News Review for Week September 26 - October 2, 2005

New Zealand, Australia Agree on Joint Effort To Help Stranded Whales' Survival
September 30, 2005 (AP)
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Australia and New Zealand agreed Thursday to develop a joint strategy to help the survival of stranded whales which often die after beaching themselves, a behavior that continues to confound scientists.
New Zealand Conservation Minister Chris Carter said the two states already work together globally to protect and conserve whales and "this agreement is a logical extension of that relationship."
Carter said in a statement that the two states would improve whale stranding management through the exchange of techniques and areas of knowledge so they can develop a clearer picture about why whales beach themselves.
Scientists have so far been unable to determine what causes such behavior among whales, which sometimes become stranded on shorelines in groups of up to 400.
Carter said that Australia's Department of Environment and Heritage has expertise in rescuing large whales, and untangling them from fishing gear and other equipment.
New Zealand's Department of Conservation is experienced in handling major strandings of whales and co-ordinating community groups, indigenous Maori and volunteers in rescue efforts, he added.
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Hawaii Governor Safeguards Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
September 30, 2005 (ENS – By Sunny Lewis)
HONOLULU, Hawaii - With the stroke of a pen, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle Thursday created a marine refuge in all state waters in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. In addition, the governor announced that the state will pursue designation of the 1,200 mile long chain of tiny islands and atolls as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
At a time when many of the world’s oceans are being degraded, the state refuge puts all waters from Nihoa, the tiny island beyond Niihau and Kauai, to Kure Atoll, the northernmost land mass in the Hawaiian chain, into a limited access, no extraction marine refuge. State waters extend for three miles out from the shoreline of each island or atoll.
“These rules set in motion the most significant marine conservation initiative in the history of Hawaii by creating the state’s largest marine refuge,” said Lingle, a Republican.
The rules set aside 100 percent of state waters from extractive uses, including commercial and recreational fishing, and require an entry permit for all other activities.
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Scientists Use HDTV for a Sharp Look at Sea Floor
September 30, 2005 (ENS)
ARLINGTON, Virginia - Ocean scientists used for the first time a high-definition (HD) television camera for live views of an area of the sea floor that has been twisted by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and is dotted with spires and chimneys venting water as hot as 700 degrees Fahrenheit.
ON Wednesday and Thursday the team broadcast images from the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge on the sea floor 200 miles off the coast of Washington state and British Columbia. The transmissions are the first from the sea floor anywhere in the world to be broadcast live in HD video, which gives seven to 10 times the clarity of standard definition.
Called VISIONS '05, for Visually Integrated Science for Interactive Ocean Networked Systems, the expedition is studying how tectonic-plate interaction can support exotic and ancient microbial life forms deep within the sea floor. Instruments, cameras and robots are being used to study the unusual microorganisms that flourish there.
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Sun's changes play role in global warming
Increased solar output may have contributed 10 to 30 percent, study finds
September 30, 2005 (LiveScience - By Robert Roy Britt)
Increased output from the sun might be to blame for 10 to 30 percent of global warming that has been measured in the past 20 years, according to a new report.
Increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases still play a role, the scientists say.
But climate models of global warming should be corrected to better account for changes in solar activity, according to Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West of Duke University.
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Chile Group Calls for Salmon Farm Moratorium
September 30, 2005 (PlanetArk)
SANTIAGO, CHILE - A prominent Chilean environmental group called on Thursday for a government moratorium on expansion of the country's $1.5 billion salmon farming industry, saying waste from salmon farms has exacerbated red tides that make shellfish poisonous to eat.
The Chilean branch of international ocean protection group Oceana said red tides are becoming more frequent and more intense in Chile, harming shellfish businesses and tourism.
The group said scientific studies strongly suggest a contributing factor to the tides is high levels of nitrogen from the fish farming industry. High levels of nitrogen foment the growth of algae, both toxic and nontoxic.
"There is evidence that strongly suggests a relationship between aquiculture and harmful algae," Alejandro Buschmann, a marine biologist who did a study for Oceana, told reporters at a news conference.
Oceana said the government should not give any more permits out for new salmon farms and should study ways to make the industry safer for the environment, including the nitrogen problem as well as stronger monitoring of the industry for use of internationally banned anti-fungals.
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Arctic ice melting faster as temperatures climb
'Best answer is warming,' say researchers, who predict trend to continue
September 29, 2005 (AP)
New satellite observations show that sea ice in the Arctic is melting faster while air temperatures in the region are rising sharply, scientists say.
Since 2002, satellite data have revealed unusually early springtime melting in areas north of Siberia and Alaska. Now the melting trend has spread throughout the Arctic, according to a national collaboration of scientists.
