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

3-minute read

Whether you look forward to the first spring flight of the bumblebee (Bombus) as a reassuring sign of nature’s capacity for renewal or are simply grateful for the fruits of the fuzzy pollinator’s labor, the recent study documenting its climate change-induced decline was a definite buzzkill. The new analysis of 66 bumblebee species across North America and Europe from researchers at the University of Ottawa and University College London reveals that over the last five decades, the growing number of unusually hot days is increasing local bumblebee extinction rates. Heatwaves and rising average temperatures have led to widespread loss of populations—an estimated 46% in North America and 17% in Europe.

Bumblebees evolved in cooler regions of the world over a period of about 100 million years, and scientists now believe that warmer winters and hotter summers resulting from global heating may exceed the iconic insect’s ability to adapt. At the current rate of emissions, it’s estimated that climate change may have greater negative impacts on the bee species than habitat loss, potentially resulting in mass extinction.

Like honey bees (Apis mellifera), wild bumblebees are important pollinators of crops and native plants, providing critical ecosystem and economic benefits for people and planet—absolutely free of charge. Both honey bees and bumblebees are accidental pollinators. In the process of drinking nectar and harvesting pollen for food, they pick up the finely-grained plant dust on their bodies or leg hair and transfer it from the anther to the stigma of the flower.

However, compared to its honey-producing cousin, the bumblebee is equipped with a few extra features that make it especially efficient at pollen gathering. Because bumblebees are bigger than honey bees, they can pick up and transfer more pollen per flower fly-by. Some species of bumblebees also have longer tongues than honey bees, not as long as this creature’s, but pretty impressive by bee standards. Longer-tongued bees are particularly skilled at lapping up nectar and pollen from hard-to-reach places in tubular flowers like honeysuckle and salvia. Bumblebees also have another expert tool in their pollen-gathering arsenal—buzz pollination, or sonication. By holding the flower with its legs or mouthparts and rapidly vibrating its flight muscles, the bumblebee can dislodge pollen from plants that can’t be pollinated through garden variety bee pollination methods. About eight percent of plants rely on this shake-and-take method of pollen gathering, including eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, blueberries, and cranberries. In addition to its bigger size, longer tongue, and sonication skills, the bumblebee has an extended pollination season and can visit twice as many flowers per day as the honey bee.

Although bumblebees have an exceptional aptitude for pollen gathering, like many animal and plant species, their ability to adjust to the unprecedented environmental stressors of climate change is limited. Uncommonly warm winter temperatures can trick queen bumblebees into emerging from the hive well before pollen is available for food, leaving them too weak to return to the hive to lay eggs—no eggs, no bees. Come spring, higher-than-normal temperatures alter the scent, nectar, and pollen production of flowers, making them less attractive to foraging bees. And increased C02 in the atmosphere also reduces the protein level of pollen, resulting in smaller bumblebees. Smaller bees travel shorter distances, carry less pollen, and pollinate fewer flowers. To put these climate change casualties in perspective, 75 percent of the world’s flowering plants rely on pollinators for reproduction, including more than two-thirds of the world’s crops.

Unfortunately, less than one percent of bumblebee hotspots are currently protected. In a rapidly warming world, conservation aimed at maintaining habitats for the 250 species of bumblebees and assisting the insects with colonization beyond their normal range is crucial to their survival. If you’d like to help ensure that bumblebees have a soft landing wherever they roam and continue to contribute to everyday essentials, here are some tips on what to plant on your city or country patch to keep these precious pollinators buzzing:

Bumbles prefer:

Perennials because they produce more nectar than annuals
Native perennials because they produce more nectar and pollen than sterile hybrids
Symmetric two-sided flowers
Pink and violet-colored flowers

And here’s a short list of the bumblebees’ perennial favorites that you can plant from rooftop to roadside:

Daisy family (Asteraceae)
Common daisies, cornflowers, chamomile,
yarrow, fleabane, asters, dahlias, coneflowers

Flowering pea family (Fabaceae)
Lupine, mimosa, wisteria, clover

Mint family (Lamiaceae)
Sage, mint, rosemary, lavender, thyme,
lemon balm, hyssop, chaste, patchouli

You can learn more about what makes the bee bumble and how you can become a citizen conservationist from the Xerces Society and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. For a deeper drill-down into the fascinating world of bees of all sorts, we highly recommend The Bee, A Natural History.

If you’ve got access to a front, back or side yard, or any other personal patch, you can find out how to grow climate-resilient, environmentally beneficial communities of plants that you, the bees, and other wildlife will love living within the excellent Bringing Nature Home and Planting in a Post-Wild World. And if you’re a city dweller in need of some perennial planting inspiration, visit the elevated gardens at the High Line in NYC (online or in-person) created by Dutch perennial plant master, Piet Oudolf. We may have a slight hometown bias, but as gardens go, it truly is the bee’s knees.

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Lisa S. French February 22, 2020

Decoding the Floral Language of Love

3-minute read

Some of our most beautifully poetic expressions of feeling are those drawn from the language of nature. Throughout history, flowers and plants have been used to signify deep and enduring connections to a specific culture, place, or time and as a lyrical means of communicating the nuance of human emotion and remembrance. The symbolic meaning of flowers that evolved into the coded language of floriography was rooted in the traditional customs, folklore, and religious belief systems of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Following the publication of the first detailed floriography reference book in 1819, La Langage des Fleurs, dictionaries assigning sentiments to individual plants and flowers became increasingly popular in Western culture.

During the Victorian era (1837-1901) in the United States, France, and England, when public expression of emotion was culturally suppressed and in some cases forbidden, communicating private feelings through the secret language of flowers was readily embraced by the seriously smitten as well as the lovelorn. Flowers carefully chosen from floriography dictionaries to subtly convey heartfelt words that could not be spoken were arranged into bouquets and presented as gifts. A bouquet received from an ardent admirer and held at heart level signaled glad acceptance. Holding a floral gift upside down was a silent, but undoubtedly no less painful indication of a message received—and rejected. Floriography dictionaries could also serve as handy reference guides for those motivated to crankily communicate through a bouquet of bad feelings symbolizing negative sentiments such as disdain, disappointment, fickleness, or the all-encompassing heartlessness.

Expressing emotion through floral gift-giving is as popular in 2020 as it was in the Victorian era, and now thanks to the work of researchers in Sunnyvale, California, floriography is getting an artificial intelligence upgrade. Because one flower may have multiple meanings and multiple flowers may have the same meaning, to help ensure no important sentiment is lost in translation, believe it or not, a machine-learning algorithm has been developed to help express your flowery feelings with science-based, petal-point accuracy. To spare you the trouble of searching through an A-Z directory, emotive words and phrases that you would like to communicate to your bouquet recipient are mapped against a compendium of all possible flower meanings drawn from multiple dictionaries. Those blooms best expressing your particular level of besottedness are then rank-ordered for inclusion in the ultimate neural-network-optimized-and-designed floral arrangement. Build a better bouquet and they will come!

If you are currently preoccupied with conjuring the most meaningful way to communicate your tender feelings towards the highly esteemed object of your affection and can’t wait until there’s an official AI app for that, here’s an old-school crash course on decoding the floriferous language of love. By the way, if you thought roses were the definitive symbol of adoration, you may be surprised to learn that a bouquet of pineapples*, while a bit unwieldy, could be equally swoon-worthy, not to mention salad-worthy and certainly more memorable. Just be sure to include a translation—and a fork.

African violet • Such worth is rare
Alison • Worth beyond beauty
Calla Lily • Beauty
Camellia, red • You’re a flame in my heart
Carnation, pink • I’ll never forget you
Clematis • Soul mates, mental beauty
Chrysanthemum, red • I love you
Common lilac • Reminder of young love
Dahlia • Elegance and dignity
Daisy • Innocence and hope
Forget-me-not • True love memories
Gladiolus • Strength of character, moral integrity
Globe amaranth • Endless love
Heliotrope • Eternal love and devotion
Honeysuckle • Bonds of love
Hyacinth, white • Loveliness
Lavender • Constancy and devotion
Lily of the valley • Sweetness and purity
Mimosa • Elegance, sensitiveness, endurance of the soul
Orchids • Love and beauty
Peony • Bravery, beauty, honor
Peruvian Lily • Powerful bond
Phlox • United hearts and souls
*Pineapple • You are perfect
Ranunculus • You are radiant with charm
Rose, red • I love you
Rose, white • I’m worthy of you
Spiderflower • Elope with me
Strawberry tree • You are the only one I love
Sunflower • Adoration
Tickseed • Love at first sight
Tulip, red • Declaration of love
Wild pansy • You occupy my thoughts

