Wild & Wondrous - 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

Dear Earth,

When many individual good things coalesce to create one great good thing, keeping you healthy and functioning, that’s a true and necessary thing.

Thinking of you during one of the most extraordinarily challenging times in your life history—ever hopeful for the recognition of the transformational power of many good things.

With love and gratitude for all that you do,

LSF • WW • FWP

After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.

Wallace Stevens

COP26

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Lisa S. French October 30, 2021

Back in Black—and Orange: California Monarchs

1-minute read

If you’re in need of some good news this week, we’re happy to oblige with a hopeful update from the Pacific Grove monarch butterfly sanctuary in Northern California. Since the 1980s, the number of monarchs west of the Rockies has dropped by an alarming 99%. In 2019, as reported by the Washington Post, there were zero sightings at the sanctuary. Zero. This year, observers counted 2,500 monarchs in the pollinator’s Pacific Grove migratory rest stop. That’s good news, indeed!

While the 2021 sightings aren’t a guarantee of more monarchs to come, taking action to make the planet more hospitable for butterflies by increasing pollinator habitat, reducing pesticide use, and combating climate change will improve the odds of long-term recovery. If you’d like to help ensure that monarch butterflies east or west are back to stay, here are some make-it-better organizations offering handy tools to enable you to lend a hand with monitoring and mapping the migration of the winged beauties across the United States:

And if you’d like to attract monarchs as well as other pollinators to your personal patch, we’re firm believers in the plant-it-and-they-will-come paradigm. You can find useful info on how to garden to increase biodiversity by cultivating habitats in your backyard, front yard, side yard, or window box here. Because whatever else is going on in the world, and something’s always going on, it’s better with butterflies. Just ask our in-house butterfly gardeners, Frankie and Peaches.

To encourage budding young pollinator gardeners in your school or neighborhood, you can order milkweed seeds from Save Our Monarchs to hand out as a special butterfly-saving treat this spooky season and year-round. Wishing you a happily hair-raising Halloween!

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Lisa S. French October 23, 2021

Where, Oh Where Are The Walruses?

1-minute read

The monitoring of wildlife, habitats, and ecosystems is critical to conservation. But keeping tabs on what’s happening in the natural world—changes in the number of different species and populations of specific species, and how they move and interact with the environment across millions of square miles of land and sea—is no simple task. Now, thanks to advances in conservation technology, tracking endangered, elusive, and widely dispersed animals is getting a whole lot easier. Scientists are employing a diverse range of tech tools, including radar, sonar, motion sensors, camera traps, drones, smartphones, and satellites, to gather information that will aid in the development of nature-saving strategies. One of the greatest remaining challenges is deciphering all of that captured data. That’s where citizen scientists come in.

Walrus Headcount
To amplify global conservation efforts, researchers are asking all of you wildlife watchers out there to pitch in with planetary health checks by keeping a lookout and sharing what you see. One of the crowdsourced projects taking place right now is Walrus from Space, the Atlantic and Laptev walrus census. The World Wildlife Fund and the British Antarctic Survey hope to enlist half a million people over the next four years to contribute to the counting of walruses by searching for the tusked creatures in satellite images. This sea mammal census aims to determine how environmental changes, like global heating, impact the walrus populations of Canada, Norway, Greenland, and Russia.

Do you have an eagle eye—or two? Do you know a walrus when you see one? Although an adult walrus can weigh as much as a Mazda Miata—about 2,200 pounds—pinpointing the massive sea creatures in the vast expanse of Arctic waters is trickier than you might imagine. Are you up for the challenge? Become a walrus detective and put your keen sight to the test. Register with the WWF here to see what you can see—in the sea—and help to secure the future of these iconic marine animals.

More People-Powered Projects
If you’d like to explore more ways to connect with the conservation community to share your observations of our planet’s flora and fauna, check out these “I spy” projects:

Bird Alert
Before we go, a quick heads up that polling is now open for New Zealand’s Bird of the Year. Exciting! Get to know the 2021 contestants and cast your votes! We think all of the birds are winners, but we’re going to go out on a limb and predict that the rockhopper penguin will be this year’s it bird. The endangered little rock climber most definitely looks like a champion.

Turtle Tsunami
Oh, and one more helping nature heal, turtle-y amazing conservation item: news of an extraordinary mass hatching event. Thanks to the successful monitoring and management of giant South American river turtles by the World Conservation Society Brasil, tens of thousands of the little shelled critters made their way to the water world they’ll call home. Behold the turtle tsunami!

