ProPup Planet: Beavers, Birds, Whales, Clouds, Dino Sex Predators

Less than one percent of the world’s oceans are currently protected, compared to about 12 percent of the planet's land surface.  Carl Gustaf Lundin, Head of IUCN’s Global Marine Program, says that closing selected marine areas to fishing or other extractive uses makes economic sense.  (And he has the data to prove it.)

Scientists with the Encyclopedia of Life are asking people around the world to help compile an Internet-based observatory of life on earth as a guide to everything from the impact of climate change on wildlife to pests that can damage crops.  James Edwards, the head of EOL, said scientific organizations were already working to link up thousands of computer databases of animals and plants into a one-stop "virtual observatory" that could be similar to global systems for monitoring the weather or earthquakes.  (Submitting Nutty and his Sisters...)

Just tens of miles from Carnegie Hall in New York City,  blue whales are singing.  And Susan Boyle has been invited to perform for President Obama next month on Independence Day. 

Scientists are tracking emperor penguins from space by zeroing in on their poop.  Using satellite images, researchers found 10 new colonies of penguins, six colonies that had moved from previously mapped positions to new spots and another six that seemed to have disappeared.  Apparently penguin turds show up as reddish brown streaks against the colorless sea ice. 

The season's first noctilucent or "night shining" clouds have appeared in the Northern Hemisphere.  These blue opalescent vapors can be seen briefly before dawn as the sun illuminates them from below the horizon.  They are the rarest clouds to form in Earth's atmosphere, floating dozens of miles higher than other clouds.  In recent decades their numbers have been increasing due to the cyclical decline in solar activity and an overabundance of greenhouse gasses.

Four police officers in Trinidad intercepted a smuggling boat at gunpoint and then stole 1,000 endangered birds and monkeys along with 400 pounds of wild animal meat.  Officials said the four officers face several charges including possession of protected animals without a permit.  Birds and monkeys are protected species under the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species, which requires licenses for importing and exporting.  Veterinarians at Trinidad's main zoo are caring for the recovered creatures.  (May these officers rot in jail.)

More than four hundred years after being hunted to extinction on the British Isles, beaver families from Norway have been reintroduced into the United Kingdom.  The beavers are busily building lodges in the Knapdale Forest of Scotland. 

Bird species on the planet are in serious decline.  The International Union for the Conservation of Nature cites habitat loss and climate change as the main threats to avian biodiversity.  "In global terms, things continue to get worse," says Leon Bennun, director of BirdLife International. "But there are some real conservation success stories this year to give us hope and point the way forward."  IUCN reports that at least three bird species have been upgraded from "critically endangered" to "endangered" due to habitat protection initiatives.

Scientist, Interrupted has a great ongoing series called "Birds in the News."  Her most recent installment can be found here.  (I just love this blog.)

And finally... if anyone wondered whatever happened to CNN news anchor Bobbie Battista (whom I find inexplicably captivating), she is settling in nicely at the Onion Network with an exclusive story about the world's first sexual predator - a dinosaur called, irresistibly, the Pervatasaurus: