Abortion-rights groups outspend opponents by more than 6 to 1 in ballot measure campaigns

The most Canadian animal? It’s not the beaver that marks the nickel, the moose that pervades souvenir shops across the country, the loon that gave the one-dollar coin its nickname, or even the much-maligned Canada goose.

In fact, the spiny softshell turtle is Canada’s most distinct animal in evolutionary terms, researchers from Simon Fraser University show in a first-of-its-kind study.

Arne Mooers, a biodiversity professor who led the research,says it means the threatened freshwater turtle found in southern Ontario and Quebec has spent the longest stretch of time evolving independently from other species in Canada.

The researchers started by building a “tree of life” using Canada’s official list of species, which includes 222 mammals, 674 birds, 48 amphibians and 49 reptiles.

They identified the top 20 most isolated species for each group and found the spiny softshell turtle topped the rankings, representing nearly 180 million years of independent evolutionary history, while Canada’s lone marsupial, the Virginia opossum, was the top-ranked mammal at nearly 160 million years.

The softshell turtle is followed by the mudpuppy, the only completely aquatic amphibian in Canada, and a species that Mooers describes as “really cute.”

“It can grow as long as a small cat, and it can live for 30 years,” he says.

The ranking not only highlights species that are often “weird and wonderful,” like the mudpuppy, he says, but also offers a kind of “triage” tool for conservation efforts.

A species that has close relatives in other countries may be isolated and threatened in Canada, and a high ranking for evolutionary distinctiveness could help conservationists determine which species to focus on, he says.

“If we have limited resources, then this could be one way to help us decide what to do, and say, ‘Well this one really is very different from everything else, and we’ve got a measurement of that so maybe we should make sure we don’t lose this species.'”

It’s one of many ways to assess species, but it is a “new way,” adds Mooers, a member of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

He says the study published this month in the Canadian Field-Naturalist, a peer-reviewed journal, is the first to create scores for the evolutionary distinctiveness of species in a particular country, going deeper than the species’ global ranking.

“If you do global conservation, you want the global list, but if you’re interested in your country, maybe you want a country-specific list, and they might not be the same.”

Overall, the researchers found most of the species with high evolutionary distinctiveness rankings in Canada were amphibians and reptiles.

The tree of life for mammals in Canada is “very weird,” Mooers notes, because it includes the country’s only marsupial, the Virginia opossum.

The opossum pushes the mammal family tree back to 158.8 million years, but the rest of the top-ranked mammals are more closely related to each other.

They range from about 24 million years of independent evolution for the pallid bat to close to 64 million for the North American porcupine, the study says.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Union has finalized its sharply higher customs duties on electric vehicles imported from China. EVs are the latest flash point in a broader trade dispute over Chinese government subsidies and Beijing’s burgeoning exports of green technology to the 27-nation bloc.

The duties took effect provisionally in July and were finalized after talks between the EU and China failed to resolve their differences. Negotiations are expected to continue, and the EU could lift the duties if an agreement is reached.

Here are some basic facts about the EU’s customs duties:

What did the European Union do?

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, conducted an eight-month investigation and concluded that companies making electric cars in China benefit from massive government help that enables them to undercut rivals in the EU on price, take a large market share and threaten European jobs.

The duties differ depending on the maker: 17% for BYD, 18.8% for Geely and 35.3% for state-owned SAIC. Other EV manufacturers in China, including Volkswagen and BMW, would be subject to a 20.7% duty. The commission has an individually calculated rate for Tesla of 7.8%.

“By adopting these proportionate and targeted measures after a rigorous investigation, we’re standing up for fair market practices and for the European industrial base,” European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said.

The duties will stay in force for five years unless an amicable solution is found.

Why did the commission take action?

Chinese-built electric cars jumped from 3.9% of the EV market in 2020 to 25% by September 2023, the commission has said.

The commission says companies in China accomplished that with the help of subsidies all along the chain of production, from cheap land for factories from local governments to below-market supplies of lithium and batteries from state-owned enterprises to tax breaks and below-interest financing from state-controlled banks.

The rapid growth in market share has sparked fears that Chinese cars will eventually threaten the EU’s ability to produce its own green technology needed to combat climate change, as well as the jobs of 2.5 million workers at risk in the auto industry and 10.3 million more people whose jobs depend indirectly on EV production.

Subsidized solar panels from China have wiped out European producers — an experience that European governments don’t want to see repeated with their auto industry.

