Baraza

Category: WildlifeDirect news, wildlifedirect | Date: Oct 17 2009 | By: paula

Dear Friends

I just wanted to let you know that I am at PopTech  and it is amazing. I wish my entire team from Nairobi and all our WildlifeDirect bloggers could be here with me!

In the PopTech Fellows program I will be talking about WildlifeDirect and working with a team of professional marketers, strategists, communicators and planners to learn more about what we can do to take WildlifeDirect to the next level.

We are all at Point Lookout Resort and Recreation Center  near Camden and they days are filled with exercises and meetings. It is going to be very intense and I am really looking forward to the results!

Andrew Zolli is an expert in global foresight and innovation, studying the complex trends at the intersection of technology, sustainability and global society that are shaping our future

Andrew Zolli runs PopTech and he told us that we had each one of us 16 fellows had been selected from hundreds of applicants and that his team had investigated each and every one of us to determine if we would be the perfect team. I wasn’t alone in feeling deeply honored that they had selected me. The other poptech fellows are doing earth shattering social innovations in energy and ecological solutions, education, medicine and design. It’s overwhelming. The PopTech team are fantastic - we already have a few nicknames like “Mushroom man” and I’m being called “Kenya”. You can meet all the other PopTech Fellows here

We were blessed with a spectacular sunset after our first day at the PopTech fellows. Wow!

I will continue blogging and tweeting about Poptech here and on Twitter at @paulakahumbu. You can follow other Poptech tweeters by searching #poptech and following @poptech

You can also read Erik Hershmans blog here

Before I sign off I want to thank Ollie Wilder (great name) and his parents and family who have taken me under their wing in Camden over the last week. I especially want to say “Thank you” to Trink and Kent for adopting me into your amazing family.

Tags: Kenya, Maine, Paula Kahumbu, Point Look out, PopTech, USA, wildlifedirect

5 responses so far

Category: Americas, Lions, Poisoning wildlife, conservation, furadan | Date: Aug 13 2009 | By: Maina

We received this press release from the good people at the University of Pittsburgh news section. I think it’s a wake-up call to government agencies charged with regulating pesticides. This gross oversight on the part of the EPA should scare you and make you ask yourself: ‘who is safe these days?’

The dangers that pesticides pose to wildlife is immense and although the researchers in this report used only amphibians, we can all imagine what implication these poisons would have on large mammals and other species. I am particularly reminded of the danger already posed by Furadan on lions and other predators, birds of prey and scavengers. Maybe you need to read along and see this for yourself, for these poisons are not only a danger to wildlife, but also to humans.

August 12, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:   Morgan Kelly
[412-624-4356 (office); 412-897-1400 (cell); mekelly@pitt.edu]

Pitt Research Suggests EPA Standard for Pesticide Safety Overlooks Poisons’
Long-term Effects

Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry article reports “lag effect,”
revealing that harmful effects can remain hidden until after EPA’s four-day
direct exposure test

PITTSBURGH-The four-day testing period the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) commonly uses to determine safe levels of pesticide exposure
for humans and animals could fail to account for the toxins’ long-term
effects, University of Pittsburgh researchers report in the September
edition of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

The team found that the highly toxic pesticide endosulfan-a neurotoxin
banned in several nations but still used extensively in U.S. agriculture-can
exhibit a “lag effect” with the fallout from exposure not surfacing until
after direct contact has ended. Lead author Devin Jones, a recent Pitt
biological sciences graduate, conducted the experiment under Rick Relyea, an
associate professor of biological sciences in Pitt’s School of Arts and
Sciences, with collaboration from Pitt post-doctoral researcher John
Hammond. The paper is available on Pitt’s Web site at
http://www.pitt.edu/news2009/Endosulfan.pdf

The team exposed nine species of frog and toad tadpoles to endosulfan levels
“expected and found in nature” for the EPA’s required four-day period, then
moved the tadpoles to clean water for an additional four days, Jones
reported. Although endosulfan was ultimately toxic to all species, three
species of tadpole showed no significant sensitivity to the chemical until
after they were transferred to fresh water. Within four days of being moved,
up to 97 percent of leopard frog tadpoles perished along with up to 50
percent of spring peeper and American toad tadpoles.

Of most concern, explained Relyea, is that tadpoles and other amphibians are
famously sensitive to pollutants and considered an environmental indicator
species. The EPA does not require testing on amphibians to determine
pesticide safety, but Relyea previously found that endosulfan is 1,000-times
more lethal to amphibians than other pesticides. Yet, he said, if the
powerful insecticide cannot kill one the world’s most susceptible species in
four days, then the four-day test period may not adequately gauge the
long-term effects on larger, less-sensitive species.

“When a pesticide’s toxic effect takes more than four days to appear, it
raises serious concerns about making regulatory decisions based on standard
four-day tests for any organism,” Relyea said. “For most pesticides, we
assume that animals will die during the period of exposure, but we do not
expect substantial death after the exposure has ended. Even if EPA
regulations required testing on amphibians, our research demonstrates that
the standard four-day toxicity test would have dramatically underestimated
the lethal impact of endosulfan on even this notably sensitive species.”

Andrew Blaustein, a professor in Oregon State University’s nationally ranked
Department of Zoology, who is familiar with the Pitt study, said the results
raise concerns about standards for other chemicals and the delayed dangers
that might be overlooked. Some of the frog eggs the Pitt team used had been
collected by Blaustein’s students for an earlier unrelated experiment, but
he had no direct role in the current research.

