Flora & Fauna: Chunk, the Fat Bear Week winner; learning bird songs; deterring wolves; nabbing feral pigs

Chunk's broken jaw didn't stop him from feasting on sockeye salmon and gaining hundreds of pounds this summer. 
(Photo by Christine Loberg, NPS)

During this year's Fat Bear Week, many Alaskan brown bears made the salmon run at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park the place where they packed on the pounds eating as much sockeye salmon as possible. But there was one bear that was more dedicated to getting his unfair share of salmon: Chunk. "A bear weighing in at over 1,200 pounds — with a broken (but healing) jaw — is the 2025 Fat Bear Week champion," reports Ava White of NPR. "It’s the first time number 32, or as he’s aptly nicknamed Chunk, has been dubbed the fattest bear in Katmai National Park and Preserve."

An unlikely union between two plants created the potato, affectionately known as the spud. "The origin of the potato has long puzzled scientists. Genetically, it is a close relative of the tomato. But in appearance, it resembles three potato-like species found in South America known as Etuberosum," reports Aylin Woodward of The Wall Street Journal. "The problem is, Etuberosum don’t have tubers — the parts of the potato plant that grow underground, and that we eat baked, mashed or fried. . . . An examination of these DNA sequences revealed that between eight million and nine million years ago, Etuberosum and an ancient tomato exchanged genes." And today's spud was born.

Watching and listening to birds is a delightful hobby that can be enhanced by learning to identify birds by their songs. "Learning bird songs is the difference between 'hearing' and 'listening,'" writes ornithologist Chris Lituma for The Conversation. "Listening requires full attention and limiting distractions. It means using your ears to pick up different patterns in the sounds that birds make. Every person has the capacity to listen and learn patterns in sound." Read all of Lituma's tips for learning bird songs and sounds here.

In this remote arctic town, it's too cold for trees, but strawberries grow by the dozens. "A high-tech greenhouse brings fresh produce to Gjoa Haven, an Inuit hamlet in Canada’s Arctic whose residents have little experience growing plants," reports Norimitsu Onishi of The New York Times. "The greenhouse, researchers hope, will eventually provide an alternative to perishable goods flown in at great cost from southern Canadian cities — and a healthier diet for the Inuit, the only people who have lived in Canada’s Arctic for centuries."

The wolves have learned to associate the drones
with people. (Illustration by A. Dixon, Offrange)

In most states, gray wolves are protected, which means livestock owners have had to find creative ways to keep wolves from preying on their cattle. While human presence and voices remain the most effective wolf deterrent, it's often not feasible, so some ranchers are experimenting with drones combined with human voices from speakers to deter wolves from grazing cattle, reports Rose Garrett for Offrange. Dustin Ranglack, predator project leader for the National Wildlife Research Center, told Garrett, "The wolves in this area have had exposure to the drone, and they will often already be moving away when we approach them. They’ve already come to associate the drone with people, and we’re not necessarily having to use the human voice."

When feral pigs invade the countryside, they go hog wild, eating farm crops, tearing up the ground, prolifically reproducing and spreading diseases. States have been under pressure to find ways to oust unwanted swine, but few have been as successful as Missouri. "Alan Leary, the feral hog coordinator with the Missouri Department of Conservation, says since 2016 the state’s population of feral hogs has dropped 80%," reports Chris Six of Farm Progress. The state formed a multi-agency partnership that "uses traps, drones, helicopters and more to find and eliminate the feral hogs."

Flora & Fauna: Joyrides for rats; feral pigs forage through Hawaii; serviceberry tree history; a unique "comeback" bird

Rats learned to love driving and would opt to take longer routes to get to their destination.
(Photo by Kelly Lambert, CC BY-ND)

People aren't the only ones who love to go for a drive. Rats do, too. "I’m a neuroscientist who taught rats to drive − their joy suggests how anticipating fun can enrich human life," writes Kelly Lambert for The Conversation. "My colleagues and I found that rats could learn to drive forward by grasping a small wire that acted like a gas pedal. Before long, they were steering with surprising precision to reach a Froot Loop treat. . . . Unexpectedly, we found that the rats had an intense motivation for their driving training, often jumping into the car and revving the 'lever engine' before their vehicle hit the road. Why was that?" Read the research here.