And if you’d like to present your best ever, most-favorite favorite person with a living symbol of everlasting, not to mention carbon-storing love, you may want to consider a sampler of saplings. Plus, there’s a song for that.

Apple tree • Love, healing, immortality
Apricot tree • Love
Linden tree • Protection, good luck, love
Oak tree • Character, courage
Olive tree • Peace, healing, protection
Peach tree • Generosity, hope, love
Pine tree • Peace, harmony
Plum tree • Healing, beauty, longevity
Willow tree • Love, protection, health

For a beautifully illustrated excursion through the definitive history of the language and folklore of flowers, check out The Complete Language of Flowers, by S. Theresa Dietz.

Whether you’re all about AI or more into old school, a flower plucker or a tree planter, wishing you a joyful heart on St. Valentine’s Day and all of the days after that.

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Lisa S. French February 11, 2020

Preserving the Music of Trees

2.5-minute read

Acoustic or electric, soul-soothing or headbanging, the tonal quality of the guitar music that puts you in the zone is greatly influenced by the types of wood used to craft the body, neck, and fingerboard of the instrument. Whether it’s sourced from a common tree species like ash, spruce, or maple, or an exotic tropical like ebony, rosewood, or mahogany, the wood used to construct guitars, known as tonewood, has unique characteristics—such as density, resonance, texture, and warp resistance—that lend that special something to the sound of the strings. As a result of decades of deforestation, legal and illegal logging for export, and the introduction of invasive insects and disease, many of the trees used to produce the world’s most valuable tonewoods are now under threat.

To identify eco-friendly alternatives to endangered tree species, researchers in Germany and Finland are working to unpick the acoustic properties of rare tonewoods. In the meantime, Taylor and Fender, industry leaders in the art and science of building stringed instruments, have stepped up to launch two propagation and planting projects designed to help save the imperiled ebony and ash trees used to create the distinctive sounds of their guitars.

The jet-black, extremely durable, insect-resistant heartwood of the African ebony tree (Diospyros crassiflora) is one of the most prized and expensive woods on the planet. Ebony heartwood has been used for centuries to make everything from ships and sculptures to furniture and flooring. It is also one of the best woods for stringed instrument fingerboards and the one preferred by many acoustic and electric guitar manufacturers. One of 10,000 tree species currently facing extinction, African ebony trees grow in small, isolated clusters in lowland rainforests from Nigeria to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During the last century, over 50% of ebony have been cut down. Almost all of the large trees from the slow-growing species have been harvested for export. Researchers at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands estimate that 10 to 30% of those exports are illegally logged.

Enter Taylor Guitars and the Ebony Project: a pioneering conservation partnership between the guitar manufacturer, UCLA, the Congo Basin Institute, and The Higher Institute of Environmental Sciences. Based in Cameroon, Africa, the Ebony Project was established to protect and conserve the rare tree species, develop livelihoods for rural communities, reforest degraded land, and increase rainforest habitat. Trained by Ebony Project staff, local communities learn to build and maintain nurseries and propagate and grow ebony saplings. The nurseries are donated to the community to grow other valuable food and medicinal trees for sale or personal use, including mango, avocado, and kola. With the ultimate goal of planting 15,000 trees, the Ebony Project aims to create a sustainable model for the production of the exotic tonewood that also provides critical social and economic benefits to local people. Thriving forests, self-sufficient rural communities, and more guitar music for your ears—a conservation triple win.

