As you may or may not have known, the Arctic circle is oil-rich, which makes oil companies and the like hungry to drill the area. Of course, the consequence suffered is that the resident wildlife may lose valuable land and may also be disturbed. Unfortunately, the oil companies just don't seem to care. However, President Obama has issued a temporary conservation statement, decreeing that part of the Arctic Circle will not be drilled. Unfortunately again, there is unlikely to be a permanent statement with a Republican majority.
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New research on White Nose Syndrome has been conducted, which details what happens to bats before their disrupted hibernation. It shows that, even before the hibernation is disrupted, WNS changes the bats, and makes them use twice the normal energy.
(See http://batsandbirdconservationefforts.weebly.com/white-nose-syndrome.html or http://batsandbirdconservationefforts.weebly.com/disease.html for more information about WNS) Go to http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/01/09/2015/mapping-white-nose-syndrome-s-lethal-course-in-bats.html#path/segment/01/09/2015/mapping-white-nose-syndrome-s-lethal-course-in-bats.html to hear the radio program about this. Where we BABCE directors live has recently experienced very cold temperatures. Yesterday, one of our thermometers said it was 1 degree Fahrenheit, today was -7 degrees F. We as humans feel especially cold because of our measly limb furs. Other wildlife, with their better feathers and furs may not feel too horrible, but that does not mean we assume they are fine! Recently, we have not seen any birds or mammals, but then again we may not have been looking at the correct time.
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March 2019
"There is nothing in which the birds differ more than man than the way that they can build and yet leave the landscape as it was before." |