Florida has been wrestling with its python problem for years. Thanks to the tropical temps in south Florida the Everglades National Park has become a dumping ground for unwanted reptiles, particularly the non-native Burmese python. Wildlife officials have been battling the snakes for about twenty years.

They presume that parents of kids who outgrew their pets and the pets who outgrew their owners freed the snakes in the swamp. Some also believe that the wild python population began to grow after Hurricane Andrew destroyed pet stores selling the exotic snakes in 1992.

Park Service's Al Mercado, Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Florida Wildlife Commission's Ron Bergeron and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Hold a Burmese Python

On a regular basis, giant snakes are turn up in backyard swimming pools, terrorizing neighborhoods. And in November game officials found a 16-foot python that had swallowed a 76-pound deer. Burmese pythons can grow to 26 feet and weigh well over 200 pounds. And unlike in its home in southeast Asia, there are no known predators in Florida that keep the snake population in check.

A study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that sightings of medium-sized animals like racoons, oppossums, rabbits, foxes, deer and bobcats are down dramatically — as much as 99 percent — in some parts of the Everglades where these snakes are most commonly found.

There is no way to tell for sure that the Burmese python is solely responsible for the drastic decline in medium-sized mammals. But scientists suspect it is. They are concerned that the invasive species will disrupt the food chain in the Everglades and upset the delicate ecosystem balance.

J.D. Wilson, a Virginia Tech research biologist and co-author on the study says, “The effects of declining mammal populations on the overall Everglades ecosystem, which extends well beyond the National Park boundaries, are likely profound.”

Between 2003 and 2011 researchers drove 39,000 miles of Everglades area roads, counting wildlife. Since 2000 the National Park Service has counted 1,825 Burmese pythons in and around the national park. The largest, 16.4-foot snake weighed 156 pounds and was captured earlier this month.

Burmese Python Swallows Adult Deer Whole in Florida, November 2011

Michael Dorcas, a biologist from Davidson College in North Carolina and the lead author of the study says, “The magnitude of these declines underscores the apparent incredible density of pythons in Everglades National Park.”

Here are the significant declines in medium-sized mammal sightings in the Florida Everglades.

Raccoons — down 99.3 percent
Oppossums — down 98.9 percent
White-tail deer — down 94.1 percent
Bobcats — down 87.5 percent
Rabbits — down 100 percent (no sightings)
Foxes — down 100 percent (no sightings)

The research also found slight increases in coyotes, Florida panthers, rodents and other mammals. But because those sightings were so rare they discounted them altogether.

Secretary Salazar says, “This study paints a stark picture of the real damage that Burmese pythons are causing to native wildlife and the Florida economy.”

The state of Florida banned the private ownership of Burmese pythons in 2010. Now the federal government announced new rules on January 17 that will ban the importation and interstate transport of Burmese pythons, yellow anacondas and three other invasive constrictors sold in the pet trade. All have been found roaming Everglades National Park.

Some believe the federal mandate goes a little too far. Practically, the snakes can only survive outside in a few parts of the country, including south Florida and Louisiana. The rest of the nation is just to cold for the snakes to take hold. Snake breeders and experts who use the mighty constrictors to educate people about reptiles say the overall ban could lead to a burgeoning black market for Burmese pythons and could hurt legitimate businesses in the process.

With some estimates of the Everglades invasive snake population approaching 30,000 research turns to understanding and limiting the spread of the invasive snake species.

Burmese pythons need freshwater to survive. But a team of biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey led by Kristen Hart in its Davie, Florida lab showed that the snakes can drink in their much-needed moisture through the tissue of animals they swallow. The team also ran experiments trying to understand the snakes relationship to water.

The team’s experiments suggest that newborn pythons can’t survive more than two months with only access to saltwater. But a pair of hatchlings survived over 200 days with access to only brackish (mix of fresh and saltwater) water. And a yearling snake with access to only saltwater survived 7 months. New research in the upcoming Journal of the Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology suggests that these super-swimming snakes could head for the sea and migrate long distances.