Unusually, the commission acted on its own, without a complaint from the European auto industry. Industry leaders and Germany, home to BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, have opposed the tariffs. That’s because many of the cars that will be hit with tariffs are made by European companies, and China could retaliate against the auto industry or in other areas.

How is China reacting?

Beijing has been sharply critical of the investigation and the higher duties as protectionist and unfair.

The Commerce Ministry has also launched anti-dumping investigations into European exports of brandy and pork and an investigation of dairy product subsidies. Earlier this month, it announced provisional tariffs of 30.6% to 39% on French and other European brandies, after EU member countries voted in favor of finalizing the tariffs on EVs.

Officials have also said that they are weighing whether to raise tariffs on imports of gasoline-powered vehicles with large engines.

Talks between the two sides focused in recent weeks on so-called “price commitments” as a possible resolution. In such a scenario, carmakers would agree to a minimum selling price for their EVs in Europe.

Some Chinese automakers are looking at making cars in Europe to avoid any tariffs and be closer to the market. BYD is building a plant in Hungary, while Chery has a joint venture to build cars in Spain’s Catalonia region.

How do the EU tariffs compare to ones announced by the U.S.?

The Biden administration is raising tariffs on Chinese EVs to 100% from the current 25%. At that level, the U.S. tariffs block virtually all Chinese EV imports.

That’s not what Europe is trying to do.

EU officials want affordable electric cars from abroad to achieve their goals of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 — but without the subsidies EU leaders see as unfair competition

The planned tariffs are aimed at leveling the playing field by approximating the size of the excess or unfair subsidies available to Chinese carmakers.

European countries subsidize electric cars, too. The question in trade disputes is whether subsidies are fair and available to all carmakers or distort the market in favor of one side.

What does this mean for European drivers and carmakers?

It’s not clear what impact the duties will have on car prices. Chinese carmakers are able to make cars so cheaply that they could absorb the duties in the form of lower profits instead of raising prices.

Currently, Chinese carmakers often sell their vehicles overseas at much higher prices than in China, meaning they are favoring profits over market share, even given their recent market gains. Five of BYD’s six models would still earn a profit in Europe even with a 30% tariff, according to Rhodium Group calculations.

BYD’s Seal U Comfort model sells for the equivalent of 21,769 euros ($23,370) in China but 41,990 euros ($45,078) in Europe, according to Rhodium. The base model of BYD’s compact Seagull, due to arrive in Europe next year, sells for around $10,000 in China.

While consumers might benefit from cheaper Chinese cars in the short term, allowing unfair practices could eventually mean less competition and higher prices in the long term, the commission argues.

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Moritsugu reported from Beijing.

MIAMI (AP) — Two humpback whales were found dead and another seriously injured this year in huge nets used to collect krill for fishmeal and omega-3 pills near Antarctica, The Associated Press has learned.

The whale deaths, which have not been previously reported, were discussed during recent negotiations between the U.S., China, Russia and two dozen other countries in which officials failed to make progress on long-debated conservation goals and lifted some fishing limits in the Southern Ocean that have been in place since 2009.

Taken together, the whale deaths and rollback of the catch limits represent a setback for the remote krill fishery, which has boomed in recent years and is set to expand even further following the acquisition of its biggest harvester, Norway’s Aker BioMarine, by a deep-pocketed American private equity firm.

AP journalists last year spent more than two weeks in the frigid waters around Antarctica aboard a conservation vessel operated by Sea Shepherd Global to take a rare, up-close look at the world’s southernmost fishery. As part of that investigation, the AP followed the tiny crustacean on its journey from the fragile ecosystem, where it is the main nourishment for whales, to salmon farms in Europe, Canada and Australia, pet food manufacturers in China and a former ice cream factory in Houston that produces 80% of the world’s nutrient-rich krill oil.

Delegates to the annual meeting in Australia of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, or CCAMLR, shared with the AP unpublished reports of the whale deaths on the condition of anonymity because the talks, which ended last week, are not open to the public. Officials at CCAMLR, which was established in 1982 to protect the international waters near Antarctica, didn’t comment.

Under a conservation agreement developed almost two decades ago, the krill catch has soared: from 104,728 metric tons in 2007 to 424,203 metric tons in 2023 as larger, more sophisticated vessels have joined the chase. So far this year, the catch has jumped to 498,000 metric tons — the highest on record, according to the unpublished reports.

Although fishing is still below a previously agreed limit and barely 1% of the estimated biomass of 63 million metric tons of krill found in the main Antarctic fishing grounds, direct competition between marine mammals has resulted in whale deaths before.

But following the first ever recorded entanglements of four humpback whales in 2021 and 2022, Aker BioMarine redesigned its fishing nets, which regularly vacuum up to 500 metric tons of krill per day – the equivalent daily diet for about 150 humpback whales. First, it added a rope barrier to repel large mammals and then, last fall, it developed a second barrier to close a still sizable gap that can threaten whales swimming vertically.

The new net had not yet been installed when a juvenile humpback was observed dead Jan. 27 on the Antarctic Endurance, the company’s most advanced supertrawler, according to a report presented by Norwegian negotiators at the CCAMLR meeting.

The reasons behind the second death in May involving another Aker BioMarine ship remain unclear. But two days earlier the ship reported difficulty maneuvering its net and blubber was recovered on the ship’s conveyor belt, suggesting the dead whale had been trapped by the net for some time, the report said.

A third humpback was hauled alive in late January on a Chilean-flagged vessel, the Antarctic Endeavor, using traditional trawling gear. After the ship’s crew struggled for 40 minutes to cut the net tightly wrapped around the 15-meter-long (15-yard-long) male, the whale, with blood on its tail, was dumped back into the ocean.

“Upon release it was lethargic and had some injuries from rubbing with the net,” according to a report by Chile’s delegation to the CCAMLR talks that included graphic images of the capture. Although the whale was observed swimming, the capture was considered a mortality event by CCAMLR scientists because the released whale’s injuries were likely to prove fatal.

Attempts to contact the trawler’s owner, Pesca Chile SA, were unsuccessful.

A minke whale was also found dead after entangling itself in a buoy line belonging to a South Korean vessel targeting Patagonian toothfish, which is also managed by CCAMLR. It was the first ever whale death recorded in the fishery.

Pressure on krill stocks is building as a result of surging demand for omega-3 pills taken as dietary supplements, advances in fishing and rising ocean temperatures due to climate change.

This summer, New York-based American Industrial Partners acquired a majority stake in Aker BioMarine’s feed business with the goal of positioning krill as a premium ingredient for the aquaculture industry, now the source for about half the world’s seafood.

Webjørn Barstad, CEO of the new company, Aker BioMarine Antarctic, said developing new technologies to mitigate risks of whale mortalities is a top priority. Starting next season, he said, its entire fleet will be equipped with special stretch sensors that will alert the crew when a whale has interacted with the mesh front of a trawler’s net. Underwater cameras may also be used, he said.

“Our goal is always zero incidents,” Barstad said in an interview. “Hopefully the net will do the job but we will try something else as well.”

CCAMLR, whose mission is conservation, is tasked with refereeing the fishing industry. But in recent years, progress has stalled due to geopolitical wrangling, especially opposition from China and Russia.

Coming into the latest meeting, hopes were high that delegates would approve a new management plan to further spread the krill catch and finally adopt a California-sized reserve along the Antarctic Peninsula, a highly sensitive ecosystem. Currently, less than 5% of the Southern Ocean is protected — well behind CCAMLR’s target and not nearly enough to meet a United Nations goal to preserve 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.

But a tentative deal fell apart over a last minute proposal by the UK and Australia for an even lower catch limit than the one agreed to during talks over the summer, according to one delegate who spoke to AP. China, objecting to the persistent Western demands, then withdrew its support for the marine reserve and refused to renew the existing management system.

The result: a 620,000 metric ton catch limit that for 15 years has divvied fishing into four quota areas can now be concentrated into even smaller krill hotspots, some of them teeming with wildlife, including seals and penguins, some already showing signs of stress from competition with fishing, tourism and climate change.

“The meeting was a huge disappointment, even by the low standards that we’ve come to expect,” said Evan Bloom, who for 15 years, until his retirement from the State Department in 2020, led the U.S. delegation to the annual CCAMLR meeting.

“Krill is the base of the food chain in Antarctica and fishing for krill must be handled sustainably if the entire ecosystem is to thrive,” said Bloom, adding that in the absence of further action by CCAMLR and given the advances in fishing the “prospects for harming the ecosystem have now increased.”

Barstad said the krill industry will consider putting its own voluntary limits in place in the absence of an updated CCAMLR framework.

“Whether it’s a big setback, I’m not so sure,” he said. ”Once you go beyond the emotion and come to terms with the fact that a regulation that had been standing for quite some years now suddenly disappeared, a little bit out of the blue, I think it could create a better atmosphere for discussing how to progress sustainably based on science.”

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This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.