The 30 Billion Bug Bacchanal Erupting on the East Coast

 

Animated Gif of a Cicada (Tibicen sp.) Molting. Taken by T. Nathan Mundhenk, in Centerville, Ohio USA July 30 2007. Each frame taken at 1 minute intervals. 30 minute gap in middle while cicada rested. The Cicada takes about 2 hours to complete the process.

by the Center for Biological Diversity

Between 30 billion and 1 trillion cicadas — well rested after a 17-year stint of underground sap-sucking — are poised to burrow to the surface and take over the East Coast this summer. They’ll be hungry, hormonal and looking for love, singing at earsplitting decibel levels to bring down a date.

According to conservative estimates, they’ll also outnumber the regional human population (50 million from North Carolina to Connecticut) by about 600 to 1. There are several “broods” of North American cicadas, but the current wave — “Brood II” — is a very, very big one. “There will be some places where it’s wall-to-wall cicadas,” said one entomologist — meaning a bugfest of Biblical proportions.

Track the emergence of Brood II with WNYC’s cicada tracker. Then visit our webpage where you can watch a BBC video on cicadas’ odd lifecycles and learn about recipes for these winged “shrimp of the land” from the University of Maryland’s cicadamaniacs.

New Report Finds Arctic Bears Face Grim Future in Warming World

Download On Thin Ice here.

by the Center for Biological Diversity

SAN FRANCISCO— On the fifth anniversary of polar bears’ placement on the endangered species list, the Center for Biological Diversity today launched federal litigation challenging the Obama administration’s failure to consider “endangered” status for the polar bear or develop a recovery plan for this gravely imperiled species. A new Center report released today, On Thin Ice, finds that polar bears face greater threats from melting sea ice and global warming now than they did in 2008, when they were first declared “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

In a formal notice of intent to sue under the Endangered Species Act, the Center pointed out that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not conducted a required five-year review of threats to polar bears despite new evidence that the bears’ status has declined enough to deserve an endangered listing. Similarly, the administration has failed to develop a recovery plan for polar bears despite repeated promises to do so.

The “Green” Fracking Revolution Is On The Way

by Gal Fawkes / Earth First! News Wire

Poisoned Water Supply Got You Down?  Eco-Capitalism to the Rescue!

Michael Klein at a meeting of the board of eco-industrialists of the Rainforest Action Network.

What if there was a man, an environmentalist lets say—as well as an oil, gas, mining, double d-bag executive—that could turn the toxic nature of fracking into something delicious, into something that marketing professionals could label “green” and would be, of course, highly profitable? Would you then stop, for the love of all things industrial and status-quo, with your damned anti-fracking movement? Please?

On the Rosemont Mine, Air Quality and Jaguars in Southern Arizona

Randy Serraglio of Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity discusses the proposed Rosemont copper mine and jaguars in Southern Arizona on the Buckmaster radio show 3/20/2013. http://www.buckmastershow.com/

“Indiana Jones of Wildlife” Joins Ranchers, Mining Executives in Opposing U.S. Jaguar Habitat

by the Earth First! Jaguar Team

Macho B, the last-known wild jaguar known to live in the U.S. until recent sightings, is shown in a snare in southern Arizona before his death in 2009.

In the world of big cat conservation, Dr. Alan Rabinowitz is a rock-star. He’s traveled the world, bushwhacking through the steaming jungles of Asia and South America, studying tigers and jaguars in an effort to protect them. He’s starred in documentaries by National Geographic, the BBC and PBS with titles like Lost Land of the Tiger, In Search of the Jaguar and Tiger Island. In 1984, he helped create the first jaguar preserve in the Western Hemisphere. Time magazine has called him the “Indiana Jones of Wildlife,” a title, according to friends and colleagues, which he savors.

So why then is Rabinowitz, founder and CEO of the wildcat conservation group Panthera, also one of the most outspoken critics of protected critical habitat for jaguars in the U.S. Southwest?

Great White Sharks Become Candidates for California Endangered Species Act Protection

Scientists Estimate Fewer Than 350 Adults Are Left in Wild

by the Center for Biological Diversity

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Great white sharks that live off the coast of California are now candidates for protection under the state’s Endangered Species Act. The California Fish and Game Commission voted today to initiate a comprehensive one-year review of the white shark population to determine if it qualifies for state protection. The state will also consider management measures and new regulations to better protect the sharks.

Today’s decision is based on the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recommendation to accept a petition to protect the white sharks, filed in August 2012 by three conservation groups; the groups commend both the Commission and the Department of Fish and Wildlife for recognizing the science documenting the perils facing this population of iconic sharks.

Rattlesnake Slaughter Fest this Weekend

Photo by Todd Pierson

from a press release by the Center for Biological Diversity

This weekend Whigham, Ga., hosts its annual “rattlesnake roundup” — a lethal and cruel contest in which prizes are awarded to hunters who capture the greatest number of eastern diamondback rattlesnakes. (The rattlers are then killed en masse.)

Hurdles Remain for U.S. Jaguar Habitat

By Leslie Macmillan / New York Times Green

[Fish and Wildlife Service] A jaguar observed last October by a camera trap in southern Arizona.

Last fall, remote cameras in a rugged expanse of desert grasslands in Southern Arizona captured arresting images of a jaguar slinking through the underbrush, its yellow eyes fixed on some distant sight. The photos add to the dozen or so documented sightings of the endangered cat on American soil in the last century.

The monitoring project, conducted by the University of Arizona in conjunction with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, is providing data that will inform decisions about a proposed critical habitat for the big cat: 838,000 acres in Southern Arizona and New Mexico, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island.

Tracking the American Jaguar! Viva, Viva Macho B

This year, the jaguar won a proposed 838,000 acres of protected critical habitat in the U.S. Southwest — including 11 mountain ranges in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. There have been several confirmed sitings of the big cats return, finding their way back north despite the border wall with Mexico.

Check out this video of Randy Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity setting up wildlife cameras for the Center’s push for millions of more acres of protected habitat:

Wild & Weird: Adapt to Air Pollution by… Growing Your Nose Hair Out?

by the Center for Biological Diversity

Worried about all that air pollution in your city? No wonder; worldwide, such pollution prematurely kills about 1.3 million people every year, according to the World Health Organization. But for the nasally hirsute among us, there seems to be an advantage, say new studies: People blessed with fuller, longer manes of nose hair are three times less likely to develop pollution-related asthma.

Clean Air Asia has developed an interactive hairy nose metric map that demonstrates, depending on the air quality of your city (if you live in Asia), the length and style of nose hair you’ll need to survive. Live in Beijing? Well, let’s just say you may want to watch the musical Hair for inspiration: “Give me a [nose] with hair, long, beautiful hair…”

For those of you opposed to Rogaine in the nostrils, we suggest you take steps to help get rid of air pollution instead of adapting to it, er, follicularly.

Check out Clean Air Asia’s interactive pollution map to find out how long you’ll need to grow your nose hair; watch a “documentary” on the life of a nose-hair artist.