And in Cleveland Ohio, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, FWP tree-planting partner American Forests has launched the Roots of Rock initiative with Fender Musical Instruments and researchers at the U.S. Forest Service in an effort to save the ash tree (Fraxinus Americana) from the hungry maw of the emerald ash borer (EAB). Fender has used ash to construct its legendary electric guitars for 70 years, but since the EAB arrived in the U.S. in 2002, the invasive species has destroyed hundreds of millions of ash trees in North America putting the future of rock at risk. To ensure Fender aficionados can continue to practice their musical artistry, the Roots of Rock team is identifying trees that have successfully warded off the voracious insect. Seeds and shoots from those resilient trees are being used to breed an EAB-resistant variety of ash that will help restore the species to its former glory. Knowledge gained from the Roots of Rock initiative to preserve the music of trees will also be used to combat invasive insects and diseases that threaten the survival of other native species to better protect the health and biodiversity of forests in North America and around the world.

You can learn more about the Roots of Rock Initiative here and read a progress report on the Ebony Project here. Oh, and by the way, rock on!

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Lisa S. French February 4, 2020

Woylies and Kalutas and Nabarleks, Oh My!

2-minute read

Not only is Australia home to some of the world’s most extraordinary wildlife, it’s also a top contender when it comes to delightfully distinctive creature names. If you’ve ever puzzled over the origins of some of the country’s more curious animal monikers like those given to the mini-marsupials woylie, kaluta, and nabarlek, here’s a quick look at the who and the why behind what’s in a name.

Although Europeans had their own ideas about what to call the feathered, furry and scaly they encountered when they began their settlement of Australia in 1788, the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders who had lived alongside native species on the island continent for over 60,000 years were well ahead of the new arrivals in the animal name game. The 500 clans which made up the population of indigenous peoples of 18th-century Australia had developed over 260 distinct languages and 500 regional dialects reflective of their unique cultures, close ties to the land, and custodial relationship with nature.

While a fair number of the animal names imported by European settlers that are in use today were inspired by similar-looking creatures in other continents such as emu from the Portuguese “ema,” and goanna from the Spanish “iguana,” indigenous names were passed down through thousands of generations and based on the experience and deep understanding gained from interacting with animals in their specific ecosystems and environments. Far from haphazard, indigenous ecological knowledge systems typically identified species based on purpose, relationship to other animals, age, and gender.

The Seussian-sounding indigenous names woylie, kaluta, and nabarlek originate from three different clans and languages. The extremely rare and now critically endangered brush-tailed bettong (Bettongia penicillata), or rat-kangaroo, was first dubbed woylie by the Noongar people of South West Australia. The name of nabarlek, given to the small, nimble hopper also known as the little rock-wallaby (Petrogale concinna), comes from the endangered Aboriginal language of Kunwinjku spoken by the Bininj Kunwok people, who live in the rocky terrain of West Arnhem Land in the northern part of the country. And the little red kaluta (Dasykaluta rosamondae), an auburn colored, carnivorous species of marsupial, the male of which heroically bears the burden of dying after mating, has a hybrid name: kaluta from the language of the Nyamal tribe of north-western Australia and the Latin rosa mundi, after Rosamond, King Henry II’s red-headed mistress.

Despite the fact that many of the commonly used names of Australian animals are those adopted by the Europeans, there is growing momentum to rechristen native species with names chosen from the country’s hundreds of Aboriginal languages and dialects. Brisbane biologist Tim Low, author of Where Song Began, points out that there is also a trend to incorporate indigenous names in the official scientific classification of species in recognition of the Aboriginal peoples’ language and cultural heritage which is as richly diverse as their country’s wildlife.

You can learn more about an ongoing project aimed at promoting indigenous knowledge of Australia’s flora and fauna from the Atlas of Living Australia. And if you’d like to read about the fascinating, sometimes comically contentious process of naming Australia’s bird species, check out Australian Bird Names: Origins and Meanings, by Ian Fraser and Jeannie Gray.

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Lisa S. French January 26, 2020

Adapting to Heartbreak

3-minute read

The rising numbers depicting the catastrophic loss and destruction caused by bushfires across Australia since September of 2019 are painfully difficult to comprehend: at least 28 people have perished, thousands have lost their homes, and an estimated one billion animals and at least 18 million acres (an area equivalent in size to the state of South Carolina) have been affected. Yet, even those heartbreaking figures fail to adequately reflect the long-term environmental impacts that may forever change the lives of many of the inhabitants of one of our most naturally beautiful and biologically rich island continents.

Australia is “megadiverse,” one of 18 countries representing 36 recognized global biodiversity hotspots and home to 600,000-700,000 species, including many which cannot be found anywhere else in the world. There are some you may have never heard of like the northern hairy-nosed wombat, spotted-tail quoll, and Julia Creek dunnart, as well as one you definitely recognize, the cuddly-looking creature most readily identified as a symbol of wildlife down under—the koala. A native resident of Australia for approximately 25 million years, the much-loved marsupial occupies the eucalyptus forests and woodlands of Queensland, Southern Australia, and two of the states hardest hit by the fires, Victoria, and New South Wales.

At the start of the 20th century, millions of koalas could be found across eastern Australia. As of 2018, the population was estimated to be somewhere between 47,000 at the low end and what is believed to be an overly optimistic 100,000. According to recent assessments, the number of koalas that have died or been injured in the 2019-2020 fires stands at approximately 30,000. The ongoing natural disaster that may have reduced the total koala population by more than one third in just a few short months has accelerated the decline of an animal species already facing urgent multiple threats to its survival.

Like many marsupials indigenous to Australia, koalas have evolved to survive the harsh environmental conditions of the arid and semi-arid landscapes of the driest inhabited continent on Earth. But rising average temperatures across Australia over the past five decades, resulting in more frequent and intense droughts and heatwaves, have severely compromised the koala’s ability to adapt. Exposure to prolonged high temperatures can lead to heat stress, dehydration and eventual death. A December heatwave in 2009 that wiped out an estimated one quarter of the koalas in the town of Gunnedah, New South Wales is just one example.

The tree-dwelling animals are primarily dependent upon various species of eucalyptus, or gum trees, for food, water and shelter. Adult Koalas eat a little over a pound of eucalyptus a day, also extracting moisture from the leaves. Because the leaves of drought-affected trees are less nutritious and produce less moisture, koalas need to eat more leaves to meet their daily dietary requirements, but habitat loss and fragmentation as a result of deforestation reduce the number of eucalyptus trees available to support populations. When forced to leave the safety of a tree-top refuge in search of food, water, or another suitable habitat as a result of climate-change-related impacts, the slow-moving marsupials also face the threat of feral dog attacks and car strikes.

In 2015, Australian researchers publishing in the National Academy of Sciences predicted that the effects of climate change will be magnified over the next few decades resulting in severe to catastrophic losses of wildlife. Just four years later, that prediction has become a reality. As the bushfires rage on, the fate of the koala and other rare and remarkable animal species hangs in the balance. By 2030, average temperatures in Australia are expected to increase by 1.5°C. The country will continue to be challenged by unprecedented physical manifestations of a warming world. Climate change mitigation, adaptation, and initiatives aimed at conserving biodiversity will continue to be critical to help ensure the wellbeing and livelihoods of the billions of people who depend upon the healthy functioning of ecosystems in Australia and around the world.

As the science of climate change evolves, we may take some comfort in its logic while making best efforts to develop adaptation strategies for ourselves and individual species, but when it comes to adapting to heartbreak, science has little to offer because there are many precious living beings on our home planet for which there are no substitutes once lost. Although we can’t reverse the irreversible or replace the irreplaceable, we continue to have hope, because hope may not point to a way back, but it can help guide the way forward. To quote author and historian Rebecca Solnit, “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency… To hope is to give yourself to the future, and that commitment to the future makes the present inhabitable.”

You can help give hope to the suffering people and animals in Australia through these Charity Navigator rated organizations. And you can wear your heart on your sleeve for the land down under by purchasing a Fire Relief T-shirt for a limited time from our pals at For Love Of All Things (FLOAT). All proceeds go to support the recovery efforts of the Australia Koala Foundation.

