Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts

credit : Cheryl Slew Asian tiger shrimp 2006 Dominican Republic

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released an update last Thursday on the status of the invasive Asian tiger shrimp.

This invader is not good news for the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.

A Lenni Lenape once told me, “Scars on the land are the gateways to Hell.”

Barringer Meteorite Crater (Winslow, AZ) is a 50,000 year old scar resulting from a collision with an extraterrestrial rock.

He might have been correct, judging by the depth and dimension of some these. All but the first of these are the result of recent human (mining) activity.

Barringer Crater (Winslow, AZ)

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Kimberley (Australia) Big Hole, a diamond mine. This is possibly the largest hand-dug hole on Earth and where de Beer’s got their start!

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Bingham Canyon Mine (Herriman, UT), a copper mine.

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Mirny diamond mine (Siberia).

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Chuquicamata (Chile), a copper mine. This is claimed to be the largest open pit copper mine on Earth.

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Diavik (Canada), a diamond mine

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Udachnaya pipe (Russia), a diamond mine

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Ecnomiohyla rabborum, Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog, is one step closer to absolute extinction. The species was discovered in Panama in 2005 but had not been observed in the wild since 2007.

I say absolute extinction because, for all intents and purposes, the species has been extinct since 2008. Two males in Atlanta are all that remained of the species.

Unfortunately, Zoo Atlanta announced that the male in its care suffered a decline in health and was euthanized last Friday. The sole surviving representative of this species is housed at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

The cause of the extinction was not the destruction of its habitat to supply our lust for timber and paper products. Nor was the tree frog over-harvesting for the pet trade. Rather, the direct agent of its demise was an amphibian-exterminating fungus that goes by the name of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.

The fungus, specifically a chytrid, arrived in the tree frog’s habitat in 2006. There is some speculation that the fungus has been spread around the globe with the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. Forty-three amphibian species in Latin America and 93 amphibian species globally have suffered declines due to B. dendrobatidis infection[1].

Amphibian species across the globe at at risk. As of 2004, 427 amphibian species (7.4%) are on the brink of extinction. By contrast, 179 bird species (1.8%) and184 mammalian species (3.8%) are in similar trouble [2].

[1] Speare R., and L. Berger. 2000. Global distribution of chytridiomycosis in amphibians.

http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/phtm/PHTM/frogs/chyglob.htm

[2] Stuart, S.N. et al. 2004. Status and trends of amphibian declines and extinctions worldwide. Science 306:1783-1786.

An article by Glaw et al. (2012) in the Public Library of Science reveals the discovery of several of the smallest amniotes yet observed … tiny chameleons in the genus Brookesia.

Madagascar, home to the Malagasy Republic, is considered to be one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots. The overwhelming majority of the species there are endemic, i.e., found there and nowhere else.

Unfortunately, The Malagasy Republic is in a serious financial mire. The population of 21.9 million (mid-year 2011) has a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $438. 90% of the population lives on less than $2 per day. 69% of the population lives on less than $1 per day (THEIR measure of the poverty threshold).

When your ability to keep your family from starvation is pitted against the national need to preserve the endemic biodiversity, in my experience, eating wins every time.

The Majestic Plastic Bag

This another reminder about the three Rs of waste reduction. Every one of us can contribute to the solution!

1) REDUCE, 2) REUSE, and 3) RECYCLE

Officials can’t stop invasive pythons and anacondas from marauding in the Everglades

… they can only hope to contain them.