Scientists Haul a Big Burmese Python out of the Everglades

Already, Burmese pythons have already been found eating endangered wood rats on Key Largo, off the mainland Florida coast. The first snake was discovered alive in 2007 when two researchers studying federally endangered Key Largo woodrats were checking on the status of a male woodrat wearing a radio transmitter that had suddenly moved more than a mile from its original documented habitat.

The signal led the researchers — a University of St. Andrews graduate student Joanne Potts and a volunteer assistant — to a eight-foot Burmese python sunning itself.

The contents of the captured snake’s stomach included not only the collared woodrat but a second woodrat as well.

Jack Hanna, the director emeritus at the Columbus Zoo believes the Florida python problem is a state issue not a federal one. He is concerned that the far-reaching ban on exotic constrictors will choke commerce. He tells CBS This Morning the new ban might effect the 220 breeding programs at the nation’s zoos as well as hurt snake breeders.

He says, “There are reputable breeders in Florida and we can’t put these guys out of business because they help and there is a logical role with a lot of our breeding programs [at zoos].

Jeffrey Smith has written the book on genetically modified foods (GMOs). Now he’s on a crusade to rid the U.S. of unhealthy food hybrids that not even animals choose to eat.

He tells the story of a farmer who was growing corn for his cows. The farmer grew non-GMO corn next to corn that had been modified by Monsanto, a large agriculture company. First, he grew the corn independently and then when it was ready for the big cow taste test he separated the corn and gave the cows a choice of which feed they wanted.

He says that without fail the cows chose the regular old non-GMO variety, AKA corn. He says the cows would approach the modified corn and sniff it before walking out of their way to reach the non-GMO corn trough.

Smith believes that if only humans had the sense of cows, we wouldn’t have any genetically modified ingredients in the food supply. He says, “It turns out there’s only nine food crops that are genetically engineered but they’re pretty widespread because soy and corn in particular are practically omnipresent in processed foods.”

Other countries have banned GMOs. Zambia, Venezuela India and all of Europe are GMO-free. But in the U.S. up to 70 percent of processed foods contain one or more genetically modified food ingredients.

What is a GMO?

A genetically modified organism is an organism that has been genetically altered using engineering techniques. In foods, the most common technique is called recombinant DNA technology, where molecules from different plant species are combined into a single hybrid with a new set of genes.

Some GMOs are transgenic, meaning that they have intact DNA segments or functional genes from another organism inserted into them.

Food expert Elisa Zied is the author of Nutrition at Your Fingertips. She says, “If a food is genetically modified it means that its genes are altered. DNA from one species is inserted into DNA of another species to create a unique genetic combination that doesn’t occur in nature.”

There are only a handful of crops that have been genetically modified. They include corn, canola, cotton, and soy. However, those are the plants whose derivatives are found in just about all processed foods.

In addition, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is commonly injected or fed to cows which then genetically alters the milk they produce. That hormone is often blamed in part for human obesity. After all, the hormone stimulates milk production in cows. Imagine what it does in people.

Food Fight

The big fight over GMO foods was fueled by a single Supreme Court ruling in 1980, which allowed companies to patent lifeforms for commercialization.

California company Calgene began selling the the first genetically modified food in 1994. It was the flavrSavr tomato, which was more resistant to rotting than its unaltered version. No special labeling was required and the FDA took a wait and see approach to new gene-modified foods.

Then came insect-resistant cotton and soybeans that could tolerate a potent chemical herbicide, both in 1996. Then thousands of patent applications poured forth starting a GMO frenzy.

According to the Grocery Manufacturers of America in the U.S. by 2009, genetically modified varieties dominated 89 percent of the planted area of soybeans, 83 percent of cotton, and 61 percent of corn.

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho is a geneticist and biophysicist who runs the Institute for Science in Society. She says, “Genetic engineering is inherently dangerous, because it greatly expands the scope for horizontal gene transfer and recombination, precisely the processes that create new viruses and bacteria that cause disease epidemics, and trigger cancer in cells.”

But well-meaning scientists invented genetically modified food crops as a means to common crop problems. GMO plants are resistant to disease and they can tolerate herbicides. They can also become more nutritious when vitamins are added.

However, most anti-GMO activists say the danger far outweighs the benefits and that a worldwide ban on GMO foods must be levied before it’s too late.

