Happy National Wildlife Week!

It's National Wildlife Week! President Franklin Roosevelt declared the first National Wildlife Week back in 1938--this is the 70th anniversary. This year, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) invites us all to participate in Wildlife Watch. Go forth and explore the wonderful world of wildlife in your state, and report your findings back to the NWF. Don't know what to look for? Go to www.nwf.org/watch to find the Wildlife Watch list for your state. Don't know where to go to find these critters? Go to NatureFind.com for a listing of all of the nature-y areas near you.

Here in Massachusetts we have 6 species on the watch list, including one of my favorite birds--the Eastern Bluebird. I saw my first bluebird of the year yesterday! Their blue is so vibrant, it's breathtaking.

So...what are you waiting for? Get out there!

No Soup For You!

Would you pay $100 for a bowl of soup? Many folks do. Particularly if it's made from shark fins. Shark-fin soup, which is an expensive delicacy in East Asia, has become more popular over the past few decades. With the general increase in East Asian affluence, the soup is more affordable to more people. While I don't have a problem with harvesting marine animals for consumption, I do take issue with the irresponsible waste of resources.

Shark-fin soup is the product of the barbaric practice of finning, where sharks are caught, their fins cut off (while they're alive), and their bodies thrown back into the ocean. Sharks either bleed to death or they drown, as they can not swim without their fins. About 99% of the animal is wasted. Each year, a shocking 100 million sharks are finned.

Laws are currently in place that were intended to reduce, if not eliminate, finning. However, the existing laws are very difficult to enforce. Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo from Guam (my old stomping grounds!) recently introduced a bill that would put an end to shark finning altogether. The House Subcommittee of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans will meet again this Wednesday to further discuss the proposed Shark Conservation Act of 2008.

What killed the Woolly Mammoth?

Long long ago in a [not so] faraway land, lived a giant beast. It weighed 8 tons, and it stood 12 feet tall with tusks almost as long. Its other teeth were the size of shoe boxes. It was the woolly mammoth--a close relative to today's elephant.

Woolly mammoths first appeared on earth 2 million years ago, and they once inhabited most of the world--including North America. We know so much about mammoths because many well-preserved carcasses have been found. Most recently, in 1997, a 9-year-old boy in Siberia discovered a fully intact woolly mammoth carcass. Also, many ancient cave drawings have depicted mammoths and their interactions with humans.

Over the years, there have been spirited debates among paleontologists and anthropologists about why woolly mammoths went extinct. Some say it was due solely to climate change, while others claim that hunting by humans did them in. Another theory yet suggests that woolly mammoths should still be roaming the earth, but that a virulent disease led to their demise.

Last week, the results of a recent study by Spanish researchers appeared in the journal PLoS Biology (Public Library of Science). Their research, which was based on climate models and fossil remains, concluded that climate change drove mammoths to the edge of extiction, and then human hunting pushed them over that edge. The warmer climate led to catastrophic loss of habitat, and they became relegated to 10% of their once-available habitat. With more hospitable conditions for humans, they were able to move into once-unihabitable areas to hunt mammoths. However, by that time (only about 6,000 years ago) humans would only have had to kill one mammonth each every 3 years to push the species to extinction.

Climate change remains a hot issue (pun intended) for our planet today. But as history has evidenced, our climate has always been changing--and it always will be.