World’s rarest mammals, amphibians on new map

From Wildlife Extra:

World’s rarest and most extraordinary species mapped for the first time

Sunda pangolin occurs in Southeast Asia and is threatened by illegal poaching for its meat and for its scales – Used in traditional medicine. Courtesy of Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Programme

EDGE species added to the map

May 2013. The black-and-white ruffed lemur, Mexican salamander and Sunda pangolin all feature on the first map of the world’s most unique and threatened mammals and amphibians, created by the Zoological Society of London(ZSL).

Scientists pinpointed areas of the world where Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) mammals and amphibians occur. Regions containing the highest concentrations of these species are highlighted as global conservation priorities.

Different regions for different groups
The map reveals that high priority conservation areas for mammals and amphibians are different, reflecting the varied evolutionary histories and threats facing the two groups. For mammals, management efforts are best focused in Southeast Asia, southern Africa and Madagascar. For amphibians, central and southern America are highlighted as priorities.

Very few protected areas
Professor Jonathan Baillie, ZSL’s Director of Conservation says: “The results of the mapping exercise are alarming. Currently only five percent of the areas we’ve identified as priorities for EDGE mammals and 15 percent of the EDGE amphibian areas are protected.

“These areas highlighted should all be global conservation priorities because they contain species that are not only highly threatened but also unique in the way they look, live and behave. These new maps will inform the development of larger-scale work to help secure the future of some of the most remarkable species on Earth,” Professor Baillie added.

The Mexican salamander, or axolotl, is critically endangered due to urbanization, polluted waters, and the introduction of non-native fish which eat the axolotl’s young. Scroll down to see the map of EDGE amphibians.

Black-and-white ruffed lemur & Sunda pangolin
Madagascar’s black-and-white ruffed lemur is the largest lemur in the world and is threatened by hunting and the loss of its forest habitat to logging, mining and cutting and burning for agriculture. The Sunda pangolin, also known as the scaly anteater, occurs in Southeast Asia and is threatened by illegal poaching for its meat which is a culinary delicacy, as well as its scales which are thought to have high medicinal value. Other mammal species occurring in priority areas include the black rhino and western lowland gorilla.

Amphibians
Amphibians are facing a terrifying rate of extinction making them the most threatened vertebrates in the world. The Mexican salamander, or axolotl, is critically endangered due to urbanization, polluted waters, and the introduction of non-native fish which eat the axolotl’s young. With the aid of the global map of EDGE amphibians, it will now be possible to concentrate efforts in countries such as, Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala where the most distinct and threatened species are found.

Dr. Kamran Safi, lead author of the paper from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology says: “This is the first global map to take into account species’ uniqueness as well as threat. Now that we’ve identified EDGE priority areas for mammals and amphibians we can more effectively continue to ensure their protection.”

It is critical that conservationists prioritise the allocation of limited resources for the best conservation outcomes. ZSL’s EDGE of Existence programme has already launched targeted conservation projects for more than 40 EDGE species around the world.

The research paper is published in PLOS ONE.

Related articles

• Most distinct species mapped (bbc.co.uk)
• Helping amphibians, reptiles in your own backyard (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• European shrub threatens US frogs (bbc.co.uk)
• Reptiles and Amphibians (sotinpc.wordpress.com)
• Pangolins: The extraordinary mammal going extinct but nobody’s noticed (blogs.independent.co.uk)
• Axolotl (herpetology101.wordpress.com)

Corporate destruction of Mayan temple in Belize

This video is called Mexico – Chichen Itza (Mayan Pyramids).

From Associated Press:

May 13, 2013, 7:30 PM

Bulldozers destroy Mayan pyramid in Belize

BELIZE CITY – A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.

The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back at least 2,300 years and is the most important site in northern Belize, near the border with Mexico.

“It’s a feeling of incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity … they were using this for road fill,” Awe said. “It’s like being punched in the stomach, it’s just so horrendous.”

Nohmul sat in the middle of a privately owned sugar cane field, and lacked the even stone sides frequently seen in reconstructed or better-preserved pyramids. But Awe said the builders could not possibly have mistaken the pyramid mound, which is about 100 feet tall, for a natural hill because the ruins were well-known and the landscape there is naturally flat.

“These guys knew that this was an ancient structure. It’s just bloody laziness”, Awe said.

Photos from the scene showed backhoes clawing away at the pyramid’s sloping sides, leaving an isolated core of limestone cobbles at the center, with what appears to be a narrow Mayan chamber dangling above one clawed-out section.

“Just to realize that the ancient Maya acquired all this building material to erect these buildings, using nothing more than stone tools and quarried the stone, and carried this material on their heads, using tump lines,” said Awe. “To think that today we have modern equipment, that you can go and excavate in a quarry anywhere, but that this company would completely disregard that and completely destroyed this building. Why can’t these people just go and quarry somewhere that has no cultural significance? It’s mind-boggling.”

Belizean police said they are conducting an investigation and criminal charges are possible. The Nohmul complex sits on private land, but Belizean law says that any pre-Hispanic ruins are under government protection.

The Belize community-action group Citizens Organized for Liberty Through Action called the destruction of the archaeological site “an obscene example of disrespect for the environment and history.”

It is not the first time it’s happened in Belize, a country of about 350,000 people that is largely covered in jungle and dotted with hundreds of Mayan ruin sites, though few as large as Nohmul.

Norman Hammond, an emeritus professor of archaeology at Boston University who worked in Belizean research projects in the 1980s, wrote in an email that “bulldozing Maya mounds for road fill is an endemic problem in Belize (the whole of the San Estevan center has gone, both of the major pyramids at Louisville, other structures at Nohmul, many smaller sites), but this sounds like the biggest yet.”

Arlen Chase, chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Central Florida, said, “Archaeologists are disturbed when such things occur, but there is only a very limited infrastructure in Belize that can be applied to cultural heritage management.”

“Unfortunately, they (destruction of sites) are all too common, but not usually in the center of a large Maya site,” Chase wrote.

He said there had probably still been much to learn from the site. “A great deal of archaeology was undertaken at Nohmul in the ’70s and ’80s, but this only sampled a small part of this large center.”

Belize isn’t the only place where the handiwork of the far-flung and enormously prolific Maya builders is being destroyed. The ancient Mayas spread across southeastern Mexico and through Guatemala, Honduras and Belize.

“I don’t think I am exaggerating if I say that every day a Maya mound is being destroyed for construction in one of the countries where the Maya lived,” wrote Francisco Estrada-Belli, a professor at Tulane University’s Anthropology Department.

“Unfortunately, this destruction of our heritage is irreversible but many don’t take it seriously,” he added. “The only way to stop it is by showing that it is a major crime and people can and will go to jail for it.”

Robert Rosenswig, an archaeologist at the State University of New York at Albany, described the difficult and heartbreaking work of trying to salvage information at the nearby site of San Estevan following similar destruction around 2005.

“Bulldozing damage at San Estevan is extensive and the site is littered with Classic period potsherds,” he wrote in an academic paper describing the scene. “We spent a number of days at the beginning of the 2005 season trying to figure out the extent of the damage …. after scratching our heads for many days, a bulldozer showed up and we realized that what appear to be mounds, when overgrown with chest-high vegetation, are actually recently bulldozed garbage piles.”

However small the compensation, bulldozing pyramids is one very brutal way of revealing the inner cores of the structures, which were often built up in periodic stages of construction.

“The one advantage of this massive destruction, to the core site, is that the remains of early domestic activity are now visible on the surface,” Rosenswig wrote.

Related articles

• Ancient Mayan pyramid destroyed by construction company in Belize (rt.com)

US American horses exported for meat

This video from the USA says about itself:

1 Dec 2011

The last equine slaugherhouse in the United States finally shut down, but American horses continue to go to slaughter across our southern and northern borders in record numbers.