The latest observations through September show that melting in 2005 began a record 17 days earlier than usual.
The observations showed 2.06 million square miles of sea ice as late as Sept. 19. That’s the lowest measurement of Arctic sea ice cover ever recorded, the researchers said. It’s also 20 percent less than the average of end-of-summer ice pack cover measurements recorded since 1978.
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Report: Ice-free Arctic summers possible by 2100
Scientists: 'We will have to live with the outcome'
September 29, 2005 (Reuters)
NEW YORK -- The Arctic ice shelf has melted for the fourth straight year to its smallest area in a century, driven by rising temperatures that appear linked to a buildup of greenhouse gases, U.S. scientists said Wednesday.
Scientists at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which have monitored the ice via satellites since 1978, say the total Arctic ice in 2005 will cover the smallest area since they started measuring.
It is the least amount of Arctic ice in at least a century, according to both the satellite data and shipping data going back many more years, according to a report from the groups.
As of September 21, the Arctic sea ice area had dropped to 2.05 million square miles (5.31 million square km), the report said.
From 1978 to 2000, the sea ice area averaged 2.70 million square miles (7 million square km), the report said. It noted the melting trend had shrunk Inuit hunting grounds and endangered polar bears, seals and other wildlife.
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Maryland Gets $19.4 Million To Fund Bay Improvements
September 29, 2005 (AP)
Gov. Robert Ehrlich announced a $19.4 million plan to reduce pollution and restore oyster habitat in the Corsica River over the next five years.
The money, most of it coming from federal agencies, will fund new oysters, bay grass plantings and grants to farmers who plant winter crops, which could reduce pollution into the tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.
"This is the grand experiment, taking a challenged river and bringing everyone together," Ehrlich said Tuesday.
Officials also unveiled plans to begin selling bottled "Maryland Natural Spring Water" by the end of the week to raise money for cleaning up the bay.
Charles Evans, development director for the Maryland Department of Resources, said it will take several years to get the Corsica River off the Environmental Protection Agency's list of "impaired waters."
But he described the partnership -- which includes state and local government, federal environmental authorities, environmental watch groups, farmers and businesses -- as exciting.
"This is a first," he said.
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Marine Organisms Threatened By Increasingly Acidic Ocean; Corals and Plankton May Have Difficulty Making Shells
September 29, 2005 (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)
Woods Hole, MA — Every day, the average person on the planet burns enough fossil fuel to emit 24 pounds of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, out of which about 9 pounds is then taken up by the ocean. As this CO2 combines with seawater, it forms an acid in a process known as ocean acidification.
A new study by an international team of oceanographers published in the September 29, 2005, issue of Nature reports that ocean acidification could result in corrosive chemical conditions that would be reached much sooner than previously thought. Within 50 to 100 years, there could be severe consequences for marine calcifying organisms, which build their external skeletal material out of calcium carbonate, the basic building block of limestone. Most threatened are cold-water calcifying organisms, including sea urchins, cold-water corals, coralline algae, and plankton known as pteropods—winged snails that swim through surface waters. These organisms provide essential food and habitat to others, so their demise could affect entire ocean ecosystems.
In the Nature study, a group of 27 marine chemists and biologists from Europe, Japan, Australia and the United States combined recently compiled global ocean carbon data with computer models to study potential future changes in the ocean CO2 system. The addition of carbon dioxide to the ocean lowers the pH of seawater, although seawater remains slightly basic with a pH greater than 7. The models project that the ocean's coldest surface waters, such as in the Weddell Sea of Antarctica, will become corrosive to pteropods much sooner than thought. Shells of these marine organisms may simply dissolve as soon as atmospheric CO2 reaches the levels that are expected to occur in about 50 years under the IS92a business-as-usual CO2 emissions scenario.
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Australia Stops Ship Over Toothfish Haul
September 29, 2005 (PlanetArk)
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA - Australia has charged two men with illegal fishing in the remote Southern Ocean after a haul of rare Patagonian toothfish valued at more than A$2 million ($1.5 million) was recovered from a Cambodian-flagged vessel.
The master and fishing master of the Taruman face a fine of up to A$825,000 and forfeiture of their boat and its 143-tonne catch of toothfish, Australian Fisheries Minister Ian Macdonald said on Wednesday. The fish is also known as Chilean sea bass.
Customs and Fisheries officers from the Oceanic Viking -- Australia's flagship patrol boat armed with a deck-mounted machinegun -- boarded the Taruman earlier this month on suspicion that it was operating illegally in remote Australian waters.
