Otters, water voles and many species of freshwater fish make dramatic recovery as water quality continues to improve
Otters, water voles and species of freshwater fish which had all but vanished from waterways have made a dramatic recovery following the healthiest decade for rivers since the industrial revolution.
The toxic effects of pesticides nearly wiped out the wild otter in the 1970s, but steady improvements in water quality mean their numbers are expected to make a full recovery.
Otters may already have reached their maximum capacity in parts of the south-west of England, Cumbria and Northumbria. In the past 30 years, positive sightings have risen 10-fold, says a report by the Environment Agency.
The return of wildlife in and around the waterways reflects clean-up operations by water companies and environmental bodies to meet national and forthcoming European water quality directives.
The number of serious water pollution incidents has more than halved since 2001, while major conservation programmes have protected and restored rivers, streams and lakes.
Water voles are also returning to riverbanks after serious habitat degradation in the 1990s saw the mammal become critically endangered in Britain. According to the agency, water voles have recently been spotted in 30 locations.
Fish are also now thriving in once polluted rivers. The Tyne has seen record numbers of migrating salmon, while the Thames recorded its highest number of sea trout since many species were wiped out in parts of the river by pollution in the 1830s. The agency boosted fish populations with more than half a million farmed fish, including roach, barbell, tench, dace and chub.
Water quality tests on rivers in the Thames catchment area in 2008 found that 80% were "very good" or "good", compared with just 53% in 1990. Officials have recorded 125 fish species in the Thames estuary, which is home to shellfisheries and provides nursing grounds for sole and bass.
Ian Barker, the agency's head of water, said: "Rivers in England and Wales are at their healthiest for over a century, with otters, salmon and other wildlife returning in record numbers."
Water quality will need to improve more if environmental organisations are to tackle pollution that runs into waterways from fields and roads. A further 9,500 miles of rivers and streams are due to be revitalised by the agency over the next five years.
Ian Sample, science correspondent The Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/31/freshwater-wildlife-thriving-clean-rivers
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Pit bull rescues blind cocker spaniel from freezing to death
Volunteer Alan Borland's daily walk with Nala, a pitbull-lab mix from the Humane Society of Redmond, took a strange turn early this month. The usually well-behaved Nala began looking south and pulling — hard.
"This is the first time she ever refused to stop pulling," says Borland, 55, a retired policeman. " I finally gave in and let her pull me into a ditch. It's a deep and brushy, about four feet deep and 15 feet across."
What they found at the bottom was a black and white ball of fur curled up, with baseball-sized balls of snow covering his feet. "I thought it was dead at first," says Borland, who immediately knew it was a dog. "As I bent down I saw it was breathing, but it didn't move."
Borland sought help from the Humane Society and its veterinary facility, just 200 yards away.
And then, an incredible realization.
The dog, a 10-year old blind and mostly deaf Cocker Spaniel, had been a resident of the shelter. The month before, a woman with a soft spot for disabled animals adopted him. Named Chadwick, he moved two miles from the shelter but wandered away and travelled for a week through miles of heavy snow back to the Humane Society.
"I was pretty surprised," says Chris Bauersfeld, the shelter's manager. "We knew that Chadwick was lost, but we never expected him to manage his way back here. I think he heard the other dogs barking and his bearings took him this way."
Did Nala, a shelter resident since April, recognize the scent of her former shelter neighbor?
"Several dogs walked by that morning on their morning walk and didn't alert to him at all," says Bauersfeld. "On a daily basis, these dogs do something that makes me just stand in awe."
Once Chadwick was rehydrated and warmed up, his distraught owner — searching for him since he disappeared seven days before — picked the pup up. Bauersfeld does not know how Chadwick escaped from his new home.
Nala, however, still needs a home. Great with humans, she doesn't get along with many other dogs. "Alot of other people have offered to adopt her," says Bauersfeld, "we haven't found the right situation for her."
When Freekibble.com heard the story they were so inspired by Nala's rescue they jumped in to donate 10,000 meals of Halo Spot's Stew to the Redmond Humane Society.
