THE CURRENT administration is 'close' to finalizing a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be harmed by agency projects, according to the Interior Department. In an interview yesterday, Interior spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said the Office of Management and Budget was reviewing the rule, which could be finalized in a matter of weeks.
For more than 30 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service have reviewed any federal plans that could potentially protect endangered animals or plants. Under the administration's proposed rule, these independent scientific reviews would no longer be required if the agency in question determined that its activities would not hurt the imperiled species.
The administration is also working at a breakneck pace to dismantle at least 10 major environmental safeguards protecting America's wildlife, national parks and rivers before Bush leaves office in January. With barely 60 days to go until Bush hands over to Barack Obama, his White House is working methodically to weaken or reverse an array of regulations that protect America's wilderness from logging or mining operations, and compel factory farms to clean up dangerous waste.
In the latest such move this week, Bush opened up some two million acres of land in Rocky Mountain states for the development of oil shale, one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. The law goes into effect on January 17, three days before Obama takes office. The timing is crucial. Most regulations take effect 60 days after publication, and Bush wants the new rules in place before he leaves the White House on January 20. That will make it more difficult for Obama to undo them.
IT WAS one of the most awful things I've ever experienced in life. And it happened right here in the city of Nashville, just a block or so from the governor's mansion.
Not in a rural area, as it did to my colleague, but in the city. I still can't get over it, nor can I believe it happened to me, at least where it did. That is until I take a look at my SUV. There's a dent, there's a dent, and there's a dent. I'm lucky, though. It could have been much worse. Some people have lost their lives after it happened to them.
I'm talking about a doggone deer running into my automobile. It happened around 7:30 p.m. Saturday. There was nothing I could have done to avoid the huge creature; at least, I don't think so. Headed home, just a mile or so away. All of a sudden, I glanced to my left out the driver's-side window and there it was—barreling toward me. I didn't even have time to say a prayer, or even a bad word.
Bam!
Up in the air the deer went after first running into the front driver's side of my automobile. As I attempted to slow down—and I couldn't have been driving more than 30-35 mph—the deer hit the ground and I ran over it.
It was a strange and creepy feeling. "Are you all right?'' some other motorists asked as I stopped my vehicle. Yes, I was lucky. No injuries, just a broken spirit and some damage to my Dodge Nitro.
Just two weeks earlier, there had been a story in The Tennessean quoting wildlife authorities cautioning drivers to pay extra attention from October to early December, when deer mate and are on the move.
Tell me about it. Officials said there are a lot more deer now than there used to be. According to the story, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency estimates about five times more than 30 years ago.
I have seen young deer on the street where I live, but didn't think a whole lot about it with all the development taking place in Nashville. That is, until Saturday night. I don't know that I will ever drive on Franklin Road again at night. Drivers surely need to cautious and alert because a deer can be on you before you know it.
And, my only wish is nobody else will have to experience hitting a deer. It's no fun at all.
Dwight Lewis Editorial Page Editor The Tennessean Nashville, TN
AUDUBON believes last week's election ushered in a new era of hope for our environment; and the people, birds and other wildlife that depend on it.
"Eight dismal years of environmental abuse and neglect are now coming to an end. President-elect Barack Obama and a more environmentally aware Congress offer the promise of leadership and fundamental change. This will translate into improved protections for America's treasured places, and a new lease on life for species in decline.
"The days of secret task forces and backroom deals with polluters are over. In his own words, President-elect Obama said: 'The future of our planet is at stake.' Conservationists have waited years for this opportunity and are strongly committed to helping the new administration and Congress to live up to this great promise."
Betsy Loyless Senior Vice President for Policy National Audubon Society
AS HE assumes the presidency, Barack Obama must make climate-change legislation and investment in green energy top priorities. And, he must be ready to take bold—and politically unpopular—action to address global warming. Read what one of the best "minds" on the environment has to say. Bill McKibben is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College. His The End of Nature, published in 1989, is regarded as the first book for a general audience on global warming. He is a founder of 350.org, a campaign to spread the goal of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million worldwide. His most recent book is American Earth, an anthology of American environmental writing.
THE HOUSE has blessed a bill sponsored by Rep. John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat, that would funnel more federal funds into getting kids outdoors and learning about the environment.
The "No Child Left Inside Act," which passed 293-109, was heavily lobbied by environmental groups, including WindStar Wildlife Institute. WindStar is host to youth working on Eagle badges, students fulfilling graduation requirements and teens who want to contribute to the environment by helping to maintain WindStar's demonstration wildlife habitat.
Advocates say federal spending on outdoor environmental education needs to be boosted because kids spend half as much time outside today as did children a generation ago, and are increasingly disconnected from nature. Surveys have found that many youngsters put more than 40 hours a week into playing video games, watching TV or browsing the Web. Research suggests that kids who spend significant time outdoors before they turn 11 are more likely to develop a life-long conservation ethic, they say.
