• Ocean

Suez Canal Jam Will Take Months to Sort, Many Live Animals Likely Perished on Ships

• animals
• carbon emissions
• climate change
• humane
• inhumane
• Suez Canal

The Evergiven is no longer stuck in the Suez Canal, but world shipping is hardly back to normal. In just six days, the massive container ship held up almost $60 billion in global trade.  Supply chains across the world are delayed and off schedule, and the incident has economists and maritime experts across the globe reevaluating the efficacy of the current shipping economy.  

Why this Matters: The pandemic has rocketed demand for goods (and vaccines) to all-time highs, but bottlenecks at many major ports and slow shipping speed could slow the global economy just as it begins to recover from COVID-19.

• Health

63 Organizations Sign Letter to Biden, Protect Wildlife to Prevent Pandemics

• #30x30
• animals
• climate change
• nature
• pandemic
• wildlife
• zoonotic

A coalition of 63 health, wildlife, and environmental organizations has written a letter urging the Biden administration to adopt policies to combat the increased threat of zoonotic disease spillover into human populations. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts say that human population expansion and increased interactions with wildlife, present increased chances for future pandemics as well.

Why This Matters: According to the World Health Organization, there are over 200 known zoonoses, diseases that have jumped from non-human animals to humans.

• People

Oh, Happy Day!

• animals
• International Day of Happiness
• nature
• wellbeing
• wildlife

By Beth Allgood, President, OneNature It was a long hike, and rugged. The Himalayan altitude was almost as breathtaking as the scenery, which became more stunning with every switchback turn. I had arrived in Bhutan two days before on my second trip to the remote mountain kingdom.  The first, twenty-four months earlier, was to attend […]

• Animals

Mink Farm Die-Off Due to COVID

• #COVID19
• animals
• disease
• mink
• outbreaks

NBC News reported that more than 10,000 minks in Utah mink “farms” have contracted COVID and died, forcing the state to close them and begin an investigation into what caused the outbreak. 

Why This Matters:  The fact that the virus spread from humans to the animals is alarming, but fortunately the risk of it spreading from minks to humans is low, according to the Utah State Veterinarian and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

• Animals

Scientists Take “Anthropause” to Better Study Urban Animals

• animals
• anthropause
• coronavirus
• urban animals

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, animals have enjoyed the freedom of a quieter world by venturing further into cities and suburbs. While this “anthropause” has made for thrilling YouTube videos, scientists have taken the opportunity to study the effects of human activity across geographic regions, ecosystems, their effect on species. Researchers have been tracking animal movements […]

• Cosmos

Monitoring Animals From the Space Station To Improve Their Conservation

• #30x30
• #endangeredspecies
• animals
• extinction
• international space station
• migration
• science
• space
• wildlife trafficking

Using inexpensive tracking technology and a large antenna installed on the International Space Station, a consortium of researchers is hoping to gather a wider range of data than they had using previous tracking technologies, including long migration patterns, allowing them to better understand how climate change and habitat loss impact wildlife. 

Why This Matters:  In addition to better understanding of wildlife migration and threats, the technology could be used for a range of other goals.