Terri Irwin- Japan's scientific whale kill is a sham

Terri Irwin to Launch Whale Rescue
Associated Press

On a Mission Dec. 27, 2007 -- The widow of TV "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin announced Thursday she will launch non-lethal research of whales in Antarctic waters next year in hopes of showing that Japan's scientific whale kill is a sham.

Tokyo has staunchly defended its annual cull of more than 1,000 whales as crucial for research, saying it is necessary to kill the whales to properly gather information about their eating, breeding and migratory habits.

Environmentalists and anti-whaling nations say the slaughter is commercial whaling in disguise, because much of the meat from the whales ends up being sold commercially.

Terri Irwin said that a whale watching program she started to honor her late husband would expand into scientific research in 2008. Steve Irwin, the high-profile wildlife show host and environmental campaigner, was killed by a stingray last year off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

"We are working with Oregon State University to do formalized research in the southern hemisphere," Terri Irwin told the Nine Network television. "We can actually learn everything the Japanese are learning with lethal research by using non-lethal research."

Japan's whaling fleet is run by a government-backed research institute and operates under a clause in International Whaling Commission rules that allows whales to be killed for scientific purposes.

Japan had planned to kill up to 50 endangered humpback whales this season, but backed away from the plan in the face of strong international condemnation.

"We are determined to show the Japanese they can stop all whaling, not just humpbacks," Irwin said.

Further details of Irwin's planned research program were not immediately available.

Earlier this month, Irwin threw her support behind a radical conservation group that has vowed to disrupt Japan's annual whale hunt, allowing the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to rename one of its flagship vessels after her late husband.

Sea Shepherd has come under heavy criticism in recent years for engaging in violent tussles with the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctic waters.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

Bizarre Dinosaurs

AMARGASAURUS
X-FACTOR: Double row of spines on neck and back
WHEN: 130-125 million years ago
WHERE: Argentina
Like the tail fins on a 1959 Cadillac, a bizarre double row of spines extending from the vertebrae of Amargasaurus may have served little purpose other than to turn heads. Since the discovery of the sauropod was announced in 1991, paleontologists have pondered the function of the delicate bony rods, which would have offered limited defense at best against predators. Perhaps the bony rods were covered with skin, forming sails similar to those on some living lizards. If so, Amargasaurus might have flushed blood into the sails to help cool its body. But their likely function, says Smithsonian paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues, was to attract mates or intimidate rivals. “In evolution nothing is really bizarre. Every structure makes perfectly good sense to the organism. In the case of extinct animals the challenge is to identify what the purpose might have been.”


CARNOTAURUS
X-FACTOR: Bull horns, tiny arms
WHEN: 82-67 million years ago
WHERE: Argentina
Consider the evolutionary hand dealt to Carnotaurus, or “meat-eating bull”: a big, bad, but seemingly underequipped predator, as if nature had set out to design a perfect killing machine but ran out of funding. Powerful jaws and long, agile legs suggest a highly mobile hunter prowling the lakeshores of what is now Patagonia. Its skull, constructed like a battering ram, features a stout pair of horns. Yet accompanying this formidable hardware are tiny arms (even more stunted than the famously puny arms of Tyrannosaurus rex) and surprisingly small teeth. Some scientists, like University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno, envision Carnotaurus and its kin as dinosaurian hyenas—fleet of foot and short-snouted to track down and gnaw on carcasses. “Who needs arms for that?” he asks.


MASIAKASAURUS
X-FACTOR: Inscrutable teeth
WHEN: 70-65 million years ago
WHERE: Madagascar
The mouth of Masiakasaurus speaks to how this German shepherd-size meat-eater survived in the river basins of northwestern Madagascar, near the end of the dinosaurs’ reign. But what is it saying? Stony Brook University paleontologist David Krause led the team that found the remains, including part of the lower jaw. Masiakasaurus has long, conical front teeth with hooked tips that curl out of its mouth—unique among theropods—while its back teeth are more typically blade-like and serrated. So how did it use such a specialized mouth? “Our best guess is the teeth up front were used to stab small prey, perhaps mammals, lizards, and/or birds,” says team member Scott Sampson of the University of Utah, “and the teeth at the rear of the jaw were then used to tear up the kill.” Despite its formidable dentition, Masiakasaurus was likely prey itself for crocs and other large carnivores, like the 20-foot-long (6 meters) theropod Majungasaurus, with which it shared territory. Against such monsters, its best defenses would have been speed and agility.

