News stories tagged with "ecology"

(04/08/11) A group of Paul Smiths College students has spent the last few years studying one of the region's smallest mammals. Bears, moose and loons usually come to mind when you think of wildlife in the Adirondacks. But biology and ecology students at Paul Smiths are tracking and monitoring the behavior of snowshoe hares. They're small, furry and cute, but also a big part of the region's ecosystem. Wildlife experts say hares are important because they're prey for almost everything in the forest that eats meat, including raptors, foxes and coyotes.

The data collected from school field trips will help wildlife managers better understand the food cycle in the Adirondacks from predators to prey and plants.

Todd Moe tagged along with Paul Smiths biology students as they tracked snowshoe hares to find out what they're eating and how they choose their habitat in the woods near campus.

(12/28/10) The National Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count is underway and continues through next week. The annual bird census relies on volunteer bird watchers who head out with binoculars, bird guides and even mobile apps to scan trees and fields, and report on every bird they see. Todd Moe spoke with longtime birder Joan Collins, in Long Lake, who says this is the 111th annual Christmas Bird Count.

(02/10/10) The invasive Asian carp and its potentially devastating impact on the Great Lakes were the focus of a Congressional hearing in Washington yesterday.

The agressive fish has already infested the Mississippi River basin, and traces of its genetic material have been found in Lake Michigan for the first time.

Illinois temporarily closed navigational locks near Chicago to keep Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes. Representatives of the states surrounding the lakes are pressing the federal government to do more, faster. Martha Foley has more.

(10/27/09) For those of us in the North Country the St. Lawrence River is a summer playground or the wide water below us when we take the bridge to Canada. For author Margaret Wooster, the giant river is part of the Great Lakes watershed, and an ecosystem in danger. Betsy Kepes reviews Wooster's book Living Waters, Reading the Rivers of the Lower Great Lakes.

(10/09/09) Adirondack Park Agency commissioners were given a status report yesterday on what's considered to be the biggest threat to the ecology of the Adirondacks. Martha Foley has more. more

(08/06/08) Huge conservation deals over the last decade have protected nearly a million acres of land in the Adirondacks. The deals allow timber harvesting to continue. But scientists say they also protect crucial habitats and eco-systems. In part two of his report on the Finch, Pruyn easement negotiated by the Adirondack Nature Conservancy Brian Mann sends an audio postcard from a bog near Blue Mountain Lake.

(01/22/08) For the 108th year, volunteer birders fanned out across the country for the annual birding census earlier this winter. The all-volunteer effort takes a snapshot of bird populations to monitor their status and distribution across the Western Hemisphere. The Audubon Society started the Christmas Bird Count in 1900 as an alternative to a Victorian-era holiday hunting tradition of shooting the greatest number of birds. Today, data collected during the Christmas Bird Count helps researchers monitor bird behavior and bird conservation. You could call it bird watching with a benefit. Todd Moe tagged along with some Adirondack bird enthusiasts who began their avian adventure at first light.

(05/25/06) Why does St. John's Wort do better when there are fish in the pond? What does the sea otter population have to do with the quality of surfing? Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley follow some of the thinner strands of the web of life.

(05/04/06) Dr. Curt Stager talks with Martha Foley every week about the natural world -- on Natural Selections. This week, Brian Mann caught Dr. Curt at his day job - and brought back a sample.

(09/27/05) Ten million dollars from the New York Power Authority that was to have gone to a failed effort to build an aquarium and ecological center on the St. Lawrence River will now be used for economic development in the North Country. The Power Authority asked Tony Collins, president of Clarkson University, to pull community leaders together to explore how the money could be used. He spoke with Martha Foley.