Tag: conservation
New Plan for Bears Ears National Monument Draws Fire over Tree-Clearing
When President Donald Trump in 2017 shrank Bears Ears National Monument by about 85 percent, tribal leaders, conservationists, and outdoor recreationists were aghast. The redrawn boundaries cleared the way for oil and gas drilling on once-protected land, they warned, and left out gravesites, artifacts, and other cultural resources held sacred by local tribes. Now those […]
A Simple Technology Could Help Stop Birds From Colliding With Power Lines
During spring migration, more than half a million Sandhill Cranes visit the shores of Nebraska’s Platte River, a critical stopover where the species has roosted for thousands of years. But for some unlucky birds, this ancient place of respite is a modern deathtrap. Every year, dozens to many hundreds of cranes suffer deadly collisions with two […]
Seabird Experts Turn to Algorithms to Help Keep Fishing Boats in Line
To catch prized tuna and swordfish, fishing boats crisscross the world’s oceans casting miles-long lines with baited hooks into waters far offshore, an appealing lure to not only large fish but also seabirds looking for an easy meal. This practice, called longline fishing, accidentally drags tens of thousands of albatrosses to their deaths each year, […]
After Five Years, the Sagebrush Songbird Survey Ends on a High Note
The clouds had just cleared when the caravan pulled off the Vantage Highway in Eastern Washington. As the survey team stepped out, backpacks loaded and binoculars primed, a Sage Thrasher’s jumbled song rose up from the distant shrub-speckled hills. It was the first Saturday of April and the final season of Audubon Washington’s Sagebrush Songbird […]
How to Be a Super Advocate
You may be wondering how your advocacy can have more impact, but aren’t sure how. We can help you with that. Audubon has shared a passion for birds with its members for decades, together creating lasting conservation change. The banning of DDT and the enactment of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act—the oldest and best bird […]
Grazing Like It’s 1799: How Ranchers Can Bring Back Grassland Birds
Grasslands are tough. They can survive extremes, from heatwaves and cold snaps to torrential downpours and droughts. They require turbulence. For millennia wildfires enhanced prairie soil and ensured grass’s dominance by burning back woody shrubs and saplings. Bison followed the fires to graze on tender, new growth of grasses and sedges; as they fed, their […]
Meet the Hunters—and Their Dogs—Who Spend Spring Tracking Woodcock Chicks
On a gray morning in early May, Gabby and Sage, both seasoned English pointers, bound off into the northern Michigan woods. Their noses are sharp, and the soggy young aspen forest they’re sweeping is ideal habitat for the game they’re after. But for a half-hour or so, the morning hunt is fruitless. “We going to […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]