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Los Angeles Times...
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U.S. probes golden eagles' deaths at DWP wind farm
The toll makes the Pine Tree site in the Tehachapi Mountains among the deadliest in California's wind farm industry. Activists say birds' behavior should be studied before erecting more sites.
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Wind turbines in operation in the Tehachapi Pass. The flight behavior and size of golden eagles make it difficult for them to maneuver through turbine blades.
(Anne Cusack, Los Angeles Times / July 13, 2011)
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By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times
February 16, 2012
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Two more golden eagles have been found dead at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power wind farm in the Tehachapi Mountains, for a total of eight carcasses of the federally protected raptors found at the site.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to determine the cause of death of the two golden eagles found Sunday at the Pine Tree wind farm, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles and 15 miles northeast of Mojave, said Lois Grunwald, a spokeswoman for the agency.
The agency has determined that the six golden eagles found dead earlier at the 2-year-old wind farm in Kern County were struck by blades from some of the 90 turbines spread across 8,000 acres at the site.
Those deaths give Pine Tree one of the highest avian mortality rates in California's wind farm industry. The death rate per turbine at the $425-million facility is three times higher than at California's Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, where about 67 golden eagles die each year. However, the Altamont Pass facility has 5,000 wind turbines — 55 times as many as Pine Tree.
The flight behavior and size of golden eagles make it difficult for them to maneuver through forests of wind turbine blades spinning as fast as 200 mph — especially when the birds are distracted by the sight of squirrels and other prey. Golden Eagles are about 40 inches tall and weigh about 14 pounds,
The DWP is developing a avian and bat protection plan that "will include measures for mitigating risks to golden eagles," utility spokesman Brooks Baker said.
Critics say the problem is fundamental. "The increasing golden eagle mortality at Pine Tree clearly points to wind turbines built in the wrong location," said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. The utility needs to redesign its 250-megawatt Pine Tree network and Kern County needs to put a moratorium on construction of nearby wind farms to prevent deaths, Anderson said.
Garry George, renewable energy project director for Audubon California, said the best solution is to devote years of research into golden eagles' behavior in an area before deciding where to erect turbines. "If you don't ... you wind up with a Pine Tree," George said.
Killing golden eagles is illegal under federal law, but so far, federal authorities have not prosecuted any wind farm operators for violations.
A prosecution in the Pine Tree case could force the booming alternative energy industry to revise its approach at a time when Kern County is drafting boundary maps for wind resource areas for dozens of proposed wind projects designed to generate electricity for Los Angeles County.
A year ago, the Kern County Board of Supervisors adopted a renewable energy goal of having 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy production by 2015. Los Angeles has a renewable energy goal of 35% by 2020.
A coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Defenders of Wildlife recently sued Kern County to block construction of the proposed North Sky River and Jawbone wind energy projects, which would operate on 13,535 acres of mountainous terrain adjacent to Pine Tree.
According to the lawsuit, the projects would have an unacceptable effect on protected bat and avian species, including the golden eagle and the rare and protected California condor, and on an important avian migratory corridor.
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U.S. probes golden eagles' deaths at DWP wind farm... more
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White Wolf Pack...
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December 17, 2011
Feds Shoot Lonely Mexican Gray Wolf Attracted to Dogs
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SILVER CITY, N.M. – At the direction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an endangered Mexican gray wolf was shot dead on private land within the Gila National Forest of New Mexico Wednesday. The lone 4-year-old female wolf was reportedly attracted to a residence to consort with domestic dogs and was shot as a purported threat to human safety. Earlier this year the same wolf had mated with a dog elsewhere and given birth to five hybrid pups, four of which were captured and euthanized; the fifth has not been found.
“This very sad episode is a result of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s refusal to release enough wolves into the wild to allow this single female to find a mate of her own kind,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.
The 1996 environmental impact statement on reintroducing Mexican wolves to the wild addressed potential hybridization and promised to minimize it in part through “reestablishing wolf populations in numbers sufficient that potential wolf mates are available for dispersing wolves.” But this has not occurred.
The document projected that by the end of 2006, 102 wolves, including 18 breeding pairs, would live in the wild, with the numbers expected to continue to rise after that; a 2001 scientific review concluded that the recovery area spanning the Arizona and New Mexico border had sufficient deer and elk to be able to support 468 wolves. Yet the highest number of wolves counted was 59 in 2006; at the end of 2010, only 50 wolves, including just two breeding pairs, could be found in the wild.
Despite this shortfall, over the past five years of the reintroduction program, which began in 1998, the federal agency responsible for helping endangered species has only released a single wolf from the captive-breeding pool into the wild (in November 2008) along with 11 wolves who had been captured from the wild in previous years.
Dozens of other wolves were captured and have been indefinitely locked up (and 11 other wolves were shot by the government for livestock depredations, though none in the past four years). Today, 12 once-wild wolves are biologically suitable and legally eligible for release into New Mexico.
“This lonesome wolf did not have to die,” said Robinson. “If there were enough potential mates for her to choose from, this social creature wouldn’t have desperately sought the company of domestic dogs. “To ensure another wolf doesn’t pay the same price, the Obama administration must release more wolves into the wild.”
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Via: http://www.mexicanwolves.org/
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December 17, 2011
Feds Shoot Lonely Mexican Gray Wolf... more
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CNN...
