MANTA RAY OF HOPE

RANDOM EXQUISITE BEAUTY - TROGLOBITES

Troglobites are small cave-dwelling animals that have adapted to their dark surroundings. Troglobite species include spiders, insects, fish and others. They live permanently underground and cannot survive outside the cave environment. Troglobite adaptations and characteristics include a heightened sense of hearing, touch and smell. Loss of under-used senses is apparent in the lack of pigmentation as well as eyesight in most troglobites. Troglobite insects also exhibit a lack of wings and longer appendages.

READ MORE AT WIKI

RANDOM EXQUISITE BEAUTY - The Toad Mountain Harlequin Frog

These little guys are facing extinction, as are many other amphibians across the globe, because of this FUNGUS.






TAKE PART IN HELPING HERE

CALL QUINT

I had an argument a long time ago with a friend, after a discussion about surfing, and he said he didn't believe that there were sharks on Long Island, which I know is just preposterous!!!! He made claims that local surfers had concocted wild stories about sharks to prevent out of town surfers from coming into their territory and stealing their precious waves. Laughable. After all the largest Great White Shark ever caught on a reel was caught (debatable) by Frank Mundus off the coast of Montauk. Well my friend, feast your pearlies on this!!!!

Shark sighted off Cupsogue Beach in Westhampton

Authorities have banned people from the water at Cupsogue Beach County Park after a shark sighting there, a police dispatcher said Tuesday evening.

"The water is off limits," said the dispatcher, who wouldn't give her name.

A police officer is on scene enforcing the closure, she said.

According to The Associated Press, West Hampton Dunes Police Sgt. Tim Turner said reports of the sharks in the water came in at about 3 p.m. Tuesday. He said there were several sharks within 15 feet of the shore.

A spokesman for Suffolk County police said the department provided a helicopter to search for the shark.

Cupsogue is a 296-acre barrier-beach park in Westhampton.

A RAY OF SUNSHINE ON SAVING SHARKS

Even if you're a friend of sharks, if you like fishing in the open sea you run the risk of snagging a shark here and there. And if you're a commercial fisherman, you're no stranger to sharks showing up as a significant part of your bycatch. It's estimated that tens of millions of sharks end up as accidental bycatch every year. However, a new high-tech fish hook could help keep sharks safer from fishing lines. The SMART hooks are magnetic and have a special metal coating that produces a voltage in seawater.

As we know, sharks are highly sensitive to electronic fields in the water -- picking up the electronic fields produced by fishes' bodies is how they're able to locate prey. Live Science reports that the SMART Hook, an acronym for Selective Magnetic and Repellent-Treated Hook, will help keep sharks away from the fishing lines intended for other species of fish. The hooks' magnetic and electronic features are intended to make sharks want to stay well away from them, even if there is bait attached.

The SMART hooks have been tested with bonnethead sharks, and the researchers saw success. Of 50 different tests with two groups of sharks, there was a 66% reduction rate of baits taken from small sized SMART hooks (which would be used for recreational fishing) and a 94% reduction rate of baits taken from large sized hooks that would be used in commercial fishing.

This could mean a fantastic reduction of accidental shark catches, especially with longline fishing. Longlines use thousands of baited hooks on a single line to try and catch a particular species of fish such as tuna. However, sharks much on the bait just as often. By using these shark-repellent hooks, the number of sharks caught on longlines could be cut way down. Of course, it does nothing for reducing the number of sharks caught by those who are out to catch them. But it's good news for reducing the occurrence of bycatch.

-courtesy of Treehugger.com

ONE STEP...LONG ISLAND TOWN BANS PLASTIC

This comes at the perfect time. I just posted a short film a few posts ago about the plastic bag and now this. awesome!!! You should seriously consider "not" using plastic wherever you may be. I know Whole Foods offers 10% of your bill if you bring your own recycled/reusable bags. Get on it people. Recycle.

Here is one reason why littered plastic is bad for the environment.