The U.K. Greenpeace website calls GMOs an utter disaster. It says, “The science of taking genes from one species and inserting them into another was supposed to be a giant leap forward, but instead they pose a serious threat to biodiversity and our own health.”

The debate rages on and for now GMO is making its way into our grocery stores and our stomachs.

Jeffrey Smith, anti-GMO activist and author of Seeds of Deception says, “I would say 70 to 80 percent of the food sold in the supermarket has some derivative of genetically modified food crops. In addition you have alfalfa, which is used as hay for animals, a little bit of zucchini, crooked neck squash and Hawaiian papaya. There’s also a genetically engineered drug for cows that increases milk supply, but also creates a hormone in the milk that many doctors and scientists think is quite unhealthy.”

No Laws Against GMO in the U.S.

Some consumer advocates estimate as many as 30,000 different products on grocery store shelves are contain genetically modified ingredients. That’s largely because many processed foods contain soy. And, half of North America’s soy crop is now genetically engineered.

Now, 93 percent of soy, canola oil and cottonseed, 86 percent of corn and 95 percent of sugar beets are genetically modified and they are base ingredients in most of the foods we eat and find in grocery stores.

Smith says just nine food crops have been approved for genetic modification but many others have been affected in the process.

Honey - Honey can be produced from GM crops. Some Canadian honey comes from bees collecting nectar from GM canola plants. This has shut down exports of Canadian honey to Europe.

Cotton - Resistant to certain pesticides – considered a food because the oil can be consumed. The introduction of genetically engineered cotton plants has had an unexpected effect on Chinese agriculture. The so-called Bt cotton plants that produce a chemical that kills the cotton bollworm have not only reduced the incidence of the pest in cotton fields, but also in neighboring fields of corn, soybeans, and other crops.

Rice - Genetically modified to contain high amounts of Vitamin A. And rice containing human genes is being grown in the U.S. but destined to treat infant diarrhea in the developing world.

Soybean - Genetically modified to be resistant to herbicides – Soy foods including, soy beverages, tofu, soy oil, soy flour, lecithin. Other products may include breads, pastries, snack foods, baked products, fried products, edible oil products and special purpose foods.

Tomatoes - Made for a longer shelf life and to prevent a substance that causes tomatoes to rot and degrade.

Corn - Resistant to certain pesticides – Corn oil, flour, sugar or syrup. May include snack foods, baked goods, fried foods, edible oil products, confectionery, special purpose foods, and soft drinks.

Sweet corn – genetically modified to produce its own insecticide. Officials from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have said that thousands of tonnes of genetically engineered sweetcorn have made their way into the human food supply chain, even though the GMO crop was approved only for use in animal feed. Monsanto says that about half of the U.S. sweetcorn acreage has been planted with genetically modified seeds.

Canola - Canola oil. May include edible oil products, fried foods, and baked products, snack foods.

Potatoes - (Atlantic, Russett Burbank, Russet Norkatah, and Shepody) – May include snack foods, processed potato products and other processed foods containing potatoes.

Flax - More and more food products contain flax oil and seed because of their excellent nutritional properties. No genetically modified flax is currently grown. An herbicide-resistant GM flax was introduced in 2001, but was soon taken off the market because European importers refused to buy it.

Papaya - The first virus resistant papayas were commercially grown in Hawaii in 1999. Transgenic papayas now cover about one thousand hectares, or three quarters of the total Hawaiian papaya crop. Monsanto, donated technology to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, for developing a papaya resistant to the ringspot virus in India.

Squash - (yellow crookneck) – Some zucchini and yellow crookneck squash are also GM but they are not popular with farmers.

Cotton seed oil – Cottonseed oil and linters. Products may include blended vegetable oils, fried foods, baked foods, snack foods, edible oil products, and smallgoods casings.

Meat - Meat and dairy products usually come from animals that have eaten GM feed.

Sugarbeets - May include any processed foods containing sugar.

Dairy Products – About 22 percent of cows in the U.S. are injected with recombinant (genetically modified) bovine growth hormone (rbGH).

Vitamins - Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is often made from corn, vitamin E is usually made from soy. Vitamins A, B2, B6, and B12 may be derived from GMOs as well as vitamin D and vitamin K may have “carriers” derived from GM corn sources, such as starch, glucose, and maltodextrin.

How can the public make informed decisions about genetically modified (GM) foods when there is so little information about its safety? The short answer is labeling. But efforts thus far to pressure the FDA have fallen short.

According to the FDA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), there are over 50 new plant varieties that have completed all of the federal requirements for commercialization and are waiting to go into production.

Just Say “No” to GMO Rap, by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Surfers are a group of ocean super users. They spend a great deal of time in the water and on top of the waves. They notice slight variations. And they depend on a clean, safe environment to catch a wave and hang ten. As a result they are first responders when it comes to anything encroaching on their territory.

In Hawaii, development stands in the way of surfers chilling in the swells near the Kewalo Basin. Now a group of surfers that has failed to stop a big development project are going to measure the health of the water before construction so there will be a scientific baseline for them to compare. For the Friends of Kewalos, it’s a way to say “I told you so” in advance.

Working with Bob Richmond at the University of Hawaii Kewalo Marine Laboratory, the group bought a $2,000 instrument to measure temperature, salinity, acidity, oxygen levels and dissolved solids. They will continue to take readings regularly to monitor any changes that occur as a result of planned construction to increase the size of the marina.

Dr. Richmond says, “This is all information that really matters for the life in the ocean and also the people who are surfing in the ocean as well.”

Some surfers are worried that a bunch of “stuff” will get dredged up when construction begins and that will foul the crystal blue water where they like to surf. Ron Iwami says, “We figure during construction all the nasty things at the bottom will flow out and go out where we surf.”

Dr. Richmond sees the surfers as a valuable asset and one that has a vested interest in the outcome of this data collection.

Hawaii surfers aren’t the only ones monitoring the world’s waters.

The Surfrider Foundation tracks more than 60 campaigns surfers have going in the U.S. and Canada to make sure the ocean stays surf safe.

Ranging from water monitoring projects in Hawaii to fighting against plastic pollution, surfers are taking an active role in watching out for their waves.

Since 2006 the organization claims 172 victories. While some of those “victories” are to stop utilities from dumping waste or banning oil drilling in surfing waters, many wins involve getting local laws passed to ban plastic bags at grocery stores or to ban Styrofoam food containers.

The organization says it is trying to raise awareness about single-use plastics and clean water.

Ask any surfer and he will tell you the ocean is undergoing a seismic shift. Jellyfish swarms are becoming more common. Algal blooms are turning clear waters murky and choking the oxygen from the water when they die. Oceans are heating up and animal habitats are shifting. There is so much going on in the oceans and just not enough scientists to monitor all the changes.

U.S. surf champion Mary Setterholm says, “Surfing is being in harmony with the ocean.”

With such an intimate relationship with the water, surfers are among the best positioned to watch for significant changes in their surf spots. Perhaps it’s time they start documenting those changes as part of a global ocean change surfer network.

Surf’s up. Now let’s help keep it that way.

A couple of years ago San Diego surfers faced a fouling problem. But theirs was from garbage not construction. Surfers were offered free hepatitis A vaccines because runoff from Mexico and other waste from north of the border was making surfing downright dangerous. Doctors in 2009 warned that the hepatitis levels were high enough to make surfers sick.

Tropical Storm Lee pushed high surf into Gulf of Mexico beaches but not messy oil from the British Petroleum spill last year. And it also put predictions to the test. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year oil looming offshore has hardened and sunk to the seafloor where it has formed giant tar mats, which have been difficult to locate.

During tropical weather pieces of those mats break off and get churned in the surf and formed into balls. Those tar balls roll ashore and collect on the white sand beaches of Alabama and Mississippi and Florida.

In Gulf Shores, Alabama tar balls are just part of the beach flotsam and jetsam. Tourists and locals alike don’t appear bothered by them, many not even realizing they are washing ashore.

Local authorities say that they have been a constant presence on Alabama beaches since the oil spill in April 2010.

At Orange Beach however, the tar balls are as big as baseballs and litter the pristine looking sand. Again, authorities say it’s not as bad as it could be.

They know that the tar mats are out there but BP hasn’t been able to find them. Instead, they opt for tropical storms and hurricanes to break up the offshore oil and send it to the beaches where clean up crews can manage the removal more easily.