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U.S. beefs up conservation efforts for endangered sea turtles
By Shelby Lin Erdman, CNN Radio
September 18, 2011 8:03 p.m. EDT
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PHOTO: Loggerhead turtles will be divided into nine distinct population groups based on where they live, according to new regulations.
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(CNN) -- The government has revised its rules on sea turtles to try to decrease the number killed every year and reduce the threats they face.
The new regulations place the Loggerhead turtle into nine distinct population groups, depending on where they live, instead of listing the marine animal as a single worldwide species. In all nine segments the turtles are listed as either threatened or endangered.
Officials at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both responsible for overseeing the turtle conservation efforts, say they can better address the challenges the turtles face with the new geographical division.
Loggerhead or marine turtles live in tropical and subtropical waters around the world. The new "distinct population segments" for the turtles are: The Northeast Atlantic Ocean group, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Indian Ocean, the North Pacific Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, the Northwest Atlantic, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and our Atlantic Coast, the South Atlantic Ocean, the Southeast Indo-Pacific Ocean and the Southwest Indian Ocean.
Researchers estimate more than 4,500 loggerheads are killed every year by commercial fishing, but environmentalists believe the number is probably much higher.
Commercial fishing is one of the biggest risks for the turtles, whether they live in the Indian, Pacific or Atlantic oceans, said Jim Lecky, the fisheries director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"They all continue to be challenged by a number of threats, incidental capture in fishing gear, longlines, gill nets, trawl gear, trap and pot lines, which tangle turtles and other species, and dredges; all have incidental mortality of sea turtles in those fisheries," he said.
But Lecky says that's not the only threat for the turtles. "They are all also challenged by losses of habitat, degradation of nesting habitat. There still is direct harvest of eggs in adults ... at some level and they are all subject to vessel strikes."
The turtles are facing all those threats, but at different levels. So the new rules will allow fine-tuning of sea turtle conservation measures and regulations.
"We believe that this revised listing of the Loggerhead will help us and our partners to better focus recovery and conservation efforts by allowing us to take a more regional approach. But, again, the separation of Loggerhead into these population groups will not reduce our current conservation efforts," said Sandy MacPherson, the national sea turtle coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
MacPherson also told CNN Radio, "These new listings will help us to provide more focused recovery and conservation, as well as more focused threat analysis and evaluation of conservation successes."
The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement that Loggerhead populations "need more protection to survive this century."
The rule revisions also included designating five regional populations as endangered species, which the group characterized as "a wake-up call that a whole host of threats, from oil spills, channel dredging and commercial trawling to longline and gillnet fisheries, continue to kill off turtles faster than the animals can possibly hope to reproduce."
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CNN's Ninette Sosa and Barbara Hall both contributed to this report.CNN...
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U.S. beefs up conservation efforts for endangered sea turtles
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Polar bear killed in Arctic 'hazing' operation
August 25, 2011 | 2:23 pm
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A polar bear was inadvertently shot to death by a security guard at BP's Endicott field on the North Slope of Alaska when it approached a compound where oil workers live.
The shooting earlier this month marked the first time one of the region's iconic bears -- listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act -- has died during a hazing operation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Bruce Woods said in an interview. The guard tried to "haze," or scare away the bear, but ended up shooting it.
"As far as during authorized hazing operations, there has not been a polar bear mortality, although of course anyone can kill a bear to protect a human life," Woods said.
There are about 3,500 polar bears along the Arctic coast of Alaska, but their survival is increasingly threatened by shrinking sea ice.
Federal wildlife officials have imposed strict restrictions to prevent operations on the North Slope's busy oil fields from harming the bears, who in recent years have been spotted more frequently on shore as their ice habitat diminishes.
Hazing of bears who approach oil operators is permitted, and that apparently is what the security guard, contracted to BP by Purcell Security, tried to do on the evening of Aug. 3 when a female bear was found walking toward a housing area at Endicott, near Prudhoe Bay.
The guard flashed the lights and sounded the horn and siren on his vehicle, but when the bear began acting aggressively instead of retreating, he fired what he thought was a beanbag round, intended to strike the bear's hindquarters and scare it away.
The bear did run off but was spotted in the same area for several days afterward. "It just hung around," BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said.
"People believed, I think, by the bear's demeanor and activity, just that fact that it wasn't going anywhere, that it might be injured or somehow in distress. We communicated that to Fish and Wildlife: 'This is what the bear is doing, what do you want us to do?' We followed their directions: 'Monitor the bear, keep people away,'" he said.
Several days later, the bear swam to a nearby island and by Aug. 15 had stopped moving -- dead, it turned out. It was then determined that the security guard had fired not a beanbag round but a "cracker shell," a loud explosive intended to be fired near but not at the bear to scare it away.
The bear is believed to have died of internal injuries as a result of the cracker shell penetrating her side, but a full investigation by the Fish and Wildlife Service is underway.
"I can tell you that apparently a bear was shot and injured as part of a hazing operation, and exactly what the details are of what happened are what we are not talking about yet," Woods said.
Rinehart said the company already has taken steps to require clear packaging and labeling of hazing rounds to avoid future confusion.
"We don't think we've ever had this happen on our lease before, and we're going to do everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen again," he said.
Polar bears are a common sight on the North Slope. BP had 541 sightings of the animals between 2005 and 2010 -- many of the sightings might have involved the same bear -- and employees used hazing to drive them away from oil operations in 159 cases.
Woods said the federal permits issued to oil operators under the Endangered Species Act authorize only "non-lethal disturbance" of the animals.