From Alternet in the USA:

By Andrew Wasley

The Brutal and Secretive Trade of American Horses Killed For Their Meat

Few Americans are aware that our country’s horses are being exported and slaughtered abroad to supply other nations’ taste for a meat that’s shunned at home.

March 15, 2013

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

Herded down a concrete shute, the horses — black and brown and grey; fat, healthy, thin, lame — have little idea of the fate that awaits them. But one by one, the horses are separated from those behind, a metal trapdoor swinging down to confine each to a metal box. There’s blood and filth on the walls and floor. Flies buzz.

A man leans over the horse — the animal freezes at first, then jerks forward slightly, obviously terrified — and stabs a knife forcefully into the top of the horse’s head. The horse crumples to the ground and the man stabs it again. The side of the box opens, discharging the body onto a stained floor. A metal chain is hooked around a hoof, the horse swings up and onto a moving production line. Men set upon each body as they come through, slicing away skin and tissue and butchering the exposed flesh.

The footage illustrating this grisly scene in a Mexican abattoir offers a rare glimpse into a brutal and secretive trade that few Americans are aware of — the export and slaughter of homegrown US horses to supply a meat that’s shunned at home but popular with diners overseas. Each year, thousands of horses — abandoned pets, ex-racehorses, farm animals — are rounded up and trucked across the country south into Mexico, or north into Canada, for killing and processing and dispatching abroad, many to Europe, a major hub of horsemeat consumption.

It’s a murky and often-informal business, with numerous buyers, sellers and middlemen in on the game. And it’s part of a much bigger, international trade in horses and horsemeat now in the spotlight in the wake of the European horsemeat scandal. This was initially triggered by the discovery of equine meat in “beef” burgers on sale in Ireland and the UK, and has now widened to include numerous meat products.

Seizing their chance, long-time critics of the horsemeat industry have stepped up efforts to close the trade down, citing appalling horse suffering and health risks to humans through controversial drugs entering the food chain.

For welfare campaigners, the cruelty begins well before the slaughterhouse. Most horses destined for the international meat market begin their journey being trucked to auction houses across the US. From there, they are transported on to feedlots, and then exported across the border to slaughter facilities in Mexico or Canada. Activists say that horses are frequently crammed into vehicles — many not suitable for carrying livestock — and forced to endure lengthy journeys without adequate food, water and rest, leading to injuries and exhaustion.

Poor conditions at feedlots have also been highlighted. The pressure group Animals Angels last year investigated a major livestock auction and horse feedlot in New Mexico, and claimed to have found “multiple horses in a bad condition… emaciated, [with] untreated wounds, open cuts, lame, [with] eye injuries.”

Graphic pictures show a number of other horses sprawled on the ground, apparently too sick to get up, and an aborted foal abandoned in the dust. Conditions were so bad that investigators say they pleaded with the auction authorities to euthanise a number of the horses.

Cheryl Jacobson, from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), says such scenes are all too common in the US horse trade — and blames lenient penalties for fostering a culture of poor treatment: “As at [the New Mexico auction] we’ve seen that if they get caught for animal welfare problems the costs incurred are still not [a deterrent], it’s still worthwhile.”

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• Lawmakers, animal welfare groups aim to block horse slaughter plans (examiner.com)
• Slaughter of U.S. Horses Soars as Horse Meat Scandal Explodes (rtfitchauthor.com)
• Oklahoma Lawmakers Pushing Bills To Allow Commercial Slaughter Of Horses (houston.cbslocal.com)
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Monarch butterflies in trouble

This video is called Complete Life Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly.

From Wildlife Extra:

Monarch butterfly numbers decline again

Drought conditions and historic wildfires lead to more decline

March 2013. Bad news again for the Monarch butterfly: Drought conditions and historic wildfires the past few years continue to decrease their numbers as they wing across Texas this spring. Worse news: milkweed plants – the only kind they need to survive – are also not in plentiful supply, says a Texas A&M University Monarch watcher.

