Scottish barnacle goose in the USA

Barnacle Goose from Harold Stiver on Vimeo.

This video from Canada says about itself:

This small goose has shown up in Ontario in a flock of the larger Canada Goose.

From the BTO Bird Ringing blog in Britain:

30 November 2010

The first Barnie causes a twitch

There are very few reports of UK ringed birds in America and the majority are Manx Shearwater (8) and Great Skua (3). We have also had single reports of White-fronted and Canada Goose, Turnstone, Kittiwake, Arctic, Roseate and Common Tern.

Yesterday we received an email from Jack Rothman informing us of the first British ringed Barnacle Goose to be recorded in America! Barnacle Geese in North America are rare anyway but one with a known origin is brilliant. This bird was seen at Orchard Beach, Bronx which is 5204km from where it was ringed.

Barnacle Goose 1291347 was ringed by Steve Percival on 13/11/2002 and was seen frequently on Islay until March 2005 when it disappeared. One of its parents and a sibling where ringed at the same time and are still seen around Islay.

May 2011: The potential impact of wind farms on barnacle geese has led experts at WWT to fit GPS satellite tags to five birds to determine their precise movements as they migrate: here.

Waddenzee great skua: here.

Freshwater mussels discovery in Delaware river, USA

This video from the USA is called Freshwater Mussel TV – Wavy-rayed Lampmussel (Lampsilis fasciola) mantle lure display.

From the Academy of Natural Sciences in the USA:

Freshwater mussels discovered in urban Delaware river

November 30, 2010

Scientists working with the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary and The Academy of Natural Sciences have made an important discovery in the Delaware River between Chester, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey: beds of freshwater mussels. This includes several uncommon species, two of which were previously believed to no longer exist in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

“Freshwater mussels are very sensitive to a variety of problems, including pollution, dams, water flows, loss of forests, and harvesting for their shells and as bait,” said Dr. Danielle Kreeger, science director at the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary. “We have so few mussels left in almost all of our streams in the area, so to find seven species living together in dense communities right near Philadelphia was unexpected and cause for celebration.”

Freshwater mussels are the most imperiled of all plants and animals in North America Nearly three-quarters of the continent’s 300 species are in decline, and many are either extinct or headed toward extinction. In the Delaware River Basin, most of the one dozen native species are classified as reduced, threatened, or locally extinct. One of the basin’s species is considered endangered at the federal level and others are listed as endangered at the state level. Water pollution and degraded habitats are the most common reasons for these declines. That is why scientists are so excited to find them in this stretch of the river.

One reason freshwater mussels may be doing better in the Delaware River compared to surrounding tributaries is the fact that the Delaware is the longest free-flowing river east of the Mississippi. Dams often block fish from swimming up the river, and this can interrupt the complicated breeding processes of freshwater mussels. Mussels rely upon fish to carry their babies, or larvae, around, including upstream. Whenever dams block these fish, they fail to deliver their payload of mussel larvae to new areas where they can grow and thrive. Pennsylvania has more dams than any other state, and many of these are located in streams throughout the Delaware Valley. The lone exception is the Delaware River. …

Restoring freshwater mussels won’t be easy or fast, however. Although freshwater mussels can help to boost water quality, they are also some of the most sensitive animals to polluted water. Therefore, some area streams may not be able to sustain mussels until water quality is further improved or riverside woodlands are replanted. Also, freshwater mussels live to be up to 100 years old and are slow growing. But this does not concern Dr. Kreeger, who said, “We’ve made tremendous strides in improving some environmental conditions needed to support healthy ecosystems. That said, we know our job won’t be complete until we see the return of these long-lived sentinels of healthy waterways.”

Of the seven species of native freshwater mussels discovered this past summer,

* Two species were thought to be extinct in Pennsylvania and New Jersey: the alewife floater, or Anodonta implicata, and the tidewater mucket, or Leptodea ochracea.
* Two species are considered critically-imperiled: the pond mussel, or Ligumia nasuta, and yellow lampmussel, or Lampsilis cariosa.
* Two species are considered vulnerable: the creeper, or Strophitus undulates, and the eastern floater, or Pyganodon cataracta
* One species is listed as common: the eastern elliptio, or Elliptio complanata

Galician researchers have studied the evolution in the introduction of non-native fresh water species in Galicia over the past century, and have compared this with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. The results show that 31 exotic aquatic species out of the 88 recorded for the entire Iberian Peninsula have become established in the region: here.

http://media.vara.nl/player/player.swf

This is a Dutch video on marine mussels.

