Latest news with #HenryDavidThoreau
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- General
- Boston Globe
Main beach of Walden Pond will be closed for summer during construction of new bathhouse
The $6.1 million new bathhouse, restrooms, and changing areas will bring the facility up to federal and state accessibility requirements and will the agency's 'first net-zero facility,' officials said. The pond, author Henry David Thoreau's famous retreat and the inspiration of his 1854 classic, 'Walden; or, Life in the Woods,' is a popular attraction in the summer months and hosts Advertisement The large crowds In the past two years, torrential rains in the spring and early summer Nick Stoico can be reached at
CBS News
2 days ago
- General
- CBS News
Main beach at famous Massachusetts pond will be closed all summer over safety concerns
The main beach at Walden Pond will be closed for the 2025 summer season. The Department of Conservation and Recreation says construction work on a new bathhouse at the famous swimming spot in Concord, Massachusetts poses safety concerns to the public. "DCR has determined it cannot safely open the Main Beach to visitors for the 2025 summer season, while construction for the new bathhouse is ongoing," the agency said in a statement. The $6.1 million project involves demolishing a decades-old two-story bathhouse and replacing it with a new single-story building that is accessible to people with disabilities. Construction is expected to finish in the fall. The new bathhouse facility will have men's and women's bathrooms with changing areas, three family restrooms, a break room for lifeguards and a first aid station. Red Cross Beach at Walden Pond will remain open, but there will not be any lifeguards on duty. DCR is suggesting alternative swimming spots, including Ashland State Park, Cochituate State Park in Natick, Hopkinton State Park, Charles E. Shannon Jr. Memorial Beach in Winchester and public pools in the area. About 600,000 people visit Walden Pond State Reservation every year. The pond and surrounding woods famously serve as the setting for Henry David Thoreau's 1854 book, "Walden." Last year, Walden Pond landed on a list of the "11 Most Endangered Historic Places." Last summer, Walden Beach saw closures due to high bacteria levels, as well as heavy rain that kept parts of the beach underwater.
Fast Company
3 days ago
- Politics
- Fast Company
How white-tailed deer came back from the brink of extinction
Given their abundance in American backyards, gardens and highway corridors these days, it may be surprising to learn that white-tailed deer were nearly extinct about a century ago. While they currently number somewhere in the range of 30 million to 35 million, at the turn of the 20th century, there were as few as 300,000 whitetails across the entire continent: just 1% of the current population. This near-disappearance of deer was much discussed at the time. In 1854, Henry David Thoreau had written that no deer had been hunted near Concord, Massachusetts, for a generation. In his famous ' Walden,' he reported: 'One man still preserves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this vicinity, and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which his uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry crew here.' But what happened to white-tailed deer? What drove them nearly to extinction, and then what brought them back from the brink? As a historical ecologist and environmental archaeologist, I have made it my job to answer these questions. Over the past decade, I've studied white-tailed deer bones from archaeological sites across the eastern United States, as well as historical records and ecological data, to help piece together the story of this species. Precolonial rise of deer populations White-tailed deer have been hunted from the earliest migrations of people into North America, more than 15,000 years ago. The species was far from the most important food resource at that time, though. Archaeological evidence suggests that white-tailed deer abundance only began to increase after the extinction of megafauna species like mammoths and mastodons opened up ecological niches for deer to fill. Deer bones become very common in archaeological sites from about 6,000 years ago onward, reflecting the economic and cultural importance of the species for Indigenous peoples. Despite being so frequently hunted, deer populations do not seem to have appreciably declined due to Indigenous hunting prior to AD 1600. Unlike elk or sturgeon, whose numbers were reduced by Indigenous hunters and fishers, white-tailed deer seem to have been resilient to human predation. While archaeologists have found some evidence for human-caused declines in certain parts of North America, other cases are more ambiguous, and deer certainly remained abundant throughout the past several millennia. Human use of fire could partly explain why white-tailed deer may have been resilient to hunting. Indigenous peoples across North America have long used controlled burning to promote ecosystem