Population Decline – Page 2 – TINA CHIARELLI, PHD, FRGS

The Year of the Dragon

February 20th, 2012tinalc0 Comments

The dragon is both revered and feared in many cultures around the world. This year the Chinese will celebrate the upcoming new year as the Year of the Dragon. A symbol of strength and royalty, you can find interpretations of these mythical beasts adorning clothing, wall tapestries, statues, and even etched into flesh. But what do we know about our last remaining dragon, the Komodo dragon, which still walks the earth? What is being done to conserve this magnificent creature and its habitat to ensure that it too remains immortalized? Weighing in at up to 100 kg (220 lbs) and …

Extinction: The Final Countdown

December 7th, 2011tinalc0 Comments

The word extinction has shown up several times in the news lately regarding the population status of some wildlife species. All too often we can identify species that have been deemed extinct, but we are not given an explanation of how this came to be. Historically, or I should say prehistorically, we know that a meteor striking the earth and an ice age contributed to the extinction of thousands of species. Note that these catastrophic events were natural disasters. However, what about the extinctions as of late? Internationally, we still experience natural disasters all the time, but what is their …

White-nose Syndrome: Silent Killer of America’s Bats

September 4th, 2011tinalc0 Comments

Growing up as a kid in the Northeastern United States I was enthralled by the night sky; watching hundreds of bats hunt winged insects with deadly precision. As if it happened only yesterday, I can still remember the sound of the tiny chirps and pips of the bats as they communicated to each other and located prey. Sadly, in my adult years, to see a single bat is a rarity; the night sky is now empty and silent. Since the initial discovery in 2006 in a single cave in New York, White-nose Syndrome (WNS), or Geomyces destructans, has been the …

Chytrid Fungus and the Global Decline of Amphibians

August 28th, 2011tinalc0 Comments

Recently, I had the privilege of spending time with a biologist studying the impact of the chytrid fungus on amphibian populations, as well as some of the beautiful Panamanian Golden Frogs (Atelopus zeteki) in her study. Chytrid is a type of fungus that is exclusively found in water or in moist environments. Although there are over 1,000 identified chytrid species it is the Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis that has been traversing the globe decimating amphibian populations. First identified in 1998, the B. dendrobatids species of chytrid has been found to infect the skin of amphibians; infection causes the skin to thicken. The …

Shark Finning: The Global Attack on Sharks

August 21st, 2011tinalc0 Comments

Used as a tasteless thickener in soup and an inconclusive cure all in Ancient Chinese Medicine, shark fin, or more specifically shark finning, claims the lives of more than 70 million sharks annually. Think about that number for a moment; more than 70 million sharks. Portrayed as mindless, blood-thirsty killers in Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws, sharks are persecuted not on what they do, but what they have the capacity to do as conjured up in the human psyche. Is not the alcoholic behind the wheel of a vehicle more of a danger to your family than a shark? In reality, …