#critical habitat

[rjzimmerman]

U.S.'s plan doubles the acres designated as critical habitat for manatees in Florida. (WLRN South Florida)

This map released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows the proposed critical habitat for manatees in Florida.

Excerpt from this story from WLRN South Florida:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announced a plan to more than double the critical habitat designated for manatees in Florida to 1.9 million acres.

The proposed revisions also include a new designation of 78,121 acres in Puerto Rico for the Antillean manatee.

In Florida, the lands affected are 34% federal, 57% state, 7% local government and 2% private. Federal permits or funding within the habitat has to be reviewed by the Fish and Wildlife Service to prevent harm to the species.

Nikki Colangelo, a supervisor with the agency in Florida, said the maps benefit from decades of information gathering and data about manatees.

The Florida map adds Silver Springs, Tampa Bay and Withlacoochee Bay. "One of the main features that are essential for Florida manatee," Colangelo said, "are these areas of water that are warmed by natural processes. So, you know, the spring areas and thermal basins are extremely important for the species."

The revised map is nearly 15 years in the making -- since environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, got the wildlife agency to acknowledge it needed to update the one created in 1977.

The revisions come now, only because the environmental groups continued to press for them and, in 2022, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to submit a plan by this month. A comment period is open until Nov. 25.

[delicatelysublimeforester]

Celebrating World Aquatic Animal Day

[fuwaprince]

Um excuse me ma'am may I also be protected by the endangered species act of 1973 👉👈

[borgeslabyrinth]

"Florida is hell on earth" sounds like a you problem

[canisvesperus]

I’m sorry for being chronically offline…

*emerges from the woods to throw you a wip as a treat*

[thoughtlessarse]

The EU aims to boost production of copper and other metals to meet 2050 climate goals. A mine expansion in northern Sweden is seen as critical to those amibitons, but for indigenous Sámi who have been moved off their land it's a threat to an ancient way of life. Copper, lithium, cobalt and Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are among the 34 metals and minerals classified as critical by the European Union. The EU's aim for carbon neutrality by 2050, along with modern weaponry and the increasing digitalisation of daily life, hinges on technologies that require more metals than ever before, making these materials prized commodities. But while the EU already consumes approximately a quarter of the world’s raw materials, it produces only about 3% of them. Critical Raw Materials In December 2023, the European Parliament adopted the Critical Raw Materials Act, which outlines targets for recycling, processing, trade, and crucially, domestic production. By 2030, the EU wants to mine at least 10% of its annual consumption of critical raw materials. This objective seeks to enhance supply security and reduce dependence on foreign sources, such as China, which currently supplies almost all of the EU's REE needs. Euronews travelled to Sweden, a mining powerhouse, to explore the implications of this target for the continent.

continue reading

“We're saving the planet!”

It's a double hit for the Sami people; the climate in the region is changing at an accelerated rate, and the minerals needed to combat that change are under the land they live from.

There is a 10 minutes video that accompanies this article.

[bereft-of-frogs]

This is the second time I’ve posted this book, which is crazy for a book I wasn’t even really obsessed with (it was a fun read but it was 100% a romance novel, in that it was pretty trope-centered and extremely predictable, I just usually get that through other preferred media, but if you enjoy romance this one did it pretty well! Like if a hallmark movie had some gingersnaps vibes)

but!! Look my cocktail matched kind of! The whiskey sour had this cherry glaze that we agreed kind of looked like werewolf claws 😆

[paintedwarpony]

Ok. Not gonna lie.

This Twitch stream of Matt Mercer moving into his new mini and map office is making me so so happy.

[woomycritiques543]

Say you have no hope for Hazbin but want the leaks to be shut down

I legit never said that I have "no hope for Hazbin". I just said that the video the person made was decent. That's legit just it.

Also- those two opinions can exist in one place.

What are you people even saying anymore? The more I think about how much older the people who write these comments and or asks about or to me are, the worse they get. What the fuck?! LOL!

[nabtime]

i need to be released into a funkfin craft store STAT

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from KLAS (Nevada):

A rare toad caught in the middle of a plan to develop geothermal energy in Nevada’s Churchill County could get a protected home from the federal government.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on Friday published a proposal to set aside 930 acres — about 1.5 square miles — for the endangered Dixie Valley toad.

