conservation
sheril | August 14, 20072006 Legislative Knauss Fellows Reunion Sea Ranch, California August 2007
This is the true story of 10 strangers, picked every year to live in Congress and have their worlds turned upside down. Sucked into the vortex of Capitol Hill and spit back out the other side, they develop an understanding of what the policy world is like and are now armed with the experience and perspective to inform and move legislation with motivation grounded in science and strengthened by providing the right socioeconomic incentives. Yes, generations of past Knauss Sea Grant Fellows now give voice to…
sheril | August 14, 2007As I'm driving down Highway 1 listening to The Plain White Ts, the road twists and turns and all I can see is blue. I can't tell where ocean ends and sky begins and I'm reminded why I became a marine biologist: The real magic in the world is far more interesting and invigorating than anything even J.K. Rowling can dream up and today this stretch of California's coast is simply breathtaking..
All too often we're bombarded with visions of a dying planet. Sea birds covered in oil, drowning polar bears, beached whales.. the famous photos keeping several NGO's and plenty of actors in the…
grrlscientist | August 12, 2007tags: northern spotted owl, Strix occidentalis caurina, politics, logging
Northern Spotted Owl, Strix occidentalis caurina.
Image: HRF [larger]
The Northern subspecies of the Spotted Owl is in trouble and needs your help. This ambassador of our old-growth forests is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and is now facing two new and serious threats, both presented by the US Fish and Wildlife Agency, which is supposed to protect our nation's wildlife.
First, the Draft Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan, proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, threatens to…
sheril | August 9, 2007They say extinction is the only real certainty. Species are constantly blinking in and out of existence. This may or may not be of concern depending on your scale of interest. In 2007 we're doing all sorts of things to pillage and plunder life on this incarnation of planet earth, but of course 2007 is a rather arbitrary number.. for even if space and time do exist, who's counting and to what end? In any event, I do remain interested in the here and now because that's where I live. You do too. So it's worth taking note when Biological Letters reports the first probable human-caused…
sheril | August 9, 2007The thing about conservationists is that although many of us begin with the best intentions, we align ourselves with groups competing for the same limited resources. Overlap of of issues leads to inefficient investment of time and energy as repetitive efforts concurrently strive to accomplish similar goals. Last year, I would often take meetings from my Senate office with different lobbyists sharing the same principle mission who were clearly not communicating with one other. The result was conflicting messages confusing to Congressional staffers. And there's no question that scientists…
voltagegate | August 7, 2007
I found the following article on the shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum) this morning on ScienceDaily, and due to the conservation problems we're having with the endangered fish, I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss eutrophication and hypoxia, two huge issues in marine and aquatic sciences.
Dwindling numbers of shortnose sturgeon in Georgia's blackwater Ogeechee River system have prompted an effort to quantify the causes and prioritize recovery efforts.
Yetta Jager and colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are conducting a population viability analysis, which…
voltagegate | July 31, 2007
Twelve years ago, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a 70 year absence due to over hunting (and outright slaughter). Beyond the pure principle of reintroduction, an added bonus was cutting the elk population in the area, and subsequently reducing the pressure on riparian Aspen saplings. Researchers at Oregon State have been following this trend for a while now, and just published a paper on the revitalization of the Aspen population in Yellowstone:
The findings... show that a process called "the ecology of fear" is at work, a balance has been restored to an important…
sheril | July 30, 2007Are carbon sequestration initiatives providing incentives that decrease land productivity and limit the habitat of endangered species?
We spend a lot of time here discussing wind and water, but I'd like to turn your attention to another force of nature.. FIRE! When I was in South Africa earlier this month, it struck me that carbon sequestration initiatives may actually be creating some unexpected arguably perverse externalities that are potentially troublesome. Maybe. I admit I'm no expert, but hear me out..
In many parts of the world, fires are set regularly to simulate the natural…
sheril | July 24, 2007I continue to believe that personal decisions do have an impact through collective action. With regard to the sea bass, no, I didn't stand up to make a scene or ridicule the organizers for their meal selection (they likely had no idea of the culinary faux pas). Here's what I did:
I declined the fish. While I didn't seek to influence everyone in the room (for how could I establish the credibility to do so quickly enough among a crowd that large?), I did notice that the folks at my table were interested in what I had to say. Many remarked I was the first marine biologist they'd met -…
sheril | July 24, 2007Last Friday in NYC, I found myself reliving the Al Gore experience.. only this time without sustainable planning. I was at an event where dinner was (gulp) Chilean Sea Bass. Given the fallout last week over that infamous meal, I had to wonder..
