Bio Watch.

To Bee or Not To Bee UK -- The British scientific community was rocked by the discovery Last April that bees had carried pollen from genetically modified (GM) oilseed rape 4.5 kilometers from a farm test site. (Government standards require only a 50-meter separation between GM crops and other fields.) Last September, a court challenge by Friends of the Earth forced the government to admit that its oilseed rape tests were illegal. According to FOE, rules governing the trials had been broken to accommodate biotech giant AgrEvo. FOE Executive Director Charles Secrett called the disclosures "the death blow for the whole GM trials program."

Arabian Gulp

ARABIAN GULF -- Large numbers of fish are dying in the northern Arabian Gulf because of higher water temperatures brought on by global warming, indiscriminate dumping of wastewater by oil companies, and oil seepage from offshore rigs. The Gulf's oil rigs produce 30,000 to 40,000 barrels a day; a Lot of that ends up in the water through seepage from the seabed, cracked equipment, illegal dumping, leaking vessels and accidental spills. Oil extractors also dump polluted and hypersaline water created by their processes. The construction of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has greatly reduced fresh water inflow that would dilute the pollution.

Mind Your Manures

US -- The Environmental Defense Fund's Scorecard Website [www.scorecord.org] lists the Top Ten states for livestock excrement production. Using 1997 statistics provided by the states to the Department of Agriculture, the Scorecard determined that the country's ten most manured states were Texas (84,587,100 tons), Nebraska (41,304,000), Kansas (34,767,000), Missouri (34,061,000), Minnesota (33,392,300), Oklahoma (30,850,000), North Carolina (27,317,800), Illinois (19,212,500), New York (18,696,270), Montana (17,777,000). The EDF estimates that US Livestock generates one billion tons of feces and urine each year. That's enough to fill ... Well, never mind. Giant hog-factory farms are the latest twist in intensive excretion. Hurricane Floyd doused North Carolina, the nation's second-largest hog-producing state, with thousands of hog carcasses and hundreds of thousands of gallons of manure, contaminating drinking wells and homes. The hog industry estimates that the average hog produces two tons of waste per year. Some pig.

It's Not a Birdy Picture

MALAYSIA -- Some 1200 bird species -- one in eight worldwide -- will Likely go extinct in the next century and another 600 to 900 more species are in danger of joining them, according to a report from BirdLife International, a wildlife advocacy group that represents 2.2 million people in 105 countries. Birdlife International warms that 185 bird species face extinction within the next 10 years. Countries with the most birds at risk are Brazil (with 111 species), Indonesia (92), China (82), Colombia (81), Peru (79) and India (70). The highest densities of threatened bird species occur in the Philippines, where 69 face extinction. The burning-off of vegetation, commercial logging, farming, mining, and deforestation are the most common threats. Most threatened species live in forests, but even common birds like European swallows and skylarks in have declined by as much as 50 percent in the past 30 years.

On the Other Wing ...

TAIWAN -- Our friends at Spoonbill Action Voluntary Echo (Fall '99 EIJ, page 22) forward encouraging news from the Taiwan Wild Bird Society. In November, a record 443 blackfaced spoonbills -- up from 363 in 1998 -- arrived in their Chiku, Taiwan wintering ground.

Toxic Dump Sites -- with Fins

BRITISH COLUMBIA -- Canadians are worried that they're Losing their magnificent -- and profitable -- orcas. Cetacean biologist Robin Baird has found that the orca population off British Columbia is declining at a rapid and unprecedented rate. The population has dropped from 96 to 84 in the past three years. Fewer calves are being born and fewer still are surviving. Canada's Institute of Ocean Sciences reports that levels of the industrial pollutant PCB in their fat tissues makes orcas among the world's most PCB-contaminated animals.

Green Fumigants

US -- Plant researchers in Idaho and in Canberra, Australia have taken a leaf from old-fashioned crop rotation and found that natural pesticides formed in the roots of brassicas -- cabbage, mustard, canola -- act as natural soil fumigants when the plants are plowed under. These compounds, called

glucosinolates, are present in the whole plant, but only the glucosinolates in the roots form the natural soil fumigants. These root-based fumigants degrade into innocuous compounds within three days. Scientists are now trying to breed plants that contain more glucosinolates in their roots, in hope of replacing commercial soil fumigants Like the biologically nasty and ozone-depleting methyl bromide.

