enough money to do that. Of course the poisoning is monitored and is supposed to be painless, but it must really hurt the zookeepers to have to kill the animals that they raise and love. It really is a tragedy that this institution that is striving to educate the public has to harm their greatest teachers.
Image: www.wikimedia.org
Article: www.enn.com
Can’t get away from fragmentation
After all of our dicussions in class about fragmentation, it seems to keep popping up in the news. It just goes to show what an important issue it really is. The article I read happened to focus on the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. It immediately made me think of the movie Fern Gully. I watched it all the time when I was little, and ironically enough, watched it about a month ago with one of my friends. For those of you who haven’t seen it…I highly recommend it. It tells the story of a young man cutting down trees in a rainforest who comes into contact with the creatures of the forest, and they end up saving it! It has always made me ultra-sensitive to deforestation.
Rain forests are pretty timeless ecosystems, the trees can live for centuries.
Cutting downs trees that old would obviously cause a drastic change in an environment. No one expected the effects to be so severe so soon…but when you really think about it it makes complete sense. If the environment is used to staying stable with the same trees for centuries at a time, a small disturbance would cause a huge dilemma for every aspect of the ecosystem. Deforestation removes the staple element, leaving the animals and undergrowth plants without their source of protection, food, and habitat. So along with the destruction of the trees, other plants and animals are disappearing from the forests.
The specific problem in the article I read has to do with hot winds blowing into the forest, killing the trees that weren’t cut down. This kind of leaks into our discussions of edge effect, as much edges are being produced around the ecosystem, more damage is done. It really makes you realize the grand importance of trees as protectors and insulators of the forest. When you really think about it, we’re killing off one of the most diverse areas on Earth on account of rancing, farming, and industrial usage.
In my eyes, it’s definitely not worth it. We’re killing species that we don’t even know about, and they’re being replaced by the common species and pioneer plants. We’re putting ourselves a couple steps behind where we could be, if we only left the forests alone to be researched and preserved. Unfortunately there are no talking chipmunks and fairies to save our forests like in Fern Gully. This just means WE have to start doing our part before it’s too late.
Photos: www.wikimedia.org
Article: www.enn.com
If you think winter in Chicago is cold…
After reading Mr. McKinley’s post about temperature changes, I started wondering what causes an “ice age.” I’ve heard about the ice age Earth went through however many bagillion years ago, but I’ve never really understood what makes that happen or how long it lasted. It turns out there are a few theories as to what causes ice ages. One is continental drift. As most people know, the continents today are not situated the same as they were even a year ago. The continents continue to move every year, because they are made up on techtonic plates. The shift in plates causes mountain ranges, ocean depth and size, and variety of other terrain changes. In turn, these changes effect the atmosphere and can cause temperature and climate change around the globe potentially leading to an ice age.
Another theory for development of an ice age is the amount of iron in the ocean. That seems like such an arbitrary thing, but apparently it can cause a big change. But think of it this way….iron in the ocean would stimulate plant growth, which would pull more CO2 out of the atmosphere, which would cool down Earth! This is an example of how delicate our world really is. Alongside that theory, is the main idea that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere alters the Earth’s climate. When there is more in the ocean, the planet cools off. When there is more in the atmosphere, the planet heats up…take global warming as an example. There are many other theories to what may cause ice ages including astronomical factors, asteroid impacts, etc. Thinking about a world covered in ice sheets makes January in Chicago seem like a tropical breeze….
Picture: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Inlandeis_Russels_Gletscher.JPG
Article: http://www.arctic.uoguelph.ca/cpe/environments/climate/climate_past/ice_cause.htm
A Response to Poaching
I earlier discussed the high amount of poaching that has been happening on Africa’s savannahs. The poachers were usually looking for ivory or animal skins to sell on the black market. Finally there has been some sort of response to this travesty. In Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, perhaps one of the most well-known parks in Africa, patrols are really going after poachers. There has actually been an increase in the population of many animals, including the black rhinoceros, elephants, and buffalo!
This is a great encouragement that patrolling the national parks can stop poachers, and that more people should be protecting these precious animals. These advancements are especially great for Serengeti, where animal populations had been decreasing since 1977. With a little work and time, hopefully the populations can reach their original number. Today there are 10 to 20 patrols a day, compared to the maybe 60 patrols a year in the 1980’s. The intensity of the poaching has been great, seen as how multiple poachers can be caught on a single patrol. Now that funds are being allocated to protection of wildlife, people can really make a difference. It will take hard work and consistency, but these patrols can save many endangered species from harmful poaching.
Picture:www.wikimedia.org
Article:www.enn.com
Spinach E.Coli outbreak is over, but not forgotten
When you’re walking through the Fresh Produce aisle of a grocery store, you usually don’t wonder about how fresh the produce really is, and what sacrifices had to be made to get fruits and vegetables to your grocery store in prime condition. People tend to forget that all of the produce we consume is not grown and packaged in our own town. Food is shipped all over the world to end up in our local supermarket.