health, disturbing old vegetation to promote new growth. Deer love this sort of successional vegetation for food and cover, and thus thrive in previously burned habitats. Indigenous people may have therefore facilitated deer population growth, counteracting any harmful hunting pressure. More research is needed, but even though some hunting pressure is evident, the general picture from the precolonial era is that deer seem to have been doing just fine for thousands of years. Ecologists estimate that there were roughly 30 million white-tailed deer in North America on the eve of European colonization—about the same number as today. Colonial-era fall of deer numbers To better understand how deer populations changed in the colonial era, I recently analyzed deer bones from two archaeological sites in what is now Connecticut. My analysis suggests that hunting pressure on white-tailed deer increased almost as soon as European colonists arrived. At one site dated to the 11th to 14th centuries (before European colonization) I found that only about 7% to 10% of the deer killed were juveniles. Hunters generally don't take juvenile deer if they're frequently encountering adults, since adult deer tend to be larger, offering more meat and bigger hides. Additionally, hunting increases mortality on a deer herd but doesn't directly affect fertility, so deer populations experiencing hunting pressure end up with juvenile-skewed age structures. For these reasons, this low percentage of juvenile deer prior to European colonization indicates minimal hunting pressure on local herds. However, at a nearby site occupied during the 17th century—just after European colonization—between 22% and 31% of the deer hunted were juveniles, suggesting a substantial increase in hunting pressure. This elevated hunting pressure likely resulted from the transformation of deer into a commodity for the first time. Venison, antlers and deerskins may have long been exchanged within Indigenous trade networks, but things changed drastically in the 17th century. European colonists integrated North America into a trans-Atlantic mercantile capitalist economic system with no precedent in Indigenous society. This applied new pressures to the continent's natural resources. Deer—particularly their skins—were commodified and sold in markets in the colonies initially and, by the 18th century, in Europe as well. Deer were now being exploited by traders, merchants and manufacturers desiring profit, not simply hunters desiring meat or leather. It was the resulting hunting pressure that drove the species toward its extinction. 20th-century rebound of white-tailed deer Thanks to the rise of the conservation movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, white-tailed deer survived their brush with extinction. Concerned citizens and outdoorsmen feared for the fate of deer and other wildlife, and pushed for new legislative protections. The Lacey Act of 1900, for example, banned interstate transport of poached game and—in combination with state-level protections—helped end commercial deer hunting by effectively de-commodifying the species. Aided by conservation-oriented hunting practices and reintroductions of deer from surviving populations to areas where they had been extirpated, white-tailed deer rebounded.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
The rise and fall – and rise again – of white-tailed deer
Given their abundance in American backyards, gardens and highway corridors these days, it may be surprising to learn that white-tailed deer were nearly extinct about a century ago. While they currently number somewhere in the range of 30 million to 35 million, at the turn of the 20th century, there were as few as 300,000 whitetails across the entire continent: just 1% of the current population. This near-disappearance of deer was much discussed at the time. In 1854, Henry David Thoreau had written that no deer had been hunted near Concord, Massachusetts, for a generation. In his famous 'Walden,' he reported that: 'One man still preserves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this vicinity, and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which his uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry crew here.' But what happened to white-tailed deer? What drove them nearly to extinction, and then what brought them back from the brink? As a historical ecologist and environmental archaeologist, I have made it my job to answer these questions. Over the past decade, I've studied white-tailed deer bones from archaeological sites across the eastern United States, as well as historical records and ecological data, to help piece together the story of this species. White-tailed deer have been hunted from the earliest migrations of people into North America, over 15,000 years ago. The species was far from the most important food resource at that time, though. Archaeological evidence suggests that white-tailed deer abundance only began to increase after the extinction of megafauna species like mammoths and mastodons opened up ecological