I have to wonder when I see what readers respond to in our comments section. I guess the Herald does the same thing: tries to predict the interests of its readers.Look at what the Miami Herald thinks you want to read about: a murdering wife. They do all kinds of focus groups. This is what you have told them readers: this is what you are interested in. (Hit on image to enlarge and look at the very small story in the right column).
You would rather read about a murderer in Tennessee then about shocking news that actually is going to effect your relatives in the future. Thousands of walruses stampede to their death - this is shocking not the murders. Global Warming is something that you might possibly be able to change in your own backyard if you cared. Do you care about the future of the planet? Tell the Miami Herald that you want to read quality news stories.
I was told the Christmas bird count in the Everglades is down and scientists agree endagered bird species are facing extinction, South Dade drinking water is in short supply but the two guys in Tennessee: Dead. No chance of going back to fix that one.
5 comments:
Loss of sea ice leads to walrus stampede
Sat, December 15, 2007
By DAN JOLING, AP
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA -- In what some scientists see as another alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes earlier this year after the disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in extraordinary numbers.
The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia.
"It was a pretty sobering year -- tough on walruses," said Joel Garlach-Miller, a walrus expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Unlike seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely. The giant, tusked mammals typically clamber onto the sea ice to rest, or haul themselves onto land for just a few weeks at a time.
But ice disappeared in the Chukchi Sea this year because of warm summer weather, ocean currents and persistent eastern winds, Garlach-Miller said.
As a result, walruses came ashore earlier and stayed longer, congregating in extremely high numbers, with herds as big as 40,000 at Point Shmidt, a spot that had not been used by walruses as a "haulout" for a century, scientists said.
Walruses are vulnerable to stampedes when they gather in such large numbers. The appearance of a polar bear, a hunter or a low-flying airplane can send them rushing to the water.
Sure enough, scientists received reports of hundreds of walruses dead of internal injuries suffered in stampedes. Many of the youngest and weakest animals, mostly calves born in the spring, were crushed.
Biologist Anatoly Kochnev of Russia's Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography estimated 3,000 to 4,000 walruses out of population of perhaps 200,000 died -- or two or three times the usual number on shoreline haulouts.
He said the animals only started appearing on shore for extended periods in the late 1990s, after the sea ice receded.
"The reason is the global warming," Kochnev said.
The reports match predictions of what might happen to walruses if the ice receded, said wildlife biologist Tony Fischbach of the U.S. Geological Survey.
"We were surprised this was happening so soon, and we were surprised at the magnitude of the report," he said.
Scientists said the death of so many walruses is alarming in itself. But if the trend continues, and walruses no longer have summer sea ice from which to dive for clams and snails, they could strip coastal areas of food, and that could reduce their numbers even further.
No large-scale walrus die-offs were seen in Alaska during the same period, apparently because the animals congregated in smaller groups on the American side of the Bering Strait, with the biggest known herd at about 2,500.
What people comment about isn't always an indication of what they're most interested in.
But you're facing a losing battle if you think that stories about the environment--albeit their importance--are ever going to get the same press as a gory murder. Hasn't the newspaper business always been this way?
Not in the New York Times.
I did not even see that itsy bitsy teeny weeny article. I glanced at the large article and because it was of no interest to me I just went on turning pages. I realize the Bush administration would like to see the info on global warming completely invisable but I would have thought that the main newspare in town would realize that there are more than a few of us who the insanity of George W. Perhaps it is time to drop my subscription to the Herald. Normally I would hate to loose the comics but the way they have been messing with even the comics in an effort to make them available to the great unwashed masses, they are getting more stupid all the time. Even George W could read them now.
The walrus story is interesting and the artic appears to be going through a warming period of late. But temperature fluctuations and extinctions have been a constant in this planet's 4 1/2 billion year history. And there has been no measurable change in temperature in Miami over the last 20 years. Please don't worry. We will all be fine.
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