“We’re pleased that the Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing concrete action to protect the Dixie Valley toad,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“This precious little amphibian is an integral part of a wetland ecosystem that sustains migratory birds, pronghorn and golden eagles. Protecting its habitat safeguards the abundance of life at Dixie Meadows.”

Donnelly’s group has publicized the Dixie Valley toad’s plight, and emergency protection under the Endangered Species Act was established in 2022. Permanent protection came later in the same year.

USFWS identified the geothermal plan as “the primary threat to the Dixie Valley toad” in its proposal to set aside the land.

[milkdongcomics]

World Gorilla Day 2024 世界大猩猩日 HOMELESS GORILLA in "HEY HUMAN, SEE WHAT YOU DO!?" BUY 👈🏻 Instagram 👈🏻 Facebook 👈🏻

[todaysbird]

to clarify to anyone who thinks ive said otherwise - I am critical of how moo deng has been handled and how it appears that her image is being used for cryptocurrency/etc, but I am not overall critical of her zoo. I would say that after looking at the hippo habitat, it looks nice! I'm not sure where the information regarding habitats in the zoo being crowded/dirty is coming from, but (while I'm not local and have not been there!) to me they look only 'dirty' in the sense that, well, wild animals live in there and they don't prefer pristine habitats. you SHOULD be critical of the care of ANY widely meme'd/popular animal because 99% of the time there's something wrong if it's not a domestic pet, but that shouldnt escalate into outright racist statements about everyone at the zoo are animal abusers/the animals being kept in conditions they clearly aren't. keep being critical of 'celebrity' animals, but calling for boycotts of the zoo entirely etc are both an overreaction and ignorant of more severe animal welfare concerns

[reasonsforhope]

"In one of Africa’s last great wildernesses, a remarkable thing has happened—the scimitar-horned oryx, once declared extinct in the wild, is now classified only as endangered.

It’s the first time the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s largest conservation organization, has ever moved a species on its Red List from ‘Extinct in the Wild’ to ‘Endangered.’

The recovery was down to the conservation work of zoos around the world, but also from game breeders in the Texas hill country, who kept the oryx alive while the governments of Abu Dhabi and Chad worked together on a reintroduction program.

Chad... ranks second-lowest on the UN Development Index. Nevertheless, it is within this North African country that can be found the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve, a piece of protected desert and savannah the size of Scotland—around 30,000 square miles, or 10 times the size of Yellowstone.

At a workshop in Chad’s capital of N’Djamena, in 2012, Environment Abu Dhabi, the government of Chad, the Sahara Conservation Fund, and the Zoological Society of London, all secured the support of local landowners and nomadic herders for the reintroduction of the scimitar-horned oryx to the reserve.

Environment Abu Dhabi started the project, assembling captive animals from zoos and private collections the world over to ensure genetic diversity. In March 2016, the first 21 animals from this “world herd” were released over time into a fenced-off part of the reserve where they could acclimatize. Ranging over 30 miles, one female gave birth—the first oryx born into its once-native habitat in over three decades.

In late January 2017, 14 more animals were flown to the reserve in Chad from Abu Dhabi.

In 2022, the rewilded species was officially assessed by the IUCN’s Red List, and determined them to be just ‘Endangered,’ and not ‘Critically Endangered,’ with a population of between 140 and 160 individuals that was increasing, not decreasing.

It’s a tremendous achievement of international scientific and governmental collaboration and a sign that zoological efforts to breed endangered and even extinct animals in captivity can truly work if suitable habitat remains for them to return to."

-via Good News Network, December 13, 2023

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

Following a court-ordered agreement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today designated more than 1.2 million acres of critical habitat in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon for threatened Humboldt martens, also known as coastal martens.

“I’m happy that Humboldt martens finally have protection for some of the most important places where they live,” said Chelsea Stewart-Fusek, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “But it shouldn’t have taken multiple lawsuits to get here. It’s also extremely disappointing that the Service continues to give special treatment to timber companies, which are largely responsible for the martens’ decline in the first place.”

Today’s critical habitat designation calls for five units of protected habitat where martens are known to still live. This includes acreage in Coos, Curry, Douglas, Josephine, Lane and Lincoln counties in Oregon, and Del Norte and Siskiyou counties in Northern California.

But in addition to only including occupied habitat, the Service excluded more than 49,000 acres of land owned by the timber company Green Diamond Resources. This is based primarily on a safe harbor agreement it has with the state of California.

