A sand tiger shark swims over the USS Tarpon in Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. Tane Casserley / NOAA
By John R. Platt
Here at The Revelator, we love a good shark story.
The problem is, there aren't all that many good shark stories. According to recent research, sharks and their relatives represent one of the world's most imperiled groups of species. Of the more than 1,250 known species of sharks, skates, rays and chimeras — collectively known as chondrichthyan fishes — at least a quarter are threatened with extinction.
<p>That's just what we know so far. About half of all shark species have a conservation status of "data deficient," meaning we have no idea how well they're doing or whether they're at risk.</p><p>But that's why it's so important to tell stories about sharks. They're our lens into issues like conservation, ocean protection, overfishing, coastal development, wildlife trafficking and so much more. And as frequently maligned species — <em>Jaws</em>, anyone? — sharks also help us to understand our relationship with predators that may seem scary but don't really pose much of a threat.</p><p>Sharks also give us an opportunity to talk about <em>people</em> — the people living near them, the people harming them, the people who rely on them, and most importantly the experts working to understand and conserve them.</p><p>And honestly, sharks are just fascinating. They come in all manner of shapes and sizes; often boast amazing behaviors; serve important roles in their ecosystems; and have wide and varied reproductive strategies — some of which make them more vulnerable to exploitation. Oh, and most of them look pretty cool (although there are a few oddities in the bunch — we're talking about you, <a href="https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/sharks-rays/goblin-shark" target="_blank">goblin sharks</a>).</p>
<p>So let's keep talking about sharks — whether it's during Shark Week or the other 51 weeks of the year.</p><p>With that in mind, we've collected our best essays and articles about sharks and related conservation issues (and we'll add to this list as we go along). Check them out below:</p>
Speaking of Shark Week:
<p><a href="https://therevelator.org/film-fakery-shark-week-conservation/" target="_blank">Film Fakery: Does Shark Week Harm Conservation Efforts?</a></p>Big Questions:
<p><a href="https://therevelator.org/shark-conservation-success/" target="_blank">Are We Ready for Shark Conservation to Succeed?</a></p>Sharks and Fisheries:
<p><a href="https://therevelator.org/protect-sharks-overfishing/" target="_blank">How to Protect Sharks From Overfishing</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/florida-anglers-endangered-sharks/" target="_blank">Florida Anglers Are Targeting Endangered Sharks</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/recreational-fishing-environmental-impact/" target="_blank">Fishing for Fun? It Has a Bigger Environmental Impact Than We Thought</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/fins-protected-sharks-traded/" target="_blank">Fins from Protected Shark Species Still Heavily Traded</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/essential-unprotected-fish-habitats/" target="_blank">'Essential' But Unprotected: How the United States Fails Its Most Important Fish Habitats</a></p>Sharks and the Extinction Crisis:
<p><a href="https://therevelator.org/lost-shark/" target="_blank">Found But Lost: Newly Discovered Shark May Be Extinct</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/rhino-rays-cites/" target="_blank">A Chance to Save the 'Rhinos of the Sea'</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/one-million-extinctions/" target="_blank">What Losing 1 Million Species Means for the Planet — and Humanity</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/extinction-crisis-keep-feeling-overwhelmed/" target="_blank">The Extinction Crisis is Here. How do We Keep from Feeling Overwhelmed?</a></p>Broader Ocean and Conservation Issues:
<p><a href="https://therevelator.org/ocean-biodiversity-mpa/" target="_blank">The Top 10 Ocean Biodiversity Hotspots to Protect</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/protect-species-environmental-dna/" target="_blank">How Do You Protect a Species You Can't See?</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/global-ocean-treaty/" target="_blank">Here's Our Best Opportunity to Save the Oceans — and Ourselves</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/coral-reef-replanting/" target="_blank">Coral in Crisis: Can Replanting Efforts Halt Reefs' Death Spiral?</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/oceans-challenges/" target="_blank">What Are the Biggest Challenges for Saving the Oceans?</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/empowering-communities-save-ocean/" target="_blank">Empowering Communities to Save the Ocean</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/toxic-plastic-pollution-food-chain/" target="_blank">Something Fishy: Toxic Plastic Pollution Is Traveling Up the Food Chain</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/trump-offshore-oil-wildlife/" target="_blank">Trump's Offshore Oil Plan: Like Nothing the Country Has Ever Seen</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/john/" target="_blank">John R. Platt</a> <em>is the editor of <em>The Revelator</em>. An award-winning environmental journalist, his work has appeared in <em>Scientific American</em>, <em>Audubon</em>, <em>Motherboard</em>, and numerous other magazines and publications. His "Extinction Countdown" column has run continuously since 2004 and has covered news and science related to more than 1,000 endangered species. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. John lives on the outskirts of Portland, Ore., where he finds himself surrounded by animals and cartoonists.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/sharks-imperiled/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The Wildlife from Space project uses satellite technology to identify, count and monitor species such as emperor penguins in Antarctica. British Antarctic Survey / YouTube
New satellite images have revealed 11 new throngs of emperor penguin colonies, lifting the number of known emperor penguin colonies by 20 percent and their total population by 5 to 10 percent, according to The Guardian.
