Fauna feed - various animal news, bad puns

They're back! Goopy stinging groups of gobs given the deceptively poetic name "blooms" are overrunning seas too numerous to name, and costing fishing and tourism industries hundreds of millions of dollars over the past few decades. Jellyfish are swarming all across the globe, a phenomenon I reported on a while ago ("Jellyfish plague punishes the humans"), but never thought was so out of hand, turning fisheries and beaches into "veritable jellytoriums" in the newly invented words of ScienceDaily.

These jellyfish jams can be deadly but usually just stick to disrupting industry, commerce, and infrastructure. "[S]uspicion is growing that population explosions of jellyfish are being generated by human activities," such as pollution and global warming.

In other freaky news, LiveScience reports that a species of Panamanian termite has the world's fastest bite, clocking in at 157 chomp and awe mph. "Because a termite soldier faces down enemies inside a narrow tunnel and has little room to parry and little time to waste, this death blow proves to be incredibly efficient, though it works only over short distances."

The New York Times runs an article about fear among conservatives that the 1972 Endangered Species Act might be used as a "'back door' means of regulating the emission of gases that accelerate climate change."



They've also got a "radical" editorial out calling for a moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing - if only they could show a bit more radicalism (or at least backbone) on topics like the decision to invade Iraq!

For some real radicalism, we turn to PETA, which is "so very excited" to bring us good animal rights news from Bernalillo County, New Mexico. After pressure from citizens, the county council voted on a bill that, among other things, requires better living conditions for farm animals, and bans the sale of cats and dogs in pet stores. (And just a few days ago I found out I have to hate zoos too!)

Lastly, I found an oldish article on the New York Times site about service dogs trained by inmates of the maximum security Bedford Hills women's prison. The majority of the dogs go to Iraq War veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. (Do not read this article if you don't want to cry, and certainly don't watch the accompanying video - I almost cried and I barely have canine emotions, let alone human ones!)