I N F E S T A T I O N
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K I N D O R A N O T H E R . . .
Gypsy
moths
Politics
Judiciary
Ants
Jellyfish
Jellyfish
swarm northward in warming world
By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer
YAHOO
Mon Nov 16, 8:37 am ET
KOKONOGI, Japan – A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator
emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a
fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up, a
pulsating mass crowding out the catch of mackerel and sea bass.
The fishermen leaned into the nets, grunting and grumbling as they
tossed the translucent jellyfish back into the bay, giants weighing up
to 200 kilograms (450 pounds), marine invaders that are putting the
men's livelihoods at risk.
The venom of the Nomura, the world's largest jellyfish, a creature up
to 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, can ruin a whole day's catch by
tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of
nets here in northwest Japan's Wakasa Bay.
"Some fishermen have just stopped fishing," said Taiichiro Hamano, 67.
"When you pull in the nets and see jellyfish, you get depressed."
This year's jellyfish swarm is one of the worst he has seen, Hamano
said. Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, they are now
an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers (miles)
of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.
Scientists believe climate change — the warming of oceans — has allowed
some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges,
appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as
warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new
latitudes.
The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing
industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of
seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and
Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science
Foundation says.
A 2008 foundation study cited research estimating that people are stung
500,000 times every year — sometimes multiple times — in Chesapeake Bay
on the U.S. East Coast, and 20 to 40 die each year in the Philippines
from jellyfish stings.
In 2007, a salmon farm in Northern Ireland lost its more than 100,000
fish to an attack by the mauve stinger, a jellyfish normally known for
stinging bathers in warm Mediterranean waters. Scientists cite its
migration to colder Irish seas as evidence of global warming.
Increasingly polluted waters — off China, for example — boost growth of
the microscopic plankton that "jellies" feed upon, while overfishing
has eliminated many of the jellyfish's predators and cut down on
competitors for plankton feed.
"These increases in jellyfish should be a warning sign that our oceans
are stressed and unhealthy," said Lucas Brotz, a University of British
Columbia researcher.
Here on the rocky Echizen coast, amid floodlights and the roar of
generators, fishermen at Kokonogi's bustling port made quick work of
the day's catch — packaging glistening fish and squid in Styrofoam
boxes for shipment to market.
In rain jackets and hip waders, they crowded around a visitor to tell
how the jellyfish have upended a way of life in which men worked
fishing trawlers on the high seas in their younger days and later eased
toward retirement by joining one of the cooperatives operating nets set
in the bay.
It was a good living, they said, until the jellyfish began inundating
the bay in 2002, sometimes numbering 500 million, reducing fish catches
by 30 percent and slashing prices by half over concerns about quality.
Two nets in Echizen burst last month during a typhoon because of the
sheer weight of the jellyfish, and off the east coast jelly-filled nets
capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three
fishermen were rescued.
"We have been getting rid of jellyfish. But no matter how hard we try,
the jellyfish keep coming and coming," said Fumio Oma, whose crew is
out of work after their net broke under the weight of thousands of
jellyfish. "We need the government's help to get rid of the jellyfish."
The invasions cost the industry up to 30 billion yen ($332 million) a
year, and tens of thousands of fishermen have sought government
compensation, said scientist Shin-ichi Uye, Japan's leading expert on
the problem.
Hearing fishermen's pleas, Uye, who had been studying zooplankton,
became obsessed with the little-studied Nomura's jellyfish,
scientifically known as Nemopilema nomurai, which at its biggest looks
like a giant mushroom trailing dozens of noodle-like tentacles.
"No one knew their life cycle, where they came from, where they
reproduced," said Uye, 59. "This jellyfish was like an alien."
He artificially bred Nomura's jellyfish in his Hiroshima University
lab, learning about their life cycle, growth rates and feeding habits.
He traveled by ferry between China to Japan this year to confirm they
were riding currents to Japanese waters.
He concluded China's coastal waters offered a perfect breeding ground:
Agricultural and sewage runoff are spurring plankton growth, and fish
catches are declining. The waters of the Yellow Sea, meanwhile, have
warmed as much as 1.7 degrees C (3 degrees F) over the past
quarter-century.
