Malawi Wire

Northern Britain and parts of France and Germany were battered Sunday and Monday by Franklin — the third major storm to strike the region in less than a week. The severe weather has flooded roads, knocked out power and left at least 14 people dead.

Storm Franklin brought heavy rains and high winds that disrupted travel and prompted more than 140 flood warnings across England and Wales as of Monday.

The storm moved through Northern Ireland and northern Britain before moving on to France, where a couple in their 70s died Sunday after their car was swept into the English Channel near a small town in Normandy.

Franklin struck even as crews were attempting to clear fallen trees and restore power to hundreds of thousands of homes hit by storms Dudley and Eunice last week.

Authorities in England issued more than 300 flood warnings and alerts, while insurers in Germany and the Netherlands estimated the damage from those storms to be at more than $1.7 billion. The German Aerospace Center said the storms would likely result in widespread damage to Europe’s already weakened forests.

The AccuWeather news service reports this is the first time three such storms have struck Britain and northern Europe in less than a week since Britain’s Meteorological Office began naming storms in 2015.

Source: Voice of America

America’s national bird is more beleaguered than previously believed, with nearly half of bald eagles tested across the U.S. showing signs of chronic lead exposure, according to a study published Thursday.

While the bald eagle population has rebounded from the brink of extinction since the U.S. banned the pesticide DDT in 1972, harmful levels of toxic lead were found in the bones of 46% of bald eagles sampled in 38 states from California to Florida, researchers reported in the journal Science.

Similar rates of lead exposure were found in golden eagles, which scientists say means the raptors likely consumed carrion or prey contaminated by lead from ammunition or fishing tackle.

The blood, bones, feathers and liver tissue of 1,210 eagles sampled from 2010 to 2018 were examined to assess chronic and acute lead exposure.

“This is the first time for any wildlife species that we’ve been able to evaluate lead exposure and population level consequences at a continental scale,” said study co-author Todd Katzner, a wildlife biologist at U.S. Geological Survey in Boise, Idaho. “It’s sort of stunning that nearly 50% of them are getting repeatedly exposed to lead.”

Lead is a neurotoxin that even in low doses impairs an eagle’s balance and stamina, reducing its ability to fly, hunt and reproduce. In high doses, lead causes seizures, breathing difficulty and death.

The study estimated that lead exposure reduced the annual population growth of bald eagles by 4% and golden eagles by 1%.

Bald eagles are one of America’s most celebrated conservation success stories, and the birds were removed from the U.S. Endangered Species List in 2007.

But scientists say that high lead levels are still a concern. Besides suppressing eagle population growth, lead exposure reduces their resilience in facing future challenges, such as climate change or infectious diseases.

“When we talk about recovery, it’s not really the end of the story — there are still threats to bald eagles,” said Krysten Schuler, a wildlife disease ecologist at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

Previous studies have shown high lead exposure in specific regions, but not across the country. The blood samples from live eagles in the new study were taken from birds trapped and studied for other reasons; the bone, feather and liver samples came from eagles killed by collisions with vehicles or powerlines, or other misfortunes.

“Lead is present on the landscape and available to these birds more than we previously thought,” said co-author Vince Slabe, a research wildlife biologist at the nonprofit Conservation Science Global. “A lead fragment the size of the end of a pin is large enough to cause mortality in an eagle. “

The researchers also found elevated levels of lead exposure in fall and winter, coinciding with hunting season in many states.

During these months, eagles scavenge on carcasses and gut piles left by hunters, which are often riddled with shards of lead shot or bullet fragments.

Slabe said the upshot of the research was not to disparage hunters. “Hunters are one of the best conservation groups in this country,” he said, noting that fees and taxes paid by hunters help fund state wildlife agencies, and that he also hunted deer and elk in Montana.

However, Slabe said he hopes the findings provide an opportunity to “talk to hunters about this issue in a clear manner” and that more hunters will voluntarily switch to non-lead ammunition such as copper bullets.

Lead ammunition for waterfowl hunting was banned in 1991, due to concerns about contamination of waterways, and wildlife authorities encouraged the use of nontoxic steel shot. However, lead ammunition is still common for upland bird hunting and big game hunting.

The amount of lead exposure varies regionally, with highest levels found in the Central Flyway, the new study found.

