Monday Moaning

Why?

Why?

Why?

.

Why do we have to be such bastards?

.

Development could lead to extinction of rare Australian bird

The critically endangered Regent Honeyeater could be at risk of extinction if plans to develop an industrial estate in New South Wales in Australia goes ahead, experts have found.

The bird is endemic to South Eastern Australia and this site contains one of the most important breeding habitats for this extremely rare bird, whose population has declined by more than 80 percent over the last 24 years.

“We are now certain that Regent Honeyeaters rely on this site for food and to breed,” said Samantha Vine, Head of Conservation at BirdLife Australia. “Development of this site will be catastrophic for this imperilled species.”

“In 2007–8 observers recorded 20 nests and around 100 individual birds,” said lead author, Mick Roderick. “With fewer than 400 adult Regent Honeyeaters remaining in the wild, this represents around 25 per cent of this species’ current global population.”

On light of these findings BirdLife Australia has asked the Federal Government  to revoke approval of the site and find an alternative site for the industrial estate.

“The birds’ breeding habitat in the Tomalpin woodlands must be protected to ensure the ongoing survival of the Regent Honeyeater,” Samantha said. “They face increasing pressures from mining developments, climate change and pests, and depend on this area as a refuge”.

Opinion:

When are we going to open our eyes?

Why do the capitalist pigs have to have the final say?

Go and build your indutrial site somewhere else! Just because you own the land financially, doesn’t mean you have to destroy habitats like this.

You don’t have the right!

Source: WildlifeExtra

Nature Ramble

Underwater this week.

Plant or animal?

Deep sea ‘mushroom’ may be new branch of life

The bizarre creatures were collected from the deep sea in 1986 during a research cruise off Tasmania

A mushroom-shaped sea animal discovered off the Australian coast has defied classification in the tree of life.

A team of scientists at the University of Copenhagen says the tiny organism does not fit into any of the known subdivisions of the animal kingdom.

Such a situation has occurred only a handful of times in the last 100 years.

The organisms, which were originally collected in 1986, are described in the academic journal Plos One.

The authors of the article note several similarities with the bizarre and enigmatic soft-bodied life forms that lived between 635 and 540 million years ago – the span of Earth history known as the Ediacaran Period.

These organisms, too, have proven difficult to categorise and some researchers have even suggested they were failed experiments in multi-cellular life.

The authors of the paper recognise two new species of mushroom-shaped animal: Dendrogramma enigmatica and Dendrogramma discoides. Measuring only a few millimetres in size, the animals consist of a flattened disc and a stalk with a mouth on the end.

During a scientific cruise in 1986, scientists collected organisms at water depths of 400m and 1,000m on the south-east Australian continental slope, near Tasmania. But the two types of mushroom-shaped organisms were recognised only recently, after sorting of the bulk samples collected during the expedition.

“Finding something like this is extremely rare, it’s maybe only happened about four times in the last 100 years,” said co-author Jorgen Olesen from the University of Copenhagen.

He told BBC News: “We think it belongs in the animal kingdom somewhere; the question is where.”

Source: BBCNews Read more

Nature Ramble

More of a swim this week…

New jellyfish discovered: giant venomous species found off Australia

WA specimen of new Irukandji jellyfish sparks particular scientific interest because it has no tentacles

An example of the Keesingia gigas jellyfish. Photograph: John Totterdell/MIRG Australia

A giant and extremely venomous jellyfish found off Western Australia’s north-west coast has researchers stumped because it appears to have no tentacles.

Keesingia gigas is one of two new species of Irukandji jellyfish recently discovered by the director of Marine Stinger Advisory Services, Lisa-ann Gershwin.

While Irukandji jellyfish are normally only the size of a fingernail, Keesingia gigas is the length of an arm and believed to cause the potentially deadly Irukandji syndrome.

The condition can cause pain, nausea, vomiting and in extreme cases, stroke and heart failure.

Gershwin said Keesingia gigas was first photographed in the 1980s, but a specimen was not captured until 2013, near Shark Bay by the marine scientist John Keesing, after whom the jellyfish is named.

Gershwin said in all of the photos the jellyfish did not appear to have tentacles and that the specimen was also captured without them.

“Jellyfish always have tentacles … that’s how they catch their food,” she said. “The tentacles are where they concentrate their stinging cells.

“Some of the people working with it through the years actually got stung by it and experienced rather distressing Irukandji syndrome.”

Gershwin said the species could shed its tentacles as a means of defence, like some bioluminescent jellyfish that drop their glowing tentacles in order to distract predators, but there was no evidence that any Irukandji had that capability.