Craig Wilson, a senior research associate in the Center for Mathematics and Science Education and a longtime butterfly enthusiast, says reports coming from Mexico where the Monarchs have their breeding grounds show their numbers are significantly down, a disturbing trend during much of the past decade.

Wilson explains “The severe drought in Texas and much of the Southwest continues to wreak havoc with the number of Monarchs. The conditions have been dry both here and in Mexico in recent years. It takes four generations of the insects to make it all of the way up to Canada, and because of lack of milkweed along the way, a lot of them just don’t make it.”

Drought hampering milkweed food

The dry conditions and changing farming practices are hampering the growth of milkweed, the only type of plant the Monarch will digest as it makes its trip north. Texas has had dozens of wildfires in the past few years that have hampered milkweed growth, and even though there are more than 30 types of milkweed (Asclepiadaceae) in the state, the numbers are not there to sustain the Monarchs as they start their 2,000-mile migration trip to Canada. Increased use of pesticides is also adversely affecting milkweed production, he notes.

“But if people want to help, they can pick up some milkweed plants right now at local farmer’s cooperative stores,” he says, “and this would no doubt be a big boost to help in their migration journey.”

The Monarch reserves are in the Mexican state of Michoacan. It’s an area where tens of millions of Monarchs spend the winter and mate before heading north, Wilson points out.

“On a recent visit to the Monarch overwintering sites in Michoacan, former President Jimmy Carter said: ‘The Monarch butterfly unites the three countries of North America in peace.

It is an ambassador of peace which requires protected areas and ecosystems that are preserved through sustainable agricultural and forestry practices. We need to work together to maintain a healthy and balanced ecosystem for all North America,” Wilson adds.

“It is important to have a national priority of planting milkweed to assure there will be Monarchs in the future,” Wilson believes. “If we could get several states to collaborate, we might be able to provide a ‘feeding’ corridor right up to Canada for the Monarchs.”

Wilson is currently adding a variety of milkweed plants to the existing Cynthia Woods Mitchell Garden on the Texas A&M campus. He recommends the following sites for Monarch followers: Journey North, Texas Monarch Watch and Monarch Watch.

For more information about monarch butterflies and their migration, visit www.monarchwatch.org.

Nomads of the Wind and Other Wonders of the Butterfly World – Photographic Story of the Monarch Butterfly Migration. There is a great deal that we still do not know about the Monarch Butterfly, but this book presents the extent of our knowledge in stunning fashion. Many of the secrets of the extraordinary migration that the Monarchs make are yet to be unlocked … Read more here.

Related articles

• Monarch Butterflies’ Population Steadily Declining, But Why? (scienceworldreport.com)
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• GMOs Drive Monarch Butterfly Populations to ‘Ominous’ Lows (commondreams.org)
• Monarch butterfly numbers drop by ‘ominous’ 59 per cent in Mexico (blogs.windsorstar.com)
• Scientists see ominous decline in Mexico’s Monarch butterflies (science.nbcnews.com)

Caribbean fish citizen science

This video from Mexico is called Fish at the Coral Reef – Mayan Riviera.

From the University of East Anglia in Britain:

Marine Diversity Study Proves Value of Citizen Science

Mar. 12, 2013 — Citizen science surveys compare well with traditional scientific methods when it comes to monitoring species biodiversity — according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Research published today in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution shows that methods to record marine diversity used by amateurs returned results consistent with techniques favoured by peer-reviewed science.

The findings give weight to the growing phenomenon of citizen science, which sees data crowd-sourced from an army of avid twitchers, divers, walkers and other wildlife enthusiasts.

The field study compared methods used by ‘citizen’ SCUBA divers with those used by professional scientists, to measure the variety of fish species in three Caribbean sites.

The divers surveyed the sites using two methods — the ‘belt transect’, used in peer reviewed fish diversity studies, and the ‘roving diver technique’, used by the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) volunteer fish survey project.

Two teams of 12 divers made 144 separate underwater surveys across the sites over four weeks.

