1st Annual Berkshire Pride Paddle

Housatonic Valley Association (HVA)

Dazzling, cryptic, and vital: National Moth Week marked with events in Pittsfield, West Stockbridge

Josh Landes | WAMC

"A Berkshire County environmental group is holding two events this month for National Moth Week. The 12th annual celebration of all things moth runs from the 22nd to the 30th, and the Berkshire Environmental Action Team wants to make sure Western Massachusetts knows it. 'Many people probably know that moths are closely related to butterflies, they share the same taxonomic order,' Chelsey Simmons told WAMC. 'So, it's a big group, but there are over 160,000 known moth species worldwide. 11,000 are found here in the US. So, there are only like, 17,000, 18,000 butterfly species, even though there are like 180,000 species in that one order. So, that's pretty amazing.' [...] BEAT is holding two events around National Moth Week to bring a greater understanding and appreciation of the creatures to the Berkshire County. 'Carla Rhodes, a wildlife conservation photographer and moth enthusiasts is giving a presentation about mothing and how to do it and why they're important, and just like what moths you might see in your own backyard,' said Simmons. [...] The other event is more hands-on and experiential, summoning participants to West Stockbridge after nightfall for a demonstration on how to responsibly observe moths at their preferred time of day. [...] BEAT’s goal is to make sure that National Moth Week corrects the record about an insect many consider a nuisance. 'Moths are often just overlooked, I would say. And so, National Moth Week is a way to hopefully garner more admiration and just awareness for moths in general,' Simmons told WAMC. 'But also, being able to educate people about moths. And then there's also a lot of, there's a big community scientist aspect of it as well, where people can go out and document the moths and then put that into a larger database and contribute it to science.'" READ MORE

Plants pollinated by honey bees produce lower-quality offspring

Mario Aguilera | UC San Diego

"With a broad mix of plant and animal species, the San Diego region is widely regarded as a global biodiversity hotspot. As key pollinators, bees play a foundational role in the region’s floral diversity. But not all bees have the same influence on the plants they pollinate, new research from University of California San Diego scientists has revealed. Pollination by honey bees, which are not native to the Americas, produces plant offspring of considerably inferior quality (lower fitness), than offspring resulting from native pollinators, according to the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The study is believed to be the first to directly compare offspring fitness resulting from honey bee pollination with other floral visitors. Previous research offered evidence that predominantly feral honey bees account for more than 90 percent of the pollinators observed visiting flowers of abundantly blooming native plant species around San Diego. In their new study, School of Biological Sciences recent graduate student Dillon Travis and Professor Joshua Kohn have shown that honey bees visit approximately twice as many flowers on an individual plant before moving to the next plant, compared with native insect visitors. However, this methodical foraging behavior appears to have a detrimental effect on reproduction in the plants they visit because most of the pollen delivered to flowers will come from the same individual plant (known as self-pollination), which can lead to lower-quality offspring." READ MORE

Corporate Landscaping Lets Its Hair Down

Jane Margolies | The New York Times

"...Corporate landscapes are going natural these days. The shift — mirroring what’s happening at public parks, on university campuses and in homeowners’ backyards — is being driven by a growing awareness of the environmental costs of installing and maintaining lawns, clipped hedges and tidy flower borders. New laws ban the use of water for “useless” grass in drought-prone areas, and company sustainability programs encompass the land the buildings sit on. Apps calculate the carbon footprint of landscapes in much the same way that buildings are monitored for greenhouse gas emissions. [...] The pushback against conventional landscaping might surprise those who assume that all green plants must be equally good for the planet. But as manicured lawns give way to meadows and borders of annuals are replaced by wild and woolly native plants, a looser, some might say messier, aesthetic is taking hold. Call it the horticultural equivalent of bedhead. [...] Kentucky bluegrass, a common lawn grass, draws carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But propagating the same grass species everywhere comes at the expense of native plants that are in tune with the local climate and provide food and habitat for endangered birds, bees and butterflies. And then there’s the environmental cost of keeping lawns lush — the endless watering, weed killing, mowing and blowing. Landscape equipment emits nearly 27 million tons of pollutants a year, according to estimates. One gas-powered leaf blower used for an hour generates the same amount of emissions as a car driving 1,100 miles. As the climate crisis has grown increasingly dire, many companies have turned to their landscapes to help them hit sustainability targets and vaunt their environmental bona fides. [...] State and local regulations are also promoting change.

Storm water management requirements have spurred the creation of vegetated ditches known as bioswales to reduce runoff when it rains. A new Nevada law will prohibit using water from the Colorado River, which has been shrinking from decades of overuse and drought worsened by climate change, to irrigate 'nonfunctional' or 'useless' grass. Property owners who replace nonnative grass, shrubs and trees with desert plants can get rebates on their water bills." READ MORE

Western Mass. forest conservators reserve board seat to better reflect Indigenous perspectives in mission