The Oceanic Viking was also involved in a special operation this week off Australia's Northern Territory where the vessel was forced to fire warning shots after one of four foreign fishing boats it apprehended failed to stop when ordered.
Authorities seized 15 tonnes of fish from the vessels.
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Scientists capture giant squid on camera
First images of creature live in the wild
September 28, 2005 (AP)
TOKYO - When a nearly 20-foot long tentacle was hauled aboard his research ship, Tsunemi Kubodera knew he had something big. Then it began sucking on his hands. But what came next excited him most — hundreds of photos of a purplish-red sea monster doing battle 3,000 feet deep.
It was a rare giant squid, a creature that until then had eluded observation in the wild.
Kubodera’s team captured photos of the 26-foot-long beast attacking its bait, then struggling for more than four hours to get free. The squid pulled so hard on the line baited with shrimp that it severed one of its own tentacles.
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Warm climate transforms Alaska terrain
September 28, 2005 (Reuters)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Sinking villages perched on thawing permafrost, an explosion of timber-chewing insect populations, record wildfires and shrinking sea ice are among the most obvious and jarring signs that Alaska is getting warmer as the global climate changes, scientists say.
"We are the canary in the mine, unfortunately, and the harbinger of what is yet to come for the rest of the world," said Patricia Cochran, executive director of the Anchorage-based Alaska Native Science Commission.
Atmospheric temperatures in the remote state have risen 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 3 degrees Celsius) over the past five decades, according to the recently released Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a comprehensive study by scientists from eight nations.
That heating, most pronounced in winter and spring, is much more dramatic than in the rest of the world, which has had an average increase in land surface temperatures of 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 Celsius) over the last century, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Rita May Worsen Red Tide in South Texas
September 28, 2005 (AP — By Lynn Brezosky)
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — While Hurricane Rita struck days ago and hundreds of miles away, the storm is still creating problems on the southern tip of Texas.
Rita's path left South Texas hot and dry -- conditions ideal for one of the worst red tides in memory -- and swells from the storm have created fears that the toxic algae could spread.
"The red tide likes hot weather, it likes a certain salinity, it likes low wind," said Sonia Gallegos, a scientist at the Naval Research Lab at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi who has studied red tide for decades. "That's why we still have a red tide."
Tony Reisinger, a marine biologist at the University of Texas-Pan American Coastal Studies lab who confirmed its presence here Sept. 15, said swells from Rita breached the island at 11 places. He said that could send red tide blooms into the Laguna Madre, the popular fishing bay on the island's other side.
Trout, flounder, snook and other fish are washing up dead, along with smaller "filter feeders" that have been dying since the toxic algae first appeared more than a week before the storm.
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Whale-Rich Mexican Sea Named World Heritage Site
September 28, 2005 (Reuters)
MEXICO CITY — Hundreds of islands in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, a major whale breeding ground, have been declared protected areas by the United Nations, the government said Monday.
The 244 islands, along with miles of mainland beaches in Mexico's Baja California, Sonora and Nayarit states, were declared World Heritage sites by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, a presidential spokesman told reporters.
The declaration does not impose new environmental restrictions in the region, but should make it easier for Mexico to seek funding for the islands, whose protection is now seen as an international responsibility.
Around 40 percent of sea mammal species can be found in the warm and deep sea around the islands in Northwestern Mexico, also known as the Gulf of California.
The arid islands themselves house numerous species of cactus along with birds and animals, including the endangered Bighorn sheep.
The legendary French diver Jacques Cousteau reputedly described the Sea of Cortez as the "world's aquarium," but despite previous protection projects its abundant sea-life has for decades been threatened by overfishing.
The World Heritage designation was created in 1972 to protect cultural sites and natural areas considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. The UNESCO list now includes more than 800 sites. Twenty-five are in Mexico.
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"Whale Lice" Genes Offer Clues to Whale Evolution
September 28, 2005 (National Geographic News – By Nicholas Bakalar)
Right whales always swim with passengers aboard: small benign parasites called cyamids. The creatures, which 19th-century whalers nicknamed "whale lice," have coexisted with the whales for millennia.
Now scientists at the University of Utah say they can use data about the evolution of these tiny crustaceans to reveal useful facts about the history of right whales.
For example, the differences between certain genes in whale lice groups suggest that the right whale separated into three distinct species five to six million years ago.
"Cyamid populations on opposite sides of the Equator appear to have been fully (or almost fully) isolated for several million years," the study authors write.
"This finding strongly supports the view that the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and southern right whales also have been isolated for several million years and therefore should be considered distinct species."
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Scientists Conduct Wind Energy Projects
September 27, 2005 (AP)
ATLANTA — In an effort to make the country less dependent on foreign oil, experimental wind energy projects are underway at opposite ends of Georgia.