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Lisa S. French October 17, 2021

A family of Superb Fairy-wrens in South Eastern New South Wales, Australia; brilliant blue and black father and cute brown chicks on a branch with leafy green background

Bestest Australian Bird: The Superb Fairy-Wren

1.5-minute read

Australia is home to some of the world’s most remarkable birds—brolgas, galahs, rosellas, currawongs—to name a splendid few. According to BirdLife International’s State of the World’s Birds report, like many species globally, Australia’s birds are threatened by the ongoing environmental stressors of habitat loss and climate change. For the past two weeks, to help raise awareness of the need to protect the island continent’s diverse avian wildlife, friends of the feathered cast their votes for the top-of-the-tree, best-in-beaks Bird of the Year.

The 2021 all-around favorite, announced on October 8, was the superb fairy-wren, a passerine, aka perching bird, that inhabits backyards and woodlands across eastern Australia and Tasmania. Although the fairy-wren edged out our preferred pick, the tawny frogmouth, by a chin feather, we can appreciate the songbird’s many winning attributes. For starters, it’s hard not to be positively inclined toward a creature called “superb”. In addition to their esteem-enhancing moniker, the dainty songsters have other champion qualities:

It takes a bird village:
Superb fairy-wrens raise their young in cooperative social groups. One to four male helpers support nesting parents by contributing to the defense and feeding of hatchlings.

Winged chameleons:
During mating season, the plumage of the male superb fairy-wren changes from a muddy brown to a striking shade of blue. While female fairy-wrens prefer the males that turn blue first and stay blue the longest, when it comes to life expectancy, changing colors puts male birds at a competitive disadvantage because that vibrant hue also attracts predators. As a result, according to researchers at Monash University, male fairy-wrens in blue mode have learned to be super cautious. Compared to their brown flock mates, they spend more time foraging for food in hiding and they’re the first birds out of the bush in response to alarm calls—file those adaptive risk avoidance skills under survival of the bluest.

The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs:
In the avian world, males commonly sing more frequently and produce more complex songs to attract mates. However, superb fairy-wrens are equal opportunity vocalists. Both males and females sing solo year-round and tutor their sons and daughters in familial trills, twitters, and tweets. Have a listen.

And with those songbird snippets, we wrap up the 2021 Australian Bird Of The Year competition. To celebrate all of this year’s contestants, author and illustrator Georgia Angus has created a downloadable poster for your viewing pleasure. It’s free, it’s beautiful, and you can get it here. A hearty congratulations to the superb fairy-wren! Don’t despair, tawny frogmouth—you’ll get another chance to strut your feathered stuff in 2022.

Just a reminder: the southern hemisphere’s best-in-bird competitions continue with Forest & Bird’s New Zealand Bird of the Year, from October 18 through October 31. At the moment, we’re leaning toward the rockhopper penguin, but the royal spoonbill is pretty darn hard to resist. Hmm, and what about the southern brown kiwi… It’s a veritable bird watchers paradise down there!

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Lisa S. French October 9, 2021

Sights, Sounds, and Sorrows

1.5-minute read

American Forests Has a Brand New Tree
The needs of the social and environmental movements are ever-changing, and our tree-planting partner, American Forests, is evolving to meet the transcendent challenges of a world in flux. They’ve unveiled a new logo representing their critical work protecting and regenerating forests to slow climate change and advance social equity for you—for your health, your safety, your right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and enjoy nature in all its glory. To lead the charge, American Forests’ mission is rooted in unity, hope, growth, and progress. Yeah, we’re on board with that!

Holy Salmon Supper! It’s Fat Bear Week
The brown fisher bears of Katmai National Park are doubling down on the all-you-can-eat salmon buffet this week in preparation for their long winter’s nap. It’s time to get to know the chomp-happy contenders and place your bets on the bear most likely to achieve maximum pre-hibernation plump-i-tude. You can follow their fish acquisition progress live, courtesy of the Explore.org bear cams. Btw, our money is on protective mama bear, Grazer—she’s got a salmon-conquering look about her.

Bear Weight Update – Oct. 5: The winner of the Fat Bear Week 2021 salmon scarfing contest is four-time champion, Otis. The quarter-century-old king of the catch may be less spry than some of his younger competitors, but what he lacks in speed, he makes up for in strategy. How Otis abides: Be one with the water and let the fish come to you. Congratulations, big fella—sleep well!

Gorillas, Fireflies, Wildebeests, Oh, My!
The Nature Conservancy has announced the winners of the 2021 Global Photo Contest, and they’re brilliant. You can explore the striking images of some of the most precious inhabitants, and awe-inspiring aspects of our planet right here.

Música Natura Sonora
Shika Shika, the global artists collective, is back with a new album that pays homage to the “immensity, beauty, and mystery” of the natural world. Have a listen to the Latin American rhythms of Natura Sonora by El Búho. And be sure to keep your eyes peeled and ears open for A Guide to the Birdsong of Western Africa coming in 2022.