"We just happen to live in a neighboring town, and when we heard of Nala rescuing this brave but scared little Cocker Spaniel, we wanted to help out with a large donation of good food in Nala's honor," says Freekibble's Kelly Ausland. "She saved her friend, she's a hero!
http://www.halopets.com/freekibble/donation8.php
"This is the first time she ever refused to stop pulling," says Borland, 55, a retired policeman. " I finally gave in and let her pull me into a ditch. It's a deep and brushy, about four feet deep and 15 feet across."
What they found at the bottom was a black and white ball of fur curled up, with baseball-sized balls of snow covering his feet. "I thought it was dead at first," says Borland, who immediately knew it was a dog. "As I bent down I saw it was breathing, but it didn't move."
Borland sought help from the Humane Society and its veterinary facility, just 200 yards away.
And then, an incredible realization.
The dog, a 10-year old blind and mostly deaf Cocker Spaniel, had been a resident of the shelter. The month before, a woman with a soft spot for disabled animals adopted him. Named Chadwick, he moved two miles from the shelter but wandered away and travelled for a week through miles of heavy snow back to the Humane Society.
"I was pretty surprised," says Chris Bauersfeld, the shelter's manager. "We knew that Chadwick was lost, but we never expected him to manage his way back here. I think he heard the other dogs barking and his bearings took him this way."
Did Nala, a shelter resident since April, recognize the scent of her former shelter neighbor?
"Several dogs walked by that morning on their morning walk and didn't alert to him at all," says Bauersfeld. "On a daily basis, these dogs do something that makes me just stand in awe."
Once Chadwick was rehydrated and warmed up, his distraught owner — searching for him since he disappeared seven days before — picked the pup up. Bauersfeld does not know how Chadwick escaped from his new home.
Nala, however, still needs a home. Great with humans, she doesn't get along with many other dogs. "Alot of other people have offered to adopt her," says Bauersfeld, "we haven't found the right situation for her."
When Freekibble.com heard the story they were so inspired by Nala's rescue they jumped in to donate 10,000 meals of Halo Spot's Stew to the Redmond Humane Society.
"We just happen to live in a neighboring town, and when we heard of Nala rescuing this brave but scared little Cocker Spaniel, we wanted to help out with a large donation of good food in Nala's honor," says Freekibble's Kelly Ausland. "She saved her friend, she's a hero!
http://www.halopets.com/freekibble/donation8.php
2010 set world records for weather extremes
From freezes in South Florida to deadly heat waves in Russia, 2010 broke records worldwide for flooding, heat, cold and snow, fueling concerns that a warming planet is starting to cause significant weather disruptions.
The year's extreme weather should serve as a warning, scientists say, a glimpse of a future in which a shifting climate is likely to spawn many more dramatic changes in the daily weather.
"Heat waves and extreme flooding events are increasing in the U.S. and that's consistent with what we know about climate change," said Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climate Data Center.
Yet climate scientists are quick to add that no single weather event can be tied to climate change. While the Earth is warming and increases in extremes documented in the U.S., the Earth's weather is too variable and some of the extremes so pronounced that climate change alone cannot explain them now.
To document climate change, scientists point to trends, such as the increasing frequency of days that break heat records and increases in heavy rainfall and snowstorms in certain regions.
In the U.S., the biggest red flag was the lack of cooling at night during the summer months, Ardnt said.
Overnight lows stayed much warmer than usual over about 60 percent of the nation during parts of June, July and August. Typically only about 10 percent of the country would experience such persistent warmth.
"It's not as dramatic as a snowstorm or hurricane, but statistically, that slaps you in the face," Ardnt said.
The year brought more extreme events than normal, but not an unprecedented amount, said Ardnt, pointing to 1998 -- the year of California floods -- and 1934 -- remember the Dust Bowl? -- as the most extreme weather years for the U.S.
Why so hot?
Global heat throughout the Northern Hemisphere summer reached record extremes, said Klaus Wolter, a research associate with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and the University of Colorado in Boulder. It was more than eight times hotter than what scientists would expect from natural variation, and so warm that the Moscow heat wave that led to 15,000 deaths contributed little to the overall record.
