endangered species Archives - Page 2 of 7

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

1-minute read

Somersaults, pirouettes, and disco-arms shake.

Body drumming, water splashing, and ice skating.

What may sound like new-fangled cross-training combos are actually some of the dozens of body movements that gorillas use to make themselves understood.

According to researchers at the University of St. Andrews, although gorillas are only capable of a fixed number of vocalizations, when it comes to communicating through gestures, they have a flexible and extensive repertoire of voluntary moves. And those gestures aren’t random; they’re intentional acts of communication aimed at achieving gorilla life goals.

Does This Gorilla Get Me?
Studying three groups of the primates in captivity and one group in the wild, researchers recorded 102 different gestures. Which gestures these movers and shakers used as invitations to travel, play, and cuddle, or requests to calm down, or back off depended on who they were communicating with and how they were responded to. If it was clear that a message was understood, a gorilla would continue the same gestures with the same partner for the same purpose; if not, the persistent primate would switch to a different combination of communication signals to get a point across. They don’t call the clever creatures great apes for nothing!

ICYMI Nature News

A Universal Language
Speaking of creature communications: this chimp mama’s loving gestures towards her newborn are universally understood.

Primates Share Cool Things
And scientists can add another great ape gesture to the list. A wild chimpanzee in Uganda was filmed by Universities of York and Warwick researchers showing an interesting leaf to her mother for no other reason than sharing something cool. Look, mom, beauty!

Rats Get Their Groove On
University of Tokyo researchers have discovered that rats have an innate ability to bop their heads to a good beat. And what’s on these rhythmic rodents’ playlist? Queen, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and Mozart. Eclectic!

Octopuses Are Mad Flingers
Australian researchers have discovered another way that octopuses put those plentiful arms to good use: throwing objects—at each other. Whether they’re playing or fighting, only the octopuses know for sure. Either way—”Take that, balloon head!”

Have a lovely weekend, everyone. Stay safe and warm, Upstate New Yorkers.

…

Lisa S. French November 18, 2022

A Big Win for a Little Bird

2-minute read

Wren you’ve got it, you’ve got it!

The pīwauwau rock wren, the little songbird with the really big feet, has hopped and bopped past its competitors to be crowned 2022 New Zealand Bird of the Year. And what makes the diminutive mountain dweller a winner? For starters, the feathered rock climber is New Zealand’s only true alpine bird, spending its entire life flitting around the unforgiving, rugged terrain of the island country’s mountain regions. Despite weighing less than a double-A battery and lacking an insulating layer of down, the rock wren manages to endure months of bitter cold temperatures that can drop below -10℃ at elevations as high as 3,000 meters.

You might think that an ancient bird species robust enough to survive 62 million years in such a harsh environment could handle just about anything nature throws its way, but the rock wren is in serious trouble. Unfortunately, human-introduced predators have pushed the intrepid avian mountaineers to the brink of extinction.

Even though our Bird of the Year pick, the rockhopper penguin, failed to capture the crown, we’re happy to congratulate this little endangered underbird on its much-deserved big win. With 49% of bird species globally in decline, drawing attention to the plight of rare and at-risk fliers like the New Zealand rock wren can promote conservation strategies that ensure they stick around to prettify the planet for another few million years.

You can find out more about the rock wren and other amazing New Zealand bird species from Forest & Bird. And if you’d like to offer your support to all of the winged wonders of our world, Birdlife International has lots of ways you can lend a hand. Faced with the triple threats of climate change, habitat loss, and invasive species, our beloved birds might just survive with a little help and TLC from their fwrens.

ICYMI Nature News

Prescription Bird Benefits
We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again, being around birds is good for you. In case you need another great reason to spend time in nature with the feathered songsters, researchers at King’s College have concluded that seeing and hearing birds improves overall mental well-being. So, if you’ve got a stubborn case of the blues, you may benefit from a daily dose of prescribed birdsong.

Bees Just Want to Have Fun
Apparently, all work and no play makes for very dull pollinators. We knew the brainy, little insects were hard workers, but according to scientists at Queen Mary University, bees are also fun seekers that like to play with toys given the opportunity. Note to self: add teeny-tiny toy chest to garden.

Mapping Pachyderm Facial Feels
Have you ever wondered how elephants maintain such effortless control of their trunks? According to Science Advances, it’s because they have tens of thousands of nerve cells in the grape-sized brain region that controls their facial muscles—63,000 cells for African elephants and 54,000 for Asians. We humans, by comparison, have only 8-9000 nerve cells in our facial control center. Now you know why you can’t pull out tree trunks with your nose.

