Wild & Wondrous - 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

If you find yourself sloshing around a lagoon on the coast of southern Africa and happen upon a long-necked, spindly-legged, petite pouf of avian pinkness and think “Hmm, that one’s not quite the full flamingo,” you would be correct. Standing up to three feet tall but weighing only three to six pounds, Phoeniconaias minor, a.k.a. the lesser flamingo, is the smallest and one of the most brightly colored of six species of flamingo. What lesser flamingos lack in size, they make up in numbers, forming million-strong mega-flocks in their African home. These very vocal gatherings also known as stands, colonies, or the aptly named flamboyance, help to ward off a long list of potential predators including lions, leopards, cheetahs, jackals, and hyenas. When you are on everyone’s menu, there is safety in numbers.

Like other wading birds, the lesser flamingo is dependent upon the healthy functioning of biodiverse coastal ecosystems for food. Lesser flamingos are filter feeders, skimming blue-green algae, insects and the occasional crustacean from the water through sieve-like structures called lamellae which line their boomerang-shaped bills. All flamingos stand on both legs when feeding, but tuck one leg under their plumage for up to four hours when sleeping. This famed one-legged posture, which long puzzled scientists, has now been attributed to the wading bird’s need for thermoregulation. Standing around in cold water for hours every day, even in a warm climate, can cause a rapid drop in body temperature. Researchers estimate that keeping one leg high and dry helps flamingos reduce heat loss by up to one-half.

This avian adaptation works in conjunction with the rete mirabile, a rather beautiful-sounding Latin term meaning “wonderful net” which refers to the intricate, fine web of arteries and veins that also serves to minimize heat loss in warm-blooded vertebrates. In flamingos, this arterial net functions to preserve upper body heat when their feet and legs are immersed in cold water during prolonged feeding and sleeping sessions.

These champion waders are also able, if awkward, fliers. Gangly necks and legs outstretched, lesser flamingos are capable of reaching speeds of up to 35 miles per hour. Although non-migratory, the birds do relocate in response to changes in climate that affect water levels and food supplies.

With coloration ranging from pastel to coral to bubble-gum pink, the eminently preen-worthy feathers of the flamingo species are a function of “you are what you eat.” Flamingo chicks are born grey or white, slowly acquiring their happy hue over several years as a result of consuming beta carotenoids. Carotenoids, which are found in foods like carrots, squash, apricots, and the blue-green algae favored by flamingos, are broken down by the liver into yellow, orange, and red fat-soluble pigments which are transmitted to plumage—no carotenoids in the diet, no pink in the flamingos.

While lesser flamingo populations are estimated to be between 1.5 and 2.5 million, the species is listed as near threatened by the IUCN as numbers are decreasing due to predation, habitat loss and illegal poaching. Here’s to hoping the smallest pink feathered ones hang on in there—lesser but not less than.

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Lisa S. French September 16, 2019

Roaming Room

We share our home planet with an awe-inspiring abundance of living things. The official cohabitant count stands at 8.7 million identified species, give or take, which represents only 15% of the estimated total number. From the smallest microorganisms to the largest mammals and most complex ecosystems, biological diversity—the diversity within and between species—supports the healthy functioning and maintenance of the interdependent environmental systems we rely upon to thrive. One of the most consistent threats to the creature components of biodiversity is accelerating land-use change resulting in degradation and loss of habitats and wilderness areas. According to the most recent Living Planet Report, only 25% of the world’s land surface can now be considered wilderness, 70% of which is concentrated in just five countries: Australia, Canada, Russia, the United States, and primary keeper of planetary lungs, Brazil.

The ongoing modification of Earth’s natural landscapes is forcing an increasing number of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians from wild places to fragmented in-between spaces. These isolated remnants of habitat prevent animals from moving freely to find food, migrate, reproduce, and maintain biological variety, resulting in diminished and endangered populations globally. Loss of keystone species, which play a critical role in the functioning of food webs, also increases pressure on and reduces the resilience of ecosystems, putting them at risk of collapse.

