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Why the best diet for you is also good for the planet

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Monday, June 10, 2024

Can you eat a diet that’s good for your health and good for the planet?A new study suggests that it’s possible. It found that people who ate mostly minimally processed plant foods such as nuts, beans, fruits, vegetables, whole grains and olive oil, along with modest amounts of meat, fish, eggs and dairy, had lower rates of premature death from heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases.At the same time, their diets had a smaller environmental footprint because they consisted of foods that were grown using relatively less land and water and that were produced with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.The study, published Monday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was inspired by a landmark 2019 report from the EAT-Lancet Commission, which designed a “Planetary Health Diet” capable of sustaining 10 billion people and the planet by 2050. The planetary health diet, in broad strokes, encourages people to eat more plants and whole foods alongside small portions of meat and dairy. It was designed to be flexible and adaptable to different cultural, culinary, and personal preferences.The new report is among the first large studies to examine how eating within the contours of the planetary health diet affects a person’s likelihood of dying prematurely from major diseases. The study analyzed data on more than 200,000 men and women in the United States who were followed closely for over three decades. The new study found the following:Lower mortality risk: People whose eating habits most closely adhered to the planetary health diet were 30 percent less likely to die prematurely compared to people who ate the lowest amounts of foods that form the basis of the planetary health diet.Less illness: Planetary health eaters had a 10 percent lower risk of dying from cancer, a 14 percent lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular diseases, a 47 percent reduction in the risk of dying from lung disease, and a 28 percent lower likelihood of dying of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.Lower infectious-disease risk: Women whose eating habits closely aligned with the planetary health diet had a 38 percent lower risk of dying of infectious diseases.Better planet health: An environmental impact analysis found that this approach to eating was associated with 29 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions, a 51 percent reduction in cropland use, a 21 percent reduction in fertilizer use and 13 percent lower irrigation and water needs.How to follow a planetary dietIn the study, people whose eating habits adhered closely to the planetary health diet ate large amounts of the following foods:Whole fruits and non-starchy vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, cucumber and leafy greens.Peanuts and tree nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews and pistachios.Legumes such as beans, lentils and peas.Chicken and other forms of poultry.Foods that are rich in unsaturated fats, like avocados, olive oil and sunflower oil.Whole grains such as brown rice, wild rice, oatmeal, quinoa and barley, as well as foods that are made with whole grains (for example, whole wheat bread and rye bread)Lower amounts of red and processed meats, eggs, soft drinks, fruit juices and sugary processed foods including candy, cakes, breakfast cereals and desserts.Walter Willett, a senior author of the new study and a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, stressed that adopting a planetary health diet does not require giving up meat.He described it as an omnivorous diet that makes room for two servings a day of animal foods. A typical week on the diet, for example, might include one daily serving of dairy such as milk, cheese, or yogurt, a weekly serving of red meat, one weekly serving of eggs, two weekly servings of poultry, and two weekly servings of fish.The diet prioritizes generous amounts of fruits, nuts and vegetables and a variety of plant sources of protein such as beans, lentils and other legumes, which makes it relatively easy to follow, Willett said.“You can put these pieces together with the flavors and foods of almost every traditional culture,” he added. “There’s a lot of flexibility.”How healthy eating slows climate changeFood production accounts for about 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Much of that is driven by methane emissions from livestock, widespread deforestation, and emissions from food processing, farm machinery, the use of synthetic fertilizers and other aspects of agricultural production.Most of the cropland in America is used to grow just two crops — corn and soy — that are fed to livestock. This practice of monoculture farming can degrade soil, reduce biodiversity and require more irrigation, pesticides and herbicides. Only about 5 percent of farmland in America is used to grow other vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes, Willett said. Changing our diets and our food production system will not be enough on their own to put the brakes on climate change, but they are important steps, Willett said.“What this study shows is that we can both shift our diets to be far healthier than the average American diet and also at the same time have a substantial impact on slowing down climate change,” he added. “We don’t have to trade off planetary health for human health. We can have both — it’s a double win.”The new study was observational, meaning it found correlations between what people ate and their risk of major diseases, not necessarily cause and effect. It’s possible that other lifestyle behaviors could explain the findings. But the researchers took into account factors such as whether the participants smoked, exercised, drank alcohol, or had family histories of heart disease, cancer and other diseases. The health benefits of eating a diet high in nuts, olive oil, whole grains, fruits and vegetables have also been documented in rigorous clinical trials.Marion Nestle, an emeritus professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at NYU, said the federal government should adopt food policies to promote diets that are not only nutritious but sustainable. “The government could produce clear dietary guidelines, set healthier standards for school meals, support production of food for people — rather than feed for animals or fuel for cars — and stop subsidizing industrial production of meat,” said Nestle, who was not involved in the new study.Do you have a question about healthy eating? Email EatingLab@washpost.com and we may answer your question in a future column.

