Three Cool Stories from the NYT

Where the White-Tail Roam

There certainly are plenty of deer. Wildlife experts estimate 32 million white-tails -- by far the country's dominant species of deer -- roam America's woods, fields and backyards. Last year, hunters killed 6.6 million of them.

My friend Kathy has this story: She was raised in, if I recall correctly, the farmlands of Illinois. Back in the 1930s (this is not Kath's recollection... this comes from her dad) her uncle caught a white tail deer. He actually captured it alive. He built a pen for it and put it on display. This was near the train station, and people would come over form the train station to see it. I don't recall if he charged for it or not, but it was so rare that it caused quite a commotion.

Now, you can't swing a dead coyote without hitting a deer....

A Rising Number of Birds at Risk

WatchList 2007, categorized 178 species in the United States as being threatened, an increase of about 10 percent from 2002, when Audubon's last study was conducted....The Audubon list, which was released Wednesday, overlaps the federal government's official endangered species list in some cases. But it also includes a number of bird species that are not recognized as endangered by the federal government but that biologists fear are in danger of becoming extinct.

Study Details How U.S. Could Cut 28% of Greenhouse Gases

The United States could shave as much as 28 percent off the amount of greenhouse gases it emits at fairly modest cost and with only small technology innovations, according to a new report.
A large share of the reductions could come from steps that would more than pay for themselves in lower energy bills for industries and individual consumers, the report said, adding that people should take those steps out of good sense regardless of how worried they might be about climate change. But that is unlikely to happen under present circumstances, said the authors, who are energy experts at McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm.