Baby dolphin deaths rise along Gulf Coast

Marine scientists are examining the deaths of 26 baby dolphins whose carcasses have washed ashore along the U.S. Gulf Coast this year, the bulk of them since last week, researchers said on Tuesday. By Thursday, February 24, 2011, the death toll of dolphins found washed ashore along the U.S. Gulf Coast had climbed to nearly 60.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared the alarming cluster of recent dolphin deaths "an unusual mortality event," agency spokeswoman Blair Mase.

"Because of this declaration, many resources are expected to be allocated to investigating this phenomenon," she said.

Although none of the carcasses bore outward signs of oil contamination, the alarmingly high number of dead young dolphins are being looked at as possible casualties of oil that fouled the Gulf of Mexico after a BP drilling platform exploded in April 2010, killing 11 workers and rupturing a wellhead on the sea floor.

An estimated 5 million barrels (205.8 million gallons) of oil spilled into the Gulf over more than three months.

As of Thursday, the remains of 59 dolphins, roughly half of them newly born or stillborn calves, have been discovered since January 15, on islands, in marshes and on beaches along 200 miles of coastline from Louisiana east across Mississippi to Gulf Shores, Alabama, officials said.

That tally is about 12 times the number normally found washed up dead along those states during this time of the year, which is calving season for some 2,000 to 5,000 dolphins in the region.

"When the world sees something like baby dolphins washing up on shore, it pulls at the heartstrings, and we all want to know why," said Blair Mase, marine mammal strandings coordinator for the Southeast region of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That tally is more than 10 times the number normally found washed up along those states during this time of the year, which is calving season for some 2,000 to 5,000 dolphins in the region, said Moby Solangi, director of the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport. At least 29 of the specimens recovered in recent weeks have been positively identified as bottlenose dolphins.

"We are on high alert here," said Solangi. "When we see something strange like this happen to a large group of dolphins, which are at the top of the food chain, it tells us the rest of the food chain is affected."

"It's an anomaly," he told Reuters by telephone, explaining that the gestation period for dolphins runs 11 or 12 months, meaning that calves born now would have been conceived at least two months before the oil spill began.

Most of the carcasses, measuring just over 3 feet in length, were found during the past week, the bulk of them washing up in Mississippi and Alabama.

The remains of about 10 adult dolphins, none of them pregnant females, have also been found so far this year.

BP cleanup crews found some of the carcasses. Others were discovered by park rangers, police and passersby.

"What makes this so odd is that the dolphins were spread out over such a large area," Solangi said.

Dolphins encountering oil on the surface of the water would face serious health consequences, Solangi said.

"We take short breaths. These animals take a huge breath at one time and hold it. And when they take it, the fumes stay in the lungs for a long period of time and they cause two types of damage, one of which is immediate to the tissue itself. Second, the hydrocarbons enter the bloodstream," he said.

None of the carcasses bore any obvious outward signs of oil contamination. But Solangi said necropsies, the equivalent of human autopsies, were being performed and tissue samples taken to determine if toxic chemicals from the oil spill may have been a factor in the deaths.

Documented mortality in the adult dolphin population off the Gulf Coast roughly tripled from normal numbers last year, climbing from about 30 typically reported in a given year to 89 in 2010, Solangi said.

Source:
Reuters: ,"Baby dolphin deaths rise along Gulf Coast ", by Steve, Gorman, accessed February 23, 2011
Reuters, "Gulf Coast dolphin death toll rises to nearly 60", accessed February 25, 2011

Japan recalls whaling fleet from Antarctic

Japan has recalled its whaling fleet from the Antarctic following confrontations with activists from the Sea Shepherd marine conservation group, the government has said, in a move that has raised hopes that the hunts will be halted altogether.

The decision to cut short this year's hunt is a further blow to the industry, which has been the target of international pressure and revelations of corruption at home.

The agriculture minister, Michihiko Kano, said the hunt, which was due to last until the middle of March, had been called off because of safety concerns. (Right: whalers take up position)

Regular attempts by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to interrupt hunts have caused irritation in Japan, one of only three countries that now hunt whales and where the government says it is an important cultural tradition.

"Putting safety as a priority, the fleet has halted scientific whaling for now. We are currently considering what to do hereafter," said Tatsuya Nakaoku, an official at the Fisheries Agency.

