The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/conservation/)
The North Atlantic right whale population — with fewer than 400 individuals — is at risk of further decline as rising sea levels force them northward toward fishing grounds where they run the risk of potentially deadly ship strikes and entanglement.
How do social conditions play a role in our rapidly changing environment? Prof. Shorna Allred, natural resources, focuses her research on conservation social science, in which she studies the social implications of climate change mitigation and resilience against natural disasters.
At an Ithaca Town Conservation meeting, deer management, timber permits and sustainability recommendations were discussed.
Thanks to research like Cornell Prof. K. Max Zhang’s, energy providers are starting to create contingency plans to more efficiently store and distribute energy in residential voltaic systems. In the context of sunny winter days, for example, a system would store excess energy in the midday and distribute it for use when traditional energy production methods can’t meet the demands on their own.
The project was inspired by the desire of the Town of Ithaca “to help promote biodiversity, provide shelter and food (nectar, pollen, seeds, nuts, leaves, etc.) for wildlife, and support pollinators,” wrote Michael Smith, senior planner of the Town of Ithaca, in a press release.
Correction appended.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology conservation scientist Dr. Ken Rosenberg led an international team of 12 scientists in an analysis of decades of data on bird population — and the conclusion is disturbing. In the last 50 years, one in four birds in North America has disappeared. Pesticide use and loss of habitat to farmland are some of the most significant contributors to the decline in bird populations, according to Rosenberg. Although scientists have known for a long time that certain bird species were threatened by human activities, this study reveals that these issues apply to birds of nearly all species. “Seeing this net loss of three billion birds was shocking,” Rosenberg said.
Under the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program, students spend their first summer conducting independent research projects and their second summer doing paid internships.
“Global Big Day began in 2015 … and for the past four years has progressively set the new world record for the most number of species of birds seen in a single day in the world,” Davies continued.
Most classes at Cornell end by 4:30 p.m., but the lights in academic buildings sometimes stay on until midnight, even when not in use — potentially costing the university up to $60,000 each year, a 2010 report found. Several efforts have been taken to alleviate the electricity waste.
The “Mighty Mekong” River, which winds through Southeast Asia, is slowly ceding its might in “one of the most over-engineered places on earth,” argues Brian Eyler, who studies this phenomenon, in his latest book.