"The jellyfish are becoming more and more dominant," said Uye, as he
sliced off samples of dead jellyfish on the deck of an Echizen fishing
boat. "Their growth rates are quite amazing."
The slight, bespectacled scientist is unafraid of controversy, having
lobbied his government tirelessly to help the fishermen, and angered
Chinese colleagues by arguing their government must help solve the
problem, comparing it to the effects of acid rain that reaches Japan
from China.
"The Chinese people say they will think about this after they get rich,
but it might be too late by then," he said.
A U.S. marine scientist, Jennifer Purcell of Western Washington
University, has found a correlation between warming and jellyfish on a
much larger scale, in at least 11 locations, including the
Mediterranean and North seas, and Chesapeake and Narragansett bays.
"It's hard to deny that there is an effect from warming," Purcell said.
"There keeps coming up again and again examples of jellyfish
populations being high when it's warmer." Some tropical species, on the
other hand, appear to decline when water temperatures rise too high.
Even if populations explode, their numbers may be limited in the long
term by other factors, including food and currents. In a paper last
year, researchers concluded jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea — which
by 2000 were 40 times higher than in 1982 — declined even as
temperatures have hit record highs.
"They were still well ahead of their historic averages for that
region," said co-author Lorenzo Ciannelli of Oregon State University.
"But clearly jellyfish populations are not merely a function of water
temperature."
Addressing the surge in jellyfish blooms in most places will require
long-term fixes, such as introducing fishing quotas and pollution
controls, as well as capping greenhouse gas emissions to control global
warming, experts said.
In the short term, governments are left with few options other than
warning bathers or bailing out cash-strapped fishermen. In Japan, the
government is helping finance the purchase of newly designed nets, a
layered system that snares jellyfish with one kind of net, allowing
fish through to be caught in another.
Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are trying to cash in. One Japanese
company is selling giant jellyfish ice cream, and another plans a
pickled plum dip with chunks of giant jellyfish. But, though a popular
delicacy, jellyfish isn't likely to replace sushi or other fish dishes
on Asian menus anytime soon, in view of its time-consuming processing,
heavy sodium overload and unappealing image.
A
female gypsy moth lays its eggs on the trunk of a tree in the Salmon
River State Forest in Hebron. The egg mass will contain anywhere from
100 to 1,000 eggs.
Gypsy
Moths Return To State, This Time In Smaller Numbers; Fungus makes it
unlikely major infestations of the 1980s will be repeated
DAY
By
Susan Haigh
Published
on 8/4/2008
Marlborough
- Mention the gypsy moth caterpillar infestations of the early 1980s to
anyone who lived in Connecticut at the time and watch them squirm.
The
hairy larvae were everywhere - crawling up and down tree trunks,
falling on people's heads and defoliating about 1.5 million acres in
the process. It sounded like rain when the creepy crawlies dropped from
the trees by the thousands.
”They
were crossing the road in herds. You'd splatter them with your tires,”
recalled James Parda, forestry supervisor for the Department of
Environmental Protection's state forestry management program.
Guess
what? They're baaaack.
Residents
of eastern Connecticut began seeing the pests again five years ago,
munching on tasty scarlet and white oak tree leaves.
But
the good news is their numbers this year pale in comparison to the
'80s. And it is questionable whether Connecticut will suffer another
massive gypsy-moth infestation, thanks to a fungus, discovered by
scientists at the state's Agricultural Experiment Station, that has
helped kill off many gypsy moth caterpillars.
”I
think those days are over,” said Kirby C. Stafford III, the state
entomologist, of the massive outbreaks. “It's really the fungus that's
doing the job.”
Other
states haven't been so lucky.
Major
invasions of gypsy moths are occurring in the Mid-Atlantic region,
including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia and Maryland, said
Rob Mangold, director of forest health protection at the U.S. Forest
Service. His agency is helping states to keep the infestations from
spreading, using biological pesticides and other methods.