Since 1970 global wildlife populations have plummeted by an alarming 60%. One of the most effective things that we can do right now to conserve terrestrial biodiversity is to protect and restore wilderness areas and ensure ecosystem connectivity through the creation of networked wildlife corridors that link larger areas of native vegetation to facilitate the safe passage of species from butterflies to bighorn. Wildlife corridors can be manmade, like Africa’s first dedicated elephant underpass in Mt. Kenya National Forest, or naturally occurring, like the Terai Arc Landscape in Nepal. Enlarging corridor systems and protected areas holds the potential to save threatened and endangered native species and restore habitat across the world’s last remaining biodiversity hotspots.

We are in, and we are of, the interconnected web of life. It sustains us all physically, spiritually, culturally, and economically. Making room for the wild ones through the restoration and protection of the places that they roam and call home will help to ensure the future health, wellbeing, and survival of all cohabitants of the living world. To borrow from author Rick Bass, “If it’s wild to your own heart, protect it. Preserve it. Love it. And fight for it.”

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Lisa S. French August 31, 2019

Traveling Trees

Like all living things, trees have a comfort zone where they grow best and thrive-an evolutionarily determined combination of sunlight, soil nutrients, water and temperature that supports the structure, bark, and leaves of diverse species. But what happens when a tree no longer gets the moisture and nutrients it needs to put down roots and send up shoots in a hotter, drier world? While the mighty oak in your front yard can’t just up sticks and trot down the block to the yard with the fancy sprinkler system, trees do have the ability to migrate in response to environmental change, about ten miles per decade, through various modes of seed dispersal. In the United States, trees move in two directions, gravitating toward cooler temperatures in the North or increased rainfall in the West. However, when the rate of change in temperature or precipitation exceeds a species ability to adapt or migrate, climate-induced dieback can occur, negatively impacting the resilience and sustainability of forest ecosystems.

In anticipation of increased global warming, researchers at the Schoodic Institute at Maine’s Acadia National Park are conducting experiments in assisted tree migration—planting and monitoring non-native, heat and drought-resistant seedlings to determine which species will adapt best to projected climatic changes in Acadia in the coming decades. Deciding which trees to relocate and which to leave behind is a tricky business. Altering one component of a natural system can result in cascading changes that may impact the survival of interdependent, co-evolved plants, and wildlife. What future forests will look like, who decides and whether or not trees should be assisted to migrate is a matter of ongoing controversy and debate. Time will tell if those tree species that just can’t get there from here will be able to survive in a warming world with a little travel assistance from their friends in forest ecology. You can learn more about the science of trees on the move from our planting partners at American Forests here.

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Lisa S. French August 18, 2019

Restoring Rhinos

The precious population of southern white rhinos just added a history-making new clan member. On July 28, reproductive science researchers at the San Diego Zoo Global announced the arrival of Edward, the first southern white rhino calf born in North America through the process of artificial insemination. The birth of a healthy male rhino through IVF represents an important breakthrough in a Recovery Ecology project aimed at restoring rhino populations worldwide, including the functionally-extinct northern white rhino of which only two females, Najin and Fatu, are remaining following the death of the last male, Sudan, at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, in March 2018. With the help of six southern white rhino surrogates, including Edward’s mother Victoria, scientists at the Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Center eventually hope to create a sustainable crash, or herd, of northern white rhinos as part of a collaborative effort to save this iconic animal.

Of the five species of rhinoceros living today, which include black, white, Sumatran, Indian, and Javan, southern white rhinos are the least endangered. From a historic low of 100 individuals in the early 1900s, through dedicated conservation efforts over the last century the population has grown to an estimated 21,000 animals in the wild, and close to 700 in zoos globally. The majority of southern white rhinos live in South Africa, but they can also be found in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya—and now a wobbly, little one in California. You can learn more about the ongoing initiatives focused on restoring rhinos to their rightful place in the wild from Save the Rhino International.

Update:

Ol Pejeta has announced more exciting progress on the road to rhino restoration! On August 22nd, veterinarians at the Conservancy successfully harvested a total of ten eggs from Najin and Fatu to create embryos for implantation into southern white rhino surrogates. On August 25th, seven out of ten donated eggs were successfully inseminated with frozen “donations” from Suni and Saut, two northern white rhino bulls. If this groundbreaking IVF procedure results in the development of viable embryos, we’ll be one step closer to reconstituting a sustainable population of northern white rhinos.