The Songs of City Crickets
We decided to do a little Earth-music sampling of our own, but where to go for nature sounds in NYC? We were pleased to discover that you can actually hear courtyard crickets in the city that never sleeps—from honk, honk, honk to chirp, chirp, chirp. Aah—the sweet songs of New York bugs! If you can make nature music here, you can make it anywhere.

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker: Officially Gone Forever
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made a particularly sorrowful announcement this week—the proposed addition of 23 American animals and plants to the growing list of extinct species, the largest group added to that category since the inception of the Endangered Species Act in 1973.

One of the most lamentable losses was the Ivory-billed woodpecker. Although scientists held out hope that the elusive bird, which had not been seen for over 70 years, had managed to survive in hiding, it has officially been determined that America’s largest woodpecker, dubbed the “Lord God Bird,” has disappeared from the planet. There is no greater grief-inducing declaration in the natural world than gone forever. Farewell, beautiful one—we’re sorry that we failed you.

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Lisa S. French October 1, 2021

Big Bird Art | Peak Leaf Peeping | Zero Rhinos

1.5-minute read

Welcome, fall! Here are this week’s nature picks for your perusal.

Big Bird Art
In New York City, the walls have eyes—they also have beaks. The winged watchers gracing buildings across blocks of northern Manhattan are part of the Audubon Mural Project, a collaboration between the National Audubon Society and Gitler & _____ Gallery. The avian conservation art located in John James Audubon’s Washington Heights neighborhood was created to draw attention to climate-threatened species.

On Saturday, October 2, you can benefit the art of nature and help protect the feathered ones from the impacts of environmental change by participating in the Audubon Murals 5K Art Run. Whether you like to run for fun or are more inclined to stroll, snap, and chat, it’s a beautiful way to spend the day! You can register to pound the pavement with Runstreet.

Interested in learning more about the life and times of Audubon? We highly recommend A Country No More: Rediscovering the Landscapes of John James Audubon, by Krista Elrick.

Peak Leaf Peeping
It’s officially autumn—the glorious season—time for a bit of soul-restoring leaf peeping. For your tree-tracking convenience, our partners at American Forests have put together a handy U.S. foliage map so you can find out the best time to delight in a dose of peak reds and golds. Have a look!

Zero Rhinos
And on the opposite side of the Earth: if you’re a regular reader, you know that we’re big fans of Big Life, one on the most effective wildlife conservation organizations in Africa. Despite the tremendous challenges imposed by the pandemic, Big Life has continued to protect some of the most critically endangered animals on the planet—like the Eastern black rhino.

All but lost to poaching, Eastern black rhinos in the Chyulus, a mountain range in southern Kenya, were reduced to a population of only 7 animals. Big Life stepped up and put 50 community rangers to work in an endeavor to save the species. As a result of their strategic efforts, in the last five years, zero rhinos were poached—a much-needed win for African wildlife.

Watch this stunning film to learn how Big Life put boots on the ground to save the Eastern black rhino from local extinction and how you can support their critical conservation programs across East Africa’s 1.6 million-acre Amboseli Ecosystem.

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Lisa S. French September 25, 2021

Be the Sea Change

1.5-minute read

If you need another great reason to head to the beach in September, the annual International Coastal Cleanup, the world’s largest volunteer effort to clean our waterways, kicks off this weekend.

From rivers to shorelines, from the surface to the depths of the oceans, at the North and South Poles, and throughout every body of water in between, discarded and abandoned trash and debris are diminishing the health of Earth’s waters and wildlife. Every species of marine turtle and more than half of all mammals and sea birds are affected by accumulating trash through entanglement or ingestion. The long list of impacted wildlife includes green sea and hawksbill turtles, North Atlantic right whales, California sea lions, and Atlantic puffins.

Because of its sheer volume and durability, ocean trash—metal, glass, rubber, paper, cloth, and plastic—is one of the biggest threats to marine biodiversity. According to the Marine Biology & Ecology Research Center at Plymouth University, plastic is the biggest water polluter by far. Global plastic production increased from 1.5 million metric tons in 1950 to 368 million in 2019. There are currently an estimated five trillion pieces of plastic littering our oceans.

The Plymouth University study determined that 92% of marine species and as many as one-fifth of animals at risk of extinction had harmful encounters with plastic—netting and rope that cause entanglements and fragments or microplastics that can block digestive systems and lead to reproductive problems and starvation. Microplastics, small bits and pieces, and beads from health and personal care products, also leach toxic chemicals into the water that can wind up in the food chain and potentially on our dinner plates.

While it’s easy to feel overwhelmed in the face of big, here, there, and everywhere environmental challenges like the massive amounts of plastic soup polluting our oceans, participating in the coastal cleanup has an immediate impact. Plus, the Ocean Conservancy has everything you need to be the sea change and connect and collect, including an interactive map to find a local community coordinator and info on how to organize your own cleanup crew and locate a spot in need of tidying.

