Free Republic

Crews will cut trees on more than 200 acres around Vail this summer in their continuing efforts to battle the pine beetle epidemic. This summer’s work will continue to create a ribbon of “defensible space” around the town that seeks to prevent the spread of fire... “It’s to protect lives, homes and property from the effects of catastrophic wildfire,” ... The work is part of the Vail Valley Forest Health Project, a multi-year effort coordinated by the Forest Service that seeks to combat the pine beetle infestation from East Vail to Edwards. The mountain pine beetle epidemic has killed up...

Crews cutting trees in hopes stopping wildfire from jumping between neighborhoods and the forest. As the color red has grown in the forest... The mountain pine beetle epidemic has hit ...hard. Whether it’s a lightning strike or a barbecue sparking a blaze, Spaeh says she understands the risk of a destructive forest fire. ....town, county and the U.S. Forest Service are cooperating to create a layer of “defensible space” — a 200-to-300-foot barrier — that aims to stop the spread of a fire, either from the forest into the neighborhood or vice versa. “This is a really good thing,” ......

While beetles at low levels always exist on Grand Mesa National Forest, some foresters worry the area may be on the verge of a beetle disaster. “It’s at the edge of possibly blowing up and killing a lot of trees,” said forester Kitty Tattersall of the Paonia and Grand Valley ranger districts. “We’re worried it could become a problem.” Mostly, foresters are concerned about the spruce beetle, whose outbreaks are normally triggered by blowdowns. Last October, violent winds toppled trees near the Alexander Lake area on the mesa, creating the potential for a spruce beetle epidemic. Spruce beetles usually emerge...

March 13, 2006 Compound from Coral Could Combat Cancer Natural compounds have proven to be a treasure trove of medicinal properties. For example, the bark of the Pacific yew tree yielded a compound that has helped battle some forms of cancer. Such finds have led to a new industry--bioprospecting--and such prospectors have fanned out across the globe in search of nature's remedies. Now a compound isolated from coral collected off the coast of Okinawa has shown the ability to slow down and possibly prevent virus replication and it may hold promise as a cancer treatment. Isis hippuris is a yellow,...

Disturb a frog's vernal pool habitat: Pay $300. Alter a marsh, meadow, bog, bank, or pond of any size: See you in court. The potential fine and enforcement actions are some of the teeth in a proposed wetlands protection bylaw that would give the Belmont Conservation Commission greater authority over what happens in or around wetlands. The proposal, which voters will decide at Town Meeting on April 24, would reinforce a state law that more than half of the communities in Massachusetts have found lacking in some way. Belmont would join at least 180 others with a new wetlands bylaw,...

OTTAWA (AFP) - The tiny Rufous hummingbird is able to recall where and when it last dined on the sweet nectar of flowers, according to new research, proving bird brains are smarter than first thought. The study found the bird, with a brain no bigger than a grain of rice and which feeds on hundreds of flowers each day, could pinpoint the location of flowers it had visited and when the bit of nectar in each would be replenished. Such episodic memory was previously thought to be exclusive to humans. "This shows that animals have better memories than we thought...

PARIS - A team of American-led divers has discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday. Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it. The divers found the animal in waters 7,540 feet deep at a site 900 miles south of Easter Island last year, according to Michel Segonzac of the French Institute for Sea Exploration. The new crustacean is described in the journal of...

Dubbed “North America’s Loch Ness Monster,” the purported leviathan of Lake Champlain, “Champ,” has just resurfaced. On Feb. 22, 2006, Good Morning America aired exclusive video footage of “something” just below the surface of the water, possibly the lake’s fabled creature. A pair of Vermont men, Dick Affolter and his 34-year-old stepson, Pete Bodette, had made the digital recordings the previous summer while salmon fishing. ABC consulted two retired FBI forensic image analysts, who concluded that the video appeared authentic, although they could not say what it depicted. The incident added to a long list of Champ sightings, which...

