The Slick Alberta Moonscape

Syncrude Tailings Pond
Originally uploaded by Stop the Tar Sands

Ah the joys of tar sand oil production.

In the news Wednesday it was reported how 500 ducks were killed by flying into a Syncrude tailings pond. Now it's not that I have a overwhelming love for ducks (they're alright, I like 'em well enough but they're no bees), but this event does highlight the environmental disaster that is oil sands reclamation.

Here's my proposal - let's get a handle on our greenhouse gas targets and figure out how to cleanly get the oil. If it takes until oil is $200 a barrel I don't think that's a bad thing.

Saying Goodbye to BC Salmon

Four years from now wild pink salmon may vanish from Canada's Broughton Archipelago, a new study warns.

The killers, according to the research, are sea lice from fish farms.

Scientists previously demonstrated that juvenile wild pink salmon often catch lethal sea lice infestations when they swim through areas where salmon are raised in open-net farms.

Now for the first time researchers have used a data-driven model to calculate the impact on the wild salmon population.

>> Hey, Lobby to ban open-net farms! Stop eating farmed salmon!

Vote for Mr Splashy Pants!

It's not a name that's going to fit in a Waits track, but "Mr Splashy Pants" is the most popular proposed name for a humpback whale that Greenpeace is tracking. In fact, he's massively ahead in polling with 76% of the vote. A Mr Splashy Pants "T" would be a great Christmas Present (Neal).

Bees build hive in Bell Jar

This slideshow of bees building a hive is pretty cool!

Gorillas critically endangered.

The Red List of Threatened Species for 2007 names habitat loss, hunting and climate change among the causes.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has identified more than 16,000 species threatened with extinction, while prospects have brightened for only one.

The IUCN says there is a lack of political will to tackle the global erosion of nature.

The main changes from previous assessments include some of the natural world's iconic animals, such as the western lowland gorilla, which moves from the Endangered to the Critically Endangered category.

Numbers have declined by more than 60% over the last 20-25 years.