Scientists stunned after witnessing one of the fastest calamities to hit any species: ‘Facing imminent extinction’

Erin Feiger
Thu, December 14, 2023
Most of us have heard of the chicken of the sea, while fewer have likely heard of the chicken of the Caribbean — but scientists and conservationists are calling for its protection as it faces extinction.

What’s happening?

Ecological disasters have wreaked havoc on the island Dominica’s mountain chicken frog population, the Guardian reported. Leptodactylus fallax, also known as the giant ditch frog, is one of the largest frogs in the world, weighing over two pounds with a length of up to eight inches.

Once so populous on the island they were cooked as its national dish (because they taste like chicken), the population has plummeted by 99% since 2002 when Chytridiomycosis — a fungal infectious disease that affects more than 500 frog species worldwide — struck, according to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

The frogs were further affected by Hurricane Maria — the strongest hurricane to ever hit the island, devastating the already fragile population.

A recent survey by scientists found only 21 of the frogs alive in the wild, as reported by CNN. Andrés Valenzuela Sánchez, a ZSL research fellow in wildlife health who was involved with the survey, was inspired by the effort but saddened by its results, saying, “The situation of the species in nature is even worse than what we thought before the survey.”

“This is a species facing imminent extinction in the wild, yet it was in a healthy state only a couples of decades ago. Its fate sends us a very clear warning about the dangers facing wildlife on Earth today,” head of wildlife epidemiology for the ZSL, Andrew Cunningham, told the Guardian.

Photo Credit: iStock

Why is the looming extinction concerning?

While the frogs once lived across seven Caribbean islands, CNN reported ZSL researchers now believe that Dominica is the last place on Earth where they can be found in the wild. They are one of Dominica’s top predators — eating insects, snakes, small mammals, and even other frogs — making them incredibly important to the ecosystem.

While in other areas of the world, scientists are encouraging people to help get rid of invasive frogs, the race to save the mountain chicken frog from extinction is in high gear, and scientists find their efforts further hindered by the human-caused effects of Earth’s overheating.

Invasive species, habitat loss from agriculture, quarrying and construction, and roadkill incidents caused by drier rivers forcing the frogs close to roads in search of water all add to the disappearing population.
What’s being done to help the mountain chicken frog?

Since 2002, the Mountain Chicken Recovery Programme has extensively researched the frog and developed innovative management techniques to try and prevent its extinction.

“We’ve managed to keep the mountain chicken frog alive and able to survive the fungal disease for over 20 years now, thanks to the collaboration that has gone into saving this species. We should not forget that. If we can keep that up for just a bit longer, with the right resources, it is possible to turn their fate around. Certainly we are not giving up hope,” Jeanelle Brisbane, a wildlife ecologist with the Forestry, Wildlife, and Parks Division in Dominica, told the Guardian.

“We still have a couple of years to try to get something done before the mountain chicken frog becomes extinct in the wild,” agreed Cunningham. “It’s a tight situation.”

Donating to or volunteering with conservation organizations focused on biosecurity can also be pivotal to conserving critically endangered species.

INDUSTRIAL FARMING

Drone footage uncovers disturbing scene at a dairy farm in Wisconsin: ‘It makes me very angry’

Jeremiah Budin
Fri, December 15, 2023 



Anti–animal cruelty nonprofit Mercy For Animals captured some disturbing drone footage of a Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, dairy farm that showed the massive open-air pits of animal waste sitting right next to a residential neighborhood. The group posted the footage to X, formerly known as Twitter.

Along with the drone footage, the group also spoke to neighboring Wisconsinites who say that the waste from the dairy farm contaminates their drinking water.

One resident, Arlin Karnopp, showed his well, which he says has been contaminated by manure, along with brownish, very dirty-looking water samples that he took from his sink.

“It makes me very angry that, for what we did to make our home a place for the family, it’s being destroyed,” Karnopp told PR Newswire. “When [our grandchildren] come, they brush their teeth with water that we buy and wash their face, and if there’s anything we cook, we cook with bottled water. … You spend so much money to build a house and work on it, and then you can’t drink the water.”

Our drones just revealed massive open-air pits of liquified cow feces near residential neighborhoods.

Not only is this disgusting, but the waste poisons local waterways and has alarming health consequences for surrounding communities.

Learn more: https://t.co/EvOwLi6k2X pic.twitter.com/xwnzyS2gLL

— Mercy For Animals (@MercyForAnimals) October 18, 2023

Karnopp had the water tested and found it contained nitrates and E. coli.

A 2021 study in Environmental Health Perspectives found that drinking water in Kewaunee County that was contaminated by cow feces was responsible for hundreds of cases of acute gastrointestinal illnesses.

