Almost two out of every three shark or ray species living in coral reefs are at risk of disappearing from the world forever

 by Larry Powell

Bull sharks in Fiji.
This widely-distributed species is among the most at risk of extinction.

The alarming study has just been published in Nature Communiciations.    

It finds, except for marine mammals, these coral sharks and rays are more likely to go extinct than any other wildlife group in the world.

The usual culprits behind this tragic state of affairs have, once again been found to be; overfishing, habitat loss and climate change.

Bluespotted lagoon ray. Photos by Colin Simpfendorfer.

There is a glimmer of hope amid the findings. The ray (above) is the only coral reef shark or ray with an increasing population trend.

UNSUSTAINABLE SAND MINING IN CHINA THREATENS A CRITICALLY-ENDANGERED CETATION

by Larry Powell

The Yangtze finless porpoise feeds in Poyang Lake, where sand is heavily mined. 
Photo by Huigong Yu.

A long-term assessment of theYangtze finless porpoise in a heavily mined lake in China, has made some disturbing discoveries.

Sand mining boats, similar to those in Poyang Lake.
Photo by Zhigang Mei.

In only a decade, the mining has significantly restricted the porpoise’s habitat, compromised its population connectivity, and destroyed its nearshore habitats.

                                             

The researchers hope their findings will promote government accountability and raise general awareness of the plight of the animal.

Two porpoises leap from the water.
Photo by Huigong Yu.

Sand has for some time been second only to water as the planet's most heavily extracted resource, with huge implications for habitat and biodiversity health.

The findings of the research team from the Chinese Academy of Science are now published in the proceedings of the Royal Society. 

Nothing quite like blubber: Polar bears have few options as global heating makes seal-hunting more difficult.

Journal of Experimental Biology  

"Polar bear with seal kill, Baffin Island" by vtluvbug79

As Arctic sea ice disappears, polar bears will lose access to their preferred prey – highly caloric seals. The authors say that, on land, a polar bear would need to eat about 1.5 caribou, 37 Arctic char, 74 snow geese, 216 snow goose eggs, or 3 million crowberries to get the digestible energy they now get from the blubber of one adult ringed seal. Read the full study here.

READ another version of this story: Here.

Can polar bears and narwhals cling on as the ice shrinks?

Oceanic sharks and rays have declined by over 70%

Nature

"Great Hammerhead Shark Swimming" by Skylar L. Primm

The number of oceanic sharks and rays worldwide has fallen by 71% since 1970. A study in Nature this week finds that more than three-quarters of these oceanic species are now threatened with extinction.

The risk of extinction to marine species is primarily caused by overfishing, but it has been difficult to measure the decline of individual species. Although reductions in oceanic and coastal shark and ray populations in different regions of the world have previously been documented, a global analysis has not been available.

The Whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus).Photo by Jan Derk

The authors attribute this decline to an 18-fold increase in relative fishing pressure — a measure of the proportion of sharks and rays caught relative to their global population — over the period. They argue that immediate action is needed to prevent collapses in populations. Specifically, they call on governments to implement catch limits to help promote species recovery.Nathan Pacoureau and colleagues estimated the relative abundance of 18 oceanic species of sharks and rays from 1970 to 2018 and assessed the risk of extinction for all 31 oceanic shark and ray species. The authors found that, globally, the abundance of oceanic sharks and rays declined by 71.1% from 1970 to 2018. Of the 31 oceanic species, 24 are now threatened with extinction, and 3 shark species (the oceanic whitetip shark, and the scalloped and great hammerhead sharks) have declined so sharply that they are now classified as critically endangered — the highest threatened category in a list that is produced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

RELATED:

Recent research shows: More rare, endangered sharks are dying in the worldwide trade in shark fins than earlier feared.

The graceful albatross - immortalized over the ages as a symbol of both good and ill - is under siege like never before.

by Larry Powell

This is the story of the "Grey-Head." It's but a single member of a large family of albatrosses called Diomedeidae. Major research studies published recently, warn of twin threats facing the already-endangered bird. Each is different. Each is insidious. 

