Finally getting to this heartbreaking @audubon.org story on the starvation of osprey chicks in Chesapeake Bay, a crisis compellingly linked to the overharvest of menhaden.
@bengoldfarb.bsky.socialBen Goldfarb
@bengoldfarb.bsky.social
Independent conservation journalist writing a book about fish. Author of CROSSINGS, on #roadecology, and EAGER, on beaver belief.
@bengoldfarb.bsky.social
@coralcitycamera.bsky.socialReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.socialPOV ur inside a baitball of mullet. A lot of Coralheads didn’t get much work done yesterday, mesmerized by the mullet run that blotted out the sun and turned Coral City into a marriage of heaven and hell for predators and prey 🪸🐠👀
@mongabay.comReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.socialPushes to build a road connecting Brazil’s Acre state to Peru’s Pacific coast could trigger up to 68,500 hectares of Amazon deforestation per year. Experts warn the BR-364 highway extension also threatens carbon credit revenue & accelerates land speculation. @constancemalleret.bsky.social reports.
@americanrivers.bsky.socialReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.socialAcross the Northeast, unsafe and outdated dams are coming down to revitalize fish runs and improve public safety. As our Northeast Regional Director, Andy Fisk, says, "Proximity to abundance is transformational."
👏 Thank you @bengoldfarb.bsky.social for the story: biographic.com/death-by-a-t...
@thewaroncars.bsky.socialReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.socialWe are looking forward to recording our next episode featuring our celebrity guest, massive bull elk.
@bengoldfarb.bsky.social(when you burn precious characters writing your own sequence numbers in the post like a chump, forgetting that Bsky does it for you 😭)
@bengoldfarb.bsky.socialIn my biased view, this is a kick-ass series of important & thorough stories about the clash between our built environment & the wild world that should, like, win some awards or something. Failing that, I'm grateful to you for reading and to all the @biographic.bsky.social staff for their hard work!
@bengoldfarb.bsky.social...and of course I couldn't possibly write about infra without including a story on #roadecology and wildlife crossings, this one focused on the star-crossed movement to protect Texas's ocelots from vehicle collisions. (6/6)
@bengoldfarb.bsky.social...an exploration of bird-window collisions — why that happened, how to stop them, the animal rehabbers retrieving and saving injured victims — centered on Chicago, America's bird-strike capital... (5/6)
(this one also cracked Best American Science & Nature Writing!)
@bengoldfarb.bsky.social...a deep dive into the emergent science of fence ecology and the ongoing efforts to liberate rangelands from the tyranny of obsolete barbed wire barriers... (4/6)
@bengoldfarb.bsky.socialThe others: a piece on the abstruse but vital instruments of local government (land use codes, zoning, master plans, etc.) that preserve open space and maintain wildlife corridors in the fast-developing American West... (3/6)
@bengoldfarb.bsky.socialThat piece is the 5th & final installment in my years-long and deeply reported series for bioGraphic "on the people and projects re-envisioning infrastructure to benefit wildlife." Big ups to @sbedard.bsky.social for wrangling the grant that supported this work! (2/6)
@bengoldfarb.bsky.social"If eco-social anomie describes a societal forgetting, dam removal achieves the opposite—a 'collective remembering' that unshifts our baselines."
This week @biographic.bsky.social published my story on the rewilding of New England rivers, a mill dam at a time. (1/6)
@polargriffin.bsky.socialReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.socialLocal stream restoration projects and all the people working on them are what give me hope in this day and age. Locally, we have people doing dam removals, large wood installations, culvert replacements. There are a lot of people, from all walks of life, who are working to help streams and rivers!
@bengoldfarb.bsky.socialOnly a little sad we’re keeping Nimmo and deGrom outta the playoffs
@bengoldfarb.bsky.socialThanks to @highcountrynews.org for running this harrowing story on the drought-fueled Bearpocalypse that’s driving ursids into conflicts across the West. Bear issues have become nightly here in Salida; I just wrote to city council begging for better waste disposal. www.hcn.org/articles/as-...
@erikhoffner.bsky.socialReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.social[Good news] It was a record year for razorbill & puffin breeding as the Gulf of #Maine - which has been warming faster than 99% of the ocean - sees a pause in its heating over the last couple years, @themainemonitor.org reports
Common & endangered roseate terns also did well this summer:
@katebbeall.bsky.socialReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.social“Historically the Oyster would’ve boiled with river herring,” Furey said as we gazed at the doomed dam. “That’s the history I’m interested in.” Dam(n)—love the poetry that comes when folks in New England talk about fish (maybe it’s that he’s a fish biologist). And love to read of a river I know 🦪
@tallesteden.bsky.socialReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.socialIf you can read this without crying, I don't know what to tell you. Good crying to be clear, that so many people are fighting the good and hard fights to keep our paradise among the stars vibrant and alive.
@alisonbowden.bsky.socialReposted by @bengoldfarb.bsky.social"Rather than being a force acting against history, fish were history—and unlike mill dams, they had a future." 🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