Wikimedia.org
Because of the huge market for fruits and vegetables, they are shipped quickly and over great expanses, meaning that there is a greater chance of tainted produce going unnoticed, and causing problems all over the world. These massive quantities sent out are usually from multiple fields growing the same product. This means if one field is contaminated, it spreads to the other product from other fields that it is mixed with before packaging.
This was the case in the recent E.Coli outbreak caused by infected spinach. While this was a shock to the nation, it is the 20th time that illness has been caused by lettuce or spinach in the United States since 1995. Obviously there is a problem. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) keeps telling companies to start monitoring their produce better, yet they have no strong restrictions, especially compared to the precautions taken for meat and poultry. The largest problem is that there is no centralized organization in charge of produce production. Illness rates have been slowly creeping up, and it’s about time that the government did something to prevent outbreaks like the recent one, from which two people died. It seems as if it was a wake-up call, and the FBI is beginning to investigate what caused this particular E.Coli outbreak, which is a small step towards safer fruits and vegetables.
The Ivory Trade is Still Flourishing
I remember in grade school when we began learning about other parts of the world, most classmates were so enthralled by Africa and its grand variety of wildlife. Every little third-grader was shocked when we heard that people kill some of these majestic animals for their fur, or in the case of the elephant, their ivory tusks. We hated these poachers for taking away these beautiful animals that we had never even had a chance to see.
Today the poachers still have a large market to work with. The southwestern African country of Angola carries the largest trade market for ivory. Out of all of the countries that contain elephants, Angola is the only one that has not signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which is an organization that regulates the trade of endangered and threatened species. The countries number of wild elephants has gone from 12, 400 to 246 after their civil war, in which ivory was traded in order to make prophets to buy weapons. About 12,000 elephants are killed yearly in Africa, to make all sorts of ornamental pieces out of their tusks.
Creative Commons
The greatest demand for ivory comes from the United States, Europe, and especially China, who views ivory as an ancient symbol of wealth. This is all despite the ban on trade of elephant ivory. In Angola, ivory is sold openly on the street, ignored by the police, because of how ravaged the country was by war. People are desperate to bring back economic stability, at any cost. Angola is a country whos priorities are backwards. They are killing one of their most precious organisms so they can make some money in the present, instead of preserving these majestic creatures for the future.
Fence could keep out more than immigrants
For a while now the U.S. has been planning the construction of a huge fence along the Mexican-American border. The fence, spanning 700 miles, is meant to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. U.S. Congress recently passed a homeland security bill granting $1.2 billion for fence construction. There are many objections to this project for various reasons. One of the more obvious reasons being the message this barrier will send. It displays inhospitality towards our neighbor country. People reject the idea that we need a physical barrier to separate our country from Mexico simply because of illegal immigration. Another reason for not wanting the fence isn’t quite as obvious. The barrier would pass very close to, even through, protected wildlife areas. Environmentalists are very frustrated with the lack of response to their claims.
Wikimedia Commons
Cutting through a wildlife environment causes much more damage than people may imagine. It can separate predator from prey, or force a species to leave an area in which they most easily thrive. The barrier would cut of water supply to many locations, as well. The fence would also impair a lot of economic practices that occur between Mexico and America along the border. When it all comes down to it, the fence seems as if it will cause too many problems to really be worth keeping out illegal immigrants. I’m sure if the intelligent people of the world came together they could think of a way to stop this problem without harming wildlife and other aspects of American life.
Invasive Species–Asian Carp
Asian Carp, or Silver Carp, were brought over to the U.S. in the 1970’s and 1980’s to control plankton and algae in fish ponds. During floods in 1993 and 1995, however, the fish were transported into Midwest rivers, including the Mississippi River. These carp eat about 40% of their body weight in plankton daily. They have become a nuisance for fishers, seen as how their reaction to immediate environmental disturbances is jumping out of the water. This can cause major problems for boaters, who can in some cases be pushed off of their boat. Many fishers wear protective facial gear while boating at high speeds to prevent broken noses, and many boats have protective nets.
Yahoo! News
With the abundance of this asian carp in our rivers, you would think fishers would start profiting. These fish, however, and nearly impossible to gain a profit from. So, unchecked by humans, the carp keep multiplying. The newest idea is to start using the fish in a “carp cake” as food at zoos. The carp would be cheaper for the zoo to buy, and it would cut down on their population. While these fish are not full of nutrients, it is easy for the zoologists to inject vitamins and minerals into carp cakes.
People are doing whatever they can to keep the carp out of the Great Lakes. If they start cutting down the population and area occupied by these fish, there is a greater chance of saving our own Lake Michigan from invasion.