The grey-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma). 
Photo by Lieutenant Elizabeth Crapo, NOAA.

In general, the albatross carries higher burdens of mercury in its body than any other bird on earth. (In the marine environment, only some marine mammals carry more.)  

Still, even those who measured levels of mercury in "Grey-Heads" at their largest breeding colony on South Georgia Island recently, must have been shocked by what they found.

Photo credit: Richard Phillips.

They discovered the highest amounts of that contaminant ever recorded in that species anywhere - a threefold increase over twenty-five-years. 

Mercury is described as a “pervasive environmental contaminant that can negatively impact humans and wildlife.” While some of it originates in nature, much probably comes from distant gold mines or coal-fired power plants. In gaseous form, it can travel long-distances through the air. As it settles onto the marine environment, it becomes even more toxic as it moves up through the food web.

The birds then ingest it in their prey. It doesn't kill them outright. But it reduces their ability to reproduce. Adult males on South Georgia who sired the fewest chicks, also had the highest levels of mercury in their bodies.

The "Grey-Head" finds no refuge in the remoteness of its home.

South Georgia is a lonely spot, far out in the Atlantic, east of South America's southernmost tip. (The general area is sometimes referred to as "The Southern Ocean" or "sub-Antarctica.")

In 2003 and 2004, the last available count, there were almost 48 thousand pair breeding on the island - about half of their entire world population.

While that may sound like a lot, their numbers have been in decline for over thirty years. And now, they’re listed by the World Conservation Union as endangered.

The lead author of the study, William Mills of the British Antarctic Survey, tells PinP in an email, "Trends that we found could be due to birds shifting their diets or foraging habitats to more contaminated prey or regions."

In a paper published by The Royal Society in December, Dr. Mills' team concludes, "These results provide key insights into the drivers and consequences of Hg (mercury) exposure in this globally important albatross population."

But the Grey Head's problems don't end with mercury contamination.

Albatross chick at Midway Atoll Refuge. Photo by Chris Jordan.

Research published last spring in the journal Environment International finds, “Grey-headed albatrosses are exposed to large and increasing amounts of plastics transported from coastal South America in the Subantarctic Current, or discarded from vessels and circulating in the South Atlantic Gyre."

It's a horrible tale, long illustrated by images of the birds (and many other forms of marine life) becoming entangled in fish-nets as "biocatch." The birds also mistake much of the plastic as food. While the adults can sometimes regurgitate it, the chicks cannot and die as a result. 

"Marine plastics are a major, trans-boundary animal-welfare and environmental issue," concludes the report, "that needs to be addressed by much-improved waste-management practices and compliance-monitoring both on land and on vessels in the south Atlantic.”

The albatross....not an "ordinary" bird.

The albatross is among the largest of all the flying birds. Its wingspan can be as wide as a basketball player is tall. Even its lifespan - up to eight decades - is comparable to a human's.

It has the remarkable ability of spending the first few years of its long life never touching land - just soaring above the ocean and resting only on the water. It's such an efficient and effortless flyer - it rarely needs to even flap its wings.

Immortalized over the ages as an omen of either good or ill.

Some interpret "The Rime," below, as a commentary on man's inhumanity toward nature. It was written centuries ago. But is the message really that different all these years later? l.p.

RELATED:

Scientists sound alarm about unprecedented mercury accumulation in Pacific Ocean trenches

Namibian fishery reduces seabird deaths by 98%

Tough Times for Animal Travellers

Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. (COSEWIC)

The Blackmouth (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) a type of Chinook. 

Image by Animal Diversity Web.

After maturing at sea, Chinook Salmon on Canada's West Coast swim back to their natal streams to spawn. Twenty-eight populations of Chinook Salmon live in Southern British Columbia, each with different habitats and survival strategies. Chinook Salmon face many threats in both fresh and saltwater, including climate change and detrimental effects from hatchery fish. At the current meeting, COSEWIC considered the 12 populations of Chinook Salmon most impacted by hatcheries: four were designated Endangered, three Threatened, and one Special Concern, while one was deemed Not at Risk. Three remote populations were determined to be Data Deficient, and will require additional research before being re-assessed. Details here.

