Scotland Goes Green

If the Affric Highlands Initiative becomes a reality, a large swath of the Scottish Highlands will be re-wiled and preserved for wildlife. The plan is to increase the connectivity of habitats and species diversity over an area of half a million acres including the Kintail mountain range, and glens Cannich, Moriston and Shiel. The project was announced after two years of consultation with landowners, local residents and conservationists from the organization Trees for Life. The project is similar to another one launched in East Anglia called WildEast. Now, only a quarter of the surface is managed by people and concerns who have signed on to the project.

Re-wilding is a movement not without controversy, as many people believe that re-wilding involves bringing back unappreciated large carnivores that pose a danger to livestock and humans, or worse, removing people from the land. [photo: Mountain hare, Lepus timidus, one of the species that will benefit] Re-wilding is more than that. Projects across Europe aim to re-establish pre-existing ecosystems that have been degraded by man or extinguished altogether. Trees for Life employs a psychologist to help relate to people that might object to their land returning to a wild state. Around 70% of England is farmed. A recent report found that re-wilding 5% of England would result in a 50% increase in jobs compared to intensive farming--maximizing the potential of Nature, both biodiverse and economic, is what rewilding is all about.  Lynx and wolves, as integral parts of healthy ecosystems may come later, with local buy-in. Scotland currently has a deer overpopulation problem.  Dare US Person speak of bears, once inhabitants of Albion?

The Affric project is one of nine on the Continent, and received funding (£250,000) from Rewilding Europe. Trees for Life has already established two million trees in the Caledonia Forest. It will open a visitor center on the Dundreggan Estate, providing local employment and a forty bed accommodation for nature lovers. The project also expects to help local owners obtain funding for green initiatives on their properties. So far the largest rewilding project in the UK is the Cairngorms Connect, which covers about 158,000 acres. Practical work in the Highlands is set to begin in 2023. Re-wilding lanscapes on a large scale is one significant way to increase carbon capture and thereby reduce global warming. Green Kudos to Scotland! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

The 6th Extinction Rolls On

US wildlife officials reported twemty-two animals and one plant should be removed from the Endangered Species list because they are extinct. The man-made biodiversity crisis emperils one million species as habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, poaching and expoitation kill creatures. The species declared extinct include eleven birds, eight freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat and a plant. These were probably extinct or almost so by the time the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973 says the Center for Biological Diversity.

So far fifty-four species have been removed from the Act's protections due to their official recovery. Forty-eight have been upgraded from endangered status to threatened. Eleven species have already been declared extinct. Official extinction is not taken lightly by scientists. Years of searching take place before such a drastic admission is made. The last confirmed sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) took place in in Louisiana in 1944. A flurry of unconfirmed sightings occurred in the early 2000s. The sightings led to a 2005 paper in the prestigious journal, Science that concluded the ivory bill still persists in the backwater bayous of southeastern US. Repeated recent searches have failed to locate the bird. It now only exists in legend according to the most recent assessment of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The biologist who submitted that assessment said it was the hardest decision she had to make in her professional life.

Conservation has played a key role in preventing more extinctions as man transforms the planet beyond healthy biological functioning. One idea that is gaining traction as policy makers endlessly discuss what to do about biodiversity decline is the "30x30" plan. That is, conserve and protect 30 percent of the Earth's surface by 2030. What is needed now is action, not more rhetoric, or as Greta Thornberg antipoetically put it, "blah, blah, blah".

Myanmar's Eden

Even in the 21st century there are pockets of Eden's remaining. Scientists recently trekked to the northernmost area of Myanmar near the Chinese-Indian borders to survey the fauna that lives there. What they found during their arduous journey to remote forested valleys beneath snow-capped mountains in the Hkakaborazi region was surprising. They placed 174 camera traps to see what they could find hidden from their view. This landscape, with the country's highest mountain, Hakabo Razi (19,295 ft) and far from human encroachment is a haven for large mammals. Threatened species such as the Chinese red panda,(Ailurus Styani)clouded leopard,(Neofelis nebulosa),and Shortridge's languar (Trachypithecus shortridgei) appeared in their camera frames.