The bill would create new federal grants to states to provide more "hands-on" environmental education, among other things. Even though the measure sailed through the House, supporters are going to have to start all over again next year, to get the Senate to take up the bill.
Meanwhile, for those parents who don't want to wait, encourage your kids to spend an hour outside a day.
By Scott Shalaway ONCE UPON a time, Eastern Elk inhabited the entire state of Pennsylvania. By 1867, the species was extinct statewide, and within a few years the Eastern Elk was gone from its entire range in the northeast.
Today, approximately 700 elk roam six north-central counties. They are descendents of the Rocky Mountain subspecies introduced to the state by the Pennsylvania Game Commission between 1913 and 1926. For decades the population fluctuated. The first scientific census in 1971 revealed a population of 65 animals.
The current herd is healthy enough to sustain a modest harvest. In November, 45 hunters selected randomly from a pool of 17,432 applicants will participate in a six-day hunt.
Though elk are members of the deer family, they are easily distinguished from the ubiquitous White-tailed Deer.
The first clue is size. Compared to deer, elk are huge. At birth, an elk calf weighs about 30 pounds compared to four to eight pounds for a newborn white-tail. A mature bull elk stands about 60 inches tall at the shoulder and weighs 600 to 1,000 pounds; female elk weigh 500 to 600 pounds. Mature white-tailed deer, on the other hand, stand about 33 inches tall at the shoulder, and an average buck weighs about 140 pounds; does are smaller.
Differences in the pelage of elk and deer are also quite obvious. An elk's winter coat is dark tan with a darker, shaggy neck and a creamy rump. The bull's antlers are enormous, consisting of one main beam and usually six points. White-tailed Deer are grayish brown in winter. The underside of the large flag-like tail is pure white. Bucks' antlers consist of several tines arising on a single main beam.
Other differences between elk and deer include:
• Gestation: elk 8-1/2 months, deer 7 months
• Elk have short tails, about five inches; deer tails are about 11 inches.
• Elk have a pair of upper canine teeth; deer lack canine teeth.
• Elk are primarily grazers; deer are primarily browsers.
• Elk rarely have twins; Whitetail Deer usually have twins. --Pittsburgh Post Gazette
ALL PEOPLE need to look in the mirror to see who the culprit's are in the decline of many species of animals, insects and plant species around the world. Our shear numbers speak volumes to the stresses planet Earth endures.
As second and third world countries build up, prosper and gain ever increasing wealth so too does the demand for more resources to accommodate them and so out paces the ability for Earth to recover even with ever increasing stringent management rules and guidelines in place that people's impose and tax themselves for. Its it too little too late? Yes.
Take for instance the so called federal bailout. How much of this package do you suppose has been set aside for the environment? None. The funding will have to come from private enterprise and non-profits geared to specific environmental causes regardless of who win the nomination.
Pollinator Partnership is certainly a resource partner for your (National) Master Naturalist program and of keen interest to those who may not be aware of the dire circumstance our pollinators are facing. In order for people to master and preserve regional pollinators is to educate and arm themselves with information.
Habitat loss and alteration of it is the major cause of decline in species.
Our desire to find other alternatives to oil dependency; such as wind, nuclear and hydro power is taking its toll on migrating insects and mammals to such an extent the loss hasn't begun to sink in enough yet. The decline in the imported honey bee is subjective because of our genetic alterations of plants and affects to the surrounding environment and natural cycles aren't well known because these sciences haven't been around enough in human time to know their unintended consequences.
We may be seeing glimpses of what is yet to come and what it will entail, but for all intensive purposes majority of the people are too engrossed in their own worlds to see the trees for the forest. And the 1% of us who do know and witness changes can only cry wolf for so long before everyone stops listening and unfortunately by that time it will be too late.
Extinction to some degree is forever, but what must be remembered it is evolution. When one species ceases to exist, that vacant space affords the next in line to evolve...
Kari A. Olson Restoration Naturalist
"The Friends of Interlaken Park"
Seattle Urban Forest Stewards
WHILE out on my walk I saw a dead snake on the side of the road. It was a baby snake, maybe 10 inches long. It was powder blue in color. I live on the south shore of Massachusetts and have never seen anything like it before. After some research I have come up with nothing. The only blue snake I found was in California. Do you have any thoughts on this?
THE ALPINE edelweiss flower may hold clues to making better sun creams, while oyster shells could give hints about storing greenhouse gases in an emerging industrial revolution that mimics nature.
"A more fascinating horizon is opening up for the green economy," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program, said this week in giving findings of a UNEP "biomimicry" project identifying 100 new ideas from nature.
The survey shows companies are already borrowing from the natural world for products ranging from wind turbine blades that keep turning in low winds, based on the flippers of a humpback whale, to dirt-resistant surfaces inspired by the lotus plant.