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Can you eat a diet that’s good for your health and good for the planet?

A new study suggests that it’s possible. It found that people who ate mostly minimally processed plant foods such as nuts, beans, fruits, vegetables, whole grains and olive oil, along with modest amounts of meat, fish, eggs and dairy, had lower rates of premature death from heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases.

At the same time, their diets had a smaller environmental footprint because they consisted of foods that were grown using relatively less land and water and that were produced with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

The study, published Monday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was inspired by a landmark 2019 report from the EAT-Lancet Commission, which designed a “Planetary Health Diet” capable of sustaining 10 billion people and the planet by 2050. The planetary health diet, in broad strokes, encourages people to eat more plants and whole foods alongside small portions of meat and dairy. It was designed to be flexible and adaptable to different cultural, culinary, and personal preferences.

The new report is among the first large studies to examine how eating within the contours of the planetary health diet affects a person’s likelihood of dying prematurely from major diseases. The study analyzed data on more than 200,000 men and women in the United States who were followed closely for over three decades. The new study found the following:

  • Lower mortality risk: People whose eating habits most closely adhered to the planetary health diet were 30 percent less likely to die prematurely compared to people who ate the lowest amounts of foods that form the basis of the planetary health diet.
  • Less illness: Planetary health eaters had a 10 percent lower risk of dying from cancer, a 14 percent lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular diseases, a 47 percent reduction in the risk of dying from lung disease, and a 28 percent lower likelihood of dying of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.
  • Lower infectious-disease risk: Women whose eating habits closely aligned with the planetary health diet had a 38 percent lower risk of dying of infectious diseases.
  • Better planet health: An environmental impact analysis found that this approach to eating was associated with 29 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions, a 51 percent reduction in cropland use, a 21 percent reduction in fertilizer use and 13 percent lower irrigation and water needs.

How to follow a planetary diet

In the study, people whose eating habits adhered closely to the planetary health diet ate large amounts of the following foods:

  • Whole fruits and non-starchy vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, cucumber and leafy greens.
  • Peanuts and tree nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews and pistachios.
  • Legumes such as beans, lentils and peas.
  • Chicken and other forms of poultry.
  • Foods that are rich in unsaturated fats, like avocados, olive oil and sunflower oil.
  • Whole grains such as brown rice, wild rice, oatmeal, quinoa and barley, as well as foods that are made with whole grains (for example, whole wheat bread and rye bread)
  • Lower amounts of red and processed meats, eggs, soft drinks, fruit juices and sugary processed foods including candy, cakes, breakfast cereals and desserts.

Walter Willett, a senior author of the new study and a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, stressed that adopting a planetary health diet does not require giving up meat.

He described it as an omnivorous diet that makes room for two servings a day of animal foods. A typical week on the diet, for example, might include one daily serving of dairy such as milk, cheese, or yogurt, a weekly serving of red meat, one weekly serving of eggs, two weekly servings of poultry, and two weekly servings of fish.

The diet prioritizes generous amounts of fruits, nuts and vegetables and a variety of plant sources of protein such as beans, lentils and other legumes, which makes it relatively easy to follow, Willett said.

“You can put these pieces together with the flavors and foods of almost every traditional culture,” he added. “There’s a lot of flexibility.”

How healthy eating slows climate change

Food production accounts for about 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Much of that is driven by methane emissions from livestock, widespread deforestation, and emissions from food processing, farm machinery, the use of synthetic fertilizers and other aspects of agricultural production.

Most of the cropland in America is used to grow just two crops — corn and soy — that are fed to livestock. This practice of monoculture farming can degrade soil, reduce biodiversity and require more irrigation, pesticides and herbicides. Only about 5 percent of farmland in America is used to grow other vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes, Willett said.

Changing our diets and our food production system will not be enough on their own to put the brakes on climate change, but they are important steps, Willett said.

