Dear Supporter:

This summer, we invited the public to help choose the best cartoon in Science Idol: the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest http://ucsaction.org/ct/Z1cZuqn1tY6h/ . And after tens of thousands of votes were cast, Justin Bilicki of Brooklyn, New York, came out on top with this cartoon:



"Cartoons are intended to start the conversation about important issues," says Justin, who works full time in advertising and part time as an editorial cartoonist. "A good cartoon breaks through the criticism and motivates people to come up with solutions."

And new this year, the original watercolor print of the winning cartoon is being auctioned off by the artist http://ucsaction.org/ct/K7cZuqn1tY6U/ , with all proceeds going to UCS. Bidding closes August 30.

Justin entered the contest because "it has become increasingly difficult to trust anything or anyone associated with power." Learn more about Justin Bilicki http://ucsaction.org/ct/ZdcZuqn1tY6n/ and his work and see all 12 finalists plus two previously unpublished cartoons. http://ucsaction.org/ct/Z7cZuqn1tY68/

Pre-Order Your 2009 Scientific Integrity Calendar
Justin's cartoon will grace the cover of next year's scientific integrity calendar http://ucsaction.org/ct/KpcZuqn1tY6y/ featuring all 12 finalists plus several bonus cartoons. The calendar is a fantastic gift for scientists and non-scientists alike who want to help us ensure that the next president takes steps to stop the suppression, distortion, and manipulation of science.

Calendars are just $10 each, with discounts for UCS members and bulk orders. And all profits go directly back into our work, including efforts to restore scientific integrity to federal policy making. Pre-order your 2009 Scientific Integrity calendar today! http://ucsaction.org/ct/KpcZuqn1tY6y/

If you own a bookstore or other retail outlet and would like to sell the calendar in your establishment, contact Emily Neaville. mailto:eneaville@ucsusa.org

We'll continue to keep you informed about ways you can help defend science from political interference through the end of the Bush administration and into the next. In the meantime, enjoy the cartoons and the calendar!

Sincerely,

Michael Halpern
National Field Organizer
UCS Scientific Integrity Program

P.S. You may have read recently about a last-minute Bush administration attempt to cut science from the Endangered Species Act http://ucsaction.org/ct/KdcZuqn1tY6E/ . We're monitoring the situation and will soon let you know about how you can most effectively oppose these changes.

http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/a/w/1152/08-12-2008/20080812003...


Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008

Bush wants some endangered species rules extinct

WASHINGTON (AP) - Just months before President Bush leaves office, his administration is antagonizing environmentalists by proposing changes that would allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether subdivisions, dams, highways and other projects have the potential to harm endangered animals and plants.

The proposal, first reported by The Associated Press, would cut out the advice of government scientists who have been weighing in on such decisions for 35 years. Agencies also could not consider a project's contribution to global warming in their analysis.

Reaction was swift from Democrats and environmental groups.

The chairman of the House committee that oversees the Interior Department, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said he was "deeply troubled." Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., head of the Senate's environment committee, said Bush's plan was illegal. Environmentalists complained the proposals would gut protections for endangered animals and plants.

"This proposed rule ... gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act," Rahall said.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne defended the revisions, saying they were needed to ensure that the Endangered Species Act would not be used as a "back door" to regulate the gases blamed for global warming.

If approved, the changes would represent the biggest overhaul of endangered species regulations since 1986 and accomplish through rules what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.

In May, the polar bear became the first species declared as threatened because of climate change. Warming temperatures are expected to melt the sea ice the bear depends on for survival.

"We need to focus our efforts where they will do the most good," Kempthorne said in a news conference arranged hastily after the AP reported details of the proposal. "It is important to use our time and resources to protect the most vulnerable species. It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species."

The rule changes unveiled Monday would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize that the agency itself determines is unlikely to harm endangered wildlife and their habitat. Government wildlife experts currently participate in tens of thousands of such reviews each year.

The revisions also would limit which effects can be considered harmful and set a 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project when they are asked to become involved. If no decision is made within 60 days, the project can move ahead.

"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.

Under current law, federal agencies must consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a project is likely to jeopardize any endangered species or to damage habitat, even if no harm seems likely. This initial review usually results in accommodations that better protect the 1,353 animals and plants in the U.S. listed as threatened or endangered and determines whether a more formal analysis is warranted.