"This summer really was off the charts. The big question, of course, is how did this come about?" Wolter said.
El Niño -- warmer-than- normal seas in the tropical Pacific -- contributed somewhat, because it tends to push warmer air around the globe. But El Niño faded by spring, to be replaced by its opposite, La Niña.
Probably the most significant contributor to the extraordinary heat was the Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation, two weather trends that act in tandem.
In January and February, the oscillations moved sharply toward the warm side, as high pressure reached record levels over Arctic. High pressure and warmer-than-normal temperatures over the Arctic trigger big changes in global weather. One effect is to squash the tradewinds over the tropical Atlantic. The tradewinds keep the Atlantic cool.
So when high pressure over the Arctic reached unprecedented extremes in early 2010, the tradewinds shut down and the Atlantic climbed to record-breaking temperatures that persisted throughout the year.
For Florida, the hotter seas made hurricanes form further east, which may have contributed to the storms' fizzling out before they reached land, Wolter speculated.
A freezing Florida
The Arctic high pressure did much more than help the Atlantic heat. It froze Florida and, combined with El Niño moisture, dumped record-breaking snow on the nation's capital.
Shrinking sea ice, another symptom of a warmer planet, could be influencing the extreme high pressure over the Arctic, according to Jennifer Francis, research professor in Atmospheric Sciences at Rutgers University.
Francis studies how changes in the Arctic can drive global weather patterns. Theories about the influence of sea ice are up for debate, but a growing body of research has demonstrated potential links.
As the sea ice diminishes, the Arctic warms more into the fall and winter, Francis said. As the Arctic warms, the temperature difference between the North Pole and the equator shrinks.
"That temperature gradient is what drives the jet stream," Francis said.
The winter hallmark of high Arctic pressure is a weak jet stream. The jet stream drives weather systems around the Earth and is usually strong enough to hold Arctic air to the polar region. But when it slackens, frigid air escapes south. Last winter and a few weeks ago, the jet dipped so far south that it blasted Florida with freezing temperatures.
As the Arctic warms and ice continues to shrink, Francis theorizes, the South will see more episodes of extreme cold.
A future of extremes
Areas prone to heat waves will see more of them in a warmer climate, said Martin Hoerling, research meteorologist with the NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
But that doesn't mean a warmer globe was responsible for the heat waves that scorched the Northeast in 2010 or the deadly heat wave in Moscow.
In the past decade, the annual average temperature on Earth has steadily increased compared with the historic average between 1951 to 1980. The spike ranges from a little more a half a degree in 2000 to nearly 1.2 in 2010, a new record.
However, a one-degree increase in global temperature cannot explain the year's crazy weather. The amount of warming amounts to noise, compared with other, natural variables in the weather, such as the Arctic Oscillation and El Niño.
If a warmer globe had any effect on the Moscow heat wave it was small, likely less than 10 percent of the total influence, Hoerling said.
But as the globe transitions to a new climate, weather extremes, such as the Moscow heat wave, will become more common, most scientists agree.
It is like the often-stormy transition between seasons -- think of spring to summer, only on a larger scale.
"The climate is in the process of transitioning to a new state," said Jeff Masters, founder and director of meteorology for Weather Underground. "I worry that this year is a sign that we're starting to see some of that instability."
By Kate Spinner
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101231/ARTICLE/12311018/2055/NEWS?Title=2010-set-world-records-for-weather-extremes&tc=ar
The year's extreme weather should serve as a warning, scientists say, a glimpse of a future in which a shifting climate is likely to spawn many more dramatic changes in the daily weather.
"Heat waves and extreme flooding events are increasing in the U.S. and that's consistent with what we know about climate change," said Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climate Data Center.
Yet climate scientists are quick to add that no single weather event can be tied to climate change. While the Earth is warming and increases in extremes documented in the U.S., the Earth's weather is too variable and some of the extremes so pronounced that climate change alone cannot explain them now.
To document climate change, scientists point to trends, such as the increasing frequency of days that break heat records and increases in heavy rainfall and snowstorms in certain regions.
In the U.S., the biggest red flag was the lack of cooling at night during the summer months, Ardnt said.
Overnight lows stayed much warmer than usual over about 60 percent of the nation during parts of June, July and August. Typically only about 10 percent of the country would experience such persistent warmth.
"It's not as dramatic as a snowstorm or hurricane, but statistically, that slaps you in the face," Ardnt said.
The year brought more extreme events than normal, but not an unprecedented amount, said Ardnt, pointing to 1998 -- the year of California floods -- and 1934 -- remember the Dust Bowl? -- as the most extreme weather years for the U.S.
Why so hot?
Global heat throughout the Northern Hemisphere summer reached record extremes, said Klaus Wolter, a research associate with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and the University of Colorado in Boulder. It was more than eight times hotter than what scientists would expect from natural variation, and so warm that the Moscow heat wave that led to 15,000 deaths contributed little to the overall record.
"This summer really was off the charts. The big question, of course, is how did this come about?" Wolter said.
El Niño -- warmer-than- normal seas in the tropical Pacific -- contributed somewhat, because it tends to push warmer air around the globe. But El Niño faded by spring, to be replaced by its opposite, La Niña.
Probably the most significant contributor to the extraordinary heat was the Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation, two weather trends that act in tandem.
In January and February, the oscillations moved sharply toward the warm side, as high pressure reached record levels over Arctic. High pressure and warmer-than-normal temperatures over the Arctic trigger big changes in global weather. One effect is to squash the tradewinds over the tropical Atlantic. The tradewinds keep the Atlantic cool.
So when high pressure over the Arctic reached unprecedented extremes in early 2010, the tradewinds shut down and the Atlantic climbed to record-breaking temperatures that persisted throughout the year.
For Florida, the hotter seas made hurricanes form further east, which may have contributed to the storms' fizzling out before they reached land, Wolter speculated.
A freezing Florida
The Arctic high pressure did much more than help the Atlantic heat. It froze Florida and, combined with El Niño moisture, dumped record-breaking snow on the nation's capital.
Shrinking sea ice, another symptom of a warmer planet, could be influencing the extreme high pressure over the Arctic, according to Jennifer Francis, research professor in Atmospheric Sciences at Rutgers University.
Francis studies how changes in the Arctic can drive global weather patterns. Theories about the influence of sea ice are up for debate, but a growing body of research has demonstrated potential links.
As the sea ice diminishes, the Arctic warms more into the fall and winter, Francis said. As the Arctic warms, the temperature difference between the North Pole and the equator shrinks.
"That temperature gradient is what drives the jet stream," Francis said.
The winter hallmark of high Arctic pressure is a weak jet stream. The jet stream drives weather systems around the Earth and is usually strong enough to hold Arctic air to the polar region. But when it slackens, frigid air escapes south. Last winter and a few weeks ago, the jet dipped so far south that it blasted Florida with freezing temperatures.
As the Arctic warms and ice continues to shrink, Francis theorizes, the South will see more episodes of extreme cold.
A future of extremes
Areas prone to heat waves will see more of them in a warmer climate, said Martin Hoerling, research meteorologist with the NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
But that doesn't mean a warmer globe was responsible for the heat waves that scorched the Northeast in 2010 or the deadly heat wave in Moscow.
In the past decade, the annual average temperature on Earth has steadily increased compared with the historic average between 1951 to 1980. The spike ranges from a little more a half a degree in 2000 to nearly 1.2 in 2010, a new record.
However, a one-degree increase in global temperature cannot explain the year's crazy weather. The amount of warming amounts to noise, compared with other, natural variables in the weather, such as the Arctic Oscillation and El Niño.
If a warmer globe had any effect on the Moscow heat wave it was small, likely less than 10 percent of the total influence, Hoerling said.
But as the globe transitions to a new climate, weather extremes, such as the Moscow heat wave, will become more common, most scientists agree.
It is like the often-stormy transition between seasons -- think of spring to summer, only on a larger scale.
"The climate is in the process of transitioning to a new state," said Jeff Masters, founder and director of meteorology for Weather Underground. "I worry that this year is a sign that we're starting to see some of that instability."
By Kate Spinner
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101231/ARTICLE/12311018/2055/NEWS?Title=2010-set-world-records-for-weather-extremes&tc=ar
China’s rarest bird discovered wintering in Indonesia
A wintering Chinese Crested Tern Sterna bernsteini has been seen and photographed in Pulau Lusaolate, north Seram, Indonesia, representing the first record of the species outside the breeding season for over 70 years.
First discovered in 1861, Chinese Crested Tern was largely presumed extinct until 2000, when four adults and four chicks were found amongst a colony of other tern species on Matsu Island off the Fujian coast in China. In 2004, it was discovered breeding on the Jiushan Islands. At present these and the Wuzhishan Islands in Zhejiang province, are the only known breeding sites in the world.
Asian bird expert, Craig Robson was leading a bird tour when he came across the remarkable record. He recounts, “I took the group out to Pulau Lusaolate on 4 December 2010 to see the well-known population of Olive Honeyeater Lichmera argentauris, that have been known from this tiny islet for many decades. Soon after arrival I noticed a roosting group of 30-40 Greater Crested Terns Sterna bergii on some rocks just off the beach. Checking through the flock quickly with binoculars, I noticed one that I thought might be a Lesser Crested S. bengalensis. Checking with the telescope, I immediately realised that I was looking at perhaps the first ever winter ’sighting’ of a Chinese Crested Tern. I quickly got a series of photos through the ‘scope. The bird flew off with a few Greater Crested Terns and was briefly seen foraging offshore before it disappeared around the island.”
This amazing record begs-the-question of how many more are wintering in this region, and birders, should be encouraged to survey wintering groups of Greater Crested Terns around the numerous islands in the Seram Sea and perhaps even further south in the Banda Sea.
With an estimated population of not more than 50 birds, the Critically Endangered Chinese Crested Tern is China’s most threatened bird and much rarer than the Giant Panda. The greatest threat to the tern’s survival is egg collection by fishermen for food, which continues even though the breeding sites are within protected areas
Chinese Crested Tern is one of the species benefitting from the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme. The programme is spearheading greater conservation action, awareness and funding support for all of the world’s most threatened birds, starting with the 190 species classified as Critically Endangered.
http://www.birdlife.org/community/2010/12/chinas-rarest-bird-discovered-wintering-in-indonesia/
First discovered in 1861, Chinese Crested Tern was largely presumed extinct until 2000, when four adults and four chicks were found amongst a colony of other tern species on Matsu Island off the Fujian coast in China. In 2004, it was discovered breeding on the Jiushan Islands. At present these and the Wuzhishan Islands in Zhejiang province, are the only known breeding sites in the world.
Asian bird expert, Craig Robson was leading a bird tour when he came across the remarkable record. He recounts, “I took the group out to Pulau Lusaolate on 4 December 2010 to see the well-known population of Olive Honeyeater Lichmera argentauris, that have been known from this tiny islet for many decades. Soon after arrival I noticed a roosting group of 30-40 Greater Crested Terns Sterna bergii on some rocks just off the beach. Checking through the flock quickly with binoculars, I noticed one that I thought might be a Lesser Crested S. bengalensis. Checking with the telescope, I immediately realised that I was looking at perhaps the first ever winter ’sighting’ of a Chinese Crested Tern. I quickly got a series of photos through the ‘scope. The bird flew off with a few Greater Crested Terns and was briefly seen foraging offshore before it disappeared around the island.”
This amazing record begs-the-question of how many more are wintering in this region, and birders, should be encouraged to survey wintering groups of Greater Crested Terns around the numerous islands in the Seram Sea and perhaps even further south in the Banda Sea.
With an estimated population of not more than 50 birds, the Critically Endangered Chinese Crested Tern is China’s most threatened bird and much rarer than the Giant Panda. The greatest threat to the tern’s survival is egg collection by fishermen for food, which continues even though the breeding sites are within protected areas
Chinese Crested Tern is one of the species benefitting from the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme. The programme is spearheading greater conservation action, awareness and funding support for all of the world’s most threatened birds, starting with the 190 species classified as Critically Endangered.
http://www.birdlife.org/community/2010/12/chinas-rarest-bird-discovered-wintering-in-indonesia/
Rare monk seal colony found in the Mediterranean
Scientists have found a colony of rare Mediterranean monk seals at an undisclosed location in Greece.
The species is the world's most endangered seal, and one of the most endangered marine mammals - fewer than 600 individuals remain.
Researchers are keeping the location of the colony secret to avoid having the seals disturbed by human visitors.
It is the only place in the region where seals lie on open beaches, rather than hide in coastal caves.
Alexandros Karamanlidis, scientific co-ordinator of the Mom/Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk seal, explained that this was the seals' "original behaviour".
"It is human disturbance that has caused the species to retreat to inaccessible caves," he told BBC News.
"So this place is incredibly important - the seals feel so secure that they go out on to open beaches."
The Mom researchers, whose society name is derived from the Latin name of the species, Monachus monachus, have been monitoring and studying monk seals for more than 20 years.
This has not been an easy task when most of the animals now live in areas that are not visible from the water line.
By driving the seals into secluded caves, the scientists say, human activity has also affected the number of seal pups that survive into adulthood.
Dr Karamanlidis explained: "Because of human disturbance, [the seals] give birth in these coastal caves, [meaning that] more pups die during storms."
The number of seal pups born annually in the newly discovered colony on this tiny island is amongst the highest recorded anywhere in the Mediterranean Sea.
The team has placed cameras on the island to study the seals remotely.
The area's popularity with tourists has gradually driven the animals away from other beaches, and the scientists hope to stop the same thing happening on this island.
"It's a small island in the Aegean with nice sandy beaches," Dr Karamanlidis told BBC News.
So if it remains open to people, the place will get crowded and the seals will start going away again."
More than half of the world's remaining monk seals live in Greece.
The society is now appealing to the Greek government to make the part of the island where the seals live, and its inshore waters, a marine protected area.
"The seals only survive in Greece because we have these isolated islands that people do not have access to," said Dr Karamanlidis.
"So we're trying to make this a place where the seals feel secure."
By Victoria Gill
Science and nature reporter, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9317000/9317582.stm
The species is the world's most endangered seal, and one of the most endangered marine mammals - fewer than 600 individuals remain.
Researchers are keeping the location of the colony secret to avoid having the seals disturbed by human visitors.
It is the only place in the region where seals lie on open beaches, rather than hide in coastal caves.
Alexandros Karamanlidis, scientific co-ordinator of the Mom/Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk seal, explained that this was the seals' "original behaviour".
"It is human disturbance that has caused the species to retreat to inaccessible caves," he told BBC News.
"So this place is incredibly important - the seals feel so secure that they go out on to open beaches."
The Mom researchers, whose society name is derived from the Latin name of the species, Monachus monachus, have been monitoring and studying monk seals for more than 20 years.
This has not been an easy task when most of the animals now live in areas that are not visible from the water line.
By driving the seals into secluded caves, the scientists say, human activity has also affected the number of seal pups that survive into adulthood.
Dr Karamanlidis explained: "Because of human disturbance, [the seals] give birth in these coastal caves, [meaning that] more pups die during storms."
The number of seal pups born annually in the newly discovered colony on this tiny island is amongst the highest recorded anywhere in the Mediterranean Sea.
The team has placed cameras on the island to study the seals remotely.
The area's popularity with tourists has gradually driven the animals away from other beaches, and the scientists hope to stop the same thing happening on this island.
"It's a small island in the Aegean with nice sandy beaches," Dr Karamanlidis told BBC News.
So if it remains open to people, the place will get crowded and the seals will start going away again."
More than half of the world's remaining monk seals live in Greece.
The society is now appealing to the Greek government to make the part of the island where the seals live, and its inshore waters, a marine protected area.
"The seals only survive in Greece because we have these isolated islands that people do not have access to," said Dr Karamanlidis.
"So we're trying to make this a place where the seals feel secure."
By Victoria Gill
Science and nature reporter, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9317000/9317582.stm
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