<p>"The [new colonies] are an exciting discovery," said Peter Fretwell, at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who led the research, according to The Guardian. "Whilst this is good news, the colonies are small and so only take the overall population count up to just over half a million penguins."</p><p>While that may sound like great news for penguins, the truth is these penguins are just as threatened as the rest of their flightless feathered friends, according to <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/satellite-images-reveal-new-penguin-colonies-in-melting-1844609508" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</p><p>The 11 new colonies bring the total number up to 61 colonies spread across the continent. Now, the newly discovered birds will act as "canaries in the coalmine" when it comes to studying the impact of global warming, experts have said, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/world/penguins-antarctica-satellite-scn-scli-intl/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p>
<p>The study, which used satellite mapping technology, will "provide an important benchmark for monitoring the impact of environmental change on the population of this iconic bird," researchers said, according to CNN.</p><p>The study was published in <em><a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20563485/0/0" target="_blank">Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation</a></em> on Wednesday. The findings help shed light on just how threatened the emperor penguins really are. While the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a> is rapidly altering the surface of Earth, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica">Antarctica</a> is running ahead of most of the world. It is warming three times faster than the most of the planet. With all that warmth comes the loss of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice">sea ice</a>, which is devastating to emperor penguins since they breed on the ice and need it to be stable, as Gizmodo reported.</p><p>"Emperor penguins are vulnerable to climate change, particularly the breakup of the sea ice on which they breed," said study author Peter Fretwell, a researcher with the British Antarctic Survey, in an email to Gizmodo. "Finding more penguins and studying their movements and distribution will be important if we are to understand their struggle to survive in the warming Antarctic environment."</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53549299" target="_blank">BBC</a> noted, the emperors' whole life cycle is centered on the availability of sea ice, and if this is diminished in the decades ahead, as climate models project, then the animals' numbers will suffer. Some models predict that penguin colonies will drop by 90 percent, according to The Guardian.</p><p>The discoveries were made by spotting the distinctive red-brown guano patches the birds leave on the ice, according to The Guardian. The findings were made possible by higher-resolution images from a new satellite, as previous scans were unable to pick up smaller colonies.</p><p>The European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellite was launched in June 2015 and has a resolution of 10 meters. This enabled a search for the smaller penguin colonies. Emperor penguins were expected to be present at fairly regular intervals around the coast of Antarctica, so the search was targeted in areas where none were known. "In every gap where we thought there might be a colony, we found one," said Fretwell, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>The European Space Agency makes these images available online, so the team was able to analyze images from 2016, 2018 and 2019. By searching the images for "small areas of brown pixels," or clumps of penguin guano, and targeting their searches by looking at areas near known colonies and breeding habitat, the researchers were able to find these new communities, according to Gizmodo.</p><p>The next step is to direct satellites with very high, 30cm-resolution cameras over the colonies to enable the penguins to be counted. "It is dark at the moment in Antarctica, so we can't count them yet," said Fretwell, as The Guardian reported. "The sun will come up either later this month or next month in most of these locations, and then we will start."</p>
From Your Site Articles
- This Penguin Colony Has Fallen by 77% on Antarctic Islands ... ›
- Antarctica's Ice Is Melting 5 Times Faster Than in the 90s - EcoWatch ›
- Green Snow Is Spreading in Antarctica Due to the Climate Crisis ... ›
- Antarctic Penguin Poop Emits Laughing Gas - EcoWatch ›
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Whooping cranes fly in Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Decatur, Alabama. There were only 48 whooping cranes in the country when the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, and thanks to the law's protections there are now over 600. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
By Eoin Higgins
Environmental groups on Friday condemned the announcement of a new rule proposed by President Donald Trump that would further weaken the Endangered Species Act by making it easier to destroy habitats vulnerable species rely on for survival.
<p>"President Trump is back for another whack at another key environmental law," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/07/31/president-trump-again-takes-aim-endangered-species-act" target="_blank">said</a> Oceana senior federal policy director Lara Levison.</p><p>At issue is a planned rule change to the Endangered Species Act, or ESA, from the Department of Fish and Wildlife that would redefine "habitat" as "areas with existing attributes that have the capacity to support individuals of the species," precluding the restoration and repair of historical habitats that could, with time, support endangered species. </p>
<p>"The Trump administration won't be satisfied until it removes all protections for the natural world, including clean air and water, land, and now even habitat for our most vulnerable wildlife," Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/07/31/trump-administration-proposes-new-limits-protecting-endangered-species-habitat" target="_blank">said</a> in a statement.</p><p>As the Center for Biological Diversity explained:</p><blockquote>The definition stems from a 2018 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that said the Service needed to define the term habitat in relation to the highly endangered dusky gopher frog. The frog survives in one ephemeral pond in Mississippi. Recognizing that to secure the frog would require recovering it in additional areas, the Service designated an area in Louisiana that had the ephemeral ponds the frog requires. However, this area would need forest restoration to provide high-quality habitat.<br> <br>Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, the landowner, and Pacific Legal Foundation, a private-property advocacy group, challenged the designation, resulting in today's definition and the frog losing habitat protection in Louisiana.<br></blockquote><p>"This will have real life-and-death consequences for some of our nation's most vulnerable species," said Greenwald.</p><p>Oceana's Levison concurred with Greenwald's bleak assessment.</p><p>"The president's newly proposed rules will make it even harder to save species from extinction," she said. "The ESA protects threatened and endangered species like sea turtles and the North Atlantic right whale, as well as the habitats they depend on, but the draft rule released today reduces these protections."</p><p>Cathy Liss, president of the Animal Welfare Institute, called on the president and the administration to do the right thing for the planet by saving "an effective and popular law that serves as the last line of defense for rare species facing extinction." </p><p>"At a time of unprecedented wildlife extinction and habitat destruction, we should be working to strengthen — not weaken — the Endangered Species Act," said Liss.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/01/back-another-whack-trump-administration-rule-proposal-would-further-undermine" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>. </em><em></em></p>
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Porcupines Face a Poaching Crisis — and It’s All Because of What’s in Their Stomachs
01 August
Animals
A Malayan porcupine photographed at Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand. Jason Thompson / CC BY 2.0
By John R. Platt
A porcupine's diet is wide, varied, and a little hard to digest. A lifetime of grasses, herbs, bark and other vegetation can leave little bits of indigestible matter behind in a porcupine's digestive tract, where they occasionally congeal into a hard ball called a bezoar.