Can manmade rope bridges offer relief for the world's rarest primate - the Hainan gibbon? A new study shows encouraging results.

by Larry Powell

Hainan gibbons started to use the canopy bridge 176 days after installation. Females and small juveniles were the faithful users.

The Hainan gibbon (Nomascus hainanus) is described as "The world's most critically endangered primate." In fact, its numbers are said to be much lower than any other primate on Earth, with only about 30 individuals remaining for the entire species. It's found in just a single block of forest on Hainan Island, China, and nowhere else. 

The adult male is jet black with a hairy crest.

The female is golden yellow with a black crown patch.
The immature gibbon is black, regardless of gender.

Like so many similar creatures, it travels through the forest canopy, tree-to-tree. But major disturbances, like roads or landslides, can produce major gaps or gorges which seriously restrict its movements. This, in turn, can make it harder for it to feed or breed, but easier to be killed by predators.

Professional tree climber in action constructing the canopy bridge, December 2015. Mountaineering-grade ropes were tied to sturdy trees to provide connectivity at the forest gap created by a landslide.
All photos by Kadoorie Farm and Botanic.Garden.

So researchers decided to conduct an experiment. In 2015, they installed motion sensor cameras and enlisted the help of professional tree-climbers (above). They used strong ropes tied to sturdy trees to bridge a 15-metre-wide gully formed by a natural landslide. It had become a barrier separating two areas of gibbon habitat.

After a wait of almost six months, their efforts paid off. The gibbons - mostly mothers with younger members of the family - were first captured on the camera traps - actually using the bridge. (See top photo, above.) Adult males and larger juveniles seemed to prefer leaping across the gap together, instead.

Well over a year after the experiment began, more than two hundred photos and over fifty videos showed many gibbons belonging to the family group involved in the study, using the bridge. (Gibbons are territorial and live in family groups.)

As the authors conclude, "The study highlights the use and value of rope bridges to connect gaps in forest canopies. Although restoring natural forest should be a priority conservation intervention, artificial canopy bridges may be useful short-term solutions."  

In an e-mail to PinP, the head of the study, Dr. Bosco Chan of the Kadoorie Conservation China Dept. in Hong Kong, explains further. 

"Landslides created by heavy rains occur throughout Hainan Island, and I believe it is very common in areas affected by tropical cyclones throughout the world. So, yes I believe rope bridges can provide short-term solution to restore forest canopy connectivity in these places.

"In fact, artificial canopy bridges are quite widely applied in South America, Australia, and also see some attempts in Africa and more recently Asia, for natural disasters like the one we described, but also in forest fragmented by roads, pipelines and other artificial structures or disturbances.

"I do not believe the survivorship of this critically-endangered gibbon relies on building canopy bridges. But it surely helps alleviate impacts of forest fragmentation locally."

The findings were published earlier today in Nature.

RELATED:

New conservation action to save four threatened gibbon species

The lynx vs. the bobcat. Two species of wild cat in Ontario, Canada, may face dramatically different futures. Is this "survival of the fittest?"

by Larry Powell

                Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis).    

Bobcat (Lynx rufus). Photos by US Fish & Wildlife Service.

To the untrained eye, the two species might pass as overgrown house cats. They're actually "felids" or mammals belonging to felidae, a family of wild cats. 

Both live side by side in the wilds of Ontario, north of Lake Huron (see map).

Researchers at the University of Trent (U of T) in Peterborough, Ontario, looked at bobcat and lynx numbers, movements and behaviour over three winters. 

Their findings seem to show the bobcat holding an edge over the lynx in the struggle to survive, if not thrive in their rapidly-changing world. 

The scientists are unable to give hard numbers. But, "harvest records" which document the numbers taken by trappers, offer an insight. 