"We had no choice but to end the season to ensure the safety of lives, assets and our ships," he told reporters. Asked if Japan would resume whaling next winter, Kano reiterated: "We'll examine the situation in detail and then come to a decision."

Sea Shepherd's founder, Paul Watson (right), described the announcement as a victory for anti-whaling activists.

"Every year we've gotten stronger," he told Associated Press from the Steve Irwin, one of three boats the group has in the Antarctic. "We had better equipment, we had a long-range helicopter. Really, it came down to having more resources."

The Japanese government routinely condemns Sea Shepherd as a terrorist organization, claiming its tactics have put crew members' lives at risk. But Watson said: "We haven't committed any crimes. We haven't hurt anybody."

Australia, a vocal critic of the whale hunts, welcomed the move. "I'm glad this season is over, and Australia doesn't believe there should ever be another whaling season again," the environment minister, Tony Burke, said.

Last year Australia filed a complaint with the international court of justice in The Hague in an attempt to get the hunts banned. A decision is expected in 2013 at the earliest.

The Japanese fleet had targeted a catch of 850 whales this season, but will return with about one-fifth of that, the agriculture ministry said. Sea Shepherd claimed it had kept the fleet's haul to below 100 whales, its lowest ever catch.

Japan kills about 1,000 whales every year, using a clause in the International Whaling Commission's 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling that allows it to engage in "lethal research" into whale populations.

The meat from the hunts is sold on the open market, but weak consumer interest has created a stockpile of more than 6,000 tons, according to a recent report by the Japan-based Dolphin and Whale Action Network.

The ministry did not say then the fleet of four vessels and 180 crew would return. It left port in December and was supposed to return in April.

The decision comes two days after Japan said it was suspending its controversial whale hunt after another clash with Sea Shepherd.

Ministry officials claimed that Sea Shepherd's pursuit of the mother ship, the Nisshin Maru, had made it impossible for the hunt to continue. The fleet's other vessels are unable to operate unless the Nisshin Maru is present to haul in harpooned whales and process them.

During its seven-year campaign in the Antarctic, Sea Shepherd has hurled rancid butter aboard whaling ships, attempted to entangle propellers and distracted Japanese crews with flares and infrared beams. In recent days it has blocked the Nisshin Maru's stern, reports said.

In the most high profile incident, a Tokyo court gave a Sea Shepherd activist a two-year suspended prison sentence after he boarded a whaling ship last February.

Peter Bethune, a New Zealander, had climbed aboard the Shonan Maru 2 under cover of darkness to deliver a bill for damage to the Ady Gil, the group's hi-tech powerboat, which sank after a collision with the Japanese ship the previous month.

Sea Shepherd said it would stay with the Japanese boats, which are currently sailing north, until it was sure they had left the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary.

Source:
The Guardian,"Japan recalls whaling fleet from Antarctic ",accessed February 18, 2011
Scientific American, "Japan suspends whale hunt after chase by protesters", accessed February 18, 2011

Allergy season is extending, scientists find

Bad news for those who suffer their way through ragweed season: A team of researchers has found that increased warming, particularly in the northern half of North America, has added weeks to the fall pollen season. A changing climate means allergy-causing ragweed pollen has not only a longer season but one that extends further north than it did just 16 years ago.

In research that gibes with projections by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, plant and allergy experts found that ragweed pollen season lasted as much as 27 days longer in 2009 than it did in 1995. The further north in the Western Hemisphere, the more dramatic the change in the length of pollen season.

Minneapolis has tacked 16 days to the ragweed pollen season since 1995; LaCrosse, Wisc. has added 13 days, Winnipeg and Saskatoon in Canada have added 25 and 27 days, respectively.

The new research, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds the longer pollen seasons correlate with the disproportionate warming happening around the planet and attributed to greenhouse gas emissions.

Upper latitudes are warming faster than mid-latitudes, and the pollen season is lengthening in proportion. Scientists and health officials found no appreciable warming in Texas, Arkansas or Oklahoma.

The impact goes far beyond mere sniffles and inconvenience. Some 50 million Americans have allergies, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Of those, 35 million suffer nasal allergies, known broadly as hay fever, said Mike Tringale, the association's vice president.