<p>That sounds uncomfortable, but a porcupine's health probably doesn't suffer due to the presence of this undigested mass in its stomach or intestines — that is, not until humans come along.</p><p>For centuries people have valued these rare "stones" or "dates," as they're sometimes called, for their purported healing abilities. Bezoars have been used to "treat" everything from fevers to diabetes and even cancer.</p>
<p>Bezoar use even creeps into popular fiction: the stones are an ingredient for protective spells in the <em>Harry Potter</em> universe.</p><p>The medicinal claims are equally fiction: there doesn't appear to be any veracity to bezoar use to treat illnesses. Yet despite the lack of evidence, the trade in bezoars has persisted. Not only that, it appears to be increasing.</p><p>A study published recently in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989420307459?dgcid=raven_sd_aip_email" target="_blank"><em>Global Ecology and Conservation</em></a> tracked, for the first time, the online trade in old-world porcupines (those from the family <em>Hystricidae</em> in Asia and Africa). The researchers examined e-commerce sites in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for four months in 2019, where they found active for-sale listings for 443 individual bezoars and a large variety of powdered products. Based on the weight of the powders, and the assumption that they might have contained other ingredients, the researchers estimate this translated to at least 680 and as many as 1,300 bezoars. (The researcher ignored "out of stock" listings and more dubious sites, such as one that claimed to have 2,000 tons of product on hand.)</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyNzM0NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDE2MjE1N30.IEpEpforer7WNqqOdzQzJevwCQfg3yVaPLxoL00Rom4/img.jpg?width=980" id="4ead9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2a6f39c01025f8a63700f9917460dacc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/porcupines-bezoars/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>A bezoar and typical medical claims, posted to Instagram. Screen grab July 24, 2020.
<p>Previous research has suggested that bezoars only grow in an incidentally small portion of the porcupine population, so the total number of animals killed to accumulate that quantity for sale could conceivably have been in the tens of thousands.</p><p>And since the study didn't look at the e-commerce sites every day, it probably uncovered only a portion of the total trade.</p><p>This paper calls for more study about this issue and additional conservation actions to protect porcupines. Currently the various species enjoy some national-level protection but precious little on the international level, because they're still perceived as relatively common. In fact, most old-world porcupine species currently appear on the IUCN Red List as <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/search?query=porpupine&searchType=species" target="_blank">either "least concern" or "data deficient."</a> Only the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/10753/22231557" target="_blank">Philippine porcupine</a> (<em>Hystrix pumila</em>) is listed as "vulnerable to extinction." None are currently protected by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species.</p><p>Should that change? While the authors acknowledge the limitations caused by their study's short time frame and their inability to examine and verify the nature of the bezoars (some of which could have come from other animals or been counterfeits), they still uncovered an alarming level of trade. The authors warn that "current trade levels are likely unsustainable, and we predict that porcupine species may become threatened in the future should current trade levels continue."</p><p>And while some porcupines are farmed, this study indicates pressure on wild porcupines, which also face threats from habitat destruction and the bushmeat trade, as well as persecution as agricultural pests. It suggests a need to protect certain populations which fetch higher prices due to their purported purity. The study quotes one popular website: <em>"The most valuable for the porcupine bezoars are procured from … the rainforest of Indonesia or Borneo. The porcupines here eat unpolluted herbs that have high medicinal value causing the bezoars … to be of the rarest and highest value. The price is very high and has collection, medicinal and stockpiling value."</em></p><p>In many ways this isn't surprising. The bezoar trade has been around for centuries, and it isn't restricted to southern Asia. The paper notes that Europeans in the 16th to 19th centuries, who sometimes wore the stones as jewelry, valued porcupine bezoars so much they priced each one "as high as forty times its own weight in gold."</p><p>Bezoars today don't fetch quite that amount, but the study still found them selling for around $151 a gram — two and a half times the current price of gold — all for a useless clump of congealed, inedible food.</p><p>Too bad we don't value a living porcupine half that much.</p><p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/john/" target="_blank">John R. Platt</a> is the editor of The Revelator. An award-winning environmental journalist, his work has appeared in Scientific American, Audubon, Motherboard</em><em style="">, and numerous other magazines and publications. His "Extinction Countdown" column has run continuously since 2004 and has covered news and science related to more than 1,000 endangered species. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. John lives on the outskirts of Portland, Ore., where he finds himself surrounded by animals and cartoonists.</em></p>
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There are hundreds of species of sharks in the world, and they have been around since before the dinosaurs. Albert kok / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 3.0
Every day, sharks suffer from different threats. Up to 100 million sharks disappear every year, due to destructive fishing by humans and the impact of climate breakdown. One-third of the world's known shark species have been listed as "threatened" species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
<p>We need to talk about them, because the ocean desperately needs sharks! After 400 million years of evolution, sharks are incredible creatures—master hunters with incredible precision. Sitting at the top of the food chain, they're central to maintaining the balance of marine ecosystems.</p><p>There are hundreds of species of sharks in the world, and they have been around since before the dinosaurs. Despite their fearsome Hollywood reputation, they are some of the most amazing animals on the planet.</p><p>1. Many sharks lay eggs, but some give birth to live young, just like we do. Shark pregnancies can last from a few months to well over a couple of years. That's longer than whales or elephants!</p><p><br></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDU5Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMDQ3MDc0MH0.cADsDutCP_Np2fztvpCMIcZl9BrlLWVametRvrCVaVE/img.jpg?width=980" id="1694d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7976b712a17115fa12373c79dda3da4b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
