Category: Uncategorized

We are cautiously optimistic but will not know until the bill language is released to the public whether any language concerning regarding sterilization is in.

Once again, the differences between the House bill and the Senate bill will be worked out in conference committee. Last year, House language authorizing the destruction of tens of thousands of healthy wild horses and burros was rejected by the Senate and was not included in final spending legislation.  Let us hope that the same is reflected in this year’s action.

Stay tuned.

Update:…

We have hit the middle of #30dayswild the wildlife trusts annual invitation to do something wild and revel in nature each day even if it is only for a few minutes. Today having checked out their website I discovered they even have an ap which I shall be using to see what random acts of wildness appear to enrich the lives of my 9 year old assistant and myself.

Who Can resist a random wildness button?

Early wild events have included the less random but no less enjoyable visits to the wild places near the village including one to one of my WEBS sites. The large lake was very busy on arrival with huge rafts of moulting greylag geese some with youngsters. There were also good numbers of Canada and Egyptian geese and even a little barnacle goose for good measure.

Greylags with fluffy offspring.

There were plenty of other…

by Love Wild Horses©

It was a century after Nevada’s wild horses first settled into the Great Basin that Congress unanimously passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act to protect wild horses and maintain the ecological balance of the public lands they had claimed as their home.

The 1971 act described these wild horses and burros as “an integral part of the natural system of public lands,” and mandated the preservation and protection of these “living symbols of the historic and pioneering spirit of the West.”

Five decades later, Nevada’s bands of wild horses are the last of these sacred, American icons.  Surviving and thriving over a century of mustanging, round-ups, and slaughter, these battle-born natives of Nevada are more than a symbol, they are the true ancestors of the spirit of power and freedom that comes from the essence of our being.

And today, still, they…

Global sea level rise caused by fossil fuel burning is an issue that is creating worsening impacts to cities, nations, and civilization itself. And according to recent reports out of Vietnam, 1.7 million people have migrated from the low-lying Mekong Delta region over the past decade. Primary causes included climate change and poverty.

(Sea level rise now threatens all low-lying regions with increased flooding, loss of crops, and, in some cases, forced migration. Recent reports indicate that hundreds of thousands have already left the Mekong delta as a result.)

Rising oceans have forced Vietnam to erect a system of dykes of up to 4 meters in height in an increasingly complex system of coastal defense barriers. These barriers have saved lands from inundation as the ocean off the low-lying Mekong Delta continues to rise year-after-year. However, the dykes have not prevented salt water from moving further and further up…

ScienceDaily reports

Scientists have discovered the real reason turtles have shells. While many thought turtle shells were for protection, new findings show that the shells were actually for digging underground to escape the harsh South African environment where these early proto turtles lived.

Read article at Real reason turtles have shells: Burrowing tool: Dr. Tyler Lyson co-authors paper about turtle shells as a burrowing tool, not for protection as previously thought — ScienceDaily

Call to action:

This video from the USA says about itself:

Restoring Red Spruce in the Southern Appalachians

10 November 2015

Sue Cameron from the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife] Service’s Asheville Field Office recently joined staff from the Southern Highlands Reserve collecting red spruce cones on Pisgah National Forest, near Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the Eastern United States. The cone collection is the first step in a multi-year process to restore red spruce to areas where it was found before the extensive logging and burning at the turn of the 20th century.

The Southern Appalachians are home to the highest peaks in the eastern United States and red spruce is a key part of the forests on those mountain-top areas. Unfortunately, the amount of red spruce found there today is a fraction of what stood 150 years ago. These forests were decimated by logging, which was followed by intensive fires which…

The New York Times  reports

Paleontologists estimate that before the global spread of humankind the average rate of species extinction was one species per million in each one- to 10-million-year interval. Human activity has driven up the average global rate of extinction to 100 to 1,000 times that baseline rate.

The most striking fact about the living environment may be how little we know about it. Even the number of living species can be only roughly calculated. A widely accepted estimate by scientists puts the number at about 10 million. In contrast, those formally described, classified and given two-part Latinized names (Homo sapiens for humans, for example) number slightly more than two million. With only about 20 percent of its species known and 80 percent undiscovered, it is fair to call Earth a little-known planet.

Read full story The 8 Million Species We Don’t Know – The New York Times