Conservation Science

Few things are as embedded in Maine's culture — or its mud — as clams, and an environmental group thinks the key to saving the shellfish might be growing a different kind of bivalve along the state's coast. Manomet, based in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is proposing the shellfish shift as a way to beat predators that plague Maine's clam diggers. Seafood lovers have sought Maine's softshell clams in chowders and clam rolls for decades, but wild harvesters are collecting fewer of those clams, in part because of the spread of crabs and worms that prey on them.

From the Santa Cruz Sentinel, by Rachel Kippen: So it’s clear that you all like shearwaters. After detailing the sooty shearwater journey in a recent column, I received heartening and heartwarming stories from dozens of readers who identify with the enchanting anticipation of the sooty migration arrival every year (thank you for that outpouring of enthusiasm).

Fellow Amy Rogers is now working with DroneSeed, a company that works in post-fire environments to plant native trees and vegetation using drone swarms and spray to protect them. Learn more

Scientists from ETH Zurich were once again hugely successful in the latest round of the prestigious ERC Starting Grants: 3 women and 12 men each received an average of 1.5 million euros for their research projects. In total, ETH Zurich will receive 23 million euros. The selected projects cover a range of disciplines, from astronomy and mathematics to climate modelling. The researchers work in nine different ETH departments (see project details below).

One of the tough realities of commercial fishing is that fishermen and seals sometimes compete for the same fish. And when they do, interactions between the animals and fishing nets can occur, leaving fishermen with ruined catches and damaged fishing gear, and seals with the possibility of lethal entanglements.

For the Yurok tribe, fishing isn’t a recreational weekend activity to be paired with a cold beer. It’s a way of subsistence, a way of life. Fellow Keith Parker’s groundbreaking biology research regarding a new subspecies of Pacific lamprey, recently published in the science journal Molecular Ecology, may be the key to saving his tribe’s way of life.

Abstract

This summer, the Trump Administration issued a proposed rule that would drastically change the environmental review and public input process for projects in national forests. This proposal would be the biggest rollback of NEPA regulations affecting forest management in over a decade. If enacted, this new rule would allow commercial logging, the conversion of illegal off-road vehicle routes to official U.S. Forest Service roads, and other activities across large swaths of land without preparation of detailed environmental studies and the opportunity for public input, writes Fellow Nick Jensen.

Abstract