The lead author, Robby Marrotte, tells PinP, "We've noticed that the number of lynx harvested on traplines has decreased compared to 1960-80, while bobcat harvest has increased."

 (Ironically, while trapping has been known to diminish populations of fur-bearing animals, harvest records can also act as a sort of census - the more of a given species trapped, the higher their populations are likely to be.)  

But there's more than just numbers at play here. Bobcats have also managed to expand their Ontario range northward, into territory previously occupied by the lynx. 

And, while no regional breakdown is given, an earlier, large study on ungulates and predators in 2004, found the range of the lynx, continent-wide, had shrunk by a staggering 40% from its historical range.

So why is this "world of the wildcat" unfolding as it is?

Well, the lynx is a "specialist," more dependent on the unbroken or homogenous cover of the boreal forest. It's therefore more vulnerable to human intrusion such as land clearing. 

The bobcat, on the other hand, is a "generalist" who can better cope with a more open habitat and young, deciduous forests which often evolve after activities such as logging and road-building. So it is the bobcat, not the lynx, which is likely to be found in areas affected most by a human footprint. 

And then, there's the matter of diet. The lynx feeds almost exclusively on the snowshoe hare and is vulnerable when hare populations crash. The bobcat on the other hand, preys on a variety of species, so has more to choose from. 

The lynx has much larger feet, giving it a distinct advantage over the bobcat while hunting in deep snow. But deep-snow terrains are shrinking as manmade "global heating" does its work. This could remove yet another advantage from the lynx as time goes on.

The two species do interbreed, but rarely. (The researchers never observed their footprints coming anywhere close to one another along snowmobile trails they used in their studies.) But, if bobcat numbers do increase, along with interbreeding, it's speculated this, too could contribute to the lynx's undoing. It could lead to gene dominance by the bobcat and even extinction for the lynx. 

However, researcher Marrotte believes, talk of extinction is premature.

"I wouldn’t say extinction or extirpation just yet. Right now, all it takes is a few good winters and denser snowshoe hare populations and the bobcat will move out and the lynx will eventually move back in. In the next decade, there might be more snow on the northern shores of Lake Huron, because moisture level will increase. This could temporarily benefit the lynx, but eventually this snow will just start melting earlier and the bobcat will be able to move in again."

So, ultimately, it all comes down to this. 

"The story of the bobcat and the lynx is one of the loss of a unique, boreal specialist due to anthropogenic change," concludes the study, "and eventual replacement by an adaptable generalist."

A new study finds - wolf culls - aimed at protecting endangered caribou in western Canada - simply don't work.

by Larry Powell

Photo by Vicious Bits, Creative Commons.

New research by a team of Canadian biologists, seems to support critics who've long argued that wolves are being sacrificed unnecessarily in efforts to save iconic mountain caribou in British Columbia and Alberta from possible extinction. Since the 80s, authorities in the two provinces have been conducting "culls" which have probably killed thousands of wolves since. Culls involve either shooting the animals from helicopters, poisoning them or, in at least one case - an eight-year campaign of sterilization.

The iconic caribou. A Wikimedia photo.

Yet caribou populations all over Canada, continue to plummet. Thanks to  declines in all sub-species, they're now classified, nationwide as either threatened or endangered. Some of the steepest reductions have occurred in mountainous regions in the two westernmost provinces. A few years ago, they were declared extinct south of the border, in the continental United States.

Now, a team of experts from western Canada, is taking aim at a study published last year. It supports culling and the penning of pregnant caribou as ways to slow or stop their slide toward extinction. Such findings have been used by governments to justify their "predator control" policies.

Yet the latest research states flatly, there's simply no "statistical support" for such a position.

While wolves may account for more than half of caribou predation in other places, "Deep-Snow Mountain caribou" are far less likely to be killed by wolves than by other predators. Yet their numbers have crashed an alarming 45% in recent decades, possibly the steepest decline of any caribou ecotype in the world. (These herds live in southeastern BC, where, as their name implies, winter snows can pile up to three meters deep.)

