Latest news with #ecology
ABC News
2 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Alasdair McDonald
Forest ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer says the shock discovery of critically endangered Leadbeater's possum is likely a new subspecies. 2h ago 2 hours ago Sun 1 Jun 2025 at 7:57am The Australian Workers Union says it is looking at legal action over claims Snowy 2.0 workers were locked down during this week's strike action. Fri 23 May Fri 23 May Fri 23 May 2025 at 5:43am The family of Canberra man Harri Jokinen, who was killed during a high-speed police pursuit on the Monaro Highway in 2021, hopes an inquest into his death will lead to a change in policy. Fri 16 May Fri 16 May Fri 16 May 2025 at 5:24am Snowy Mountains councillor Andrew Thaler has been ordered to apologise for alleged misconduct. He says he has been denied the presumption of innocence. Tue 6 May Tue 6 May Tue 6 May 2025 at 9:42am NSW government reviews Snowy Mountain councillor Andrew Thaler's behaviour after his colleagues accuse him of poor conduct. Thu 20 Mar Thu 20 Mar Thu 20 Mar 2025 at 12:47am The 34-year-old's body was found south of Eden after a three-day search by emergency services. Mon 10 Mar Mon 10 Mar Mon 10 Mar 2025 at 6:10am Senior Constable Brett David Lindsay will face two separate court hearings for six assault charges relating to alleged incidents while he was on duty on the NSW Far South Coast. Mon 17 Feb Mon 17 Feb Mon 17 Feb 2025 at 9:49pm Missing hiker Hadi Nazari left a trail of clues, but trying to find him in some of the most rugged terrain in NSW was still hard work. Thu 9 Jan Thu 9 Jan Thu 9 Jan 2025 at 7:20am The family of Hadi Nazari, missing in the NSW Snowy Mountains for over a week, is calling for resources from Victoria to be called in to help find the 23-year-old. Fri 3 Jan Fri 3 Jan Fri 3 Jan 2025 at 9:45pm As the search for Hadi Nazari continues in Kosciuszko National Park, the man's friends say they have been given hope by the discovery of some of his possessions in the rugged NSW Snowy Mountains. Thu 2 Jan Thu 2 Jan Thu 2 Jan 2025 at 6:30am Sailor Luke Watkins spent 45 minutes in the water after he was thrown overboard during the Sydney to Hobart yacht race early on Friday morning. He says his safety training and quick thinking from his crew saved his life. Fri 27 Dec Fri 27 Dec Fri 27 Dec 2024 at 5:22pm Hundreds of cases of flesh-eating Buruli ulcer have been reported in Victoria this year, a new study has named a NSW tourist town as the next potential hotspot and has warned of possible spread along NSW coastline Fri 20 Dec Fri 20 Dec Fri 20 Dec 2024 at 9:20pm A high school on the NSW far south coast has closed today after two cleaners found a staff room alight early this morning. The cleaners suffered smoke inhalation, and an investigation into the fire is underway. Wed 4 Dec Wed 4 Dec Wed 4 Dec 2024 at 6:15am Senior Constable Brett David Lindsay pleads not guilty to six assault charges relating to alleged incidents while he was on duty on the NSW far south coast. Mon 25 Nov Mon 25 Nov Mon 25 Nov 2024 at 3:01am A police officer is suspended with pay over the charges, which stem from an incident at a Batemans Bay shopping centre. Fri 8 Nov Fri 8 Nov Fri 8 Nov 2024 at 1:25am Iain Dawson has pleaded guilty to transferring $34,000 of art gallery funds into his own bank account. Wed 16 Oct Wed 16 Oct Wed 16 Oct 2024 at 7:15am Senior Constable Kristian White will face a jury trial in November after he pleaded not guilty over the death of the great-grandmother who was tasered in a Snowy Mountains nursing home in 2023. Wed 16 Oct Wed 16 Oct Wed 16 Oct 2024 at 6:18am Robert Karl Huber has pleaded not guilty to murdering his partner Lindy Lucena, 64, in a Ballina laneway in January 