Deaths like these have brought concern to many environmentalists as well as the government. It is against federal law to kill any member of an endangered species, and wind farmers now face potential repercussions when the new guidelines are put in place. Recently, it’s been reported that Pattern Energy Group has abandoned plans to construct a new wind farm in Sacramento because of concerns about the bald eagle population.

These wildlife concerns are as fresh as a newly painted garage door as ecologist David Cottingham explains, “We haven’t really had too many wind turbines heretofore in the country, so we are learning about it as we go.” The number of wind farms has greatly grown in recent years. The precise number of bat deaths by wind turbines is not known, but some scientists have estimated that the numbers are in the thousands.

According to Ed Arnett, director of science and policy at Bat Conservation International, “Most biologists will tell you that over time and cumulatively, [bats] won’t be able to sustain these fatality rates.”  Arnett adds that continued research could help minimize wildlife deaths and that wind power doesn’t necessarily have to be severely compromised. Arnett even stipulates that as little as 1 percent of wind power could be lost if farmers focus on shutting down during “danger periods.”

How do you feel about the clash between wildlife and wind energy? Do you think the focus should shift to a less hazardous form of energy? Let us know in the comments!

Nevertheless, Hubbell maintained although species extinction caused by habitat loss is not as dire a problem as initially believed, the global extinction crisis is still a real threat.

“We are not in quite as serious trouble right now as people had thought,” Hubbell told Smithsonian Science on May 18. “But that is no reason for complacency. I don’t want this research to be misconstrued as saying we don’t have anything to worry about.” He maintained, “Nothing is further from the truth.”

While there were predictions in the early 1980s that as many as half the species on Earth would be lost by the year 2000, Hubbell explained, “Nothing like that has happened. However, the next mass extinction may be upon us or just around the corner. There have been five mass extinctions in the history of the Earth, and we could be entering the sixth mass extinction.”

Probably the most authoritative global assessment of species status is the Red List of Threatened Species, which is published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Jean Christophe Vie, IUCN’s species program deputy director, responded it was good that this was a clear effort to “get the science right,” but had reservations about how people would interpret it. He acknowledged to BBC News that he was worried about how the report could be used by those who were reluctant to take environmental issues seriously.

“We have explicit details in our guidelines that to estimate extinction is not something we should do,” said Vie. “For example, we know that species are not evenly distributed in ecosystems; habitat loss is not the only threat.” He added that the actual concern was “the rate of decline in populations.”

Addressing the issue, Hubbell cited a comparison: When a meteor struck the Earth some 65 million years ago, the Earth’s tree life was incinerated, and it took about 10 million years to fully recover and redevelop into continuous, flourishing forests. Hubbell said that the extinctions humans cause might be equally catastrophic, though in different ways.

“We need much better data on the distribution of life on Earth,” Hubbell said. “We need to rapidly increase our understanding of where species are on the planet. We need citizens to record their local biodiversity; there are not enough scientists to gather the information. We also need much deeper thought about how we can estimate the extinction rate properly to improve the science behind conservation planning.”

“If you don’t know what you have,” Hubbell concludes, “it’s hard to conserve it.”

This article was first published in People’s World on May 23, 2011.
Author: Blake Deppe.

“We’ve raised concerns for years about primates being in peril, but now we have solid data to show the situation is far more severe than we imagined,” said Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International (CI) and the longtime chairman of the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Primate Specialist Group. “Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact. In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction.”

The new analysis reveals that:

• Over 70% of Asian primates are threatened with extinction, and at least two dozen taxa are Critically Endangered.
• Virtually all gibbons are threatened with extinction — and one of the rarest subspecies, the Yunnan white-handed gibbon, may already be extinct.
• All great apes — all gorillas, all chimpanzees, all orangutans, all bonobos — are either Endangered or Critically Endangered.
• Across all primate taxa, a full 48% are threatened — nearly half of all primates, in harm’s way and likely to go extinct in our own lifetime.

And just in time for the release of this depressing report the Associated Press reports that President George Bush is “proposing changes that would allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether subdivisions, dams, highways and other projects have the potential to harm endangered animals and plants.”

Environmental organisations have called for the polar bears to be listed on the “endangered” species list hoping it could lead to actions to combat climate change.

Unfortunately interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne wouldn’t want to label the polar bears as “endangered” but rather as a “threatened” species. That means they’ve successfully downplayed the threat to polar bears from climate change and won’t need to take any serious actions to protect the polar bears from the constantly increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

Kierán Suckling, Executive Director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a newsletter that the US “administration refused to designate and protect the polar bear’s habitat as “critical habitat.” The overwhelming threat to polar bears is the melting of Arctic sea ice. It is absolutely essential that this habitat is itself protected if we expect to save the bear.”

Todays decision by the U.S. Department of Interior also contained a “special rule” that declared that greenhouse gas emissions “can’t and shouldn’t be limited by the Endangered Species Act.”

The Center for Biological Diversity will not let “these atrocious policies stand” and is promising to “haul” the US administration back to court to ensure that the polar bears get listed as an “endangered” species.

“We’ve repeatedly beat the administration in court over the past three years and we’ll do so again”, said Kierán Suckling.

Image credit: Mape S. Image licensed under a Attribution license.