in dangered species ?

[sam111]

I am wondering if their is a site or database that allows you to look up the endangered species/ or animals/species population data.

I am wondering how the national parks ... like yellow stone ,...etc know when a certain animal is endangered or how they collect/ know for sure they are accurate.

For example Panda Bears are one animal that is on the endangered species list.
I am curious how they know this for sure and if their is a way to measure/get the population data of certain animals in certain regions.

Any environmentalist out their that can shed some light on this.
I am very interested in how one can gather data accurately on animals?
For people we can easily use surveys and tax forms to get a rough estimate on human population. (at least humans are a little easier to keep track of normally)
But when it comes to animals seems to me it would be nearly impossible.... and nearly impossible to know if an animal is on the in dangered species list or not.... or weather it is going to be.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, here's a good place to start;

Chapter 1: Wildlife Populations

 

[Mr. H.]

I am wondering if their is a site or database that allows you to look up the endangered species/ or animals/species population data.

I am wondering how the national parks ... like yellow stone ,...etc know when a certain animal is endangered or how they collect/ know for sure they are accurate.

For example Panda Bears are one animal that is on the endangered species list.
I am curious how they know this for sure and if their is a way to measure/get the population data of certain animals in certain regions.

Any environmentalist out their that can shed some light on this.
I am very interested in how one can gather data accurately on animals?
For people we can easily use surveys and tax forms to get a rough estimate on human population. (at least humans are a little easier to keep track of normally)
But when it comes to animals seems to me it would be nearly impossible.... and nearly impossible to know if an animal is on the in dangered species list or not.... or weather it is going to be.

I am wondering if you like green eggs and ham.

 

[sam111]

Thanks your link explains most of what I wanted to know
Your link

But going by sampling in a small region the amount of particular animals doesn't always mean you are going to get a good approx. in the large always.

For example if you counted how many ants in a 10ft by 10ft area approx. You cann't just say an accurate number of ants for all of a particular town or state would be just multiplying
a 10ftx10ft area by a larger factor ...etc

To put it interms of human population if we counted all the people in a Wyoming based town/state got an average we could not use that number and multiply it to get an accurate
approx of the whole population of people in the US or in the world....etc

The point is human population is more dense in certain areas and I would assume animal population in alot of cases would be no different.

So with out a group of people assigned to count a specific region latitude/longitudes their would be no way to get a good density count. ANd with out a density count you would only have a very simple population measure that is not very accurate in most cases and wouldn't apply in most cases.

Think about if I wanted to see how many ants lived in Antarctic (their is probably none) but the approx. method would say multiply number of ants in 10ftx10ft by a factor of how big the region is. (this is a stupid example that could easily be cleared up by experimenting on one ant to see what climate it could live in and factor that in.... but the point is still their)

 

[Old Rocks]

The whole point of environmental studies is that differant species have niches that require differant kinds of environments. So your 10' X 10' plot is good only if the two areas are the same in almost all respects. That is why real environmental studies require much time and effort.

 

[skookerasbil]

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936488493/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=votecom&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1936488493]Amazon.com: The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future (9781936488490): Senator James Inhofe: Books[/ame]

 

[waltky]

Manaus is one of the host cities for the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil...

Brazil's Amazon boom pits economic growth versus forest
7 April 2012 - Manaus districts are spreading further into the surrounding rainforest

Marcelo Gordo is standing in the back garden of a small house in a suburb of Manaus, the capital of Brazil's Amazonas state, hoping to catch sight of a pied tamarin. These small primates, with white upper bodies and brown bottoms, live only in rainforest surrounding the city and as Manaus grows and expands, they are becoming trapped in isolated patches of forest. Mr Gordo, a researcher from the Federal University of Amazonas, has been studying these creatures for some 14 years. He has pinpointed a group of about eight which live in a jungle-covered gully behind this row of houses. "They have a very strict geographical distribution and in the last few years they've been losing this space," he says. "If these animals had a very small geographic distribution in a different place, where they weren't competing with humans, there wouldn't be a problem, but they live right where Manaus is."

Located deep in the Amazon rainforest, Manaus would seem an unlikely place for a city. It flourished originally as the centre of the rubber boom in the late 1870s. Once rubber plantations were developed elsewhere, it lapsed into semi-obscurity once again. But in the 1960s the military government, installed by a coup, was looking to consolidate its control over the country with economic development and galvanise its control over the Amazon region. It encouraged businesses to expand into the area by offering generous tax breaks.

Tech companies

Manaus has grown in the ensuing decades. The population is now about 1.8 million, almost doubling in size since 1990. With Brazil's healthy economy, the city is booming once again. Many major multi-national technology manufacturers, like LG, Samsung and Philips, have a presence here and their business is swelling the population further. "It's not easy to find employees with the background that we, the companies, are looking for," says Wilson Perico, director of the Technicolor factory which makes modems and satellite decoders. "It's why some companies bring experts from other states or countries to help the new guys… to develop their activity here."

The increase in workers in the city led to the decision to build a bridge over the Amazon to open up the south bank of the river to development. Inaugurated in late 2011, the Rio Negro bridge will give more commuters access to dormitory towns where developers are already building more housing. Other changes are on the way. Manaus will be one of the host cities when the Fifa World Cup takes place in Brazil in 2014. Construction is already under way on a 40,000-seater stadium and several new hotels are planned for the thousands of visitors who are expected to descend on the city. The tournament organisers have vowed the stadium will be environmentally friendly, using energy efficient lighting and harvesting rainwater.

Road building

 

[Douger]

Most of the information you seek requires competency in : English as a Second Language :: Home

 

[waltky]

Hmmm, same thing happened to a couple of my dad's ol' drinkin' buddies...

Liver disease causing wombats to go bald and die
Wed, May 16, 2012 - A mystery liver disease thought to be caused by introduced weeds is causing hairy-nosed wombats in southern Australia to go bald and die, researchers said yesterday.

The illness, which causes the wombat to lose some or all of its fur and then starve to death, is tearing through South Australia’s native southern hairy-nosed wombats, threatening entire populations. Peter Clements from the state’s Natural History Society said wildlife rescue workers had discovered “several hundred” sickened animals in the Murraylands region near Adelaide, where up to 85 percent of the population was unwell. “They tend to lose their fur in patches and sometimes in whole,” Clements said. “You can see the bones showing through and they’re generally immobile, they just sit there in the sun all day and try to keep warm,” he said.

Clements said it was unusual to see the wombat, a nocturnal creature, out during the day and when they were in daylight, “we know that they’re in trouble.” Initially the wombats were thought to have mange, but it became so widespread and severe that autopsies were carried out to determine the cause of the illness. University of Adelaide researcher Wayne Boardman said the non-native toxic potato weed appeared to be affecting the wombats’ livers, triggering a reaction with ultraviolet light that caused them to lose their fur.

Boardman said it was unclear why the herbivorous wombat had suddenly taken to eating the noxious weed, but a shortage of their usual grasses and alternative foods due to prolonged local drought could be to blame. “We have a feeling it might well be a struggle to find enough vegetation, leading them to eat other plants like weeds, and particularly potato weed, which is then having a deleterious effect on the liver,” Boardman told ABC Radio.

The creatures were also roaming in areas where they were not usually seen, supporting the theory that there were food shortages and they “have to move out to find vegetation,” he added. Squat and thickly furred, wombats are small burrow-dwelling marsupials that walk on all fours and are bear-like in appearance with a wide muzzle and a flattened head.

Liver disease causing wombats to go bald and die - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

Brazil not doin' much of a job of protectin' rainforest...

Brazil’s Coastal Rainforest Suffers Widespread Species Extinction
August 14, 2012 - The Atlantic forest in Brazil, once a part of the great Amazon basin on the South American continent, is suffering from widespread species loss according to a new study.

Ecologist Carlos Peres with England’s University of East Anglia and then University of Cambridge graduate student Gustavo Canale traveled through the region between 2003 and 2005. They documented 200 of the largest and least disturbed old-growth forest fragments in the vast region of the Atlantic forest. On average, they found only four of the 18 mammal species they were looking for. Canale, now working in Brazil at the State University of Mato Grosso, says he and Peres drew largely on information from wildlife surveys, camera traps, and interviews with local people.

The scientists were surprised that even in what looked like healthy forest cover, the larger mammals were absent. “The situation was worse than we thought,” Canale said. “All the charismatic species,” said Peres, “the large primates, the large ungulates, brocket deer, tapirs, giant anteaters, jaguars, the large cats, all of those things are pretty much gone from even fragments that look on the surface of it, okay, in terms of forest cover.”

Hunting is the main driver of species loss on lands fragmented by deforestation. Peres says Brazilian law protects forest cover, but not wildlife in the remnant forest patches. Unless that law is changed, he says, the losses will continue. “Essentially what we are calling for is a wholesale revision of the Brazilian legislative code that protects wildlife within these remnant forest patches," he said. "Because these remnant forest patches are essentially going out of business, if you like, in terms of the wildlife.” In contrast, Peres says, in the five areas that did have laws to protect wildlife and where the laws were strictly enforced, the mammals did much better. “In those five sites we find the highest degree of retention of those wildlife communities," he said. "So the protected areas are actually working in this region, the problem is that there are very few of them.”

