Save orcas or salmon?

McClatchy reports on the dilemma of endangered species eating another endangered species.

A new study on endangered animals shows that killer whales, also called orcas, in the Pacific Northwest are primarily eating endangered Chinook salmon in Canada.

Though the dietary habits of killer whales may not seem like a big deal, the orcas and various salmon species are protected on both sides of the border. Efforts to revive endangered species that share the same ecosystem can become intertwined.

"It is fascinating the whales specialize in a particular species, and the species they focus on is one of the rarer ones and in some case protected," said Michael Ford, the director of the conservation biology division at the National Marine Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. "Recovery of the whales could be dependent on the recovery of salmon. It is all related."

Read the full story: Wildlife dilemma: protect killer whales or the fish they eat?

Photo by Jeff Lorton / West Coast Wildlife Adventures

Alaska mystery blob is algae

McClatchy Newspapers reports on the scientific findings of a mystery blob appearing in Alaska's Chukchi Sea.

The black substance, some thought to be oozing oil from a sunken tanker, turned out to be... algae.

Miles of the thick, dark gunk had been spotted floating between Barrow and Wainwright, prompting North Slope Borough officials and the Coast Guard to investigate last week. A sample was sent to a Department of Environmental Conservation lab in Palmer, where workers looked at it under a microscope and declared it some kind of simple plant — an algae, said Ed Meggert, of the Department of Environmental Conservation in Fairbanks.

Read the full story: Mystery solved: Alaska's mystery blob is identified as algae

Biofuels reduce CO2 emissions but not plane performance says Boeing

McClatchy Newspapers reports that according to a Boeing official, biofuels used in airplanes reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also don't affect plane performance.

Initial flight tests have found that jet fuel made partly of camelina, algae or other bio-feed stocks can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes by more than 50 percent, doesn't affect performance and presents no technical or safety problems, a top Boeing official said Thursday.

"It meets all jet fuel requirements and then some," said Billy Glover, who heads Boeing's environmental strategy group.

Glover said a full report on the test flights would be released next month and aviation biofuel could be approved for use as early as next year. Despite its promise, however, Glover said the real problem is how quickly growers can start producing and refiners processing enough biofuel to make it an alternative to the Jet A fuel used today.

Read the full story: Aviation biofuel proves itself in tests, but is there enough?

Controversy over CA mountain renaming

McClatchy Newspapers reports on the efforts by California Democratic leaders to name a Sierra Nevada mountain peak after the late environmentalist David Brower.

David Brower, an environmentalist for most of his life, founded and was the director of the Sierra Club from 1952-1969.

Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer said in a statement that "naming the North Palisade Peak after David Brower is a fitting tribute to a man who loved the High Sierra and all of America's wilderness."

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes - whose district is where the proposed peak lies - is opposed to the renaming because he says: "the radical environmentalists' agenda is hurting my constituents."

Read the full story: Senators want to name peak after late Sierra Club leader