Biodiversity

"Populations of wild pigs are crashing due to the spread of African swine fever (ASF), threatening the livelihoods of millions who depend on them for food, researchers warn. With a fatality rate of almost 100%, ASF has swept across Asia, Europe and Africa, devastating domestic and wild pig populations over the past 10 to 20 years."

"A new rule imposing penalties for migratory bird killings associated with energy development, construction, and poaching is unlikely to be proposed by the Interior Department before the end of the current presidential term, legal experts say."

"Much of the eastern United States can prepare for what one entomologist described as a "spectacular, macabre Mardi Gras" this spring. The event Jonathan Larson, an extension entomologist at the University of Kentucky, is referring to is the simultaneous emergence of two cicada broods that will erupt in states from Virginia to Illinois come late April through June."

"Scientists have mapped the largest coral reef deep in the ocean, stretching hundreds of miles off the U.S. Atlantic coast. While researchers have known since the 1960s that some coral were present off the Atlantic, the reef’s size remained a mystery until new underwater mapping technology made it possible to construct 3D images of the ocean floor."

"I’m on a Zoom call with a team of researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, their gridded video feeds a sort of Hollywood Squares of bird nerds, and we’re discussing the decline and fall of North America’s bird population — a staggering loss of 3 billion breeding adults, or nearly 30 percent of the population, in just a half century — when all of a sudden Gus Axelson picks up his binoculars and peers out the window."

"Crop-killing weeds such as kochia are advancing across the U.S. northern plains and Midwest, in the latest sign that weeds are developing resistance to chemicals faster than companies including Bayer and Corteva can develop new ones to fight them."

"An avian flu panzootic — a pandemic among animals — has struck some 320 bird and mammal species, including elephant seals."

"There’s still a long way to go, but oyster recovery efforts in Maryland’s portion of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries continue to show promising results, state officials for the agency charged with monitoring the mollusk ecosystem said."

"Once common in the West, whitebark pine is being wiped out by a deadly fungus, ravaging beetles, and climate change. Scientists hope advances in gene sequencing and a recent federal listing as threatened will speed the hunt for trees that can be replanted and seed the future."

"Many of the policies enacted around the world to curb the mass killing of sharks have backfired, partly because well-intentioned rules against taking the predators solely for their fins have led to an increase in demand for shark meat, according to a study published on Thursday."