Do individual choices matter in a society that is generally governed by the 'no day but today' mentality? Tolkien and Galadriel taught us that even the smallest person can change the course of the future, but would my decision to forgo the fish in question have any bearing whatsoever on the survival of the species? Furthermore, would anyone in the…
sheril | July 19, 2007As a marine conservationist, I'm compelled to comment on the Gore/Sea Bass faux pas.. or lack there of. Jennifer and Tim recently posted on the former VP's meal at his daughter's wedding which included (gasp!) Chilean Sea Bass aka Patagonian Toothfish. Our newest Science Blogger, The Angry Toxicologist was quick to weigh in as well, and I already enjoy his company in the blogosphere. Although I'd never order that species myself, it's ridiculous to spend the afternoon lambasting Gore on one meal bearing in mind the event in question. Yes he's an environmental leader, although as far as I…
voltagegate | July 18, 2007
Welcome to the Tangled Bank and to The Voltage Gate. The theme of this 84th edition of TB is science in Ancient Greece, so we'll be exploring what that meant to them, and jumping ahead a couple millenia to find out what it means to us.
I want to begin this edition with an important announcement. Aetiology's Tara Smith has some news about the Clergy Letter Project (and Evolution Sunday). This founder, Mike Zimmerman, is trying to create a list of scientists who would be willing to answer the more technical questions posed about science and evolution by participating clergy. Tara has all the…
sheril | July 11, 2007As a child of the 80's growing up in the US of A, I was raised under the 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' mantra. The phrase was as familiar as Stop, Drop, and Roll or This is your Brain on Drugs. To improperly dispose of a plastic bottle was an act of sacrilege in a world of neatly labeled disposal bins. Television even suggested we could recycle our way to a healthy planet where the animals sang songs and we were Free to Be You and Me. Or something like that. It was as if abiding by the three R's would bring utopia.
Even though this notion no longer holds water in my pragmatic adulthood, I…
sheril | July 8, 2007
Map of South Africa from Safarinow.com.
It's before 6:00 am in the field with temperatures around -9C. Winter in South Africa. A thick sheet of frost covers the countryside. Our small caravan includes an ecologist, botanist, naturalist, biologist, herpetologist, theologian, and four of Stuart's current and former students. And me of course. Collectively we come from Ireland, Greece, South Africa, Great Britain and the US of A. It's a spectacular mix for good conversation and the opportunity to compare conservation practices in different parts of the world.
After a week at the '07 Society…
voltagegate | July 1, 2007The scientifically esteemed Natalie Portman (at least by Jake) led a troupe of celebs in a baby gorilla naming ceremony/fundraiser at Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park the other day, trying to raise awareness to both the conservation of the critically endangered primates and Rwanda's attempts to attract ecotourists. This part of the article caught my eye:
Speaking at the ceremony, Rwandan President Paul Kagame called for strict measures to ensure the protection of mountain gorillas.
But with park entrance fees at 500 dollars, gorilla-watching by high-end foreign tourists is also a key source…
voltagegate | June 28, 2007The tropical dry forests of Madagascar are notoriously fragile. The plants and animals inhabiting these areas are highly endemic; 48% of the genera of plants in southern Madagascar are unique to the island. Clear cutting of these forests has escalated with the expansion of agriculture since 1970.
But to what extent? According to this paper recently published in PLoS One, recent literature on the subject has shown a less dramatic model of deforestation in the area. The researchers broaden the scope of analysis to include rates of stability and regeneration in these forests, as well as the…
sheril | June 26, 2007Humans are born naturally curious creatures. As youngsters, our world is mainly governed by what's within reach - or even better - fits in our mouths. For most of us, that changes as bigger folks start telling us to stop playing in the mud, eating crayons, and picking up beetles. We learn about cultural norms and social expectations. Sort of sad, isn't it?
I suspect many pursue the sciences for the very reason that here, it's not only okay, but encouraged to get dirty. No matter what the reason, it's a trajectory to lead a life less ordinary by seeking to understand how things came to be…
sheril | June 22, 2007For a few years now, folks have been up in arms trying to come up with a universally accepted definition for Ecosystem Based Management - a goal about as realistic as an episode of Laguna Beach. At best, it's a theoretical approach, so instead of debating what it means, we should be asking how to implement strategies that incorporate the broad principles of this concept. At the '07 Society for Conservation Biology conference next month, I'll be speaking about just that - moving from theory to practice. Allow me to elaborate..
The green and blue planet where we live is a very complicated…
voltagegate | June 22, 2007Sheril's going to South Africa to join the "Indiana Jones of Conservation Biologists" at the SCB conference.
Looking forward to the travel diary...
cmooney | June 21, 2007posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum
Around the corner from my lab at Duke is a bright sun room - which also happens to be the office of the Extraordinary Professor Stuart Pimm. Now mind you, I don't use Extraordinary loosely, it's quite literally his title at the Conservation Ecology Research Unit in South Africa where he's also a professor at the University of Pretoria.
I knew I liked Stuart from the moment I entered his office. While I had read many of his books and scientific papers, it's always upon encountering someone firsthand that you're able to get a sense of who they are. Walking in,…