The Globe and Mail
Saturday, December 8, 2007
A ‘dating service’ for lonely elms
by Sharon Oosthoek
GUELPH, ONT. Come winter, tree huggers wax poetic about towering pines or stands of silvery birch. But Alan Watson is awed at the sight of a small patch of saplings. He hopes they will grow into an umbrella-shaped canopy – and revive a stately species that has nearly been wiped out.
The trees are elms, once found across the continent but devastated by a fungus that has killed millions of trees in Canada and the United States. Dutch elm disease, like some arboreal version of AIDS, may have been North American’s greatest forest scourge until the recent attack of the mountain pine beetle.
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Canadian Geographic, December 2007
Plants in a farm filed in London, Ont., are getting an early taste of climate change in a unique experiment that promises to show how rising temperatures and pollution might affect temperate regions.
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The Globe and Mail
Saturday, December 1, 2007
The trouble with hybrids.
Because of environmental change, a growing number of endangered animals are mating with genetic cousins. Which leaves conservationists with a dilemma: Should they prevent wildlife from crossing the species divide – or protect offspring such as grizzlars and bob-o-lynx? Sharon Oosthoek reports
On a trip to the Northwest Territories last year, Jim Martell spent more than $45,000 for the right to shoot a polar bear. But the animal he killed turned out to have puzzling characteristics – long claws, a humped back and brown patches in its white fur. Had he shot a grizzly by mistake? If so, the American tourist faced up to a year in jail for hunting without a proper licence.
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