The black and brown tar balls are being sent to Auburn University for testing to see if they are indeed from the BP oil spill. So far the company isn’t taking responsibility for them but they are helping to clean up the beaches along Lee’s path.

Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon says most of the tar balls there were very small, the size of a fingernail. Still a few people walking barefoot on the beach found their feet covered in sticky crude oil when they returned to hotels and condos nearby.

The Associated Press talked to Connie Harris of Alabaster, Ala. who was staying at a Gulf Shores condominium over Labor Day weekend. She says, “When we walked on the beach, we had tar on our feet.”

A spokesman for the City of Gulf Shores says that this year isn’t as bad a last when oil and tar covered gulf coast beaches. But he says, “It confirms our fear that there are tar mats just offshore and that we may have more tar coming in whenever there’s a storm.”

At the end of July city spokesman Grant Brown says a 1,500-foot by 30-foot tar mat as much as 18-inches thick exposed itself just west of Little Lagoon Pass just off the water’s edge in Gulf Shores.

So far Brown says that between 3 and 3.5 miles of tar mats have been recovered and cleaned up. But because there are daily tar ball sightings he presumes there is still a lot of oil just offshore.

BP has 250 people working in the field along Alabama beaches in strike teams who respond when tar mats reveal themselves or tar balls wash ashore. Generally the big balls start rolling on shore about three days after a big storm.

Federal cleanup authorities claim there is a plan for handling oil-stained debris if tropical storm surge pushes gloppy oil onto local shores. But officials in Alabama’s coastal communities say they haven’t yet been briefed on the details of that plan.

Philip West, the Orange Beach Coastal Resource Manager says, “We have to expect that there could be significant amounts of tar that will create issues and complicate the debris cleanup effort if we have a storm. We hope we don’t have one, but you have to plan for it.”

Tropical Storm Lee didn’t kick up the environmental crisis some had thought but it did remind gulf coast residents that though the beaches look clear again the BP spill isn’t over yet.

Two feisty 15 year olds are pushing Girl Scouts of the USA to remove palm oil from their popular cookies. Rhiannon Tomitshen and Madison Vorva learned that palm oil plantations are used to grow a key ingredient in all girl scout cookies and that ingredient requires farmers to destroy rainforests to make room for the palm plantations.

The two girls take the Girl Scout oath of protecting the environment and limiting resources seriously. Now they want the cookie maker Kellogg’s to follow the same rules and use a blend of different oils that don’t destroy the environment but still taste good and are healthy.

After being inspired by Dr. Jane Goodall work with chimpanzees the girls wanted to raise awareness about orangutans which are often displaced when rainforests are cut down to make room for palm oil plantations in Indonesia. Pygmy elephants and Sumatran tigers are also under threat by the expansion of palm oil plantations.

The rapid growth of the use of palm oil by food manufacturers is in large part due to the fact that the oil contains no trans fats. As more and more companies and food producers remove trans fats from their ingredient list palm oil is becoming a staple. But it does so at the cost of the environment.

After going public with their campaign to remove palm oil from Girl Scout cookies Kellogg’s pledged to buy green palm certificates to invest in the transition to sustainable palm farming. While Tomitshen sees this as a great step in the right direction she won’t be satisfied until the company removes palm oil from Girl Scout cookies and the rest of their products.

She says, “Kellogg’s has the moral authority to remove palm oil from the cookies and do the truly right thing.”

Palm oil is a common ingredient in cookies, candy and ice cream that we all eat every day. But as you take a bit of that Kit Kat bar these two girls would like you to take a moment to think about the orangutans and the rainforest.

“Girl Scouts shouldn’t have to think about rainforest destruction and orangutan extinction or having to struggle with not being able to go to camp because they can’t raise the funds.” — Madison Vorva, Girl Scout and environmental activist

Fish ear bones are just like tree rings. The otolith bone inside a fish’s ear records the creature’s growth. Micro slices of sliver-sized ear bones can give scientists clues to the chemistry of the water in which fish swim. They can measure carbon dioxide levels and one year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, researchers at University of South Florida are inspecting the tiny ear bones of different species of fish for signs of oil.

