Conservation Science

Great white sharks eat fish when they are young, but after the first few years they grow new teeth and start eating marine mammals, notably fatty seals and sea lions. The sharks need the rich calories from the mammals' blubber to keep their bodies warm. Sea otters are mostly muscle, skin, bones, and luxurious fur.

In a study published this month in the journal Ecological Applications, Gary Lovett and 15 colleagues estimated that 63 percent of U.S. forest land, or about 825 million acres, is at risk of increased damage from established pests, and new pests continue to arrive with cargo shipments from overseas. ... "I think there would be resistance from overseas partners that are shipping a lot of material using these wood pallets," said Frank Lowenstein, deputy director of the New England Forestry Foundation, a conservation group based in Littleton, Massachusetts.

The New England Wild Flower Society has announced online classes for Fall.The online botany classes include a field trip option. The native plants design class will be open for four months. Fellow Elizabeth Farnsworth will teach: Plants 101: Introduction to the Green World Plants 102: Deeper into the Green World Designing with Native Plants Read more and register

For the Amah Mutsun, an indigenous people of the central coast, the land was never ‘theirs.’ They didn’t think of the land as belonging to anyone. Blessed to live along the central coast and eastward, they belonged to the land. They were tender toward it — and tenders of it. Now, after centuries of cultural upheaval, they’re learning to recover their roles as the land’s stewards. ...

Biologists have discovered high levels of pesticides and other contaminants from marine mammals in the tissues of endangered California condors living near the coast that they say could complicate recovery efforts for the largest land bird in North America.

Increased shipping noise is disrupting the foraging behaviour of humpback whales in the North Atlantic, according to a new study. Scientists in the US and UK said their findings could impact upon the numbers of humpback whales in the long term. Many whales are found in coastal areas with high levels of shipping traffic, which often results in frequent fatalities from collisions. The team collected data from 10 whales within the Stellwagen Bank national marine sanctuary, which is a popular whale watching site between Cape Cod and Cape Ann in the US. ...

California Sea Grant is pleased to announce the selection of 12 outstanding doctoral graduate students and postdoctoral researchers as recipients of the 2016 Delta Science Fellowship. Awarded periodically by the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Science Program and administered by California Sea Grant, the fellowship partners junior scientists with academic and community mentors to work on collaborative data analysis and research projects applicable to the California Bay-Delta system. ...