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Wildlife Reclaims Yosemite National Park | Earth Wise

May 12, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Our stories often discuss how human activities change the natural environment. With most of us confined to our homes, the lack of human activities is having profound effects on the environment. We are talking about some of these this week.

Yosemite National park is normally awash in humanity – there were over 300,000 visitors in April of 2019 and typically 4 million people visit each year. But as of March 20, the park was closed to tourists to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Only a skeleton crew of employees remains in the park.

Without all the people, wildlife is coming out of hiding. It did so in previous park closures during government shutdowns, but those closures were pretty short. This one is expected to be the longest on record.

The bear population within the park has quadrupled and many larger animals – such as bobcats and coyotes – are congregating outside of cabins and other buildings and prowling empty roads and walkways instead of hanging back at the edges of human settlements.

In addition, the air at Yosemite is cleaner due to the lack of exhaust and diesel, and Yosemite Valley is nearly silent, apart from natural sounds from the river and the wind. According to some observers, the park’s current condition is probably similar to what visitors in the 19^th century witnessed.

The few park employees sheltering in place are taking advantage of the virtually unimpeded natural amenities of the park. Many are hiking to its lakes and waterfalls, enjoying trails that are empty apart from animals. As some of the people staying in the park have noted, one could not ask for a better place to be isolated.

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Coyotes, bobcats and bears: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

Photo, posted October 30, 2019, courtesy of Ania Mendrek via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Giant Marine Preserve | Earth Wise

May 4, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Seychelles islands are located east of Kenya, near the equator. Its beautiful beaches, virgin jungles, thriving coral reefs, and UNESCO-listed nature reserves are among the many attractions of the archipelago’s 115 islands. The larger inner islands are quite developed for tourists, studded with many luxurious five-star resorts. The natural wonders of the Seychelles are clearly its prime asset.

Given this, the Seychelles have now established 154,000 square miles of marine protected areas, fulfilling a pledge to protect nearly a third of its vast territorial waters. This is an area twice the size of Great Britain.

About half of the newly protected areas will be “no-take zones” in which economic activity such as fishing and mining will be prohibited. Only limited economic activities will be permitted in the other half of the protected areas.

The President of the Seychelles signed the decree establishing the marine reserve in mid-March. The reserve will help protect the nation’s fisheries resources and safeguard a host of species including endangered sea turtles, sharks, and the Indian Ocean’s last remaining population of dugongs, which are marine mammals similar to manatees.

The funding for managing and protecting the new marine reserves will come from what is termed a debt-for-nature deal. It is an agreement that was worked out with the help of The Nature Conservancy that allows the country to restructure nearly $22 million in foreign debt in exchange for protecting marine resources and enacting climate adaptation measures.

This major expansion of the Seychelles’ marine protected area is a major step in the conservation of the archipelago’s biodiversity. The success of that conservation will ultimately depend upon enforcement, public-private partnerships, and innovative management.

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Seychelles Creates a Marine Reserve Twice the Size of Great Britain

Photo, posted October 22, 2017, courtesy of Falco Ermet via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Boutique Hotels For Birds | Earth Wise

April 28, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The changing Arctic climate has had a drastic effect on its seabirds. In fact, seabirds worldwide are in crisis, with global populations plummeting nearly 70% over the past 70 years as a result of climate change, over-fishing, habitat loss, and other human impacts on their environment.

Above the Arctic circle in Norway, seabird behavior has changed dramatically. Black-legged kittiwakes – which are the most seafaring member of the gull family – used to nest in cliffs over the ocean and seldom ventured inland. But in recent years, that has changed. Because of a warming ocean, increased storminess and other changes that are decimating chick populations in their normal habitat, the birds have been setting up housekeeping in places like shopping centers and office buildings in Tromsø and other towns along Norway’s north coast.

