A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:
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The senate has confirmed as the new director of the Environmental Protection Agency former congressman Lee Zeldin, a man with no creditable environmental experience.
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And on that note, welcome to the Year of the Snake. We can at least hope that it is a propitious one.
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How do birds cope with the cold weather of winter?
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The new administration in Washington has thrown spending on addressing climate change into chaos. It is likely that chaos will continue for the next four years.
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A study has found that genetic diversity of plant and animal species is declining globally.
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The new president's attempt to get federal workers to resign seems to be having the opposite effect.
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Meanwhile, the Doomsday Clock ticks ever closer to midnight.
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The latest report on the status of Monarch butterflies does not hold much good news.
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It should not surprise us to learn that our cousins, the chimpanzees, develop hand gestures as a way to communicate with each other.
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Sadly, tiger poaching continues to be a problem in Malaysia.
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An ocean heatwave likely is responsible for killing thousands of fish off the western Australia coast.
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The opposite problem, cold water, is causing suffering among green sea turtles off Florida's Atlantic coast. Over 1,000 have been rescued.
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In Madagascar, floods ravaged a sanctuary for critically endangered tortoises.
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It'll always be the Gulf of Mexico for me.
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Have you heard about the tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas? It's the largest on record in U.S. history.
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Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is spewing lava again.
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The northeastern coast of the country has been overrun by invasive crabs from Europe and Asia. Residents are trying to eat their way out of the problem.
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Seventy-six million years ago, a young pterosaur apparently fell prey to a crocodile.
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A baby shark has been born in a Louisiana aquarium tank that contains only female sharks and marine experts are flummoxed for an explanation.
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Saguaros are beset by a number of problems including climate change, drought, and fires, and all are made worse by human activities.
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Danish scientists are excited about the discovery of some 66-million-year-old fossilized vomit!
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Will this planned dam on the Congo River ever be built?
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Sandeels are a treasured delicacy of Puffins and now a courtroom battle looms between the U.K. and the E.U. over the tiny fish.
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Toxic PFAS from a chemical plant are polluting the Ohio River in West Virginia where the plant is located.
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Astronomers are keeping an eye on an asteroid that has a slight possibility of hitting Earth in 2032.
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A pangolin species that is potentially separate from species previously known has been identified in the Indo-Burma region.
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The last of the rhesus monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility has been recaptured after having been lured by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
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I think we know that the current resident of the White House will use whatever tools he can find to circumvent the Endangered Species Act.
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The National Zoo's panda cam is back on line and airing footage of the zoo's newest panda pair.
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Resistance is necessary, writes Anne Lamott, and we must practice it in whatever ways are available to us.
Good morning, Dorothy. Thank you for the roundup. Grimly, a deadly insecticide has the same name, Roundup! Such a litany of woe and as one of your links alludes it is only going to get worse with the current occupant of the White House. And I just read that New York State is abandoning many of its progressive environmental policies. Chaos rules. All the best - David
ReplyDeleteChaos, yes, but I take comfort in the knowledge that Nature plays the long game and this, too, shall pass.
DeleteThanks for the panda and eagle cam news - I hope these will uplift us during these times. I'm also grateful for your Anne Lamott link -- we must resist every step of the way.
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of our own self-respect and the Nature that we care about, resistance is necessary.
DeleteDorothy, thank you for gritting your teeth and continuing to share the news from nature. I have been happy to hear about several sitings of Bald Eagles in my county recently. I shall do what I can here to do the right thing, speak truth, and encourage others.
ReplyDeleteThe return of Bald Eagles to our area and the recovery of the species, in general, is one of the victories of the Endangered Species Act, which was signed into law, ironically enough by a Republican president, Richard M. Nixon. That may go a long way to balance out some of his more egregious actions.
DeleteI keep reminding myself that no one is all bad. Perhaps good will come out of all this awfulness. And obviously some people don't really care if democracy continues...as long as the money keeps coming in.
DeleteEvery time we discuss takeaways from the nature books we read in that book club we say we need fewer humans in the world. That definitely seems to be the way we are going. Someday all this will be a mile under ash and rock.
DeleteNot sure if that is really comforting...
The rainbow snake is amazing - how gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it just! One doesn't really think of snakes as being pretty, but this one definitely deserves the adjective.
DeleteI appreciate these posts more than ever now, to see some good news at least. The last two weeks have been exhausting and at we know it is only going to get worse. I am also thankful for the Alt NPS; as you said, they're a national treasure and we must protect them.
ReplyDeleteWe need all the good news we can find and we can usually find some bit in the world of Nature. I, too, have immeasurable gratitude for those men and women who spend their lives protecting it.
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