Friday, May 11, 2018

Loose Feathers #646

Cinnamon Teal / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS
Birds and birding news
Science and nature blogging
Environment and biodiversity
  • The Trump administration killed a program that monitored greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane remotely.
  • The wild Red Wolf population is down to 40 individuals and could be extinct within eight years. The population crash seems to be linked to North Carolina's legalization of Coyote hunting, which caused the (accidental or deliberate) deaths of many Red Wolves.
  • Illegal shooting has held back recovery of the Mexican Gray Wolf population are well.
  • Elsewhere, Gray Wolves are losing ground in Alaska because logging is decimating their old-growth habitat.
  • Pharmaceutical companies are finally starting to use a synthetic test rather than horseshore crab blood to test for bacterial contamination (a use that contributed to the decline of horseshoe crabs on the US east coast and elsewhere).
  • New Jersey rejected a proposal to expand a nearby golf course into the Caven Point section of Liberty State Park, where habitat was recently restored and trails opened to the public.