Nose-Picking Primates
It’s long been accepted that Mother Nature provides each unique species on the planet with the essential tools and abilities needed to survive. In the case of the Madagascar aye-aye, it seems the primate needs to pick its nose, so is equipped with an 8 cm extra-long middle finger to do the job. Researchers believe that the nose-picking habit (hobby?), also common in other primates, is likely a form of self-cleaning. Tissue, little fellow?

FWP Carbon Capture Report
We’ve got another month of tree planting and carbon capture updates to report. But before we get to the number crunching, we’d like to provide a bit of info about why we plant where we plant.

Almost every region on Earth can get a boost from tree planting, but picking spots that provide the optimal social, biodiversity, and environmental benefits is critical to our mission. Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, we plant the majority of our trees in the tropical zone, where they receive the most sunlight to expedite growth and CO2 capture.

Tropical regions also host about 85% of all terrestrial species. Planting trees in the tropics helps combat deforestation and habitat loss that threaten many species with extinction. The Tree-Nation platform also enables us to plant drought-resistant crop trees that support communities most at risk from famine and malnutrition. Our goal is to plant the right trees in the right places for the greatest all-around benefit.

From April through October, the trees we’ve planted across 11 projects bring our carbon capture total to 2020 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 2,235,456 pounds of coal burned, 227,350 gallons of gasoline consumed, or 5,015,197 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.

…

Lisa S. French November 1, 2022

Making Room for Urban Wildlife

2-minute read

If you took the city… and turned it upside down and shook it, you would be amazed at the animals that would fall out.

Yann Martel, Life of Pi

What kinds of creatures would fall out if you turned your city upside down? Here in NYC, we’d shake out 1.1 million domestic animals of the woofing, meowing variety, and a surprising assortment of wild ones, including coyotes, deer, raccoons, possums, skunks, hawks, and the occasional snowy owl. As habitat loss and climate change continue to take their toll on natural ecosystems, wild animals looking for a home away from home can end up in unexpected places, like a green patch of park in the middle of a 23-square-mile island inhabited by 1.63 million people.

By 2050, it’s estimated that 7 billion people will live in urban areas. Whether it’s coyotes in Manhattan, sea lions in San Francisco, or cougars in Los Angeles, cities will be supporting more diverse animal species in response to the impacts of ongoing environmental change. As wildlife and urban dwellers try to adjust to sharing the same habitat, cities that plan for peaceful co-existence will be critical to the survival of some of our increasingly endangered animals.

Because coyotes are going to coyote, and cougars are going to cougar, managing the ecological challenges of making room for urban wildlife takes innovative thinking so that animals can do what they normally do without stressing out their human neighbors.

So, what would a wildlife-friendly city look like? It could look like Los Angeles, the second most populated city in the U.S., which is in the final stages of planning and fundraising for the world’s largest urban wildlife crossing, a 210-foot span over ten lanes of the 101 Freeway, which will create a vital connection for a population of at-risk cougars and other native wildlife.

The average home range of a cougar is 240 square miles, but the fragmentation of habitat by roads and ongoing development is a threat to their survival. By reconnecting the Santa Monica Mountain ecosystem over the 101, the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing will give big cats like P-22, aka the Brad Pitt of cougars, the ability to freely move between regions, helping to save the iconic animals from isolation and extinction.

The wildlife crossing will also provide other California creatures—bobcats, grey foxes, coyotes, and mule deer—with a safe passage between patches of critter-friendly habitat. And human inhabitants of the sprawling city will get a nature boost too. The conservation project’s green space will include a multi-use trail and recreation areas for hikers, bikers, and equestrians—all-around good news for nature-loving Angelenos.

Studying how wild animals live, move, and adapt when faced with the accelerating pressures of habitat loss and climate change is helping conservationists, city planners, and concerned citizens to create resilient urban ecosystems that will make cities healthier and more livable for humans and wildlife on a rapidly changing planet.

You can read about the big cats of the Santa Monica Mountains here and learn more about how a short walk over a ten-lane freeway could be vital to helping these endangered cougars to keep on cougaring from the good people at Save LA Cougars Campaign.

