# 68 Wildclickers arranging a ball

Bhutan may be the real-world equivalent of Shangri-La, where vast alpine ecosystems still exist largely undisturbed by the outside world. Here still range the rare snow leopard, red panda, Bengal tiger, golden langur, Himalayan black bear, and many others ... although many of these species are threatened. Some 200 mammals are found in Bhutan.

The complexity of nature. Good things go hand in hand with bad things. Unanticipated consequences. Cause and effect.

ECOLOGY: Plant Wars
---------------------------------------------------------------------------Andrew
M. Sugden

In plant ecology, it is commonly observed that some plant species will
facilitate the establishment or persistence of other species. Weir and
Vivanco have uncovered the biochemical basis of such facilitation in
North
American grasslands invaded by Centaurea maculosa (spotted knapweed).
The
invading species produces a phytotoxin, catechin, which induces
oxidative
stress in many native plants and often thereby eliminates them entirely
from the local ecological community. A few native species, such as
Gaillardia grandiflora, are able to resist knapweed invasion, and
several
of these species, including Lupinus sericeus, facilitate the resistance
of
native grasses to the invader. Lupinus secretes oxalate from its root
tissues in response to catechin exposure. By blocking reactive oxygen
species, oxalate affords protection to neighboring vulnerable plants
against the toxic effects of catechin. These results suggest strategies
for
controlling a serious invader and also provide insight into the
multiplicity of facilitation mechanisms involved as plant communities
develop. -- AMS

Planta 10.1007/s00425-005-0192-x (2006).

----------------------------------------------------


AND THIS ONE IS REALLY FASCINATING


ECOLOGY: The Best Laid Plans
---------------------------------------------------------------------------Caroline
Ash

The invasive weed Centaurea maculosa (spotted knapweed) has become
widespread in North America. Gall flies (Urophora spp.) have been
introduced in an attempt at biological control of the plant. The gall
flies
lay their eggs in the flower heads, where the larvae induce the
formation
of galls in which they overwinter. The presence of the galls ultimately
results in the plants producing fewer seeds. Although the flies have
successfully dispersed throughout populations of the invasive weed,
they
have not proved to be effective control agents, and the weed continues
to
spread, particularly in areas disturbed by human activity.

Pearson and Callaway have discovered that therein lies a deeper threat.
The
fly grubs have proved to be an attractive food source for Peromyscus
(deer)
mice and bolster mouse populations during otherwise lean winter months.
This genus of mice are reservoir hosts for the human pathogenic
hantavirus,
Sin Nombre, and, worryingly, the authors found that the abundance of
hantavirus-seropositive mice is elevated in zones of high abundance of
weed
and flies. Deer mice also act as reservoir hosts for Lyme disease and
potentially for plague and other zoonotic pathogens. -- CA

Ecol. Lett. 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2006.00896.x (2006).

Stradee,

Let's not leave this discussion. I want to understand why I'm not sure that I understand your assertion that factory farming is the culprit for avian flu.

If various forms of avian flu have been around for a long time, then why the recent concern about a pandemic?

Did my clicking.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/16/AR2006031601799_pf.html

"Keep the Islands Pure

Friday, March 17, 2006; A18



PRESIDENT BUSH has never been a great friend of environmental protection. Yet his administration may be about to pull off, without much fanfare, a triumph of ecosystem conservation. Then again, it may not.

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, an unpopulated string of islands stretching more than 1,200 miles from Hawaii's populated islands, make up one of this country's most remote and pristine wildernesses. The waters around them form its largest coral reef ecosystem; the islands and their waters house thousands of species, a quarter of which exist nowhere else in the world. President Bill Clinton, using an executive order, created a marine reserve there. Mr. Bush is now poised to formalize and strengthen that designation using a law that allows the creation of marine sanctuaries -- a kind of underwater national park. If he does it right, he will create one of the largest marine protected areas in the world and establish a strong precedent for future designations of marine areas as off-limits to human exploitation. If he does it wrong, it will be a huge missed opportunity.

Commercial use of these waters is mercifully limited already -- one of the reasons they remain in fairly good shape and the major reason as well that the sanctuary designation is uncontroversial. Still, a small number of commercial fishermen are active in the region, raising the question of how protected this marine sanctuary will be. Will it be an area set aside for wildlife and no competing human interests? Or will it be an area in which conservation has to jockey with resource extraction and other commercial activity? The fishery in question is not lucrative, yet managers of regional fisheries are pushing hard to preserve access to any future sanctuary anyway. Whether the administration will propose this in its draft plan for the area remains up in the air. In a January letter to the regional fisheries council, federal officials outlined three possibilities: allowing fishing to continue for five years, until 2025, or indefinitely.

