Climate change is causing lakes to dry up, leading to a number of unfortunate circumstances. The latest? As the Great Salt Lake’s water levels continue to decline, it could cause a toxic dust cloud to form around Salt Lake City. The Great Salt Lake has decreased by two-thirds of its size since the 1980s, and […]
Three oil companies have canceled their leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Drilling in the refuge has long been a controversial issue, as the 19.5-million-acre wilderness area is home to 45 species of mammals including polar bears, bowhead whales and caribou and considered sacred by the Indigenous Gwich’in people, according to the Gwich’in Steering […]
From coral bleaching to ocean acidification, there is lots of discussion about how the climate crisis harms marine life. But is it possible that the loss of undersea animals could actually worsen the impacts of climate change? A study published in Science Advances last year found that the amount of carbon sequestered as fish dung […]
If you’ve ever been to the beach and watched the surfers, you might have occasionally noticed one who had a canine companion riding tandem with them on the board. The pooch looking proud with their owner, staying steadfastly planted like a pro and… squinting? Most of us know the feeling of stepping outside on a […]
Polar bears are not only the world’s largest bear, they’re also great swimmers and at the top of the food chain in the Arctic, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The ice-dwelling bear, whose Latin name (Ursus maritimus) means “sea bear,” spends much of its time in the ocean and more than 50 percent of […]
The Great Barrier Reef is the cumulative masterpiece of generations of coral building on top of one another for as many as twenty million years, according to greatbarrierreef.org. Located in the Coral Sea, the 1,429-mile-long reef is the greatest living structure on Earth and is host to many species of marine life, including sponges, coral, […]
Niue, a small island nation in the southern Pacific Ocean, is poised to make a big splash in ocean conservation with a new commitment to protect all of the waters in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The Niue Nukutuluea Multiple-Use Marine Park will conserve 100% of the waters in the EEZ, totaling around 317,500 square […]
Around 6,000 years ago, more than two-thirds of Europe was covered in forest, a 2018 study found. But because of land clearing for agriculture and the use of wood for fuel, that number has more than halved, and today only around one third of Europe is woodland. In some countries like the UK and the […]
Species cross-breed in nature in order to share traits that bolster them from certain environmental changes, and cross-breeding may become more common as the planet heats up and animals migrate to cooler areas. For instance, as grizzly bears have made their way north, Canada and Alaska have become home to “grolar bears,” The Guardian reported. […]