Flora and Fauna: A predator returns to Colorado; declining wild turkey population; marvel revealed; helping manatees

Colorado has released 10 gray wolves into the wilderness.
(Colorado Parks and Wildlife photo via Business Insider)

In the 1940s, the gray wolf was eradicated from Colorado, but they are slowly being reintroduced. "Colorado wildlife officials have now released 10 gray wolves — four males and six females — as part of a voter-backed effort to reintroduce the predator to the state's wilderness after roughly 80 years," Michelle Mark of Business Insider reports. "The 10 wolves hail from Oregon and have been outfitted with satellite GPS collars to track their movements and survival. Ultimately, some 30 to 50 wolves will be introduced to Colorado over three to five years."

Once near extinction, North American wild turkeys made a phenomenal comeback. But their triumphant return has since suffered setbacks, with wild turkey population steadily declining. "Biologists say the nation's turkey population may have gone down by about 1 million, or nearly 15 percent, between 2004 and 2014, with much of that decline in parts of the South and Midwest. Between 2014 and 2019, turkey numbers dipped a further 3 percent, though researchers caution that there are gaps in the data," reports Dino Grandoni of The Washington Post. "Scientists are exploring a few possible causes — habitat loss, hunting, disease, climate change."

What marvel is a half-mile long and includes a 17-acre lake in the northern forests of Canada?
Hint: It was built by large and busy rodents.
If you guessed "world's largest beaver dam," you are correct! "The largest beaver dam on Earth was discovered via satellite imagery in 2007, and since then, only one person has trekked into the Canadian wild to see it," reports Ian Frazier of YaleEnvironment 360. "Animal technology created the largest beaver dam in the world, but human technology revealed it."

A greyhound's speed peak is around 45 mph.
(Photo by Craig Pittman, National Geographic)

The era of greyhound racing seems to be coming to a close. "Concerns about the dogs' welfare and declining betting revenue have led tracks across the country to close in recent decades," reports Erika Larsen of National Geographic. "In its glory days of the 1950s, Derby Lane in St. Petersburg, Florida, attracted thousands of avid racing fans, such as Joe DiMaggio, who left Marilyn Monroe sitting in the car while he ran inside to place his bets. Now only a few hundred show up for the races, a sign of how its fan base has dwindled."

In San Fernando Valley, California, sits the area's last working orange grove, but it was sold to a housing developer who has agreed to spare a fifth of the trees. "The San Fernando Valley was home as early as the 1920s to a more-than-70,000-acre sea of citrus. Suburban sprawl began encroaching, and some growers opted to sell because it was more lucrative than continuing to run a grove," reports Jim Carlton of The Wall Street Journal. "Profits diminished over time as agriculture's regional footprint shrank. . . and as tougher global competition emerged from places like Brazil."

Manatees love to munch on seagrass.
(Photo by Geoff Trodd, Unsplash)

The return of seagrass to Florida's space coast is helping manatee populations who have struggled for survival. "The recovery of seagrass, the manatees' favorite food, in Mosquito Lagoon means that an emergency hand-feeding program that has kept many of the starving aquatic animals alive over the last two winters can be discontinued, at least temporarily," reports Richard Luscombe of The Guardian. "While scientists say this might be only a small step in the wider fight to rescue a species that has seen a record die-off in recent years from water pollution and habitat loss, what's happened at Mosquito Lagoon offers signposts to how the manatees' battle for survival might ultimately be won."