This week in birds - #657

 A roundup of the week's news of birdsa and the environment:


This little beauty is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It is the Velvety Black-Tyrant and I think that we can agree that it is very well-named. It is a bird of the dry grasslands and forests of eastern Brazil, the only place, in fact, that it is found. The bird has not been well-studied, but scientists believe that its population is stable and that it benefits from having a very large range. Still, it is vulnerable to the dangers that face all birds: habitat loss, a changing climate, and pesticide use.

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Our current administration's Interior Department has canceled an enormous solar power project in the Nevada desert that would have been one of the world's largest. 

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It has, in fact, been a crushing year all-round for American science as the administration has sharply cut funding for scientific research and cut thousands of jobs. 

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The president seems determined to bring back the coal industry as he shuts down solar projects.

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In other bad news, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have jumped by a record amount, according to U.N. studies.

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California now has a "State Snake" and it's a beauty. It is the Giant Garter Snake.

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A tipping point in climate change has been reached with widespread coral dieback.

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Jeffrey Meldrum, a scientist who had studied "Bigfoot" (Sasquatch) has died at age 67.

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Sandhill Cranes and many other species are on the move in their winter migration.

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Future seas may look somewhat different from those today, because humans are altering them - like everything else on Earth, it seems.

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Zombie wildfires are causing extensive damage in the western states and testing the ability of the firefighters who are trying to control them.

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Republicans are attempting to weaken one of the nation's oldest environmental protection acts, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

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Wildfire plus rain can be a dangerous combination.

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Wolves have a well-founded fear of humans.

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Among all the bad news in the latest report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, there are actually some bright spots.

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Monarch butterflies have begun to arrive at their California and Texas winter sites.

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