This whale shark smiles for the camera in the warm water off the coast of the Philippines. Greenpeace
<p>2. Sharks come in all shapes and sizes, from the tiny lantern sharks, which are about the size of your hand, to giant whale sharks, which are about the same size as a bus.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDU5My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTI0MDc2M30.5HG2OtaWn7rzG-yOCCi1uudu1ZtsJN3WVAa862Y-Czw/img.jpg?width=980" id="90d57" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="19a48d869f278de604853069b22ac627" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A former fisherman, now a whale shark guide, hand feeds a whale shark as a tourist takes an underwater photo, Tan-awan, Oslob Cebu. Greenpeace
<p>3. Greenland sharks, which live in cold polar waters, hold the record as the oldest known vertebrate animals on the planet. Since they are estimated to live as long as 500 years, there could be some alive today that were born in the Middle Ages. For reference, Leonardo Da Vinci painted the <em>Mona Lisa</em> 500 years ago!</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDYwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTAyNzIyM30.joSQ45GWbPmjbQz6HORGAc7lqCU5yhQQ7Ph9yJw0bAw/img.jpg?width=980" id="3dfaa" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4a167fd460fb02965e4b584e16bd381e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
An oceanic whitetip shark in Egypt. Greenpeace
<p>4. Mako sharks hold the record for being the most athletic sharks, reaching swimming speeds of over 40 miles per hour! They are also known to have jumped as much as 30 feet out of the water.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDU5Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTMxMTgxMn0.XOtp2RxmO3ocWdYrrS9aFXWERPqaEIYaHXCR-RX7bUA/img.jpg?width=980" id="1e7e1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4d271852e180662116cffa34baac9dc6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A whale shark photographed from above in Cenderawasih Bay National Park, Indonesia. Greenpeace
<p>5. The world's biggest sharks also have the widest mouths and eat only tiny ocean plankton, just like the largest whales.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDU5OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDUzODY3N30.1PhPwfNoxgOVScTrLd7j74Z7Xltx4o4LcdORF1pLECg/img.jpg?width=980" id="8ef53" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="94b49ddbeb7942a6fdfb7dafc4e5656b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A whale shark in the Philippines. Greenpeace
<p>6. Carpet sharks live on the ocean floor and have elaborate patterns to blend in with perfect camouflage. The Tasseled Wobbegong shark takes this to the extreme, with a fringe of feathery 'tassels' around its body.</p><video controls id="47fac" width="100%" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1b871017fa92559349dea2a0f82b9e3b" expand="1" feedbacks="true" mime_type="video/mp4" shortcode_id="1596802627015" url="https://roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/runner%2F19031-whale-vid.mp4" videoControls="true"> <source src="https://roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/runner%2F19031-whale-vid.mp4" type="video/mp4"> Your browser does not support the video tag. </video><p>7. Epaulette sharks have developed a cunning ability to hold their breath and walk over rocks and land using their fins and tail. This lets them check out the seafood buffet in neighboring rock pools at low tide.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDYwNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwODQ5OTcxOX0.2EAryAcdpiL6LFqO4DfJ36hzjr5mO1o04-mqyYmyQ-M/img.jpg?width=980" id="3e376" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6687e03c7d218576a4717d9e7a5b1164" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Lemon shark and other fish underwater at Tuamotus, French Polynesian. Greenpeace
<p>8. Hammerhead sharks' elongated heads not only give them super-sense when it comes to electromagnetic detection, but they also have almost 360-degree surround vision.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDYwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MTg3OTE0NH0.epJrafWy-FvIbNkUV9inwp0cdtXEwaw9Hg5Z9wyLe68/img.jpg?width=980" id="f28f3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1b4e75f4c1d9e2d3c30096e269188f3f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A Blue Shark (Prionace glauca) near the Azores. Greenpeace
<p>9. When sharks are turned upside down, they go into a natural suspended state called tonic immobility.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDYwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDg4NzcwNH0.aZeWi6Y4c26xzdmZnp4iut-H04EjlT5dY8EzKD95nl4/img.jpg?width=980" id="8f836" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7082c58afd2044cb5b9c74a3686a948a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A shark is seen in the Republic of Palau. Greenpeace
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">10. It's dark in the deep sea, so tiny lantern sharks have developed their own way to glow in the dark. It's not yet known if this is to find food, find each other, or help avoid being eaten!</span><br></p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MDYwNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMzA5MDU1MX0.Z0515YQ-ahMtFOXMkbv9l7uGuHMKL-MH5gC_eUBvoho/img.jpg?width=980" id="d857c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="178223bd3bc63966fd6a447f01532340" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/10-little-known-shark-facts/" target="_blank">Greenpeace</a>.</em></p>Grey Reef Sharks in Tahiti. Greenpeace
<p>In June 2019, the Greenpeace ship Esperanza went to the North Atlantic to confront the overfishing of sharks. At the same time, Greenpeace International issued a report, <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/publication/22700/sharks-under-attack/" target="_blank">Sharks Under Attack: Overfished and under-protected</a>. It proposed a solution: secure a strong Global Ocean Treaty at the UN.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Bees are responsible for pollinating key crops like apples, and their decline now threatens crop yields. Pikist
Without bees, future generations may not be able to identify with adages like, 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away.'
Crop yields for key crops like apples, cherries and blueberries are down across the U.S. because of a lack of bees in agricultural areas, a Rutgers University-led study published Wednesday in The Royal Society found. This could have "serious ramifications" for global food security, reported The Guardian.