Idaholocaust Halted

US -- The Idaho Fish and Game Commission (IFGG) had proposed "to severely and demonstrably reduce [by killing] the number of predators adversely affecting or that may adversely affect big game, upland gamebirds, fish, and migratory waterfowl." The IFGG planned to kill half the local population of red-tailed hawks to help increase sage grouse population. The plan also targeted wolves, mountain Lions and bears. Environmental groups, animal rights activists, and several hunting groups spoke out against the plan in a public meeting and in a torrent of letters. The commission, citing excessive cost and public outrage, has repealed its resolution. It now will deal with claims of excessive predation on a case-by-case basis.

Elephantastic

THAILAND -- The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) branch in Thailand is releasing captive elephants back to the wild at the Doi Pha Muang sanctuary in the northern Thai mountains. "Humanity can start to put elephants back into the forest as a sign of respect and gratitude for all the benefits that we've had from them over the past 1,000 years," said WWF's Robert Mather. The pachyderms, once revered for their roles in war and work, are jobless and homeless after economic downturns and long-overdue logging bans. The country's shrinking forests provide less work for tame elephants and less room and forage for wild ones. Loggers scratching for a living in these remnants have fed their four-legged workers amphetamines to stimulate production. Unemployed elephants have been sold into service as hotel mascots, tourist entertainers, and beggars' props in cities. Seventy-two elephants are being rehabilitated and freed over a year's time in honor of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's auspicious seventy-second birthday. Seven were released with tracking devices in 1996, and WWF's Sombat Prasertsuk reports, "They look healthy and, psychologically, they're in good shape."

Orissa's Unnatural Disaster

UK -- In the November '99 New Scientist, journalist Fred Pearce, environmentalist Vandana Shiva, and several coastal geographers attributed much of the death and devastation from India's October 1999 supercyclone to the destruction of India's coastal mangrove forests. Orissa's mangroves were cleared to make way for shrimp farms. India has Lost more than half its mangrove forests in the past 40 years. The cyclone ripped the coastal state with 300-kilometer-per-hour winds. A tidal surge and torrential rains flooded up to 13 kilometers inland with five feet of water. Poor communities 50 kilometers from the coast were washed away. About 10,000 people died, and 10 million were left homeless. "In the past," says Tom Spencer of the Cambridge University Coastal Research Unit, "the mangroves would have dissipated the incoming wave energy." In addition to providing habitat and fish nurseries, mangroves trap sediment in their roots, creating shallow shorelines that slow waves, while their Leafy canopies shelter the land from wind.

Checks marked "Orissa Cyclone Relief" may be sent c/o Food First, 398 60th St., Oakland, CA 94618 [phone].

An Airline's Error Line

SINGAPORE -- Last October, a South African exporter sent a planeload of 201 animals to a game reserve in Canton, China. The shipping manifest Listed ten white rhinos, two black rhinos, 18 giraffes and an assortment of wildebeests, bonteboks, gemsboks, otters, servals, wild dogs and bat-eared foxes. Animal activists blew the whistle on the carrier: Singapore Airlines.

The Circus of the Scars

UK -- Mary Chipperfield Cawley and Roger Cawley of Mary Chipperfield Promotions, a British circus concern, have been fined 8,500 [pounds sterling] and charged 12,240 [pounds sterling] ($20,000) in court costs for abusing animals. Animal Defenders [261 Goldhawk Rd., London, W12 9PE; phone [phone]; info@animaldefenders, org.uk.www.animaldefenders.org.uk], which urged the Cawleys' prosecution with press releases, petition drives and movie-trailer ads, called the sentence inadequate. AD hopes that the trial will spur the British public to demand changes in humane laws. In shocking investigative footage videotaped by AD and shown in court (and broadcast on AD's TV program Secrets of the Circus), animal handlers were photographed beating elephants, camels, horses and tigers hard enough to make viewers flinch. One Chipperfield employee (once convicted of manslaughter) was filmed clumsily bashing a chicken to death against a wall Witnesses testified to repeated and gross abuses, including those to an infant chimpanzee named Trudy, who was beaten, isolated, terrorized and confined to a tiny cage. None of this treatment was disputed; under current Laws most of it is legal. One benefit of the trial was the release of Trudy from the Cawleys' custody.