niches for deer to fill. Deer bones become very common in archaeological sites from about 6,000 years ago onward, reflecting the economic and cultural importance of the species for Indigenous peoples. Despite being so frequently hunted, deer populations do not seem to have appreciably declined due to Indigenous hunting prior to AD 1600. Unlike elk or sturgeon, whose numbers were reduced by Indigenous hunters and fishers, white-tailed deer seem to have been resilient to human predation. While archaeologists have found some evidence for human-caused declines in certain parts of North America, other cases are more ambiguous, and deer certainly remained abundant throughout the past several millennia. Human use of fire could partly explain why white-tailed deer may have been resilient to hunting. Indigenous peoples across North America have long used controlled burning to promote ecosystem health, disturbing old vegetation to promote new growth. Deer love this sort of successional vegetation for food and cover, and thus thrive in previously burned habitats. Indigenous people may have therefore facilitated deer population growth, counteracting any harmful hunting pressure. More research is needed, but even though some hunting pressure is evident, the general picture from the precolonial era is that deer seem to have been doing just fine for thousands of years. Ecologists estimate that there were roughly 30 million white-tailed deer in North America on the eve of European colonization – about the same number as today. To better understand how deer populations changed in the colonial era, I recently analyzed deer bones from two archaeological sites in what is now Connecticut. My analysis suggests that hunting pressure on white-tailed deer increased almost as soon as European colonists arrived. At one site dated to the 11th to 14th centuries – before European colonization – I found that only about 7% to 10% of the deer killed were juveniles. Hunters generally don't take juvenile deer if they're frequently encountering adults, since adult deer tend to be larger, offering more meat and bigger hides. Additionally, hunting increases mortality on a deer herd but doesn't directly affect fertility, so deer populations experiencing hunting pressure end up with juvenile-skewed age structures. For these reasons, this low percentage of juvenile deer prior to European colonization indicates minimal hunting pressure on local herds. However, at a nearby site occupied during the 17th century – just after European colonization – between 22% and 31% of the deer hunted were juveniles, suggesting a substantial increase in hunting pressure. This elevated hunting pressure likely resulted from the transformation of deer into a commodity for the first time. Venison, antlers and deerskins may have long been exchanged within Indigenous trade networks, but things changed drastically in the 17th century. European colonists integrated North America into a trans-Atlantic mercantile capitalist economic system with no precedent in Indigenous society. This applied new pressures to the continent's natural resources. Deer – particularly their skins – were commodified and sold in markets in the colonies initially and, by the 18th century, in Europe as well. Deer were now being exploited by traders, merchants and manufacturers desiring profit, not simply hunters desiring meat or leather. It was the resulting hunting pressure that drove the species toward its extinction. Thanks to the rise of the conservation movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, white-tailed deer survived their brush with extinction. Concerned citizens and outdoorsmen feared for the fate of deer and other wildlife, and pushed for new legislative protections. The Lacey Act of 1900, for example, banned interstate transport of poached game and – in combination with state-level protections – helped end commercial deer hunting by effectively de-commodifying the species. Aided by conservation-oriented hunting practices and reintroductions of deer from surviving populations to areas where they had been extirpated, white-tailed deer rebounded. The story of white-tailed deer underscores an important fact: Humans are not inherently damaging to the environment. Hunting from the 17th through 19th centuries threatened the existence of white-tailed deer, but precolonial Indigenous hunting and environmental management appear to have been relatively sustainable, and modern regulatory governance in the 20th century forestalled and reversed their looming extinction. 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: Elic Weitzel, Smithsonian Institution Read more: How the Lyme disease epidemic is spreading and why ticks are so hard to stop Atlantic sturgeon were fished almost to extinction − ancient DNA reveals how Chesapeake Bay population changed over centuries Scientists and Indigenous leaders team up to conserve seals and an ancestral way of life at Yakutat, Alaska Elic Weitzel received funding from the National Science Foundation (award #2128707) to support this research.
