Thursday, November 19, 2020

Snarl for the camera! An international team of scientists and software developers use facial recognition technology to identify individual grizzlies in the wild.

 By Larry Powell


An adult female grizzly (Ursus arctos). "BearID," as the program 
is called, captures a bear’s face in a photo image, rotates, 
extracts and embeds it in order to classify the individual.  


Facial recognition techniques have long been used to identify primates, including humans. But, up 'til now, there's really been no effective way of identifying wild species like the grizzly (brown) bear who, unlike the zebra or giraffe, lacks unique and consistent body markings.
     
In co-operation with two US software developers, four scientists from the University of Victoria bought their idea to reality. They tested their system on grizzlies at two locations - Knight Inlet, BC, and Katmai National Park, Alaska. After taking thousands of pictures, they were able to positively identify 132 individuals with almost eighty-four percent accuracy. 

An adult female in another colour phase.
Both images by Melanie Clapham, U of Victoria, Canada. 


The technology enables wildlife monitoring on larger scales and in higher resolution than before. And it can be applied, not only to the grizzly, but to many other mammals, as well. This, in turn, could allow conservationists and lawmakers to tackle global challenges such as biodiversity and habitat loss.

Knight Inlet, one of the two locations for the research, is home to a First Nations Lodge where bear-watching forms part of the local eco-tourism industry. 

A band official there, Dallas Smith is impressed with the results. 

“This amazing technology will help us identify individual bears and better understand their movement and interactions throughout our territories, which will enable us to build better management plans around habitat protection. It will also help us manage and mitigate the impact of wildlife viewing, as well as positioning ourselves to more effectively and efficiently deal with bear-human conflicts that are becoming more and more prevalent.”

These new ways of using facial recognition technology, referred to as a "deep learning approach," were published recently in the journal, Ecology and Evolution.

Concentration Matters. Farmland Inequality on the Canadian Prairies

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives 

 by Darrin Qualman, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, André Magnan and Mengistu Wendimu

A scene typical to the Canadian prairies - a big farm at harvest time.
A public domain photo by cj berry.

The ownership and control of Canada’s food-producing land is becoming more and more concentrated, with profound impacts for young farmers, food system security, climate change and democracy. 

On the Canadian prairies, small and medium-sized family farms are often portrayed as the primary food production units. Yet, the reality of farming in Western Canada is quite different. In fact, a small and declining number of farms are operating the lion’s share of Prairie farmland and capturing the lion’s share of farm revenue and net income. 

The authors analyse the extent of farmland concentration in Canada’s three Prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba), where over 70 per cent of the country’s agricultural land is situated. They find that 38 per cent of Saskatchewan’s farmland is operated and controlled by just 8 per cent of farms. In Alberta, 6 per cent of farms operate 40 per cent of that province’s farmland, while Manitoba sees 4 percent of farms operate and control 24 per cent of the land. Such concentration makes it much harder for young and new farmers to enter agriculture, with the number of young farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba declining by more than 70 per cent within just one generation

The persistent decline in the number of farmers, farm size expansion, growing farm income inequality, and increased land concentration have other effects as well. Rural economies, communities, businesses, and services are also affected as there are fewer farm families to patronize local shops and services, while farmers lose their capacity to democratically influence governments and legislation as their voting numbers fall. Meanwhile, non-farmers lose their connections to farms and rural culture as fewer and fewer urban residents count farmers among their family members or friends. A series of policy measures are urgently needed to counter the market forces that will otherwise drive us toward even more concentrated farmland ownership and drive half of Canadian farm families off the land in the next one to two generations.

RELATED:

Just 1% of Farms Control 70% of Global Farmland: Study Finds 'Shocking State of Land Inequality'

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

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

by Larry Powell

  The "Grey Nurse" or "Sand Tiger," shark ( Carcharias taurus), a coastal species on the ICU's Red List as critically endangered. A public domain photo by Richard Ling. 



