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Message from Martha Species Threatened Today |
The compelling film about a beautiful bird driven extinct in just decades— and the threats to species today |
| Many scientists are convinced that we are already in the early to mid-stages of the earth’s sixth mass extinction. Climate change, habitat loss, direct take and introduced species lead the way as factors contributing to this growing crisis. A recent British study revealed that birds are the best group to track current extinction rates, and those rates may be ten times faster than records suggest. Current Human Impact on Marine Life Focusing on aquatic systems, another team of scientists recently warned that if current trends of over fishing and pollution continue, we face a worldwide seafood collapse by 2048. We’ll meet marine biologists like Dr. Dennis Pauly of the University of British Columbia and Boris Worm of the University of Nova Scotia, both engaged in groundbreaking science aimed at both better understanding human impacts on ocean life and assessing alternative approaches to protecting ocean habitat and marine species. Worm’s latest study reveals that sharks are seriously endangered due to becoming “bycatch,” and for being fished for their fins and for seafood.. Man and the Destructive White Nose Syndrome The situation for North American bat species is especially dire. We’ll also meet scientists like Bucknell University’s DeeAnn Reeder, who is in a race to save several species from White Nose Syndrome, a fungus that many believe was introduced into bat habitats by humans. A 2010 study in the journal Science predicted that the little brown bat, once the most common North American bat species, may be extinct in the Eastern United States in 16 years. But There Are Success Stories. The charismatic whooping crane has been successfully bred from a low of 21 birds in the 1940s to around 599 today, using low tech but ingenious bird puppetry to imprint the young birds, as well as the latest genetic testing. We will meet biologist Jeb Barzen at the International Crane Foundation, who will show how scientists in multiple countries are helping to move the crane onto solid ground, away from the precipice. But the whooping crane’s ultimate fate is still an open question. Yesterday We Just Didn't Know... But Today? Thomas Kunz of Boston University looks to the not so distant past for a comparison. “I think you have to go back to the 1800s, to the loss of the passenger pigeon, to find something similar. And then, we didn’t know what we were doing.” See a sky of passenger pigeons recreated— |
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 With prices for a single tuna topping $390,000, there is little incentive for fisherman to stop catching them until they’re gone. |
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 From 21 birds in the 1940s, human assistance has increased the number to almost 600. |
