A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:
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A heat wave is spreading across the continent, affecting at least 250 million people. The El Niño system that helped to fuel the weather system is ending and that may bring some relief. The dangerous heat has affected as many as 1.5 billion people this year and air conditioning is not able to keep up.
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The waters off the New England coast have been hosting an unusually large number and variety of whales recently.
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"Magic mushrooms" are something I remember from the '60s, but they are still out there and still working their "magic." Moreover, mushroom hunters are continually finding previously unknown species of the fungi.
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There are some very large catfish swimming in the waters of the Potomac. Ernie Robinson has caught many of them and returned them to the water.
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Public lands are popular places for foragers.
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A predator-proof fence completed on Moloka'i's North Shore provides a safe haven for seabirds to nest.
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The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act has provided for the planting of one million native trees to revive the fragile forest ecosystem of northern Peru.
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A black bear has been foraging for food in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
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It turns out that dead flowers can tell us quite a lot not only about the past but also about the future.
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Wombat burrows are a safe haven for many animals during wildfires.
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The cicadapocalypse has arrived in the East.
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And in the West, the birth of a white bison calf is cause for celebration among the Lakota Sioux.
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The Biden administration has plans to conserve 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030. His opponent in the upcoming election has quite a different idea.
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Cocaine traffickers present a hazard to rare birds in Central American habitats.
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A catastrophic earthquake and tsunami are almost certainly in the Pacific Northwest's future at some point.
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Ancient genomes of the Maya are revealing which children they selected for sacrifice.
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Scientists are considering whether an ancient sea creature may have been one of our ancestors.
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Reports that the false mermaid-weed was extinct proved to be premature.
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And neither is the vaquita extinct - seriously endangered for sure but still swimming in Gulf of California waters.
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Przewalski's horses are once again roaming the grasslands of Kazakhstan.
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Do individual elephants have names? A recent study suggests that they do and that other elephants call them by those names.
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Shark bites to humans are very rare but there has been a spate of them in Florida waters recently.
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Thank you for the roundup, Dorothy. This is the way I start my weekend. I am generally not in favour of fences creating barriers to wildlife, but I applaud the decision in Hawaii to erect the barrier to protect breeding seabirds that have been affected by the very worst of anthropogenic assaults - and some species are still perilously close to extinction. It’s a laudable goal of the Biden administration to conserve 30% of US land by 2030. I hope people will remember this when they vote. What a terrible choice though - one doddering old man who looks like he might fall over at any minute and a raving madman surrounded by sycophants foaming at the mouth. All the best - David
ReplyDeleteI'm not too concerned about a candidate for president being physically doddering. After all, we once has a president who governed from a wheelchair and that turned out all right for the country and the world. I'm more concerned about a candidate being mentally and spiritually doddering. I'm not sure we can survive that.
DeleteWe can't survive that, I fear.
DeleteMore than anything else, it concerns me that people have been taken in by this man who knows so little and cares so little about actually running a country according to the laws we have established, and, worse, they don't seem to care that he knows so little or cares so little.
DeleteI couldn't agree more!
DeleteAbsolutely, Deb. And they don't see that it will be their stupidity in electing him that will doom us.
DeleteMy son in Chicago has been sending photos of the cicadapocalypse they have been experiencing in recent days. It's shocking to his native Midwestern neighbors.
ReplyDeleteI hope that 30% of the US land and water is set aside for nature. What a wonderful goal. If only Texas had had the foresight to set aside huge chunks of land and water for nature to grow and thrive. Perhaps in the future we will have different leaders who focus on what is good for all, including the nonhuman living things on the planet.
We can only hope, Deb.
DeleteI hardly know what to talk about first, so many interesting topics you've brought to us this week. I am so intrigued by the Maya study and the sacrifices. it also does not surprise me at all if elephants have names. They are among the most intelligent animals, and so beautiful. The shark attacks in Florida are getting wild. So many coming so close to shore. I wonder if that reason is connected to why so many whales are so close to New England. There's so much to talk about this week!
ReplyDeleteYou could be on to something about the whales in their response to the presence of sharks.
DeleteRight?? If you come across anything else about it, please let me know! I couldn't really find anything to make a connection, but I think it is interesting that it would be happening at the same time.
DeleteI'm pleased El Nino has ended ... we actually received rain in May & June this year which we never did last year. I'm hoping it will be a more tolerable summer with less fires. Hooray for the 70 year old flamingo, wow !
ReplyDeleteI know! That flamingo may be my favorite story of the week.
DeleteI think that 70-year-old first-time mother was my favorite link, too. Running a close second and third are the amazing things we keep learning about the Maya, and the fact that elephants call each other by name (which doesn't really surprise me).
ReplyDeleteI've been fascinated by the Maya since I learned about them in high school. I don't think I'll be astonished by any previously unknown amazing information about their culture. And I suspect that elephants have many secrets that we've yet to learn.
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