Tag Archives: Human Impact

Status and trends of damages to open space.

Arizona Game & Fish Department – Small Game

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Get ready! Dove hunting like the good ol’ days!

Other great news for dove hunters

-15 bird daily bag limit
-10 white-winged daily bag limit (early season only)
-45 bird possession limit (respectively)
-All day shooting hours
-Expanded open hunting areas
-New simplified licenses, including $5 youth license

Roosting sites often make for good shooting. Doves will typically pick densely vegetated areas for roosts. Mesquite bosques, tamarisk (salt cedar) thickets, and citrus groves are typical roosting sites. Doves establish flight patterns and follow them.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: azgfdportal.az.gov

GR:  These pesky birds keep doing well, but shotgun management can solve the problem.  And remember the kids can kill for free.

How Much Will Antarctica and Greenland Ice Raise Seas?

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Scientists have figured out the worst that could happen if the mammoth chuck of continental ice at the bottom of the world—the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—continues melting. By 2100, ice sheet melt would raise sea levels by 7.9 inches, enough to pose a risk to low-lying nations, according to a study published today in The Cryosphere.
By 2200, ice sheet melt would raise sea levels by 1.6 feet.

The melted water from Antarctica and Greenland, glaciers, and the thermal expansion of the ocean due to higher temperatures are expected to raise sea levels by 3.3 feet in 2100, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That would be sufficient to submerge 17 percent of Bangladesh.  Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.scientificamerican.com

GR:  Adding all that freshwater to the oceans will have enormous impacts that are quite horrible in comparison to simple coastal flooding.  Read about the possible outcomes HERE.

U.S. Forest Service approves massive expansion of summer recreational facilities at Breckenridge ski area

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By Bob Berwyn

FRISCO — The U.S. Forest Service is on track to approve a huge expansion of summer activities at Breckenridge Ski Area that will accommodate up to 150,000 additional visitors during the summer season.

The agency this week released a final environmental study for the new installations and programs, along with a draft decision letter from White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams, who said he thinks the new facilities — including zip lines, canopy tours and challenge courses — will enhance public appreciation of national forest lands and the outdoors.

The proposal was controversial in Breckenridge, as some residents expressed concerns about drawing more visitors to the already crowded town. Other locals support the plan as a way of increasing tourism revenues and drumming up more business for local restaurants and shops.  Sourced through Scoop.it from: summitcountyvoice.com

GR:  At all costs, people first!  Sad that a national land-management agency would not see the need to preserve nature now that more than half of all animals on Earth age gone primarily because of habitat loss.

Wildlife groups say 41 tigers have died in India in seven months

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Conservationists say India is not doing enough to protect tigers.  Six months after India boasted that its tiger population was growing fast, conservationists on Wednesday said 41 big…    Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.theguardian.com

GR:  The prospects for wild tigers in India are not good.  The human population is the only one that is growing.  India was once the nation that was most concerned with curbing human population growth.  But during the period from 1960 to today, the country’s population grew from 400 million to over one billion.  What happened?  Were the programs ineffective, or did they not receive enough support?

Will Yellowstone be safer if this bear is killed?

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With over half of all animals on Earth gone now, it’s time to carefully consider every act that will reduce them further. The time when casual killing of animals for human convenience had no impact on the vast numbers of wild creatures out there is long past.

Exposing the Big Game's avatarExposing the Big Game

http://www.cougarfund.org/will-yellowstone-be-safer-if-this-bear-is-killed/

Agonizing, there is no other word to describe the decisions that must be made at the highest level in Yellowstone National Park. Authorities are doing everything they can to be sure they correctly identify the bear that killed a hiker. Superintendent Dan Wenk has already said the female grizzly trapped in the area where Lance Crosby’s body was found will be euthanized if there is irrefutable evidence that she is the culprit. Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Mr. Crosby and also to the dedicated park staff who responded to the scene and must now investigate and make those hard decisions. There are so many layers of consideration-it is never simple. However, there is one question that we would like to be part of the deliberations and that is for the authorities to think very deeply about what they hope to achieve as far as public perception if they…

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Hothouse Mass Casualties Strike Egypt, Heatwave Hospitalizes Thousands in Japan

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#Global Warming–#Weather Extremes