The answers they find may hold keys to restoring the Gulf of Mexico after the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Dr. Ernst Peeble’s research team is looking to see if the growth rates of fish changed after coming into contact with oil in the gulf. They can also measure which species of fish were most affected by the spill and which are relatively unharmed.

BP promised $500 million over the next 10 years for research to study the effects of the oil spill that sent 4.9 million barrels of oil spewing unchecked into the Gulf of Mexico from April 20-July 15, 2010. So far, the ear bone science team has only seen $10 million of the $50 million it was promised.

A BP spokesman says that because the research is new, there are some growing pains associated with the projects. The oil company says it will fulfill its promise to fund research but it’s not clear on the time line.

For now, the researchers are in limbo, waiting for more funding to complete their work.

One year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill scientists believe the health of the Gulf of Mexico is back to where it was before the massive environmental disaster.

In a recent survey, most scientists agreed that the health of the Gulf is about 68 out of 100. That is almost in line with the pre-spill number of 71.

One marine scientist who runs an association who has BP as a client says that relative to the size of the Gulf of Mexico the oil spill and well blow out affected a rather small area.

Quentin Dokken from the Gulf of Mexico Association says the Macondo blow out was not the environmental disaster many say that it was.

He accompanied Associated Press reporter Rich Mathews on a dive to examine the artificial reef system attached to the submerged portion of oil rigs near the spill site. A year later, corals and other marine life seemed to have rebounded.

But not everyone agrees.

Paul Sammarco is pleased that it appears that life is returning to the disaster area. But he notes that the absence of large fish could mean that they were wiped out by the oil spill and subsequent use of an oil dispersant. He believes the evidence of small fish and coral returning to the area is a bit misleading.

Dr. Sammarco says, “What we don’t know right now are the sub-lethal effects.” He says scientists don’t have a clear picture of the bio-accumulation of petroleum hydrocarbons in sea life and don’t yet understand the complexity that will have on reproduction and other longer term consequences.

Several dozen scientists rated the health of the Gulf of Mexico to be a 68 on a scale of 1 to 100. Last summer the scientists placed the pre-spill health level at 71. Last fall they measured the health at 65.

While the overall health level is trending toward normal, scientists are still very worried about specific health indicators, including dolphins, oysters and the seafloor.

Throughout the first part of the year, reports of baby dolphins washing ashore dominated headlines about the continued environmental legacy of the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Since February over 400 baby dolphins have been found all along the northern Gulf Coast. While scientists are not clear about the cause of this unusual mortality event, some of the dolphins tested did have oil on their carcasses or in their tissue.

Stillborn and dolphins just days old began washing ashore this winter. But scientists can’t definitively say that it was as a result of the BP oil spill.

Imagine waking from a long nap — a little disoriented and still groggy — only to find the world you left when you went to sleep is totally different. A mother polar bear had that very Rip Van Winkle experience on a man-island off the coast of Alaska.

When she emerged from her den after hibernation, the new mother polar bear soon realized her bleary eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. she awoke in the middle of an oil field.

Once the bear and its newborn cub were spotted, the drilling station was evacuated until the bears left the den and started to head off the island and onto the sea ice.

Bruce Woods with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that the mother bear spotted and empty Spy Island before oil drilling equipment and the ice road were even built. She settled into her den for a long winter’s nap. When she emerged last month, the island was full of equipment, activity and an entire oil operation.

“Must have been a shock for her because when she went into the den it was an empty island, and when she came out there was quite a lot going on.” — Bruce Woods

India’s latest tiger census shows an increase in the numbers of the endangered big cat, but threats to their roaming territory could reverse those gains, officials said on Monday.

At a three-day tiger conference in New Delhi(PDF) Indian officials released the latest tiger census. The news appeared to be good. The tiger population in the 17 Indian states where they roam is on the rise, up 300 from the 2007 census. But the report was tempered with a warning — that the habitat where tigers are allowed to roam is shrinking thanks to development, roads and mining.

This conference is a follow-up to the Global Tiger Recovery Program Meeting(PDF) held last year in Russia to try to save the endangered big cats from extinction. While the numbers of Indian tigers rose to just over 1,700 since the last census that is still remarkably lower than the 3,600 tigers estimated from the 2002 census.