British, Italian students demonstrations continue

This video, from Democracy NOW! in the USA, says about itself:

Over 50,000 Students Protest in London over Planned Cuts to Education Funding.

Students staged fresh protests against proposed rises in tuition fees in city centres across Britain today: here.

University and school students descended on the capital today in the second nationwide protest against fee rises: here. See also here. And here.

Rolling coverage of student protests on Day X2: here.

Britain: Video: policeman punches peaceful student protester: here.

Worries about joblessness have been a “major spur” of recent student protests, campaigners said today following the release of new figures which revealed a fourfold increase in youth unemployment since the recession began: here.

Students and school pupils continue to protest nationwide in their thousands to oppose government plans to raise tuition fees in England to £9,000 per year and the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance: here.

“Your courageous actions have shocked and frightened a corrupt political class.” John Pilger’s message to the students: here.

Around 2,000 young people marched through central Athens to parliament today to express their disgust at government education cuts – and their support for British students: here.

In the same week that saw students occupy the Colosseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy today has seen more occupations, street battles and blockades of railway stations by students opposing new education reforms: here.

United States fundamentalist Christian misogyny

This video from the USA says about itself:

At this program on March 11, 2009 at the Museum [of Jewish Heritage], three women discussed their struggle to reconcile their feminism with their religious beliefs and practices, and shared how they have reclaimed their religions in a personal way.

From left to right: Kathryn Joyce (moderator), “Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement”; Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, former Episcopal Bishop of Washington; Asra Q. Nomani, “Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam”; and Blu Greenberg, “On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition”.

From Bitch Magazine in the USA:

By Gina McGalliard

Creepy Christian Patriarchy Movement Shackles Daughters to Their Fathers and Homes

The stay-at-home-daughters movement encourages young girls and single women to forgo college and employment in favor of training as “keepers at home.”

November 29, 2010

“Daughters aren’t to be independent. They’re not to act outside the scope 
of their father. As long as they’re under the authority of their fathers, fathers have the ability to nullify or not the oaths and the vows. Daughters can’t just go out 
independently and say, ‘I’m going to marry whoever I want.’ No. The father has 
the ability to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, that has to be approved by me.’”

Israeli women must pay ex-husbands for divorce: here.

Iraqi returnees flee Iraq again

This video is called Deported Iraqi refugees sent back to UK – 16 Oct 09.

From Daily Kos blog in the USA today:

[In Iraq] the situation remains volatile and exceedingly dangerous. This is reflected in the failure of most Iraqi exiles to return home. At least 2 million fled the country, but only about 100,000 have returned, just 5 percent. And now many who have returned are leaving again because of violence and the wretched state of the economy.

Under legislation now before Canada’s parliament, those deemed by the government to be “irregular” refugee claimants will be subject to much harsher treatment and denied key fundamental rights: here.

The improved political representation of women in Iraq is in sharp contrast to their broader disempowerment, as highlighted by the persistence of domestic violence and early marriage, according to a new report by the UN Inter-Agency Information and Analysis Unit: here.

The Iraq War has cost more than three trillion dollars and is likely to have contributed to the financial crisis, says Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. The withdrawal of troops has come too late, the damage is done: here.

For Christians in Iraq, a Christmas of Mourning and Fear: here.

Always Someone’s Mother or Father, Always Someone’s Child: The Missing Persons of Iraq: here.

Smaller rainforests helped Carboniferous-Permian reptiles

From the BBC:

30 November 2010 Last updated at 09:12 GMT

Rainforest collapse kickstarted reptile evolution

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News

The fragmentation of tropical rainforests 300 million years ago helped pave the way for the rise of the dinosaurs, a new study suggests.

In the Carboniferous period, North America and Europe lay at the equator and were covered by steamy rainforest.

Global warming is thought to have brought about the collapse of these tropical habitats, triggering an evolutionary burst among reptiles.

The work, by a British team, is published in the journal Geology.

The forests that covered the ancient supercontinent of Euramerica are colloquially referred to as the Coal Forests.

They are so called because they accumulated a large amount of peat, which later turned into the coal that is mined today.