"Wolves do not comprise the primary source of mortality for Deep-Snow Mountain caribou," the report finds, "constituting only 5–10% of verified cases of mortality - in fourth place after cougars, bears and wolverines." The authors point out, therefore, that it is wrong to apply a "one-size fits all" approach when it comes to wolf culls.

Besides, cullings ignore a long-accepted reality. It is loss of habitat due to human activity such as logging, which is the main driver of population decline. "Despite warnings that industrial resource extraction, primarily forestry, was detrimental to maintaining viable caribou populations, habitat modification, fragmentation and associated road-building increased over subsequent decades."

Since the "Deep-Snow" herds depend on lichen that grows on old growth trees, above the snow-line for food, their world is therefore especially "incompatible with large-scale clearcut forestry."

"Logging," reads the study, also "leads to increased predator densities and greater access to caribou via clearcuts, roads, snow compacted by snowmobiles, and the loss of forested refuges. Snowmobile and heliskiing harassment are pervasive across the range of Deep-Snow Mountain caribou (ECCC 2018) and impose potential harm during winter and spring calving. Snowmobile harassment has been acknowledged as an increasingly important factor in Deep-Snow Mountain caribou winter ecology."

The study’s lead author, biologist Lee Harding, believes the importance of wooded habitat to caribou survival, cannot be overstated.

”Forests provide caribou with refuge from wolves and separation from other prey animals, including elk, moose, and deer. Without them, caribou must constantly be on the move to find food, exposing them on all sides. Predators are just one of the hazards."

The need for conserving caribou populations, warn the authors, "is now urgent and carries large economic, ecological, cultural and social implications."

RELATED:

A huge win’: B.C. government suspends logging in endangered caribou habitat near Revelstoke

Reindeer and Their Nomadic Herders Face Climate Change

Rapidly warming oceans have left many northern marine mammals swimming in troubled waters. But perhaps none more so than that strange and mysterious "unicorn of the sea," the narwhal.

by Larry Powell

Narwhals are cetaceans, a family of marine mammals which includes whales and dolphins. Most are found in Canada's Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, in the high Arctic and Atlantic Arctic. Others live off Greenland, Norway and Russia. Many spend several months over winter, beneath the ice-pack, feeding on fish, squid and shrimp and their summers in more open water. It's believed they're capable of diving as deep as 15 hundred meters and holding their breath for an astonishing 25 minutes! 

A pod "breaches" through an opening in the sea-ice. 

A US Fish & Wildlife Service photo. 

They can weigh up to two thousand kilograms and reach a length of about five meters. They're much larger than some dolphin species, but tiny compared to the mighty blue whale. Many migrate along the ice's edge some 17 hundred kilometres from Canada to Russia.

The males grow long, spiral tusks - actually overgrown teeth - that can protrude up to three metres from their head. While they’re predators, narwhals are also preyed upon. Killer whales (orcas) are believed to be taking them increasingly as warming waters lure the orcas further north.

But man likely remains their prime enemy.

Indigenous hunters of Greenland and Canadian high Arctic - the Inuit - have, for centuries, depended on them as an important food source. Canada officially recognizes the right of the Inuit to hunt them. But they must adhere to a quota system. It's based on findings from periodic, scientific aerial surveys mandated by both Canada and Greenland, designed to protect narwhal populations from over-harvesting.

Recent numbers are hard to find. But one official survey in 2010 concluded that Inuit hunters took almost a thousand narwhals off Canada and Greenland that year.

So, just how intimately are narwhals tied to their world of ice and snow? 

"Narwhals are uniquely adapted to the extreme conditions of an Arctic existence," the study states, "and their evolution and ecology intrinsically tied to the past and present sea ice dynamics of the region." Narwhals are known to have lived through extreme climatic changes for thousands of years. Yet they're also thought to be among the most vulnerable to those changes of any of the northern marine mammals.