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Lisa S. French August 3, 2019

Broadway Birds

They’re here! Really big birds have landed on Broadway courtesy of Brooklyn-based artist Nicolas Holiber and the Audubon Sculpture Project. Perched between 64th and 157th street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the super-sized sculptures made from reclaimed wood found on New York City streets depict birds that either live in or migrate through Manhattan. This conservation art initiative was conceived to draw attention to the fact that nearly half of the birds in North America will be impacted by climate change, including the handsome double-crested cormorant above, currently spreading its wooden wings at 105th street. While the double-crested cormorant is a highly adaptable species found on coastal and inland waters, it is not certain that it will be able to adjust to the northward shift into the climate space of the boreal forest of Canada that is predicted to occur by 2080 at current rates of warming.

You can visit the double-crested cormorant on Broadway along with other New York native birds including the hooded merganser, snowy owl, and red-necked grebe now through January 2020. And if you’d like to see a real live cormorant clan doing their swooping, swimming, diving, fishing thing, be sure to swing by the Central Park Reservoir. For the love of all birds, you can help keep the beaked beauties of New York and North America flying by supporting the work of the National Audubon Society year round. And wherever you are in the world, you can get a bird’s-eye view of their daily happenings courtesy of the Audubon bird cams.

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Lisa S. French July 14, 2019

Nurturing Nature

It’s officially summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, and researchers from the Royal College of General Practitioners have discovered another great reason to get out and about and enjoy the beauty of the living world: a new study published in Scientific Reports reveals that just two hours a week in nature boosts your overall health and well-being. Whether you find your bliss beachside, in a meadow, on a mountain, or simply lounging in a local park, immersing yourself in a natural environment may offer similar health benefits to an equivalent amount of time spent exercising. In fact, you don’t have to move around at all. Just park yourself on a bench and let the outside in. Soothing snippets of birdsong, wind rippling through the leaves, or the gentle sound of the surf can calm the mind, lower blood pressure, and reduce depression. And the more diverse the natural environment, the better it is for your overall health, not to mention the health of the planet—making biodiversity conservation the ultimate win-win.

It’s not surprising that our brains and bodies respond positively to nature’s way; before we humans created and settled in towns and cities, we spent almost two million years depending on, and connected to, the wilderness for daily life support. If your current environment is more urban than woodland, and you can’t find time to take a walk on the wild side, we’ve pulled together some nightingale nocturnes, Pacific right whale rumblings, and terrestrial tree sounds to get you through to your next good-for-you, green getaway or forest bathing session. If you’d like to read more about the healing power of nature check out FWP’s recommended read The Nature Fix by Florence Williams.

Oh, and by the way, the next time you are on a summery park stroll, and you think it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas there’s a good reason for that. Researchers at the British Ecological Society studying the connection between mental health and exposure to biodiversity found that spending time in an urban green space can evoke that fa, la, la feeling you may experience on Christmas Day. As an added online bonus, the increase in very merry sentiment resulting from immersion in nature also seems to reduce the expression of negativity on Twitter for several hours post-park. We’ll raise a glass of peppermint nog to that! Cheers!

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Lisa S. French June 27, 2019

Wondrous Whales

In honor of World Oceans Day, here’s a status update on one of the most precious inhabitants of the deep, blue Atlantic: Eubalaena glacialis, the good or true whale of the ice—population currently teetering at 411. Otherwise known as the eastern North Atlantic right whale, weighing up to 70 tons and measuring up to 55 feet long, this toothless, baleen cetacean, native to the Eastern Coast of the United States, is one of the largest mammals on earth. Dubbed the “right whale to hunt,” for centuries the docile, slow-moving North Atlantic right whale was prized for its blubber, oil, and baleen, resulting in over-exploitation and decimation of populations. Although the hunting of right whales was outlawed in 1935, this critically endangered species continues to face a number of extreme challenges to its survival including ship strikes, fishing gear entanglement, degraded habitat, underwater noise pollution, and more recently, declining prey.