Towards the end of the Carboniferous, the Earth’s climate is thought to have grown hotter and drier.

“Climate change caused rainforests to fragment into small ‘islands’ of forest,” said co-author Howard Falcon-Lang, from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Dr Falcon-Lang continued: “This isolated populations of reptiles, and each community evolved in separate directions, leading to an increase in diversity.”

To reach their conclusions, the scientists studied the fossil record of reptiles before and after the collapse of the rainforests.

They showed that reptiles became more diverse and even changed their diets as they struggled to adapt to a rapidly changing climate and environment.

Advantage reptiles

Professor Mike Benton, from the University of Bristol, said: “This is a classic ecological response to habitat fragmentation.

“You see the same process happening today whenever a group of animals becomes isolated from its parent population.

“It’s been studied on traffic islands between major road systems or, as Charles Darwin famously observed in the Galapagos, on oceanic islands.”

His Bristol colleague Sarda Sahney commented: “It is fascinating that even in the face of devastating ecosystem-collapse, animals may continue to diversify.”

Amphibians appear to have been hardest hit by the collapse of the rainforests. The relative success of reptiles may have been due to physical adaptations in which they differed from amphibians.

Firstly, the hard-shelled eggs of reptiles could be laid on dry land (most amphibians lay theirs in water). Secondly, reptiles possess protective scales that help them retain moisture (amphibian skin is very permeable to water).

“These key adaptations freed them from the aquatic habitats to which amphibians were tied and gave them ecologic advantage in the widespread drylands that developed,” the researchers write in Geology.

See also here.

Only when tree-like plants with deep roots took hold some 330 million years ago did river banks finally come under control, say researchers: here.

Pompeii-like, a 300-million-year-old tropical forest was preserved in ash when a volcano erupted in what is today northern China. A new study by University of Pennsylvania paleobotanist Hermann Pfefferkorn and colleagues presents a reconstruction of this fossilized forest, lending insight into the ecology and climate of its time: here.

United States-Iran war?

This video from the USA says about itself:

U.S. Facing Global Diplomatic Crisis Following Massive WikiLeaks Release of Secret Diplomatic Cables.

The Obama administration has devoted enormous attention and effort to a worldwide campaign to destabilize Iran and open the way to direct military aggression, the latest mass of documents released by WikiLeaks confirms: here.

European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said today that Iran has agreed to discuss its nuclear programme at a meeting in Geneva next week: here.

USA: Even after its Iraq fiasco, the NYT feels it’s ok to trumpet on its front page a highly incendiary story about Iran having a lethal new weapons system without proof — or even place it within its proper context? Here.

Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of terrorism, an examination by The New York Times has found: here.

WikiLeaks Cablegate: LIVE Updates here.

Daniel Ellsberg speaks to the BBC about Cablegate: here.

Chomsky: Leaked cables reveal America’s ‘profound hatred of democracy’: here.

Washington heightened tension in the seas to the west of Korea today, sending the USS George Washington supercarrier to take part in US-South Korea military exercises: here.

With strong backing from Washington, the South Korean government is continuing a series of provocative military drills that threaten to lead to conflict with North Korea: here.

Death penalty for Christians in Bush’s ‘new’ Afghanistan?

This is a satiric animation on the Afghan war by Mark Fiore from the USA.

Yeah, another side these days of George W Bush‘s (and now, Barack Obama’s) brave new ‘democratic’ Afghanistan … where women are liberated legally sold, raped and flogged etc. … with its free crooked elections … where one of the mayor of Kabul‘s president’s brothers deals in hard drugs and the other brother is in a bank fraud scandal … where freedom corruption rules …

From AFP news agency:

2 Afghans accused of Christian conversion

November 28, 2010

Two Afghans accused of converting to Christianity, including a Red Cross employee, could face the death penalty, a prosecuting lawyer said on Sunday.

Musa Sayed, 45, and Ahmad Shah, 50, are being detained in the Afghan capital awaiting trial, the prosecutor in charge of western Kabul, Din Mohammad Quraishi, told AFP.

“They are accused of conversion to another religion, which is considered a crime under Islamic law. If proved, they face the death penalty or life imprisonment,” Quraishi said.

Quraishi said Sayed, who works for the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) had already confessed and there was “proof” against Shah.