At the University of Minnesota’s Raptor Center, veterinarian and executive director Victoria Hall said that “85 to 90% of the eagles that come into our hospital have some level of lead in their blood,” and X-rays often show fragments of lead bullets in their stomachs.

Eagles with relatively low levels can be treated, she said, but those with high exposure can’t be saved.

Laura Hale, board president at nonprofit Badger Run Wildlife Rehab in Klamath County, Oregon, said she’ll never forget the first eagle she encountered with acute lead poisoning, in 2018. She had answered a resident’s call about an eagle that seemed immobile in underbrush and brought it to the clinic.

The young bald eagle was wrapped in a blanket, unable to breathe properly, let alone stand or fly.

“There is something hideous when you watch an eagle struggling to breathe because of lead poisoning – it’s really, really harsh,” she said, her voice shaking. That eagle went into convulsions, and died within 48 hours.

Lead on the landscape affects not only eagles, but also many other birds — including hawks, vultures, ravens, swans and geese, said Jennifer Cedarleaf, avian director at Alaska Raptor Center, a nonprofit wildlife rescue in Sitka, Alaska.

Because eagles are very sensitive to lead, are so well-studied and attract so much public interest, “bald eagles are like the canary in the coal mine,” she said. “They are the species that tells us: We have a bit of problem.”

Source: Voice of America

Sparked by global warming and other forms of climate change, tropical butterflies are starting to arrive in Hong Kong and Taiwan in greater numbers, while temperate-zone species like the monarch appear to be dwindling in the region, conservationists told RFA.

“Seven new butterfly species were discovered in Hong Kong in 2021, including swallowtails, gray butterflies, and nymphs; most of them were tropical species,” Gary Chan, project officer at Hong Kong’s Fengyuan Butterfly Reserve, told RFA.

“Breeding records were found in Hong Kong for several of these species, which indicates that these weren’t just strays arriving in Hong Kong with horticultural imports or the monsoon,” Chan said.

According to Chan, Neptis cartica and Ancema blanka were both found in Hong Kong for the first time in 2021, along with Zeltus amasa, which is usually native to Malaysia, Thailand, India, Myanmar, Borneo and other points south of Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, tropical migrants are also being spotted in Taiwan, according to Hsu Yu-feng, a butterfly expert at Taiwan National Normal University.

Between 1985 and 2008, at least seven new species of tropical butterfly were found to have settled on the island, including Appias olfern peducaea, which traveled north from the Philippines to settle in the southern port city of Kaohsiung in 2000.

Even butterflies once found only in southern Taiwan are now found across the island, Hsu told RFA.

“When I was an undergraduate student in the 1980s, I went to Kenting [on the southern coast] to see Graphium agamemnon,” Hsu recalled. “Then, I saw it for the first time on this university college campus last year, and it was breeding here.”

Southeast Asia warming faster

Troides aeacus kaguya is another example of a butterfly that once only lived in southern Taiwan, and can now be found all over the island, he said.

The changes come as temperatures in East and Southeast Asia have risen more rapidly than the global average in recent decades, Chan said.

“There are many more places where tropical butterflies and other insects can breed, so that’s why we’re seeing this northward migration, or dispersal behavior,” he said.

Hsu said the butterflies didn’t actually migrate, however; rather, their habitats are expanding due to rising temperatures.

“Once upon a time, the more northerly areas were colder, and not suitable for them to settle in, but they are suitable now, because temperatures have risen,” Hsu said.

“The north is warming at a higher rate than the south, meaning the difference in temperatures between north and south has been reduced,” he said. “That’s why southern butterflies are now living in the north.”

But the changes are forcing out butterflies that need a temperate climate to breed in, experts said.

Few monarchs now

The Siu Lang Shui conservation site in Hong Kong’s Tuen Mun district once saw tens of thousands of monarch butterflies spending the winter, as recently as 2013 and 2014, Chan said.

But numbers have fallen sharply in recent years, he said.

In Taiwan, the purple variegated butterflies that once overwintered in their millions in the Maolin valley outside Kaohsiung have also been dwindling in recent years, preferring to move north to seek out colder temperatures earlier in the year.

The warming environment is also becoming more hostile to temperate tree species some butterflies call home, Hsu told RFA.

“The Taiwan-endemic butterfly Sibataniozephyrus kuafui uses the Taiwan beech as a host plant … so in contrast to the expansion of tropical butterflies, temperate species are being threatened,” he said.

The changes in East Asia come after a study published in the journal Science in 2021 found that populations of most butterfly species in western North America have declined by nearly 50% over the past 40 years.

“California is the place with the most endemic species of butterflies in western North America,” Hsu said. “California butterflies are most vulnerable to drought, because this is a Mediterranean climate zone, with dry summers and rainy winters.”

“If climate change causes droughts in winter, plants will grow poorly, and the larvae of butterflies will have nothing to eat,” he said.

Source: Voice of America

Canadian police on Saturday worked to restore normality to the capital after trucks and demonstrators occupied the downtown core of Ottawa for more than three weeks to protest against pandemic restrictions.

The push to clear the city began Friday and continued into the night.

Four of the main organizers have already been taken into custody and more than 100 protesters have been arrested as hundreds of officers, including some on horseback, formed lines and slowly pushed them away from their vehicles.

There were many tense moments on Friday. Some protesters were dragged from their vehicles, and others who resisted the police advance were thrown to the ground and had their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

The protesters showed “assaultive behavior,” forcing mounted police to move in “to create critical space” in the late afternoon, according to a police statement. As this happened, police said, one person threw a bicycle at a horse and was arrested for harming a police service animal.

The protesters initially wanted an end to cross-border COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truck drivers, but the blockade has gradually turned into an anti-government and anti-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demonstration.

“Our demands aren’t ridiculous. We want mandates and lockdowns dropped,” said Gord from Manitoba, a truck driver who said he cannot work anymore because of cross-border vaccine mandates. On Friday, he vowed to stay parked in front of parliament and said he was waiting to be arrested.

Trudeau on Monday invoked emergency powers to give his government wider authority to stop the protests. Legislators had been due to debate those temporary powers on Friday but the House of Commons suspended its session, citing police activity.

After the protest crowds swelled on the three previous weekend, police set up 100 road blocks around the downtown core on Friday to deny people access and prevent food and fuel from getting in. Police said they had towed 21 vehicles on Friday.

As police cleared protesters from the streets, at least a dozen tow trucks came in to remove trucks and other protest vehicles still parked downtown.

Source: Voice of America

The U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, is assisting Malawi’s students to continue their education in areas affected by a recent tropical storm.

Students in the country’s 17 flooded districts are taking their lessons outdoors, in the shade of trees, after Tropical Storm Ana ravaged the region, affecting over 900,000 people, destroying school blocks and washing away learning materials.

The government is still assessing the damage as the flooding continues three weeks after Ana passed.

In Chikwawa district, one of the hardest hit districts, education experts say partial assessment shows the storm which also hit parts of Madagascar , Mozambique and Zimbabwe, has destroyed over 50 school buildings.

Mac Shades Dakamau, chief education officer for Chikwawa district, says the damage is unprecedented.

“We are hit very, very hard with [Tropical Storm] Ana. For example, classrooms have been damaged, toilets have collapsed, and we had mud in all affected classrooms. And for the first time, we have a very big number of schools affected,” he said.

According to Dakamau, poor learning conditions forced over half of students to be absent from schools.

“Some of the learners have lost their uniform, the textbooks, and pens, name it. So it hit very hard in Chikwawa,” he added.

Teachers at Sekeni Primary School in Chikwawa district say the floods damaged the school and washed away textbooks and other learning materials.

However to solve the problem, UNICEF, under its School in a Box initiative, has provided learning materials, which include notebooks, pens, face coverings and footballs.

“I was very happy that we are able to hand over some learning materials and also some recreational material at that school which also by the way had water supply provided by UNICEF for hand washing and lucky that did not get damaged during the floods,” said Rudolf Schwenk, country director for UNICEF in Malawi.

He said the U.N. children’s agency is also considering providing temporary learning shelters for affected schools and evacuation camps.

“Because it’s important for their psycho-social development if they continue learning. So I think that is of critical importance also to look after the children in the camps who are not yet able to go back to their schools,” Schwenk said.

Minister of Education Agness Nyalonje said in parliament this week that the government has also established an education in emergency plan, which aims to ensure continued learning for children in times of natural disasters.

However, Nyalonje ruled out plans to relocate schools from flood-prone areas, saying doing so would inconvenience students living there.

