"Watermen overharvested oysters last winter in a little more than half of Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, according to the state’s first-ever stock assessment of the commercially and ecologically valuable shellfish. If those harvest rates continue, the assessment warned, the bivalve population in those areas could eventually be wiped out."
"Many hunters are ditching traditional ammunition amid mounting evidence that it harms scavengers and pollutes the food people eat."
"Today, many farmers continue to store the waste in open pits despite the millions of dollars in private investment spent and years of research and political promises. The practice grows more hazardous with each hurricane that pounds the state."
"Governments typically try to bury bad news in the Friday news cycle when people are distracted with plans for the weekend. The best day all year to bury a story is Black Friday .... The latest National Climate Assessment report from the federal government was due to be released before the end of 2018, but it is filled with such shockingly bad news for Trump and his failed environmental policies that his maladministration decided to release it a month early on the afternoon of Black Friday."
"A major scientific report issued by 13 federal agencies on Friday presents the starkest warnings to date of the consequences of climate change for the United States, predicting that if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end."
On Nov. 23, the U.S. Global Change Research Program released the Fourth National Climate Assessment Vol. II (NCA4). Media can learn about NCA4 at a special science session at the American Geophysical Union Annual Fall meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 4:00-6:00 p.m. in Washington, D.C. Pre-registration required.
On Nov. 23 at 2:00 p.m. ET, media are invited to a conference call with experts who will discuss the key findings of the Fourth National Climate Assessment Vol. II, which will be released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) that day. The report is an authoritative assessment of the impacts of climate change on the U.S. and its territories.
"Rick Meatyard's father planted Chesapeake Bay oysters for him in 1966 as a high school graduation gift. Three years later, 'I was off to the University of Florida, and that paid all my tuition,' he said."
"Regulators voted Friday to close the Gulf of Maine winter shrimp season for another three years, raising fears that the fishery decimated by rising water temperatures may never bounce back."
"Central African mountain gorillas came off the “critically endangered” species list on Thursday following a rare and dramatic recovery in numbers in the past decade."