For 75 percent of those 35 million, ragweed (right) is the primary allergen, he added. And in many cases, allergies can trigger a bout of asthma, or make it worse.

Ragweed pollen can cause asthma flare-ups and hay fever, and costs about $21 billion a year in the United States, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is not something that's hypothesized, this is not something that's modeled, this is not something that may or may not occur depending on the math that you do," said study author Lewis Ziska of the U.S. Department of Agriculture crop system and global change laboratory. "This is something that we're actually seeing on the ground in recent years."

Even in places where ragweed season didn't lengthen or even shortened slightly -- such as Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas -- there was lots more pollen, which caused more intense symptoms, said co-author Dr. Jay Portnoy of the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Section at Children's Mercy Hospital, the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine.

Ragweed is probably not the only pollen likely to have a longer season as the planet warms, Portnoy said in a telephone interview.

"We used ragweed as a marker but it's probably true for other pollens too," he said, including tree pollen that causes allergy symptoms in the U.S. spring. (Right: pollen seasons. click to see enlarged image)

Ragweed pollen was a reasonable marker because its season is naturally easy to track.

It's what's known as a short-day plant, which begins blooming when the days start getting shorter, that is, after the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice around June 21. It stops flowering with the first frost.

As global average temperatures have warmed, the first frost has been delayed, especially at higher latitudes, which has meant a longer season for ragweed. Because warming is greater at these high latitudes, the length of the season has been more pronounced.

The findings correlate with analysis last year by the National Wildlife Federation that found ragweed growth rates and pollen counts increased with global warming. In one study, accelerating spring's arrival by 30 days prompted a 54 percent increase in ragweed pollen production.

The danger with a lengthening season - and perhaps a more intense one - is pollen's potential to overwhelm immune systems that, up till now, have withstood the onslaught, Tringale said.

Much as water in a bathtub is not a problem until it starts to overflow, pollen for many is not an irritant until it crosses a particular threshold, he said.

"With the longer season, with the creeping breadth of the geographic footprint of the season, and with more powerful plants producing more pollen, it's a triple threat," he added. "Now you've got yourself a much wider population that could potentially be affected that might not have been affected before.'

Source:
Daily Climate,"Allergy season is extending, scientists find",accessed February 21,2011
Reuters,"Climate change creates longer ragweed season", accessed February 21, 2011
Scientific American, "Climate Change Extends Allergy Season in North America", accessed February 21, 2011

A Warming World Could Add Billions to Shipping Costs

Climate change already stands to wreak huge financial damage by inundating coastal cities and harming human health. Now, researchers have added a surprising victim to the toll: ships. In a session today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW), a scientist said that climate change will stimulate the growth of barnacles and other ship-clinging creatures, potentially adding billions to the cost of worldwide shipping.

As anyone with a boat knows, many sorts of marine life can attach themselves to a hull below the waterline (right: barnacles on a ship's hull). On a large ship, the weight of such hitchhikers—everything from algae to barnacles to small colonies of coral—can weigh as much as 10 tons, says marine ecologist Susan Williams of the University of California, Davis, Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay. The costs of these hull-fouling stowaways are substantial: According to one study, the U.S. shipping industry spends more than $36 billion each year in added fuel costs to overcome the drag induced by clinging marine life or for anti-fouling paint that prevents that life from hitching a ride in the first place. And that figure doesn’t include the cost

High pressure water blasting removes marine growth, old paint and corrosion from hull

to regularly scrape a hull smooth, which costs approximately $4.50 for every square foot of hull surface.

In the future, those costs could rise substantially, says Williams. In lab tests for which seawater was warmed 3.5°C above today’s average—a scenario that represents water temperatures expected in the year 2100—organisms in a typical community of hull-clinging creatures grew twice as fast as they do under today’s conditions. They not only grow more quickly in the warmer water but also grew to form thicker layers.

As a result, maintenance will likely be required more often in the future, boosting operational costs even further. In fact, recent warming may already have increased the need for routine hull scraping, says Williams. Ten years ago, boat owners in the marina where she lives typically scraped their boats only once every 3 months. Now, she notes, they need to perform such maintenance on a monthly basis.