Source: Voice Of America

It’s a question many have been asking for almost two years: when will the coronavirus pandemic end?

“Epidemiologically speaking, we don’t know. Perhaps in another month or two — if there’s no other variants of concern that pop up, at least here in United States,” says J. Alexander Navarro, assistant director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan.

“Socially, I think we’re kind of already at the point where the pandemic has ended. Many states are removing the vestiges of their mask mandates. We see people essentially moving on with their lives.”

As of February 16, 2022, about 78 million people in the United States have contracted COVID-19 and 923,067 of them have died. Seventy-six percent of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Sara Sawyer, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, agrees the end might finally be in sight, in part thanks to Omicron, a COVID-19 variant that emerged in November 2021.

“It is essentially vaccinating many people who were resistant to getting vaccinated because a lot of those people got infected in this wave,” Sawyer says. “And so, that’s just going to make it really hard for viruses to spread through in these giant waves like Omicron anymore because we have so many people with resistance that they’ve acquired through previous infection or a vaccine.”

Experts predict that more than 70% of people in the United States are now either vaccinated or have recovered from a coronavirus infection, Sawyer says. She adds that an extra bonus for those who get an actual infection is that they develop much more sophisticated systems of immunity against that virus.

A pandemic is generally considered “over” when a virus becomes endemic.

“When viruses become predictable — in their patterns, in their seasonality and in the number of people that they might infect and the number of deaths that they might cause — we say that a virus has become endemic,” Sawyer says. “That means it has settled down into a long-term existence with the human population.”

And while COVID-19 might never completely go away, future variants are not expected to be as severe as past ones.

“If you were infected with one variant, and I was infected with another variant, and I ended up in the emergency room the next day, and you had just a tickle in your throat and went to your son’s baseball game, in the grocery store and to a birthday party, whose variant is going to spread better?” Sawyer says. “Your variant is going to spread better. We know from the history of viral evolution, viruses are snaking their way toward being less deadly and more transmissible. … Viruses become more transmissible when they don’t make people as sick.”

But the danger of calling the pandemic over before it’s really over remains.

“I think, socially, most people are leaning toward this pandemic being over when, epidemiologically, it’s not,” Navarro says. “There is essentially no going back. And the fear that I have today is that if we have another variant of concern that pops up, I don’t know if we’re going to get people to go back to masking, if we’re going to be able to implement any sort of structured closure orders if we need to.”

During the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed up to 50 million people worldwide, Americans got tired of being constrained and prematurely gave up on flu prevention measures. Two more waves of the flu pandemic hit the United States, resulting in more deaths.

While some parallels can be drawn between COVID-19 and the 1918 flu pandemic, looking to the past isn’t always a good barometer for when this pandemic might end because of the advanced knowledge and technology that exists today.

“We know exactly what we’re supposed to do, and this is an advantage that people of the past did not necessarily have,” says Nükhet Varlik, associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark. “We have the vaccines. We have the public health regulations in place. We have the medical expertise, so we actually know what to do. So we’re actually at an unprecedented advantage when we compare ourselves to past societies. We can actually do the right things. Whether we do the right things, that’s another question.”

Varlik says asking when the pandemic might end is misleading, fueling false hopes rather than focusing on trying to control and mitigate the pandemic.

“It will become endemic, but that doesn’t mean that it cannot become pandemic again. So, it’s kind of like a dance … it can be pandemic or epidemic or endemic, and it can change over time,” Varlik says. “I am pretty confident that COVID will continue to be epidemic in one part of the world for the foreseeable future … and, of course, with travel and other means, it can spill over to other places, to other countries. Until it’s eliminated in the entire world, there is really no way of feeling safe from this disease.”

When epidemiologists will declare the pandemic over has a lot to do with how much disease a society is willing to accept and put up with, Navarro says. COVID-19 could become like the flu, killing tens of thousands of Americans every year, predominantly those in vulnerable medical categories.

“At some point, you just have to say to yourself, ‘You know, I live in the world. There are dangers in my world, infectious disease, car accidents.’ But you can’t let that cripple you. Those things have always been there,” biology professor Sawyer says. “I certainly would never want to send a message that this is now yet another thing that people need to worry and have anxiety about once this becomes endemic. Instead, get your vaccine, get your flu vaccine, protect yourself and then go on with your life.”

Source: Voice of America