Although scientists have been exploring wind power for decades, wind energy technology still is in its infancy a quarter-century after the energy crisis of the 1970s, said Bill Bulpitt, senior research engineer for Georgia Tech's Strategic Energy Initiative.
"There was a sense of urgency at that time," he said. "Sadly, 25 years later, we haven't turned the corner ... This country just has not done a very good job of taking care of its energy problem."
In northwestern Georgia, an alliance of the state's electric cooperatives has erected a tower on top of Rocky Mountain near Rome, Ga., to measure wind speeds and directions.
The project will be conducted over the course of a year to determine whether the site is suitable for producing wind-generated power.
The North Georgia mountains are the only areas of the state where wind generation will work, said Michael Whiteside, president of Green Power EMC, which runs the renewable-energy program for 17 Georgia electric cooperatives.
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'Milky seas' detected from space
September 27, 2005 (BBC News - By Alison Ross)
Mariners over the centuries have reported surreal, nocturnal displays of glowing sea surfaces stretching outwards to the horizon.
Little is known about these "milky seas" other than that they are probably caused by luminous bacteria.
But the first satellite detection of this strange phenomenon in the Indian Ocean may now aid future research.
The observation is described by a US team in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The glowing sea covered an area of 15,400 sq km - about the size of the traditional English county of Yorkshire - and was observed over three consecutive nights, with the first night corroborated by a ship-based account.
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U.S. Moving to Ban Beluga Caviar Imports
September 27, 2005 (AP - By JOHN HEILPRIN)
WASHINGTON -- The government is preparing to ban imports of beluga caviar in an effort to help prevent extinction of the sturgeon that produces the prized eggs.
Trade in beluga sturgeon -- one of 25 species of sturgeon -- would be suspended, Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Ken Burton said Tuesday. That includes the black caviar and meat of the beluga sturgeon.
Fish and Wildlife planned to announce its decision later this week. The ban would start as soon it is published in the Federal Register, but "nothing is a certainty until it's done," Burton said.
The agency rejected such a ban last year but added beluga sturgeon to its list of species "threatened" for survival, a lesser category than "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act. Those decisions came in response to a December 2000 petition from a U.S.-based environmental coalition, Caviar Emptor.
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FEATURE - Smallest Creatures in Ocean Hold Valuable Secrets
September 27, 2005 (PlanetArk)
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - Meet the smallest creature in the world's oceans: the humble microbe.
It provides the planet with oxygen and helps combat global warming. A staggering number of the single-celled organisms live in the oceans which cover two-thirds of the globe, yet not enough is known about the role they play in the planet's health.
An international team of marine scientists has started confronting the mammoth challenge of cataloguing and exploring the biodiversity of the marine microbe as part of a $1 billion, 10-year "Census of Marine Life" project.
The first global effort to map marine species involves hundreds of scientists in more than 70 countries.
The sub-project "International Census of Marine Microbes", led by Dutch and US scientists, aims to lay out what is known, what is not known and what may never be found out about the oceans' micro-organisms and their viruses.
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Caribbean Corals Hit by Warm, Storm-Spawning Seas
September 26, 2005 (Reuters — By Alister Doyle)
OSLO — Corals in the Caribbean are being damaged by the same warm seas that have fuelled Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, the WWF conservation group said.
Corals off Florida, Barbados, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Cuba seemed to be undergoing the worst damage, known as bleaching, since 1997-1998. Corals are vital breeding grounds for many species of fish and draw tourists to the Caribbean.
"The same heat that's causing the hurricanes is causing the bleaching of corals," Lara Hansen, chief climate change scientist at the WWF, told Reuters.
Bleaching happens when warm temperatures kill algae that live alongside corals, tiny marine creatures protected by a limestone skeleton. Deprived of algae that are a source of food, the whitened corals can die if the waters stay hot.
Temperatures in the Caribbean had been around 29-33 Celsius (84-91 Fahrenheit), high enough to cause damage to corals and well above the 26.5C needed to create hurricanes.
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Unique project films sea beasts
New discoveries about rare sea creatures are being made thanks to a unique partnership between marine scientists and oil companies.
September 26, 2005 (BBC)
The Serpent Project - the brainchild of Southampton's National Oceanography Centre - sees firms filming underwater creatures while working on oil rigs.
More than 200 oil companies have signed up to the scheme.
"The results have been incredible, far beyond our original expectations," said Dr Ian Hudson.
"We have seen new species, found animals in areas where they were believed not to be present, but most importantly we have been able to observe their behaviour in their natural habitats.
"There are over 400 oil rigs worldwide - all with the potential to help science explore the oceans.