Mysterious and seemingly monstrous beasts stalk the gloomy depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the so-called midnight zone where virtually no sunlight reaches. Temperatures are near freezing and the space between one creature and another can be vast. Scientists know very little about the species that inhabit this uninviting world more than a mile below the ocean's surface. For years it was believed that many of these fish nomadically wandered the ocean, munching on the organic debris that sinks from shallower waters. Now, a massive marine expedition has uncovered the secret sex lives of these fish, revealing that they may gather...

If you encountered someone who made his own granola, bought his veggies at a food co-op, wore Birkenstock sandals, and wanted to save the environment, if you’re like me, you’d probably think, well, there goes a lefty, or a liberal, or maybe an aging hippie. But the author of a new book says someone like that is just as likely to be a conservative Republican. In his book, Crunchy Cons, journalist Rod Dreher writes about a group of people he calls “crunchy conservatives,” a group that includes, among others, “hip homeschooling mamas,” “Birkenstocked Burkeans,” “gun-loving organic” farmers, and “right-wing nature...

Red rain could prove that aliens have landed Amelia Gentleman and Robin McKie Sunday March 5, 2006 The Observer There is a small bottle containing a red fluid on a shelf in Sheffield University's microbiology laboratory. The liquid looks cloudy and uninteresting. Yet, if one group of scientists is correct, the phial contains the first samples of extraterrestrial life isolated by researchers. Inside the bottle are samples left over from one of the strangest incidents in recent meteorological history. On 25 July, 2001, blood-red rain fell over the Kerala district of western India. And these rain bursts continued for the...

STOCKTON - During the first congressional hearing into what might be causing the ecosystem crisis in the Delta, Rep. George Miller said Monday that water agency officials are committed to sending water to San Joaquin Valley and Southern California even it comes at the expense of the Delta's health. Miller, D-Martinez, said he doubts whether advice coming from scientists will be heeded if they conclude that pumping water out of the Delta is the main cause of the declining ecosystem.Water pumping is considered one of the three leading suspects causing the Delta's problems, along with invasive species, especially an Asian...

Much of Yellowstone National Park is a giant collapsed volcano, or caldera. In an enormous eruption roughly 640,000 years ago, this volcano spit out around 240 cubic miles of rock, dirt, magma and other material. Around 70,000 years ago, its last eruption filled in that gaping hole with flows of lava. Since then the area has enjoyed an uneasy peace, the land alternately rising and falling with the passing decades. New satellite data indicate that this uplift and subsidence is caused by the movement of magma beneath the surface and may explain why the northern edge of the park continues...

Abortion and environmental laws stem from the same principle, the reduction of the human species to a status of undesirable. The laws that destroy private property, imprison nature lovers, fine farmers and hunters, and restrict access to vast tracts of wilderness are all done in the name of protecting "nature" from people. This is not simply a matter of laws that can be undone. There are countless examples of environmental laws run amock with deadly consequences. An excellent one is the banning of DDT, considered a miracle product with profound health benefits during its use. The banning of DDT was...

ST. LOUIS—Parasites from cat feces are causing deadly brain damage in California sea otters. A combination of toxic chemicals and herpes virus is killing off California sea lions. And toxic algae blooms are contributing to record manatee deaths in Florida. All of these animals live near coastlines, spending a majority of their lives in the same waters people swim and surf in. Their daily cuisines consist of the same foods we serve up in clam shacks and fine seafood restaurants. The difference between humans and these animals, says NOAA spokesperson Paul Sandifer, is that the animals deal with the ocean...

Chicken will grow teeth when pigs can fly. Well, better start searching the skies for flying pork—scientists have discovered a mutant chicken with a full set of crocodile-like chompers. The mutant chick, called Talpid, also had severe limb defects and died before hatching. It was discovered 50 years ago, but no one had ever examined its mouth until now. The researchers recently created more Talpids by tweaking the genes of normal chickens to grow teeth. "What we discovered were teeth similar to those of crocodiles—not surprising as birds are the closest living relatives of the reptile," said Mark Ferguson of...