See the complete coverage of the 2011 AAAS annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Source:
Science Magazine,"A Warming World Could Add Billions to Shipping Costs ",accessed February 21, 2011

NZ quake sends 30 million tons of ice loose from glacier

Tourists on a boat watch an iceberg, broken off from the glacier after Tuesday's earthquake, in the Tasman Lake, 200km (124 miles) southeast of Christchurch

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck New Zealand on Tuesday, killing at least 75 people in Christchurch, also shook loose 30 million tons of ice from the nation's longest glacier, sending boulders of ice into a nearby lake.

The glacier is 200km (125 miles) away from Christchurch, near the west coast of the South Island, in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park.

The ice was dislodged on Tuesday afternoon, just after the earthquake struck. The piece of ice was 1.2km (0.75 mile) long, 300m (330 yards) high and 75m (80 yards) wide. (Right: ice sheet with iceberg out to right of it)

The ice has broken up into icebergs now floating in the Tasman Lake, one of which is 250m long.

Tour boat operators in the area said parts of the Tasman Glacier calved into the Tasman Lake immediately after the quake, breaking into smaller icebergs and causing 3.5 meter-high (11-foot) waves. A group of tourists were on a boat in the lake at the time and were thumped by giant waves caused by the ice drop. The tourists were not in danger and were not injured.

"It was approximately 30 million tons of ice, it's just a massive, massive, massive scale," said Denis Callesen, the General Manager of Tourism at Aoraki Mount Cook Alpine Village. (Right: iceberg in Tasman Lake after quake)

He added the ice fall or 'calving' was expected, given the large amount of recent rain, the changing of the dynamics of the lake and the La Nina weather phenomenon, a factor in higher levels of rainfall.

"We have known for some weeks that an event was coming, what is just a complete curve ball, left field, is that it was the earthquake that set it off and caused the calving," Callesen stated. (Left: Tasman Lake)

Callesen added that icebergs now cover a quarter of the five km by two km Tasman Lake, which is about 200 km west of Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island.

Source:
Reuters,"NZ quake sends 30 million tons of ice loose from glacier",by Amy Pyett, accessed February 23, 2011
TNT Magazine, "Christchurch earthquake causes ice to fall off Tasman Glacier", accessed February 23, 2011

Fuel leak hits Norway's coast near nature reserve

Oil from an Icelandic container ship (at left) that ran aground Thursday night has come ashore on the coast of southern Norway near the country's only marine national park, Norwegian authorities said Friday.

"We don't know much about how big the oil spill is. This morning we had our airplane surveying the area to gather information," said Paal Are Lilleheim, spokesman at the Norwegian Coastal Administration.
"We don't know how much oil is left in the tanks. There is still much uncertainty."

The Norwegian coast guard said oil from the Godafoss came ashore at Aker Island, a seabird reserve at the mouth of the Oslo Fjord in the North Sea, less than 20 km from the Swedish border.

Norwegian media reports said leaks were coming from two tanks with a capacity of 250 tonnes each, but that it was unclear if the tanks were full.

The daily Aftenposten said the leaking fuel had drifted 2.5 miles west-southwest of the ship near the Ytre Hvaler oceanic national park, a rich underwater ecosystem containing corals and kelp forests.

Norwegian response crews were trying to put containment booms around the stricken vessel, local media reported.

The ship's owner, Eimskip, said the Godafoss (left) was stranded on a reef near the port of Fredrikstad.

"At the current time the vessel will not be vacated as the weather conditions are good in the area," Eimskip said.

Source:
Reuters,"Fuel leak hits Norway's coast near nature reserve ",accessed February 18, 2011

Montana governor threat: shoot wolves now, ask questions later

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer declared on Wednesday he was ready to order state game officials to kill off entire wolf packs in defiance of federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.

In a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the two-term Democrat cited his authority as governor to uphold citizens' rights "to protect their property and to continue to enjoy Montana's cherished wildlife heritage and traditions."

Schweitzer said he was driven to act out of an urgent need to assist ranchers and sportsmen left unable to control wolves posing a serious threat to livestock and elk herds (at right: wolves run down elk).

"If there is a dang wolf in your corral attacking your pregnant cow, shoot that wolf. And if its pals are in the corral, shoot them, too," Schweitzer said in a telephone interview.