While the traditional scientific survey revealed sightings of 106 different types of fish, the volunteer technique detected greater marine diversity with a total of 137 in the same waters.

Dr Ben Holt, from UEA’s school of Biological Sciences, led the research in partnership with the Centre for Marine Resource Studies in the Caribbean and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

He said: “The results of this study are important for the future of citizen science and the use of data collected by these programs. Allowing volunteers to use flexible and less standardised methods has important consequences for the long term success of citizen science programs. Amateur enthusiasts typically do not have the resources or training to use professional methodology. Our study demonstrates the quality of data collected using a volunteer method can match, and in some respects exceed, protocols used by professional scientists.

“Enlisting the help of a large pool of volunteers helps professional researchers collect valuable data across many ecosystems.

“The popularity of SCUBA diving has resulted in monitoring of the underwater environment on a scale that was previously impossible. For example, the REEF method has been used by volunteers in more than 160,000 underwater surveys across the world. It would have cost many millions of pounds for professionals to have undertaken the same work.

“Very few, if any, scientific groups can collect data on the scale that volunteer groups can, so our proof that both methods return consistent results is very encouraging for citizen science in general.

“I think we will really see the value of volunteer schemes increase in future. We’re living in a world that’s changing very significantly. Environmental changes are having a big impact on ecosystems around us so we need to harness new ways of measuring the effect.

“For example Lion fish is an invasive species which was not in the Caribbean until roughly 10 years ago. They have now become a real problem in many areas and this invasion has been tracked using volunteer data. Following our study, scientists can have more confidence when using these data to consider the impact of threats, such as invasive species, on the wider natural communities.

“It is important to note that our study does not consider the abilities of the individuals performing the surveys and this is also an important consideration for any large scale biodiversity program. By addressing these issues we can make important steps towards enabling the large pool of volunteer enthusiasts to help professional researchers by collecting valuable data across many ecosystems.”

The research was carried out in under water sites close to South Caicos in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

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• Animal Care Ethics in Citizen Science: My Conundrum (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
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• Science for everyone by everyone – the re-emergence of citizen science (povesham.wordpress.com)
• United States butterflies and climate change (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Science Isn’t Just for Scientists (theepochtimes.com)
• The Difference Between Citizen and DIY Science (ieet.org)
• How to increase the trustworthiness of Citizen Science data (p2pfoundation.net)

Mexican howler monkeys in trouble

This video is called Wild Howler Monkeys at Iberostar Tucan Quetzal Mexico.

From Wildlife Extra:

Howler monkeys increasingly stressed by human disturbance

New research shows that disturbed habitats are resulting in increasingly poor diets for monkeys, and that the additional time and energy required to find food is causing concerning levels of stress in already critically endangered primates.

January 2013. Endangered Mexican howler monkeys are consuming more leaves and less fruit as a result of habitat disturbance by humans which is forcing them to invest much more time foraging for sustenance and leading to increased ‘stress’ levels, as detected through hormone analysis.

The research took place in the tropical rainforests of the Mexican state of Veracruz, which are being deforested and fragmented by human activity – primarily the clearing of forest for cattle raising. It shows that increases in howler monkey ‘travel time’ – the amount of time needed to find requisite nourishment – are leading to increases in levels of stress hormones called glucocorticoids. These hormones are not only indicators of stress, but are also known to relate to diminished reproductive success and lower survival rates.

Researchers believe the study could serve as a model for behavioural change and resulting health implications more generally in primates living in habitats disturbed by human activities, such as deforestation.

Dr Jacob Dunn from Cambridge’s Department of Biological Anthropology, who carried out the research, said “Howlers are arboreal primates, that is to say they spend their wholes lives in the trees. As forests are fragmented, the howlers become cut off, isolated on forest ‘islands’ that increasingly lack the fruit which provide an important component of their natural diet. This has led to the monkeys expending ever more time and effort foraging for food, often increasing leaf consumption when their search is, quite literally, fruitless.”

