More Polar Bears Giving Birth on Land

Pregnant polar bears in Alaska, which spend most of their lives on sea ice, are increasingly giving birth on land, according to researchers who say global warming is probably to blame.

The study by three scientists for the U.S. Geological Survey suggests the state's bear population could be harmed if the climate continues to grow warmer. Though bears are powerful swimmers, at some point they might have to cross vast stretches of open water to reach habitat on shore suitable for building dens in which to give birth.

From 1985 to 1994, 62 percent of the female polar bears studied dug dens in snow on sea ice. From 1998 to 2004, just 37 percent made dens on ice. The rest dug snow dens on land, according to the study.

What has been happening to polar bears in recent decades?

Polar bears have long captured the attention of the general public but probably at no time in the past have they been more in the forefront of the public's imagination than today. Today's heightened interest in polar bears may be due in part to an enhanced understanding of the ecology of polar bears, their environment, and an increased interest in Arctic issues brought on by concerns for climate change.

Workers uncover carcasses of Hanford test animals

Hanford workers have removed 40,000 tons of carcasses, manure and other waste from burial trenches at the former experimental animal farms at Hanford.

That included a railroad tanker car packed with animal carcasses, then buried, said Mark Buckmaster, Washington Closure Hanford remediation manager, during a presentation to a Hanford Advisory Board committee last week.

Up to 1,000 animals at a time were kept at the animal farm near F Reactor along the banks of the Columbia River, Buckmaster said. They ranged from rodents to cats and dogs to farm animals, including cows, sheep, goats and pigs. The farm also had alligators, although no carcasses were found, Buckmaster said.

Animal experiments started at Hanford during World War II, when plutonium was produced for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Some were planned to learn more about the health effects of radiation to protect nuclear workers, and some were for military knowledge.

US to propose polar bear for endangered list

The Bush administration has decided to propose listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, putting the U S government on record as saying that global warming could drive one of the world's most recognizable animals out of existence.

The administration's proposal -- which was described by an Interior Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity -- stems from rising temperatures in the arctic that are shrinking the sea ice polar bears need for hunting. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the department will submit the proposal today for publication in the Federal Register, after which it will be subject to public comment for 90 days.

Rare White Dolphin Declared As Extinct

A rare, nearly blind white dolphin that survived for millions of years is effectively extinct, an international expedition declared Wednesday after ending a fruitless six-week search of its Yangtze River habitat.

The baiji would be the first large aquatic mammal driven to extinction since hunting and overfishing killed off the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s.

For the baiji, the culprit was a degraded habitat — busy ship traffic, which confounds the sonar the dolphin uses to find food, and overfishing and pollution in the Yangtze waters of eastern China, the expedition said.

"The baiji is functionally extinct. We might have missed one or two animals but it won't survive in the wild," said August Pfluger, a Swiss economist turned naturalist who helped put together the expedition. "We are all incredibly sad."

Indian leopards on parole, with tag and warning

Indian authorities plan to release 47 leopards into the wild with electromagnetic chips planted in their tails but will haul them back to captivity if they attack people, The Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday.

The leopards were caught in 2004 and 2005 after some of them strayed from a national park on the outskirts of Mumbai and killed people in the city and its suburbs, creating panic.

But the environment ministry ordered the western state of Maharashtra to release the leopards -- saying a year or more in captivity was too long -- and local officials say they plan to free the animals soon.

In Kansas, a Line Is Drawn Around a Prairie Dog Town

The Logan County commissioners want the prairie dogs dead. But two ranchers, Larry Haverfield and Gordon Barnhardt, and their allies in two environmental groups want the 5,500-acre colony on their property to flourish, for the good of the land and for the eventual delectation of black-footed ferrets. The ferrets, an endangered mammal, thrive on a diet of prairie dogs.

The ranchers’ defense of prairie dogs prompted bewilderment then anger in this county of about 3,100 people. Here in this red corner of a red state, where the sanctity of property rights is seldom questioned and the sanity of the government is questioned all the time, the prairie dog debate has turned everything upside down.

Some people are demanding enforcement of a century-old state law allowing the county to send exterminators onto the Haverfield and Barnhardt ranches — against the owners’ wishes but at their expense — to protect local property values.

Moose Expansion Expected in Adirondacks

Like wolves and cougars, moose were hunted out of New York more than a century ago. But the big herbivores are back, having wandered into New York's northern forests from Canada and New England over the past 30 years.

State conservation officials say the Adirondacks are on the verge of a moose boom, just like New Hampshire and Vermont, evidenced in part by a recent spate of collisions with cars. That doesn't mean you can just tromp to a likely spot to see Bullwinkle yet, though you may find a calling card underfoot.

Teeny Frog Saved From Extinction In Zoos

The Denver Zoo is part of an effort to save a disappearing frog species that has become Panama's national symbol of nature.

Scientists fear that sometime next year, the last wild Panamanian golden frogs will die. The species is being destroyed by a fungus that is also wiping out other amphibian species. But about two dozen zoos including the Denver Zoo have several hundred of the frogs in captivity.

The fungus was only the final blow for a species whose numbers have long been dwindling because of deforestation, overcollection and water pollution.

Chilean Sea Bass: Back in Stores But Still in Trouble

A trendy fish nearly loved to death by diners has received a limited green stamp of approval.

But conservationists warn that the Patagonian toothfish, known commercially as the Chilean sea bass, remains in serious trouble.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)—a London-based nonprofit that certifies fish from sustainable, monitored fisheries—has given its OK to Patagonian toothfish caught in one fishery.

Feds Collect Giant Rats in Florida

As the rising sun danced across Florida's coastal waters, government workers in shorts and T-shirts knelt in a grassy island field and plucked wriggling rats from traps laid the night before. These weren't just any rats. They were 3-pound, 35-inch-long African behemoths. They squirmed as the workers, wearing protective gloves, removed green radio collars that had been tracking the rodents' movements.

All 18 of the animals were carted away for research.

Conservation Group Seeks Protection From Effects of Global Warming

The Center for Biological Diversity, (Center), a non profit conservation organization, filed a formal petition today requesting that 12 species of penguins worldwide, including the well known Emperor Penguin, be added to the list of threatened and endangered species under the United States Endangered Species Act. Reasons cited are a number of threats including global warming.

Abnormally warm ocean temperatures along with diminished sea ice have wrecked havoc on penguin food availability in recent decades. Less food has led to population declines in penguin species ranging from the Southern Rockhopper and Humboldt penguins of the islands off South America, and the African Penguin in southern Africa, to the Emperor Penguin in Antarctica. The ocean conditions causing these declines have been linked by scientists to global warming and are projected to intensify in the coming decades.
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