Tasmanian devil to get endangered species listing

Tasmanian devil to get endangered species listing

Australia's Tasmanian devil will be listed as an endangered species this week as a result of a deadly and disfiguring cancer outbreak, the state government said Monday.

The disease, a fast-growing head tumour which spreads over the marsupial's face and mouth and prevents it from eating, often killing it within months, has cut the island's devil population in the wild by as much as 60 percent.

A spokeswoman for Tasmania's Primary Industries Minister David Llewellyn said the small, black-haired animal would be listed as an endangered species by state officials on Wednesday.

The minister told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the animal would be upgraded from a vulnerable to an endangered species so that the "appropriate resources and effort" can be poured into protecting it.

The government has also backed a plan to build an "insurance population" of healthy Tasmanian devils at wildlife reserves, zoos and other protected areas.

"If required, these animals could be utilised to help re-establish Tasmanian devil numbers in the wild," Llewellyn said.

The facial tumour is extremely unusual in that it is a contagious cancer, spread from devil to devil by biting.

The devil is the world's largest marsupial carnivore and now only lives in Australia's southern island state.

Early European settlers named the feisty marsupial the devil for its spine-chilling screeches, dark appearance and reputed bad temper which, along with its steeltrap jaw, made it appear incredibly fierce.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080519/wl_asia_afp/australiaanimalenvironmentdevil&printer=1;_ylt=AtTE3tzKqppgYxWC1cqLiHLuOrgF

Poor nations must repay British climate 'aid': report

Poor countries will have to pay back aid given to them by Britain in an international project to help them adapt to climate change, The Guardian newspaper said Saturday.

The 800-million-pound (one-billion-euro, 1.56-billion-dollar) fund was announced in November, but the daily reported almost all the money offered by Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government would have to be repaid with interest.

The aid was expected to be made in direct grants to countries suffering storms, droughts and rises in sea levels linked to climate change, it said.

But the money is not additional British aid and will be administered by the World Bank, mainly in the form of concessionary loans which have to be paid back with interest added, The Guardian added.

It said a letter signed by two government ministers showed Britain has been urging its fellow Group of Eight countries to also contribute to the new fund, to be formally launched in July at the G8's annual summit in Japan.

"UK contributions from the environmental transformation fund...will need to be primarily concessional loans," the letter, signed by environment minister Phil Woolas and his trade and development counterpart Gareth Thomas, said, according to the Guardian.

"We will also talk to other donor countries about the possibility of grants."

Woolas and Thomas wrote a separate letter to The Guardian in response to the article saying it painted "a distorted picture" of the situation.

They stressed the fund was only "one element of our response" to helping developing countries fight climate change and said a proportion of it would consist of grant money.

"Loans, especially if they have a very large grant element -- like ours will -- enable larger and deeper investments and can then be used again by other countries, creating a higher impact," the two ministers wrote.

"If we cling to the sort of outdated thinking that implies that concessional loans aren't helpful for developing economies, we will get nowhere."

They added that recipients and donors will have an equal say on how the money is spent and that developing countries were "starting to welcome and engage in the detail."

But several countries contacted by the paper condemned the loans, while development groups WWF and ActionAid both said funds for climate adaptation should be additional to aid in the form of grants.

"We need urgently to prepare for climate change, but we are not in a position to pay back loans," a spokesman for the Bangladesh high commission in London was quoted as saying.

"The climate situation has not been created by us. The money should come spontaneously from rich countries and not be a loan."

An unnamed senior Brazilian diplomat was reported to be "indignant" that poor countries should have to borrow money to prepare for the effects of climate change, adding to their debt.

Copyright © 2008

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080517/wl_sthasia_afp/britainclimatewarmingaid&printer=1;_ylt=AqZsvZkGrk_ekOZVqSzD97LuOrgF

Millions of tiny starfish inhabit undersea volcano

By RAY LILLEY, The Associated Press

The Washington Post
Monday, May 19, 2008

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Marine scientists surveying a large undersea mountain chain were amazed to find millions of tiny starfish swirling their arms to capture food in the undersea current.

An expedition by 19 scientists, including five from Australia, studied the geology and biology of eight Macquarie Ridge sea mounts. They are part of a string of underwater volcanoes _ dormant for millions of years _ that stretches 875 miles from south of New Zealand toward Antarctica.

The scientists also investigated the world's biggest ocean current _ the Antarctic Circumpolar Current _ amid expectations they would find evidence of climate change in the Southern Ocean.

While the expedition's cameras found a wide range of corals, a high density of cardinal fish and the huge coral, the vast collection of brittle stars was the highlight of the voyage.

"I've personally never seen anything like this _ all these animals, the sheer volume _ all waiting for food from the current," expedition member and marine biologist Dr. Mireille Consalvey said Monday. "It challenged what we as scientists thought we knew."

Expedition leader and marine biologist Ashley Rowden said starfish usually cover only slopes away from the top of the undersea mountains.

"It got us excited as soon as we saw it," Rowden said of the site, dubbed "Brittle Star City."

The starfish are about 0.4 inch across, with arms about 2 inches long.

The expedition began March 26 and returned to port in New Zealand's capital Wellington on April 26.

Melbourne-based marine biologist Tim O'Hara, a brittle star specialist, said the vast collection of brittle stars, or ophiuroid ophiacantha, is "like a relic of ancient times."

"Normally fish would prey on them and eat them ... so for whatever reason there's a lack of fish predation there and it's seen this particular animal flourish," he said.

O'Hara, who was not part of the voyage, said the speed of the sea current in the area may partly explain why fish were not feeding on the tiny animals.

The Circumpolar Current merges the waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans and carries up to 150 times the volume of water flowing in all the world's rivers, oceanographer Mike Williams said.

Australian oceanographer Steve Rintoul, who was not involved in the expedition, said there have been few measurements of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which "strongly influences regional and global climate" by carrying vast amounts of water and heat across oceans.

Fewer than 200 of the world's estimated 100,000 sea mounts that rise more than a half a mile above the sea floor have been studied in any detail.