Crew 12 of the Ventura County Fire Department had an unexpected surprise on Sunday, November 3, while patrolling an area adjacent to the then-active Maria Fire just north of Los Angeles: a Great Horned Owl hopping along the ground in the ashes. It’s unusual to spy the nocturnal birds during daylight, and even odder to […]
Tag: audubon
Judge Blocks Trump Administration Plans that Lifted Sage-Grouse Protections
In March, when the Trump administration released a new set of land-use plans that rolled back a collection of 2015 restrictions on oil and gas drilling across 9 million acres of the Greater Sage-Grouse’s most important habitat, environmental groups immediately sued to get the plans thrown out. They also asked for a court order to […]
Harris’s Hawks Hunt Like Wolves to Bring Down Dangerous Prey
For a desert rabbit, it’s hard to imagine what could be more terrifying than a hungry, nimble Harris’s Hawk. Except, that is, for five hungry, nimble Harris’s Hawks. We tend to think of raptors as solitary hunters, and for the most part that’s true. Unfortunately for the cottontails and jackrabbits of the American Southwest, however, […]
Thousands of Dead Seabirds Washed Up on Alaska’s Shores Again This Year
The first reports came in May. They were sparse, but enough to put seabird-monitoring coordinator Hillary Burgess on edge. “Here we go again,” she thought. By late June, almost every time she checked her inbox, yet more news of washed-up seabirds on the Alaskan coast greeted her. Volunteers had collected nearly 9,200 seabird carcasses by early […]
Potential Costs of Declining Water Levels at Great Salt Lake Could be in the Billions
Utah’s well-being hinges on the long-term health of Great Salt Lake. That reality is made even clearer in a report commissioned by the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council that outlines the potential economic costs that could ensue if the lake’s ecosystem collapsed. With Great Salt Lake’s water levels on a sustained downward trend, “further declines, […]
Final Plan for Arctic Refuge Drilling Could Cause Extinctions, Admits Government
The U.S. Department of the Interior last week took a major step toward the first-ever oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In a decision that outraged but did not surprise environmentalists, the agency announced its final plan to develop one of the world’s last great wildernesses, acknowledging that its chosen course might wipe […]
A Widespread Pesticide Causes Weight Loss and Delayed Migration in Songbirds
With winter approaching, White-crowned Sparrows are migrating south from North America’s boreal forest to central and southern United States and Mexico, sometimes flying hundreds of miles in one night. The weeks-long trek is already a major endeavor for the one-ounce songbirds, and pesticides may be making the journey even more perilous, a new study shows. […]
Lead Ammo, the Top Threat to Condors, Is Now Outlawed in California
The magnificent California Condor has a nearly ten-foot wingspan—and in comparison, the number-one threat to the endangered raptor is practically microscopic. It lurks unseen in deer, elk, and other carcasses the birds scavenge. Ingesting less than a gram is enough to seriously sicken a condor; in the last 25 years, it has felled at least […]