Fruit cycle

Fruit occurs in natural cycles, and the monkeys will naturally revert to ‘fallback’ foods, including leaves, when fruit is scarce. But as habitats shrink, and fruit is harder to find, leaves from second-choice plants, such as lianas, have increased in the Mexican howlers’ diet.

While leaves may sound like a plentiful resource in a rainforest, many leaves are difficult to digest and can be filled with toxins – a natural defence mechanism in most trees and plants – so the monkeys are actually forced to spend more time seeking out the right foliage to eat, such as new shoots which are generally less toxic.

Fruit is vital to monkey diet

Dunn added “The traditional view was that the leaves exploited by howler monkeys were an abundant food source – but this is not the case. The monkeys rely much more heavily on fruit than previously believed, and when turning to foliage for food – as they are increasingly forced to do – they have to be highly selective in the leaves they consume, visiting lots of different trees. This leads to the increased ‘travel time’ and consequent high levels of stress we are seeing in these primates as their habitats disintegrate.”

Faeces analysed

As trying to catch the howlers to examine them would in itself be highly stressful for the animal, the best way of evaluating stress levels in wild primates is by analysing their faeces for glucocorticoid stress hormones, which are general to all vertebrates. Through statistical modelling, the researchers were able to determine that it is the ‘travel time’ – rather than the increased foliage intake – causing high levels of stress.

“Monkeys in disturbed habitats suffering high levels of stress is in itself unsurprising perhaps, but now we think we know why, the root cause from the primates perspective. Our results also highlight the importance of preserving and planting fruit trees – particularly those species such as figs that can produce fruit during periods of general fruit scarcity – for the conservation of howler monkeys¨ said Dr Jurgi Cristóbal-Azkarate, also from Cambridge, who led the research in collaboration with Dr Joaquim Vea from the University of Barcelona.

The authors say that further studies are required to fully understand the significance of increases in stress in howler monkeys living in disturbed habitats. “Determining the full relevance of our results for the conservation of primates living in forest fragments will require long-term studies of stress hormones and survival”, said Dunn.

The research was published in the International Journal of Primatology.

Related articles

• Rare monkeys could become extinct because they are too STRESSED (swns.com)
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• Hybrid monkeys hint at early human history (futurity.org)

California condor dies, killed by lead?

This video is called Flying giants–rare California condors return to Utah skies.

From Wildlife Extra:

Dead condor found in Zion National Park in Utah

Lead poisoning suspected

January 2013. The Peregrine Fund, a driving force behind the conservation of Californian condors, had been hopeful that a pair of condors in Zion National Park would produce the first offspring in the state for many years.

A Peregrine Fund spokesman said “Our hopeful pairing of adult condors 299 and 343 to be the first successful Utah pair has been hampered over the past few years by us having to treat one of them for lead poisoning during breeding season. Sadly, we have now found the adult 9-year-old female (Condor 343) dead in Zion National Park in Utah. This is a major step back from Utah’s first breeding.”

Official necropsy results are pending to determine cause of death, but this year’s trapping results show a very high rate of lead poisoning in almost all of the Utah foraging birds.

Condor population

There are just 400 Californian condors alive today, of which around 175 are in captivity. The California condor has recovered from only 22 birds left in the world in 1982 to around 400 today. The original 22 birds were captured in an effort to breed and save the species. Condors bred and raised in captivity are now periodically released at sites in California, Mexico and at the Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona.

Related articles

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US environmentalist Rebecca Tarbotton dies

This video from the USA is called We Are the Rainforest Action Network.

From Democracy Now! in the USA:

Leading Environmentalist Rebecca Tarbotton of Rainforest Action Network Dies at 39

Leading environmentalist and human rights champion Rebecca “Becky” Tarbotton, executive director of the organization Rainforest Action Network (RAN), has died at the age of 39.

According to RAN, Tarbotton died Wednesday on a beach in Mexico while vacationing with her husband and friends. The coroner ruled cause of death as asphyxiation from water she breathed in while swimming.