The widespread environmental impacts of factory farms are well documented. According to the ASPCA, animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5% of all planet-overheating gas pollution, including massive amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, which are even more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

In addition, livestock farms (like the Wisconsin one in the video) produce 885 billion pounds of manure each year, which pollutes the surrounding air and water. And even worse, that output is not treated or regulated by any government agency.

The factory farming industry “has avoided any effective regulation and accountability for a long time,” Michele Merkel, a former EPA attorney who quit over the agency’s reluctance to punish polluting mega-farms and now works for an advocacy group that pushes for accountability, told PBS.

“You must be proud @WIDairyland @WisconsinCheese,” wrote a commenter on X.

Fossil of prehistoric ‘dragon’ — as big as a great white shark — unearthed in Japan

Brendan Rascius
Thu, December 14, 2024




Paleontologists discovered the fossilized remains of an aquatic “dragon” that prowled the Pacific Ocean millions of years ago.

The monstrous predator — which measured as long as a great white shark — belongs to a brand new species, according to a Dec. 12 University of Cincinnati news release.

Takuya Konishi, a paleontologist at the university, came upon the creature’s near perfectly intact fossilized remains in southwestern Japan in 2006.


“It was something I had never seen before,” Konishi said in the news release.
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After spending years carefully extracting the fossils from surrounding sandstone, he and other researchers have now described their findings in a study published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

The creature is a type of mosasaur, a family of large marine reptiles that lived up to 100 million years ago, researchers said. Like the Tyrannosaurus rex and most other dinosaurs, it went extinct when a large asteroid struck the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago.

Chimera-esque in form, it had a “crocodile-like head,” four “wing-shaped flippers” and a finned tail.

This combination of features is unique, and it’s not clear exactly how they were used together for propulsion and steering.

“We lack any modern analog that has this kind of body morphology — from fish to penguins to sea turtles,” Konishi said in the release. “None has four large flippers they use in conjunction with a tail fin.”

The newfound mosasaur also had extremely good vision which would have allowed it to be a “lethal hunter,” he said.

The mosasaur was given the name Megapterygius wakayamaensis after Wakayama, the Japanese prefecture in which it was discovered.

But researchers have a second, more sensational name for it: Wakayama Soryu, or “blue dragon,” a fitting name as dragons are a part of Japanese folklore.

“In China, dragons make thunder and live in the sky,” Konishi said in the release. “They became aquatic in Japanese mythology.”

The fossilized remains of the “dragon” may be shown in an exhibition in the coming year, Masaaki Ohara, who was involved in the excavation, told the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.

Mosasaur fossils have been found all over the world, including in Poland, South Africa and the United States.

These huge Japanese 'dragons' hunted the ancient oceans
Bryan Ke
Fri, December 15, 2023 



[Source]

University of Cincinnati Associate Professor Takuya Konishi and international colleagues have classified a reptile whose remains were found in Japan 17 years ago as a new species.

About the predator: Akihiro Misaki discovered fossils of the mosasaur, an ancient apex predator, along the Aridagawa River in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, in 2006 while searching for ammonite fossils for his doctorate thesis. In a study published Monday in the Journal of Systemic Paleontology, Konishi, Misaki and their team referred to the discovery as the "Wakayama Soryu" or "Wakayama Blue Dragon."

The specimen happens to be the most complete skeleton of a mosasaur found in Japan or the northwestern Pacific. Mosasaurs were large aquatic reptiles about the size of great white sharks from the Cretaceous period in the late Mesozoic Era that terrorized oceans 100 to 66 million years ago.

A new species: The researchers determined that the remains belonged to a new species of the mosasaur. They noted its unique features, such as rear flippers larger than its crocodile-like head, which suggest that it swam using its leg fins.

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After classifying the discovery under the Mosasaurinae subfamily, the researchers identified it as the Megapterygius wakayamaensis. Megapterygius means “large flippers.”

Based on the shape of its spine, the researchers also believe that the Wakayama Soryu had a dorsal fin — another distinctive feature. They noted that it was similar to that of a harbor porpoise.

Why it matters: Konishi, who has studied mosasaurs for more than 15 years, said the discovery has opened “a whole can of worms” that challenges experts’ understanding on how the prehistoric reptiles swim.

Trending on NextShark: Japanese man who spent $16,000 to become a dog 'fails' agility test

“I thought I knew them quite well by now,” Konishi added. “Immediately it was something I had never seen before.”

Rare Footage Shows a Unique Glass Octopus Found 3,000 Feet Below the Surface

Natalie Hoage
Fri, December 15, 2023 

Are you a fan of the ocean and intrigued by everything that lives in it? I certainly am, and so when I stumbled across this amazing video of a glass octopus, I couldn't stop watching it! I've never heard of this creature before and was enthralled by its beauty.

