New Stamp for the Sixth Extinction

Not the first Yosemite stamp. But will it be the last?A new 42-cent first-class stamp featuring Albert Bierstadt’s 1864 oil painting “Valley of the Yosemite” debuted Thursday morning at the Yosemite Village Post Office. The last Yosemite stamp (2006) featured a sunrise photograph by Galen Rowell and sold at the bygone international letter rate of $.84. (LAT)

Meanwhile, scientists at U.C. Berkeley argued that accelerating declines in amphibian populations point to a "biodiversity disaster" of epic proportions.

Carcasses of Southern Yellow-legged Frogs in Sixty Lake Basin in Sierra Nevada, California. The frogs died of chytridiomycosis, an amphibian disease caused by a particularly virulent fungus. (Vance Vredenburg)"There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now," said David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley in a press release. "Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn't. The fact that they're cutting out now should be a lesson for us."

There have been five mass-extinction events in the history of the planet--when "extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new species." Now it seems we're onto the next.

Quoting from the statement: "Of the seven amphibian species that inhabit the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, five are threatened. Wake and his colleagues observed that, for two of these species, the Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged Frog and the Southern Yellow-legged Frog, populations over the last few years declined by 95 to 98 percent, even in highly protected areas such as Yosemite National Park. This means that each local frog population has dwindled to 2 to 5 percent of its former size. "

Uh-oh. Better stock up on postage stamps.

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[Vintage Yosemite Stamps]

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