Wildlife

"I was sitting in solitude earlier this summer in an Adirondack chair in my backyard, when I realized I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought. Thanks to the app I’d just downloaded on my phone — the popular and free Merlin Bird ID — I learned just from listening that I was surrounded by more than a dozen species of birds."

"GIANT SEQUOIA NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. — On the morning of July 6, Michelle Harris saw a huge canid with yellow eyes dash across a fire road lined with charred snags and giant sequoias blackened by recent wildfires."

"America’s birds are in trouble. Since 1970, nearly 3 billion birds have vanished from the skies over North America. Most of those losses have been in migratory species, which may breed in the United States or Canada in the summer before heading elsewhere for the winter."

"A new rule governing federally protected waters and wetlands was issued Tuesday by the EPA to align agency regulations with a US Supreme Court ruling that will allow unpermitted development in wetlands across the country."

"In 2021, the South African government committed to shutting down the country’s captive-lion breeding industry, which provided animals for canned hunts. Among the sticking points slowing progress is what should happen to the thousands of lions that remain on private ranches."

"When Reed Cammack hears the first meadowlark of spring, he knows his family has made it through another cold, snowy winter on the western South Dakota prairie. Nothing’s better, he says, than getting up at sunrise as the birds light up the area with song."

"It’s a seemingly harmless act: smooching a tiny turtle as it sits in the palm of your hand. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning animal lovers not to do it."

"The loss of ice in one region of Antarctica last year likely resulted in none of the emperor penguin chicks surviving in four colonies, researchers reported Thursday."

"Fourteen whales and a dolphin have died since 2019 at a popular Canadian aquarium and theme park, according to a new exposé by the Canadian Press."

"Even bird enthusiasts will admit the southwestern willow flycatcher isn’t very flashy. But in studying the DNA of this brownish-olive songbird, scientists say they have found something remarkable: evidence that the endangered bird is adapting at the genetic level to climate change."