Amid the horror, more horror.

This has been the kind of day to really depress a girl.

This story is everywhere today, but was mostly buried by the global economic collapse-frenzy.

This is the kind of shit that makes you lose your mind. And meanwhile that block, that stone, that less than senseless thing Palin has been shooting wolves from helicopters. Seriously, can anyone not be freaking out?

Article chosen from the Washington Post, because they are the least dramatic version of this I can find, so no one can say I've posted this for drama- if you want more sources for this, hit here.

"25% of Wild Mammal Species Face Extinction
Global Assessment Paints 'Bleak Picture,' Scientists Say, and Figure of Those at Risk Could Be Higher

At least a quarter of the world's wild mammal species are at risk of extinction, according to a comprehensive global survey released here Monday.

The new assessment -- which took 1,700 experts in 130 countries five years to complete -- paints "a bleak picture," leaders of the project wrote in a paper being published in the journal Science. The overview, made public at the quadrennial World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), covers all 5,487 wild species identified since 1500. It is the most thorough tally of land and marine mammals since 1996.

"Mammals are definitely declining, and the driving factors are habitat destruction and over-harvesting," said Jan Schipper, the paper's lead writer and the IUCN's global mammals assessment coordinator. The researchers concluded that 25 percent of the mammal species for which they had sufficient data are threatened with extinction, but Schipper added that the figure could be as high as 36 percent because information on some species is so scarce.

Land and marine mammals face different threats, the scientists said, and large mammals are more vulnerable than small ones. For land species, habitat loss and hunting represent the greatest danger, while marine mammals are more threatened by unintentional killing by pollution, ship strikes and being caught in fishing nets." LINK

Fay screwing with Florida, alligators swimming the streets.

"Homeowners in a Tropical Storm Fay-flooded community were being warned of an alligator swimming in their streets and near homes as record-breaking rain continued to fall Thursday.
The National Hurricane Center's projected path of movement for Tropical Storm Fay now includes a fourth Florida landfall as it continues to dump "historic" amounts of rain on parts of Central Florida." LINK

Bush want to kill the Endangered Species...Act.

Christ almighty.

"Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct.

The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.
New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press.

"This is the fox guarding the hen house. The interests of agencies will outweigh species protection interests," said Eric Glitzenstein, the attorney representing environmental groups in the lawsuit over the wildfire prevention regulations. "What they are talking about doing is eviscerating the Endangered Species Act." LINK

California's flora- headed out?

"Two thirds of California’s unique plants, some 2,300 species that grow nowhere else in the world, could be wiped out across much of their ranges by the end of the century due to rising temperatures and changing rainfall, according to a major new study.

Those plant species that cannot migrate fast enough to higher altitudes or cooler coastal areas could face extinction due to greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet, according to researchers.

California’s flora face a potential “collapse,” said David Ackerly, a plant ecologist at UC Berkeley, who was the senior author of the paper. “As the climate changes, many of these plants will have no place to go.”

Half of the plant species that are unique to the continental United States grow only in the Golden State, from towering redwoods to slender fire poppies. Under likely climate scenarios, many would have to shift as far as 93 miles from their current location — a difficult task given slow natural migration rates and obstacles presented by surburban sprawl." LINK