“What this study shows is that we can both shift our diets to be far healthier than the average American diet and also at the same time have a substantial impact on slowing down climate change,” he added. “We don’t have to trade off planetary health for human health. We can have both — it’s a double win.”

The new study was observational, meaning it found correlations between what people ate and their risk of major diseases, not necessarily cause and effect. It’s possible that other lifestyle behaviors could explain the findings. But the researchers took into account factors such as whether the participants smoked, exercised, drank alcohol, or had family histories of heart disease, cancer and other diseases. The health benefits of eating a diet high in nuts, olive oil, whole grains, fruits and vegetables have also been documented in rigorous clinical trials.

Marion Nestle, an emeritus professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at NYU, said the federal government should adopt food policies to promote diets that are not only nutritious but sustainable. “The government could produce clear dietary guidelines, set healthier standards for school meals, support production of food for people — rather than feed for animals or fuel for cars — and stop subsidizing industrial production of meat,” said Nestle, who was not involved in the new study.

Do you have a question about healthy eating? Email EatingLab@washpost.com and we may answer your question in a future column.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Snowy Owl Rescued From Car Grille by Minnesota Woman Who Saved Another Bird Hours Earlier

A great gray owl and a snowy owl are being treated by experts after being rescued by a northern Minnesota woman

Annabell Whelan woke up Tuesday and frantically checked on her holiday overnight guest — Nowl the snowy owl, who she rescued from the grille of a car the day before. Whelan was out with her boyfriend's family Monday in Duluth, Minnesota, when she saw the owl “just hanging out there, literally" after car and bird had collided, she told The Associated Press. The car's owner had already called for help, but the animal rescue organization that the bird needed was closed — so Whelan stepped in, not for the first time that day. Earlier Monday, Whelan found an injured great gray owl on the ground further north in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Experts at Wildwoods, a Duluth-based wildlife rehabilitation center, told her how to safely catch the bird. “I definitely thought that I had had my fix of owls with the first one," said Whelan, 22, a Lake Superior Zoo guest experience manager who graduated earlier this year with a biology and environmental science degree. “I could tell he was having a hard time with one of his eyes," she said. “I kind of took my time and just sat there with him and talked quietly and was just kind of trying to coax him to trust me a little bit.”Whelan scooped the owl up in a blanket, transferred him to a dog crate in the car and dropped the great gray owl off at Wildwoods. He was sent along with another animal to the University of Minnesota's Raptor Center in St. Paul.But the snowy owl she found hours later was in a much scarier situation, she said. “It was obviously a lot more trauma," she said.Since Wildwoods had already closed for the night, Whelan wrapped Nowl in a blanket and crated her overnight in a dark, quiet room in her home — keeping her and her cousin's curious cats and dog at bay. She named her Nowl, a play on noel. “I tried to prepare myself in case I woke up in the morning and she didn't make it through the night,” Whelan said. But she said she cried happy tears when she saw Nowl moving and awake, bringing her to Wildwoods that morning. Nowl “is quite beaten up," Wildwoods posted on Facebook Tuesday after examining the bird. “We applied a wing wrap, gave her meds, and coordinated with The Raptor Center to get her down to them.”The rescue said people should slow down, stay alert, and call for help when they see an injured animal. The animals are terrified of people and should be quickly moved to a quiet, safe space where they can be left alone until professionals can step in, the rescue said. Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Animals
Science

Gitmo' in the Mojave: How the Marines are saving endangered desert tortoises

The Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base houses vulnerable young desert tortoises until they're hardy enough to withstand predators and drought. The endangered species' continued existence in the wild may hinge on programs like these.