ICYMI Nature News

A Purr-fect Ending
Speaking of big cats, we think you might need to take a look at this unbelievably adorable video of chirping cheetahs at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Did your heart swell to ten times its normal size at the end? Yeah, we thought so.

The Beary Chunky Chompion
Did you predict the winner of Fat Bear Week? If you bet on 747, aka Bear Force One, congratulations on your astute sense of future bear fatness. If you’d like to learn why hibernating bears are able to pack on the pounds and stay healthy, The Washington Post has some interesting insights for you here.

A Brand New Whale
The good news: scientists named a new species of baleen whale this week. The bad news: the 60,000-pound marine mammal, dubbed Rice’s whale, is on the verge of extinction. Geez, give us a chance to get to know the finned fellows…

A Pest-Beating Flowering Plant
Scientists have discovered a Costa Rican plant that turns crop-destroying pests into pollinators. Crafty!

Audubon Migratory Bird Explorer
Have you checked out Audubon’s guide to bird migration yet? You can track the annual journeys of over 450 bird species and learn about the challenges they face to surviving along the way with this cool bird tracking tool. Also, we just wanted to mention the fifth and final beautiful installment of the Birdsong Project is now available—from Audubon to your ears.

Underbirds Are Go
Voting for Forest & Bird’s New Zealand Bird of the Year is now open. Exciting! Which finely feathered candidate will earn your nod of approval? We’re going with the Rockhopper penguin again this year. With those outstanding head tufts, it has to win eventually. Choose your five favorites here.

And that’s all for now. Have a super week!

…

Lisa S. French October 17, 2022

What’s Good For Lemurs is Good for the Planet

2-minute read

One of our favorite things to do here at FWP is to help restore forests that cool the planet, support the lives and livelihoods of people, and provide food and habitat for endangered wildlife. Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, every month, we have new opportunities to contribute to planting projects that minimize biodiversity loss and protect and restore some of the most threatened wild places on Earth—known in science speak as biodiversity hotspots. There are currently 36 recognized hotspots, home to 2 billion people and teeming with plants, animals and other living organisms that support the functioning of ecosystems that we all depend upon for survival.

About 8,716 miles from where we sit in NYC, give or take a few blocks, is the island country of Madagascar, one of the most biodiverse of all hotspots and a critical priority for nature conservation. Approximately 92% of Madagascar’s mammals, 89% of its plant life, and 95% of reptiles don’t exist anywhere else in the natural world.

In addition to some extraordinary creatures you may have never heard of, like tomato frogs, aye-ayes, and fossas, one of the island’s most familiar and iconic animals is the lemur. Of 101 lemur species, 96% are currently at risk of extinction. Not only do lemurs depend on forests, but forests also benefit from lemurs’ seed dispersal that helps to maintain habitats that other rare species rely on for food, cover, and toing and froing. Like other keystone species globally, including bees, sea otters, and manatees, lemurs are the canaries in the coal mine, their presence or absence is a sign of the health of their native ecosystem.

With only 10% of their natural habitat remaining due to deforestation, overharvesting, and climate change impacts, even the most dedicated lemurs would have a hard time dispersing enough seeds to keep rapidly dwindling forests intact. To give the pop-eyed primates a helping hand, we’re contributing to Madagascar’s reforestation with the Eden Projects. Since 2019, Eden has successfully planted over 10 million mangrove and flowering trees with Tree-Nation in northwest Madagascar, benefiting both people and wildlife.

Although you may be surprised to learn that what’s good for lemurs is good for the planet, to quote Madagascar’s native peoples, “the forest has been present since the dawn of time and always will be, because if it disappears, life will also disappear.” We couldn’t agree more. That’s why we pitch in with planet cooling, habitat restoring, and community-supporting tree planting projects in biodiversity hotspots around the globe. Here’s the July update:

FWP Monthly Carbon Capture Report
Our total YTD carbon capture across six projects is 1,332 tons. That’s equivalent to greenhouse gas emissions avoided by 57,936 trash bags of waste recycled instead of landfilled, 50,729 lamps switched to LEDs, or 1,480,884 pounds of coal burned.

Rolling on… doesn’t it seem like it’s about time for a playlist? We think so. Happy high summer!

…

Lisa S. French August 9, 2022

Healing the Planet: The People Have the Power

1.5-minute read

We hope that you’re thoroughly enjoying the summer roaming season. Being out in the world again and appreciating the astounding beauty of nature serves as a soul-soothing reminder of how critical a hospitable planet is to our well-being. Thanks to a unanimous vote by the United Nations General Assembly as of July 28, your access to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment is no longer just a wishlist item but has now been declared a universal human right.