The new rules were expected to be formally proposed in the next couple of days, officials said. They would be subject to a 30-day public comment period before being finalized by the Interior and Commerce departments. That would give the administration enough time to impose the rules before November's presidential election. A new administration could freeze any pending regulations or reverse them, a process that could take months. Congress could also overturn the rules through legislation, but that could take even longer.

Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.

Some federal agencies and private developers say that process has killed or delayed some worthwhile projects.

"Over the years, the Endangered Species Act has become a regulatory nightmare that kills or stalls even the most well-crafted land-use projects," said Rob Rivett, president of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a group that supports property rights and limited government. "The economy suffers, people suffer, rational environmental planning suffers. Some careful streamlining is long overdue."

---

On the Net:

Fish and Wildlife Service: http://www.fws.gov/endangered

National Marine Fisheries Service: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/esa/

National Wildlife Federation: http://www.nwf.org/news
2008-08-12 07:19:30 GMT

Copyright 2008. The Associated Press All Rights Reserved.

'They're Like Us,' Elephant Researchers Say
From Kenya to Tennessee, Elephants With PTSD Symptoms Are Finding Some Peace

By KIMBERLY LAUNIER
July 24, 2008

There is something startling about an elephant's eyes.
Some elephants in captivity are experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5446027

Their fiery amber color seems to blaze against the surrounding skin's burlap creases. An ancient face, lined with history, but it is the eyes that convey the generational knowledge of the species. They offer a glimpse into what researchers now say is a surprising level of consciousness. It is one of many reasons why the place elephants hold in our imaginations is both epic, and wondrous.

"There are things about elephants that seem so similar to us. Their family life, their emotional life, the fact that they grieve. They stand out from other animals," said Gay Bradshaw, director of a research institute called The Kerulos Center.

'They're Like Us'

Field scientists have studied the special bonds of elephant herds for decades. Family members mourn their dead, even gently caressing the jawbones of their ancestors during grieving rituals.

Filmmakers have also documented moments of pachyderm heroism, as when a herd of adult females rescued a baby elephant that had fallen into a mud hole, remarkably forming their own team of first responders.

And in a poignant demonstration of similarity to humans, an elephant named Happy at New York's Bronx Zoo recently joined the ranks of self-aware species that includes humans, apes and dolphins. Happy showed scientists something profound when she passed the test for self-recognition: An understanding that the elephant in the mirror … was her.

"I think the real shock right now, in terms of the mirror self-recognition tests and their intelligence and their emotions is, they're like us. It's not that they're way up there. It's that they're on level footing with us," said Bradshaw.

But even as science holds a mirror to our similarities, in recent years researchers have observed a violent change in elephant-human relations after decades of peaceful coexistence.

"Humans are regarded as the enemy. You must never, ever be cruel to an elephant because they have an amazing memory. They will remember that for life. And they bear grudges," said Daphne Sheldrick, a renowned wild elephant expert and director of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

'An Elephant Can Be Traumatized'

Creatures who seem to share the best of what makes us human are now revealing they are also capable of the worst.

One of the most terrifying cases took place in a circus tent in 1994, when Tyke, an African elephant, mauled her groomer and trainer.


Elephants are able to recognize themselves in a mirror, a trait shared with humans, apes and dolphins.
(Courtesy of Diana Reiss)

It was a modern-day version of King Kong eerily come to life, when Tyke escaped into the streets of downtown Honolulu, seeking refuge from the gathering armies of law enforcement, until she was eventually gunned down. It took 87 bullets.

"The Tyke footage is particularly disturbing when you look through the eyes of the science, because you understand the behavior that Tyke displays is someone who is incredibly stressed, someone who is so traumatized and so upset. It's very un-elephant like behavior," said Bradshaw.

Elephants have ample reason to fear humans. In the last century their population has been decimated, from an estimated 10 million in the early 1900s to half a million now.

They are slaughtered for the ivory and sport hunting trades, or captured for zoos and circuses. Generations of orphaned herds have become broken, so unlike themselves -- now aggressive and depressed. Bradshaw and her fellow researchers have made a diagnosis that was once thought to be uniquely human: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"To diagnose an elephant with PTSD is novel, but that's because we have denied elephants the capacity of having a mind, having emotions. All the neuroscience says, yes, it's there, and the behavior confirms it," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw and her colleagues published these startling findings in the journal Nature.

