October 2022 - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
Things to do

Lisa S. French

1.5-minute read

“Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume
of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door—
“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered,
“tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Edgar Allen Poe—The Raven

Of all the things that go bump in the night, what is the most hair-raising horror you can imagine tapping at your door this Halloween? A horde of zombies? A pack of werewolves? A coven of vampires? A gaggle of hobgoblins? Or—gulp—all of the above.

There’s no doubt that a spooky-season visit from creatures of the underworld would be pretty darn scary (especially those zombies). Do you know what’s even scarier? The year-round global impacts of climate change. And one of the greatest contributors to climate change is deforestation. Approximately 18% of global heating is caused by the loss of trees. That exceeds the CO2 emissions created by the entire transport sector.

We have two solutions to cool a rapidly warming planet—reduce emissions, or capture the CO2 already released into the atmosphere. But lowering emissions is not happening fast enough. In fact, atmospheric CO2 reached record-high levels in 2021. While other carbon capture systems are being developed, right now reforestation is by far the most efficient and affordable solution. It is considered essential to keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

In addition to helping to combat climate change, planting trees addresses other major planetary perils, including pollution, species extinction, desertification, floods, poverty, and malnutrition. Trees remove toxins from our air, purify our rivers and water sources, serve as habitats for millions of species, bring revenue to local populations, and help us get food, fodder, and medicine.

Trees offer so many benefits for people and the environment that planting them is a no-brainer. Sorry, zombies. That’s why we’ve partnered with Tree-Nation to plant one tree for every print or e-book that we sell. Tree-Nation is committed to planting 1 trillion trees by 2050, and we’re glad to have the opportunity to pitch in and help with the transition to a sustainable future.

You can learn more about forests and the benefits of planting trees right here.

As always, thank you for reading with us, thank you for planting with us.

Happy Halloween!

FWP – No tricks—just trees.

…

Lisa S. French October 27, 2022

Making Room for Urban Wildlife

2-minute read

If you took the city… and turned it upside down and shook it, you would be amazed at the animals that would fall out.

Yann Martel, Life of Pi

What kinds of creatures would fall out if you turned your city upside down? Here in NYC, we’d shake out 1.1 million domestic animals of the woofing, meowing variety, and a surprising assortment of wild ones, including coyotes, deer, raccoons, possums, skunks, hawks, and the occasional snowy owl. As habitat loss and climate change continue to take their toll on natural ecosystems, wild animals looking for a home away from home can end up in unexpected places, like a green patch of park in the middle of a 23-square-mile island inhabited by 1.63 million people.

By 2050, it’s estimated that 7 billion people will live in urban areas. Whether it’s coyotes in Manhattan, sea lions in San Francisco, or cougars in Los Angeles, cities will be supporting more diverse animal species in response to the impacts of ongoing environmental change. As wildlife and urban dwellers try to adjust to sharing the same habitat, cities that plan for peaceful co-existence will be critical to the survival of some of our increasingly endangered animals.

Because coyotes are going to coyote, and cougars are going to cougar, managing the ecological challenges of making room for urban wildlife takes innovative thinking so that animals can do what they normally do without stressing out their human neighbors.

So, what would a wildlife-friendly city look like? It could look like Los Angeles, the second most populated city in the U.S., which is in the final stages of planning and fundraising for the world’s largest urban wildlife crossing, a 210-foot span over ten lanes of the 101 Freeway, which will create a vital connection for a population of at-risk cougars and other native wildlife.

The average home range of a cougar is 240 square miles, but the fragmentation of habitat by roads and ongoing development is a threat to their survival. By reconnecting the Santa Monica Mountain ecosystem over the 101, the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing will give big cats like P-22, aka the Brad Pitt of cougars, the ability to freely move between regions, helping to save the iconic animals from isolation and extinction.

The wildlife crossing will also provide other California creatures—bobcats, grey foxes, coyotes, and mule deer—with a safe passage between patches of critter-friendly habitat. And human inhabitants of the sprawling city will get a nature boost too. The conservation project’s green space will include a multi-use trail and recreation areas for hikers, bikers, and equestrians—all-around good news for nature-loving Angelenos.

Studying how wild animals live, move, and adapt when faced with the accelerating pressures of habitat loss and climate change is helping conservationists, city planners, and concerned citizens to create resilient urban ecosystems that will make cities healthier and more livable for humans and wildlife on a rapidly changing planet.

You can read about the big cats of the Santa Monica Mountains here and learn more about how a short walk over a ten-lane freeway could be vital to helping these endangered cougars to keep on cougaring from the good people at Save LA Cougars Campaign.

ICYMI Nature News

A Purr-fect Ending
Speaking of big cats, we think you might need to take a look at this unbelievably adorable video of chirping cheetahs at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Did your heart swell to ten times its normal size at the end? Yeah, we thought so.