Did you know that you can play a vital role in maintaining the natural world you love by collaborating with scientists to help address some of our biggest Earthly challenges, like climate change and biodiversity loss?

Now, you may say to yourself, “Self, I am just one person. I can’t make a difference. How can I help with such momentous problems?” Well, you can rev up your big brain and provide your unique and invaluable insights to scientists working to protect and preserve our environment—that’s how. By joining the ranks of millions of citizen scientists around the world, you can participate in advancing the knowledge needed to help maintain the well-being of people, wildlife, and the planet. Does that sound like a plan? Read on…

Every day, new citizen science programs are launched in every corner of the globe, offering opportunities to observe and track species or environmental events that remain invisible to remote monitoring. In many cases, there is no formal training required for participation. All that’s needed is your perceptive peepers and unbridled enthusiasm, and passion for nature. The projects span a vast range of issues, using web platforms and mobile apps to record data.

There’s still a lot of summer left and a lot of options to explore to make an important contribution to healing the Earth. By helping scientists make better and more comprehensive analyses of the state of our home planet, you’ll also improve environmental decision-making that affects the health of local and global communities. Every solution to even seemingly insurmountable problems starts with someone saying, “What is happening here? We should fix this.” So how can we help fix the urgent, closely linked problems of climate change and biodiversity loss? By supporting scientists and working together with people from different backgrounds and abilities to advance the knowledge needed to create a sustainable future for everyone.

Are you in? Great! We’ve pulled together some resources to get you started on your citizen science journey. Pick a project and share what you see:

Scistarter: Find a project by topic or keyword.
Citisci: Create projects, build datasheets, and track your results.
iNaturalist: Explore and share your observations from the natural world.
iSpot: Identify wildlife and share nature with a global community.
GLOBE: Join a global learning and research community to benefit the environment.
Earthwatch: Help tackle urgent environmental challenges through research.
Zooniverse: Contribute to people-powered research.
eMammal: Track wildlife in 110 wildlife projects in 22 countries.
Forestwatcher: Keep tabs on the trees.
Edge of Existence: Help protect some of the most unique and endangered species on the planet.

…

Lisa S. French August 1, 2022

A shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) stork standing surrounded by plants and waiting

Say Hello to the Shoebill Stork—If You Dare

2-minute read

If you happened upon a shoebill stork in your travels, your first thought after you stopped shaking in your wading boots would most likely be, “Whoa, that is one super-sized, scarily pre-historic looking bird… dino-bird… bird-o-saur…” Standing five feet tall with a saucer-eyed, do-you-see-how-I-see-you stare and a bone-crusher of a hooked bill, this fearsome swamp dweller is not an escapee from Jurassic Park but a distinctive African wading bird considered one of the most extraordinary feathered creatures on Earth. Let’s dig in to find out what makes the shoebill stork stand out in a flock:

What’s in a Name?
Dubbed Balaeniceps rex, “King Whalehead” or whale-headed stork by British ornithologist John Gould in 1851, the bird was known as abu markub, “father of the shoe” by the Arab people, and schuhschnabel or “shoebill” by the Germans. With a bill shaped like a shoe large enough to hold a human foot, shoebill became the favored moniker. But what kind of shoe? Sneaker? Nope. Stiletto? No. Sandal? Unh-uh. The consensus is that this wading bird’s bill looks like a Dutch clog. Originally grouped with storks, herons, and ibis, scientists have concluded that the shoebill is more closely related to pelicans.

Creature Features
In addition to a powerful 12-inch bill with a piercing nail-like hook on the end, the shoebill has extra-long toes for swamp-stomping and a remarkable eight-foot wingspan.

The Swamp It Calls Home
Found only in the freshwater wetlands of eastern central tropical Africa, the shoebill occupies some of the most inaccessible habitats in the world. The tall, leggy water bird prefers swamps and marshes with lots of reeds and floating vegetation, where it constructs raft-sized nests that can measure up to eight feet across—which, as an aside, is only slightly smaller than a Manhattan studio. Shoebills lay one to three eggs, and it takes about five months for a baby shoebill to mature, leave the nest and stand on its own big bird feet.