@peaksurvivalist shared the video of the unique octopus on Monday, December 11th. It's only about 20 seconds long and shows the creature swimming in the deep waters of the ocean. They explain in the caption that these guys live in the deep sea and have nearly transparent bodies which make them almost invisible under water. The octopus is gently gliding through the water, being carried by the current. The video is so soothing and relaxing that I'd like to make it my computer's screensaver!

What an amazing looking sea creature! And like its name implies, it does look like glass. I had so many questions after watching this @peaksurvivalist video that I decided to do a little research since I know nothing about these octopuses. Turns out, they're a pretty interesting animal.

Related: World’s Rarest Lobster Is Released Back Into the Ocean

Facts About the Unique Glass Octopus

I headed over to Ocean Conservancy to learn more about these deep-water oddities. They live deep down at about 3,000 feet, where sunlight is never seen in tropical and subtropical waters. Because they live so far down, there haven't been many sightings of them and not a lot is known. In fact, most "sightings" come from the "gut contents of their predators", like whales and deep-sea sharks, crabs, and shrimp.

Glass octopus grow to about 18 inches long (it looks bigger than that in the video!) and can live 2-5 years. The're almost completely transparent with only their optic nerve, eyes, and digestive track visible. Although in this video it almost looks like it has yellow spots on it - I wonder if that's the digestive track. Their upper three arms are longer than the other five arms. Their transparency may make them look beautiful, but it also helps them to hide from predators as well since they're nearly invisible.

According to oceaninfo.com, these animals are smart, and have been seen using tools, such as shells and rocks, to help it catch prey. The octopus eats mollusks (like clams, mussels, and scallops) and snails found on the ocean floor.

The glass octopus is proof that the ocean is full of creatures we haven't seen and know nothing about. It's a wonderful world that still is full of life that is just waiting to be found.

Anglers Catch Massive Great White Shark Off South Carolina Coast Weighing Nearly 3,000 Pounds

Steven Hill
Fri, December 15, 2023 

Michalove estimated the great white shark's length at 14 feet and said it was quite a bit heavier than an average 14 footer.


A 2,800-pound, 14-foot great white caught off the coast of South Carolina on Dec. 8 by charter captain and “shark whisperer” Chip Michalove is the first shark in the southeast Atlantic to be fitted with a new camera tag that provides marine biologists with fascinating footage of the apex predator’s movements.

Michalove, who runs Outcast Sport Fishing out of Hilton Head, was on his first shark excursion of the winter, the season great whites begin moving down from their summer feeding grounds around Cape Cod in search of warmer waters. Accompanying him were anglers Ed Young, EJ Young, and Dave Clark, who reeled in the shark, and researcher Megan Winton of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, who helped deploy four tags: Pop-up satellite archival (PSAT), spot, acoustic, and the new camera tag.

Pop-up tags hang on for 8 months, spot tags for about a year, and acoustic tags for up to 10 years, giving scientists a wide range of data about the species’ movements and preferred habitat. (Scientists got their first data Dec. 10 when the great white pinged its location, which is reported in real time on the Conservancy’s Sharktivity app.)

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The camera tag—which researchers have previously deployed on 20 sharks in the Cape Cod area—is attached to the dorsal fin and provides a visual record of the shark’s movements for about a day before detaching. Scientists must then recover the tag to review the footage.

According to Myrtle Beach Online, camera tags have shown “a shark get zapped by a torpedo, others stunned by seals and diving birds, one staring at rocks and buoys, and another relying on the current after eating to push water through its gills instead of constant swimming.” Winton was able to recover the camera tag with Michalove’s help, and she is now engaged in the long, slow process of downloading the footage.

Michalove told Field & Stream that he estimated the shark’s weight based on his experience catching large tiger sharks; he also makes use of a chart for great whites that provides weight ranges based on length. “Typically a 14-footer should weigh around 2,000 pounds,” he wrote in a text message, “but this girl was extremely girthy. She wasn’t pregnant, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a handful of seals in her belly. Lots of seal scratches all over her face, and both older scars and fresh ones tell me she’s probably a pretty good hunter.”

Read Next: Great White Shark Goes Airborne While Snatching Striped Bass off Fisherman’s Line

Michalove named the shark LeeBeth in honor of LeeBeth Young, a shark enthusiast who died two years ago at age 34. “She absolutely loved shark fishing,” he wrote in an Instagram post, “and was definitely watching her dad, brother, and family friend catch and satellite tag a true lifetime fish.”

1,200 tons of fish washed up on a Japanese beach and nobody knows why

Thibault Spirlet
Thu, December 14, 2023 


About 1,200 tons of fish washed up on a beach in Hakodate, Japan, per AP.


City officials said in a statement that the cause was still unknown.


The fish may have been chased by bigger fish and died of suffocation, one researcher told AP.

An estimated 1,200 tons of fish have washed ashore on a Japanese beach — and local officials are struggling to explain why.