Rolling up our sleeves and taking the trash out is an easy-to-achieve way to convert hope for a healthy planet into action. So please join us for the sake of oceans, coastal communities, and wildlife—like these baby turtles, one of the marine animals most at risk of consuming plastic.

If you’d like to see more magnificent creatures that will benefit from trash-free seas, check out the work of Conservation Photographer of the Year 2021 Kerim Sabuncuoğlu.

And if you’re keen to help shrink the plastics-sphere and keep the indestructible stuff out of our waterways, the World Wildlife Fund has ten tips to reduce your plastic footprint.

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Lisa S. French September 18, 2021

50% for the Planet | Climate-Resilient Forests

1-minute read

If the cascading and intensifying extreme weather events of 2021 have shown us anything, it’s that nature is deteriorating at an alarming rate. We’re urgently in need of effective planet-saving strategies to help the Earth keep doing what it does best—sustain life. Two organizations dedicated to helping the planet heal are right on that mission: The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and FWP tree-planting partner, American Forests.

A Yes Vote for Making Room
To tackle the twin threats of climate change and biodiversity loss, on September 10, an overwhelming majority of delegates to the IUCN World Conservation Congress agreed that humanity must protect at least half of Earth’s land, inland water, and oceans, aiming for a minimum of 30% by 2030. The IUCN’s ambitious proposal would create connected networks of protected areas to conserve and restore habitats, plant, and animal species so we can build a more sustainable relationship with nature—a relationship that will benefit the lives and livelihoods of all people globally, including local and indigenous communities.

Fighting Forest Fires with Science
Maintaining healthy and resilient forests will play a critical role in achieving the IUCN’s goal, which is why American Forests is improving the science of forest management. Planting the right trees in the right place is essential in a rapidly warming, fire-prone world. By picking climate and disease-resilient species and managing forests for changing environments, American Forests is working to protect and regenerate the trees that store carbon, clean our air, filter water, and provide food and shelter for people and wildlife. You can read more about why trees matter here and how you can plant a tree, or two, or three with FWP here.

As nature continues to respond to environmental stressors in new and startlingly unpredictable ways, and we rally together in the vital undertaking of planet preservation, we leave you with a gentle reminder from one of Earth’s endangered forest dwellers, to focus on the simple joys of small things.

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Lisa S. French September 12, 2021

Twenty Years of Empty Sky

From The Dark Interval:

Where things become truly difficult
and unbearable, we find ourselves in a place already
very close to its transformation.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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Lisa S. French September 11, 2021

moth long tail butterfly (Actias dubernardi)

Moths: Sonar-Jamming Night Fliers

1-minute read

Did you know that you have sonar-deflecting insects fluttering around your patch after dark? No? Well, look up at your outdoor lights and say hello to the Lepidopterans, aka moths.

Why do moths need anti-sonar capabilities, you ask? Just who is tracking these secret pollinators in the night sky? Bats!

The web-winged nemeses of moths use echolocation to stealthily ping and then swoop in on flying food sources. To equalize the odds of survival in their air space, some moths have developed sonar jamming mechanisms to disrupt bat signals so they can live to fly another day.

And how do these bat-attack countermeasures work? According to researchers at Boise State and Wake Forest Universities, moths have evolved with a range of adaptations to protect themselves from predators. Some species have developed ears, some are highly skilled at evasive flight, and some, like tiger and silk moths, use sensory illusions to alter bat reality and redirect tracking sonar away from essential body parts.

To reduce a bat’s ability to home in on its dinner target, tiger moths produce ultrasonic clicks that jam sonar and the spinning hindwing tails of silk moths scramble returning echoes. While night flier fake-outs aren’t 100% effective in preventing airstrikes, by exploiting vulnerabilities in the auditory systems of bats, these evolutionary adaptations give moths a fighting chance at survival.

If you’re wondering why we need moths anyway, then you haven’t met this extraordinary fellow. In addition to their nice-to-have-around existence value, these nighttime pollinators help maintain healthy habitats for other wildlife by promoting plant biodiversity in meadows, pastures, woodlands, and roadsides. Plus, like their pollinating bee pals, moths are smart. They’re able to learn floral scents that have been altered by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) so that they can keep on pollinating pollution-affected flowering plants. Smart, strangely beautiful, and consistently pollinating—what’s not to like?

Btw, fair play to bats regarding moth plucking. They’re also important night pollinators that contribute to the functioning of food webs and balanced ecosystems.

Throughout September, you can learn more about beneficial insects like moths and the critical role they play in supporting the health of our planet during the NYC High Line’s month-long horticulture celebration. Check out free bug-fest events here.

Speaking of essential fliers, be sure to have a look at the Bird Photographer of the Year 2021 winners. Outstanding!

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Lisa S. French September 2, 2021