Computers, Software
Could be Key in Farm Bill
Note: This story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune profiles the work of another member of the McGraw Center for Conservation Leadership's Farm Bill team: Dave Muth.
By Dennis Anderson/Minneapolis Star Tribune
Photo by Wesley Hetrick/flickr
Even casual observers of modern farming know that onboard computers and software "drive" many of today's tractors and combines, essentially guiding them up and down fields on autopilot.
The same computers and software can pinpoint parts of fields where yields are low, and earmark those areas for possible installation of drain tiles or other actions that might increase production.
Enter now Dave Muth, co-founder of an Iowa company called AgSolver.
AgSolver's primary product is an online, cloud-based software program called Profit Zone Manager (PZM), which analyzes data input from farmers' tractor and combine computers.
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Will Punching Holes in the Levees Save Louisiana?
By Tristan Baurick/nola.com
Photo by Jim Mullhaupt/flickr
There are two sides to the lower
Mississippi River
Delta in Louisiana. One is walled by
levees
; on the other, the river runs free for a good 30 miles.
Ryan Lambert prefers the unrestrained east side. "This is what the Mississippi Delta's supposed to look like," Lambert, a
fishing
, said from helm of his flat-bottom boat.
Fed by the river's constant flow of land-building grit and sand, the east bank landscape is a rich patchwork of tall growing grasses dotted with purple Louisiana irises and white spider lilies. Alligators dive and ducks take flight from bayou banks.
And the fishing? "It's off the chain," Lambert said.
The leveed west side, by contrast, has been starved of river sediment for decades. The result: widening expanses of increasingly salty water. Marsh grasses are in retreat, and wildlife diversity is in decline.
To make the west side look more like the east, Lambert and others back a huge, controversial river engineering project -- not to remove the levees but to siphon some of the Mississippi's water and sediment into the Barataria Basin.
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A Snapshot of How Americans Connect to
the Outdoors
Photo by Moyan Brenn/flickr
Profound changes are occurring in the American public's connections to nature, the outdoors, and wildlife.
Participation in traditional nature-based recreation is stagnant or declining, Americans are spending more time indoors, and they are using electronic media more than ever before.
At the same time, there is growing evidence that human health and well-being depend on beneficial contact with nature. To better understand and foster Americans' relationship with nature, Dr. Stephen Kellert and DJ Case & Associates conducted an unprecedented study of nearly 12,000 adults, children and parents across the United States in 2015-16.
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Rare Bird:
How 1 Man
Saw 6,042 Species in a Year
By Charu Suri/The New York Times
Photo by Guido Andofalto/flickr
In September 2015,
 Noah Strycker
entered the Guinness Book of World Records by besting a British couple, Ruth Miller and Alan Davies, who in 2008 tracked 4,341 species of birds in a year. Mr. Strycker tracked 6,042 species and told his story on the Audubon Society blog,
Birding Without Borders
.
Mr. Strycker, 31, has climbed trees around the globe in pursuit of birds like the red-billed starling or black-breasted thrush. His 40-liter backpack is filled with items fit for the die-hard outdoorsman, like Leica 10x42 binoculars, malaria pills and water-purifying tablets.
Following are edited excerpts from an interview with him:
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Scientists Seek
25 Animals That Haven't Been Seen in Years
By Karin Brulliard/The Washington Post
Illustration by Biodiversity Heritage Library/flickr
Once upon a time, a subspecies of giant tortoise lived on Fernandina, the least-explored island in the Galapagos.
In 1906, explorers with the California Academy of Sciences found one male Fernandina Galapagos tortoise - and killed it to preserve as a specimen. The next sign came in 1964, when an expedition to the island reported the presence of tortoise scat. An aerial survey in 2009 spotted something resembling a tortoise. But for all practical purposes, this reptile has been lost to the world for 111 years.
Now the quest to find it - and two dozen other "lost species"- is about to be renewed. Global Wildlife Conservation, a Texas-based organization, is launching a global search for what it calls the top 25 "most wanted" animals (and one plant). None is officially extinct. But, collectively, the species have not been seen in more than 1,500 years.
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