How sea otters help save the planet

Charles Darwin once mused on the impacts that predators could have on the landscapes around them. In particular, he wondered - in On the Origin of Species - how neighbourhood cats might affect the abundance of flowers in the fields near his house at Downe in Kent. He concluded the animals' potential to change local flora was considerable.

A robust cat population, he argued, would mean that local mouse numbers would be low and that, in turn, would mean there would high numbers of bumble bees - because mice destroy bee combs and nests. And as bees pollinate clover, Darwin argued that this cascade of oscillating species numbers would result in there being more clover in fields in areas where there are lots of feline pets. Cats mean clover, in short.

It was an idea that took the fancy of Darwin's chief disciple, the biologist Thomas Huxley who extended this cat-clover cascade in 1892 to include old maids. They kept cats, Huxley argued, and those pets would ensure neighbouring fields would be low in mice, high in bees and rich in clover.

And that in turn would have powerful consequences for the British Empire, Huxley added. Cattle graze on clover and cattle means beef. Thus old maids would provide the perfect setting for ensuring plenty of clover and therefore healthy cattle and good roast beef to feed our troops and thus ensure the prosperity of the British Empire. Old maids mean military might, in short.

Around islands that lacked sea otters, urchins had increased in size and in numbers with devastating consequences.

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World's saddest polar bear on display in Chinese shoppin

This is barbaric! Free them all!
They are one of the world's most magnificent predators. But one beautiful polar bear has been named the saddest in the world after it was filmed locked up in an enclosure in a Chinese shopping centre.

 
The bear can be seen lying slumped on its side in the tiny enclosure at the Grandview Aquarium, Guangzhou, China. Punters at the shopping centre disturb the bear regularly by knocking at its cage windows and taking selfies. The cruel make-shift zoo is also home to belugas, a walrus and a wolf.
 
 
Charity Animals Asia have since started a petition to close Grandview Aquarium which has seen over 153,000 signatures.
 
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Horror as spectators watch bullfighter gored to death in Spain

An award-winning bullfighter has been gored to death live in front of hundreds of terrified spectators - the first matador fatality in Spain this century.

Segovia bullfighter Víctor Barrio, 29, suffered a mortal blow during a tournament in the town of Teruel in Aragon, Eastern Spain.

The performer was rushed to hospital unconscious but doctors were unable to save his life.

He had rolled to the ground in a painful somersault after the bull caught him while he tried to attract the animal with a 'muletazo' manoeuvre, reports La Razon.es.

The bull caught him in the side, rammed him to the ground and gored him the chest.

The Maños bull, named Lorenzo, had reportedly been struggling but caught the showman off guard.

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Why is Antarctic sea ice increasing?

Scientists have shed more light on the puzzling contradiction of increasing Antarctic sea ice in a warming world.

In a new paper published in Nature Geoscience this week, researchers from Monash University and the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research pointed to climate variability and a complex series of flow-on effects between the tropical Pacific and Ross Sea.

Reasons why the extent of Antarctic sea ice has increased since satellite records began in 1979 have long confounded climate scientists.

The Antarctic situation sits in stark contrast with the Arctic, where ice is rapidly melting, and is not reflected in climate model predictions.

In the new study, the researchers report that patterns of climate variability and corresponding changes in water temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean, and the Amundsen Sea off the coast of west Antarctica, have changed ocean circulation in the Ross Sea, driving an increase in sea ice.

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Hole in ozone layer is closing and will be 'healed' by 2050, scientists say

  The hole in the ozone layer has shrunk by more than 1.7 million square miles since 2000. Photo / NASA

The hole in the Antarctic ozone layer is beginning to close, scientists have discovered.
Researchers from the University of Leeds and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, have confirmed the first signs of an increase of ozone, which shields life on Earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.

New findings, published today in the journal Science, show that the average size of the ozone hole each September has shrunk by more than 1.7 million square miles since 2000 - about 18 times the area of the United Kingdom.

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Warning sounds on global warming

The record warm start to the year will be the new normal within the next few generations, scientists say.

The first six months of 2016 have been the warmest since records began, but these temperatures may soon seem on the cold side, climate scientist James Renwick says.


"We're going to see more and more of these record warm months and years and in 50 years' time this year's record warm might be normal or even cool. What we think of as warm now is going to be average in a generation or so."

Northerly wind flows had contributed to warmer temperatures and a milder autumn this year, but Dr Renwick said it was the backdrop of climate change combined with weather patterns that created the record temperatures.

His predictions were echoed in climate change projections released by the Ministry for the Environment yesterday, which found average temperatures in New Zealand were expected to rise by up to 1C by 2040 and by up to a further 2C in the 50 years after that.

The report also predicted the number of hot days would increase by 40 to 100 per cent by 2040, while the number of cold nights would decrease by 30 to 50 per cent.
Rainfall would decrease in the north and east of the North Island, but increase elsewhere. The number of dry days each year would increase, as would the intensity of droughts.

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Scientists created zombie 'Frankenturtles' to discover why loggerheads are dying

The two majestic loggerhead sea turtles were dead, and nothing could change that. Like dozens of their kind, they'd succumbed in the ocean and washed up on Chesapeake Bay beaches, a major concern for marine biologists.

But two researchers had a crazy idea: What if they could bring the giants back to life, so to speak. David Kaplan, a professor at the College of William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and Bianca Santos, a graduate student there, went to work. They stuffed their body cavities with flotation material, stuck them back in the water and followed their drift in the hopes of finding where loggerheads are encountering the numerous things that are killing them.

The scientists didn't laugh madly. No electricity flashed between poles in a lab. But make no mistake, some horror was involved. "It's gruesome," said Santos. "It's not the prettiest of topics. But overall it's been positive."

They call them Frankenturtles because they look like monsters -- zombies with eyes missing and mouths shut tight. Their bodies at launch were still thawing out from the freezer at the Virginia Aquarium's Stranding Response Program, which collected the two specimens after beachcombers spotted them. Two weeks later, the mission to give their lives purpose is going "pretty well," Santos said.

 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=11665301