After hauling them aboard their vessels, the fishermen cut off their fins, then toss them back into the ocean. Still alive, they sink to the bottom where they're either eaten by other predators or die of suffocation. 
 
About 100 million sharks are believed to be taken by fishers each year, most of them for their fins alone. 

It's an industry estimated to be worth US$400 million a year. 
The blue shark (Prionaceglauca). Photo by Mark Conlin/NMFS.

If one were to believe official trade records over the past twenty years, most fins traded on world markets have come from more abundant "pelagic" species (ones which live in the open ocean) like the blue shark (above). 

The leopard shark (Stegostoma fasciatum). An ADV photo by Jeffrey N. Jeffords. 
Using advanced techniques in barcoding and genetic tracing, scientists are now painting a different picture. By analyzing more than five thousand fins from markets on three continents, they still found a lot had come for those "pelagic" populations. But they also found "an additional 40 'range-restricted' coastal species" which did not show up in previous records. These populations live closer to shore and do not range as widely as those in the open oceans. With local jurisdictions providing little protection for them, their populations now face "dramatic declines" and are "typically less abundant."  

However, even the more common deep-sea species have been falling victim to "chronic exploitation" by fishers who are "collapsing" their populations, too. 
New DNA tracking techniques are revealing a greater number of threatened and coastal sharks from stockpiles of intact shark and processed fins (pictured). Image credit: Paul Hilton.

So, if we want to conserve sharks and curb the "unsustainable global trade in shark fins," conclude the researchers, "stronger local controls of coastal fishing are urgently needed."

Their study was published this summer in the proceedings of The Royal Society.

But this is hardly the first cautionary tale pointing to the plight of Earth's marine life in general and sharks, in particular. Another research paper published in 2017 warns, they face "possibly the largest crisis of their 420 million year history. Many populations are overfished to the point where global catch peaked in 2003, and a quarter of species have an elevated risk of extinction."

RELATED:

Pollution and pandemics: A dangerous mix. Research finds that as one goes, so goes the other -- to a point.

ScienceDaily

A highway project in Alberta. A PinP photo.

Are we setting ourselves up for the spread of a pandemic without even knowing it? Story here.

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Ending greenhouse gas emissions may not stop global warming

Nature (With minor editing by PinP)

One of several steel power pylons toppled in an historic wind, snow and ice storm which swept through eastern Manitoba about a year ago. It left thousands without power in what was described as the worst power outage in the history of Manitoba Hydro. Damages are expected to exceed 100 million dollars.
A Manitoba Hydro photo. 

Even if human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be reduced to zero, global temperatures may continue to rise for centuries afterwards, according to a simulation of the global climate published in Scientific Reports.

Jorgen Randers and Ulrich Goluke modelled the effect of different greenhouse gas emission reductions on changes in the global climate from 1850 to 2500. They also created projections of global temperature and sea level rises.

What do they show? Under conditions where manmade greenhouse gas emissions peak during the 2030s, then decline to zero by 2100, global temperatures will be 3°C warmer and sea levels 3 metres higher by 2500 than they were in 1850. Where all such emissions are reduced to zero during the year 2020 here's the scenario the models portray. 

After an initial decline, global temperatures will still be around 3°C warmer and sea levels will rise by around 2.5 metres by 2500, compared to 1850. Global temperatures could continue to increase after emissions have reduced, as continued melting of Arctic ice and carbon-containing permafrost may increase the levels of water vapour, methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Melting of Arctic ice and permafrost would also reduce the area of ice reflecting heat and light from the sun.

To prevent the projected temperature and sea level rises, the authors suggest that all GHG emissions would have had to be reduced to zero between 1960 and 1970. To prevent global temperature and sea level rises after greenhouse gas emissions have ceased, and to limit the potentially catastrophic impacts of this on Earth’s ecosystems and human society, at least 33 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide would need to be removed from the atmosphere each year from 2020 onwards through carbon capture and storage methods.

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Where people go, there too, goes Covid-19! Surprising? Perhaps not. But, if more solid science will help to convince the doubters - here it is!

Nature

A busy London pub. Photo by Steve Parker.

Reopening places such as restaurants, fitness centres, cafes, and hotels carries the highest risk for transmitting SARS-CoV-2, according to a modelling study based on data from the United States published in Nature. Reducing occupancy in these venues may result in a large reduction in predicted infections, the model suggests. The study also highlights disparities in infection risk according to socioeconomic status.

To assess how changes in movement might alter the spread of the  virus, Jure Leskovec and colleagues use phone data (collected this spring) to map the movements of millions of people from different local neighbourhoods. They combined these data with a model of transmission. This allowed them to identify potential high-risk venues and at-risk populations. The simulations from their model accurately predict confirmed daily case counts in ten of the largest metropolitan areas (such as Chicago, New York City and San Francisco).

The level of detail of the mobility data allowed the researchers to model the number of infections occurring, by the hour, at nearly 553,000 distinct locations grouped into 20 categories — termed “points of interest” — that people tended to visit regularly. Their model predicts that a small number of these locations, such as full-service restaurants, account for a large majority of infections. For example, in the Chicago metropolitan area, 10% of the points of interest accounted for 85% of the predicted infections at points of interest. The model predicts that compared with higher-income groups, lower-income populations are more likely to become infected because they have not been able to reduce their mobility as substantially and because the places they visit tend to be smaller and more crowded, which increases the risk of infection. For example, grocery stores visited by lower-income individuals tended to have 59% more people per square foot than those visited by higher-income individuals, and their visitors stayed 17% longer on average.

By modelling who is likely to be infected at which locations, the authors were also able to estimate the effects of different reopening strategies, and they suggest that their model can inform reopening policies. For example, capping the occupancy of a venue at 20% of its maximum capacity is predicted to reduce new infections by over 80%, but would only reduce the overall number of visits by 42%.

Monday, November 9, 2020

Rivers melt Arctic ice, warming air and ocean.

 SCIENCEDaily
An Arctic river in Alaska. Photo by mypubliclands 

A new study shows that increased heat from Arctic rivers is melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and warming the atmosphere. Details here.

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Manitoba’s organic sector seeing slow but steady increase: report

OrganicBIZ

An organic market garden in Manitoba.
A PinP photo.

Manitoba was the only Prairie province to see an increase in organic crop acres in 2019. Story here.

Pallister's petrifying parks privatization plan.(Video)

The Manitoba Wilderness Committee

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

A vicious circle. Global heating leads to melting ice leads to more heating.....

                                            Nature Communications

A polar bear navigates a dwindling ice pack. Photo by Andreas Weith


The melting of ice in polar and mountain regions around the world could lead to an additional 0.43 °C increase in global warming in the long term, according to a study published online in Nature Communications.

The loss of ice cover is known to influence air temperatures, for example through albedo changes (the amount of sunlight reflected from the Earth’s surface). Although the mechanisms that are responsible for increased warming are well understood, it isn't clear how large the contributions of different ice sheets and feedback mechanisms to global temperature changes are.

Nico Wunderling and colleagues use a simplified Earth system model in combination with different CO2 concentration levels to provide such an estimate. They find an additional median warming of 0.43°C in response to the loss of all ice sheets at CO2 concentrations similar to today's (400 parts per million). The contributions from different ice masses range from 0.05°C for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 0.19°C due to the loss of Arctic summer sea ice. 

However, these experiments do not consider changes in CO2 concentrations over time or feedback mechanisms that could have an impact on shorter time-scales. Furthermore, the authors note that this warming does not emerge over years or decades, but rather on a time-scale of centuries to millennia (although they highlight that the Arctic might become ice-free during the summer within the 21st century). Therefore, these results should be interpreted as idealized estimates of contributions of different ice sources and feedback mechanisms.

Health Canada probes claim that government officials helped pesticide company overturn a ban

CANADA'S                                                                                                                                ...