Tag: conservation
Birders of the World Can Now Learn Close to a Thousand Species in Arabic
Have you seen a rafraaf lately? How about a laqlaq? Or a yamama? Unless you're familiar with the lingo spoken by nearly 300 million people around the world, you wouldn’t know that these are the respective Arabic names for kingfisher, stork, and dove. But birders in at least 25 Middle Eastern countries use these labels, and now they, and […]
Tags: conservation, news
Waves of Opposition Deter Interior’s Plans to Expand Offshore Drilling
From the get-go, the Trump administration’s campaign to vastly increase offshore drilling has fought stiff headwinds. Coastal governors and lawmakers from both major political parties pushed back hard against the draft five-year leasing plan the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued at the beginning of 2018, which proposed to open more than 90 […]
Tags: conservation, news
The ‘Godfather of Biodiversity’ on Why Two Degrees of Warming Must Be Avoided
When Thomas Lovejoy traveled to the Amazon as a young biologist in 1965, massive highways, farms, and ranches had hardly yet crisscrossed the jungle. Stunned by the rainforest’s riches (and by the colorful manakins—his favorite birds), he later coined the concept “biological diversity” that described what he saw. As development encroached in the region, he launched a […]
Tags: conservation, news
Why the Border Wall Is a Problem For Birds, Despite Their Wings
The Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl is a fierce, fluffy handful of a bird. Plump and voracious, it brings death from above to lizards and mice. But to hawks and larger owls, the tiny raptor is a tempting snack itself. As a result, the owls stay close to the ground, which in turn subjects them to an unusual threat: barriers along […]
Tags: conservation, news
Four Decades of Building Strike Records Point to ‘Super Collider’ Birds
Every spring, as birds fly north to their breeding grounds, they run a gauntlet unique to the modern era: forests of towering buildings in urban centers from coast to coast. Hundreds of millions crash into structures and fall to their deaths—some attracted and confused by buildings lit up at night and others simply not seeing windows and glass in day. […]
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John Young Rediscovered the Australian Night Parrot, but Did He Lie About His Later Findings?
There is no doubt that John Young rediscovered Australia’s Night Parrot in 2013. But the naturalist may have fabricated just about everything he reported about new populations and nesting sites of the birds over the past two years. That’s the conclusion of an independent panel of experts convened by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC), to […]
Tags: conservation, news
The Greater Sage-Grouse’s Most Important Habitat Is on the Auction Block
The U.S. Department of the Interior this week is offering oil and gas companies drilling rights on 758,198 acres of federal land in Wyoming. Despite a 2015 agreement to steer energy development away from areas where Greater Sage-Grouse dwell, everything on the auction block—each of the 565 parcels on offer—falls within the bird’s habitat. Nearly half […]
Tags: conservation, news
A Club for Everyone
At Audubon headquarters there’s a big red button near the window looking out over a certain water tower. Every few days someone hits it and a “Bird Alert” blasts out to the whole office. A scramble ensues. When the bird perching atop the tower is a Peregrine Falcon, as was recently the case, most of […]
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EPA Struck Secretive Deal Over Toxic Site Leaving $13 Million in BP’s Pocket
.dropcap { color: #838078; float: left; font-size: 82px; line-height: 60px; padding: 5px 8px 0 0; } In February, before an invitation-only crowd assembled in near secrecy behind locked gates, Scott Pruitt, then head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, signed over control of one of the nation’s biggest toxic waste sites to the state of […]
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Report on Arctic Drilling’s Environmental Impacts Is Deeply Flawed, Critics Say
Just over a year ago, Congress passed a tax bill that included a provision to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. The bill required that the first lease sales, when oil and gas companies can lay claim to develop parcels of land, occur within four years—and the Trump administration is moving […]
Tags: conservation, news