.Los Angeles Times...
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Amphibian species clings to life
Fewer than 200 mountain yellow-legged frogs are believed to exist. The Station fire [Los Angeles, California] destroyed habitat; now 104 have died mysteriously in a zoo's breeding tanks.
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Authorities are puzzled by the deaths of 104 mountain yellow-legged frogs at the zoo in Fresno.
(Ken Bohn / San Diego Zoo)
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By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times
August 17, 2011
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One of the nation's most ambitious wildlife reintroduction efforts has suffered a setback with the deaths of 104 mountain yellow-legged frogs that had been rescued from the fire-stripped San Gabriel Mountains in 2009, authorities said Tuesday.
The federally endangered frogs, which recently metamorphosed from the tadpole stage, died in captive breeding tanks over the last several weeks at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo.
"We have two frogs left. We're trying to determine exactly what happened," said Scott Barton, director of the zoo, which is highly regarded for amphibian husbandry. "We were thrown a curve ball with a species that was new to us. It's been a humbling experience."
Barton said the facility may "send these two frogs off to see if someone else will have better luck."
The zoos in Fresno, Los Angeles and San Diego are involved in a public-private effort to pave the way for the Rana muscosa population to reestablish residency in Southern California.
For thousands of years, mountain yellow-legged frogs thrived in hundreds of streams cascading down the San Bernardino, San Gabriel and San Jacinto mountains.
Since the 1960s, the species has been decimated by fires, mudslides, pesticides, fungal infections, loss of habitat and the appetites of nonnative trout, bullfrogs and crayfish.
Today, fewer than 200 are believed to exist in nine isolated wild populations, including a group in the San Gabriel Mountains' Devils Canyon that survived the devastating Station fire.
According to U.S. Geological Survey ecologist Adam Backlin, a lead scientist in the recovery effort, "saving the mountain yellow-legged frog from extinction is turning out to be more difficult than anyone anticipated."
The Fresno zoo is not the only facility to have run into problems while trying to spur a jump in the population of the 3-inch amphibians.
Thirty-six tadpoles have not been seen since biologists at the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research released them a year ago into a remote San Jacinto Mountain stream from which they had been absent for a decade, zoo officials said.
In 2006, seven mountain yellow-legged frogs — found three years earlier in a shallow pool in the San Bernardino Mountains after a large brush fire — died at the San Diego Zoo. Studies showed those frogs died of the same type of fungal infection that is killing frogs around the world.
The species' minuscule scattered population gives mountain yellow-legged frogs the distinction of being one of the most endangered amphibians on the planet.
"These frogs are very specific in their requirements. What works for one group may not work for another, which is why we have three zoos involved," Backlin said. "The problem is that zoos do not have the space, staff or the funds to keep many of these frogs, which need … almost constant attention.
"This program is still in its infancy," Backlin said. "I have high hopes."
.Los Angeles Times...
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Amphibian species clings to life
Fewer than 200... more
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Judge rules polar bears still 'threatened'
June 30, 2011 | 3:51 pm
Polar A U.S. District Court on Thursday upheld a Bush-era decision that polar bears are a threatened species, despite challenges by the state of Alaska and others seeking to strip the bear of its protection.
Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to protect the bear because of the melting of the Arctic sea ice was well supported and that opponents failed to demonstrate that the listing was irrational.
“Plaintiffs’ challenges amount to nothing more than competing views about policy and science,” Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote.
The polar bear was the first species added to the Endangered Species List solely because of the threat from global warming.
The status of polar bears became an issue in 2005 after the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace filed a petition arguing that shrinking ice impaired the bears' ability to catch prey and could lead to their extinction. In December 2006, then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne declared the bears "threatened," rather than endangered and in imminent danger of extinction. Endangered and threatened species receive the same protections, such as protection of critical habitats, population recovery assistance and prohibition of harm to the species or its habitat. For threatened species, however, the government can reduce protections or allow exemptions.
If the bears were listed as endangered, new power plants could be blocked, as well as other sources of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming. It also could make petroleum exploration more difficult.
As a result, Kempthorne created a "special rule" stating that the Act would not be used to set climate policy or limit greenhouse gas emissions, pesticides, mercury and other pollutants outside of the Arctic that harm the bear. The Obama administration upheld this policy.
The state of Alaska and hunting groups argued that the listing was unnecessary because the bear is protected by other laws.
“With the population of the species in decline, the needless hunting of them for sport must not be an option,” said Jeffrey Flocken, D.C. Office Director, International Fund for Animal Welfare. “As pro-trophy hunting organizations continue the fight to skirt existing laws and import polar bear trophies, today’s decision serves to reinforce the fact that the species is in jeopardy. The short-term special interests of hunting groups must never take precedence over long-term conservation efforts for the protection of polar bears.”
Currently, conservation groups are challenging Kempthorne's special rule in court.
“This decision is an important affirmation that the science demonstrating that global warming is pushing the polar bear toward extinction simply cannot be denied,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “While we are disappointed that the polar bear will not receive the more protective endangered status it deserves, maintaining Endangered Species Act listing for the polar bear is a critical part of giving this species back its future.”
Studies show that rising temperatures are quickly melting the Arctic sea ice, forcing polar bears inland. In September 2007, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey released a comprehensive nine-volume analysis of the science and reached a dire forecast: Two-thirds of the bear's habitat would disappear by 2050.