The camera trap survey took place before the military coup in Myanmar during 2015-19, The team had to slog through dense tropical vegetation that eventually opened up to pine groves and alpine meadows as elevation increased. The region has been studied before and new species identified, but because of its remoteness and rugged terrain, little is known about the wildlife that lives there. The landscape spans from the lowland tropical forest to the high Tibetan plateau, so much remains to be discovered. Species living on the slopes above 10,000 feet are yet to be recorded. It could be this zone is home to the snow leopard(Panthera uncia). Researchers were able to record the presence of forty different large mammals in Hkakaborazi. Ten thousand usable photographs were collected, half of which revealed large mammals

One of those is the Chinese red panda. Photographing even one panda is a notable achievement. From the single photograph, researchers were able to determine that the panda is the Chinese species, distinct from the Himalayan one. Until 2020 red pandas were thought to be a single species related to bears or raccoons. Based on genetic decoded, science now considers the pandasto be their ownunique family and one of the most genetically distinct, and endangered, mammals in the world. [photo credits: Chinese Academy of Sciences]. Takin,(Budorcas taxicolor) a rare type of gnu that inhabits the eastern Himalayas, also made an appearance on camera. Gibbons were heard vocalizing in the trees, but not recorded on camera. Villagers assisted with identifying six more species from their remains.

The authors of the study, published in Global Ecology and Conservation recommend that plans to extend protections afforded by Hkakaborazi National Park into forested areas to the south be implemented. Although the region is only accessible by walking for several days,small scale agricultural and hunting threaten an important ecotone where montane and lowland meet. This edge community provides refuge to animals escaping human activity in the lowlands. Camera traps at lower elevations registered sambar deer (Rusa unicolor), small-toothed ferret-badgers(Melogale moschata)and sun bears (Helarctos malayanus). The study proves Eden still exists on Earth, but those small portions that remain will disappear if man does not act to protect it.

Weekend Music: Land of the Free

 

THEN

NOW

'Toontime: This Week in Trump

credit: Sheneman, Star Ledger

Is the former guy beginning to sweat?  He should because the House Select Committee investigating the J6 Insurrection have issued subpoenas to four high officials of the former guy's regime to appear and produce documents.  The officials subpoenaed include former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Presidential Advisor Steve Bannon. Most likely these demands will be litigated by Herr Trumpillini as a delaying tactic since the legal grounds for objecting are practically non-existent.  Bannon  was not a government official at the time of the coup, so there is no executive privilege that applies to him, and the current administration controls the application of the privilege.  His administration has already indicated that it leans toward not objecting to the production of evidence that could be considered privileged.  The former guy, no matter how much he would like to, cannot legally control the privilege after he is no longer in office.

The contours of the coup attempt are becoming increasing clear--allow US Person to briefly explain. There is a memo in existence, referred to as the Eastman Memo after its author John Eastman, a Trump loyalist, that outlines a scenario for the Vice President to follow on January 6th, the day Congress was assembled to open the votes of the Electoral College.  Eastman's half-clever plan probably would not have worked had VP Pence agreed to cooperate because in actual fact there were no disputed electoral votes in existence. Nevertheless the memo does reveal the state of play on that fateful day, at least in the fevered mind of the would-be dictator desperate to hold on to power.  The plan centers on the role of the VP in counting electoral votes pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment and the Electoral Count Act.  The Electoral Vote Count Act, passed in 1887 in the wake of the disputed election of 1876 provides:

If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors... 

Pence was to skip counting Arizona's votes based on an alleged election dispute. Which votes are "regularly given" is determined by the state in the first instance, and ultimately if both houses of Congress cannot agree which votes are legitimate, then by vote of each state delegation in the House of Representatives,  Currently the Repugnants control 26 state delegations, so presumably they would vote to install Trump. At the end of the counting of state electors, Pence was to announce that in view of ongoing election disputes in seven swing states, there were no electors in those states whose votes were "regularly given".  Therefore, the majority of electoral votes was 228 in those circumstances, and since Trump had 232, he won the election.  Of course that decision by the President of the Senate would have been met with howls of derision from Democrats.  Pence's fallback position would be to rule that since neither candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives would have to decide the election.  Trump wins again.

We know now that Pence refused to be involved in such blatantly anti-democratic manipulation of an antique system that should have been discarded long ago and certainly by 2000 when hanging Florida ballot chads plunged US into a constitutional crisis.  The Supremes decided in Bush v. Gore (2000) that the states have the plenary power to appoint electors. The disputes in 2020 were manufactured, not based on law or fact, as numerous courts have held. However, the national effort by Trump loyalists to discredit or control state voting processes is on-going.  Mike Pence had no authority to reject electoral votes certified by the respective states on January 6th.  Former VP Dan Quayle, who presided over his own defeat, told him so.  The improbable scheme dreamed up by Eastman was on Herr Trumpillini's mind when he goaded the mob into marching on the Capitol. He told his minions, "I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win."  Reality is not enough to stop a deranged demagogue attempting to usurp power. The Eastman memo despite its twisting of the law, does serve as evidence of Trumpillini's state of mind: he intended to subvert the election and have himself declared the winner with no counted ballots, no lawful transfer of power, but only a continuation of his reign by fiat.

credit: R. McKee; Wackydoodle sez: So it is written, so let be done!