Bjorn Carey LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Wed Feb 22, 12:00 PM ET A cave so huge helicopters can fly into it has just been discovered deep in the hills of a South American jungle paradise. ADVERTISEMENT Actually, "Cueva del Fantasma"—Spanish for "Cave of the Ghost"—is so vast that two helicopters can comfortably fly into it and land next to a towering waterfall. It was found in the slopes of Aprada tepui in southern Venezuela, one of the most inaccessible and unexplored regions of the world. The area, known as the Venezuelan Guayana, is one of the most biologically rich, geologically...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Fish that leap into passing boats may be a fisherman's fantasy, but scientists fear that hyperactive Asian carp will reach the U.S. Great Lakes, devour the base of the food chain and spoil drinking water for 40 million people. In less than a decade since escaping southern U.S. fish farms, the hardy and voracious carp have come to dominate sections of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. "It is a crisis," said Phil Moy of the University of Wisconsin and the government-affiliated water protection group Sea Grant. "We've seen some pretty significant adverse invaders in the Great...

Project Location: Marin County, California: Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Marin Municipal Water District, and Marin County Open Space District. Project Summary The Northern Spotted Owl is the well-known symbol of the controversy over the effects of logging. The Marin County population of this federally threatened sub-species in one of the densest even though it is located at the southern limit of the range. Much of the local forest was logged 50-100 ago and is now re-growing in permanent public ownership. Although logging is not a threat to this population, other human activities such as...

Today the Supreme Court hears two challenges to federal wetlands regulations. In each case, landowners are challenging the federal government’s authority to prevent them from developing wetlands under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Federal regulators claim such regulation is clearly authorized by the CWA and is necessary to safeguard the nation’s waters. The landowners, for their part, assert that the federal government lacks the legal authority to regulate private land that lacks a substantial connection to navigable waters. Depending on how the Court resolves these disputes, control over millions of acres of private land may hang in the balance. Depends...

EARLY EVOLUTION OF THE VENOM SYSTEM IN LIZARDS AND SNAKES 2006 Nature 439: 584-588 Bryan G. Fry, Nicolas Vidal, Janette A. Norman, Freek J. Vonk, Holger Scheib, S. F. Ryan Ramjan, Sanjaya Kuruppu, Kim Fung, S. Blair Hedges, Michael K. Richardson, Wayne. C. Hodgson, Vera Ignjatovic, Robyn Summerhayes, & Elazar Kochva Abstract: Among extant reptiles only two lineages are known to have evolved venom delivery systems, the advanced snakes and helodermatid lizards (Gila Monster and Beaded Lizard) 1. Evolution of the venom system is thought to underlie the impressive radiation of the advanced snakes (2,500 of 3,000 snake species) 2–5....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The key to kicking what President Bush calls the nation's oil addiction could very well lie in termite guts, canvas-eating jungle bugs and other microbes genetically engineered to spew enzymes that turn waste into fuel. It may seem hard to believe that microscopic bugs usually viewed as destructive pests can be so productive. But scientists and several companies are working with the creatures to convert wood, corn stalks and other plant waste into sugars that are easily brewed into ethanol -- essentially 199-proof moonshine that can be used to power automobiles. Thanks to biotechnology breakthroughs, supporters...

Fat, toxic toads at the leading edge of an Australian invasion have evolved longer legs than those behind the front lines, report biologists. The alarming discovery not only means the toads can spread more quickly over the continent, but it raises the possibility that under the right conditions, animal evolution can happen in just decades, not eons. That, in turn, has major implications for animals adapting to global warming, as well as biological pest control projects, which generally take for granted that carefully studied animals introduced to fight off invasive species can not evolve into something troublesome. The inexorable, seven-decade-long...

Administration seeks $2.27 million for Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge NASSAWADOX, Va. – The Nature Conservancy today applauded President Bush’s request to fund the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge with $2.27 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund in Fiscal Year 2007. The Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge and much of the surrounding area in southern Northampton County, are widely recognized as globally important habitat for millions of migratory birds. The Nature Conservancy works with the refuge staff, state agencies and private landowners on the Eastern Shore to protect these vital natural areas...

There is a general consensus that most of today’s nonvenomous snakes are descendants of venomous snakes that lost their venomous capabilities secondarily. This implies that the evolutionary history of venomous snakes and their venom apparatus should be older than the current evidence from the fossil record. We compared some of the oldest-known fossil snake fangs from the Lower Miocene of Germany with those of modern viperids and elapids and found their morphology to be indistinguishable from the modern forms. The primary function of recent elapid and viperid snake fangs is to facilitate the extremely rapid, stablike application of highly toxic...

Rising temperatures are responsible for pushing dozens of frog species over the brink of extinction in the past three decades, according to findings being reported today by a team of Latin American and U.S. scientists. The study, published in the journal Nature, provides compelling evidence that climate change has already helped wipe out a slew of species and could spur more extinctions and the spread of diseases worldwide. It also helps solve the international mystery of why amphibians around the globe have been vanishing from their usual habitats over the past quarter-century -- as many as 112 species have disappeared...

An outbreak of waterborne fungal disease in western Panama has eliminated eight families of Panamanian amphibians and is spreading, scientists report in this week's issue of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" (PNAS). An outbreak of the infectious disease chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is spreading into the El Cope region, researchers have found. The disease is moving from northwest to southeast from Costa Rica toward Colombia, leaving entire species of dead frogs and salamanders behind. The rockhopper frog, for example, which lived along El Cope riverbanks, disappeared completely within one month. Central American frog Eleutherodactylus...

Scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia's most remote provinces discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants — as well as mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere, members of the expedition said Tuesday.The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during its rapid survey of the Foja Mountains, an area in eastern Indonesia's Papua province with more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest, said Bruce Beehler, a co-leader of the monthlong trip.Two Long-beaked Echidnas, a primitive egg-laying mammal, simply allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back...

Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change. There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. We cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system. Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with. Power concentrates around wealth. Only by breaking...

Ethanol has become a hot topic in the State Capitol, with legislators arguing about a proposal to require about 10 percent ethanol in regular-grade gasoline.The Assembly approved the bill, AB15, on a 54-38 vote in December. The Senate has yet to vote on the bill and members are sharply divided.The bill was approved by the Assembly despite a September report from the Department of Natural Resources that mandating ethanol in gasoline would worsen the state's ozone problem.The DNR said that requiring 10 percent ethanol in the most-used grade of gasoline would pollute the air as much as a 350-megawatt coal-fired...

Whales choose mates based on singing, Australian research suggests Wed Feb 1, 4:18 AM ET SYDNEY (AFP) - It's long been thought that singing is used by whales to attract mates or repel rivals, but new Australian research indicates the serenades may be the basis on which the females select their sexual partners. University of Queensland researchers said Wednesday that they believe the male's songs are part of an elaborate courtship ritual between humpback whales as they appear to be directed more towards females than to warn off rival males. "The male singers are spending a lot more time singing...

Town of Mukwonago - The Town Board has begun laying the groundwork for a likely referendum on whether farm land and open space should be preserved by using tax money to purchase development rights. Last week, the board hired a consultant to conduct a public education campaign to explain the goals of a purchase of development rights program, how it is paid for and how it works. Town Chairman David Dubey said much depends on the public response to the educational campaign, but that "a referendum is likely what we'll get to" either this November or the spring of 2007....

The good news: a federal grand jury in Eugene, Oregon, has indicted 11 people on charges that they committed acts of domestic terrorism on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Moreover, now one of the FBI's "highest domestic terrorism priorities," according to director Robert S. Mueller III, is to prosecute people who commit crimes "in the name of animal rights or the environment." Nevertheless, it remains worrisome that we still dismiss such terrorists as deranged individuals who pervert the ideology of environmentalism. Even more worrisome is that few of us intellectually grasp, and then rise...