Hobbies and Interests
Despite its menacing appearance, the shoebill is no avian warrior. The low-energy, solitary bird spends about 85% of its time standing, preening, and sitting on platforms of vegetation. The sluggish species stands motionless for hours, waiting for a tasty meal to swim by and then collapses on its prey hooked-bill first in a frenzy of wing-flapping. Although the shoebill is capable of flying long distances, it’s not migratory, spends only 0.9% of its time in the air, and only occasionally perches in trees.

Favorite Foods
Most partial to carp and lungfish, the patient fisher-bird is also keen on turtles, water snakes, lizards, and baby crocodiles—also known as the wetlands buffet.

Communication Style
You won’t hear energetic chitter-chattering or soul-stirring swamp songs from the shoebill. The rat-a-tat-tat sound of machine-gun fire it produces is known as bill clattering, and it’s used to both delight lady birds and deter predators. When not on high alert for love or danger, the otherwise quiet bird may offer a gentle nod in greeting. And if you see a shoebill shake its head from side to side, it’s not a judgy sign of disapproval but an attempt to dislodge weedy debris or leftover lungfish.

Shoebill Stressors
Like so many amazing animal species globally, shoebill populations across Africa are declining. Habitat loss, climate change, and illegal capture for the bird trade are taking their toll on the avian wonders. The IUCN estimates that only 3,300 to 5,300 shoebills are left in the wild. As our home planet continues to undergo rapid environmental change, vulnerable animals like the shoebill need all the help they can get to survive. If you’d like to join an international community of people working to create a better world for wondrous wildlife like the shoebill, head on over to Birdlife.org—nature needs more followers!

ICYMI Nature News

Styrofoam Eating Superworms
Move over plastic-eating bacterium, scientists from the University of Queensland have discovered that the larvae of the darkling beetle can survive solely on Styrofoam. Apparently, the little wrigglers prefer a light meal. By all means, dig in!

Turtle-y Not Extinct
Princeton scientists have announced big news for a big tortoise. The Galápagos “fantastic giant tortoise” believed to be extinct for the past 100 years is thankfully still with us. Researchers have located a fifty-year-old female tortoise, which they’ve named Fernanda, and transported her to a rescue and breeding facility for safekeeping. After a half century of keeping herself to herself, we’re glad Fernanda finally came out of her shell.

Polar Bear Work Around
Polar bears in Greenland have come up with a new hunting strategy to compensate for climate change-induced loss of sea ice. It seems these arctic dwellers are smarter than the average bear—although the average bear is smarter than you thought.

You Could Even Say It Glows
Photographer Callie Chee has captured sparkling images of nature’s night lights in a gallery series on bioluminescent lifeforms. Eerily beautiful!

“If Not Now, Then When?”
And the winner of the 2022 Environmental Music Prize is Australian rock artists King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for their call-to-action track If Not Now, Then When? When indeed.

That’s all for now Earthlings. Happy summer solstice. Have a super week!

…

Lisa S. French June 20, 2022

Where the Wild Things Are: The Atlantic Forest

2-minute read

Golden lion tamarins, wooly spider monkeys, maned three-toed sloths, red-tailed parrots. These are just a few of the thousands of species of amazing animals that occupy the Atlantic Forest in South America, the second most diverse ecosystem on the planet after the Amazon—and one of the most endangered.

From coastal lowlands to mist-covered mountain ranges, this vitally important biodiversity hotspot that extends from the southeastern coast of Brazil into Argentina and Paraguay once covered 370 million acres—about 3.5 times the land mass of California. Scientists now estimate that the Brazilian acreage of the Atlantic Forest has been reduced to remnants that are roughly only eight percent of its original size. Just eight percent.

Deforestation and fragmentation resulting from land use change, pollution, climate change and invasive species have accelerated the loss of habitat for the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians that make this tropical forest their home, presenting new challenges to survival they may not have the capacity to overcome. Many of the Atlantic Forest’s endangered species, like the spectacular carroty-maned tamarin (pictured above), cannot be found anywhere else in the wild.

With one million species at risk of extinction globally, restoring degraded forest ecosystems that provide food and shelter for native wildlife is a top priority to safeguard biodiversity that supports all of life on Earth.

Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, we’re delighted to have connected with the Copaiba Environmentalist Association in Brazil to help plant native trees in the Atlantic Forest and guarantee a sustainable future for one of the last remaining places on Earth where the wild things are.

If you’re looking for an outstanding way to celebrate World Environment Day, you can learn more about the global movement to restore nature and check out active projects at Restor.eco and Rewild.org. Join us!