Tom's Guide
6 days ago
- Health
- Tom's Guide
Can't sleep after doomscrolling? Experts explain the ‘brain rot' effect
Ever reached a point where you've scrolled social media on your phone for so long before bedtime, you feel foggy, overstimulated, anxious and struggle to get to sleep? It may be that you, and your sleep, are being impacted by 'brain rot.' Research indicates that brain rot — the concept of mental deterioration as a result of consuming too much low-quality online content — is an issue for younger adults and adolescents in particular, who reportedly spend an average of 6.5 hours a day online. Brain rot is believed to affect your attention span, productivity, mental and emotional health — and it could also be negatively impacting your sleep. We've spoken to a doctor and a psychologist to better understand how brain rot can affect your health and wellbeing, and how it may be disrupting your sleep. Plus, we get their tips for how you can avoid it. Read on to find out more... While the term was the 2024 'Oxford University Press word of the year' they note that its first use dates back to Henry David Thoreau's 1854 book, Walden: Now, it's a viral phrase that refers to the overconsumption of online content that is considered to be "trivial or unchallenging", according to Oxford University Press, and in particular, content viewed on social media. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. "Brain rotting is not a clinical term but it's used to describe the sense of mental fatigue or dullness often linked to overstimulation, usually from screens or scrolling," says Dr. Ola Otulana, GP at Cassiobury Court. The word 'brain rot' is not about the brain physically decaying, but rather a metaphor for feelings of cognitive burnout. "People describe feeling foggy, or unmotivated or detached after long periods of mindless content consumption," explains Dr Otulana. "When your brain is bombarded with nonstop stimuli — especially from fast-paced, emotionally charged content — it struggles to shift into a restful state," says Dr Leah Kaylor, sleep expert and clinical psychologist. We've taken a look the different ways brain rot can affect your sleep: "Excessive screen time and passive content consumption can contribute to feelings of low mood or anxiety," says Dr. Otulana. The experts we spoke to noted that excessive social media use can cause anxiety, loneliness and 'digital stress,' which can lead to depression and sleeplessness, or symptoms of conditions like insomnia. "The constant stream of information, much of it emotionally charged or trivial can overload our emotional processing centres. Over time, this can lead to increased anxiety and dips in mood," Dr. Otulana adds. On the surface, scrolling through your phone before bed might seem like a relaxing activity that can distract you from other concerns and help you switch off. The reality is, it's more likely to negatively impact your sleep. "When your brain is overstimulated, especially in the hours before bed, it can have an effect on your sleep quality," says Dr Otulana. "The brain doesn't get a proper wind down period which is essential for transitioning into restful sleep. Instead of easing into a natural sleep cycle, you're left feeling distracted or restless." This mental overstimulation can delay sleep onset (the time taken to fall asleep), reduce deep sleep, and even contribute to vivid or disruptive dreams. Light, and the blue light from electronic devices in particular, interferes with melatonin (the sleepy hormone) production and confuses your body into thinking it's still day time. This can affect your circadian rhythm (the body's internal wake and sleep cycle) which can result in disrupted sleep, and lead to increased fatigue due to lack of proper rest and less cognitive clarity to carry out your daily routine. Sticking to a digital curfew is a habit that even celebrities like Friends star, Jennifer Aniston, have adopted. It means giving yourself a set time before sleep where you don't look at your digital devices, and as well as helping you avoid brain rot, it can also give your body and mind time to relax and unwind effectively before bed. Putting your devices away a few hours before your bedtime and changing the settings to block internet access are both ways that can help you restrict your digital consumption before sleep. One benefit of all the time you'll have if you disconnect from your phone is that you can take up a relaxing hobby or calming activity in the hours before bedtime. This could be anything from reading a book, journaling, taking a warm shower or even a quick 15-minute yoga session aimed at improved circulation, tension release and aiding restful sleep. Having a consistent nighttime routine is a golden rule of good sleep hygiene. It doesn't have to be elaborate or indulgent, though. Instead, think of it as a chain of small steps taken to help you winddown and relax before bed. You could consider making yourself a sleepy-time drink, listening to gentle music, stretching, reading, lighting candles or having a bath. Creating your ideal relaxing bedroom setup, with one of the best mattresses for your sleeping style and body type and the best pillows to support your body is also essential for achieving a restorative night's sleep.