“Tarbotton was the first female executive director of RAN, and a strong female voice in a movement often dominated by men,” quotes RAN in a press release. “Under her leadership, RAN was engaged in protecting endangered rainforests and the rights of their indigenous inhabitants. Most recently, she helped to design the most significant agreement in the history of the organization: A landmark policy by entertainment giant, Disney, that is set to transform everything about the way the company purchases and uses paper.”

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman wrote about Tarbotton’s work this May after RAN activists climbed 100 feet to suspend a banner on Charlotte’s Bank of America stadium, where President Obama was scheduled to make his nomination acceptance speech. The banner read “Bank of America” with the word “America” crossed out and replaced with “Coal.” Tarbotton told her: “Bank of America is the lead financier of mountaintop-removal mining, which is a practice of mining which is really the worst of the worst mining that we see anywhere, essentially blowing the tops off of mountains in Appalachia, destroying people’s homes, polluting their water supplies. And that’s even before it gets into the coal plants, where it’s burnt and creates air pollution in inner-city areas and all around our country … [it’s] the canary in the coal mine for our reliance on fossil fuels.”

Tarbotton was interviewed several times on Democracy Now! over the years. You can watch her last appearance above.

Tarbotton was interviewed on Democracy Now! in 2010 when she spoke about efforts to defeat a ballot initiative that would effectively repeal California’s landmark global warming emissions law.

“Becky was a leader’s leader. She could walk into the White House and cause a corporate titan to reevaluate his perspective, and then moments later sit down with leaders from other movements and convince them to follow her lead,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the NAACP and a close friend, upon news of her passing. “If we had more heroes like her, America and the world would be a much better place.”

Related articles

• Rebecca Tarbotton, head of Rainforest Action Network, dies at 39 (grist.org)
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Mexican composer Ema Elena Valdelamar dies

This music video is called Emma Elena Valdelamar – Mucho Corazón.

From Prensa Latina news agency:

Mexico, Dec 24 – Mexican composer Ema Elena Valdelamar, whose works were sang by popular singers through the years, died, reported the media.

Mucho corazón, Cheque en blanco, Mil besos, Por qué no fuiste tú and Vivir sin tí are some of the most relevant songs, widely heard nationally and internationally.

Her compositions, mostly boleros, have been sung by Luis Miguel, Paquita la del Barrio, Benny Moré, Pedro Vargas, Maria Victoria and Marco Antonio Muñiz, among other celebrities.

Her latest tribute was held last October by the National Sound Archive, in the framework of the program Mexican Popular Music through her Songs.

Valdelamara’s body lies in a funeral in the south of the capital, and various figures of the national cultural will go.

Related articles

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Humpback whale watching on Dutch coast

This video from Mexico is called Humpback Whale Shows AMAZING Appreciation After Being Freed From Nets.

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

“Humpback to the left of the flag!”

Thursday, December 20, 2012, 16:56

By reporter Pauline Broekema

He is from Sousse, Tunisia. Grew up near the sea and is used to marine animals. But for Hesni Sougnir, owner of the beachbar the Weather Vane on the boulevard in Egmond aan Zee this is a unique day. He interrupts his work regularly. In his blue apron he watches intensively behind the surf. In front of his bar the two whales swim. He can not believe his luck.

Regularly, whale watchers come. The humpback whale spotters are of the helpful kind. “To the left of the flag!” it sounds. “Keep the binoculars focused on the surf, then you will see it there!”

Excellent condition

A passerby without binoculars can borrow one. Though there is little to see of the humpback, still the sudden blow fountain is an unexpected sensation. A fin that suddenly pops up out of the sea creates turbulence on the coast. Sougnir has many nature lovers among its customers. “They have been waiting for this for thirty years,” he says.

It’s probably a mother with a baby. This morning, the men of the Egmond lifeboat were close to them in an open boat. “The animals were a in fine condition, as far as I could see” says Henk Biesboer of the lifeboat.

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