Blue Marble

Florida manatees: flickkerphotos at Flickr

A record number of manatees—more than 180, and counting—have died so far this year from a red tide off the southwest Florida coast. These tides are caused by blooms of the alga, Karenia brevis, which produce a suite of neurotoxins (brevetoxins) deadly to fish, sea turtles, birds, and marine mammals. Red tides are harmful to people too, if you breathe enough of the aerosolized toxins or eat enough infected fish or shellfish. Now, from Craig Pittman at the Tampa Bay Times, we learn that a mysterious ailment is killing manatees off Florida's other (east) coast too. There's no red tide bloom underway there and no winter cold snap either:

So far... no sick manatees have been rescued, availing biologists with a live specimen to study for clues. They suspect the manatee deaths may be connected to back-to-back blooms of a [another species of] harmful algae, one that has stained the Indian River Lagoon a chocolate brown. Over the past two years the blooms wiped out some 31,000 acres of sea grass in the 156-mile-long lagoon that stretches along the state's Atlantic coast. Manatees eat sea grass, but with the sea grass gone, they may have turned to less healthful sources of nutrition.

Deadly little plant beasties, Karenia brevis, as seen through a scanning electron micrograph: MyFWC Research at Flickr

The dead manatees on Florida's east coast appear to have gone into shock and drowned after eating algae. Researchers surmise the deaths are related to this abrupt dietary change. Furthermore, Pittman reports, more than 100 brown pelicans have been found dead in that same area since the start of 2013:

"The pelicans were emaciated and full of parasites. So far biologists don't know what killed them or if there could be any connection with the dead manatees."

There's one big difference between the algae blooms on the east and west coasts—and that's what's causing them. The eastern bloom is fueled by nutrient pollution from storm runoff: a Miracle-Gro of fertilizers, sewage, manure, and pet wastes that fuels algae blooms. The cause of the western red tide is more muddled. According to the Mote Marine Laboratory:


In contrast to the many red tide species that are fueled by nutrient pollution associated with urban or agricultural runoff, there is no direct link between nutrient pollution and the frequency or severity of red tides caused by K. brevis. Florida red tides develop 10-40 miles offshore, away from manmade nutrient sources. Red tides occurred in Florida long before human settlement, and severe red tides were observed in the mid-1900s before the state's coastlines were heavily developed. However, once red tides are transported inshore, they are capable of using manmade nutrients for their growth.

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On Friday, President Obama announced plans for a $2 billion research initiative for clean energy technology.

Here's how the White House described it:

Over 10 years, the Energy Security Trust will provide $2 billion for critical, cutting-edge research focused on developing cost-effective transportation alternatives. The funding will be provided by revenues from federal oil and gas development, and will not add any additional costs to the federal budget. The investments will support research into a range of technologies – things like advanced vehicles that run on electricity, homegrown biofuels, and domestically produced natural gas. It will also help fund a small number of real-world experiments that try different transportation techniques in cities and towns around the country using advanced vehicles at scale.

Obama first called for an Energy Trust Fund in his State of the Union address last month. Under his plan, the $2 billion would come from royalties for federal oil and gas leases. The proposal asks Congress to include this in their 2014 budget.

This is today's second bit of good news for environmental advocates. The administration is also expected to announce that it is directing all agencies to take emissions into account when approving new projects, which includes highways, pipelines, and drilling plans. The guidance is expected to direct agencies to consider climate when they make assessments under the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act. The law was passed to look at more direct environmental risks, like the potential for oil spills or the destruction of habitat, but the White House Council on Environmental Quality is expected to tell the agencies to look at the potential impact on emissions now, too.

UPDATE: Well, perhaps we should have known this was a little too good to be true for a Friday. The Washington Post is reporting that the Obama administration plans to revise rules on emissions from new power plants it released last year, which would likely delay their implementation. 

The discussions center on the first-ever greenhouse gas regulations for power plants, which were proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency nearly a year ago. Rewriting the proposal would significantly delay any action, and might allow the agency to set a separate standard for coal-fired power plants, which are roughly twice as polluting as those fueled by natural gas.

