Minnesota's ducks don't want to be snowbirds anymore
Nick here. On my morning walks along the aqueduct connecting Lake Harriet and Minnehaha Creek, I've been surprised to see hundreds of ducks sticking it out in temperatures as low as minus 20.
State of play: It's not just my imagination. More ducks are opting against migration due to evolution and natural selection — and there's an association with warming winters caused by climate change, Dale Gentry, director of conservation for Audubon Upper Mississippi River, told Axios.
Why it matters: These hardy Minnesota ducks have puzzled me and my curious first-grade daughter because we can't figure out how they survive.
How it works: Ducks have an incredible ability to keep themselves warm, Gentry said. Their feathers are so good at insulation that people use them in jackets and they have a heat exchange system that keeps their legs from freezing.
Beyond that, Gentry said, they become more omnivorous in the winter, forgoing food like insects, worms and fish for plants, roots and seeds.
While ducks don't need to have open water, they prefer it. And fast-moving Minnesota rivers and streams provide natural open water all winter, plus there are warm-water discharges from power plants and other human-made open water.
Yes, but: It still begs the question: These ducks have wings. Why not fly somewhere warmer?
"Migration is just incredibly challenging, and a lot of birds die in the process," Gentry said. "So if you don't have to migrate, it's probably advantageous not to."
The ducks that stick around and survive breed more ducks that have the same inclination to stay home all winter.
Fun fact: This is basically the plot of the 2023 kids movie " Migration." The father duck, voiced by Kumail Nanjiani, is scared of migrating from New England to Jamaica, but his family talks him into it.
The big picture: It's not just mallards. The Audubon Society has been conducting an annual bird count around Christmas for 124 years that has also noted Minnesota robins and Canadian geese are migrating less.
The bottom line: Minnesota retirees may be snowbirds, but our ducks, not so much.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
6 hours ago
- Axios
Cancer research foundation to start seeding startups
Andy Rachleff is funding startups again, more than two decades after stepping down as a founding partner of legendary venture capital firm Benchmark. Why it matters: His new mission is curing cancers instead of generating profits for limited partners. Driving the news: Rachleff tells Axios that he's spearheading a new investment program for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, where he chairs the board. It's called InVEST and will automatically provide $50,000 equity checks to any Damon Runyon-sponsored scientists who secure at least $500,000 in seed funding for their startups. For the scientists, it's a way to prove to venture firms that they're "fundable." For Damon Runyan, it's a way to create a philanthropic flywheel — as its alumni have founded such companies as Moderna, Juno Therapeutics, Beam Therapeutics, and Arbor Biotechnologies. Zoom in: Damon Runyan focuses exclusively on young scientists, or at least scientists who are relatively early in their careers. Rachleff and CEO Yung Lie argue that most major scientific breakthroughs come from this cohort, but that most funding goes to older colleagues. "The average age where people get their first individual NIH grant is over 40, but the average age of a Nobel Laureate in medicine is just 36 at the time they conceive of their breakthrough," Rachelff explains. By the numbers: Damon Runyan backs around 70 new scientists per year, has 1,400 alumni, and spins out between 10 and 20 startups per year. It had initially considered creating some sort of investment program whereby the startups would pay royalties but decided that could impede growth. All investments will come from the foundation's endowment.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
If people stopped having babies, how long would it be before humans were all gone?
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you'd like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@ If people stopped having babies, how long would it be before humans were all gone? – Jeffrey Very few people live beyond a century. So, if no one had babies anymore, there would probably be no humans left on Earth within 100 years. But first, the population would shrink as older folks died and no one was being born. Even if all births were to suddenly cease, this decline would start slowly. Eventually there would not be enough young people coming of age to do essential work, causing societies throughout the world to quickly fall apart. Some of these breakdowns would be in humanity's ability to produce food, provide health care and do everything else we all rely on. Food would become scarce even though there would be fewer people to feed. As an anthropology professor who has spent his career studying human behavior, biology and cultures, I readily admit that this would not be a pretty picture. Eventually, civilization would crumble. It's likely that there would not be many people left within 70 or 80 years, rather than 100, due to shortages of food, clean water, prescription drugs and everything else that you can easily buy today and need to survive. To be sure, an abrupt halt in births is highly unlikely unless there's a global catastrophe. Here's one potential scenario, which writer Kurt Vonnegut explored in his novel 'Galapagos': A highly contagious disease could render all people of reproductive age infertile – meaning that no one would be capable of having babies anymore. Another possibility might be a nuclear war that no one survives – a topic that's been explored in many scary movies and books. A lot of these works are science fiction involving a lot of space travel. Others seek to predict a less fanciful Earth-bound future where people can no longer reproduce easily, causing collective despair and the loss of personal freedom for those who are capable of having babies. Two of my favorite books along these lines are 'The Handmaid's Tale,' by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, and 'The Children of Men,' by British writer P.D. James. They are dystopian stories, meaning that they take place in an unpleasant future with a great deal of human suffering and disorder. And both have become the basis of television series and movies. In the 1960s and 1970s, many people also worried that there would be too many people on Earth, which would cause different kinds of catastrophes. Those scenarios also became the focus of dystopian books and movies. To be sure, the number of people in the world is still growing, even though the pace of that growth has slowed down. Experts who study population changes predict that the total will peak at 10 billion in the 2080s, up from 8 billion today and 4 billion in 1974. The U.S. population currently stands at 342 million. That's about 200 million more people than were here when I was born in the 1930s. This is a lot of people, but both worldwide and in the U.S. these numbers could gradually fall if more people die than are born. About 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2024, down from 4.1 million in 2004. Meanwhile, about 3.3 million people died in 2022, up from 2.4 million 20 years earlier. One thing that will be important as these patterns change is whether there's a manageable balance between young people and older people. That's because the young often are the engine of society. They tend to be the ones to implement new ideas and produce everything we use. Also, many older people need help from younger people with basic activities, like cooking and getting dressed. And a wide range of jobs are more appropriate for people under 65 rather than those who have reached the typical age for retirement. In many countries, women are having fewer children throughout their reproductive lives than used to be the case. That reduction is the most stark in several countries, including India and South Korea. The declines in birth rates occurring today are largely caused by people choosing not to have any children or as many as their parents did. That kind of population decline can be kept manageable through immigration from other countries, but cultural and political concerns often stop that from happening. At the same time, many men are becoming less able to father children due to fertility problems. If that situation gets much worse, it could contribute to a steep decline in population. Our species, Homo sapiens, has been around for at least 200,000 years. That's a long time, but like all animals on Earth we are at risk of becoming extinct. Consider what happened to the Neanderthals, a close relative of Homo sapiens. They first appeared at least 400,000 years ago. Our modern human ancestors overlapped for a while with the Neanderthals, who gradually declined to become extinct about 40,000 years ago. Some scientists have found evidence that modern humans were more successful at reproducing our numbers than the Neanderthal people. This occurred when Homo sapiens became more successful at providing food for their families and also having more babies than the Neanderthals. If humans were to go extinct, it could open up opportunities for other animals to flourish on Earth. On the other hand, it would be sad for humans to go away because we would lose all of the great achievements people have made, including in the arts and science. In my view, we need to take certain steps to ensure that we have a long future on our own planet. These include controlling climate change and avoiding wars. Also, we need to appreciate the fact that having a wide array of animals and plants makes the planet healthy for all creatures, including our own species. Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you'd like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@ Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live. And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you're wondering, too. We won't be able to answer every question, but we will do our best. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Michael A. Little, Binghamton University, State University of New York Read more: The problem with pronatalism: Pushing baby booms to boost economic growth amounts to a Ponzi scheme The dip in the US birthrate isn't a crisis, but the fall in immigration may be A country can never be too rich, too beautiful or too full of people Michael A. Little does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Researchers make jaw-dropping discovery after drilling over 2,000 feet into Arctic ice: 'Will offer unprecedented insight'
A team of international researchers in Canada made a thrilling breakthrough in an "ambitious Canadian flagship" ice-drilling project, the University of Manitoba announced. Scientists from Canada, Denmark, and Australia teamed up with a "goal of drilling and retrieving a [613-meter] deep ice core" in Nunavut. Ice cores are an incredibly rich and valuable source of historical data about the atmosphere and changes to the climate. "Crucially, the ice encloses small bubbles of air that contain a sample of the atmosphere — from these it is possible to measure directly the past concentration of atmospheric gases, including the major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide," the British Antarctic Society explained. In October, the team of scientists detailed their project in the Journal of Glaciology. Their abstract postulated that, based on their research, an "undisturbed Holocene climate record could likely be recovered from Müller Ice Cap" on Umingmat Nunaat (Axel Heiberg Island). On May 26, the University of Manitoba issued a press release stating that the ice core's successful retrieval was complete. Lead researcher Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, who recently participated in a similar project in Antarctica, said the retrieval was difficult, but the outcome was worth it. "It has logistically been a challenging project, so I am so excited to successfully retrieve the ice core from Müller," she commented. The University indicated the sample could "provide 10,000 years of knowledge on climate and sea ice from the Arctic Ocean" and contain key insights concerning mercury pollution. University of British Columbia Polar Climate Scientist Anais Orsi shared her colleague's enthusiasm. "This is the first time such measurements have been done on the Canadian ice cap, and the results are looking very exciting," Orsi commented. The University noted that data obtained from the ice core "will have far-reaching implications for Inuit communities in Nunavut and northern Canada," enabling scientists to extrapolate findings and more accurately predict coming changes to the climate in that region. "Such a remote site, at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, will offer unprecedented insight into the long-range atmospheric transport of environmental contaminants to the far North — reconstructions of great importance both to science and to local communities," said Alison Criscitiello of the University of Alberta. Should we be digging miles beneath Earth's surface? No way Definitely Depends what it's for Depends where we do it Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
