The Elfin Woods Warbler is a small endemic bird of Puerto Rico with a striped white and black pattern, very similar to the Black-and-White Warbler, but with black spots on its cheeks, a longer than usual beak and rounded wings. The Elfin Warbler distribution is circumscribed to 300 to 1,000 meters above the sea level. At beginning it was thought that it only lived in the Luquillo Mountain Range, but it has been observed in the Maricao and Toro Negro forests and in other areas of the Central Mountain Range.

The Southeast office of the Fishing and Wildlife Services announced yesterday that it has recommended removing the West Indies manatee, closely related to the manatee that lives in Puerto Rico, from the list of endangered species. The recommendation, that has to be confirmed by the central office of the agency in Washington after a process that will include the public’s input, is based on a study done between 2001 and 2006, which detected an increase from 3,200 to 3,500 individuals in the manatee population that lives of the coast of Florida. However, the recognition flights, the only method to count manatees in Puerto Rico, reveal that, up to 2005, the population of those mammals in Puerto Rican waters is decreasing. That year, 121 manatees were identified, when three years before that 137 where identified, according to Carlos Diaz, subdirector of the field FWS office in Puerto Rico. Although the recommendation of removing the manatee from the endangered species list, to which it belongs since 1967, it was recommended that it should be kept a threatened species. Moreover, manatees in Puerto Rico can still be protected as an endangered species by the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources of Puerto Rico.

Estuaries are coastal areas where fresh water and sea water come together. They are aquatic ecosystems with high biodiversity, because they house ocean creatures, species that live in estuaries as well as species that migrate from rivers. In Puerto Rico, there are two main estuaries: the San Juan Bay Estuary and the Estuary Reserve of Jobos Bay, in the southern coast of the Island. What effect could global warming have in this important ecosystem? First of all, the sea-fresh water balance will be affected. Estuaries in Puerto Rico have associated ecosystems, like mangrove swamps, wetlands and seaweed prairies, and temperature and salinity changes due to global warming could make these disappear. Marine organisms associated to estuaries will suffer a direct impact because they are very sensitive to rising temperatures.

Six student chapters of the American Chemical Society of the University of Puerto Rico where recognized at the 233rd American Chemical Society National Meeting celebrated on March 25 in Chicago, Illinois. The six chapters, of different units of the UPR system, where awarded for their performance during 2005-06. The student chapters of Rio Piedras, Humacao and Aguadilla were awarded in the outstanding category –the maximum recognition granted by ACS-, while Cayey, Arecibo and Mayaguez were recognized in the commendable category.