The researchers want to see more such areas established, as well as the creation of wildlife corridors that would link isolated forest patches and keep animals away from hunters and other hazards. But Peres also offers a cautionary message. He says the fragmented tropical forest isn’t just a problem in the Atlantic forest of eastern Brazil. “But I would argue that this is also happening throughout most of the world’s heavily fragmented biodiversity forest hotspots, where overhunting is also widespread,” he said. "Holding on to the last remaining large tracts of primary forests will be a crucial part of the conservation mission of this century," Peres said. His and Gustavo Canale’s study on Brazil’s Atlantic forest is published in this week’s edition of the journal PloS ONE.

Source

 

[tjvh]

The whole point of environmental studies is that differant species have niches that require differant kinds of environments. So your 10' X 10' plot is good only if the two areas are the same in almost all respects. That is why real environmental studies require much time and effort.

No, the whole point of environmental studies is to put forth large amounts of time, effort, and money to find reasons to derail projects from moving forward based solely upon politics, and Liberal ideologies.

 

[Saigon]

No, the whole point of environmental studies is to put forth large amounts of time, effort, and money to find reasons to derail projects from moving forward based solely upon politics, and Liberal ideologies.

The amazing thing is, tjvh, is that there probably are people out there who actually believe that.

Not many, but there'll be someone who believes it.

 

[tjvh]

No, the whole point of environmental studies is to put forth large amounts of time, effort, and money to find reasons to derail projects from moving forward based solely upon politics, and Liberal ideologies.

The amazing thing is, tjvh, is that there probably are people out there who actually believe that.

Not many, but there'll be someone who believes it.

If there wasn't any truth to what I said, I hardly think you would be commenting on it.

 

[Saigon]

No, the whole point of environmental studies is to put forth large amounts of time, effort, and money to find reasons to derail projects from moving forward based solely upon politics, and Liberal ideologies.

The amazing thing is, tjvh, is that there probably are people out there who actually believe that.

Not many, but there'll be someone who believes it.

If there wasn't any truth to what I said, I hardly think you would be commenting on it.

Um....I was assuming you were joking, tjvh. I still hope you are.

 

[tjvh]

The amazing thing is, tjvh, is that there probably are people out there who actually believe that.

Not many, but there'll be someone who believes it.

If there wasn't any truth to what I said, I hardly think you would be commenting on it.

Um....I was assuming you were joking, tjvh. I still hope you are.

So you've already forgotten about the poor Caribou that derailed drilling in Alaska because they couldn't walk around a fence? I have not.

 

[Saigon]

Tjvh -

It does seem you have forgotten quite a lot of things.

Or do you still believe that substances like 2,4,5-T and asbestos are harmless?

I could name 20 substances which US firms have released into the water, ground or atmopshere and insisted were harmless; substances that only ceased to poison ordinary Americans because those companies were forced to stop by environmentalists.

Honestly, man - how can you not know this stuff?

 

[tjvh]

Tjvh -

It does seem you have forgotten quite a lot of things.

Or do you still believe that substances like 2,4,5-T and asbestos are harmless?

I could name 20 substances which US firms have released into the water, ground or atmopshere and insisted were harmless; substances that only ceased to poison ordinary Americans because those companies were forced to stop by environmentalists.

Honestly, man - how can you not know this stuff?

What are you talking about? I'm talking about Environmental studies being used to stem future progress... Again from my first post: reasons to derail projects from moving forward. I wasn't talking about specific environmental restrictions like asbestos, I was talking about the use of environmental studies to prevent businesses, etc. from succeeding when those businesses, etc. don't agree with certain political ideologies. An example for a business (Evil big Oil) was given, and by "etc." I mean a bridge that doesn't get built because a seagull wont figure out how to circumnavigate the damn thing... As was the case for the replacement to the Peace Bridge between Buffalo, NY and Canada for example. Please don't pretend that environmental studies are not used to stifle growth when that growth disagrees with certain ideologies... You'd have to be an idiot not to see how they (studies) are used as political weapons.

 

[Saigon]

tjvh -

So you do not seen anything that companies producing 245-T and asbestos might have with companies producing oil?

You do not consider oil exploration to be a potentual pollutant?

 

[skookerasbil]

tjvh -

So you do not seen anything that companies producing 245-T and asbestos might have with companies producing oil?

You do not consider oil exploration to be a potentual pollutant?

How fucking irrelevant can you get? How 'bout lets talk slug excrement or some group navel contemplation?


