Flora & Fauna: Sentinel gardens; bats do good work; beavers saving ecosystems; firefly delights; seashore reporting

Sentinel gardens help save North American trees.
(Photo by Sophia Simoes, Unsplash)

Planting "sentinel gardens" in different places around the globe helps scientists protect native North American trees. "Scientists have planted American trees in China, Korea and elsewhere to attract hungry insects, reports Sachi Kitajima Mulkey of The New York Times. "These gardens are plots of foreign trees that researchers closely monitor to figure out what local bugs and diseases can damage them. The goal is to learn as much as possible about these potential threats before they cross the ocean and become a problem at home."

For the many Americans who consider bats an animal oddity that flies like a bird but kind of looks like a mouse, they are selling the furry echolocation-using creatures short. Bats do tremendous work, helping U.S. farmers and the economy. "Bats pollinate plants, including many important food crops, when they stop by flowers to drink nectar," write Dale Manning, Anya Nakhmurina and Eli Fenichel for The Conversation. "Their guano is mined from caves for fertilizer. And they eat a lot of bugs – the kinds that bother people (think mosquitoes) and others that destroy crops that humans depend on for food." Read about the impacts of bat population decline on economic markets and how humans are trying to address bat health here.

Beavers to the rescue.
(Drawing by Adam Dixon, Offrange)

In Utah, beavers that trappers would have killed for their fur are being spared and relocated from areas where they are a nuisance to locations where they help local ecosystems recover. "To maximize on their potential to restore ecosystems, the Beaver Ecology & Relocation Collaborative (BERC) at Utah State University started offering trappers a $100 surrender fee to catch beavers alive to transport them to private lands in need of hydrological TLC," reports Karen Fischer for Offrange. "The success of the project could be replicated elsewhere, with sweeping ramifications throughout the American West."

They light up forest floors and the air with their bioluminescence beauty, casting sparkle and wonder all around. Fireflies are among nature's most delightful creatures, and some campers are fascinated. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is not only America’s most-visited national park, but it is also "home to 19 firefly species," reports Jacob Passy of The Wall Street Journal. "Photinus carolinus, also known as the Smokies synchronous firefly, produces dazzlingly coordinated displays that rival even the most extravagant Christmas light installation. . . .Their annual emergence in the Great Smoky Mountains has become so popular that campsites sell out months in advance."

A polluted farm in the United Kingdom "let nature back in," providing a stunning example of how nature can heal itself, reports Jasmin Sykes of CNN. The Knepp Estate is a place where turtle doves "seem to be bouncing back. A recently published, two-decade review of wildlife on the estate found that the number of singing males rose from just two in 2008, to 22 in 2024. Isabella Tree, who owns the 3,500-acre estate in West Sussex, told CNN, “We never thought that in 20 years we could have gone from being this depleted, polluted, dysfunctional post-industrial farmland, to being one of the most significant biodiversity hotspots in Britain."

The famous Assateague wild ponies offer great photos and stories that feature the 
wonders found on our national seashores. (Photo by Sara Cottle, Unsplash)

For reporters who live anywhere near the seashore, there's an ocean of stories to uncover and discuss. "If national parks are 'America’s best idea,' then our national seashores may be America’s best-kept secret," writes Joseph A. Davis for the Society of Environmental Journalists. "For summer getaways, they are a treasure. . . . For example, Assateague Island National Seashore, established in 1965, is a beautiful barrier island running between Ocean City, Maryland, and Chincoteague, Virginia. You can swim or surf or splash in clean waves. You can study how land is built by dune ecosystems. You can see the famous wild ponies. You can go into town and eat oysters." Davis provides a list of national seashores to visit along with story ideas here. 

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."