Songbird sails off endangered species list
By Michael Doyle/E&E News
Photo by Tom Benson/flickr
The Kirtland's warbler has required protections for as long as there has been an Endangered Species Act, but that's about to change.
In what the Trump administration and some environmentalists are calling a regulatory and collaborative success story, the Fish and Wildlife Service is moving the notably loudmouthed songbird from the endangered species list.
"The Kirtland's warbler has responded well to active management over the past 50 years," FWS said. "The primary threats identified at listing and during ... development of the recovery plan have been managed, and commitments are in place to continue managing the threats."
FWS cited, in particular, the work done by Michigan state and federal agencies to boost breeding habitat and combat brood parasitism by an unscrupulous competitor species.
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New viruses found in wild, farmed salmon
By Erica Gies/Hakai
Photo by NOAA Fisheries/flickr
Researchers
have found three new-to-science viruses
in chinook and sockeye salmon in British Columbia. The discovery, led by Gideon Mordecai, a University of British Columbia molecular biologist who studies the ecology of viruses, is part of a larger investigation into whether viruses are contributing to the steep declines in wild British Columbia salmon populations over the past 30 years.
The researchers now aim to find out if these infectious agents are being transmitted from farmed to wild fish. Whether farmed fish sicken wild fish is a key concern of fishers; local First Nations, for whom salmon is a critical part of their livelihoods and cultures; and people who worry about the fate of the struggling, chinook-eating southern resident killer whales.
Of the three new viruses, one, an arenavirus, was found in farmed, hatchery, and wild chinook and sockeye salmon. Arenaviruses are known to primarily infect mammals, so the researchers were surprised to find one in salmon.
The discoveries contribute to a growing understanding of the threats facing British Columbia’s wild salmon.
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Potomac River: Clean Water Act success story
By Christopher A. Wood /The Washington Post
Photo by ehpien/flickr
The announcement that the Environmental Protection Agency was scrapping Obama-era rules designed to protect small streams and wetlands made me recall a misty morning this spring on the Potomac River above Georgetown. I brought a striped bass, locally known as a rockfish, to the wooden rowboat. My friend, Mike, said, “15 pounds, every bit of it.” A nice fish made better by the fact it was caught from and released into the Potomac River in the heart of Washington.
Later, over the phone, my dad laughed when I told him the story. “When I went to school in Washington in the 1960s, you wouldn’t go near the Potomac, much less catch fish from it, for fear of getting sick.”
The Potomac, as with other urban rivers in the 1960s, was little more than a way to convey trash and pollutants downstream. In 1969, another urban river, the Cuyahoga, burned. The height of the flames on Cleveland’s river reached five stories. Today, thanks to the
Clean Water Act
, more than 60 species of fish inhabit the cleaned-up Cuyahoga River.
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What apes can teach us about our hearts
By Gretchen Reynolds/The New York Times
Photo by Tim Cummins/flickr
No chimpanzees or gorillas are in training for a fall marathon — a reflection, perhaps, of the ways in which the hearts of apes and men look and function as they do, according to a major new study of the health and evolution of cardiac muscles.
The study, which involved scanning the hearts of untamed primates and a wide variety of men, indicates that hearts adapt in telling ways to the needs of their owners. The findings likewise suggest that not getting enough of the right kind of exercise could mean that our hearts start to look just a little bit less human, and could impact our long-term health.
In general, mammalian hearts are quite malleable. They change in response to the demands placed on them.
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Why recruiting new hunters is so important
By Natalie Krebs/Outdoor Life
CLfT photo
You probably rejoice when you spend an entire day afield without bumping into another hunter. Encountering strangers—especially when they’ve stumbled across your secret spot—spoils the solitude we seek in the outdoors.
So you’d be hard-pressed to find any sportsman or -woman who wants more competition in the woods. Yet, more hunters is precisely what we need right now.
Here’s why: Baby boomers make up our nation’s largest cohort of hunters, and they’ve already begun to age out of the sport. Within 15 years, most will stop buying licenses entirely. And when they do, our ranks could plunge by 30 percent—along with critical funding for wildlife management, advocacy for hunting, and a tradition that’s probably pretty important to you. In other words, the clock is ticking. And unless we act now, we might not recover from the fallout.
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“You might as well learn that a man who catches fish or shoots game has got to make it fit to eat before he sleeps. Otherwise it’s all a waste and a sin to take it if you can’t use it.”
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To read past McGraw Reports click
here.
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