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Lisa S. French January 14, 2020

We Can Dance If We Want To

2-minute read

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to polish your signature dance move (and we know you have one), researchers in Japan and Sweden offer some thought-provoking new insights into the ancient origins of your distinctive locomotive stylings. The integration of movement and sound, resulting in that splendid thing we do, known as dancing, is widespread across human cultures, dating back as far as 1.8 million years. While animals in the wild, including elephants, kangaroos, and rabbits produce drumming and stomping sounds to communicate, and some species of animals in captivity such as sea lions and parrots have been trained to move to a beat, it was believed that homo sapiens were unique in our ability to spontaneously produce rhythmic movements in response to musical sounds.

A recent analysis from Kyoto University exploring the biological foundation of music-induced movement in non-human primates points to a gradually developing connection between motor and auditory areas of the brain over millennia. In a controlled study, chimpanzees voluntarily responded to both random and regular beats with rhythmic swaying, implying a possible evolutionary link to musicality that may have developed from a common ancestor around 6 million years ago. Although male chimpanzees in the wild drum, make sounds with objects, chorus in groups, and display rhythmic movement in response to heavy rainfall, they have not been observed to interact in a synchronous manner with musical sounds. However, the chimpanzees in the Kyoto study did move toward the sound of the beat and engage by swaying, hand-clapping, foot-tapping, and vocalization. Unlike humans who show no gender-related differences in musical ability, consistent with communication hierarchies within their patriarchal societies, male chimpanzees were more likely to get into the swing of things than females.

Researchers at Lund University have come up with an alternative theory, that the roots of our rhythmic behavior, while still evolutionary, may lie closer to home—in our mother’s ability to walk the upright walk. Compared to the irregular gait of non-human primate quadrupeds like the chimpanzee, the footfall of human bipeds is evenly paced at around 120 beats per minute, mimicking universally recognized tempos. Because the consistent sound and vibration of the mother’s footfall is heard and felt by a developing human fetus beginning at about 24 weeks, this is thought to have a strong influence on the formation of musical abilities, more so than the sound of the maternal heartbeat which is similar across primates. The researchers have theorized that the cadence of footfall is encoded into the limbic system of the human fetal brain. This bit of grey matter is primarily responsible for emotion and memory, which is why it is believed we respond positively as newborns and in later life to musical rhythms because they closely resemble the sounds we perceived in the environment of the womb. If you get that “I know this one” feeling when you hear a regularly timed beat, you may have picked it up in the interior maternal soundscape before you were born courtesy of your mother who walked an average of 10,000 equally spaced steps in a typical day of roaming. And if you often feel compelled to get up to get down, you might have mom to thank for that as well.

While chimps appear to have some limited ability to move rhythmically, both studies indicate that humans are still top banana when it comes to synchronizing to a beat; however, further investigation may eventually reveal that we’ll have to make room on the dance floor for our swinging friends.

As a lucky member of the community of living beings who can dance if they want to, here’s hoping you find your idiosyncratic joy-inducing groove in 2020. Beaming out positive vibes of transformative change from Weekly Wondrous for a shiny New Year ahead. Would that not be nice!

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Lisa S. French January 6, 2020

Dear Readers

We’ve had a tree-rific year at Favorite World Press! With your enthusiastic support of our first series release, Frankie and Peaches: Tales of Total Kindness, we’ve planted thousands of trees alongside our dedicated conservation partners at American Forests. By helping us help them, you have made a hopeful investment in a kinder, greener future, for people, for wildlife, and for the planet—and that’s a truly wonderful thing.

We are incredibly grateful that you share our Favorite World vision. Without you, there is no us—so thank you very much for existing! Please keep doing that!

