Conservation Science

"This is really pivotal research that will help us plan for mitigating the effects of climate change," said Amber Pairis, climate change adviser for the Department of Fish and Game. Pairis said the state agency is building similar lists for rare plant species, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. She said the study and guide provide a platform for allowing climate change to become part of conservation discussions and not treated as a separate topic or chapter.

The California condor's return from near extinction is threatened by persistent exposure to lead-based bullets, despite intensive efforts to treat and care for poisoned birds each year, scientists say. Lead poisoning in the condors is now "of epidemic proportions," said Myra Finkelstein, a research toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz and the principal author of a report on the condor problem in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read the full story

The threat of a lawsuit spurred the government to look at the issue and begin the cleanup last year, said Shaye Wolf, climate science director for the Tucson, Ariz.-based center. The settlement requires the cleanup be completed by 2017 and allows the center or third parties potential access to test for contaminants in the Laysan duck. Read the full story

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But Beal says he has come up with a better way to grow lobsters in captivity. Through trial and error over several years, he has learned how to grow lobsters in a protected environment until they are several inches long — not big enough to be sold, but big enough to settle to the bottom when they are released and possibly to improve their survival rate. Read the full story

Though the global economy has accelerated the process in recent decades by the sheer volume of ships, most from Asia, entering West Coast ports, the marine invasion has been in full swing since 1869, when the transcontinental railroad brought the first shipment of East Coast oysters packed in seaweed and mud to San Francisco, said Andrew Cohen, director of the Center for Research on Aquatic Bioinvasions in Richmond, Calif. For nearly a century before then, ships sailing up the coast carried barnacles and seaweeds. Read the full story

Mark Elbroch works to mitigate human-carnivore conflict through research and education, with the goal of providing the data needed to fight old mythology that perpetuates fear of large carnivores. His latest study suggests that food provided by pumas may be vital to the maintenance and diversity of scavenger and decomposer communities in Patagonia and elsewhere. Read the original research that appeared in Biology Letters (PDF download, less than 0.5 MB)