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Costa Rica Finally Does Away With Public Zoos
https://www.newser.com/story/350387/costa-rica-finally-does-away-with-public-zoos.html
Its final 2 state zoos have closed
| By Kate Seamons, Newser StaffPosted May 15, 2024 1:40 PM CDT |
“Captivity is only justified when animals cannot return to the forest for either physical or behavioral problems that prevent them from living in freedom”—a stance that obviously clashes with the concept of a zoo. It’s Costa Rica’s stance, with that line said in a Saturday video posted to Facebook by its minister of environment and energy in announcing the country’s last two state zoos have closed. It’s a move a long time coming, reports the New York Times: In 2013, Costa Rica banned the keeping of wildlife in captivity, intending to shutter government-funded zoos in 2014. But Fundazoo, the foundation that operated them, put up a legal fight.
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That appears to have reached its end. The Ministry of Environment and Energy on Saturday said Fundazoo’s contract, which expired Friday, was not renewed, allowing the closure of the Simón Bolívar Zoo and the Santa Ana Conservation Center. Eighteen private zoos in the country are unaffected. As for the 287 animals held in the last two public zoos—a jaguar, crocodiles, spider monkeys, and a sloth among them, per the Tico Times—they’ll be evaluated by biologists and vets, quarantined, and either returned to the wild or placed in an animal sanctuary. (Something noteworthy happened in one of the zoos last year.)
Scientists sound alarm over powerful geomagnetic storm engulfing Earth
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Story by Liliana Oleniak
• 17h • 2 min read
A powerful magnetic storm hits the Earth (collage: RBC-Ukraine)© RBC-Ukraine
The powerful geomagnetic storm that recently hit the Earth has already caused radio and GPS to malfunction. Scientists emphasize that it can also cause a wave of hurricanes and storms.
RBC-Ukraine explains what theory the researchers have put forward, what it is based on, and whether the consequences of the magnetic storm threaten Ukrainians.
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Sources: Daily Mail, Meteoagent, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Researchers’ theory
According to a recent study, a solar storm that hits the Earth can cause hurricanes and storms.
As part of their work, a team of scientists used a model that:
・studied the activity of tropical cyclones over the past 5500 years
・identified 11 time periods when there were 40% more storms on Earth than usual
The only common feature of these periods was extreme solar activity.
Scientists’ theory is that when the sun is overly active, it sends more energy to the Earth, which heats the oceans and becomes fuel for tropical storms.
Right now, the United States is in the midst of the so-called hurricane season, but given the solar activity, it could be a record-breaking one.
Scientists sound alarm over powerful geomagnetic storm engulfing Earth© RBC-Ukraine
An active sunspot in May 2024 (screenshot: youtube.com/@noaanationalweatherservice)
Geomagnetic storms impact on Earth’s orbit and surface
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also reported that geomagnetic storms can affect infrastructure in Earth orbit and on the Earth’s surface.
Related video: NOAA Issues Rare Warning Following Powerful Solar Event (Dailymotion)
According to experts, such solar activity can significantly affect communications, power grids, navigation, radio, and satellite operations.
Professor Yang Wang from Florida State University clarified that it is not always easy to predict the impact of the Sun on the Earth’s surface. Therefore, it is not worthwhile to say definitively that the geomagnetic storm will increase the number of tropical cyclones this year.
She adds that the role of solar activity in modulating tropical cyclone activity is complex.
“As the oceans warm up, they have more energy available to be converted into tropical cyclone winds, thus creating more favorable conditions for the development of stronger storms,” she explains.
The scientists note that solar activity can be an important driver of climate variability and tropical cyclone activity through its effects on atmospheric circulation, ocean currents, and sea surface temperatures.
Scientists sound alarm over powerful geomagnetic storm engulfing Earth© RBC-Ukraine
The Sun’s influence on the Earth (infographic: meteoagent.com)
Is there threat to Ukrainians?
Given that Ukraine is located relatively far from the ocean, it is unlikely to be threatened by tropical cyclones or powerful hurricanes.
At the same time, many studies conducted by scientists point to a possible relationship between magnetic storms and human activity.
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The point is that super-powerful solar energy can negatively affect a person’s mood and well-being.
Some people emphasize that health can deteriorate during magnetic storms, with headaches, heart problems, sleep disturbances, and weakness.
Earlier, we wrote that the planet was covered by a powerful red magnetic storm of the highest level.
Read also about magnetic storms in May – what days you should take care of your health.