"Life in 3.8 billion years has created an enormous number of blueprints, designs, chemical recipes and technologies," said Janine Benyus of the Biomimicry Guild, which wrote the report.
"Conserving habitats is a wellspring for the next industrial revolution," she said.
The white edelweiss flower, for instance, has woolly hairs that protect the plant's cells from harmful ultraviolet wavelengths, which are powerful in the high Alps. The hairs also shield against wind and cold. Copying the chemicals in the hairs could help design better sun creams. And the plant could also help design ways to protect packaging or plastics from ultraviolet degradation.
The way pearl oysters convert carbon dioxide into a calcium carbonate shell could be imitated to help slow global warming. Carbon dioxide occurs naturally but levels are rising sharply because of human emissions of the greenhouse gas.
Canadian group CO2 Solution has won patents, based on the mollusks' ability to build shells, to help produce cement. Cement is traditionally based on limestone, formed from the bodies of fossil marine creatures. "Industry is now going to be looking to the oceans and jungles of the world for ideas," Benyus says. She said firms including General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Boeing, General Mills and Nike were among those that "have been asking for biologists."
In the survey, she said that researchers had identified dozens of ways in which organisms gathered water, energy or created glues more efficiently than humans.
Steiner said that the global financial crisis might have a silver lining for such green projects. "In terms of financial crisis, that's when you see innovation emerge," he said.
People have been imitating nature for thousands of years for products--birds, for instance, inspired planes. But the experts said there were many under-exploited examples.
Benyus said the lotus plant's ability to repel water with a finely pitted surface on its leaves was now imitated in roof tiles in 300,000 buildings in Europe. Erlus AG was a main maker.
Among examples from recent decades, Steiner noted that Velcro, widely used as a fastener for clothing, was created by a scientist in Switzerland annoyed by the way plant burrs stuck to his dog's fur.
MORE than 16 million people live and work in the Chesapeake Bay watershed's 64,000 square miles. That translates into a lot of roads, parking lots, malls, schools, houses and office buildings. In this increasingly concrete world, we need wild places to explore and discover nature. These places also help to calm our unusually busy agendas and reflect on our lives.
Our wildlife needs these natural areas, too. These forests, fields, wetlands, creeks and rivers are habitats-places where animals find food and water as well as nesting and resting places. Natural habitats are critical to the survival of native plants, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals and more.
The National Wildlife Refuge System is a network of public lands set aside specifically for the conservation of wildlife and plants, including endangered and threatened species. The National Wildlife Refuge System has protected and restored prairies, wetlands and woodlands, providing much needed habitat for wildlife in the United States.
Established in 1903, this system spans almost 100 million acres and includes 548 national wildlife refuges. It provides habitat for more than 700 species of birds, 220 species of mammals, 250 reptile and amphibian species, more than 1,000 fish and countless species of invertebrates and plants. Nearly 260 threatened or endangered species are found on National Wildlife Refuges, where they often begin their recovery or hold their own against extinction.
Refuges are great for people, too. They provide opportunities to see wildlife in a natural environment. Many refuges have interpretive foot and vehicular trails. Birding, hiking, biking, wildlife observation and photography are some activities that visitors can enjoy. Visitor centers offer exhibits, videos and slide shows.
About 98 percent of the land in the refuge system is open to the public for wildlife-dependent education and recreation. More than 50 percent of the refuges offer recreational hunting and fishing.
Recently, new legislation-the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act-directed the expansion of opportunities for several public uses including wildlife photography, fishing, hunting, wildlife observation, environmental education and interpretation.
Depending on the refuge, one may find visitor centers, wildlife observation facilities, auto tours, nature trails, interpretive tours, outdoor classrooms or workshops. These activities help to build an understanding and appreciation for wildlife, habitat and the role that management plays in the stewardship of U.S. resources.
Mark your calendars. National Wildlife Refuge Week is October 12-18. Refuges will be offering special events, including tours, guided walks, exhibits, live animals, crafts, children's activities and lots more. Chances are there's a refuge close to you. So spice up your autumn and check out something wild at a refuge!
Kathy Reshetiloff U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Annapolis, MD
WindStar Wildlife Institute Thomas D. Patrick Founder & President
10072 Vista Court
Myersville, MD 21773
Phone: (301) 293-3351 Email Windstar
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About Windstar
WindStar Wildlife Institute is a national non-profit conservation organization established in 1986. WindStar is a leader in "connecting people to nature through education." In 1999 the Board of Directors decided to move the headquarters to an award-winning, passive solar and earth sheltered structure, Terra Vista, near Myersville, MD. And, a new, four-acre demonstration wildlife habitat, containing all the elements and key components, was created for members and others to visit and to get ideas for their own properties. Each year new habitat components are added. The Institute is known for its award-winning environmental education and certification programs, web site, American Wildlife Blog and outstanding use of nature photography.