And now dear readers without further ado:

Weekly Wondrous Year in Review

A caroling whale,
some traveling trees,
the busiest beavers,
and most hard-working bees

Squirrels with a strategy,
lemurs that leap,
eels that electrify
and swim in the deep

A fish-chomping grizzly,
some tadpoles that snore,
gardening tapirs,
and flamingos galore

Matching giraffes,
Earth’s favorite Day,
baby turtles that hatched
in Far Rockaway bay

A night pollinator
that works in the dark,
happier humans
because they’ve got park

Recycled birds,
an award-winning tree,
kelp-keeping otters,
more space to roam free

A ground-dwelling parrot,
one rhino, then two,
a bird that builds bowers
in bright shades of blue

African elephants
evolving tusk-free,
Eurasian antelopes
that just want to be

A mini-marsupial,
a fussed-over frog,
proud papa penguins
protecting their sprog

Good news for gorillas,
an Airbee-n-bee,
the most purr-fect postage,
a bird app that’s free

A pine-loving bear cub
eating cones by the bunch,
a leather-lipped camel
chewing cactus for lunch

Shy, scaly pangolins
that sleep in the day,
hard-working scientists
with something to say

A yellow-eyed hoiho
that lives near the sea,
some animal farmers,
and Brazil’s tallest tree

Lovers of nature,
fine people like you,
who make room in their hearts
for Earth’s beautiful view

That’s all folks!

We’ll be back in 2020 with more books, more trees and more featured creatures.

From our Favorite World to yours, however you celebrate, wishing you an absolute abundance of holiday cheer!

XOX!

LSF • WW • FWP

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Lisa S. French December 19, 2019

Towering Trees

At Weekly Wondrous, we believe that every tree is a winner. Because what’s not to like about a carbon-storing, water-purifying, habitat-providing, lovely, leafy planet fixture? However, to clinch official “champion” status, a tree has to possess that special something such as exceptional height, width, or age that makes it stand out in its field—or forest.

In 2019, two statuesque rainforest dwellers made the cut and were added to the official A-list of champion trees for record-breaking height: a 290-foot angelim vermelho (Dinizia excelsa) located in the Paru State Forest in Brazil, and a 339-foot yellow meranti (Shorea faguetiana) located in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.

Towering 21 stories above the forest floor, the leviathan angelim vermelho was tracked down deep in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest by indomitable researchers from the Universities of Jequitinhonha and Muscari Valleys in Brazil, and Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Now hailed as the tallest tree in Amazonia, the tropical hardwood is about the same height as the Statue of Liberty, give or take a torch. Common across Guyana and northern Brazil, the average angelim vermelho grows to approximately 160 – 190 feet tall and is typically harvested for its durable timber, which is used for everything from boatbuilding to floorboards to bridges. It’s believed that the recently discovered giant was able to achieve a remarkable 100 feet of additional growth undisturbed as a result of its remote location in the Amazon basin, one of the most biodiverse ecoregions on Earth.

In June, researchers from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Nottingham introduced the world to the tallest tropical tree known to date, the 339-foot yellow meranti, dubbed “Menara” (Malay for “tower”) which soars over the Danum Valley Conservation Area in Borneo. Almost 50 feet taller than its Brazilian rainforest rival and so far, second in height only to famed Hyperion, a majestic 380-foot coast redwood in Redwood National Park in California, the mammoth yellow meranti is also a contender for tallest flowering plant in the world. The endangered tree species can currently be found in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Phillipines as well as Malaysia, although numbers are decreasing due to logging and land-use change.

While we are on the subject of top-notch trees, we would like to extend a little local love to the “Queen’s Giant,” the largest and oldest tree In New York City. The 133-foot tall tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) located in Flushing Queen’s Alley Pond Park is estimated to be approximately 350 years old. Although somewhat of a pipsqueak by Brazil, and Borneo standards, the flowering favorite remains a colossus in our hearts.

If you live in the United States and would like to join the global ranks of intrepid tree-trackers, you can locate, measure, and nominate the most tremendous tree you can find for inclusion in the National Register of Champion Trees through our planting partners at American Forests.

Whether a world champion tree, the biggest on the block, or a beloved backyard beauty, we’re always delighted to welcome another green growing presence to the planet. You can introduce one of your own by planting a tree with Favorite World Press this holiday season or any time of the year. No digging required!

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Lisa S. French December 18, 2019

Saving Saigas

If you were to imagine a cross between Bambi and a snuffleupagus, you might come up with something that looks a lot like the saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica). With its wide doe eyes and large, twin-pipe breathing apparatus, the honey-colored, goat-sized saiga is one of the most whimsical-looking of the spiral-horned antelopes; it is also one of the most threatened animals on Earth. Currently classified as critically endangered, which is the next to last stop on the harrowing road to extinction, the saiga antelope is at very high risk of vanishing from the wild.

