December 2021 - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
Things to do

Lisa S. French

Adult polar bear walking away over a flat snow covered landscape

I am a book of snow,
a spacious hand,
an open meadow,
a circle that waits,
I belong to the earth
and its winter.

Pablo Neruda

As the peaks and valleys of 2021 recede in the rear-view mirror, we’d like to express our absolute appreciation to our dear readers for making room for Wild & Wondrous in the space in between. Whether you’re a regular visitor or just passing through on your internet travels, we’re glad to have you with us as we explore the wonders of the natural world.

With your support of the Favorite World Press read-and-plant partnership, you’ve helped create a more sustainable future by empowering us to plant trees that nurture our planet. Trees that turn down the heat, purify air and water and provide habitat for our furry and feathered friends. Well done, and thanks very much, tree people!

In 2022, we’ll be focusing more of our efforts on a new sustainable development project also aimed at protecting and preserving the world’s remaining forests and biodiversity.

Wild & Wondrous will be back with more creatures to meet, things to learn, and things to do. Until we meet again, wishing you a healthy, happy, light-filled New Year, chock-full of leaps from peak to peak.

xo Favorite World Press

The W & W

60-second
Year in Rear-View

Networking giraffes,
your fair share of trees,
a snowy owl in the city,
plastic-free seas

Moths that jam sonar,
a blue bird that trills,
leafy seadragons
flaunting their frills

The rarest of rhinos,
chimps that have heart,
the plight of the manatee,
urban bird art

Tree-planting readers
putting down roots,
wild African horses
in bug-zapping suits

Big bison feelings,
a yard habitat,
the return of cicadas,
an award-winning bat

Night lights for lions,
blinking bug love,
bird feeder smack-downs
won by a dove

A headcount for walrus,
disease-busting bees,
traveling wildebeest,
fish that don’t freeze

A shout-out for science,
the songs of the Earth,
a month celebrating
what the planet is worth

Running for wildlife,
how whales keep us cool,
movie star bees,
why brainy girls rule

A hairy-nosed wombat,
the last bird of its kind,
a plan to save forests
to restore peace of mind

A remembrance of sorrow,
the pure magic of snow,
hope for our oceans,
a sea creature’s glow

The prettiest pictures,
lunar fox feet,
reducing emissions
to turn down the heat

Bringing back monarchs,
green roofs for birds,
a big meeting in Scotland
where they said lots of words

A built-in eye compass,
how mollusks got clever,
and gratitude for our readers
that goes on forever.

…

Lisa S. French December 31, 2021

So Much Like Stars

“Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”

Mary Oliver

May the beauty of the world
fill your heart this season
and always.

Wishing you joyful holidays,

with love,

Favorite World Press

PS: And jingle all the way – FWP Holiday Playlist.

…

Lisa S. French December 20, 2021

NYC is for the Birds

1.5-minute read

What if New York City, the most densely populated urban area in the United States, could be transformed into a green oasis that’s also a haven for winged wildlife? Can we make more room for nature, so the city is less concrete and more jungle? You bet—think vertical!

There are roughly 36,700 acres of handily sun-facing rooftops in NYC—equivalent to 27,803 football fields or 44 Central Parks. That’s a whole lot of valuable space to create healthy, productive habitat for plants, pollinators, and feathered friends—sky meadows teeming with life—wildflowers, songbirds, butterflies, bees. Greening rooftops would not only make the city a force for nature restoration but would help to preserve wildlife in non-urban areas as well. Connecting fragments of habitat would provide migrating and breeding birds with access to life-sustaining vegetation and food resources where and when they’re needed most.

Researchers from Fordham University investigating the potential for NYC green roofs to attract semi-urban and non-urban birds compared avian visitors to green and conventional roofs in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx during spring migration and summer breeding seasons. They found that birds that typically avoid the Big Apple will make an exception for green roofs that provide the right combination of plants and insects for foraging.

With rapid urbanization and loss of green space, most migratory birds will encounter cityscapes in their travels. Providing rooftop recharging stations planted with bird and insect-friendly vegetation will help increase their odds of survival in a warming world. And green roofs aren’t just for the birds—they also benefit people by cleaning and cooling the air, decreasing noise, and reducing storm runoff. Plus, they’re more lovely to look at. Now that’s a sweet city!

You can check out some inspiring examples of NYC green roofs here and global living architecture projects here. And if you’d like to learn more about what it takes to turn regular old urban rooftops into beautiful life-sustaining habitats, watch this video from NYC Audubon.

Whether you’re urban or rural or somewhere in-between, if you’ve been topping up the winter chow to help out hungry local birds, you can get the inside scoop on the pecking order at the feeder and who comes out on top from Audubon. Here in Manhattan, it’s the doves—always the doves. Update: Be sure to have a look at Carla Rhodes’ wonderful snaps of New York birds getting their fair share—doves on cleanup crew.

Speaking of local birds, congratulations to the 2021 MLS Cup Champions—the New York City FC, aka the Pigeons. Well done and welcome back to your urban habitat!

…

Lisa S. French December 14, 2021

The Big Benefits of the Big Love of Bison

1.5-minute read

Do you have a favorite nature spot where you go to feel all of the good feelings—joy, hope, optimism, comfort? Whether your outdoor sanctuary is a lofty mountain peak, a pristine stretch of beach, an enchanted forest, or a wide-open prairie, connecting to nature is broadly acknowledged to improve human well-being. Interestingly, the mood-enhancing benefits of time spent in nature also benefit nature. How so? Well, according to biologists at Colorado State University, the positive emotions that we associate with a specific soul-soothing place on the planet also aid conservation by increasing our inclination to keep the great out there intact. And what is one of the best ways to amplify emotional connections to a particular landscape? Add wildlife.

To better understand what motivates people to care about preserving the natural world, researchers set out to determine if the reintroduction of bison to the Colorado prairie after a 150-year absence would increase visitor attachment to the North American grasslands—one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world. In the 18th century, bison, the largest mammals in North America, roamed grasslands in the tens of millions. By 1889, only 541 remained. Thanks to ongoing restoration efforts, today, there are around 20,000 of the hefty grazers in parks and reserves in the United States and Canada.

So do these iconic animals have a role to play in connecting people to nature and conservation? How do humans feel about bison, anyway? As it turns out, pretty darn good! Surveying visitors to the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area in Fort Collins, Colorado, before and two years after the reintroduction of a herd of bison, researchers measured a significant increase in how attached people felt to the conservation area. Soapstone Prairie visitors felt more at home, wanted to visit the area more and a resounding 95% felt that it was more important to protect the space after the high plains drifters returned to their historical home on the range. Bringing back bison had an immediate positive impact on people feeling a connection to conservation. We want to protect what we love, and if the experience of visitors to Soapstone is anything to go by, to know bison is to love them. And that’s good news for the preservation of our grasslands and native wildlife.

If you’d like to experience those big bison feelings for yourself, and you’re up for a winter road trip, you can find a list of all of the places they roam here.

And if you’d like to learn more about ongoing bison restoration projects across the rolling plains, visit American Prairie.

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Lisa S. French December 3, 2021