The Beary Chunky Chompion
Did you predict the winner of Fat Bear Week? If you bet on 747, aka Bear Force One, congratulations on your astute sense of future bear fatness. If you’d like to learn why hibernating bears are able to pack on the pounds and stay healthy, The Washington Post has some interesting insights for you here.

A Brand New Whale
The good news: scientists named a new species of baleen whale this week. The bad news: the 60,000-pound marine mammal, dubbed Rice’s whale, is on the verge of extinction. Geez, give us a chance to get to know the finned fellows…

A Pest-Beating Flowering Plant
Scientists have discovered a Costa Rican plant that turns crop-destroying pests into pollinators. Crafty!

Audubon Migratory Bird Explorer
Have you checked out Audubon’s guide to bird migration yet? You can track the annual journeys of over 450 bird species and learn about the challenges they face to surviving along the way with this cool bird tracking tool. Also, we just wanted to mention the fifth and final beautiful installment of the Birdsong Project is now available—from Audubon to your ears.

Underbirds Are Go
Voting for Forest & Bird’s New Zealand Bird of the Year is now open. Exciting! Which finely feathered candidate will earn your nod of approval? We’re going with the Rockhopper penguin again this year. With those outstanding head tufts, it has to win eventually. Choose your five favorites here.

And that’s all for now. Have a super week!

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Lisa S. French October 17, 2022

Happy Peak Peeping

Autumn is a second spring
when every leaf is a flower
– Albert Camus –

The leaves are in bloom!

Wishing you all of the brilliant
colors of the splendid season.

Peak Fall Foliage Map.

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Lisa S. French October 12, 2022

These Cats are Made for Talking

2-minute read

More than any other member of the feline family, Felis catus, the domestic cat, has a lot to say for itself and a surprising number of ways to say it. Humans have lived contentedly alongside domestic cats, a.k.a. petite home purr machines, for 10,000 years. While cats rarely vocalize to other adult cats, over the course of that long human-cat friendship, they’ve evolved to communicate their internal states—hunger, loneliness, relaxation, or stress to their primary people to the best of their meowing, chirping, and chattering abilities.

According to research by Seoul National and Cornell Universities, not only have cats learned to modify the pitch of their meows to sound more appealing to human ears, their vocal expression is more complex than initially believed. Typical cat chat includes at least 21 different vocalizations, and researchers believe those vocalizations are combined or repeated to produce phrases. That’s right, phrases. And you thought your cat was just saying food, food, more food, when they may actually be saying, “food, petting, catnip, nap, plus treats”, for example.

Cat communications that produce signals directed at human housemates are not all about the mew-meow, however. Results of a recent animal behavior study at the University of Sussex have shown that a series of half-blinks followed by a prolonged narrowing of the eyes may also be an important form of positive emotional communication between cats and their humans. Because an unbroken stare can be perceived as potentially threatening, a slow blink sequence from a cat is a sign that you’ve been approved for feline friendship. If you’d like to test your cat communication skills, try the slow blink sequence on your resident feline and see if you get a “hi, friend” blink back. Full disclosure, we attempted the meow-free Morse code with Favorite World Press in-house Maine Coon, Stella, and only received a “hmm, seems to be bonkers” stare in return. Apparently, we need to work on our technique.

Adapting their vocalizations to appeal to humans has clear benefits for domestic cats, but our furry friends give as good as they get. Research from the University of Zurich has shown that cardiovascular disease risk rates are significantly lower for both current and past cat owners compared to non-cat owners. And interacting with your cat is also a mood booster, reducing fear, anxiety, and depression. Somebody deserves a petting. Here, kitty, kitty…

ICYMI Nature News

Big Cat Transfer
While domestic cats number close to 600 million globally, wild cats have not been as successful in their ability to survive. To increase the number of wild cheetahs from a dismal low of 7,000, the Project Cheetah initiative has reintroduced 12 cheetahs to India as part of efforts to ensure the magnificent animals have roaming room.

Fat Bears and Best Birds
Fire up your chooser; it’s creature contest season. Today, October 5th marks the start of Fat Bear Week, the all-you-can-eat challenge for the bears of Alaska’s Katmai National Park. The feasting festivities run through October 11th so be sure to cast your vote for the most corpulent salmon scarfer here. And mark your avian event calendar, voting for the New Zealand Bird of the Year 2022 opens on October 17 and runs through October 30.

Building Better Corals
Would you like to support innovators working to develop corals that can withstand the impacts of climate change? Check out the forward-thinking reef restorers at Coral Vita to learn how you can help.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
Keeping the biodiversity-protecting, forest-restoring carbon capture going, with the help of our friends at Tree-Nation, the trees that we’ve planted from April through September bring our carbon capture total to 1,782 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 200,568 gallons of gasoline or 4,127 barrels of oil consumed, or 347 homes’ electricity use for one year.

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Lisa S. French October 5, 2022