ICYMI Nature News

Skydiving Salamanders
When you make your home at the top of a 150-foot redwood tree, learning how to safely glide to the ground is an essential skill. Scientists have determined that the wandering salamander has perfected a life-saving parachuting technique to slow its descent when it falls. Who needs wings to fly when you have a twisty tail and torso? Dream big little amphibians, dream big.

The World’s Largest Plant
What’s 4,500 years old and three times the length of Manhattan? A stupendous seagrass located off the coast of Western Australia. Scientists believe the gargantuan marine plant grew from just one seed.

The World’s Oldest Tree
The granddaddy of all trees has been discovered in Chile’s Alerce Costero national park. The ancient Patagonian cypress is estimated to be 5,484 years old. It doesn’t look a day over 5,000 to us.

More and More Monarchs
The eastern monarch population wintering in Mexico’s forests has bounced back by 35%. Hooray for much-needed good nature news!

This Art is for the Birds
Audubon has launched the Birdsong Project, an unprecedented collaboration of more than 220 music and visual artists, actors, and literary figures contributing their creativity to celebrate the joy birds bring to the world. So beautiful. Check it out!

And it’s Moorhen for the Win
In semi-nature-related news, hearty congratulations to E. W. Scripps National Spelling Bee champion Harini Logan whose final correct spelling was a bird word—moorhen for the win. Speed-speller Harini is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious—and yes, we spell-checked.

FWP Monthly Carbon Capture Report
The trees that we planted through Tree-Nation in May will capture and store 555.6 tons of C02. That’s equivalent to 614,721 pounds of coal burned or 1,379,113 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered vehicle. Our suck-it-up stats total to date through the TN platform: 661.2 tons of CO2 stored.

…

Lisa S. French June 5, 2022

Manatees Say What?

1.5-minute read

You might not think that manatees would be a particularly talkative bunch, but according to new research from Florida Atlantic University, the beloved, roly-poly sea mammals have something to say and produce five different, surprisingly high-pitched sounds to say it. Despite their considerable heft, you won’t hear any deep bass bellowing from these gentle giants. Manatee-speak sounds a bit like mouse squeaks on steroids. Have a listen here.

Like other marine animals, how manatees communicate depends on what they are up to in their underwater world. Much the same way the tone of a human voice helps to convey mood, manatee calls provide insight into the motivation and emotional state of the aquatic critters.

So, what is on the minds of manatees as they propel themselves around the shallow waterways of coastal Florida? Here’s a handy-dandy manatee call decoder based on seven years of recorded vocalizations mapped to different behaviors:

Squeaks:
A squeaking manatee is a stressed-out manatee. Close encounters with nets, fishing gear, and boats don’t make for happy sea cows.

High squeaks:
Manatee moms and calves make sure they are always within squeaking distance of one another. High pitched calls signal a baby on board or a calve separated from its mother.

Squeals:
Frolicking manatees are big squealers. Body surfing, barrel rolls, and follow-the-leader qualify as good manatee fun.

Squeak squeals:
A squeak squeal is the sound of a manatee excited about finding food—an “oh, look, seagrass” super-yay.

Chirps:
After a productive day of manatee-ing, these soothing sounds commonly come from manatees at rest.

And why should we care about sea creature communications? Deciphering manatee vocalizations can help us to understand how they interact with each other and their environment, which is critical to keeping them healthily in the swim.

While scientists continue to study the behavior-related songs of Florida manatees, we suspect that if the iconic animals had something to say to humans, it would be along the lines of: “Do you know what happened to our seagrass?” “We eat the seagrass.” “Perhaps you would be kind enough to get us more of the seagrass?” “We thank you in advance!”

As we wrote in June 2021, Florida manatees have been experiencing massive die-offs due to climate change and pollution-related loss of their primary food source. Unfortunately, restoring the health of seagrass beds is a long-term project. In the meantime, wintering adult manatees need about 230 pounds of leafy greens a day to survive, so in January 2022, federal and state wildlife officials embarked on a direct feeding program to help keep the hungry animals afloat. You can see how manatees in the Indian River Lagoon made 160,000 pounds of lettuce disappear here. The squeaky manatee gets the sea salad!

If you’d like to pitch in to protect manatees, whether you’re a local Floridian or just passing through, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has some good ways to help out here.