The agreement, in part, exempts Green Diamond lands from the critical habitat designation in exchange for monitoring, creation of a 2,100-acre reserve on land that is mostly unsuitable for logging or martens, and a highly speculative proposal to relocate martens to national and state parks.

“Martens are on the brink of extinction, and with most of their habitat lost to logging, their populations can’t expand,” said Stewart-Fusek. “If these animals are going to recover, they’re going to need more than the disconnected habitat fragments the Service just protected.”

Humboldt martens are elusive, cat-sized members of the weasel family. Once common in coastal forests in Northern California and Oregon, the animals were nearly wiped out by logging and widespread trapping. Today, fewer than 400 of these amazing carnivores remain, in just four highly isolated fragments of the species’ historic habitat.

[extinctionstories]

On April 19th, 1987, a bird known as Adult Condor 9 was captured in the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, near Bakersfield, California. After decades ravaged by the threats of lead-poisoning and pesticide exposure, and intense debate over the ethics of captivity, it had been determined that captive breeding was the final hope to save a species. As his designation might suggest, AC-9 was the ninth condor to be captured for the new program; he was also the last.

As the biology team transported the seven-year-old male to the safety of the San Diego Wild Animal Park, his species, the California Condor, North America's largest bird, became extinct in its native range. It was Easter Sunday—a fitting day for the start of a resurrection.

At the time of AC-9's capture, the total world population of California condors constituted just twenty-seven birds. The majority of them represented ongoing conservation attempts: immature birds, taken from the wild as nestlings and eggs to be captive-reared in safety, with the intention of re-release into the wild. Now, efforts turned fully towards the hope of captive breeding.

Captive breeding is never a sure-fire bet, especially for sensitive, slow-reproducing species like the condor. Animals can and do go extinct even when all individuals are successfully shielded from peril and provided with ideal breeding conditions. Persistence in captivity is not the solution to habitat destruction and extirpation—but it can buy valuable time for a species that needs it.

Thankfully, for the California condor, it paid off.

The birds defied expectations, with an egg successfully hatched at the San Diego Zoo the very next year. Unlike many other birds of prey, which may produce clutches of up to 5 hatchlings, the California condor raises a single chick per breeding season, providing care for the first full year of its life, and, as a consequence, often not nesting at all in the year following the birth of a chick. This, combined with the bird's slow maturation (taking six to eight years to start breeding), presented a significant challenge. However, biologists were able to exploit another quirk of the bird's breeding cycle: its ability to double-clutch.

Raising a single offspring per year is a massive risk in a world full of threats, and the California condor's biology has provided it with a back-up plan: in years when a chick or egg has been lost, condors will often re-nest with a second egg. To take advantage of this tendency, eggs were selectively removed from birds in the captive breeding program, which would then lay a replacement, greatly increasing their reproduction rate.

And what of the eggs that were taken? The tendency of hatchlings to imprint is well-known, and the intention from the very beginning was for the birds to one day return to the wild—an impossibility for animals acclimated to humans. And so, puppets were made in the realistic likeness of adult condors, and used by members of the conservation team to feed and nurture the young birds, mitigating the risk of imprintation on the wrong species.

By 1992, the captive population had more than doubled, to 64 birds. That year, after an absence of five years, the first two captive-bred condors were released into their ancestral home. Many other releases followed, including the return of AC-9 himself in 2002. Thanks to the efforts of zoos and conservationists, as of 2024 there are 561 living California condors, over half of which fly free in the wilds of the American West.

The fight to save the California condor is far from over. The species is still listed as critically endangered. Lead poisoning (from ingesting shot/bullets from abandoned carcasses) remains the primary source of mortality for the species, with tagged birds tested and treated whenever possible. Baby condors are fed bone chips by their parents, likely as a calcium supplement—but, to a condor, bits of bone and bits of plastic can be indistinguishable, and dead nestlings have been found with stomachs full of trash.

There's hope, though. There are things we can change, things we can counteract and stop from happening in the future. It was a human hand that created this problem, and it will take a human hand to fix it. Hope is only gone when the last animal breathes its last breath—and the California condor is still here.

-

This painting is titled Puppet Rearing (California Condor), and is part of my series Conservation Pieces, which focuses on the efforts and techniques used to save critically endangered birds from extinction. It is traditional gouache, on 22x30" paper.