The oceans are under enormous stress; overfishing is one predominant cause, and these areas are national treasures. If a large expanse of remote water with limited extant human investment and huge ecological significance does not qualify as a true sanctuary, it will be a sign that the political will to save the oceans just isn't there. On the other hand, if Mr. Bush creates a true sanctuary, he will set a marker for future presidents wishing to protect America's coastal waters."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/16/AR2006031601319.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

"Kempthorne Picked for Interior
Idaho Governor Hailed by Bush, Assailed by Environmentalists

By Peter Baker and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 17, 2006; A04


President Bush named Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne as the new secretary of the interior yesterday, choosing a popular Western Republican with Washington experience and a disputed environmental record to oversee the nation's parks and public lands."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060316/ap_on_sc/woodpecker_question

"Experts Argue Over Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
Thu Mar 16, 2:13 PM ET


WASHINGTON - Was it or was it not an ivory-billed woodpecker? Experts are still arguing a year later, while bird fanciers flock to the part of Arkansas where the bird in question was said to have been seen and heard.

The issue takes wing again in the Friday's issue of the journal Science, with one set of researchers arguing that the bird videotaped last year was probably a common pileated woodpecker and another group stoutly defending the identification as an ivory-bill."

Susan,
maybe you can find some answers here:

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2539

Quote:

"If [Upton Sinclair's] The Jungle were written today, it would not be set in the American Midwest," says Nierenberg. "As environmental and labour regulations in the European Union and the United States become
stronger and more prohibitive, large agribusinesses are moving their animal production operations overseas, primarily to countries with less stringent enforcement."
ndustrial systems today generate 74 per cent of the world's poultry products, 50 per cent of all pork, 43 per cent of beef, and 68 per cent of
eggs. While industrial countries dominate production, it is in developing nations where livestock producers are rapidly expanding and
intensifying their production systems."....

In today's world any virus can be a real threat ( global market)- and I think it is good to be aware of it and take precaution- more hygiene standards and education everywhere.
( I have seen factory farming in some parts of Asia myself. Horror)
A fair price to farmers so it would be possible to earn enough. How much does it cost to raise a chicken until it is ready to be slaughtered? And how much do we pay for it? Is there enough profit for a farmer to raise them?
The tons of feces from a factory farm alone is a health risk. This virus is in the manure. And the manure is spread on the fields- contaminating other animals and the shoes of people. In my opinion there is a high risk that the virus can change.

Thanks for the reading sumac. I like the one re Best Laid Plans. We've been doing that to ourselves forever - ie., in W Texas the "tumbleweed" is not a native plant. It was brought in and planted. The W Coast is covered by "ice plants" along the beaches - not native. The whole Southern USA is covered by "kudzu" grass which just takes over everything. Will we never learn?????
I recently read that many scientists are concerned about a new technology involving the making of microscopic machines that will be capable of manufacturing themselves. They are afraid the tiny nano machines will literally "eat the world" like an acid virus.

Well, till that happens - I've clicked.

Everyone's afraid of 69?

Green corvette 69 :wink:

Fire ants are up and active - got me on both wrists.

Hummingbird feeder up. Usually I am late and they come and look in the window at me, as if to say "Where's the grub?"

Thanks, Ul. I will go to the link and return to the topic later. Today is the last really warm day and then we go back to lower than normal temps: lows in the 30's and high only in the 50's. So doing my outside work today.

A newsletter entitled FEED from the Union of Concerned Scientists came to me today. I wish it went into greater detail. It is the first I have seen or heard mention of the cause of avian flu, other than what has been posted here.

Global poultry industry may be implicated in bird flu

A study by the international non-governmental organization GRAIN suggests that avian influenza is spread primarily by the global poultry trade, not migratory birds or free-range poultry operations as has been suggested, and that confined factory farm production contributed to its mutation into its current deadly form. The organization tracked the movements of the disease over time and found that they were correlated, not with migratory bird routes or the locations of free-range farms, but with integrated trade networks involving poultry, eggs, meat, feathers, manure and animal feed. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns warned that bird flu will almost certainly come to the United States. Read the GRAIN report, Fowl Play: The Poultry Industry's Central Role in the Bird Flu Crisis. Read about Johanns's announcement.