WASHINGTON, DC-- June 26, 1997--The Amazon Basin, home to largest rainforest in the world, is known for its astounding variety of plants and animals. But the rainforest may be also be home to an even more overwhelming variety of previously unknown bacteria and this diversity, just as with plants and animals, may be jeopardized by deforestation, says a report in the July issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

From barely visible fairy shrimp to highly visible black bears, we share our Napa Valley home with a rich diversity of animals, birds, fish, insects and plants. Some of them are listed as threatened or endangered. As our houses and vineyards press outward from the valley floor, we are moving deeper into our wild neighbors' spaces, and discovering that sharing habitats is not always easy. The recent killing of four black bears at a Pope Valley vineyard drew attention to a critical question: How do we balance the need for protecting our agricultural land and crops while also preserving critical...

EIGHT tree-dwelling demonstrators, including a topless woman, were arrested yesterday in Dalkeith Park as the £600,000 operation to evict bypass protesters there entered its final phase. The National Eviction Team began work yesterday morning to move on the army of demonstrators living in the largest of four tree-top camps. It is believed to be the last camp left to clear. Eight of the 'eco-warriors' left voluntarily after the eviction notice was read out at the Pickle Dirt woods. But, four people chained themselves on the ground and another four fastened themselves to a 20-foot high cargo net and had to...

In a female elephant gang, few animals bother the oldest and biggest of the group because they know she will not put up with any nonsense, according to a new study that found age and size determine wild female elephant hierarchies. The study, published in the current issue of Animal Behavior, presents some of the first data on dominance and the social lives of adult, wild female elephants, Loxodonta africana. Females of this species hang out together in family groups for most of their lives. Humans may shrink as they get older, but not elephants. "Female elephants never stop growing,...

It appears global warming is not for the thin-skinned — and that’s bad news for amphibians. Frogs, toads, newts and the like have permeable skins, which makes them especially sensitive to environmental change. It also makes them good species to monitor to get an idea of the health of our planet. In 2004, researchers conducting a global assessment concluded that almost a third of the world’s known amphibian species were threatened with extinction. Now, a new study suggests that global warming may be to blame for amphibians’ precarious state. The study, published last week in the scientific journal Nature, found...

KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - Spiders, centipedes and scorpion-like critters are among the 27 new animal species that biologists have discovered in the dark, damp caves of two Central California national parks, officials announced Tuesday. The finds were made during a three-year study of 30 caves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. Many of the creatures live only in caves — and some only in one particular cave of Sequoia and Kings Canyon, according to the study, conducted by park staff and biologists from Austin, Texas-based Zara Environmental . "We thought we might find a handful of new...

Madison: The shy, retiring, and threatened Wood Turtle [Glyptemys insculpta], easily overlooked and facing an uncertain future as its habitat is developed, appears to have driven a stake into the heart of plans by Chatham Borough and Chatham Township to develop two playing fields on the Woodland Park property off Woodland Road, adjacent to the Independence Court neighborhood in Madison. In a long-awaited decision released Monday, December 12th, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) classified a portion of the site as "exceptional" wetlands for their habitat value, requiring a 150-foot buffer from any development, and effectively blocking the plan...

Gregory Stone was on a diving expedition off Fiji on December 26, 2004, when the first sketchy reports reached his ship about the undersea earthquake that had spawned a catastrophic tsunami in South Asia. Amid his horror over the human toll, another thought quickly formed in the scientist's mind: What would be the impact of this natural disaster on the region's stunningly beautiful and ecologically critical coral reefs? ADVERTISEMENT Several months later Stone, vice president of global marine programs for the New England Aquarium, traveled with a team to Phuket, the Thai resort island that became well-known to the world...

