It’s too easy to get rid of those we don’t understand.
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News of the world environment
NEWSLETTER | MAY 2, 2025
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Losing Good Neighbors
FOR THE SAFETY of all residents and due to an increase in “disturbing coyote encounters,” the animals would have to be trapped and removed, an email from my apartment complex announced last June. Some of my neighbors had been sending emails detailing alarming encounters with the canids. When I heard howling or yipping at night, on the other hand, I opened my windows and listened.
Access to flora and fauna was one of the reasons I chose this apartment, which sits on a large parcel of land next to a golf course and the Willamette River. Migrating geese rest on the neighboring rooftop, bald eagles perch in the Douglas fir trees, and, yes, coyotes roam the grounds. As dense human neighborhoods sprawl closer to wildlife, this type of human-nonhuman crossover in urban areas is becoming more prevalent. But this can be dangerous when we humans do nothing to understand the wildlife and expect animals to play by our rules.
Earth Island’s Project Coyote estimates that half a million coyotes are killed every year in the United States, but this could be an undercount. In states like Oregon, private landowners who deem a coyote on their property to be a “nuisance animal” can trap and remove them at any time, without a permit or the need to report it to local agencies. “Remove” is a euphemism: These “removed” animals aren’t let out somewhere else to frolic and live out their lives. They are killed.
In her latest column, Tove Danovich writes about how many people want to move into the so-called Wildland-Urban Interface, where they can live close to nature, yet they don’t want to learn how to live with their wild neighbors.
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Photo by Benjamin Farren ([link removed])
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Secret Flood Histories ([link removed])
In Florida, a state with a massive number of homes vulnerable to flooding — a growing risk driven by rising seas, wetter storms and more powerful hurricanes — it’s nearly impossible for prospective buyers to identify flood-prone neighborhoods and streets. (Miami Herald ([link removed]))
Circling Toxic Waters ([link removed])
“To walk around America’s largest Superfund site presents three major risks. First, no one had ever attempted the route.... Second, the route requires trespassing.... Third, the route includes several miles of bushwhacking, high-security fences, a crossing of the Continental Divide, and six miles of freeway walking. The attempt felt subversive in a way the others didn’t.” (Longreads ([link removed]))
Reclaiming Lost Words ([link removed])
This video of The Lost Words Blessing song created by the talented students of the Wangari Maathai School ([link removed]) in Berlin is an ode to nature, art, words forgotten, and all creatures great and small living on the third rock from the sun. (Facebook ([link removed]))
Lawless Lands ([link removed])
When Trump first suggested carving “Freedom Cities” out of federal land two years ago, his plan didn’t get much notice. Now, the audacious idea — which revolves around tech-driven company towns exempt from most environmental, labor, and tax laws — is gaining traction. (Bloomberg Tax ([link removed]))
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