“I think more probably it does have tentacles but by random chance the specimens that we photographed and obtained don’t have them any more,” she said.

“I think it’s probably a fairly tame explanation – I just don’t know what it is.”

Irukandji jellyfish have been found as far north as Wales in the northern hemisphere and as far south as Melbourne and Cape Town. Sixteen species are believed to cause Irukandji syndrome, four of which are found in West Australia.

Source: TheGuardian

 

Can you believe this?

Click to enbiggenate

‘astounding level of arrogance’

Great Barrier Reef authority approves dredge spoil dumping from Hay Point

Decision to give permit to coalport south of Mackay displays ‘astounding level of arrogance’, conservation group says

Hay Point coal terminal near Mackay. Photograph: AAP/Greenpeace

 

The government body that protects the Great Barrier Reef has approved the dumping of more than 370,000 cubic metres of dredge spoil in the marine park.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has issued a permit to allow a port authority to dump the spoil as part of a dredging project at Hay Point coalport south of Mackay.

The decision has angered conservation groups, and comes only months after the authority gave the green light for 3m tonnes of spoil to be dumped as part of a project to expand the Abbot Point coalport 200km to the north.

“It is an astounding level of arrogance,” said a North Queensland Conservation Council spokeswoman, Wendy Tubman. “The government claims it is protecting the reef while allowing it to be subjected to such damage from out-of-control sea dumping.”

She also says the federal and Queensland governments are taking Unesco “for a ride”.

The UN’s environment arm has said it regrets the federal government’s decision to approve the Abbot Point dredging project and has raised concerns about the overall health of the reef. Unesco is expected to discuss whether to list the reef as a world heritage site “in danger” when it meets next week.

The Ports Corporation of Queensland wants to carry out the works at Hay Point to make it easier for ships to access the port and to increase capacity. It is estimated 378,400 cubic metres of dredge spoil will be dumped within the marine park over three years. The dredging will be carried out within the marine park and the world heritage area.

Source: The Guardian

Monday Moaning

Firstly, I have no net. My ISP went down on Saturday morning. They have a problem.

Not a moan this morning, rather good news.

Japan accepts court ban on Antarctic whaling

Anti-whaling activists filmed Japanese whaling ships in January this year

The UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that the Japanese government must halt its whaling programme in the Antarctic.

It agreed with Australia, which brought the case in May 2010, that the programme was not for scientific research as claimed by Tokyo.

Japan said it would abide by the decision but added it “regrets and is deeply disappointed by the decision”.

Australia argued that the programme was commercial whaling in disguise.

The court’s decision is considered legally binding.

Japan had argued that the suit brought by Australia was an attempt to impose its cultural norms on Japan.

Science ‘myth’

Reading out the judgement on Monday, Presiding Judge Peter Tomka said the court had decided, by 12 votes to four, that Japan should withdraw all permits and licenses for whaling in the Antarctic and refrain from issuing any new ones.

It said Japan had caught some 3,600 minke whales since its current programme began in 2005, but the scientific output was limited.

Read more

Make you Fink on Friday

‘Humans killed off Australia’s giant beasts’

Scientists have linked a dramatic decrease in spores found in herbivore dung to the arrival of humans in Australia 41,000 years ago

 

Humans hunted Australia’s giant vertebrates to extinction about 40,000 years ago, the latest research published in Science has concluded.

The cause of the widespread extinction has provoked much debate, with climate change being one theory.

However, scientists studied dung samples from 130,000 and 41,000 years ago, when humans arrived, and concluded hunting and fire were the cause.

The extinction in turn caused major ecological changes to the landscape.

The scientists looked at pollen and charcoal from Lynch’s Crater, a sediment-filled volcanic crater in Queensland that was surrounded by tropical rainforest until European settlement.

They found Sporormiella spores, which grow in herbivore dung, virtually disappeared around 41,000 years ago, a time when no known climate transformation was taking place.

At the same time, the incidence of fire increased, as shown by a steep rise in charcoal fragments.

It appears that humans, who arrived in Australia around this time, hunted the megafauna to extinction, the scientists said.

The megafauna included three-metre tall giant kangaroos and marsupial lions, as well as giant birds and reptiles.

Source: BBC News Read more

Opinion:

Man never learns. We are doing it again; or have we ever stopped?

Of all the pestilences on this planet, man is the worst. No other species kills, maims or deforms itself. Man has killed more humans than any natural disaster or disease in nature.

Animals don’t do this.

Man is a lower life form than the animals.

Man may have technology, man may have intelligence and rational thought (LOL there’s a laugh for you) but man remains the stupidest life form on Earth.