A number of interesting animal stories have popped up lately. Here’s a quick guide.

Rare dolphins found near Bangladesh.

A plucky sandhill crane is released back in to the wild.

There’s a controversy over big sheep hunting in Tajikstan.

Coyotes and people are encountering each other across the country, and not out in the wild..

Wonder why newspapers everywhere are struggling to make ends meet? There are plenty of reasons to go around, but certainly one of them is the perception that journalistic skills, and standards, are slipping.

Here’s a case in point. This weekend the Minneapolis Star-Tribune announced in an outdoors story that the National Park Service was going to ban the use of lead tackle in the national parks, including Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park.

“We want to take a leadership role in removing lead from the environment,” Park Service Acting Director Dan Wenk said in an announcement last week. The agency also intends to eliminate use of lead ammunition in the parks by next year, a move that won’t affect Voyageurs because hunting isn’t allowed there.

The reporter didn’t have any problem finding negative reactions from the outdoors community.

The American Sportfishing Association said Friday it was “surprised and dismayed” over the ban and asked the Park Service to reconsider.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation — the trade association for the shooting, hunting and firearms industry — also blasted the move, which it called arbitrary, overreactive and not based on science.

It all fits a standard narrative, government agency makes arbitrary decision to change a fishing or hunting practice without consulting those who would be affected. Problem is, the reporter didn’t check the facts before writing up the story. Within a few hours of the story appearing on-line, commenter tiwebb pointed out there was a problem with the main point of the Star-Tribune’s story. The park service isn’t banning lead tackle and shot for visitors, they’re just going to quit using it themselves.

This misunderstanding was started by a surprise press release by the National Park Service launched a national controversy. Acting NPS Director Dan Wenk announced the park service is going lead free. “Our goal is to eliminate the use of lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle in parks by the end of 2010,” Wenk stated in the release. “We want to take a leadership role in removing lead from the environment.” Turns out the uproar was all for naught. David Barna, NPS chief of Public Affairs, said it’s not a rule change at all, but rather an in-house decision. “It’s an announcement to let the public know that the PARK SERVICE intends to go to non-lead shot in our weapons and non-lead fishing gear in the work that we do,” said Barna. “It’s not a requirement or regulation for our visitors. We’re just announcing that’s the direction we’re going and we’re encouraging the public to do the same.

Tiwebb included a link in his post, and it turns out the information he quoted was on the internet March 12th. The Star-Tribune’s story was first posted on the 14th, which means the correct facts were already out there and the Star-Tribune’s reporter simply failed to get them. The result is that some people will be getting all worked up over nothing.

Blogger Muir at the U.S. National Parks blog had the story right the day before, West Virginia Outdoors News had it posted on March 12th, and commenter tiwebb was able to find it within a few hours of the Star-Tribune’s story appearing on-line yet, as of this afternoon at least, no correction has appeared on the Star-Tribune’s site. Everyone makes mistakes, but one of the faqcts of life on the internet that mainstream newspapers are still struggling with is that when you make a mistake and it’s pointed out to you, not acknowledging and correcting it immediately simply means that it sits there for all to see.

Here’s a good example of how the internet can be used to enhance a reporter’s story in ways you won’t often find in print media. two reporters for Reuters wrote an article on how beaver trappers in Texas are being affected by the economic downturn. There’s been a growth of the beaver population in recent years, so the bottom line is there’s still work to rid farmers of a nuisance, but no one’s buying fur these days.

If that was all to the article, it would be a fairly straightforward look at how the life of someone outside the economic mainstream is doing. A quick link, though, takes you to one of the reporter’s blog post about the story, and there he does a good job of explaining how trapping works these days and the controversy that surrounds it. Let’s face it, trapping is not the most highly thought of outdoor activity among people who don’t get out in the woods much. In fact, even a lot of people who do get out in the woods a lot are ambivalent at best about trapping.

The blog post and Reuters article taken together do a good job of setting out the issues and giving the reader facts about just how trapping works these days, and why some people still do it, something that neither the article or blog post accomplish on their own. If anyone out there is looking for an example of how a reporter can use the internet to make a story better than it would be otherewise, there it is.

Consider the home computer. Sure it’s feeling good when being used to cruise the internet, check email, play games, edit photos, listen to music, and all the other things people do with their home computer. But what about when it’s not being used? The poor computer is forced to idle, sit on hold, or ignominiously put to sleep for what amounts to, in processing time, an eternity.

Now there’s a way to put that computer to work, and allow it the satisfaction of contributing to a cause that could possibly help save the world.

Scientists at Harvard University and IBM are hoping to harness the power of a million idle computers to develop a new, cheaper form of solar power that could revolutionize the green energy world.

Researchers have launched the project using IBM’s World Community Grid, which taps into volunteers’ computers across the globe to run calculations on a myriad of compounds — potentially shortening a project that could take 22 years to just two years.

Harvard scientists are hoping the project will allow it to discover a combination of organic materials that can be used to manufacture plastic solar cells that are cheaper and more flexible than the silicon-based ones typically used to turn sunlight into electricity.

The technology could be used to coat windows, make backpacks or line blankets to produce electricity from the sun’s rays.

Technology to make the plastic cells already exists, but they are not yet efficient enough to be rolled out in commercial products.

Students and amateur astronomers have been participating for years in a similar program called SETI at Home. Their computers already know the the good feeling that comes with devoting what would otherwise be downtime to a good cause. To give your own computer the same boost to its self-esteem that those computers have experienced, and possibly bring the benefits of cheap, readily available solar power to millions of people, check out the World Community Grid web-page, and look for the Clean Energy Project.

If you’re interested at all in freshwater lakes, streams, and the fish and other animals and plants that inhabit them, you’ll want to check out The Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, a joint project of the Nature Conservancy and The World Wildlife Fund. It’s the world’s first complete database devoted to freshwater ecosystems, and should be a valuable tool for anyone who works in outdoors management, fishes, or simply cares about lakes and streams.

The website covers 426 conservation areas, inhabited by over 18,000 species. It’s as simple to use as clicking on a map. if you’re heading out fishing this weekend, it’s worth checking out, you may be surprised at all the stuff that lives in your favorite fishing spot.

Found a couple of interesting blogs while bouncing around the internet today. The first Brave New Leaf, turned up from a link to a highly entertaining post titled “The 12 Kinds of Environmentalists.” Running the gamut from The Organic Fanatic to The Sensitive Agnostic, it’s a good example of using humor to connect with a topic. See if you can find a category that fits your own views. There are also good recent posts on cows causing global warming and the actual effects of Daylight Savings Time.

From Brave New Leaf, I found a link to Eco-Geek, a technology oriented site that covers everything from solar power and hybrid cars to ink jet printers and motor oil. If you’re at all interested in technology and the environment, be sure to check out Eco-Geek.