PEI researcher seeks more data on lost Ladybugs

Concerned citizens asked to photograph species

A Masters student at the University of Prince Edward Island has joined a continent-wide project to find native ladybugs, and is asking Islanders to join in the search.

Native ladybugs, or lady beetles as they are properly known, have become increasingly difficult to find in populated areas, as they have been pushed out by imported species. Non-native species are reproducing faster than domestic varieties.

This could mean trouble for urban gardeners trying to deal with aphids.

"Particularly our natives will produce more viable eggs when they're eating the aphid diet," said UPEI Masters student Meagan Marriott.

"The problem with some of our non-natives is that the ones that have established as what they're calling generalists and they can produce viable offspring on a wide range of foods."

Just how serious the problem is is not known. Just because native lady beetles are becoming less common in urban areas doesn't mean their population is dwindling. It is possible they are retreating to wilderness areas.



The Lost Ladybug Project was launched to search for an answer to this question. There are not enough entomologists to cover all the geography scientists are interested in, so they are recruiting citizen scientists to help.

"If we can find out where they are we can try to preserve them," said project co-director of outreach Rebecca Rice Smyth.

"The fact is [non-natives] are dominating habitats now. The more dominant those species are, the less diverse the ladybug composition in the habitat becomes. "
The Lost Ladybug Project web site contains information to help people identify different kinds of the beetles, and a tool for uploading pictures they take of them. Those pictures will help researchers determine where the different species of beetles are, and aren't.

While the number of native lady beetles appears to be declining, no species has yet become extinct. Some have been extirpated in parts of Canada.

The Great Ladybug mystery; Lost Ladybug Project info


Source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/look-ladybugs-researchers-ask-114304450.html

Steve Erwin's Nature Reserve in Australia threatened by mining plans

Save Steve's Place Blog



Photograph by Peter Taylor

The Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve (SIWR) is a wetland conservation property and a tribute to Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. The 135,000 ha property, in Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula, is home to a set of three important spring fed wetlands which provide a critical water source to threatened habitat, provide permanent flow of water to the Wenlock River, and is home to rare and vulnerable plants and wildlife.

The Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve (SIWR) was acquired as part of the National Reserve System Programme for the purpose of nature conservation with the assistance of the Australian Government.

The Situation

The Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve (SIWR) is being threatened by strip mining. Cape Alumina Pty Ltd has lodged mining lease applications which include approximately 12,300 ha of the Reserve. Cape Alumina company documents indicate an intention to mine 50 plus million tons over a 10 year period commencing 2010. The greater part of this mine is on SIWR

The proposed area for mining on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve contains the head waters of irreplaceable waterways and unique biodiversity which will not recover after mining operations are finished.

Online story about mining threat to Steve Irwin Nature Park in Australia

Australia Zoo will not give up the fight to Save Steve’s Place. Although the Land Court has granted Cape Alumina the right to continue the exploration and drilling of the 135 000 ha conservation property this does not mean they have the right to mine on the Reserve.

Cape Alumina company documents indicate an intention to mine 50 million tons of bauxite over a 10 year period, the greater part of this mine on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve.

Mining in an environmentally sensitive area such as the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve will endanger and possibly irreversibly destroy many rare and endangered natural treasures such as:

Rare plants

Vulnerable Wildlife

Palm Cockatoos

Spear-tooth Sharks

Saw Fish

Estuarine Crocodiles

Irreplaceable Waterways

These results are only after initial surveys, imagine what we will discover once a full study has been conducted.

Sign the Online Petition to support the Wenlock Wild River protection proposal


Not Just Steve's Place

There’s also another Nature Refuge in central-west Queensland, which is one of the few uncleared properties in the whole region, and it’s in line to be dug up for coal! There’s a petition running for this one too, which you can find through www.bimblebox.org.

Whooping Cranes on comeback trail creating hope among scientists

Whooping cranes lifting spirits; Scientists counting record numbers of endangered birds at Texas wintering grounds

Jason Unrau, THE CANADIAN PRESS
YELLOWKNIFE, N.W.T.

One of the most majestic and endangered birds on the continent appears to be making a slow flight to recovery, say experts who see whooping cranes returning to their Texas wintering grounds in record numbers this year.

The cranes were on the verge of extinction in 1941 - a mere 15 birds could be accounted for. But last week Tom Stehn, whooping crane co-ordinator for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, confirmed 262 had arrived at the Aransas reserve on Texas's Gulf of Mexico coast and four more were in transit.

"The comeback is what makes them really a symbol of conservation in North America," said Stehn.

After centuries of being squeezed out of their habitats by expanding agriculture, collected as specimens by European travellers and eaten during the leaner times of colonial settlement, the near-mythical migratory birds appear now to have benefited from the concerted efforts of wildlife biologists and strict protective legislation.

Since 1982, Stehn has been counting whooping cranes as they complete the 4,000-kilometre, four-to- six-week journey from their nesting grounds in the Northwest Territories, inside Wood Buffalo National Park.

"Every whooping crane now came from the genetics of those 15 birds and, to be that close to extinction ... it's a tremendous success story," he said. "I'm probably so excited it makes it sound like we have a million of them. There are only 266, so you don't have to be a biologist to know that they're still extremely endangered."

But slowly increasing sea levels and their impact on the cranes' blue-crab-rich marshland on the gulf are causing Stehn some new concern.

And if marshes start drying up in Wood Buffalo National Park from warmer temperatures, "the crane could go downhill," he says.

Brian Johns, wildlife biologist and whooping crane co-ordinator with the Canadian Wildlife Service, monitors nesting habits and counts the nesting pairs and resulting offspring.

Johns counted 73 pairs that produced 80 offspring this year. Of those, 40 survived until migration and 39 made it from Wood Buffalo park to Texas last week.

Johns said the marshes where the cranes rear their young in Canada's largest national park have been under pressure from warmer springs and summers, but the climate change may actually be helping the birds thrive, at least temporarily.

"At hatching time is when a lot of young will die because of cool, wet weather during brooding time and the young can't keep warm on their own," Johns said.

"Now this June we didn't have any cold or wet weather - that was a good thing. But you can only tolerate no rain for a certain length of time, then the wetlands start drying up and the whole area gets more accessible to predators like foxes and wolves."

Back 150 years ago, the whoopers had more than just foxes and wolves to contend with. Settlers moving into the American Midwest transformed much of the wetlands to farmland. Cranes landing in a field to eat seeds often found themselves in a shooting gallery. It's believed the population was only around 1,300 even then - still considered endangered by today's standards.

Johns estimates that, at their height, whooping cranes numbered "a highly optimistic 10,000."

European curiosity-seekers chipped away at that over the centuries.

"I've got a listing of whooping crane specimens all around the world and you wouldn't believe it - there's several hundred of them in museums in Europe alone," he said.
Ron Heflin the canadian press file photo A whooping crane searches for food at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge near Rockport, Tex. The Lone Star state's waters are wintering grounds for the species, with record numbers returning there this year.

December 17, 2007

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