His letter comes as rising tensions over wolves in the Northern Rockies, including Idaho and Wyoming, are playing out in the courts, Congress and state legislatures.

"I cannot continue to ignore the crying need for workable wolf management while Montana waits, and waits, and waits," Schweitzer wrote.

Last week, federal wildlife officials proposed letting Idaho kill off scores of wolves in what would be the largest government-sanctioned wolf culling in that state since the animals were reintroduced to the Rockies in the mid-1990s.

Schweitzer is threatening to act without seeking federal approval in advance, to order state wildlife agents to "respond to any livestock depredation by removing whole (wolf) packs that kill livestock wherever this may occur."

The governor said he would allow ranchers themselves to kill any wolves that attack their livestock, and to do so without the need for an investigation by wildlife officials.

An estimated 1,700 wolves roam parts of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, all of them generally protected from sport hunting.

Asked if he felt he was violating federal law, Schweitzer said his attorneys had reviewed his letter and advised him that his decrees were "well within our powers."

A spokeswoman for the Interior Department, Kendra Barkoff, said the administration of President Barack Obama agreed that wolf numbers have recovered and should be managed by the states, but "the governor's letter is not the answer."

The government in 2009 removed the wolf from the list of endangered species in Montana and Idaho, but environmentalists sued, and a federal judge in Montana last August ordered wolf protections restored in those two states.

Source:
Reuters,"Montana governor threat: shoot wolves now, ask questions later", accessed February 16, 2011

Coal's hidden costs top $345 billion in U.S.: study

The United States' reliance on coal to generate almost half of its electricity, costs the economy about $345 billion a year in hidden expenses not borne by miners or utilities, including health problems in mining communities and pollution around power plants, a study found.

Those costs would effectively triple the price of electricity produced by coal-fired plants, which are prevalent in part due to the their low cost of operation, the study led by a Harvard University researcher found.

"This is not borne by the coal industry, this is borne by us, in our taxes," said Paul Epstein, a Harvard Medical School instructor and the associate director of its Center for Health and the Global Environment, the study's lead author.

"The public cost is far greater than the cost of the coal itself. The impacts of this industry go way beyond just lighting our lights."

Coal-fired plants currently supply about 45 percent of the nation's electricity, according to U.S. Energy Department data. Accounting for all the ancillary costs associated with burning coal would add about 18 cents per kilowatt hour to the cost of electricity from coal-fired plants, shifting it from one of the cheapest sources of electricity to one of the most expensive.

In the year that ended in November, the average retail price of electricity in the United States was about 10 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the Energy Department.

Advocates of coal power have argued that it is among the cheapest of fuel sources available in the United States, allowing for lower-cost power than that provided by the developing wind and solar industries.

"The Epstein article ignores the substantial benefits of coal in maintaining lower energy prices for American families and businesses," said Lisa Camooso Miller, a spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry group. "Lower energy prices are linked to a higher standard of living and better health."

HEALTH, ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

The estimate of hidden costs takes into account a variety of side-effects of coal production and use. Among them are the cost of treading elevated rates of cancer and other illnesses in coal-mining areas, environmental damage and lost tourism opportunities in coal regions where mountaintop removal (right) is practiced and climate change resulting from elevated emissions of carbon dioxide from burning the coal.

Coal releases more carbon dioxide when burned than does natural gas or oil.

The $345 billion annual cost figure was the study's best estimate of the costs associated with burning coal. The study said the costs could be as low as $175 billion or as high as $523 billion.

"This is effectively a subsidy borne by asthmatic children and rain-polluted lakes and the climate is another way of looking at it," said Kert Davies, research director with the environmental activist group Greenpeace. "It's a tax by the industry on us that we are not seeing in our bills but we are bearing the costs."

The estimates came in the paper "Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal," to be published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Epstein discussed his findings on the Arctic Sunrise, a 164-foot-long (50 meter long) icebreaker operated by Greenpeace, and moored in Boston Harbor.

Leading users of coal in the United States include utilities American Electric Power Co Inc and Duke Energy Corp. The top producers include miners Arch Coal Inc, Consol Energy Inc, and Peabody Energy Corp, Alpha Natural Resources.


Source:
Reuters,"Coal's hidden costs top $345 billion in U.S.: study", accessed February 16, 2011