National Wildlife articles from June 2000

National Wildlife archives from June 2000

Tough Challenges In America's Heartland.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
June 1, 2000... Over the years, Jim Brandenburg has gone to remarkable lengths to photograph wild wolves and other creatures in some of North America's most rugged terrain. So what does he consider his most difficult pictorial challenge? "Wildlife is...

NWF Leads Efforts To Save Imperiled Snake River Salmon.(National Wildlife Federation)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Working on several fronts, the National Wildlife Federation is battling to reverse the severe decline of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. For decades, the fish have suffered losses as a result of human activities in the region, and many...

Public Support Needed for Action On Mercury Hazard.(mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Unbelievably, there is no federal regulation of hazardous mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the single greatest source of mercury pollution in the environment. But that free ride may soon come to an end, and NWF is urging its...

Affiliate Mobilizes Sportsmen To Save Tennessee Agency.(includes news about National Wildlife Federation)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... In a weekend blitz of calls and e-mails, Tennessee sports- men recently persuaded legislators to shelve a bill that would have seriously weakened the independent state wildlife agency. The victory was especially sweet for the Tennessee...

SmartMoney Names NWF as Top Environmental Charity.(National Wildlife Federation)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Among large environmental organizations, NWF does the best job of responsibly spending its supporters' money, according to SmartMoney magazine. NWF was honored for spending nearly 90 cents of every dollar it receives directly on educating,...

Government Approves Citizen Management Plan for Grizzlies.(includes news about the Vermont Natural Resources Council)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The U.S. Fish and Wild-life Service has given its final approval to a plan that would give local people day-to-day authority for managing grizzly bears reintroduced into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area of Idaho and Montana. The plan was...

Program To Teach Young Campers Joys of Birding.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... This summer, as many as 10,000 youngsters at more than 50 camps across the country will learn to appreciate birds and how to create a bird- friendly backyard habitat through a special curriculum developed by NWF, the American Camping...

NWF, Affiliate Fight Texas Plan To Dilute Water Quality Rules.(National Wildlife Federation)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... When Texas recently proposed to weaken water-quality standards for some of its major rivers, lakes and coastal waters, NWF's Gulf States Natural Resource Center and the Texas Committee on Natural Resources, one of NWF's affiliates, sprang into...

Vermont Towns Learn To Control Stormwater Pollution.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Stormwater runoff laden with dirt, litter, fertilizer, oil and heavy metals is a significant source of pollution throughout New England's Lake Champlain Basin. Yet, many local officials are ill-equipped to deal with pressures to convert open...

Maine Dam Removal Voted 1999's Best New Development.(Popular Science magazine readers salute the removal of the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... According to the readers of Popular Science magazine, the 1999 "Best of What's New" was not an oven that cooks with light or the discovery of an entirely new element, but rather the nation's first removal of an operating dam to restore historic...

Keep the Wild Alive - Saving Humpback Whales Demands International Effort.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Along both coasts of the United States, the mighty humpback whale is now making its annual migration north to summer feeding grounds located off Newfoundland and Labrador in the Atlantic and off Alaska in the Pacific. Listed as endangered...

Visiting the Heart of ALLIGATOR COUNTRY - Our writer learns firsthand what it takes to study the health of American alligators in the Everglades.
June 1, 2000... For the moment, Franklin Percival and his quarry, a six-foot-long American alligator, are at a standoff. Percival is standing in an airboat at midnight in an expanse of sawgrass deep inside Everglades National Park. As a U.S. Geological Survey...

Where River Flows Through Forest - In Arkansas, some of the nation's most important bottomland hardwood forests are teeming with both wildlife and controversy.(White River and Cache River National Wildlife Refuges)
June 1, 2000... After a tour of Arkansas' White River and Cache River National Wildlife Refuges last summer, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt clearly was captivated by what he saw. "This is the first time I've been on the White River and I've got to...

The Bird That Flies Through Water - Scientists continue to marvel at the American dipper, a species remarkably adapted for life near raging rivers.
June 1, 2000... The icy stream runs fast and wide with snowmelt, its white water surface sparkling in the sunlight. Prismatic spray rises from the rapids. Into this maelstrom flies an American dipper, a stub-tailed bird about the size of a starling. The dipper...

Fresh Cut Flowers: Fragrant, Beautiful-And Often Doused with Pesticides.(investigation into the alleged heavy use of pesticides in the flower industry)
June 1, 2000... He was called El Diablo-"the devil"-and he pops into Dalila Guzman's head whenever she thinks about her 26 years as a laborer in Southern California's rose industry. The man was an ordinary worker whose job was to smear liquid pesticide by hand...