Back in May, official temperatures soared to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) as humidity levels spiked in Cairo, Egypt. The early high heat and humidity sparked anxiety among residents worrying over the coming summer. Public complaints about official temperatures being lower than actual measures were widespread among a populace vulnerable to heat exposure in a notoriously hot region of the world suffering the ongoing impacts of human-forced warming. The below video captures some of the sentiment of a few months ago, when concern that record global temperatures in the range of 1 degree Celsius above 1880s averages might result in harm to Egypt’s populace was widespread and growing.”   Sourced through Scoop.it from: robertscribbler.com GR:  This summer’s deaths are sad harbingers of escalating weather extremes as the planet warms and ocean evaporation increases.  Urban heat islands intensify the extremes.  This bad for humans, pets, and factory-farmed animals, but for now, wild animals outside cities will not suffer as much.  Of course, other human impacts are killing wild animals and plants.  Increased transpiration during heat waves will hurry our innocent fellow creatures along the road to extinction.

Has the Amazon rainforest been saved, or should I still worry?

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Deforestation

Lucy Siegle:  “Peak deforestation angst didn’t actually coincide with peak deforestation. While the wearing of “Save the Rainforest” T-shirts was de rigueur in the late 80s, the worst destruction came in 2004, a year when we (as in humankind) chopped down 27,000km2 of Amazon rainforest. By that point there wasn’t much left to play with: the Brazilian Amazon region (the largest continuous tropical rainforest in the world) had shrunk from four million kilometres (close to half the size of continental Europe) to just 18% of that size.

“Brazil is still home to 40% of global rainforest, despite so much of it being destroyed to supply a range of products from toothpaste and face creams (tallow from cattle) to leather for football boots. It was in the 80s that agronomists first recognised that agricultural markets were behind runaway deforestation. In 2009, the Greenpeace report Slaughter of the Amazon showed the international leather and beef trades as the primary drivers of deforestation in the region.”  Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.theguardian.com

Deforestation and Human Population

GR:  Deforestation continues.  As long as the human population grows, the destruction of natural vegetation is inevitable.  This article describes some of the steps that can mitigate the impacts.  A glance at the Groene Woud photo will tell you that the mitigation is no substitute for native vegetation. I’ve even seen arguments that the replacement of native vegetation with human-built environments isn’t such a disaster, because cities themselves provide habitat for wild animals.  That’s true, but the habitat is not the one that fits the adaptations of most of the species of a region. Native plants and plant communities support native animals that, in turn, thin, pollinate, and connect native plants.  From experience, I can report that the vegetation of cities, roadsides, and power transmission corridors are composed primarily of nonnative species.  Replacing natural plant communities with urban plant communities reduces biodiversity and productivity.

Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption

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RT @mzaraska: Meat consumption is a threat to biodiversity, study shows http://t.co/A4CXgpVXwG http://t.co/AzUj9Qzn4h.  Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.sciencedirect.com

GR:  This is an important key, but there are others that are required.  Population, pollution, land use, and pets come to mind.

Soil Erosion, Deforestation, Farming

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“The Orinoco Basin extends across Veneuela and Colombia. The river’s delta is covered with tropical rain forest. For many years now, colossal palm oil plantations have been encroaching on this forest.

“But the forest floor is relatively poor in nutrients and rich in oxygen, making it unsuitable for monocultures. Once the soil is depleted, the planters use artificial fertilizers to keep production going as long as they can, and then they move on. But there’s another way. Planting many diverse crops in the same ground can help balance out soil use.” Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.dw.com

GR:  Forest soils are conditioned to support forests.  In dense forests, large proportions of the nutrients are contained in the trees.  Remove the trees and much of the natural wealth of the ecosystem is lost. Moreover, without their protective tree cover, soils wash away leaving behind little opportunity for forest recovery.  The suggestion that planting diverse crops is a good option is not a good one. Remove the trees and much of the local biodiversity is lost.  Even if crops can be planted that will protect the soils and maintain the amount of local biomass production, the loss of biodiversity and the loss of regional climate effects of the forest are not acceptable.

Forests are removed to produce food and desired products for human use.  The process is not sustainable.  We have to have the forests to maintain healthy Earth ecosystems. Thus, we have to reduce human need for food and products.  We have to reduce the human population.  Letting it continue to grow will bring about a terrible disaster for the Earth and all its life, including us.

See on Scoop.it – GarryRogers NatCon News