Echo

For balance in the north

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(ON) The Toronto Star – The province has rightly committed to protecting the woodland caribou, a threatened species that lives in a remote part of northern Ontario. However, the government’s plan may fall short of its objective. Public consultation on the draft Caribou Conservation Plan wraps up today. Environmentalists and wildlife advocates have dismissed it as inadequate. They say the Ministry of Natural Resources is trying to address conservation concerns without sufficiently holding back the logging industry.

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Caterpillars are pitching lots of tents

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(MI) Traverse City Record-Eagle – The caterpillars tend to appear in waves, but it’s hard to predict when their numbers will be strongest. In years like this one, when the caterpillars are particularly abundant, it’s not surprising to see their telltale silk webs appear in other types of trees or plants. “It is very unusual for them to be as numerous as they have been for two years in a row,” said Duke Elsner, an agricultural educator for the Michigan State University Extension office in Grand Traverse County. “It’s not as widespread as last year, but where it is, I think it’s much worse.” More

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Governor General has a heart – raw seal that is

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(ON) The Toronto Star –  First she gutted it. Then she had the heart pulled out of its furry, flabby carcass. Finally, she swallowed a slice of the mammal’s dripping organ. And when it was all over Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean wiped the blood of a freshly slaughtered seal off her crimson-spattered fingertips. The Governor General made a graphic gesture of solidarity with the country’s beleaguered seal hunters on the first day of a week-long Arctic visit yesterday.

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Ruling on trout boosts U.P. mining project

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(MI) The Detroit News – Federal officials dealt a setback to opponents of a proposed nickel mine in the Upper Peninsula Monday by declining to place a trout species that spawns in the area on the endangered species list. Conservation groups looking to block Kennecott Minerals Inc. from mining 160 acres of state land near Marquette had hoped the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would designate the Coaster Brook Trout for federal protection. That designation may have forced Kennecott to revise its permit applications seeking state approval for the project. But three years after the Sierra Club and Huron Mountain Club petitioned for the trout to receive endangered species status, the federal government announced Monday it would not do so. More