Gorilla Decline
Ten years ago, about 17,000 Eastern Lowland Gorillas roamed the eastern Congo. But since 1994, their numbers have been slashed by more than 70 percent and fewer than 5000 gorillas remain. There is hope, however, as a new multimillion dollar investment looks to strengthen the protection of the gorilla's habitat and reverse the decline in their population. Conservation International is supporting The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGFI) to help the gorillas and other animals and plants found in their habitat.
Source: www.conservation.org
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Sunsets May Help to Guide Migratory Birds
A sunset may do more than refresh the soul. It could recalibrate the internal compasses of migrating songbirds, U.S. and German researchers reported.
The researchers, who attached radio transmitters to thrushes and then followed them by car at night, said their findings help explain how birds fly across the equator at night without getting lost.
The experiment, published in the journal Science, is one of the first to use free-flying birds instead of captive birds in a laboratory. Martin Wikelski of Princeton University in New Jersey and colleagues in the United States and Germany first caught several dozen thrushes and attached tiny radio transmitters to them.
Knowing that birds use magnetic fields to orient themselves, they put some birds in an artificial magnetic field to confuse them and then let them all go. The birds that had not been tricked flew north, as they usually do, but the birds exposed to the artificial field flew west, the researchers said. The next evening, all the birds were free to see the sun. Subsequently, all flew north again. "We suggest that birds orient with a magnetic compass calibrated daily from twilight cues," the researchers wrote.
Source: Reuters
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New Action Plan for Seabirds
Seabirds across the Southern Ocean are set to benefit from new conservation plans. New Zealand and the Falkland Islands have each adopted new National Plans of Action for Seabirds (NPOAs).
In the Falkland Islands the long-term survival of many seabirds (including the Black-browed Albatross, with 70% of the global breeding population) has been boosted by the Falklands Government's adoption of its National Plan of Action for Seabirds. The plan was drafted by Falklands Conservation (BirdLife in the Falklands) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (BirdLife in the UK), under the guidelines of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. The introduction of local mitigation measures to the longlining fleet has led to a significant reduction in the number of seabirds killed in recent years. The vast majority of seabird mortality in the Falkland Islands is now caused by factory trawlers that discharge offal. The adoption of a specific plan to address the problems caused by trawling makes a significant first in seabird conservation around the world.
In New Zealand, the BirdLife representative, Forest and Bird, has broadly welcomed the release of the New Zealand plan, which will apply to all seabirds affected by commercial and non-commercial fishing methods. However, the organisation has raised concerns that the plan's emphasis on voluntary mitigation methods is likely to mean that many thousands of albatrosses and petrels will still be needlessly killed each year by New Zealand fisheries. Currently at least 10,000 albatrosses and petrels are killed annually in New Zealand waters by trawlers and longliners, with a two-tier system appearing to be in place. Japanese tuna boats operating under strict regulations in New Zealand waters have reduced seabird by-catch from 4,000 birds per year to fewer than 20 individual birds. However, a New Zealand fishing boat recently caught 300 seabirds in a single month. These discrepancies are explained by the fact that the Japanese tuna boats have 100% observer coverage and strict requirements to follow, but New Zealand boats do not. Forest and Bird point out that New Zealand has pushed for regulations in a range of international fisheries (including the Antarctic). Yet there appears to be a double standard being proposed, with voluntary methods within New Zealand and strict regulations on the high seas. Forest and Bird will be monitoring the implementation of the NPOA and stress that an early review of the plan will be essential.
Source: www.birdlife.org
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Young Female Chimps Upstage Males
It would seem young female chimpanzees take their studies a little more seriously than their male classmates, a study in the journal Nature has shown. Females learn from their mothers how to gather termites much faster than males - who prefer to spend more of their time playing, US scientists say. Elizabeth Lonsdorf and colleagues conducted their research on wild chimps in Tanzania's Gombe National Park. They say the gender differences are similar to those seen in young humans.
Girls and boys pick up fine motor skills such as writing at different rates, and the team suggests its research could therefore indicate that sex-based learning differences may have an ancient origin. Educationalists trying to develop learning strategies for children could find the work instructive, the scientists believe.
In a four-year long field study, the team observed 14 young chimps and their mothers engaged in the practice of 'fishing' termites out of mounds with tools made from vegetation. The research found the females learned the skills earlier, spent more time at it and tended to catch more termites with each try.
The young males spent a lot of their time playing and swinging around - behaviours the team says may help them in typically male adult activities later in life, such as hunting and struggling for dominance.
"The availability of animal protein is limited for chimpanzees. They can fish for termites or hunt colobus monkeys," explained Dr Lonsdorf, who carried out the study with Lynn Eberly and Anne Pusey. "Mature males often hunt monkeys up in the trees, but females are almost always either pregnant or burdened with a clinging infant. This makes hunting difficult. But termites are a rich source of protein and fat. Females can fish for termites and watch their offspring at the same time. Adult females spend more time fishing for termites than males do. The young of both sexes seem to pursue activities related to their adult sex roles at a very young age."
Source: www.news.bbc.co.uk
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Greenland's ice cap under threat
Greenland's ice sheet could disappear within the next 1,000 years if global warming continues at its present rate, a report in Nature magazine suggests.
Jonathan Gregory and colleagues from the University of Reading, UK, say their studies forecast an 8 degrees Celcius increase in Greenland's temperature by 2350. They believe that if the ice cap melts, global average sea level will rise by about 7 metres. And even if global warming was halted the rise could be irreversible, they say.
The researchers estimated that Greenland was likely to pass a threshold of warming beyond which the ice sheet - second in size to Antarctica - could not be sustained unless much greater reductions were made in emissions of greenhouse gases. They found that over the next 350 years, global warming was likely to pass the critical threshold in 34 out of 35 model calculations.
If the ice sheet was removed, Greenland would be a lot warmer because the land surface would be at a lower altitude and reflect less sunlight. "Unlike the ice on the Arctic Ocean, much of which melts and reforms each year, the Greenland ice sheet might not re-grow even if the global climate were returned to pre-industrial conditions," says Dr Gregory.
A broad consensus of mainstream scientific opinion holds that human-produced greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), are driving an unnatural rise in global temperatures. Before industrialisation, the atmosphere contained 280 parts per million (ppm) of CO2. At present, it stands at 370 ppm.
The only international agreement on cutting greenhouse gases is the UN's Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrial countries to make a small cut in global emissions by a time frame of 2008-12. But the pact is in limbo. It still needs to be ratified by Russia to take effect and in any case has been abandoned by the United States, the world's biggest CO2 contributor.
Source: www.news.bbc.co.uk
Global Warming Information from vacationtechnician.com
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Posted by vacationtechnician at May 21, 2004 02:41 PM | TrackBack