MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican experts said Monday that 35% more monarch butterflies arrived this year to spend the winter in mountaintop forests, compared to the previous season.
Experts say the rise may reflect the butterflies’ ability to adapt to more extreme bouts of heat or drought by varying the date when they leave Mexico.
A New Mexico facility where researchers work to restore forests devastated by fires faced an almost cruelly ironic threat: The largest wildfire burning in the U.S. was fast approaching.
Owen Burney and his team knew they had to save what they could.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Joe Biden's order to protect the nation’s oldest forests against climate change, wildfires and other problems devastating vast woodlands is raising a simple yet vexing question: When does a forest grow old?
Gardening in the shade is often thought of as a Sisyphean endeavor, swimming upstream against all odds with limited plant choices and no hope for color.
But that notion couldn’t be further from the truth.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Efforts were underway Monday to clear a road where dozens of fully grown evergreen trees as well as rocks and dirt toppled into an Alaska bay, sending onlookers running and cutting off road access for scores of people.
Eileen Celestina Garcia raced down the mountain that overlooks her parents’ ranch home in northern New Mexico where friends and family have gathered for decades and where she has sat countless times among the stillness of the Ponderosa pines.
NEW YORK (AP) — A baby tree kangaroo that's just poking its nose out of its mother's pouch is the first of its species born at the Bronx Zoo since 2008, zoo officials announced Friday.
The birth of the Matschie’s tree kangaroo joey “is an exciting birth for the Bronx Zoo and a unique opportunity for people to observe one of nature’s most intriguing evolutionary adaptations,” zoo director Jim Breheny said in a news release.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Collecting piñon nuts has been tradition for Native American and Hispanic families in the Southwestern U.S. for generations.
SEATTLE (AP) — With a backdrop of flowering trees, it was a setting fit for the signing of major environmental legislation. Even Seattle’s notorious clouds parted as President Joe Biden stepped up to speak Friday.
MYKULYCHI, Ukraine (AP) — On a quiet street lined with walnut trees was a cemetery with four bodies that hadn't yet found a home.
All were victims of Russian soldiers in this village outside Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
TOKYO (AP) — People across Japan are celebrating the peak cherry blossom viewing season one week after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, triggering concerns of a possible virus resurgence.
Trees are in full bloom this week in many parts of Japan.
LAGUNITAS, Calif. (AP) — A small fire has destroyed an ancient coastal redwood trees at a Northern California park.
The roughly 200-foot-tall (60 meters) redwood known as the Pioneer Tree fell after being engulfed in flames midday Thursday, California State Parks said in a statement.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Cherry Blossom Festival is returning with all its pageantry, Washington's unofficial re-emergence from two years of pandemic limits and closures.
“This year, more than ever, you really understand why the festival is so important,” said Festival President Diana Mayhew.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A new program in North Carolina is placing a “bounty” on invasive Bradford pear trees as they spread through forests in the state.
The initiative is set to start with an April 23 event in Greensboro and could expand to more locations in the fall, according to North Carolina State University’s website.
As winter winds down, gardeners collectively look for signs of life, whether from the green sprouts of fall-planted bulbs or the return of foliage as deciduous trees leaf out. But our gardens could retain interest year-round.
LONDON (AP) — Northern Europe has been battered by its third major storm in five days, with heavy rains and high winds killing at least two more people, disrupting travel and prompting hundreds of flood alerts across a region still recovering from last week’s hurricane-force winds.
LONDON (AP) — Crews cleared fallen trees and worked to restore power to about 400,000 people in Britain as Western Europe cleaned up Saturday after one of the most damaging storms in years.
At least 12 people were killed, many by falling trees, in Ireland, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
LONDON (AP) — The second major storm in three days smashed through northern Europe on Friday, killing at least nine people as high winds felled trees, cancelled train services and ripped sections off the roof of London's O2 Arena.
BIG SUR, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters on Saturday were battling a wildfire that broke out in the rugged mountains along Big Sur, forcing hundreds of residents on this precarious stretch of the California coast to evacuate and authorities to shut its main roadway.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration said Tuesday it will significantly expand efforts to stave off catastrophic wildfires that have torched areas of the U.S. West by more aggressively thinning forests around “hot spots” where nature and neighborhoods collide.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Sixteen years after their legal battle began, about 18,000 homeowners in central Florida will be paid more than $42 million collectively by the state of Florida for destroying their citrus trees during an effort to eradicate a harmful citrus disease.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s fragile governing coalition moved to resolve a crisis on Wednesday after Arab Bedouin staged protests against tree-planting by nationalists on disputed land in the Negev desert.
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A mama black bear and three cubs clambered up a tree and napped in the middle of a Virginia neighborhood before voluntarily ambling on hours later, wildlife officials said Tuesday.
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — Officials in Virginia have closed a road in one neighborhood after a mother bear and three cubs were spotted napping in a tree there.
Chesapeake Animal Services asked residents near the tree — on Bruin Drive — to stay inside Monday and the general public to stay away from the area.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A crew cutting down a dying oak at the University of Nebraska made a surprising find — flying squirrels.
A video shot by a member of the crew made its way to Larkin Powell, a conservation biology professor.
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — Sequoia National Park will reopen its Giant Forest area on Saturday, three months after a Northern California wildfire prompted extraordinary efforts to protect the grove and destroyed thousands of other redwoods.
ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) — Even Christmas trees aren’t immune to the pandemic-induced shortages and inflation plaguing the economy.
Extreme weather and supply chain disruptions have reduced supplies of both real and artificial trees this season.
NEW YORK (AP) — The holly, jolly, best time of the year got a light-filled launch on Wednesday, when the towering Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was officially turned on.
PHOENIX (AP) — A 25-foot-tall (7.6-meter) white pine installed in state Capitol’s executive tower lobby was lit for the first time Wednesday by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey during a celebration marking the start of the holiday season.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Several dozen ancient alligator juniper trees have been illegally cut down at El Malpais National Monument in western New Mexico and authorities with the National Park Service are trying to find out who's responsible.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Communal farmers and butterfly guides are hoping for a rebound in the number of monarch butterflies — and tourists — at their wintering grounds in central Mexico after a bad year for both last year.