In the lowlands of Hawaii, things are going to pigs. Feral pigs have invaded six of the state's islands with shocking efficiency and left a path of overwhelmed ecosystems in their wake. "Their impact is profound on Kaua‘i. Its mountains are home to 255 unique native plant species and 208 native birds, including 11 found nowhere else on Earth," reports Brendan Borrell of Hakai magazine. "Their wallows breed mosquitoes that spread avian malaria, contributing to 10 of Kaua‘i’s 16 native honeycreepers [birds] going extinct. . . . Despite the damage that feral pigs are causing, you can’t just shoot them on sight . . ."

Serviceberry trees are smaller trees native to North
America. (The Spruce graphic)

Like humans, a tree species has a history. The serviceberry tree was once common in the United States, particularly in colonial New England, where its bloom cycle indicated when the soil was soft enough to begin digging graves for the many settlers who didn't make it through the winter. "Preachers then went from settlement to settlement to perform funeral services," writes Jessica Damiano of The Associated Press. "Because it’s one of the earliest spring bloomers, the serviceberry is an important food source for bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Later, its berries sustain dozens of bird species and mammals. . . .There are more than 20 species of the North American native tree, which is sadly underused." Here are four favorites.

Whether it's that hefty frozen turkey, a delectable ham or ground lamb ready to be transformed into meatballs, the holidays can be a special time to be thankful for the meat on our tables. As an act of gratefulness for farm animals, a donation to an animal charity that works to make the lives of factory animals better may be in order. "Animal Charity Evaluators, a California-based nonprofit, puts out an annual guide for recommended animal charities," report Sigal Samuel and Kenny Torrella of Vox. "ACE researches and promotes the most high-impact, effective ways to help animals." Find this year's list here.

Red-cockaded woodpeckers nest in family units.
(Adobe Stock photo)

Americans love a comeback, especially when the returning member is cute, social and unique. "The red-cockaded woodpecker, an iconic bird in southeastern forests, has recovered enough of its population to be downlisted from an endangered species to a threatened one," reports Christina Larson of The Associated Press. Will Harlan of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, told Larson, "It’s an amazing bird that has an unusual communal nesting structure. All nests usually cluster in the same tree, and the birds stick together as a family unit.”

Hazelnut trees are poised to flourish where they once died by the thousands. "Bullied by blight, the filbert has long failed to find a home on farms in the eastern U.S.," reports Ben Seal of Ambrook Research. "All across the eastern United States, hazelnuts had been cut down by Eastern filbert blight, or EFB, an endemic disease that chokes life from a tree. . . .But now, after nearly three decades of developing a way for farmers to overcome EFB. . . . A collection of four cultivars, [was] released in 2020, that can withstand even the intense pressure on [a] New Jersey research farm, where numerous strains of the blight are present."

AI is helping wolf trackers without using radio collars.
(Photo by ML, Unsplash)

New AI tracking technology is making it easier for wolves and ranchers near Yellowstone Park to coexist. "After 30 years of using traditional boots-on-the-ground observations, researchers are collecting wolf calls in hopes of honing population estimates, tracking wolves without using radio collars, and reducing conflict between the animals and ranchers," reports Devin Farmiloe of The Washington Post. "Learning more about how wolves communicate from a young age can shed light on pack dynamics that wildlife managers can use to better track and protect the species."

Wild pigs are a seemingly unstoppable pestilence, but their threat could become exponentially more dangerous

Feral pigs eat crops and degrade water quality wherever
they invade. (Photo by Adam Dixon, Ambrook Research)

When feral pigs invade the countryside, they go hog wild eating farm crops, tearing up the ground, prolifically reproducing and spreading diseases to other animals and humans. As if that scourge wasn't enough, federal officials are preparing for the possible arrival of African Swine Fever in wild hogs and its possible spread to domestic pigs and maybe even humans. The concern is so viable that officials and stakeholders have completed simulations to prepare for ASF, reports Michael Crowe of Ambrook Research. "For two days, groups discussed the ins and outs of emerging pig diseases like African Swine Fever and the potential for feral hogs to help spread them."

Highly contagious and deadly for all pig breeds, ASF cannot spread to humans yet, but its travels across the globe make it a human health and pork industry concern. "Researchers have warned the animals can serve as a reservoir that can spill over into domesticated herds. This makes feral pigs not just a damage concern, but a food security issue," Crowe writes. "It’s one of the top threats to U.S. pork production, which exported $7.7 billion of product in 2022."

