The Snowy Egrets Success Story

The is nothing as white or as graceful as the Snowy Egret. It's a small heron that can be found along coastal bays and inlets. One can be mesmerized by the lovely way it can hunt a school of fish. The elegant bird starts its hunt as a motionless statue for minutes, only a shifting eye and frequent head angle reveal that the bird is conscious. It darts it's bill into the water, throws its head back and swallows its prey.

The 24 inch tall bird has jet black legs and a black bill to match. The yellow patch by its eyes gives way to the orange yellow feet which the bird uses as hunting tools. The Snowy egret is an example of an environmental success story.

The egret uses its long, white, virginal feathers it grows each spring to impress potential mates. However, their beauty almost cost them their lives. Their feathers were highly desired for women hat decorations at the turn of the 20th century. At one point, Snowy Egret feathers were worth more per ounce than gold. The birds were slaughtered almost to extinction.

The egrets story inspired the establishment of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The Act protected the bird from near extinction and now is thriving along the coastlines of New York beaches where they spend the summer.

They nest on remote islands where they obtain their elegant fathers each spring. During the summer when the birds breed and rear young, they lose their fine feathers and migrate for miles down to florida, the Caribbean and even South America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/nyregion/snowy-egrets-once-fashion-victims-always-elegant-predators.html

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Snowy_Egret/id

Surviving Elephants

Elephants are unique animals because they have the ability to learn and change their behavior, meaning they do not necessarily have to genetically change to adapt to a new environment like many other species. Scientists have recently studied both desert-dwelling and non-dessert dwelling elephants and have found that the DNA of the two was not significantly different. A historical record suggests that the Namibian elephants were able to survive drastic changes in climate and hunting pressure due to their high learning capacity and long distance migrations. These elephants hardly have any genetic differences and scientists believe it is due to their long distance migrations, large home ranges, increases in population, or the gene flow provided by the male breeding elephants breeding with different females. The scientists are advocating for the conservation of these elephants because their fight for survival is key for the future generations of elephants in the arid habitat.

Endangered Caspian Seals

Recently, scientists have been doing research on Caspian seals, one of the world's endangered seal species. They discovered where, when, and how far they travel when they migrate and how they find food to eat. These seals like to separate into three groups when traveling: one in the shallow waters of the Caspian sea, another in the deep water off of Iran, and the final group on the edge of water areas in the north. The scientists on this project are still trying to figure out why some prefer longer distances over others. This information provides a lot of help for conservation efforts. The data can help identify the key areas that seals like to reside in which will provide useful when the humans are planning their activities such as building oil and gas developments. The scientists are currently using this information to get these species off of the endangered list. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160803111806.htm

The Monarch Butterflies' Fight to Stay Alive

(www.monarch-butterfly.com)

In a New York Times article there is a dispute against whether or not the population of monarch butterflies is being altered due to chemically decreasing their habitat.

Monarch butterflies live for a majority of the time in hotter climates, such as Mexico. For reproduction they migrate to plant larvae on milkweed plants. Milkweeds, however, are a weed to farmers which result in the farmer's own personal crops having difficulties growing. Due to this, the farmers are using chemical pesticides to get rid of the weed. This is a good thing for the farmers because their crops can grow better now without the weed. However, by getting rid of the milkweed plants it decreases the habitat of the monarch butterflies during migration season. Without these milkweeds the butterflies will have no where to place their larvae during their migration.

There is dispute in this idea because some scientists believe that the decrease of milkweed plants is not the only valuable reason for the decrease in monarch butterflies over the past couple of years. One scientist states that changing climate can also be a factor in why numbers are changing. This article does place important reasons on why the decrease in milkweed plants would affect the monarchs, however, there are always multiple sides to one story. Climate is definitely an important factor for many organisms and its rapid change over the past years would have an affect on these beautiful creatures. Hopefully in time there can be a way to help keep the monarch butterflies at a safe population number.