Audubon Wildlife Report 1989 1990

Audubon Wildlife Report 1989/1990 covers important challenges to the continued health of different species and ecosystems, furthering the debate on issues such as old-growth forests, the relationship between water and wildlife, and the need to preserve and restore wetlands and grassland range territory. The book starts by providing a comprehensive overview of the featured federal agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, including its history, legislative mandate, and key programs that affect the environment. The text then discusses federal court decisions that provide new interpretations of federal wildlife law; the conservation of coastal wetlands in the Southeast; and global climate change and its potential effects on fish and wildlife. A monitoring and research strategy for nongame migratory birds, as well as the conservation of ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest are also considered. The book further tackles the restoration of the public rangelands in the West; discard bycatch in marine fisheries with a special focus on the Gulf of Mexico; and the trends in western water law and their implications for the environment. The text also encompasses the appropriations and related congressional policy directives for federal fish and wildlife programs. Biologists and people with an advocacy of preserving wildlife will find the book invaluable.

Sharks and their relatives, the rays and chimaeras, are the diverse group of cartilaginous fishes that have evolved over 400 million years. Historically considered of low economic value to large-scale fisheries, today many of these fishes have become the target of directed commercial and recreational fisheries around the world, and they are increasingly taken in the by-catch of fisheries targeting other species. This report emphasizes the widely-acknowledged need to improve shark fishery monitoring, expand biological research and take management action. It serves as an introduction to the ecology, status and conservation of the sharks and their relatives for a general audience. Shark fisheries can only be managed sustainably, and shark populations remain viable, with the introduction of new conservation and management initiatives.