"There’s a stretch of Kim Shade’s ranch in the North Dakota Badlands where he used to look for a peculiar long-billed bird from the seat of his saddle. Now, all he sees there is a road leading to an oil rig."
"I was sitting in solitude earlier this summer in an Adirondack chair in my backyard, when I realized I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought. Thanks to the app I’d just downloaded on my phone — the popular and free Merlin Bird ID — I learned just from listening that I was surrounded by more than a dozen species of birds."
"When Reed Cammack hears the first meadowlark of spring, he knows his family has made it through another cold, snowy winter on the western South Dakota prairie. Nothing’s better, he says, than getting up at sunrise as the birds light up the area with song."
"After Ecuadorians overwhelmingly voted to ban new oil wells in a prized national park, the government challenged the legitimacy of the referendum and said it would continue drilling."
"Even bird enthusiasts will admit the southwestern willow flycatcher isn’t very flashy. But in studying the DNA of this brownish-olive songbird, scientists say they have found something remarkable: evidence that the endangered bird is adapting at the genetic level to climate change."
"Fiberglass revolutionized boating, but decades later, discarded and degraded vessels are adding to marine pollution."
"Scientists don bike helmets and dodge bird poop to babysit endangered terns out at sea."
"Environmental groups are suing the US Environmental Protection Agency over pesticide-coated seeds they say have “devastating environmental impacts” and are spread largely without regulatory oversight."
"An early bird El Nino has officially formed, likely to be strong, warp weather worldwide and give an already warming Earth an extra kick of natural heat, meteorologists announced."
"A federal judge has yanked approval for a phosphate mining project in southeastern Idaho, saying federal land managers in the Trump administration didn’t in part properly consider the mine’s impact on sage grouse, a bird species that has seen an 80% decline in population since 1965."