Reporting from TWENTYNINE PALMS Marine Corps base, Calif. —  The two tiny tortoises emerged from their burrows as soon as they detected Brian Henen’s footsteps, eager for the handfuls of bok choy and snap peas that would soon be tossed their way.It will be a few years before the tortoises, roughly the size of playing cards, have shells tough enough to avoid becoming prey for the ravens soaring above. So for now, they live with roughly 1,000 others of their species in a sheltered habitat ringed by barbed wire and draped in netting.The elaborate setup on the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center is designed to protect the tortoises not only from ravens, coyotes and other predators, but from rumbling tanks, live explosives and anything else that might put them in harm’s way at the 1,189-square-mile Mojave Desert base. The Tortoise Research and Captive Rearing Site raises vulnerable tortoises on the vast Marine Corps base. “The desert tortoise is considered a keystone species, which means that they have a disproportionate effect on the entire ecosystem,” says Henen, a civilian who heads the conservation branch of the base’s Environmental Affairs Division.The tortoises pockmark the desert floor with burrows that other animals use for shelter, and disperse the seeds of native plants in their waste. “They’re influencing what else can exist on the landscape,” Henen said.With its barbed-wire enclosure, some call this place Tortoise Gitmo, after the U.S. Navy’s Guantanamo Bay base and prison camp in Cuba. Others call it the Tortoise Bordello, although the young tortoises are released before they are mature enough to breed.Officially it’s called the Tortoise Research and Captive Rearing Site, and since it was established in 2005 it has helped scientists learn how to protect a species that’s threatened by human encroachment, disease and climate change. In the first iteration of the program, biologists gathered eggs from wild females and raised the hatchlings until they were hardy enough to stand a chance against predators and drought, in a process known as head-starting.The facility got an influx of new tenants in 2017, when the military relocated tortoises to make way for a controversial expansion of the base’s training grounds. Biologists decided to head-start about 550 young tortoises that were taken from expansion areas.Then, starting a couple of years ago, Henen’s team began gathering, incubating and hatching eggs from the relocated adult tortoises to study whether they were breeding with their new neighbors. Rather than release the hatchlings into the wild, where they were unlikely to survive, they decided to head-start them as well. Brian Henen of the base’s Environmental Affairs Division holds a desert tortoise. Some desert conservationists are critical of the efforts, saying the captive rearing program is essentially a smokescreen that distracts from the pressing need to conserve critical habitat.“What I’d like to see is this kind of effort being done on public lands as a tool to repatriate areas as opposed to minimizing the impacts of the Marine Corps expansion,” said Ed LaRue, a board member of the nonprofit Desert Tortoise Council.“Hundreds of square miles of good tortoise habitat is now being used for military maneuvers,” LaRue said, citing base expansions at Twentynine Palms and at Fort Irwin National Training Center near Barstow. “It enables the military to go ahead and degrade the desert and claim it’s successful because the tortoises have been moved out of the way.” Bases should instead stop expanding into tortoise habitat, he said.Henen says the program has enabled biologists to both augment tortoise populations and track the success of those efforts by committing to decades of monitoring. He also points out that the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center has partnered with a coalition of agencies and nongovernmental organizations to conserve land off base. And inside the boundaries of the massive installation, officials have identified the most valuable tortoise habitat and set aside 43,800 acres of restricted areas that protect the species, as well as other natural and cultural resources, he says. Marines at Twentynine Palms receive specialized training on how to handle tortoises. A glimpse of a single reptile interloper will bring a training exercise to a halt. Troops must radio in to range control and request permission to move the animal. If permission is granted but the tortoise urinates, which can cause them to become dangerously dehydrated, the soldiers must call it in again and wait for a base ecologist to respond. Desert tortoises were once so plentiful that people driving through the Mojave would take them home to keep as backyard