"We are working with companies that represent over 200 of them.
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Sea changes attract the sharks
More sharks are being spotted in the North Sea off the coast of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
September 26, 2005 (BBC)
The change in climate is believed to be behind the increase, with rising sea temperatures attracting the creatures.
A BBC One show on Monday warned people in the region that more sharks are being found along the eastern coast.
The sharks are staying for longer periods during the summer, while haddock and cod head towards the colder Icelandic waters.
The Tope shark has made a journey to the North Sea - they are generally regarded as harmless to humans.
The situation is being monitored by marine biologists, including some at Hull University.
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North Sea 'needs joined-up thinking'
September 26, 2005 (BBC - By Carolyn Fry)
The North Sea needs to be managed as a complete ecosystem if fish stocks and fishing livelihoods are to be maintained for the future.
So say social scientists and marine experts who carried out a three-year study of fishing practices in the area.
After interviewing fishermen, nature conservationists and NGOs, they have drawn up a Fisheries Ecosystem Plan which they unveiled at the recent International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices) conference in Aberdeen.
Once the European Commission-funded plan is refined, the authors hope to present it to politicians with the ultimate aim of seeing it incorporated into marine management policy.
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Secrets of largest fish revealed
September 26, 2005 (BBC - By Richard Black)
Hi-tech electronic tags on whale sharks, the world's largest fish, have revealed how and where they find food.
Researchers in Belize have tracked the sharks as they dive almost a kilometre in search of food, and find shoals of spawning fish in order to eat the eggs.
The sharks grow to 20m in length, and are listed as vulnerable to extinction.
The researchers believe their findings will help to plan tourism operations around whale sharks in a way that does not harm the creatures themselves.
These new, unprecedented insights into the whale sharks' world come from the Belize Barrier Reef, the world's second largest barrier reef system and a site given UN World Heritage status.
"Our study showed that sharks dive much deeper than previously believed, reaching depths of over 1,000m in search of food," said Rachel Graham, of the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
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Net losses kill sharks
Survey tots up the toll taken by abandoned fishing gear.
September 26, 2005 (Nature – By Narelle Towie)
Abandoned deep-sea fishing nets are killing large numbers of fish and sharks in the northeast Atlantic, report researchers after initial surveys of the area last month.
The warning comes from a joint project between Britain, Norway and Ireland that is examining the largely unregulated fishing in that area.
The researchers involved with the project, called DEEPNET, say the situation may warrant emergency measures that would close the fishery for six months while an improved management policy is put in place.
Up to 50 vessels have been operating in deep-water fisheries to the west and north of Great Britain and Ireland since the mid-1990s. These ships drop their nets into the deep waters of the Atlantic for three to ten days at a time. This efficiently picks up a large number of fish, but the process is wasteful: about half of the catch is unfit for human consumption by the time the nets are retrieved.
On top of this, the ships often lose or abandon their nets, which can be up to 250 kilometres long. This produces death traps on the bottom of the sea that continue to catch and kill fish and sharks.
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Farmers, Fishermen, Co-Author Defend Endangered Species Act
September 26, 2005 (ENS)
STOCKTON, California - A former Republican Congressman from California who co-authored the Endangered Species Act of 1973 joined farmers and fishermen today to support strong protections for endangered species and habitat.
Former Congressman Pete McCloskey rallied with California farmers and fishermen in Stockton to denounce H.R. 3824, a new bill sponsored by Representative Richard Pombo, a California Republican who represents Stockton and the surrounding area and chairs the House Resources Committee.
Pombo's bill would remove current protections to which endangered species are entitled in favor of more latitude for property owners.
The signatures of thousands of Californians who support the Endangered Species Act as currently written were delivered to Pombo's local office in Stockton.
"The Endangered Species Act protects the web of life that is America’s natural heritage. Without it, we may not be blessed with the American bald eagle, the California condor or the Pacific salmon," declared McCloskey at the rally.
"We have a duty to prevent the extinction of species and the Act has done that well. Recovery of species will take time and that effort deserves full funding. Congress should reject any proposals, including the bill currently before the House of Representatives, that would weaken the protections for our nation’s endangered species or the lands they need to recover," McCloskey said.
Last week, the House Resources Committee approved H.R. 3824. The House of Representatives is scheduled to consider the bill this week.
"California fishermen are wondering why congressmen are pushing to wipe out protections that restored cool, clean water to the Sacramento River and the multi-million dollar salmon fishery there. These sensitive ecosystems are valuable national assets which contribute to the U.S. economy by providing thousands of jobs as well as its healthiest food source," said Zeke Grader, executive director, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.
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