ANIMALS: 10 wildlife wins in 2020

Plus, the return of the gray wolf, rescuing a wallaroo, how bees beat hornets, the monster goldfish [ANIMALS]( [VIEW ONLINE]( [ANIMALS]( [National Geographic]( [TODAY'S BIG TOPIC:]( [10 WILDLIFE WINS IN 2020]( Thursday, December 10, 2020 PHOTOGRAPH BY RONAN DONOVAN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC By [Rachael Bale]( ANIMALS Executive Editor As a newly minted Colorado resident, I had a front-row seat to the country’s first-ever ballot initiative asking the public to decide whether to bring back an animal that’s gone extinct in their state. On November 4, Coloradans voted on the reintroduction of gray wolves (one, pictured above), which haven’t had established populations there in some 80 years. The state’s mix of crunchy granola types in cities like Denver and Boulder—who generally supported reintroduction—and cowboys and cattle ranchers in more rural areas—who worried about wolf attacks on their livestock—made for a heated debate. All over, there were TV commercials and billboards making both cases. In the end, [the initiative was approved]( by 50.91 percent of voters. It was historic, both in that voters were the direct decision makers on an important wildlife issue (which many opponents argued is the wrong way to handle environmental management) and in the decision itself, which will see wolves brought back to western Colorado as soon as 2022. This is why we put the decision to reintroduce gray wolves to Colorado on our list of [10 wildlife wins of 2020]( alongside the [founding of Black Birders Week]( [the crackdown]( on problematic private zoos like the ones featured in [Tiger King]( and [new protections for pangolins]( (pictured below) in China. PHOTOGRAPH BY BRENT STIRTON, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Though some disagree with the wolf decision and how it was made, bringing them back is simply a way of undoing the damage we’ve done. Wolves disappeared from Colorado in the 1940s not for any reason of nature, but because they were hunted to extinction. If it weren’t for irresponsible humans, they wouldn’t need reintroducing—they’d still be here. Here’s to more wins for wildlife in 2021. Do you get this newsletter daily? If not, [sign up here]( or forward to a friend. TODAY IN A MINUTE PHOTOGRAPH BY SATOSHI KURIBAYASHI, MINDEN Smart bees: Researchers have discovered for the first time that bees have used tools. One tool, found in this study of Asian honeybees from Vietnam, is dung. More precisely, it is the bees’ coating of the hive entrance in animal dung, which repels the attackers, [Nat Geo’s Douglas Main reports](. (Pictured above, two Asian honeybees.) Recovering bison: Long-term conservation efforts have quintupled the population of wild European from 1,800 in 2003 to more than 6,200 in 2019, rompting their conservation status to be changed from “vulnerable” to “near threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. That’s a bright spot in today’s [IUCN annual report on species]( which declared 31 species as extinct and said the all the world’s wild freshwater dolphins are threatened with extinction. Here’s [the full list](. Time for a smaller footprint? Living things weigh, overall, about 11.2 trillion tons on Earth. For the first time in history, human products will soon weigh more. “The mass of everything people have built and made, from concrete pavements and glass-and-metal skyscrapers to plastic bottles, clothes, and computers, is now roughly equal to the mass of living things on Earth,” [Maddie Stone writes for Nat Geo](. The planet is undergoing a material transition that “happens not just once in a lifetime, but once in an era,” says study author Ron Milo, from Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. Saving wildlife: In Bavaria, the most conservative state in Germany, a grassroots movement took on the state’s powerful farming industry—and won. The state has found itself reversing wildlife population declines and providing a model for the European Union, [Bridget Huber writes](. Think before you flush that goldfish: A goldfish weighing nine pounds has been discovered during a fish population survey at a lake in South Carolina, park officials said. It’s unclear whether the fish was a refugee from someone’s goldfish bowl, but it appeared to be the only goldfish in the lake, [NBC News reports](. Experts say goldfish normally can weigh as much as six pounds; park official Ty Houck returned the giant to the lake after taking [this photo](. “Obviously, they’re really happy here,” he said. YOUR INSTAGRAM PHOTO OF THE DAY PHOTOGRAPH BY [@DOUG_GIMESY]( Good luck, Chucky: Wildlife rescuer and carer Julie Harris feeds supplemental formula to a rescued male wallaroo joey in her kitchen. Julie took in Chucky when his mom was hit by a car and killed. Chucky was thrown clear of the pouch. He stayed with Julie until he was old enough to move to a larger pen at a property with surrounding bushland. Eventually, if all goes well, he’ll return to the bush forever. Related: [Raising baby wombats during a pandemic lockdown]( THE BIG TAKEAWAY PHOTOGRAPH BY ICMBIO Extremely rare: Images of this white cougar in a national park in Brazil have stirred wildlife lovers, partly because leucism, a genetic mutation that turns most of a body white, is so rare among the cougars (AKA pumas or mountain lions). Likewise, [melanism]( a surplus of the black pigment melanin, occurs in 14 of the 40 known wild cat species, but no one has ever recorded a black cougar—either in captivity or in the wild. “Another white cougar may not appear in my lifetime,” Luke Hunter, who directs the Big Cats Program for the [Wildlife Conservation Society]( [tells Nat Geo](. [READ MORE]( IN A FEW WORDS [QUOTE] What the peacock can do is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life. Aimee Nezhukumatathil Poet, essayist From [World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments]( DID A FRIEND FORWARD THIS TO YOU? Come back tomorrow for Whitney Johnson on the latest in photography news. If you’re not a subscriber, [sign up here]( to also get Debra Adams Simmons on history, George Stone on travel, and Victoria Jaggard on science. THE LAST GLIMPSE ILLUSTRATION BY FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA Roar! In the South American savanna of the Pleistocene epoch, the saber-toothed big cat Smilodon survived by ambushing resident megafauna. A fossilized skull from Uruguay shows that some Smilodon were giants. It’s not clear if this cat hunted solo or in a pack—but studies reveal that its bite, bone structure, and limb strength made it a formidable predator. In our latest magazine, we present a new vision of the legend. [See the video](. [SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE]( This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, with photo selections by Jen Tse. Kimberly Pecoraro and Gretchen Ortega helped produce this newsletter. Have an idea, a link, a wildlife win of your own? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. And thanks for reading. 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