Citing harassment of wildlife, Wyoming officials consider a ban on 'antler hunting'

Wildlife officials in Wyoming are considering implementing a ban on the practice of "antler hunting" from January to April. Antler hunting doesn't involve killing wildlife; instead, "hunters" just gather the antlers the animals shed naturally. Even so, officials say the practice can amount to harassment of wildlife and be detrimental to the animals' welfare. Our colleague DeeDee Correll has the story; here's an excerpt:

As a boy, Terry Reach used to traipse the land around his Pinedale, Wyo., home, searching for antlers shed by deer and elk.

It was a solitary pastime; he never saw anyone else, and he always found plenty of antlers, which he'd drag home and pile in the yard.

But now, each winter, western Wyoming is thick with people intent on snatching up as many antlers as they can find. They follow the bucks, waiting for them to shed their impressive headgear. Sometimes people chase the animals in all-terrain vehicles or on snowmobiles, believing the exertion will force them to drop their antlers.

"They run the wildlife off," said Reach, 53.

Such tactics, say Wyoming officials, can be destructive for deer and elk struggling to survive the lean winter months. Already starving, they can use up their reserves pushing through deep snow to avoid humans.

Now Wyoming is considering a ban on the popular activity from January through April, the months when the herds are most vulnerable.

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Photo: A chandelier made from antlers in Cheyenne, Wyo.  Credit: Mead Gruver / Associated Press

Deal to limit Atlantic bluefin tuna catches not good enough, say environmentalists

BRUSSELS – Environmentalists on Monday said an international deal to reduce catches of Atlantic bluefin tuna didn't go far enough to protect the species from extinction.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas decided at a meeting Sunday in Brazil to limit 2010 catch quotas to 13,500 tons to prevent overfishing of the much sought-after tuna, the European Union said.

The commission sets annual fishing limits in an effort to save the fish stock from extinction.

Signatory countries had previously agreed to cut catches from 28,500 tons to 22,000 this year, but scientists and environmental groups argued a total ban was needed to salvage a viable tuna stock.

"Only a zero catch limit could have maximized the chances that Atlantic bluefin tuna could recover to the point where the fishery could exist in the future," said Susan Lieberman, from the Pew Environment Group.

Raul Romeva, who sits on the European Parliament's fisheries committee, said European delegates to the Brazil meeting "deserve to be condemned" for agreeing to continue fishing the sushi favorite.

Curbs on Southern California fishing: Environmentalists applaud, commercial fishermen fume

Earlier this year, a documentary called "The End of the Line" explored the worrisome thought that the world's oceans could have their fish supplies decimated within the next half-century. Today in Southern California, that thought was on the minds of the members of a panel that met to discuss ways to keep fish populations swimming and fishermen in business.  Our colleague Louis Sahagun was there; here's an excerpt from his story:

In a move greeted with scattered applause and boos, a state blue-ribbon panel late today voted unanimously to approve landmark fishing restrictions for the Southern California coastline, creating a patchwork of havens for marine life needed to replenish the surrounding seas while leaving some waters open for fishing.

The five-member panel, which convened at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Los Angeles, voted to recommend to the state Fish and Game Commission a compromise intended to sustain the 250-mile coastline's economic and environmental health. The commission is expected to take up the plan in December. It has usually approved plans recommended by the panel.

In an interview, panel Chairwoman Catherine Reheis-Boyd said, "We're not going to make everyone happy, but this has to be done."

"It's agony to weigh the environmental goals against people's livelihoods," she said. "We have to consider the socioeconomic impacts, especially here in Southern California, where the urban-ocean interface is greater than anywhere else in the nation."

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Photo: Darci Conner, marine planner for the Marine Life Protection Act, right, hugs Sarah Sikich of Heal the Bay after a vote by the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Sweden's furry, alternative fuel source: Burning bunnies

The scientific community and political realm have kicked around the possibilities of solar, wind, wave, nuclear and a smattering of other abundant resources as alternatives to fossil fuels.

But here's one that must have slipped their minds: bunnies.

Sweden was ahead of the game, though. Thousands of rabbit bodies have been shipped from Stockholm to a plant in central Sweden. There the carcasses are burned as fuel to provide heat for homes.

Stockholm authorities say rabbit overpopulation is a rampant problem, according to a report by Sweden's The Local, which we found courtesy of Live Science. Contributing to that problem is pet owners' releasing their domesticated rabbits.

Stockholm Traffic Office spokesman Tommy Tuvunger told Sweden's Vart Kungsholmen newspaper that owners looking to be free of the troubles of rabbit ownership simply "put the animals outside. They think: 'there they can play with the other rabbits'." 

U.S. seeks tougher protections for polar bear

With global warming shrinking Arctic sea ice that polar bears depend upon for survival, the United States is seeking to remove another major threat: international trade in the bears' fur and other parts.

In a proposal filed this week, the Interior Department asked other countries to support a ban on the commercial trade of polar bears and to strictly regulate trophy hunting. The request, if approved, would give the bear the most stringent protection afforded under an international convention to protect endangered species.

It would also upgrade protections for the bear internationally for the first time since 1975, when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, required export permits for the polar bear.

Since then, mounting scientific evidence has shown that Arctic sea ice is melting and suggests that global warming may cause the disappearance of summer sea ice in 30 years.