-National Geographic-

holy fish!

8-Foot Giant Catfish Caught in Cambodia

November 19, 2007—Captured just before midnight on November 13 by fishers in Cambodia, this Mekong giant catfish is 8 feet long (2.4 meters long) ands weighs 450 pounds (204 kilograms).

"This is the only giant catfish that has been caught this year so far, making it the worst year on record for catch of giant fish species," said Zeb Hogan (far right), a fisheries biologist at the University of Reno in Nevada.

After collecting data on the fish, Hogan released it unharmed.

Giant catfish were once plentiful throughout Southeast Asia's Mekong River watershed, including the Tonle Sap River—home of the fish in these exclusive pictures taken near Phnom Penh.

But in the last century the Mekong giant catfish population has declined by 95 to 99 percent, scientists say. Only a few hundred adult giant catfish may remain.

Since 2000 five to ten fish have been caught by accident each year throughout the Mekong area.

Earlier this year Hogan, a National Geographic "emerging explorer," launched the three-year Megafishes Project to document the world's giant freshwater fish.

The project is funded in part by the National Geographic Conservation Trust and Expeditions Council. (National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)

—Stefan Lovgren

Year of the Frog

Sign up to be a friend of frogs! Yes, I want to help save amphibians. Please send me information about how I can help raise awareness, take conservation action and support the global 2008 Year of the Frog campaign.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums will highlight 2008 as the Year of the Frog to mark a major conservation effort to address the amphibian extinction crisis.



Why Year of the Frog?

Frogs are going extinct. So are toads, salamanders, newts, and the intriguingly unusual caecilians. In fact, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) estimates that at least one-third of known amphibian species are threatened with extinction. While the major culprit has historically been habitat loss and degradation, many of the declines and extinctions previously referred to as "enigmatic" are now being attributed to the rapidly dispersing infectious disease chytridiomycosis ("chytrid"). This fungus is causing population and species extinctions at an alarming rate. Can you imagine if we were about to lose one-third of the world's mammals?

The combined effect of habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, and chytrid cannot be addressed solely in the wild. Captive assurance populations have become the only hope for many species faced with imminent extinction and are an important component of an integrated conservation effort. AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums, with their demonstrated expertise in endangered species breeding programs, have been called upon to meet this conservation challenge.

The IUCN has classified four amphibians in the U.S. to be critically endangered, the Mississippi gopher frog, the Chiricahua leopard frog, the mountain yellow-legged frog, and the Wyoming toad. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has listed thirty-seven amphibian species under the Endangered Species Act. AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums may be their only hope for survival.

Scientists find Nemo's Cousin

Finding Nemo's Cousin: Scientists Spot New Marine Species
Oct. 16, 2007 — A swimming sea cucumber, a Nemo-like orange fish and a worm with tentacles sprouting from its head are among dozens of possible new species found during a survey of the Celebes Sea, researchers said Tuesday.

A team of U.S. and Filipino scientists plunged up to three miles underwater in early October in an area that has been isolated by rising sea levels and may have spawned sea life not found elsewhere.

They collected between 50 and 100 potentially undiscovered species of marine invertebrates and fishes.

"These waters are the richest biological regions of the world but have been largely unexplored," said expedition leader, Larry Madin, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

The survey was conducted by Woods Hole, National Geographic and Filipino scientists at the Coral Triangle — bodies of water bounded by the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia that are known to contain the world's richest biodiversity in shallow water marine species.

It will take a few more weeks of study of the deepwater sea life samples before they can be declared new species, Madin said during a video presentation of the findings in Manila.

Among the more unusual finds were an orange-tinged sea cucumber that uproots itself from the seabed and swims using flaps on its transparent body, and a worm with tentacles coming out of its head and transparent paddle fins growing all over its tan body.

"We don't know what this is," Madin said of the worm. "It might be something big."

Of the fish collected, a tiny, angular orange one with a puckered yellow mouth looked like the main character in the animated Hollywood film "Finding Nemo," Madin said.

The team also collected various types of deepwater jellyfish, predatory eels and single-celled organisms — as well as piles of household garbage.

The area holds promise for more discoveries, Madin said.

cute kid!