Britain Tries (Again) to Re-Introduce Extinct Bees

by John R. Platt / Scientific American

Short-haired bee. Photo by Nikki Gammans, courtesy RSPB

Long live the queens. A species of bumblebee that went extinct in its native Britain decades ago now has a second chance, as several short-haired bumblebees (Bombus subterraneus) were released June 3 in a restored habitat on the southeastern corner of England. This is the third phase in a multi-step effort to both bring back the species and teach the public about the value of the U.K.’s declining bees, some species of which have decreased by 80 percent or more in recent years.

Short-haired bumblebees, like many other British bee species, started losing habitat after World War II. Massive increases in industrial agriculture during the 1950s and ’60s wiped out 97 percent of England’s wildflowers, which the bees depended on. Increased pesticide use also took a deadly toll. Short-haired bumblebees were last seen in the U.K. in 1988 and were declared extinct in 2000. Most of the U.K.’s other bee species suffered great losses at this time as well.

Sea Turtle Activist Murdered in Costa Rica

by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! Newswire

Jairo Mora Sandoval, murdered in defense of sea turtles.

Jairo Mora Sandoval, a 26 year-old sea turtle conservationist and activist, was murdered late last week in Costa Rica. According to news reports from Central America, Sandoval and four other sea turtle volunteers, including three American women and a woman from Spain,  were kidnapped on Thursday,  May 30, by armed men.

Sandoval was found tied up, beaten and shot dead in the head on the beach the following day. The four volunteers had escaped or been released.

Initial reports on the police investigation point to the murders being poachers after sea turtle eggs.

Sandoval is yet another in a long list of fallen warriors murdered for defending life on Earth.

Wanorazi Yumneze (“Awakening Spirit”)

 

by John Ahni Schertow / Intercontinental Cry

“Wanorazi Yumneze” is a documentary film that aims to begin a much-needed conversation between indigenous and non-indigenous groups in Canada about how people, wildlife and the environment are impacted by industrial developments.

Wanorazi Yumnezemeans “awakening spirit” in Nakoda. The film’s spirit captures those of Canada’s First Nations who, despite the challenges they have endured and continue to face, are now beginning to strengthen and awaken, aided by their deep-rooted cultures, traditions, knowledge and communities.

Just a Timelapse Toon on “Man” and the Industrial Nightmare

Follow “Man” beginning 500,000 years ago, through his discovery of nature, snake skin boots, fried chicken, classical music, biotechnology, factory farming, rush hour traffic, all the way into his cozy seat at the glorious throne of a boring and dead planet.

Our Last Best Hope to Save our Water, Air and Earth

by Clayton Thomas-Muller /Canadian Dimension

Clayton Thomas-Muller is a member of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation also known as Pukatawagan in Northern Manitoba, Canada. Based out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Clayton is the co-director of the Indigenous Tar Sands (ITS) Campaign of the Polaris Institute as well as a volunteer organizer with the Defenders of the Land-Idle No More national campaign known as Sovereignty Summer.

The Rise of the Native Rights-Based Strategic Framework

Years ago I was working for a well-known Indigenous environmental and economic justice organization known as the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN). During my time with this organization I had the privilege of working with hundreds of Indigenous communities across the planet who had seen a sharp increase in the targeting of Native lands for mega-extractive and other toxic industries. The largest of these conflicts, of course, was the over-representation by big oil who work— often in cahoots with state, provincial First Nations, Tribal and federal governments both in the USA and Canada—to gain access to the valuable resources located in our territories. IEN hired me to work in a very abstract setting, under impossible conditions, with little or no resources to support Grassroots peoples fighting oil companies, who had become, in the era of free market economics, the most powerful and well-resourced entities of our time. My mission was to fight and protect the sacredness of Mother Earth from toxic contamination and corporate exploration, to support our Peoples to build sustainable local economies rooted in the sacred fire of our traditions.

Ruling Puts Minnesota’s Wolf Seasons Beyond Public Challenge — By Anyone

by Ron Meador / the Minnesota Post

The court’s logic would seem to mean that nobody can have standing to challenge the wolf hunt in court, for any reason whatsoever. (photo: CC/Flickr/Todd Ryburn)

Whether you’re for or against the killing of wolves for sport, you might think the public has a right to be heard on a matter so enduringly contentious and emotional.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) thinks otherwise and so, apparently, does the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

News reports on Tuesday’s perfunctory dismissal of a challenge to the new trapping and hunting seasons have cited the court’s conclusion that the plaintiffs lacked “standing” to raise objections, but didn’t explain the legal reasoning behind it.

And I was frankly scratching my head, because questions of standing usually seem to turn on such factors as having a demonstrable stake in the issues (no injury, no standing) or whether a lawsuit was filed in the correct jurisdiction, etc.

A Manifesto for Rewilding the World

A mass restoration of ecosystems offers us hope where there was little hope before.

by George Monbiot

Until modern humans arrived, every continent except Antarctica possessed a megafauna. In the Americas, alongside mastodons, mammoths, four-tusked and spiral-tusked elephants, there was a beaver the size of a black bear: eight feet from nose to tail(1). There were giant bison weighing two tonnes, which carried horns seven feet across(2).

Wild & Weird: Rootin’ Tootin’ Bandit Mouse Eats Scorpion, Howls at Moon

by the Center for Biological Diversity

There is just something right about a world that contains a scorpion munching mouse that howls at the moon.

Forget Billy the Kid and Pancho Villa. Onychomys torridus — a small, carnivorous mouse with tiny pink paws — may just be the roughest, toughest outlaw the West has ever known.

Also called the grasshopper mouse, this adorable bandito prowls the harsh arid badlands of the Sonoran desert in the United States and Mexico, stalking crickets, rodents, scorpions and tarantulas to sate its monstrous hunger. It battles other rodents, driving them away by force up to and including death; it also steals their burrows. Scientists believe grasshopper mice collect a variety of fleas — perhaps as grisly souvenirs? — from their rodent victims, some of which they cannibalize.

And get this: After biting the head off a scorpion and feasting on its flesh, this mouse has been known to throw its head back in wild delight and howl at the moon. Seriously.

Check out these two amazing videos below wherein you can witness this little critter round up a tarantula and a scorpion and finally hear it howl like a wolf on helium!

Hunting:

Howling: