Flora
Lest anyone doubt the ability of something barely visible as an independent organism to wreak havok upon the biosphere, a global assessment of all 5,743 known amphibian species has found that amphibian chytrid fungus is threatening to wipe out a third of them.
U.S. President Barack Obama has been honored by having a newly discovered lichen species named for him – Caloplaca Obamae
Fauna
Sadly, the word for this week is “extinction.”
A new global assessment has revealed that a record number of bird species are now listed as threatened with extinction.
According to the first world survey of their numbers at least one in ten species of dragonfly and damselfly are threatened with extinction.
Natural Resources and Public Policy
Thanks to an extraordinary non sequitur of an amendment to the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act of 2009, the carrying of loaded guns in U.S. National Parks is once again an active congressional issue.
Thousands of delegates from 72 countries have gathered in Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, for a conference on coastal and marine resources that will conclude Friday with a plan of action to safeguard the largest marine reserve in history, the Coral Triangle Initiative.
Podcasts
BirdNote – Thrushes, swallows, and woodpeckers (oh my!).
Green Week in Review – A report on the Obama Administration upholding changes to the Endangered Species Act put in place by the Bush Administration to stop the Act from being used as a tool to address climate change pollution.
Nature – A new study sheds light on how life emerged on the early Earth.
Nature Stories – A guerrilla gardener takes over an island in order to plant trees.
On Six Legs – The relationship between insects and country music songs. (The website doesn’t have the podcast file itself but it is available on iTunes.)
Sierra Club Radio – Renowned primatologist Birute Galdikas, talks about four decades of studying orangutans in Borneo, and filmmaker Joe Burlinger on his new documentary, Crude, about the lawsuit against Chevron for their contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
EXTRA GOODNESS! National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation program for May 11, 2009 featured an interview by Neal Conan of journalist and author Peter Laufer about his new book The Dangerous World of Butterflies in which Laufer tells about discoveries he made in the history of criminality and intrigue surrounding conservationists and collectors of these winged beauties.