Southampton sacks retailers' plastic bags

In a 5-0 vote, the village board on Tuesday passed a resolution this week prohibiting retailers from using the nonbiodegradable bags. Businesses have about six months to start using paper or reusable bags. Produce bags and plastic bags of a heavier weight are exempt.

Violators face a $1,000 fine and up to 14 days in jail, consistent with the village's current penalties.

READ ARTICLE

RANDOM EXQUISITE BEAUTY - OARFISH

Oarfish are large, greatly elongated, pelagic Lampriform fishes comprising the small family Regalecidae. Found in all temperate to tropical oceans yet rarely seen, the oarfish family contains four species in two genera. One of these, the king of herrings (Regalecus glesne), is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest bony fish alive, at up to 17 metres (56 ft) in length.
The common name oarfish is presumably in reference to either their highly compressed and elongated bodies, or to the former (but now discredited) belief that the fish "row" themselves through the water with their pelvic fins. The family name Regalecidae is derived from the Latin regalis, meaning "royal". The occasional beachings of oarfish after storms, and their habit of lingering at the surface when sick or dying, make oarfish a probable source of many sea serpent tales. READ MORE

PRESERVE

WOUNDED AMERICAN

A hundred years ago the hardwood forests of the American Northeast and Midwest United States were dominated by enormous American chestnut trees. Dozens of bird and mammal species feasted upon the rich nutrients of the chestnuts, just as our ancestors celebrated the pleasures of “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”

Because chestnut trees bear a consistent crop year in and year out, they were a far more dependable food source than many other trees. Most other tree species that yield nuts or acorns bear heavily only in alternate years.

Often towering over a hundred feet, the American chestnut was a majestic and beautiful shade tree, equally prized for its excellent timber. Rapid and straight growth, even grain, and excellent resistance to rot, made chestnut wood versatile and valuable. It was used for paneling and furniture, shingles, fence posts, mine timbers, railroad ties and telegraph poles.

But in 1895 a load of imported Asian chestnut seedlings for the New York Botanical Garden brought the chestnut blight fungus to America’s shores. Unlike its oriental relative, which tolerates the fungus that is native to its home range, the previously unexposed American chestnut was devastated by the infection. Entering the tree through injuries in the outer bark, the fungus would spread into the xylem and phloem layers, which carry nutrients from leaves to roots and back.

In less than 40 years, the American chestnut was nearly extinct throughout its once vast range. Only a few isolated mature trees remain. The forlorn stumps of once majestic specimens can still be found in scattered areas, sprouting tiny, pathetic shoots that grow briefly, until they too succumb to the blight.

But scientists at Purdue and other American universities have been developing blight resistant hybrids by crossing the few surviving American chestnuts with their oriental cousins. Once they have obtained highly resistant strains, they then work to create trees that are genetically 94 percent American and 6 percent Asian hybrids. Others are at work attempting to develop a method for inoculating the American chestnut from the blight, or seeking out possibly resistant strains surviving in isolated pockets. Finally, there is an effort to develop transgenic chestnut trees by implanting the genes for blight resistance from Asian varieties into the American chestnut.

If any of these alternatives prove auspicious, horticulturists will eventually begin to release a limited number of blight-resistant chestnut seeds and bare root trees to the public. If these pioneers prove successful, significant plantings would follow over the ensuing decade.

With good fortune, the noble American chestnut will someday once again grace our nation’s landscape, feeding small animals, gracing our parks, perhaps even roasting in hearths from Kansas to Maine.

I’m prompted to relate this tale by a review, appearing in the American Scientist, of Susan Freinkel’s American Chestnut: The Life, Death and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree. I have yet to read the book, and in fact, it’s not yet in the library. But you can bet that it soon will be, and I hope to be the first to check it out.

In the meantime, if you want to learn more about trees and forests, or how you can plant trees that feed wildlife and make our community a more beautiful and friendly place, just drop by ask your Haysville Community librarian for help. For further information right now, try the American Chestnut Foundation’s Restoring the American Chestnut Tree or the website for the American Chestnut Cooperators’ Foundation at Virginia Tech, or Bruce Carley’s New Hope for the American Chestnut.