According to the Associated Press, the volume of sardines and mackerel found floating off the city of Hakodate, in the northernmost of Japan's main islands, was such that it extended across more than 0.6 miles, per officials.

1,200 tons of fish washed up on the beach in Hakodate, Japan.NTV via Associated Press

Takashi Fujioka, a researcher at Hakodate Fisheries Research Institute, said it was the first time he had observed such a phenomenon, per AP.

Fujioka speculated that the fish might have been chased by bigger fish, run out of oxygen while swimming together, and then been carried away by the waves.

"We don't know for sure under what circumstances these fish were washed up, so I do not recommend" eating them, Fujioka said, per AP.

In a statement released last week, the city of Hakodate said the cause of the incident remained unknown, but it urged the local population not to bring any of the fish home with them.

The city did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

This is not the first time such an event has occurred.

In 2019, thousands of fish washed up in the seaside resort of Hove, in southern England, per the local newspaper Argus.

That same year, California experienced a similar phenomenon, with thousands of Urechis caupo, also commonly known as "penis fish," washing up on Drakes Beach, about 50 miles north of San Francisco, per the BBC.

A year later, thousands of fish washed up dead on the shores of Barmouth, Wales, as ITV News reported at the time.

And in June 2023, tens of thousands of dead fish washed up on the shores of Texas's Gulf Coast. This was due to a lack of oxygen in the water resulting from a rise in temperature, Quintana Beach County Park said in a statement on Facebook.

A lack of oxygen can be caused by several factors, including excessive water extraction by farms, higher temperatures, nutrient overload, and poisoned water, experts told National Geographic.

To stop further incidents of this kind, the experts said, there needs to be policing of what humans dump into lakes and rivers, as well as limiting the amount of water humans pull out of them.

Another priority needs to be intensifying the fight against climate change, including the extraction of fossil fuels, so that maritime heatwaves become less common, they said.

Japanese officials say no link between mysterious mass fish deaths and Fukushima release

Arpan Rai
Thu, December 14, 2023 


Japanese officials have junked reports that linked the deaths of tons of fishes along the shoreline in Hokkaido with the release of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Around 1,200 tons of dead sardines and mackerels washed ashore and crowded about a kilometre-long stretch of the coastline in Hakodate city last week, leaving marine experts baffled.

The city administration was inundated with dozens of enquiries about the dead fish and requests to volunteer for collecting and disposing of the remains, government officials said.

While no official statement has been shared by Tokyo, a report in the British newspaper Daily Mail blamed the fish deaths in the northern prefecture on the water discharged from the decommissioned Fukushima nuclear plant. The Daily Mail suggested that the fish died three months after the controversial release of treated water from the nuclear power plant.

“We are concerned about the unsubstantiated information,” the fisheries agency said.

Its propagation promotion division said: “There have been no abnormalities found in the results of water-monitoring surveys. We are concerned about the proliferation of information that is not based on scientific evidence.”

Fishes sometimes wash up ashore in massive numbers when the waters they are in experience sudden change in temperature or when they are fleeing from predators like dolphins, according to the Hokkaido Research Organisation’s Hakodate fisheries experiment station.



The fishes found on the beach were likely a part of a school migrating towards south at this time of the year, the station said, reported Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.

The dead fishes were being disposed of from the coastline using heavy machinery, city officials said, adding that the cleanup will go on till the end of December given the volume.

Photos of the incident showed thousands of tons of sardines and some mackerels on the shore, creating a sliver blanket along a stretch of beach about a kilometre (0.6 mile) long.

In August this year, thousands of tons of treated water was released from the Fukushima nuclear plant by the Tokyo Electric power company. The Fumio Kishida administration said it needed to discharge the water as part of a key step of its critical process of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant, including the removal of molten fuel.

The government later defended the accusations of unsafe water and said no radioactive anomalies were found in the released water.

 

 

Sturgeon could SHOULD be listed as endangered species, but Wisconsin’s congressional reps want an exemption. Here’s why.

Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Thu, Dec 14, 2023, 

A bipartisan group of Wisconsin's congressional delegation has urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to exempt lake sturgeon in the state from any potential listing under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The agency is conducting a status review of lake sturgeon in the U.S. to determine if listing is warranted; it is scheduled to release its findings by June 30, 2024.

A federal listing under the ESA could prohibit angling for or spearing the fish in Wisconsin. The state hosts annual hook-and-line and spearing seasons for lake sturgeon managed by the Department of Natural Resources.

It a statement issued Dec. 7 the six U.S. representatives and two senators highlighted the robust sturgeon population in Wisconsin, the strong state-based management program as well as the cultural, ecological and economical values of the fish.

"Nowhere in the world will you find such a unique cultural connection and staunch dedication to the preservation of sturgeon population levels than in Wisconsin," the group wrote. "In fact, due to such careful management, populations in the state thrive and allow for a sustainable spear harvest season on the Winnebago System every winter. We are concerned that a potential listing of the species under the Endangered Species Act could curtail this successful, science-based management model as well as threaten a cherished and unique Wisconsin tradition."

Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, whose district includes part of the Winnebago System, led the effort on the statement. It was also signed by Republican Reps. Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman,, Bryan Steil, Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden as well as Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson.

In 2018 the USFWS received a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity requesting the agency list the lake sturgeon range-wide or as several distinct population segments.

The next year the agency concluded the petition presented "substantial scientific or commercial information indicating listing may be warranted" and initiated a status review process, according to a statement from Melissa Clark, USFWS public affairs specialist.

The USFWS is actively engaged in the review and is gathering and referencing the "best scientific and commercial data available, which includes information regarding States’ management practices for lake sturgeon throughout the range of the species," Clark said.

Lake sturgeon are one of the oldest fish species in North America and are native to at least two dozen states in the central, southern and eastern U.S. according to the USFWS. In Wisconsin they are found in Lakes Michigan and Superior as well as the Wisconsin, Chippewa and Flambeau, Wolf and Fox rivers, among others.

The Wisconsin congressional delegation said the importance of the prehistoric fish is rooted in the Menominee Tribe’s strong cultural ties to the lake sturgeon. The tribe includes sturgeon in its creation story and also relied on the fish as a food source.

The species declined over the last century in many parts of its historical range due to pollution, overfishing and loss of access to spawning habitat.

But several populations are exceptions, including the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair in Lake Huron in Michigan, the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods in Minnesota and the Winnebago System in Wisconsin, said Ron Bruch, retired DNR fisheries director and former sturgeon biologist.

After a period of closed seasons in the early 20th Century due to concerns of overharvest, the sturgeon population in the Winnebago System (lakes Butte des Morts, Poygan, Winnebago and Winneconne and the Fox and Wolf rivers) has grown to become one of the largest in the world, Bruch said.

Fisheries staff with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service net a lake sturgeon for processing at Bamboo Bend on the Wolf River in Shiocton. The fish were measured, sexed and had a passive integrated transponder (PIT tag) implanted and then released back to the river.

More: Outdoors calendar

The DNR establishes a sturgeon population estimate each year using a mark and recapture process. In 2022 the population was estimated at 12,304 adult females and 24,061 adult males, as well as an undetermined number of juvenile fish, according to the DNR sturgeon stock assessment report.

And strict regulations limit the harvest of sturgeon to ensure the health of the population, Bruch said.

"The sturgeon population in the Winnebago System is as large now as any time after settlement times," Bruch said. "It's strong and naturally-reproducing. In no way is it threatened or endangered."

The two-week sturgeon spearing season is responsible for an estimated $3.5 million economic impact and sturgeon conservation is a major part in the over $200 million annual impact fishing brings to the Winnebago System, according to the Wisconsin congressional members.

In 2023 the DNR sold 13,219 sturgeon spearing licenses and 1,405 sturgeon were registered over the 16-day spearing season in February on the Winnebago System.

A hook-and-line sturgeon season is held in fall on many major river systems in the state. Anglers are allowed to keep one fish per year but most fishing is catch-and-release. The statewide harvest of sturgeon during the fall season has averaged 33 fish over the last 15 years, according to the DNR. The hook-and-line season is not held on the Winnebago System.

Money raised from the sale of sturgeon spearing and fishing licenses is used to fund Wisconsin sturgeon management programs.

A representative for the Center for Biological Diversity, the organization that asked for the review, said it's most likely the most imperiled populations – Lake Superior, Missouri River, Ohio River, Arkansan-White River, and lower Mississippi, in their view – would get listed.

"The loss of lake sturgeon has been analogous to the slaughter of the buffalo," said Jeff Miller, senior conservation advocate for CBD. "Now there are only nine populations in entire U.S. with more than 1,000 adult fish."

However, Miller said his group doesn't oppose a DNR-managed harvest season in the Winnebago System.

"We don’t see any problem with the short spear-fishing fishery in the Lake Winnebago System and the Upriver Lakes," Miller said. "It hosts a large population of lake sturgeon, and there are strict regulations and quotas."

But the CBD would like to see added protections for sturgeon in other parts of Wisconsin, including lakes Michigan and Superior and their tributaries as well as the Chippewa River.

Lake sturgeon swim along the rocky shore of the Wolf River at Bamboo Bend in Shiocton. The fish congregate at the site to spawn in spring.

If lake sturgeon were listed under the ESA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could still allow state fisheries to hold harvest seasons with a fish management plan that is consistent with recovery.

The Wisconsin congressional members asked the Service to to take into "strong consideration the conservation success story of the species in Wisconsin."

