Poorly regulated US wildlife trade threatens public health and ecosystems

October 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has suggested that careful planning, together with the use of feedstocks from perennial-dominated prairie, could minimize the adverse effects of expanding bioenergy use on wildlife. The study, described in the October issue of BioScience identifies diverse native prairie as holding promise for yielding bioenergy feedstocks while minimizing harm to wildlife.

September 6th, 2009 Wildlife officials capture cougar in Seattle parkSEATTLE — A cougar that prowled through Seattle for about a week and forced the closure of the city's largest park was captured early Sunday, wildlife officials said. The cougar was immobilized with a tranquilizer in Discovery Park at about 2:30 a.m., Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Darren Friedel said.

September 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - What do abrupt changes in ocean circulation and earth's climate, shifts in wildlife populations and ecosystems, global finance market and epileptic seizures have in common? All of them share generic early-warning signals that indicate a critical threshold of change, or tipping points dead ahead, says a new study. That tipping point may be as tiny as the alveoli in human lungs or as large as the global climate.

September 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Google has developed an algorithm for ranking web-pages, which can be used to determine which species are critical for sustaining ecosystems. The algorithm, known as "PageRank", can be applied to the study of food webs, the complex networks describing who eats whom in an ecosystem, according to Drs.

August 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has determined that global warming threatens the existence of tropical species, the ecosystem and its by-products. The research was done by herpetologist Laurie Vitt, curator of reptiles and George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma's Sam Noble Museum of Natural History.

July 31st, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, an international team of scientists has determined that efforts to rebuild many of the world's fisheries are worthwhile and starting to pay off in many places around the world, thanks to appropriate management. Their study puts into perspective recent reports predicting a total collapse of global fisheries within 40 years.

July 28th, 2009 Obama: Existing health system threatens MedicareWASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is telling participants in an online forum on health care that the current system and its skyrocketing costs are a threat to Medicare. Obama says the Medicare trust fund will be in the red and out of money in a decade unless Washington overhauls the system.

July 8th, 2009 Senate hearing focuses on threats to wildlifeWASHINGTON — From a mysterious fungus attacking bats in the Northeast to the emergence of Burmese pythons in Florida, native wildlife is facing new threats throughout the country. Protecting wildlife from new diseases and invasive species is a top challenge facing state and federal officials.

July 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has indicated that long-term declines of elephants, giraffe, impala and other animals in Kenya are occurring at the same rates within the country's national parks as outside of these protected areas. "This is the first time we've taken a good look at a national park system in one country, relative to all of the wildlife populations across the whole country, and we found that wildlife populations inside and outside of the parks are declining at much the same rate," said David Western, an adjunct professor of biology at UC San Diego, who headed the study.

June 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has demonstrated that a network of wildlife areas can be a crucial tool to help biodiversity survive future climate change. The research team, led by Durham University, including BirdLife International and the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK) looked at the effects of climate change on 815 bird species of conservation concern in sub-Saharan Africa and on the network of sites designated for them (termed Important Bird Areas).

May 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - There's some cheerful news for conservationists. Most polluted or damaged ecosystems can recover within a lifetime if societies commit to their clean-up or restoration, according to an analysis of 240 independent studies.

May 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An analysis of 240 independent studies by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies has revealed that most polluted or damaged ecosystems worldwide can recover within a lifetime if societies commit to their cleanup or restoration. The Yale researchers found that forest ecosystems recovered in 42 years on average, while ocean bottoms recovered in less than 10 years.

May 13th, 2009 Climate change threatens millions who live off seaMANADO, Indonesia — Around 100 million people risk losing their homes and livelihoods unless drastic steps are taken to protect Southeast Asia's coral reefs, which could be wiped out in coming decades because of climate change, a report said Wednesday. The Coral Triangle — which spans Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor — accounts for a third of the world's coral reefs and 35 percent of coral reef fish species.

March 20th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University and the University of East Anglia have suggested that the Internet could be used as an early warning system for potential ecological disasters. Ecosystem services such as water purification and food production are of fundamental importance for all planetary life.

January 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists taking a leaf out of the social sciences are trying to read signs from nature to know whether they presage potential collapse of ecosystems. The idea of using leading indicators in science is not new.