“It’s clear evidence these chemicals can affect populations.” Image-Scientists in Saskatchewan found that consuming small amounts of neonicotinoids led white-crowned sparrows to lose significant amounts of weight and delay migration, threatening their ability to reproduce. (Photo: Jen Goellnitz/Flickr/cc) In addition to devastating effects on bee populations and the pollination needed to feed humans and other […]
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n the 1820s, painter and naturalist John James Audubon designed an experiment to test if birds had a sense of smell. He dragged a rotten hog carcass into a field, then piled brush on top of it. After none of the local turkey vultures appeared, Audubon concluded that vultures hunted using their eyes alone. […]
“So, you get to write the obituary for Alaska,” George Divoky said. The seasoned biologist with the quick-twitch brain had spotted me, notebook in hand, standing near his poster at the December 2018 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C. Divoky’s greeting left me without words, but I knew what he meant. […]
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ogoslof Island is the gray tip of a mountain that pokes from the choppy surface of the Bering Sea. The volcano stands alone just north of the Aleutians, far south of the larger islands of St. George and St. Paul. Nora Rojek, a biologist at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge based in Homer, once […]