"Instead of imposing a nationwide, one-size-fits-all listing that could curtail the state’s management plan and threaten a long-cherished tradition, we ask that Wisconsin lake sturgeon be exempt from any potential ESA listing," they wrote. "Furthermore, we encourage the Service to engage with the Wisconsin DNR, local communities, and other relevant stakeholders to help expand this model to other states and ensure the continued existence of lake sturgeon for generations to come."

The statement by members of Wisconsin's congressional delegation follows an October letter with a similar message signed by 29 members of the state legislature.

A public comment period will be held after the Service issues its findings in June 2024.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Lawmakers want Wisconsin sturgeon exempt from endangered species list

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FOSSIL FISH 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for STURGEON 

Cryptozoology Part 2: plawiuk — LiveJournal

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for STURGEON FOSSIL FISH

 Nature photographer discovers ancient ‘freak-of-nature’ tree hiding in plain sight: ‘I’ve never seen a tree as impressive as this one’

Jeremiah Budin
Fri, December 15, 2023



A nature photographer in British Columbia discovered one of the largest old-growth cedars ever documented off the coast of Vancouver Island — and he’s not telling you or anyone else how to find it.

TJ Watt, a co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a charitable organization that works to protect endangered old-growth forests, waited more than a year after first happening across the massive tree, which he nicknamed “The Wall,” to even tell the world about its existence, according to The Washington Post.

During that time, Watt consulted with members of the Ahousaht First Nation, who have lived in the area for thousands of years.

“It was decided that we should keep the tree’s location a secret because these are sensitive areas, and everything could get pretty trampled if word got out where to find it,” Watt told the Post.

He also took time to thoroughly measure and document The Wall. It is believed that the massive tree is over 1,000 years old, standing 151 feet tall and 17 and a half feet in diameter.

“I’ve found thousands and thousands of trees, and I’ve shot hundreds of thousands of photos of old-growth forests,” Watt told the Post. “But I’ve never seen a tree as impressive as this one.”

“It was incredible to stand before it,” he continued. “I’d describe it as a freak of nature because it actually gets wider as it gets taller. As I looked up at it, I felt a sense of awe and wonder.”

Canada’s largest documented tree, a humongous red cedar known as the Cheewhat Giant, is located in the protected Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and stands 182 feet tall and 19 feet in diameter, per the Post.

Old-growth forests play an essential role in wildlife habitat, species diversity, carbon storage, and other crucial ecological processes. However, like so many parts of the natural world, they are threatened by pollution, the effects of human-caused extreme weather events, and the logging industry.

Although trees such as the Cheewhat Giant are protected, per the Post, 80% of the original old-growth forests on Vancouver Island have already been logged, according to the Ancient Forest Alliance. That’s why it is essential that The Wall stays protected and its location unreleased.

California redwoods 'killed' by wildfire come back to life with 2,000-year-old buds

Jacklin Kwan
Thu, December 14, 2023

Coast Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are visible around the Redwood Trail on May 27, 2010 in Big Basin Redwoods State Park near Boulder Creek, CA.

After a massive wildfire swept through California's Big Basin Redwood State Park in 2020, the state's iconic trees appeared to be dying. But then, something incredible happened: Tiny sprouts began to peek through the charred remains.

Now, a new study shows how the trees sprouted new growth: They tapped into ancient carbon reserves and bud tissues that formed centuries ago.

Trees respirate using photosynthesis, in which they convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into oxygen and sugars. Although the energy can be used for growth, metabolism and reproduction, trees can also store it for later. These carbon stores may be integral to how trees survive challenges such as droughts or fires that destroy the tree's foliage and, as a result, its ability to photosynthesize.

For the study, published Nov. 30 in the journal Nature Plants, Drew Peltier, an ecophysiologist at Northern Arizona University at the time of the study and currently an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and colleagues analyzed the sprouts from burnt redwood trees.

Related: The oldest tree in the world (and the 7 runner-ups)

"What we found was that the trees used very old carbon reserves on the order of 50 to 100 years ago, which is by far the oldest observations of carbon reserves being used for something," he told Live Science.

To accurately date the carbon being used to fuel new growth in the coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) the researchers used a form of radiocarbon dating. A specific isotope of atmospheric carbon, known as carbon-14, spiked in the early 1960s due to thermonuclear bomb testing, before slowly depleting over time. Carbon-14 from this period was absorbed by the redwoods, along with carbon-12 isotopes that were in the atmosphere after nuclear tests were banned.

The trees' stores of carbon include a mix of this newer and older carbon. By assuming that trees use up newer carbon more quickly, scientists can estimate the age of the carbon reserves being used by the sprouts.

The paper compares this to checking and savings accounts: Newer carbon is absorbed and used faster, and whatever is left is saved up and left relatively untouched.

Building a simulation based on this assumption, they found that some of the carbon found in new growth was photosynthesized more than half a century ago. Specifically, the new growth sprouted from previously dormant buds buried deep in the pit of the burnt redwoods. These ancient buds likely would have formed when the trees were still saplings.