<p>The scientists wanted to understand the degree to which insect pollination, or lack thereof, actually limits current crop production. Surveying 131 locations across major crop-producing areas of the U.S., they found that five out of seven crops showed evidence of "pollinator limitation" and that yields could be boosted with full pollination, the study said. </p>
<p>"The crops that got more bees got significantly more crop production," said Rachael Winfree, an ecologist and pollination expert and the senior author of the paper, reported <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "I was surprised, I didn't expect they would be limited to this extent."</p><p>The <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.0922" target="_blank">research</a> further noted that pollinator declines could "translate directly" to decreased production of most of the crops studied and that wild bees "contribute substantially" to the pollination of most studied crops.</p><p>Declines in both managed honeybees and wild bees raise serious concerns about global food security, the study said, because most of the world's crops rely on pollinators.</p><p>Bees and other pollinators like bats and birds underpin the global food system, but their <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-lockdowns-bees-2646042322.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" target="_self">populations are dwindling due to human activity including settlement building, pesticide use, monoculture farming and climate change</a>. This is part of what many are calling the "<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/insect-apocalypse-2634239696.html" target="_self">insect apocalypse,</a>" a precipitous decline in insects across the globe.</p><p>Wild bees, in particular, suffer from loss of flowering habitat, toxic pesticide use, and climate change, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported, and managed honeybees have fallen to disease. Overall, three-quarters of the world's food crops are dependent up pollinators and could falter due to lack of bees, the news report added.</p><p>According to the <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/384726/icode/" target="_blank">United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization</a>, crop production has increasingly become dependent upon insects and other pollinators over the past 50 years by 300%, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported. At the same time, farming has become more intensive to produce enough volume to feed a growing global population, the news report said, by flattening wildflower meadows, spraying insecticides and using monoculture crops ‒ all tactics which damage bee populations.</p><p>"Pollination shortfalls" could cause certain fruits and vegetables to become rarer and more expensive, The Guardian reported. This could trigger nutritional deficits in diets as fresh foods are replaced by rice, wheat and corn, which are pollinated by wind rather than insects.</p>
<p><br></p><p>The <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.0922" target="_blank">study</a> estimated that the five limited crops are valued at over $1.5 billion annually, and decreased yields or production seriously undercut that. They also noted that the value of all pollinator-dependent crops is much higher. A 2019 <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-biodiversity-loss-hurts-humans-as-much-as-climate-change/a-48579014" target="_blank">UN-backed assessment</a> estimated that pollinator loss could threaten $235-577 billion in annual crop output globally.</p><p>The study suggested adopting better conservation or augmentation methods for wild bees, such as enhancing wildflowers, using managed pollinators other than honey bees to boost crop yields and investing in honey bee colonies, reported <a href="https://www.futurity.org/bees-crop-yields-pollinators-2412322-2/" target="_blank">Futurity</a>. The paper also recommended farmers review how much pollination might be needed to boost crop yields and assess whether pesticide and fertilizer levels used remains appropriate, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>"The trends we are seeing now are setting us up for food security problems," Winfree told The Guardian. "We aren't yet in a complete crisis now but the trends aren't going in the right direction. Our study shows this isn't a problem for 10 or 20 years from now – it's happening right now."</p>
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A tiger in Kanha National Park, India. Ola Jennersten / WWF-Sweden
By Stuart Chapman
The goal set 10 years ago to double the number of wild tigers by 2022 remains one of the most ambitious conservation goals ever for a single species. Currently home to the vast majority of the world's remaining tigers, well-resourced protected areas are a cornerstone of this goal. Tigers are a conservation-dependent species and the persistence of tigers relies on well-funded and well-protected conservation areas.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Investing in 'tiger protected areas' helps protect globally-important ecosystems including some of Asia's last wilderness. These areas contain a wealth of critically important goods and ecosystem services that tens of millions of people rely on, from mitigating climate change and regulating freshwater to reducing the impact of natural disasters and improving the health of local people.</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/list/covid-19/" target="_blank">COVID-19 has severely impacted so many people, communities and countries</a> around the world, it also threatens to undermine the ability of protected areas to conserve tigers, due to budget cuts and a changing role for the rangers who are at the forefront of managing protected areas.</p><p>Led by WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, a recent survey of 77 staff across more than 40 protected areas in tiger range countries highlights the problems currently facing tiger protected areas.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyMTE4OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODk1OTgxNn0.xw9eA71uZCaBZCCwLTm-gxUTIM1I1Y55eIa0X2QG5YI/img.jpg?width=980" id="c89ae" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="197cb2faf86a715e90f8160dd7f9cd69" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A Bengal tiger in the Khata Forest, which 10 years ago was a degraded patch of land. This image was captured by a camera trap between November 2019 and March 2020 by WWF-Nepal.
<h3>Tiger Conservation Budgets Are Being Cut</h3><p>Almost half of respondents in the survey indicated that their budget for managing protected areas had already been reduced, compared to pre-COVID levels. Most concerning is that three-quarters of respondents were pessimistic about future budget allocation. It comes as no surprise then that 62% were pessimistic about their ability to manage the protected area due to the impacts of the pandemic.</p><p>These findings are compounded by the fact that budgets for protected areas are already greatly uneven across tiger range countries. India commits a combined $111 million from national and state budgets for the management of the nation's 50 tiger reserves, which support roughly three-quarters of the world's population and provide billions of dollars of annual ecosystem services. In other tiger range countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, the government budgets for protected area management and tiger conservation are orders of magnitude less. These are the countries which are struggling, even prior to COVID, to conserve and recover their tigers.</p><p>Rangers in most tiger range countries are considered to provide essential services and are thus exempt from lockdown rules. However, as countries grapple to cope with the COVID-19 outbreak and its impact on infrastructure and economies, the ability of rangers to effectively work is being compromised by additional responsibilities, salary cuts and disruption of essential supplies and equipment.</p>
<p>More than half of respondents from protected areas outside Nepal indicated they have been asked to take on wider duties since the outbreak of COVID-19, including border control and staffing community health checkpoints. Rangers in 23% of protected areas also reported taking salary cuts.</p><p>Key supplies, equipment, and maintenance has been disrupted in almost 60% of protected areas, while increased constraints in filing legal cases against offenders were reported by 40% of respondents. Where they had been occurring previously, community engagement activities have essentially stopped around the surveyed protected areas.</p><p>All of these factors mean that the work of rangers, critical guardians of protected areas, is becoming more difficult.</p>
<p>Investing in tiger protected areas is an investment in ecosystems that millions of people depend on. But this is not the only case for investing in protected areas and the people who manage them.</p><p>The COVID-19 crisis demonstrates that systemic changes must be made to address the environmental drivers of pandemics. We must curb the high-risk trade and consumption of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a>, and halt deforestation and land conversion — and to do that, we need protected areas; they are an essential buffer between zoonotic disease pools and human populations.</p><p>That's why we urge governments to ensure funding levels remain or are increased in protected areas across Asia.</p>
<p><em>Stuart Chapman leads WWF's <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/get_involved/volunteer/volunteer_stories/tigers_alive_initiative/" target="_blank">Tigers Alive Initiative</a>.</em><br/></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/on-world-tiger-day-lets-recommit-to-the-goal-of-doubling-wild-tiger-populations-by-2022-commentary/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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More than 260 Chinese fishing boats are just outside the protected waters of the Galapagos Islands. Diego Delso / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 4.0
Ecuador authorities are keeping tabs on a fleet of roughly 260 fishing boats near the Galapagos Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Ecuadorian boats are patrolling to try to stop the fishing boats from entering the area, according to Reuters.