Although saigas have roamed the planet since the era of the woolly mammoth, as far back as 2.6 million years, and were abundant across Eastern Europe, Asia, and Alaska throughout the 19th century, their population plummeted from one million in the 1990s to just 60,000 by 2005. Extinct in China for the last five decades, migratory herds of saiga antelopes can now only be found on the vast grassy plains of the Eurasian steppe in remote areas of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Conservationists working to bring the species back from the brink have faced two major challenges, widespread poaching and climate change-induced vulnerability to viral disease that led to a massive die-off in 2015.

Like an elephant’s tusks and a pangolin’s scales, the translucent amber horns of the male saiga are highly coveted for use in traditional medicine, making the antelope an especially valuable target for poachers. As a consequence of rampant poaching over a fifteen-year period, the reduction in the number of saiga males available for mating in proportion to females led to a significant decrease in the rate of new births, and ultimately, reproductive collapse. Following a decade of strategic conservation efforts and enforcement of anti-poaching legislation, the saiga population had rebounded to 300,000 by late spring of 2015 when hundreds of thousands of females gathered on the steppe of Kazakhstan to give birth. In a widely documented mass mortality event which has now been linked to a rapid increase in temperature and humidity, over a three week period, 200,000 saiga mothers and newborn calves succumbed to a respiratory virus reducing the total population to 103,000, once again leaving the struggling animals teetering on the edge.

And now for some good and hopeful news, because we can always use a bit more of that in general, but especially when it comes to animals on the verge of extinction: saiga conservation groups working in collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College reported in May 2019 that as a result of ongoing anti-poaching work, disease management, and habitat protection the saiga population doubled to approximately 228,000 between 2016 and 2018. And because lowering vulnerability to climate change-related stressors is key to safeguarding endangered species like the saiga, scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum are also exploring whether the antelopes are flexible enough to relocate. If, like their ice-age ancestors, they are able to survive in colder areas outside of their current semi-arid steppe habitat, the risk of another heat-induced viral infection epidemic may be diminished.

Whether racing against the clock to save the saiga, the right whale, or the rhino, researchers, scientists, and NGOs around the world dedicated to the conservation of the 6,127 species listed as critically endangered have their work cut out for them. Rapid and continuing habitat loss, poaching, and environmental degradation, along with newly emerging viral diseases related to climate change make biodiversity conservation an especially complex and challenging problem that requires unique, ground-breaking, and sustainable solutions.

Speaking of conservation solutions, you can learn about some game-changing innovations from the Nature Conservancy and find out what the next generation of MIT scientists are cooking up on the biodiversity front at the Environmental Solutions Initiative. If you are prone to rooting for the underdog, or the under-antelope, as we are at Weekly Wondrous, you can lend your support to the Saiga Conservation Alliance at the Wildlife Conservation Network. And if you’d like to give a conservation scientist a holiday hug of gratitude for helping to protect and preserve the wild and the wondrous, you may do that wherever you happen to find one.

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Lisa S. French December 10, 2019

Splendid Scientists

Since Thanksgiving is just one short day away, we decided to get a head start on the list of splendid people and things to be grateful for here at Favorite World Press: our tree-planting readers, our tree-planting partners, our creative conjurors, our unwavering supporters, and the forthcoming T-Day pie!

At Weekly Wondrous, we are especially thankful for those whose hard work helps fuel our mission—the researchers, the problem solvers—the scientists. Here’s to you:

WW Ode to Scientists

The unrelenting analysts,
the cogitating theorists,
the research fiends, the paper writers,
the curious ones, the bias fighters,
the double-checking data sharers,
the honest information bearers,
the conclusion-drawing recommenders,
the nothing-but-the-truth defenders,
the nature-loving planet keepers,
the make-it-better never sleepers,
the ones who question as a rule,
the scientists—the supercool!

With unbounded gratitude for all that you do.

-LSF-

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Lisa S. French November 27, 2019