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Whooping cranes have made an astonishing comeback in North America, thanks in part to some bizarre conservation methods. Over the past 13 years, dozens of cinnamon-brown chicks have been raised in captivity to be released into the wild, and they've learned their survival skills from biologists who dress up in vaguely birdlike costumes. Strange as it sounds, this elaborate game of role-play has helped establish a new flock of whooping cranes that migrates each year from Wisconsin to Florida. But now, conservationists are faced with a conundrum: The birds raised by humans are turning out to be bad parents, and scientists don't know exactly where they're going wrong. The people trying to save whooping cranes are now testing a new approach: They're matching some chicks with adult bird parents that can hopefully step in where humans are failing. [ Quest for Survival: Photos of Incredible Animal Migrations ] A tentative success story In 1940, there were just 22 whooping cranes … [Read more...] about Birds of a Feather: Whooping Cranes Need Parents More Like Them

Male zebra finches who grow up without fathers aren't doomed to a song-less adulthood; they can still learn their dad's tune by mimicking their brothers, researchers say. Songbirds have a knack for vocal learning that's rare in the animal kingdom. The birds' songs are not innate; rather, they pass down melodies from one generation to the next, somewhat like human parents who teach their children to speak, but on a much shorter timeframe. Male zebra finches start memorizing their dad's song as early as 17 days old. They practice and perfect it by imitating their dads over the next several weeks. By the time they reach adulthood, at roughly 100 days old, the birdsong is set in stone and the finches use it in an attempt to woo mates. But just as human children can also pick up language quirks from their peers, zebra finches can pick up songs by listening to their siblings when an adult isn't around, the new study finds. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for … [Read more...] about Songbirds Can Learn Dad’s Tune from Brothers

Thirty years ago, bears were a rare sight in Nevada — so rare that Glen Griffith, then-director of the state's Department of Fish and Game, declared in 1979 that Nevada didn't have any bears at all, except for the occasional one that ambled across the western border from California. But beginning in 1988, the complaints started trickling in. Black bears were spotted raiding garbage cans , some were hit by cars, and the more brazen ones tried hibernating under houses in the winter while breaking into homes during the summer, clearing refrigerators of mayonnaise and peanut butter. By 2007, when Nevada was in the throes of a harsh drought, there were more than 1,500 reports of bear sightings and conflicts that year alone. What seems like a recent invasion is actually a comeback. Historical records and newspaper clippings show that black bears , and even grizzlies , roamed throughout most of the state in the 19th century, but their numbers took a nosedive as settlements grew. … [Read more...] about Bears’ Comeback in Nevada Poses a Problem

Garbage dumps may be such attractive pit stops for some storks that they shorten their migration routes to pay a visit, a new study suggests. A few years ago, Andrea Flack, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, was tracking the path of white storks from Germany, trying to get close enough to the birds to download flight data from the GPS trackers attached to their backs. Flack eventually found herself standing in an open garbage dump in Morocco, staring at her research subjects. Instead of migrating across the Sahara Desert like many other white stork populations, these birds preferred to spend the winter feeding on trash. "We don't really know yet how much impact it has on their survival," Flack told Live Science. "We can think of it in two ways: On one hand, they have more to eat, and on landfill sites , some populations may increase in size. But we also don't know what kind of long-term effect this waste-feeding has. They might get poisoned … [Read more...] about Migrating Storks Can’t Resist a Garbage Dump Feast

The son of a NASA astronaut and a video game pioneer who previously traversed both the North and South poles and funded his own trip to the International Space Station, Garriott completed a dive to Challenger Deep , the lowest point on Earth, on March 1. "I am the first person to go pole to pole, space and deep and the second person — first male — to go space [to] deep," Garriott told collectSPACE in a call while still at sea on Tuesday (March 2). Garriott, who is the incoming president of The Explorers Club, made the dive on board the "Limiting Factor," the first commercially certified, full-ocean-depth deep submergence vehicle that was developed and funded by undersea explorer Victor Vescovo. It was aboard the same submersible with Vescovo as pilot that former NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan became the first space traveler and first woman to dive to Challenger Deep — in August 2020. Like Sullivan, Garriott made the trip as part of a series of dives aimed at surveying the … [Read more...] about Astronaut-explorer Richard Garriott makes record-breaking dive to deepest point on Earth