<p>The ships are just outside the perimeter of the 188-mile-wide economic zone. "This fleet's size and aggressiveness against marine species is a big threat to the balance of species in the Galápagos," Yolanda Kakabadse, former environment minister told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/chinese-fishing-vessels-galapagos-islands" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>Chinese vessels travel to the region each year in search of marine species, including endangered hammerhead sharks.</p><p>"Unchecked Chinese fishing just on the edge of the protected zone is ruining Ecuador's efforts to protect marine life in the Galápagos," Roque Sevilla told The Guardian.</p>
<p>Sevilla, former mayor of Ecuador's capital, Quito, was tasked with designing a "protection strategy" for the islands, which lie 563 miles west of the South American mainland. He said the first step would be diplomatic efforts requesting the withdrawal of the Chinese fishing fleet.</p><p>Past Chinese fleets have violated international boundaries to capture marine life. In 2017, a Chinese vessel was caught in the marine reserve with 300 metric tons of wildlife, mostly consisting of sharks, according to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53562439" target="_blank">BBC</a>.</p><p>"We are on alert, [conducting] surveillance, patrolling to avoid an incident such as what happened in 2017," Ecuadorean Defense Minister Oswaldo Jarrin told reporters, the BBC reported.</p>
<p><br>So far, the Chinese fishing boats have stayed in international waters, Reuters reported.<br></p><p>In a series of <a href="https://twitter.com/Lenin/status/1287147353951162368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1287147353951162368%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.sky.com%2Fstory%2Fgalapagos-islands-protection-strategy-set-up-after-hundreds-of-chinese-fishing-vessels-spotted-nearby-12037768" target="_blank">tweets</a>, Ecuador's president, Lenin Moreno, used #SOSGalapagos to draw attention to the boats surrounding the protected islands. He described the islands as "one of the richest fishing areas and a hotbed of life for the entire planet," SkyNews reported.</p><p>BBC reported that Moreno plans to hold consultations with Colombia, Peru, Chile, Panama and Costa Rica in order to confront the threat.</p><p>Kakabadse told The Guardian that Ecuador will also try extending the economic zone to a 350-mile circumference around the islands in order to connect with the mainland's economic zone, effectively closing off the international water corridor where the Chinese fleet is currently located.</p>
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Tahlequah, the southern resident killer whale who carried her dead calf for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles, is pregnant again. CBC News: The National / YouTube
Tahlequah, the southern resident killer whale who broke hearts around the world when she carried her dead calf for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles, is pregnant again.
<p>Tahlequah's grueling journey called attention to the plight of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered</a> orcas who roam the waters between Washington state and British Columbia. The animals are threatened by boat traffic, pollution and the decline in their food staple chinook <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a>.</p><p>"There are stressed whales out there, critically stressed," Holly Fearnbach, marine mammal research director for the nonprofit <a href="https://www.sealifer3.org/" target="_blank">SR3</a>, told <a href="https://apnews.com/7df464414f95c4ac58cb9940e87e9498" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a>.</p><p>Fearnbach discovered Tahlequah, or J-35's, pregnancy while recording drone images of the southern resident killer whales with <a href="https://sea-inc.net/about/" target="_blank">Southall Environmental Associates</a> senior scientist John Durban, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/tahlequah-the-orca-who-carried-her-dead-calf-for-17-days-is-pregnant-again/" target="_blank">The Seattle Times reported</a>.</p>
<p>The purpose of the drone photographs was to track the orcas' overall condition and nutrition over time in a non-invasive manner, <a href="https://www.sealifer3.org/news/pregnant-whales-identified-among-the-southern-resident-killer-whales" target="_blank">SR3 explained</a>. (The drone flies more than 100 feet above the whales, according to The Seattle Times.) But comparing the photographs revealed several pregnancies in J, K and L pods.</p><p>Orca pregnancies are common, but successful births are far less so. Two thirds of them are typically lost, <a href="https://www.washington.edu/research/research-centers/center-for-conservation-biology/" target="_blank">Center for Conservation Biology</a> at the University of Washington researcher Sam Wasser has found. This is mostly due to poor nutrition linked to a decline in salmon.</p><p>When Tahlequah gave birth two years ago, it was the first birth for southern residents in three years. Since then, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/southern-resident-orca-born-2638660853.html" target="_self">two other calves</a> have been born to the orcas, and both are still alive. However, the population as a whole is down to just 73 whales, according to a <a href="https://www.whaleresearch.com/orca-population" target="_blank">Center for Whale Research population census</a>.</p><p>"With such a small population ... every successful birth is hugely important for recovery," SR3 wrote.</p>
<p>Fearnbach and Durban told The Seattle Times that boaters could help the pregnant whales by giving them space and quiet to feed.</p><p>This is important for two reasons. First, orcas tend to return to the same hunting grounds, but many of their traditional spots are seeing a lot of traffic from boats, fishermen and commercial ships.</p><p>"Just like human [fishermen] that don't just go drop a hook in the ocean," Durban told The Seattle Times. "They have their favorite places. They are amazing societies that pass culture down from generation to generation. They are creatures of habit."</p><p>Second, whales hunt using sound, which is why boat noises are such a big threat.</p><p>"[W]e hope folks on the water can give the Southern Residents plenty of space to forage at this important time," SR3 wrote.</p><p>The pregnant whales aren't the only ones in need of support right now. Fearnbach told The Associated Press that several juvenile whales appeared skinny.</p>
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Pixabay
By John R. Platt
Raging, guttural vocals. Pounding snare drums. Blazing-fast guitar riffs.
