Audubon articles from January 2009

Audubon archives from January 2009

Editor's note.(Editorial)
January 1, 2009... BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, YOU'LL PROBABLY BE TIRED OF BUNDLING HOLIDAY catalogs for recycling. You may not know it, but many of the 20 billion catalogs mailed each year in this country come from trees logged in Canada's boreal forest,...

Audubon view.(Essay)
January 1, 2009... ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES FIGURED PROMINENTLY IN THE RECENT campaign, and November's results gave us reason for optimism. But that doesn't mean the environmental community can relax. On the contrary, our strong voice is more important now...

Keeping it cool.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... The wonderful article about vultures ["There Goes the Neighborhood," November-December 2008] has once again led me to question the validity of the concept of urohydrosis, the process by which some birds deposit their uric acid waste products on...

Connecting the dots.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... Audubon does a great job of environmental education in connecting the consequences of man's actions with the changes in the natural world. The articles "There Goes the Neighborhood" and "Pain in the Glass" [November-December 2008] bring the...

Danger zone.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... "Put Up Your Guard" [Audubon Living, November-December 2008] discusses birds colliding with windows. When we find a stunned bird, we cup it in our hands to keep it warm until it awakens. The bird's eyes clear up, and it sits for a few minutes...

Department of correction.(Correction notice)
January 1, 2009... In the September-October 2008 Earth Almanac, we wrote that red admiral butterfly caterpillars five in tents made from silk and the leaves of willows, poplars, or elms. This is incorrect. The caterpillars make tents out of plants from the nettle...

Turning the page.(THE ELECTION)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] After making the rounds at Democratic parties in swank Washington hotels on November 4, one gaggle of environmentalists spontaneously trooped down to the White House and ended up dancing in the streets amid an...

Raising hell.(field notes)(Beelzebufo ampinga)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Frogs aren't usually menacing. But with its massive size and predatory nature, Beelzebufo ampinga--the so-called "devil frog"--may prove the exception to the rule. The beast, which lived in Madagascar some 65 million...

Roadkill's second life.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... What do you do with that 150-pound deer that didn't make it to the other side of the road? Compost it, says Jean Bonhotal of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, She has teamed up with New York's Department of Transportation (DOT) to...

A matter of taste.(FOOD)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Around the globe, delicacies are highly prized for their delicious flavors and supposed ability to, say, increase libido or improve memory. Yet the ecological consequences of some special foods aren't so palatable....

Up on the roof.(field notes)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the summer of 1979 Jimmy Carter clambered onto the roof of the West Wing to turn on the White House's first-ever solar installation, a $28,000 array providing hot water for a staff restaurant. Carter hoped the...

Dueling duets.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... When birds sing duets, it can mean war. Or simply that mates are trying to find each other in dense vegetation. For the first time, biologists have shown that rufous-and-white wrens' matched melodies serve these dual functions--a mystery that...

LEEDing the way.(Good News)(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... From flooring made of natural cork to ceilings covered with recycled paper, the National Audubon Society's new headquarters in New York City is as green as they come. In fact, the airy, light-filled office set a record as the highest-scoring...

Happy hummers.(Good News)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A record crowd greeted streams of ruby-throated hummingbirds in September as they buzzed through Mississippi's Strawberry Plains Audubon Center on their way from Canada and the eastern United States to their winter...

Tip of the cap.(Good News)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... The first mandatory American carbon emissions market opened for business in September. Ten northeastern states have joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a system that will cap and then gradually cut the electricity sector's carbon...

Crude Awakening.(Good News)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... More than 50,000 gallons of fuel oil gushed into San Francisco Bay after a container ship collided with the Bay Bridge in November 2007, killing at least 4,000 birds and halting commercial fishing (see "Bay Watch," November-December 2008). The...

Preaching for change.(GLOBAL WARMING)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Shortly before giving his election-night victory speech, President-elect Barack Obama prayed by phone with Joel Hunter, who heads a 12,000-member megachurch in Orlando, Florida. Hunter's relationship with Obama,...