Polar bears are experts at hunting ringed seals and other prey on sea ice. But they are so unsuccessful on land that they spend their summers fasting, losing more than 2 pounds a day. Overall, scientists believe the global population of 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears remains robust. But virtually all polar bear experts predict rapid population declines in the Arctic, which is warming faster than anyplace else in the world, changing too rapidly for the bears to adapt and find another source of food.
.Los Angeles Times...
Judge rules polar bears still 'threatened'
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Environmental news from California and beyond
Newhall Ranch developers must not harm California condors, feds say.
June 7, 2011 | 6:12 pm
CALIFORNIA CONDOR NEWHALL
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday said it would not tolerate the harm or killing of an endangered California condor during construction of a proposed Newhall Ranch community of 60,000 residents along the Santa Clara River.
In a long-awaited, 178-page opinion, the agency also said, however, that it would allow the developer to capture and relocate one condor over the next 25 years, if necessary, according to agency wildlife biologist Rick Farris.
“We anticipate that there might some occasion over the 25 years in which a California condor may become attracted to some human activity such as construction of a house,” Farris said. “If it can’t be hazed off the property without hurting it, then they will have to capture it.”
“Additional condors that become habituated to such activities, however, would not be covered by the exemption."
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has questioned whether the Army Corps of Engineers, which is set to permit the development's construction 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, has adequately considered its impacts on an array of rare and endangered plants and animals.
The corps is expected soon to issue a Clean Water Act permit authorizing the developer, Newhall Land, to use 20 million cubic yards of excavated soil to fill in wetlands in areas to be developed over the next 20 to 30 years on the 12,000-acre ranch.
Of particular concern to the EPA are plans to fill in much of Potrero Canyon, which includes roosting and foraging grounds for condors.
Adam Keats, spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity, said, “I’m pretty happy to hear that the agency will is not going to let them harm one of these magnificent birds.”Los Angeles Times...
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Environmental groups want ships to slow down to avoid killing and injuring whales
June 6, 2011 | 7:21 pm
A coalition of environmental groups is asking the federal government to require ships traveling though California’s marine sanctuaries to slow down to avoid fatal collisions with whales, a problem that they say has climbed to “unsustainable levels.”
Four groups filed petition Monday asking the Commerce Department to establish a 10-knot speed limit for large commercial vessels traveling through California’s four National Marine Sanctuaries in the Channel Islands, Monterey Bay, Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank.
Some freighters travel through those waters at more than twice that speed.
Nearly 50 whales have been hit by ships traveling off the California coastline in the last decade, according to experts, who believe the number is probably much higher because many of the accidents go unreported.
Shipping groups says a speed limit would greatly slow down cargo reaching port and more than double the time it takes the fastest vessels to travel through the sanctuaries.
The petition from the environmental groups is meant to prod the federal government to take steps to fight the growing problem. Some of the most heavily trafficked shipping lanes leading in and out of the ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Francisco Bay run through the migratory paths and feeding areas of endangered whales.
In the 61-page document, the Environmental Defense Center, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Pacific Environment say a speed limit would help protect endangered blue, humpback and fin whales from being run over by big ships.
"The overlap of these shipping lanes with California’s national marine sanctuaries puts sanctuary wildlife at great risk,” the petition reads. “While we cannot likely change the behavior of whales and other species so as to avoid ship strikes, we can and must regulate vessel practices to minimize this risk.”
Slower speeds would give whales more time to detect approaching ships and would lower the chances that injuries would become fatal if they are hit, the groups argue. A speed limit also would cut back on air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and underwater noise that can harm whales.
In a statement, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a branch of the Commerce Department that oversees National Marine Sanctuaries and endangered marine species, said it is also concerned with ship strikes to whales and would review the petition.
Shipping groups said a speed limit may not make it any safer for whales and has suggesting realigning shipping routes as an alternative.
“It's just premature to assume that slowing vessel speed is the solution to the ship-whale interaction issue,” said T.L. Garrett, vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Assn., a trade group representing ocean carriers that dock at West Coast ports.
Where possible, vessels would probably navigate around the sanctuaries to avoid the restrictions, he added.
Four blue whales were struck and killed by vessels in 2007 near the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, prompting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to designate shipping lanes from Point Conception to Point Dume a “Whale Advisory Zone.”
Since then, the agency has conducted aerial surveys of the area and broadcast seasonal advisories to ship captains traveling through the channel suggesting they limit their speed to 10 knots – or roughly 11.5 mph -- to avoid hitting whales when they’re in the Santa Barbara Channel in high concentrations, usually from May to December.
Because the advisories are voluntary, environmental groups say, they have gone largely unheeded. Shipping groups said most vessels have not opted to lower their speeds.
--Tony Barboza
Photo: Pete Thomas For The TimesLos Angeles Times...
Environmental groups want ships to slow down to avoid... more
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It is one of the most ecologically rich places on Earth. It harbors the highest diversity of mammals in the United States and the second highest in the world. In southern Arizona, the San Pedro river flows north from Mexico across the U.S. border. And with it flows a stunning variety of life.
“The San Pedro riparian corridor is such a huge influence on migratory patterns for all kinds of animals but especially birds,” said Randy Serraglio of Center for biological Diversity. “For the entire continental United States it’s a very precious place.”
But like many desert rivers the San Pedro has lost a good deal of its flow because the ground water pumping in the area has drawn down the water table. Expanding industry and development in nearby Sierra Vista and the Fort Huachuca Army installation are the biggest users of water in the region. As more water is pumped from underground, less water makes it to the river itself. As a result the river is shrinking.
