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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

CA Sea Otter Population Mysteriously Disappearing

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010   

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - It's a mystery that has scientists asking why; for the second consecutive year, California sea otters are continuing to disappear. The latest survey from the U.S. Geological Survey found the population has declined by 3.6 percent since last year.

While the sea otter population has dwindled to just 2700 animals, a fund set up to find out why the animals are dying is also in danger. Jim Curland, marine program associate with Defenders of Wildlife, says the California Sea Otter tax check-off program is the only source of funding for research on the animals.

"We get this question asked: 'Is that the only way that people can give to the California Sea Otter fund, by being a California taxpayer?", and the answer is yes. So that means that we're at the mercy right now of late tax-filers."

Curland says the potential loss of the program is huge and that it's not just sea otters that benefit from the fund.

"It's much more than sea otters, given that sea otters are what's called an 'indicator species,' meaning that if they're dying of a variety of diseases and other things, they're sort of the canary in the coal mine."

The voluntary check-off donation on state income tax returns was set up by the Legislature. The fund is $31,000 short of making the target amount required by the Franchise Tax Board to remain on state tax forms next year.

More information is at www.defenders.org




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