Browsing Tag 'trophic cascade'

Healthy salt marsh, Cape Cod

Contemporary recreational fishing combines with old WPA project to hasten marsh die-off By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer   CAPE Cod, Massachusetts has a problem. The iconic salt marshes of the famous summer retreat are melting away at the edges, dying back from the most popular recreational areas. The erosion is a consequence of an [...]

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Stouffer grizz Yellowstone 1974

by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. Face of a grizzly bear (North American brown bear, Ursus arctos horribilis); M Stouffer, 1974 courtesy of the National Park Service. AFTER co-authoring a 2005 paper imagining “Re-wilding  North America” with giant Bolson tortoises, camels, horses, cheetahs, elephants and lions, Harry Greene received a lot of hate mail. Corresponding [...]

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American alligator vs Burmese python

Are exotic pythons devastating Florida’s Everglades National Park? By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Sometimes the snake wins. The exotic Burmese python is a new and deadly predator allegedly squeezing the wildlife of Florida’s already environmentally pressured Everglades. Large snakes have been observed swallowing American alligators and 80-pound deer, but more common prey are small [...]

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beached winter kelp at Santa Barbara

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. As winter storms pick up along the California coast, a harvest of giant kelp comes ashore with the tides, torn from seafloor anchorages by the rough action of waves. Waves are the most powerful force shaping the kelp forest, superseding the influence of temperature, nutrients, and [...]

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