2023. He will face trial later this year. Fri 11 Oct Fri 11 Oct Fri 11 Oct 2024 at 5:01am The Walbunja people of the NSW far south coast have been handed back an important piece of their culture, once owned by the late environmental activist, academic and philosopher Val Plumwood. Mon 23 Sep Mon 23 Sep Mon 23 Sep 2024 at 8:33pm Kristian White is set face trial in NSW Supreme Court on one count of manslaughter after the death of 95-year-old Clare Nowland. Wed 11 Sep Wed 11 Sep Wed 11 Sep 2024 at 3:30am These First Nations students are the traditional people of the New South Wales Snowy Mountains, yet some of them had never set foot on snow before. Sun 8 Sep Sun 8 Sep Sun 8 Sep 2024 at 6:40am A hydrologist says the Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro scheme will be more resilient to climate change than its predecessor but predicted extreme droughts will cause issues. Thu 5 Sep Thu 5 Sep Thu 5 Sep 2024 at 4:45am The snow season at Charlotte Pass could be under threat after a devastating fire, as its owners meet with the State Government to help plan their recovery. Thu 23 May Thu 23 May Thu 23 May 2024 at 4:21am After 55 years growing oysters, Bernie Connell and his oyster "Jill" look set to break world records after this weekend's Narooma Oyster Festival on the NSW far south coast. Sun 5 May Sun 5 May Sun 5 May 2024 at 7:57am Yuliya Pashkovska, who died at an unpatrolled beach on the New South Wales' South Coast on Tuesday is being remembered as a "much-loved" health care provider. Thu 21 Mar Thu 21 Mar Thu 21 Mar 2024 at 6:25am
Fast Company
2 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.
Geek Tyrant
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Behind-The-Scenes Featurette For JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH Focuses on Bringing Dinosaurs To Life — GeekTyrant
Universal Pictures has shared a new behind-the-scenes featurette for Jurassic World Rebirth , and it puts a focus on bringing the dinosaurs to life for the movie. The video offers interviews with Gareth Edwards, the cast and his VFX team discussing the making of this movie, footage from the production, and some new footage from the movie, which looks like a really fun ride! This script for the movie is written by original Jurassic Park Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, and that is what excites me most about the movie! In the film, 'The planet's ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. 'The three most colossal creatures within that tropical biosphere hold the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind.' The movie stars Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett, Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Henry Loomis, and Mahershala Ali as Duncan Kincaid. The director previously said that the movie is 'a giant love letter to Steven Spielberg and his earlier films. There are moments in this movie that remind me very much of Jaws. 'It's like little greatest hits of all those aspects of his films that I loved growing up as a child. It's essentially a little adventure odyssey across this island, a survival story, really.' The film is set five years after the events of Dominion , 'in which dinosaurs mingled with humans all over the globe, these creatures are now dying out. 'The present-day planet proved to be inhospitable to the prehistoric ilk, except for a small region in the tropics around the equator, where many of them now congregate. 'The three most colossal dinosaurs of land, sea, and air within this biosphere hold genetic material precious to a pharmaceutical company that hopes to use the dino DNA to create a life-saving drug for humanity.' Universal Pictures will release the Steven Spielberg-produced film in theaters on July 2, 2025.
