Category Archives: Ecological Restoration

Poor water conditions drive invasive snakeheads onto land

The largest fish to walk on land, the voracious northern snakehead, will flee water that is too acidic, salty or high in carbon dioxide—important information for future management of this invasive species Snakeheads eat native species of fish, frogs and crayfish, destroying the food web in some habitats. They can survive on land for up to…

US and Canada have lost more than 1 in 4 birds in the past 50 years

A study published today in the journal Science reveals that since 1970, bird populations in the United States and Canada have declined by 29 percent, or almost 3 billion birds, signaling a widespread ecological crisis. The results show tremendous losses across diverse groups of birds and habitats -- from iconic songsters such as meadowlarks to long-distance migrants…

Volunteers scour Cocoa Beach for displaced sea turtles, eggs after Hurricane Dorian

Whenever huge storms and hurricanes threaten county beaches, the Sea Turtle Preservation Society begins to worry. Dave Cheney explained to Channel 9 how exposed nests can mean destruction for turtle eggs. "The waves will erode nests," said Cheney. "They'll open up some of the nests." Even though many eggs may have been lost, experts said the…

What’s affecting some Florida panthers’ ability to walk? It’s a mystery

Something is affecting the walking ability of some Florida panthers and bobcats, and state scientists want the public’s help documenting the mystery disorder. The ailment is reportedly impacting the cats’ ability to coordinate their back legs, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission press release. This month, FWC has confirmed neurological damage in…

After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape

Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers -- began their precipitous slide to extinction. And when their populations crashed, emptying a land whose diversity of large animals equaled…

Trump administration overhauls U.S. wildlife protections over objections of conservationists

The Trump administration on Monday finalized changes to provisions of the U.S. Endangered Species Act it says will streamline the decades-old wildlife protection law but which conservation groups say will threaten at-risk species. © AP Photo/Eric Gay A monarch butterfly lands on a confetti lantana plant in San Antonio. The 1970s-era Act is credited with bringing…

Monarch butterfly population on decline, public asked to help

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is encouraging people to help the monarch butterfly population. It said the monarch population is in decline, so it's asking the public and scientists to track and report monarch sightings. “If some evil demon caused all butterflies to be extinct tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the end of the…

Scientists make fundamental discovery to creating better crops

A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have discovered the specific gene that controls an important symbiotic relationship between plants and soil fungi, and successfully facilitated the symbiosis in a plant that typically resists it. The discovery could lead to the development of bioenergy and food crops that…

Scientists scramble to learn why monarch butterflies are dying so quickly

Scientists across the country are scrambling to understand why monarch butterflies are disappearing at such an alarming rate as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers listing the butterfly as endangered. North America's largest population of monarchs, which migrate between Mexico and the Midwest, has fallen 80 percent, from a billion in the 1990s to…

Discovery reveals secrets about how ghost orchids reproduce

Deep in remote Florida swamps, a team of researchers and photographers have made a new discovery that upends what we thought we knew about the ghost orchid, one of the world’s most iconic flowers, and how it reproduces. These rare, charming orchids were long thought to be pollinated by a single insect: the giant sphinx…