…

Lisa S. French April 8, 2022

Herd of Elephants in Africa walking through the grass in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania

African Elephants Walk this Way

1.5-minute read

As you chart your course for 2022, whether you choose the road less traveled or the path of least resistance, to get to your best there from wherever your current here is may require a few rounds of trial and error. For many of our friends in the animal kingdom, when it comes to fulfilling their creature-life destiny, picking the right path comes naturally. They instinctively follow patterns that meet their needs for food, water, space, family, and safety. So, when conservationists working in Kenya set out to pinpoint and protect the most critical habitat and travel corridors to help ensure the survival of African elephants, they let the perceptive pachyderms lead the way.

The accelerating loss of roaming room is one of the greatest threats to the iconic, endangered mega-mammals. To determine which areas and pathways are vital to supporting the species, from 2001 to 2019, researchers from the Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory and Save the Elephants used GPS tracking to monitor the movements of 138 elephants whose environment was under pressure from rapid infrastructure development. They mapped the nearly two decades of movement information using Artificial Intelligence to identify the elephants’ preferred pathways and habitat—dubbed the movescape.

Like most living beings, African elephants can’t survive in just any old place. The AI-enhanced elephant expertise can help determine conservation area carve-outs based on what the elephants have shown us they need to exist in the natural world. Preserving wildlife habitat is not just essential to saving endangered species; protecting and restoring the wild also helps keep humanity on the right path by providing valuable environmental, social, educational, and economic benefits—free of charge.

Exercise Your Grey Cells
FYI, today, January 14th is World Logic Day. Exciting! What are we celebrating? Logic and reason! Why are we celebrating? We’ll let you draw your own conclusions—or you can read about the thought behind the commemoration here.

If you’re keen to give your grey cells a workout in between bouts of COVID dodging, you can take a crack at the hardest logic puzzle ever—no peeking at the solution. Or here are some kinder, gentler nature riddles for you and your budding in-house brainiacs. If you don’t have the energy to tackle any of those, how about some soothing animal cams from the Bronx Zoo—no active thought required. From our perspective, logically speaking, leaping lemurs equals blissful brain!

…

Lisa S. French January 14, 2022

The Planet Cooling Power of Whale Poop

1.5-minute read

In nature we never see anything isolated,
but everything in connection with something else
which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sometimes, solutions to our most complex problems come from unexpected places. Could the restoration of great whale populations help us to combat climate change?

If left to its own devices, nature has a tremendous capacity to heal itself and protect us from the harmful impacts of a rapidly warming world. When we maintain greenhouse gas emissions at people- and planet-friendly levels, Earth systems can absorb enough GHG’s to keep global heating in check. Currently, about 25% of the CO₂ emissions that contribute to global heating are absorbed by oceans. Most of the carbon dioxide in oceans is consumed by microscopic algae called phytoplankton. Like trees, the tiny green plants utilize CO₂ for growth. Globally, phytoplankton absorb as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as tropical rainforests. Similar to the effects of deforestation, a reduction in phytoplankton can lead to more GHG emissions in the atmosphere and more heating. That’s where whales come in, or more specifically, the poop of whales.

According to scientists at the University of Tasmania, great whales have a big role to play in helping to cool the planet by dispensing the iron that carbon-absorbing phytoplankton need to grow. Adult whales in the Southern Ocean can eat two tons of iron-rich krill a day—that’s about 40 million mini-crustaceans. Because what goes in must come out, the krill consumed by whales converts to a whole lot of iron-infused phytoplankton fertilizer. By recycling an essential nutrient at a concentration ten million times higher than occurs in seawater, whales contribute to the continued functioning of one of Earth’s most important carbon sinks. The Tasmanian researchers estimate that a 12,000-strong population of iron-excreting sperm whales could stimulate the growth of enough phytoplankton to remove 200,000 tons of carbon annually—the CO₂ equivalent of 17,000 cars traveling 9,320 miles a year.

Marine biologists believe that tens of millions of whales were removed from oceans in the thousand years of active whaling prior to the international moratorium in 1982; this estimated 90% decline in the planet’s largest inhabitants has likely altered the functioning of marine ecosystems. As if we need another good reason to keep on saving the whales other than their all-around awesomeness, protecting and restoring populations of the colossal animals will help maintain healthy oceans that continue to absorb GHG emissions and reduce global heating. A win for the super-poopers is a win for people and the planet.

…

Lisa S. French November 20, 2021