This meeting is all part of a global effort by 13 Asian countries where tigers live to double the global population by 2022. Poaching, hunting and habitat loss decimated the tiger population in the 20th Century. Only about seven percent of that population remains.

The Indian tiger census used hidden cameras and DNA testing to determine the number of cats in the wild and officials believe it is the most accurate count to date. The foundation of the tiger recovery program is scientific monitoring of tigers, prey and habitat.

during the 20th century the Javan, Bali, and Caspian tigers became extinct. A fourth, the South China tiger, has not been seen in the wild for more than 25 years and is assumed to have gone extinct during the 1990s.

A study done at the Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys says although imitation is rare in the animal kingdom, dolphins can imitate one another while blindfolded by using sound.

Like bats, dolphins use a form of sonar called echolocation to see sound patterns. It’s their keenest sense.

The purpose of this research is conservation. biologists believe that the more intelligent dolphins appear, the more people will care about them. That will prompt conservation efforts.

The National Audubon Society has sponsored an annual winter bird count for over 100 years. This year’s Christmas Bird Count will include 60,000 volunteers from all over the country who will look for and record birds for two weeks.

This is perhaps one of the oldest forms of citizen science. It allows people who care about birds and nature to pitch in and help scientists gather immense amounts of data that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to collect.

Jim Shallow at Audubon Vermont says, “The great thing about citizen science is that you add a lot more data points to your data and you have a lot more eyes out on the landscape.”

This information has helped scientists study the effects of climate change.

Shallow says that in New England, in particular, things have warmed up over the last 40 years. And that shows up as birds adapt by moving their ranges northward.

Noting that and other avian trends would not be possible without citizen scientists who are helping the Audubon Society count birds. You can participate in this time-honored Holiday tradition by visiting the society Christmas Bird Count get involved page.

A Russian scientist is working to recreate Ice Age conditions by rewilding — reintroducing native beasts to Siberia. He hopes the move will help slow global warming. He wants to start with native musk oxen and then add other species like reindeer, foxes and even Siberian tigers. By returning this vast frozen wasteland to fertile farm country where animals roam free in tall grasses, melting permafrost may be halted. At least that’s Sergey Zimov’s theory.

He believes that the reintroduction of animals like musk oxen, Yakutian horses, reindeer and others who break and eat bushes will help fertilize the soil and allow grass to grow for the first time in 10,000 years. Then most trees will disappear, returning the land to large meadows filled with vegetation.

Animals would tamp down the snow preventing it from insulating the ground in the winter. This would slow the melting of permafrost, a key contributor to global warming.

Though Zimoff is an expert in quantum physics, his research on permafrost, greenhouse gas emissions and mammoth archaeology has made the series of cabins which he calls his lab in Siberia a destination for top scientists from all over the world.

Meet some of the animals and plants who don’t belong in Colorado but have found a home there–to the detriment of the native species.

The Red-eared Slider Turtle is wiping out the Western Painted Turtle while the American Bullfrog is competing for food and water resources with the Northern Leopard Frog–the state reptile of Colorado.

Tarmarisk is a noxious weed that is choking out native plants and while Musk Thistle is a beautiful purple flower it indicates an imbalanced plant ecosystem.

Many other invasive plant species are moving into Colorado, hitching rides on people’s clothing, in firewood and building materials. Most of the invasive animals that now call the area home like Zebra Mussels are closely watched but could get out of control if monitoring budgets keep shrinking and pet owners continue to release non-native pets into the wild.

A small bioremediation company in San Antonio is offering the use of its oil-eating microbes to help reduce the impact of the Horizon Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The government is also looking for credible suggestions to sop up oil on facebook.

After over a month of spewing millions of gallons of oil deep into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has begun it’s “top kill” approach which requires jamming mud into the hole created on April 20. The trick is that the pressure of the mud being pushed into the pipe to stem the oil flow must exceed the pressure of the oil pouring out.

Scientists estimate that pressure to be about 5,000 psi (pounds per square inch)–more pressure than a scuba tank. And this procedure may force the oil to find new ways to escape through rock formations or by blowing a new hole in the pipe.

