Monday, 14 Nov 2005

The Good News Bears

Pandas seem to be recovering in the wild

We're not like those panda fetishists who flip out about the cute, cuddly black-and-white bears, with their snoogly faces and their roly-poly schnugum wugums ... wait, where were we? Anyway, we've got some good news for panda fans: A recent census found almost 1,600 giant pandas in the wild, well up from an estimated 1,000 in the 1980s. It might just be a reflection of better counting methods, some experts say, but also suggests that panda numbers have at least stabilized. The Chinese government has stepped up protections and expanded panda preserves -- perhaps mainly to score global prestige points, but hey, whatever works. Still, the situation remains fragile, caution pandaphiles. "By taking that much land away from the people, there will be lots of people and land conflicts," said John Ouellette, a panda researcher at the Memphis Zoo. But "it's an exciting time. There are lots of possibilities."


What's the best way to witness the devastation of a clear-cut forest or snap photographic evidence of illegal dumping? From the sky! Or so says Rick Durden, this week's InterActivist. He's executive director of LightHawk, an organization of volunteer pilots who take environmentalists up for a bird's-eye view of the lands they're working to protect. Send him a question by noon PST on Wednesday; we'll publish his answers to selected questions on Friday.

Mercury Revising

New mercury plan from local regulators would be stronger than Bush's

Prompted by concerns that the Bush administration's plan to battle mercury pollution wouldn't do much to, uh, battle mercury pollution, two groups of state and local air-quality regulators (bet the parties rock at that convention) have crafted a stronger plan -- and they say at least 20 states are interested. The Bushies' new federal regulations would reduce mercury emissions 70 percent by 2018; in contrast, one version of the regulators' plan would bring 'em down at least 90 to 95 percent by 2012. The alternative proposal also nixes mercury credit trading between states, one of the most controversial aspects of the Bush plan. An energy-industry spokesflack doth protest the regulator-driven effort, saying it'll drive up energy costs. But the regulators call that a scare tactic. "Almost everybody agrees that the federal mercury control program is severely flawed," said regulator front guy Bill Becker, adding that the stronger proposal is a "technologically feasible and cost-effective alternative to the EPA plan."


The prospect of peak oil has lots of people in a tizzy, but one reader wonders if it might be a good thing: perhaps we'll run out of oil before we wreck the climate? He also inadvertently hits on a bit of confusion shared by many: the difference between the ozone hole and climate change. Advice maven Umbra Fisk takes on the task of explaining the difference -- and peaking into the future.

Toxic Femmes

SoCal sewage is feminizing bottom fish

Like many of their land-bound counterparts, male fish off the coast of Southern California are developing female sex characteristics. In the fishes' case it goes beyond metrosexuality -- we're talking ovary tissue in the testes (ew). Researchers strongly suspect sewage laced with human-made hormone-disrupting chemicals. Two separate studies, one in the field and one in a lab, found signs of chick-ness in bottom-dwelling English sole, hornyhead turbot, and halibut. And if you're called "hornyhead," that's really got to hurt. Sexual abnormalities have been found in other creatures around the world, but this is one of the first times they've been seen in ocean animals. So far no drop-offs in population numbers for the affected species have been detected. "There's definitely estrogenic activity out there; no doubt," said ecotoxicologist Dan Schlenk. "But whether it affects populations of the animals is the question we need to answer."