While the move could bolster the administration’s legal justification for regulating power plants’ carbon emissions, any retreat on the rules would be a blow to environmental groups and their supporters, who constituted a crucial voting block for President Obama and other Democrats in last year's elections.

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A bat with white-nose syndrome.

Wikimedia Commons

This story first appeared on Scientific American's Extinction Countdown blog.

A dead tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) found at Table Rock State Park in South Carolina has tested positive for Geomyces destructans, the deadly and mysterious fungus that has killed millions of bats since it was first observed in February 2006. The fungus has now been found in 22 US states and five Canadian provinces.

When visible, G. destructans manifests as a fuzzy white patch on bats' noses, wings and other hairless parts of their body, a condition that yielded the name white-nose syndrome (WNS). Scientists do not yet know if the fungus itself is killing the bats or if it is just a symptom of whatever else is causing the deaths. What we do know is that bat populations that contract the fungus have a 70 to 100 percent mortality rate. There is no known cure or treatment. The fungus thrives only in cold conditions, so WNS appears to threaten only hibernating bats at this time.

Here's where the disease has been found:

Bats have tested positive for white-nose syndrome in 22 eastern states.

"The news that white-nose syndrome has been confirmed in South Carolina is devastating for these very important mammals," Mary Bunch, wildlife biologist with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR), said in a prepared release. "We will continue to work closely with our partners to understand the spread of this deadly disease and to help minimize its impacts to affected bat species."

According to the South Carolina state agency, the tri-colored bat colony in Table Rock State Park lives in an isolated region where the general public can’t reach them, so there is no threat of human contact. Some scientists fear that people may be transmitting the fungus from cave to cave, although its most obvious transmission path is bat to bat.

Other bat species living in South Carolina that could become exposed to WNS include the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), Eastern small-footed bat (M. leibii), Northern long-eared bat (Nyctophilus arnhemensis) and Southeastern bat (M. austroriparius). None of these species are currently listed as endangered, but we have already seen bat populations across the northeast plummet due to WNS, so this is a bad sign for all of South Carolina's bats.

Bats have an important role in regulating insect populations, a function that is vital to successful agriculture. A recent study found that the loss of North American bats could lead to agricultural losses of more than $3.7 billion per year.

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Naoto Matsumura, a 53-year-old fifth-generation rice farmer, returned to his contaminated home near Japan's Fukushima power plant to care for his cows: Courtesy of VICE.

This 18-minute video by VICE Japan profiles Naoto Matsumura, a 53-year-old fifth-generation rice farmer who went back into the dead zone around Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant to take care of his cows (and pigs, cats, dogs, and ostriches), and then stayed there. If you're wondering why anyone would live in a place with >17 times normal radiation, Naoto, in the video, explains his rationale on moral grounds. Including this:

Our dogs didn't get fed for the first few days. When I did eventually feed them, the neighbors' dogs started going crazy. I went over to check on them and found that they were all still tied up. Everyone in town left thinking they would be back home in a week or so, I guess. From then on, I fed all the cats and dogs every day. They couldn’t stand the wait, so they’d all gather around barking up a storm as soon as they heard my truck. Everywhere I went there was always barking. Like, 'we’re thirsty' or, 'we don’t have any food.' So I just kept making the rounds."

As for the filmmakers, Ivan Kovac and Jeffrey Jousan, here's some of what they had to say:

The radiation dosage per hour inside Naoto’s house, as measured by the Geiger counter we brought with us, is two microsieverts per hour, and outside our reader spiked to seven microsieverts. When we asked Doctor Hiroyuki Koide at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute how bad this was for Naoto, he said, "Japanese law states that any location with an hourly dosage exceeding 0.6 microsieverts [per hour] should be designated as a radiation-controlled area and closed off to the general populace. Once inside a radiation-controlled area you can’t drink the water, and you really shouldn’t eat anything. It’s inconceivable to me that a normal person could live there."

All of the other ~15,000 residents of Naoto's town still live in shelters—except for Naoto and his animals. And they're not going anywhere, say the filmmakers.

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