Snippets: Environment

Shared lunch

Pumas may be more social

Pumas have long had a reputation as loners, studiously marking their territory, hunting individually and tolerating one another only when it’s time to mate. But the animals may be more social than previously thought, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances. To study puma interactions, researchers tagged 13 of the animals with GPS trackers and filmed their behaviour at Wyoming, USA feeding spots from 2012 to 2015. The film showed pumas with overlapping or adjacent territories repeatedly sharing elk carcasses that were too large for one puma to consume. The shared feeding sometimes lasted days. Based on the feeding visits, the researchers were able to map complex social networks of puma reciprocity. This typically consisted of a single male and multiple females.

Though the animals were rarely caught interacting on film outside of eating together, the researchers believe they were also sharing land and water sources, and the networks helped determine which pumas would mate with each other. The findings challenge conventional wisdom not just about pumas, but about supposedly solitary mammals in general, said Mark Elbroch, lead scientist at Panthera and an author of the study.


America's polluted past

Dirty secrets saved in dead birds’ feathers

Tucked away in the drawers of natural history museums across America’s Rust Belt, thousands of dead birds carry dirty secrets from America’s polluted past. The specimens that were put away around the start of the 20th century are far grimier than the ones from more recent decades. And now, climate scientists and historians can thank museum curators for not having tidied them up before storing them. That’s because the soot preserved on their feathers contains missing pixels in a picture of urban air pollution over 135 years, according to a study published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

When two graduate students at the University of Chicago, USA measured black carbon clinging to the chests and bellies of more than 1,300 birds in collections at museums, they found that the dirt on their plumage contained a record of US coal use over time. “We can estimate how much smoke was actually in the atmosphere,” said Shane DuBay, a co-author of the study. Along with Carl Fuldner, a co-author, he used a special microscope to look closely at the feathers. They were just dirty — dusted in the same tiny particles of black carbon that were there a hundred years ago.


Flying ahead

Some birds take flight during storms

For most wildlife, there is no early warning system when a big storm approaches. Most animals have no choice but to shelter in their usual environments. Some birds, however, respond to weather signals like changes in barometric pressure and fly ahead of the storm. A few get caught in high winds and sent many miles away. The American Bird Conservancy reported that after hurricanes Irma and Maria reached the Caribbean, many flamingos left the islands of Inagua in the Bahamas ahead of the storm, returning in force afterwards. But flamingos on the Cuban island of Cayo Coco died in the thousands.

In Puerto Rico, conservationists are worried about several species of birds and other animals in the island’s El Junque rain forest, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria. When Hurricane Harvey reached the coast of Texas, the National Wildlife Federation observed that many animal and bird species had adapted to periodic hurricanes. One area of special concern is the rich oyster beds of Galveston Bay. The storm was expected to change the normally saline environment to freshwater for weeks, perhaps longer than the oysters could tolerate.


Documentary

The truth about tigers

The tiger is disappearing at an alarming rate from our forests. Why have India’s tigers declined so drastically? What exactly are the problems facing their conservation? And are there any solutions to the crisis? These and many other questions are looked into The Truth about Tigers by Shekar Dattatri. The documentary also provides useful pointers on how ordinary citizens can contribute towards saving the tiger. Two years in the making, the film combines stunning footage shot by some of the world’s leading cinematographers with deep insights from experts.

The Truth about Tigers takes one through the tiger’s life, from birth to death, and illustrates how different human activities impact the conservation of this great predator. To watch the documentary, visit www.vimeo.com/17468170.