NWF CONSERVATION HALL OF FAME.(member: early environmentalist Ira Gabrielson)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... He Brought Order To America's Wildlife Management Efforts When the White River National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1935, a seasoned federal biologist named Ira Gabrielson had just taken over as chief of the Bureau of Biological...

Letters.
June 1, 2000... Sierra Nevada Predators I enjoyed the article on cougars ["Clawing Its Way to the Top," February/March 2000]. But I have a question concerning the author's claim that it is not possible to reintroduce natural predators of mountain...

Urban Growth Changes Climate.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Cities can create their own climates, reduce plant growth and alter local weather patterns. Those are conclusions from researchers who have studied urban and suburban sprawl using satellite images of Earth. In one of those studies, NASA...

Show Off Your Camera Skills - Enter the PHOTO CONTEST.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... here's still time to enter National Wildlife's 2000 photo contest, open to both amateurs and part-time professional photographers. The deadline is June 22. Winners receive cash prizes. For details about rules and submissions, see the NWF Web...

Top Birds Stay Slim And Other Avian News.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The Right Eye Gets the Worm The results are in from Australian researchers curious about why birds tend to use one eye at a time. In a study of European starlings, the scientists concluded the birds' left eyes hold more single-cone cells,...

Training Flights for the Bees.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... In all the studies of honeybees over the years, until recently no one had been able to figure out how the busy insects orient themselves in the world at large. Then researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign fitted bees...

OLD WORMS.(determining the age of tube worms)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... When a creature turns out to be 250 years old, it seems that a little historical context is in order. So consider: When certain tubeworms now thriving deep in the Gulf of Mexico started their lives, Louisiana belonged to France, and the city of...

Here Comes the Sun.(solar-powered home)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Just as oil prices were skyrocketing this winter, University of Florida researchers announced they had used off-the-shelf supplies to build a house that runs entirely on solar power. All the appliances in the house-including computers, lights...

Mother Nature May Hold the Keys To Cleaning Up Toxic Messes.(phytoremediation)
June 1, 2000... Most trees planted along the edges of farms are intended to break the wind. But a mile-long stand of spindly poplars outside Amana, Iowa, serves a different purpose. It cleans pollution. The poplars act like vacuum cleaners, sucking up...

LITTLE HABITAT ON THE PRAIRIE - Only remnants remain of the nation's original prairie, and biologists are scrambling to understand and restore what is left.
June 1, 2000... Walt Whitman may have been bewitched by the prairie sunset's "pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last." But for the scientists who study the remnants of America's once vast prairie lands, the real magic comes at dawn....

Major Player - Long overlooked by forest managers, the flying squirrel is now emerging as an animal that is critical to the health of certain woodlands.(Pacific Northwest)
June 1, 2000... A northern spotted owl swoops out of the treetops at twilight in an Oregon forest. Its target: a small rodent climbing a Douglas fir tree. The potential prey scrambles desperately from limb to limb, trying to escape. Finally it leaps and...

Florida's Little-Known Green Swamp Is Heaven in the Midst of Sprawl.(the vital environmental importance of Florida's Green Swamp)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... When Lillie Raulerson moved with her family to the heart of Florida's Green Swamp in 1923, the 11-year-old thought she was living at the end of the world. The area was so undeveloped and remote that only a few scattered families inhabited the...

Though Harmless to People, the Tarantula Inspires Both Passion and Terror.(misguided fears, and lack of knowledge, about the tarantula)
June 1, 2000... Tom Prentice is crouching by a burrow in the desert hills above Lake Skinner in Southern California. The opening, less than an inch across, is ringed by fresh dirt. Who could suspect what creature lives inside? Prentice uses a long blade...

A New Film Chronicles Controversial Efforts to Reintroduce Grizzlies.(Brief Article)(Review)
June 1, 2000... Bill Anderson heard the grizzly bear before he saw it. "There were long, low rumbling sounds," recalls the seasoned filmmaker. "I was reminded of the dull roar that comes deep from within the Earth just before a 'quake hits." The incident...

Gardening for Wildlife.(the highly successful Wildlife Habitat program)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The first step in any journey may be the most crucial of all. Thousands of people have taken their first step toward making a place for wildlife in our modern world and their own lives through one of the National Wildlife Federation's most...