Duck hunt.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Rubber duckies are doing a lot more than making bath time fun. Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) recruited 90 of the toys to track the path of melting glacier water. Currently, no one knows how glacial meltwater flows into...

TogetherGreen, a new initiative created by Audubon with support from Toyota, is giving grants totaling $1.4 million to 41 projects in 24 states.(action: News From the National Audubon Society)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... TogetherGreen, a new initiative created by Audubon with support from Toyota, si giving grants totaling $1.4 million to 41 projects in 24 states. These funds--the first awarded for the five-year, $20 million initiative--support proposals that...

Dredging up solutions.(action: News From the National Audubon Society)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One TogetherGreen grant is poised to help conserve Louisiana's marshes, which are disappearing at the rate of 10,000 acres a year. "Many people in southern Louisiana feel most comfortable on a boat in the marsh,"...

Friendly skies.(action: News From the National Audubon Society)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On any given morning during migration season, an unfortunate sight is all too common in Minnesota's Twin Cities: dead birds littering the sidewalk outside skyscrapers. Minneapolis and St. Paul sit smack in the middle...

Let it rain.(action: News From the National Audubon Society)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In Pittsburgh even minor downpours can cause aging sewer lines to overflow into creeks and rivers, resulting in fish kills and public health advisories. A Together-Green grant will help homeowners funnel rainwater...

Kid power.(action: News From the National Audubon Society)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... A group of Denver middle schoolers are about to learn firsthand how to save electricity by designing and implementing projects that could cut annual energy use in their schools by about 80,000 kilowatt-hours, or 20 percent. Energy industry...

Paper chase: with the holidays over, it's worth noting that each year America's mailboxes are clogged with 20 billion catalogs, many of them made from trees logged in Canada's boreal forest. To see what's at stake for birds, our writer ventures to a region so biologically rich it's called "North America's Amazon.".(Habitat)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Retailers, betting that a direct-mail deluge more reliable than snow on Christmas will badger us into buying more stuff, annually clog our collective mailboxes with some 20 billion catalogs. Where does all that paper...

The low-carbon diet: change your lightbulbs? Or your car? If you want to fight global warming, it's time to consider a different diet.(Viewpoint)
January 1, 2009... Full disclosure: I love to eat meat. I was born in Memphis, the barbecue capital of the Milky Way Galaxy. I worship slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pig meat served on a bun with extra sauce and coleslaw spooned on top. My carnivore's lust goes...

Life on ice: scientists are discovering that icebergs, long considered barren masses, actually sustain all sorts of ocean life, from seabirds above to krill below. They may even play a role in fighting climate change.(True Nature)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST ICEBERG. The mass of drifting ice that dwarfs your ship is so beautiful, yet so improbable looking, that you simply gaze in wonder. It seems that nothing that large could be...

Green guru: advice for the Eco-minded.
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Can you tell me how I can compost indoors and what I can add to the pile? Dan Cook, Denver, CO You don't need a backyard and a pitchfork to turn garbage into gardener's gold. By composting with worms (also...

Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff By Fred Pearce Beacon Press, 276 pages, $24.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] British journalist Fred Pearce contemplates the prawns in his curry. He wonders if...

Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl By Stacey O'Brien Free Press, 229 pages, $23 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Biologist Stacey O'Brien was working at the California Institute of Technology when she met...

High steaks: two books offer fresh and sometimes surprising perspectives on the effects of cattle production.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Revolution on the Range: The Rise of a New Ranch in the American West By Courtney White Island Press, 221 pages, $25.95 Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World By...

Heirloom: Notes From an Accidental Tomato Farmer.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Heirloom: Notes From an Accidental Tomato Farmer By Tim Stark Broadway Books, $24, 232 pages [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Tim Stark didn't start out as a farmer. In fact, he was the anti-farmer: a kid who would leave his baseball...

Bucket brigade.(One Picture)(frog rescue operation)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Wood frogs, those denizens of vernal wetlands whose romantic overtures sound like the quacking of so many demented ducks, aren't always careful where they deposit their eggs. Places like rainwater-filled furrows in a...