As Atlantic waters warm due to climate heating, scientists believe that the enormous quantities of small crustaceans (Calanus finmarchicus) the right whales depend on for food are moving further north into shipping lanes and fishing areas that make strikes and entanglement more likely. Between 2010 and 2016, 85% of right whale deaths were caused by entanglement. In 2017 and 2018 there was an extremely high mortality rate of 20 right whales, and for the first time in 38 years in 2018, there were no calves born.

A normal life span for a North Atlantic right whale is 70 years. By age ten females are capable of reproduction and have a gestation period of one year. While right whales typically give birth to a single calf every three to five years, due to a host of environmental stressors, as of 2017 the interval between births had increased to ten years. Even though seven new calves have been spotted off the coast of Florida as of March 2019, at the current rate of loss and reproduction, without support and intervention, scientists predict the North Atlantic right whale could disappear from the planet in the next 20 years. You can learn more about the North Atlantic right whale and the network of scientific organizations working together to monitor populations, protect critical habitat, and reduce injury and mortality from vessel disturbance and fishing gear from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

And in other recent whale watching news, New York City and British Columbia are celebrating sightings of big humpbacks and baby orcas. Mind how you go, befinned friends, mind how you go…

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Lisa S. French June 8, 2019

Brainy Bees

As the days grow longer and buds burst into blooms, we’re on the lookout for the return of everybody’s favorite essential pollinator, the honeybee! If you have ever wondered why honeybees are so skilled at helping to transform flowers into fruit and veg like apples, avocados, blueberries, and broccoli, it’s because they’re wicked smart. How smart, you ask? Well, even though a honeybee’s brain is about 20,000 times smaller than a human brain, that seed-sized morsel of gray matter packs a lot of computing power. A honeybee brain is capable of managing 10 trillion computations a second—that’s 625 times the speed of most advanced supercomputers. Research conducted by scientists at the University of Melbourne indicates that honeybees can do basic arithmetic, understand the concept of zero, and learn and teach other bees how to gain rewards. All of that buzz-worthy brilliance is put to good use efficiently managing a complex series of tasks that contribute to the cross-pollination of 30 percent of human food crops and 90 percent of wild plants. Honeybees also use their smarts to locate prime floral real estate by color and smell and share the inside scoop on best bets for plentiful pollen and nectar with their hive mates through a complicated “waggle” dance language.

What’s more, these winged brainiacs are the ultimate team players, efficiently performing well-defined hierarchical functions within their colonies. The apis mellifera monarch’s, or queen honeybee’s, one and only job is to create more bees. The queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day which develop into queens, drones, or worker bees. The bees that you see buzzing about outside the hive collecting pollen and nectar from flowers are sterile female worker bees. Worker bees are also responsible for keeping the inside of the hive tidy as well as feeding the queen, drones, and bee larvae. Male bees or drones have only two functions in the hive, eating and mating with the queen. While that may sound like the good life, once a drone mates with the queen, it falls to the ground and dies. Drones that don’t make the cut with the queen are ejected from the hive by worker bees come winter.

Queen bees are not born to the throne. They are created through a process where larvae designated for insect royalty by their placement in special queen cells in the hive are fed exclusively the aptly named royal jelly. A milky substance that is secreted from glands in the heads of worker bees, royal jelly is composed of proteins, sugars, fatty acids, and trace minerals which help queens develop their reproductive capacity. Tasked with the very important job of keeping the colony humming with new offspring, a queen honeybee can live anywhere from one to six years, significantly longer than the seasonal life span of female worker bees and male drones.

Despite having an amazing capacity to problem solve and work collaboratively, one thing that honeybees have not been able to figure out on their own is how to protect themselves from the multiple factors including global heating, pesticide use, habitat loss, and parasites which have led to an estimated annual loss of over 30% of the honeybee colonies that are critical to pollinating one out of every three bites of the food we eat. According to the 2018-19 survey results from the Bee Informed Partnership, over the past winter, U.S. beekeepers lost 40% of their hives, which is the worst recorded loss since 2006.