Tromsø, Hammerfest and other towns at the very north end of Norway have become very popular with tourists seeking the Northern Lights and wanting to see glaciers before they disappear. The booming tourism has been put on hold for the moment as it has elsewhere, but when it returns, the regions growing hotels and shopping areas are facing a problem.

The birds taking up residence on these buildings are unpleasant neighbors. They are especially noisy during the breeding season and people are having to put up nets or spikes on buildings to discourage the kittiwakes from settling there.

Local ecologists are now building boutique hotels just for kittiwakes. Using abandoned buildings on piers, they are adding ledges for nesting, materials for nest-building, and electronic speakers that croon kittiwake songs. The hope is that the birds will stay in their own hotels and leave the other ones for the human tourists.

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Norwegians are building boutique hotels for threatened Arctic birds

Photo, posted April 14, 2018, courtesy of Charlie Jackson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Bad News For The Aletsch Glacier

November 5, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland is the largest glacier in the Alps. Every year, it attracts thousands of visitors from around the world. The huge ice flow in the Upper Valais region of Switzerland is an Alpine tourist attraction second only to the Matterhorn. In the summer, meltwater from the glacier is an important water source in the dry Rhone Valley.

As the climate continues to warm, the massive glacier continues to shrink. The tongue of the glacier has receded by about a kilometer since the year 2000 and scientists predict that this trend will continue over the coming years.

Detailed simulations by researchers at ETH Zurich assessed the future of the Aletsch Glacier under different scenarios related to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the resulting warming.

The best-case scenario in which global warming is limited to less than 2 degrees Celsius would result in the glacier being half the size it is today by the end of the century. If the global community does not pull together quickly to take effective measures against global warming, Switzerland could warm by as much as 4 to 8 degrees and by 2100, what was once the largest glacier in the Alps will be a couple of measly patches of ice.

To understand how much global warming has already impacted the glacier to date, even if somehow the climate remains the same as it has been for the past 10 years going forward, the ice volume of the Aletsch glacier will still decrease by nearly half its volume by the end of the century. The glacier is no longer in equilibrium with the climate.

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Gloomy forecast for the Aletsch Glacier

Photo, posted April 7, 2007, courtesy of Jessica Gardner via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Tourism And Greenhouse Gas Emissions

June 29, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Tourism is a significant contributor to global gross domestic product. Furthermore, it is growing at an annual rate of 4%, more than many other economic sectors. There are many places around the world where it is the largest industry. But until recently, there really wasn’t very good information about its carbon footprint.

Listening To Volcanoes

April 2, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Volcanoes are complicated, and we don’t have universally applicable ways to predict when they might erupt. Measurements of seismicity, gas emissions and ground deformation are all useful in trying to figure out what volcanoes are up to. However, it is unlikely that will ever have definitive prediction techniques.

Super Blooms

September 27, 2017 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

This past August one of the driest regions on Earth transformed from a barren desert to a sea of colorful flowers. Heavy rains in Chile’s Atacama Desert caused the phenomenon, locally known as the desierto florido or flowering desert. These things typically only happen every five to seven years, but the previous super bloom actually took place in 2015.

[Read more…] about Super Blooms

National Parks Are Too Popular

August 31, 2017 By EarthWise

National Parks are often thought of as America’s natural cathedrals – serene places we visit to commune with nature and soak up its grandeur. Millions of Americans and other people from around the world are drawn to these amazing places. Unfortunately, it is now too many millions.

Whales In The Big Apple

July 12, 2017 By EarthWise

For the first time in a century, humpback whales have returned to the waters of New York harbor. These are not rare sightings, either. The whales are showing up in enough numbers that a company is taking tourists out into the harbor to see whales with a backdrop of Manhattan skyscrapers.

Sunscreen And Coral Reefs

July 7, 2016 By WAMC WEB

Coral reefs are great tourist attractions. Nearly a million species of fish, invertebrates and algae live in these biodiversity hotspots and they generate billions of dollars yearly from the tourism industry.