The researchers hoped, by studying their past, they could gain an insight into their future. What they found was concerning. Before and after the onset of the last ice age (LGM), more than 26 thousand years ago, both the number of narwhals and their genetic diversity were perilously low. But they "responded positively" to both the warming and expansion of habitat which occurred after it ended some 19 thousand years ago. Their numbers increased, and so did other marine predators like belugas and bowhead whales.

However, the benefits such animals enjoyed in that post-glacial period, may be coming to an end. "Many polar marine predators are being negatively affected by global warming, which is decreasing the availability of habitat and prey," the study finds. "Although the range and effective population size of narwhals increased post-LGM, their future in a rapidly changing Arctic is uncertain. Narwhal distribution will be further affected in the near future, as the species also faces increased human encroachment, changes in prey availability, new competitors and increased predation rate by killer whales."

Areas which were once inaccessible to people, due to ice and snow cover, are now receding. This is allowing more activities such as fishing, oil exploration and drilling. And narwhals are known to be easily disturbed, and to flee from areas they like to frequent in summer, like fiords, bays and inlets.

So, are their numbers crashing? 

The researchers admit, there's a good deal of uncertainty when it comes to population trends. World population estimates have ranged from 50 thousand to 170 thousand. As those estimates have wavered, so has their status on the endangered species list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature - from "nearly threatened" to "of least concern."

A veteran biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dr. Steven Ferguson, has extensive experience observing marine mammals in the north. While he doesn't give hard numbers, he tells PinP, "Both the Baffin Bay and Northern Hudson Bay populations appear to be relatively constant and do not appear to be depleted."

However, the good news seems to end there.

"Populations off the eastern shores of Greenland," he goes on, "seem to be experiencing a decline. And two stocks off West Greenland, appear to be lower in abundance relative to the past."

So, will these wondrous "unicorns of the sea" continue to ply their ways through the world's northern oceans just as they have for so long in the past? Or are their numbers destined to dwindle to a dangerous few, like so many other of Earth's wild things?

This latest study is now published in the Royal Society's journal,“Biological Sciences.”

RELATED:

AIRGUNS AND SHIP SOUNDS DANGEROUSLY DISRUPT THE NATURAL BEHAVIOUR OF THE "UNICORN OF THE SEA." STUDY

A Major Oil Pipeline Project Strikes Deep at the Heart of Africa

YaleEnvironment360

In the line of fire? Giraffe in a Ugandan National
Park destined for major oil development.
Photo by DrexRockman.
Despite the global plunge in oil prices, a major pipeline that would carry oil 900 miles across East Africa is moving ahead. International experts warn that the $20 billion project will displace thousands of small farmers and put key wildlife habitat and coastal waters at risk.
Story here.

Canada’s reindeer ‘at risk of extinction’

The Narwhal

As governments drag their feet on caribou habitat protections, the iconic species engraved on the Canadian quarter is winking out across the country. The year 2019 saw alarming declines and local extinctions of a species Indigenous peoples hold sacred. Story here.

"Santa's reindeer" flee a logging truck, somewhere in the boreal
forests of Canada. 

Please read my own, related story and watch my video, below...Larry Powell.

Even our national bird - the Canada jay - is not immune from the ravages of manmade climate change.

Save the Wilderness. A music video by Eric Bogle and Larry Powell.

Re-thinking extinction

New research suggests that pollution may be playing a bigger and more ominous role in pushing many of Canada's plants and animals to the brink than earlier thought.

by Larry Powell

                                      

       One of the species at risk, the small white lady's slipper, 

Cypripedium candidum. Photo by Mason Brock.

Habitat loss, climate change and invasive species are often referred to as significant players in Earth's calamitous descent into a sixth Great Extinction. While those factors obviously play a part, this new study better recognizes the magnitude of the role played by yet another culprit in the piece - pollution. The authors of the research label contamination of our air, soil and water as a "pervasive, often invisible threat to biodiversity in Canada." And, up until now, the threat it poses, especially to vascular plants (ones that flower, bear fruit and seed), they suggest, has been underestimated by experts in the field. These include ones who serve on Ottawa's advisory agency, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). And, because so little is known about the subject, they've "frequently identified the threat of pollution as absent or negligible," even for species living within areas affected by it.

In order to design a better way of analyzing these threats, the seven-member team mapped known pollution sources and compared them with known ranges of 488 endangered species in this country. These included mammals, birds, plants, freshwater fish, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods (such as insects and crabs) and molluscs (like slugs and snails). It found that, on average, 57% of the habitat of each species also contained at least one pollution source.

"Our analysis shows that species at risk and pollution sources co-occur at a high rate in Canada. In general, the highest densities (of pollution sources and species-at-risk) are concentrated in the south, where the human population density is also highest. The richness of these creatures overlapped strongly with areas of greatest urbanization and landscape modification, such as Ontario, the Prairies and the Lower Mainland of BC."

Agricultural refuse is burned on a farm in Manitoba.
A PinP photo.

Pollution. A challenge of both national and global magnitude

Quoting Government of Canada numbers, the study states: "Tens of thousands of chemicals exist in commerce today and the size of the global chemical industry is set to double by 2030. Contaminants such as flame retardants undergo transformations into more toxic breakdown products in the environment that contribute to heightened environmental effects.
 
"Each year in Canada, some five million tonnes of pollutants are released from seven thousand facilities. These have included about 700 pipeline spills over the past decade in which natural gas, crude oil and other contaminants have escaped into our environment."

Such spills are capable of either killing species immediately, or dealing "sub-lethal" blows which might sap their fitness, reduce their ability to reproduce or even deprive them of their food.

One of many similar sloughs in southern Manitoba. It's believed the spreading 

of livestock manure on farm fields contributes to the "greening" of 

wetlands such as this. A PinP photo.

"Runoff from urban, agricultural and industrial landscapes contaminates Canada's groundwater and downstream aquatic ecosystems. Finally, over 23 thousand known or suspected contaminated sites have been identified and classified in urban, rural and remote areas of Canada, many of which are contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons, metals and/or persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs."

Jenny McCune - Ast. Prof. Dept. of 
Biological Sciences,

University of Lethbridge, AB

The lead author of the study, Prof. Jenny McCune (l.) told PinP in an e-mail, "We did not measure the effect of different pollutants on individual species. We need more research to test the effects of specific contaminants on individual species at risk. We simply measured the potential for species to come into contact with different types of pollution based on the geographical overlap between sources of pollution and the known ranges of species at risk.

"The eastern prairies (MB and eastern SK) have sources of all 6 categories of pollution ( as defined by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature): household sewage and urban waste water, industrial and agricultural effluents, garbage and solid waste, air-borne pollutants, and excess energy"

The authors of the study, recently published in the journal, Facets, hope this new information will help us better understand just how much endangered wildlife are threatened, and where to go from here.

Other research only confirms the worst fears.

The Bakken formation (above) is a major oil deposit straddling
two provinces and three states. US Geological Survey.

A study published last year in "Cogent Science," reminds us that the Bakken oilfield "overlaps with one of the largest areas for grassland birds in North America. Access to the oil is made possible by fracking and horizontal drilling, both controversial techniques which have been banned in other parts of the world. This paper illustrates that oil development is impacting species through habitat destruction, oil and noise pollution, invasive species and road infrastructure. Current wildlife policy in Saskatchewan is insufficient to protect species at risk in the Bakken formation."

The iconic Eastern meadowlark (Sturnella magna), a grasslands bird listed by 
COSEWIC as"threatened" in Canada. A PinP photo.

Grassland birds are said to be the among the group most vulnerable to environmental pressures in all of North America.

-30-

Some other stories of mine you may like:

• The day of the salamander. How a big highway project in southwestern Manitoba is having to "make way" for a little amphibian, or face legal consequences. (Video)
• Even our national bird - the Canada jay - is not immune from the ravages of manmade climate change.
• “The Sixth Extinction - an Unnatural History” - a Book Review.