Should ASF be detected in the United States, the protocol is simple: shut all pig operations down. Crowe explains, "A single infected domestic or wild pig could lead the Department of Agriculture to pause all live pig and semen shipments for 72 hours to try and contain it, a massive stoppage considering we have a million hogs on U.S. roads every day. And being shut out of international trade, even temporarily, is a serious concern."

Kevin Morgan from the Office of Health Security, part of the Department of Homeland Security, told Crowe, "We need to get better at shared awareness across borders because these types of emerging pathogens — there’s no line on a map that they respect. . . . We need to be on the same page on surveillance and early warning." Crowe reports, "Beyond building connections, officials are also looking to help producers protect their herds at a local level."

Currently, the USDA’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service is "running active ASF surveillance across 12 states — the entire U.S./Mexico border and the Florida Gulf Coast," Crowe reports. But there is no way for officials or scientists to predict how people will react. 

Consumer response to eating beef during the mad cow disease crisis serves as an example. Pig farmer Paul Klingeman Jr. asked Crowe, "How many people are going to think they might get this if they eat pork?"

Flora & fauna: Pigzilla vs. Jaws; daring emperor penguin chicks; growing baby ginger; what's great about limpkins?

Graphic by Lori Hays, Farm Journal

Most humans have a healthy fear of apex predators, which makes sense, but there's another animal that needs to be on the human "danger" list -- wild pigs. "More humans are killed annually by wild pigs than by sharks, a startling new study reveals. By slice, puncture, hook, and gouge, the global number of fatalities from wild pig attacks is rising by the decade," reports Chris Bennett of Farm Journal. John J. Mayer, lead author of the study and wild pig research pioneer, told Bennett, "It's not sharks, wolves, or bears that kill the most people — it's wild pigs, and the numbers are consistently trending up."

There's no explaining the gifts Mother Nature bestows on some creatures. Consider the adaptability of spiders. They can spin fancy and shockingly strong webs for nabbing prey. Their versatility includes living in barns, cabinets, mailboxes, old shoes and even water. Yes, water. "Some spiders make their homes near or, more rarely, in water: tucking into the base of kelp stalks, spinning watertight cocoons in ponds or lakes, hiding under pebbles at the seaside or along a creek bank," reports Amber Dance for Knowable Magazine. "It's not clear what would induce successful land-dwelling critters to move to watery habitats."

Location of Weddell Sea (Wikipedia)

Emperor penguin chicks were hungry and decided to face a 50-foot plunge. "Filmmakers producing a documentary series called Secrets of the Penguins, which will debut on Earth Day 2025 on National Geographic and Disney+, captured the extraordinarily rare scene by drone in January 2024, in Atka Bay, on the edge of the Weddell Sea in West Antarctica," reports Rene Ebersole of National Geographic. "It's the first video footage of emperor penguin chicks leaping from such high cliff, according to scientists."

Baby ginger fetches a good price.
(Photo by W. Errickson via LF)

You don't need to hail from an Asian country to grow baby ginger. "The continental United States imports most of its ginger from other countries — or from Hawaii — but baby ginger can also be grown in the Mid-Atlantic using high tunnels," reports William Errickson for Lancaster Farming. "Baby ginger is harvested at an immature stage before it develops its tough outer skin. It is usually more tender and can be sold at a premium price compared to mature ginger." Learn how to grow and harvest baby ginger here.

If fighting invasive plant species sounds like farmers' work, think again. Anyone near a forest, prairie or even urban sprawl can do their part by learning about invasive plants and eating them. "Foraging for invasive plants with your family can get kids outside and teach them about protecting the planet," writes Jenny L. Bird of National Geographic. Conservation biologist Joe Roman, who runs Eat the Invaders, told Bird, "It's about getting people outside in nature to learn about the history of the area and the potential damage that invasive species can cause." For four invasive species to look for — and how to entice kids to eat them, click here.

Limpkins learned about Louisiana's apple snails and
moved in. (Photo by Jane Patterson via Nola.com)

If Sandhill Cranes and Northern Flickers had babies, they might sound like this bird, unfortunately, named the "Limpkin." And while limpkins have a "call" more like a horror flick sound effect, they have another gift they are willing to share -- their love of Louisiana's invasive apple snails, reports Tristan Baurick for Nola.com. "The limpkin's first appearance in Louisiana a few years ago was cause for celebration. That's because this gangly, shrieking bird from Florida is the mortal enemy of a foreign snail that's been wreaking havoc in Louisiana's farms and wetlands. . . . The vociferous bird gorges on invasive apple snails, helping wetlands and crawfish farms."