Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by Policy Analyst Terence Houston. Read the full Policy News here. APPROPRIATIONS: CJS SUBCOMMITTEE REVIEWS NSF FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST On March 17, the Commerce Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee held a hearing on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 budget. The request is for $7.7 billion for…
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Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by Policy Analyst Terence Houston. Read the full Policy News here. EPA: MCCARTHY TESTIFIES BEFORE SENATE COMMITTEE ON CLEAN POWER PLAN A recent Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee hearing offered US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy her first opportunity to testify before Capitol Hill legislators on her…
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One of many sessions that will focus on species interactions at ESA’s 2013 Annual Meeting by Nadine Lymn, ESA director of public affairs Human cases of Lyme disease continue to rise in the United States. The bacterial disease—which, if untreated can cause significant neurological problems, is transmitted to people by black-legged ticks, which pick up the pathogen by feeding on…
Read MoreHere are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by Science Policy Analyst Terence Houston. Read the full Policy News here. APPROPRIATIONS: CONGRESS PASSES MEASURE FUNDING GOVERNMENT THROUGH FY 2013 This week, Congress passed H.R. 933, a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government for the remainder of current Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, which ends Sept. 30. The bill in…
A Colombian coal mine opens a treasure chest of fossils. By Liza Lester IT was large, that much was obvious. When Edwin Cadena first saw the fossil in 2005, he thought he might be uncovering another specimen of Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the ancient snake he and his colleagues discovered in 2004 on a Smithsonian expedition lead by Carlos Jaramillo, Jason Head,…
Are exotic pythons devastating Florida’s Everglades National Park? By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Sometimes the snake wins. The exotic Burmese python is a new and deadly predator allegedly squeezing the wildlife of Florida’s already environmentally pressured Everglades. Large snakes have been observed swallowing American alligators and 80-pound deer, but more common prey are small mammals like raccoons, rabbits, and…
This post contributed by Terence Houston, ESA Science Policy Analyst The debate over the economic consequences of federal regulations intended to curb the prevalence of invasive species continues on Capitol Hill. During a Sept. 14 hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Republican committee leaders released a report entitled “Broken Government: How the Administrative State has Broken President…
Here are some highlights from the latest Policy News by Science Policy Analyst Terence Houston. EPA: AGENCY DEFENDS ‘ENDANGERMENT’ FINDING IN FEDERAL COURT On August 18, the Environmental Protection Agency filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit defending its Dec. 2009 ‘endangerment’ finding that carbon dioxide emissions threaten public health. The finding…
This is the last post I will contribute as moderator of ESA’s blog EcoTone—it has been a wonderful, educational experience to explore the connectivity and complexity of life processes and to meet the scientists who have helped to further this cross-disciplinary research. I hope you have enjoyed reading these stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them! Please continue…
In late April, two major storm systems across the Mississippi River watershed brought about one of the most catastrophic floods upon the Delta region in generations. Thousands of homes have had to be evacuated and there have been a number of deaths. President Barack Obama has declared bordering counties in Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky as federal disaster areas. The flooding…
Addressing plastic pollution, raising wolves for reproductive success, images of the mosquito heart to advance malaria research, mapping whale habitats and acoustics to visualize obstructions in whale communication, the potential environmental impact of space tourism and sloth anatomy to understand the evolution of mammal backbones. Here is news in ecology from the month of October.
Scientists at USGS released a 300-page report today detailing the vulnerability of U.S. lands to invasion by large snakes from other continents. The report finds that Burmese pythons, northern and southern African pythons, boa constrictors and yellow anacondas are a high-risk animal for invasion. The report echoes the unfortunate situation on the America territory of Guam, where introduced brown tree…