Gary Wesche is counting the days. It’s down to 14 now before he heads to Antarctica as part of a scientific expedition. KMBC’s Bev Chapman reports from St. Regis Catholic School in Kansas City.

Wesche’s expedition to study ice sheets is organized by PolarTREC where you can follow Gary’s adventure.

Other teachers are embarking on similar adventures, Sarah Diers to study dissolved organic matter on the Cotton Glacier and Casey O’Hara will participate in cutting edge physics at the IceCube Neutrino Lab.

Members of the Surui tribe in Brazil test Open Data Kit, photo courtesy of Carl Hartung, UW

Cell phones are coming to the aid of international health workers, environmental monitors and even citizen scientists. Now loaded with a data collection tool, Open Data Kit is the brainchild of some doctoral students at University of Washington.

But early deployment into the Amazon Rainforest and Tanzania will give the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December better information when it comes to global deforestation.

Measuring of the size of rainforests is helping to deter illegal logging practices that so often escape the watchful eye of satellites. Now on the ground monitoring is turning members of the Surui tribe into citizen scientists and helping them break into the emerging carbon market in Brazil.

They call William Kamkwamba “the boy who harnessed the wind.” At 14, after dropping out of school, the African boy in a rural Malawi village taught himself how electricity works, and built a windmill from scraps and pieces of a bicycle.

Now 22, Kamkwmaba has a book, detailing how he built his windmill and he outlines his plan for his next invention–a steam engine run by a solar oven.

Here’s an interview with the author at Amazon.com.

A little green frog is causing big problems across Hawaii, where the coqui has become the latest invasive species to get a strong foothold.

But Hawaii may be the only place experiencing a surging frog population. Around the world, frogs are dying in droves from a fungus called a chytrid.

What can we learn from the little coqui?

Evidence of global warming is hitting the Arctic harder than anywhere else. The rate of climate change is twice that of the rest of the world.

And, now scientists are discovering the Arctic region plays an important role in capturing atmospheric carbon, both in the ocean and on land.

But that delicate system might be in jeopardy as the polar ice caps melt, triggering a feedback loop of increased warming and melting.

As permafrost melts for the first time ever, there might be a big threat looming–methane–which could help convert the Arctic carbon sink into a big greenhouse gas emitter.

Visualization of a river bed created using VisTrails, a system developed by University of Utah computer scientists Photo by: Juliana Freire and Claudio Silva, University of Utah

A two-year experiment to build a framework to analyze the massive amount of data scientists are collecting will push research to better understand our planet, our bodies and the limits of the Internet.

The National Science Foundation initiative called Cluster Exploratory or the CLuE program is a partnership between I.B.M. and Google to put scientists to work solving the problem of how to deal with so much information.

The answer? Cloud computing. Using virtual locations online to cope with the large data stream will allow science to answer some big and complex questions.

Top 8 in the Science Cloud:

Sloan Digital Sky Survey–obtained deep, multi-color images covering more than a quarter of the sky and created 3-dimensional maps containing more than 930,000 galaxies and more than 120,000 quasars.

Visible Human–is an anatomical data set licensed from the National Library of Medicine, Visible Human Project.

IRIS Seismology Database–allows you to monitor global earthquakes in near real-time, visit seismic stations around the world, and search the web for earthquake or region-related information.

Protein Data Bank–contains information about experimentally-determined structures of proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies.

Linguistic Data Consortium–supports language-related education, research and technology development by creating and sharing linguistic resources.

TerraFly–View images and data anywhere in the United States and in much of the World.

Large Synoptic Survey Telescope–A large aperture, wide field survey telescope and 3200 Megapixel camera to image faint astronomical objects across the sky.

Open Topography–provides integrated access to high-resolution topographic data and web-based processing tools as well as enables its user community to share knowledge, resources and build science collaborations.

There is a lot of buzz about biodiversity these days. But new wasp research is showing it’s not just the number of species present that indicates a healthy system. But there also must be diversity in what each species can do.

Washington State University researchers looked to parasitic wasps (the ones that inspired the creature in Alien) to help prove the theory.

Among all the options to help tame carbon dioxide emissions, few people can see the forest for the trees.

But a team of ecologists at Ohio State University is quantifying how much carbon can be stored in North American forests.