Nobody cares s0n...........

 

[waltky]

Sometimes Uncle Ferd sings like a drunk monkey when he's had a snootful...

Gibbons can sing like opera artists
Fri, Aug 24, 2012 - Gibbons are jungle divas. The small apes use the same technique to project their songs through the forests of Southeast Asia like top sopranos at the New York Metropolitan Opera or La Scala in Milan.

That was the conclusion of research by Japanese scientists who tested the effect of helium gas on gibbon calls to see how their singing changed when their voices sounded abnormally high-pitched. Just like professional singers, the experiment found the animals were able to amplify the higher sounds by adjusting the shape of their vocal tract, including the mouth and tongue. It is a skill only mastered by a few humans, yet gibbons are able to do it with minimal effort, according to Takeshi Nishimura from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University.

Singing is particularly important to gibbons, which use loud calls and songs to communicate across the dense jungle. Their exchanges, described by primatologists as “duets,” can carry as far as 2km. “Our data indicate that acoustic and physiological mechanisms used in gibbon singing are analogous to human soprano singing, a professional operatic technique,” Nishimura and colleagues wrote in a study in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology yesterday. Professional sopranos’ ability to fine-tune their vocal tract resonances allows them to maintain their volume when they hit the high notes. The fact that gibbons can do the same thing suggests the complexity of human speech may not have needed specific modifications in our vocal anatomy.

Making gibbons sing on helium may sound eccentric but Nishimura said it was a logical way to test how the animals controlled vocalization when the resonance frequencies in the vocal tract were shifted upwards. “Using the helium environment, we can easily see how the resonance works and how the gibbon makes its loud pure-tone calls,” he said in an interview. His team used a captive white-handed gibbon to record 20 calls in normal air and 37 calls in a helium-enriched atmosphere to show how the animals could consciously manipulate their vocal cords and tract. They worked out the gibbon’s vocal tract had been adjusted by analyzing the sounds it produced. Helium causes its distinctive effect because sound travels much faster through the gas than through air.

Gibbons can sing like opera artists - Taipei Times

See also:

Helium-huffing gibbons 'sing with soprano technique'
23 August 2012 - The gibbons were tested using an atmosphere containing 50% helium with oxygen and nitrogen

Researchers in Japan have discovered that lar gibbons use the same techniques as human soprano singers to make their melodic but piercing calls. When the apes made calls while in an atmosphere rich in helium, the team analysed the calls' frequencies. As the team report in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the apes were able to control the natural frequencies of their "vocal tracts". Such control, exemplified by sopranos, was thought to be unique to humans. We share a great deal of the biological equipment of sound production with apes. That includes first of all the "source" - the vocal folds that humans and many animals share. There is also the "vocal tract" - the upper oesophagus and trachea and the mouth, which are well known in humans to shape sung notes and subtle vowel sounds.

In humans the vocal tract acts as a filter on the sound from the source, and the "source-filter theory" held that the separate, fine control of the vocal tract to be the product of a long evolution in the development of the subtleties of speech. Singing too has evolved, and soprano singers reach their piercing high notes by precisely controlling the shape of their vocal tract to match its natural, resonant frequency with multiples of the one being produced by their vocal folds. Now Takeshi Nishimura of Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute and his colleagues have tested whether lar gibbons (also known as white-handed gibbons, Hylobates lar) have this same separate control - by using helium.

As anyone who has breathed helium knows, its presence raises the pitch of the voice. It increases the natural resonant frequency in the vocal tract because the speed of sound in helium is very different from that in air. That shift allowed the team to record calls in helium and examine separately the sounds of gibbons' "pure-tone" vocalisations from the vocal folds as well as how they were modified in the vocal tract. Detailed analyses of the frequencies produced showed that the gibbons modified their vocal tracts to match multiples of the vocal folds' frequencies - just like soprano singers.

Dr Nishimura told BBC News the findings were significant - not only that the "source-filter theory" was not the preserve of human physiology, but also that the gibbons had mastered techniques that in humans were only found in professional singers. He explained that it upended a long history of research suggesting the control humans enjoy is the product of a long line of physiological and anatomical changes under the influence of evolution. "The present study challenges that concept and throws new insight into the studies on biological foundations producing the diversifications in primate vocalisations, including human speech," he said. "It is hoped that this study will encourage researchers in various research fields to conduct further investigations of primate vocalisations and that such empirical evidence will lead to a deeper understanding of the evolution of speech and language."

BBC News - Helium-huffing gibbons 'sing with soprano technique'

Uncle Ferd says Halloween he gonna go as King Kong an' ask the womens if dey wanna monkey around.