Home

On:

There are WILD animals lurking in hidden places in manicured suburbs. This year, Princeton, New Jersey hired sharpshooters to cull 250 deer from the town’s herd of 550 at a cost of almost $60,000.

Columbia, South Carolina is spending $1 million to get rid of beavers and their dams in their drainage systems. After a small dog had to be put down after being mauled by a coyote in Wheaton, Illinois, a wildlife exterminator killed four coyotes and got death threats on his voicemail for doing so.
read more

On:

Nearly one-tenth of hemisphere’s mammals are unlikely to outrun climate change.

A safe haven could be out of reach for 9% of the Western Hemisphere’s mammals, and as much as 40% in certain regions, because the animals just won’t move swiftly enough to outpace climate change.

For the past decade scientists have outlined new areas suitable for mammals likely to be displaced as climate change first makes their current habitat inhospitable, then unlivable. For the first time a new study considers whether mammals will actually be able to move to those new areas before they are overrun by climate change. read more

On:

They’re not doing it by talking to their students about climate change in their classrooms, they’re doing it at the END of the school year, by releasing the exotic pets they’re kept in their science labs all year. Since most of these creatures are not native to the area where they’re "poured out," they can become "invasive."
read more

On:

The flu can jump from animals to humans. A new strain of flu has emerged four times in the past 100 years. The one that emerged in 1918 killed 50 million people, which is why scientists watch these new flu strains so carefully.

Last fall, over 150 harbor seal pups washed up on the shores of New England beaches. Researchers discovered that they were killed by a new strain of flu, that evolved from bird flu. It had obviously gained the ability to spread from seal to seal.

In the July 31st edition of the New York Times, Carl Zimmer quotes biologist Katie Pugliares as saying, "Surfers were surfing into seals floating in the water."
read more