Natural Resources

"New research shows how toxic chemicals hitch a ride with seabirds flying from southern latitudes to the Arctic."

"The largest dam removal project in U.S. history was completed Wednesday, marking a major victory for tribes in the region who fought for decades to free hundreds of miles of the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border."

"Russ Lewis has picked up some strange things along the coast of Long Beach Peninsula in Washington state over the years: Hot Wheels bicycle helmets with feather tufts, life-size plastic turkey decoys made for hunters, colorful squirt guns." ... "These items aren’t like the used fishing gear and beer cans that Lewis also finds tossed overboard by fishers or partygoers. They’re the detritus of commercial shipping containers lost in the open ocean."

"The country’s most-visited national park site, the Blue Ridge Parkway, will remain closed indefinitely, the National Park Service (NPS) said Wednesday. The closure affects the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway, though some parts were hit harder than others by storm damage. It comes right as the region and scenic road typically see a boom in tourism, as weather cools and the leaves change colors."

"Voting started Wednesday in the annual Fat Bear Week contest at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, with viewers picking their favorite among a dozen brown bears fattened up to survive the winter."

"Miners aim to meet a growing demand for emissions-free energy, though a failure to clean up old sites haunts the industry."

"Bethany Beach firefly, found in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, faces dangers to habitat because of climate change"

"Climate change is exacerbating the risk of potentially dangerous mosquito-borne diseases in California. Dengue, the world’s most common mosquito-borne illness, is not transmitted directly from insect to insect."

"A journalist who covered the land grab and deforestation of a community forest by a mining company has himself been charged with deforestation."

"Members of Wet’suwet’en Nation in British Columbia want to conserve a pristine old-growth watershed, Caas Tl’aat Twah, in its traditional territory. The nation has obtained a logging deferral for Caas Tl’aat Twah and is planning how to protect it permanently."