”We're
learning to live with gypsy moths. It's here to stay. It's been here
150 years, it comes and goes, but we are successfully slowing down its
greater advancement,” he said.
Gypsy
moths are not a native insect. A French scientist, Leopold Trouvelot,
brought them from Europe to Massachusetts in 1869. He was attempting to
breed the insect for silk production and some escaped from his rearing
facility. By the early 1900s, gypsy moths were defoliating large areas
of New England.
This
year in Connecticut, the pests are limited mostly to a triangular area
in the eastern part of the state that encompasses Marlborough, Hebron,
Colchester and Salem. DEP officials said the dry spring is likely a key
reason why there was an infestation, which they consider to be mild.
The gypsy moth fungus thrives in wet weather and kills the larvae
during late developmental stages.
”There
seems to be kind of a consistent level of gypsy moth activity there,
over time,” said Christopher R. Martin, the state forester. “From year
to year it will expand or contract. A lot has to do with the moisture
in the spring.”
No
spraying has been done in Connecticut. Instead, foresters like Will
Hochholzer are keeping a close eye on the problem. He is one of six who
oversee 32 separate state forests that cover approximately 170,000
acres. That's 28,000 acres per forester.
On
a recent hike through the Salmon River State Forest, damage from the
caterpillars was visible. Leaves on many of the oaks were nibbled down
to nothing, barren canopies floating above the forest. Some trees have
already succumbed to the gypsy moths.
But
many were trying to sprout a second set of leaves, now that the
caterpillars have turned into moths - many of which have already laid
eggs for next year and finished their short life cycles. Buff-colored
masses, which contain about 100 to 1,000 eggs, appear glued to the tree
trunks and branches like fuzzy stickers.
”We'll
definitely expect to see gypsy moths in here next year,” said
Hochholzer, looking over patches of eggs, which will bleach out over
the winter months.
State
officials plan to conduct egg mass surveys this fall. In the meantime,
they've begun aerial inspections of the state forests to determine the
damage from gypsy moths and other pests. In 2007, there were more than
3,200 acres of gypsy-moth defoliation. In 2006, the problem was worse,
with more than 251,000 acres damaged to some degree, In 2005, more than
64,000 acres were affected, Stafford said.
Hochholzer
said he worries how long the trees can survive the caterpillars.
”They
can take a couple of defoliations, but if you really have something
greater than 50 percent of the crown defoliated over a couple years in
a row, then you start to worry about mortality,” he said.
Because
the foresters are responsible for keeping state forests safe for
recreational use, Hochholzer said he's concerned about falling branches
and dead trees that could topple over and injure a hunter or hiker.
If
the gypsy-moth outbreaks continue, he said many oaks in the Salmon
River forest may die off, especially if there is a drought or other
types of infestations.
”But
forests are resilient. More oaks are going to be in here. This white
oak will be part of the next forest,” Hochholzer said, brushing his
hand through a sapling's green leaves. “It will be mixed with red
maples and black birch. So I am concerned about this particular age
class of trees, but there will be more forest. It will just
change.”
Senators Vow To Add Torture Ban To All
Major Bills
New London DAY
Published on 11/5/2005
Washington—
Girding for a potential fight with the Bush administration, supporters
of a ban on torture of prisoners of war by U.S. interrogators
threatened Friday to include the prohibition in nearly every bill the
Senate considers until it becomes law. The no-torture wording, which
proponents say is supported by majorities in both houses of Congress,
was included last month in the Senate's version of a defense spending
bill. The measure's final form is being negotiated with the House, and
the White House is pushing for either a rewording or deletion of the
torture ban. On Friday, at the urging of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, the
Senate by a voice vote added the ban to a related defense bill as a
backup.
Like Enron
Never Happened
June 23, 2002
- Michelle Jacklin, Hartford Courant
The Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee last week postponed a $1,000-a-head
fund-raiser
at which Martha Stewart was to serve as host. Senate Democrats didn't
want
to be seen with a woman, even one as fashionable as Martha, who is
under
scrutiny for selling thousands of shares of ImClone stock the day
before
its price plummeted.
