Biodiversity

"Environmentalists warn that a California Democrat’s bill “drives a bulldozer” through the state’s new law that protects imperiled Joshua trees from commercial development. But the lawmaker says his impoverished desert region desperately needs the economic boost."

"An orangutan appeared to treat a wound with medicine from a tropical plant— the latest example of how some animals attempt to soothe their own ills with remedies found in the wild, scientists reported Thursday."

"There was something wrong with the chimpanzees. For weeks, a community of 205 animals in Uganda’s Kibale national park had been coughing, sneezing and looking generally miserable. But no one could say for sure what ailed them, even as the animals began to die."

"Over the past several years, the temperature of the Earth’s oceans have been spiking high enough to trigger numerous die-offs of marine species, killing millions of corals, fish, mammals, birds and plants. Those mass die-offs also have sent a wave of emotional trauma washing over some researchers watching their life’s work vanish before their eyes."

"The U.S. House voted Tuesday to end federal protection for gray wolves, approving a bill that would remove them from the endangered species list across the lower 48 states."

"New details of the Biden administration’s signature conservation effort, made public this month amid a burst of other environmental announcements, have alarmed some scientists who study marine protected areas because the plan would count certain commercial fishing zones as conserved."

"Little-appreciated, semiaquatic, and cute-as-hell, muskrats can survive almost anywhere. So where are they?"

"With a little knowledge, we can learn to coexist with the coyote in the backyard or the turkey walking down the street".

"The PBS documentary ‘One with the Whale’ explores the importance of subsistence hunting and gathering in a Yup’ik village—and what happens when mainlanders misunderstand it."

"The cicadas are coming; billions of them." 'The noise is actually kind of deafening. It sounds like 100 chainsaws being used at the same time,' said Jim Louderman, a collections assistant in the Field Museum's Insect Division."