"How an elephant can be traumatized is seeing, for example, their mother killed with a gun. It's a huge shock," Bradshaw said. "Being taken away from their family, taken away from the herd and put into captivity."

For many elephant orphans, surviving capture is only the beginning of their journey out of Africa, and into a new heart of darkness.

"The trauma stays with the elephant when they're in captivity. They adapt to the life. That's a survival mechanism. Just like human prisoners. Some people can survive, some people cannot," Bradshaw said.

Orphaned Elephants Find Refuge

Sheldrick said she has seen how the elephants change. "When you look at a miserable captive in a zoo, you're not seeing an elephant. You're seeing a tragedy," Sheldrick said.

A tragedy for what elephants have experienced, such as dominance training sessions in some facilities, and what they have not: the space to roam without boundaries.

"One hundred miles is a little stroll to an elephant. You can never give an elephant enough space in a zoo. It's like putting a human being in a matchbox for life," Sheldrick said.


The elephant's eye is a fiery amber color that blazes against creased skin.
(Courtesy National Geographic)

For the last 30 years Sheldrick has been rescuing baby elephants orphaned and traumatized by the bloodshed of poachers.

"When they come in, newly orphaned, they have nightmares at night. They wake up screaming," said Sheldrick, who has become a surrogate mother at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi, Kenya, her orphanage for elephants. "The elephants have been the greatest challenge that I've had to face. Because at any age an elephant duplicates a human. When you take on an elephant, it's actually a lifetime's job."

Sheldrick and her devoted team nurture the babies back to physical health by feeding them milk every three hours, and back to emotional health by teaching them how to play and bond with new friends.

The keepers even sleep with the orphans at night, becoming a surrogate human family so that one day the elephants will be strong in spirit, and ready to join wild herds again.

"They have to be psychologically sound, because the wild elephants don't want a problem," said Sheldrick.

But there are some babies Sheldrick can't save. Elsewhere in the world, nursing elephants are separated from their mothers, their spirits broken in secret training camps so they can be taught to give tourists rides.

For decades, animals in the entertainment industry have been made to perform behaviors never seen in the wild, and the weight of captivity is bearing down on even the mightiest of animals.

"They're essentially very gentle animals. So for an elephant to become aggressive and kill a human, you have to understand how badly he's been treated by humans to be able to pluck up the courage to do that," Sheldrick said.

Healing in Tennessee

But something revolutionary is happening in the flatlands of Tennessee. Deep roars can be heard through trees that shield neighbors from an unlikely sight, one that is hidden from the main roads. A kind of asylum exists for previously dangerous or deprived elephants in captivity, now living the rest of their lives here in the semi-wild. Driving past the perimeter fences, an awareness that huge animals are nearby and unseen evokes comparisons to Jurassic Park, but with a therapeutic mission. The Elephant Sanctuary, a private nonprofit organization in Hohenwald, Tenn., spans 2,700 acres of forests and spring-fed ponds.

This is a last refuge for elephants broken by humans, and they are here to heal. But doing so requires the elephants' ultimate act of trust in humans.

On a recent visit, ABC News correspondent Elizabeth Vargas was chaperoned inside the gates to discover an intimate world.

"She has her ears out so she's checking it out. And since she's the matriarch it's her job to make sure that everything is safe. It's a sign of trust and intimacy," said Carol Buckley as she approached an elephant named Shirley.

Buckley and Scott Blais, co-founders of The Elephant Sanctuary, establish trust with the animals, guided in part by the new theory that if humans and elephants can both suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, maybe we can also share the hope for recovery.

"What we have learned, and what we have seen, without a doubt, they are experiencing some level of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," said Blais.

Creating a safe environment is vital to the progress made at the sanctuary, where 17 former circus and zoo elephants walk without chains or threat of abuse.

Applying techniques used to treat humans suffering from PTSD, Buckley and Blais research how these elephants have been stressed in the past, their responses, and tailor the sanctuary's programs to help each one.

Elephants once dangerous and isolated in captivity discover how to play again with new friends.

"They operate on a much deeper plane than we do, and you can't help but be fascinated with that," said Blais.

It's a sentiment Buckley shares.

"I think that's what happens with people who are around elephants. There's some profound connection that is made that is deeper than we have ever experienced before," she said.