If hunters and anglers look at hits to America’s conservation infrastructure over the last two months, it’s easy to spot the wreckage. The wholesale firing of U.S. Forest Service personnel has reduced field staff to just one or two employees to manage visitation and timber sales, and to enforce laws on entire National Forest districts. […]
Tag: national wildlife refuge
The warming Arctic is now a carbon source, report finds
The Arctic region has shifted from storing carbon dioxide to releasing it into the atmosphere, according to the 2024 Arctic Report Card released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report, authored by 97 scientists from 11 countries, documents widespread changes across the Arctic, from declining caribou populations to record-breaking temperatures. Scientists say […]
Lessons from the past may improve the future for manatees
While current manatee populations in Florida are threatened, their populations are higher than they ever historically were. Records show that manatee (Trichechus manatus) populations grew and began expanding across the Florida Peninsula during the same documented periods of human population increases, anthropogenic landscape changes, and social and policy changes. But with an increase in humans, […]
Rappahannock Tribe first in US to enshrine rights of nature into constitution
The Rappahannock Tribe has become the first tribal nation in the United States to successfully adopt a tribal constitution that recognizes the rights of nature, giving legal protection to the river it has lived alongside for thousands of years. The new constitution recognizes nine specific rights for the Rappahannock River, including rights to “naturally exist, […]
My Favorite Bird Photos of 2013
At the end of each year I like to go back and look at the bird photographs I have taken and choose the ones I like the best for a “favorite bird photo” post. I try to pick at least one photograph from each month however some months were photographically prolific, others not so much. […]
Summer Birds, Winter Birds
Some birds fly south away from us in winter. Others fly south to us. Osprey leave the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, where the above picture was taken, in early September. They spend the winter along the coasts of Central America and southern North America, and throughout much of South America. Northern pintail […]
Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is only 25 miles from New York City in Vernon, New Jersey. It’s a great place for a day of strolling and wildlife spotting.There are duck blinds,roads and trails, wildflower fields, and boardwalks over marshes. Wood ducks and eastern bluebirds are some of the wildlife rock stars that breed in […]
The Duck Stamp Brings in a Lot of Money
According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), in their 2011 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation report, there are approximately 13.7 million hunters in the United States and nearly 71.8 million wildlife watchers. Of those 13.7 million hunters, only 2.6 million hunt migratory birds and only about 1.3 million hunt waterfowl. […]