Fast Company
4 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
If the Amazon rainforest dried out, here's what would happen
A short walk beneath the dense Amazon canopy, the forest abruptly opens up. Fallen logs are rotting, the trees grow sparser, and the temperature rises in places sunlight hits the ground. This is what 24 years of severe drought looks like in the world's largest rainforest. But this patch of degraded forest, about the size of a soccer field, is a scientific experiment. Launched in 2000 by Brazilian and British scientists, Esecaflor —short for 'Forest Drought Study Project' in Portuguese—set out to simulate a future in which the changing climate could deplete the Amazon of rainfall. It is the longest-running project of its kind in the world, and has become a source for dozens of academic articles in fields ranging from meteorology to ecology and physiology. Understanding how drought can affect the Amazon, an area twice the size of India that crosses into several South American nations, has implications far beyond the region. The rainforest stores a massive amount of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is the main driver of climate change. According to one study, the Amazon stores the equivalent of two years of global carbon emissions, which mainly come from the burning of coal, oil, and gasoline. When trees are cut, or wither and die from drought, they release into the atmosphere the carbon they were storing, which accelerates global warming. Creating drought conditions and observing the results To mimic stress from drought, the project, located in the Caxiuanã National Forest, assembled about 6,000 transparent plastic rectangular panels across one hectare (2.5 acres), diverting around 50% of the rainfall from the forest floor. They were set 1 meter (3.3 feet) above ground on the sides to 4 meters (13.1 feet) above ground in the center. The water was funneled into gutters and channeled through trenches dug around the plot's perimeter. Next to it, an identical plot was left untouched to serve as a control. In both areas, instruments were attached to trees, placed on the ground and buried to measure soil moisture, air temperature, tree growth, sap flow, and root development, among other data. Two metal towers sit above each plot. In each tower, NASA radars measure how much water is in the plants, which helps researchers understand overall forest stress. The data is sent to the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where it is processed. 'The forest initially appeared to be resistant to the drought,' said Lucy Rowland, an ecology professor at the University of Exeter. That began to change about eight years in, however. 'We saw a really big decline in biomass, big losses and mortality of the largest trees,' said Rowland. This resulted in the loss of approximately 40% of the total weight of the vegetation and the carbon stored within it from the plot. The main findings were detailed in a study published in May in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. It shows that during the years of vegetation loss, the rainforest shifted from a carbon sink, that is, a storer of carbon dioxide, to a carbon emitter, before eventually stabilizing. There was one piece of good news: The decades-long drought didn't turn the rainforest into a savanna, or large grassy plain, as earlier model-based studies had predicted. Next steps include measuring forest recovery In November, most of the 6,000 transparent plastic covers were removed, and now scientists are observing how the forest changes. There is currently no end date for the project. 'The forest has already adapted. Now we want to understand what happens next,' said meteorologist João de Athaydes, vice coordinator of Esecaflor, a professor at the Federal University of Para and coauthor of the Nature study. 'The idea is to see whether the forest can regenerate and return to the baseline from when we started the project.' During a visit in April, Athaydes guided Associated Press journalists through the site, which had many researchers. The area was so remote that most researchers had endured a full-day boat trip from the city of Belem, which will host the next annual U.N. climate talks later this year. During the days in the field, the scientists stayed at the Ferreira Penna Scientific Base of the Emilio Goeldi Museum, a few hundred yards (meters) from the plots. Four teams were at work. One collected soil samples to measure root growth in the top layer. Another gathered weather data and tracking soil temperature and moisture. A third measured vegetation moisture and sap flow. The fourth focused on plant physiology. 'We know very little about how drought influences soil processes,' said ecologist Rachel Selman, researcher at the University of Edinburgh and one of the co-authors of the Nature study, during a break. Esecaflor's drought simulation draws some parallels with the past two years, when much of the Amazon rainforest, under the influence of El Niño and the impact of climate change, endured its most severe dry spells on record. The devastating consequences ranged from the death of dozens of river dolphins due to warming and receding waters to vast wildfires in old-growth areas. Rowland explained that the recent El Niño brought short-term, intense impacts to the Amazon, not just through reduced rainfall but also with spikes in temperature and vapor pressure deficit, a measure of how dry the air is. In contrast, the Esecaflor experiment focused only on manipulating soil moisture to study the effects of long-term shifts in rainfall. 'But in both cases, we're seeing a loss of the forest's ability to absorb carbon,' she said. 'Instead, carbon is being released back into the atmosphere, along with the loss of forest cover.' ___
The Independent