<p>For Swedish death-metal musician Peter Hauschulz, these are the sounds and emotions of the extinction crisis.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/extinction-eco-slam/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em><em></em></p>
<p>Hauschulz's new solo grindcore project, Extinction, has just released an eight-track EP called "<a href="https://extinctionevent.bandcamp.com/album/smoldering-enfoulment" target="_blank">Smoldering Enfoulment</a>." The "eco-slam" songs tell the tales of recently extinct (or nearly extinct) species, such as the cryptic tree-hunter and the Miss Waldron's red colobus.</p><p>Most of the songs, Hauschulz says, were inspired by <a href="https://therevelator.org/extinction-species-lost-2019/" target="_blank">articles published here at <em>The Revelator</em></a>.</p><p>The album was released July 21 on Bandcamp and is now available for download, with proceeds supporting several environmental organizations and social-justice causes. Physical copies are being distributed on old-school audio cassette — recorded over tapes found in thrift stores.</p><p>That recycling approach is echoed in the band T-shirts and other merch — and even in the music itself. The album was mostly recorded in an aluminum storage space about 30 feet away from a local recycling dump. Hauschulz played all the instruments and sang the main vocals, then mixed in guest vocals from performers based in Poland, the Czech Republic and Portland, Oregon.</p><p>We spoke with Hauschulz about Extinction (and extinction), and you can preview several songs below:</p>
First up, what’s an “eco-slam”? And why death metal for such an already dark topic?
<p>I've always been fascinated with the juxtaposition of extremes in death metal, which often takes lyrical concepts to an absurd degree of foreboding exaggeration, while the music itself is equally eager to achieve a kind of rhythmically visceral and disturbing impact. There's a sub-genre of death metal called "slam," which is often some of the most ridiculous and lowbrow of the style and is an excellent opportunity to combine Neanderthal-esque delivery with relevant factual concepts and content. The idea is to subvert the extreme metal expectation that the topics must necessarily be comically grotesque and therefore easy to brush off as gory escapism, while also adhering to the underlying spirit of death metal in plainly confronting the horrors of reality.</p><iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2866059127/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="http://extinctionevent.bandcamp.com/album/smoldering-enfoulment">Smoldering Enfoulment by Extinction</a></iframe>
What were the origins of this project?
<p>The idea for the project first took hold after I had read a <em>National Geographic</em> article sometime shortly after New Year in 2019. It was a small, touching story about how a tree snail (George) had been declared extinct just a few days earlier. Something about it just struck an unexpected nerve. I hadn't really considered how many known species were going extinct every day.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzI5NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNjU4OTY4NH0.nqdBlv1dX6P67PlXf9X3bWzr82px-1JMNuG9K43r2yU/img.jpg?width=980" id="4043c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b4824c0444cb93598aab7735f6fefebc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Peter Hauschulz, photo by Smilla West.
<p>It was a perfect fusion of a genuinely dark topic that really wasn't being processed, either in the extreme metal community or at large, and therefore a ripe topic for deeper exploration.</p><p><em>(George's story was one of two songs on an </em>Extinction<em> demo album called "</em><a href="https://extinctionevent.bandcamp.com/album/anthropogenic-degradation-of-ecosystemic-vegetation-demo-2019" target="_blank"><em>Anthropogenic Degradation of Ecosystemic Vegetation</em></a><em>," released last year.)</em></p><p>For me, art and music are at their best when they seek to entertain, inform, inspire and connect with the listener. I felt that there was an opportunity to artistically energize the topic by connecting it to charity causes as well. It's very easy to become discouraged or feel like one isn't "doing enough" for the world, so I'm hoping to support the idea that we can all contribute in different ways according to our own needs and values and abilities, and not be held to an arbitrary standard of perfection that may be more discouraging than anything.</p><p>A few dollars here and there may not seem to be much, but it's important for me to try to align aspirations and ideas with actions. I hope that doing so artistically may inspire others to find clever ways to bring their unique talents and ideas to the world.</p>What are your creative goals when developing music and lyrics about such a difficult subject, and what do you hope your listeners will get out of it?
<p>My main goal with the project is to develop and foster connection between myself and the world, myself and other people, and hopefully inspire people's connection with their world, too.</p><p>Of course, encased in that is my own impulse to continuously challenge myself and hone my craft, so I hope listeners experience a feeling of deep urgency as a result of the music, but also a sense of inspiration to harness that feeling for something positive.</p>What’s your writing process?
<p>The process often involves a lot of iteration, bouncing from concept to experimentation on guitar or drums and back again, until it seems like it's congealing into something unique and alive. My primary musical focus is on the rhythms first, since I've always loved the way that aspect of music can reach deep into the core of a body and electrify it and give it motion.</p><p>I try to set the lyrics together in such a way that they amplify the music and give it a conceptual direction for that movement. For instance, the lines "flames of greed lick their black boots, inferno of corruption boils the frog, our spirit croaking for release, from the hell of our own kind" in the song "Electile Dysfunction" are some of my favorites in capturing the wretched spirit of greed behind so much of our planetary destitution.</p>Why did you pick some of these species to profile? What drew you to the need to tell their stories in musical form?
<p>I tried to represent a wide variety of species types, including those outside the more relatable ones that are cute or fuzzy, because things like mosses and trees are certainly just as important, but less often make it into headlines or story form. I also tried to focus on species whose extinction was more or less directly caused by human activity, whether by direct hunting or deforestation — something that highlights our essential relationship and the negative consequences of our actions and choices as a species on the planet.</p>You have a unique approach to merchandise and the physical distribution of your music. Where did the idea of recycled goods come from?
<p>Growing up in largely DIY punk scenes, it was common for smaller bands to screen print logos on thrift-store shirts. That seemed to be the most appropriate way to minimize the band's resource footprint while also opening the door to unique artistic opportunities. So far, the best result is when I can find an old novelty shirt from a vacation at Sea World or some other aquarium. Stamp a giant Extinction logo on top of a frolicking dolphin or killer whale and now it has become more than just a gift-store item.</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Speaks for itself really <a href="https://t.co/tNFkVJX497">pic.twitter.com/tNFkVJX497</a></p>— EXTINCTION (eco-slam) (@Capt_Grapefruit) <a href="https://twitter.com/Capt_Grapefruit/status/1283074219249676288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
What comes next? I know you already have a follow-up album in the works, and you were planning on touring before the pandemic hit.