Why scientists are concerned about the latest transmission of bird flu to cows
May 15, 2024 6:30 PM EDT
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-scientists-are-concerned-about-the-latest-transmission-of-bird-flu-to-cows
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The outbreak of bird flu in the U.S. has alarmed researchers and prompted new efforts to track the virus that’s already killed millions of birds from Europe to Antarctica. As H5N1 continues to jump into mammals, many scientists are concerned that we’re not watching closely enough as this virus spreads. William Brangham reports. A warning: This story contains scenes of animals in distress.
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Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
- Geoff Bennett:The continuing outbreak of bird flu in the U.S. has alarmed researchers and prompted new efforts to track the virus that’s already caused the deaths of tens of millions of birds from Europe to Antarctica.But, as William Brangham reports, as H5N1 continues to jump into mammals, most recently dairy cows, many scientists are concerned that we’re not watching closely enough as this virus continues to spread.
- A warning:This story contains scenes of animals in distress.
- William Brangham:Evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey at the University of Arizona is one of many scientists around the world trying to untangle bird flu’s latest twist, how and when it spread to dairy cows.Michael Worobey, The University of Arizona: The jump into cattle probably took place between mid-November and mid-January, and so we’re months into this already.
- William Brangham:And since then, it’s spread like wildfire, infecting dairy cows in at least 46 herds across nine states.
- Michael Worobey:It seems to be spreading cow to cow in some fashion, but we don’t know exactly how that is. For example, it could just be mechanical transmission as one cow leaves a milking machine, leaves virus on it, and then the next cow comes in. Or is this going respiratory, like flu does with humans?
- William Brangham:In late April, the USDA mandated that milking dairy cows being transported across state lines need to be tested for bird flu.Do you think we have got now enough surveillance out there to know what this virus is doing and where it’s moving?
- Michael Worobey:I think we still have a long way to go, honestly. We are still sort of dealing with a pretty limited number of samples from a limited number of farms. And that limits exactly how much we can understand.For example, you can actually figure out, just like we did with COVID, the number of people infected is doubling every two days. We still don’t know that with cattle.
- William Brangham:But even the initial discovery that bird flu had jumped species and was now circulating in cows was thanks to a bit of epidemiological work by a handful of veterinarians.
- Dr. Drew Magstadt, Clinical Associate Professor, Iowa State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory:The main common denominators with the cattle were a sudden decrease in feed intake, a sudden decrease in milk production, variable fevers, variable manure consistency.
- William Brangham:Dr.Drew Magstadt is a veterinarian at Iowa State’S Vet Diagnostic Lab. He was helping colleagues in the Texas Panhandle and Kansas who were dealing with a bunch of sick cows, but then a new clue emerged.On these same farms where cows were sick, a lot of cats had gone missing, gotten sick, or had died.So, you thought, we have to check H5N1, the bird flu, because it’s been in this area, but you really didn’t think that was going to be the case.
- Dr. Drew Magstadt:Well, yes. And we didn’t end up ruling it out. We ended up finding the virus. The intriguing part here is that this virus in cattle doesn’t seem to be causing any mortality. After several weeks, the animals recover. It’s very different from the infection in other mammalian species.
- William Brangham:In fact, unlike cows, this bird flu has been deadly to the nearly two dozen other mammal species that have been infected in this U.S., from a polar bear in Alaska, to a mountain lion in Colorado, to raccoons and foxes. Many of those animals were likely infected by eating dead animals that were carrying the virus.But, by far, the biggest impact here in the U.S. has been on birds. Since this strain of avian influenza first arrived in the U.S. in early 2022, brought here by migratory birds, more than 90 million domestic birds, mostly chickens and turkeys, have died or been intentionally killed across 48 states.And unlike previous outbreaks, this variant has affected more wild birds and spread across a wider geographic area, crossing down into South America at the end of 2022.Dr. Ralph Vanstreels, University of California, Davis: I think the alarm really went off when it reached Peru, and that’s a massive seabird community, and we saw just unprecedented mortality in the seabirds there.
- William Brangham:U.C. Davis’ Dr. Ralph Vanstreels is a wildlife veterinarian based in Argentina, and he watched as the virus arrived and decimated bird populations, and then made another jump into mammals. An estimated 24,000 sea lions died from the outbreak.It was one of the earliest known mass mortality events from bird flu in mammals.
- Dr. Ralph Vanstreels:At first, we weren’t sure if each of those sea lions was getting infected by eating a bird. But it became pretty obvious pretty quick that this was spreading from mammal to mammal.
- William Brangham:In Argentina, Dr. Vanstreels estimated that the virus killed 17,000 elephant seal pups and an unknown number of adults, a blow to that population that may take decades to recover.
