GO FISH: A U.S.-backed proposal to ban international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna was shot down at a U.N. summit Thursday, with 68 countries voting against the ban, 20 voting for it and 30 opting not to vote at all. It was the highest-profile issue during the 12-day endangered-species summit in Qatar, since Atlantic bluefin remains a delicacy in Japanese sashimi even as its wild populations have plummeted 80 percent since 1970. Japan led the charge against banning bluefin, vowing to either kill the proposal or ignore it if it passed — the country makes up the majority of global demand for bluefin, but Japanese officials said on Thursday they aren't against conservation, but simply think the U.N. isn't the right authority to regulate fishing. The defeat wasn't just a blow to bluefin, but also to American eco-diplomacy, as it was the third major U.S.-backed plan to be voted down at the Qatar conference. China, Japan and Russia helped kill a shark-conservation plan on Wednesday that American officials had supported, and earlier Thursday, Canada, Greenland and Norway teamed up to nix a U.S. proposal to ban exports of polar bear skins, teeth and claws. "It wasn't a very good day for conservation," a U.N. spokesman said after Thursday's votes. "It shows the governments are not ready to adopt trade bans as a way to protect species." (Sources: Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian)

 

IN COLD FLOOD: It may still be snowing in parts of North Dakota and Minnesota this weekend, but another wild spring flooding season is already under way. An El Niño-powered winter full of monster snowstorms set the stage for "potentially historic flooding" this spring, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as towering snowpack melts across much of the United States. The threat is highest in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa, NOAA warns, especially in the flood-prone Red River Valley. After the river reached historic highs last March, it was already more than 16 feet above flood stage by Friday morning, and still rising. Yet even though it reached nearly 41 feet in '09 — its flood stage is just 18 feet — residents averted disaster around Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn., by waging a massive sandbagging campaign, and they're shooting for a repeat performance this year. With students from nearby colleges pitching in to help locals, 1 million sandbags have already been filled, and more than 700,000 have already been stacked in Fargo alone. "We're in good shape," says Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker," and we have a lot of things in place in case there are any problems." (Source: CNN)

 

CLEARING THE AIR: Mexico City was the epitome of air pollution in the 1980s and '90s, with a persistent cloud of particulate matter and ground-level ozone violating air-quality standards for more than half of most years. But thanks to a 20-year campaign to clean up the city's air, residents can finally breathe a cautious sigh of relief — 50 of the first 60 days in 2010 have already seen acceptable ozone readings, after about 50 percent did in 2009, and recent clear days have even allowed rare smog-free views of snow-capped mountains in the distance. Mexico City began overhauling its transportation systems in 1997, replacing car traffic with buses and bikes, and while its battle against air pollution is still far from over, considering the economic pinch on a developing nation trying to cut its emissions, many are already calling the progress a success story. "The pollution problem is still there," says an official with the Mexican Center for Environmental Law, "but it is a fact that we have been fighting pollution for more than 20 years, and the improvement is undeniable." (Source: Independent)

 

FROM BAT TO WORSE: As the mysterious "white-nose syndrome" continues obliterating bat colonies across the Appalachians, an experimental project to protect endangered Virginia big-eared bats may have made things even worse, some critics are saying. In November, the Smithsonian National Zoo founded a captive colony of 40 big-eared bats in hopes of protecting the species from white-nose syndrome, which has killed an estimated 1 million U.S. bats since first appearing in 2006. But of the original 40 colonists, only 10 are still alive — and environmental activists as well as a consultant on the project are accusing the National Zoo of negligence. They say zoo officials fed the bats improperly, mishandled them and exposed them to temperature fluctuations, and argue that "even under the most challenging conditions, no more than a 20 percent death rate is considered acceptable for insectivorous bats." The National Zoo has responded with a public statement, calling the criticism "unsubstantiated and untrue," pointing out that raising captive Virginia big-eared bats is uncharted territory. "The care plan was based on existing bat protocols, but they had to very quickly adapt and change some of those protocols," a communications officer at the National Zoo tells Wired magazine. "Nobody has ever worked with this subspecies of bat." Only a few thousand Virginia big-eared bats remain in the wild, and white-nose syndrome has already spread as far south as West Virginia and Tennessee after first appearing in a New York bat cave in 2006. (Source: Wired)

 

WARM UNWELCOME: For the first time, scientists have proven that rising greenhouse gas emissions are directly affecting the timing of a natural event — the annual emergence of common brown butterflies in Australia. Many studies have already found strong correlations between climate change and natural events, such as bird migration and flowering of plants, but they haven't been able to prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship. In Australia, however, researchers at the University of Melbourne have managed to do just that. First, they looked at correlation — the butterflies now emerge 10.4 days earlier than the 1940s, as temperatures in Melbourne have risen 0.14 degrees Celsius each decade. Then they studied how the insects' eggs respond to heat differences, finding that each larval stage has a different reaction to above-average temperatures, ultimately causing the caterpillar to pupate ahead of schedule and the butterfly to emerge early, as well. Finally, they used a computer model to check their work, and it matched their observations precisely. "Shifts in these seasonal life cycle events represent a challenge to species, altering the food and competition present at the time of hatching," says lead author Michael Kearney. "Studies such as ours will allow better forecasting of these shifts and help us understand more about their consequences." (Sources: New Scientist, ScienceDaily)

 

— Russell McLendon