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American Black Duck / Photo by Steve Maslowski (USFWS)Bird news and links
- Continuing research posits a chemical mechanism that helps birds navigate according to Earth's magnetic field. The finding is based on laboratory experiments and has not been confirmed in actual birds.
Three Asian vulture species could be extinct within 10 years unless the veterinary drug diclofenac is completely eliminated. The white-backed vulture has lost 99.9% of its population since 1992; long-billed vulture and slender-billed vulture have each lost about 97% of their populations. The drug has been banned by the Indian government, but it continues to be used.- You might want to be careful of other visitors in national parks and wildlife refuges. The Bush administration wants to revoke the federal ban on carrying loaded and concealed weapons on federal parkland.
- Eating meat that contains fragments of lead shot may pose risks for humans as well as California condors.
- Greenland allowed an extra month of hunting at its seabird breeding colonies this year. Some of Greenland's indigenous people rely on seabird meat for their livelihood; others hunt for pleasure.
- Wings Over Wetlands tracks bird migration along the Africa-Europe flyways.
- Drilling in Arctic NWR has reared its ugly head once again, in the form of Sen. Ted Stevens. (See Gristmill for why this is pointless.)
- Birdfreak: Bird Conservation Movement: An Introduction
- Tortoise Trail: Gambel's Quail Family
- Birdchick: New Mind Games To Play With Starlings
- 10,000 Birds: It takes guts…a feeding Black Kite
- BES Group: Blue-throated Bee-eater handling a bee
- Maryland's Department of Agriculture is trying to get residents to reduce their use of chemicals that are harmful to the Chesapeake watershed. Homeowners may contribute as much fertilizer runoff to the watershed as agriculture.
- The natural carbon cycle tends toward equilibrium because carbon dioxide emissions would be captured and recycled into the Earth's crust as sedimentary rock.
- Regulatory changes proposed at the EPA may make it easier to build coal-fired power plants close to national parks. Apparently the changes are opposed by the agency's staff experts.
- Island of Doubt: Why climate change is so tricky to cover
- Conservation Report: GREEN CONSERVATISM: The mechanism for conservatives to be relevant in the environmental debate
- Friday Ark #189
- Festival of the Trees #23
- I and the Bird #74
- Tangled Bank #104
- Berry Go Round #4
- Birds in the News #128