- Dr. Ralph Vanstreels:It’s definitely very distressing, I can say. We have worked with these animals for many years. So we have known these populations, we have seen these colonies. And on the one hand, we are prepared, because we expected it. On the other, nothing can prepare you for it.
- William Brangham:Earlier this year, researchers confirmed that bird flu had spread all the way to Antarctica, primarily affecting birds known as skuas, but, so far, Antarctica’s iconic penguins haven’t been affected.
- Dr. Ralph Vanstreels:But this virus can mutate quite quickly, right as it did when it started infecting mammals. So it could mutate again and start infecting penguins. So we’re not quite out of the woods yet.
- William Brangham:And it’s that possibility of mutation, where the virus adapts and becomes better suited to spreading from mammal to mammal, that has many on edge, particularly now that H5N1 was discovered spreading in all those dairy cows.While experts stress it’s still very unlikely that this outbreak will lead to the next human pandemic, and government officials say pasteurization kills the virus in milk and dairy products, there are real risks for those who work in close contact with cows.In March, a farmworker in Texas was infected, but had mild symptoms and recovered. The CDC says it’s monitoring people exposed to infected cattle, but admits that only 33 people have been tested.
- Michael Worobey:What we have is a situation where the virus, in a sense, has more shots on goal to jump from a related species, a mammal like us. And now people are no doubt being exposed on a daily basis in pretty large numbers.
- William Brangham:Worobey says it’s a stark reminder that we have not learned as much as we hoped from the COVID pandemic.
- Michael Worobey:We need to be spending billions more to do things like routinely monitor not the tip of the iceberg of cattle who are visibly ill, but routine monitoring to just find, OK, is there something that shouldn’t be spreading in this animal species or in humans? And we are still not doing that.
- William Brangham:And with more than nine million dairy cows in the U.S. alone, getting eyes on where this virus may go next remains a monumental challenge for animal and human health.For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m William Brangham.
Studies find contagious bird flu in major American cities
BY SAUL ELBEIN – 05/15/24 3:10 PM ET
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 Sustainability The Big Story Studies find contagious bird flu in major American cities Recent discoveries of a highly contagious bird flu in American cities are raising concerns that it could spark the next pandemic. © AP Photo/Guadalupe PardoThe viral strain H5N1 has been present in New York City birds for at least two years, according to findings published on Wednesday in the Journal of Virology. Student volunteers swabbing captive birds and smears of bird poop in the winter of 2021 found six cases of the infectious virus H5N1 in Canada geese, raptors and (in a case that surprised researchers) a rogue chicken. H5N1 is the strain of flu — common in wild birds — that concerns health researchers because of the danger that it can jump to mammals. The virus has been found in 36 dairy herds across 9 U.S. states since late March, according to Reuters. The New York City study only found the virus in six very sick birds, which in and of itself isn’t shocking — only a tiny proportion of those sampled carried the disease, which in any case is common in wild bird populations. But recent evidence raises concerns that the virus could become established in human populations. It sickened a dairy worker in Texas in March, who scientists now know contracted the disease from one of the cattle. Scientists in Texas have also found the full viral genome of H5N1 in wastewater from nine cities — 90 percent of those sampled, according to a preprint study from Baylor University. In 82 percent of the Texas sites studied, levels of H5N1 exceeded levels of seasonal flu, the scientists wrote in the study. The discovery of the virus in domesticated animals raises “substantial concerns that viral adaptation” to humans without exposure to the virus could incubate “the next flu pandemic,” the authors wrote. Those results are not yet peer-reviewed, and the results suggested that the source of the virus in wastewater was runoff from birds or cattle — although scientists said that the possibility that it had come from humans couldn’t be ruled out. “Many people are wondering how we can monitor this H5N1 situation,” Mike Tisza, one of the Texas workers, wrote on X. “We sequence the whole virome from wastewater, and, well, H5N1 started showing up in our samples.” So far, the risk of a pandemic is low, according to federal authorities. Since March, the CDC has monitored at least 260 people exposed to H5N1 in cattle — and hasn’t found any. But the U.S. government is clearly worried. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the federal government had temporarily loosened guidelines on how publicly funded labs could “handle, store and transport H5N1 bird flu samples.” The virus is generally regulated as a “select agent,” or a highly dangerous substance like anthrax or ricin. But the government relaxed regulations around the pathogen to develop treatments in case the virus becomes established in people, as Scott Becker of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) told Reuters. Doing this kind of pre-work before a serious outbreak is “one of those lessons learned from COVID,” Becker said. Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter, I’m Saul Elbein — every week we follow the latest moves in the growing battle over sustainability in the U.S. and around the world. |
Exposing the Big Game 