News Round-up: Lions and tigers and bears

Howdy, fellow critters! 

What a start to the year. The Supreme Court is hearing a case that, on the surface, is about fishers paying for a monitoring service but ultimately may decide the future of how government agencies regulate private business. A 13-hour-long city council meeting in Mebane ended with council members approving the construction of a 74,000-square-foot gas station/department store in a city 6% the size of Greensboro. Thousands of elephant seals in Argentina became the latest victim of a particularly aggressive strain of bird flu. The virus claimed thousands of Israeli cranes and many other animal species, including coyotes, lions, tigers, and even one polar bear, as it continued its journey across every continent. 

Welcome to 2024. 🤙

In which we review headlines across the country

Iowa passed two laws that restrict animal rights activists’ ability to monitor Iowa farms. The laws target activists who seek to access these facilities via employment or to film the farms while trespassing. This comes at a time when we might want to think more critically about how we store our livestock if we want to prevent future global pandemics. 

These farms provide the perfect incubator for diseases like the avian influenza that has killed so many millions of animals across the planet. As the current global pandemic illustrates, it’s only a matter of time before a spillover event—when a virus mutates to where it can spread from animal to human—occurs. 

I believe there is value in reading the news as it was written in other parts of the world. Time to put my language degree to work. 

Quebec takes two steps back in protecting biodiversity in preparation for taking one step forward with EV battery manufacturing. Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt is clearing 420 acres of forest and wetlands to build a battery manufacturing and recycling plant. 8,730 trees will die for this project, and 5,365 dead trees—which provide homes for many species of insects, birds, mammals, etc.—will be desecrated. 

Clearing of Canada's old-growth boreal forests threatens one of the country's most emblematic creatures—the caribou. Logging decimated over a quarter of Canada's northern forests, leaving patchwork ecosystems that are less resilient to climate change and less capable of sustaining animals like the Caribou. 

Natural gas is not clean energy, contrary to what former elected officials might tell you. To my knowledge, any combustion reaction that releases CO2 as a byproduct will contribute to global warming. Please scrutinize any plan that involves building additional fossil fuel infrastructure during our “clean energy transition.” 

At the coffee shop where I work, we have weekly “door questions.” Someone writes a question on the door leading back to the kitchen, and staff answers throughout the week. We’ve seen questions like “What two cryptids would you like to see square off (and who do you think would win?)” and “If someone were to set a trap for you, what would they use as bait?”

This week, we’re trying a newsletter “door question.” Leave your answer in the comments or record a voice memo with your answer, and I’ll play it on the Swamp Boy podcast. This week’s question is: 

If you could plant a fruit that would grow anything (i.e. acorns, money, salami, etc.), what would you plant? 

I look forward to reading or listening to your answers! 

Thank you for reading Swamp Boy, and see y’all next week! 

Bye, 

Zack 

P.S. Thank you, Ingo Stiller for the header image for today’s newsletter.