CA Fish and Game Commission President Shoots Cougar and Boasts About Hunt in Magazine – February 17, 2012

Humane Society of US Urges Californians to Voice Concern About Dan Richards' Leadership

Apparently Dan Richards, the new president of California Fish and Game Commission likes to hunt and is willing to travel to states that allow people to kill big wildlife — environment, conservation, and simple compassion be damned.

Photo courtesy www.ForestWander.comWe can't post the photograph in question here since it might be subject to copyright. To view Richards
with his "trophy", click here.

Yesterday, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), CA, posted a picture of the Richards holding up a dead mountain lion he shot during a hunting expedition in Idaho.

It’s illegal to shoot mountain lions in… more

by: Maureen Nandini Mitra

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Forget Detergents, Simply Washing Clothes is Bad for Our Oceans – February 15, 2012

When Washed, Synthetic Clothes Release Billions of Mircoplastics that Bioaccumulate Up the Food Chain

Regular laundry detergents are bad for the environment — most of us know this by now. Detergents don’t completely biodegrade and they contaminate our water supplies, rivers and oceans with toxic heavy metals like cadmium and arsenic. Studies have shown that phosphates, a common ingredient in detergents, builds up in waterways and lead to eutrophication — big algal blooms that can starve fish and other plant life of oxygen. (For more information check out the US Environmental Protection Agency’s list of laundry detergent ingredient and their impacts.)

Photo by Benjamin Vander SteenWater samples from 18 shorelines across the world show that the contamination is… more

by: Maureen Nandini Mitra

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2011 — A Year of Climate Extremes. Can 2012 be Far Behind? – January 20, 2012

14 Major Weather and Climate Disasters Cost the US $55 Billion in Damages

It’s raining in Berkeley today. After an unusually long, dry winter spell that had everyone worried, the clouds finally burst yesterday afternoon. I don’t much like cold, grey skies and wet streets, but like most Californians, I’m happy to put up with the gloomy weather for the sake of our parched patch of Earth. Weird climate, after all, is the new normal these days.

Twenty-eleven has been quite a year of climate extremes, hasn’t it? Prolonged drought in Texas, blinding snowstorms in the Northeast, raging wildfires in Arizona and New Mexico, floods stretching from North Dakota to Mississippi, tornadoes in the Rockies and the Midwest, tropical storms landing in the Gulf… more

by: Maureen Nandini Mitra

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Whooping Cranes, Sea Turtles Among Top 10 US Species Threatened By Fossil Fuels – January 19, 2012

Report on At Risk Species Urges Lawmakers to End Oil Subsidies, Focus on Renewables

It’s not breaking news that fossil fuel extraction is extremely destructive and puts our plant and animal kingdom at risk. But I think it’s always worthwhile to pause and take stock of exactly how much of our land, waters and wildlife we are destroying in our headlong pursuit of more and more comfortable, wired, heated, air-conditioned and mobile lives.

A new report released today by the Endangered Species Coalition does just that.

Fueling Extinction: How Dirty Energy Drives Wildlife to the Brink, highlights the incredible toll the development, storage and transportation of… more

by: Maureen Nandini Mitra

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White-nose Syndrome Has Killed Nearly 7 Million Bats in North America, says USFWS – January 17, 2012

With No Cure in Sight, Preventing the Fungs from Spreading is the Only Option for Now

I just finished editing an article yesterday on how the White-nose Syndrome has been ravaging cave-dwelling bat populations in North America and this afternoon I get a press release from the US Fish and Wildlife Service with latest toll figures. USFWS biologists and their partners now estimate that at least 5.7 million to 6.7 million bats have died since the fungal outbreak was first detected in 2006. Earlier USFWS estimates had pegged the number at only over one million.

Photo courtesy USWFSUS Fish and Wildlife officials measure the forearm of a big brown bat, one of the species affected by the
White-nose Syndrome.

It is… more

by: Maureen Nandini Mitra

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