“The results are somewhat alarming because standards for assessing the
impacts of contaminants are usually based on short-term studies that may be
insufficient in revealing the true impact,” Blaustein said. “The
implications of this study go beyond a single pesticide and its effect on
amphibians. Many other animals and humans may indeed be affected similarly.”

Tadpoles in the Pitt project spent four days in 0.5 liters of water
containing endosulfan concentrations of 2, 6, 7, 35, 60, and 296
parts-per-billion (ppb), levels consistent with those found in nature. The
team cites estimates from Australia-where endosulfan is widely used-that the
pesticide can reach 700 ppb when sprayed as close as 10 meters from the
ponds amphibians typically call home and 4 ppb when sprayed within 200
meters. The EPA estimates that surface drinking water can have chronic
endosulfan levels of 0.5 to 1.5 ppb and acute concentrations of 4.5 to 23.9 ppb.

Leopard frogs, spring peepers, and American toads fared well during the
experiment’s first four days, but once they were in clean water, the death
rate spiked for animals previously exposed to 35 and 60 ppb. Although the
other six species did not experience the lag effect, the initial doses of
endosulfan were still devastating at very low concentrations. Grey and
Pacific tree frogs, Western toads, and Cascades frogs began dying in large
numbers from doses as low as 7 ppb, while the same amount killed all green
frog and bullfrog tadpoles.

The endosulfan findings build on a 10-year effort by Relyea to understand
the potential links between the global decline in amphibians, routine
pesticide use, and the possible threat to humans in the future.

A second paper by Relyea and Jones also in the current Environmental
Toxicology and Chemistry expands on one of Relyea’s most notable
investigations, a series of findings published in Ecological Applications in
2005 indicating that the popular weed-killer Roundup® is “extremely lethal”
to amphibians in concentrations found in the environment. The latest work
determined the toxicity of Roundup Original Max for a wider group of larval
amphibians, including nine frog and toad species and four salamander
species. The report is available on Pitt’s Web site at
http://www.pitt.edu/news2009/Roundup.pdf

In November 2008, Relyea reported in Oecologia that the world’s 10 most
popular pesticides-which have been detected in nature-combine to create
“cocktails of contaminants” that can destroy amphibian populations, even if
the concentration of each individual chemical is within levels considered
safe to humans and animals. The mixture killed 99 percent of leopard frog
tadpoles and endosulfan alone killed 84 percent.

A month earlier, Relyea published a paper in Ecological Applications
reporting that gradual amounts of malathion-the most popular insecticide in
the United States-too small to directly kill developing leopard frog
tadpoles instead sparked a biological chain reaction that deprived them of
their primary food source. As a result, nearly half the tadpoles in the
experiment did not reach maturity and would have died in nature.

News releases about Relyea’s previous work are available on Pitt’s Web site
at http://www.news.pitt.edu

###

8/12/09/tmw

Tags: amphibians, EPA, Frogs, pesticides, poison, University of Pittsburgh, USA

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Category: Climate change, Emergency appeals | Date: Aug 19 2008 | By: baraza

Thanks to Sheryl  and Ethics and Animals I have sent my letter and below I am copying information here for you to take action and stop the dilution fo the Endangered Species Act.  Anyone from anywhere can write to Secretary Kempthorne, and it’s been made so easy … so friends you have no excuse click the link to send a letter and do it now. Deadline is September 15th.

The Center for Biological Diversity provides a letter that you can edit and send to Secretary Kempthorne, protesting the changes. The changes to the ESA include: -

• Exempt thousands of federal activities from review under the Endangered Species Act
• Eliminate checks and balances of independent oversight
• Limit which effects can be considered harmful
• Prevent consideration of a project’s contribution to global warming
• Set an inadequate 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project in the instances when they are invited to participate — or else the project gets an automatic green light
• Enable large-scale projects to go unreviewed by dividing them into hundreds of small projects.

In addition, last week Kempthorne and Bush tried to slip another proposed rule change under the radar that would limit protection of a species only to where it is currently found. Under the current rule a species has protection in its entire historical range. However many endangered species have lost substantial portions of that range. For example; under the proposed changes, prior to being reintroduced, the California condor would only have been listed in zoos.

Defenders of Wildlife also has a letter you can edit and send to your Congressional representatives. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is no longer accepting public comments by e-mail or fax. Every other agency in the government does accept comments electronically, but not USFW. So, we have to mail our comments about Monday’s proposed rule to gut the ESA. I learned this by reading SFGate’s Thin Green Line blog and perusing the end of the proposed rule itself. You can access it on the link to the blog. So, we need to start writing IMMEDIATELY. We don’t have a lot of time left because the Bush Administration cut the usual 60-day comment period in half. They don’t want us to know what they’re up to, so let’s make sure they get lots and lots of written public comments delivered by snail-mail at USFW. You can write your comments and mail them to the following address or you can keep an eye on the National Resource Defence Council’s Switchboard blog for information on how to submit them electronically to NRDC. They will then print out your comments and deliver them to USFW. The link will be live on Monday at NRDC Action Fund. Here’s the USFW mailing address for comments (they will also post any personal information you provide in the Federal Register): Public Comment Processing Attention: 1018-AT50 Divisioin of Policy and Directives Management U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222 Arlington, VA 22203

Thanks for all this info Sheryl, Paula

Tags: conservation policies, Endangered Species Act, ESA, Polar Bears, USA

4 responses so far