National Wildlife articles from April 2002

National Wildlife archives from April 2002

Conservation Partnership Launched With Mexico.(National Wildlife Federation initiative)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... THROUGH A NEW international initiative, NWF is setting up partnerships with organizations in Mexico. The goal: to educate children and adults about conservation and to assist citizens in influencing environmental policy. The new program, called...

PROGRAM PROFILE - NWF Aims To "Green" Corps of Engineers.(National Wildlife Federation's campaign to halt damaging water projects)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... AT A RECENT HEARING in Delaware, NWF joined a chorus of local, regional and national organizations condemning a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposal to deepen the main channel of the Delaware River--a $360 million project that would threaten...

REDUCING EMISSIONS - Tune-Ups Help Protect Environment.(lawn mower maintenance)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... As expansive yards have become part of the American culture, so have gas-powered lawnmowers. Thus NWF and Briggs & Stratton teamed together in March to launch National Mower Tune-Up Month, a joint effort to improve the public's mowers and the...

NWF Ranked Among Nation's Best Charities.(National Wildlife Federation)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... NWF has been ranked among the top 100 charities most deserving of the public's contributions in Worth magazine's prestigious annual guide to national charities. Worth's analysis also shows that NWF ranks highest among environmental...

Monitoring Effort Helps Northeast Falcons Rebound.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The peregrine falcon, one of the first species to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act, reached record population levels in the Northeast in 2001, according to a report by NWF and the state of Vermont. Nearly driven to...

New Campaign Urges Campuses To Buy "Green".(Campus Ecology Program)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Encouraging the nation's colleges and universities to purchase more environmentally friendly products is the goal of a new campaign launched by NWF's Campus Ecology(r) Program in partnership with the National Association of Educational Buyers....

GE Shareholders Urged To Help Hudson River.(PCB cleanup)
April 1, 2002... People can use the power of their personal investments to protect habitat and wildlife. NWF and one of its affiliates, the Environmental Advocates of New York, are urging General Electric (GE) shareholders to help protect wildlife by voting for...

CONSERVATION HEROES - Residents Help Community Rebuild.(after fires in New Mexico)
April 1, 2002... After fires ravaged New Mexico in May 2000, destroying more than 43,000 acres of land and leaving 400 families homeless, Fred Gross, Jr., recognized an opportunity to assist his devastated community in Los Alamos. Gross, a retired nuclear...

AFFILIATE SPOTLIGHT - Washington Focuses on the Outdoors.
April 1, 2002... Conservation education has become a top priority at the Washington Wildlife Federation (WWF), an affiliate of NWF. Spurred by the leadership of Kyle Winton, WWF's new executive director, the group recently mapped out a plan to focus on...

GRASS-ROOTS ACTIVISTS: TAKING A STAND - Nebraska Volunteers Monitor Whoopers.
April 1, 2002... DURING LAST SPRING'S MIGRATION, some 20 volunteers drove back roads along 80 miles of Nebraska's Central Platte River or monitored farmlands and wetlands to record data on whooping cranes. It was all part of Whooper Watch, cosponsored by NWF...

Student Publicizes Hazards of Art Supplies.
April 1, 2002... ARTISTS FACE A DAUNTING ARRAY of toxins in materials they use, yet few are aware of the dangers or what to do about them. To help correct this situation, NWF Campus Ecology(r) Fellowship winner Jenifer Roth has researched the health and...

Anglers Turn In Lead Tackle To Save Birds.(choose nontoxic alternatives)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... OVER THE PAST THREE YEARS, thousands of anglers in Vermont and New Hampshire have voluntarily exchanged 20,000 lead sinkers for nontoxic alternatives to protect loons, bald eagles and other aquatic birds from lead poisoning. Ingesting lead...

How Global Warming Affects Your Allergies.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... MOST PEOPLE AVOID the things that make them wheeze, sneeze, sniffle and itch. Not Lewis Ziska. A plant ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and a longtime allergy sufferer, he wanted to find out why respiratory...

A Florida Island Battles Green Invaders.(project to remove nonnative plants from Sanibel Island)
April 1, 2002... THE VAST FIELD is littered with splintered branches, crushed red berries and dead leaves, and tire tracks indent the mud where a thicket used to stand. Sawdust fills the warm, blue sky as a trailer-sized wood chipper noisily consumes a tree...

When a Corpse Flower Blooms, Crowds Swoon.(plant that flowers two or three times in 40 years)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... I MISSED THE BIG STINK. One week last summer, tout Madison, Wisconsin, became obsessed with the imminent blooming of a rare tropical plant, evocatively called titan arum. Like everyone else, I'd been keeping tabs on the progress of this giant...

Attracting Aerial Acrobats to Your Yard.(attracting dragonflies)
April 1, 2002... WHEN HER KIDS WENT OFF TO COLLEGE, Kathy Biggs got rid of her backyard swimming pool. But her Sebastopol, California, yard still buzzes with activity on warm summer afternoons, because Kathy replaced the pool with a dragonfly pond. Now, instead...

The Case of the Disappearing Ducks - Why are scaup and scoters in decline when other waterfowl are on the rise? The answer may lie in Canada's remote boreal forest.
April 1, 2002... ERIC BUTTERWORTH seems unperturbed as he sits hunched in a small plywood blind near a spruce-fringed pond in northern Alberta. Butterworth--who is helping to census waterfowl in Canada's northern, or boreal, forest--barely acknowledges the...

QUITE A POUCHFUL.(red kangaroo joey)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... QUITE A POUCHFUL: A red kangaroo joey dives into Mom's pouch headfirst, turns a somersault inside and all but disappears in this sequence photographed by Mitsuaki Iwago in an Australian zoo. When a red kangaroo is born and first makes its way...

CATTLE AND CARNIVORES - In a remote part of India called Kutch, vegetarian herdsmen provide the key to survival for a broad array of meat eaters.
April 1, 2002... PRE-DAWN GLOW lights our path as I switch off the headlights of my four-wheel-drive Gypsy. Adrenaline levels soar among the members of my research team from the Wildlife Institute of India as we bounce along an old cattle trail. Our...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2002... Presidential Powers In your article about national monuments ["America's Monumental Heritage," December/January 2002], I am glad you pointed out the fact that all but three U.S. presidents have used the powers of the Antiquities Act of...

Gremlins in a Fractured Forest - How the fate of elflike marmosets and lion tamarins is tied to the fortunes of a fabled piece of Brazil.(Brazil's Atlantic Rain Forest)
April 1, 2002... LISTENING intently, Leticia Brandão squints into the mist-clad forest valley below. "They're answering!" she exclaims as she tries to trick her quarry into approaching closer. Her cassette recorder plays back the forest calls, and...

SWAMPING LOUISIANA - As the state's coastal wetlands disappear, at the rate of a football field every half hour, both wildlife and human lives are threatened.
April 1, 2002... SPEEDING ACROSS the seemingly endless marsh of south Louisiana's Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, an airboat flushes flock after flock of great and snowy egrets, the birds flashing bright white against the dark cordgrass that had sheltered them....

Meet the Neighbors - As their numbers continue to increase in Alaska, muskoxen are turning up in some unexpected places.
April 1, 2002... RON AND LORENA Engstrom like to recall the day a few years ago when they saw a herd of wild muskoxen cross a creek that was roaring with spring meltwater. "Some of the little ones had a hard time in that current," says Ron. "But they followed...

SMOG'S YOUNGEST VICTIMS.(effects on fetuses in the womb)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Air pollution is so insidious that its impacts reach inside the womb, scientists say. In a study of pregnant women living in the Los Angeles area, researchers found those living in areas with higher levels of ozone and carbon monoxide were as...

IT TAKES A THIEF.(Western scrub jays)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... What separates a western scrub jay from a stool pigeon? The former knows how to keep its secrets&emdash;especially if it's a jay with a criminal history. Western scrub jays are blue, foot-long birds found in woodlands and chaparrals from...

JAWS ACROSS THE WATER.(research on great white shark migrations)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Great whites love the deep blue. That's the finding from a new study of white sharks by biologists in California. The two-ton predators (immortalized in the film Jaws) previously were thought to stick close to shore, where they feed on seals...

Recording the Symphonies of Nature.(taping animal sounds)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... LANG ELLIOTT has been driving for several hours to escape Florida's humid heat, but something tells him to turn and head back to Alexander Springs Creek in Ocala National Forest. Elliott, who records nature sounds for a living, was there...

Where Have All The Marshes Gone?
April 1, 2002... When Senior Editor Laura Tangley visited Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana last fall, she was astounded by what she saw. "If any place can be described as 'teeming with wildlife,'" she says, "this refuge would be it." The coastal...

Conservation Across the Continent.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Today common experience breaks the confines of national borders more than ever before. From pop culture to the Internet, we share one global community. This applies especially to our environment. There are no borders for the air we breathe, the...

A New Expanded Magazine.(National Wildlife, International Wildlife combined)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... You may have already noticed that there is something different about this issue. First, you've probably recognized it carries a new cover title, National WildlifeEWorld Edition. And if you take a quick look in the middle of this magazine, you...