Your minivan is one big pic-a-nic basket, say Yosemite's black bears

This just in: Bears (at least, Yosemite National Park's black bears) view your minivan as one big, delicious pic-a-nic basket. 

A new report in the Journal of Mammalogy has the details of data collected on bear-related vehicle break-ins -- more than 900 of them -- between 2001 and 2007 at Yosemite. Researchers broke the incidents down by vehicle type, comparing the break-in data with available statistics on the types of vehicles that entered the park.

What they found might not be too surprising: Minivans, often filled with jam-handed kids, accounted for 26% of the vehicles broken into by bears. (Next on the list: SUVs, which accounted for 22.5% of the break-ins.  17.1% of the vehicles were small cars, 13.7% were sedans and 11.9% were trucks, The Times' Daily Travel & Deal Blog reports. About 9% of the bear break-ins were distributed among other vehicle types.) 

And it's not just that there were more minivans to break into, according to Nature, which points out that during a single yearlong period during the study (2004-2005), 29% of the break-ins involved minivans -- although they only accounted for 7% of the total vehicles in the park.

New Interior Department plan would move West's wild horses east to preserves

Thousands of mustangs that now roam the West would be moved to preserves in the Midwest and farther east under a new Interior Department plan to protect wild horse herds and the range lands that support them.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday that the plan would not require killing any wild horses. Department officials had warned in recent months that slaughtering some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros under federal control might be necessary to combat the rising costs of maintaining them.

Nearly 37,000 wild horses and burros roam in Nevada, California, Wyoming and other Western states, and another 32,000 are cared for in corrals and pastures in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

Salazar said the current program is not sustainable for the animals, the environment or taxpayers.

The wild horse program, run by the Bureau of Land Management, cost about $50 million this year, officials said, up from $36 million last year. Costs for the current program are expected to rise to at least $85 million by 2012.

The bureau rounds up thousands of the animals annually but has had a hard time finding buyers in recent years.

Just what is the wonderpus octopus, anyway? (Besides a great band name, that is)

Although it's often confused with a similar species called the mimic octopus, the fabulously named wonderpus octopus is a unique creature in its own right.  (Just how fabulous is this creature?  So fabulous that even its scientific name, Wunderpus photogenicus, is fun to say.)

Wonderpus is native to shallow waters off Indonesia and Malaysia and, although folks began to report sightings of the species in the 1980s, it hadn't been formally described by scientists until a few years ago, when a formal scientific description appeared in the journal Molluscan Research.  Both its coloring and its preferred time of day distinguish it from the mimic octopus (which, unlike the wonderpus, is primarily active during the day -- wonderpus prefers the twilight hours of dusk and dawn). 

It's characterized by a small mantle (the part of the body that contains the mouth and vital organs), which is about an inch to an inch-and-a-half long, and long arms that measure about five to seven times the length of the mantle.  Like snowflakes, the patterns of spots (on the body) and stripes (on the arms) are unique to each individual wonderpus, which allows scientists to keep tabs on individuals.  And, according to the scientific description of the species, the colors become especially pronounced when the creatures are disturbed or threatened, suggesting a sort of warning system to deter would-be predators.

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: rifwachterteam via YouTube

Stress, chlamydiosis killing Australia's koalas in increasing numbers

The koala, Australia's star symbol, is dying of stress.

Koalas live in the rolling hills and flat plains where eucalyptus trees grow, because they need the leaves for both food and water. But as people move in, koalas are finding themselves with fewer trees, researchers say. The stress is bringing out a latent disease that infects 50 to 90 percent of the animals.

"Koalas are in diabolical trouble," says researcher Frank Carrick, who heads the Koala Study Program at the University of Queensland. "Numbers show that even in their stronghold, koala numbers are declining alarmingly."

The problem came to national attention in August, when the well-known Sam the Koala died during surgery to treat the disease, called chlamydia. Sam captured the world's attention during major wildfires in February, when she was photographed drinking from the water bottle of a firefighter in a smoldering forest.

Sam was in such obvious pain from chlamydia that veterinarian John Butler decided to operate. But her organs were too scarred to complete the surgery, and Sam was euthanized.

Dung beetle named for Charles Darwin

Recently, we learned that a newly discovered hairy yellow spider had been named for David Bowie.

Since the undisputed "rock star" of the field of biology would have to be Charles Darwin (no matter what Kirk Cameron may think of him), we can't be too surprised that the latest celebrity-namesake insect is a dung beetle named Canthidium (Eucanthidium) darwini.

The newly discovered beetle measures only about 4 millimeters in length and was found during a series of expeditions to the remote Talamanca mountains of Costa Rica, during which over 30 species of amphibians, beetles and plants were found.  C. darwini is one of about 180 known species of dung beetle native to Costa Rica, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

The expedition was founded by the U.K.'s Darwin Initiative project, which has granted funds since 1992 to countries that are "rich in biodiversity but poor in financial resources to meet their objectives" for conservation.  (No word on why the dung beetle was named for Darwin, rather than a seemingly more prestigious amphibian.)  Researchers were able to coax C. darwini out of hiding by baiting traps with pig manure, a delicacy by dung beetle standards, the Telegraph reports.

This year marks not only the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, but also the 150th anniversary of the publication of his landmark work "The Origin of Species."

-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Undated file photo of the naturalist.