pets. But in some patches of California desert, their numbers have dropped by up to 96% since the 1970s, according to study plots monitored by Kristin Berry, supervisory research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center.Recognizing the dire straits, the California Fish and Game Commission in April voted to uplist desert tortoises from threatened to endangered.The Marines are hardly the only threat to tortoises. Roads and highways have carved up previously wide-open stretches of desert into parcels that are in some cases too small to allow for the breeding and genetic diversity needed to sustain their population health. A warming climate has dried up the precipitation needed to sustain them in some places.Livestock not native to the desert have grazed and trampled the plants tortoises like to eat, spreading unpalatable nonnative grasses in their wake. Power lines have added miles of resting perches for ravens, allowing them to more easily spot young tortoises.Ravens used to be rare in the desert — they could only subsist for a couple of months in the springtime of good rainfall years, said Ken Nagy, professor emeritus at UCLA, who with Henen founded the program at Twentynine Palms. But now, thanks to everything from leaky faucets at gas stations to the irrigation of alfalfa fields, the birds have year-round sources of drinking water that’s caused their population to explode to 30 to 50 times greater than what it once was, he said.“You can go beneath raven nests on power poles and see piles of dead baby tortoises that were opened, killed, carried to the nests by adults and fed to the babies,” he said. “That is what started this whole thing.” The Tortoise Research and Captive Rearing Site raises vulnerable tortoises on the vast Marine Corps base. In desert tortoise head-starting programs, biologists use radio transmitters to monitor wild females and portable X-ray machines to determine when they’re pregnant. They bring those females inside enclosures to lay their eggs, then release them. The hatchlings are reared in captivity until they reach a certain length — Twentynine Palms uses a threshold of 110 millimeters, or about 4 inches long, which can take between seven and nine years — and then rereleased, typically with radio transmitters to monitor their health and movements.The concept was pioneered in the 1990s at Fort Irwin, followed by a similar program at Edwards Air Force Base near Mojave.The captive rearing site is tucked in an isolated corner of the base, down a sandy road flanked by mesquite dunes and wrinkled mountains; past collections of buildings used for training that resemble crudely built neighborhoods. Fences to keep Marines on the road have spiky pins atop each post to prevent ravens from having yet another place to perch. Brian Henen checks on a desert tortoise at the Tortoise Research and Captive Rearing Site at the Twentynine Palms Marine base. Inside the facility, a clanging noise echoes through the pens. It’s a particularly exuberant tortoise nicknamed Typhoid Mary, who got the nickname because she harbors a contagious bacteria that causes upper respiratory tract disease.She has heard the biologists coming and wants a snack. She bangs her shell against the metal divider to get their attention. Henen hands her some kale, which stains her beak green.Mary is believed to be at least 30 years old. One of the few adults at the facility, she ended up here as a result of the 2017 base expansion during which the military used helicopters to relocate more than 1,000 tortoises to other areas, most of them off base. Scientists are currently monitoring about 125 of those adults and 50 juveniles via radiotelemetry so they can keep tabs on their health and movements.But Mary was placed on the no-fly list after she was found to harbor mycoplasma bacteria. Upper respiratory tract disease has also contributed to tortoise declines, usually in populations that are close to human communities. Scientists believe it may be spread by people releasing sick pet tortoises into the wild, Henen said.Despite the disease, Mary has remained in relatively good health because she’s well-fed and hydrated. Still, she’ll probably be living out her days here to avoid infecting others.The program, and others like it, have won converts over the years. Biologist Tim Shields, who founded a company that develops tortoise conservation technology, was once opposed to head-starting because he thought it was unnatural and the tortoises would be inferior at survival.“But some very intelligent people have spent a lot of time figuring out a formula for essentially mass production of tortoises — and I’m all for it,” he said. “Because the underlying ecosystem is so bunged up that I don’t see an alternative.”