5 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
What would happen if the Amazon rainforest dried out? This decades-long experiment has some answers
A short walk beneath the dense Amazon canopy, the forest abruptly opens up. Fallen logs are rotting, the trees grow sparser and the temperature rises in places sunlight hits the ground. This is what 24 years of severe drought looks like in the world's largest rainforest. But this patch of degraded forest, about the size of a soccer field, is a scientific experiment. Launched in 2000 by Brazilian and British scientists, Esecaflor — short for 'Forest Drought Study Project' in Portuguese— set out to simulate a future in which the changing climate could deplete the Amazon of rainfall. It is the longest-running project of its kind in the world, and has become a source for dozens of academic articles in fields ranging from meteorology to ecology and physiology. Understanding how drought can affect the Amazon, an area twice the size of India that crosses into several South American nations, has implications far beyond the region. The rainforest stores a massive amount of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is the main driver of climate change. According to one study, the Amazon stores the equivalent of two years of global carbon emissions, which mainly come from the burning of coal, oil and gasoline. When trees are cut, or wither and die from drought, they release into the atmosphere the carbon they were storing, which accelerates global warming. Creating drought conditions and observing the results To mimic stress from drought, the project, located in the Caxiuana National Forest, assembled about 6,000 transparent plastic rectangular panels across one hectare (2.5 acres), diverting around 50% of the rainfall from the forest floor. They were set 1 meter above ground (3.3 ft) on the sides to 4 meters (13.1 ft) above ground in the center. The water was funneled into gutters and channeled through trenches dug around the plot's perimeter. Next to it, an identical plot was left untouched to serve as a control. In both areas, instruments were attached to trees, placed on the ground and buried to measure soil moisture, air temperature, tree growth, sap flow and root development, among other data. Two metal towers sit above each plot. In each tower, NASA radars measure how much water is in the plants, which helps researchers understand overall forest stress. The data is sent to the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where it is processed. 'The forest initially appeared to be resistant to the drought," said Lucy Rowland, an ecology professor at the University of Exeter. That began to change about 8 years in, however. "We saw a really big decline in biomass, big losses and mortality of the largest trees,' said Rowland. This resulted in the loss of approximately 40% of the total weight of the vegetation and the carbon stored within it from the plot. The main findings were detailed in a study published in May in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. It shows that during the years of vegetation loss, the rainforest shifted from a carbon sink, that is, a storer of carbon dioxide, to a carbon emitter, before eventually stabilizing. There was one piece of good news: the decades-long drought didn't turn the rainforest into a savanna, or large grassy plain, as earlier model-based studies had predicted. Next steps include measuring forest recovery In November, most of the 6,000 transparent plastic covers were removed, and now scientists are observing how the forest changes. There is currently no end date for the project. 'The forest has already adapted. Now we want to understand what happens next,' said meteorologist João de Athaydes, vice coordinator of Esecaflor, a professor at the Federal University of Para and coauthor of the Nature study. 'The idea is to see whether the forest can regenerate and return to the baseline from when we started the project.' During a visit in April, Athaydes guided Associated Press journalists through the site, which had many researchers. The area was so remote that most researchers had endured a full-day boat trip from the city of Belem, which will host the next annual U.N. climate talks later this year. During the days in the field, the scientists stayed at the Ferreira Penna Scientific Base of the Emilio Goeldi Museum, a few hundred yards (meters) from the plots. Four teams were at work. One collected soil samples to measure root growth in the top layer. Another gathered weather data and tracking soil temperature and moisture. A third was measured vegetation moisture and sap flow. The fourt focused on plant physiology. "We know very little about how drought influences soil processes,' said ecologist Rachel Selman, researcher at the University of Edinburgh and one of the co-authors of the Nature study, during a break. Esecaflor's drought simulation draws some parallels with the past two years, when much of the Amazon rainforest, under the influence of El Nino and the impact of climate change, endured its most severe dry spells on record. The devastating consequences ranged from the death of dozens of river dolphins due to warming and receding waters to vast wildfires in old-growth areas. Rowland explained that the recent El Nino brought short-term, intense impacts to the Amazon, not just through reduced rainfall but also with spikes in temperature and vapor pressure deficit, a measure of how dry the air is. In contrast, the Esecaflor experiment focused only on manipulating soil moisture to study the effects of long-term shifts in rainfall. 'But in both cases, we're seeing a loss of the forest's ability to absorb carbon,' she said. 'Instead, carbon is being released back into the atmosphere, along with the loss of forest cover.' ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
