AFP UK

Can rock and roll keep people safe from bear attacks? One Japanese region is hoping so, and has commissioned a cautionary anthem warning residents about the threat of its ursine inhabitants.

Bears are common across Japan and regularly spark frantic hunts when they venture into towns, where they have attacked and even killed residents.

A spike in the number of bear sightings in rural northern Japan has been met with a novel response: the Iwate prefecture government has commissioned a rock song that will be belted out across the region.

“So you think bear cubs are cute?” the song lyrics begin, as screaming guitars and pounding drums play in the background.

“Discard that naive way of thinking! Nearby that cub is a parent bear, and it’ll suddenly attack you! Roar, roar, roar, roar, roar, roar — it’ll suddenly attack you!”

The track was written and performed by a pair of local sexagenarian rockers and offers sobering advice such as “never turn your back and run away”, and “trying to play dead doesn’t work”.

Singer Yuuzen Taguchi, 69, said such advice served him well on the one occasion he encountered a bear near a field.

“It’s very frightening when one just appears before you,” he told AFP.

“You want to run away, but my grandparents told me years ago that if you ever encounter a bear, don’t turn around and just back away slowly,” he added.

“I was taught that rural knowledge that comes from co-existing with bears when I was a kid.”

There were more than 3,300 bear sightings in Iwate prefecture last year, up from just 700 in 2017.

Authorities hope the song, which is playing at local roadside shopping centres until October 31, will teach people how to stay safe.

Songwriter Kaoru Toudou, 61, said he originally wrote it as a blues number.

But Taguchi, who has played in bands for the past 50 years, gave it an uptempo rock twist when he added his howling vocals.

“It’s said that bears are timid creatures, so I think if one heard the song playing outside, it would run away,” Toudou said.

“That’s the power of rock and roll.”

Australia’s Daintree rainforest has been returned to its Indigenous owners as the government begins to cede control of the world’s oldest tropical forest.

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed Daintree National Park — a 135-million-year-old tropical rainforest — was handed back to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people in a ceremony in the remote town of Bloomfield on Wednesday.

The vast and steamy jungle is teeming with ancient and rare species — from a giant clawed cassowary bird to plants that have existed since the age of the dinosaurs.

Eastern Kuku Yalanji traditional owner Chrissy Grant said the move was a historic event that put the community “in control of our own destinies”.

In total, 160,000 hectares (about 395,000 acres) of land on the Cape York peninsula — the northeast tip of Australia — is being returned to the area’s traditional Aboriginal owners as part of reconciliation measures.

British settlers arrived in Australia in 1788, colonising the continent and leaving Aboriginal groups marginalised.

The national parks will initially be jointly managed with the Queensland state government, before being transferred into the sole care of the Indigenous group.

Grant said a foundation would be created to provide training and employment for local First Nations people in areas such as land management, tourism and research.

Queensland state environment minister Meaghan Scanlon said the return of lands was a key step on the path toward reconciliation after an “uncomfortable and ugly” past.

“The Eastern Kuku Yalanji people’s culture is one of the world’s oldest living cultures and this agreement recognises their right to own and manage their country, to protect their culture and to share it with visitors as they become leaders in the tourism industry,” she said.

The government has handed back control of 3.8 million hectares on Cape York to Indigenous traditional owners to date, she added.

Australia’s Daintree rainforest has been returned to its Indigenous owners as the government begins to cede control of the world’s oldest tropical forest.

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed Daintree National Park — a 135-million-year-old tropical rainforest — was handed back to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people in a ceremony in the remote town of Bloomfield on Wednesday.

The vast and steamy jungle is teeming with ancient and rare species — from a giant clawed cassowary bird to plants that have existed since the age of the dinosaurs.

Eastern Kuku Yalanji traditional owner Chrissy Grant said the move was a historic event that put the community “in control of our own destinies”.

In total, 160,000 hectares (about 395,000 acres) of land on the Cape York peninsula — the northeast tip of Australia — is being returned to the area’s traditional Aboriginal owners as part of reconciliation measures.

British settlers arrived in Australia in 1788, colonising the continent and leaving Aboriginal groups marginalised.

The national parks will initially be jointly managed with the Queensland state government, before being transferred into the sole care of the Indigenous group.

Grant said a foundation would be created to provide training and employment for local First Nations people in areas such as land management, tourism and research.

Queensland state environment minister Meaghan Scanlon said the return of lands was a key step on the path toward reconciliation after an “uncomfortable and ugly” past.

“The Eastern Kuku Yalanji people’s culture is one of the world’s oldest living cultures and this agreement recognises their right to own and manage their country, to protect their culture and to share it with visitors as they become leaders in the tourism industry,” she said.

The government has handed back control of 3.8 million hectares on Cape York to Indigenous traditional owners to date, she added.

At a laboratory in central Florida, biologist Aaron Gavin uses tiny pipettes to carefully feed shrimp to more than 700 corals living in huge saltwater tanks, with sunlight-mimicking lamps glowing above them.

The work of the scientists here could be the last chance to save the species that make up the only coral reef in the United States’ continental waters. 

Gavin and his team have diligently recreated the coral reef habitat found in the waters off the southern tip of the state, complete with artificial currents and local fish.

They hope to prevent the 18 species of coral in their care from suffering the same mysterious ailment, called SCTLD (stony coral tissue loss disease), that is afflicting their wild cousins.

Among the sprawling mangroves and darting schools of fish off the Florida Keys, the damaged corals — normally dark — now appear as large white patches on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

The situation is the same all along the Florida Reef Tract, which stretches 360 miles (580 kilometers) from the Dry Tortugas, which are the westernmost islands in the Florida Keys, all the way to the town of St Lucie, located about 120 miles north of Miami. 

“It’s heartbreaking, and I think the most alarming (thing) about it is that most people don’t know it’s happening,” said Michelle Ashton, the communications director of the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida. 

– Rescue –

What Gavin and his colleagues discover at the Florida Coral Rescue Center could change the future of the state’s marine ecosystems.

“We are holding the corals safely and healthy in our care,” explained Justin Zimmerman, the director of the Orlando-based lab, which opened in 2020 and is managed by aquatic theme park company SeaWorld. 

“If they were still in the wild, up to 90 percent of them would have been dead,” Zimmerman said. 

The potentially catastrophic SCTLD was first discovered in 2014, near Miami, and has continued to spread rapidly, killing about half of stony coral species, a cornerstone of marine biodiversity. 

The disease, whose causes are unknown, is now plaguing the animals further into the Caribbean, all the way in Mexico and Belize. 

The rescue lab’s work is part of a project created in 2018 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and includes dozens of public and private organizations. 

The group, faced with the threat of more than 20 of the 45 species of hard corals in the area going extinct, devised the unprecedented plan to extract healthy corals from the region’s waters and care for them in these artificially equipped aquariums in the hope they can be returned to their wild habitats in the future. 

“You are looking at the future of Florida Reef Tract in this room,” Aston said of the corals in the Orlando aquariums. “And their grandchildren will be what goes back out to the water.”

– Return to the sea –

The first part of the rescue plan has allowed wildlife authorities to save nearly 2,000 colonies of corals, now stored at more than 20 institutions in 14 different states. 

The second part of the plan requires researchers to successfully return the corals to the ocean — though such an operation would likely take place a long time from now, as corals reproduce very slowly. 

The scientists are studying the genetics of the rescued animals in an effort to cultivate new specimens that could be more resistant to disease, as well as other threats such as warming water temperatures and pollution. 

The success or failure of these endeavors could have huge consequences for the region. 

Stony corals, made up of limestone skeletons, are what create coral reefs, which in turn provide a home for a quarter of marine life. 

Plus, the structures are natural barriers between the open ocean and land, reducing the strength of waves that hit the coastline, especially during hurricanes and other storms. 

And a hit to coral health could mean a hit to Florida tourism revenue, as one study estimated that visitors drawn to the state for fishing and diving along the reef generate $8.5 billion. 

Key Largo resident Steve Campbell, 59, is worried about what comes next. He is sitting next to the small tourist boat he captains, currently anchored in the port. 

He said the coral disease has already had an impact on his business. 

“I’ve been in the Florida Keys now for 20 years, and I’m out on the water every day,” he said. 

“Obviously we make our living out here, so we take people out to the reef for the enjoyment of seeing the reef.”

“So for us it’s extremely important.”

The United States on Wednesday declared 23 species extinct, including one of the world’s largest woodpeckers, dubbed the “Lord God Bird.”

The announcement came via the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which proposed to remove the birds, mussels, fish, as well as a plant and fruit bat from Endangered Species Act protections because government scientists have given up on ever finding them again.

“With climate change and natural area loss pushing more and more species to the brink, now is the time to lift up proactive, collaborative, and innovative efforts to save America’s wildlife,” said interior secretary Deb Haaland in a statement.

Perhaps the most iconic of the species was the Ivory-billed woodpecker, with the last indisputable evidence of its existence coming in the 1940s.

Noted for its striking black-and-white plumage, pointed crest and lemon-yellow eye, it has been something of Holy Grail for birders in recent decades, with numerous unconfirmed sightings over the years in the southeastern US.

“The fundamental thing that drove the woodpecker down to near extinction was the loss of the southeastern first growth forests, which really started taking place after the Civil War,” John Fitzpatrick, director emeritus of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, told AFP.

Fitzpatrick was part of efforts to search for the bird in Arkansas and other regions in the mid-2000s — but added that, while he agreed with the government about its decision regarding the other bird species, he believed there is still hope for the woodpecker.

“Every decade there have been reasonably credible reports coming out of the US, and in the 1980s out of Cuba, that it still existed,” he said.

The species was revered not just by Alexander Wilson and John James Audobon, considered the founding fathers of ornithology, but also by collectors who hunted them.

Its nickname, “Lord God Bird,” was said to be derived from the expression “Lord God, what a bird,” said Fitzpatrick.

Other species declared extinct include Bachman’s warbler, a songbird last documented in Cuba in 1981, and eight species of freshwater mussel, which rely on healthy streams and clean reliable water.

Eleven species from Hawai’i and Guam are included in the list, including the Kauai akialoa and nukupu’u, known for their long, curved beaks, and Kauai ‘o’o that was said to have a haunting call. 

Also lost was San Marcos gambusia, a freshwater fish from Texas last spotted in 1983.

– Climate pressure –

Despite the sad news, Fitzpatrick said there was some cause for optimism. 

Since it was enacted in 1973, the Endangered Species Act has prevented the extinction of 99 percent of plants and animals under its care.

These include bird species like the whooping crane, which numbered as few as 16 individuals in the 1940s but have since recovered to 500 or 600.

On the other hand, today’s endangered species also have to contend with the pressures of climate change. 

Saltmarsh sparrows for example live in coastal marshes that are being rapidly disrupted by sea level rise.

Tiera Curry, a senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity, praised President Joe Biden’s administration for requesting a hefty $60 million increase in endangered species protections, but criticized the fact a new FWS director had yet to be appointed.

“Extinction is not inevitable. It is a political choice. Saving species isn’t rocket science. As a country we need to stand up and say we aren’t going to lose any more species to extinction,” she said.

Virgin Galactic said Wednesday it had been cleared for spaceflight after the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) concluded a probe into a safety “mishap” related to its high-profile mission in July that featured company founder Richard Branson.

The FAA told the company it had accepted its proposed corrective actions related to the flight, which saw the SpaceShipTwo vehicle drop below its assigned airspace during its descent back to its runway at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic will update its calculations for future flights and request more airspace, and promised real-time communication with the FAA during flight operations, the company said.

“Our entire approach to spaceflight is guided by a fundamental commitment to safety at every level, including our spaceflight system and our test flight program,” said CEO Michael Colglazier in a statement.

“We appreciate the FAA’s thorough review of this inquiry. Our test flight program is specifically designed to continually improve our processes and procedures.”

The FAA grounded Virgin Galactic earlier this month after an investigative report in The New Yorker said the flight experienced irregularities that could have jeopardized the mission.

The article said the pilots encountered cockpit warnings indicating the rocket-powered spaceplane’s climb was too shallow and the nose was insufficiently vertical.

This could have meant that, after taking its crew to the edge of space, it would have lacked sufficient energy to glide back to its runway on Earth.

In the end, the vessel did land on the runway, but its altitude fell lower than it should have.

An FAA statement confirmed it had closed its “mishap investigation.”

“The FAA also found Virgin Galactic failed to communicate the deviation to the FAA as required,” the statement said — a line that suggests the agency only learned of the irregularity through the article in The New Yorker.

Virgin Galactic is planning its next test flight, with members of the Italian air force, around mid-October.

The replacement Line 3 pipeline — the first new conduit from Canada’s oil sands to US refineries built in years — is “substantially completed” and will be ready to move oil starting Friday, Enbridge announced.

The Can$7.3 billion project had faced pushback from environmental activists and indigenous groups, but it was much less controversial than other proposed pipeline projects that failed to be green lit.

“With new state-of-the-art, thicker-walled pipe, its completion ensures a safe, reliable supply of North American crude oil to U.S. refineries, helping fuel the quality of life for millions of people,” Enbridge said in a statement.

“We’re thrilled” it’ll start moving oil after “a long process” to get it built, with the first shipments likely early next week, Enbridge chief communications officer Mike Fernandez told AFP.

The 1,765-kilometre-long (1,097-mile) pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin replaces a deteriorating pipeline built in the 1960s, and doubles its capacity to 760,000 barrels per day.

Opponents had argued the project would worsen climate change and increase risks of spills in waters where indigenous Americans harvest wild rice.

Hundreds of protestors were arrested or ticketed during its construction, while court challenges failed.

At the same time, Enbridge sought to enlist indigenous support by hiring from local tribes and pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars to support their communities.

In a statement, Enbridge noted that tribal monitors supervised construction of the pipeline, and in a first-of-its-kind survey Chippewa tribal cultural experts “walked the full route identifying and recording significant cultural resources to be avoided.”

Pierre-Olivier Pineau, an energy expert at HEC Montreal business school said Line 3 “is the first project in a long time to boost Canada’s oil export capacity.”

In turn, he said, that could help Canadian producers “get a better price for their oil,” which now sells at a discount because of landlocked Alberta’s limited transportation access to world markets.

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, but proposals for new pipelines have faced increasing opposition and regulatory delays in recent decades amid the climate crisis.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the Line 3 project as well as the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast, which his government later bought to keep the construction project afloat.

His administration, however, rejected a third new pipeline across British Columbia’s temperate rainforest, while US President Joe Biden cancelled permits for the Canada-US Keystone XL pipeline.

And the company behind a Canadian east-west pipeline from Alberta to Atlantic coast refineries and ports, that would have been the longest in North America, abandoned the project.

The replacement Line 3 pipeline — the first new conduit from Canada’s oil sands to US refineries built in years — is “substantially completed” and will be ready to move oil starting Friday, Enbridge announced.

The Can$7.3 billion project had faced pushback from environmental activists and indigenous groups, but it was much less controversial than other proposed pipeline projects that failed to be green lit.

“With new state-of-the-art, thicker-walled pipe, its completion ensures a safe, reliable supply of North American crude oil to U.S. refineries, helping fuel the quality of life for millions of people,” Enbridge said in a statement.

“We’re thrilled” it’ll start moving oil after “a long process” to get it built, with the first shipments likely early next week, Enbridge chief communications officer Mike Fernandez told AFP.

The 1,765-kilometre-long (1,097-mile) pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin replaces a deteriorating pipeline built in the 1960s, and doubles its capacity to 760,000 barrels per day.

Opponents had argued the project would worsen climate change and increase risks of spills in waters where indigenous Americans harvest wild rice.

Hundreds of protestors were arrested or ticketed during its construction, while court challenges failed.

At the same time, Enbridge sought to enlist indigenous support by hiring from local tribes and pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars to support their communities.

In a statement, Enbridge noted that tribal monitors supervised construction of the pipeline, and in a first-of-its-kind survey Chippewa tribal cultural experts “walked the full route identifying and recording significant cultural resources to be avoided.”

Pierre-Olivier Pineau, an energy expert at HEC Montreal business school said Line 3 “is the first project in a long time to boost Canada’s oil export capacity.”

In turn, he said, that could help Canadian producers “get a better price for their oil,” which now sells at a discount because of landlocked Alberta’s limited transportation access to world markets.

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, but proposals for new pipelines have faced increasing opposition and regulatory delays in recent decades amid the climate crisis.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the Line 3 project as well as the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast, which his government later bought to keep the construction project afloat.

His administration, however, rejected a third new pipeline across British Columbia’s temperate rainforest, while US President Joe Biden cancelled permits for the Canada-US Keystone XL pipeline.

And the company behind a Canadian east-west pipeline from Alberta to Atlantic coast refineries and ports, that would have been the longest in North America, abandoned the project.

The replacement Line 3 pipeline — the first new conduit from Canada’s oil sands to US refineries built in years — is “substantially completed” and will be ready to move oil starting Friday, Enbridge announced.

The Can$7.3 billion project had faced pushback from environmental activists and indigenous groups, but it was much less controversial than other proposed pipeline projects that failed to be green lit.

“With new state-of-the-art, thicker-walled pipe, its completion ensures a safe, reliable supply of North American crude oil to U.S. refineries, helping fuel the quality of life for millions of people,” Enbridge said in a statement.

The 1,765-kilometre-long (1,097-mile) pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin replaces a deteriorating pipeline built in the 1960s, and doubles its capacity to 760,000 barrels per day.

Opponents had argued the project would worsen climate change and increase risks of spills in waters where indigenous Americans harvest wild rice.

Hundreds of protestors were arrested or ticketed during its construction, while court challenges failed.

At the same time, Enbridge sought to enlist indigenous support by hiring from local tribes and pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars to support their communities.

In a statement, Enbridge noted that tribal monitors supervised construction of the pipeline, and in a first-of-its-kind survey Chippewa tribal cultural experts “walked the full route identifying and recording significant cultural resources to be avoided.”

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, but proposals for new pipelines have faced increasing opposition and regulatory delays but in recent decades amid the climate crisis. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the Line 3 project as well as the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast, which his government later bought to keep the construction project afloat.

His administration, however, rejected a third new pipeline across British Columbia’s temperate rainforest, while US President Joe Biden cancelled permits for the Canada-US Keystone XL pipeline.

And the company behind a Canadian east-west pipeline from Alberta to Atlantic coast refineries and ports, that would have been the longest in North America, abandoned the project.

The United States on Wednesday declared 23 species extinct, including one of the world’s largest woodpeckers, dubbed the “Lord God Bird.”

The announcement came via the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which proposed to remove the birds, mussels, fish, as well as a plant and fruit bat from Endangered Species Act protections because government scientists have given up on ever finding them again.

“With climate change and natural area loss pushing more and more species to the brink, now is the time to lift up proactive, collaborative, and innovative efforts to save America’s wildlife,” said interior secretary Deb Haaland in a statement.

Perhaps the most iconic of the species was the Ivory-billed woodpecker, with the last indisputable evidence of its existence coming in the 1940s.

Noted for its striking black-and-white plumage, pointed crest and lemon-yellow eye, it has been something of Holy Grail for birders in recent decades, with numerous unconfirmed sightings over the years in the southeastern US.

“The fundamental thing that drove the woodpecker down to near extinction was the loss of the southeastern first growth forests, which really started taking place after the Civil War,” John Fitzpatrick, director emeritus of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, told AFP.

Fitzpatrick was part of efforts to search for the bird in Arkansas and other regions in the mid-2000s — but added that, while he agreed with the government about its decision regarding the other bird species, he believed there is still hope for the woodpecker.

“Every decade there have been reasonably credible reports coming out of the US, and in the 1980s out of Cuba, that it still existed,” he said.

The species was revered not just by Alexander Wilson and John James Audobon, considered the founding fathers of ornithology, but also by collectors who hunted them.

Its nickname, “Lord God Bird,” was said to be derived from the expression “Lord God, what a bird,” said Fitzpatrick.

Other species declared extinct include Bachman’s warbler, a songbird last documented in Cuba in 1981, and eight species of freshwater mussel, which rely on healthy streams and clean reliable water.

Eleven species from Hawai’i and Guam are included in the list, including the Kauai akialoa and nukupu’u, known for their long, curved beaks, and Kauai ‘o’o that was said to have a haunting call. 

Also lost was San Marcos gambusia, a freshwater fish from Texas last spotted in 1983.

– Climate pressure –

Despite the sad news, Fitzpatrick said there was some cause for optimism. 

Since it was enacted in 1973, the Endangered Species Act has prevented the extinction of 99 percent of plants and animals under its care.

These include bird species like the whooping crane, which numbered as few as 16 individuals in the 1940s but have since recovered to 500 or 600.

On the other hand, today’s endangered species also have to contend with the pressures of climate change. 

Saltmarsh sparrows for example live in coastal marshes that are being rapidly disrupted by sea level rise.

Tiera Curry, a senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity, praised President Joe Biden’s administration for requesting a hefty $60 million increase in endangered species protections, but criticized the fact a new FWS director had yet to be appointed.

“Extinction is not inevitable. It is a political choice. Saving species isn’t rocket science. As a country we need to stand up and say we aren’t going to lose any more species to extinction,” she said.