Along with a diminishing water supply laws designed to protect the river’s many threatened and endangered species, and by extension the San Pedro itself were recently relaxed for the sake of local industry.
The Renzi Rider as the legislation was called exempts Fort Huachuca and the surrounding community of Sierra Vista from the requirements of the endangered species act. Activist hope to reverse the exemption but for now, without laws that would ensure adequate water flow, community members are doing what they can to preserve this disappearing natural resource.It is one of the most ecologically rich places on Earth. It harbors the highest... more
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The Obama administration is setting aside 187,000 square miles in Alaska as a "critical habitat" for polar bears,
Greenspace (Los Angeles Times)
Obama administration moves to protect polar bear
November 24, 2010 | 9:02 pm
The Obama administration is setting aside 187,000 square miles in Alaska as a "critical habitat" for polar bears, an action that could restrict future offshore drilling for oil and gas. The total, which includes large areas of sea ice off the Alaska coast, is about 13,000 square miles, or 8.3 million acres, less than in a preliminary plan released last year.
Tom Strickland, assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks at the Interior Department, said the designation would help polar bears stave off extinction, recognizing that the greatest threat is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change.
"This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations," Strickland said. "We will continue to work toward comprehensive strategies for the long-term survival of this iconic species."
Designation of crucial habitat does not in itself block economic activity or other development, but requires federal officials to consider whether a proposed action would adversely affect the polar bear's habitat and interfere with its recovery.
Nearly 95% of the designated habitat is sea ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska's northern coast. Polar bears spend most of their lives on frozen ocean where they hunt seals, breed and travel.
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and the state's oil and gas industry had complained that the preliminary plan released last year was too large and dramatically underestimated the potential economic impact. The designation could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost economic activity and tax revenue, they said.
Parnell said that the state is pleased that existing man-made structures will be exempted from critical habitat considerations. But, he said in a statement, the state is disappointed it was not consulted on other recommendations. "This additional layer of regulatory burden will not only slow job creation and economic growth here and for our nation, but will also slow oil and gas exploration efforts," Parnell said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said reductions included in the final rule were mostly due to corrections that more accurately reflect the U.S. border in the Arctic Ocean. Five U.S. Air Force radar sites were exempted from the final rule, as were Native Alaskan communities in Barrow and Kaktovik, Alaska.
The Interior Department has declared polar bears "threatened," or likely to become endangered, citing a dramatic loss of sea ice. Officials face a Dec. 23 deadline to explain why the bears were listed as threatened instead of the more protective "endangered."
Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has filed a lawsuit to increase protections for the polar bear, hailed the decision. "Now we need the Obama administration to actually make it mean something so we can write the bear's recovery plan — not its obituary," she said. Siegel called for a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in bear habitat areas. "An oil spill there would be a catastrophe," she said. "That seems like an understatement."
The Arctic Slope Regional Corp., which advocates for Alaska native business interests, said in a statement that the decision disproportionately affects Alaska natives and called the designation the "wrong tool" for conserving the polar bear because it does nothing to address climate change.
"The burden of the impacts will be felt by the people of the Arctic Slope," said Tara Sweeney, vice president of external affairs for ASRC, which is based in Barrow, Alaska. "This is a quality-of-life issue for our people."
Kara Moriarty, deputy director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Assn., said the action would hurt oil and gas exploration in Alaska by creating more delays and added costs to projects in what already is a high-cost environment.
"The companies and the industry will be required to go through more permitting and create mitigation measures without a direct benefit to the polar bear or oil and gas development," Moriarty said. "The Fish and Wildlife Service has found over and over again our activities pose no threat to the polar bear."The Obama administration is setting aside 187,000 square miles in Alaska as a... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
A year ago, it seemed possible—likely, even—that President Barack Obama would sweep into the international negotiations on climate change at Copenhagen and make serious progress on the tangle of issues at stake. The reality was quite different. This year, the expectations for the United Nations Climate Conference in Cancun are less exuberant.
The conference will be held from Nov 29 to Dec 10 and the same issues from 2009 are up for debate. Countries like the United States, Britain, and Germany are still contributing an outsize share of carbon to the atmosphere. Countries like India and China are still rapidly increasing their own carbon output. And countries like Bangladesh, Tuvalu, and Bolivia are still bearing an unfair share of the environmental impacts brought on by climate change.
A very different set of expectations are building in the climate movement this year. If last year was about moving forward as fast as possible, this year, climate activists seem resigned to the idea that politicians just aren’t getting it. Change, when it comes, will have to be be built on a popular movement, not a political negotiation.
Climate change from the bottom up
Last year, climate activists put their faith in international leaders to make progress. This year, they believe that it’s up to them, as outside actors, to marshal a grassroots movement and pressure their leaders towards decreased carbon emissions.
“There’s a recognition that the insider strategy to push from inside the Beltway to impact what will happen in DC, or what will happen in Cancun has really not succeeded,” Rose Braz, climate campaign director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Making Contact’s Andrew Stelzer. “What we’re doing in conjunction with a number of groups across the country and across the world is really build the type of movement that will change what happens in Cancun, what changes what happens in DC from the bottom up.” (This entire episode of Making Contact is dedicated to new approaches to climate change, at Cancun and beyond, and is worth a listen.)
Fighting the indolence of capitalists
Here’s one example of this new strategy: as Zachary Shahan writes at Change.org, La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement, is coordinating a march that will begin in San Luis Potosi, Guadalajara, Acapulco, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, then converge on Cancun. The march will include “thousands of farmers, indigenous people, rural villagers, urbanites, and more,” Shahan reports.
After they arrive in Cancun, the organizers are planning an “Alternative Global Forum for Life and Environmental and Social Justice” for the final days of the negotiations, which they say will be a mass mobilisation of peasants, indigenous and social movements. The action extends far beyond Cancun, though. Actually, they are organizing thousands of Cancuns around the world on this day to denounce what they see as false climate solutions.
These actions echo the strategy that environmentalist and author Bill McKibben and other climate leaders are promoting to push for climate change policies in the U.S. All this talk about building momentum from the bottom up, from populations, means that anyone looking for change is now looking years into the future.
The U.S. is not leading the way
Of course, ultimately, politicians will need to agree on a couple of standards. In particular, how much carbon each country should be emitting and how fast each country should power down its current emission levels. The U.S. is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to agreement on these questions, especially due to the recent mid-term elections. As Claudia Salerno, Venezuela’s lead climate change negotiator wrote at AlterNet:
Unlike what many suggest, China is not the problem. China, along with India and others, have made considerable commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are already working to realize them. Other developing countries have done the same, although we only generate a virtual drop in the bucket of global carbon emissions. The key player missing here is the U.S.
China, the U.S. and Clean Coal
The most interesting collaborations on clean energy, however, aren’t happening around the negotiating table. This week, The Atlantic’s James Fallows wrote a long piece about the work that the U.S. and China are doing together on clean coal technology, the magic cure-all to the world’s energy ills.
In the piece, Fallows recognizes what environmentalists have long argued: coal is bad for the environment and for coal-mining communities. But, unlike clean energy advocates who want to phase coal out of the energy equation, Fallows argues that coal must play a part in the world’s energy future. Therefore, we must find a way to burn it without releasing clouds of carbon into the atmosphere. That’s where clean coal technology comes in. So far, however, researchers have had little luck minimizing coal’s carbon output.
A few progressive writers weighed in on Fallows’ piece: Grist’s David Roberts thought Fallows was too hard on the anti-coal camp, while Campus Progress’ Sara Rubin argued that the piece did a good job of grappling with the reality of clean energy economics. And Mother Jones‘ Kevin Drum had one very clear criticism—that the piece skated over the question of progress on carbon capture, the one real way to dramatically reduce carbon pollution from coal. He wrote:
All the collaboration sounds wonderful, and even a 20% or 30% improvement in coal technology would be welcome. But that said, sequestration is the holy grail and I still don’t know if the Chinese are doing anything more on that front than the rest of us.
On every front, then, the view on climate change is now a long one.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
A year ago, it seemed... more
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Added On June 18, 2010
Arizona is getting $400,000 from the federal government to build bridges for endangered squirrels. KGUN reports.Added On June 18, 2010
Arizona is getting $400,000 from the federal government to... more
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Federal regulators have approved the first new Gulf of Mexico oil well since President Barack Obama lifted a brief ban on drilling in shallow water, even while deepwater projects remain frozen after the massive BP spill.Federal regulators have approved the first new Gulf of Mexico oil well since President... more
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Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20th, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20th, the Obama... more
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Sidestepping a stalled Senate confirmation vote, President Obama appointed Islam Siddiqui during Senate recess to be chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the U.S. trade representative. Dr. Siddiqui’s nomination was held up in the Senate and was opposed by more than 80 environmental, small-farm, and consumer groups. More than 90,000 concerned citizens contacted the White House and Senate to oppose the nomination. Siddiqui is a former pesticide lobbyist and is currently vice president of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, a biotech and pesticide trade group that lobbies to weaken environmental laws.Sidestepping a stalled Senate confirmation vote, President Obama appointed Islam... more
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
President Barack Obama announced this week that his administration would open areas from Delaware to Florida and in Alaska to offshore drilling for gas and oil. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation also released new guidelines for auto emissions to cut carbon emissions, and the EPA said new benchmarks for issuing mountaintop mining permits would prevent damage to waterways in Appalachia. The environmental community welcomed these last two announcements but both were overshadowed by the off-shore drilling decision, which green groups largely condemned.
Off-putting off-shore drilling decision
Although as a candidate President Obama began by opposing off-shore drilling, by the end of the campaign he said he would support an expansion of drilling areas. Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard explains the series of decisions that made this week’s announcement possible:
“In October 2008, amidst calls of “drill, baby, drill” from conservatives, Congress failed to renew the long-standing moratorium on offshore drilling. Months earlier, George W. Bush had lifted an 18-year-old executive ban on offshore drilling, which had originally been imposed by his father in 1990. Obama, of course, could have issued his own order, but didn’t.”
The administration had been considering the decision to go ahead with drilling for about a year but kept deliberations quiet. Key senators, however, knew the decision was coming, and it’s pushing Democrats like Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Mark Warner (D-VA) to warm towards energy legislation, TPMDC reports.
Cars’ carbon emission
The EPA’s announcement on auto emissions, on the other hand, comes as no surprise. It marks the first big step the Obama administration has taken to limit carbon emissions through regulation. Auto regulations are a relatively easy sell. A chunk of Congress wants to keep the EPA from taking these sorts of actions, but in this case, the auto industry supports the federal regulations. At the Washington Independent, Aaron Wiener notes that “the guidelines drew immediate praise from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which has long advocated national emissions and efficiency regulations rather than patchwork state-by-state rules.”