Here is a link to the GRAIN report, a couple of paragraphs from the beginning of it, and some information about the GRAIN organization.

http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=194

"Fowl play: The poultry industry's central role in the bird flu crisis

GRAIN | February 2006


Read the press release (Feb 2006)

Read GRAINs letter about bird flu to the FAO (Feb 2006)

Backyard or free-range poultry are not fuelling the current wave of bird flu outbreaks stalking large parts of the world. The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is essentially a problem of industrial poultry practices. Its epicentre is the factory farms of China and Southeast Asia and -- while wild birds can carry the disease, at least for short distances -- its main vector is the highly self-regulated transnational poultry industry, which sends the products and waste of its farms around the world through a multitude of channels. Yet small poultry farmers and the poultry biodiversity and local food security that they sustain are suffering badly from the fall-out. To make matters worse, governments and international agencies, following mistaken assumptions about how the disease spreads and amplifies, are pursuing measures to force poultry indoors and further industrialise the poultry sector. In practice, this means the end of the small-scale poultry farming that provides food and livelihoods to hundreds of millions of families across the world. This paper presents a fresh perspective on the bird flu story that challenges current assumptions and puts the focus back where it should be: on the transnational poultry industry. "

GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge.

GRAIN was established at the beginning of the 1990s to launch a decade of popular action against one of the most pervasive threats to world food security: genetic erosion. The loss of biological diversity, undermines the very sense of "sustainable development" as it destroys options for the future and robs people of a key resource base for survival. Genetic erosion means more than just the loss of genetic diversity. In essence it is an erosion of options for development. Central to our approach is the conviction that the conservation and use of genetic resources is too important to leave to scientists, governments and industry alone. Farmers and community organisations have nurtured genetic diversity for millennia, and continue to do so. Any effort in this field should take their experience as a starting point

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/17wire-israel-birdflu.html?ei=5094&en=6e929675fdeec254&hp=&ex=1142658000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

March 17, 2006

"Israel Detects Cases of Avian Flu

By REUTERS

BEERSHEBA, Israel (Reuters) - Israel detected its first cases of H5N1 bird flu on Friday, saying the virus had killed thousands of turkeys and chickens on two farms.

The Israeli authorities treated four people in hospital amid fears they could have the virus. Serbia said three children and a teenager from a bird-flu affected area were in hospital after developing fever and flu-like symptoms........

Three people who worked in poultry coops at the farms where the virus was discovered were admitted to isolation units at Soroka Medical Center in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba."

Howdy wildclickers,

Wow, lots of reading sumac!

Gone most of the day today, and tomorrow the same. Great articles, and we can rest assured that the new Director of the Interior will be just as bad, if not worse, than Gale Norton.

The budget bill <that cannot be fillibustered> including drilling ANWR - will be voted on next week. Hold yur hats everyone!

The Forest Department has decided to dictate policy without public comments. <of course they have>

More factory farm protection from the bush administration...<guess all that "reporting" didn't fare very well for the enviornment, human and animal health>

Bill Number: HR4341
Sponsor: Ralph Hall (R-TX)
Legislative Session: 2006

Large factory farms are major sources of pollution that foul our lakes and rivers and threaten drinking water supplies with pathogens and chemicals. The air around factory farms is also contaminated, and has been linked to asthma, bronchitis, and other diseases. Factory farms are the largest source of ammonia air pollution in the U.S.

Current laws require factory farms to report emissions of toxic chemicals like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, which come from decomposing manure. One dairy operation reported releasing more than 5,600,000 pounds of ammonia in a year - more ammonia than the largest chemical plant reported.

The legislation, HR4341, would create a loophole in our right-to-know laws by exempting factory farms from reporting their emissions. In addition, the bill would exempt livestock operations from paying damages for the cleanup of water supplies polluted by their manure.

Status
The next meeting of the Senate is Mar 27, 2006; the House next meets Mar 28, 2006.

aktbird57 - You and your 292 friends have supported 2,286,436.1 square feet!

Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 103,360.8 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 292 friends have supported: (103,360.8)

American Prairie habitat supported: 49,110.9 square feet.
You have supported: (11,822.1)
Your 292 friends have supported: (37,288.8)

Rainforest habitat supported: 2,133,964.4 square feet.
You have supported: (169,175.5)
Your 292 friends have supported: (1,964,788.9)

~~~~~~~~~~~

2286436.1 square feet is equal to 52.49 acres

~~~~~~~~~~~

hmmmmmmmm ul may be onto something there

~~~~~~~~~~

what were we driving in 1969?

might make a good new thread starter.

<so don't tell us just yet :wink: >