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Your gadgets are actually carbon sinks — for now

New research finds billions of tons of carbon get trapped in the "technosphere".

At any given moment, crude oil is being pumped up from the depths of the planet. Some of that sludge gets sent to a refinery and processed into plastic, then it becomes the phone in your hand, the shades on your window, the ornaments hanging from your Christmas tree. Although scientists know how much carbon dioxide is emitted to make these products (a new iPhone is akin to driving more than 200 miles), there’s little research into how much gets stashed away in them. A study published on Friday in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability estimates that billions of tons of carbon from fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas — was stored in gadgets, building materials, and other long-lasting human-made items over a recent 25 year period, tucked away in what the researchers call the “technosphere.”  According to the study by researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, 400 million tons of carbon gets added to the technosphere’s stockpile every year, growing at a slightly faster rate than fossil fuel emissions. But in many cases, the technosphere doesn’t keep that carbon permanently; if objects get thrown away and incinerated, they wind up warming the atmosphere, too. In 2011, 9 percent of all extracted fossil carbon was sunk into items and infrastructure in the technosphere, an amount that would almost equal that year’s emissions from the European Union if it were burned.  “It’s like a ticking time bomb,” said Klaus Hubacek, an ecological economist at the University of Groningen and senior author of the paper. “We draw lots of fossil resources out of the ground and put them in the technosphere and then leave them sitting around. But what happens after an object’s lifetime?”The word “technosphere” got its start in 1960, when a science writer named Wil Lepkowski wrote that “modern man has become a goalless, lonely prisoner of his technosphere,” in an article for the journal Science. Since then, the term, a play on “biosphere,” has been used by ecologists and geologists to grapple with the amount of stuff humankind has smothered the planet in. “The problem is that we have been incredibly wasteful as we’ve been making and building things.” said Jan Zalasiewicz, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the University of Groningen study. In 2016, Zalasiewicz and his colleagues published a paper that estimated the technosphere had grown to approximately 30 trillion tonnes, an amount 100,000 times greater than the mass of all humans piled on top of each other. The paper also found that the number of “technofossils” — unique kinds of manmade objects — outnumbered the number of unique species of life on the planet. In 2020, a separate group of researchers found that the technosphere doubles in volume roughly every 20 years and now likely outweighs all living things.  “The question is, how does the technosphere impinge upon the biosphere?” Zalasiewicz said. Plastic bags and fishing nets, for example, can choke the animals that encounter them. And unlike natural ecosystems, like forests and oceans that can absorb carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, humans are “not very good at recycling,” Zalasiewicz said. Managing the disposal of all this stuff in a more climate-friendly way is precisely the problem that the researchers from University of Groningen want to draw attention to. Their research looked at the 8.4 billion tons of fossil carbon in human-made objects that were in use for at least a year between 1995 and 2019. Nearly 30 percent of this carbon was trapped in rubber and plastic, much of it in household appliances, and another quarter was stashed in bitumen, a byproduct of crude oil used in construction.“Once you discard these things, the question is, how do you treat that carbon?” said Kaan Hidiroglu, one of the study’s authors and an energy and environmental studies PhD student at the University of Groningen. “If you put it into incinerators and burn it, you immediately release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, which is something we really do not want to do.” Each year, the paper estimates, roughly a third of these fossil-products in the technosphere get incinerated. Another third end up in landfills, which can act as a kind of long-term carbon sink. But unfortunately, the authors acknowledge, these sites often leach chemicals, burp out methane, or shed microplastics into the environment. A little less than a third is recycled — a solution that comes with its own problems — and a small amount is littered.“There’s so many different aspects to the problem and treating it properly,” Hubacek said. Nevertheless, he said, landfills are a good starting point if managed well. According to the study, the bulk of fossil carbon that’s put into landfills decays slowly and stays put over 50 years. Designing products in a way that allows them to be recycled and last a long time can help keep the carbon trapped for longer. Ultimately, Hubacek said, the real solution starts with people questioning if they really need so much stuff. “Reduce consumption and avoid making it in the first place. But once you have it, that’s when we need to think about what to do next.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Your gadgets are actually carbon sinks — for now on Dec 20, 2024.

Animals
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Climate

Squirrels Are Displaying 'Widespread Carnivorous Behavior' for the First Time in a California Park, New Study Finds

The familiar rodents, known for eating nuts and seeds, have been spotted hunting and decapitating voles in a gruesome dietary adaptation. Scientists say it might signal resiliency in face of future environmental pressures