New COVID-19 Treatment from Llamas

COVID-19 is beginning to show up in animals that have close contact with humans such as pets and zoo captives.  Llamas are also susceptible to the disease.  Researchers at Reading University, UK have developed a treatment made of nanobodies, a smaller, less complex version of antibodies that camelids produce naturally.  In early trials, a therapy derived from a llama named Fifi [photo credit: Reading University] has shown great promise. Once this therapy has been tested in humans, it could be administered in a simple nasal spray.

Rodents infected with SARS-CoV-2 treated with the new nanobody  therapy recover fully within six days.  The apparent potency of the treatment is due to the affinity of the nanobodies for chemically bonding with the virus.  Researchers stimulated Fifi's immune system with non-infectious parts of the viral protein to produce the specific nanobodies for which they were searching.  Through an alembic process they were able to isolate those antibodies that matched the viral protein most closely.  The strongest "key in the lock" is processed into a spray application. Dr. Naismith lead researcher at Franklin Institute in Oxfordshire told BBC that,"The immune system is so marvellous that it still does better than we can--evolution is hard to beat." You do say doctor? The research is published in Nature Communications

Not Your Average Bear

 

As humans push ever further into remaining wilderness, contact with grizzly bear, Arctos ursus horribilis is becoming problematical. As its latin nomenclature impies grizzlys are nothing like your childhood stuffed toy. They are ravenous eaters, territorial and equipped to kill with one swipe of their huge paws. Fortunately confronting a hungry bear that stands over seven foot on its hind legs is less likely than being hit by lightening. [photo credit: Getty Images] We want bears to survive into the future, so we must give them room to roam and learn to coexist peacefully. Tragic incidents do occur as in the tiny rural hamlet of Ovando, MT when a sixty-five year old woman was mauled to death in her tent in July. Her attacker, a male bear looking for food, was tracked down and killed. The last time a bear was killed near Ovando was two decades ago. 

The number of people wanting a slice mountain paradise or visiting parks is growing. The human population of western Montana, a grizzly stronghold, has increase by one-third over the past decade. Gizzlies once numbered 50,000 strong from Alaska to central Mexico. Habitat loss and two centuries of conflict with humans have decimated to the species in the lower forty-eight states to the point thay are listed as "threatened" under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1975. After a recent review of status by the Fish & Wildlife Service, the bears have retained their protected status. A slow, but steady increase in bear population has occurred. Grizzlies are considered recovered in the Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems, but they are assessed as a single population throughout he contiguous US.

Removing a species that occupy only 3% of its historic range would condemn them to genetic isolation and eventual extinction. Ceeding domination of some wilderness to the gerat bear is necessary, but conservative politicians in western range states have reacted negatively to expanding zones of protection for the bear. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, a Republican, has been given two bills for his signature– one that would strip grizzlies of endangered species protections, and another that would allow people to shoot the bears if they damage property rather than just in a situation where someone’s life was in danger. Such regressive attitudes are to say the least, counterproductive. It is illegal to harm, harass, or kill these threatened bears, except in cases of self defense or the defense of others.

Connecting bear concentrations in the northwest Rockies and Cascades is essential to genetic diversity. The map shows the current distribution of bears in the lower US:

There are six recovery zones that are identified in the federal species recovery plan and are suitable for grizzly bears. Two of them, the North Cascades and Bitterroot ecosystems currently do no have resident bears, but they live nearby and could potentially expand into these systems. What some conservationists including US Person envision is a connection of these recovery zones into a large, connected ecosystem reserve of the Northern Rockies, potentially transcending the US- Canadian boarder. Such a conservation goal would ensure the health and survival of the grizzly bear well into the future. Such a development will take more education of the public on how to live with a wild, elemental force that is the grizzly bear and a sense of humility in the face of Nature.

Most grizzlies avoid any contact with people, and those deemed too interested in us can be trapped, darted and relocated. Of course every human has the right of self-defense. The chances of a visitor to Yellowstone National Park begin attacked is one in 2.7 million visits. Being conscious of sharing the landscape with a large, intelligent carnivore may require more work on the part of humans who want to live closer to Nature. Erecting solar powered electric fencing and removal of carcasses and securing garbage are obvious steps to take. Have your can of bear spray handy, too.