"These giant trees are 5 meters [16 feet] in diameter at the base, and some are 2,000 years old — which means that the bud tissue is 2,000 years old," Peltier said.

The team was unsure whether the redwood trees could survive a disastrous forest fire that could burn all the way up to the tree canopies, Peltier said. Such extreme weather events could become more frequent with climate change.  Research published in 2022 found tree cover in California decreased by 6.7% between 1985 and 2021, with an increase in wildfires being the primary driver.

The latest findings suggest the state's redwoods are more resilient to wildfires than previously thought.

"In addition to having really thick bark and extreme tree height, this is just one of those additional adaptations that redwood trees have that make them super-resilient to fire," he said.

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Researching how other trees store carbon over time could also be vital to understanding how trees act as a local and global carbon sink. Trees can act as net sinks for carbon because they can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into biomass or energy stores, which only get released if they are burned or cut down.

The goal is to continue studying large, old tree species like the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), which is closely related to coast redwood, but is a different species of tree and does not resprout after a forest fire.

Cats prey on hundreds of threatened, endangered species: Study

SPADE AND KEEP THEM INDOORS

SPADE FERAL CATS

Miranda Nazzaro
Wed, December 13, 2023


Cats prey on hundreds of threatened, endangered species, with scientists categorizing felines as part of the most “problematic invasive species in the world,” according to a new study.

In an assessment of the diet of 533 free-ranging cats — both owned and unowned cats with access to the outdoors — researchers found a total of 2,084 species eaten by cats, of which 347, or 16.65 percent, fall into the category of “conservation concern.” This includes species listed near threatened, threatened or extinct on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

In the study, published Tuesday by the journal Nature Communications, researchers said cats have a “generalist diet” and described them as “opportunistic predators and obligate carnivores.” As a result of certain physiological demands in cats, the species are known to hunt for a wide variety of animals.

In total, cats eat 981 bird species, followed by 463 species of reptiles, 431 mammal species, 119 insect species, and 57 amphibians.

About 7.1 percent of bird species that are a part of cats’ diet fall on the IUCN Red List, along with about 4.9 percent of mammal species and 2.7 percent of reptiles, researchers said.

Cats have the largest impact on endangered species on islands when compared to continents, the study found. Just more than a quarter, or 25.22 percent, of all cat-consumed species on islands were species of conservation concern, while only 8.62 percent of cat-consumed species on continents fell into this category.

Researchers said they discovered records of cats eating 11 species across Australia, Mexico, the United States and New Zealand that have since been recategorized as extinct in the wild or extinct, with many due to island endemics.

“Our study sheds light on the predatory habits of one of the world’s most successful and widely distributed invasive predators,” researchers wrote, adding that cats are essentially eating most things directly in their environment and may not be as discriminate with their diet choices as one might think.

“Cats are largely eating what is present and if a species is missing in the diet analysis it is likely that the prey is either absent or rare in the surrounding environment, difficult for cats to catch and hence of low profitability, or the prey is difficult to detect (e.g., invertebrates) in scat or digesta studies,” researchers continued.

The study builds upon previous findings about cats’ impact on surrounding animals, with some groups calling for better pet ownership to control wildlife losses. An analysis released in June by the Biodiversity Council, Invasive Species Council and Birdlife Australia found more than 320 million native animals are killed by cats in Australia every year, an increase from 241 million in 2020.

The Hill.

In case you weren't aware, outdoor cats are stone-cold killers

CBC
Thu, December 14, 2023 

A Cuban blue cat is pictured in Havana, Cuba in 2011. A new study tallies how many species cats have been recorded to hunt or scavenge worldwide. (Desmond Boylan/Reuters - image credit)


There are differing opinions on cats' personalities and behaviour: They're affectionate, they're aloof, they love you, they hate you.

Then there's the undeniable fact of what they become when left to roam free outside: indiscriminate, stone-cold killers.

A new study has found cats roaming free prey upon almost any animal, reptile, insect, and amphibian around the world – their hunting so prolific and so successful, the authors found, that it poses a legitimate threat to global biodiversity.


"What's shocking is just the indiscriminate nature of their hunting," said Christopher Lepczyk, the paper's lead author and an ecology professor at Alabama's Auburn University.

"If there is a food source that they can obtain, they will."

Cats are seen in a hole in a wall at a park in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China on March 29, 2018.

Cats are seen in a hole in a wall at a park in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China on March 29, 2018. (Stringer/Reuters)

The team of scientists from Australia, New Zealand and the United States created the latest report by looking at more than 500 previous studies to better understand which animals free-ranging cats will eat globally.

The paper, published in Nature Communications, found domestic and feral roaming cats will hunt or scavenge more than 2,000 species from tiny hatchling turtles to hulking dairy cows.