THE world’s polar bear population is on the increase despite global warming, which scientists had believed was pushing the animal towards extinction. According to new research, the numbers of the giant predator have grown by between 15 and 25 per cent over the last decade. Some authorities on Arctic wildlife even claim that hunting, and not global warming, has been the real cause of the decrease in polar bear numbers in areas where the species is in decline. A leading Canadian authority on polar bears, Mitch Taylor, said: "We’re seeing an increase in bears that’s really unprecedented, and in places...

People need to tell their Senators: Vote for drilling in ANWR If you listened only to the news media and environmentalists, you’d think the debate over oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was about caribou and ecology. It’s not.

A hunting lodge with antler chandeliers and stuffed ducks on the walls seems a strange place to celebrate the comeback of the ivory-billed woodpecker, but wildlife officials are doing exactly that. They credit hunters in particular with helping bring the rare bird back from presumed extinction in the Big Woods section of Arkansas. "The people of Arkansas, the hunting and fishing community, conserved these woods," Scott Simon of The Nature Conservancy told reporters on Monday at the Mallard Pointe Lodge, where a coalition of environmentalists, academics and wildlife officials rejoiced in woodpecker's return to the living. Simon said hunters and...

'Extinct' wild horse roams again By Charles Clover (Filed: 19/12/2005) The wild horse has been saved from extinction after a successful programme to reintroduce captive-bred horses to their natural habitat in Mongolia. A working group of scientists at London Zoo has now recommended that Przewalski's horse, previously characterised as "extinct" in the wild, should now be listed as "endangered". It is a rare case of a species climbing away from extinction. If the new status is accepted by IUCN, the World Conservation Union, scientists say it will be a milestone for large mammal conservation. In 1945, there were only 31...

SCIENTISTS have for the first time found evidence that polar bears are drowning because climate change is melting the Arctic ice shelf. The researchers were startled to find bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They are being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed are melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart. Although polar bears are strong swimmers, they are adapted for swimming close to the shore. Their sea journeys leave them them vulnerable to exhaustion, hypothermia or being swamped by waves *Snip*

THEY are called echizen kurage and they sound like monsters from the trashier reaches of Japanese science fiction. They are 6ft wide and weigh 450lb (200kg), with countless poisonous tentacles, they have drifted across the void to terrorise the people of Japan. Vast armadas of the slimy horrors have cut off the country’s food supply. As soon as one is killed more appear to take its place. Finally, the quarrelsome governments of the region are banding together to unite against the enemy. Echizen kurage is not an extraterrestrial invader, but a giant jellyfish that is devastating the livelihoods of...

GENEVA (Reuters) - Environmental researchers are preparing to capture what they call a new, mysterious species of carnivore on Borneo, the first such discovery on the wildlife-rich Indonesian island in over a century. Swiss-based environmental group WWF said on Monday its researchers photographed the strange animal, which looks like a cross between a cat and a fox, in the dense, central mountainous rainforests of Borneo.

Is it just me or are the global warming headlines starting to overheat a little? The Independent on Sunday gave its report on the Montreal climate conference the somewhat overwrought title: "What planet are you on, Mr Bush? (And do you care, Mr Blair?)" Nothing in the rather dull article underneath justified the hectoring hysteria. And, to be honest, I've no real idea what it means. Is the IoS asking whether Mr Blair cares what planet Mr Bush is on? Well, no doubt he'd be startled to hear the President's moving to Pluto, but I expect he'd take it in...

A shipment of hairy crabs imported from China, some of which have already been sold and eaten, was found to contain residues of the pesticide DDT, the Department of Health said on Wednesday. This was discovered during a random DOH inspection of aquatic products sold in markets throughout the island. The department began the inspections in September in an effort to determine whether residues of drugs or pesticides were retained in such products, and also to assess the level of metals they might contain. According to the DOH, the hairy crabs sold in three supermarkets -- Carrefour, Hsi-Mei and Hsing-Loong,...