Can't Carry a Tuna

SWITZERLAND -- In August 1999, the UN International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ordered Japan to stop its "experimental scientific" catch of endangered Pacific bluefin tuna. In 1999, Japan used this ploy to harvest 2,200 extra tons of bluefin, in addition to its commercial quota. Greenpeace International Fisheries Officer Desley Mather said, "Japan irresponsibly used the excuse of a scientific program to raise its tuna catch, just as it has done with minke whales. This ruling is good news for conserving the bluefin tuna and should make Japan think twice about embarking on so-called experimental fishing again." Numbers of bluefin, which can fetch 25,800 [pounds sterling] ($41,800) in Japanese markets, have crashed by 90 percent since 1960 and deep cuts in the commercial catches of all countries' fleets are still needed to allow recovery.

Bearly Surviving

US -- There's a Land boom rocking the Rocky Mountain states and, as humans move in, native animals are Losing out. In Montana, which is home to 75 to 80 percent of the grizzly bears in the Lower 48 states, prime bear habitat is being sold off to a bull market. Montana real estate taws don't require informing potential buyers that they are about to build their wilderness dream home in grizzly habitat. It is not just a Montana problem, Lance Olsen reports in Bear News [802 E. Front St., Missoula, MT 59802, [phone], www.greatbear.org]. Congress supports sprawl with house-building tax write-offs for the rich. "If you make enough money to need up to a million dollars in tax cuts, building a home in the woods might be a solution," Olsen writes. Unfortunately, Washington's boost for housing and resort development "jeopardizes the survival of threatened and endangered species such as salmon, trout and bears."

Cranberries Sauced

US -- New Jersey's Pine Barrens are threatened by expanding cranberry bog farms and by the pro-development policies of Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Governor Whitman has replaced progressive members of the Pinelands Commission with pro-development appointees and loosened land-use and building controls. In addition, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has received EPA approval to expand cranberry farm bogs in the Pinelands by 300 acres. The plan would benefit the state's 48 commercial cranberry growers but would displace critical wetlands and wildlife. "These are one of the most important wetlands systems on the East Coast," said Jeff Titter, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club [[phone], [e-mail]].

Animal Emancipation

US -- Social activist Dick Gregory has taped a public service announcement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Gregory's statement: "Martin Luther King, Jr. taught me that the fight against oppression is never an easy one. It's even harder when you have no voice. For animals held captive in circuses, life consists of cramped cages, shackles, and daily beatings. There's no escape. They can't demand their freedom. Images like these bring only one word to mind: slavery. Be an abolitionist for the animals. Please don't go to the circus." [Concerned readers may wish to ask their elected representatives to support Rep. Sam Farr's (D-CA) Captive Elephant Accident Prevention Act (HR 2929), which would outlaw the use of elephants in circuses and for rides.]

Small Farming Is Beautiful

US -- Contrary to popular misinformation, the world's embattled small farms are two to ten times more productive per unit than large, tax-subsidized and chemical-based operations run by corporate agriculture. According to a major study by Peter Rosset of the Institute for Food and Development Policy [www.foodfirst.org], "communities surrounded by populous small farms have healthier economies than do communities surrounded by depopulated large, mechanized farms." It appears that small family farms also do a much better job of controlling soil erosion and conserving biodiversity. "Despite more than a century of anti-small farmer policies in country after country," Rosset reports that small farmers "continue to be more productive and more efficient than Large agribusiness farming operations." The greatest threat to Earth's small farms comes from the World Trade Organization, which would tower farm prices in the name of "free trade." According to Rosset, the WTO "could deal the death blow to the world's smart farmers ... driving them into bankruptcy by the millions."