That's what
passes for political scruples these days. At the first sign of trouble,
senators head for the hills, frightened that the taint of insider
trading
could rub off on them.
There was a
time when Democrats stood shoulder to shoulder with working- and
middle-class
Americans. But that was before they were co-opted by the corporate
world's
largess. Nowadays, it's near impossible to distinguish between
Democrats
and Republicans. The two parties feed at the same trough, each beholden
to big business, each needing untold millions to fuel their campaign
machinery.
Last Monday,
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman spoke at a dinner hosted by the Stamford
Chamber
of Commerce. "We need to turn up the temperature on reform so that the
American people won't get burned again," said the acolyte of the New
Democratic
movement. "If we don't get this done this year, the momentum for real
corporate
ethics reform will be lost."
Real corporate
ethics? Earlier in the day, Lieberman toured Pitney Bowes' facilities
and
lauded the firm for having "adapted to the New Economy." It has
adapted,
all right. Pitney Bowes is one of hundreds of companies that have
engaged
in the sordid practice of insuring the lives of their employees and
cashing
in when they die.
One place no
one should look for "real corporate ethics reform" is Washington, where
it appears increasingly unlikely that the collapse of Enron will be a
catalyst
for change. The Republican-led House and the Democrat-led Senate have
clashed
over efforts to overhaul corporate and accounting laws. But even Senate
Democrats have begun to retreat, seduced by the siren song of the
corporate
lobby.
After the Sept.
11 terrorist strikes, it took Congress exactly 10 days to approve a $15
billion rescue package for the airline industry, which coincidentally
has
coughed up $22 million in campaign donations since 1990.
You would have
thought Congress would have responded with similar alacrity to the
Enron
debacle. But millions of American workers are still waiting for
Congress
to rescue their pensions from the clutches of corporate
scoundrels.
It's been seven months since the energy giant filed for bankruptcy and
the retirement savings of 26,000 Enron employees shriveled up. Yet,
Congress
dawdles.
Wanda Chalk,
a human resources representative with Enron for 15 years, lost her
$60,000-a-year
job, the $75,000 in her 401(k) and the wherewithal to finance her son's
college education. "I listened, I believed, I had faith," said Chalk.
"I
had no idea the executives were [committing] corporate rape."
Debbie Perrotta,
an administrative assistant who was earning $50,000 a year, lost
$40,000
in retirement savings, a pittance compared to many of her
colleagues.
But she's 53 and the prospects for rebuilding her nest egg aren't
bright.
Chalk and Perrotta
are participating in an AFL-CIO road show to dramatize the need for
pension
reform. They stopped in Hartford on Monday. "We're telling people it's
too late for us but it could happen to you," said Perrotta. "A lot of
people
don't believe that."
Enron matched
workers' 401(k) contributions with company stock. Chalk, Perrotta and
their
colleagues were restricted as to when and how many shares they could
sell.
As a result, 62 percent of employee 401(k) funds were invested in Enron
stock when the corporation folded. In Connecticut, the employees
of Pfizer and General Electric have even more of their 401(k)s invested
in their companies' stock: 85 percent and 77 percent, respectively.
Sen. Edward
M. Kennedy has sponsored a bill that would permit workers to sell
company
stock awarded as a 401(k) match three years after it's received, and
would
bar most companies from both offering their stock as a 401(k)
investment
option and using it to match employee contributions. A compromise
forged
by Sen. Max Baucus would strike the latter provision. The word is both
proposals are in trouble.
Yes, the corporate
lobby is poised to work its magic again. Abracadabra. Pension
reform
may vanish as quickly as a Martha Stewart canape.
Pledge Declared
Unconstitutional...what next?
3:24 PM EDT,June 26, 2002
By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- For the first time ever, a federal appeals
court Wednesday declared the Pledge of Allegiance
unconstitutional because of the words "under God" added
by Congress in 1954.
The ruling, if allowed to stand, means schoolchildren can
no longer recite the pledge, at least in the nine Western
states covered by the court.
