Back in June I wrote about Germany banning pesticides that are believed to be linked to the worrying mass deaths of bees that we have seen the last few years. Now Italy is going down the same road and realizing that pesticides can be very bad for the environment. The Italian government has decided that several pesticides that are used to “treat” seeds will be banned. These pesticides are believed to be a part of the reason why million of bees (colony collapse disorder) has died.
Slovenia has also banned the substances that is believed to kill the bees and France banned one of the substances already in 1999.
A German company called Bayer CropScience produce these chemicals and they are known for producing lots of bad stuff. Maybe they are trying to compete with Monsanto about who are the most evil agriculture company in the world?
I really don’t understand how a company can produce such things when they know that they are toxic to the nature. How can these guys live with themselves? It is all about the money, I guess..

Anyway, this is a great step in the right direction of more organic agriculture. You can’t fight nature, you have to work with it.

Some worrying news from South America about our tux friends. According to an article on express.co.uk penguins native to Antarctica are found washed up further and further north on South American continent. About 300 penguins have been found dead or alive on beaches in along the coast of Bahia state. This region is known for it’s hot weather and it is unheard of to find penguins this far north.
The public is told to leave penguins that look health alone so they can swim back to more colder waters.

The researchers are not sure why this is happening, but are suspecting lack of food from overfishing might be a cause. Stronger than usual currents can also make the penguins go astray.

Seems like the fishing industry in Japan is taking a step in the right direction. The largest fishing co-operative in Japan that has 230 longline tuna-fishing vessels have decided to stop fishing for short periods of time. This time will make up 2 months of the next 2 years and are estimated to cut 5% of the catch.
That doesn’t sound much at all as the worldwide tuna stocks have dramatically dropped in recent years, but it also include efforts to reduce tuna fishing in China, South Korea and Taiwan.
Earlier this summer the European Union stopped early the tuna fishing in the Mediterranean sea because they were afraid the extensive fishing would make the species go extinct.
The main reason for this extensive fishing is said to be the global popularity of sushi and sashimi. Maybe it is time for rich western yuppies (and yuppies in other parts of the world) to stop feeding on threatened species..

Lets hope these are the first steps at protecting the tuna worldwide and that is not too late!

A new study done with data from the last 25 years in England show that migrating birds seem to move further north in Europe. The researchers looked at 42 rare bird species in Britain and some of the birds that was rarely seen in the south of Britain has been spotted more often. These birds include the Dartford warbler, Cirl bunting, little egret and Cetti’s warbler. Other species, like the fieldfare, redwing or Slavonian grebe, that are more common in Britain saw a decrease in their numbers. The researchers filtered out other factors that could mess up with the observations.
The study done by Durham University, Cambridge University and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds clearly show that there is clear relation with higher temperatures and the migration of birds. Butterflies and birds are species that early adopt to climate changes so this study show that there really is global warming.

This means that I might see new bird species here in Northern Norway in the future. I’m a bit of birdwatcher so it will be cool to see new species, but I don’t want human made global warming to destroy the arctic ecosystem.

Some not so good news from England. According to an article on news.bbc.co.uk the biggest puffin colony in England has seen an unexpected decline in numbers. The colony on the Farne Islands has dropped by a third during the last five years and it is puzzling the researches since they was expecting an increase in the population this year.
The puffins seem to die during the eight months they are out on the sea and there needs to be done more research to discover what is really happening on the North Sea.

I haven’t heard any reports about the status of the puffin colonies here in Norway, but they have been very up and down the last years. In my non-scientific opinion we need to stop fishing the small fish that the puffin and much of the other birds and larger fish eat. If we remove big parts of their main food sources how are they expected to survive? This might be the reason the population of puffins in England is decreasing.
We should keep our greedy hands off this part of the ecosystem so we wont cause a total collapse.
Here is a picture from my photoblog of an Atlantic puffin that I met out on the sea during the winter in 2007. Hope to see more of these beautiful birds as they are pretty rare in my part of Northern Norway.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Germany planing on building 30 offshore wind farms. Today Reuters can report that the country already next week will start with the building of the first windmills in the North Sea.
A company called DOTI got granted 180 million euro from the German government earlier this month. They are planing to build the wind turbines 45 km north of an island called Borkum. The first wind farm will consist of 12 turbines each capable of producing megawatts and the power production might start up already this year.
Seems like some government control can be a good thing..

Hopefully this will help turn Europe into using more renewable energy sources. I also hope that they have done some proper research so the wind farms wont end up killing lots of migrating birds.

Some worrying news from the coast of France. According to an article by independent.co.uk millions of baby oysters are dying at the French coastline. On some parts of the coast entire generations of oyster have died within a few days and the oyster farmers are loosing millions of euros.
The reason for the mass extinction is unknown and it is a bit puzzling that only the young oysters are dying, and that the older shellfish survives.
But the main suspect is that ocean outside France has become a bit warmer and this causes blooming of toxic algae. Another suspect is that a big increase in plankton that the oyster eat cause the young oysters to over-eat.
No matter what the reasons are, this is very worrying. What if this hurts the shellfish in the wild? This could cause serious problems in the eco-system.

Here in Northern Norway there has lately been some incredible growth of plankton and the same thing happened last year. The plankton colors the ocean light green and there is about no sight. Some fish species don’t like that there is no sight so I don’t come into the fjords as they usually do t
As a result I have not caught much coalfish this year. Coalfish usually come into my fjord in huge numbers and is an important food source for us during the summer/autumn. I hope there will be less plankton later in the summer so I can catch some yummy coalfish.