Mountaintop removal mining
The coal industry will be less happy about the EPA’s announcement on mountaintop removal mining. The agency admitted that the practice causes significant damage to streams and said its new guidelines would lead to significantly less harm.
The new policies, Jeff Biggers writes at AlterNet, will “effectively bring an end to the process of valley fills (and the dumping of toxic coal mining waste into the valleys and waterways).” It could be, he says, “the beginning of the end of mountaintop removal.”
One sign that mountaintop removal’s doomsday is nigh? Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), one of coal’s staunchest and most powerful advocates on the Hill, praised the EPA’s decision, reports Mike Lillis at the Washington Independent.
Green groups groan
Green groups are lauding the EPA’s two announcements. (The Sierra Club called the mining announcement “the most significant administrative action ever taken to address mountaintop removal coal mining,” for instance.) But the push for off-shore drilling has environmental advocates squirming.
“As the president extends olive branches to his critics, he’s alienating allies in the environmental community, who say his policies are reminding them more and more of those of his predecessor, George W. Bush,” says Mother Jones’ Sheppard. “Some enviros are even likening Obama to Alaska’s oil-loving ex-governor, Sarah Palin.”
On Democracy Now!, Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity, called the decision “horribly disappointing” and said, “Obama is essentially embracing wholeheartedly the policy of: we can drill our way to energy independence.”
The Obama administration’s energy and environmental policy is creeping ever further towards the center. Ken Salazar, Secretary for the Interior, said this week that “Cap-and-trade is not in the lexicon anymore,” TPMDC reports. It’s no wonder that progressive members of Congress are starting to feel uncomfortable with the direction their climate bill is taking, as Sheppard reports. The president may be using up his reserves of political support from his allies as he stretches to meet conservatives and centrist Democrats on some shaky middle ground.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
President Barack Obama announced this... more
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The following is a post by guest blogger, Jan Morre (aka JanforGore). You can follow her on Current's the sustainable agriculture channel.
In covering the environmental abuses of Monsanto one who is cognizant of the special relationship we have with the Earth cannot help but be repulsed by them. There is not one redeeming quality about them. They are arrogant, heartless, greedy, manipulative power brokers that use people, governments, organizations, consumers, and anyone else who gets in their way of domination. It is a domination of the global seed and pesticide market that is now bringing our Earth to a biodiversity and pollution crisis and a climate change precipice.
They destroy and defile the environment with impunity, contaminate natural seeds with unstable toxic bacteria seeds, deforest our planet to make corn for gas tanks and GM soy that brings nothing but poverty and disease to places such as Paraguay, Argentina, Mexico, India, etc., (where farmers have been committing suicides in massive numbers due to economic ruin brought on by BT cotton.) They toxify our water with PCBS and Round Up, strong arm farmers, deceive consumers, intimidate scientists who seek answers and who disseminate the answers they find about just what their GMOs are made of and their effects, and then claim to be part of the “sustainable agriculture” movement that is looking to feed the world. It is one of the greatest and most sinister hoaxes perpetrated upon the world.
In the more than one hundred years they have been in business, Monsanto has not made one product that has benefitted the Earth. From saccharin, to aspartame, to Agent Orange, to PCBs, to genetically modified organisms, there has been one and only one motive: profit at any cost. And where we stand now that cost is the biodiversity of our planet and control of the very seeds and water that give us life. It is a control we cannot give up as it would then mean the loss not only of food sovereignty but our very freedom as human beings. But even in the midst of all of this there are some bright spots. This past year saw two court rulings against Monsanto regarding their GM alfalfa and GM sugar beets:
Federal court upholds ban on genetically modified alfalfa: Monsanto petition denied in full
Bitter fight developing over gm sugarbeets
Will this set a precedent for review of their other “seeds” such as BT corn, GM soy, BT cotton, etc.? We can only hope.
In that vein there is also a Supreme Court case coming forth involving Monsanto and the Center for Food Safety:
And also, a DOJ investigation into monopolies set for March 2010:
Hopeful signs that more are waking up to the deceptions and doing the necessary research to become aware of what they are eating and modifying their habits to be more healthy. The one organization that is helping tremendously in that is the Institute for Responsible Technology headed by Jeffrey Smith, a world renowned GMO activist. They have just put together a Non GMO website that gives you top information on how to avoid GMOs and eat more healthy thus perpetuating the 5% of American consumers it will take to get to a tipping point of awareness to begin turning the tide against Monsanto and all other companies using GMOs as a profit motive while compromising our food safety in the process. This is the one true way we can all be activists: through the wallet.
Of course, I also have no illusions regarding the DOJ investigation nor the court cases coming up involving Monsanto’s link to PCB poisoning. A recent trial regarding PCB contamination of Anniston Alabama and the ensuing deaths and disease from it wound up in Monsanto’s favor with those sickened left with little justice for their suffering. The major clout Monsanto carries with Washington DC even now under the Obama Administration and the Vilsack USDA and their known methods of bribery leaves one wary of such attempts to hold them accountable for their many crimes against humanity, and their agricultural and environmental terrorism.