It’s clear that when it comes to keeping global populations well-fed and environmental systems healthy and functioning, these tiny, brainy insects are the bee all end all. Whether you live in a big city, a small town, or somewhere in between, check out the Xerces Society’s tips on what to plant to create a safe haven for honeybees on your patch. You can also sponsor a hive through The Honeybee Conservancy and find Favorite World Press recommendations for pollinator-friendly seed bombs and supplies here.

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Lisa S. French May 27, 2019

Precious Parrots

Standing almost two feet tall and weighing in at approximately nine pounds, the moss-green kākāpō is the world’s largest and only flightless parrot. It is also one of the most critically endangered. Known as the “owl-parrot” due to its large eyes and head, this charmingly chubby forest inhabitant was common in its native New Zealand where it evolved over 30 million years, free from the threat of natural predators. Over the past few hundred years with only the minimal protection offered by its mottled, camouflaging feathers, the defenseless, ground-dwelling kākāpō was hunted to the brink of extinction by both humans and the invasive species introduced by European settlers. Habitat loss from forest conversion to farm-land also contributed to the parrots’ plummeting numbers, and by 1977 the solitary, nocturnal kākāpō had been reduced to a tiny population of just 18 birds. Although kākāpōs rebounded slightly to 51 individuals in the 1990’s, their future looked decidedly grim.

The plight of the kākāpō is further complicated by infrequent breeding. The parrots only mate every two to four years when native coniferous rimu trees bear the vitamin D rich fruit which they feed their young. And because females are solely responsible for incubating, parenting and foraging for food, eggs and fledglings are extremely vulnerable to predators when out of necessity they are left alone in the nest. Factoring in a loss of genetic diversity which helped to ensure the survival of chicks, the kākāpō was in desperate need of some avian assistance.

Fast-forward three decades, thanks to the intensive and innovative management of the critically endangered parrots by scientists at the New Zealand Department of Conservation, as of 2017, the kākāpō count was at 154. Following the transfer of the entire population of birds to three remote predator-free islands, Whenua Hou, Anchor, and Hauturu, the kākāpō recovery programme began monitoring the birds through every stage of development pitching in with nest protection, supplementary feeding and the hand raising of chicks. As a result of around the clock intensive care, this year the kākāpōs had a record-breaking breeding season resulting in 76 hatchlings. Scientists expect that about 60 of the young birds will make it to adulthood. While the kākāpō population is on the upswing, conservationists won’t breathe easier until their numbers get closer to 500. In the meantime, preservation of these precious parrots continues with international efforts aimed at ensuring their survival, including genome sequencing, drone-supported artificial insemination and the world’s first successful bird brain surgery. In honor of Endangered Species Day on May 17, we tip our wings to the captivating kākāpō and the dedicated scientists who continue to work tirelessly to save this rare species–bird by bird.

Update:

Following a tremendously successful 2018/2019 breeding season, and the unprecedented survival of 71 chicks to juvenile age, as of September 2019, the critically endangered kākāpō population has reached a record high of 213! You can read more about the ground-dwelling parrot progress here.

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Lisa S. French May 16, 2019

Good News for Gorillas

Home to over 3,000 different species of plants and animals, the Virunga Mountain range bordering Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most biologically diverse places on earth. The best known and most beloved occupants of this UNESCO World Heritage site are the majestic mountain gorillas. Discovered by German explorer Captain Robert von Beringe in 1902, over the course of the 20th century, mountain gorillas suffered the impacts of habitat loss, hunting, war, and disease leading scientists to estimate that continued environmental pressures would render the critically endangered species extinct by the year 2000. Although populations of mountain gorillas in the Virunga range continued to dwindle to near extinction, 480 individuals had survived as of 2010.

An inspiring testament to the progress that can be achieved through a creative combination of government, NGO, and community-based conservation efforts, including eco-tourism, these gentle herbivores, vital to the health of forest ecosystems, are slowly making a comeback. Population surveys in 2016 found that the Virunga gorillas had increased to 604 individuals. The total population of mountain gorillas now stands at 1,004 which includes a second group in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda. At a time when animal species around the globe are facing extreme challenges to their survival, this bit of good news for mountain gorillas underscores the vital importance of supporting wildlife conservation initiatives for the benefit of all inhabitants who share the planet.

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Lisa S. French May 7, 2019