A California ground squirrel carries a vole in its mouth after hunting the rodent. Sonja Wild, UC Davis In the rolling green hills of California’s Briones Regional Park, not far from the urban bustle of Oakland and Berkeley, the squirrels are not what they seem. Instead of simply stuffing their cheeks with fruits, nuts or seeds, the California ground squirrels there are now known to hunt, kill, decapitate and consume voles, a fellow rodent species, according to research published Wednesday in the Journal of Ethology. “This was shocking,” study lead author Jennifer E. Smith, a professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, says in a statement. “We had never seen this behavior before.” Most people are very familiar with squirrels, accustomed to seeing the animals on their streets or in their yards. And Smith is even more so—since 2013, she has led the Long-term Behavioral Ecology of California Ground Squirrels Project, which monitors squirrel genetics, social behavior and physiological stress responses in the San Francisco Bay area. But even with her intimate knowledge of the rodents, it was only this year that her research team observed ground squirrels actively pursuing and eating meat. The initial discovery was made by undergraduate researchers, who returned from the field site in Briones Regional Park earlier this year with videos of the squirrels’ behavior to show their incredulous supervisors. “At first, we questioned what was going on,” Smith tells Suzie Dundas of SFGATE. “But seeing the videos was astounding and shifted my perspective on a species that I have spent the last 12 years of my life studying.” Vole hunting: Novel predatory and carnivorous behavior by California ground squirrels Smith and her team documented 74 interactions between ground squirrels and voles between June and July. In 42 percent of the interactions, the squirrels were hunting the smaller rodents. “From then, we saw that behavior almost every day,” Sonja Wild, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, who co-leads the project with Smith, says in the statement. “Once we started looking, we saw it everywhere.” Though they’re largely vegetarians, squirrels have long been known to occasionally consume insects, small bird eggs or meat left out by humans, but “direct study of hunting behavior by squirrels remains rare,” according to the study. This “widespread carnivorous behavior,” Smith tells SFGATE, was therefore groundbreaking. In most recorded cases included in the paper, a single squirrel would pursue a single vole across the open landscape, rather than lying in wait or hunting in a group. Sometimes with a stalking motion and a pounce, it would tackle the vole, restrain it with its forepaws, bite the vole’s neck and remove its head. Then, the squirrel would either strip the fur from the vole to expose cartilage, meat and organs, or tear the meat directly out from the torso. The authors of the study suggest this change in diet is a response to a booming vole population. Using reports from citizen scientists on iNaturalist, an app that allows users to submit photos of plants and animal sightings, the researchers found vole abundance in the state was seven times greater this year than over a ten-year average, and sightings were particularly high in Briones Regional Park. “What is most striking and incredible is the speed at which they shifted their behavior to this local surge in vole abundance,” Smith tells CNN’s Julianna Bragg. “It’s a wonderful way for them to capitalize on a very abundant resource … to provide enough sustenance for many [squirrels] to use,” John Koprowski, a wildlife biologist at the University of Wyoming who was not involved in the study, tells CNN. Tia Ravara from UW-Eau Claire, left, and Ryann Su of UC Davis, both members of the research group called "Team Squirrel," watch a California ground squirrel during the 2023 field season. Sonja Wild, UC Davis Squirrels of all ages and sexes took part in the vole hunt, an indication that this dietary flexibility is widespread across the species and may serve as a crucial survival mechanism in response to fluctuating environmental conditions, especially in areas with high human populations. “In the face of human insults such as climate change and drought, these animals are resilient and have the potential to adapt to live in a changing world,” Smith adds. If acorn or seeds fall into low supply, for instance, squirrels appear primed to find other sources of protein and nutrients. The less stubborn an animal is about its diet, the better suited it is for survival. Although in this case, the squirrels don’t seem to be motivated by a scarcity of any other food source, per SFGATE, rather, the high population of voles appears to be the reason for their hunting. But because the study was focused on one regional park, it is unclear if the squirrels’ behavior will—or already has—spread across the state. It is also unknown if the taste for fellow rodents (and the hunting techniques used to capture them) will be passed onto future generations of squirrels once this vole surge abates. What the opportunistic squirrels do—or eat—next remains to be seen. “Digital technology can inform the science,” Smith says in the statement, “but there’s no replacement for going out there and witnessing the behavior, because what animals are doing always surprises us.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Animals
Climate
Food

Environmental Groups Sue Over California Support for Polluting Biofuels

Several environmental groups are suing California air regulators over their continuing support for biofuels

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Several environmental groups are suing California air regulators over their recent update of a contentious climate program, saying they failed to address the pollution impacts of biofuels.The lawsuits target the low-carbon fuel standard, which requires California to reduce the environmental impact of transportation fuels by incentivizing producers to cut emissions. The California Air Resources Board voted last month to increase the state’s emission reduction targets, fund charging infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles, and phase out incentives for capturing methane emissions from dairy farms to turn into fuel.California, which often leads the nation on climate policy, plans to achieve so-called carbon neutrality by 2045, meaning the state will remove as many carbon emissions from the atmosphere as it emits. The state has passed policies in recent years to phase out the sale of new fossil-fuel powered cars, trucks, trains and lawn mowers.One of the lawsuits filed this week, by the nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment, accuses the board of failing to thoroughly analyze the climate impacts of burning biofuels derived from plants and animal waste. Another, filed by Food and Water Watch, Central Valley Defenders of Clean Air and Water, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, focuses on the impact of pollution often impacting low-income and Latino communities from the capture of methane from cow manure to turn into fuel. “People who live near refineries in California are harmed by the spiraling expansion of polluting biofuels,” but CARB failed to analyze the resulting harm to these communities, said a statement by Katherine Ramos, a program director at Communities for a Better Environment.Environmentalists say the LCFS program has stimulated the production of polluting biofuels, competing with food production and contributing to deforestation. They want California to focus more on expanding the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.The agency declined to comment on the lawsuits but said the program plays an important role in combating climate change and improving air quality.“The amendments channel global, national and local private sector investment towards increasing cleaner fuel and transportation options for consumers, accelerating the deployment of zero-emission infrastructure, and keeping the state on track to meet legislatively mandated air quality and climate targets,” Dave Clegern, a spokesperson for the board, said in an email.Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @ sophieadannaCopyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Animals
Climate
Food