<p>Next for Extinction is a bit up in the air, like for many bands and people of all inclinations all over the world. I'll be creating a music video in the coming months for one of these songs, continue writing a follow-up, which will be water-species themed, probably release a charity compilation single in a few months, and seek out like-minded collaborators of all types to start collecting a live lineup.</p>
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Woodland caribou in northern Ontario. J.H. / CC BY-ND 2.0
By Tara Lohan
A logged forest is a changed forest, and for woodland caribou that could mean the difference between life and death.
<p>A recent <a href="https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jwmg.21829" target="_blank">study</a> in the <em>Journal of Wildlife Management</em> tracked the survival rates and population growth of woodland caribou (<em>Rangifer tarandus caribou</em>) across two areas of northern Ontario, Canada. In one area about a third of the forest had been logged 30 to 50 years ago. In the other, the only disturbances were from natural events.</p><p>The research found "substantial differences" in the survival of adult caribou between the two areas.</p>
<p>The animals, it turned out, fared considerably worse in the previously logged landscape — so badly that the researchers, led by <a href="https://www.fryxell-lab.com/thefryxelllab" target="_blank">John Fryxell</a>, a professor at the University of Guelph and executive director of the <a href="https://biodiversity.uoguelph.ca/" target="_blank">Biodiversity Institute of Ontario</a>, concluded it would lead to a dwindling population. The unlogged habitat, however, they found "should be considerably more capable of sustaining caribou."</p><p>The high mortality rates for the caribou in the logged forest are mostly due to wolf predation, but human changes to the landscape help make that possible. Development has been a driving force behind declining caribou numbers throughout their range.</p><p>As a result of these human disturbances, the caribou population in North America is in a precarious position. Woodland caribou once ranged across half of Canada and the northern reaches of the contiguous United States. But they're now gone from their southern range. In Canada's boreal forests, the animals are listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act, Canada's version of the Endangered Species Act.</p><p>While woodland caribou have evolved to live with forests disturbed by wildfire, they haven't fared well in forests disturbed by people. One of the biggest threats is habitat fragmentation from commercial logging, mining, oil and gas — and all the roads associated with those activities.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzA0Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMjc4Nzc5OX0.Im2Bk0epol_P5NjtPoPU8wCFVC6Jmmdekm7ObdaiRbg/img.jpg?width=980" id="4204a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="99b5f5d275212ce21fa200e2d57edd83" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/woodland-caribou-boreal/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><br/></p>Tar sands mining in Fort McMurray, Alberta fragments habitat for caribou. Kris Krüg / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
<p>But here's the twist: Moose do better in these disturbed landscapes, and that puts caribou further at risk, albeit indirectly.</p><p>Previous research has found that moose prefer the vegetation that grows in these early successional forests that follow a large-scale disturbance, like commercial logging. And a higher density of moose attracts more wolves, which are also able to <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.12732" target="_blank">move faster and hunt farther</a> by following linear clearings like roads and pipelines in these developed areas.</p><p>While moose are the primary prey for wolves, caribou that wander into these forests become another tasty target.</p><p>"The bottom line," Fryxell explains, "is that the combination of vegetation changes, increase in road density, increase in moose, and consequent increase in wolves threaten long-term viability of woodland caribou in boreal landscapes of Ontario, in a similar fashion to many other parts of Canada."</p><p>A national assessment found that around 70% of Canada's local <a href="http://registrelep-sararegistry.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=2FEAAC82-1#_ex" target="_blank">populations of woodland caribou were no longer self-sustaining</a>.</p><p>So what's to be done?</p><p>Last year provincial managers in Quebec floated the idea of <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/12/11/news/quebec-plan-kill-wolves-protect-caribou-angers-conservationists" target="_blank">killing wolves</a> to protect caribou herds. Their idea met with public backlash, but wolves in British Columbia weren't so lucky. During the winter of 2019-2020, a whopping 463 wolves were killed by the B.C. provincial government for the stated purpose of protecting populations of southern mountain caribou, another caribou ecotype.</p><p>Some of the money to pay for the kill came from Coastal GasLink, a company actively clearing land in caribou habitat for a pipeline, the Canadian news outlet the <em><a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/a-dangerous-road-coastal-gaslink-pays-to-kill-wolves-in-endangered-caribou-habitat-in-b-c-interior/" target="_blank">Narwhal </a></em><a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/a-dangerous-road-coastal-gaslink-pays-to-kill-wolves-in-endangered-caribou-habitat-in-b-c-interior/" target="_blank">reported</a>.</p><p>And a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-020-02008-3" target="_blank">recently published study</a> in the journal <em>Biology and Conservation </em>found that the culls were not likely to aid caribou and pointed out several shortcomings in previous research that called for such wolf-control measures.</p><p>There are other, and better, options — like habitat protection and restoration.</p><p>Fryxell's study concluded that "the most secure conservation measure would be to set aside extensive tracts of boreal forest with natural patterns of disturbance to sustain viable caribou sub‐populations."</p><p>Research shows that the animals need at least 65% of their range undisturbed to have a good shot at survival.</p><p>And helping caribou will come with other environmental benefits. Canada's 2018 <a href="http://registrelep-sararegistry.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=2FEAAC82-1#_ex" target="_blank">federal action</a> plan to restore caribou stated, "Boreal caribou is also considered by many to be an indicator of the overall state of Canada's boreal forest ecosystem." So keeping forests intact or restoring habitat is a proposition that would benefit not only caribou but many other species.</p><p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/taralohan/" target="_blank">Tara Lohan</a> is deputy editor of The Revelator and has worked for more than a decade as a digital editor and environmental journalist focused on the intersections of energy, water and climate. Her work has been published by The Nation, American Prospect, High Country News, Grist, Pacific Standard</em><em style=""> and others. She is the editor of two books on the global water crisis.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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