The ICRC’s spokesman in Kabul, Bijan Frederic Farnoudi, confirmed Sayed’s arrest and said the detained man had worked for the organisation since 1995.

Farnoudi said ICRC representatives had visited Sayed in prison “in accordance with its mandate”.

“During such visits, the ICRC has met Mr Musa (Sayed) several times and intends to visit him in future,” Farnoudi said.

Sayed and Shah were arrested in late May and early June, days after local television broadcast footage of men reciting Christian prayers in Farsi and being baptised, apparently in a house in Kabul.

The government launched its own investigation and suspended two aid groups, Norwegian Church Aid and Church World Service of the US, after the television program reported the two men were proselytising, which is illegal in the devoutly Islamic country.

Several Afghan MPs have expressed their anger over the case, with one from western Herat even calling for the men to be dragged from their homes and publicly executed.

The Afghan constitution, adopted after the fall of the hardline Islamic Taliban in late 2001, forbids conversion to another religion from Islam and in theory can sentence those found guilty to death.

But Afghanistan has not executed anyone for the crime in recent history.

The last conversion case to be tried in Afghanistan is believed to be that of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan man arrested in 2006 for converting to Christianity.

He was eventually released and granted refugee status in Italy, after a wave of international human-rights protests.

The killing of six US soldiers by an Afghan police officer is one of the bloodiest in a series of incidents that call into question the US-NATO strategy of turning over combat operations to Afghan forces in 2014: here.

NOT WORTH IT: Every Hellfire missile fired in Afghanistan costs USD58,000: Rethink Afghanistan: here.

The Pentagon boasted today that US soldiers in Afghanistan are being equipped with a “smart” grenade launcher that uses microchipped ammunition to target and kill: here.

Helicopters to Afghanistan. Blackwater Subsidiary Flouted German Arms Export Laws: here.

Londoners protest Tory cuts

This is a video of Lewisham people storming the council meeting tonight.

In Lewisham borough in London, England, tonight people of this poor working-class neighborhood, inspired by the British students actions, have stormed a council meeting where the Blairite “new” Labour mayor wanted to ram through Tory cuts harmful to the community.

See also here. And here. And here.

Rare gharials return in India

This video is called Indian Gharial Giant Crocodile.

From the Times of India:

Wildlife experts cheer gharial‘s return to Hooghly

Prithvijit Mitra, TNN, Nov 29, 2010, 12.54am IST

KOLKATA: It’s being termed a miraculous revival that has taken wildlife experts and conservationists by surprise. And raised hopes about the survival of species that is now seriously threatened. The gharial the long-snouted fresh-water crocodile is back in the Hooghly.

They have been spotted in numbers that are larger than had been expected when the reptiles were spotted after a gap of 60 years in downstream Hooghly two years ago. Now, a team of researchers has identified a breeding group at Purbasthali in Burdwan which signals that the gharials are finally multiplying.

A young gharial, about three feet in length, was trapped in a fishing net at Purbasthali on Saturday. About a half-a-dozen more followed it into the net. They were all pulled up, examined and released back into the river. “By last count, the number of gharials had shot up to around 180. Now, it seems the number is actually more than 250 since they are breeding. We have spotted even smaller ones, new-born gharials merely six inches long. This is great news for conservation since the reptile was taken to be extinct in eastern India for six decades,” said Tanmoy Ghosh, president of iRebel an NGO that has been researching on gharials with support from the West Bengal Bio-Diversity Board and the Hooghly Zilla Parishad.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCNNR), less than 200 breeding gharials now survive in the wild. They started disappearing from their original habitat the Ganges and the rivers of Bangladesh in the first half of the last century. Unrestricted fishing is held to be one of the major reasons behind this. Cultivation along the banks where they lay their eggs destroyed their breeding habitat.

A study carried out in two phases since 2008 suggests that the reptiles are flocking back to Hooghly. It was carried out over an area of 500 km along the Hooghly from Farakka to Tribeni. “We have been spotting them off and on but not in large numbers. Now that bigger groups have been seen, it is clear that they are returning to the Hooghly. Perhaps even more encouraging is the fact that they are breeding here,” said Pranabesh Sanyal, conservationist and former field director of the Sunderban Tiger Reserve.

The iRebel team has now stationed itself at Purbasthali. Fishermen and locals have been involved in the study.

See also here.

Endangered crocodiles in Uttar Pradesh – Sify: here.