Flora & Fauna: Masked bandits evolve; 2-purpose turkeys; foraging stats; whales' aging secrets; birds can help farmers

Perhaps one day, urban raccoons will be pets.
(Adobe Stock photo)

Racoons are masked, cute, and affectionately known as "trash pandas," and they are proving to have a real knack for evolving to live alongside humans, reports Axios. "The same evolutionary forces that turned wolves into domesticated dogs over thousands of years may now be reshaping urban raccoons, recent studies suggest." Marcie Logsdon, who works closely with wildlife rehabbers, told Axios, "Raccoons have adapted incredibly well to our presence. . . [They are] bold enough to raid garbage cans but polite enough" to avoid altercations with people.

An agrivoltaic 'trial flock' enjoys solar panel shade.
(Photo by Evan Carpenter, Offrange)

These turkeys have it made in the shade as they peck and strut under solar panels, unwittingly being prepared as a holiday dinner while also participating in a "dual-use agrivoltaic system," reports Jake Zajkowski for Offrange. Evan Carpenter, who is raising the "trial flock," will share bird and energy outcomes with "project collaborators United Agrivoltaics and Cornell University, to study the feasibility and business model of Carpenter’s project to scale dual-use income land."

In the Mid-Atlantic forests of the U.S., researchers Amy Wrobleski and Eric Burkhart explored regional fungi foraging and shared some of their findings with The Conversation. "We learned that harvesters use the mushrooms primarily for food and medicinal purposes. . . . Over 800 harvesters reported that, collectively, they foraged 160 species of wild mushrooms. . . . Morels and chicken of the woods were the two most popular. . . .Other popular species were hen of the woods, oysters, lion’s mane, black trumpet, honey mushroom, turkey tail, bolete, reishi, puffball, chaga, shrimp of the woods and Dryad’s saddle." Mid-Atlantic fungi can be found here. 

Bowhead whale and calf (NOAA Fisheries photo)

At full-grown, a bowhead whale can weigh 88 tons, which is roughly the weight of 15 elephants. But that's not the only outrageous bowhead fact -- the whale can live to be 268 years old. "Some whales caught in the late 1900s had old harpoon points lodged in their blubber that dated to the mid-1800s," reports Carl Zimmer of The New York Times. "A study published in the journal Nature offers a clue to how the animals manage to live so long: They are extraordinarily good at fixing damaged DNA."

K4 Ranches photo

When it comes to raising cattle, a horse is a rancher's best friend. "Using horses to check and gather cattle is typically the only option with rugged terrain," reports Maddy Rohr for Drovers. Diamond A Ranch, a division of K4 Ranch in Arizona, employs a large crew with seasonal cowboys and eight camps with full-time cowboys." Sarah Kieckhefer of K4 told Rohr, "A good horse can go where a pickup, ATV or side-by-side can’t. Horses can cover long distances and a horse allows you to move quietly, ease cattle along and reduce stress, which leads to fewer wrecks and better weight retention.”

Photo by Mike Wagner via Reasons to be Cheerful

American rice grower Mike Wagner welcomes thousands of migratory ducks, geese and shorebirds that "arrive on his farmland after harvest every autumn," writes Elizabeth Hewitt for Reasons to be Cheerful. "Over winter and early spring, the birds clean up leftovers from the growing season. Thousands of webbed feet mix up soil and water, leaving the fields ready for planting when they depart in the spring. And their droppings are so rich that Wagner has cut how much synthetic fertilizer he needs for his crop by more than a third."  

The Department of Energy is trying to find a way for farmers to raise fruits and vegetables below solar panels

 Solar installations are expanding across the U.S.
(Solar Energy Industries Association photo)

The U.S. needs massive amounts of land to meet its renewable energy goals, but some farmers oppose the encroachment of solar farms into land intended for growing food. The Department of Energy believes "solar could provide up to 40% of the country's electricity by the year 2035. However, it's estimated roughly 5.7 million acres of land will be needed," reports Clinton Griffiths of Farm Journal. Matt O'Neal, a professor at Iowa State University and the Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture, told Griffiths: "Millions of acres may be needed for solar energy production going into the next 20 to 30 years and some of that land, not all of it, could be farmland. That worries some people, especially those farmers in the Midwest."

That's where the work of agrivoltaics comes into play. The discipline strives to show how farming and solar can co-exist. Stephanie Mercier, an agricultural policy consultant, told Griffiths, "Such research was launched in 1981 by two German scientists, Adolph Goetzberger and Armin Zastrow, who determined that constructing solar panels so they are elevated about 6' above the ground rather than being placed directly on the ground can allow for crops to be cultivated below the solar panel array."

Agrivoltaics is new to U.S. crop farmers, but the DOE is working to help them understand and deploy the practice by supporting research. Iowa State University received a $1.8 million DOE grant to test the "possibility of raising fruits and vegetables beneath those solar photovoltaic panels," Griffiths reports. O'Neal told him: "That shady environment might be conducive for some of those plants to survive, and maybe even thrive to the point where it becomes economically viable. We don’t know yet, and that’s the point of the experiment."

"Mercier has found that recent estimates indicate there are currently more than 340 agrivoltaics sites in the U.S., mainly pairing solar with pollinator habitats or small ruminant grazing, such as sheep, across more than 33,000 acres while producing a total of 4.8 gigawatts of solar energy," Griffiths reported. "Mercier adds according to a German research organization, Fraunhofer ISE, in 2022, early results from a project in the north African country of Algeria found that under an agrivoltaic installation there was an increase in yield of potatoes of roughly 16% versus the uncovered field."