Almost half of the victims were birds, followed by reptiles and mammals. Lepcyzk said they also found a surprising number of insects, including emperor dragonflies and endangered monarch butterflies.

The menu includes nearly 350 species that are threatened, vulnerable or endangered — including the little brown bat and green sea turtles. Cats proved especially lethal on islands that have evolved without as many natural predators.

"[Cats] don't have a big preference in terms of what they're eating, if it moves." said Lepczyk.

Most victims were small, weighing less than five kilograms, but cats scavenged the carcasses of animals much larger than they could kill themselves – like camels. The paper said the cats also ate spoiled and wasted food people left outside.

In all, the paper said the cat is among the most successful and "problematic" invasive predators in the world — a claim that's been made about cats before.

Last year, the Polish Academy of Sciences — a state-run scientific institute — classified domestic cats as an "invasive alien species,'' citing the damage they cause to birds and other wildlife.

Wojciech Solarz, a biologist at the centre, told the Associated Press there's a growing scientific consensus that domestic cats have a harmful impact on biodiversity given the number of birds and mammals they hunt and kill.

The criteria for including the cat among alien invasive species "are 100 per cent met by the cat,'' said Solarz.

Author recommends cats be kept inside

Lepczyk, 53, has spent decades researching the feline diet and the last five years compiling the database with his co-author, Jean E. Fantle-Lepczyk — who is also his wife.

He said studying what cats eat globally made him see his own cats differently. He and his wife have two: Mochi, a long haired siamese, and Ahi, an orange tabby – both named after Japanese foods found in Hawaii, where the family lived for seven years.

"Even watching my cats indoors, you can tell they're predators," he said. "They're actively interested in things that move."

A cat is seen during the International Cat Show in Minsk, Belarus on Dec. 6, 2008.

A cat is seen during the International Cat Show in Minsk, Belarus on Dec. 6, 2008. (Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Despite being so lethal, a separate report from Lepczyk last year found there aren't many places in the world doing anything about roaming cats.

As an ecologist, Lepczyk keeps both his cats inside and recommends others do the same. It not only helps prolong the cat's life, he said, but it gives the animals a better fighting chance.

"It's going to be better for wildlife, but it's also going to be better for the cat," he said.

A cat-astrophe? Cats eat over 2,000 species worldwide, study finds

Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY
Updated Fri, December 15, 2023 

The simple housecat, as it turns out, will kill and eat just about any tasty-looking creature it comes across and is a threat to biodiversity when allowed to roam outdoors, a new study found.

They don't call those paws "murder mittens" in certain corners of the internet for nothing.

A study published this week in Nature Communications examined the global impact of free-ranging domestic cats' diets and found they eat more than 2,000 species of rodents, insects, birds and more, including at least 347 that are "of conservation concern."

Their proliferation around the world and disruption to ecosystems make them "amongst the most problematic invasive species in the world," the study authors write.

A new study found that cats will eat just about any animal they can get their hands – or, paws – on. They are known to eat over 2,000 species, including some that are endangered.

Why the housecat is 'problematic' to biodiversity

Cats were first domesticated over 9,000 years ago and spread by humans across the globe, the study authors write. They now inhabit every continent except Antarctica.

They are "opportunistic predators and obligate carnivores," meaning they will change their diet depending on what is available to them, and they require a diet of animal flesh. Cats also kill animals they don't consume afterward, unrelated to their diet, the study says.

Domesticated cats have disrupted many ecosystems, the study authors say. They spread novel diseases, including to humans; out-compete wild cats; prey on animals in their environments; and have caused many species to become extinct. Just the presence of cats alone in an environment can cause fear and affect native species' foraging and breeding behaviors, according to the authors.

MORE ABOUT CATS: Cats use nearly 300 unique facial expressions to communicate, new study shows

What's on your furry friend's menu when it goes out to eat?

In total, cats – unowned and owned with access to the outdoors – eat about 981 species of birds, 463 species of reptiles, 431 species of mammals, 119 species of insects and 57 species of amphibians, according to the study. The results of the study show an increase in the species that had been thought to be consumed by cats.

The most commonly identified animals in a cat's diet were the house mouse, European rabbit, black rat, house sparrow and brown rat. Cats also feast on carcasses that can be scavenged.

Useful though cats may be at deterring pests from our abodes, they are predators to several species that are near-threatened or threatened, including some that have endangered status or are extinct. More than 7% of birds, 4.9% of mammals and 2.7% of reptiles of conservation concern are on the cat's menu.

"We found records of cats consuming 11 species from Australia, Mexico, the United States of America, and New Zealand that have since been listed as extinct in the wild (EW) or extinct (EX)," the authors wrote.

The study also notes that known estimates are conservative, and the true number of species eaten by cats remains unknown.