By Marshall Lee Weimer
Before surveying muskrats along the St. Lawrence River as a master’s student, Alex Kua didn’t know they existed.
The aquatic rodent quickly captured his attention.
Little was known then about the impacts muskrats have on their environment, said Kua, now a researcher at the State University of New York. He wanted to know how muskrats shape their surrounding plant communities.
A greater understanding of their impact could help guide understanding of their dependence on Great Lakes water levels and their related ecosystem roles. Better understanding the connection between water levels and regulation practices could improve conservation projects in the region.
Texas Whiskey Festival Crowns Best Texas Whiskeys
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Texas Whiskey Festival Glencairn on a scoring sheet with pen.
“Our panel of judges smell and taste their way through each whiskey, rating the aroma, taste complexity, and finish,” says Co-Founder Jake Clements. AUSTIN, Texas (PRWEB) April 08, 2021 The Texas Whiskey Festival announces the winners of the annual competition of the best Texas Whiskeys.
Each year the Texas Whiskey Festival hosts a competition to determine who has the best Texas Bourbon, Rye, and Malt Whiskey. With a panel of judges, we conduct the competition with a method known as blind judging. The brands and specific whiskeys they are tasting are unknown to the judges. “Our panel of judges smell and taste their way through each whiskey, rating the aroma, taste complexity, and finish,” says Co-Founder Jake Clements.
Four Bold Ideas To Save Greater Yellowstone (And Certain To Make Some Squirm)
Lee Nellis first wrote in Mountain Journal about the failures of conservation. Now he wants to provoke a real discussion about how not to become Colorado. Are we ready to take aversive action?
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When planners pursue growth without any regard given to the natural processes that hold wild and pastoral landscapes together, communities that count such things as part of their character are destined to lose them. What good is open space if it vacant of inhabitants that used to live there? Poorly planned growth and development first rubs out wildlife migrations and then fragments agriculture and ultimately results in disjointed human spaces that have no memory of the actual place that drew them there. This is just part of problems that Nellis gets at in his essay. You can t save the essence of communities by adhering to consumptive models that failed in other places. Photo of a community along the Front
Center for Biological Diversity Reports a New Study Finds Climate Change Contributing to Widespread Butterfly Decline Across Western United States Published: Friday, 05 March 2021 05:54
Monarch Butterfly
Science found that climate change is contributing to widespread butterfly decline
across the western United States. Using three different long-term datasets from the western U.S., the authors found downward trends in a majority of butterflies, including historically common species like the west coast lady.
The study found climate change was the most influential predictor of butterfly declines, especially in places that have seen warming in the fall months. Warming in the fall increases stress on the butterflies as they are entering their overwintering stage. Butterflies responded positively to increased precipitation, adding to the concern about rampant climate change-induced drought in the West.
Credit Tom Koerner/USFWS
Every year, hunters set out in search of their quarry. Some will be successful, but inevitably, some will be unable to fill their tag, for a variety of possible reasons. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) is constantly striving to make sure that the number of tags they sold isn t one of those reasons. There s a lot of information that goes into the number of licenses that are available for a given species in a given area each year, said Laramie region wildlife coordinator Embere Hall. The information that informs this process comes out of three buckets, if you will. So the first is information that the department has on the population itself.