Nature

A wild horse in Nevada (By Hassell Painter/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been selling wild horses to a dealer suspected of reselling them to slaughterhouses, according to a recent Propublica investigative report. It’s causing a stir among wild horse advocacy groups in the West.

Forget the changing leaves and pumpkin-spiced everything. For bird enthusiasts, fall's big event is welcoming new birds as they pass through on migration. In North America, most bird species migrate to some extent, with more than 350 species traveling to the tropics each fall.

Caption: A sea scallop and a monkfish caught in the camera’s lens. (From HabCam Group, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

I spent this past holiday weekend scouring the bottom of the seafloor for signs of life. East of Nantucket, I spotted seven plump, orange scallops. Near the coast of Gloucester, two pale anemones had anchored themselves 261 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. I found an eel, a fish, a hermit crab, sand dollars, and snails. I did this all without leaving my apartment.

Joshua Marowitz hasn't slept in his own bed in two months. He's been on the road, cruising cross country on a jam-packed motorcycle, ending each day at a friend's or a stranger's house, or maybe a campsite. For more than 9,000 miles, he's been exposed to heat, rain, and monotony, but also extraordinary beauty—all because of plants.

^{Photo: Will Keightley/CC BY-SA 2.0}

Around the country, the birders and cat lovers frequently face off, engaging in small-scale skirmishes and lobbying for state legislation that regulates trap-neuter-release (TNR) in feral cat colonies. A new study in PLos ONE looks at why these two groups are so polarized and how they can work together to care for both birds and cats.

One of the many winged residents of the Center for Birds of Prey. Photo credit: Justine E. Hausheer

Here comes Trouble. He’s perched on Matt Smith’s arm, cocking his head left and right as the summer cicadas buzz high in the oaks. His eyes are a fierce yellow, the plumage on his head and tail is a vivid white, and the feathers on his back and wings are a deep, glossy brown. Suddenly he breaks into a round of flapping, losing some of his characteristic avian grace as he lurches between wingbeats. After a few seconds Trouble quiets down, cocks his head, and shoots an imperious glare in my direction.

Trouble the bald eagle is aptly named, for his school bus-yellow bill almost landed him in big, big trouble. The top and bottom curves of his bill cross abnormally, instead of fitting neatly together. He would have died without human help.

Fifty years ago today, Rachel Carson changed the world with her book, Silent Spring, which took on the chemical industry and questioned the United States’ untamed approach to pesticide use at the time. 

As long as one’s hearing holds out, the natural world gives back an essential resonance. 

A wildfire burns in Eastern Washington. Photo: Washington State DNR, Courtesy of Firewise / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

It’s official. We’re going to be seeing a lot more wildfires in the coming years, and they’re going to be a lot hotter. A study released last Wednesday concluded that the over-the-top fire season that we’ve seen this year may soon be the new normal. 

Scientists employing a technique called biosurveillance, which uses one species to find another, recently discovered an invasive beetle called the emerald ash borer in Connecticut, where it was previously undocumented. Although the discovery was unsurprising – there is a known infestation in neighboring New York State–it marks the first time that biosurveillance has detected the beetle in a new state.