Suggested Viewing

Shaba

In the mountains of northern Kenya, a Samburu community is doing something that has never been done before. They’ve built a sanctuary for orphaned elephants to try to rehabilitate them back to the wild. The project is not just changing local attitudes about elephants, it's changing attitudes about women too because the secret to Reteti’s success is all because of the special bond between a group of local women keepers and one special elephant named Shaba. Reteti Elephant Sanctuary is the first-ever indigenous community-owned and run sanctuary in all of Africa, where rescued orphaned elephants are looked after by local keepers from the Samburu community. They are rehabilitated and raised and then reintroduced back into the wild. The sanctuary is empowering young Samburu women to be the first-ever indigenous women elephant keepers in all of Africa. At first, the community didn’t think there was a place for women in the workplace. Now, the success of these women elephant keepers is unlocking new possibilities and setting a powerful example for young girls, hoping to pursue their dreams. What’s happening there, without fanfare, is nothing less than the beginnings of a transformation in the way the Samburu people relate to wild animals. This oasis where orphans grow up, learning to be wild so that one day they can rejoin their herds, is as much about people as it is about elephants. This is a personal story about a group of women and an elephant named Shaba who changed each other's lives. This film is a powerful reminder that we are a part of a complex world created over millions of years, and the survival of all species is intertwined with our own. Reteti began in partnership with Conservation International who provided critical operational support and work to scale the Reteti community-centered model to create lasting impacts worldwide.

Animals
Conservation
Indigenous

Saving Jaguars and Ourselves

"Saving Jaguars and Ourselves" brings attention to the plight of jaguars, wildlife, the Pantanal in Brazil AND the Amazon Rainforest and Cerrado Savannah. The film combines intimate human conversations and portrayals of jaguars in the Pantanal with clear explanations of larger threats that expand to include the Amazon, Cerrado, and the U.S.—focusing on ways that individuals in the U.S. can act effectively to bring change. These three areas form a critical Triad for preventing global climate change. My film explains why this Triad is crucial--why OUR survival in the U.S. depends on its recovery--and what we must do to literally save it, jaguars/wildlife, and Earth. The Pantanal wetland is larger than Florida and stores at least 10 billion tons of carbon. The Cerrado stores at least 13 billion tons. The Amazon stores 200 billion tons. If ANY of these areas completely burns, the carbon releases would be catastrophic. The Amazon and Pantanal are paradises. The Pantanal is directly affected by destruction of the Amazon and Cerrado savannah. Scientists believe that 80% of the Amazon Rainforest must be protected by 2025 or it will not be able to regenerate itself. The Amazon creates its own weather but if deforestation continues, its ecosystem will die and dying trees will give off as much as 200 billion tons of carbon over the next 30-50 years, effectively destroying our ability to protect the climate--and the Earth will die. The Pantanal is one of the most unique and beautiful places in the world, home to over 5,000 animal species and is now also facing threats from upstream river projects.

Solutions
Animals
Climate

Jetty Cats

Jetty Cats explores contemporary animal rights issues through a focus on a feral cat colony that has survived on a rocky, seaside jetty in Southern California for decades. There is an ongoing debate over feral cat colonies involving advocates who support the trap, neuter, and return -- or "TNR" -- model of management, and those who argue that trapping and euthanizing the cats is more humane. This documentary’s point-of-view supports the TNR model and the related “no-kill” animal shelter policy, and features an exclusive interview with Richard Avanzino, the "Father" of the no-kill movement.

Animals
Government
Activism

In Praise of Insects [Sandbox]

Insects were here before humanity, but often we eliminate them as a nuisance. They are a fundamental element of this world. Without them, most of the plants would not be pollinated and birds would lose their food and become extinct. Despite their vital role, they are silently disappearing at a rapid rate.... without us noticing. ‘In Praise of Insects’ is a project to help us rethink the tiny subtle lives that are so entwined with our own. The common Bluebottle is one of the few butterflies that can be seen in central Tokyo. Even if you occasionally see the butterfly flying between buildings, you can see the miracle of life by closely observing its appearance and growth.

Experimental
Animals
Nature

Primal State

Set at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, Port Aransas, Texas, the film is supportive of the international efforts to utilize wastewater treatment facilities as bird sanctuaries. The film features an original jazz score and commentary by naturalist Jeff Anderson and provides a glimpse of some of the diversity of bird life found along the Texas Coast while conjuring a Zen-like union with nature.

Animals
Music
Conservation

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