In a 2-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
said the phrase amounts to a government endorsement
of religion in violation of the Constitution's Establishment
Clause, which requires a separation of church and state.
"A profession that we are a nation `under God' is identical,
for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that
we are a nation `under Jesus,' a nation `under Vishnu,' a
nation `under Zeus,' or a nation `under no god,' because
none of these professions can be neutral with respect to
religion," Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote for the
three-judge panel.
The government had argued that the religious content of
"one nation under God" is minimal.
But the appeals court said that an atheist or a holder of
certain non-Judeo-Christian beliefs could see it as an
endorsement of monotheism.
"We are certainly considering seeking further review in the
matter," Justice Department lawyer Robert Loeb said.
The 9th Circuit covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii,
Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.
Those are the only states directly affected by the ruling.
However, the ruling does not take effect for several
months, to allow further appeals. The government can ask
the court to reconsider, or take its case to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
The case was brought by Michael A. Newdow, a
Sacramento atheist who objected because his
second-grade daughter was required to recite the pledge
at the Elk Grove school district. A federal judge had
dismissed his lawsuit.
"I'm an American citizen. I don't like my rights infringed
upon by my government," he said in an interview. Newdow
called the pledge a "religious idea that certain people
don't agree with."
The appeals court said that when President Eisenhower
signed the legislation inserting "under God" after the
words "one nation," he wrote that "millions of our
schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town,
every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our
nation and our people to the Almighty."
The court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has said
students cannot hold religious invocations at graduations
and cannot be compelled to recite the pledge. But when
the pledge is recited in a classroom, a student who
objects is confronted with an "unacceptable choice
between participating and protesting," the appeals court
said.
"Although students cannot be forced to participate in
recitation of the pledge, the school district is nonetheless
conveying a message of state endorsement of a religious
belief when it requires public school teachers to recite,
and lead the recitation of, the current form of the pledge,"
the court said.
They're
more than a little antsy these days in Southern Europe;
Scientists
unearth largest ant cooperative in recorded annals...
By The Associated Press
Published on 04/16/2002
Washington — A supercolony of ants has been discovered stretching
thousands
of
miles from the Italian Riviera along the coastline to northwest Spain.
It’s the largest cooperative unit ever recorded, according to Swiss,
French
and Danish
scientists, whose findings appear in today’s issue of Proceedings of
the
National
Academy of Science.
The colony consists of billions of Argentine ants living in millions of
nests that cooperate
with one another.
Normally, ants from different nests fight. But the researchers
concluded
that ants in the
supercolony were all close enough genetically to recognize one another,
despite being
from different nests with different queens.
Cooperating allows the colonies to develop at much higher densities
than
normally would
occur, eliminating some 90 percent of other types of ants that live
near
them, said
Laurent Keller of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
The Argentine ants were accidentally introduced to Europe around 1920,
probably in
ships carrying plants, Keller said in an interview via electronic mail.
Richard D. Fell, an entomologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute,
said
Argentine ants
have been known to form large colonies — the size of several city
blocks,
for example —
but he had not heard of any as large as that cited in the new report.
“It may be that certain ant colonies will bud off, form satellites and
remain connected with
one main colony,” he suggested.
The European researchers said that in addition to the main supercolony
of ants they
found a second, smaller but also large colony of Argentine ants in
Spain’s
Catalonia
region.
When ants of the two supercolonies were placed together they invariably
fought to the
death, while ants from different nests of the same supercolony showed
no
aggression to
one another.
“It is interesting to see that introduction in a new habitat can change
social organization,”
Keller said of the behavior of Argentine ants that had been relocated
to
Europe. “In this
case, this leads to the greatest cooperative unit ever discovered.”
However, in the long run the very cooperation that seems to make them
successful
could
lead to the supercolony’s self-destruction, he suggested.
That’s because in such a giant colony many workers are unrelated to the
queens they
help to raise. “Thus, in the long term, selection should decrease the
altruistic
behavior of
workers,” he said, because their efforts are not helping transmit
copies
of their genes via
related queens.