Paula Moura | WBUR

"A public-private conservation partnership in western Massachusetts is working to include Indigenous perspectives in its mission to protect forests and encourage sustainable development. As one step toward that goal, the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts has reserved a permanent seat on its board for a representative from the Ohketeau Cultural Center, a multi-tribal nonprofit organization in Ashfield that works with Indigenous peoples. The first person the board elected to that seat is Rhonda Anderson, founder and co-director of the Ohketeau Cultural Center, who will start having voting rights in November. Anderson is Iñupiaq, from Alaska, and grew up in northwest Massachusetts. She is also a member of the Massachusetts' Commission on Indian Affairs. 'I want to lift the visibility of Indigenous communities that were here and still are here. And have this told through an Indigenous lens,' she said. Historically, the conservation movement in the U.S. has been criticized for its failure to include Indigenous perspectives. The partnership is a 'public body' created by state law, and includes representatives from 19 towns, as well as regional nonprofit organizations and representatives of state and federal agencies. The group administers grants to foster climate adaptation, education and scientific research of forestry and conservation practices. The partnership area spans Franklin and northern Berkshire counties, which are historically the home of the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican, Abenaki, Pocumtuck and Nipmuc peoples. As a new board member, one of Anderson’s goals is to raise awareness that some of these communities, the Abenaki and Nipmuc, are contemporary neighbors. And the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican still have ties with their ancestral homeland in the region." READ MORE

International Monarch Monitoring Blitz: July 28–August 6

The Xerces Society

"The annual International Monarch Monitoring Blitz is happening soon: July 28 - August 6th! People can participate by submitting monarch and milkweed observations to Xerces' Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper, among other projects listed here. The Blitz invites community scientists from across North America to come together with the shared goal of helping to protect and conserve the beloved and emblematic monarch butterfly. Data collected by volunteers each year support trinational efforts to better understand the monarch butterfly’s breeding productivity, range, and timing in North America."

Rare caterpillar found after decades of habitat restoration

MassWildlife

"MassWildlife staff recently discovered a frosted elfin caterpillar at Montague Plains WMA. Along with other promising findings, this exciting news is further evidence that restoration at this site is benefiting a host of common and rare species. You could call the frosted elfin picky. These small, brown butterflies will only lay eggs on two types of plants: sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) and yellow wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria). The frosted elfin, designated as a Species of Special Concern in Massachusetts, is only found at about two dozen sites across the Commonwealth. Unlike wide-ranging butterflies such as the monarch, frosted elfins live in localized colonies and most individuals never leave the habitat occupied by previous generations. Thanks to decades of effort by MassWildlife to propagate sundial lupine and restore wildlife habitat, staff are pleased to announce the recent discovery of a frosted elfin caterpillar at Montague Plains Wildlife Management Area (WMA), approximately one mile away from the nearest known population. [...] One of the primary threats to the frosted elfin is habitat loss. Prescribed fire promotes the growth of lupine and wild indigo and maintains the open habitat needed by both the frosted elfin and its food plants. For the past two decades, MassWildlife has been actively working at Montague Plains to restore and maintain pine barrens habitat through prescribed fire, tree cutting, and mowing. 'The unique barrens habitat at Montague Plains WMA is considered regionally and globally rare, making our restoration efforts at this site especially important for rare animals and plants that require this special habitat type,' says Brian Hawthorne, MassWildlife’s Habitat Program Manager. 'It is incredibly rewarding to see decades of effort paying off.'" READ MORE

'Profit Over the Public's Health': Study Details Efforts by Makers of Forever Chemicals to Hide Their Harms

Victoria St. Martin | Inside Climate News

"He was born with only one nostril, and a keyhole-shaped pupil in his right eye covered by a deformed lid. His condition was so grave that physicians warned his mother that he might not survive more than a few hours after his birth. He survived, and his early childhood was marked by dozens of surgeries to address the birth defects that his mother, a worker at a DuPont plant in West Virginia, initially struggled to explain. But still—years after evidence began to emerge that the chemical manufacturer engaged in a cover-up about the dangers of so-called 'forever chemicals'—Bucky Bailey, now 42, wondered if the ailments that he and so many other people suffered might have all just been a catastrophic, but unmalicious mistake. Then he began reviewing decades of DuPont’s own confidential files, which were made public through a raft of court proceedings over the past 20 years. [...] A recent peer-reviewed study has found that Bailey’s comparison is an appropriate one. A group of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco conducted a detailed analysis of hundreds of pages of previously secret documents from DuPont and 3M that outlined the efforts by the companies to hide the risks associated with the group of man-made chemicals commonly known by the acronym PFAS (pronounced: pee-fass) which stands for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances. [...] The files concerning PFAS from DuPont and 3M—the two largest makers of forever chemicals—contain internal memos, external correspondence, the results of concealed scientific studies and more stretching over the course of a half century, first came into public view more than 20 years ago. [...] Earlier this year, more than two decades after Billot’s warning, federal officials began taking the first steps to ban the substances. Officials at 3M, who last year said that they would stop producing the chemicals by 2025, announced Thursday they had reached a $10.3 billion settlement in a series of lawsuits that would require them to remediate PFAS contamination in public water systems. The 3M settlement came weeks after officials at DuPont agreed to pay $1.1 billion to resolve a similar set of lawsuits that they faced over water contamination. Researchers who examined the confidential papers of the two companies said that those settlements, while a step in the right direction, should be considered only part of remedying the harms caused by the chemical manufacturer." READ MORE