ICYMI: Zombie Birds, Fallen Foxes & Children of Orcas

A weekly roundup for busy people

By Paul Rauber

Illustrations by Peter Arkle

January 18, 2019

Climate change is turning great tits into brain-eating killers

Global warming also threatens wild species of coffee.

Antarctica is losing six times as much ice annually as it did 40 years ago. The world’s oceans are heating 40 percent faster than estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change four years ago.

Parasitic worms in ocean fish are increasing—one variety by 90-fold.

In his confirmation hearings to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler says that he is unfamiliar with the National Climate Assessment, the major report by 13 government agencies released last November that warned of the environmental and economic devastation that climate change could bring to the United States. 

President Trump’s threat to declare a national emergency in order to build his border wall makes some climate-denying lawmakers fear that a future president might do the same regarding climate change.

Two days of temperatures topping 107ºF last November killed one-third of Australia’s spectacled flying foxes. 

Four days this week in Australia rank among the country’s 10 hottest on record. 

Idaho governor Brad Little budgets $200,000 to kill wolves

New Mexico’s new land commissioner bans coyote-hunting contests on state lands. 

Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest utility, says that it will seek bankruptcy protection as a result of debts incurred by the state’s recent wildfires, including $7 billion for the Camp Fire alone. A PG&E bankruptcy could complicate numerous clean energy projects.

rotating ice disc 100 yards in diameter has developed in the Presumpscot River in Westbrook, Maine. 

The last wild caribou in the Lower 48 has been removed from the wild. 

A new calf is spotted among Puget Sound’s southern resident orcas. If it survives, it will be the first to do so in three years.