Category Archives: Environment

Wolves in Scotland?

NPR parallels: Landowner Aims To Bring Wolves Back To Scotland, Centuries After They Were Wiped Out.

“When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, they had dramatic impacts on parts of Northwestern United States. Decades later, a wealthy landowner wants to try a limited version of that experiment — in the Scottish Highlands.

Englishman Paul Lister is hoping to see the ancient Caledonian Forest of Scotch pine, alder and mountain ash regenerated, and wildlife long absent from the Highlands return. But as happened with the Yellowstone project, he’s running into strong opposition.”

Umweltschutz?

Heute gleich zwei Meldungen in der Deutschen Welle:

Neuer Verdacht auf Diesel-Betrug bei Audi. “Dieselkrise und kein Ende: Audi drohen verpflichtende Rückrufe von Tausenden von Fahrzeugen. Und VW-Konzernchef Diess soll laut Berichten in den USA ausgesagt haben.”

Tourismus schadet dem Klima mehr als bisher angenommen. “Acht Prozent der globalen Treibhausgas-Emissionen gehen auf das Konto des weltweiten Tourismus. Das hat ein Forscherteam der Universität Sydney in einer neuen Studie berechnet.”

Ice Age megafauna left tracks on Alkali Flat

The Conversation: How to hunt a giant sloth – according to ancient human footprints.

“Rearing on its hind legs, the giant ground sloth would have been a formidable prey for anyone, let alone humans without modern weapons. Tightly muscled, angry and swinging its fore legs tipped with wolverine-like claws, it would have been able to defend itself effectively. Our ancestors used misdirection to gain the upper hand in close-quarter combat with this deadly creature.

What is perhaps even more remarkable is that we can read this story from the 10,000-year-old footprints that these combatants left behind, as revealed by our new research published in Science Advances. Numerous large animals such as the giant ground sloth – so-called megafauna – became extinct at the end of the Ice Age. We don’t know if hunting was the cause but the new footprint evidence tells us how human hunters tackled such fearsome animals and clearly shows that they did. “

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Letting Mother Nature do it’s job

Isabella Tree: Back to the wild! How letting Mother Nature reclaim prime farmland and allowing cattle and ponies to run free produced breathtaking results. (Link to the Daily Mail, but I promise, it’s a worthwhile article.)

National Geographic: Can Rewilding Bring Nature Back to Modern Britain?. “Rewilding Britain aims to deliver a more dynamic countryside. The author is a zealous participant in a growing movement.” By Isabella Tree. (Published July 15, 2015.)

Here’s the website of Knepp Wildland including a 15 minute video.

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