After all, it was the FDA under the auspices of the last four administrations that gave them free reign over our environment and health by determining that their organisms were the same (principle of substantial equivalence) as all other food in order for them to circumvent labeling, when as we now see that is far from the truth. It was the USSC that gave them the patent to life itself thus opening the door to Intellectual Property Rights that now challenge indigenous peoples and the natural breeding of seeds for climate change tolerance which they can now purchase in biopiracy scams. In simple terms, our planet has been sold to the highest bidder by people we the people did not even have a say in electing! That is not only undemocratic, that is immoral and criminal.
However as with any crisis we are now in regarding our planet, we have one hope: ourselves. Our consciences, our morals, our reasoning, our logic, our love for our families, our love for the Earth, our sense of justice, and yes, even our spirituality that tells us in line with the scientific facts as presented to us that we in large numbers have the ability to take back our food, our planet, and our futures. So even in the face of what Monsanto has been able to accomplish I remain hopeful of the global food movement having major victories in the coming year. But we must remain focused, cohesive, determined, and yes, even angry. We must remain so for the following:
For the farmers of India and their families, especially the widows of those whose lives were cut short by BT cotton.
For the American farmers whose farms and livelihoods are under threat from Monsanto’s strong arm tactics in their desire to control all seed.
For the deforested lands of South America stripped to create a monoculture that has left many poor farmers poorer and sicker in the wake of greed over sustainability, and exacerbated a climate crisis no cap and trade scheme can heal.
For the soil of our Earth, its skin, that cries out for help to us as it is eroded, stripped, abused, and toxified for profit.
For our water, polluted, toxic, acidic, filled with pesticides and run off as the cost of industrial agriculture.
For our children, who deserve a cleaner, safer, more natural world to live in.
http://current.com/items/91623469_stop-monsanto-in-copenhagen.htm
Let this next year be the year to truly hold Monsanto as an example of all of those things to be the first step in our moral imperative to save this planet and in turn the human species and all others we have so cavalierly dismissed in our desire to be masters of the universe.
I leave you with this: may we all seek this level of awareness of conscience, and act on it.
Related posts:
Guest Blog Post: Biopiracy in the age of climate change and food shortages
Field report from India: Woman’s Earth Alliance reports on sustainable agriculture
Biodiversity and the life of our earth (video)
The following is a post by guest blogger, Jan Morre (aka JanforGore). You can follow... more
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With populations continuing to decline, wildlife agencies issue a plan to designate critical habitat zones to protect the species. Such listing could affect offshore drilling and other activities.
By Bettina Boxall
March 10, 2010 | 9:51 p.m.
Federal agencies are proposing to increase protections for loggerhead turtles, the long-lived sea creatures known for their big heads and capacity to swim thousands of miles across the Pacific.
The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a rule Wednesday that would list seven distinct loggerhead populations, including two in the Pacific, as endangered.
Since loggerheads were listed as threatened in 1978 under the Endangered Species Act, they have continued to decline. Wildlife agencies say the primary cause is incidental capture in fishing nets and long lines. But the turtles also have lost beach nesting habitat.
"More needed to be done to protect this species," said Andrea Treece, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which along with other environmental groups petitioned the government to change the listing for North Pacific and Northwest Atlantic loggerhead populations.
Endangered status would trigger designation of critical habitat zones for the two populations found in the U.S., prompting protections that could affect future offshore oil drilling and other activities.
But marine agencies concede that U.S. regulations alone will not save loggerheads, which live globally in the temperate and tropical zones of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and Mediterranean Sea.
Loggerhead nests in the U.S. are found along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts, from southern Virginia through Alabama. The North Pacific population hatches on the Japanese coast and some juveniles migrate to within a couple of hundred miles of California, where they feed in open waters.
Loggerheads are thought to live up to 100 years. They grow to about 3 feet long and can weigh more than 200 pounds. Their big heads give them the strength to crunch through the shells of crabs, snails and "anything they can get their mouth on," said Jeffrey Seminoff, a biologist with the fisheries agency.
U.S. fishermen in the North Pacific have gotten better at avoiding loggerheads with the help of the federal program, Seminoff said. It maps loggerhead locations based on their preferences for certain ocean temperatures.
"The real problem is those countries that are just not playing the conservation game," he added.
http://bajatortuga.com/images/loggerhead-sea-turtle.jpgWith populations continuing to decline, wildlife agencies issue a plan to designate... more
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Please watch the Center for Biological Diversity's newly released television ads about saving the polar bear.
Polar bears are dying and will soon be wiped out entirely if we don’t take immediate action to curb global warming.
Please sign the petition below and pass it on to a friend.
With your help we’ll reach our goal to get 50,000 signatures below and send a strong message to President Obama in the first 100 days of his presidency.
Global warming is rapidly melting the sea ice polar bears depend on. Accounts of bears starving and drowning are on the rise as they are forced to swim farther and farther to reach the solid ice they need for hunting and resting. Some bears are even turning to cannibalism in a desperate search for food. Those trapped on land hundreds of miles from the nearest ice are often shot as they wander, starving, near villages.
And, as if things weren’t bad enough already, pollution from oil and gas drilling threatens to destroy what’s left of the polar bear’s disappearing habitat.
If current trends continue, two thirds of all polar bears — including all bears in Alaska — will be extinct by 2050, and the rest of the species will be gone forever by the end of the century.
But we can save them by joining together to take immediate action. The science is clear. We know what needs to be done — we just need to build the political support to make it happen.
Please help us gather 50,000 signatures on the petition below in President Obama’s first 100 days to encourage him to rein in global warming and save the polar bear.Please watch the Center for Biological Diversity's newly released television ads... more
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